2 more open positions at Siemens PLM in Lebanon

[Alan Johnson]

Since no one seems offended by my previous post and threat of another, I am
back to deliver on my threat!  ;-p

My employer is hiring someone to work on my team here in Lebanon, NH (and
another here or somewhere, but that's coming in another post). This would
be the 5th system administrator (of which I am one) on a larger team
including service administrators and developers supporting a global
development team. We have a great crowd here in Lebanon if anyone is
interested in joining:
Infrastructure Engineer <https://jobs.siemens-info.com/jobs/198779>

This other position is one of those non-sys-admin positions on the larger
team.  This person does not need to be here in Lebanon, but it would be
nice. (Don't read too much into the term "DevOps". That is what we call
ourselves, but it is short for development operations, not a mush of
development and operations... but it is a little bit.)  Anyway, here is the
posting:
DevOps Compiler Engineer <https://jobs.siemens-info.com/jobs/198778>

-- 
Alan Johnson
a...@datdec.com
"Don't be nervous about the robots, be nervous about the people with the
resources to build them."  --Randall Munroe; Robots <https://xkcd.com/1955/>
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Job postings here or somewhere else? (IT/SysAdmin job in Lebanon, NH)

[Alan Johnson]

Apologies, but I have lost track if there is still a separate list for
posting jobs.  Last I knew, folks said just post directly to these lists
since the volume was not out of hand, if that is wrong, please advise and
I'll be sure to correct when a couple more positions get posted that are
coming for my team.

In the meantime, my employer is hiring someone to work close to my team
here in Lebanon, NH. The position is kind of like IT but focused on
supporting development efforts for advanced physics/engineering software.
We call it TI to... avoid confusion? Anyway, we have a great crowd here in
Lebanon if anyone is interested in joining:

https://jobs.siemens-info.com/jobs/194198
-- 
Alan Johnson
a...@datdec.com
"Don't be nervous about the robots, be nervous about the people with the
resources to build them."  --Randall Munroe; Robots <https://xkcd.com/1955/>
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Re: Suggestions: Job boards, listings, contacts? for Senior Technical Writer

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 5:46 PM, David Rysdam <da...@rysdam.org> wrote:

> Alan Johnson <a...@datdec.com> writes:
> > Back when I worked for one of the top recruiting companies, the industry
> > experts there said indeed.com ...[was] the top resume
> > posting services.
>
> If this was ever true, it is certainly not now. I was the recipient of
> some resumes from Indeed.com and they were not just bad, they were
> ridiculous. Like, nursing student resumes.
>

IIRC, and my info is several years old at best, Indeed.com does not quite
work like that.  They are an aggregator that posts your resume on other job
boards and maintain their own internal database as well.  If you were
getting lame resumes from Indeed.com, I would expect the problem was with
whoever was using the tool and sending them to you rather than the tool
itself.  Most of these tools take some specialized skills on the recruiting
side to get the search terms right but even then you run the risk of
nursing students listing IT skills that could create some strange results.
A clueful recruiter should filter those out before sending them along.

Simply Hired does (did?) pretty much the same thing.  Startwire is
something a bit different but still in the category that focuses on the
helping job seekers find jobs rather than helping recruiters find
candidates, but the 2 concepts are tightly coupled.

Again, I could be completely mixed up on this and my info is aged.

-- 
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a...@datdec.com
Date Format PSA <http://xkcd.com/1179/>
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Re: Suggestions: Job boards, listings, contacts? for Senior Technical Writer

[Alan Johnson]

Back when I worked for one of the top recruiting companies, the industry
experts there said indeed.com and simplyhired.com were the top resume
posting services.  A founder that left after an acquisition started
startwire.com and based on what I know him, I would also investigate that
tool if I were looking.

At my current job, we hire a lot of people, including technical writers,
through CyberCoders and the comments from the hiring managers are generally
very positive.

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 3:35 PM, Ted Roche <tedro...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Slightly off-topic, your indulgence please.
>
> A friend of a friend  finds themselves at the end of 30+ year career
> in a new of a new position. Highly skilled technical writer, worked in
> several of the well known high-tech firms. Needs a new placement,
> full-time, part- or contractual.
>
> I don't know where I should suggest she look, besides the usual
> platitudes of "call all your contacts and exercise your networks,"
> which she's already working.
>
> Any suggestions for online services worth the effort, or does anyone
> know anyone looking?
>
> --
> Ted Roche
> Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
> http://www.tedroche.com
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Date Format PSA <http://xkcd.com/1179/>
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drop the plan to kill net neutrality

[Alan Johnson]

I just signed this to save net neutrality I just signed this petition
calling on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to protect our rights online and drop his
plan to kill net neutrality. Will you join me?

https://act.credoaction.com/sign/Pai-netneutrality?sp_ref=294855039.4.180356.e.573887.2_akid=.4887258.1Jtz-O=mailto_sp
Thanks.

-- 
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Date Format PSA <http://xkcd.com/1179/>
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Re: Amber screen?

[Alan Johnson]

Have you looked for a light switch?  ;-)

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 10:40 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio <k...@jots.org> wrote:

> Okay, Stupid Geek Question Time.
>
> I'm at the Openstack Summit, and the room is awful dark.  So I've got my
> screen's backlighting down to minimum.  But someone up a few rows --
> probably on a Mac, the heathen -- has his screen in WYSE/amber mode, as
> far as I can tell.  (Well, okay, so the stock WYSE didn't support
> graphics.  Work with me.)  Anyway, that's really cool -- both from the
> "wow, I love amber WYSE screens" perspective, and from a "let's not bug
> the people sitting behind me" perspective.  I've done some googling, and
> haven't found anything of particular note, but I'm thinking if I could
> somehow modify the color palette to just choose amber, I'd be in decent
> shape.
>
> Anyone have any ideas on how to make this happen?  Or should I give up
> now and pay more attention to the keynote speaker?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Ken
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Date Format PSA <http://xkcd.com/1179/>
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Re: iptables confusion.

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio  wrote:

> Every time I think I'm getting to the point where I might understand IP
> Tables, I do something that proves that, no, I really don't.  Today's
> confusion:  I want to set up a virtual NIC to do port forwarding.  But
> first, I wanted to get the port forward part of the equation straight.
> So I wound up executing these commands:
>

​The most helpful thing I ever learned about IP tables was webmin.  ;-)​
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 1:33 PM, Ric Werme <r...@wermenh.com> wrote:

> PostScript is a Lisp variant.  It has some nice visual output.
>

​There you have it, Kenny.  Teach your daughter PostScript.

-- 
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a...@datdec.com
Date Format PSA <http://xkcd.com/1179/>
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 10:40 AM, Bill Freeman  wrote:

> I can't resist.  There is always lisp.  No indentation.  No semicolons.
> Format it so that it makes sense to you.  Anyone approaching algebra will
> get the bonus of learning that parentheses must match.
>

​I will second the beauty of the simplicity of Lisp.  Unfortunately, I
don't know of much in the way of practical application of Lisp outside AI
researchers... back in my college days at least.  No ideal what AI folks
use most commonly now.​
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 3:19 PM, Chris Linstid  wrote:

> AI and Emacs plugins... and there may be some overlap there.
>

​ctrl-meta-meta-ctrl-spacebar-up-left-down-right then you just think about
the plugin you want and the emacs plugin writer plugin writes the plugin
you want for you.
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Re: What Language for a kid

[Alan Johnson]

My son (age 10) and I are learning Python together on
https://www.codecademy.com/ here and there.  They have a bunch of languages
there with a very similar style to https://www.khanacademy.org/ .   We have
not finished the course yet, so I don't know if it will get advanced enough
for my preferences, but it is great for beginner programmers.  He has years
of experience with Mindstorm GUI programming, and that is a great intro to
basic programing concepts because it has programming instructions that are
just like building Legos, but I agree with others that is not very
representative of programming in general; it is down right painful to debug
among other shortcomings.  So I'm hoping get him to switch to Python for
Mindstorm
<http://bitsandbricks.no/2014/01/19/getting-started-with-python-on-ev3/>.
Also, then we can get rid of this last Windows machine in the house. =)


On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Kenny Lussier <kluss...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> My daughter has expressed an interest in learning to code. It's a
> non-specific, very general interest. She doesn't have a specific area of
> interest that she wants to learn (UI, game development, HPC, etc.), she
> just want to learn how to code.
>
> What do people think is the best language for a 12yr old to learn? What is
> most flexible to use for different purposes? What tools are out there to
> teach a kid to code? Code Academy and the like seem to be a little dry and
> never yielded wonderful results for most of the adults I know, so other
> ideas would be welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Kenny
>
>
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-- 
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Date Format PSA <http://xkcd.com/1179/>
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Re: Network system monitoring tools? Nagios, Zabbix, ...?

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen roz...@geekspace.com
wrote:

 Looking to set up some system for monitoring systems on the network at
 work; _vaguely_ familiar with nagios and zabbix

 What do you guys generally find preferable, and why?

 Nagios? Zabbix? Something else?


​Last I knew, Nagios didn't scale well, but they were working on it.  Since
getting into OpenNMS http://www.opennms.org/, I have not wanted for
anything else.  Fairly easy to setup and configure for basic SNMP
monitoring, very mature and stable, decent docs, highly scale-able,
commercial support if you want it, consistent (though complex)
configuration files for the more advanced tweaks and add-ons, healthly
plug-in ​set, etc. etc.
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FreeNAS/ZFS woes (was Re: Is bcache ready for enterprise production?)

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 10:41 AM, Derek Atkins warl...@mit.edu wrote:

 Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com writes:

  I'm in the process of replacing a FreeNAS install at $WORK with Linux.  I

 I'm curious why you are replacing FreeNAS?

 I've heard nothing but good things about it, so I'd be interested in
 hearing about your negative experiences.


​Hmm... yes... well, I was hoping to avoid this, but it is only fair after
making such a statement, and I'm sure this community will benefit from my
story, long though it may be.

Let me start by saying that this story is spread across more than a year​,
so my recollection of the specifics is may not be reliable but I will do my
best to point out when I am particularly fuzzy.


*ZFS: Not as Simple as I Had Come to Understand*

​So, when it all started, I, like you, had heard nothing but good things
about FreeNAS and ZFS.  I had loosely followed both for years.​  I had
developed the impression that ZFS was supposed to be this really easy to
use system that takes a bunch of disks, or SSDs, and just does smart things
with them.  You don't have to think about them.  Leading up my own use, I
did a lot of reading of both forums and manuals and found this to not be
the case at all.  You have to understand and decided between different
redundancy schemes with their various trade offs, and if you want to use
SSDs you have to work those in manually, being very careful about how you
slice them up for different kinds of caching.  You could bring the system
to its knees if you have TOO MUCH cache!  In any case, it is certainly no
less complex than working with LVM and software RAID in Linux.


*The Setup*

Moving on, after quite a bit of study, I spec'd a box specifically for the
task of running FreeNAS/ZFS for some tier-2 storage:

   - DELL R515
   - AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 4228 HE, 6 cores @ ​2.8 Ghz ​
   - 64GB of RAM (ZFS is very RAM hungry, even hungrier than this I found
   out very painfully)
   - 12 4TB 7.2k HDD
   - 2 512GB Crucial M4 SSDs (We use these all over the place.)

I installed FreeNAZ 8.3 (latest at the time) with a 40TB RAIDZ2 (for the
uninitiated, that's similar to RAID6 but a bit smarter and more supposedly
performs better) on the disks and used the SSDs for L2ARC (read cache) and
ZIL (write cache, or it might be more accurate to think of it as a journal;
I have come to think of it as some mix of the 2).  I created one big zpool
(kind of like an LVM volume group) with the default light-weight
compression on by default (not deduplication; never use dedupe, no matter
how well suited you think your data set is for it, compression will get you
almost all of the benefit without the huge performance hit and RAM needs of
dedupe... is what I have taken away from the FreeNAS forums and even the
manual).

My first, and very minor, nit to pick is that the ZIL is limited by the
amount of RAM you have.  If you exceed a certain ratio between the 2, the
system has problems.  I forget if it is strictly performance that suffers
or if the system becomes unstable, but I read enough ahead of time to avoid
it.  I created 2 appropriately sized partitions on the SSDs and used them
as a mirrored ZIL.  The rest of the SSDs I used as L2ARC without
redundancy; ZFS will just go to disk if some or all of the L2ARC goes
missing, as one would expect for a read-cache.  Later on, I learned that
too much L2ARC can hurt performance too, but that was much less significant
and I was able to reduce it while the system was online.

Note that FreeNAS does not provide a WUI for managing L2ARC or ZIL, nor
doing block device partitioning.  I think this is reasonable for this
project, but worth mentioning.  I did all of that stuff at the command
line.  If you are not already familiar with BSD, like me, it can be very
tricky an take some time, but it all worked as expected with some fairly
simple commands on vairous guides that pop right up on Google.


*FreeNAS Runs on USB Sticks, like it or not*

A bigger problem I have with FreeNAS is that it is nearly impossible to
boot it off anything other than a USB stick or SD card.  As such, it does a
great job of blocking writes to those devices.  This has many very annoying
side effects when trying to do anything under the hood, and even above the
hood, it prevents the persistence of things like the root command history
and logs.  I think some of this has been addressed in the newer versions,
but I'm not sure to what extent.  We didn't reboot that much.  Also, to be
fair, you can point it to a syslog server in the WUI easily enough.  We had
at least one system crash due to a bad USB drive despite having spent way
too much time trying to find very reliable drives.  The cheap thumb drives
I bought at Staples for emergency repair of the box didn't give us any
problems.  Go figure.  But oh how I wanted so badly to slice off a bit of
my SSDs for a mirrored r/w install of the OS.  I came to understand why
FreeNAS does not have this option, but it is just one

FreeNAS/ZFS woes (was Re: Is bcache ready for enterprise production?)

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 11:35 AM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote:

 I've never used FreeNAS, but I've used ZFS quite a bit.

 I've used it natively on Solaris at work and on Ubuntu with ZFS on Linux
 at home.

 I've been very happy with it.  There is information out there on
 tuning/not tuning on Solaris.  ZFS on Linux (and BSD) has different tunings.

 From the short skim I just did on bcache and its support in CentOS 7, it
 sounds like it's much less evolved then ZFS on Linux or FreeNAS.


bcache is certainly newer than ZFS.  It started in part as a response to
the caching features ZFS offers, IIRC.  It is also arbitrarily simpler than
ZFS, meant to be a bolt on to any block device storage management you are
already doing, not a full replacement.  In my case, it would be a software
36TB RAID6 as the backing device with one hot spare, a 500GB SSD mirror for
the cache device, with LVM and mostly ext4 on top of that.

Googling around for alternatives, I came across
*Why We Recommend Against OpenFiler
http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/373443-why-we-recommend-against-openfiler
​.* I don't know the author from Adam, but he come across as very
knowledgeable to me and he says this in response to one of the comments:


The biggest advantage of FreeNAS is that it offers ZFS which can be very
cool but ZFS has so much [hype] around it that it tends to cause bad
decision making, a [belief] that parity RAID has been magically fixed [e.g]
and people forget that the biggest hype is current ZFS which is Solaris
only, [FreeNAS] is an older version.


That was from a year ago though.  I don't know if it holds true in FreeNAS
9.2, which I had upgraded to long before my box blew up.​  Regardless, the
Solaris experience is likely to be very different.  I would be curious if
you could setup a test to see how ZFS on Solaris handles deleting zvols
from a deduplicated zpool.
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Re: Is bcache ready for enterprise production?

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Aug 14, 2014 at 6:47 PM, David Hardy belovedbold...@gmail.com
wrote:

 A possibly relevant comment on bcache not being in RH 7 here:

 http://serverfault.com/questions/616129/centos-7-bcache



​Yes, that's the same post I found about it.  That's all I have been able
to find so far.​
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Is bcache ready for enterprise production?

[Alan Johnson]

I'm in the process of replacing a FreeNAS install at $WORK with Linux.  I
currently have Ubuntu 14.04 installed so that I can try bcache.  It is
teir-2 storage, but of course every one gets fussy if it is down no matter
how much we tell them not to put really critical stuff there, and of
course, we don't want any real data corruption risk.

I have a compelling reason to use it: to protect against performance issues
leading to availability issues, which is something that bit us hard with
FreeNAS/ZFS on this box.  I know the kernel devs have blessed it in 3.10,
but RH left it out of RHEL 7​, but the only reason I have seen so far being
it was not in the Fedora 19 kernel and RHEL 7 is based on Fedora 19.  They
brought in a newer kernel for RHEL 7 but left some of the new features
behind.

I have a lot of FUD that is making me not want to use it, mostly driven by
a terrible couple of years with FreeNAS/ZFS.  So, what I'm looking for is
some REASON not to use it.  If we can't find any, we will probably give it
a go, but the history of this box makes any new-to-us feature or
technology very uncomfortable.

So, does anyone have any bcache horror stories that might not be addressed
in the 3.13 kernel?  Anyone know any additional details about why RH left
it out?  Any other relevant information?


 Alan Johnson
a...@datdec.com
Date Format PSA http://xkcd.com/1179/
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Re: keepassx

[Alan Johnson]

Lastpass.com.  not floss but it just works.  I have not tried it on a
chromebook, but it works everywhere else, mainly as a browser plugin, so I
can't imagine any trouble.
On Jul 31, 2014 2:29 AM, Karl Hergenrother 33kar...@gmail.com wrote:

 I just bought a Chromebook.  Its a good computer for my needs, a tablet
 with a keyboard.  However, I have one major disappointment.  I have used
 Keepass and KeepassX for years to manage my passwords. Chrome has an app
 called Keepass Chrome,but I have been unsuccessful in getting this Chrome
 app to read the old .kdb file.  You would think with a name like that it
 would be able to input the old database file.  I would appreciate any
 suggestions.  Google searches have turned up nothing,

 Thank you for listening to my problem.

 Karl Hergenrother

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Re: Dev Ops - architecture (local not cloud)

[Alan Johnson]

On Dec 6, 2013 9:33 AM, Greg Rundlett (freephile) g...@freephile.com
wrote:

 Performance comparison:
 svn checkout single repository on old infrastructure
 real5m44.100s
 user0m36.957s
 sys 0m14.757s

 svn checkout single repository on new infrastructure, but only using NFS
for read (local working copy stored on local disk)

So this would be a vm, yeah?  If so, please give all details of the local
disk stack:  file systems, backing store, connectivity between virt and
phy, etc.

 real3m15.057s
 user1m18.195s
 sys 0m53.796s

 svn checkout same repository on new infrastructure, with writes stored on
NFS volume

A virtual disk file on an nfs share or straight nfs mount in client os?
Speed and latency of pipe between?  Backing store hardware?  Any
significant contention?

 real28m53.220s
 user1m45.713s
 sys 3m26.948s
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Re: Resume length and history

[Alan Johnson]

There has been some good advise posted here already, but I will just add
that I have landed my last 2 jobs with nothing more than a LinkedIn
profile.  My current one was a cold submission electronic submission to a
company where I knew no one.  I had an offer about a week after sending the
email.  When the fit is right, it is right, and a good resume will get you
in the door.  That said, it was surely an outlier.  I fully support the
idea that it is usually more about finding some way to make a personal
connection, especially if the fit is not glaringly obvious, but you had
better have something decent to submit into their system to back up your
charm.

I stopped bothering to keep a separate resume up to date many years ago.
 You can export LinkedIn to PDF which is what I use when asked to submit
something electronically when requested.  For my current job (interviewed
almost 2 years ago) I don't think I even bothered to bring paper copies to
the interview.  When I was on the flip side of things, I always wished
people would stop doing that, but I'm sure there are still stall-warts out
there who will check to see if you are prepared by asking for a copy of
your resume.  Frankly, I don't want to work for those folks if I have other
options.  These days, I'd just bust out my android.

My last job was with one of the top recruiting firms in the world.  We had
the leading technical offering for recruiters to find candidates.  When I
started there, resume-handling was mostly electronic and shifted heavily
toward it over the years.  Now, it is nearly all electronic.  Even most
small businesses do candidate sourcing on the web.  For tech jobs, it is
almost exclusively electronic.

I only say all this because the 2 page limit is not terribly relevant in a
well formatted and easily searched (visually that is) electronic document,
especially for IT folks.  I just keep all the work history in there.  Well,
everything relevant to any job I might want in the future.  =)  I dropped
my high school jobs a while back, but I've been paid to do computer stuff
since college and, for example, I think it still impresses employers to see
that I worked a help desk on the largest trading floor in New England
between my Freshman and Sophomore years.  You have to decide for your self
if each bit of work experience is necessary, but be wary of putting time
holes in your work history as well.  If you have more than 2 pages worth
of work history, rely on the job title line to indicate to your potential
employer if the position is relevant to them.  Again, formatting is key and
good luck beating the experts at LinkedIn on that.

Similarly, don't bother with irrelevant padding to fill some
artificial minimum of this paper stuff that is still around, but don't be
afraid to say who you are either.  The text in your resume is an example of
your written communication skills, so if you are job hunting, you should
review it every day looking for mistakes and improvements in getting to the
point and clarity.  Take this email as an excellent counter example. ;-)

I think the cover letter (or submission email in modern terms) is where to
do your customizing.  Highlight a few keys things that are most relevant to
the job in question.  If they like those bits, they will likely read the
rest and probably want to talk to you.


___
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Date Format PSA http://xkcd.com/1179/


On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi All,

 Not specifically Linux-related, but I was wondering what other people are
 seeing/doing with resumes these days. I have seen everything from a 2-page
 resume for someone with 20 years of experience to a 15-page resume for
 someone with 2 jobs over 3 years (it looked like the output of cat
 ~/.bash_history). How far back should a resume go? How long should it be
 before you stop reading it? I'm seeing absolutely no consistency in
 resumes, and the ones that come from recruiters seem to be the worst
 formats.

 C-Ya,
 Kenny


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Job: Senior Development Tools Engineer, Lebanon, NH

[Alan Johnson]

My employer is seeking a Senior Development Tools Engineeer for our
Lebanon, NH location.

*Position Description:*

The Senior Development Tools Engineer is responsible for designing and
programming tools to support the company's overall development effort.
Included tools support build and test activities, as well as reporting
related to quality and production. The position is also responsible for the
evaluation of third party tools.

The position will typically work with internal customers in an agile
format, with incremental improvements delivered on a frequent basis.
Internal customers typically include quality assurance, production and
development personnel. The position will also work closely with system
administrators and core process engineers.

Find more details and apply by visiting the Senior Development Tools
Engineer 
postinghttp://www.cd-adapco.com/about/careers/2013/us-senior_development_tools_engineer.html
 on our web site.

Also, we are still looking for the right fit for the second of the 2
positions mentioned below.

Let me know if you apply for anything and I will see about putting in a
good word... or maybe a few bad ones.  ;-)

___
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Date Format PSA http://xkcd.com/1179/


On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 5:05 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:

 I believe I have been told it is OK to post jobs openings to the general
 list since the jobs list is pretty dead.  My apologies if this is not
 appropriated.  Please e-spank me as you see fit.

 I am sending this on behalf of my employer.  If you know CentOS / RedHat
 fairly well, or other Linuxes very well, please consider applying.  You
 can get more details and apply by visiting the job posting on our 
 websitehttp://www.cd-adapco.com/about/careers/2012/us-devsys-admin.html.
  Below is some ad copy that is mostly redundant with the job posting
 page, but more concise.

 All of it is a long winded way of saying we are looking for a few good
 Linux geeks, like me!  =)  In my experience here, general admin experience,
 the ability to figure things out, and playing well with others are all more
 important than any other specific skill set mentioned.  Also, I should
 mention that this is the best job I have ever had, and that includes having
 worked for myself for many years!


 *Development Systems Administrator* - CD-adapco (www.cd-
 adapco.com) is seeking an experienced individual to administer and
 maintain
 services in support of the software development team located in Lebanon,
 NH.

 The successful candidate will be responsible for systems and development
 tools
 used in the production of our world-class CFD software. Responsibilities
 include system administration and management of all hardware and operating
 systems. This position will work to the improve service reliability and
 performance. This position will also ensure that new or existing services
 are
 implemented to optimally serve a global development team, including proper
 evaluation, documentation and training. Systems are primarily Linux and
 Windows based. Coordination with satellite offices and other system
 administrators in remote offices to maintain the high availability of our
 connected systems and networks will also be required.

 In addition to ensuring the smooth operation of our software development
 environment, opportunities exist for candidates desiring to assist with our
 collaboration software, and/or distributed build and automated test
 systems.

 Successful applicants must have a minimum of 5 years experience in the
 management of Linux and Windows operating systems and service
 administration within a software development environment. Experience with
 scripting languages, system monitoring tools, and software development
 tools is
 valued.


 ___
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 a...@datdec.com



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Re: Routing fun?

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 11:16 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:

 Not quite sure which approach to take with this.  I've got a device on
 my network that, for various reasons, I want to route only over an
 OpenVPN link.  All other devices go out normally.  Assuming my Linux box
 is doing the routing, and has the VPN link, how do I get it to do that
 for that one device's MAC/IP/whatever?


There should be an option in your OpenVPN client to make your VPN gateway
you default.  Here is a screen shot of mine:
http://alan.datdec.com/temp/screenshot1.png

I would uncheck Use this connection only for resources on its network.
 You can confirm it is working with route -n on the box running the client.
 It should have an IP address on your VPN as your default gateway.

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Re: Routing fun?

[Alan Johnson]

Oh, I see now.  You're OpenVPN link is on the router, not the device.  Of
course.  Silly me.  In that case, my recommendation is to move the OpenVPN
link to the single device that should have access.  This is more standard
and would be the most secure option.

As others have suggested, you could assign a specific IP address to the
device and then use IP tables (try webmin if you don't care to learn yet
another mind numbing syntax) to allow that one device through, but this is
not terribly secure.  Filtering on MAC would not be significantly better.
 If you are not worried about your network and just want to keep other
machines from accidentally getting through your VPN link, this would be
fine.

___
Alan Johnson
a...@datdec.com


On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:

 On 2012-12-28 11:26, Alan Johnson wrote:

  There should be an option in your OpenVPN client to make your VPN
 gateway you default.  Here is a screen shot of mine:
  
 http://alan.datdec.com/temp/**screenshot1.pnghttp://alan.datdec.com/temp/screenshot1.png[1]


 I would uncheck Use this connection only for resources on its
 network.You can confirm it is working with route -n on the box
 running the client.  It should have an IP address on your VPN as your
 default gateway.


 While I appreciate the suggestion, then *all* my network traffic would go
 out that way, not just for the one device.  No?


 --
 This mail was scanned by BitDefender
 For more information please visit http://www.bitdefender.com/**
 links/en/frams.html http://www.bitdefender.com/links/en/frams.html



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Job: 2 Systems Administrators, Lebanon, NH

[Alan Johnson]

I believe I have been told it is OK to post jobs openings to the general
list since the jobs list is pretty dead.  My apologies if this is not
appropriated.  Please e-spank me as you see fit.

I am sending this on behalf of my employer.  If you know CentOS / RedHat
fairly well, or other Linuxes very well, please consider applying.  You can
get more details and apply by visiting the job posting on our
websitehttp://www.cd-adapco.com/about/careers/2012/us-devsys-admin.html.
 Below is some ad copy that is mostly redundant with the job posting page,
but more concise.

All of it is a long winded way of saying we are looking for a few good
Linux geeks, like me!  =)  In my experience here, general admin experience,
the ability to figure things out, and playing well with others are all more
important than any other specific skill set mentioned.  Also, I should
mention that this is the best job I have ever had, and that includes having
worked for myself for many years!


*Development Systems Administrator* - CD-adapco (www.cd-
adapco.com) is seeking an experienced individual to administer and maintain
services in support of the software development team located in Lebanon, NH.

The successful candidate will be responsible for systems and development
tools
used in the production of our world-class CFD software. Responsibilities
include system administration and management of all hardware and operating
systems. This position will work to the improve service reliability and
performance. This position will also ensure that new or existing services
are
implemented to optimally serve a global development team, including proper
evaluation, documentation and training. Systems are primarily Linux and
Windows based. Coordination with satellite offices and other system
administrators in remote offices to maintain the high availability of our
connected systems and networks will also be required.

In addition to ensuring the smooth operation of our software development
environment, opportunities exist for candidates desiring to assist with our
collaboration software, and/or distributed build and automated test systems.

Successful applicants must have a minimum of 5 years experience in the
management of Linux and Windows operating systems and service
administration within a software development environment. Experience with
scripting languages, system monitoring tools, and software development
tools is
valued.


___
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a...@datdec.com
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Re: World's largest web comic panel

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 8:23 PM, Ben Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:
  Personally, I don't think something
  that tries to walk to the end is all that brutish. =)

   It's not so much the walking to the end, but the walking all over
 the rest of it.  :)


Even that compared to our loopy efforts...


  How's that for brute?  =)  No where near as elegant as your one-liner,
 but I
  like to just loop the hell out of things rather than use some more
 elegant,
  but less familiar, syntax.

   To each their own.  :)  FWIW, one could do this:

 echo http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/{1..256}{n,s}{1..256}{e,w}.png 
 urls

 ... to generate the file using shell brace expansion.  On my system,
 at least, it works.  Presumably because echo is a bash built-in.  An
 external command does indeed fail with Argument list too long.


Good to know.  Thanks!



   FYI, the resulting urls file is 11 megabytes.  :)


Yep. =)



   As a halfway point, one can also do this:

 for v in n s; do for h in e w; do for x in {1..100}; do for y in
 {1..100}; do echo http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/$y$v$x$h.png; done;
 done; done; done  urls


 to use a for loop without needing the seq external command.


Nice!  And more readable than either your one liner or my use of seq.



   (It may be worth noting that {1..100} is still a looping construct,
 just a different one.)


Yep, and it probably expands similar, to be confirmed with set -x


  Another side note: All this hacking is fun and all, but the panel is much
  more fun to explore without zooming or mapping.

   I actually found it much more enjoyable with the zooming and a
 full-screen display.  I found scrolling around in that tiny view frame
 to be quite tedious.  Again, to each their own.  :)


Yeah, the click and drag was the main thing that annoyed me.  Zooming made
it much less painful, but removed a lot of that joy of discovery that comes
with wondering at a constant scale.  I really want some kind of press and
hold option.  Maybe as you move the mouse around it moves in that direction
with speed relative to the distance from the center.  Even just hook up the
arrow keys.  Oh, then if there were a little avatar with occasional things
to shoot or jump... no wait, then I'd have to call my game-o-holic sponsor
if I want to read the whole thing...



  Or... maybe we will go out and explore the real world a bit. =)

   What is this real world of which you speak, and where may I
 download it from?  ;-)


It's on the Internet.  Just download the whole thing and grep it.  It is
kind of big, so -F would be a good idea.  I've heard people call it meat
space too, so then the question becomes to regex or not to regex and fgrep
it twice...
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Re: World's largest web comic panel

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 1:05 AM, Joshua Judson Rosen
roz...@geekspace.comwrote:

 Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com writes:
 
  On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Ben Scott dragonh...@gmail.com
 wrote:
 
   On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Joshua Judson Rosen
   roz...@geekspace.com wrote:
... thwarted by the unholy amount of hole-iness in the map:
you can't just start at the center, walk until you hit `the end'
of the world ...
 
  Personally, I don't think something
  that tries to walk to the end is all that brutish. =)

 Well, it's at least barbarian ;)


The code or the author?  ;-)

  I mean, I get that not all the tile locations actually
   have image files there, but presumably you just get the 404 error and
   move on.
  
   wget hxxp://
 imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/{1..256}{n,s}{1..256}{e,w}.png
  
 Granted, this would hammer the server with lots of requests for
   non-existent files.  And I imagine it would take some time to run
   through 256*256*2*2 HTTP GET requests.  And maybe hit command line
   length limits.  So polite or efficient, it's not.   But if you want
   brute force and ignorance :)
  
  
  I got around the command line issue by dumping a list of generated URLs
 to
  a file and then feeding that file to wget:
  ajohnson@helium:~/tmp/xkcdclickdrag$ for v in n s; do for h in e w; do
 for
  x in `seq 100`; do for y in `seq 1 100`; do echo
  http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/$y$v$x$h.png; done; done; done; done 
 urls
  ajohnson@helium:~/tmp/xkcdclickdrag$ wget -qi urls

 xargs FTW. Though, actually..., you should be able to just pipe
 stdout from that loop directly into wget -qi, shouldn't you?


Yes, wget -qi -, but I wanted to confirm the output and have the potential
to groom it if I wanted to.



 But, if you want be more *magically bruticious*, try parallel:

 http://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/

 You can also use cURL in stead of wget, and just use cURL's range/set
 syntax:

 curl -f -JO '
 http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/[1-100]{n,s}[1-100]{e,w}.png'


Ah, curl.  If only I had discovered that before wget...
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Re: World's largest web comic panel

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 12:16 PM, Ben Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:
  With all due respect, this programming mumbo jumbo is fine and all, but
  it overlooks a much more serious issue with the comic: a complete and
  utter lack of velociraptors.

   They're there, you just can't see them.  Very clever girls, those
 velociraptors.


Yes, one original and on feathered even. =)
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Re: World's largest web comic panel

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Ben Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Joshua Judson Rosen
 roz...@geekspace.com wrote:
  ... thwarted by the unholy amount of hole-iness in the map:
  you can't just start at the center, walk until you hit `the end'
  of the world ...

   Why not?


Your suggestion does not disprove his claim that you can't walk to the end
since their are several false ends.  Personally, I don't think something
that tries to walk to the end is all that brutish. =)

I mean, I get that not all the tile locations actually
 have image files there, but presumably you just get the 404 error and
 move on.

 wget hxxp://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/{1..256}{n,s}{1..256}{e,w}.png

   Granted, this would hammer the server with lots of requests for
 non-existent files.  And I imagine it would take some time to run
 through 256*256*2*2 HTTP GET requests.  And maybe hit command line
 length limits.  So polite or efficient, it's not.   But if you want
 brute force and ignorance :)


I got around the command line issue by dumping a list of generated URLs to
a file and then feeding that file to wget:
ajohnson@helium:~/tmp/xkcdclickdrag$ for v in n s; do for h in e w; do for
x in `seq 100`; do for y in `seq 1 100`; do echo
http://imgs.xkcd.com/clickdrag/$y$v$x$h.png; done; done; done; done  urls
ajohnson@helium:~/tmp/xkcdclickdrag$ wget -qi urls

How's that for brute?  =)  No where near as elegant as your one-liner, but
I like to just loop the hell out of things rather than use some more
elegant, but less familiar, syntax.

I narrowed it down to x max of 40 and y max of 20 after reading some forum
posts.

I quit googling for programmatic ways to stitch the pngs together when,
after reading a bit of the forum posts for this comic, I realized that
others with much more time on their hands would solve the problem much more
completely while I focused on not getting fired. =)

Side note: I was hoping, or expecting, it would wrap at all the edges. =)

Another side note: All this hacking is fun and all, but the panel is much
more fun to explore without zooming or mapping.  It is just a wicked time
sync.  I'll probably spend some time with my kids looking around the
original version this weekend.  Or... maybe we will go out and explore the
real world a bit. =)
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Re: OSS Video Conference solution?

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Jul 27, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:

 Currently downloading/installing Big Blue Button (almost typed Big Blue
 Marble); I'll let youses [sic -- I'm from Jersey] know how it goes.


Last I knew, BBB was using flash as the default client (Java for anyone
looking to provide content back).  I am very curious how they have handled
the drop of Flash support on Linux by Adobe.
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Re: New Android tablet from ZaReason

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 1:40 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
roz...@geekspace.comwrote:

 but I wonder if they'll have Ubuntu running on it
 at some point


Ubuntu is working on being available on beefier Android devices soon:
http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android

I expect this will be my next PCish purchase.

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Re: New Android tablet from ZaReason

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 2:06 PM, Joshua Judson Rosen
roz...@geekspace.comwrote:

 Is `use Ubuntu on the android while it's still in mobile mode'
 actually a part of the `Ubuntu for Android' plan ...?


That's what I had come to understand: full access to all Android and Ubuntu
apps whether docked or not.  Thought it is entirely possible that is not
based on what I wanted to read rather than what I actually read.  Of
course, some amount of root will be required for some features if not a
prerequisite for the whole thing.

Whatever level of functionality is available in round 1, it seems like an
ideal strategy for entering into the tablet and phone market.  It promises
to eliminate most, if not all, of the hardware compatibly effort from the
shoulders of Ubuntu developers since some one else is providing the
kernel.  Provided root access, I don't see how booting Ubuntu native is
necessarily better in any way.  I can see a lot of potential for native
installs to be better in some cases (especially in early iterations), but
those would be implementation failures rather than theoretical limitations.
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Re: I'm considering a new laptop, looking for experiences.

[Alan Johnson]

Asus has great laptop hardware, support, and protection plans available.
They tend to be very Linux friendly and some models are available with
Linux installed, last I knew, or maybe just with no OS.  The current ASUS
website does not lend itself to figuring this out, or figuring out which
model is for you.

Though, I'm not sure about the touch of their new keyboards (like new
macbooks), but I have not used it much.  To each his own, so worth playing
with.

Also, you will probably want to check for the model on
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/ before you buy anything.

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On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Bill Freeman ke1g...@gmail.com wrote:

 My Acer is scaring me.  Sometimes at startup it goes into an infinite
 reboot loop.  The way out seems to be to force power off, flex the
 case and whack it a few times, after which it boots.

 So, I'm considering replacing it.  Last round I insisted on an AMD
 CPU, but I'm currently drawn to an i7 or i5.

 I know that lots of folks swear by the ThinkPads, and I will consider them.

 I'm not really willing to consider Compaq/HP, Gateway, or Apple, and
 I've found Linux on Toshiba to be troublesome in the past.

 Can anyone offer personal experience stories on the Dell Inspirons?

 Any additional suggestions?

 Any bad experiences with the i7 CPU?

 Thanks, Bill
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Re: Tablet recommendations?

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 12:08 AM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote:

 I bought an ASUS Transformer (TF101).


I just bought the same with doc for my grandmother-in-law who is laid up in
the hospital with a broken leg and so won't be using her desktop for a
while after returning home either.  Beautiful machine.  All you could want
in a tablet and most everything you could want from a netbook.  I would
have gotten the prime, but BestBuy was back ordered forever.  Since both
have Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) (Android 4.0.3), the only significant
difference to her (and most users I expect) would be the weight.  The prime
is noticeably lighter and sleeker, so it would have be worth it for Gammy,
but the timing trumped it all.

I've been watching the Transformer line since release and nothing has come
close in bang for your buck since.  I have not yet bought one for my house
because I'm holding out for something with multi-user abilities so my
family can share it like we do our Ubuntu laptop with out any fuss in
switching users.  I'm expecting some nice units to come out on the heels of
Ubuntu 12.04 next month since it is a long-term-support release and the
first LTS with the new, more tablet friendly GUI.  Also, there is a lot of
talk about mutli-user support coming in Android.  There was some talk of it
coming with ICS but I have not seen it yet.  Anyone?
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CLVM + DRBD dual primary? (was Re: replicated file system?)

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 10:32 AM, Mark Komarinski mkomarin...@wayga.orgwrote:

 As pointed out before, DRBD can do active/active, so long as the
 filesystem on top support it (GFS2 and OCFS2).  The DRBD team even has
 documentation to get you started:

 http://www.drbd.org/users-guide/ch-gfs.html
 http://www.drbd.org/users-guide/ch-ocfs2.html


The active/active terminology just clicked for me.  (brain fart! I was
pretty tired when I was responding before.)  While I am very intrigued by
this dual-primary functionality in DRBD, I expect gluster will work out
bitter-faster-stronger for Kenny in my experience, even if it would not
bring you a bed pan and breakfast as beens seems to have interpreted my
previous comments to include.   ;-p  [Ass-ide: Of course, Ben is right.
Only certain drugs can make everything trivial, and they don't last.]  =)

That said, does anyone know if CLVM would meet the needs of a dual-primary
DRBD?  I'm having trouble finding good docs on clustering LVM.  Maybe I
just need to look again now that I'm more awake! =)  Still, any hints would
be appreciated.

If it matters, the LVs would only be accessed by one node at a time.  They
would serve as backing block devices for KVM virtual drives enabling live
migration.  This could remove the need for iSCSI and heartbeat from my
current DRBDLVMiSCSIheartbeat setup.

If this works as expected, it would be ideal for a 2 host cloud, but live
migration would not be possible outside those 2 hosts.  Unless... can
DRBD+CLVM be multi-primary?  Of course, this quickly leads to excessive
redundancy... unless... DRBD can do something like RAID5/6/Z/Z2, but I'm
sure I'm asking too much there, especially if I want it to be efficient
over a network.

I can imagine that CLVM across a bunch of iSCSI PVs would be ideal,
allowing mirroring and/or stripping on a per LV basis, but I again, I can't
find good docs on CLVM to back me up.
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Re: CLVM + DRBD dual primary? (was Re: replicated file system?)

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 11:59 AM, Michael ODonnell 
michael.odonn...@comcast.net wrote:

 However, being a hot copy means any
 filesystem metadata would be in whatever state the failed node left
 them, which may or may not be an acceptable risk in some situations.
 Some sort of distributed filesystem (on redundant storage) shared among
 all the machines in question seems preferable...


Except in my case, I'm looking for distributed block devices on which my
VMs will put their own file system.  I could use image files on a
distributed file system (which is how I tried to use gluster last year),
but then I end up with the terrible overhead of a file system inside
another file system.  This tends to create a ridiculous amount of head
seeks and quite a bit more IO than a single file system, even with
noatime,nodiratime set all around.  With atime on both file systems, IO
goes strait to pot.
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Re: replicated file system?

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Feb 28, 2012 at 2:50 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:

 There *are* distributed filesystems -- btrfs has ceph, which has come a
 long,
 long way. Lustre and Gluster also come to mind.  Caveat: I've not used
 these,


I worked with the good folks at Gluster at my last job, fall of 2009.  They
were great, but it just did not work well for my application (storing
virtual machine boot images) but I expect it will work very well for this
application.  It was tricky to setup at the time, but they were just about
to launch a major release that was supposed to make everything trivial, so
maybe that's the way to go.


 On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:44:54 -0500 Kenny Lussier wrote

 I thought about drbd, but that is active/backup only.


I'm not sure what you are getting at here, but I use DRBD as part of an HA
storage stack (DRBDLVMiSCSIHeartbeat) for cloud storage in the host
machines.  I believe this would work nicely for your purposes as well.  Add
in heartbeat to take care of failover and you could be good to go.  I
picked pieces from the very well written Building a redundant iSCSI and NFS
cluster with 
Debianhttp://www.markround.com/archives/44-Building-a-redundant-iSCSI-and-NFS-cluster-with-Debian-Part-1.htmlto
setup HA storage on Ubuntu Lucid hosts and I'm near the finish line of
a
reboot of the project at my current employer using CentOS 6 hosts.  Don't
be scared off by all the source builds in that guide.  It is all done with
a package manager now.  Just a matter of figuring out which packages/repos
to install.
http://www.markround.com/archives/44-Building-a-redundant-iSCSI-and-NFS-cluster-with-Debian-Part-1.html
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Re: No-brainer backup from Linux to space on remote drive?

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 6:48 PM, Stephen Ryan step...@sryanfamily.infowrote:

 On Tue 14 Feb 2012 05:06:24 PM EST, Alan Johnson wrote:
  On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 4:47 PM, Stephen Ryan
  step...@sryanfamily.info mailto:step...@sryanfamily.info wrote:
  Deja Dup is the default backup app in Ubuntu 11.10; it was very
  easy to
  get set up and it's very unobtrusive during normal usage.
 
 
 
  That's a client side app that would have to be configured on each
  client, right?  Backuppc will certainly take a little fiddling for
  each machine, but not much more than a client side backup program will
  take for each machine and it will handle backups for all the mentioned
  systems in one web interface running on one server, so long as the
  files you want to backup are made available over the network.

 Yup it is; I was assuming, though, that with a WD network drive, he'd
 have an easier time of setting up client-side backups than trying to
 persuade the WD network drive to install something centralized.  My
 assumption might very well be wrong...


Any network drive could be used as the backup storage by any other machine
running the backup service, but with the additional clarifications, your
guess was more useful than mine anyway. =)  I'd go this route too if all I
was doing was a single client and don't care if other people's backups
fail.  I'm the sysadm in my house whether I like it or not.  If some one
isn't doing proper backups, I'm the one stuck with the job of data recovery
anyway which is way more work, headache, and heartache, than keeping a
backup server running.  =)
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Re: No-brainer backup from Linux to space on remote drive?

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Ralph A. Mack ralphm...@comcast.netwrote:

 If backup (or any act of maintenance) is something I need to remember to
 do, it will never happen. If it's something I can set up once and then
 forget about for a few years, that'll work. I know that's not the attitude
 of an IT professional, but home is where I come to leave my profession
 behind for a few hours and use my computers to make art and music and
 stories and write essays and plan the revolution :), using open source
 tools wherever I can.


With the other clarifications in this thread, I think you are on the right
path for your goals.  However, unless I am missing your hyperbole, you are
dooming yourself if you plan to forget about your backups for a few years.
At the very least, you need to check it once in a while to make sure it is
still running as expected, no matter what solutions you go with.  The
least-effort, safest solution is probably to have something email you when
it runs with short but sufficient output to confirm the backup ran
completely as expected.  That way you can be sure things are happy with a
glance at an email and a quick delete, and the more frequent you get them,
the sooner you are likely to notice if they stop coming.  I'd go with daily
myself, but you'll have to figure out what's right for you.  Don't relay on
emails only in the case of failure because you email system could fail just
as well.
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Re: No-brainer backup from Linux to space on remote drive?

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 3:11 PM, Ralph A. Mack ralphm...@comcast.netwrote:

 Yeah, I probably didn't say exactly what I meant, just what I wished I
 could mean. :) The key thing is that I can be reactive at need rather than
 proactive. Email is a good tool to tell me I'd better take a look. That'll
 work. Like several years ago when my son was playing by himself in the
 other room and then things got a little _too_ quiet and I had to go see
 what he was up to. :)


haha!  My kids are just getting past that age: they are often quite, but it
still doesn't feel right. =)


 Since I'm setting up daily backup and I generally log myself out, I can
 have my systems tell me the date of the last successful backup when I log
 in, too. If the backups go down and I haven't logged in since then, I
 haven't been generating any new data to back up. I can fix them before I
 start working again and be ok. That's probably the lowest life-impact
 solution, but it'll take a little more work to set up, so I'll probably go
 the email route even though it means a bit more daily spew from several
 systems to glance at and toss out.


I love the on-login idea!  Just add it to your startup applications (on
gnome or unity, but did around in the menus).  A command like `tail -n #
logfile | gedit` should do the trick.  More reliable than email too, in
this case.



 One characteristic of all us tech folks, I think - we'll put an amazing
 amount of effort into all sorts of Rube Goldberg devices to afford us the
 sheer luxury of being magnificently lazy. :) Here I'm protesting that I
 won't put a lot of effort into setting up backups but I'm already thinking
 about what I'd do for a shell script to scrape the logs, determine success
 or failure, and the flash it up on the screen at login. I think it's a form
 of madness.


By that logic, it could be argued that the entirety of computing is just a
series of Rube Goldberg machines. =)  Just look at any source code.  Think
about what it takes to turn even a basic hello-world program into a pattern
photons that hit your eyes just right.  I think it is just the nature of
building off of other people's work.  I like to think of it as standing on
the shoulders of giants.

I once read that a good system administrator is one who automates tedious
tasks before they become tedious.  This implies a perfect amount of lazy. =)
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Re: No-brainer backup from Linux to space on remote drive?

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Shawn O'Shea sh...@eth0.net wrote:

  I've heard good things about BackupPC, but never personally tried it. It
 supports Linux/Win/OSX, and is designed for backing up to servers (your
 network drive in this case). It has a Web GUI.
 http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/info.html


Use it at home and probably will at work soon.  Love it.  Does take a bit
of configuring, but the GUI works you through it.  It uses hardlinks to
de-duplicate any files that are identical (uses a hash database) so it can
be pretty hard on inodes.  Best to mkfs with small files settings or use a
file system that has infinite inodes.  I use reiserfs on my backup drive
for this reason.  Is it XFS that also has no inode issues?  I stick with
reiser because I don't want to piss him off.

Another trick I've learned is to make sure you have stable/static IPAs:
manual-static code them in or DHCP-static code them by MAC address if your
DHCP server allows (much nicer IMHO).  This only matters if you are using
one of the transfer options that use SSH since it relies on key changes. I
think there is a way to tell SSH/rsync to ignore key errors, but then you
might mess up your clients.  I have not see a way to uniquely identify a
server other than by name/IPA.

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Re: No-brainer backup from Linux to space on remote drive?

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 4:47 PM, Stephen Ryan step...@sryanfamily.infowrote:

 On 02/14/2012 03:16 PM, Ralph A. Mack wrote:
  I don't want to take a lot of time studying the problem or fiddling with
 a lot of options. I'd rather do my creative stuff than spend my life doing
 IT. (I switched from Gentoo to Ubuntu for a reason. :) ) Backup for me is a
 practical necessity rather than a life project, so I want something that
 just works, errs on the side of caution, doesn't require continuing
 attention and maintenance, etc. So I turned on Time Machine from my Mac.
 What can I use that will provide comparable simplicity for my Linux boxes?
 Do any of them also have a reasonable Windows port? (My witless Atom
 netbook is running Windows 7 Essentials and my Mac has a bootcamp
 partition...)

 Deja Dup is the default backup app in Ubuntu 11.10; it was very easy to
 get set up and it's very unobtrusive during normal usage.



That's a client side app that would have to be configured on each client,
right?  Backuppc will certainly take a little fiddling for each machine,
but not much more than a client side backup program will take for each
machine and it will handle backups for all the mentioned systems in one web
interface running on one server, so long as the files you want to backup
are made available over the network.
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Re: VPN only session.

[Alan Johnson]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 7:20 PM, Greg Kettmann g...@kettmann.com wrote:



 On 10/16/2011 11:38 AM, Alan Johnson wrote:

 Have you considered having your windows client only route traffic for your
 VPN through the VPN, leaving everything else for the Internet?  Not sure if
 that is quite what you are looking for, but it is a common configuration.

 Alan:

 Could you explain this to me?  Sorry but I don't understand the concept or
 the setup.  Perhaps this would work but since I don't understand I can't
 fully say.  I seems like it would.

 Thanks.

 GGK


In Windows 7 it should go something like this: right click on your VPN
connection icon and click Properties  Networking tab  highlight the IPv4
line  click Properties button  click Advanced  uncheck Use default
gateway on remote network.  If not Windows 7, let me know the version of
windows you are working on if you can't find something similar.  That will
make only traffic for the network on the other side of the VPN flow through
the VPN with all other traffic going straight to the Internet.  If there is
more than one network on the other side of the VPN, you would have to add
each one manually.  We can cross that bridge if we come it.  If there are
too many, then you'll have to re-check the box to use it as the default and
we'd be back where we started from.
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Fwd: VPN only session.

[Alan Johnson]

reply-to-all fail.  Sorry.
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-- Forwarded message --
From: Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com
Date: Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: VPN only session.
To: Greg Kettmann g...@kettmann.com


On Oct 16, 2011 10:14 AM, Greg Kettmann g...@kettmann.com wrote:

 The problem is that the VPN session randomly drops out.  Basically, I
 start Ubuntu and once it's operational I click on the little up/down
 arrows for network.  I select the VPN and I activate it.  This puts a
 little lock on the up/down arrows and I'm set.  Sometimes the lock drops
 off and I'm sending (or trying to send) in the clear.  Easy enough to
 fix but often a pain to get things back to the proper state.

 What I would prefer is to have the VMware session just be connected via
 VPN... no VPN, no connectivity.  If the VPN connection drops out I don't
 want it to fall back down to sending in the clear.  The whole session
 will stop working and I can restart it.  Is that possible?  I've tried
 searching on this, without much luck, but perhaps my search arguments
 are bad.  I'm not married to Ubuntu nor to VMware player.  If some other
 combination is known to work I'd love to hear about it.


I don't think there is a way to do that directly in the network config.
Besides, your local connection has to be active to enable connecting to the
VPN anyway.  You could turn off dhcp for your local connection in the vm and
manually configure it without dns servers, then name resolution would only
work if you were connected to your VPN.  Browsers will still cache some
names, but that usually times out pretty quickly.  You'd also want to add
your VPN server to /etc/hosts but that can be annoying if the IP address
changes.  This also won't help if you access much by VPN.

You could also write a cron job to shutdown the local interface when the VPN
is down.  You would have to enable the local interface first by clicking on
it in Network Manager (the little up/down arrows) before clicking on your
VPN to enable it.  If you post the output of ifconfig while you are
connected to your VPN, I can post the code and tell you where to put it.  We
could even add a bit to try and keep your VPN connection alive if you also
post output of route -n while connected to the VPN.

Have you considered having your windows client only route traffic for your
VPN through the VPN, leaving everything else for the Internet?  Not sure if
that is quite what you are looking for, but it is a common configuration.
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Video editor recommendations

[Alan Johnson]

My wife is looking for easy video editing software. Something like Picnik
but for video, she says. Just so I can rotate and crop videos, mostly
before uploading to youtube.

We run Lucid and the default editor, Pitivi, crashes when adding a video.
Probably related to bug
586390https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pitivi/+bug/586390which
does not look like it will be fixed too soon in Lucid.  I played
around with it a bit and found it didn't respond as expected either.  Maybe
I could learn it, it would be nice to find something that would just play
after adding a pic and an audio file.  Any relevant thoughts are
appreciated, but the more specific the better.  Thanks!

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Re: eWaste collection event, 21 May, Manchester, NH

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 10:10 PM, Dan Jenkins d...@rastech.com wrote:

 On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 8:14 PM, Jon maddog Hall mad...@li.org wrote:
   I still have my old SEARS portable, manual (non-electric) typewriter
   in my closet.

 I learned to type on a Royal 10 (a 1919 model, I think).


I neevr laenerd to tpye
I jsut msah the koeayrbd nad hpoe for the bset
I get iblgntielile rsseenops msot of the tmie so I msut be dniog sioemhntg
rihgt


http://www.bluestwave.com/toolbox_letter_scrambler.php
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Re: VoltDB?

[Alan Johnson]

Dunno, but there was a recent FLOSS Weekly about it:
http://twit.tv/floss149.  I don't remember anything about it really so
it must not have been too
relevant to us.  We run MySQL at $WORK too.  Certainly worth a download if
you have some drive time or something.
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On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 5:46 PM, Thomas Charron twaf...@gmail.com wrote:

  Anyone looked at this yet?

 http://voltdb.com/

  Just wondering if it's worth the time.  I'm really veering away from
 MySQL due to Oracle, and it seems so shiny and new.  :-D

 --
 -- Thomas
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Re: VoltDB?

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Marc Nozell (m...@nozell.com) 
noz...@gmail.com wrote:

 Have you looked at the Drizzle fork of MySQL?  It is being driven by a
 number of ex-MySQL folks and focusing on cloud/web architectures and
 scaling.

 http://drizzle.org/

 -marc


Yeah, cool.  That one rings a bell.  There is a FLOSS Weekly on that one
too: http://twit.tv/floss35

I like this quote from their discription a lot and remember the sentiment
from that web cast as well: Drizzle has been designed for modern
environments, which are 64bit, multi-core with gigabytes of memory.  MyISAM
has some pretty lame (assuming modern db server hardware) limits on table
definitions that violating results in major performance issues.  I like
enough of what I'd heard that I shared it with our DBA.
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Re: Resara Server release

[Alan Johnson]

 Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Warren Luebkeman war...@resara.com wrote:

 Today, after over a year of full time development, we are launching Resara
 Server Beta 1, which features:

 An Active Directory Compatible Domain with Samba 4
 User and PC Management
 File Serving
 Automatic Drive Mapping
 DNS/DHCP Management
 Local/Remote Backup System (coming next month)


I love this idea.  Is replacing Exchange on the road map?  Does it have it's
own config database, or does it store all config info in the standard files,
allowing compatibility with other config editors like webmin, ebox, or
vim/emacs/nano/sed/ed/cat/butterflies http://xkcd.com/378/?
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Re: Force apt-get to ignore dependencies?

[Alan Johnson]

On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Ryan Stanyan ryan.stan...@gmail.comwrote:

 Also,  I think you can force apt to install a package by running apt-
 get -f install.


-f will fix stuff, like getting dependences from a failed dpkg -i and
finishing the install, but won't force an install of a package.  I don't
know if apt can do that.  dpkg is definitely the command I'd fight with, as
Jefferson suggested or something similar.
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Re: Open Webinar Software that runs on Linux

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 3:42 PM, Jon 'maddog' Hall mad...@li.org wrote:

 Hi,

 I am trying to find some Open Source software that can do a webinar.


I heard about Big Blue Button http://bigbluebutton.org/ on a recent
eppisode of FLOSS weekly http://twit.tv/floss147.  It is only focused on
remote learning, but I think it meets most of your specs.  Only user
environment requirment is Flash in the browser for most, and Java only for
feeding in audio/video, such as for the presenter.  They've got like a 10min
server setup guide for an Ubuntu box.  Their biggest focus is on making such
collaboration easy: like pressing a big blue button.  Similar, but not to
be confused with the red button used to get office supplies, etc.   ;-)
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Re: Netflix and Hulu [Was Re: Computer hardware for sale, cheap]

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Dan Jenkins d...@rastech.com wrote:

 From this discussion, I learned a few things I didn't know. I hadn't
 realized that Silverlight (required for Netflix) works under Linux. That
 was pleasing to find out.


I've had a computer hooked up to my 52 TV for years now, even before I
started streaming Netflix.  Now I watch Hulu, Comedy Central, Amazon
OnDemand and misc content providers, but I dropped Netflix we when I
switched our TV computer to Ubuntu.  Is there really a Silverlight for
Linux?  I'd be tempted to renew our Netflix account if I could get it to
work without much hassle.  I'd be happier if it were not an M$ software, but
I see Flash as only slightly less evil and I happily made that concession a
while ago.  I looked through the previous thread you reference, but I don't
find Silverlight in there anywhere.  Is it a hack like IEs for Linux, or
is it straight up supported by M$?  Got a link handy?  I don't mind googling
on my own, so if it is not handy, don't bother.

Netflix online is such a better deal than Hulu Plus right now.  I too am
annoyed at no public list of exactly what you get with HuluPlus over Hulu
(exactly which shows you get full runs of, etc).  Also, while I am very
pleased with how Hulu has handled commercials so far (way less annoying than
most content servers), but paying to watch commercials just doesn't feel
right. =)

Say, are there any more Linux friendly competitors to Netflix out there?

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Re: Netflix and Hulu [Was Re: Computer hardware for sale, cheap]

[Alan Johnson]

rant
Uhg.  I feel I new subject coming on, but I don't have the heart to go there
yet.  DRM is such a joke.  Pirate says: You put pixels on my screen?  I can
capture them.  Who do they think they are?  DRM serves no purpose but to
make it more difficult for legitimate users to get at the content they paid
good money for.  I'm a little annoyed that Amazon's down-loadable option is
for windows only, but their lose since I just use their bandwidth to stream
my videos in the Flash player, over and over and over...

Donkeys.
/rant
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On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Dan Jenkins d...@rastech.com wrote:
  There's no equivalent listing I can find in Netflix.

 http://www.netflix.com/BrowseSelection

  Use the Watch Instantly box in the lower left to limit to diskless
 content.

  Or try http://instantwatcher.com/ for a less pretty, but possibly
 more powerful, UI.

   From this discussion, I learned a few things I didn't know. I hadn't
  realized that Silverlight (required for Netflix) works under Linux. That
  was pleasing to find out.

   Netflix needs Silverlight (an implementation of which *is* available
 for Linux) and Microsoft's DRM libraries (which are not).

 -- Ben

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SOLVED: Re: Android printer recommendations

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:

 I vaguely remember topics like this floating around before, but since these
 things change so much I didn't see much point in digging it up.

 I'm looking for a new scanner/printer/copier combo and my wife wants to be
 able to print from her Android as well as our Ubuntu boxes.  Something stand
 alone (wifi) would be ideal.  I found some rave references to an Android app
 http://www.printershare.com/mobile.sdf and the pay-for version ($5) says
 it will print to wifi and bluetooth printers.  HP has a free Android app for
 their printers but it appears to only print photos, which is not what we are
 trying to accomplish.

 $5 is fine, but I'm hoping some on here has some direct experience with
 this software or had a better, more open, way to print from Android as well
 as some wifi printer/scanner/copier combo that is known to work well with
 either method.  All comments are welcome.

 ___
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 a...@datdec.com



Based on recommendations to avoid bottom-of-the line HPs, I ended up buying
this mid-level at Staples so I could return it if it didn't work out:
http://www.staples.com/StaplesProductDisplay?langId=-1storeId=10001productId=368839catalogIdentifier=2cmArea=SEARCH

It has a web interface and is able to print documents emailed to it, so no
software is strictly necessary, and should meet my wife's desired to print
from her phone, but we have not done anything other than a basic test email
with it (not attachments yet).  Ubuntu Lucid connects just fine to it's
network service and works perfectly.

Scanning fine for me, but isn't perfect.  It will only do 600dpi in the web
interface (or via touch screen that will email you a scan), and neither
Simple Scan (default install in Lucid) nor XSane automatically detect the
scanner out of the box.  I didn't put any effort into trouble shooting since
I have not needed more than 600dpi yet.

Copying is of course, just fine, and I love the ability to print to both
sides of the paper automatically.  The kids have enjoyed some of the apps on
their for crafts and such.  They especially enjoyed the craft printing where
you cut and tape little 3D objects out of the paper (cars, trains, fairy
houses, etc.).  I didn't find any of the other apps worth playing with, and
there are not very many.

HP has a print app for android but it only prints photos, so I have not
bothered to install it yet.
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Re: Android printer recommendations

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 5:22 PM, Marc Nozell (m...@nozell.com) 
noz...@gmail.com wrote:

 Ok granted I do work for HP, but...

 The latest printer they gave to teleworkers is an OfficeJet 6500 which
 is a home/SMB printer/scan/fax that sits on the desk.   It is wired or
 wireless network.  CUPS and Win/Vista has no problem printing directly
 to it, duplex and other 'printing profiles' (black only, photo, etc).
 And xsane works just great with it as well.  No config hacking
 required.

 -marc


Would you provide the modle number on that, please?  I've found several
options within the OfficeJet 6500 name.  For example, here is a list of
options that Printer Share Mobile works with:

HP Officejet 6500 All-in-one Printer - e709a
HP Officejet 6500 All-in-one Printer - e709c
HP Officejet 6500 e709a
HP Officejet 6500 e709c
HP Officejet 6500 e709n
HP Officejet 6500 e710
HP Officejet 6500 e710a-f
HP Officejet 6500 e710n-z
HP Officejet 6500 Wireless All-in-one Printer - e709n
HP Officejet 6500 Wireless All-in-one Printer - e709q
HP Officejet 6500 Wireless e709n
HP Officejet 6500 Wireless e709q

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Re: Android printer recommendations

[Alan Johnson]

Never mind.  I found an HP printer that let's you email print jobs to it.
No drivers needed, completely OS independent.  Probably limited in the
format types, but I'll let you all know if there is anything particularly
lame about it.
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On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:

 I vaguely remember topics like this floating around before, but since these
 things change so much I didn't see much point in digging it up.

 I'm looking for a new scanner/printer/copier combo and my wife wants to be
 able to print from her Android as well as our Ubuntu boxes.  Something stand
 alone (wifi) would be ideal.  I found some rave references to an Android app
 http://www.printershare.com/mobile.sdf and the pay-for version ($5) says
 it will print to wifi and bluetooth printers.  HP has a free Android app for
 their printers but it appears to only print photos, which is not what we are
 trying to accomplish.

 $5 is fine, but I'm hoping some on here has some direct experience with
 this software or had a better, more open, way to print from Android as well
 as some wifi printer/scanner/copier combo that is known to work well with
 either method.  All comments are welcome.

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Re: Linux has won

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

  So, while I've been slaving away in the world of corporate IT, it
 appears Linux has quietly won the OS war.  I just didn't notice.
 Linux may already be out-shipping Microsoft Windows.

  Work has me shopping for a large flat panel display for a conference
 room.  It appears that it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to
 buy a TV that is not running Linux internally.  Every manufacturer
 spec I've seen so far has had a GPL notice pointing to Linux kernel
 source code.  And while personal computers have certainly much more
 pervasive over the years, they've still got nothing on the boob tube.


Yeah, between that and Android (plus other Linux phones with more sure to
follow shortly), we are certainly very close if not there already.  I don't
even know anyone who wants Windows 7 Mobile on their phone, let alone anyone
who has one.  Anyone?

On a tangent, I get a kick out of Intel's adds lately telling me that I'm
going to be able to do all this cool Internet stuff with my the new TV
with Intel Inside that they want me to buy so I can pick from a handful of
apps in their store and connect my TV to the Facebook account I don't have
or want.  The kick comes from seeing the adds on Hulu and Comedy Central
being viewed on my 8+ old year old 52 rear projection screen with a little
Ubuntu box on top.

My TV has been on the Internet for about 4 years now, and I imagine many
of you have done so as well.  Now, this group may be early adopters of such
tech, but as Ben points out, most new TVs already come with some kind of
fairly capable computer built into them, many with Boxee or similar
functionality.  Apple TV's been our for years.  Granted many of those
systems have Intel Inside (including the Dell Hybrid on my set) but Intel
want the general public to think they are directly responsible for brining
this innovation that's already here, and they are likely to be successful.
Remember when they did the same thing with Wifi a few years ago?  I spent a
memorable bit of the 2nd 2 years of my time in the wireless consulting biz
explaining to average users that the Intel Centrino was not the invention of
wireless LANs.

So, you've got to hand it to Intel marking.  Sleaziness aside, they sure
know how to manipulate the ignorance of the average consumer.  =)
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Android printer recommendations

[Alan Johnson]

I vaguely remember topics like this floating around before, but since these
things change so much I didn't see much point in digging it up.

I'm looking for a new scanner/printer/copier combo and my wife wants to be
able to print from her Android as well as our Ubuntu boxes.  Something stand
alone (wifi) would be ideal.  I found some rave references to an Android app
http://www.printershare.com/mobile.sdf and the pay-for version ($5) says it
will print to wifi and bluetooth printers.  HP has a free Android app for
their printers but it appears to only print photos, which is not what we are
trying to accomplish.

$5 is fine, but I'm hoping some on here has some direct experience with this
software or had a better, more open, way to print from Android as well as
some wifi printer/scanner/copier combo that is known to work well with
either method.  All comments are welcome.

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Fwd: SAVE THE DATE Dec. 1st: Jared Duval on NEXT GENERATION DEMOCRACY

[Alan Johnson]

-- Forwarded message --
From: Denis R. Rydjeski denis.r.rydje...@dartmouth.edu
Date: 2010/11/10
Subject: SAVE THE DATE Dec. 1st: Jared Duval on NEXT GENERATION DEMOCRACY
To: Denis R. Rydjeski denis.r.rydje...@dartmouth.edu


WHEN:   Wednesday, December 1st -at 7:00 pm
WHERE: Kilton Public Library Community Room, 80 Main St., West Lebanon, NH
WHAT:   Jared Duval presenting his new book!

Please join author Jared Duval and co-hosts the Rotary Club of
Lebanon-Riverside, the Upper Valley Land Trust, and the Upper Valley Sierra
Club for a presentation and discussion of Jared's just published book: NEXT
GENERATION DEMOCRACY: What the Open-Source Revolution Means for Power,
Politics, and Change.

God knows previous generations have left those that are coming of age a
world of trouble. Happily, they're figuring out a world of ways to set them
right. Jared Duval's book offers a behind-the-scenes tour of the next wave
of activism, organizing, inspiration, and change. It will give you cause to
hope--and cause to go to work.  - Bill McKibben, Author, Deep Economy and
Earth

Jared Duval is currently a fellow with Demos. A native of the Upper Valley
and an LHS graduate, from 2000-2001 he helped lead a successful effort to
save the Great Hollow Wetlands from a major construction project. Jared went
on to serve as the youngest member of Howard Dean's policy team during the
2004 Presidential election. From 2005 ­ 2007 Jared served as the National
Director of the Sierra Student Coalition, the national student chapter of
the Sierra Club and the largest student environmental organization in
America. Jared currently serves on the national Board of Directors for the
Sierra Club and is also a Trustee of the Orton Family Foundation. A
recipient of the Morris K. Udall and Harry S. Truman scholarships, he
graduated Summa Cum Laude from Wheaton College in Massachusetts in 2005.

- - - The Kilton Public Library is located at 80 Main St., West Lebanon, NH.
For more on the book please see www.nextgendemocracy.com  To purchase a copy
ahead of time please visit www.norwichbookstore.com Copies will also be
available for purchase and signing during the event.

If you would like to discontinue receiving announcements of events such as
this, please REPLY TO SENDER with UNSUBSCRIBE on the subject line.

Best -- Denis and Betsy

Denis Rydjeski, Programs and Outings Chair
Betsy Eldredge, Secretary
SIERRA CLUB of the Upper Valley
520 Parker Hill Road
Springfield, VT 05156-9343
(802) 885-4826
email: d...@dartmouth.edu
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FLOSS text books (was Re: Representative Seth Cohn)

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Seth Cohn sethc...@gnuhampshire.org wrote:

 Yes, I actually mentioned this to Jim Danforth yesterday at the polls
 (one of the few R Senate candidates who lost his race, but that wasn't
 a surprise - he knew he was likely taking one for the team), and he
 said the current textbook contracts are like 20 year things (more than
 I know about it), and didn't think it would be easy to break them.
 That said, I agree, it's a needed step.


Ah, but then how far into that 20 years are you?

Oh, and congrats, Seth! =)
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FLOSS text books (was Re: Representative Seth Cohn)

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 6:49 PM, Mike Bilow mik...@colossus.bilow.comwrote:

 Open source software is all well and good, but if you want to really
 scare the crap out of people and shake things up in a state legislature,
 start talking about open source _textbooks_ as well:

 http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2008/09/open-source-tex/

 -- Mike


Very nice!  But, why does this need to be a commercial venture?  Why not
follow the wikipedia model?  Something a little tighter for editing would be
needed, but consider the volume and quality of information that is already
there.  I expect much of that would provide a good base for
converting/developing into textbook/tutorial format.  Heck, the wikipeida
guys out to just do it.  I don't mean to over simplify the effort, but it
seems like a reasonable next step.
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[OT] ENERGY STAR Low Carbon IT Campaign

[Alan Johnson]

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_power_mgt_low_carbon

A good place to start thinking about energy in your organization.  If we
geeks don't, who will?
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Re: Broadcom WiFi -- for a public library -- in Fedora 13 maybe?

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Bill Sconce sco...@in-spec-inc.com wrote:

 After an initial visit, I burned a Fedora 13 live CD for them
 to try, took it over to the library, booted it and showed it off.
 All OK.

 But then the zinger: of COURSE...they only use wireless.  And
 of COURSE...the laptop has a Broadcom Wifi adapter.  And of course
 it doesn't work.


I've since install Ubuntu 9.10 on a really old Dell laptop with broadcom
wifi and it works beautifully.  It is not there right after install, but
when connected wired, it hardware driver tool finds the necessary packages
and installs them with minimal effort.  You must simply agree to the
warnings about installing prorpietary crap, and it just works.  That said, I
don't believe all broadcoms are the same, so YMMV, but it is worth a shot
IMHO.  If it were me, I'd tried 10.04 first since that is long term service.

In full disclosure, this machine was rebuild for my son to use with an
Arduino board I got him for his 5th birthday, so it has not spent much time
in the on state. So, I can't speak explicitly to stability, but I never
had trouble keeping these Broadcoms on line once they were on.


 (*) 2/22: Wherein Alan Johnson offers the clearly definitive advice,
 In any case, be sure to steer clear of Broadcom.


Awe, shucks. =)  Also, I think that same thread lists several very cheap USB
wifi options that just work in Linux.  You can find a nice list of them some
where on wiki.ubuntu.com and I expect Fedora has something similar.
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Re: [OT] Small business/SOHO accounting

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Bill McGonigle b...@bfccomputing.comwrote:

 On 05/10/2010 03:06 PM, Benjamin Scott wrote:
  For this user, traditional software and web services are both
  acceptable.

 maybe QuickBooks online then?


I've had great experience with QBOE except for the pricing and the Windows
only support.  They support Firefox now, but still only on Windows.  But
that doesn't bother you and even the price isn't really terrible at a couple
of hundred a year for 2 or 3 users, plus an accountant.  It is not enough to
motivate me to migrate to some thing else yet.

Intuit in general does have sucky support, IMHO, but the QBOE support is
fantastic.  I have had several interactions with them.  They were always on
the ball and make an effort to get in touch with you within a hour of your
request.  Follow up and response time is quick and they are quick to pick up
the phone, which you can ignore if you would prefer to proceed by text.
They have helped me track down very obsure problems even with the merchant
account. Plus the context sensative on-line has basically taught me
accounting and bookkeeping: very well written.

No ESL or accent problems so far.
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[OL] Re: Wanted - SATA/PATA/USB2 SSD with bad sectors for bcache testing (and offer of bcache presentation)

[Alan Johnson]

I don't think any of ours are bad, but I've got piles of 512GB SSDs at the
moment, and I'm about to order more, so if you would like to do some
benchmarking with lots of parallel SSDs, we might be able to help.  I don't
know if I can let them out of the building since they are supposed to go
into production eventually, but we have plenty of bench space and hardware
at the moment, so if you want to come here and play some day, just let me
know.

I am very interested in this project because we are currently paying Bill M.
some real money just to TRY and setup my ultimate cloud storage solution
use layers of Nexenta virtual machines to get ZFS introduced into our Ubuntu
friendly environment.  I am wondering if we could tackle this more simply
with bcache as part of the picture.  I also wonder how bcache would work
with FusionIO in the mix.  We are about to order a couple more of those, so
we should have a window where we can play with them before they go into
production.

Maybe you Bills and I should get together for lunch to see if there is some
way we can help eachother out.  Let me know.
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On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 1:46 PM, William Stearns wstea...@pobox.com wrote:

 Good afternoon, all,
Seriously?  He wants _bad_ sectors? I hear them say.  :-)

I'm working on a linux kernel project that uses SSD's to cache
 normal rotating media hard drives.  bcache is in early development and not
 stable for general use, but the performance numbers are enticing:

 * md5sum of small files: 3.5MB/sec off hard drive, 14.5MB/sec off SSD
 cache.

 * directory listing of large fragmented tree: 390 seconds off hard drive,
 202 seconds off SSD cache.

 * md5sum of 1.995GB file with 23,522 extents: 251 seconds from HD
 (7.948MB/sec), 82 seconds from SSD cache (24.329MB/sec).

On a side note, I'd be happy to give a talk with a live demo on
 bcache to any gnhlug chapter; get in touch if you have an open month.

As part of the testing, I want to make sure that the code is
 resilient enough to recognize bad sectors on the SSD cache and not
 panic/bug/die.  That requires an SSD with bad sectors.  Size and speed are
 not critical.  I have the ability to connect to sata, pata, and usb.
Anyone have one?

Before I get inundated with offers, I already have a hard drive
 with underlying bad sectors for that part of the testing.  Come to think
 of it, I probably have 15 to 20 hard drives with issues.  :-)
Cheers,
- Bill

 ---
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it
 never will.  Find out just what people will submit to, and you have
 found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed
 upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either
 words or blows, or with both.  The limits of tyrants are prescribed by
 the endurance of those whom they oppress.
-- Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857
 (Courtesy of Eric S. Raymond)
 --
 William Stearns (wstea...@pobox.com, tools and papers: www.stearns.org)
 Top-notch computer security training at www.sans.org , www.giac.net
 --
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Re: du(1) for FTP sites

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 4:10 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

  I'm looking for something like du(1), except taking an FTP site
 instead of a local directory path.  Trying to scope out disk usage on
 an FTP site I don't have shell access to.

  Non-GUI strongly preferred, but I'll take what I can get.


fuseftp mount then du?
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Re: Authentication on the Internet (bogus emails looking for money)

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 5:26 PM, Lloyd Kvam lk...@venix.com wrote:

 Do you think it is hopeless trying to educate users to import a
 certificate and protect it with a pass phrase?


Yes, see #5:
http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/
However, that's not to say you can't offer them options, but you can't count
on them not posting whatever private key/password they use on Facebook.  A
good sys admin assumes dumb users because it only takes one dumb move to
compromise your security and we all make dumb moves some times, users and
admins, smart and dumb a like.

Also, if you make the cert your only option, then the substantial question
is not about the reliability of your users, but their willingness to
overcome potential barriers to use your service.  I.e, it depends on your
audience.

Personally, I like the open id concept.  Assuming you have a secure
provider, and a secure password/cert with them, I think this offers the best
balance of convenience and security.  No reason your users should complain
if you offer plane old password, cert auth, and open id, but you might find
some reason to complain about maintaining them all.  I don't know.
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[OT?] call for info on security professional certifications

[Alan Johnson]

My employer is putting together a position description for an IT Security
Officer.  We expect this to be a senior level sys admin with at least some
specific security experience.  What we are trying to figure out is if we
should included any certifications in either the required or desired
qualifications.  I'm not particularly interested in general network
certifications like a CCNA which touch on security concepts, but if there is
some kind of white-hat hacker school for the gifted cert, or something in
between, I'd love to hear about it.

A little more back ground: our corporate IT environment is MS (currently),
so certs in that department would not hurt, but my understanding is that
this position is going to be primarily focused on our production systems.
Our production stack is primarily MySQL, NFS, and Java on Linux, but we are
working on a project that will make the Solaris kernel a key component.  We
have Juniper SRXs at the edge currently, managed by a third party, but I'm
trying to convince my bosses that we should replace them with pfSense
managed by internal resources, partly for security reasons.

Direct suggestions as well as me too comments are appreciated since we are
trying to get a feel for concensus.

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Re: [OT?] call for info on security professional certifications

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 10:30 AM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:
  What we are trying to figure out is if we
  should included any certifications in either the required or desired
  qualifications.

   Some of this depends on what the job duties will really entail.
 That is, whether the IT Security Officer going to be more about
 managing people and workloads than actually vetting the technical
 aspects of security.  You emphasize production systems; in that case,
 I presume more technical stuff.  Tech certs are, of course, more
 applicable for tech stuff.


I had tech certs in mind, but if this jobs is done right, it will required a
lot of upwards management, IMHO.  I didn't think certified boss manager
was an option, but I like to check it out if it is! =)  Seriously though, I
don't believe downward management skills are an issue here, but policy
creation, implementation, and enforcement are sure to be at the heart of the
job.


  The DoD is now requiring all staff who work in an Information
 Assurance role to maintain security certifications.  That includes
 staff of commercial contractors.


You mean, like clearance levels, or some tech security cert?


   I have yet to see tests or courseware, but looking at the
 brochureware, the GIAC/SANS and ISC^2 certifications describe what
 look like good programs, once you get beyond the fundamental levels.


Thanks!


  Personally, while I place relatively little value on fancy pieces of
 paper, I don't think they're worthless, either.

  Certifications are commonly used as part of a resume screening
 process.  If you get 1000 applications, narrowing the field is
 difficult.  So require a certification, and you at least filter out
 the people who spam every tech job they see.


Yes, I expect it will only be used as a filter if the volume is significant.



  Full disclosure: I have no college degree and no major
 certifications.  [However, on several occasions, I've been told I'm
 certifiable.  ;-) ]


As are many of the best techs I know. =)
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Re: [OT] iPad

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:51 AM, Chip Marshall c...@2bithacker.net wrote:

 On 23-Mar-2010, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.com sent:
So any thoughts on the iPad?

 I think it's overpriced for what it does. For the same cost as
 the base model iPad you can buy a Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t, a
 convertible touchscreen netbook/tablet. It may not be as shiny as
 the Apple product, but you can run whatever you like on it.


This appears to be made from a review template for all Apple products.  You
just filled in the blanks with iPad and Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t, a
convertible touchscreen netbook/tablet, didn't you?
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Re: External Monitoring and Alerting (follow-up)

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 10:19 PM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote:

 ... very feature-rich monitoring system. It
 seems to follow in the footsteps of so many other powerful, flexible,
 highly configurable open source applications.


If that's the kind of thing you are looking for, then you might consider
OpenNMS.  They offer repos so it was very easy to get up and running.  From
what I understand, it can do just about anything, it is just a question of
how well what's already available fits into your problem versus
writing/customizing your own plugins (there are many supported languages).
It competes with the likes of HP Openview, and What's Up Gold, or
Solarwinds, so it might be over kill for your appliction.

Now, getting it running and making it do what you want are 2 very different
things.  I have not had as much time as I'd like, but for our internal use,
it gently discovered everything in the IPA range I gave it, and started ping
monitoring.  It gathers very nice statistics from that.  After tweaking some
SNMP settings, I have it getting some kind of data off all the ports of a
near-by switch, but I haven't gotten far enough to get the graphs I want yet
(throughput per port).  I've done all that with just the web interface, but
I haven't made anything interesting happen with the config files, which is
where I have to focus to get what I want out of it.


 The documentation it
 severely lacking, and the forums are full of me too :-)


OpenNMS appears to have extensive documentation to the point where it is a
lot to wade through.  So far, I have tried to skim thorugh it, but I'm not
familiar enough with the under lying concepts (SNMP etc.) to get where I
want with skimming.  I just have to slow down and do some periferal reading
as well, which I will probably never have time for. =)

They also appear to have a very active and helpful community.  I have not
participated yet, because I don't want to bother anyone unless I am able to
focus on the issues, which I don't have the cycles for right now.  I'm sure
that if we HAD a decent monitoring system, I'd have more cycles for projects
like this! =)  Instead, I just respond to problems when they've gotten bad
enough for a user to notice.  blah.

Finally, there is a commercial support offering.  So if you can talk the
bosses into spending money, you could pay them to set it up and show you the
ropes.
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Re: Really old /proc weirdness?

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:

 While I have no insights -- none -- into what's going on with your /proc
 weirdness, if triviata of that detail is significant to your system
 reproduction, I'd probably break down, blow away the (non-boot) files on
 the new server, tar everything over from the old one, and
 re-ip/re-hostname.


Before you go that far, you could do a recursive diff on /etc.  I'm guessing
it is not a difference in /proc or the kernel since top shows you what you
want/expect while ps doesn't.  My guess is that different defaults are in
play here.  That is, the defaults settings changed over the years, which
were maintained through the updates on the old system, but the newer system
has newer defaults from of newer install media.  Of course, this might not
be about defaults, but maybe just some obscure settings you missed deep in
the guts of /etc that some one tweaked.  Also, it might be an environment
varialbe set in either /etc or some user home dir.

Meld is a decent recursive GUI diff tool if you are looking for one.  If you
have an Ubuntu box, you can get it from their repos.
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Re: Ubuntu Server Set Up must haves...

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 9:57 AM, bruce.lab...@autoliv.com wrote:

 Webmin


In case you don't know, this is one of my favorite tricks.  After a `dpkg -i
webmin...deb` fails, just do a `apt-get -f install` and it will fetch all
the dependencies and finish the webmin install.  Super slick.  Or you could
setup webmin repos now that they have them.


 Any other tools that I might as well install in the beginning?


apt-get and the shell completion makes it so easy to install after things
are running that I generally avoid installing anything extra until I go to
use it.  However, this is your sandbox, so you do what you want with it.
Screen is one package I almost always install because the network is not
reliable.  To think it is would be a fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_Distributed_Computing

=)

So, I do anything sensitive inside a screen session in case I get
disconnected.

 I've done many Desktop installs of Ubuntu, but none for a server.  Any
 must haves?  Anything I should watch out for?


Only do SSH server as and extra package at install.  Doing other packages on
that install-check-box-package screen might give you extra stuff you don't
want.  I find it is cleaner to apt-get the specific packages after install
rather than an unknown set from the install.
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Re: Google Wave?

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 12:43 AM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

 APPLICATIONS OF THE TECHNOLOGY

...

   One suggestion was that it might be good for a QA or focus group
 type of thing, where everyone starts off on the same thing, but
 discussion quickly fractures into a number of smaller groups working
 on their own thing.  Indeed, this is how the SLUG meeting ended up --
 three or four groups of one to three people working on different
 things.


One other thing Wave is clearly valueable for is getting geeks to talk about
google.  =)  Good or bad, the more times we type google, the easier it is
for us to type google. =)

Seriously though, taking this concept to a more general case, a large group
of people could collaborate on a single document in real time.  Small groups
could work on specific sections with immediate access to the work being done
on other sections.  A small number of managers could roam around the
document to watch for overlaps and contradictions, and provide guidance as
needed.  Is that right?

I could see the concept being valuable in a code sprint.  It could better
enable remote participation, but I don't imagine the Wave interface applies
well to coding.  Does it?

Oo, oh, or legislatures working on draft legislation might be a good
specific example.  The play back features could be useful for
accountability. =)  Unfortunately, I don't see the US lawmakers being able
to grasp this in any useful way until our kids start getting elected, but
maybe sooner in a more technologically progressive country like Brazil or
something.

Anyway, nice write-up Ben!  Thanks!
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Re: The illegality of playing DVDs on Linux

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 11:04 AM, Chip Marshall c...@2bithacker.net wrote:

 Legal DVD playback in Linux is entirely possible, you just have
 to buy software to do it.


Yes, it is worth clarifying at this point that it is not Linux that is the
legal whipping boy, but GPL and/or other similarly open licenses that
prevent it from being legal.  Honestly, I don't fully understand the exact
point of contention, but I understand enough to be outraged that I can't
legally use software that some one gave me for free to play DVDs that I paid
for.  The concept of not being able to tell anyone else about it legally is
enough to raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels, so I try hard not to
think about it, which isn't helping the cause.  =/
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Re: The illegality of playing DVDs on Linux

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

  I don't know what the terms of the licensing agreements for this
 stuff are.  I wonder if someone could buy a license for a FOSS
 project?


Maybe, but I'm betting the license structure is on a per
user/install/machine/cpu/core/DIMM/something-more-absurd basis.  In other
words, the upstream agreement surely requires tracking distribution and send
money upstream, which is why Dell can do it without much effort: sell a PC
with Ubuntu pre-installed, pay the patent fee just like they do with all the
other crap the preload on windows.
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Re: Google Wave?

[Alan Johnson]

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 12:07 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

  ... a large group
  of people could collaborate on a single document in real time

  That might work.  I'm not sure how well it would lend itself to a
 large, structured document, though.  No real outline/heading system,
 no ability to hide/zoom on things.


This makes me think: since people who know things are often not the same
people who know how to present things, you could have presentations trolls
formatting a document while the word bulimics continue to spew, oh and
another parallel set of graphics whores, etc.



  It could better enable remote participation, but I don't imagine the Wave
  interface applies well to coding.  Does it?

   Well, it's basically just a text area, so I suppose you could use it
 that way.  And adding syntax highlighting should be fairly
 straight-forward.


As Adam Johnson just pointed out at lunch, the syntax highlight might get
tricky when the entire document below the opening and closing of quotes
changes colors. =)



  Oo, oh, or legislatures working on draft legislation might be a good
  specific example.

   There's no facility for parliamentary procedure.  HHOS.


Ah, but drafting does not require it... I think... nah, it couldn't.
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Re: Interesting article,

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 1:22 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:
   Well, except MacOSX has specific hardware.
 
   Indeed, that's a big part of Apple's strategy.  Design the hardware
  and the software together, and they'll work well together.  And there
  is something to be said for that.
 
  And that's one of Apple's prime advantages.
 
  Advantage?  Well, for Apple, it is an advantages over MS, but certainly
 not
  for the users.

   Eh, I'm not sure about that.  If you buy from Apple's extremely
 limited pool of products, things tend to work together far better than
 I've seen on any Microsoft-compatible platform, even if you buy from a
 single vendor.


Ah, but I've had even better luck sticking to hardware vetted by the Ubuntu
community, and it didn't cost me my freedom, just quite a bit of my geek
cycles, which certainly have there own value. And of course, I've been able
to do things with Ubuntu that I'd never be able to get working with Apple or
MS software.


  The IBM pee sea is a loose collection of vaguely similar things
 which happen to work together sometimes -- and that's being kind.
 Even if you buy everything from a single vendor, things rarely work as
 well together as they do when one company designs everything.


I propose the rarely here is a function of the company in question.  Even
Apple falls into this category for they did not design every thing about
everything they sell either.  To that point, there is rarely a company worth
much more than they are charging across most industries. =)


 The
 IBM-PC platform was not designed -- it evolved.  Like the house that
 Jack built, things have been stuck on, later removed, changed,
 modified, extended, and reinterpreted so many times, by so many
 different actors, it's a wonder it stays standing.  The single-vendor
 solution has to be built to work in that environment, and that's
 harder to do.


The same applies to Apple and Open Source systems, only Apple tor down and
rebuilt more recently than MS, and it is a regular occurrence in open
systems because the openness enables it.



  In contrast, the Apple dictatorship does mean that standards are
 actually... well, *standard*.  Look at Jerry Feldman's problems with
 partitioning.  Ask three different programs how to do partitioning on
 an IBM-PC, and you'll get at least four different, mutually
 incompatible, data-destroying answers.  In the People's Republic of
 Cupertino that would never happen.  Whatever Apple decrees is The One
 True Way to do things.


There is certainly value in a known set of components that work well
together.  You left out the part of my text that pointed explicitly to Apple
making it illegal to use those parts with others outside their blessed set.
Tell me you won't support me for playing with others?  Fine.  Put it in your
EULA that you can sue me if I do?  Go to hell.  That's all I'm saying.



  The only reason Windows has dominance over Linux is inertia ...

  Just as the only reason mankind is limited to one planet is inertia.


Nope, that's gravity.  ;-)  If it were not for gravity, inertia would fling
us off into space.  But I don't think either of us are making points
relevant to the topic, eh?  =)



  ... and the only reason Apple has dominance over Linux is marketing.

   Certainly, Apple's marketing is brilliant.  They know exactly what
 people want to hear, and they say it.  But, in all fairness, they also
 steer their ship in that direction as well.  They see a lot of people
 frustrated with the pee sea, and they build their platform -- the car
 with the hood welded shut -- specifically to appeal to that crowd.


Welding the hood shut does not provide value to drivers that would not open
it in the first place and takes away value from those that would, or know a
friend how is handle with a wrench, or would rather take his car to a local
mechanic than to the dealer.



  Apple could have
  crushed MS by now if they had gone with the GPL attitude instead of
 picking
  BSD so they could keep all their toys to themselves.

   Yah, I'm not buying that.  If all you needed was the GPL, Linux
 would already have crushed Microsoft.  It's had 20 years and Microsoft
 has only gotten stronger in that time.  (When Linux first came out,
 you also had a fleet of commercial Unixes, Novel, several BSDs, OS/2,
 BeOS, and all sorts of other bit player platforms.  Today it's all
 Microsoft, with Apple and Linux nipping at their heels.  If I were to
 draw a conclusion from that, it would be that GPL is good for crushing
 bit players, not the big guys.)


I did not say it was all that was needed.  I only suggest that if you take
the beauty and elegance of Apple's skin, subtract out the I wrote it, you
can't have it, even though 90% of it I got for free from BSD attitude, add
in a share-and-share-alike mentality, and I think they would have crushed MS
by now.  But of course, Apple only

The illegality of playing DVDs on Linux (was Re: Interesting article)

[Alan Johnson]

On Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 8:30 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 5:00 PM, Jon 'maddog' Hall mad...@li.org wrote:
 Not one Linux distro I've seen does a convincing job with consumer
 media, an absolutely basic requirement, and something we ought to be
 able to get right.
 
  Well, please ask the DVD people not to used royalty bearing patents in
  their codecs, and encryption practices ...

 ...

   The problem with consumer media is mostly
 political/legal/economic, not technical. There's a huge amount of
 money being spent to ensure that a small number of large companies
 continue to wield control of the field.  They're willing to spend that
 money because they are protecting an even huger amount of money.
 Linux can provide code, but it can't provide legality.  Nominally, the
 solution is to change the law -- write your congressperson, that sort
 of thing.  But again, lots of money is being spent to keep things the
 way they are.

  Mass public outcry is required, and getting that looks to be
 difficult.


I believe it was this pod cast http://twit.tv/floss95 where I heard this
paraphrased quote: Under DRM laws in the US, not only is it illegal to play
DVDs on Linux, but it is illegal to tell some one else how to do it.  So, I
can't speak to whether or not I've seen Ubuntu play DVDs very nicely if you
install one magical package from the repo.  And to be fair, I haven't tried
recently, so I would also not know if this is something that can still be
done, but I do believe there are some advantages, that may or may not be
related to this subject, to using distros provided by
organizations/companies based outside the US.

If some one feels compelled to listen to that episode (and I encourage you
all to do so), I would greatly appreciate if you would post the exact quote
here.

Fight the power!
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Re: External Monitoring and Alerting

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 8:52 AM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote:

 I have looked at Keynote/RedAlert, Gomez, and a few other third parties.
 However, I can't help but think that I am better off doing it myself. My
 thought was to get virtual servers from various hosting companies (Linode,
 Vereo, GoDaddy, etc.) so that they are geographically and network
 diversified, and deploy something like ZenOSS, Zabbix, or GroundworkIT on
 each to do the testing and centralize the reporting. Does anyone have any
 thoghts on this? Has anyone done it before (I'm sure someone has)?
 Discussion anybody?


I expect 3 VMs to cost you more than a third party service for basic HTTP
uptime based on pattern matches.  We use alertsite.com for such things, but
the cost depends on the number of servers you want to monitor and the
complexity of the monitors.  We just have alertsite check a single URL for
a single pattern, and that is pretty cheap ($20/m? maybe?).  It quickly
gets more expense as you add URLs, but it does 5 minute frequency from 3
location with configurable excalation and black outs for expected down
time.  I get emailed for any hiccup from any location and paged if all 3
fail a couple of times in a row.  They also do automatic traceroutes on a
failure and email daily uptime and response time stats.  You can run adhoc
reports on their site with a good amount of flexibility.

Probably they do a lot more, but this is just how we have it setup.

I have long considered using our remote virtual servers by just enabling the
MON package via webmin.  Not much effort there, but it would not do
everything described above out of the box and we have a third party
requirement from a customer anyway.  Again, if you don't already have the
virtual servers for other reasons, you will probably find this more
expensive than a basic monitoring service, not to mention the overhead of
managing 3 more remote servers and vendors.
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Re: External Monitoring and Alerting

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Kenny Lussier kluss...@gmail.com wrote:

 HTTPS POST is the method that we need to use to test our systems
 availability. However, what we are testing is more than just web site
 availability or performance. It would actually be testing into an
 application, gauging response times and response content. We also need
 the ability to identify the IP addresses that the tests are coming
 from for security reasons.


I don't think altersite.com would keep you from achieving that goal.


 Also, I have noticed that everyone seems to offer either a 15-minute
 or a 5-minute test interval. Is that really the most that is needed?


5-minutes is a common default test interval.  More often than that can add
up to a lot of data that you need to keep over time.  OpenNMS has a nice
poller that polls every 5 minutes until it sees a failure, and then more
frequently until it sees success.  All is configurable.  I have not heard of
this in other systems, but I expect must be some others that support this by
now.  In any case, you need to figure out what intervals are appropriate for
your needs, but 5 minutes is a reasonable place to start from if you don't
want to think too much about it.


 I
 would think that a higher frequency would be better, seeing as how 5
 minutes is beyond the five 9's  uptime that everyone strives for.
 With a home-grown system on VMs, you could test every 30 seconds or
 so.


5 9's is fairly atainable over a varying period of time for most systems,
but is very difficult to tract and nearly impossible to prove.  For example,
even your suggested frequency of 30 seconds would not be sufficient to
confirm 99.999% up time for a month because you would have to prove that you
had less than 25.92s of down time.
30days*24h/day*3600s/h*(100%-99.999%)=25.92s.

Of course there are all sorts of ways to define uptime.  Phone companies
typically get their uptimes from how often some one goes to use the system
and can't because of some system failure rather than how much time it is in
perfect operation.  Marketing folks typically pick some reasonable polling
frequency and assume the system is up inbetween, and/or trust other sources
like system logs that would indicate any failure/recovery.  While not proof
in a mathmatical sence, it is perfectly legal as long as all stake holders
agree on the good-enough definition going into it.  You just have to be
careful about how you word your SLAs, etc.  Leave nothing to assumption. =)
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Re: Interesting article,

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

  For the TL;DR crowd: Zealotry does not help the cause.  It hurts.

  Reality check time.  I suggest zealots take note.  The way you and I
 think is not how most mainstream people think.  If you insist on
 closing your eyes to how the people complaining see things, don't be
 surprised when they continue to complain and just get pissed off.

  If you tell them someone all their concerns about Linux are moot,
 they may *believe you*.  That sets up false expectations.  Then they
 try Linux and discover it *isn't* just like MS Windows.  It's better
 in many ways, worse in some others.  But you told them their concerns
 were a non-issue, when it turns out they still matter.  At best, they
 will feel let down.  At worst, they will go back to Windows, because
 they will feel Linux lies about what it can deliver.


The GPL explicitly and exclusively empowers zealotry.  Windows and Mac
EULA's disallow it. So your concerns over zealotry are a non-issue. I mean,
you just have to look at how much Linux adoption can be attributed to
zealotry already!  Anyone with a superior attitude will tell you that they
have gotten more friends with vinegar than with honey.  Despite common myth,
national taste tests have proven that vinegar is preferred over honey by a
2/3rds majority and that 14.6% of all statistics are completely made up.  If
you don't agree, then you are in the minority and are therefore of no use to
the collective, and therefore your concerns are a non-issue, pending
assimilation.  I have used therefore twice in once sentence and therefore
am undisputiable right, therefore.

Besides, isn't attacking zealotry as wholly inferior... an act of zealotry
itself?

--Alan just fanning the flames Johnson
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Apple and Italian trains (was Re: Interesting article,)

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 6:00 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:

  But low cost?  Freedom?  You never really own a Mac -- you're just
 renting it from Steve Jobs.  As someone said to me recently, There
 can be more than one evil empire.


 http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/trains.asp

I think this is a beautiful analogy for Apple and Jobs, if a bit
hyperbolic.  As the article says, No, thanks.  I'd rather walk.
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Re: Good USB+802.11/WiFi adapter?

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 3:40 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

 Does such a thing exist?


In an infinite universe, everything exists.

  If not, can someone at least recommend something that's worked well
 for them on both platforms?


I can't speak to all those other specifics because the Netgear WG111 (11b/g
USB2) has always just worked in Ubuntu 8.04 through 9.10, even on the live
CD / installer.  I've never had to apt-get anything, let alone install some
sketch thirdparty repo like I did with the Broadcom firmware/drivers
nonsense back in the day.  I still don't think they have Broadcom just right
because an old laptop of mine with Broadcom wifi still does not work with a
fresh install of 9.10.  I'm just using it for a stationary music box, so I
do not care about wifi enough to even look into it.  In any case, be sure to
steer clear of Broadcom.

I don't remember having any trouble with the WG111 on Windows but it has
been years.  I expect newer Windows versions/service packs will run this
thing fine without any special software: maybe a new driver from windows
update, but no custom gui wifi manager crap, etc.  I just plugged it into my
XP box at work and it found drivers from windows updates, installed and
found networks without a fuss.  Ripped it out with out nicely removing it
and not blue screen yet, but I haven't see a blue screen only XP box in
years.

This might be of some help too:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/WirelessCardsSupported
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Re: Good USB+802.11/WiFi adapter?

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 6:49 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:
  ... the Netgear WG111 (11b/g USB2) has always just worked ...

  Do you have the WG111 v1, WG111 v2, or WG111 v3?  Apparently it
 exists in three mutually-incompatible versions.


Oh, right, that non-sense.  I hate such hardware versioning. I mean, just
give it a different model number, eh?

Anyway, the FCCID is PY3WG111V2 so I'd put a couple bucks on V2.
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Re: Good USB+802.11/WiFi adapter?

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 6:54 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:
  ... Netgear WG111 (11b/g USB2) has always just worked ...

  Sorry for the stream of replies here, but do you know if it's using
 ndiswrapper or not?  From what I can tell, the WG111 needed that in
 earlier releases, but maybe not in current releases.


Sorry, no hard data on that either, but...


  My feelings on ndiswrapper can be summed up with, There are much
 easier ways to crash the system.


...I agree with this statement, and I've never seen it even hiccup.  I've
not used it for long periods though.  It holds up well for hours of
high-traffic transfers after a fresh install (i.e. updates and data
restore).

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsNetgearis
a link from the link I sent before and it suggest that realtek drivers
are in effect for v2 and v3, while v1 is ndiswrapper.  From what Bill said,
his more general experience matches my specific case.
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SonicWall hardware: good for anything?

[Alan Johnson]

I've got 4 3060's and 2 2040's.  Decent hardware for firewalling (no moving
parts except fans, and, well, electrons), but the software sucks, IMHO.  I'm
wondering if I can get pfSense onto them and put them back on production.

There is a not-DB15 connector on the MB labled VGA.  It looks like an
8-pin-long floppy/IDE connector: 2 pins wide with a little notch out of one
of the long walls.  Any idea where I can get a cable for that?  If not, I
could probably figure out an install via serial terminal, but I've never
been there before.

The other thing that worries me is chip labled SonicOS BIOS.  I wonder if
that will keep me from running anything non-Sonic.

Other than that, it looks like a pretty standard Intel-platform motherboard
with some extra on-board NICs.  So, before I spent a lot of time hacking at
this thing, I thought I would source the crowd.  Anyone had any luck
converting such boxes?

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Re: SonicWall hardware: good for anything?

[Alan Johnson]

On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Benjamin Scott dragonh...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 2:44 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:
  I've got 4 3060's and 2 2040's.  Decent hardware for firewalling ... but
  the software sucks, IMHO.

  Good to know SonicWall hasn't changed since I last encountered them (c.
 2003).


That might just be about as old as this firmware is. =)



  I'm wondering if I can get pfSense onto them ...

  Many firewall appliances (the good ones, anyway) do the forwarding
 in custom ASICs.  They generally need highly proprietary software for
 that.  I dunno if what you have is those.


Do you figure such ASICs would get in the way of running other OSs or might
they happily sit idle without causing trouble?



  There is a not-DB15 connector on the MB labled VGA.  It looks like an
  8-pin-long floppy/IDE connector ...

  Those are generally called ribbon cable connectors when they're
 not anything in particular.  :-)


Thank you!  I was drawing a blank trying to think of that.  Brain fart.


   Standard VGA needs a minimum of 9 conductors (3 colors each with
 signal and ground, vert sync, horiz sync, sync ground) (the other 6
 are for DDC or not used).  So whatever that 8 pin connector is, it
 isn't standard VGA.  However, if you only need monochrome (and a
 firewall's debug port doesn't need color), you can drop two of the
 colors, bringing it down to 5 conductors.


To clarify, the ribbon cable connector it is 8x2 pins: 16 total.

  Good luck finding the pinout for that thing, though.  If I had to do
 it, I would get a VGA cable, cut an end off and fan it out, solder on
 9 alligator clips, and start trial-and-error mix-and-match.  Someone
 with an oscilloscope (and who knew what to do with it) might be able
 to approach the problem more intelligently.


Yeah, that would make it not worth the effort right there. Fun project
perhaps, but not something I can spend the time on.

 Other than that, it looks like a pretty standard Intel-platform
 motherboard
  with some extra on-board NICs.

   That's interesting.  Can you post pics?


Well, I can start to feel myself getting into trouble for tossing around the
term standard too loosely again.  I'll see if I can get a few minutes to
put some out tomorrow if you promise not to be too harsh on me.  ;-)  I only
meant to imply that there is an Intel chip/chip-set on there, an Intel
processor, and some good-old DIMM slots.  Certainly a lot of common PC
components.
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Re: gaming... for a 15-month old

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 8:06 AM, Peter Dobratz pe...@dobratz.us wrote:

 The suggestions for games for 3-year olds last week got me thinking
 about my 15-month old son.

 We've got a table set up at home with a computer running Ubuntu next
 to a computer running Mac OS X.  the 15-month old is tall enough that
 he can reach the keyboards and mice and he really likes to press the
 buttons.  He does seem to notice that he's affecting things on the
 screen, but it doesn't seem like he's doing anything on purpose.  It
 seems to be working okay at the moment as long as we keep an eye on
 him (and make sure to close Gnucash before he starts pressing keys).

 Is there any way to switch the computer into toddler mode: where
 every keystroke gives some visual or audible feedback, and the hard
 drive and network are not written to?


soapbox
They say that children under 3 (some say under 2) get no screen time at
all, including interactive computer games.  It is much more important for
children to interact with real people at these ages.  If you look hard
enough, there are some very good educational tools out there, some which
have been mention on this list.  It is best to interact with your children
while they are doing these things and talk a lot about what's happening on
the screen, react to it and them, being sure to catch their eye some times.
Just hearing your voice say square when one appears, even if the screen
says it too, makes a big difference.  However, they say this is still not
ideal.
/soapbox

That said, some times, you just need a few minutes to yourself and the
one-eyed babysitter is readily available tool that, while not ideal, isn't
going to significant damage to your children if leveraged conservatively.
Of course, raising children is about doing what's right for the family, and
if mommy is happier after a hot shower, that is likely to be more valuable
than any lost development due to the screen time necessary to distract the
kids so she can have it.  Happier parents are usually more interactive, and
happier partents usually raise happier kids. =)

When doing this, be sure to recognize it for what it is, limit the time to
only as long as you need, and pick something that is as beneficial as
possible.  The Between the Lions videos I mentioned meet my standards for
any age, and I found a couple of the Baby Einstein videos were OK for
younger kids as well: Baby Neptune (water), Baby Newton (shapes),
Neighborhood Animals isn't too bad, but the rest I know of are mind-numbing
junk, even for the youngest kids.

By age ~2.5-3, my son figured out the mouse enough that he would keep
himself distracted for as long as we let him playing with starfall.com.  So,
we certainly didn't shy away from the computer in our geek-palace either,
but have I mentioned that he was at a second grade reading level by 4? I
think I have. ;-)  I still don't mean to act like I know it all, especially
when it comes to some one else's kids, but I expect all that screen time
with starfall.com (mostly accompanied by an adult) had a lot to do with it,
so it comes down to just knowing your children and making the best guess you
can.  They are sure to blame you for everything no matter what you do. =)


 We do have some plastic educational toys that do something similar,
 but he's always more enthralled by the real thing (cell phones,
 ipods, laptops, desktops, remote controls).  He usually gravitates
 toward whatever the parents are using.


We take the batteries out of our old stuff and give it to our kids.  It's
cheaper and better for the environment.  Of course, you have to train them
out of putting things in their mouths before certain things are reused in
this way.  We even cut the cord off an old keyboard, put it throught the
dishwasher to sterilize, and let my son (8m at the time) bang, press, mash,
and drool all he wanted, so I'm as a big fan of old junk making nice new
toys as the kids are.  =)

Also, some friends of ours got them a basket full of common real-world
trinkets: measuring spools on a ring, whisk, shaker full of whole nutmeg (a
treat for all 5 senses), a solid glass candle holder, etc.  They referenced
some articles they read about real-world items with interesting textures,
etc., were more valuable to development than the
cheaper-made-but-often-more-expensive child versions.  I'll leave it to you
to guess if they played more with the real stuff or the fake stuff.
Thought, I'm still sticking with the play-version of knives for now.
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Re: managing DNS

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 11:18 PM, Bill McGonigle b...@bfccomputing.comwrote:

 On 12/30/2009 09:23 PM, Greg Rundlett (freephile) wrote:
  That plus a good provider like dyndns.com http://dyndns.com looks like
  the answer

 DynDNS is good and local.


I too like DynDNS.  I don't know the state of their tools now, but they
don't support import, they will likely help you import settings for a
nominal fee.  Whether or not nominal is affordable for you, I don't
know. =)
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Re: [OT] Bonded web site developer?

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 3:07 AM, Dan Jenkins d...@rastech.com wrote:

 I do know about EO insurance, bonding, and such, but not the relevance
 specifically to web site development.


Bonded Web developers have studied an extensive 20 minute training cartoon
where they learn such all-too-uncommon skills as data tube lubrication and
Nigerian royalty investment.
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The Quest for the Perfect Cloud Storage

[Alan Johnson]

So, I'm trying to build clouds these days, and I'm sold on Citrix XenServer
for all the VM management, but it doesn't provide much in the way of
storage.  It will let you use many kinds of nice third party options out
there for your storage, but it can only provide local storage to VMs itself,
and as such, will not do live migrations without your providing some kind of
network storage for it to run VMs on.  Some other features are impeded
without network storage as well, but no need to digress to such specifics
here.

Anyway, the typical solution is to pay ridiculous $/GB for some proprietary
hardware SAN solution to provide a node-redundant network storage.  You pay
even more to get multilevel storage.  Money aside, I don't like this because
it introduces new potential bottlenecks that are not present in the
alternative I am about to describe, and because is it is a big fat waste of
hardware resources.

My desired solutions revolves around the questions of why can't storage be
treated like the rest of the resources in a cloud?  You've already got all
this redundant hardware providing processor and memory resources to the
cloud.  Why can't you pool the storage resources of the same physical
hardware the same way?  So, my idea of the Perfect Cloud Storage would meet
the following requirements:

   1. multi-node network storage (SAN?)
   2. Ideally, n+2 redundant (like RAID6), but n+1 and mirroring are worth
   considering. In fact mirroring would be a nice option to have for some write
   heavy VMs.  Even stripping would be useful in some instances.
   3. The node software would run on the dom0 of XenServer physical nodes
   giving it direct access to the block devices within.  From what I can tell,
   XenServer is a custom distro of Linux with with RPM/YUM package management.
   4. Multilevel storage support within the nodes, so for example, a set of
   256GB SSD, 300GB 10K, 500GB 2.7K, and 750GB 5.4K drives will all be used
   intelligently without need for human interaction after setup.
   5. Multilevel storage across nodes would be a neat concept, but some
   intelligence about load balancing across identical nodes is certainly
   desired.


The closest I can come up with so far is to run one FreeBSD VM on each
physical node, expose the block devices directly to that VM so it can put
them in a ZFS pool for multilevel functionality (and maybe some local
redundancy).  This gives me a file server for each node that can provide
iSCSI targes to the VMs which then can be mounted in any software RAID
configuration that makes sense for the needs of the VM, mostly RAID6 so that
if I take a physical node down for maintenance, the network storage persists
with n+1 redundancy.

This is not terribly elegant, not as easy to manage as I would like, and
does not meet all the requirements above, but it does get the major ones.
The biggest problem is that I don't have any way to testing this wacky idea
until I order and receive a hardware configuration that depends on it
working!

I'm happy to take ideas from the crowd, but I'd be happier to find some
vendor or consultant with some experience and/or access to testing resources
who can vet this or some other solution and then stand by it.  Feel free to
contact me off list if you think you might fill this role.  Dave Clifton,
I'm thinking of you because Mike Diehn suggested you have a good amount of
SAN experience.  Bill McGonigle, I'm thinking of you because of your ZFS
experience.  Ben Scott, I'm thinking of you because you're the man. =)

Thanks in advance for all the insite I've come to expect from this wonderful
community!

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Re: The Quest for the Perfect Cloud Storage

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote:

 I had run the VMs on an ESXi server with the same NFS server.  From what
 I've read, for gigabit ethernet, NFS vs iSCSI speed is a  wash.  VMware ESXi
 will hapily use either.


I was thinking about paying for VMWare ESXi until I found XenServer was
mostly free now, and better IMHO, at least on paper (or pixels?).  Plus, I'm
already fairly well versed on Xen.


 For multisystem access, NFS works.  A SAN like iSCSI/FibreChannel/etc needs
 a clustering filesystem that's much harder to setup.


If it is simpler to deal with once it is setup than ZFS/FreeBSD/VM solutions
I described, I'm interested, especially since I can probably get money to
pay some one to help me set it up.


 I've run Sun QFS over 2GB FibreChannel.  It's faster then NFS over gigabit
 of course.


FWIIW, I'm specing a 10 GigE networking plain mostly dedicated to storage.
I might get 2 for redundancy and extra capacity but talk about $$?  10 GigE
switches still ain't cheap.  The 10 GigE is mostly to support puting some of
our lighter load database servers in the cloud, so I might even fall back to
putting them on dedicated boxes and dropping the cloud storage network  to
1Gig.


 I've often wondered why some sysadmins use an iSCSI backend with a NAS
 front end.


I don't understand that line, but I'm not sure I need to. =)
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Re: The Quest for the Perfect Cloud Storage

[Alan Johnson]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Dana Nowell 
dananow...@cornerstonesoftware.com wrote:

 Another choice is to do the same thing but use NFS instead of iSCSI
 (allowing ZFS underneath).  I did some tests and iSCSI out performed
 current NFS solutions (on Debian at least).  The NFS network
 chatter/latency costs on 1 Gbps NICS out weighed any potential ZFS disk
 advantages for me.  Consequently I opted for iSCSI in my environment,
 your mileage or your NICs may vary.


Based on previous related discussions on this list, my understanding is that
ZFS will also export as iSCSI.  In fact, some kind soul posted the commands
to do so, IIRC.  I'm a bit pressed to find the thread right now.
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Re: Gaming... for three-year-olds...

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote:



 On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:31 PM, Ken D'Ambrosio k...@jots.org wrote:

 Okay.  Kenette 2.0 is approx. 3.5 years in age.  She's currently getting
 into games on her laptop, a Fisher Price doohickey that even has a
 mouse.  Anyway, suggestions on games that might run on a somewhat more
 open architecture like, say... Linux?


 A web browser with flash.  My son started at 3 and is now 6.  He goes to
 nickjr, webkins, club penguin, disney.  He clicks on everything.


Starfall.com has an amazing set of learning tools for reading eduction,
including a bunch of games.  It is only one of many, but surely one of the
more significant, tools we use to teach our kids to read.  Of course, one of
the tricks to this kind of early learning is to make these things
interactive one-on-one time with other humans to decrease the negative
effects of screen time.

We did this without our son before he could use the mouse on his own and for
some time after that.  He is ~4.5yr now and fully literate, so we try not to
let him spend too much time on startfall.com unless he is teaching his
sister (she's ~2.6yr and has almost mastered the alphabet sounds), but he/we
play many of the other games suggested in this thread now.

He'll be getting his own computer in 6-8 months I expect, which will run
Edubuntu if it is still relevant by then.  I installed that on a laptop for
a friend's kid and he loves it.  Plenty of games and other tools to play
with including most of the FOSS options mentioned here, and access to the
full Ubuntu repos if you want more.
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booting from software RAID (Re: Software RAID issues)

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 1:42 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:

 On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 1:09 PM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote:



 On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 10:31 AM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:
 I have a Ubuntu 9.10 box that boots a RAID6 with GRUB2.  I expect that is
 very new, eh?

 So your Ubuntu does software RAID6 on the boot disks with / and /boot?


 Um, certainly /, but now that you mention it, I'm not 100% sure on /boot.
 I'm pretty sure it is on there as well, as I don't think I split it out on
 this machine, but since it is a critical point, let me get back to you.  I
 have that box rolled back to 9.04 now because some video issues I had with
 9.10.  Since this is the machine I have hooked to my TV, video is kind of
 paramount. =)  It used new drives for the 9.10 upgrade so I just need to
 swap them back in to see if anything is fixed yet.  It could have been my
 mother board.  It gets flaky when I max out the RAM at 4GB.  I have since
 pull it back to 2GB when I was reminded of the issue after going back to
 9.04.

 Anyway, I'm hoping to get to that over T-day break, so I'll confirm /boot
 as well and let you know.


 Yep, it is as I thought on both counts.  /boot is not separate and the
extra RAM was causing the video issues I was having.  The machine works
great for Hulu now with 2GB of RAM, booting off 4 disks in a RAID6 with LVM
on top of that then ext4.  Again, that's using GRUB2 in fresh install of
Ubuntu 9.10.
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Re: Software RAID issues (was Re: Suggestions solicited, server bring up)

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 4:38 PM, Bill McGonigle b...@bfccomputing.comwrote:

  On 23-Nov-2009, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com sent:

  Nope. As I understand it, when you do an iSCSI export of a ZFS
  pool, you're getting a block device with the advantages of the
  ZFS storage mechanism without any particular filesystem on it.
 
  I could be wrong, of course. I haven't played with that part
  of ZFS yet.

 Quite right.  You get the block management of ZFS but not the nice
 filesystem semantics.


Nice!  Ok, so you get the multi-level, compression, encryption, error
checking, and RAIDZs?  Anything else significant I am forgetting?

Can ZFS take an iSCSI block device as a pool member?  (Did I use pool right
there?  Like and LVM volume group, right?)  If so, risk of infinite
recursion asside, that could be a very powerful way to leverage a local
FusionIO device to buffer an iSCSI storage cloud/SAN.
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Re: Software RAID issues (was Re: Suggestions solicited, server bring up)

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 9:25 AM, Tom Buskey t...@buskey.name wrote:

 I think the RAID 5 write hole refers to the slowdown on writes with RAID
 5.  In order to lose data, a 2nd drive needs to fail (as opposed to only 1
 drive on a RAID 0 or JBOD).


According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels#RAID_5_performance:
In the event of a system failure while there are active writes, the parity
of a stripe may become inconsistent with the data. If this is not detected
and repaired before a disk or block fails, data loss may ensue as incorrect
parity will be used to reconstruct the missing block in that stripe. This
potential vulnerability is sometimes known as the *write hole*.
Battery-backed cache and similar techniques are commonly used to reduce the
window of opportunity for this to occur. The same issue occurs for RAID-6.


 I think most software RAID only does mirrors for boot.  RAID 1, not 5.


I have a Ubuntu 9.10 box that boots a RAID6 with GRUB2.  I expect that is
very new, eh?



 RAID5 will have faster read performance then RAID 1 or a single disk.  It
 might be faster for reads then RAID-0 (striping) also.


If the disks are a severe bottle neck, RAID5 can match RAID0 read speeds in
theory.  However, I've never seen this in practice.  RAID5 cannot be faster
than RAID0 unless something outside those definitions being at play.

ZFS's RAIDZ ...RAIDZ2 ... RAIDZ3 which has 3 parity disks.


I know what you mean, but I'm just nit-picking here for clarification so as
not to confuse the uninitiated: party disks are a thing of RAID3.  RAID5/6/Z
all use distributed parity, so no one disk is dedicated to parities.  This
is a big part of what makes rebuilds so slow on RAID5/6. The process is not
as linear as a mirror or a RAID3 with dedicated parity drive.  How does
RAIDZ do on a rebuild?



 ... ZFS ... ZFS ... ZFS fanboy and I'm very disappointed it won't be
 adopted in Linux due to its license.  It's in FreeBSD (and FreeNAS). btrfs
 looks like it has some nice improvements so I'm hoping to see it succeed
 alongside ZFS.


We!  From all the theory I've read and watched, ZFS is the end game.
I'm still trying to figure out how to work it into cloud storage.  Does
FreeNAS some how enable ZFS over iSCSI?  I can't wrap my mind around that,
but the benefits of ZFS on the minimal overhead of iSCSI (vs. NFS) would be
ideal, if impossible.

I'm tempted to try Fuse+ZFS for our database servers, or even just to right
to FreeBSD, but that would be a hard sell in my company and I don't even
want to try it without some lab work to back it up, which is not in the
cards in the near future.
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Re: Software RAID issues (was Re: Suggestions solicited, server bring up)

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Bill McGonigle b...@bfccomputing.comwrote:

 I know of a computer company over in Lebanon that's selling 16 and
 24-bay Nexenta-based ZFS storage servers that'll do iscsi, nfs, smb with
 impressive ease. ;)  OpenSolaris kernel, Ubuntu userland, block-level
 dedup coming early next year


I don't want to go commercial, so I won't guess the name, but are the
initials BFCC, but chance? ;-)



 NFS can do better than iSCSI with certain workloads (no block-sized
 overheads) but it really gets interesting when pNFS shows up
 (parallelism fixes the NFS throughput problem).  Q1'10, probably.


A fellow on this list at the Birthday party said that iSCSI had a lot less
network overhead and much better real throughput than NFS.  Is there a way
to bring NFS closer to even?  Parallelization does not quite address the
issue of overhead.  Is there something else in pNFS that does?   My goal is
to get our database storage into our private cloud storage (under
development), but we get 1.5GBps now on some of our FusionIO stores, so
even with 10Gbps NICs, we would be taking a step down before accouting for
overhead.


 Unless Oracle changes the license (Sun dismissed it but Oracle is
 already GPL'ing), ZFS probably gets superseded by btrfs, but not for a
 few years.


What?! No. Oracle GPL'ing?  Really?  Got any articles handy were I can read
up on the details. That's very exciting.
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Re: Software RAID issues (was Re: Suggestions solicited, server bring up)

[Alan Johnson]

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Bill McGonigle b...@bfccomputing.comwrote:

 yeah, NFS and databases aren't really a great mapping - not enough
 semantics are supported even if they were fast enough.


But there is not a lot of meta data manipulation for DB files, mostly mtime
as I turn off atime by reflect these days.  I believe you, but I'll probably
do some testing on it to see if we can't get some of our less busy slave
data stores to live nicely in the cloud.


 Does your database
 support multi-level storage (e.g. putting your WAL or cache on your
 fastest drives)?


Well, it is MySQL/MyISAM, so not so much. (I know, I know.  Postgres/SQL is
where I'd like to be.)  We have played with ever break out of IO we can
squeeze out of it and even symlink busier tables over to faster storage
except on the one box we have with enough FusionIO to hold all the tables.
It is such a pile of hacks at this point, I can't understand why it has
taken this long for the bosses to each the change.  We are hiring 3-4 more
enegineers though, so maybe we'll have come cycles for Postgres/SQL next
year.


 FYI, ZFS supports this on the back-end (fast cache
 drives in front of cheaper slower drives.  But odds are NAS/SAN is slower
 than RAM on a local bus. :)


I know!  That's the primary cause of my cronic chin moisture.  This would
clean up a lot of the hacks I mentioned above for MySQL/MyISAM and make
everything else faster to boot.



  What?! No. Oracle GPL'ing?  Really?  Got any articles handy were I can
  read
  up on the details. That's very exciting.

   http://oss.oracle.com/projects/

 btrfs is already GPL, so I'm having trouble figuring out why they would
 insist on keeping ZFS CDDL.


Sweet.  I thought these guys were more evil than M$.  I'll check it out.
Thanks!
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Re: Software RAID issues (was Re: Suggestions solicited, server bring up)

[Alan Johnson]

On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Bruce Labitt bruce.lab...@myfairpoint.net
 wrote:

 Bill, why not RAID-5?  Isn't RAID-5 supposed to be ultra-reliable?  As
 in hot swap disks?  Or does this just apply to software RAID-5...


Wow, a lot of good stuff has been said on this thread.  Most of which is
easily referrenced in these 2 articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

The key thing said here that might not be in those articles is that practice
often does not match theory because of non-optimal implementations and other
bottle necks. The key thing about that which is generally implied but has
not been said in this thread explicitly, is your mileage may vary.  If
performance is key, you really need to test for your specific requirements.


That said, YouTube has a Google Talk describing the early days of their
massive growth in which they had major database performance issues and found
that software striping on hardware mirroring provided maximum performance:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6304964351441328559#

We found the same thing in our tests and have implemented this on our
databases.  That bought us about 6 months before we moved to FusionIO.
Recently I've had a chance to play with some SATA SSDs on a development
database server, but we have not been able to get anything close to the
performance of the FusionIO, though it does address the issue with head
seaks that cause non-linear performance degration with increased parallel
requests.  SSDs are relabitly flat in throughput linear regarless.

Finally, I think it is worth pointing out a few reliability
characteristics.  Without getting into the math (which I'm not familiar
enought with to regergitate accurately), here is a quick list of reliablity
in order of least to most:
RAID0
Single drive
RAID5
2 drive RAID1
4 drive RAID10
4 drive RAID6

Things get tricky as you increase the number of disks.  At some point a
RAID10 (being only as reliable as any one of its mirrors) will be more
reliable than a RAID6, but that point will vary with the kind and amount of
work, reliability of the individual drives, and speed of the IO system as it
affects rebuild time.  Rebuild time is a key factor here.  It is greater on
a RAID6 than RAID10 and goes up as you add disks to a RAID6.  (Of course,
performance goes to pot durring a rebuild, but less-so on a RAID10,
particularly larger one.)

Note this RAID10 refers to a stripe of mirrors.  If you mirror 2 stripes,
there is no difference in reliability with 4 drives, but it suffers as you
add more.  Also, I've not heard nor seen of any advantages to a mirror of
stripes.  Anyone?

I am using a RAID6 across 8 1TB drives for some of our backups.  In this
case, adding more space would require not just more drives, but another
controller, JBOD, and server with different slots/ports.  So, a RAID10 can
have more cost than previously suggested in the $/TB of the drives alone,
and I'm pretty sure 3 dead of 8 for this RAID6 still beats 2 dead of 2 times
4 for a RAID10, especially when you figure in the lack of on-site spares,
which hopefully will be corrected soon.
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Re: Software RAID issues (was Re: Suggestions solicited, server bring up)

[Alan Johnson]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 10:44 PM, Ben Scott dragonh...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Alan Johnson a...@datdec.com wrote:
  Would you agree that there are plenty of SATA and SCSI drivers
  that work with most or all correctly implemented devices?

   I'm talking about software (the OS, device drivers, etc.)
 interfacing to the hardware (disk controllers/host adapters).


Yes, I should have said controller.


 A device driver written for an Adaptec AHA-2940 card will be
 completely useless for an LSI Logic card.  The interfaces to the
 hardware are completely incompatible.


Certainly!  It is just news to me that there is not a third driver that
implements some shared subset of their interfaces for basic device/volume
access.

 Still, I would argue that SATA and SCSI are definitively standards ...

  Yes, any proper SCSI device will talk to any proper SCSI host adapter.


Of course.  Just because there's no standard for the OS-controller does not
mean there is no standard.  It just applies to other parts of the system.
Silly me. =)

 ... that does not cover nearly any standard SATA device?

  A SATA hard disk don't just connect directly to the microprocessor.


Again, I should have wrote controller, not device.  Sorry.  All that stuff
you said here is understood. =)


  A more extreme example in another device category would be the VGA
  standard.

   There are indeed standards for video, promulgated by VESA.  There
 are no such standards for disk controllers.

  Well, sort of there are.  Every disk controller has to provide an
 implementation of software interrupt vector 0x13 (INT13).  This is
 part of the BIOS specification, and is how the computer boots.  But
 once the processor switches into protected mode (or long mode, if
 you're x86-64), INT13 is no longer available.


It appears the extremity of my example is upsidedown in that the only
standard for disk controllers even more extreme than the VESA standards.
The only standard for storage controllers is a functionality so rudimentary
that is only useful for the strappiest of booting! =)  There by, not being a
valid example for my argument, but I do appreciate the mention by you for
clarity.


 So the OS has to
 provide its own device drivers.


Again, I'm not arguing that the OS does not have it's own device drivers,
just that it could use a generic driver for many different brands of the
same kind of devices.  I'm still fairly sure this is the case with some
categories, but I am humbled to learn it is not with SATA/SCSI, etc.



  I think you got my gist.  I only mean to say that the only RAID
 controller
  specific drivers I have had to install were for accessing the management
  features on line.

   I suspect you installed userland management software, not a kernel
 device driver.


This could very possibly be my point of confusion.  However, it is possible
that a RAID controller could present itself in a way that is compatible with
some more common non-RAID controller for easier integration into the
marketplace.  Have you ever seen this?  If so, that could be my point of
confusion as well.



  I'm not familiar with megaraid, but this also sounds a lot like a generic
  driver that works with devices that adhere to some standard or less
 formal
  set of common rules.

   MegaRAID is a product line from LSI Logic (formerly AMI).  Their
 megaraid driver works with all their SCSI RAID controller products.
 But only their cards implement that interface.  And there's a
 different driver (megaraid_sas) for their SAS RAID controllers.
 There are a couple more drivers for their various non-RAID SCSI host
 adapter product lines.  None of them are compatible with each other.
 And that's just one manufacturer!


Ah, yes.  So I have gathered from other posts since writing this. =)



  I think we are mostly on the same page, but are my
  ramblings above more in line with your understanding?

   I'm afraid not.  I really have to say you've got this completely
 wrong.  Sorry.


No worries!  Thanks for taking me to school. =)  You've laid it all out
quite nicely, as usual.  I have no reason to question anything you said here
and much of it is familar at some level and it all makes sense.  You've
helped me revive some faded bits of knowledge and connect them with some
knew bits for a much more complete understanding.  You are a great asset to
this community.
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