In part 1 I discussed how these days Linux Live CDs usually come with a prebuilt disk image of the distro which is simply copied over to the hard disk during installation. (The “old” method was to rpm/dpkg-install the packages which is much more time-consuming). However my first test wasn’t very successful because I was using the “cp” command to copy files.

Anaconda (the Fedora installer) is smarter than this. It “dd”s the prebuilt disk image to the hard disk and then uses an ext2/3/4 utility called resize2fs to expand it to the correct size.

I changed the previous guestfish script to take this approach.

The new/Anaconda approach is much faster. Our total time is down from over 18 minutes to 2½ minutes (approximately 2 minutes for the “dd”, 2 seconds for the resize2fs, and the rest of the time taken doing the partitioning and LVM creation).

Unfortunately we have to leave Ubuntu behind at this point. Ubuntu ships with a squashfs, and I’m not aware of any way to turn this into an ext3 partition efficiently (except to use “cp” which we showed in part 1 was very slow). The new script only works with Fedora Live CD ISOs.

The new script is after the cut.

#!/bin/bash -

function usage ()
{
    echo "virt-prebuilt.sh live.iso disk.img size"
    echo "  where 'live.iso' is a Fedora Live ISO"
    echo "        'disk.img' is the target disk image"
    echo "        'size' is the target size in Gigabytes"
    exit 1
}

if [ $# -ne 3 ]; then
    usage
fi

# Work out size of target LV.
target_boot_mb=200
target_lv_mb=$(($3 * 1024 - $target_boot_mb - 128))

# Run guestfish.
time \
guestfish -x -a "$1" <<EOF
# The source ISO will be /dev/sda.  The target drive will be /dev/sdb.
alloc "$2" "$3G"
run

# Get to the packed ext3 filesystem.
mkmountpoint /t
mount-ro /dev/sda /t
mkmountpoint /tt
mount-loop /t/LiveOS/squashfs.img /tt

# Make a separate /boot partition on the target disk.
sfdiskM /dev/sdb ",$target_boot_mb ,"
mkfs ext3 /dev/sdb1

# Make the root LV.
pvcreate /dev/sdb2
vgcreate vg_live /dev/sdb2
lvcreate lv_live vg_live $target_lv_mb

# Copy the packed filesystem to the root LV and resize.
time dd /tt/LiveOS/ext3fs.img /dev/vg_live/lv_live
time resize2fs /dev/vg_live/lv_live

# Mount the root filesystem and copy /boot to /dev/sdb1
mkmountpoint /root
mount /dev/vg_live/lv_live /root
mkmountpoint /boot
mount /dev/sdb1 /boot
glob cp-a /root/boot/* /boot
df-h

# Unmount everything and exit.
unmount /root
unmount /boot
unmount /tt
unmount /t

echo Done.
EOF

Anaconda doesn’t just do a straight copy, it also does a whole lot of munging of the filesystem afterwards, including replacing /etc/fstab and rebuilding the initramfs. The script above avoids that so you can only boot it in qemu using an external -kernel and -initrd.

I think this technique is promising. It certainly sounds wonderful to “stamp out” new distro installs in a minute or two. But …

1. Distributions would all have to start shipping filesystem images.
2. Distro-specific munging would have to be kept to an absolute minimum.
3. Get rid of initramfs’s that contain hard-coded details about the specific platform on which they boot (a very good idea in general IMHO).

In part 3 I’m going to compare how this approach compares to others: virt-install, manual installation, kickstart, cobbler, debootstrap and ubuntu-vm-builder.

Previously I took a look at unpacking Fedora and Ubuntu live CDs to find out what’s inside them and to ask the question can we use the prebuilt filesystem image that these live CDs contain to quickly create a Fedora or Ubuntu “all-defaults” virtual machine?

This is my first attempt, and it’s not successful, but it does demonstrate a large and interesting guestfish script doing a non-trivial amount of work.

This script:

1. mounts the prebuilt filesystem from either a Fedora or Ubuntu live CD
2. creates a disk image with a 200 MB /boot partition and a single / (root) logical volume covering the remainder of the disk
3. uses the cp -a command to recursively copy the prebuilt filesystem to the disk

Where it fails is that “cp” isn’t very fast. On my local machine it took 18 minutes to copy all the files across, which means this isn’t a practical “instant install” method. (I didn’t in the end try to boot the final disk image).

In part 2 this week, I’ll look at the approach that anaconda takes: It dd’s the disk image and then runs resize2fs on it to expand it into the available space.

In part 3 I’ll compare this approach to others: virt-install, manual installation, kickstart, cobbler, debootstrap and ubuntu-vm-builder.

The script itself follows after the cut:

#!/bin/bash -

function usage ()
{
    echo "virt-prebuilt.sh live.iso disk.img size"
    echo "  where 'live.iso' is a Fedora or Ubuntu Live ISO"
    echo "        'disk.img' is the target disk image"
    echo "        'size' is the target size in Gigabytes"
    exit 1
}

if [ $# -lt 3 ]; then
    usage
fi

# Make the commands to unpack the ISO.
# See:
# http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/looking-closer-at-fedora-ubuntu-live-cds
case $(basename $1) in
    ubuntu-*.iso)
	mount_cmds="
mkmountpoint /t1
mount-ro /dev/sda /t1
mkmountpoint /fs
mount-loop /t1/casper/filesystem.squashfs /fs
"
	;;
    Fedora-*Live.iso)
	mount_cmds="
mkmountpoint /t1
mount-ro /dev/sda /t1
mkmountpoint /t2
mount-loop /t1/LiveOS/squashfs.img /t2
mkmountpoint /fs
mount-loop /t2/LiveOS/ext3fs.img /fs
"
	;;
    --help|-help)
	usage
	;;
    *)
	echo "$1: unknown ISO image type (must be Ubuntu or Fedora ISO)"
	usage
esac

# Work out size of target LV.
target_boot_mb=200
target_lv_mb=$(($3 * 1024 - $target_boot_mb - 128))

# Run guestfish.
guestfish -x -a "$1" <<EOF
# The source ISO will be /dev/sda.  The target drive will be /dev/sdb.
alloc "$2" "$3G"
run

# This mounts up the ISO filesystem on /fs
$mount_cmds

echo fstab on target:
cat /fs/etc/fstab

# Make a separate /boot partition on the target disk.
sfdiskM /dev/sdb ",$target_boot_mb ,"
mkmountpoint /target
mkfs ext3 /dev/sdb1

# Make the root LV.
pvcreate /dev/sdb2
vgcreate vg_live /dev/sdb2
lvcreate lv_live vg_live $target_lv_mb
mkfs ext3 /dev/vg_live/lv_live

# Mount up the target disks.
mount /dev/vg_live/lv_live /target
mkdir /target/boot
mount /dev/sdb1 /target/boot

# Copy everything across.
time cp-a /fs /target

unmount /target
-unmount /fs
-unmount /t2
-unmount /t1

echo Done.
EOF

Whilst riding my push bike to work the other day along a rather muddy and leafy road I remembered the classic 80’s TV programme junior kick start.

Presented by Blue Peter’s Peter Purves, contestants would compete in motorcycle time trials over an obstacle course. You would have seconds added to your time if you put your foot down or touched or knocked an obsacle over. I remember aged 8 pretending to be in Kick start whilst riding round on my Raleigh BMX mini burner!

Check out this classic clip from Junior Kickstart when Mark Scofield fell from an obstacle, two St Johns Ambulance men rush to help him but comically fall over!

I defy any decent human being not to read these letters and have their heart-warmed, their day brightened or their face smiled. It’s a beautiful, beautiful idea and you can even get involved in the next phase over at Kickstart (which, in itself, is also a beautiful beautiful idea).

Michael and Lenka decided one day to write a letter to every person in the world, starting with Cushendall in Northern Ireland. Their letters are generally about not much at all – that isn’t intended to do a dis-service to them, as this makes the project even more momentous – that they find something new to write about with each letter.

Head on over here, for more wonderful letters and here, to get involved!

Matt Held got Phase II of his Facebook paintings funded thru Kickstarter. That is awesome. Congratulations Matt and rock on.

The Obama presidential campaign was innovative. For the first time in American politics, a candidate used art and design to bring together the American people—capturing their voices in a visual way.

The Design Director of the Obama campaign, Scott Thomas, has collaborated with artists and designers to create Designing Obama, a chronicle of the art from the historic campaign. Get the inside story on how design was used by the campaign, and scope out the pieces, created unofficially, by grassroots supporters.

The 360-page book is full-color and hardbound, highly crafted with an embossed sleeve. Forewords written by Steven Heller and Michael Bierut.

If you would like to order multiple copies please pledge the total for the quantity you desire and email orders@designing-obama.com.

What does Africa need more – easy access to fresh water or better cheaper internet connections?

Rory Cellan-Jones, who blogs on technology for the BBC, travels to Mombassa, Kenya to see how a local NGO is using broadband Internet to bring water pumps to farmers. Here are excerpts from his blog entry of 15 September 2009.

The Super MoneyMaker Pump. Photo: KickStart

“My guide was Martin Rogena, a Kenyan working for an organisation called KickStart, which supplies irrigation pumps to farmers across East Africa. Martin is also a big believer in the power of the internet to transform countries like Kenya”.

“We set off [to] a poor suburb of Mombasa [where every shop] seemed to be selling mobile phones or offering to recharge them – and every few yards there was a stand selling fresh water at around 20p a litre”.

“Martin explained that Kickstart was a charity but it didn’t give away the “Moneymaker” pumps it supplies [but was charging] around £50 for a portable pump – far short of the cost of making and supplying them – and they are now in use right across drought-stricken areas of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda”.

“[At a] little settlement [...] about 10 miles from the beach where the Seacom cable bringing broadband to the region comes ashore, [Cellan-Jones met a group of] farmers who [...] had clubbed together to buy a pump. [The farmers supported around 20 people by growing tomatoes,] maize and some other vegetables”.

“These people had very little [and there was no electricity] but nearly all of them had mobile phones. [...] The farmers explained that the phones [...] had made them feel much more connected to the rest of Kenya”.

Martin Rogena of Kickstart on broadband. Photo: BBC

“Outside one of the huts, Martin Rogena got out his laptop, plugged in a broadband dongle [broadband wireless USB adaptor], and went online at a reasonable speed – he was picking up the signal from the nearby mast, which is in turn linked to the fibre-optic cable at the coast. But why, I asked, did a faster internet connection matter to a charity which was trying to alleviate the impact of drought?”.

“He explained that Kickstart collects data from every pump it supplies across the region, sending staff armed with laptops to talk to the farmers and make sure they are getting the right results. From its Nairobi office, It also needs to communicate with donors around the world and with its branch office in Tanzania”.

“The charity is already finding that faster broadband is making communication easier – and is cutting costs, though perhaps not to quite the extent that has been promised”.

“The farmers had never been on the internet – but they too were excited about what it might mean for them. “It will help us find information to help us improve the way we farm.” said one. “We will use it for marketing our crops to other countries outside Kenya,” said another”.

“We headed back into Mombasa, past lines of women carrying water containers on their heads. This country is short of lots of things – water, electricity, books for schools. But there is a great thirst for better connectivity – and who are we to say that they’ve got their priorities wrong?”.

Source: Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC dot.life, 15 Sep 2009

If not, then take a few min and you should enjoy it. Then check out his other project, referred to below.

http://robinsloan.com/2009/41/

This story was read by someone in a pod cast recently and Cory blogged it. I bookmarked the text and looked into this Robin Sloan that day because I had some time, but not enough to enjoy reading yet. I found the guy has some pretty neat ideas for his current book, and I do not mean the content as we actually have no idea what it will be about; his ideas for getting it done are interesting. It seems, for naming the main character he made Google Adwords campains for names he liked, and associated keywords relevant to the book, I guess. This produced a ranking by the public, based on search terms, and he found which name is most popular. Another interesting thing, and the reason I am posting this here, is how he is getting the work done; he is using VC, sort of. He made the book a  projecton this funding site kickstarter.

Make a donation to pay for his salary to write a book and get the book. I signed up before reading the short linked to in the beginning of this post, just because I thought it was a cool idea. Now I have read his short and am satisfied with my donation.

Check it out

Robin Sloan escreve um dos sites mais fodas que tem por aí, SnarkMarket, que descobri via Noah. A última do cara envolve a KickStart, uma empresa com uma premissa foda.  Pesquisem sobre pois eu tenho mais o que fazer do que ficar dando link na boquinha de vagabundo. Adiante.

Deixemos que o Robin explique:

In this book, I’m trying to craft a central character with some of that same iconic strangeness that makes Sherlock Holmes so appealing. There’s a lot that goes into that, but for now, focus on the name. Sherlock Holmes. It leaves an indelible mark on the brain.

So, I have a name in mind for this character, and I was looking for a meaningful way to test it out—without giving it away.

That’s where AdWords comes in.

Here’s what I did:

Created a campaign attached to a bundle of search terms: mystery, detective story, sherlock holmes, noir, and more like those.

Came up with a whole set of names, basically wide variations on a theme. One was my original pick, but I liked all of them. Then, I created an ad for each one, all with the same body text but each with a different name swapped in for the headline.

Allocated a small budget ($40, to be exact) and kicked off the campaign. And wow there are a lot of people searching for stuff on Google. Over the span of 24 hours, my ads made about 100,000 impressions.

Conclui-se da imagem o seguinte:

The four names at the top all did about the same. I wouldn’t choose a name with an 0.23% click-through rate over a name with an 0.20% just because of that measly 0.03 margin.

But the 0.07% at the bottom? I think there’s real signal there. As it happens, the name at 0.07% was one I really liked—but it didn’t make the cut. Alas.

My original idea—the name I came into the exercise with—is the one at 0.21%. So basically, I see this as validation: The name works. People don’t see it and go “ew” or “meh.”

Quando nego falar que a internet é o melhor focus group que tem, leve muito a sério. Mas não leve os focus groups a sério demais.

Robin conclui:

But okay, I’ll be honest. This was mostly just an excuse to try a new tool. Any nerd will tell you that tools can provide their own intrinsic rewards. There’s an aspect of exploration to it, too: you’re pressing out into new tool-territory, learning about what you can and can’t do.

IJL is here!

“The Uk’s only dedicated jewellery event, where the most talented, cutting edge British and International designers and manufacturers showcase an inspiring collection of jewellery, contemporary and classic.”

Yesterday I visited IJL to suss out the compeition and to introduce my links with Dubai to the potential designers whose work I think would be very popular. I am currently setting up a bridge between the two countries and will be organising Jewellery Parties in Dubai to target a market whom don’t have the freedom to try on jewellery within shops as we Westerners do. As you can imagine, the hijab is quite restrictive in being able to see if a piece of jewellery suits you and many muslim women are forbidden to remove it in public places.

IJL is a collection of everyone from the jewellery industry. It is a treasure trove of dazzling gems, precious and semi-precious stones, pearls dripping from stands, diamonds scattered in glass boxes. It has the newest most contemporary designs under the same roof as the biggest brands and in contrst the very commercial enterprises. It is a jewellery lovers HEAVEN.

Among the designers I picked out there are a few who really shone through. In particular Fei Liu Fine Jewellery, Babette Wasserman and Jasmine Alexander. The latter of which has picked up a lot of interest from the press for her beautiful ‘Bleeding Hearts and Artists…precious patterns’ necklace. This consists of an 18kt rose gold heart (human in form) set with brilliant cut rubies that represent the dripping blood! Unfortunately I don’t have an image of it but check out the ‘Index’ section of her page and it is listed there – trust me, you won’t be disappointed. Jasmine is showing at IJL as part of the ‘Kickstart‘ stand K980 hosted by the British Jewellers Association.

Babette Wasserman - Chameleon rings

Fei Liu’s work really struck me, I have known him as one-to-watch for a while now, but from a distance! I had the pleasure of meeting him in person at the show and was happy to find him extremely welcoming and charming. His fine jewellery ‘Whispering Collection’ incorporates elegant pearls with striking cut precious stones such as Amethysts and Citrines. This takes inspiration from the Orchid Flower and is all set on 18kt white, yellow or black gold.  His divine designs incorporate decorative, pave set, swirling stems which frame beautiful larger stones and catch the light in an indescribable way. Not even the beautiful images on his website can truly represent how stunning this work is. Not only is it beautiful, the well thought out designs are also extremely functional often working as more than one item of jewellery. For example a pendant is also a brooch, a long necklace can also be made into two shorter ones.

Fei Liu - Whispering Collection

Others to watch out for are the ‘Bright Young Gems’ who have been nominated by a prestigious panel of leading editors and industry gurus. These are: Kity Sun, Andy Farrow, Haruko Horikawa, Daisy Knights andAnthony Roussel. Among those, I was especially struck by the innovative and crazy designs of Andy Farrow, using patterned layers of gold and silver over bejewelled back panels this work is sure to create a stir. More elegant and sophisticated was Haruko Horikawa’s work, more in line with my own, I loved the fluidity of her designs. She says she “strives to express the essence of the natural world” and I would agree she has captured the absolute best bits of it!

For more inspiration please go to: www.jewellerylondon.com/ and my website: www.phioro.com

This was our shop’s first real dive into kickstarts. The material I read in Visible Ops really emphasized track able/repeatable processes for setting up systems. One great way to do that is through kickstart scripts and some kind of version control system. We used Subversion.

I’ve edited a few parts out of this, but I spent a while finding several kickstart scripts that accomplished parts of what we needed. I highly customized one for our environment.

What it does:

• Configures licensing for the host using a license server
• Configures NTP
• Adds users, expires their accounts and configures a sudo group
• MOTD
• Configures NICs and VMware ESX Networking
• Creates a script to download and install IBM iSCSI Host Utilities Kit
• Creates a script to download and install QLA4050C BIOS and firmware updates

Thanks to Leo’s ESX 3.5 Kickstart script – part 3.

You will need to download IBM iSCSI Host Utilities Kit from IBM and the QLA4050C BIOS and Firmware from QLogic to a server with scp capabilities.

# make sure this file is UNIX formatted so the line breaks can be handled.
install
lang en_US.UTF-8
langsupport --default en_US.UTF-8
keyboard us
mouse genericwheelps/2 --device psaux
skipx
network --device eth0 --bootproto static --ip <ip> --netmask <netmask> --gateway <gw> --nameserver <dns1>,<dns2> --hostname <hostname> --addvmportgroup=0 --vlanid=0
# Encrypted root password
rootpw --iscrypted
<password>
firewall --enabled
authconfig --enableshadow --enablemd5
timezone America/Chicago
bootloader --location=mbr
# The following is the partition information you requested
# Note that any partitions you deleted are not expressed
# here so unless you clear all partitions first, this is
# not guaranteed to work
vmaccepteula
# test license server
vmlicense --mode=server --server=27000@<vc> --edition=esxFull --features=vsmp,backup
reboot
firewall --enable
clearpart --exceptvmfs --drives=sda
part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=100 --ondisk=sda
part / --fstype ext3 --size=1800 --grow --maxsize=5000 --ondisk=sda
part swap --size=544 --grow --maxsize=544 --ondisk=sda
part /var/log --fstype ext3 --size=100 --grow --ondisk=sda

%packages
grub
@base

%post
cat > /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S11servercfg << EOF

#Configure NTP
echo "Configuring NTP"
chkconfig --level 345 ntpd on
echo "restrict kod nomodify notrap noquery nopeer" > /etc/ntp.conf
echo "restrict 127.0.0.1" >> /etc/ntp.conf
echo "server <ntp> >> /etc/ntp.conf
echo "driftfile /var/lib/ntp/drift" >> /etc/ntp.conf
echo <ntp>" > /etc/ntp/step-tickers
service ntpd start

#Adding users with default password "changeme" generated with `openssl passwd changeme`

echo "Adding users"
adduser <user1> -p MKgX23V6snwoc
chage -d 0 -M 99999 <user1>
adduser <user2> -p MKgX23V6snwoc
chage -d 0 -M 99999 <user2>
adduser <user3>  -p MKgX23V6snwoc
chage -d 0 -M 99999 <user3>
usermod -G wheel user
usermod -G wheel user2
usermod -G wheel user3
echo "Done adding users"

echo "Configuring sudoers"
cat > /etc/sudoers << SUDO
# sudoers file.
#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# See the sudoers man page for the details on how to write a sudoers file.
#
# Host alias specification
# User alias specification
# Cmnd alias specification
# Defaults specification
Defaults syslog=local2
# User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
# Uncomment to allow people in group wheel to run all commands
%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
# Same thing without a password
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
# Samples
# %users ALL=/sbin/mount /cdrom,/sbin/umount /cdrom
# %users localhost=/sbin/shutdown -h now
SUDO
echo "Done configuring sudoers"

echo "Configuring MOTD"
echo "MOTD HERE" > /etc/motd
echo "Done configuring MOTD"

echo "Configuring hosts file"
echo "ip hostname.fqdn hostname" >> /etc/hosts
echo "Done configuring hosts file"

# we have 6 nics
echo "Configuring NIC duplex/speeds"
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-nics -s 1000 -d full vmnic0
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-nics -s 1000 -d full vmnic1
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-nics -s 1000 -d full vmnic2
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-nics -s 1000 -d full vmnic3
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-nics -s 1000 -d full vmnic4
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-nics -s 1000 -d full vmnic5
echo "Configuring NIC duplex/speeds"

echo "Configuring networking"
# VMNetwork
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch1
# Blind Switch
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch2
# VMkernel
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch3
# Add NIC 1 and 3 to vSwitch1 (VMNetwork)
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic1 vSwitch1
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic3 vSwitch1
# Add NIC 2 to vSwitch0 (Service Console, already contains NIC 0)
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic2 vSwitch0
# Add NIC 4 and 5 to vSwitch3 (VMkernel)
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic4 vSwitch3
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic5 vSwitch3
# Give appropriate port group labels to vSwitches
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -A "Blind Switch" vSwitch2
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -A "VMkernel" vSwitch3
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswitch -A "VMNetwork" vSwitch1
# Configure IP addresses for service console and VMkernel
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswif -i <ip> -n 255.255.255.0 vswif0
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vmknic -a -i <vmotion address> -n 255.255.255.0 VMotion
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-vswif -E
# Enable SSH Client through firewall
/usr/sbin/esxcfg-firewall -e sshClient
echo "Done configuring networking"

# generate script to download/install HUK, make it executable
echo "Generating host utilities download/install script"
cat > /root/huk-install.sh << HUK
cd /home/user/
scp user@host:/home/user/ibm_iscsi_esx_host_utilities_3_1.tar.gz .
tar -zxf ibm_iscsi_esx_host_utilities_3_1.tar.gz
cd ibm_iscsi_esx_host_utilities_3_1
./install
echo "Done generating host utilities download/install script"
HUK
chmod a+x /root/huk-install.sh

# generate script to download/install iscli and firmware/BIOS updates, make it executable
echo "Generating iscli and firmware update script"
cat > /root/iscli-script.sh << ISCLI
cd /home/user/
scp user@host:/home/user/iscli-1.2.00-15_linux_i386.install.tar.gz user@host:/home/user/ql4022rm.BIN user@host:/home/user/VER4032_03_00_01_53.zip .
tar -xvzf iscli-1.2.00-15_linux_i386.install.tar.gz
unzip VER4032_03_00_01_53.zip
chmod +x iscli.dkms.install.sh
./iscli.dkms.install.sh install
# HBA 0
/usr/local/bin/iscli -f 0 /home/user/qla4022.dl
sleep 5
/usr/local/bin/iscli -bootcode 0 /home/user/ql4022rm.BIN
sleep 5
# HBA 1
/usr/local/bin/iscli -f 1 /home/user/qla4022.dl
sleep 5
/usr/local/bin/iscli -bootcode 1 /home/user/ql4022rm.BIN
sleep 5
reboot
ISCLI
echo "Done generating iscli and firmware script"

# Moves this file so it will not be called on next host boot
mv /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S11servercfg /root/unsw-setup.sh
rm -f /root/system-info
EOF
/bin/chmod a+x /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S11servercfg

Here’s the ’script’ read from while doing our ESX upgrades:

In general:

• Do lots of up front work with kickstarts and analysis

Each ESX Host

• Put host in maintenance mode
• Shut Down
• File request with storage administrator to make only boot LUN is visible to host as we are about to do some potentially damaging operations
• Put in new HBA (QLA4050)
• Boot to floppy diskette with QLA 4050 BIOS firmware updates
• Upgrade HBA BIOS
• iFlash
• If the system detects a QLx40xx controller, it displays the following message:
• QLx40xx Adapter found at I/O address: xxxxxxxx
• You will need to enter the adapter address
• Select “FB” to flash the BIOS. The iFlash program will write flash to the adapter using ql4022rm.BIN found in the same directory.
• Reboot. Press CTRL+Q on the second (new) HBA to manage boot settings
• Configure Host Adapter according to IP / initiator name
• Configure iSCSI Target
  • You will need:
  • iSCSI name
  • IP Address
  • Subnet Mask
  • Default Gateway
  • iSCSI Target
  • IP Address:port
  • Target Name
  • Host Boot Settings = MANUAL
  • Exit and Reboot
• Insert ESX 3.5 U4 CD (We don’t have PXE boot available yet)
• Reboot system to boot from ESX 3.5 U4 CD
• Install ESX 3.5 U4
• type ‘esx ks=<url to kickstart file> ksdevice=eth0 method=cdrom‘
• More on the kickstart file is here
• Press enter. This installs ESX with all appropriate settings. Ask someone for the root password.
• Log in as root
• sh iscli-script.sh (from the kickstart)
• sh huk-install.sh (from the kickstart)
• Launch VirtualCenter
• Disconnect the host from VirtualCenter (Right click, disconnect)
• Reconnect the host to VirtualCenter (Right click, connect)
• Enter maintenance mode (so no VMs are vMotioned on)
• VMotion doesn’t get set up correctly via kickstart because the host does not have shared storage. Contact the SAN Administrator to make the other ESX LUNs  visible and rescan.
• Delete the VMKernel Switch
• Add the VMkernel switch (nic4 and nic5), enabling vmotion. <IP address> subnet <subnet> – no default GW since not routed
• Configuration -> Memory -> Increase Service Console RAM to 800MB
• Configure Storage Paths in Active/Passive
• Reboot Host (to enact Service Console RAM changes)
• Exit Maintenance Mode

vCenter Database Server

• Manually backup VMware database

BACKUP DATABASE [VMWare] TO  DISK =  N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL  Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\VMWare\VMWare_backup_preupgrade.bak' WITH NOFORMAT,  NOINIT,  NAME = N'VMWare-Full Database Backup', SKIP, NOREWIND, NOUNLOAD,  STATS  = 10
	GO

• Manually backup UpdateManager

BACKUP DATABASE [UpdateManager] TO  DISK =  N'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL  Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Backup\UpdateManager\UpdateManager_backup_preupgrade.bak'  WITH NOFORMAT, NOINIT,  NAME = N'UpdateManager-Full Database Backup', SKIP,  NOREWIND, NOUNLOAD,  STATS = 10
GO

• Grant MSDB owner permissions for SQL user

USE [msdb]GO

EXEC sp_addrolemember  N'db_owner', N'USER'

GO

vCenter Server

• Log in as local administrator
• Back up the License File
  • copy "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware License Server\Licenses\vmware.lic" \\server\share\vmware-license-backup.lic
• Mount vCenter DVD ISO
• Back up sysprep files for templates
  • copy C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\sysprep\.* \\server\share
• Run vCenter Install
• Reboot Server
• Notify users of upgrades
• Schedule times for VMware Tools Upgrades

vCenter Database Server

• Revoke MSDB owner permissions for SQL user

USE [msdb]GO
	EXEC  sp_droprolemember N'db_owner', N'USER'
        GO

This Sunday @ 6 p.m. in kickstart’s parking lot we will be celebrating Columbus’ first bike share program. Come and join us for a bike ride highlighting the businesses in the short north sponsoring this program followed by a party in the parking lot. There will be rad dog, free pattycake cupcakes, and much more. We are hoping that a program like this will be developed in the Clintonville area as well. Hope to see you all there.

xo sarah + pattycake

First it’s the dietician.  With this litany of things I can and cannot do.  2 weeks out from surgery it’s weird-ass diet time for me.  Don’t know if you’ve heard of Optifast? or Sureslim or Tony Ferguson’s?  Well that’s what I have to do for 2 weeks. Liquid fake food.

As it happened our health fund had just asked my husband to participate in a trial of some sort for a new one called Kickstart.  So I got it for free!  It ain’t cheap so this was a big win.  3 synthetic-fruit flavoured shakes 3 times a day.  Plus 2 cups of vegetables a day – to keep you regular. Right on!  I feel like an old woman already.

Kickstart wasn’t so bad.  Tasted ok.  Was pretty filling and each hit was only 139 calories.  I won’t suggest that I was by any means perfect in my adherence to the Kickstart diet.  I had family birthdays and work lunches that were unavoidable.  And I had more salad than I was supposed to most days.  But I still lost about 8kg in that two weeks so can’t complain about that!

Next I got a phone call was from the anaesthetist office.  We sent you an invoice that said you needed to pay the fee of $1200 a week before surgery.  The bill arrived a week before surgery.  Thanks for the notice guys.  The call came 3 days later.  So there’s another $1200 I’ve gotta pony up this week.  Hadn’t really planned on that sucker.  Oh well, good thing it’s pay day!

Finally I got a call from the hospital.  With a litany of questions and instructions that just did my head in.  Clearly the caller had read this list out a million, trillion, billion times.  For me it was my first time and it was WAAAAAY too quick and WAAAAAY too much.  An email follow-up would be have been a worth while exercise cos I forgot stuff I was supposed to do (like showering with anti-bacterial wash for 2 days beforehand – oops).  Fortunately noone seemed to give a toss on the day.

The day before surgery the hospital called again.  This time to tell me I have to pay $475 dollars on check-in.  I mean, admission.  Well, there’s another few buckaroos I hadn’t budgeted for.

All of these calls were so brain numbing. Not in a boring sense… in a I can’t compute sense… too much.

But none of that came close to what was going on in my head.

Second thoughts?  Lordy yes!  None of it seemed real to be honest, until the call came asking for my money.  Then it became so real.  Hyper-real.  In living colour.  Hyper-colour, in fact.  Or not.  (I’ll let the joke go now, I’m not one to cling.  Or am I?).

I didn’t know if it was the right thing to do.  Fear of the unknown was paralysing in many ways.  My ignorance and stupidity was profoundly daft.  For example, I mistakenly believed I would have a hole in my side for the rest of my life.  There is no hole.  I am just an idiot.  Thank god my husband is not.  Many shed tears will attest to my unbounded relief.  Really though, I just questioned everything I was doing.  Then I ignored it and put my head in the sand.  Then I got excited and philosophical.  It changed from day to day.

In the end I stuck with it.  I chose NOT to let my fear paralyse me any more.  God, now I sound like Tony Robbins.  Or the father from Little Miss Sunshine.  Or Tom Cruise in Magnolia.  (let the joke go, loser!).  I just kept on keeping on.  I took faith from those around me who never faltered.  Who believed in me and what I had decided to do.  And so I went under the knife.

And that was that.

Many of my clients are back from vacations and realizing that the end of summer (and the faster pace of fall) is coming. For those of you who might have taken a break from your job search to enjoy the summer, see my tips to get back into the swing of things in my latest post for Vault.com Insider Career Advice:

http://bit.ly/2XP2nk

There is not a whole lot of discussion on this topic. Here is an interesting article that talks about FPGA for databases, FPGA is very popular in network and graphics area, now gaining more acceptance in database applications. As mentioned below, Netezza uses FPGA to do front line processing by filtering data from disk and applying additional logic before passing that to memory on SPU. Main advantages from data processing:

• Parallelism and processing power now shifted away from CPU, closer to data / disk. FPGA has similar dimensions as a CPU, consumes 5 times less power and clock speed is about 5 times less.
• Filtering out unnecessary data.
• Low latency, high throughput.
• More caching capability.

There is also ‘another’ implementation of FPGA for DW databases. In this implementation, FPGA is like another CPU with higher parallelism. This architecture looks like a general implementation, not specifically for DW databases and appears to be lacking ’share nothing’ approach. Their product is known as Kickfire and was implemented using mySQL. FPGA shares RAM with CPU (what?!!) and this usually results in . Just as Netezza claims phenomenal processing results, Kickstart has demonstrated 15 x CPU transactions AND 5 times lower power consumption. Check this nice presentation

Ich werde bald eine automatische Ubuntu Installations-CD basteln. Dies wird das Standardinstallationsmedium für eine etwas grössere Netzwerkumgebung mit zahlreichen Clients sein. Bis jetzt läuft da Fedora drauf. Installiert und konfiguriert (Netzwerk, NFS, NIS, OpenSSH, Root- und Grub-Passwort, Cfengine) wird per Kickstart. Danach übernimmt Cfengine die Konfiguration.

Wie gesagt, es wird jetzt auf Ubuntu umgestellt. Also hab ich mir angeschaut was es da an automatischen Installationsmöglichkeiten gibt. Können sollte es: automatisches Partitionieren, Installation von gewünschten Paketen und Möglichkeiten zur Konfiguration von Paketen, wie oben bereits genannt, ausführen von Programmen nach der Installation (zum Schluss soll also Cfengine ausgeführt werden). Ausserdem soll sogut wie alles auf der CD die ich erstelle enthalten sein und nur sehr wenig vom Mirror nachgezogen werden.

Gefunden habe ich drei Möglichkeiten:
1.) Kickstart, das eigentlich für Redhat und ähnliche Distris zugeschnitten ist, funktioniert anscheinend auch mit Ubuntu.
2.) FAI steht für Full Automated Installer und wurde eigentlich für Debian entwickelt, funktioniert aber auch mit Ubuntu.
3.) Preseeding ist die “offizielle” Ubuntu-Methode, die auch im Ubuntu Installationsguide genannt wird.

Ich wollte euch mal fragen ob ihr mit einer der drei Varianten und Ubuntu schonmal gearbeitet habt und ihr mir was dazu sagen könnt, irgendwelche Tips habt oder einfach was ihr, aus welchen Gründen nehmen würdet.

Svält är svält även om det bara är för en kort stund.
GI metoden kallar svälten för kickstart.
Kickstart mot en snabbare död kanske?
Nä, inte för alla, bara för de envisa. 

Att föra ut sin lära, har sina sidor.
Oavsett (bra) bantningsmetod, så måste det vara kristallklart hur överdrifter ser ut.

Socker behövs, fast inte så mycket.
Hur mycket?

Δ

Ketogen diet:  även Atkins, LHCF

Från Fass:

Ketogenes (från wiki)

Bildande av s.k. ketonkroppar. Ketonkroppar kan bildas när nedbrytning av fett och aminosyror inte är fullständig. Exempel på tillstånd med ökad ketogenes är diabetes och svält.

Ketogrupp

En molekyldel bestående av en kolatom och en dubbelbunden syreatom.

Ketos

När kroppen bildar onormalt mycket s.k. ketonkroppar. Detta sker främst vid diabetes eller svält. Ketonkroppar gör så att pH-värdet i blodet sjunker, och alltså blir surare.

A while ago Mandy & I were approached by an advertising agency and asked if we were interested in being part of a Google campaign that kickstarts your searching by having several different topics, each one faced by real people. We were asked if we would face the Building and Renovation page.

After a few months and a few emails Hey Presto. Follow the link http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/landing/kickstartyoursearch/#tab=5

This blog sure has taken us in a few unexpected directions

My friend Andrew came over yesterday and helped me set up dhcp/dns/kickstart on a spare machine because it would help me out for testing karmic and after 2 years I basically have no idea how to sysadmin anything. Here are the basic instructions.

I have a squid proxy at home that I use to cache my .deb files (See this great post for more information) so that I am not constantly hammering my local mirror with my 6+ machines in the household. Last cycle I was getting frustrated at how long it took me to do testing, so I vowed to make it all efficient so I can do real hardware and VM installs easily. Plus you know sometimes we have dinner parties and whatnot and it’s polite to offer Ubuntu to your guests. So after we set up kickstart I wanted the installer to use my squid proxy so that I could take advantage of all the caching goodness. That’s when I discovered that one can use preseed arguments in your kickstart file and it Just Works(tm):

preseed mirror/http/proxy string http://chichi:3128/
preseed popularity-contest popularity-contest/participate boolean true
preseed finish-install/reboot_in_progress note
#NTP
preseed clock-setup/ntp boolean true
preseed clock-setup/ntp-server string ntp.ubuntu.com
#One big partition
preseed partman-auto/choose_recipe select atomic
#Add local repo

# Tasks
preseed tasksel tasksel/ubuntu-desktop

# Packages
%packages
banshee
gnome-do
openoffice.org
ubuntu-restricted-extras
… etc…

I didn’t know you could do this!! Now I can get my preseed goodness and not have to relearn a whole new system. (Right now some of you are going omg use d-i, FAI, or one of the other million ways to do this). I prefer ks for two reasons, a) everyone I know uses it in production, and b) I can rip off other people’s ks scripts since they seem to be more common. This (and other) features have probably been around for a while, I need to spend more time hanging out with installer people.

Help needed: For some reason the karmic installer installs ubuntu-desktop, and the package gets installed, but none of the dependencies do. So after the install I get a semi-complete ubuntu desktop. After removing ubuntu-desktop and then reinstalling it /then/ it goes and grabs firefox, tomboy, and the rest of the desktop. I’ve tried the preseed line you see above and mentioning ubuntu-desktop explicitly in the %packages section to no avail. It doesn’t feel like a bug as much as I think I missed a step myself. On a positive note, installing ubuntu-restricted-extras is automated, I don’t get bothered for licenses or any of that, so woo hoo on that front.

Other random thing: Why not run a local ubuntu mirror? I set up an rsync and everything and started with main, then I realized that throughout the course of a cycle I am constantly updating and installing stuff, so it’s already in my squid cache, why have rsync firing off hitting my mirror when I keep most of the .debs locally anyway? Sure if I was at a University or something a full mirror would make more sense.

Related story on LWN about package repository proxies. I still find the squid method to be the most reliable for me, though hopefully apt-zeroconf will make this transparent and easy for normal people. (The caching part, not the kickstarting part.)

What ways are you sysadmins out there deploying Ubuntu? Share your tips and tricks in the comments.

http://www.kickstarter.com/

Someone sent me this website! I think it’s fabulous.  Kickstarter is a funding platform for artists, designers, musicians, inventors, explorers, filmmakers, journalists and more. The girl above creates postcards everyday of the year based on her travels.

Destroying the records is not an option (it’s too wasteful and besides, these are great records, they’re just overstocked)! Storing the records at our warehouse is not an option (we cannot afford the storage costs). So to keep them from destruction, we’re hoping to have all the records shipped back to our office.”

Another project:

“I have rolls and rolls of images of decay, mostly the industrial sort, and having recently digitized a number of them, I would like to get some digital chromogenic prints made in order to hang them on a wall in an as yet undetermined location.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitgeary/sets/72157620542242721/

These are just a few of the numerous ideas waiting to be funded from people all over the world. I’m in love with this site! One of my friends and I were looking for something like this to fund a public art idea we have. It seems like people are really funding these projects, so if you have a great idea–put it out there!

I have been doing yoga for over 15 years. 5 years ago I began teacher training. I remember learning that there are different physical poses for different emotions. One emotion that has controlled and consumed me is FEAR! Fear of public speaking, fear of acceptance, fear of rejection, fear of failure, and on and on and on.

On this particular day, Thursday, I had a meeting with Patti, I had to teach a yoga class to some very strong ladies and I had to public speak. Just writing about it now brings this vibariton thru my body that triggers my heart to beat a little faster. My eyebrows crunch and I am slightly sweating. Yes that is how serious my fears are. Fast forward to Tuesday when I meet with Patti yet again. Scared all day that she is going to be like, “Sign this paper or else!” I even wore my bracelets, proact and react to remind me to stay grounded.

The went excellent yet again. The partnership papers weren’t so daunting and she did not ask me to sign there or else and Patti definitly sees the potential of kickstartand is on board as much as I am. Yes there are details that need to be sorted but nothing that I beleive will stop the process.

That night I took a long shower and as I was thinking, i starting doing a full wheel backbend from standing. I have never done this before, especially in the shower! It was as if my body was releasing all this fear. All this anxiety I have built over the years of public speaking, legal paper work and communication. I am so looking forward to the opportunity of public speaking, signing papers, and telling people more about what I have to offer.

Backbends
Wouldn’t you know it. This months issue of Yoga Journal has a Free Video by John Friend, Master of backbends and founder of Anusara Yoga.

So if you are feeling like there is fear stuck in your outer physical body get connected to your spiritual and emotional inner body so that you can let loose and finally let go. Talk about freedom.
“Always be content in your every stage of the pose, yet continuing to make progress.” — well said.