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Softpanorama
(slightly skeptical)
Open Source Software Educational Society |
May the
source be with you,
but remember the KISS principle ;-)
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Unix System Administration Automation Resources
The KISS rule can be expanded as: Keep It Simple,
Sysadmin ;-)
This page is about enterprise administration of Unix servers. especially Solaris
servers. Enterprise environment has many requirements that "admin-in-large"
should met addition to usual "sysadmins-in-small" staff typical for small
companies. Among additional requirements the key is support of several flavors of
Unix. Other worth mentioning differences might include:
- Being able to see the picture of integral health of many desperate boxes,
often running different flavors of Unix.
- Being able to account for what's in installed on each box and when it was
last patched;
- Accurate documentation about other sysadmins actions;
- Being able to roll back system configurations;
- Having good log info of who did what;
When you think about simplifying and partially automating administration in the
large enterprise environment, then large and expensive systems like
Tivoli, HP OpenView,
Sun Management Center are naturally
come to mind. Among enterprise tools this page provides some info on
Tivoli just because this is a system that the author
has some experience with.
Still but you should not forget about the mini-tools and open source solutions.
IMHO one of the greatest tool that simplify Unix administration is an orthodox file
manager. If you do not use it, please take a look at
OFMs. Windows top OFMs: FAR and Total Commander
can be extremely helpful in multiplatform environment. Unix OFMs are either
more limited (deco) or not completely portable (Midnight Commander), but still Midnight
Commander make a lot of sense for Unix administrator. The other useful and largely
under appreciated tool is folding editor like THE
or at least VIM 6.x. I believe that for sysadmin tools one should stick to tools
that use text format in configuration files. They are much more manageable that
tools that use binary formats.
ssh and VNC
are another two cross platform tools that can simplify many tasks without
any additional infrastructure. VNC can provide GUI-based environment for remote
administration on almost any platform and is very quick and easy to install if you
need one ASAP.
Actually monitoring of servers with open source tools is rather easy if the network
connectivity is good. There are a several open source tools that are scalable up
to a thousand servers without major problems. If we are talking about Unix servers
only, then ssh, Perl and Apache server are enough for pretty sophisticated remote
monitoring :-)
Software distribution and configuration
management are much more complex things. Here enterprize calss solution like
Tivoli Configuration manager might pay off more quickly.
One of the typical configuration management problems that large organizations
often have is how to push config files and software updates into multiple boxes
after changes in network topology (for example due to acquisition or divesture).
The simplest solution is to have something like a next loop that ssh's into each
box and runs a command for us:
for server in `cat machinelist.txt`;
do
echo "running $command
on $server"
ssh user@$server
$command; echo " "
done
Nortel has a nice program called CLIManager (use to be called CLImax) that runs
on Solaris, NT and Linux. It allows you telnet into multiple servers and run
commands in parallel. The program formats data to display. Say you wanted to display
"ifconfig/ipconfig" on 50 machines, this would format it, so you have columns of
data, easy to read and put in reports. Also, has a "Watch" command that will repeat
a command, and format the data. Basically, it logs into multiple machines, parses
and displays data, and outputs all errors on another window to keep your main screen
clean.
Fermi lab has a free tool called
rgang that does (minus the
output formatting) similar things and is written in Python: Here is the
Abstract
RGANG is a tool which allows one to execute commands on or distribute files
to many nodes (computers). It incorporates an algorithm to build a tree-like
structure (or "worm" structure) to allow the distribution processing time to
scale very well to 1000 or more nodes.
Because the original "RGANG" executes the commands on the specified nodes
serially, execution time was proportional to the number of nodes. A parallel
version of "RGANG" has been implemented in Python. This version forks separate
rsh/ssh children, which execute in parallel. After successfully waiting on returns
from each child or after timing out, this latest version of RGANG displays the
node responses in identical fashion to the original "shell" version of RGANG.
In addition, the latest RGANG returns the OR of all of the exit status values
of the commands executed on each of the nodes. Simple commands can execute via
this RGANG on an 80 node cluster in about 3 seconds.
To allow scaling to kiloclusters, the new RGANG can utilize a tree-structure,
via an "nway" switch. When so invoked, RGANG uses rsh/ssh to spawn copies of
itself on multiple nodes. These copies in turn spawn additional copies.
Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov
Notes:
- Those pages are written by people for whom English is not a
native language. Some amount of grammar and spelling errors
should be expected.
- This is a Spartan WHYFF (We Help You For Free) site. It
cannot replace the best teachers and
the
best books.
- The site contain some obsolete pages as it develops like a
living tree... Some links on older pages
are broken. Please
try to use Google, Open directory, etc. to find a replacement link
(see
HOWTO search the WEB for details).
We would appreciate if you can
mail us a correct link.
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About: Key Scripter
listens to key press/release events
from a keyboard or a mouse and sends
fake key events to an X display. It
supports gaming keypads such as the
Nostromo SpeedPad and allows the
creation and usage of complicated
key scripts for games and other
applications.
Changes: This release
contains a couple of minor bugfixes
and an improved example
configuration. The development
status of Key Scripter is now
stable.
PHP based
About: Ortro is a framework for enterprise
scheduling and monitoring. It allows you to easily
assemble jobs to perform workflows and run existing
scripts on remote hosts in a secure way using ssh. It
also tests your Web applications, creates simple reports
using queries from databases (in HTML, text, CSV, or
XLS), emails them, and sends notifications of job
results using email, SMS, Tibco Rvd, Tivoli postemsg, or
Jabber.
Changes: Key features such as auto-discovery
of hosts and import/export tools are now available. The
telnet plugin was improved and the mail plugin was
updated. The PEAR libraries were updated.
The package also contain Solaris binary of
chpasswd clone, which is extremely
useful for mass changes of passwords in mixed corporate environments which along
with Linux and AIX (both have native
chpasswd implementation) include Solaris or other Unixes that does not
have chpasswd utility (HP-UX is another example in this category).
Version 1.3.2 now includes Solaris binary of
chpasswd which works on Solaris 9 and
10.
cgipaf is a combination of three CGI programs.
- passwd.cgi, which allow users to
update their password,
- viewmailcfg.cgi, which allows
users to view their current mail configuration,
- mailcfg.cgi, which updates the
mail configuration.
All programs use PAM for user authentication. It is possible to run a
script to update SAMBA passwords or NIS configuration when a password is
changed. mailcfg.cgi creates a .procmailrc in the user's home directory. A
user with too many invalid logins can be locked. The minimum and maximum UID
can be set in the configuration file, so you can specify a range of UIDs
that are allowed to use cgipaf.
Unix administrators need to be aware of this pretty widespread
danger.
System Administration Toolkit: Standardizing your
UNIX command-line tools
Examine methods for standardizing your interface to simplify
movements between different UNIX(R) systems. If you manage multiple
UNIX systems, particularly in a heterogeneous environment, then the
hardest task can be switching between the different environments and
performing the different tasks while having to consider all of the
differences between the systems. This article does not cover
specific differences, but you'll look at ways that can provide
compatible layers, or wrappers, to support a consistent environment. |
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System Administration Toolkit: Backing up key
information
Most UNIX(R) administrators have processes in place to back up the
data and information on their UNIX machines, but what about the
configuration files and other elements that provide the
configuration data your machines need to operate? This article
provides detailed information on techniques for achieving an
effective and efficient backup system for these key files.
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Take a closer look at OpenBSD
OpenBSD is quite possibly the most secure operating system on the
planet. Every step of the development process focuses on building a
secure, open, and free platform. UNIX(R) and Linux(R)
administrators take note: Without realizing it, you probably use
tools ported from OpenBSD every day. Maybe it's time to give the
whole operating system a closer look. |
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System Administration Toolkit: Managing NIS
services for authorizations
Examine how to set up, configure, and update a Network Information
System (NIS) installation for sharing information, and learn how NIS
can be merged with other solutions, such as files and Domain Name
System (DNS), to provide subnet, network, and worldwide data sharing
facilities. In a large UNIX(R) network, the ability to share
information among the many systems helps to alleviate many problems,
such as sharing permissions across different systems with Network
File System (NFS), or simply providing a single login for the entire
network. |
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System Administration Toolkit: Migrating and
moving UNIX directory trees
Occasionally, you need to copy around an entire UNIX(R) directory
tree, either between areas on the same system or between different
systems. There are many different methods of achieving this, but not
all preserve the right amount of information or are compatible
across different systems. This article discusses the various options
available for UNIX and how best to make them work. |
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System Administration Toolkit: Migrating and
moving UNIX filesystems
Learn how to transfer an entire file system on a live system,
including how to create, copy, and re-enable the new file system. If
you have a UNIX(R) disk or system failure or simply fill up your
file system, then you need to create a new partition and file system
and copy over the contents. You might even need to mount the new
partition in place to preserve the location of vital files and
components. To add further complications, you need to do this on a
live system, where you'd need to preserve file permissions,
ownership, and possibly named pipes and other components.
Effectively transferring these components and retaining all of this
information is a vital part of the migration process. |
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System Administration Toolkit: Monitoring disk
space and usage
Look at methods for determining disk usage across multiple UNIX(R)
systems and how to create a simple warning system to alert you of
potential problems. Keeping an eye on your file systems and ensuring
they don't fill up is a trivial, but vital, process in the
day-to-day management of your UNIX systems. In this article, you'll
look at methods for keeping an eye on disk space, discovering which
files, users, or applications are using up the most space, and how
to make use of quotas and other solutions to find the information
you need. |
Is Entropy Winning? Drowning in the Data Tsunami
Lee Damon, Sr. Computing Specialist, University of Washington; Evan Marcus,
CTO and Founder, Aardvark Technologies, Ltd
We're drowning under a wave of data and are oblivious to it.
As data space expands we will start losing track of—and thus losing—our data.
Archival backups add complexity to this already confusing situation.
Then we toss in security and availability issues for some spice. Where is
this going, and how can we handle it in the face of millions of gigabytes of
"old cruft"?
Lee Damon
has
been a UNIX system administrator since 1985 and has been active in SAGE since
its inception. He assisted in developing a mixed AIX/SunOS environment at IBM
Watson Research and has developed mixed environments for Gulfstream Aerospace
and QUALCOMM. He is currently leading the development effort for the Nikola
project at the University of Washington.
He is past chair of the SAGE Ethics and Policies working groups and he chaired
LISA '04.
Improv for Sysadmins
Bob Apthorpe, St. Edward's University; Dan Klein, Consultant
Have you ever seen "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" and marveled at the actors?
Although it may not be obvious, improvisors and sysadmins have a lot in common!
We both have to think on our feet, often "winging it," and both groups actively
practice ad hoc problem-solving. Management calls it "thinking outside of the
box," and we say "welcome to our world."
From the outside, good improv looks like a lot of fun (it is!), and good
system administration looks easy and fun (why else do we have toys in our cubes?).
Both groups have fun because they both create environments to bring people together
and make good things happen. At its core, improvisation is not about being funny
so much as it is about carefully listening, clearly expressing oneself, and
confidently making decisions and taking action. So is system administration.
Our goal is to get paid to play.
This session will relate improvisational acting concepts to system administration.
Improv can show us how our responses to others can be misinterpreted and, more
important, how to change that by producing a constructive dialogue. Understanding
your audience and their context can make everything move much more smoothly!
Other topics will include the role body language plays in communication, especially
in the communication of status, and the importance of observation and attention
to detail, with an emphasis on "active listening," saying "yes, and . . . ,"
and other observation/communication techniques.
The session concludes with a question-and-answer period and additional improv
demonstrations as time permits. We won't try to be funny, but we know
that you'll enjoy learning some incredibly valuable improvisational techniques.
Bob Apthorpe is a system administrator at St. Edward's University in Austin,
Texas. He first attended LISA in 1998 and transferred from Web development to
international operations at Excite.com shortly thereafter. His current interests
include risk assessment, operations-friendly software development, and improvisational
theatre. Bob is a proud member of the troupe "Improv for Evil" but his wife
loves him anyway.
Dan Klein began his life of crime in 2nd grade, when he was caught with a
pack of firecrackers. Since then his brushes with authority have been sporadic
but relentless, but have not managed to deny him a security clearance, a job,
or his well deserved reputation as an off-the-wall maverick. His computer experience
has included simulation and process control, the internals of almost every UNIX
kernel released in the past 28 years, and graphical user interface management
systems
The Future of System Administration: How to Stop Worrying and Learn to
Love Self-Managing Systems
Alva L. Couch, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Tufts University
The profession of system administration is currently threatened by many forces,
including self-managing products that seem to obsolete the system administrator,
a lack of upward mobility paths for professional system administrators, and
a growing trend toward outsourcing system administration and related tasks.
In this talk, I
explore how ongoing changes in the systems we manage can drive
positive changes in the profession. The bad news is that the way we prepare system
administrators today is woefully inadequate for managing the systems of the
future, and we must also rise to the challenge by learning to interact with
the systems we manage at a very different level than we are currently trained
to do.
System Administration: Drowning in Management Complexity
Chad Verbowski, Software Architect, Microsoft Research
Systems management is challenging because it requires administrators to understand
and specify the desired state of each system based on their knowledge of the
network, hardware, security, distributed applications, and workloads in their
environment. Yearly increases in the variation, complexity, and volume
of systems management tasks are outpacing our ability to hire qualified administrators
to maintain our IT environments.
This talk presents a new black-box approach for reducing the complexity of
systems and security management faced by administrators. The goal is to show
this as a scalable alternative compared with current signature and declarative
management approaches. Real world data, examples, and solutions are used to
illustrate the scope and impact of troubleshooting, malware detection, and change
management problems, as faced by today's systems administrators.
Chad's research on network management led to a job offer from MFS Datanet
(eventually swallowed by Worldcom) in Silicon Valley. After that, a stint at
Cisco Systems followed and then he took a leap (of faith) to a network management
start-up-->. He eventually arrived at Microsoft in 1998.
Originally hired to work on the notorious Java VM, he worked on the headless
support in Windows 2000, then ran the development team for the first release
of Microsoft Operations Manager before finding his niche at Microsoft Research.
At MSR Chad cofounded the Cybersecurity and Systems Management research group,
where he focuses on his area of interest: reducing complexity in software.
IBM Autonomic Task Manager for Administrators (ATMA) is a spreadsheet-based
scripting environment for quickly composing and automating system management
tasks. With this environment, administrators can execute management commands
and combine these commands to create ad hoc scripts and visualizations
of system management information. The basic building blocks for these tasks
are spreadsheet templates that are customized with a simple drag-and-drop interface.
Autonomic Task Manager for Administrators enables the insertion of GUI, visualization,
or system management components into cells of a spreadsheet and customization
of the cells in order to insert control logic for a system management solution.
Just as in spreadsheets, data in the cells are automatically processed and updated;
this feature allows real-time system data feeds.
Currently, Autonomic Task Manager for Administrators supports a variety of
system management plug-ins, including Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP),
Secure Shell (SSH), and Java™ Management Extension (JMX). Using ATMA's component
plug-in API, developers can build custom components that can be used to develop
tools using different management APIs; one such API interfaces to IBM Autonomic
Integrated Runtime Environment, which allows communication with resources based
on Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM). ATMA can also interact with any
Java object.
Autonomic Task Manager for Administrators significantly reduces script creation
time with its familiar spreadsheet interface and building blocks made from templates.
The package includes the executable, relevant plug-ins, installation instructions,
and user documentation.
How does it work?
System administrators or value-added re-sellers (VARs) can use the spreadsheet-based
scripting environment to build scripts incrementally, potentially starting from
templates and using standard components. After a script is developed, it can
immediately become available for use or further customization.
Depending on the specific administrative function being addressed, this technology
helps to tie together the various underlying components. The cells may contain
numbers and text, as in most spreadsheets, as well as GUI objects such as buttons
and checkboxes, visualization objects such as plots and pie charts, programming
objects such as collections and timers, and system objects such as JMX, SNMP,
etc. These objects can be either created by the user or assigned to cells as
a result of evaluating expressions that define the functional relationship between
objects in various cells.
Examples are included in the documentation provided with this package.
Remote Server Management Tool is an Eclipse plug-in that provides an integrated
graphical user interface (GUI) environment and enables testers to manage multiple
remote servers simultaneously. The tool is designed as a management tool for
those who would otherwise telnet to more than one server to manage the servers
and who must look at different docs and man pages to find commands for different
platforms in order to create or manage users and groups and to initiate and
monitor processes. This tool handles these operations on remote servers by using
a user-friendly GUI; in addition, it displays configuration of the test server
(number of processors, RAM, etc.). The activities that can be managed by this
tool on the remote and local server are divided as follows:
- Process Management: This utility lists the process running on
UNIX and Windows® servers. One can start and stop processes. Along with
process listing, the utility also provides details of the resources used
by the process.
- User Management: This utility facilitates creation of users and
groups on UNIX servers; it also provides options for listing, creating,
deleting, and modifying the attributes of users and groups.
- File Management: This utility acts as a windows explorer for
any selected server, irrespective of its operating system. One can create,
edit, delete, and copy files and directories on local or remote servers.
Testers can tail the remote files.
How does it work?
This Eclipse plug-in was written with the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT). The
tool has a perspective named Remote System Management; the perspective consists
of test servers and a console view. The remote test servers are mounted in the
Test Servers view for management of their resources (process, file system, and
users or groups).
At the back end, this Eclipse plug-in uses the Software Test Automation Framework
(STAF). STAF is an open-source framework that masks the operating system-specific
details and provides common services and APIs in order to manage system resources.
The APIs are provided for a majority of the languages. Along with the built-in
services, STAF also supports external services. The Remote Server Management
Tool comes with two STAF external services: one for user management and another
for proving system details.
At Novell BrainShare today, Novell and Dell joined hands in launching a software
product for remote management of servers running either Novell's own SUSE Linux
or a competing Linux distribution put out by Red Hat, Novell's long-time archrival.
Pegged for availability on April 19, the jointly developed software for Dell
PowerEdge servers will be dubbed Novell Zenworks 7 Linux Management - Dell Edition,
said Jason Werner, a Novell product marketing manager, during a pre-briefing
with Linux Today.
The upcoming software package "takes our Zenworks Linux management product
and adds a layer of Dell-specific management," according to Werner.
The new Dell Edition of Zenworks will be geared mainly to organizations with
multiple remote PowerEdge servers, "where you wouldn't necessarily have Linux
expertise (on site) at all locations," Werner said.
Target customers include organizations engaged in server consolidation as
well as those that are migrating servers from Microsoft Windows to either SUSE
or Red Hat.
The Dell Edition will be the first iteration of Zenworks tailored to managing
both of these two major distributions of Linux. Novell did not work directly
with Red Hat in creating the product, he said.
But together with Dell, a long-time Red Hat ally, Novell has been tweaking
Zenworks to support Red Hat environments.
Already tested by Novell on both SUSE and Red Hat Linux, the product will
bring together Zenworks features such as remote provisioning and inventory management
with capabilities specific to Dell's PowerEdge platform. The Dell-specific tools
will deal with areas ranging from bios administration to remote access management.
Novell Zenworks 7, Linux Management - Dell Edition will not replace the Dell
OpenManage software that has shipped for some time with PowerEdge servers, Werner
said.
"But [the Zenworks] software will cover the entire [server] lifecycle, including
pre-OS and RAID," he told Linux Today.
Through the new Dell edition, administrators in remote locations will have
access to detailed bios and firmware information. "You'll be able to run queries
to find out what has been deployed on a server," he added.
Administrators will also be able to make configuration changes remotely,
repurposing a system "simply by changing it from a Web server to a storage server,
for example," according to the Novell executive.
Configuration changes made on one server can be quickly promulgated among
other servers that perform the same roles, reside in the same geographies, or
have the same models and makes.
"You can even adjust the utility partition on the hard drive when no OS is
present," Werner said. Consequently, he suggested, organizations can be more
certain that configuration settings will remain consistent among a group of
servers.
On the other hand, the product will also support capabilities built into
Zenworks for assigning administrative rights only to authorized individuals,
Werner said.
The Dell edition of Zenworks will be sold separately from PowerEdge servers.
The product will not be available through Novell or its resellers.
Instead, sales will be performed exclusively through Dell, according to Werner.
As some analysts see it, today's announcement by Novell and Dell reflects
an increasingly visible industry-wide trend toward better Linux management tools.
"It's really obvious that [Linux management] tools are getting broader, more
sophisticated, and better able to integrate with outside systems," said Andy
Mann, a senior analyst at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), during another
interview.
But although Hewlett-Packard and IBM Tivoli have accomplished some penetration
of the Linux management market, much of the innovation so far has come from
smaller vendors such as Levanta, Velocity Software, and Opsware, according to
Mann.
But many Linux administrators have relied mainly on tools from Novell and
Red Hat. "So it's good to see a company such as Novell getting behind some new
management software," added the analyst, who is also the author of a recently
released report from EMA called "Get the Truth on Linux Management."
Co-sponsored by Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and Levanta, one of the
OSDL's members, the study of over 200 Linux companies dismisses earlier claims
that Linux has a higher Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) as "no longer true."
Mann also told Linux Today that support for other Linux distributions could
prove useful to Novell. "Zen is [basically] open source software, [but] with
some proprietary components. It should be in Novell's best interests to support
as many other distributions of Linux as it can, to further the growth of Linux,"
he said.
"Support for other distros could only help Novell. It certainly couldn't
hurt," concurred David Dennis, Levanta's director of marketing.
Dennis noted that many Linux customers are now seeking multi-distro support
as a way of avoiding "vendor lock-in."
Levanta's management tools support both SUSE and Red Hat Linux, along with
a "second tier" of distros such as CentOS and Asianux, according to the marketing
director.
But Dennis also maintained that Linux management tools vary along a number
of other lines, based on the administrative capabilities needed in particular
types of deployments.
Novell has already been providing hefty Linux management support through
its multiplatform Zenworks lineup, observed Fred Broussard, an IDC analyst,
in another interview with Linux Today.
Broussard also pointed out that it isn't at all unusual for competitors in
the computer industry to cooperate on some levels.
"We've heard a lot over the years about Novell and Red Hat having an adversarial
relationship," according to the IDC analyst.
"But at the end of the day, Novell is going to do what its customers want.
Novell is a very customer-centric company," Broussard told Linux Today.
Novell's Werner declined to comment one way or the other on whether other
products supporting multiple Linux distributions are also in the works at Novell.
"Not that we've made public comments on," Werner told Linux Today.
The upcoming Novell Zenworks 7 Linux Management - Dell Edition will be priced
at $69 per license.
If you're a good administrator, you pride yourself on
developing a fundamental understanding of the systems you build. After a while,
as you begin to comprehend the complete complexity that goes along with building
and maintaining your infrastructure, the commands and procedures to control
them become second nature. You have to look at the documentation less and less,
until eventually people refer to you as a guru. Having this kind of understanding
of your servers is important, but it does no good if you aren't available when
something crashes. By creating detailed written policies detailing the ins and
outs of your systems in advance, you can provide critical background information
to your backup admin who can use it to restore functionality in your absence.
V. Thou shalt document complete and effective
policies and procedures
In the past I found documented policies useful especially
at two different times. The first is at the inception of a project. Before the
system goes into production, sometimes even before the hardware is bought, detail
in writing exactly what you need the server to accomplish, where its performance
bottlenecks will be, and what your intentions are to correct these issues. This
will allow you (and upper management!) to know that your time is not being spent
chasing a fantasy implementation that will never work. It also helps you to
better understand the nature of the beast you're building. If anything goes
wrong during the installation and configuration process (and something always
does) you'll be better prepared to deal with it simply due to the better understanding
you've obtained by mapping everything out beforehand. At this point you don't
need anything more than an outline (sometimes in the form of a project plan)
and a few diagrams to guide you. If it's a much larger-scale implementation
though, you'll need a detailed project plan dividing the entire process into
phases. For instance, a large-scale Beowulf cluster would require a detailed
project plan, while a new intranet Web server might only require a brief outline
of configuration tasks and a diagram showing how it's integrated into network.
The second time that these policies are important is after
the server has finished configuration and is ready to go into a production environment.
At this point, before it is rolled out, you should take some time to create
some detailed step-by-step documents explaining the backup restoration process,
the steps necessary to restart a service (or just make a list of important services
that might need to be restarted, depending upon the experience of your back
admins) and anything else that might be helpful. Just remember that you won't
always be available to fix something; having detailed instructions for common
problems or routine exercises can make the difference between 10 minutes of
downtime and a week and a half if you are unavailable.
The commandments so far:
I.
Thou shalt make regular and complete backups
II.
Thou shalt establish absolute trust in thy servers
III.
Thou shalt be the first to know when something goes down
IV.
Thou shalt keep server logs on everything
V. Thou shalt document complete and effective policies and procedures
[Nov 02, 2005]
MValent to release updated apps management software - Computerworld Two companies
offer products that are similar to mValent's offering: Relicore Inc. in Burlington,
Mass., and Collation Inc. in Redwood City, Calif. But mValent seems to be unique
because it focuses on the entire life cycle of managing applications, from predeployment
into deployment, Drogseth said.
(COMPUTERWORLD)
- MValent Inc. next week plans to take the wraps off the latest version
of mValent Integrity, software that's designed to automate the configuration
and management of application and Web servers and other application components.
The software, which will be available on Monday,
starts at $60,000 and will be deployed by several existing mValent customers,
including WorldWinner Inc., an online gaming company in Newton, Mass., and State
Street Corp., a financial services company in Boston, according to executives
at the companies.
... ... ...
State Street expects to upgrade to mValent Integrity
soon, said Joseph Kennedy, State Street's vice president of IT. State Street
wants to stay current with the product, since prior versions have reduced the
time needed to debug new application configurations. State Street uses MValent
software to monitor a variety of systems that affect its 19,000 employees, he
said.
Kennedy said mValent has helped the financial
services firm add scalability to its application infrastructure and resolve
problems with configurations, something he called "invaluable." State Street
has been able to expand the application environments it maintains without adding
system administrators, he said.
MValent Integrity appears to be unique in the
market, said two analysts, Jean-Pierre Garbanim at Forrester Research Inc. and
Dennis Drogseth at Enterprise Management Associates.
[Oct 7, 2005]
mValent ¦ Powerful Change
Control
mValent Integrity tracks changes to deployed
servers and monitors configuration drift alerting IT teams to potentially
critical problems. By comparing application environments in mValent Integrity
for differences in granular configuration items, IT teams rapidly isolate
root causes of production incidents. These teams can then model fixes to
problems to validate their impact and automatically deploy them.
- Rich Compare Capabilities – mValent
Integrity's Compare function aids troubleshooting by quickly pinpointing
differences between multiple server instances or across infrastructure
stacks representing different application environments.
- Versioning and Rollback - Running 'snapshots'
of application infrastructure environments, plus the ability to recover
quickly from unwanted changes.
- Tracking and Alerts - Knowing when a
change has been made - no matter what changed - and accurately reporting
on the specific properties before and after the change, gives IT teams
early warning on potential problems.
- Point-in-Time Views - By keeping a running
record of changes to a granular level, mValent Integrity reports on
all changes that occurred between two points in time, or show that no
unapproved changes took place.
- Audit Reports – Show the changes made
to an individual server or a whole production environment by time period
or by user.
The Book
of Webmin
Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any
browser that supports tables and forms (and Java for the File Manager module),
you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and so on.
Webmin consists of a simple web server,
and a number of CGI programs which directly update system files like
/etc/inetd.conf and
/etc/passwd. The
web server and all CGI programs are written in Perl version 5, and use no non-standard
Perl modules.
Linux.com Automounter
madness
"The world of automounters is a confusing one.
For one thing, a single automounter wasn't enough, so there are two of them
for Linux, called 'amd' and 'autofs'. While it's easy to say 'well, just pick
one and go on your way', many environments have demands that will require both,
and both serve different purposes and have different strengths and weaknesses.
The automounter world is not so cut and dry. In this article, I'll give a light
overview of what amd and autofs look like, what their respective purposes are
in life, and go over some of the common configuration options for each. Later,
I'll spice things up by including use cases where one will work better than
the other and more advanced features available to you as an administrator.
"Automounters can be a real pain in the neck.
Admins don't like things that are a pain in the neck, so one should be able
to gather that if we're putting up with these things, they must be pretty darn
useful--and they are. For one thing, automounters can get their mounting information
from centralized 'maps', which can be flat files, or even NIS maps or sections
of an LDAP directory. This is far easier than editing 300 /etc/fstab files for
different static NFS mounts..."
Related Stories:
LinuxWorld.com.au:
Mounting file systems(Feb 17, 2001)
LinuxFocus.org: automount
and autofs (Feb 11, 2001)
[Dec 17, 2003]
Slashdot Automating
Unix and Linux Administration
Learn to script (Score:4, Interesting)
by holden_t (444907) <holden_t@NOspAm.yahoo.com>
on Thursday October 09, @03:09PM (#7175570)
|
Certainly I haven't read the book but it looks as if Kirk is offering
examples of how to write scripts to handle everyday gruntwork. Good
idea.
But I say to those that call themselves sys.admins, Learn how to
script!!!
I work at a large bankrupt telcom :) and it's amazing
the amount of admins that don't have the slightest idea how to write
the simplest loop. Or use ksh, bash, or csh's cmd history. Or vi.
Maybe this is just a corporate thing. They were raised, in a sense,
in a setting where all they had to do was add users and replace disks.
Maybe they never learned how to do anything else.
Back in '83 I took manuals home and poured over every page, every weekend
for months. That didn't make me a good admin but it gave me a good foundation.
From there I had to just halfway use my head (imagination?) and start
writing scripts. Ugly? Sure. Did they get better? Of course!
Now I play admin on 110+ machines, and I stay bored. Why? Because I've
written a response engine in Expect that handles most of my everyday
problems. I call it AGE, Automated Gruntwork Eliminator.
There's no way I could have done this if I had just sat back and floated,
not put in a bit of effort to learn new things. |
Multiple Machines (Score:5, Interesting)
by BrookHarty (9119) on
Thursday October 09, @01:48PM (#7175005)
(http://www.ironwolve.com/)
|
One of the problems we have, is when you have clusters with 100+
machines, and need to push configs, or gather stats off each box.
On solaris, we run a script called "shout" that does a for/next loop
that ssh's into each box and runs a command for us. We also have one
called "Scream" which does some root privilege ssh enabled commands.
Nortel has a nice program called CLIManager (use to be called CLImax),
that allows you telnet into multiple passports and run commands. Same
idea, but the program formats data to display. Say you wanted to display
"ipconfig" on 50 machines, this would format it, so you have columns
of data, easy to read and put in reports.
Also, has a "Watch" command that will repeat a command, and format the
data. Say you want to display counters.
I have not seen an opensource program that does the same as "CliManager"
but its has to be one of the best idea's that should be implemented
in opensource. Basically, it logs into multiple machines, parses and
displays data, and outputs all errors on another window to keep your
main screen clean.
Think of logging into 10 machines, and doing a tail -f on an active
log file. Then the program would parse the data, display it in a table,
and all updates would be highlighted.
I havnt spoken to the author of CliManager, but I guess he also hated
logging into multiple machines, and running the same command. This program
has been updated over the years, and is now the standard interface to
the nodes. It just uses telnet and a command line, but you can log into
100's of nodes at once.
Wish I could post pics and the tgz file, maybe someone from Nortel can
comment. (Runs on Solaris, NT and linux) |
Re:Multiple Machines (Score:2)
by Xzzy (111297) <sether@
t r u 7 h.org> on Thursday October 09, @04:21PM (#7176481)
(http://tru7h.org)
|
> Nortel has a nice program called CLIManager (use
> to be called CLImax), that allows you telnet into
> multiple passports and run commands.
Fermilab has available a tool called rgang that does (minus the output
formatting) something like this:
http://fermitools.fnal.gov/abstracts/rgang/abstrac
t.html
We use it regularily on a cluster of 176 machines. It's biggest flaw
is it tends to hang when one of the machines it encounters is down.
But it is free so I won't complain. :) |
Multiple Machines in Parallel (Score:1)
by cquark (246669) on Thursday
October 09, @04:29PM (#7176572)
|
One of the problems we have, is when you have clusters with 100+
machines, and need to push configs, or gather stats off each box.
On solaris, we run a script called "shout" that does a for/next
loop that ssh's into each box and runs a command for us. We also
have one called "Scream" which does some root privilege ssh enabled
commands.
While the serial approach of looping through machines is a huge improvement
over making changes by hand, for large scale environments, you need
to use a parallel approach, with 16 processes or so contacting machines
in parallel. I wrote my own script, but these days the
Parallel::ForkManager [cpan.org] module for perl does the process
management part for you. |
Re:Multiple Machines (Score:2)
by Sevn (12012) on Thursday
October 09, @04:57PM (#7176807)
(http://www.dangpow.com/~sevn
| Last Journal: Tuesday
April 01, @07:18PM) |
I do pretty much the same thing this way:
Generate ssh key file.
Put pub key file in $HOME/.ssh/authorized_keys2 on the remote machines.
Have a text file with a list of all the names the machines resolve to.
for i in `cat machinelist.txt`; do echo "running blah on $i"; ssh user@$i
'some command I want to run on all machines'; echo " "; done
It comes in handy for stuff like checking the mail queues or doing a
tail -50 on a log file. Mundane stuff like that. Everyone once in a
while I'll do basically the same thing with scp instead. It can get
as complicated as you want. I used a for loop like this to remount 150
/tmp dirs noexec and make the edits to fstab. |
Re:Multiple Machines (Score:2)
by drinkypoo (153816) <drink@hypeDEBIANrlogos.org
minus distro> on Thursday October 09, @10:00PM (#7179637)
(http://slashdot.org/
| Last Journal: Friday
November 21, @04:31PM) |
| IBM also owns Tivoli Systems, which made something called TME10,
the current name of which escapes me at the moment. TME10 uses CORBA
(their ORB is now Java, but it used to be basically ANSI C plus classes,
compiled with the microsoft compiler on windows and gcc on most other
platforms. Lots of it was perl, some of it was shell, plenty of it was
C. Methods called Perl scripts pretty damn frequently. The interface
was completely configurable and not only could you customize them without
purchasing any additional products (if you felt froggy) but they also
sold products to make this easier to do.
Last I checked this package ran with varying degrees of ability (but
most operating systems were very well suppored) on all major Commercial
Unices, BSDi, Linux, OS/2, NT, Novell, and a bunch of random Unices
that most people have never heard of, and never had to. It was sometimes
problematic but the fact is that it was incredibly cross-platform.
It was a neat way to do system monitoring. It would be nice to develop
something open source like that. I think that today it would not be
all that difficult a task. I'd like to see all communications be encrypted,
with arbitrary shapes allowed in the network in terms of who talks to
who, and who has control over who, to reflect the realities of organizations.
|
Re:Multiple Machines (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 09, @04:14PM (#7176396)
|
| IBM has two solutions depending on the environment. PSSP under AIX
will allow you to run distrbuted command across nodes with either a
correct RSH config or SSH Keys with no passphrase. PSSP, also, allow
for parrallel copy. Under Linux( and AIX actually) there is CSM which
also allows for DSH with the same config requirements. You can do Parallel
copy under CSM, but you have to be tricky with something like, "dsh
headnode:/file /file" . |
Re:Learn to script (Score:2)
by Wolfrider (856) <kingneutron@yahoTOKYOo.com
minus city> on Friday October 10, @08:10PM (#7187085)
(http://wolfrdr.tripod.com/linuxtips.html)
|
O'Reilly's book helped me quite a bit.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bash2/
In addition, Debian has a new package called abs-guide that I haven't
checked out yet.
http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/abs-guide.
html
--I've written a bunch of helpful bash scripts to help me with everyday
stuff, as well as aliases and functions. If you want, email me - kingneutron
at yahoo NOSPAM dot com and put "Request for bash scripts" in the subject
line, and I'll send you a tarball. |
Might be useful... (Score:2)
by Vrallis (33290) on Friday
October 10, @12:22AM (#7180451)
(http://krynn.penguinpowered.com)
|
| This might very well be a book I'll pick up sometime. I'm always
looking for more ideas.
I maintain about ~170 remote Linux boxes (in our company's retail
stores and warehouses), as well as our ~30 or so inhouse servers.
I went through a lot of work to enable our rollout and conversion
to go more smoothly. The network and methodology for users, printers,
etc. is extremely simplified and patterened.
For each of the 3 'models' of PCs we use, I have a master system
that I produced. I used
Mondo
Rescue [mondorescue.com] to produce CD backups of these systems.
These systems act as serial terminal controllers, print spoolers, routers,
desktop system usage (OpenOffice, Mozilla, Kmail under KDE), and other
functions as needed.
When we need to replace a system, or rollout a new location, we grab
a system, pop in the Mondo CD, and do a nuke restore. When done, we
have a standard configuration user that we log in as. It runs a quick
implementation script where you answer anywhere from 3-8 questions (depending
on the system type and options), and it configures everything. All networking,
users, sets up Kmail, configures all printers and terminals (we use
Comtrol Rocketport serial boards), and so on.
If the system is physically ready, we can have it ready software-wise
in about 20 minutes (2 CDs to restore).
Updates are done via a couple different methods. I use SSH (over
our internal VPN, using key authentication) in scripts to do most updates.
If I need to do anything major, such as recently updating Mozilla, we
do a CD distribution. The users have a simple menu to take care of running
the update for them, even with autorun under KDE. Just pop in the CD,
and it automatically takes them into the menu they need.
All logs are duplicated across the network to a central server, but
intrusion is less likely as these systems sit on a private frame network.
They do, however, have fully secured network setups, as we use cheap
dial-up internet access as a backup in case the frame circuit goes down.
I can't help but feel every day like this is just one big hack/kludge,
but it works, works damned well, and was about half the cost of any
other solution (i.e. higher end Cisco routers to handle various functions,
and using Equinox ELS-IIs or the like...those pieces of crap never would
work right, we finally pulled only 2 we had in use, and they are currently
collecting dust in a storage cabinet).
Needless to say, I am *always* looking for ideas to improve upon
this.
|
[Oct 25, 2003]
Cultured Perl Application configuration with Perl
The simple approach: Do it yourself (DIY)
Theoretically (and with the right tools!) anyone can build a configuration parser,
right? The Perl Cookbook,
for one, shows a quick implementation that provides a good start. So how hard
can it be to write a configuration file parser if you begin with this kind of
implementation?
Quite hard, actually, because this kind of project raises several more complex
issues like these:
- Blank lines and comments in the configuration file
- Erroneous lines (like misspelled keywords), and the question of which
are critical and which can be ignored
- The probability that you may have to write your own parser, because
you are likely to need a variety of different data structures (booleans,
scalars, arrays, and hashes, for example)
- Multiple configuration files
- Variable defaults
- Integrating command-line options with the file configuration and controlling
how they interact
- Educating users in yet another DIY configuration file format (This usually
goes something like: "This will work, as long as you have no '=' on a line
by itself. Oh, and comments begin with '#' but they have to be by themselves.
Don't forget to use uppercase for the keywords and lowercase for the values.
Come back! Come back! I didn't tell you about the mandatory keywords!")
- Rewriting or copying possibly buggy configuration code instead of reusing
a module
- Making the configuration an object with a consistent interface instead
of the usual DIY haphazard hash of keywords
Scared yet? That's why we have AppConfig. It can handle all these concerns.
It's more than likely that DIY is not what you should be using.
[Sept 15, 2003]
The road to better programming Chapter 6. Developing cfperl, from the beginning
[Sept 15, 2003]
Fix-It Fatigue By
John Foley, George V. Hulme. Patched became a problem and not only on Microsoft
operating systems ;-)
With the Blaster worm seeming to be under control, alleged virus-author Jeffrey
Parson under house arrest in Minnesota, and hacker Adrian Lamo under the watchful
eye of the feds, business-technology managers may have enjoyed a few hours of
peace and quiet last week. But it was short-lived. On Sept. 10, Microsoft issued
a security bulletin warning of three new critical vulnerabilities in the Windows
operating system, sending systems administrators rushing to patch their computers.
It's become an all-too-common scenario--and one that's causing some businesses
to re-evaluate their heavy reliance on Microsoft products.
A year-and-a-half after Bill Gates declared that trustworthy computing had
become Microsoft's No. 1 priority, the software bugs keep coming. The latest
vulnerabilities involve the Remote Procedure Call service in Windows, making
it possible for a malicious hacker to take control of a target system, introduce
an infectious worm, or launch a denial-of-service attack. A week earlier, Microsoft
issued five other warnings, four involving the omnipresent Office applications
suite. For the year, the tally stands at 39.
And those are just the holes that have been uncovered by others and reported
to Microsoft. In addition, the software vendor is combing through its code,
finding holes, and issuing patches without publicizing the flaws. No one knows
how many more are yet to be uncovered. "There's no way to wrap your hands around
that," says Dan Ingevaldson, engineering manager with security vendor Internet
Security Systems Inc.
Some business and technology professionals are running out of patience. "The
issues around these vulnerabilities are escalating to the point where it's not
just CIOs or CTOs, it's corporate officers, it's boards of directors asking:
'What are we going to do?'" says Ruth Harenchar, CIO of Bowne & Co., which
last week scrambled to patch 4,500 Windows PCs and 500 servers in the
United States and more overseas. "The situation appears to be getting
worse, not better."
The patching work has thrown Bowne & Co.'s technology projects off schedule.
Now, the specialty-printing-services company is assessing its options. Among
them: redesigning its network around a thin-client model to reduce the number
of PCs running Windows and, on other machines, migrating to Linux. "It's getting
to be enough of a burden that you have to seriously start thinking about alternatives,"
Harenchar says.
Raymond James & Associates has assembled a team of IT staffers to manage
the constant patching. "Organizations have to mobilize and realize this
is going to be a way of life for the foreseeable future," says VP of
IS Gene Fredriksen.
The financial-services firm, with offices around the world, last week began
the arduous task of patching 10,000 PCs and 1,000 servers. "The pressure is
on," Fredriksen says. "Anybody that isn't patched by the weekend is going to
have trouble." The fear is that the latest vulnerability leaves Windows computers
open to a Blaster-like worm. "There's a very good chance that a worm is going
to be developed" to take advantage of the latest security holes, says ISS's
Ingevaldson.
"People are getting fed up," says Lloyd Hession, chief information
security officer at financial-network provider Radianz, adding that the number
of Windows patches is reaching "epic proportions." The situation is causing
more than just a few disgruntled customers to re-evaluate how much they use
Microsoft products. Says Gartner security analyst John Pescatore, "There's definitely
a very large trend towards that."
O'Reilly Network Top Five Open Source
Packages for System Administrators I do not like Cfengine. IMHO although the
idea is good implementation does not substantially improves sysadmin productivity
in comparison with rsh and regular scripts in Ksh93 and Perl.
Sysadmin Tales of Terror
Cover One's Behind With Glory
Now let's be honest, documentation is boring and no fun. I don't care; just
do it. Keep a project diary. Record everything you find. You don't
want to shoulder the blame for someone else's mistakes or malfeasance. It is
unlikely you'll get into legal trouble, but the possibility always exists. Record
progress and milestones as well. Those in management tend to have short
memories and limited attention spans when it comes to technical matters, so
put everything in writing and make a point of reviewing your progress periodically.
No need to put on long, windy presentations -- take ten minutes once a week
to hit the high points. Emphasize the good news; after all, as the ace
sysadmin, it is your job to make things work. Any dork can make a mess; it takes
a real star to deliver the goods.
Be sure to couch your progress in terms meaningful to the person(s) you're
talking to. A non-technical manager doesn't want to hear how many scripts you
rewrote or how many routers you re-programmed. She wants to hear "Group A's
email works flawlessly now, and I fixed their database server so it doesn't
crash anymore. No more downtime for Group A." That kind of talk is music to
a manager's ears.
Managing Users
In every business there are certain key people who wield great influence.
They can make or break you. Don't focus exclusively on management -- the people
who really run the show are the secretaries and administrative assistants. They
know more than anyone about how things work, what's really important, and who
is really important. Consult them. Listen to them. Suck up to them. Trust me,
this will pay off handsomely. Also worth cultivating are relationships with
the cleaning and maintenance people -- they see things no one else even knows
about.
When you're new on the job and still figuring things out, the last thing
you need is to field endless phone calls from users with problems. Make them
put it in writing -- email, yellow pad, elaborate trouble-ticket system, whatever
suits you. This gives you useful information and time to do some triage.
Managing Remote Users
If you have remote offices under your care, the phone can save a lot of travel.
There's almost always one computer-savvy person in every office; make this person
your ally and helper. At very least, this person will be able to give you coherent,
understandable explanations. At best, they will be your remote hands and eyes,
and will save you much trouble.
Such a person may be a candidate for training and possibly transferring to
IT. Some people are afraid of helping someone like this for fear of losing out
to them in some way. The truth, though, is that you never lose by helping people,
so don't let that idea scare you off from giving a boost to a worthy person.
Getting Help
We all know how to use Google, Usenet, and other online resources to get
assistance. By all means, don't be too proud -- ask! And by all means, don't
be stupide either -- use a fake name and don't mention the company you work
for. There's absolutely no upside to making such information public; there are,
however, many downsides to doing so, like inviting security breaches, giving
away too much information, making your company look bad, and besmirching your
own reputation.
As I said at the beginning, these are strategies that have served me well.
Feel free to send me your own ideas; I especially love to hear about true-life
horror stories that have happy endings.
Resources
Life
in the Trenches: A Sysadmin Speaks
10 Tips for Getting Along with
People at Work
Linux Administration Books
Solaris 8
Administrator's Guide Chapter 4 Network Configuration By Paul
Watters January 2002 ISBN 0-596-00073-1,400 pages
After undertaking the complex tasks required to configure
a single host, planning and setting up an entire network can be daunting. In
this chapter, you'll learn how to configure a Solaris-based network, including
the configuration of single or multiple network interfaces, static and dynamic
routing, and network troubleshooting. In addition, examples for enabling devices
and testing interfaces will be provided.
Developer Todo
About: Developer Todo is a program to assist developers in maintaining
a list of outstanding tasks in a heirarchical, colourised, and prioritised list.
Additionally, it can automatically list outstanding items when you change into a
directory.
Changes: Fixed more GCC 3.x compilation problems, and a problem when running
without the TERM environment variable set.
f2w Helpdesk at Sourceforge
About: f2w helpdesk is a Web-based helpdesk package. It allows requests
to be categorised to an arbitrary level of detail using a expert-system-like question
and answer method. Advice and problem-specific information can be associated with
the request categories, thus building up a knowledge base to speed the resolution
of frequently occurring problems. Users can also add their own tasks, thus using
it as a todo list or for workflow within teams, and notes can be added to each request
at any time.
Changes: Minor user interface improvements, bugfixes in the Oracle configuration
script, a new MS SQL configuration, and the automatic addition of new help desk
operators to at least one team (without this, they can't do much).
About: Atop is an ASCII full-screen performance monitor similar to the
command top. For every interval (default 10 seconds), it shows system-level activity
related to the CPU, memory, swap, disks and network layers, and it shows for every
active process the CPU utilization in system and user mode, the virtual and resident
memory growth, priority, username, state, and exit code. The process level activity
is also shown for processes which finished during the last interval (for this reason
process accounting is switched on), to get a complete overview about the consumers
of things such as CPU time. Atop only shows the active system-resources and processes,
and only shows the deviations since the previous interval (e.g., the memory growth
rather than total memory usage per process). Unfortunately, the standard kernel
does not maintain counters about the number of disk and network accesses issued
per process. Later on, kernel patches will be made available to add these process
level counters. The current version of atop is already prepared to display these
counters.
Changes: Process accounting is now handled securely by creating a separate
subdirectory in /tmp. Disk types other than sda and hda are now recognized. Other
bugfixes and modifications include allowing users to run without process accounting,
avoiding flag list and buffer overflows, and correct access times for disks in SMP
systems.
| Categories |
Focus |
License |
URLs |
SSGDOC
- System Administration at cs.unm.edu
This document
contains documentation, procedure, and policy for the Systems Support group.
Reading and maintaining it is a required element to employment in the Systems
Support Group - it is vital in order for us to provide consistent (hopefully
excellent) service to the CS department. It should be kept as terse as possible
(otherwise no one will read it) while providing sufficient documentation so
that all (especially new) members will have a good running start at understanding
the technical composition of the site, and the group's procedures and policies
of operation. CS.UNM.EDU's technical composition has been largely modelled after
the LISA paper available at http://www.infrastructures.org. If you hope to understand
the document you are currently reading, you really must first read the Infrastructures
paper upon which this practical document is modelled after.
[Jan 28, 2002]
Sun BluePrints[tm]
OnLine - Articles January 2002Data Center Design
Philosophy
Editor's Note -
This article is the complete first chapter of the Sun BluePrints[tm] book,
Enterprise Data Center Design and Methodology, by Rob Snevely (ISBN 0-13-047393-6),
which is available through www.sun.com/books, amazon.com, fatbrain.com and Barnes
& Noble bookstores.
The detailed process of data center design appears
on the outset to be a purely mechanical process involving the layout of the
area, computations to determine equipment capacities, and innumerable other
engineering details. They are, of course, essential to the design and creation
of a data center, however, the mechanics alone do not a data center make. The
use of pure mechanics rarely creates anything that is useful, except perhaps
by chance.
There are, in fact, some philosophical guidelines
that should be kept in mind during the data center design process. These are
based on the relatively short history of designing and building practical data
centers, but are also based on design concepts going way back. This chapter
looks at some of these philosophies.
This chapter contains the following sections:
- Look Forward by Looking Back
- A Modern Pantheon
- Fundamentals of the Philosophy
- Top Ten Data Center Design Guidelines
[Aug 8, 2001] Several useful papers from SysAdmin Magazine
[July 27, 2001] System Administrator Appreciation
Day -- help yourself ;-)
Advice to employees the proper use of the System Administrator's valuable
time
Why You Can't Find Your System Administrator
http://www.cybernothing.org/cno/sysadmin.html
A Week in the Life of a System Administrator
http://www.avdf.com/jan98/hum_h003.html
101 Things You Do Not Want Your System Administrator To Say
http://www.brenna.net/notes/sys-adm.html
Tech Tales - The funniest tech support stories on the Internet
http://www.techtales.com
Understanding and Preventing
System Slowdowns
Submitted by <Jamie Wilson> on
Friday at
08:44:55 (EDT))
A
Sunworld article analyzes performance issues on Sun systems and gives advice
on how to track them down. The article discusses the use of tools, such as sar,
netstat and top to analyze the location of a bottleneck.
[Aug 20, 2000]
Linux Today - IBM developerWorks Tutorial Compiling and installing software from
sources -- small tutorials for newbies who want to learn how to download, unpack,
compile, and troubleshoot apps.
LinuxLookup.com:
Ownership & Permissions Guide(Jul 08, 2000)
LinuxPapers.org:
File Permissions in Unix and Linux(Apr 14, 2000)
LinuxPowered.com:
Linux file permissions & ownership(Dec 19, 1999)
Ext2:
File Permissions Made Easy(Nov 20, 1999)
apcmag:
Linux File Permissions(Jun 24, 1999)
LinuxPower:
Permissions and the ext2 Filesystem(Jan 05, 1999)
LinuxFreak
Monitoring your desktop machine
Monitoring your desktop machine
Cat: Feature, Posted June 04, 2000 by
gh0ul
Many people who start out with Linux using just X, never notice
a lot of the things that can go on with a Linux system. Some of those things
should be monitored or atleast kept an eye on.In this article we will go over
a couple methods of watching over your Linux box from the X windowing System.First
off, we will go over a traffic monitor called 'trafshow'. trafshow is a light
and easy traffic monitor that displays information about connections to your
system, for example, if someone telnets to you, it will display their ip, the
protocol, and port.. very simple information for just keeping an eye open.
You can get it
from here. Grab trafshow-1.3.tar.gz, un-tar and compile
it, you should be able to simply untar it and issue a make && make install
in the directory (must be root for the make install) After
that, go ahead and open an xterm, I suggest using the flags:
xterm -bg black -fg white Then you can su and start trafshow,
or some may prefer to give it root permissions so they would not need to su
anymore, but others might prefer to keep it root only, so that if you have users
on your system whom you don't want to see your connections, you'll still be
good to go. It's suggested that you keep the terminal
open with trafshow running at all times, so if you are ever curious about a
connection, you can simply take a look and see what's going where.
Another pretty popular traffic monitor
is iptraf, it does a lot of the same as trafshow, yet can be configured more,
and also will log data. You can find it here:
ftp://ftp.cebu.mozcom.com/pub/linux/net/iptraf-2.2.1.tar.gz
Some other helpful network monitoring tools:
These are NOT full proof anti-hack methods to take on your
system, but these should help you out a bit, and they are always handy to go
along with normal system administration.
Linux Magazine
January 2000 GURU GUIDANCE Big Brother Is Watching
Fortunately, this Big Brother is truly your friend. However,
like its Orwellian namesake, it is constantly on the lookout for things it doesn't
like, waiting to sound an alarm. I am talking about a systems-monitoring tool
developed by Sean MacGuire of The MacLawran Group (http//www.maclawran.ca/bb-dnld/)
called Big Brother.
Big Brother does most things that you'll find in commercial
monitoring tools; it can let you know when a machine on your network is down
or becoming overloaded or when a filesystem is getting too full; it can tell
you when specific processes are or are not running on clients; it can even page
you when a specific event occurs. It can be used to monitor Unix, Linux, Windows
NT, and NetWare clients.
One of the main reasons you'll want to try out Big Brother
is because of its simplicity. It is composed of just a handful of scripts and
programs, which collect information and report it to a central server, which
displays everything in an accessible HTML format. Big Brother's scripts are
easy to change and reconfigure, allowing you to customize the software to suit
your network.
Although it is not covered directly by the GNU General Public
License, you can download Big Brother for free from the MacLawran Group's Web
site. It is covered by a "fair use" license, which requires written permission
from the MacLawran Group to redistribute it.
[Jul 29, 2000]
Slashdot Are Buffer Overflow Sploits Intel's Fault -- interesting discussion
about problems with C
[Jul 29, 2000]
Slashdot Preventing Vendors From Playing The Blame Game -- several insightful
posts about AIX, Websphere, etc.
Issue
#92 Mailing From Scripts - Focus On Linux - 07-23-00
The old Unix mailer at /bin/mail is one of the programs that
really helped to launch the Internet as we know it today. In days gone by, it
was one of the most used binaries on any Unix workstation.
Today, the /bin/mail binary can still be used, but is horribly outdated -- it's
a text-only mailer with almost no features at all.
It is good, however for one thing: automated mailing, such
as sending e-mail from a shell script. To send mail with the /bin/mail program,
use this syntax:
mail -s "subject" touser@address < body_text
For example, if your e-mail address is joehalliway@nowhere.com,
and you needed to have the login information from the last command on
a given system sent to you every night at a given time, you could create a cron
job which called this command:
last | mail -s "Login information" joehalliway@nowhere.com
When executed, this command would send the output from the
last command to your e-mail box with the subject given. There are many
uses for the /bin/mail program when employed this way in scripts; use your imagination.
Focus
on Linux Forum /bin/mail other than text
You can use bin mail to also mail attachments. This was not
mentioned
in the article so I thought I might help out a few hapless souls.
To use /bin/mail to mail a attachment you must also have uuencode
installed. Not to worry though, most distributions include this by
default. Anyhow on to the good stuff.
So I'm in my home directory /home/possum and there is a file
in there
called attachment.txt. I can send this file two ways:
The first makes the attachment.txt show in the mail, in other
words the mail will contain the contents of attachment.txt. To do this I enter
the command "mail whoever@wherever.com
< attachment.txt".
The second way send attachment.txt as an attachment. I had
wanted to
do this many times and was unable to until I found uuencode could make this
happen. To send it as an attachment I would enter the command "uuencode attachment.txt
attachment.txt | mail whoever@wherever.com".
In the command line the first attachment.txt is the name of the file I want
to send. The second attachment.txt is the name of the attachment the recipient
will get. Pipe that to mail and Viola you have sent an attachment from a command
line or shell script. Happy scripting, Paul
Issue
#92 Calling Commands When Booting - Focus On Linux - 07-23-00
Linux Today - Linuxuser.co.za Tricks with -etc-issue
When your Linux System boots it starts "getty" processes on
a number of virtual terminals on your system. When getty starts, it prints the
contents of /etc/issue to the terminal. To customize the look of your console,
all you have to do is edit /etc/issue.
You can also add colour by using the colour capabilities of
the Linux console. The Linux console, like almost any other existing terminal,
has escape sequences that can be used to change the appearance of text on screen.
Piping the following script into /etc/issue:
#!/bin/sh
spaces(){
COUNT=0;
while [ $COUNT -lt $1 ]; do
echo -ne " ";
COUNT=$[$COUNT+1]
done
}
esc="\033["
echo -ne "${esc}H${esc}J\n${esc}44;37;1m"
WELCOME="Welcome to "`hostname`" running Linux "`uname -r`
CHARS=$[(80-`echo $WELCOME | wc --chars`)/2]
spaces $CHARS
echo -ne $WELCOME
spaces $CHARS
echo -ne "${esc}0m\n\\l "
should produce this result:
... ... ... ... ...
Linux
Today - O'Reilly Network What is a Network Administrator Anyway
TechRepublic: Establishing quotas for users on a Linux network(Jul 22, 2000)
RootPrompt.org: Using expect for System Administration(Jul 12, 2000)
LinuxPR:
Linux Network Administrator's Guide Revised and Expanded (Jul 11, 2000)
RootPrompt.org:
Trust and the System Administrator(Jun 19, 2000)
32BitsOnline:
Book [Review]: Essential System Administration(May 21, 2000)
LinuxWorld:
Relief for sysadmin headaches(May 02, 2000)
O'Reilly
Network: CYA for System Administrators; Things to keep in mind in our litigious
society(Apr 21, 2000)
SunWorld:
Xvfb - A conversation every system administrator should hear(Mar 26, 2000)
Sys
Admin: Policy Routing in Linux(Mar 18, 2000)
Linux
Journal: Book Review --Linux System Administration(Feb 27, 2000)
osOpinion:
The newbie network administrator and open source: I fear Skippy(Jan 11, 2000)
BW: DigitalThink
Announces Completion of Linux/UNIX System and Network Administration Series(Dec
29, 1999)
(May 9, 2000, 07:27 UTC) (425 reads) (0 talkbacks) (Posted by
marty)
"The file /etc/inetd.conf is vitally important
to your system's security and well-being -- especially if your system has a 24x7
connection to the Internet."
[Jan 27, 2000] Administering Linux using CVS.
Much emphasis has of late been put on making Linux easier
to manage. Typically the model used it that of a single user managing one or
more systems. However, once mutiple administrators and automated scripts are
all altering the configuration for a single machine the sutiation becomes somewhat
more complex. This problem is in essence very similar to the problem software
developers face when a team is working on a source tree. There are many solutions
to this problem, one of the most popular being Concurrent Versions System or
CVS.
Twinkle-Toes Release 4th February 1999.
[Jan 23, 2000]
Version 2.0 of the Netware file
system has been announced
by the Timpanogas Group. It is currently only available in binary form. Source is
evidently forthcoming, but has been delayed due to some weirdness that is best read
directly from the announcement.
[Jan 23, 2000]
System Administration
Made Simpler, Part 4 -- VNC (Virtual Network Computing)
Who says system administration can't be fun? My lovely and
wonderful wife, Sally, is busy using this week's system administration feature
to play Kpoker, the K Desktop Environment poker game. She's not busy
checking on logs, administering print queues, or even running a process analyzer.
She's playing poker. Of course, earlier on, I took control of her Windows 95
PC and started to edit a letter she was working on, so it probably serves me
right. In the interest of telling you all about this marvelous tool, I decided
to connect to her Windows 95 session and see how the KDE poker game she was
playing on our server was doing. Turns out she was losing all our money. Well,
that's gambling for you.
Oh--did I mention I am talking about a fantastic remote administration
tool that works with not only Windows, Solaris, DEC Alphas running OSF1, but
even that old favorite of the desktop publishing world, the MacIntosh?
This great tool is VNC (Virtual Network Computing)
from AT&T Laboratories in Cambridge, England. VNC is a package that allows you
to view other computer desktops from your own desktop. For instance, I could
be running an X server on a Linux machine from a Windows 95 or NT box, or doing
the reverse. I can do it from my internal network or across the Internet.
The system administrator in a large company with a number
of Windows workstations knows the headaches of all the simple "operator" error
calls that nonetheless require a great deal of work and time as you walk the
user through the right steps to solve their problems. Wouldn't it be great if
you could take control of their desktops and do it for them while they
watch and learn? Now, I know there are commercial packages that can do this,
but not necessarily from your Linux desktop. They also cost more than VNC.
That's right. VNC is distributed free of charge.
[Jan 3, 2000] Portable
Unix Toolkit (unix scripts)
Most of
these scripts are Korn shell scripts, a few are Perl or Expect scripts. The
Demo Edition, which is distributed as freeware, contains 11 scripts.
The Professional Edition contains a total of 49
scripts and includes all the scripts in the Demo Edition as well as the login environment
files. The Enterprise Edition contains a total
of 78 scripts and includes all the scripts in the Demo Edition as well as the login
environment files. (Some of the Enterprise Edition scripts work only on Solaris,
AIX or HP-UX - see the list below.) The Master Edition includes
the Professional Edition and the Enterprise Edition for a total of 106 scripts and
over 7,000 lines of code. Click on the script names (below) to view the
manual pages for the scripts.
The Portable Unix Shell Environment
The Portable Unix Shell Environment (PUSE) is a set of Korn
shell
login environment files and about
80 Korn shell, Perl and Expect scripts that have been ported to several
versions of Unix. It is distributed at no charge as open source software. The
scripts, which can be used independently of the login environment files, include
general utility scripts and systems administration scripts.
The
