You know, I received a new (well, used unit, new to me) Clariion yesterday from another division in my company. Came with around 10TB usable of 146GB drives in a nice EMC cabinet.
However, the most impressive thing about the whole unit was the packaging. The crate it came in was very nice, easy to open, and had a very nice hinged ramp once it was opened. Took a little wiggling on the crate to get the rack out, but once it started moving at the wheels were all pointed in the right direction, the rack rolled right out. With a couple extra pairs of hands, we had it unboxed in about 5 minutes.
I guess it's not really a technical topic, but it sure did make my life easier. How many times have you received systems that came in and took longer to unbox than to put into production? I think I had some HP blade servers that were like that recently... had to unbox the RAM, extra CPUs, voltage regulators, fiber HBA, etc. What a pain!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Fixing Windows with Linux
For those of you who've ever wondered why it's such a pain to resize the C: drive on a Windows server, here's a nice (and free) solution.
1) Download the latest version of the Knoppix Linux LiveCD and burn it to a CD.
2) Boot it up, open a shell session.
3) 'su' to root.
4) Run 'qtparted' to have a nice graphical tool to resize partitions, including NTFS partitions.
Knoppix is also lovely for giving you read-only access to an NTFS partition when you've destroyed your Windows install. I recently used this method to recover data from a home PC for a family friend where their windows install was completely inoperative. Booted up Knoppix, plugged in a 300GB USB hard drive, and copied all the useful data from the drive before a complete wipe and reload.
Good stuff, good stuff!
1) Download the latest version of the Knoppix Linux LiveCD and burn it to a CD.
2) Boot it up, open a shell session.
3) 'su' to root.
4) Run 'qtparted' to have a nice graphical tool to resize partitions, including NTFS partitions.
Knoppix is also lovely for giving you read-only access to an NTFS partition when you've destroyed your Windows install. I recently used this method to recover data from a home PC for a family friend where their windows install was completely inoperative. Booted up Knoppix, plugged in a 300GB USB hard drive, and copied all the useful data from the drive before a complete wipe and reload.
Good stuff, good stuff!
Network tools you can't live without
I just thought I'd mention a couple of nice multiplatform network tools that I don't like to live without.
Wireshark/Ethereal: A very comprehensive network sniffer and protocol analyzer. (Wireshark is the current name for the product). It's free, open source, and supported on numerous Windows, Linux, and UNIX platforms. Get it at www.wireshark.org
NMAP: A simple to use but powerful network portscanning tool. Also free, also runs on just about every platform out there. I've found that I like the Windows-based frontend ZenMAP (which comes packaged with the product). Give an IP range, tell it what kind of scan to run, and let it rip.
NetCat: Beware, Symantec AV thinks this is a "hacking tool" and deletes it - which is totally ridiculous. NetCat is the swiss army knife of tools for power users. Basically, you run it on two hosts, and you can shove any kind of network traffic through it that you'd like. It _could_ be used as a hacking tool, but personally, I use it to do some lovely network cloning of Linux or UNIX hosts from one box to another. Tar a whole system up, pipe it into netcat on one side, pipe from netcat to untar on the other box. Spectacular!
Wireshark/Ethereal: A very comprehensive network sniffer and protocol analyzer. (Wireshark is the current name for the product). It's free, open source, and supported on numerous Windows, Linux, and UNIX platforms. Get it at www.wireshark.org
NMAP: A simple to use but powerful network portscanning tool. Also free, also runs on just about every platform out there. I've found that I like the Windows-based frontend ZenMAP (which comes packaged with the product). Give an IP range, tell it what kind of scan to run, and let it rip.
NetCat: Beware, Symantec AV thinks this is a "hacking tool" and deletes it - which is totally ridiculous. NetCat is the swiss army knife of tools for power users. Basically, you run it on two hosts, and you can shove any kind of network traffic through it that you'd like. It _could_ be used as a hacking tool, but personally, I use it to do some lovely network cloning of Linux or UNIX hosts from one box to another. Tar a whole system up, pipe it into netcat on one side, pipe from netcat to untar on the other box. Spectacular!
Smoothwall Firewall
For those of you with an extra PC lying around (particularly an old junker), you might want to consider tossing out that Netgear or Linksys router in favor of installing Smoothwall (smoothwall.org).
Smoothwall is a very nice specialized Linux distribution built to install in just a few minutes and have a very configurable firewall/Point-to-point VPN solution with all the bells and whistles. All you need:
-An old PC (486 or better)
-256MB RAM
-2 NIC cards (or 1 + USB if your DSL/Cable modem is on the supported list for that)
-A couple of GB of hard disk space, if you like to log things
The distribution boots up and fires up a nice web-based configuration manager that allows for complete control of the system. I don't believe I've ever needed to use the command line for anything on my smoothwall, other than when it took a power hit and beat up the filesystem.
It also includes goodies (which are enabled with a checkbox)
-Caching Proxy Server
-Intrusion Detection
-DHCP
-Support for Dynamic DNS services
-Traffic graphing and trending
-Support for a DMZ on a 3rd network interface
For those needing a little better support, and a full L2TP/IPSEC VPN support, they do have a smoothwall corporate edition as well (smoothwall.net).
Beyond the filesystem issues after a power outage, the only problem I've had with my smoothwall box is that the power supply actually lit on fire (fortunately while I was standing there). I yanked the power supply and threw it outside (boy, did that smell bad), popped a new one in, and we were back up and running.
Smoothwall is a very nice specialized Linux distribution built to install in just a few minutes and have a very configurable firewall/Point-to-point VPN solution with all the bells and whistles. All you need:
-An old PC (486 or better)
-256MB RAM
-2 NIC cards (or 1 + USB if your DSL/Cable modem is on the supported list for that)
-A couple of GB of hard disk space, if you like to log things
The distribution boots up and fires up a nice web-based configuration manager that allows for complete control of the system. I don't believe I've ever needed to use the command line for anything on my smoothwall, other than when it took a power hit and beat up the filesystem.
It also includes goodies (which are enabled with a checkbox)
-Caching Proxy Server
-Intrusion Detection
-DHCP
-Support for Dynamic DNS services
-Traffic graphing and trending
-Support for a DMZ on a 3rd network interface
For those needing a little better support, and a full L2TP/IPSEC VPN support, they do have a smoothwall corporate edition as well (smoothwall.net).
Beyond the filesystem issues after a power outage, the only problem I've had with my smoothwall box is that the power supply actually lit on fire (fortunately while I was standing there). I yanked the power supply and threw it outside (boy, did that smell bad), popped a new one in, and we were back up and running.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Scriptomatic
Scriptomatic, for you who haven't heard of it, is a nice utility to generate WMI code (in a variety of languages) for Windows and Active Directory administration.
A quick hack to the code allows it to default to Perl code, which is my preferred implement of destruction.
My most common use is to have Scriptomatic generate a simple script for pulling all of the details from a user object in active directory. Copy and paste into something useful, and Scriptomatic has done all the heavy lifting for you, without having to remember all the syntax to do so.
I won't post a link here (ugly one deep in Microsoft's site), but a quick Google on scriptomatic will take you right there.
A quick hack to the code allows it to default to Perl code, which is my preferred implement of destruction.
My most common use is to have Scriptomatic generate a simple script for pulling all of the details from a user object in active directory. Copy and paste into something useful, and Scriptomatic has done all the heavy lifting for you, without having to remember all the syntax to do so.
I won't post a link here (ugly one deep in Microsoft's site), but a quick Google on scriptomatic will take you right there.
Nagios - NTray
Shameless plug here:
For users of the Nagios monitoring system, you can use NTray, the Nagios Tray icon for yourself.
Get it at www.nagiosexchange.org
Out of necessity, I wrote NTray myself using Perl with a GUI toolkit for Windows to enable all the functionality I wanted (and avoid making people hand-edit configuration files). I used Win32::GUI and the "GUI Loft" toolkit to make the configuration pages and menus and the nice system tray icon.
I'm not heavily maintaining NTray any more, mostly because Nagios is being phased out where I work... so if someone is interested in taking over ownership of the project, I'd be glad to share.
For users of the Nagios monitoring system, you can use NTray, the Nagios Tray icon for yourself.
Get it at www.nagiosexchange.org
Out of necessity, I wrote NTray myself using Perl with a GUI toolkit for Windows to enable all the functionality I wanted (and avoid making people hand-edit configuration files). I used Win32::GUI and the "GUI Loft" toolkit to make the configuration pages and menus and the nice system tray icon.
I'm not heavily maintaining NTray any more, mostly because Nagios is being phased out where I work... so if someone is interested in taking over ownership of the project, I'd be glad to share.
IBM model M
A short while ago I managed to wear out the left shift key on the last classic IBM "Model M" keyboard (mfg 1991) in my special stock, and I had to bring home the one I had hauled to work.
I used a cheap IBM keyboard from a NetVista for a short while, then discovered that a company was still manufacturing those lovely, noisy (buckling spring) keyboard.
http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/cus101usenon.html
For $59 bucks you can buy one for yourself.
Unfortunately, the one I hauled home from work didn't last too much longer either... so I'm hoping that my birthday gift will be another "Customizer 101".
Note: There's no "Flying Window" key on these things :P
I used a cheap IBM keyboard from a NetVista for a short while, then discovered that a company was still manufacturing those lovely, noisy (buckling spring) keyboard.
http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/cus101usenon.html
For $59 bucks you can buy one for yourself.
Unfortunately, the one I hauled home from work didn't last too much longer either... so I'm hoping that my birthday gift will be another "Customizer 101".
Note: There's no "Flying Window" key on these things :P
Online backup for the typical home user
With 2GB of storage for free and a nice simple client to use, Mozy (http://mozy.com/) has a very nice option for backing up data on your home workstation. Simply install the client, choose what to backup (it provides some hints and tips about this), choose network and performance options, and let it run.
To do a restore, simply visit their website, choose what you want to restore, and they can either package it up into a Zipfile for you (which you can download over an SSL-enabled website) or you can pay a few bucks to have them burn it on DVD and ship it to you.
For a few dollars ($4.95/month) you can get unlimited backup storage for a home PC. Quite a nice deal.
I've used this service for a while now, and it's worked very nicely for my home backup needs - it gets the backup done, and keeps the backed up data offsite. (I used to use a DLT to backup my data at home, but it was such a pain getting it down to a secured location like a bank box)
To do a restore, simply visit their website, choose what you want to restore, and they can either package it up into a Zipfile for you (which you can download over an SSL-enabled website) or you can pay a few bucks to have them burn it on DVD and ship it to you.
For a few dollars ($4.95/month) you can get unlimited backup storage for a home PC. Quite a nice deal.
I've used this service for a while now, and it's worked very nicely for my home backup needs - it gets the backup done, and keeps the backed up data offsite. (I used to use a DLT to backup my data at home, but it was such a pain getting it down to a secured location like a bank box)
XMing
If you're looking for a free alternative to WinaXe as a Windows XServer, I have to say I'm pretty impressed with XMing (http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming). It's a native Windows package, installs quickly and easily, and seems to perform nicely on a LAN.
It only took a minute or so to install and have running and displaying a full Gnome desktop from a Linux box on the LAN. Not a bad deal at all.
It only took a minute or so to install and have running and displaying a full Gnome desktop from a Linux box on the LAN. Not a bad deal at all.
JAMMA arcade cabinet
If you're like me and have an actual JAMMA arcade cabinet in your garage, you might like one of these:
http://www.ultimarc.com/jpac.html
As their website says, "Connect a PC to a JAMMA cabinet in seconds!!"
Drop your PC in the bottom of the case running ArcadeOS, connect your PC to this board, and the board to the JAMMA harness in your cabinet... and bang, you're up and running.
The video won't start up on the monitor until ArcadeOS steps the video sync down, and if you really need that, they sell a special video card for that too :)
http://www.ultimarc.com/jpac.html
As their website says, "Connect a PC to a JAMMA cabinet in seconds!!"
Drop your PC in the bottom of the case running ArcadeOS, connect your PC to this board, and the board to the JAMMA harness in your cabinet... and bang, you're up and running.
The video won't start up on the monitor until ArcadeOS steps the video sync down, and if you really need that, they sell a special video card for that too :)
Qlogic Firmware
This came to mind today when a coworker at another site had an issue with persistent SCSI reservations on SAN volumes (on an IBM DS4000 subsystem).....
Several months ago, I had an issue with a 'single node cluster' (the second node was on the shelf waiting to be installed) running Windows 2003 MSCS. The system had a lovely BSOD in the middle of the workday, and once it came back online, it couldn't successfully activate the cluster disks.
I worked with Microsoft for several hours on the phone, updating device drivers, clearing persistent SCSI reservations on my DS4000, and many other things, only to find the oddest solution:
I upgraded the firmware on the QLogic HBA in the system. This magically fixed the problem, and the cluster node immediately came online. Lesson learned: Make sure all the pieces and parts are kept up-to-date in your environment... you never know when something will cause you trouble that you don't expect.
Several months ago, I had an issue with a 'single node cluster' (the second node was on the shelf waiting to be installed) running Windows 2003 MSCS. The system had a lovely BSOD in the middle of the workday, and once it came back online, it couldn't successfully activate the cluster disks.
I worked with Microsoft for several hours on the phone, updating device drivers, clearing persistent SCSI reservations on my DS4000, and many other things, only to find the oddest solution:
I upgraded the firmware on the QLogic HBA in the system. This magically fixed the problem, and the cluster node immediately came online. Lesson learned: Make sure all the pieces and parts are kept up-to-date in your environment... you never know when something will cause you trouble that you don't expect.
vmware-config.pl
One of my buddies has been using VMWare Server (free edition) on a Linux server at his home office, and had a question about what happens when you upgrade the underlying Linux OS. In his case, he allowed the RedHat up2date agent to update some system packages on his machine, and VMWare stopped operating.
My answer: When in doubt, re-run vmware-config.pl from the Linux command-line. This should fix any issues with the VMWare kernel modules that are loaded (recompiling them automatically as needed)
As a note, I will be trying to post answers to questions that people ask me in this blog - partially so I remember the answer, and partially so other people might make use of the same information.
My answer: When in doubt, re-run vmware-config.pl from the Linux command-line. This should fix any issues with the VMWare kernel modules that are loaded (recompiling them automatically as needed)
As a note, I will be trying to post answers to questions that people ask me in this blog - partially so I remember the answer, and partially so other people might make use of the same information.
Vista SP1 Installation
Well, I bit the bullet a few days ago and installed Windows Vista SP1 on my home PC. (Quad-core intel, 3GB RAM, Vista Home Premium)
It _did_ have a blue screen of death attack in "stage 3" of the upgrade, but power cycling the machine cleared it. It got _really_ sluggish shortly after the first bootup, but has been acting normal ever since.
I can't say I see any performance boosts that would compel an upgrade, but I did get curious about it. If anything, I would say I'm seeing more periods of periodic slowness.... rare, but they do happen.
It _did_ have a blue screen of death attack in "stage 3" of the upgrade, but power cycling the machine cleared it. It got _really_ sluggish shortly after the first bootup, but has been acting normal ever since.
I can't say I see any performance boosts that would compel an upgrade, but I did get curious about it. If anything, I would say I'm seeing more periods of periodic slowness.... rare, but they do happen.
TSM Database Unload/Reload
I've seen a lot of mixed messages about what the results of a TSM database dump/reload are in real-world scenarios.
I did one of these recently (with an AUDITDB afterwards), and thought I'd take note of my results.
Before:
Database size - 60GB
Time to do DB backup to 3590H: 45-50 minutes
After:
Database size - 35GB
Time to do DB backup to 3590H: 10-15 minutes
The UNLOADDB process took about 7 hours on a pSeries 520, 8GB RAM, using 8 x 73GB 15k rpm drives for the database disks. I unloaded to a file device class on a nice speedy NFS server.
The LOADFORMAT stuff took about 10 minutes, I think.
The LOADDB took about 3 hours.
The AUDITDB - well, that took about 20 hours.
In the end, the auditdb did find some cruft in the database that needed some repairing, and it did do the trick to get rid of a nasty server crash issue.
I did one of these recently (with an AUDITDB afterwards), and thought I'd take note of my results.
Before:
Database size - 60GB
Time to do DB backup to 3590H: 45-50 minutes
After:
Database size - 35GB
Time to do DB backup to 3590H: 10-15 minutes
The UNLOADDB process took about 7 hours on a pSeries 520, 8GB RAM, using 8 x 73GB 15k rpm drives for the database disks. I unloaded to a file device class on a nice speedy NFS server.
The LOADFORMAT stuff took about 10 minutes, I think.
The LOADDB took about 3 hours.
The AUDITDB - well, that took about 20 hours.
In the end, the auditdb did find some cruft in the database that needed some repairing, and it did do the trick to get rid of a nasty server crash issue.
Cool toys for Apple II geeks
Okay, I know there aren't many Apple II geeks left out there, but as a guy with two Apple IIe's and an Apple IIgs in my house (and still in working condition), I thought the following couple of things would be useful:
ADTPro:
http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/
This is a cool tool to allow you to transfer disk images (in multiple formats) to and from your Apple II system over serial, audio, and Ethernet. In my case, I had no system disks available, but was able to use ADTPro to bootstrap the Apple II over a serial cable using my Super Serial Card. Cool beans. Once it was up and running, I could format disks and send disk images of my choice over the wire.
CFFA for Apple II: Compact Flash Interface Card for Apple II
http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php
Who needs a SCSI card and hard drive when you can slap in a 256MB CompactFlash card into your Apple II? This is cool!
ADTPro:
http://adtpro.sourceforge.net/
This is a cool tool to allow you to transfer disk images (in multiple formats) to and from your Apple II system over serial, audio, and Ethernet. In my case, I had no system disks available, but was able to use ADTPro to bootstrap the Apple II over a serial cable using my Super Serial Card. Cool beans. Once it was up and running, I could format disks and send disk images of my choice over the wire.
CFFA for Apple II: Compact Flash Interface Card for Apple II
http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php
Who needs a SCSI card and hard drive when you can slap in a 256MB CompactFlash card into your Apple II? This is cool!
Printmig.exe - Printer migration never looked so good.
Printmig.exe is perhaps the most useful tool to ever come from our friends at Microsoft. The Print Migration utility actually works as advertised, is simple to use, and is free.
What more can you ask for.
Using a few simple clicks, you can (remotely, if you desire) back up all print queues, drivers, ports, and shares from the print server of your choice - it dumps them into a .CAB file that you can store for data protection reasons, use for D/R purposes, etc.
With a few more clicks, you select the target machine of your choice, and can restore all your print queues and have them online in minutes. It's not tied to the hostname, so you can restore them anywhere.
What more can you ask for.
Using a few simple clicks, you can (remotely, if you desire) back up all print queues, drivers, ports, and shares from the print server of your choice - it dumps them into a .CAB file that you can store for data protection reasons, use for D/R purposes, etc.
With a few more clicks, you select the target machine of your choice, and can restore all your print queues and have them online in minutes. It's not tied to the hostname, so you can restore them anywhere.
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