I have to say, we've been very fond with the hardware we've gotten after choosing SMC to provide server racking for us. They custom build everything (and still have very reasonable choices), and you can work with them to receive engineering drawings of the racks of your choice before you order them. In our case, we picked a nice deep rack with lots of space on the left for zero-u mounting of PDUs.
We also (as they have been partered with SMC) switched to putting in 60A 3-phase power to every rack. We've got an Aphel front-end PDU for each rach, which we then cross-connect with the neighboring rack for the load. (we install all racks in pairs now, side-by-side)
The unfortunate part of this process is actually getting the equipment. We've gone through the process to order nice equipment, then had horrific times actually having it get to our site. 99% of the time, the problem wasn't with SMC, but with the PDU supplier. In the case of our last order, they had been purchased by another company, who had come in and discontinued the slave 15A PDUs we were using... unfortunately, this happened while we were waiting for shipment.
Well, we received the racks right quick. Took us 6 weeks to get our front-end PDUs. We're still waiting for delivery on some slave PDUs that they had to substitute in.
On a good note, the newly substituted slave PDUs will come with custom-made mounting brackets for our rack and instructions on how to install them. (they have a different form-factor than the others we had been getting)
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Facebook + Javascript
Simple technote, since I had to look up the solution.
In Firefox (my regular browser), I started getting a message when at the logon page of Facebook that Javascript was not enabled in my browser. This caused issues and make things not work right.
The problem persisted for a couple of days, and I found that IE didn't have the same problem.
Resolution: Cleared my browser cache, forced reload on the page, and we were all good.
In Firefox (my regular browser), I started getting a message when at the logon page of Facebook that Javascript was not enabled in my browser. This caused issues and make things not work right.
The problem persisted for a couple of days, and I found that IE didn't have the same problem.
Resolution: Cleared my browser cache, forced reload on the page, and we were all good.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Systems Packaging/Shipping
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!
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!
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.
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