Andrew's Blog

Ubuntu Jaunty

2009-05-23T11:19:00.002-05:00

I did a clean install this week of Jaunty and as always, it has not failed to impress.

I wanted to get openafs working again, and I dug up these old notes from college I wrote nearly 3 years ago. Surprisingly they still work!

Copy krb5.conf to /etc/krb5.conf

sudo apt-get install krb5-user openafs-krb5

change default realm to ACM.UIUC.EDU (case matters)
Kerberos servers are kerberos.acm.uiuc.edu and kerberos-1.acm.uiuc.edu
admin server is kerberos.acm.uiuc.edu

sudo apt-get install gcc-3.4 build-essential openafs-client

AFS Cell = acm.uiuc.edu (case matters)
default cache size is fine b/c you aren't going to use it.

sudo apt-get install module-assistant sudo m-a prepare openafs-modules sudo module-assistant auto-build openafs-modules sudo dpkg -i /usr/src/openafs-modules-*.deb

cd /etc/openafs sudo vim afs.conf

add: FNORD="-memcache -stat 10000 -blocks 65536 -chunksize 19"
This sets a 64MB in-memory cache. If you want to use a disk cache you'll need to make sure that /var/cache/openafs is ext2 and its probably a good idea to dedicate a parition to it.
set: OPTIONS=$FNORD

sudo vim afs.conf.client

change AFS_DYNROOT=false to true

sudo shutdown -r now "installing openafs"

When the box comes back up, you'll want to kinit userid and then type aklog. All of your afs stuff should be under /afs/clustername.

Intrepid Ibex

2008-12-21T15:23:00.004-06:00

Since Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex has been out for a while now, I thought it would be safe to start evaluating it. I haven't heard any horrible things about it, so we'll see how that goes.

I spent this morning setting up a VM and started building my standard image. I really love dpkg --get-selections and dpkg --set-selections. It allows me to keep somewhat of a standard build when I upgrade to a new version of Ubuntu by doing a diff on my package list from previous versions.

Resizing / and qla2xxx cards

2008-12-17T14:36:00.003-06:00

I wanted to expand the root partition on our Oracle RAC cluster which is all run from our XIOTech Magnitude (SAN). The servers all have a QLogic card to connect to the SAN. When I fired up the system rescue cd, which contains gparted, the qla2xxx module loads, but the filesystem on the SAN is not recognized. This is what I did to fix it:

uname -r - remember this
rmmod qla2xxx
insmod /lib/modules/kernelversion/kernel/drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla2xxx.ko

After that, type in dmesg. You should see some stuff related to [sda] and XIOTech at the very end.

At this point, launch gParted -- and it will automatically recognize your filesystem.

Extended Filesystem ACLs

2008-11-03T08:12:00.003-06:00

Our ZCM10 servers have a directory which holds the desktop images. We want our desktop guys to be able to upload to this directory, but without knowing the root password. Extended filesystem ACLs came to mind, and this is how we set it up.

Linux_Admins is a LUM-enabled eDirectory group that the desktop guys are all in.

Also, make sure your partition is mounted with acl support, otherwise this won't work :)

setfacl -R -m g:Linux_Admins:rwx /var/opt/novell/zenworks/content-repo/images

user@host:/var/opt/novell/zenworks/content-repo> ls -l
total 20
drwxrwxr-x 235 zenworks zenworks 4096 2008-10-28 19:47 content
drwxrwxr-x+ 4 zenworks zenworks 4096 2008-10-30 14:09 images
drwxrwxr-x 5 zenworks zenworks 4096 2008-10-21 23:53 system-update
drwxrwxr-x 4 zenworks zenworks 4096 2008-10-29 08:48 tmp

Notice the little plus sign on the images directory permissions? That indicates extended attributes are in place.

user@host:/var/opt/novell/zenworks/content-repo> getfacl images/
# file: images
# owner: zenworks
# group: zenworks
user::rwx
group::r-x
group:Linux_Admins:rwx
mask::rwx
other::r-x

There ya go! In addition to the zenworks group having permissions, the Linux_Admins group now has rwx permission to the images directory.

Rebuilding my laptop

2008-10-05T21:06:00.004-05:00

I was running Linux on my laptop for a while and pretty much lived within virtual machines.
I think down the road it will be possible to run Linux on the desktop in my environment, but right now the older Novell stuff requires Windows to admin it. I put Vista back on my laptop and here is some software that I have installed:

Work:
Office 2007
Blackberry Desktop Manager
Lotus Notes
Aventail
iPass
Groupwise Messenger
VMWare Workstation 6.5
Novell Client for Vista w/ Patch 6
nLite
vLite
Windows AIK
Bart PE
Novell iFolder
iManager Workstation

Standard:
Firefox
Google Talk
Google Earth
Google Chrome
Flash
Java
Better Gmail
Better GReader
Better GCal
Launchy
DownThemAll
Google Toolbar
iMacros
Google Gears
Ultra VNC
Notepad++
Adobe Reader
Picasa
VLC
GIMP
Isorecorder
daemon tools
cdburnerxp
PuTTY
WinSCP
XMing
Filezilla (client and server)
nmap
wireshark
windirstat
TrueCrypt
virtuawin
cutepdf
SyncBack

* This is still a work in progress. I will be modifying this as time goes on.

gTwitter

2008-09-20T14:19:00.002-05:00

I decided to try and get back into Twitter again. This time instead of refreshing a website every 5 minutes or checking my blackberry, I installed gTwitter. I had previously been using Twitux, but I just didn't like it for some reason.

Remember the Milk

2008-09-18T14:45:00.002-05:00

I've been using Remember the Milk to help me keep track of my to-do's at work. I've even gotten another guy to use it as well and we can share lists and assign each other tasks. It is pretty nice for me to be able to see some of the stuff coming in the pipe and where he is at on certain things.

I'll be in Miami for the next 6 days for work, and then a town outside Des Moines, Iowa for 5 days.

Ubuntu Hardy, Firefox 3 & Flash

2008-09-15T16:15:00.002-05:00

I've had nothing but trouble since upgrading to Hardy in regards to Firefox 3 and Flash. I decided to remove the packages provided in Hardy for flash and compile Flash 10 RC . Since doing so, I haven't had Firefox crash on me once.

My Current Desktop

2008-08-05T20:48:00.003-05:00

Screenshot1
Originally uploaded by awbassett1

Hardy and Compiz Fusion

2008-08-05T20:21:00.003-05:00

Previously, I have not been a fan of Compiz/Beryl/AIGLX/XGL, as it did not really improve my work, it only got in the way. When I upgraded to Hardy, I decided to give Compiz Fusion a go.

Once I enabled 'Extra' Visual Effects in the Appearance application (System --> Preferences --> Appearance), I went about installing the Emerald Theme Manager.

sudo apt-get install emerald compizconfig-settings-manager

I ran across the problem of the emerald-themes package not being available as well as Emerald no longer allowing you to download the GPL'ed themes.

I downloaded the package from here:
http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/e/emerald-themes/emerald-themes_0.2.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb

and then:

sudo dpkg -i emerald-themes_0.2.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb

The next step is to install the tray icon for Compiz Fusion.

sudo apt-get install fusion-icon

Next, go to Applications --> System Tools --> Compiz Fusion Icon. Right click on the blue cube next to your clock and go to 'Select Window Decorator' and choose 'Emerald'.

Once this is switched, go to System --> Preferences --> Sessions. In Startup Programs, click Add. In the Name field, type in Compiz Fusion Icon, and in the Command field, type in fusion-icon.

To access the Emerald Theme Manager, go to System --> Preferences --> Emerald Theme Manager. I decided on rezlooks-pastelgreen-1pxb.

Flickr Page

2008-07-31T10:41:00.002-05:00

I started a Flickr page yesterday - I was a loyal user of Picasaweb since before it was public, but I've been having some problems recently. After discussion with Jgib, who pointed out the pricing structure, I think I'm going to give a stronger look at Flickr.

My Photostream

Changing UIDs

2008-07-10T14:26:00.002-05:00

On my work laptop running SLED10SP2, my local user has a UID of 1000. My eDirectory (LUM enabled) user has a uid of 603. If these UIDs are not in sync, this can cause some weird things to happen (which I'll address in future blog posts).

I changed my UID with YaST to 603 and rebooted my system. When I logged back in I couldn't access any of my data or use programs, as the files became orphaned.

I ran the following command to search for orphaned files and dump them to a text file.

$ find / $ -fstype ext3 $ -nouser -print > orphaned.txt

Once that was finished, I wrote a script to take the orphaned files and chown them (awb4422 is my username).

for file in $(cat orphaned.txt)
do
chown awb4422 $file

done

Everything works fine now :)

The Planet is Back!

2008-06-27T12:51:00.001-05:00

Planet Ubuntu Chicago is back online. This post is a test to see if I'm still syndicated.

Vista SP1

2008-03-19T13:44:00.002-06:00

Windows Vista SP1 hit yesterday and I immediately installed it on my home machine and work laptop. I really only had one big gripe with Vista, that being the speed of file copies, both local and remote. Once I applied the update, things greatly improved. I would say it is now on par with W2K and XP, although I don't have any statistics to back this up.

I'm sure I'll be reading about how awful SP1 is, or how bad Vista is, but I have to be honest -- I do not agree with what I've been hearing. I've called a few people out on their gripes and they admitted to never even using Vista.

This weekend will be a good test for SP1, as I will be in Massachusetts upgrading some servers.

VMware & SUSE

2008-03-02T15:26:00.002-06:00

In preparation for our first Linux deployment at work, I began replicating our environment with VMware and Virtualbox (also to see which application I like better).

My base system is Ubuntu 7.10 running vmware-server (built from source, Ubuntu packages assume you use eth0, which I don't).

So far, I've built 2 Virtual Machines. Both are running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1. One is acting as an installation source for SLES10SP1 and OES2, and the other is server build we will be using.

My next VM to build is going to be Netware 6.5 SP7 to begin testing interoperability and having Linux and Netware boxes in the same tree.

More to follow.

ncpmount

2008-01-31T08:42:00.000-06:00

It sure has been a while, and I think planet ubuntu chicago is down, so I don't even know if anyone will read this.

I have been traveling around the country upgrading servers from Netware 5.1 to Netware 6.5 so we can begin upgrading to SuSE Linux. I've been to 15 - 20 cities since last summer, and I will continue going to more this year.

Anyways, while recently trying to use ncpmount to access a Netware volume, I ran into this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/gutsy/+source/ncpfs/+bug/140464

Luckily, someone at work had the debs for the earlier version that works just fine.

pygments

2007-06-10T14:21:00.000-05:00

Recently, I was looking for an easy way to do syntax highlighting of configuration files so I can easily post them to the web. Someone I know from UIUC pointed me in this direction:
http://pygments.org.

Pygments has a live generator on the website as well as a Python script that can be downloaded. I encourage people to give it a try. I love it so far!

mysql backup and restore

2007-06-07T12:57:00.000-05:00

I recently had to make a backup of a db I use internally and migrate it to a different server. Luckily, Mysql has built in tools to help you out.

This is a very simple way to do it. The man pages will have more information on advanced usage.

To backup the database:

- mysqldump dbname -u username -p > outputfilename.sql

I then scp'ed the dump over to my new machine, and then restored it with:

- mysql dbname -u username -p < outputfilename.sql

long time...

2007-05-19T10:40:00.000-05:00

We recently had an outing at work, and I spent most of the day playing foosball and guitar hero. Turns out, I was unknowingly playing foosball with the creator of SVN. We made quite the team -- we went undefeated throughout the day.

I have started to begin learning python, and so far I've written 2 scripts. The first one is a simple update script for Debian based systems. It was more to learn how to accept input from the user and call system commands. The other script takes user input (a stock ticker symbol) and comes back with current data (open/close price, % change, etc). Although both are extremely simple and took me about 10 minutes to write, it was quite a great feeling.

My next project is going to be an IRC bot. Chris from work originally wrote one to aid in our lunch making decisions, but he gave me permission to steal it and hack it up.

googlizing my computer

2007-03-19T22:05:00.000-06:00

After spending the better part of the evening installing all kind of Google addons/tools, I just found this site (it isn't new):

http://code.google.com/p/gmail-greasemonkey/

I'm waiting to see my Feeds populate within Gmail. That will be one less tab I have to keep open :)

If all goes well, I'll try and post some screenshots or something.

testing...testing...

2007-03-08T00:44:00.000-06:00

I want to test out one of the new features of picasaweb.

Hopefully this picture shows up in my picasaweb albums.

Update: It works!

funny quote of the day

2007-02-10T20:04:00.000-06:00

Me: "So you're a Gentoo dev working at Microsoft?"

Matt: "What, do you run everything with Wine?"

Feisty

2007-02-09T08:49:00.000-06:00

I upgraded my main desktop to Feisty this past week, and I'm upgrading my laptop as we speak. So far I haven't noticed any bugs, but I haven't had too much time to play around.

I'm in Champaign right now and I'll be attending LUG tonight for a talk on latex given by the infamous jawashin.

Computer Museum

2007-01-17T18:06:00.000-06:00

Tim sent me this link today:

http://www.corestore.org/compute.htm

I've always wanted to collect old computers and try to get them running. Sounds like this guy has a very forgiving wife.

I sent the link over to my dad as well - he started his career at IBM on System 3 progressing all the way to an AS/400 at his current job.

More Screenshots

2006-12-23T11:42:00.000-06:00

Here is a screenshot of Beryl & AIGLX on Ubuntu Edgy. This is pretty cool stuff!

Ubuntu-Chicago Bug Triage

2006-12-16T11:20:00.000-06:00

Ubuntu-Chicago is holding an unofficial bug triage meeting, tonight, December 16th from 7pm to 11pm.

Come to #ubuntu-chicago on freenode to join in on the fun.

Check out this website for some help to get started triaging: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/HowToTriage

long live abassett.org

2006-12-05T21:07:00.000-06:00

When my Dreamhost account expires in the coming months, I'm likely going to let it lapse. The reason being is that Google's services have gotten so good, that it's not worth the time and money to do everything myself (not that I had to do much w/ Dreamhost).

Time to investigate

2006-11-22T22:19:00.000-06:00

andrew@andrew-desktop:~$ uptime
22:21:50 up 11 days, 22:41, 6 users, load average: 21.37, 21.24, 20.44

lovely, just lovely..

Another MythTV screenshot

2006-10-29T19:44:00.000-06:00

I can't get over how great HD looks!

Post Ubuntu Chicago

2006-10-28T22:45:00.000-05:00

The Ubuntu Chicago meeting was a success. After I got home, I was inspired to get my hd3000 working with MythTV .20. A screenshot is below.

My New Car

2006-10-28T00:03:00.000-05:00

This past summer I purchased a new car -- 2006 Honda Accord.

ACM Conference

2006-10-26T21:17:00.000-05:00

I attended an ACM Conference this past weekend at the University of Illinois @ Urbana/Champaign. Speakers included Chris DiBona, Robert Cringely, Burnie Burns, Max Levchin, among others. It was great to meet these folks and hear what they had to say.

One talk I attended was Jeffrey Altman, of OpenAFS & Kerberos fame. At his talk, I was reminded of a link that I've been meaning to post for a long time. It deals with OpenAFS, which, unfortunately, was not a large part of Jeffrey Altman's talk.

Ubuntu Chicago Edgy Release Party

2006-10-26T20:55:00.000-05:00

This weekend, Ubuntu Chicago will be holding a quarterly meeting.

Date & Time:
October 28, 2006 - 11am to 8pm

Location:
Best Western Des Plaines Inn
1231 Lee Street
Des Plaines, IL 60018

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