Andrew Kutz

BackupPC 3.1.0 for Ubuntu

While the latest version of BackupPC is 3.1.0, the latest available version in the Ubuntu repositories is 3.0.0. Normally, I wouldn’t split hairs over a point release, but 3.1.0 has some very nice, new features of which IT administrators may want to take advantage.

The problem with downloading the 3.1.0 source and manually installing it is that the source doesn’t install cleanly over the Ubuntu version and ends up breaking BackupPC. Luckily, the Debian repositories already have an unofficial 3.1.0 package in them; however, the Debian version depends on some packages not present in the Ubuntu repositories, such as www-common. So you may want to extract the contents of the Debian BackupPC 3.1.0 package and repackage them for Ubuntu, without the dependencies that Ubuntu does not have.

You can download BackupPC 3.1.0 for Ubuntu at my website.

Ubuntu Hardy Heron Alpha 4 released

On Friday, Canonical released Ubuntu Hardy Heron Alpha 4 to the mirrors. Alpha 4 brings with it many updates to the Ubuntu desktop, but how does it impact enterprise customers?

Alpha 4 is the first release where KVM is an official part of the Ubuntu repositories, and lib-virt and virtmanager have been added to the platform as well. The kernel shipping with Alpha 4 also includes the new virtio instructions which provides incredible performance enhancements when running Ubuntu as a guest OS in a VM.

Review all the changes that Hardy Hero Alpha 4 brings over at the Canonical website.

RHEL 4 installer bug: HTTPS not exempted despite best efforts

Last week, fellow SEL blogger Rick Vanover discussed how RHEL 4 is still getting releases from Red Hat, despite the availability of RHEL 5. Considering that Red Hat still requires RHEL 4 for some of their own major products, such as Red Hat Proxy and Satellite servers, it makes sense that they would continue to update RHEL 4. But Red Hat still doesn’t support Oracle 10i (or 10 anything) for Satellite, making you wonder how long it will take for Red Hat to get on the ball with current releases.

For almost two months now, I have been attempting to get Red Hat Satellite successfully installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.4 and 4.5. The installation proceeded smoothly until Satellite attempted to start: Tomcat5 would always fail to initialize. I went back and forth with Red Hat support several times in order to figure the problem out (by the way, the folks at Red Hat support are great — thank you.)

The Red Hat Satellite documentation clearly states that port 443 needs to be open in your firewall for Satellite to work. Tomcat connects over port 443 on the default interface (not the loopback interface) in order to initialize Satellite over HTTPS for the first time. The problem is that the installer for RHEL 4 does not open port 443 even if you explicitly tell it to allow web traffic (WWW - HTTP/HTTPS) in the firewall configuration screen of the installation program.

Red Hat has recognized this as a bug. It has been reported and will hopefully be fixed in RHEL 4.7. I don’t know if this problem persists in RHEL 5. Would someone like to test it out for me?

Linux Kernel 2.6.24 released

Last Friday saw the release of the Linux Kernel version 2.6.24. This new version does not include anything spectacular (Linus’ words, not mine), but does include some updates to network drivers. These improvements will assuredly make some users experiencing network issues happy. You can go to http://www.kernel.org to download and build your new kernel.

But should you? Is there ever a reason to build your own kernel and not just wait for it to come down the pipe from your distribution’s software repositories? For the most part, no, you should not need to build your own kernel for enterprise Linux installations these days. Most kernels that come with stock Linux installations such as Red Hat, SUSE and Ubuntu are fine.

However, some occasions require building a new kernel, for example:

- Licensing changes, which forces one to redact certain bits from the stock kernel (see my previous SVV blog post on 2.6.23 and VMware)

- Support for a new CPU ID that is not yet present in the Kernel

- Performance improvement for servers tasked with performing intense calculations

Got any other good reasons for building a kernel? Send them to us.

Apt-file: Providing apt’s answer to rpm -qf

Anyone who has ever used rpm for package management has at one time or the other had to invoke the command:


rpm -qf PATH_TO_FILE


The above command will tell you what package manages the given file, or more specifically, what package was installed, when it was installed and what put that file on the hard drive. This is an incredibly useful feature when you are debugging a system, attempting to figure out where a file comes from, resolving version conflicts, etc. But many people do not realize that Debian derivatives, such as Ubuntu, also has a similar capability.

In your Debian derivative type:


sudo apt-get install apt-file


This command will install the helpful application apt-file onto your system. Once installed, take a look at its command line options by typing the eponymous command. This is what you will see:

apt-file version 2.0.8.2 

(c) 2002 Sebastien J. Grossapt-file [options] action [pattern] 

Configuration options: 

    --sources-list	-s  	sources.list location 

    --cache		-c  	Cache directory 

    --architecture	-a  	Use specific architecture 

    --cdrom-mount	-d  	Use specific cdrom mountpoint 

    --package-only	-l		Only display packages name 

    --fixed-string	-F		Do not expand pattern 

    --ignore-case	-i		Ignore case distinctions 

    --regexp		-x		pattern is a regular expression 

    --verbose		-v		run in verbose mode 

    --dummy		-y		run in dummy mode (no action) 

    --help		-h		Show this help. 

    --version		-V		Show version number 

Action: 

    update			Fetch Contents files from apt-sources. 

    search|find		Search files in packages 

    list|show		List files in packages 

    purge			Remove cache files

As you can see, there are a lot of options. The option you need to mimic the functionality of rpm -qf is the search option. For example, to find out what debian package provides the application gpg simply type:


sudo apt-file search $(which gpg)


When you execute this command you are going to get a lot more results than you probably wanted. That is because the apt-file command does a lazy search and searches for any command that patches the pattern /usr/bin/gpg*. In order to narrow the results, use the –fixed-string option:


sudo apt-file search –fixed-string $(which gpg)


The console should display something similar to the following:

[0]akutz@vault:~$ sudo apt-file search --fixed-string $(which gpg) 

gnupg: usr/bin/gpg 

gnupg: usr/bin/gpg 

gnupg: usr/bin/gpg

I hope this little tutorial on apt-file will make your daily life as a Linux system administrator just a little bit easier!

Ubuntu 6.06.2 LTS Dapper Drake released

Canonical just announced the release of Ubuntu 6.06.2 LTS Dapper Drake. This point release keeps Ubuntu’s first LTS release up-to-date with the latest round of patches and bug fixes as we approach their next LTS, Hardy Herron in April of this year (8.04). Features and bug-fixes in 6.06.2 include:

- The ability to use a RAID volume as an LVM physical volume.

- Improved support for NFS mounts on x86_64 (amd64) platforms.

All of the new features and improvements can be found on the Ubuntu mailing list.

The best open-source SQL server under the sun?

SELECT company FROM mysql INNER JOIN sun ON mysql.about_time = sun.smart_move

By now most people have heard the news: Sun is acquiring MySQL. I was sharing the announcement with co-workers when one of them said that it is old news. He apparently heard about it last night or this morning. But as you can tell from my SELECT statement, I think that MySQL’s acquisition is long overdue.

MySQL: Icarus rising
Some things catch fire when they get too close to the Sun, but MySQL is poised to set the world ablaze. A blog on CNET remarked that “an acquisition by Sun means that MySQL gets to continue being a pureplay open-source company and won’t need to sacrifice the ideals or the benefits of open source to suit a halfway (and half-baked) stance on open source” and another blog wondered aloud if MySQL was ever really innovating. I agree with both of these statements. The reason that MySQL has become the most popular open-source database is not because it is the best open-source database (although you could argue that it is), but because MySQL has a terrific support model. However, the technology itself needs to catch up with some of the competition, such as Postgres schemas.

Almost serendipitous is my previous blog about Trac. The Trac development community has a love/hate relationship with MySQL; that is, for the most part, they love to hate it. Their problems begin with the lack of schema support as well as many others. Perhaps as CNET mentioned, having some backers with deep pockets, MySQL might spend a bit more money on building out its feature set (I cannot wait for 6.0!)

A new Sun on the horizon
Sun has been busy this last year, first rebranding their NYSE ticket from Sun to Java, and then becoming a Windows OEM. Despite reassurances, it is obvious that Sun is looking to make moves that boost its bottom dollar, and acquiring the leading open source database server is the right direction to take. MySQL is famous for its scale-up architecture and what better commodity platform to scale on then one that can offer 32 parallel threads? Sun hardware + Solaris + MySQL equals one fantastic database box.

Will MySQL leverage its newly acquired wings to explore innovative ideas, or will it, like Icarus, get burned by the (ahem) sun?

Trac(king) software development

If you are a software developer, you need Trac and you need it now. There is no other open-source, software management tool more useful to a software project life-cycle than Trac. Straight from the Trac website , Trac is an “enhanced wiki and issue tracking system for software development projects.” But it is so much more than that.

Subversion

Trac integrates with Subversion repositories to provide a browser view of your code. This is a great feature for when you want to peruse some code in a project without wanting to bring up your IDE. The browser will show diffs, a history and even allow you to compare different revisions so you can see how the code has evolved. To see what I am talking about you can look at Trac’s own browser view.

Timelines, roadmaps, tickets

Trac allows you to see where you’ve been, where you want to go, and allows you to track issues along the way. The timeline feature allows developers to track the history of the project and understand its current status. The roadmap enables administrators to create project milestones. Finally, the powerful tracking system lets developers, administrators and even users create and modify bug reports, or feature requests, as they pertain to the project.

Permissions

You may have noticed that I began making a distinction between developers, administrators and users. Trac has a very detailed permissions support that enables a Trac administrator to assign rights to specific users and developers at granular levels. Let’s say that you don’t want guest users browsing your code — just take away that permission. Or perhaps you only want registered developers to be able to create new tickets? This is easily accomplished.

Beauty

Looking at the Trac browser, you cannot deny how absolutely gorgeous the Trac interface is. Not since Audrey Hepburn has anyone or anything epitomized simple elegance the way the Trac project does (maybe Katherine Heigel comes close?) And the interface is fully customizable. My own Trac installation looks nothing like the default install. You can make simple changes such as adding a custom banner image or completely redesigning the entire look and feel of the site through the wonderful Genshi templating system.

Community

One of the most appealing aspects of the Trac project is the fact that it is not managed or developed behind closed doors. In fact, the development community is incredibly open and welcoming to ideas. Most of the time, any of the lead developers (osimons, aat, coderanger) can be found on the Trac IRC channel (freenet#trac), and they are more than happy to help you.

Stay on Trac

Trac is a superb example of what can be accomplished when developers see a need and fill it. That being said, the excellent product that is Edgewall should not be overlooked either. Trac provides almost every possible feature you could want in a software development management system, and it does so with sheer elegance.

Changes at Red Hat: A new CEO in 2008

CNET news is reporting that Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik is stepping down effective January 1st and handing control of the world’s most popular enterprise Linux provider to former Delta airlines COO James Whitehurst. The article reassures us that Mr. Whitehurst is a good pick, as he used to be a programmer himself and runs four distributions of Linux at home. But how might this change in leadership affect Red Hat?

History has not smiled kindly on CxO changes, which have ranged from forcible replacements – such as Steve Jobs to Pepsi-exec John Sculley in 1985 — to planned transitions, as when Michael Dell handed the reigns over to Kevin B. Rollins in 2004. Both events resulted in the eventual return of the original CxO due to the replacements’ inability to maintain the success of the company. Is Szulik destined to return to Red Hat in a few years?

Let’s take a look at Whitehurst. According to BusinessWeek, Whitehurst has degrees in Computer Science from Rice and in business from Harvard. However, if we should judge him by his actions and not his credentials, perhaps we should be a bit more worried. Shortly after he was hired by Delta airlines in July of 2005, Delta filed for Chapter-11 bankruptcy in September. Of course, not knowing the specifics of his involvement one could also easily assume that it was Whitehurst who helped lead Delta out of bankruptcy by working on the plan that was finally accepted in August of this year by the Bankruptcy Court.

I wish Whitehurst the best at Red Hat, I truly do. I guess I am hoping what many other Red Hat fans are hoping: Don’t mess it up!

Red Hat understands enterprise business needs, so I hope that Whitehurst does not take the approach that many other incoming CEOs do: restructuring the company to fit their desires, not restructuring themselves to fit the company. I recently wrote an article on where Red Hat needs to go in the next year to trump its rivals. Mr. Whitehurst, feel free to use my business plan.

Meanwhile, the whole Linux world is watching.

Splunk: Or how I learned to stop worrying and love log files

Log files may be the most important piece of forensic information we have when determining why a server or application crashes. However, warnings of such a distaster are available to IT administrators. They just have to know where to look (hint: what do you think log files are for?)

Looking for a repeating pattern in a list one thousand items long might seem daunting, but luckily there is help. There’s no need to fear, Splunk is here.

Splunk is an amazing little web application (currently at version 3.1.3) that indexes just about any type of log file you can think of. Not only does Splunk index the information, but it presents it as a beautiful, easy-to-use, web application (purists need not worry, you can access the information from a terminal as well.) So you say, what is the big deal about searching log files? You say that you can do that with grep. That is true, but Splunk is hundreds of times more powerful and excels in four areas:

• Indexing
• Presentation
• Analysis
• Collaboration

Indexing

Splunk can index logs from a number of sources:

• Files and directories
• FIFO queues (pipes)
• Network ports (syslogging directly to Splunk)

Splunk enables you to tail log files, the contents of entire directories, pipes, and even open ports for applications to send their logs directly to Splunk itself (although I recommend using a separate syslog server in order to maintain a file-based log rotation history.)

Presentation

Also, Splunk is more physically appealing than grep (no offense, grep). To give you an idea of what data looks like in Splunk take a gander at this screenshot:

Looking at log files has never been so much fun!

Analysis

This is where Splunk really outshines its command line competition. Imagine you wanted to comb your log files to figure out which VM has had the most number of VMotion events in your VMware Infrastructure? With Splunk that is as easy as pie — a pie chart, that is:

Splunk allows you to easily query the data using SQL in order to build complex analysis reports. And if that was not enough…

Collaboration

Splunk not only allows administrators to easily determine the goings-on of their servers through log file analysis, Splunk also allows administrators to share their logs with the rest of the Splunk community. Imagine this scenario: a major website’s web servers are crashing and the website’s administrators cannot figure out why. As an interner business, their primary point-of-sale is the web; so if their web servers go offline that is very bad. The administrators are pulling out their hair trying to figure out the problem when one of them realizes they haven’t checked Splunk. Because the administrators at Amazon are participating in SplunkBase they can analyze not only their log files but also the logs of anyone else who uploads logs to Splunk’s community. Bingo! They discover that the problem was a lock that was not getting destroyed.

By themselves, the administrators did not have a large enough data set to determine the problem, but because others had generated similar logs and figured out the problem already, the website admins were able to quickly resolve the issue.

Splunk-tastic!

I’ll say it again, Splunk is great. Apart from VMware Server, Splunk may be my favorite server application to come along in the past few years. I cannot imagine running an enterprise data center without Splunk. See you on SplunkBase!