Uppayinix

Configure dell openmanage with snmp

2011-06-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

Overview

Dell openmanage tools are handy for system admins to manage and monitor hardware. This tool can be integrated with snmp to send traps to monitoring servers (any snmp trap receivers).

Install Dell openmanage tools

wget -q -O - http://linux.dell.com/repo/hardware/latest/bootstrap.cgi | bash

yum install srvadmin-all

Configuring SNMP

Ensure that net-snmp package is installed and running on the box

[root@blackbox ~]# rpm -qa | grep net-snmp
net-snmp-libs-5.3.1-14.el5
net-snmp-5.3.1-14.el5
[root@blackbox ~]#
[root@adm-nb-01 ~]# /etc/init.d/snmpd status
snmpd (pid  31771) is running...
[root@adm-nb-01 ~]#

Enable SNMP for Dell openmanage

[root@blackbox sbin]# /etc/init.d/dataeng enablesnmp
NOTE: snmpd must be restarted to activate changes to /opt/comcast/snmp/etc/snmpd.conf
Data Engine SNMP enabled
[root@blackbox sbin]#

The above command will add following entry in the snmpd.conf

# Allow Systems Management Data Engine SNMP to connect to snmpd using SMUX

smuxpeer .1.3.6.1.4.1.674.10892.1

Add your snmp trap trap receiver to the snmpd.conf. This can be a

snmptt with Nagios, cacti, Netcool, spectrum etc with Dell open

manage mibs exported to it

trapsink snmptt-server community-string

Restart SNMPD and Dell openmanage

[root@blackbox sbin]# /etc/init.d/snmpd-isst restart
Stopping snmpd:                                            [  OK  ]
Starting snmpd:                                            [  OK  ]
[root@blackbox sbin]#

[root@blackbox sbin]# /etc/init.d/dataeng restart

Shutting down DSM SA Shared Services:                      [  OK  ]


Stopping Systems Management Data Engine:
Stopping dsm_sa_snmpd: Not started                         [FAILED]
Stopping dsm_sa_eventmgrd:                                 [  OK  ]
Stopping dsm_sa_datamgrd:                                  [  OK  ]
Stopping Systems Management Device Drivers:
Stopping dell_rbu:                                         [  OK  ]
Starting Systems Management Device Drivers:
Starting dell_rbu:                                         [  OK  ]
Starting ipmi driver: Already started                      [  OK  ]
Starting Systems Management Data Engine:
Starting dsm_sa_datamgrd:                                  [  OK  ]
Starting dsm_sa_eventmgrd:                                 [  OK  ]
Starting dsm_sa_snmpd:                                     [  OK  ]
Starting DSM SA Shared Services:                           [  OK  ]
[root@blackbox sbin]#

IP v6 on RHEL5

2010-11-22T21:50:00.000-08:00

Yes..! We are running short in V4 IP addresses. Here explains a way to configure ipv6 on your RHEL box.

1. Operating System Version should be RHEL 5 or higher

[bbaby@blackbox ~]$ more /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.3 (Tikanga)
[bbaby@basilvm ~]$ uname -r
2.6.18-164.11.1.el5
[bbaby@blackbox ~]$

(kernel subversion (3rd field) must be 15 or higher)

2. Confirm IPv6 is running

modprobe will check whether ipv6 module is loaded to kernel or not. FATAL error is expected.

[root@blackbox ~]# modprobe --dry-run --first-time ipv6
FATAL: Module ipv6 already in kernel.
[root@blackbox ~]#

Make sure that interface is enabled with ipv6

[root@blackbox ~]# cat /proc/net/if_inet6
00000000000000000000000000000001 01 80 10 80 lo
fe8000000000000002163efffe528f78 03 40 20 80 eth0

[root@blackbox ~]# grep NETWORKING_IPV6 /etc/sysconfig/network
NETWORKING_IPV6=yes
[root@blackbox ~]#

2a. Check interfaces

# ifconfig -a eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:3E:52:8F:78
inet addr:192.168.200.206 Bcast:192.168.200.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:14363 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1302 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:21384433 (20.3 MiB) TX bytes:118347 (115.5 KiB)
lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1 RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:560 (560.0 b) TX bytes:560 (560.0 b)
sit0 Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4 NOARP MTU:1480 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

In this example, there is only one physical interface, eth0. In Red Hat Linux, there will be a file /etc/sysconfig/networking-scripts/ifcfg- for each interface. This file will have directives that control the interface configuration:

3. Determine the IPv6 subnet address based on the router advertisement

The router advertisement on this segment is 2001:558:ff40::. This information will be used to compose the static IPv6 address. The algorithm to create an IPv6 address from an IPv4 address is simple (in my network). Take the currently assigned IPv4 address for the device in question and make them the last four entries of the IPv6 address.

# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 DEVICE=eth0 BROADCAST=192.168.200.255
HWADDR=00:16:3E:52:8F:78
IPADDR=192.168.200.206
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.200.0
ONBOOT=yes

3. Determine the IPv6 subnet address based on the router advertisement

# netstat -A inet6 -rn

The router advertisement on this segment is 2001:558:ff40::. This information will be used to compose the static IPv6 address. The algorithm used here to create an IPv6 address from an IPv4 address is simple. Take the currently assigned IPv4 address for the device in question and make them the last four entries of the IPv6 address.

If there is no IPv6 router advertisement on the segment, there is no way to guarantee what the specific subnet will be. The global IPv6 address prefix for my network is 2001:558. The next two groups of the IPv6 address are the subnet prefix and are completely dependent on the router configuration. If this command reveals no IPv6 router advertisement, there is no mechanized way to create the IPv6 address.

4. Confirm the IPv4 address of the interface that will have a static IPv6 address

From the output in step 2, the IPv4 address of eth0 is 192.168.200.206

5. Construct the basic IPv6 address from the router advertisement and the IPv4 address

A full static IPv6 address is now created by putting the global address, subnet, and IPv4 address together. Our guideline for creating an IPv6 address from an IPv4 address is very mechanical. Recall that an IPv6 address consists of eight groups of four hexidecimal digits. The eight groups are populated from left to right as follows. The first two groups of four are the global IPv6 address (2001:0558). The next two groups of four digits are created from the router advertisement determined in section 3. The final four groups of four digits are populated directly from the IPv4 address as straight numbers.

Please note that there is no direct binary or decimal or hexidecimal translation involved in this population. Each one of the four IPv4 address numbers becomes one of the final four groups of the IPv6 address in decending order. In this example, the IPv4 address of 192.168.200.206 transposes into the full IPv6 address of:2001:558:ff40::192:168:200:206
The subnet length should always be a /64, so the full IPv6 address becomes: 2001:558:ff40::192:168:200:206/64

This will become the static IPv6 address assigned to the chosen interface. See RFC4291 for full details on IPv6 address formats. One might note that the IPv4 address numbers are decimal representations of hexidecimal digits and that the IPv6 address numbers are actual hexidecimal digits.

6. Assign the IPv6 address to the chosen interface.

The static IPv6 information needs to be added to the file ifcfg-. The address composed in step 5 must be added as "IPV6ADDR=". Further, the directive "IPV6INIT=yes" must be added to the file to ensure the This may be manually edited or executed from the command line:

echo 'IPV6ADDR=2001:558:FF40::192:168:200:206/64' >> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
echo 'IPV6INIT=yes' >> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

6.a. Confirm the contents of the ifcfg- file

# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
BROADCAST=192.168.200.255
HWADDR=00:16:3E:52:8F:78
IPADDR=192.168.200.206
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.200.0
ONBOOT=yes
IPV6ADDR=2001:558:FF40::192:168:200:206/64
IPV6INIT=yes

7. Bringing up the static IPv6 address without rebooting

Since Red Hat should already have IPv6 services running, adding the static IPv6 interface without rebooting is straightforward

# ifconfig eth0 inet6 add 2001:558:FF40::192:168:200:206/64
# ifconfig eth0 eth0
Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:16:3E:52:8F:78
inet addr:192.168.200.206 Bcast:192.168.200.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: 2001:558:ff40:0:192:168:200:206/64 Scope:Global inet6 addr: fe80::216:3eff:fe52:8f78/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:827 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:677 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:86866 (84.8 KiB) TX bytes:92325 (90.1 KiB)

8. Confirmation of IPv6 connectivity

A simple IPv6 ping test of a valid IPv6 address will confirm whether IPv6 is working; e.g.

# ping6 -c 1 2001:558:ff40::192:168:200:200
PING 2001:558:ff40::192:168:200:200(2001:558:ff40:0:192:168:200:200) 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 2001:558:ff40:0:192:168:200:200: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.614 ms
--- 2001:558:ff40::192:168:200:200 ping statistics --- 1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.614/0.614/0.614/0.000 ms, pipe 2

Image Courtesy : http://isoc.org/wp/ietfjournal/?p=151
ipv6 training courtesy : Tom Creighton

hpacucli Error - Another instance of ACU is already running

2010-10-06T08:50:00.000-07:00

Error Message

[root@blackbox locks]# hpacucli
HP Array Configuration Utility CLI 8.28-13.0
Detecting Controllers...
Error: Another instance of ACU is already running (possibly a service). Please
terminate the ACU application before running the ACU CLI. Press ENTER to
exit.
[root@blackbox locks]#
[root@blackbox ~]# ps -aef | grep acu
root 8714 8363 0 14:09 pts/0 00:00:00 grep acu
[root@blackbox ~]#
[root@blackbox ~]# ps -aef | grep hp
root 8762 8363 0 14:09 pts/0 00:00:00 grep hp
[root@blackbox ~]#

I was not able to find any other instance of the program on the process table.

Solution

1. Try to remove the lock file

[root@blackbox bbaby]# rm -f /opt/compaq/cpqacuxe/bld/locks/CPQACU_MUTEX
[root@blackbox bbaby]#

In my case this was not resolving problem. I was getting the same error message even after removing lock.

2. Do an strace and find what is blocking

[root@blackbox bbaby]# strace -f /opt/compaq/hpacucli/bld/hpacucli
execve("/opt/compaq/hpacucli/bld/hpacucli", ["/opt/compaq/hpacucli/bld/hpacucl"], [/* 19 vars */]) = 0
brk(0)
---snipped---
[pid 9629] times({tms_utime=4294967301, tms_stime=30064771073, tms_cutime=731361531114068436, tms_cstime=601725772861025720}) = 970423195
[pid 9629] time(NULL) = 1286376261
[pid 9629] time(NULL) = 1286376261
[pid 9629] stat64("/opt/compaq/cpqacuxe/bld/locks/CPQACU_MUTEX", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=0, ...}) = 0
[pid 9629] semget(0x1000e, 1, IPC_CREAT|0) = 7798791
[pid 9629] semop(7798791, 0x861f7c4, 2) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
[pid 9629] geteuid32() = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGHUP, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGINT, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGQUIT, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGSEGV, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGABRT, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGFPE, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGPIPE, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGALRM, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGTERM, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGUSR1, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGUSR2, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {SIG_DFL, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|0x1e302d0, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] rt_sigaction(SIGUSR2, {0x1000000008094054, [], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, (nil)}, {0x1000000008094054, ~[HUP INT QUIT ILL TRAP ABRT TERM URG XCPU XFSZ VTALRM PROF WINCH IO PWR SYS RTMIN RT_1 RT_2 RT_3 RT_5 RT_6 RT_8 RT_11 RT_12 RT_15 RT_16 RT_17 RT_18 RT_20 RT_22 RT_23], SA_RESTORER|SA_STACK|SA_RESTART|SA_INTERRUPT|SA_NODEFER|SA_RESETHAND|SA_SIGINFO|0x3943418, 0xf7f46d4c00000000}, 8) = 0
[pid 9629] write(1, "Detecting Controllers...\n", 25Detecting Controllers...
) = 25
[pid 9629] write(1, "\n", 1
) = 1
[pid 9629] write(1, "Error: Another instance of ACU i"..., 160Error: Another instance of ACU is already running (possibly a service). Please
terminate the ACU application before running the ACU CLI. Press ENTER to
) = 160
[pid 9629] write(1, " exit.\n", 13 exit.
) = 13
[pid 9629] write(1, "\n", 1
) = 1
[pid 9629] fstat64(0, {st_mode=S_IFCHR|0620, st_rdev=makedev(136, 0), ...}) = 0
[pid 9629] mmap2(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0xff942f40) = 0xfffffffff7cc8000
[pid 9629] read(0,
Process 9621 resumed
Process 9629 detached
[root@blackbox bbaby]#

In this case need to delete the semaphore *7798791*

3. Delete the blocking semaphore

{terminal}
[root@blackbox bbaby]# /usr/bin/ipcrm -s 7798791
[root@blackbox bbaby]#
{terminal}

4. Verify whether it still exits or not

[root@blackbox bbaby]# /usr/bin/ipcs -a

------ Shared Memory Segments --------
key shmid owner perms bytes nattch status
0x0052e2c1 1081344 postgres 600 11083776 2

------ Semaphore Arrays --------
key semid owner perms nsems
0x0052e2c1 7569408 postgres 600 17
0x0052e2c2 7602177 postgres 600 17
0x0052e2c3 7634946 postgres 600 17
0x0052e2c4 7667715 postgres 600 17
0x0052e2c5 7700484 postgres 600 17
0x0052e2c6 7733253 postgres 600 17
0x0052e2c7 7766022 postgres 600 17
0x0001000e 7864327 root 0 1
0xffffffff 7831560 root 0 1

------ Message Queues --------
key msqid owner perms used-bytes messages

[root@blackbox bbaby]#

Check the hpacucli status

[root@blackbox bbaby]# hpacucli
HP Array Configuration Utility CLI 8.28-13.0
Detecting Controllers...Done.
Type "help" for a list of supported commands.
Type "exit" to close the console.

=> exit
[root@blackbox bbaby]#

Nagios check_mailq pluggin failing

2010-09-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

Problem:

I was trying to add mail Queue monitoring for sendmail mta with the default check_mailq plugin. check_mailq was queried using nrpe which was demonized under xinetd. Even after the basic configuration, nrpe started crying about some access related problem (nrpe checks were called by nagios user)

[root@blackbox libexec]# ./check_nrpe -H localhost -c mailq
CRITICAL: Error code 78 returned from /usr/bin/mailq
[root@blackbox libexec]#

Solution:

1. Checked nrpe.cfg and verified that the configuration is correct --> Positive

[root@blackbox libexec]# grep mailq /usr/local/nagios/etc/nrpe.cfg
command[mailq]=/usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_mailq -M sendmail -w 40 -c 50
[root@blackbox libexec]#

2. Added sudo privileges for nagios user to run /usr/bin/mailq without password

[root@blackbox libexec]# grep mailq /etc/sudoers
nagios BLACKBOX_HOSTS = (root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/mailq
[root@blackbox libexec]#

3. Added the missing /usr/bin/sudo command on check_mailq script from nagios pluggins package. PATH_TO_MAILQ is called from utils.pm module

[root@blackbox libexec]# grep sudo /usr/local/nagios/libexec/check_mailq
if (! open (MAILQ, "/usr/bin/sudo $utils::PATH_TO_MAILQ | " ) ) {
[root@blackbox libexec]#

Yayy!! Its working..

[root@blackbox libexec]# ./check_nrpe -H localhost -c mailq
OK: mailq is empty|unsent=0;40;50;0
[root@blackbox libexec]#

Perl time manipulation

2010-04-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

Its always a challenge for any system guy to maintain application/system performance metrics for analysis and capacity planning. Harvesting the data and plotting requires lot of time related calculations. Since I am a part time programmer, cannot blabber more on perl or python's data extraction/manipulation capabilities.
Today I came across couple of modules which made my life easy while manipulating time related data using a Perl script.

i. Date::Manip

This is a smart module which can be helpful in converting the time and date. RPM package of this module is available from RedHat, CentOS repos.

[bbaby@basilvm ~]$ rpm -qa | grep -i manip
perl-DateManip-5.44-1.2.1
[bbaby@basilvm ~]$

Example :
## Get current time
$current_time = localtime;

## Take the difference between time value passed and current time
$time_diff = DateCalc($time_value, $current_time);
## Time difference in minutes (%s for seconds)

$time_min = Delta_Format($time_diff, 0,'%mh');

Big chunk of Date::Manip examples are available here

ii. Time::HiRes
High resolution alarm, sleep, gettimeofday, interval timers (Examples available here )

DHCRELAY Linux

2010-04-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

I am sure that many people will not get into the situation were I was in today. The problem was simple but the fix was not under my control or reach. Had to find a work around to meet the project deadline.

Scenario:

I had to do OS installation of bunch of brand new servers on a new VLAN. All servers were connected under a A10 load balancer which was not supporting ip-helper (ie; I was unable to contact the DHCP servers from the network to do a PXE boot for OS installation). On contacting A10 Load balancer team, they confirmed that their current version is not supporting ip-helper. As the servers were on remote location, I cannot do a CD based installation and even if I get a hands and eyes support, its going to take long. My goal was to install RHEL 5.4 from remote corporate satellite server.

Solution:

1. I had DRAC (Dell Remote Access Consoles) on all these servers. I have installed a base OS image by mounting an operating iso image through DRAC (virtual disk). Then assigned an IP address, subnetmask, gateway on the the newly installed dummy server.
2. Installed dhcp server rpm "dhcp-3.0.5-21.el5.x86_64.rpm" on the box. It provides dhcrelay service which can be configured as a proxy to route dhcp traffic from local network to remote DHCP server.

Then start the dhcrelay by below command: (yes you are good to go)
/usr/sbin/dhcrelay -i eth0 ip-remote-dhcp-server

(man dhcrelay will show you full options of this command)

3. The above setting can be made permanent by adding the interface and DHCP server IP on /etc/sysconfig/dhcrelay

INTERFACES="eth0"
DHCPSERVERS="ip-of-remote-dhcp-server"

4. Start the service using

/etc/init.d/dhcrelay start

5. Make sure that the relay service is running on the host by a ps command
ps ax | grep dhcrelay

6. Rebooted the servers need to imaged from DRAC. Press F12 to get into the PXE boot mode. Server got IP address by proxying through the DHCP relay server.

How it works:

- When the server to be installed boot up it sends a DHCP request as broadcast on the network
11:48:55.809189 IP 0.0.0.0.bootpc > 255.255.255.255.bootps: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (oui Unknown), length: 300
- DHCP relay server running on the same network accept this broadcast
- DHCP relay server requests DHCP server on remote network for an IP address
11:48:55.809286 relay-server-IP.bootps > DHCP-IP.bootps: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (oui Unknown), length: 300

- DHCP relay server did a small trick while requesting the IP by putting mac address as the MAC address of the server to be installed.
11:48:55.809286 relay-servr-IP .bootps > dhcp-server-ip.bootps: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (oui Unknown), length: 300

xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx - MAC of server to be installed

- Rest will be like a normal DHCP request and new server will get IP lease from DHCP server.

MP3 Encoder LAME

2009-09-04T06:49:00.000-07:00

I was planning a trip to Virginia beach on this long weekend. As I am traveling alone (nothing unusual.. am a lonely wanderer), music is best way to keep myself up. I had bunch of music files on my lappy, copied from Abhyant's music collection. Grrrrrr... all of these were in .wav and .aiff format. I was looking for a tool to do the conversion. Lovely tool LAME here to help me.

bbaby@luttappi:~/Songs-Abhyant/CD2$ for i in *.aiff; do j=`echo $i | sed -e 's/\.aiff/.mp3/'`; lame -b 128 -B 256 --vbr-new $i /home/bbaby/ToCD/cd2/$j;done;

I got the files in new folder. Ready to go :)

PostgreSQL Installation

2009-08-10T17:50:00.001-07:00

I have started using Postgresql database from today. In my limited DB knowledge itself, I was able make out the strength of this open source DB. Unlike MySQL, its tough to get clear cut documentation about Postgres from a single source. I have installed Postgres on my devel box running on Ubuntu 9.04 (64 bit edition) . Here is the logs from my console.

1. Installation:
****************
root@luttappi:~/perl# apt-get install postgresql
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
libpq5 postgresql-8.3 postgresql-client-8.3 postgresql-client-common postgresql-common
Suggested packages:
oidentd ident-server postgresql-doc-8.3
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libpq5 postgresql postgresql-8.3 postgresql-client-8.3 postgresql-client-common postgresql-common
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 184 not upgraded.
Need to get 5245kB of archives.
After this operation, 21.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
<---- snipped ---------->

2. Testing the Installation:
*****************************
root@luttappi:~/perl# su - postgres
postgres@luttappi:~$ psql template1
Welcome to psql 8.3.7, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

Type: \copyright for distribution terms
\h for help with SQL commands
\? for help with psql commands
\g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
\q to quit

template1=#
template1=# \l
List of databases
Name | Owner | Encoding
-----------+----------+----------
postgres | postgres | UTF8
template0 | postgres | UTF8
template1 | postgres | UTF8
(3 rows)

template1=# \q
postgres@luttappi:~$

3. New User addition
************************
root@luttappi:~/perl# useradd mayavi
root@luttappi:~/perl# passwd mayavi
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

root@luttappi:~/perl# su - postgres
postgres@luttappi:~$ psql template1
Welcome to psql 8.3.7, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

Type: \copyright for distribution terms
\h for help with SQL commands
\? for help with psql commands
\g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
\q to quit

template1=# CREATE USER mayavi WITH PASSWORD 'password';
CREATE ROLE

template1=# create database kuttoosan;
CREATE DATABASE

template1=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE kuttoosan to mayavi;
GRANT
template1=#

root@luttappi:~/perl# su - mayavi
mayavi@luttappi:~$ psql -d kuttoosan -U mayavi
Welcome to psql 8.3.7, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

Type: \copyright for distribution terms
\h for help with SQL commands
\? for help with psql commands
\g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
\q to quit

kuttoosan=>

4. Installing perl db modules:
*********************************
root@luttappi:~# apt-get install libapache2-mod-perl2 apache2 libdbi-perl libdbd-pg-perl
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
apache2-mpm-worker apache2-utils apache2.2-common libapache2-reload-perl libapr1 libaprutil1 libbsd-resource-perl libdevel-symdump-perl libmysqlclient15off libnet-daemon-perl libplrpc-perl
mysql-common
Suggested packages:
apache2-doc apache2-suexec apache2-suexec-custom dbishell
The following NEW packages will be installed:
apache2 apache2-mpm-worker apache2-utils apache2.2-common libapache2-mod-perl2 libapache2-reload-perl libapr1 libaprutil1 libbsd-resource-perl libdbd-pg-perl libdbi-perl libdevel-symdump-perl
libmysqlclient15off libnet-daemon-perl libplrpc-perl mysql-common
0 upgraded, 16 newly installed, 0 to remove and 184 not upgraded.
Need to get 5719kB of archives.
After this operation, 17.4MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main libapr1 1.2.12-5ubuntu0.1 [114kB]
Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main mysql-common 5.1.30really5.0.75-0ubuntu10.2 [62.9kB]
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main libmysqlclient15off 5.1.30really5.0.75-0ubuntu10.2 [1878kB]
Get:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main libaprutil1 1.2.12+dfsg-8ubuntu0.3 [79.1kB]
Get:5 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main apache2-utils 2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2 [151kB]
Get:6 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main apache2.2-common 2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2 [827kB]
Get:7 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main apache2-mpm-worker 2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2 [258kB]
Get:8 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main apache2 2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2 [46.3kB]
Get:9 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main libdevel-symdump-perl 2.08-1 [16.4kB]
Get:10 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main libapache2-mod-perl2 2.0.4-5ubuntu1 [1147kB]
Get:11 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main libapache2-reload-perl 0.10-2 [19.9kB]
Get:12 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main libnet-daemon-perl 0.43-1 [46.9kB]
Get:13 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main libplrpc-perl 0.2020-1 [36.0kB]
Get:14 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main libdbi-perl 1.607-1 [793kB]
Get:15 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe libdbd-pg-perl 2.11.7-1 [212kB]
Get:16 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main libbsd-resource-perl 1.2901-1 [31.8kB]
Fetched 5719kB in 10s (523kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package libapr1.
(Reading database ... 103255 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libapr1 (from .../libapr1_1.2.12-5ubuntu0.1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package mysql-common.
Unpacking mysql-common (from .../mysql-common_5.1.30really5.0.75-0ubuntu10.2_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libmysqlclient15off.
Unpacking libmysqlclient15off (from .../libmysqlclient15off_5.1.30really5.0.75-0ubuntu10.2_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libaprutil1.
Unpacking libaprutil1 (from .../libaprutil1_1.2.12+dfsg-8ubuntu0.3_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package apache2-utils.
Unpacking apache2-utils (from .../apache2-utils_2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package apache2.2-common.
Unpacking apache2.2-common (from .../apache2.2-common_2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2_amd64.deb) ...
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Unpacking apache2-mpm-worker (from .../apache2-mpm-worker_2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package apache2.
Unpacking apache2 (from .../apache2_2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libdevel-symdump-perl.
Unpacking libdevel-symdump-perl (from .../libdevel-symdump-perl_2.08-1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libapache2-mod-perl2.
Unpacking libapache2-mod-perl2 (from .../libapache2-mod-perl2_2.0.4-5ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libapache2-reload-perl.
Unpacking libapache2-reload-perl (from .../libapache2-reload-perl_0.10-2_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libnet-daemon-perl.
Unpacking libnet-daemon-perl (from .../libnet-daemon-perl_0.43-1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libplrpc-perl.
Unpacking libplrpc-perl (from .../libplrpc-perl_0.2020-1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libdbi-perl.
Unpacking libdbi-perl (from .../libdbi-perl_1.607-1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libdbd-pg-perl.
Unpacking libdbd-pg-perl (from .../libdbd-pg-perl_2.11.7-1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libbsd-resource-perl.
Unpacking libbsd-resource-perl (from .../libbsd-resource-perl_1.2901-1_amd64.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for ufw ...
Setting up libapr1 (1.2.12-5ubuntu0.1) ...

Setting up mysql-common (5.1.30really5.0.75-0ubuntu10.2) ...
Setting up libmysqlclient15off (5.1.30really5.0.75-0ubuntu10.2) ...

Setting up libaprutil1 (1.2.12+dfsg-8ubuntu0.3) ...

Setting up apache2-utils (2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2) ...
Setting up apache2.2-common (2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2) ...
Enabling site default.
Enabling module alias.
Enabling module autoindex.
Enabling module dir.
Enabling module env.
Enabling module mime.
Enabling module negotiation.
Enabling module setenvif.
Enabling module status.
Enabling module auth_basic.
Enabling module deflate.
Enabling module authz_default.
Enabling module authz_user.
Enabling module authz_groupfile.
Enabling module authn_file.
Enabling module authz_host.

Setting up apache2-mpm-worker (2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2) ...
* Starting web server apache2
apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName
...done.

Setting up apache2 (2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2) ...
Setting up libdevel-symdump-perl (2.08-1) ...
Setting up libapache2-mod-perl2 (2.0.4-5ubuntu1) ...
Enabling module perl.
Run '/etc/init.d/apache2 restart' to activate new configuration!

Setting up libapache2-reload-perl (0.10-2) ...
Setting up libnet-daemon-perl (0.43-1) ...
Setting up libplrpc-perl (0.2020-1) ...
Setting up libdbi-perl (1.607-1) ...
Setting up libdbd-pg-perl (2.11.7-1) ...
Setting up libbsd-resource-perl (1.2901-1) ...
Processing triggers for libc6 ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
root@luttappi:~#

5. Web based administration - PhpPgAdmin
***********************************************
root@luttappi:~# apt-get install phppgadmin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
apache2-mpm-prefork libapache2-mod-php5 php5-common php5-pgsql postgresql-doc postgresql-doc-8.3
Suggested packages:
php-pear slony1-bin
The following packages will be REMOVED:
apache2-mpm-worker
The following NEW packages will be installed:
apache2-mpm-prefork libapache2-mod-php5 php5-common php5-pgsql phppgadmin postgresql-doc postgresql-doc-8.3
0 upgraded, 7 newly installed, 1 to remove and 184 not upgraded.
Need to get 6157kB of archives.
After this operation, 24.1MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main apache2-mpm-prefork 2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2 [253kB]
Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main php5-common 5.2.6.dfsg.1-3ubuntu4.1 [372kB]
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main libapache2-mod-php5 5.2.6.dfsg.1-3ubuntu4.1 [2615kB]
Get:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main php5-pgsql 5.2.6.dfsg.1-3ubuntu4.1 [57.8kB]
Get:5 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main postgresql-doc-8.3 8.3.7-1 [1963kB]
Get:6 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main postgresql-doc 8.3.7-1 [3408B]
Get:7 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe phppgadmin 4.2.2-1 [894kB]
Fetched 6157kB in 13s (463kB/s)
dpkg: apache2-mpm-worker: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you request:
apache2 depends on apache2-mpm-worker (>= 2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2) | apache2-mpm-prefork (>= 2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2) | apache2-mpm-event (>= 2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2); however:
Package apache2-mpm-worker is to be removed.
Package apache2-mpm-prefork is not installed.
Package apache2-mpm-event is not installed.
(Reading database ... 104442 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing apache2-mpm-worker ...
* Stopping web server apache2
apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.1.1 for ServerName
... waiting ...done.
Selecting previously deselected package apache2-mpm-prefork.
(Reading database ... 104434 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking apache2-mpm-prefork (from .../apache2-mpm-prefork_2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package php5-common.
Unpacking php5-common (from .../php5-common_5.2.6.dfsg.1-3ubuntu4.1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package libapache2-mod-php5.
Unpacking libapache2-mod-php5 (from .../libapache2-mod-php5_5.2.6.dfsg.1-3ubuntu4.1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package php5-pgsql.
Unpacking php5-pgsql (from .../php5-pgsql_5.2.6.dfsg.1-3ubuntu4.1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package postgresql-doc-8.3.
Unpacking postgresql-doc-8.3 (from .../postgresql-doc-8.3_8.3.7-1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package postgresql-doc.
Unpacking postgresql-doc (from .../postgresql-doc_8.3.7-1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package phppgadmin.
Unpacking phppgadmin (from .../phppgadmin_4.2.2-1_all.deb) ...
Processing triggers for doc-base ...
Processing 23 changed, 1 added doc-base file(s)...
Registering documents with scrollkeeper...
Setting up apache2-mpm-prefork (2.2.11-2ubuntu2.2) ...
* Starting web server apache2
apache2: Syntax error on line 278 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: Could not open configuration file /etc/apache2/conf.d/phppgadmin: No such file or directory
...fail!
invoke-rc.d: initscript apache2, action "start" failed.

Setting up php5-common (5.2.6.dfsg.1-3ubuntu4.1) ...
Setting up libapache2-mod-php5 (5.2.6.dfsg.1-3ubuntu4.1) ...

Creating config file /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini with new version
Your apache2 configuration is broken, so we're not restarting it for you.

Setting up php5-pgsql (5.2.6.dfsg.1-3ubuntu4.1) ...

Setting up postgresql-doc-8.3 (8.3.7-1) ...

Setting up postgresql-doc (8.3.7-1) ...
Setting up phppgadmin (4.2.2-1) ...
* Reloading web server config apache2
root@luttappi:~#

6. PhpPgAdmin configuration file:
**************************************

root@luttappi:/usr/share/phppgadmin/conf# pwd
/usr/share/phppgadmin/conf
root@luttappi:/usr/share/phppgadmin/conf# ls -l config.inc.php
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 30 2009-08-10 13:24 config.inc.php -> /etc/phppgadmin/config.inc.php
root@luttappi:/usr/share/phppgadmin/conf#

7. Access:
************
http://localhost/phppgadmin

Menu Based - Time changing Script

2009-07-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

I was working with few testers who need to change the system time occasionally on a linux box. Most of the time, they had problem while issuing the date command. Below one is a menu based shell script to update time on a linux box (xen guest in this case)

#!/bin/bash
Author : basil@
Purpose : Menu based date/time change of Linux boxes with ntpdate
Date : 04-20-2009

# Below kernel parameter is to allow xen guest take independent decision about its clock.

echo 1 > /proc/sys/xen/independent_wallclock

while :
do
clear
echo "-------------------------------------"
echo " Main Menu "
echo "-------------------------------------"
echo "[1] Show Todays date/time"
echo "[2] Change System time"
echo "[3] Show calendar"
echo "[4] Change System time to Current time"
echo "[5] Exit/Stop"
echo "======================="
echo -n "Enter your menu choice [1-5]: "
read yourch

case $yourch in
1) echo "Today is `date` , press Enter/Return key. . ." ; read ;;
2) echo "Enter new date and time [Format: MMDDHHMMYYYY]: ";read newtime ; date $newtime;echo "Today is `date`, , press Enter/Return key. . ." ; read ;;
3) /usr/bin/cal; echo "Press a key. . ." ; read ;;
4) echo "Updating to Current time..."; `/usr/sbin/ntpdate -s clock.redhat.com`;echo "Today is `date`, , press Enter/Return key. . ." ; read ;;
5) exit 0 ;;
*) echo "Opps!!! Please select choice 1,2,3 or 4";
echo "Press Enter/Return key. . ." ; read ;;

esac
done

Time Sync issues - VMware Guest Hosts

2009-07-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

I was damn tired of time sync issues related to guest hosts running on top of VMware ESX 3.5 host. Even though I have installed ntp client on all the servers, but still the guest OS's are running out of Sync.

NTP Recommendations

Note: In all cases use NTP instead of VMware Tools periodic time synchronization. Also, you may need to open the firewall (UPD 123) to allow NTP traffic.

The following is a sample /etc/ntp.conf :

tinker panic 0

restrict 127.0.0.1

restrict default kod nomodify notrap

server 0.vmware.pool.ntp.org

server 1.vmware.pool.ntp.org

server 2.vmware.pool.ntp.org

driftfile /var/lib/ntp/drift

The following is a sample /etc/ntp/step-tickers :

0.vmware.pool.ntp.org

1.vmware.pool.ntp.org

The configuration directive tinker panic 0 instructs NTP not to give up if it sees a large jump in time. This is important for coping with large time drifts and also resuming virtual machines from their suspended state.

Note: The directive tinker panic 0 must be at the top of the ntp.conf file.

It is also important not to use the local clock as a time source, often referred to as the Undisciplined Local Clock. NTP has a tendency to fall back to this in preference to the remote servers when there is a large amount of time drift.

An example of such a configuration is:

server 127.127.1.0

fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 10

Comment out both lines.

After making changes to NTP configuration, the NTP daemon must be restarted. Refer to your operating system vendor’s documentation.

VMware Tools time synchronization configuration

When using NTP in the guest, disable VMware Tools periodic time synchronization.

To disable VMware Tools periodic time sync you use one of the following options:

Set tools.syncTime = "0" in the configuration file (.vmx file) of the virtual machine.

OR
Deselect Time synchronization between the virtual machine and the host operating system in the VMware Tools toolbox GUI of the guest operating system.

OR
Run the vmware-guestd --cmd "vmx.set_option synctime 1 0" command in the guest operating system.

These options do not disable one-time synchronizations done by VMware Tools for events such as tools startup, taking a snapshot, resuming from a snapshot, resuming from suspend, or VMotion. These events synchronize time in the guest operating system with time in the host operating system, so it is important to make sure that the host operating system's time is correct.

To do this for VMware ACE, VMware Fusion, VMware GSX Server, VMware Player, VMware Server, and VMware Workstation run time synchronization software such as NTP or w32time in the host. For VMware ESX run NTP in the service console. For VMware ESXi, run NTP in the VMkernel.

Virtual Hardware clock configuration

When configuring the Linux guest operating system, if you are given a choice between keeping the “hardware” clock (that is, the virtual CMOS time of day clock) in UTC or local time, choose UTC. This avoids any confusion when your local time changes between standard and daylight saving time (in England, "summer time").

64bit Kernels

Linux Flavor	Version	Kernel Parameters	Notes
RHEL
	RHEL 5.3	notsc divider=10
	RHEL 5.2	notsc divider=10
	RHEL 5.1 with RHSA-2007:0993-13	notsc divider=10
	RHEL 5.1 without RHSA-2007:0993-13	notsc

32bit Kernels

Linux Flavor	Version	Kernel Parameters	Notes
RHEL
	RHEL 5.3	divider=10 clocksource=acpi_pm
	RHEL 5.2	divider=10 clocksource=acpi_pm
	RHEL 5.1	divider=10 clocksource=acpi_pm
	RHEL 5.0	clocksource=acpi_pm

Editing Kernel Configuration

Kernel command line parameters are specified in the /etc/lilo.conf or /boot/grub/grub.conf file, depending on your choice of boot loader.

For LILO, put the kernel command line parameters at the end of the "append" line. For example, if the append line looks like:

append="resume=/dev/hda6 splash=silent"

and you want to add "clock=pmtmr divider=10" the updated text is:

append="resume=/dev/hda6 splash=silent clock=pmtmr divider=10"

Remember to run /sbin/lilo after editing lilo.conf , so that your edits take effect.

For GRUB, put the kernel command line parameters at the end of the "kernel" line. For example if the kernel line looks like:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18 ro root=/dev/hda2

and you want to add "clock=pmtmr divider=10" the updated text is:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18 ro root=/dev/hda2 clock=pmtmr divider=10

Below given is the best practice, for time related issues on VMware guests.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1006427

TCP - CONNECTION

2009-06-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

Connection State Definition:
----------------------------------

ESTABLISHED – both hosts are connected
CLOSING – the remote host is closing the connection
LISTENING – the host is listening for incoming connections
SYN_RCVD – a remote host has asked to start a connection
SYN_SENT – the host is starting a new connection
LAST_ACK – the host must send a report before closing the connection
TIMED_WAIT, CLOSE_WAIT – a remote host is terminating the connection
FIN_WAIT 1 – the client is terminating the connection
FIN_WAIT 2 – both hosts are closing the connection

TCP cutter : http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/cutting-the-tcpip-network-connection-with-cutter.html
TCPKILL : http://www.cyberciti.biz/howto/question/linux/kill-tcp-connection-using-linux-netstat.php

Parameters which can be configured on Kernel:
-----------------------------------------------------------

From the link :http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~brecht/servers/ip-sysctl.txt

/proc/sys/net/ipv4/* Variables:

ip_forward - BOOLEAN
 0 - disabled (default)
 not 0 - enabled

 Forward Packets between interfaces.

 This variable is special, its change resets all configuration
 parameters to their default state (RFC1122 for hosts, RFC1812
 for routers)

ip_default_ttl - INTEGER
 default 64

ip_no_pmtu_disc - BOOLEAN
 Disable Path MTU Discovery.
 default FALSE

IP Fragmentation:

ipfrag_high_thresh - INTEGER
 Maximum memory used to reassemble IP fragments. When
 ipfrag_high_thresh bytes of memory is allocated for this purpose,
 the fragment handler will toss packets until ipfrag_low_thresh
 is reached.
 
ipfrag_low_thresh - INTEGER
 See ipfrag_high_thresh 

ipfrag_time - INTEGER
 Time in seconds to keep an IP fragment in memory. 

INET peer storage:

inet_peer_threshold - INTEGER
 The approximate size of the storage.  Starting from this threshold 
 entries will be thrown aggressively.  This threshold also determines
 entries' time-to-live and time intervals between garbage collection
 passes.  More entries, less time-to-live, less GC interval.

inet_peer_minttl - INTEGER
 Minimum time-to-live of entries.  Should be enough to cover fragment
 time-to-live on the reassembling side.  This minimum time-to-live  is
 guaranteed if the pool size is less than inet_peer_threshold.
 Measured in jiffies.

inet_peer_maxttl - INTEGER
 Maximum time-to-live of entries.  Unused entries will expire after
 this period of time if there is no memory pressure on the pool (i.e.
 when the number of entries in the pool is very small).
 Measured in jiffies.

inet_peer_gc_mintime - INTEGER
 Minimum interval between garbage collection passes.  This interval is
 in effect under high memory pressure on the pool.
 Measured in jiffies.

inet_peer_gc_maxtime - INTEGER
 Minimum interval between garbage collection passes.  This interval is
 in effect under low (or absent) memory pressure on the pool.
 Measured in jiffies.

TCP variables:

tcp_syn_retries - INTEGER
 Number of times initial SYNs for an active TCP connection attempt
 will be retransmitted. Should not be higher than 255. Default value
 is 5, which corresponds to ~180seconds.

tcp_synack_retries - INTEGER
 Number of times SYNACKs for a passive TCP connection attempt will
 be retransmitted. Should not be higher than 255. Default value
 is 5, which corresponds to ~180seconds.

tcp_keepalive_time - INTEGER
 How often TCP sends out keepalive messages when keepalive is enabled.
 Default: 2hours.

tcp_keepalive_probes - INTEGER
 How many keepalive probes TCP sends out, until it decides that the
 connection is broken. Default value: 9.

tcp_keepalive_interval - INTEGER
 How frequently the probes are send out. Multiplied by
 tcp_keepalive_probes it is time to kill not responding connection,
 after probes started. Default value: 75sec i.e. connection
 will be aborted after ~11 minutes of retries.

tcp_retries1 - INTEGER
 How many times to retry before deciding that something is wrong
 and it is necessary to report this suspection to network layer.
 Minimal RFC value is 3, it is default, which corresponds
 to ~3sec-8min depending on RTO.

tcp_retries2 - INTEGER
 How may times to retry before killing alive TCP connection.
 RFC1122 says that the limit should be longer than 100 sec.
 It is too small number. Default value 15 corresponds to ~13-30min
 depending on RTO.

tcp_orphan_retries - INTEGER
 How may times to retry before killing TCP connection, closed
 by our side. Default value 7 corresponds to ~50sec-16min
 depending on RTO. If you machine is loaded WEB server,
 you should think about lowering this value, such sockets
 may consume significant resources. Cf. tcp_max_orphans.

tcp_fin_timeout - INTEGER
 Time to hold socket in state FIN-WAIT-2, if it was closed
 by our side. Peer can be broken and never close its side,
 or even died unexpectedly. Default value is 60sec.
 Usual value used in 2.2 was 180 seconds, you may restore
 it, but remember that if your machine is even underloaded WEB server,
 you risk to overflow memory with kilotons of dead sockets,
 FIN-WAIT-2 sockets are less dangerous than FIN-WAIT-1,
 because they eat maximum 1.5K of memory, but they tend
 to live longer. Cf. tcp_max_orphans.

tcp_max_tw_buckets - INTEGER
 Maximal number of timewait sockets held by system simultaneously.
 If this number is exceeded time-wait socket is immediately destroyed
 and warning is printed. This limit exists only to prevent
 simple DoS attacks, you _must_ not lower the limit artificially,
 but rather increase it (probably, after increasing installed memory),
 if network conditions require more than default value.

tcp_tw_recycle - BOOLEAN
 Enable fast recycling TIME-WAIT sockets. Default value is 1.
 It should not be changed without advice/request of technical
 experts.

tcp_max_orphans - INTEGER
 Maximal number of TCP sockets not attached to any user file handle,
 held by system. If this number is exceeded orphaned connections are
 reset immediately and warning is printed. This limit exists
 only to prevent simple DoS attacks, you _must_ not rely on this
 or lower the limit artificially, but rather increase it
 (probably, after increasing installed memory),
 if network conditions require more than default value,
 and tune network services to linger and kill such states
 more aggressively. Let me to remind again: each orphan eats
 up to ~64K of unswappable memory.

tcp_abort_on_overflow - BOOLEAN
 If listening service is too slow to accept new connections,
 reset them. Default state is FALSE. It means that if overflow
 occurred due to a burst, connection will recover. Enable this
 option _only_ if you are really sure that listening daemon
 cannot be tuned to accept connections faster. Enabling this
 option can harm clients of your server.

tcp_syncookies - BOOLEAN
 Only valid when the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_SYNCOOKIES
 Send out syncookies when the syn backlog queue of a socket
 overflows. This is to prevent against the common 'syn flood attack'
 Default: FALSE

 Note, that syncookies is fallback facility.
 It MUST NOT be used to help highly loaded servers to stand
 against legal connection rate. If you see synflood warnings
 in your logs, but investigation shows that they occur
 because of overload with legal connections, you should tune
 another parameters until this warning disappear.
 See: tcp_max_syn_backlog, tcp_synack_retries, tcp_abort_on_overflow.

 syncookies seriously violate TCP protocol, do not allow
 to use TCP extensions, can result in serious degradation
 of some services (f.e. SMTP relaying), visible not by you,
 but your clients and relays, contacting you. While you see
 synflood warnings in logs not being really flooded, your server
 is seriously misconfigured.

tcp_stdurg - BOOLEAN
 Use the Host requirements interpretation of the TCP urg pointer field.
 Most hosts use the older BSD interpretation, so if you turn this on
 Linux might not communicate correctly with them. 
 Default: FALSE
 
tcp_max_syn_backlog - INTEGER
 Maximal number of remembered connection requests, which are
 still did not receive an acknowledgement from connecting client.
 Default value is 1024 for systems with more than 128Mb of memory,
 and 128 for low memory machines. If server suffers of overload,
 try to increase this number. Warning! If you make it greater
 than 1024, it would be better to change TCP_SYNQ_HSIZE in
 include/net/tcp.h to keep TCP_SYNQ_HSIZE*16<=tcp_max_syn_backlog
 and to recompile kernel.

tcp_window_scaling - BOOLEAN
 Enable window scaling as defined in RFC1323.

tcp_timestamps - BOOLEAN
 Enable timestamps as defined in RFC1323.

tcp_sack - BOOLEAN
 Enable select acknowledgments (SACKS).

tcp_fack - BOOLEAN
 Enable FACK congestion avoidance and fast restransmission.
 The value is not used, if tcp_sack is not enabled.

tcp_dsack - BOOLEAN
 Allows TCP to send "duplicate" SACKs.

tcp_ecn - BOOLEAN
 Enable Explicit Congestion Notification in TCP.

tcp_reordering - INTEGER
 Maximal reordering of packets in a TCP stream.
 Default: 3 

tcp_retrans_collapse - BOOLEAN
 Bug-to-bug compatibility with some broken printers.
 On retransmit try to send bigger packets to work around bugs in
 certain TCP stacks.

tcp_wmem - vector of 3 INTEGERs: min, default, max
 min: Amount of memory reserved for send buffers for TCP socket.
 Each TCP socket has rights to use it due to fact of its birth.
 Default: 4K

 default: Amount of memory allowed for send buffers for TCP socket
 by default. This value overrides net.core.wmem_default used
 by other protocols, it is usually lower than net.core.wmem_default.
 Default: 16K

 max: Maximal amount of memory allowed for automatically selected
 send buffers for TCP socket. This value does not override
 net.core.wmem_max, "static" selection via SO_SNDBUF does not use this.
 Default: 128K

tcp_rmem - vector of 3 INTEGERs: min, default, max
 min: Minimal size of receive buffer used by TCP sockets.
 It is guaranteed to each TCP socket, even under moderate memory
 pressure.
 Default: 8K

 default: default size of receive buffer used by TCP sockets.
 This value overrides net.core.rmem_default used by other protocols.
 Default: 87380 bytes. This value results in window of 65535 with
 default setting of tcp_adv_win_scale and tcp_app_win:0 and a bit
 less for default tcp_app_win. See below about these variables.

 max: maximal size of receive buffer allowed for automatically
 selected receiver buffers for TCP socket. This value does not override
 net.core.rmem_max, "static" selection via SO_RCVBUF does not use this.
 Default: 87380*2 bytes.

tcp_mem - vector of 3 INTEGERs: min, pressure, max
 low: below this number of pages TCP is not bothered about its
 memory appetite.

 pressure: when amount of memory allocated by TCP exceeds this number
 of pages, TCP moderates its memory consumption and enters memory
 pressure mode, which is exited when memory consumtion falls
 under "low".

 high: number of pages allowed for queueing by all TCP sockets.

 Defaults are calculated at boot time from amount of available
 memory.

tcp_app_win - INTEGER
 Reserve max(window/2^tcp_app_win, mss) of window for application
 buffer. Value 0 is special, it means that nothing is reserved.
 Default: 31

tcp_adv_win_scale - INTEGER
 Count buffering overhead as bytes/2^tcp_adv_win_scale
 (if tcp_adv_win_scale > 0) or bytes-bytes/2^(-tcp_adv_win_scale),
 if it is <= 0.
 Default: 2

ip_local_port_range - 2 INTEGERS
 Defines the local port range that is used by TCP and UDP to
 choose the local port. The first number is the first, the
 second the last local port number. Default value depends on
 amount of memory available on the system:
 > 128Mb 32768-61000
 < 128Mb 1024-4999 or even less.
 This number defines number of active connections, which this
 system can issue simultaneously to systems not supporting
 TCP extensions (timestamps). With tcp_tw_recycle enabled
 (i.e. by default) range 1024-4999 is enough to issue up to
 2000 connections per second to systems supporting timestamps.

icmp_echo_ignore_all - BOOLEAN
icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts - BOOLEAN
 If either is set to true, then the kernel will ignore either all
 ICMP ECHO requests sent to it or just those to broadcast/multicast
 addresses, respectively.

icmp_destunreach_rate - INTEGER
icmp_paramprob_rate - INTEGER
icmp_timeexceed_rate - INTEGER
icmp_echoreply_rate - INTEGER (not enabled per default)
 Limit the maximal rates for sending ICMP packets to specific targets.
 0 to disable any limiting, otherwise the maximal rate in jiffies(1)
 See the source for more information.

icmp_ignore_bogus_error_responses - BOOLEAN
 Some routers violate RFC 1122 by sending bogus responses to broadcast
 frames.  Such violations are normally logged via a kernel warning.
 If this is set to TRUE, the kernel will not give such warnings, which
 will avoid log file clutter.
 Default: FALSE

(1) Jiffie: internal timeunit for the kernel. On the i386 1/100s, on the
Alpha 1/1024s. See the HZ define in /usr/include/asm/param.h for the exact
value on your system.

conf/interface/*:
conf/all/* is special and changes the settings for all interfaces.
 Change special settings per interface.

log_martians - BOOLEAN
 Log packets with impossible addresses to kernel log.

accept_redirects - BOOLEAN
 Accept ICMP redirect messages.
 default TRUE (host)
  FALSE (router)

forwarding - BOOLEAN
 Enable IP forwarding on this interface.

mc_forwarding - BOOLEAN
 Do multicast routing. The kernel needs to be compiled with CONFIG_MROUTE
 and a multicast routing daemon is required.

proxy_arp - BOOLEAN
 Do proxy arp.

shared_media - BOOLEAN
 Send(router) or accept(host) RFC1620 shared media redirects.
 Overrides ip_secure_redirects.
 default TRUE

secure_redirects - BOOLEAN
 Accept ICMP redirect messages only for gateways,
 listed in default gateway list.
 default TRUE

send_redirects - BOOLEAN
 Send redirects, if router. Default: TRUE

bootp_relay - BOOLEAN
 Accept packets with source address 0.b.c.d destined
 not to this host as local ones. It is supposed, that
 BOOTP relay daemon will catch and forward such packets.

 default FALSE
 Not Implemented Yet.

accept_source_route - BOOLEAN
 Accept packets with SRR option.
 default TRUE (router)
  FALSE (host)

rp_filter - BOOLEAN
 1 - do source validation by reversed path, as specified in RFC1812
     Recommended option for single homed hosts and stub network
     routers. Could cause troubles for complicated (not loop free)
     networks running a slow unreliable protocol (sort of RIP),
     or using static routes.

 0 - No source validation.

 Default value is 0. Note that some distributions enable it
 in startip scripts.

VMware: vmware-vdiskmanager utility

2009-04-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

vmware-vdiskmanager utility usages:
***********************************

vmware-vdiskmanager -r source.vmdk -t 0 dest.vmdk

-k for shrinking

Use the vmware-vdiskmanager -x command to set the correct size of the volume you want.

Usage: vmware-vdiskmanager OPTIONS diskName | drive-letter:

Offline disk manipulation utility
Options:
-c : create disk; need to specify other create options
-d : defragment the specified virtual disk
-k : shrink the specified virtual disk
-n : rename the specified virtual disk; need to
specify destination disk-name
-p : prepare the mounted virtual disk specified by
the drive-letter for shrinking
-q : do not log messages
-r : convert the specified disk; need to specify
destination disk-type
-x : expand the disk to the specified capacity

Additional options for create and convert:
-a : (for use with -c only) adapter type(ide, buslogic or lsilogic)
-s : capacity of the virtual disk
-t : disk type id

Disk types:
0 : single growable virtual disk
1 : growable virtual disk split in 2Gb files
2 : preallocated virtual disk
3 : preallocated virtual disk split in 2Gb files

The capacity can be specified in sectors, Kb, Mb or Gb.
The acceptable ranges:
ide adapter : [100.0Mb, 128.0Gb]
scsi adapter: [100.0Mb, 256.0Gb]
ex 1: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -c -s 850Mb -a ide -t 0 myIdeDisk.vmdk
ex 2: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -d myDisk.vmdk
ex 3: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -r sourceDisk.vmdk -t 0 destinationDisk.vmdk
ex 4: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -x 36Gb myDisk.vmdk
ex 5: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -n sourceName.vmdk destinationName.vmdk
ex 6: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -k myDisk.vmdk
ex 7: vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -p m:
(A virtual disk first needs to be mounted at m:
using the VMware Diskmount Utility.)

Mitel 3300 ICP and Polycom IP7000

2009-04-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

It was a tough day for a me to plug IP 7000 on Mitel 3300 ICP. Even though mitel support the SIP protocols, it was not just a plug and play game.

Steps are pretty simple

1. Go to ' Licensing and Option Selection' of controller - Make sure that you have enough SIP licenses on Mitel ICP
2. Multiline IP set configuration - Add a new device as 'Generic SIP' - Include a security pin number and intended Phone number
3. Next one is a tedious task - Create a "Class of Service Assignment" - Need to spend some time on this to enable the features needed for your phone. Few docs are available on Mitel site for this.
4. Then do some adjustments in "Sip Device Capability assignment" - There is a catch here! If you are not using the latest ICP version (Above 9.0), you will not be seeing all the SIP features avaiable on IP 7000. I had tough time while configuring IP 7000 for multi line conferencing capability because of the unavailable options on the older version.
Disable Reliable Provisional Responses (Yes)

Force sending SDP in initial Invite message (Yes)
Suppress Use of SDP Inactive Media Streams (No)
Renegotiate SDP To Enforce Symmetric Codec (No)
Allow Device To Use Multiple Active M-Lines (Yes) --> This option need to be enabled (which is available on 9.0 UR1 version)

5. "Multi Line Set Key Assignment" - To configure multiple lines on the phone - a straight forward process.
6. "Station Service Assignment" - Assign the configured "Sip Capabilities" to the newly configured device
7. Boot up IP7000
Go to the Status and TCP Parameters and find the IP of the device.
Access the Device using http://x.x.x.x and follow the simple configuration available on Polycom Site
8. Change the dial plan if necessary to match your ICP settings

www.polycom.com/global/documents/support/setup_maintenance/products/voice/soundstation_ip_7000_qsg_english_rev_b.pdf

It is bit more tougher than these simple steps...;) ..
Enjooy.

Yum update Problems

2009-03-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

Yum was throwing errors saying inaccessible repo. I tried recreating the repository using 'createrepo'. But it didn't help.

[root@myhost repodata]# yum update
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
This system is not registered with RHN.
RHN support will be disabled.
Setting up Update Process
Setting up repositories
file://var/ftp/pub/rhel5/i386_32/Server/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 5] OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/ftp/pub/rhel5/i386_32/Server/repodata/repomd.xml'
Trying other mirror.
Error: Cannot open/read repomd.xml file for repository: Server
[root@myhost repodata]#

The fix was simple. Done a
"yum clean all"

Everything started working..hurray..!!

DB2 9.1 installation on RHEL 5.1 or CentOS 5.1

2009-02-25T16:44:00.000-08:00

Just thought of adding a post since DB2 popbuilder don't have a clear cut installation steps for DB2 installation for Linux hosts. I am trying this on a RHEL 5.1 machine. I am just starting on DB2 stuff so you can expect more on DB2 in future posts. Everything is self explanatory as I am just copy pasting the logs console logs from bash.

Don't get confused.. my installation directory is /home/db2.

1. Downloaded the package DB2_ESE_V913_LNXX86.tar from IBM Site. I have downloaded this one since I am running a 32bit RHEL 5.1 on top of VMware ESX.

2. Dependency : libstdc++.so.5

3. Used the whatprovides switch to find the appropriate package from my local yum repository

[root@basil-db1]# yum whatprovides libstdc++.so.5
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Loading "rhnplugin" plugin
This system is not registered with RHN.
RHN support will be disabled.
Setting up repositories
ClusterStorage 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
VT 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Server 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Cluster 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
Reading repository metadata in from local files

compat-libstdc++-33.i386 3.2.3-61 Server
Matched from:
libstdc++.so.5
Importing additional filelist information
Exiting on user cancel
[root@basil-db1 db2install]

4. [root@basil-db1]# yum install compat-libstdc++*
-- snipped--
Running Transaction
Installing: compat-libstdc++-296 ######################### [1/2]
Installing: compat-libstdc++-33 ######################### [2/2]

Installed: compat-libstdc++-296.i386 0:2.96-138 compat-libstdc++-33.i386 0:3.2.3-61
Complete!
[root@basil-db1]#

5. Unzipped package folder looks like this.

[root@basil-db1 db2install]# ls
db2 DB2_ESE_V913_LNXX86.tar db2_install db2prereqcheck db2setup doc installFixPack
[root@basil-db1 db2install]#

6. I choose to install db2 on /home/db2 since I dont have enough space on the default location /opt/ibm/db2/V9.1

[root@basil-db1 db2install]# mkdir /home/db2
[root@basil-db1 db2install]# ./db2_install

Default directory for installation of products - /opt/ibm/db2/V9.1

***********************************************************
Do you want to choose a different directory to install [yes/no] ?
yes
Enter full path name for the install directory -

------------------------------------------------
/home/db2

Specify one or more of the following keywords,
separated by spaces, to install DB2 products.

CLIENT
RTCL
ESE

Enter "help" to redisplay product names.

Enter "quit" to exit.

***********************************************************
ESE
DB2 installation is being initialized.

Total number of tasks to be performed: 46
Total estimated time for all tasks to be performed: 808

..... snipped ....

Task #46 start
Description: Updating global profile registry
Estimated time 3 second(s)
Task #46 end

The execution completed successfully.

For more information see the DB2 installation log at
"/tmp/db2_install.log.5657".
[root@basil-db1 db2install]#

7. Verify /tmp/db2_install.log.5657 to check for errors

8. Next is creation of groups and users.

[root@basil-db1 db2install]# groupadd -g 999 db2iadm1
[root@basil-db1 db2install]# groupadd -g 998 db2fadm1
[root@basil-db1 db2install]# groupadd -g 997 db2asgr

[root@basil-db1 db2install]# useradd -g db2iadm1 -m db2inst1 -p password
[root@basil-db1 db2install]# useradd -g db2fadm1 -m db2fenc1 -p password
[root@basil-db1 db2install]# useradd -g db2fadm1 -m db2fenc1 -p password

Can use a good password than my conventional cheeky 'password' ;)

9. Create DB2 administration server (DAS)

[root@basil-db1 instance]# pwd
/home/db2/instance
[root@basil-db1 instance]#
[root@basil-db1 instance]# ./dascrt -u db2as
SQL4409W The DB2 Administration Server is already active.
DBI1070I Program dascrt completed successfully.
[root@basil-db1 instance]#

10. Create DB2 instances for the added users

[root@basil-db1 instance]# ./db2icrt -u db2fenc1 db2inst1
DBI1070I Program db2icrt completed successfully.

[root@basil-db1 instance]#

11. Applying license

[root@basil-db1 license]# /home/db2/adm/db2licm -a /home/db2install/db2/license/db2ese.lic

LIC1402I License added successfully.

LIC1426I This product is now licensed for use as specified in the License Agreement and License Information documents pertaining to the licensed copy of this product. USE OF THE PRODUCT CONSTITUTES ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS OF THE IBM LICENSE AGREEMENT AND LICENSE INFORMATION DOCUMENTS, LOCATED IN THE FOLLOWING DIRECTORY: "/home/db2/license/en_US.iso88591"
[root@basil-db1 license]#

12. Creating sample Database

[root@basil-db1 adm]# su - db2inst1
[db2inst1@basil-db1 ~]$
[db2inst1@basil-db1 ~]$ cd /home/db2/adm/
[db2inst1@basil-db1 adm]$
[db2inst1@basil-db1 adm]$ db2sampl

Creating database "SAMPLE"...
Connecting to database "SAMPLE"...
Creating tables and data in schema "DB2INST1"...

'db2sampl' processing complete.

[db2inst1@basil-db1 adm]$ db2 list database directory

System Database Directory

Number of entries in the directory = 1

Database 1 entry:

Database alias = SAMPLE
Database name = SAMPLE
Local database directory = /home/db2inst1
Database release level = b.00
Comment = A sample database
Directory entry type = Indirect
Catalog database partition number = 0
Alternate server hostname =
Alternate server port number =

[db2inst1@basil-db1 adm]$

13. Connecting to DB2 sample Database:

[db2inst1@basil-db1 adm]$ db2 connect to sample

Database Connection Information

Database server = DB2/LINUX 9.1.3
SQL authorization ID = DB2INST1
Local database alias = SAMPLE

[db2inst1@basil-db1 adm]$

14. Set the profile in the /etc/profile to get proper path to binaries.
Add the below line to /etc/profiles

. /home/db2inst1/sqllib/db2profile

15. You are done with DB2 setup. Make sure that your firewall is not blocking DB2 ports in the host level.

[root@basil-db1 adm]# iptables -L
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
[root@basil-db1 adm]#

VMware Guest OS Problem - Ubuntu 8.10

2009-02-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

Today my guest OSs started showing some weired problems after the upgrade of ubuntu from 8.04 to 8.10. The delete, arrow, home, end, insert stopped working. But the guest os were just fine.

If you are using latest VM player do the following step to fix. Make sure to reload the VM guest after the change.

vi /etc/vmware/config
xkeymap.nokeycodeMap = true

Some Excellent SED usages

2009-02-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

Some Excellent SED usages
**************************
SED - Stream Editor. See some good usages of SED.

http://www.megalinux.net/archives/643.html
http://sed.sourceforge.net/local/docs/emulating_unix.txt
http://sed.sourceforge.net/local/docs/An_introduction_to_sed.html

Monitoring

2009-02-16T21:09:00.000-08:00

Monitoring
***********

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/bandwidth-monitoring-tools-for-ubuntu-users.html
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/nmtf/nmtf-tools.html
http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/tools.htm

Logical Volume Manager (lvm)

2009-02-16T21:06:00.000-08:00

Quick LVM setup on a Debian/Ubunutu box
****************************************

puttalu:~# apt-get install lvm2 dmsetup

puttalu:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80032038912 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9730 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/sda1 1 12 96358+ 83 Linux

/dev/sda2 13 498 3903795 82 Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/sda3 499 1471 7815622+ 83 Linux

/dev/sda4 1472 9730 66340417+ 5 Extended

/dev/sda5 1472 9730 66340386 8e Linux LVM

puttalu:~#

puttalu:~# pvcreate /dev/sda5

Physical volume "/dev/sda5" successfully created

puttalu:~#

puttalu:~# vgcreate vg0 /dev/sda5

Volume group "vg0" successfully created

puttalu:~# pvdisplay /dev/sda5

--- Physical volume ---

PV Name /dev/sda5

VG Name vg0

PV Size 63.27 GB / not usable 0

Allocatable yes

PE Size (KByte) 4096

Total PE 16196

Free PE 16196

Allocated PE 0

PV UUID xwuXvV-1DYA-SuhM-87c9-QRju-PuRa-tlPf30

puttalu:~#

puttalu:~# lvcreate -L20G -nusrlv vg0

Logical volume "usrlv" created

puttalu:~#

puttalu:~# lvdisplay

--- Logical volume ---

LV Name /dev/vg0/usrlv

VG Name vg0

LV UUID FJu6pi-qOzW-1Pwf-Fz6u-PtUb-FWb4-w23LM7

LV Write Access read/write

LV Status available

# open 0

LV Size 20.00 GB

Current LE 5120

Segments 1

Allocation inherit

Read ahead sectors 0

Block device 254:0

puttalu:~# mkdir /usr/back

puttalu:~# mount -t ext3 /dev/vg0/usrlv /usr/back

puttalu:~#

puttalu:~# lvcreate -L40G -nvarlv vg0

Logical volume "varlv" created

puttalu:~#

puttalu:~# mkfs.ext3 /dev/vg0/varlv

mke2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)

Filesystem label=

OS type: Linux

Block size=4096 (log=2)

Fragment size=4096 (log=2)

5242880 inodes, 10485760 blocks

524288 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user

First data block=0

Maximum filesystem blocks=0

320 block groups

32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group

16384 inodes per group

Superblock backups stored on blocks:

32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,

4096000, 7962624

Writing inode tables: done

Creating journal (32768 blocks): done

Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 39 mounts or

180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

puttalu:~# mkdir /var/image

puttalu:~# mount -t ext3 /dev/vg0/varlv /var/image

puttalu:~#

puttalu:~# lvdisplay

--- Logical volume ---

LV Name /dev/vg0/usrlv

VG Name vg0

LV UUID FJu6pi-qOzW-1Pwf-Fz6u-PtUb-FWb4-w23LM7

LV Write Access read/write

LV Status available

# open 1

LV Size 20.00 GB

Current LE 5120

Segments 1

Allocation inherit

Read ahead sectors 0

Block device 254:0

--- Logical volume ---

LV Name /dev/vg0/varlv

VG Name vg0

LV UUID 0V2BDl-Sra5-GFgI-6zGN-Uy7u-pzAs-7ZDfVC

LV Write Access read/write

LV Status available

# open 1

LV Size 40.00 GB

Current LE 10240

Segments 1

Allocation inherit

Read ahead sectors 0

Block device 254:1

puttalu:~# df -h /var/image

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/mapper/vg0-varlv

40G 177M 38G 1% /var/image

/dev/mapper/vg0-usrlv

20G 173M 19G 1% /usr/back

puttalu:~#

Network Clonning

2009-02-16T20:57:00.000-08:00

Tired of bulk deployment of desktops and servers(hybrid network of both windows and linux)??. Couple of good Sysadmin packages to make your life easy.

http://unattended.sourceforge.net/

http://clonezilla.sourceforge.net/

Curl Tricks

2009-02-16T20:48:00.000-08:00

Curl Tricks

Noticed some good curl usages...Worth copying to one more page on internet.

Original Article : http://www.linux.com/articles/57715

One of cURL's most useful features is a kind of URL "glob" support, which lets you specify a pattern as part of the URL to match multiple URLs. You can give a character range in brackets, such as [A-Z] or [0-9], and you can also give a list of alternatives in braces, such as {about,blog,news}. The only trick is that if you're saving to files with the -O option, you have to give that option as many times as files you match. For example, suppose you want to grab all three versions of a manual. You'd need a command like:

$ curl -O -O -O http://example.com/docs/manual.{html,pdf,tar.gz}

For HTTP requests, you can specify HTTP 1.1 byte ranges instead of entire files -- if the server has byte ranges enabled, this option returns only the specified bytes instead of the whole file. 0 represents the beginning of the file. For example, to grab the first 100 bytes:

$ curl -r 0-99 http://example.com/

Ranges don't have to begin with zero. To get bytes 100 through 200:

$ curl -r 100-200 http://example.com/

Negative values alone work from the end of the document. To grab the last eight bytes:

$ curl -r -8 http://example.com/

The -i option precedes a given URL by the server headers. Alternately, -I outputs only the headers, which is useful for seeing the OS and Web server software that a specified site is running. It also shows the date and time of the request, content length, and type of the given URL. When the -I option is used on a FILE or FTP URL, you'll get the file size and modification time.

You can upload files by specifying them as arguments to the -T option. It supports the same kind of globbing as the URL argument:

$ curl -T index-{01-99}.html ftp://ftp.example.com/pub/incoming/

By default, file uploads are given the same name as the source files, but you can specify a new name by including it in the target URL:

$ curl -T index-mine.html ftp://ftp.example.com/pub/incoming/index-yours.html

If you need to specify a username and password, give them as arguments to the -u option, separated by a colon. To upload standard input, use the hyphen as an argument:

$ some-long-pipeline | curl -u bob:secret -T - ftp://ftp.example.com/pub/bob/results.txt

Get server metrics

cURL supports built-in runtime variables that you can use to perform ad hoc diagnostics and benchmarking, or to gather statistics about the accessibility of a given URL, site, or server (all times are given in seconds, and all sizes are in bytes):

* content_type: the Content-Type value of the file
* http_code: HTTP(S) code in the page
* http_connect: HTTP code in the proxy response
* num_connects: number of new connections made in the transfer
* num_redirects: number of redirection operations that were made
* size_download: total size of downloaded data
* size_header: total size of the headers
* size_request: total size of the request
* size_upload: total size of uploaded data
* speed_download: average download speed
* speed_upload: average upload speed
* time_connect: time from the start until the remote host connection was made
* time_namelookup: time from the start of the command until name resolution was finished
* time_pretransfer: time from the start until the file transfer was about to begin
* time_redirect: time for all redirection operations
* time_starttransfer: all pretransfer time plus the time needed to calculate the result
* time_total: time for the complete operation (to the millisecond)
* url_effective: the last URL fetched

Output any of these variables with the -w option ("write-out"), giving the variables in the format %{name} as part of a quoted string. You can include any other text as part of that string, and do simple formatting by using \n for a newline or \t for a tab. For example:
$ curl -w '\nLookup time:\t%{time_namelookup}\nConnect time:\t%{time_connect}\nPreXfer time:\t%{time_pretransfer}\nStartXfer time:\t%{time_starttransfer}\n\nTotal time:\t%{time_total}\n' -o /dev/null -s http://linux.com/

Lookup time: 0.038
Connect time: 0.038
PreXfer time: 0.039
StartXfer time: 0.039

Total time: 0.039
$

To get the amount of time between when a connection is established and when the data actually begins to be transferred, subtract the value of time_pretransfer from time_starttransfer. You can automate this by sending the output to bc with echo:

$ echo "`curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{time_starttransfer}-%{time_pretransfer}' http://linux.com/`"|bc

cURL offers other important options you'll want to use to check for timeouts or to control the transfer speed -- it has more than 100 options in total. By specifying huge URL ranges or calling curl from a loop, you can use the commands to do simple server load testing, or check for various failures by reading the variable output -- and since curl handles forms, you can even use it to test Web application speed.

dmidecode

2009-02-16T20:35:00.000-08:00

Hardware/Bios Info - Dmidecode July 09, 2008
Dmidecode helps to read biosdecode data in a human-readable format

dmidecode --type {KEYWORD / Number }

Common Keywords:

* bios
* system
* baseboard
* chassis
* processor
* memory
* cache
* connector
* slot

# Type Short Description
0 BIOS
1 System
2 Base Board
3 Chassis
4 Processor
5 Memory Controller
6 Memory Module
7 Cache
8 Port Connector
9 System Slots
10 On Board Devices
11 OEM Strings
12 System Configuration Options
13 BIOS Language
14 Group Associations
15 System Event Log
16 Physical Memory Array
17 Memory Device
18 32-bit Memory Error
19 Memory Array Mapped Address
20 Memory Device Mapped Address
21 Built-in Pointing Device
22 Portable Battery
23 System Reset
24 Hardware Security
25 System Power Controls
26 Voltage Probe
27 Cooling Device
28 Temperature Probe
29 Electrical Current Probe
30 Out-of-band Remote Access
31 Boot Integrity Services
32 System Boot
33 64-bit Memory Error
34 Management Device
35 Management Device Component
36 Management Device Threshold Data
37 Memory Channel
38 IPMI Device
39 Power Supply

Eg:

root@luttappi:~# dmidecode --type 16
# dmidecode 2.8
SMBIOS 2.4 present.

Handle 0x0029, DMI type 16, 15 bytes
Physical Memory Array
Location: System Board Or Motherboard
Use: System Memory
Error Correction Type: None
Maximum Capacity: 2 GB
Error Information Handle: Not Provided
Number Of Devices: 2

root@luttappi:~#

Smokeping

2009-02-16T20:33:00.000-08:00

SMOKE PING

For Debian/Ubuntu system it is more than easy to configure a Smokeping
http://www.howtoforge.com/monitoring_network_latency_smokeping_debian_etch

Big thanks to the Opensource devels Tobi Oetiker and Niko Tyni for this awsome project. The tools associated with smokeping are fping and rrd tool.

Installation/Configuration on CentOS/Redhat Based machines:

rrdtool
**********
yum install rrdtool

perl-CGI-SpeedyCGI
********************
yum install perl-CGI-SpeedyCGI

If not available on the yum repository, manually push it by downloading the rpm.
http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/perl-CGI-SpeedyCGI/

FPING
*****
yum install fping
Smokeping
wget http://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/pub/smokeping-2.4.2.tar.gz
tar xvzf smokeping-2.4.2.tar.gz
mv smokeping-2.4.2 /usr/local/smokeping
chown -R root:root /usr/local/smokeping
(DON'T worry about the error "chown: cannot dereference `/usr/local/smokeping/qooxdoo/qooxdoolink': No such file or directory)

Copy and create new Configuration Files from the sample
cd /usr/local/smokeping/bin
for foo in *.dist; do cp $foo `basename $foo .dist`; done
cd /usr/local/smokeping/etc/
for foo in *.dist; do cp $foo `basename $foo .dist`; done
cd /usr/local/smokeping/htdocs
for foo in *.dist; do cp $foo `basename $foo .dist`; done
pico /usr/local/smokeping/bin/smokeping

Default New
#!/usr/sepp/bin/perl-5.8.4 -w #!/usr/bin/perl -w
or if a i386 system use
use libAdd a Link qw(/usr/pack/rrdtool-1.0.49-to/lib/perl); use lib qw(/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi/auto/RRDs);
use lib qw(lib); use lib qw(/usr/local/smokeping/lib);

use Smokeping 2.000008;
Smokeping::main("etc/config.dist"); Smokeping::main("/usr/local/smokeping/etc/config");
pico /usr/local/smokeping/htdocs/smokeping.cgi

Default New
#!/usr/sepp/bin/speedy -w #!/usr/bin/speedy -w

use lib qw(/usr/pack/rrdtool-1.0.33-to/lib/perl); use lib qw(/usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.5/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/auto/RRDs);
or if a i386 system use
use lib qw(/usr/pack/rrdtool-1.0.49-to/lib/perl); use lib qw(/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.5/i386-linux-thread-multi/auto/RRDs);
use lib qw(/home/oetiker/data/projects/AADJ-smokeping/dist/lib); use lib qw(/usr/local/smokeping/lib);
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
use Smokeping 2.000008;

Smokeping::cgi("/home/oetiker/data/projects/AADJ-smokeping/dist/etc/config"); Smokeping::cgi("/usr/local/smokeping/etc/config");

cp /usr/local/smokeping/htdocs/smokeping.cgi /var/www/cgi-bin

pico /usr/local/smokeping/etc/config
etc/config

*** General ***
Default New
owner = Joe Random owner = Basil
contact = joe@some.place.xyz contact = basil@mindmatrix.in
mailhost = smtp.mailhost.abc mailhost =smtp.minmatrix
sendmail = /usr/lib/sendmail
imgcache = /home/oetiker/public_html/.simg imgcache = /var/www/html/smokeping/img
imgurl = ../.simg imgurl = http:///smokeping/img
datadir = /home/oetiker/data/projects/AADJ-smokeping/dist/var datadir = /usr/local/smokeping/var
piddir = /home/oetiker/data/projects/AADJ-smokeping/dist/var piddir = /usr/local/smokeping/var
cgiurl = http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~oetiker/smokeping/smokeping.cgi cgiurl = http:///cgi-bin/smokeping.cgi
smokemail = /home/oetiker/data/projects/AADJ-smokeping/dist/etc/smokemail.dist smokemail = /usr/local/smokeping/etc/smokemail
tmail = /home/oetiker/data/projects/AADJ-smokeping/dist/etc/tmail.dist tmail = /usr/local/smokeping/etc/tmail

syslogfacility = local0

*** Alerts ***
to = to = me@your.place
from = smokealert@ from = smokealert@your.smoke.server

*** Presentation ***
template = /home/oetiker/data/projects/AADJ-smokeping/dist/etc/basepage.html.dist template = /usr/local/smokeping/etc/basepage.html

*** Probes ***
binary = /usr/sepp/bin/fping binary = /usr/sbin/fping

*** Targets ***
+ World
menu = World Connectivity
title= World Connectivity

++ INTERNET
menu = INTERNET
title = INTERNET

+++ GOOGLE
menu = GOOGLE
title = GOOGLE.COM
host = www.google.com

Add The Img and PID directory and Change the Permission:

mkdir -p /var/www/html/smokeping/img
chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/smokeping/img
mkdir /usr/local/smokeping/var
/usr/local/smokeping/bin/smokeping &

Add to rc.local to enable it in Startup.

mysql5 Ubuntu

2009-02-16T20:31:00.000-08:00

MySQL: 5.0.45-Debian_1ubuntu3

I have faced a strange issue on _1ubuntu3. The server was failing to listen on the allocated IP address eventhough it was listening on Localhost.

root@blackroot:~# telnet localhost 3306
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
H
5.0.45-Debian_1ubuntu3-logMJk]m1FO,9nB;@q;pA6*m^]
telnet> quit

[root@blackroot~]# telnet 192.168.5.10 3306
Trying 192.168.5.10...
telnet: connect to address 192.168.5.10: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
[root@blackroot ~]#

After few minutes of investigation on system/network settings and firewall I had noticed a configuration on my.cnf which was blocking the connection to the IP address.

root@blackroot:/etc/mysql# grep bind-address my.cnf
bind-address = 127.0.0.1
root@blackroot:/etc/mysql#

Commented the line and restarted mysql. Bing... the machine started listening on IP address.
Yup..its a security feature but it killed my time.

root@blackroot:/etc/mysql# grep bind-address my.cnf
#bind-address = 127.0.0.1
root@blackroot:/etc/mysql#

PAE Kernel on Ubuntu 8

2009-02-16T20:28:00.000-08:00

PAE kernel installation on Ubuntu machine

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo sudo apt-get install linux-headers-server linux-image-server linux-server

$ sudo reboot

$ free -m

From Wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

In computing, Physical Address Extension (PAE) refers to a feature of x86 and x86-64[1] of physical memory to be used in 32-bitoperating system support. PAE is provided by Intel Pentium ProCPUs (including all later Pentium-series processors except the 400 MHz bus versions of the Pentium M), as well as by some compatible processors such as the Athlon and later models from AMD. processors that allows more than 4 Gigabytes systems, given appropriate and above

Xen Guest - Disk Extending

2009-02-15T21:41:00.001-08:00

Adding Disk on Xen Guest:

To resize the disk space of a xen DomU that is using Logical Volume Manager(LVM) is very easy. Below is step by step on how to do the resizing process.

1. Create a new image with the size that you require. Just give any meaningful name to the image. In this case I will use the name extended.img
# dd if=/dev/zero of=extended.img bs=1 count=1 seek=20G conv=notrunc
2. Add the new image to the configuration file of your DomU. In this example, the name of the domU is xen0
# vi /etc/xen/xen0
Add these line to it disk = [ 'tap:aio:/path/to/xen/xen0.img,xvda,w','file:/path/to/xen/extended.img,xvdb,w' ]
Save
3. Start your domU
# xm create xen0
4. Access your domU
# xm console xen0
5. Once inside, check whether the new image is detected
# fdisk -lu
6. After confirm that your new hard disk image is detected, it is time we have to work on the lvm
Create new physical volume (PV) using the new hard disk image
# pvcreate -v /dev/xvdb
Check that you have successfully added the PV
# pvdisplay
Extend your existing volume group (VG) to include the new PV
# vgextend -v VolGroup00 /dev/xvdb
Check that you have successfully add the PV into the VG
# vgdisplay
Extend your logical volume (LV)
# lvextend -L +20G -v /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
Check that the extension has been added
# lvdisplay
If all the steps are successfully done, you have to resize the / partition
# resize2fs /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
7. You are done. Check your new hard disk space :)
# df -lh

Bulk Deployment

2009-02-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

Cut throat time lines are always a part of System/Network engineering deployments. And its a challenge to maintain the consistency of the deployments. I have come across few tools which are very handy in Bulk deployments especially in Data center environment.

1. EDA : This is a very good tool if you are playing with VMware ESX. The download is coming as a VM image of Ubuntu 8.04.
Just download the image, unzip on your VM box and do the basic configuration and you are ready to go!. It got some add on scripts to which can be incorporated for specific needs.

2. UDA : This is again a VM image of TFTP + DHCP Server. This can be used to deploy M$ and *nix systems. It may need some customization for match your OS needs. But still pretty handy one.

3. Conventional PXE boot server : Nowadays setting a PXE boot server is not a difficult job. Need to load TFTP,DHCP server and a file share server.
CentOS wiki got a straight forward 'How to' to setup a PXE boot server.
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/PXE/PXE_Setup

Note : Be careful while keeping these installation in production and corp environment since all these VM instances are running with a DHCP/TFTP server and this can give surprise to your corp users.