Archive for the 'Planet-LTC' Category
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
Resizing a KVM Windows virtual disk image
Just noticed the incoming link from Bryan Murdock on how he went through the process of resizing a Windows virtual image in a qcow2 file format to add more disk space on the virtual image. I haven’t actually done this myself, but it looks like there are issues resizing an image that has an NTFS filesystem. If you need to resize your image, check out Bryan’s post on how he did it here. (I like his method better than others)
I also found a good wiki page (I think it’s new) showing the guest OS’s that work (or don’t work) with KVM.
http://kvm.qumranet.com/kvmwiki/Guest_Support_Status
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
Insanely scalable filesystem service: SOFS
I just learned that in a Scale Out File Services (SOFS) solution a customer can implement a global filesystem (with clustering/replication) that has a maximum filesystem capacity of 33,554,432 Yobibytes. I actually had to look up Yobibyte. The maximum size for a single file is 16 Exibytes. That’s insanely scalable. Oh, and it’s all based on RHEL5 ;-)
The IBM website that has more info is available here.
Friday, November 30th, 2007
InfoWorld: “Why Microsoft Rattles The Patent Saber”
Interesting article over at InfoWorld:
Imagine you’re Microsoft and you’ve spent years struggling to get
Windows Server 2008 out the door and will be struggling afterward to add server virtualization? Then along comes Linus Torvalds and his merry band and they add KVM to the Linux kernel over the course of a few months, release a new kernel for review every 2 to 3 months, and attract thousands of developers interested in the new features. Linux had both VMware and Xen hypervisors running on it just fine. Now it’s got another one freely available inside the kernel. It must feel in Redmond like Linux steals from the rich to give to the poor.
and…
Now the Linux kernel development process, which has been under way for 16 years, represents the largest, most complicated ongoing software development project in the world, with the possible exception of Windows itself. It’s moving fast, fluidly filling niches that Microsoft in the past had staked out. It’s leading in virtualization, in virtual appliances, in mobile devices. It’s threatening Windows on a number of fronts.
Monday, November 19th, 2007
IBM Partners with Mainsoft to bring .NET apps to WebSphere Portal (and Linux)
The title says it all. I’m pleased to see the press releases have hit the wires (even though some may argue press releases are in the past). IBM customers can now purchase Mainsoft’s .NET Extensions for WebSphere Portal to start integrating their .NET based Windows applications into IBM WebSphere – which gives users the flexibility to deploy on any OS platform that WebSphere runs on (I prefer to say Linux).
I’ve worked with the team at Mainsoft for a while now and am pleased to see this relationship has moved another step closer. The ability to remove the middleware lock-in associated with the Microsoft programming model is exceptionally helpful for many users – especially those with volumes of .NET assets in their company.
If you haven’t tried out Mainsoft before, you can also use their ‘free’ tool called Grasshopper. You can download Grasshopper here: http://dev.mainsoft.com/
What the Mainsoft tools let you do is add a plug-in for Visual Studio into your IDE. You basically open up your .NET app and then publish it to a WebSphere (or other Java app server) using the usual VS.NET process. It’s really that easy. In the background, VS compiles your .NET code into intermediate .NET bytecode, then Mainsoft kicks in and translates the bytecode to Java bytecode, wraps up the code into JAR/WAR files to deploy on the server. You might think it’s “magic”, but it’s real – and customers are using it to break free from the Microsoft lock-in (some even on Mainframes – how crazy is that?).
Congratulations to Mainsoft and the IBM Portal team who have turned a successful relationship into one built for volume and scale.
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
Running Windows Server 2008 with KVM on Linux
See my prior post on KVM if you want to get started with KVM setup. Assuming you have KVM working on your system, it takes just 3 easy steps to get started using Windows Server 2008 on Linux in KVM. Before starting, you must have a copy of Windows Server 2008 of course. If you don’t have one handy, you can download and burn an eval DVD ISO from here.
Once you have your DVD ready, just execute the following in a terminal:
- # qemu-img create win2008EE.img -f qcow 10G
- # kvm -m 750 -cdrom /dev/cdrom -boot d win2008EE.img
- # kvm -m 500 win2008EE.img
That’s it. Windows Server 2008 seems to require ACPI so the -no-acpi option gave me an error. I will also note that I could not get the 64-bit Enterprise version working and instead opted for the 32-bit Standard (I suspect the issue is the 64-bits and has nothing to do with the edition).
First impression: Windows Server 2008 will feel just like Server 2003 and in some ways feel different. It does seem to startup/shutdown faster than before but there are so many variables it’s hard to tell. 2008 is actually quite visually appealing… can’t point to one thing, but the polish is nice for a server version (I’d call it a Vista minimalist look). Server 2008 of course has all the Microsoft GUI config screens newbie Linux admins dream to find… you have to give Microsoft credit for making it very simple to access and setup server services out of the box.
Microsoft has made quite a few changes (I haven’t explored them all) and I have not used the Core version yet. One noticeable change is (sit down for this)… IIS 7.0 has gone modular – yes, it’s true. Setting up IIS 7.0 will actually look like you’re installing packages using a Yum or Apt-Get GUI. You will be asked to confirm “features” which are akin to dependencies. Whoever redesigned IIS used Apache and Linux – the influence is notable.
I’m barely scratching (or seeing) the surface here so I’ll end with a promise to post more as I play around with the eval over the next few weeks.
Oh, I guess I did also skip the fourth step:
4. Install Windows Server anti-virus, anti-everything security software :-)
And here are some screenshots for those who are interested or require visual confirmation:
(Initial configuration screen)
(IIS 7.0 Install with dependency confirmation)
IIS 7.0 setup – I dare anyone to create an informative intro for newbies to Apache like this)
(IIS 7.0 add features/modules)
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
Using Linux KVM Virtualization on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10
I _really_ like KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machines) . It’s extremely simple to setup and use and lacks the intrusiveness of hypervisors like VMware and Xen. In this post, I’ll show you how to setup KVM on the latest Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon”. Ubuntu already has a decent howto available here that walks you through the steps, but I’ll go a few steps further in places (and shorter in others) using the new Gutsy Gibbon release.
First off, you need a system with full virtualization enabled processors, or virtualization assist. AMD calls this Secure Virtual Machine (or SVM) and Intel calls its technology VT-x (or vmx). You can read more about this at LWN if you would like here.
I’m using Ubuntu 7.10 64-bit on an AMD64x2 dual core processor that has the AMD hardware virtualization assist extensions . To find out if your processor supports this, use the following command:
# egrep ‘(vmx|svm)’ /proc/cpuinfo
Example output from an AMD system (hence, “svm” is highlighted). If this were Intel based, you would see “vmx”:
First, start by installing KVM and QEMU using apt-get or Synaptic Package Manager
# apt-get install qemu kvm
# modprobe kvm-amd (or kvm-intel for intel procs)
Note that if you do not modprobe the KVM module, you will get an error such as the following when you try to start KVM in the steps that follow:
Installing an Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon server guest OS
# qemu-img create gutsy-server.img -f qcow2 6G
This creates a file for your virtual machine image in your current directory. QEMU and KVM actually support many other useful file formats as described in the qemu documentation. One of the more userful options here is to use “-f vmdk” as the vm image that you create and setup will be compatible with VMware 3 and 4. Obviously the ability to export and use the same image with VMware can be valuable.
One question you may have at this point is “why use KVM; doesn’t QEMU do this too?”. The simple answer is that KVM uses processor extensions for virtualization whereas QEMU uses processor emulation. QEMU emulates the processor and system devices. KVM does not need to emulate the processor but relies on QEMU to do its device emulation. The interesting use case for QEMU is that it can also emulate other processor architectures such as SPARC, PowerPC and MIPS (see this website) on an x86 host. While the difference may seem subtle, there are definite performance advantages to KVM (and once can assume stability advantages). Someday, we may see them merge… but I doubt it. You can find a great overview of the differences between various Linux virtualization technologies at developerWorks here.
Back to KVM, the command above creates an image file that grows as the VM requires. With an inflatable disk image, your VM grows with the space used by the virtual machine up to 6GB (versus pre-allocating a full 6GB disk image). Now, let’s startup an Ubuntu install for our new virtual machine.
# kvm -m 750 -cdrom /home/user/ubuntu-7.10-server-amd64.iso -boot d ubuntu-server.img
For new users, the /home/user/ should just be the path to where you stored your Ubuntu iso download. If you execute this command and only see a black window pop up that looks empty, you can hit enter to start the install and the screen will come back. Or, you can add “-std-vga” to the kvm command above to help with the framebuffer Ubuntu startup.
This will start up KVM and boot the virtual machine off of the Ubuntu iso image. You can also boot from a CD/DVD drive by using this command:
# kvm -m 750 -cdrom /dev/cdrom -boot d ubuntu-server.img
Once you execute the command, QEMU will startup and you will see the normal boot options as if you started your computer with an Ubuntu install disk in the drive. I had to use -no-acpi with Ubuntu 7.10 or else I would get kernel panics once it went to install. The title bar should show QEMU/KVM. If you just see QEMU (as in the image below), then KVM failed (you most likely forgot to load the KVM module in the steps above) and you should exit even though it appears to be working. If you see QEMU/KVM, you should now have a working KVM install. Continue with the server install process and configuration as usual.
Once installation is finished, the Ubuntu guest will try to restart. This will fail, and that’s fine. You can close out the QEMU/KVM window, return to the command line, and start up your KVM guest Ubuntu server for the first time. I also tend to give running guests less memory than during the install…
# kvm -no-acpi -m 500 ubuntu-server.img
(note that I installed the text based version of Ubuntu server with no GUI or X windows)
Fedora Core 8 Beta as a KVM Guest
I’ll create an image for Fedora 8 first, using vmdk as the file format to later use this same image with VMware. You can click here for more information on how to use a QEMU created vmdk file in VMware.
# qemu-create fedora8.img -f vmdk 6G
# kvm -no-acpi -m 750 -cdrom /dev/cdrom -boot d fedora8.img
# kvm -no-acpi -m 500 fedora8.img
Windows Server 2008 in KVM with Ubuntu:
See my post here for setting up Windows Server 2008 in KVM
Next up: managing KVM processes, KVM networking, and sharing files between host and guests.
Other Resources to Check Out:
Virtual disk images: http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/qemu-doc.html#SEC24
KVM Wiki: http://kvm.qumranet.com/kvmwiki/Front_Page
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
Who cares about late Leopards, and crazy Vistas – download Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon now!
The guys/gals on #ubuntu were a bit annoyed that I said this, but I was sneaky and found a LiveDVD ISO for the final Gutsy release and have actually been using the final bits for a few hours now. I am confident to report the bugs that I referred to in the alpha/beta releases are not present. This is as clean, simple, and rewarding of a Linux install I’ve ever been through. This release is going to be the best desktop distro – period.
Immediately after starting, Ubuntu notified me there were ‘restricted drivers’ available for my desktop. I click on the balloon box that gave me this notice and click a button to install them. The installer pulled the drivers from the install DVD and then suggested I restart. I did, and logged in to find that Ubuntu had already made all the changes to present me with a 3D desktop effects interface. That was seriously it – no config files, no restarting X, no flickering screens – it was simply amazing in simplicity.
I went to espn.com and Firefox notified me there was a plugin to install (Flash). I clicked on the button to install this plugin and it presented me with options – Gnash (the open source GNU plugin) or Adobe Flash. I chose Adobe’s (my experiences with Gnash have resulted in gnashing teeth). Without even restarting Firefox, I was able to view Flash content – and I’m even running 64-bit (I didn’t know there was a 64-bit Flash plugin… need to investigate).
The Gnome 2.20 interface is very nice. The System Monitor has improved steadily with each release. Network Tools seems to have taken a lesson from Apple. The only issue I still have with Ubuntu is that I prefer the ‘slab’ menu that OpenSuse has gone forward with – it’s much easier to use. I like the “Visual Effects” simplified menu for the desktop effects, but it is crying for an “Advanced” options button or something to also add in Beryl effects… those looking for cubes may find the default effects disappointing. Nonetheless, the transparency, shadows and shadings on the interface are outstanding. I do recommend turning on subpixel smoothing for LCD screens for a slightly tweaked experience. I’m not so fond of the darker default desktop wallpaper background.
I was stunned that Ubuntu actually configured my monitor at the correct widescreen 1400×900 resolution setting – no Linux distro to date has done that correctly. I always have to pull up a terminal, edit xorg.conf and restart X. This deserves an award. Even in the RC release, Gutsy did not do this correctly, so kudos to whoever fixed that!
One of the problems/bugs I encountered in the beta was the inability to mount my USB FAT32 drive. I am happy to report that bug is long gone. As is Firefox crashes (so far).
The Tracker Search – where did this come from? It’s amazing – I can’t tell if it’s based on Beagle or something else. I suspect it’s not Beagle only because 1) it’s not crashing, 2) it’s not consuming all of my processor and 3) it’s indexing the right things… Check out all the customizations you can make too in System->Preferences->Indexing Preferences.
OpenOffice is v2.3 and even comes with an Ubuntu template (nice attention to detail). If you haven’t used 2.3 yet, I HIGHLY recommend it – the Calc charting updates alone will save you hours.
Pidgin has become my favorite IM client – and Gutsy comes with a nice new release (much easier GTalk setup finally).
That’s all I have for now. I fully expect this release will light up the blogs tomorrow as more people get their hands on it. The Ubuntu team has definitely earned a job well done in my book. I forced myself to use Vista for two months – it’s Hasta la Vista time as I’m back on Ubuntu now. Up next, virtualization.
Now let’s get Adobe, Canon, and Intuit all supporting their desktop apps on Ubuntu.
Sunday, October 14th, 2007
Michael Dell says Linux continues to grow faster than Windows; migrations have not slowed down.
Interesting comments by Michael Dell last week at a Gartner conference.
“On the server side Linux continues to grow nicely, a bit faster than Windows,” said Dell in an interview during the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando. “We’re seeing a move to Linux in critical applications, and Linux migration has not slowed down.”
Sunday, October 14th, 2007
BBC: “Russian schools move to Linux”
Big news for Linux on the desktop in Russia.
URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/7034828.stm
Russian schools move to Linux
Schoolchildren in Russia are to be taught using the free, open-source Linux software in an effort to cut the cost of teaching information technology.
By 2009, all computers in Russian schools are to be run on Linux – which means they will not have to pay for a licence for software, such as Microsoft’s Windows.
Thursday, October 11th, 2007
Laser engraved Tux on a ThinkPad
Luis came up with a very cool idea – laser engraving a Tux logo onto his ThinkPad. This really is Linux on the desktop.
http://tieguy.org/blog/2007/09/30/why-i-was-asking-for-tux-images-engraved-laser-tux/#comment-25183
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
Linux desktop implementation study from the front lines in Indiana
While I often talk about the benefits of Linux, the vision comes to life (or fails to) back in the datacenter, on a person’s desk, or on the road. A while back, Indiana announced a project to begin putting Linux on the desktop for the public school system. A grand vision indeed.
A recently colleague pointed me to an implementation study that peels back the “press show” of one-liners and broad statements to reveal the hard numbers, the financials, the strategy, the applications or software stack, etc. that make Linux a viable option for Indiana public schools. I would recommend this study to anyone in a K-12 situation but also for others outside K-12 who can see how this alternative platform can work to their advantage. I found the “Stories from the Field” a very interesting section where they bring this down to a “day in the life of” view.
You can find the implementation study here:
http://k12opentech.org/k12ot/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=96&Itemid=43
Here’s a paragraph I found interesting:
Some InACCESS schools have added as many as 300 new machines, yet none have reported having to add additional technical support staff. This is remarkable because student machines are heavily used, and “uptime” is especially critical in the one-to-one setting. Microsoft-based sites are having a harder time working with the Linux machines than Novell districts. Some schools are using Zenworks from Novell or Ghost for Linux to make reloading student machines with a fresh installation as easy as a click of a button. In order to control tech support requirements most districts are installing all machines with uniform images. Many use remote installs and automation to wipe the machines clean and reinstall every year. Other schools are experimenting with Linux Terminal Server and Ardence (see more on Ardence below)
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
This Friday in NYC: SFLC Legal Summit for Software Freedom 2007
This Friday, there will be a public Summit hosted by the Software Freedom Law Center at Columbia Law School from 2:00 to 6:00PM. CLE credits for NY State are available (would be nice if I could get my OH credits…). The Summit is free, but you must pre-register for CLE credits.
Find out more here: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/summit/2007/
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
Ohio LinuxFest 2007 was a LinuxSuccess
The crew organizing Ohio LinuxFest in their spare time… must be glad to have their spare time back this week! What a show, and what an effort by the regional Ohio LUGs that put on this event.
It’s been a few years since I last attended and at that time, I don’t believe I even registered – I just popped in, went to a few talks and left. But at that time there were maybe a couple hundred people there. I heard estimates that over 1,000 were in attendance although that figure seemed to underestimate the full number of people there. A couple of the speaker hall sessions were absolutely packed (and they were big halls). Ohio LinuxFest gives LinuxWorld a pretty big challenge. It was great to see all the regional corporate supporters but I was a bit surprised by all the “big IT” vendors with booths. There were sponsors from Google, IBM, HP, Novell, Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu, Vyatta and even Sun (although they seemed to be using Linux to try getting visitors to listen to their Solaris story).
Some of the sessions were fantastic, others less so but on the whole, it was an outstanding lineup of speakers. “Maddog” was a speaker and did a great talk on computing off the grid. Grega… wow, what energy for usability. Somehow I ended up being an impromptu speaker at an “IBM Virtualization” session. I was followed by Alena from IBM who did a great job covering the details on how NationWide uses Linux on an IBM System z mainframe with z/VM for their mission critical web based systems. Alena had a last minute “laptop issue” (ahem… Windows) but we were able to copy her presentation onto an USB key and present from my Linux laptop (Linux saves the day… again).
The special prize for those who made it was the untold number of great ideas, best practices, and partnering or finding others in similar situations that these networking events create. I actually met someone with a similar background who went to law school and passed the bar, he moved to D.C. as an attorney and he’s now managing IT systems for the federal court systems. He was looking to start consolidating some of the applications they run in every court onto a central system (mainframe most likely).
Anyway, here’s an obligatory picture from the show (apologies for not having my good camera with me). I encourage anyone who will be near Columbus next year to check this event out – it was a great show, a great place to meet others working in the Linux/FLOSS arena, and overall a great time. And somehow this whole event is put on by volunteers – truly amazing.
Note the body density in this picture – this place was packed.
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
New Linux ecosystem developments: Barracuda Networks joins OIN, the Linux Foundation and Japanese government join forces
Today I noticed two articles of interesting news over at Ars Technica:
1) Barracuda Networks has signed on as an OIN licensee which is yet another great pickup for the OIN team.
Security software appliance vendor Barracuda Networks is joining the Open Invention Network (OIN) today as a licensee. In exchange for agreeing not to assert any of their own patents against the Linux software ecosystem, Barracuda will gain royalty-free access to the significant collection of patents held by OIN—which includes the Commerce One web services patents.
2) The Japanese government and the Linux Foundation announced they will be collaborating to advance Linux adoption in Japan.
“Our two organizations are leading the adoption and use of Linux and open-source software, and by working together on joint summits, technology developments and legal activities, we can help Japanese companies promote the use of Linux,” said IPA chairman Buheita Fujiwara in a statement. “Japanese open-source software will continue to play a very important role in the worldwide open source revolution.”
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007
Ted Ts’o moved his blog to WordPress
Another great win for WordPress as Ted Ts’o has migrated to the platform. He has a very interesting theme in use too – I have not seen that one before (I must be behind on themes).
http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2007/09/12/moving-to-wordpress/
Because I’ve been getting a little frustrated with the lack of trackback support, prohibition against Javascript, etc. I’ve decided to set up a WordPress installation on my private machine.
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