In cooperation with the openQRM-Team Sivakumar Shanmugasundaram successfully ported the openQRM-Server to the Solaris Operation System.
Click here for the official announcement
Big thanks to Siva for this great contribution !!
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Friday, December 7, 2007
Pross.eu virtualisation conference
The Pross.eu virtualisation conference concentrates on participants who want to discover and study the available virtualisation options, and so determine which solution is best adapted to their environment. It will takes place 22+23 january 2008 in Brussel and I am happy to announce a presentation for this event which will be about :
"Conform deployment of virtual and physical machines with openQRM and Xen"
Please find more details about Profoss.eu at :
http://www.profoss.eu/events/january-2008-virtualisation/
cu in Brussel !
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
self balancing robot
Got interested in "self balancing robots" and built myslef a "mylegway" based on the descriptions at http://www.philohome.com/nxtway/nxtway.htm
Instead of using the NBC (next byte code) firmware of the original "NXTway" i developed my own balancing code using NQC (not quite C). What a fun :)
Instead of using the NBC (next byte code) firmware of the original "NXTway" i developed my own balancing code using NQC (not quite C). What a fun :)
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Make a phone call with the Wii
Yesterday i used our Wii to initiate a cheap phone call via voice-over-ip.
What a fun :) Here how it works :
- switch the tv to the Wii
- start the Wii internet channel
- go to www.voipstunt.com (our sip-provider)
- login with your username and password
- click on phone2phone
- type your phone number in the first field
- type the destination phone number in the second field
- press "connect"
This will make your phone ring and when you pick up it will connect
you to the destihnation number using cheap voice-over-ip rates.
... thought a bit more about it and it could also be used
to make person A call person B which will kind of confuse them.
(no, please do not ! I did not recommend this to anybody).
Anyway i found out that i can even initiate such a phone2phone
connection via an SMS from my mobile phone. Very useful to save
money for high international mobile phone rates especially when travelling.
enjoy,
Matt
What a fun :) Here how it works :
- switch the tv to the Wii
- start the Wii internet channel
- go to www.voipstunt.com (our sip-provider)
- login with your username and password
- click on phone2phone
- type your phone number in the first field
- type the destination phone number in the second field
- press "connect"
This will make your phone ring and when you pick up it will connect
you to the destihnation number using cheap voice-over-ip rates.
... thought a bit more about it and it could also be used
to make person A call person B which will kind of confuse them.
(no, please do not ! I did not recommend this to anybody).
Anyway i found out that i can even initiate such a phone2phone
connection via an SMS from my mobile phone. Very useful to save
money for high international mobile phone rates especially when travelling.
enjoy,
Matt
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Report: T-DOSE 2007 / openQRM presentation
This is a short report from the T-DOSE linux-conference which took place last weekend (13./14.10.2007) in Eindhoven/Netherland. Looking forward to the congress i arrived in Eindhoven on Saturday morning.
Remembering the last year T-DOSE was a really nice and funny event so i was happy that i was invited to give a talk about "Automated rapid deployment in modern data-centers" there. (please find the slides here).
I found out was that T-DOSE moved to a new location at Fontys.
;) of course i first went to the old location to find out about that. Stupid Matt, better read the congress information more carefully next time. The new location was fine, a bit smaller but more comfortable. Directly joined the talk about Nagios and Cacti which was interesting. Met a lot of familiar people and also people i just knew from email until then. Always great and funny to actually meet those people in person. e.g. i met with Tarry S., a virtualization specialist, with whom i worked on some openQRM related projects before via internet.
What a fun :) My presentation went fine and the audience happy.
Here some pics of the talk :
Great to see people being amazed by openQRM's features.
Happy that everything went fine with my talk i then fully enjoyed the rest of the T-DOSE conference. The social event in the evening was well organized in a nice Greek-restaurant. Later we went to an irish pub on the opposite of the street. Kris B. and me were actually the last guests there when they closed at 2.00 a.m.
On sunday i joined some more presentations, most interesting was the one from Daniel de Kok talking about "Virtualizaiton techniques in CentOS". At all i had a great time at T-DOSE and can just recomment this congress to anybody who likes high-quality presentations compared with nice social events.
Many thanks to the T-DOSE team, the friendly staff and especially to Jean-Paul for organizing this event !
Matt
urls:
T-DOSE 2007 - http://www.t-dose.org
openQRM - http://www.openqrm.org
Remembering the last year T-DOSE was a really nice and funny event so i was happy that i was invited to give a talk about "Automated rapid deployment in modern data-centers" there. (please find the slides here).
I found out was that T-DOSE moved to a new location at Fontys.
;) of course i first went to the old location to find out about that. Stupid Matt, better read the congress information more carefully next time. The new location was fine, a bit smaller but more comfortable. Directly joined the talk about Nagios and Cacti which was interesting. Met a lot of familiar people and also people i just knew from email until then. Always great and funny to actually meet those people in person. e.g. i met with Tarry S., a virtualization specialist, with whom i worked on some openQRM related projects before via internet.
What a fun :) My presentation went fine and the audience happy.
Here some pics of the talk :
Great to see people being amazed by openQRM's features.
Happy that everything went fine with my talk i then fully enjoyed the rest of the T-DOSE conference. The social event in the evening was well organized in a nice Greek-restaurant. Later we went to an irish pub on the opposite of the street. Kris B. and me were actually the last guests there when they closed at 2.00 a.m.
On sunday i joined some more presentations, most interesting was the one from Daniel de Kok talking about "Virtualizaiton techniques in CentOS". At all i had a great time at T-DOSE and can just recomment this congress to anybody who likes high-quality presentations compared with nice social events.
Many thanks to the T-DOSE team, the friendly staff and especially to Jean-Paul for organizing this event !
Matt
urls:
T-DOSE 2007 - http://www.t-dose.org
openQRM - http://www.openqrm.org
Saturday, August 18, 2007
openQRM and Iscsi courses at Linuxhotel
Just arranged two courses at the Linuxhotel in Essen/Germany.
The first one is about Iscsi and cluster-filesstems (from the 8.10. to 10.10.2007), the second about the openQRM data-center management platform (from the 26.11. to the 28.11.2007).
You can find more details about these two courses at :
http://www.linuxhotel.de/kurs/openqrm/index.html
and
http://www.linuxhotel.de/kurs/san_und_cluster_dateisysteme/index.html
The courses are planned to be held in german language. Anyway please do not hesitate to join even if not familiar with the german language. I am sure we can arrange something for english speaking participants.
Hope to see you at Linuxhotel !
The first one is about Iscsi and cluster-filesstems (from the 8.10. to 10.10.2007), the second about the openQRM data-center management platform (from the 26.11. to the 28.11.2007).
You can find more details about these two courses at :
http://www.linuxhotel.de/kurs/openqrm/index.html
and
http://www.linuxhotel.de/kurs/san_und_cluster_dateisysteme/index.html
The courses are planned to be held in german language. Anyway please do not hesitate to join even if not familiar with the german language. I am sure we can arrange something for english speaking participants.
Hope to see you at Linuxhotel !
Saturday, August 11, 2007
How openQRM helps to save the climate
Everybody is talking about the climate change and how to save the world by reducing pollution and energy-consumption. How openQRM can help ?
I thought about it a while and came to the conclusion that openQRM actively supports reducing the power-consumption by its following key features:
1. Server consolidation
With its automated provisioning technics openQRM takes server consolidation to the next level. By abstracting the data-center services into virtual environments including their hard- and software-profile plus deployment parameters such as number of systems, cpu/memory requirements, high-availability and eventual service-level agreements openQRM assists the system-administrator to find unused and/or under-utilized resources to either power them down or to migrate their services to other servers.
2. Service consolidation
openQRM supports to automatically consolidate critical services in a high-available way. In an active/passive setup openQRM will automatically fail-over its server-services so that services integrated within openQRM via a plugin automatically gain high-availability.
Let's have an example with the following critical services in a data-center :
dhcpd-server for ip-address assignment
tftp-server for network booting
puppet-server for configuration management
nagios-server for enhanced monitoring
linuxcoe-server for automatic installations
Normally a system-administrator would setup 5 dedicated servers plus 5 hot-standbys to provide high-availability in active/passive mode.
==> This means 10 physical servers.
With openQRM you have (at least) 2 options :
I) Consolidating all services on the openQRM-server
1 openQRM-server with the dhcpd-, tftpd-, puppet-,
nagios- and linuxcoe-plugins installed
1 hot-standby for the openQRM-server
In case of a fail-over openQRM will automatically take over the services from all installed/enabled plugins.
==> This would reduce the amount of needed systems from 10 to 2
II) Using the high-availability pool of openQRM
1 openQRM-server
1 hot-standby to have high-availability for the main management system.
5 dedicated systems to deploy the dhcpd, tftpd, puppet, nagios and linuxcoe server
1 hot-standby for all managed servers.
==> This would reduce the amount of needed systems from 10 to 8
with the option to add even more services in high-availability mode without the need to add more hot-standbys (of course it is an option to add more hot-standbys)
3. Migrating to virtual-machines
Another possibility to consolidate services of a data-center is to migrate them from physical systems to virtual machines using various, different virtualization methods. openQRM support all current mainstream virtualization technologies (VMware, Xen, Linux-VServer and QEMU/KVM) and gives the system-administrator a strong tool to move from physical to virtual. openQRM's unique virtualization layer, called "partition engine", is a logical abstraction to physical and virtual resources and conforms the different virtualization technologies within a single management platform. That means the system-administrator can select the virtualization method which fits best for each specific service and may decide at any time to migrate it from p2v, back from v2p and also from one virtualization type to another by just changing the resource-type of a virtual-environment in its profile.
Let's come back to our example. Here one more option using virtualization :
III) Using virtualization for service consolidation
1 openQRM-server
1 hot-standby to have high-availability for the main management system
1 system to deploy a virtualization-host on
1 hot-standby for the virtualization-host
In this setup the system-administrator will create and start 5 virtual machines on the virtualization-host. On each of those partitions of the virtualization-host one of the 5 servers (dhcpd, tftpd, puppet, nagios and linuxcoe) will be deployed. Additional the system-administrator may create additional 1-5 (or more) partitions on the virtualization-host acting as hot-standbys for the 5 critical (virtualied) servers. In case of a error e.g. of the puppet-server the puppet-server will automatically fail-over to another (hot-standby) partition. In case of a failure of the virtualization-host openQRM will automatically fail-over the virtualization-host to its extra (physical) hot-standby.
==> This would reduce the amount of needed systems from 10 to 4
with the option to migrate more services to virtual-machines.
4. Power-management plugins
Last but not least openQRM provides plugins for remote power-management of the managed systems. That allows openQRM to automatically shutdown and power-off unused resources and power them on just when they are needed.
5. Summary
All those abilities of openQRM allows IT-departments to decrease their number of physical systems while keeping, even increasing, the manageability, high-availability and automated monitoring facilities of their services by other, plug-able features for openQRM. This means less systems which are consuming power. It also means that less warmth is produced in the data-center. This again results that less energy is consumed by the cooling-systems of the data-center.
Link to the openQRM website
Link to the openQRM project
I thought about it a while and came to the conclusion that openQRM actively supports reducing the power-consumption by its following key features:
1. Server consolidation
With its automated provisioning technics openQRM takes server consolidation to the next level. By abstracting the data-center services into virtual environments including their hard- and software-profile plus deployment parameters such as number of systems, cpu/memory requirements, high-availability and eventual service-level agreements openQRM assists the system-administrator to find unused and/or under-utilized resources to either power them down or to migrate their services to other servers.
2. Service consolidation
openQRM supports to automatically consolidate critical services in a high-available way. In an active/passive setup openQRM will automatically fail-over its server-services so that services integrated within openQRM via a plugin automatically gain high-availability.
Let's have an example with the following critical services in a data-center :
dhcpd-server for ip-address assignment
tftp-server for network booting
puppet-server for configuration management
nagios-server for enhanced monitoring
linuxcoe-server for automatic installations
Normally a system-administrator would setup 5 dedicated servers plus 5 hot-standbys to provide high-availability in active/passive mode.
==> This means 10 physical servers.
With openQRM you have (at least) 2 options :
I) Consolidating all services on the openQRM-server
1 openQRM-server with the dhcpd-, tftpd-, puppet-,
nagios- and linuxcoe-plugins installed
1 hot-standby for the openQRM-server
In case of a fail-over openQRM will automatically take over the services from all installed/enabled plugins.
==> This would reduce the amount of needed systems from 10 to 2
II) Using the high-availability pool of openQRM
1 openQRM-server
1 hot-standby to have high-availability for the main management system.
5 dedicated systems to deploy the dhcpd, tftpd, puppet, nagios and linuxcoe server
1 hot-standby for all managed servers.
==> This would reduce the amount of needed systems from 10 to 8
with the option to add even more services in high-availability mode without the need to add more hot-standbys (of course it is an option to add more hot-standbys)
3. Migrating to virtual-machines
Another possibility to consolidate services of a data-center is to migrate them from physical systems to virtual machines using various, different virtualization methods. openQRM support all current mainstream virtualization technologies (VMware, Xen, Linux-VServer and QEMU/KVM) and gives the system-administrator a strong tool to move from physical to virtual. openQRM's unique virtualization layer, called "partition engine", is a logical abstraction to physical and virtual resources and conforms the different virtualization technologies within a single management platform. That means the system-administrator can select the virtualization method which fits best for each specific service and may decide at any time to migrate it from p2v, back from v2p and also from one virtualization type to another by just changing the resource-type of a virtual-environment in its profile.
Let's come back to our example. Here one more option using virtualization :
III) Using virtualization for service consolidation
1 openQRM-server
1 hot-standby to have high-availability for the main management system
1 system to deploy a virtualization-host on
1 hot-standby for the virtualization-host
In this setup the system-administrator will create and start 5 virtual machines on the virtualization-host. On each of those partitions of the virtualization-host one of the 5 servers (dhcpd, tftpd, puppet, nagios and linuxcoe) will be deployed. Additional the system-administrator may create additional 1-5 (or more) partitions on the virtualization-host acting as hot-standbys for the 5 critical (virtualied) servers. In case of a error e.g. of the puppet-server the puppet-server will automatically fail-over to another (hot-standby) partition. In case of a failure of the virtualization-host openQRM will automatically fail-over the virtualization-host to its extra (physical) hot-standby.
==> This would reduce the amount of needed systems from 10 to 4
with the option to migrate more services to virtual-machines.
4. Power-management plugins
Last but not least openQRM provides plugins for remote power-management of the managed systems. That allows openQRM to automatically shutdown and power-off unused resources and power them on just when they are needed.
5. Summary
All those abilities of openQRM allows IT-departments to decrease their number of physical systems while keeping, even increasing, the manageability, high-availability and automated monitoring facilities of their services by other, plug-able features for openQRM. This means less systems which are consuming power. It also means that less warmth is produced in the data-center. This again results that less energy is consumed by the cooling-systems of the data-center.
Link to the openQRM website
Link to the openQRM project
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Video: First test of my self-made Kitewing
Just came back from a first test of my self-made Kitewing !
(please check my previous post)
In short it works fine and is a loooot of fun :)
As promised here a small video from the first test-ride :
(please check my previous post)
In short it works fine and is a loooot of fun :)
As promised here a small video from the first test-ride :
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Built myself a kitwing
With windsurfing being one of my passions i found the "kitewing" (http://www.kitewing.com/), a combination between a surf-rigg and a hang-glider. Funny thing :) ... decided to build one by myself.
Here pics from the final design and development :)
Ok, looks good so far.
For now i was able to only test it shortly on a small path, during rain and with very mixed wind and it worked ok. After this first test i optimized some tubes and now i am waiting for wind .... I plan to take it with me to one of the next surf-trips to the dutch coast. (will post a video from the next session)
hang loose
disclaimer:
(afaik) Kitewing is trademark of Kitwing Sports Ltd. I do not have any associations with this company but just like their idea and product
Here pics from the final design and development :)
Ok, looks good so far.
For now i was able to only test it shortly on a small path, during rain and with very mixed wind and it worked ok. After this first test i optimized some tubes and now i am waiting for wind .... I plan to take it with me to one of the next surf-trips to the dutch coast. (will post a video from the next session)
hang loose
disclaimer:
(afaik) Kitewing is trademark of Kitwing Sports Ltd. I do not have any associations with this company but just like their idea and product
Monday, July 23, 2007
openQRM at the Virtualization workshop at Linuxhotel
As announced the virtualization workshop at Linuxhotel took place this weekend (20.7. - 22.7.2007). One topic of this event was how to manage diffrent virtualization technologies with openQRM. As member of the openQRM-Team i (happily) was invited to contribute and to provide some details about the virtualization features in openQRM.
Here a report of the weekend :
Friday (evening):
At friday evening all participants of the workshop arrived at Linuxhotel in Essen.
At first Michael, from the Linuxhotel, gave us a guided tour through the hotel, showed us all its nice features and the awesome garden.
The hotel is located in a quiet area upon a hill, surrounded by a small forest, with a wonderful view across Essen and the river Ruhr. On the computing aspects it provides a full equipped conference room, free wifi, a linux-computer at every guest-room, direct network-access by ethernet cable in the rooms and additional computer/laptops to use by the guest.
This is really the place to be when it comes to Linux workshops and courses!
Because of mixed weather conditions the barbecue was moved to Saturday.
We had a huge Pizza for dinner, yummy. The event started by an introduction round and people were starting to move to the conference room, preparing for saturday until about 3 o'clock in the morning.
Saturday:
After a good night and a great breakfast we immediately started to work on the different topics of virtualization. While some people were playing with Xen, Qemu, Drbd + live-migration of vms others were installing openSolaris to get into zones or using FAUmachine to virtualize hardware. Myself i was setting up some computers from my development lab to get an openQRM-server plus the Xen-plugin (and several other plugins) running. Meanwhile i assisted Henning who was compiling and installing openQRM.
At about noon i gave a presentation of openQRM's virtualization features and how openQRM manages and conforms the differnet virtuliazation technologies followed by a demonstration of the Xen-plugin on the openQRM environment set up before.
In the afternoon Stefan, from the FAUmachine project, gave a great presentation about the capabilities and features of FAUmachine. Its virtual machine runs completely in user-space and is able to simulate specific hardware even with the possibility to inject errors to e.g. simulate a faulty hardware. A really cool project especially useful for automated testing.
At the end of the day we had a wonderful and tasty barbecue as planned. On all tables people were discussing the varios experiences made during the day. Lots of tips and tricks were exchanged and new connections were made. At late night people again started to move the the conference room and continued working. Some of them until about 5 o'clock in the morning.
Loong day, short night.
Sunday:
Again a good breakfast after the short night.
People were forming loosely groups, walking around in the wonderful green area of the Linuxhotel talking about further plans and new ideas while others were sitting in the sun with the notebooks or at their computers in the conference room continuing working on their favourite virtualization technology. The offical part of the virtualization workshop was finished by a barbecue again. Nice !
Results of the workshop regarding openQRM :
- We need to get better on Debian !
- Build requirements checks should be enhanced to make compilation easier + more robust
- More documentation and howto's are needed especially about openQRM + virtualization
Summary :
At all a very interesting and successful weekend at Linuxhotel !
Many thanks to all participants and contributors for the interesting discussions on the different aspects of virtualization and to the organization and staff of the linuxhotel for giving everybody a really good time. Big thanks also to the sponsors and of course to Henning, the organizator of the virtualization workshop.
Urls :
Virtualization workshop
openQRM project
FAUmachine project
DRBD
Linuxhotel
Here a report of the weekend :
Friday (evening):
At friday evening all participants of the workshop arrived at Linuxhotel in Essen.
At first Michael, from the Linuxhotel, gave us a guided tour through the hotel, showed us all its nice features and the awesome garden.
The hotel is located in a quiet area upon a hill, surrounded by a small forest, with a wonderful view across Essen and the river Ruhr. On the computing aspects it provides a full equipped conference room, free wifi, a linux-computer at every guest-room, direct network-access by ethernet cable in the rooms and additional computer/laptops to use by the guest.
This is really the place to be when it comes to Linux workshops and courses!
Because of mixed weather conditions the barbecue was moved to Saturday.
We had a huge Pizza for dinner, yummy. The event started by an introduction round and people were starting to move to the conference room, preparing for saturday until about 3 o'clock in the morning.
Saturday:
After a good night and a great breakfast we immediately started to work on the different topics of virtualization. While some people were playing with Xen, Qemu, Drbd + live-migration of vms others were installing openSolaris to get into zones or using FAUmachine to virtualize hardware. Myself i was setting up some computers from my development lab to get an openQRM-server plus the Xen-plugin (and several other plugins) running. Meanwhile i assisted Henning who was compiling and installing openQRM.
At about noon i gave a presentation of openQRM's virtualization features and how openQRM manages and conforms the differnet virtuliazation technologies followed by a demonstration of the Xen-plugin on the openQRM environment set up before.
In the afternoon Stefan, from the FAUmachine project, gave a great presentation about the capabilities and features of FAUmachine. Its virtual machine runs completely in user-space and is able to simulate specific hardware even with the possibility to inject errors to e.g. simulate a faulty hardware. A really cool project especially useful for automated testing.
At the end of the day we had a wonderful and tasty barbecue as planned. On all tables people were discussing the varios experiences made during the day. Lots of tips and tricks were exchanged and new connections were made. At late night people again started to move the the conference room and continued working. Some of them until about 5 o'clock in the morning.
Loong day, short night.
Sunday:
Again a good breakfast after the short night.
People were forming loosely groups, walking around in the wonderful green area of the Linuxhotel talking about further plans and new ideas while others were sitting in the sun with the notebooks or at their computers in the conference room continuing working on their favourite virtualization technology. The offical part of the virtualization workshop was finished by a barbecue again. Nice !
Results of the workshop regarding openQRM :
- We need to get better on Debian !
- Build requirements checks should be enhanced to make compilation easier + more robust
- More documentation and howto's are needed especially about openQRM + virtualization
Summary :
At all a very interesting and successful weekend at Linuxhotel !
Many thanks to all participants and contributors for the interesting discussions on the different aspects of virtualization and to the organization and staff of the linuxhotel for giving everybody a really good time. Big thanks also to the sponsors and of course to Henning, the organizator of the virtualization workshop.
Urls :
Virtualization workshop
openQRM project
FAUmachine project
DRBD
Linuxhotel
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Automatic installations for Suse and Debian now working fine
Currently working on the LinuxCoe-plugin for openQRM and just got the Suse- and Debian-based automatic installations working fine :)
Here a developement-screenshot from an automatic openSuse-installation monitored via vncviewer (a feature of autoyast):
Need to do some more tests now and will prepare a new release soon.
Enjoy !
Here a developement-screenshot from an automatic openSuse-installation monitored via vncviewer (a feature of autoyast):
Need to do some more tests now and will prepare a new release soon.
Enjoy !
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
integrating LinuxCoe's automatic installation features into openQRM
Found LinuxCoe -> http://linuxcoe.sourceforge.net/
It is a really cool (open-source) tool from HP for creating iso-images which then fully automatically install your favourite linux distribution on a system. Just burn the iso, put the CD in a computer, switch it on and it automatically installs itself without any further interaction needed. It supports a bunch of different distributions like CentOS, Debian, Fedora, openSuse, RHEL, Scientific Linux, SLES, Ubuntu etc. and their specific auto-installation types like kickstart, autoyast and preseed. A full configured linux-installation iso-image can be created with just a few mouse clicks. It even supports to save the pre-configured installations in profiles.
I like it, it is really handy to use :)
Please find a public LinuxCoe demo server at :
http://www.instalinux.com/
... :) mhmmm, indeed very useful. Thought a bit about it.
One of the base concepts of the openQRM project is "imaging" of servers and deployment through the network. Still to create "server images" for rapid deployment via openQRM one has to "install" a server first. --> this step is still missing in openQRM
;) but it will come soon as a new "linuxcoe-plugin".
This plugin will enable the administrator to simply create a new linux installation profile from the above mentioned linux-distributions and select one or more systems in openQRM to automatically install them.
The idea is to use the auto-install configuration files, the kernel and the initrd which are created by LinuxCoe to network-boot the servers into the fully automatic installation instead of booting them via a CD burnt from the iso-image.
Please find a few screenshots of the current development status of the LinuxCoe plugin for openQRM as taster below ;)
Creating an installation profile with LinuxCoe :
Configuring the installation-preferences (1) :
Configuring the installation-preferences (2) :
Selecting the packages for the automatic installation :
Setting the disk partitioning :
Review the disk partitioning setup :
Final detailed configuration of e.g. root and user account :
Installation iso-image created :
Managing the unpacked installation profiles from the previous created iso-images :
Select a node to automatically deploy an LinuxCoe installation profile :
btw: please find the current code in the openQRM cvs at :
http://openqrm.cvs.sourceforge.net/openqrm/plugins/linuxcoe/
Will package it for a first release as soon as i am fully satisfied with its robustness and features.
enjoy
It is a really cool (open-source) tool from HP for creating iso-images which then fully automatically install your favourite linux distribution on a system. Just burn the iso, put the CD in a computer, switch it on and it automatically installs itself without any further interaction needed. It supports a bunch of different distributions like CentOS, Debian, Fedora, openSuse, RHEL, Scientific Linux, SLES, Ubuntu etc. and their specific auto-installation types like kickstart, autoyast and preseed. A full configured linux-installation iso-image can be created with just a few mouse clicks. It even supports to save the pre-configured installations in profiles.
I like it, it is really handy to use :)
Please find a public LinuxCoe demo server at :
http://www.instalinux.com/
... :) mhmmm, indeed very useful. Thought a bit about it.
One of the base concepts of the openQRM project is "imaging" of servers and deployment through the network. Still to create "server images" for rapid deployment via openQRM one has to "install" a server first. --> this step is still missing in openQRM
;) but it will come soon as a new "linuxcoe-plugin".
This plugin will enable the administrator to simply create a new linux installation profile from the above mentioned linux-distributions and select one or more systems in openQRM to automatically install them.
The idea is to use the auto-install configuration files, the kernel and the initrd which are created by LinuxCoe to network-boot the servers into the fully automatic installation instead of booting them via a CD burnt from the iso-image.
Please find a few screenshots of the current development status of the LinuxCoe plugin for openQRM as taster below ;)
Creating an installation profile with LinuxCoe :
Configuring the installation-preferences (1) :
Configuring the installation-preferences (2) :
Selecting the packages for the automatic installation :
Setting the disk partitioning :
Review the disk partitioning setup :
Final detailed configuration of e.g. root and user account :
Installation iso-image created :
Managing the unpacked installation profiles from the previous created iso-images :
Select a node to automatically deploy an LinuxCoe installation profile :
btw: please find the current code in the openQRM cvs at :
http://openqrm.cvs.sourceforge.net/openqrm/plugins/linuxcoe/
Will package it for a first release as soon as i am fully satisfied with its robustness and features.
enjoy
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Building a virtualized web-farm with openQRM
I posted an openQRM HowTo about "Building a virtualized web-farm with openQRM" at our new community wiki at :
http://wiki.linuxfellaz.net/doku.php?id=openqrm:webfarm
This HowTo describes step-by-step how to setup a virtualized, scalable and flexible openQRM-environment for hosting customers web-server.
It covers :
- installation of the openQRM-server
- creation of filesystem-images
- fast-cloning of filesystem-images via the lvm-mgmt plugin
- virtualization via the Xen plugin
- enhanced system- and service monitoring via the Nagios plugin
- advanced administration with the webmin- and sshlogin plugin
- automated configuration management via the Puppet plugin
Hope you enjoy this HowTo.
Many thanks, especially to Thomas for hosting the wiki !
http://wiki.linuxfellaz.net/doku.php?id=openqrm:webfarm
This HowTo describes step-by-step how to setup a virtualized, scalable and flexible openQRM-environment for hosting customers web-server.
It covers :
- installation of the openQRM-server
- creation of filesystem-images
- fast-cloning of filesystem-images via the lvm-mgmt plugin
- virtualization via the Xen plugin
- enhanced system- and service monitoring via the Nagios plugin
- advanced administration with the webmin- and sshlogin plugin
- automated configuration management via the Puppet plugin
Hope you enjoy this HowTo.
Many thanks, especially to Thomas for hosting the wiki !
Friday, June 8, 2007
nominate openQRM for the Sourceforge.net 2007 community choice awards
Please take a moment to nominate the openQRM Project
for the Sourceforge.net 2007 community choice awards.
Simply click the "nominate this project" logo on the openQRM-sourceforge website :
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openqrm/
check "Best Project for the Enterprise" and submit.
many thanks for your vote, have a great day,
Matt
for the Sourceforge.net 2007 community choice awards.
Simply click the "nominate this project" logo on the openQRM-sourceforge website :
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openqrm/
check "Best Project for the Enterprise" and submit.
many thanks for your vote, have a great day,
Matt
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Xen-plugin update progressing fine
working on updating the Xen-plugin to include the latest Xen 3.1. and added a Xen-console accessible via the openQRM web-interface.
;) Now you can watch your partitions starting within openQRM.
Here some screenshots :
enjoy,
Matt
;) Now you can watch your partitions starting within openQRM.
Here some screenshots :
enjoy,
Matt
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Kris presentation about openQRM at NLUUG now online
Kris B. presentation about "Managing Virtual Machines with OpenQRM" given at the Virtualisation Conference hosted by NLUUG is now online. Please find more informations at :
http://www.x-tend.be/~kb/blog/index.php?2007/05/10/375-nluug-presentation-about-openqrm-now-online
The slides are available at :
http://www.x-tend.be/~kb/presentations/NLUUG-openQRM.odp
and abstract is at :
http://www.nluug.nl/events/vj07/abstracts/ab.html?id=8
and here a link to the conference web-site :
http://www.nluug.nl/events/vj07/
Big thanks to Kris !
http://www.x-tend.be/~kb/blog/index.php?2007/05/10/375-nluug-presentation-about-openqrm-now-online
The slides are available at :
http://www.x-tend.be/~kb/presentations/NLUUG-openQRM.odp
and abstract is at :
http://www.nluug.nl/events/vj07/abstracts/ab.html?id=8
and here a link to the conference web-site :
http://www.nluug.nl/events/vj07/
Big thanks to Kris !
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Follow-up: openQRM presenation in Second Life
First many thanks to all who joined the event "virtual data-center in Second Life" hosted by the openQRM research-Team within Second Life.
The event took place on the monday, the 7.5.2007 at our Team-base located at Zeds Pitch in Second Life. Presenation and live-demonstration went fine and the full talk was captured by one of our helpful staff-member.
Here the Video Stream(s) of the openQRM Second Life Event :
Please find some pictures of the Event at :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clustermatt/sets/72157600191144581/
and as slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clustermatt/sets/72157600191144581/show/
:) happy that it went so fine, enjoy the videos and pics
The event took place on the monday, the 7.5.2007 at our Team-base located at Zeds Pitch in Second Life. Presenation and live-demonstration went fine and the full talk was captured by one of our helpful staff-member.
Here the Video Stream(s) of the openQRM Second Life Event :
Please find some pictures of the Event at :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clustermatt/sets/72157600191144581/
and as slideshow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clustermatt/sets/72157600191144581/show/
:) happy that it went so fine, enjoy the videos and pics
Friday, May 4, 2007
Second Life presentation area for the upcoming openQRM presentation
Here a snapshot of the presentation area for the upcoming event
"openQRM virtual data-center" in Second Life next monday (07.05.2007)
-> click here for more infos
On preparing the last bits and hoping to see you there on monday ;)
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Virtual reality @home :)
Here a video of my virtual reality equipment i am using for Second Life.
Wearing these gadgets makes Second Life feel like the Matrix version 0.1. It's fun, hope you enjoy it.
btw: now on preparing for the "openQRM virtual data-center
demonstration in Second Life" event in Second Life next monday
(7. May, 04:00 p.m. GMT Zeds Pitch (24, 88, 42))
For more infos please visit :
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=690988
enjoy,
Matt
Wearing these gadgets makes Second Life feel like the Matrix version 0.1. It's fun, hope you enjoy it.
btw: now on preparing for the "openQRM virtual data-center
demonstration in Second Life" event in Second Life next monday
(7. May, 04:00 p.m. GMT Zeds Pitch (24, 88, 42))
For more infos please visit :
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=690988
enjoy,
Matt
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Loving the Compiz-Desktop
Upgraded my main workstation last weekend with the latest
Mandriva Spring 2007 plus the awesome new Compiz-Desktop
with the famous "cube" effect for multiple, virtual Desktops.
I really must say i love it ! (both, latest Mdk and Compiz)
The upgrade procedure worked without any problems, have
my homedirs on a separated disk (backuped before) and just
needed to fresh install the base-system and plug-in my
data-disk again. Upgrading has never been simpler.
The "cube" Desktop from the Compiz project now really makes
me utilize all 4 desktops because it is visualized in an
understandable way. So now my brain really believes that my
desktop is a cube and let's it use it in the right way.
Exactly this point did not happen to me before using "regular"
desktop-pager.
... oh, yes, and the wobbling-windows effect is one of my
favourites too. It makes my MacBooks Desktop look bulky.
To my mind we already have a secret winner in the Desktop-war ;)
Mandriva Spring 2007 plus the awesome new Compiz-Desktop
with the famous "cube" effect for multiple, virtual Desktops.
I really must say i love it ! (both, latest Mdk and Compiz)
The upgrade procedure worked without any problems, have
my homedirs on a separated disk (backuped before) and just
needed to fresh install the base-system and plug-in my
data-disk again. Upgrading has never been simpler.
The "cube" Desktop from the Compiz project now really makes
me utilize all 4 desktops because it is visualized in an
understandable way. So now my brain really believes that my
desktop is a cube and let's it use it in the right way.
Exactly this point did not happen to me before using "regular"
desktop-pager.
... oh, yes, and the wobbling-windows effect is one of my
favourites too. It makes my MacBooks Desktop look bulky.
To my mind we already have a secret winner in the Desktop-war ;)
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Kris Buytaert talks about "Managing Virtual Machines with OpenQRM"
My workmate and friend Kris Buytaert talks about
"Managing Virtual Machines with OpenQRM"
at the NLUUG Najaarsconferentie 2007 in De Reehorst.
:) Niiice !
Please find Kris's announcement at :
http://www.x-tend.be/~kb/blog/index.php?2007/03/04/330-nluug-najaarsconferentie-2007
and some more infos about the event at :
http://www.nluug.nl/events/vj07/
http://www.nluug.nl/events/vj07/abstracts/ab.html?id=8
Thanks Kris !
"Managing Virtual Machines with OpenQRM"
at the NLUUG Najaarsconferentie 2007 in De Reehorst.
:) Niiice !
Please find Kris's announcement at :
http://www.x-tend.be/~kb/blog/index.php?2007/03/04/330-nluug-najaarsconferentie-2007
and some more infos about the event at :
http://www.nluug.nl/events/vj07/
http://www.nluug.nl/events/vj07/abstracts/ab.html?id=8
Thanks Kris !
openQRM presentation at the LinuxTag 2007 in Germany
:) happy that my openQRM presentation :
"Managing any flavour of virtualization: openQRM in the enterprise data center"
was accepted for the LinuxTag 2007 in Berlin/Germany.
The presentation will be held in english language and covers the
virtualization features in openQRM. It will give detailed informations
about the openQRM-virtualization layer, the virtualization plugins
(VMware, Xen, Qemu/KVM and Linux-VServer) and how openQRM
conforms all current, mainstream virtualization technologies in a
single management platform.
Please find more informations about this event at :
http://www.linuxtag.org/2007/
and about the openQRM-Talk at :
http://www.linuxtag.org/2007/de/conf/events/mittwoch.html?talkid=28
Hope to see you all there !
"Managing any flavour of virtualization: openQRM in the enterprise data center"
was accepted for the LinuxTag 2007 in Berlin/Germany.
The presentation will be held in english language and covers the
virtualization features in openQRM. It will give detailed informations
about the openQRM-virtualization layer, the virtualization plugins
(VMware, Xen, Qemu/KVM and Linux-VServer) and how openQRM
conforms all current, mainstream virtualization technologies in a
single management platform.
Please find more informations about this event at :
http://www.linuxtag.org/2007/
and about the openQRM-Talk at :
http://www.linuxtag.org/2007/de/conf/events/mittwoch.html?talkid=28
Hope to see you all there !
Thursday, April 12, 2007
fully automated build-farm for openQRM
openQRM:
Worked on enhancing the build-farm for openQRM a bit more.
Now the virtual machines are started automatically one
after another and creating the packages without any manually
interacation needed.
Also packaged and releaesed a new Linux-Vserver and Nagios-plugin
for openQRM 3.1.4. The updates and enhnacements on the Nagios-
plugin are awesome. It now provides very nice graphs and chart
via rrdtools for VE's, resources and the openQRM-server itself.
I love it :) Thanks to my workmate Mahesh.
private:
Made some more experiments with the wii-remote and found out
how suprisingly well it works in combination with Second Life.
It can easily and fully replace the mouse and is a much more
intuitive input/controller for the virtual-reality.
Since the wii-remote covers getting input in 3 dimensions i
think it will be definitely the input-device to use for
future 3D desktops. Made some tests on one of my devel-systems
running Metisse and it is just fun. Sure the usability needs
to be enhanced to make it more easy to use for people.
ha, and since the weather is so nice here we opened
the bbq-season yesterday evening. Was nice and felt like
little holidays in our small and colorful garden.
mood: happy
Worked on enhancing the build-farm for openQRM a bit more.
Now the virtual machines are started automatically one
after another and creating the packages without any manually
interacation needed.
Also packaged and releaesed a new Linux-Vserver and Nagios-plugin
for openQRM 3.1.4. The updates and enhnacements on the Nagios-
plugin are awesome. It now provides very nice graphs and chart
via rrdtools for VE's, resources and the openQRM-server itself.
I love it :) Thanks to my workmate Mahesh.
private:
Made some more experiments with the wii-remote and found out
how suprisingly well it works in combination with Second Life.
It can easily and fully replace the mouse and is a much more
intuitive input/controller for the virtual-reality.
Since the wii-remote covers getting input in 3 dimensions i
think it will be definitely the input-device to use for
future 3D desktops. Made some tests on one of my devel-systems
running Metisse and it is just fun. Sure the usability needs
to be enhanced to make it more easy to use for people.
ha, and since the weather is so nice here we opened
the bbq-season yesterday evening. Was nice and felt like
little holidays in our small and colorful garden.
mood: happy
Saturday, April 7, 2007
new Xen-plugin 0.5 released
openQRM:
Got the new Xen-plugin 0.5 for openQRM 3.1.4 released.
Tried to get some additional people for helping to test the
openQRM plugins through the sf-net "Help wanted" forum.
Will see how this works out.
private:
Was out meeting some old friends last night.
Really nice evening. Got some impressions from their new
PS3 game-console .... it's fun but to be honest did not
really impressed me. Happy that we went with the Wii ;)
Ha, cool, found out how easy it is to connect the Wii remote
via bluetooth to my linux-box using CWiid. In my first tests
it worked fine as a mouse-replacment.
... mhmm, nice, this opens doors for new ideas ;)
Another "woow" for the Wii, just downloaded the free beta
Opera Wii web-browser and checked my gmail on my TV ! That's fun !
I relly think that in just a few years everybody will
have one box for media, games, TV, hdd-recording, Internet
surfing and checking mails, printing text and photos, etc.
Similar what Mythtv provides already but with a "TV-mouse"
like the Wii-remote.
Quiet weekend. Feelt a bit weak, think that a flue is trying
to catch me. My wife's sister and mother are here for a visit in
the museum on friday. Stayed at home to get "stronger" again.
After that we Visited my father and his wife later in the afternoon.
Nice family meeting with "coffee + cake".
mood: fighting the flue, relaxed
Got the new Xen-plugin 0.5 for openQRM 3.1.4 released.
Tried to get some additional people for helping to test the
openQRM plugins through the sf-net "Help wanted" forum.
Will see how this works out.
private:
Was out meeting some old friends last night.
Really nice evening. Got some impressions from their new
PS3 game-console .... it's fun but to be honest did not
really impressed me. Happy that we went with the Wii ;)
Ha, cool, found out how easy it is to connect the Wii remote
via bluetooth to my linux-box using CWiid. In my first tests
it worked fine as a mouse-replacment.
... mhmm, nice, this opens doors for new ideas ;)
Another "woow" for the Wii, just downloaded the free beta
Opera Wii web-browser and checked my gmail on my TV ! That's fun !
I relly think that in just a few years everybody will
have one box for media, games, TV, hdd-recording, Internet
surfing and checking mails, printing text and photos, etc.
Similar what Mythtv provides already but with a "TV-mouse"
like the Wii-remote.
Quiet weekend. Feelt a bit weak, think that a flue is trying
to catch me. My wife's sister and mother are here for a visit in
the museum on friday. Stayed at home to get "stronger" again.
After that we Visited my father and his wife later in the afternoon.
Nice family meeting with "coffee + cake".
mood: fighting the flue, relaxed
Thursday, April 5, 2007
19 additional plugins now available for openQRM
openQRM:
Finally found some time to update/port some of the older plugins
(mostly from openQRM 2.x releases) to latest openQRM 3.1.4.
Now we have 19 additional plugins available :)
The plan is now to re-test them one by one and to prepare new release
packages on the build-farm. Today the first candidate is the Xen-plugin
which i already tested on openQRM 3.1.4.
Also plan to host an Event in Second Life soon to demonstrate the
results and prove-of-concept of the openQRM research-group.
For that i already built a "Virtual data-center Technology Centrum"
on my piece of land within SL (please find at landmark "25,86,42" at Zeds Pitch).
It has an online demo running which shows the features of the bridge
between SL and a real-world data-center. Not sure yet what the best
date will be for this event (if it is set i will post event date here).
private:
A good friend joined us yesterday evening for dinner and we cooked
a great chinese-dinner together. Enjoyed the meal and then continued
our Zelda game on the Wii together with my lovely wife.
mood: busy, happy, relaxed
Finally found some time to update/port some of the older plugins
(mostly from openQRM 2.x releases) to latest openQRM 3.1.4.
Now we have 19 additional plugins available :)
The plan is now to re-test them one by one and to prepare new release
packages on the build-farm. Today the first candidate is the Xen-plugin
which i already tested on openQRM 3.1.4.
Also plan to host an Event in Second Life soon to demonstrate the
results and prove-of-concept of the openQRM research-group.
For that i already built a "Virtual data-center Technology Centrum"
on my piece of land within SL (please find at landmark "25,86,42" at Zeds Pitch).
It has an online demo running which shows the features of the bridge
between SL and a real-world data-center. Not sure yet what the best
date will be for this event (if it is set i will post event date here).
private:
A good friend joined us yesterday evening for dinner and we cooked
a great chinese-dinner together. Enjoyed the meal and then continued
our Zelda game on the Wii together with my lovely wife.
mood: busy, happy, relaxed
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Rapid server-deployment on-the-fly
openQRM:
Just finished developing, testing and packaging a new version of the lvm-mgmt plugin for openQRM. As suggested/requested by users it now also supports to manage remote storage-server. The plugin itslelf provides fast-cloning of filesystem-images either on NFS or Iscsi storage-servers using lvm snap-shots.
New filesystem-images now can be created by cloning from existing (known-to-work) server-images within seconds. That means the deployment time is reduced to boot/start time of a system. Kris, a good friend, pointed me to the cool lvm-features and now i really like it and use it myself a lot here in my devel-lab. I created "lots" of diffrent server-filesystem-images from diffrent linux-distributions and store them on a huge lvm-nfs/iscsi storage server. Now, when i need a new machine i simple let openQRM create a clone from those server-templates and start it on a free system.
I never use the actual server-templates for deployment but always deploy the clones. It's fun :)
private:
... the Wii is shouting:"Matt, Matt, come on and play with me!"
mood: happy
Just finished developing, testing and packaging a new version of the lvm-mgmt plugin for openQRM. As suggested/requested by users it now also supports to manage remote storage-server. The plugin itslelf provides fast-cloning of filesystem-images either on NFS or Iscsi storage-servers using lvm snap-shots.
New filesystem-images now can be created by cloning from existing (known-to-work) server-images within seconds. That means the deployment time is reduced to boot/start time of a system. Kris, a good friend, pointed me to the cool lvm-features and now i really like it and use it myself a lot here in my devel-lab. I created "lots" of diffrent server-filesystem-images from diffrent linux-distributions and store them on a huge lvm-nfs/iscsi storage server. Now, when i need a new machine i simple let openQRM create a clone from those server-templates and start it on a free system.
I never use the actual server-templates for deployment but always deploy the clones. It's fun :)
private:
... the Wii is shouting:"Matt, Matt, come on and play with me!"
mood: happy
Monday, April 2, 2007
lvm snap-shot + udev is a bad combination
Working on updating and enhancing the lvm-mgmt plugin which provides cloning features for filesystem-images in openQRM (NFS + Iscsi).
Progressed fine on this nice and sunny day but spend some hours to find out that lvm snap-shot + udev are not really good friends. It happens to me that it works "sometimes" and sometimes not.
-> very unsatisfying
Then i found out that the reason for that behaviour is udev trying to access/create the device file in the same moment then lvm is doing the snap-shot. Result is that the cloned lvm-device is in an unusable state (e.g. it is not mountable). The solution for that issue was a simple "killall udev" ;) Now it works stable and robust.
mood: progressing, relaxed, happy (found the solution)
Progressed fine on this nice and sunny day but spend some hours to find out that lvm snap-shot + udev are not really good friends. It happens to me that it works "sometimes" and sometimes not.
-> very unsatisfying
Then i found out that the reason for that behaviour is udev trying to access/create the device file in the same moment then lvm is doing the snap-shot. Result is that the cloned lvm-device is in an unusable state (e.g. it is not mountable). The solution for that issue was a simple "killall udev" ;) Now it works stable and robust.
mood: progressing, relaxed, happy (found the solution)
Sunday, April 1, 2007
link of today
Google provides internet connection via toilet sewage system
Find more at : http://www.google.com/tisp/
(you may have to be fast since i expect the link to be removed again soon).
enjoy
Find more at : http://www.google.com/tisp/
(you may have to be fast since i expect the link to be removed again soon).
enjoy
Nice and quiet sunday today
openQRM :
Enjoying keeping up with some tasks on this weekend.
Got a new openQRM Aoe-plugin version packaged and released yesterday. Next on the todo is to add support for remote storage-server in the lvm-mgmt plugin and to install a Debian testing-system to re-check and debug the cramfs issues with boot-images created from Debian kernels.
A video demonstration about openQRM Provisiong was just made plublic at the openQRM website (http://www.openqrm.org/) showing a full deployment cycle from the users and administrators point of view and explaining details about the deployment mechanisms. I like it :)
private :
Played a lot on our new Wii together with my wife the last days. It is really fun and those new, motion-detecting input-system is just great. It is my first game-console (except my little Nintendo ds which i am using with dslinux) and i am normally bored quite fast from video games. The Wii console + games are currently keeping me fascinated.
mood:
busy, relaxed
Enjoying keeping up with some tasks on this weekend.
Got a new openQRM Aoe-plugin version packaged and released yesterday. Next on the todo is to add support for remote storage-server in the lvm-mgmt plugin and to install a Debian testing-system to re-check and debug the cramfs issues with boot-images created from Debian kernels.
A video demonstration about openQRM Provisiong was just made plublic at the openQRM website (http://www.openqrm.org/) showing a full deployment cycle from the users and administrators point of view and explaining details about the deployment mechanisms. I like it :)
private :
Played a lot on our new Wii together with my wife the last days. It is really fun and those new, motion-detecting input-system is just great. It is my first game-console (except my little Nintendo ds which i am using with dslinux) and i am normally bored quite fast from video games. The Wii console + games are currently keeping me fascinated.
mood:
busy, relaxed
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Welcome to my blog
... oh, yes, i am blogging too now :)
Decided to use a blog to keep track of my daily activities and other interesting (mostly computer related) stuff going on. Hope you enjoy the postings, stay tuned.
Matt
Decided to use a blog to keep track of my daily activities and other interesting (mostly computer related) stuff going on. Hope you enjoy the postings, stay tuned.
Matt
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)