Tech Observer: Linux And Open Source

How to setup Intel 10 Gigabit 82598 / 82598EB and 82599 Ethernet Adapter Controllers on Servers For VMWare ESXi and ESX Platforms

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:52:40 -0500

The ESXi platform does support the Intel 10 Gigabit adapter. I found drivers in an ISO on the VMWare site:

VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 Driver CD for Intel 82598 and 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controllers

Driver CD for VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0

Driver version: 2.0.44.14.4 | 2009-12-17 | Build: 215251
Filename: vmware-esx-drivers-net-ixgbe_400.2.0.44.14.4-1.0.4.164009.215251.iso
Md5sum: cb86c8f01cbf5969d0ac259c5348aed3
Sha1sum: b8376e52a833656b18e0a7bc9ccd51569188527b

I already have SSH access to the baremetal on the ESXi server: I downloaded the ISO and with 7zip could navigate and so I extracted the offline-bundle and INT-intel-lad-ddk-ixgbe-400.2.0.44.14.4-1.0.4.164009-offline_bun.zip was what I needed! Putting that on a web server on my network was super easy.

The command is from the SSH or TECHNICAL support console.

# esxupdate --bundle=http://web.server/INT-intel-lad-ddk-ixgbe-400.2.0.44.14.4-1.0.4.164009-offline_bun.zip update

Note the trailing update command!
# esxupdate --bundle=http://10.83.240.157/pdf/INT-intel-lad- ddk-ixgbe-400.2.0.44.14.4-1.0.4.164009-offline_bun.zip update INT-intel-lad-ddk-ixgbe-400.2.. ######################################## [100%]



Removing packages :vmware-esx.. ######################################## [100%]

Installing packages :cross_vm.. ######################################## [100%]

Running [/usr/sbin/vmkmod-install.sh]...

ok.

The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the

changes to be effective.

Here's a good buy on one:

~ # lspci -v 01:00.00 Ethernet controller Network controller: Intel Corporation 82598EB 10 Gigabit AT2 Server Adapter [vmnic1] Class 0200: 8086:150b

65358-01 Plantronics Battery for the CS50 Headset

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:01:59 -0500

I use a cordless telephone headset for a POTS line during the day. It is convenient the sound is actually quite good and it has worked well for almost two years.

Today the headset would not hold a charge so I opened it up the part is serviceable, and Part No. 65358-01 is carried by amazon:

The newest model is a CS70

Apple will introduce a Tablet and Textbook store for iTunes

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:29:39 -0500

Prediction for Apple's forthcoming product.

I am privy to no inside info nor do I have contacts that have this information. What I intend to discuss today is the design and ecosystem for Apple's next product introduction.

In retrospect, the iPhone was a brilliant compromise of form and function with technical limitations, but what has cemented its lasting power is the vibrant application store and the developers that support the platform with nifty, innovatiove or just plain obvious functionality.

A new device would have to have a similar design methodology and ideally be supported by such an ecosystem.

I believe the next logical market for the iPod generation is college and the teens who grew up with iPods will be used to consuming media and information in a format as mediated by the iTunes store.

Analysts See iPod Market Share Gains Among Teens

Piper Jaffray analysts Gene Munster and Michael Olson on Wednesday released the results of their tenth bi-annual teen survey, which showed gains in iPod market share from the spring numbers. Specifically, 74% of the teens who possess an MP3 player said they own some type of iPod[...]

Based on this assumption and the fact that the RESALE market for textbooks allows most students to recoup some of the money spent on textbooks albeit at the expense to the publisher of a lost sale; I believe that Steve Jobs and Apple have negotiated hefty discounts from the publishers on content sold electronically based on the assumption that each student will buy a book and it will not be resellable.

That in itself would be enough to have a winning product, an ebook that eliminates the stack of books required for an education.

The game changer will be, a general purpose computing platform, most likely NOT x86 compatible and a partnership with a VoIP provider such as Skype to allow unlimited domestic calls and sms.

By teaming three such important features, books, applications for any area of education and the always on VoIP and SMS functionality they would have an obvious winner.

I predict that the icing on the cake will be that it will have full media support for itunes songs and movie downloads.

Although a student may need a laptop for some content creation, for class, for notes for reading and studying and for communicating with peers I think the niche that Apple serves with a new tablet will be a real game winner for Apple and establish Apple as the preeminent educational brand.

NSA VMware ESX Server 3 Security Configuration Guide I733-009R-2008

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:47:01 -0500

This document explains in a comprehensive and methodical method the way to lock down, secure and harden a VMWARE installation. Although updated for ESXi or 4 the methods and critical areas are usefull for your reference.

VMware ESX Server 3 Configuration Guide Enterprise Applications Division of the Systems and Network Analysis Center (SNAC) Information Assurance Directorate National Security Agency I733-009R-2008

BSD Magazine Now Free! BSDMAG switches online format

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:05:55 -0500

If you haven't heard, the BSDmag switches to a free online format. In the past they have offered in depth and feature articles on all flavors of BSD from NETBSD to OpenBSD to FreeBSD this is an outstanding resource and I'm glad to see that the magazine will continue!

I'm excited to see this and will be looking forward to the next issue February!

Blue Microphone's Yeti is a Linux Compatible USB Condenser Microphone and the BEST I've tested

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:23:54 -0500

I ordered a Blue Yeti Microphone - it is a USB Powered Condenser Mic which is in my opinion the BEST deal in a USB Microphone.

Previously I've tested a G-Track from SAMSON but the unit I received before the Holidays was defective and would FADE OUT while I was recording vocal tracks with it. I sent it back as defective and ordered the BLUE Yeti Mic when I found out it was coming out. I considered the RODE Podcaster instead but realized it was a Dynamic mic and preferred the sound I got with a Condenser so went with the yeti.

The Zero Latency Monitoring works on Windows XP but not Under Ubuntu 9.10 and an ASUS EEE PC netbook. I'm not sure what the difference is so I'm pasting in to this post the lsusb -v output for the device in case anyone has an idea.

I bought a stand and pop filter subsequently and with the isolating earbuds I have this is a great low-end quasi studio sounding setup on the cheap.

Very pleased with the results and would buy another for remote sites if I needed it.

Memory Upgrade for Lenovo 9088AEU is DDR2 667 MHz PC2-5300

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:51:19 -0500

I found the specs for and bought and tested this memory on a desktop I have, total memory installed currently is 6GB!

So far a good buy!

xenserver 5.5 error The provision call failed because it ran out of space

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:24:52 -0500

Error on my Citrix Xenserver 5.5 test box... seems like the storage subsystem cannot be expanded further. Not sure why...

11/3/2009 5:23:47 PM Error: Creating 'Debian Etch 4.0 (1)' by cloning 'Debian Etch 4.0' - The provision call failed because it ran out of space.

Are There Dangers to DNA With Terahertz Waves Radiation and Scanners?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:02:29 -0500

I have seen some of the photos of the Terahertz waves scanners, similar to xrays but supposedly only penetrates the surface materials... Unsettling is that new research indicates that the damage to dna strands may be subtle yet potentially of concern. My first thought is that the eyes should be shielded in any automated scanner.

The technology is still new and in the next decade or two we will know more about what the long term effects are.

How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA

the forces that terahertz waves exert on double-stranded DNA are tiny, in certain circumstances resonant effects can unzip the DNA strands, tearing them apart. This creates bubbles in the strands that can significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication.

xenserver vm fails to reboot manual recovery and repair

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:39:34 -0500

OK this was a incredible headache, but with care can be recovered at least to get your data off.
I think I replaced the kernel with a non-standard ie not a xen kernel.

You will need:
systemrescuecd

from the console of the xenserver: xe vm-list xe vm-list name-label=YOUR-CORRUPT-VM-NAME params=uuid xe vm-param-set uuid=c37623c8-2d38-04a0-19d3-792630865172 HVM-boot-policy="BIOS order"
Go to the General Tab of your corrupt vm
click Properties
click Startup Options
adjust Boot Order For systemrescuecd.iso in virtual drive you have mounted with the CIFS ISO library option under the GUI for the xenserver console.

reboot the VM
hit enter at the systemrescuecd splash screen
at the console type this:
net-setup eth0 dhcpd eth0 mkdir /mnt/sda1 mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 cd /mnt/sda1
you now have a sshd server you can sftp data off of

Monitoring Boot Time Performance Bootchart vs Bootvis

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:13:04 -0500

Need to check boot performance on my laptop, found that there was a app called bootvis.exe which Microsoft put put as a developers bootvis.msi package. The other alternative is bootchart on the linux side, but this is a Windows XP laptop.

Found one copy online and am getting errors on running it of :
"Number of Physical drives in the trace file is 0 Trace file has invalid system configuration information"

Went looking for other copies and found these hashes:
f654f8841f465cfaf25a9260cbc13a2f bootvis-1.3.37.0.msi
0d4567e929a20c4c601e8754a4cbf128 bootvis-2nd.msi

the second one appears bogus, the MSI installer is not signed by Microsoft and I did not perform a install with it, scans came up clean but who knows.

I think the error I am getting may be because of hard drive encryption on the laptop.

I still need a perf tool to measure boot performance...

ruby on Debian error when working with Sinatra said undefined method `get' for main:Object (NoMethodError)

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:17:20 -0500

Banged my Head against this for half the afternoon, debugged to the fact that using ruby1.9 you MUST install the gem1.9. using gem defaults to 1.8 when you install ruby...
# aptitude install rubygems1.9 # gem1.9 install sinatra etc etc

When calling ruby state the version you want:
# ruby1.9 ./sinatra.rb

Remember that the gem libraries are in separate paths... on my system this is /usr/lib/ruby/gems/
for getting gems to update behind an NTLM proxy server remember to set your environment:

export http_proxy=http://username:password@hostname-of-proxy:8080
in `': undefined method `get' for main:Object (NoMethodError) from ./sinatra.rb:1:in `require' from ./sinatra.rb:1:in `

SiSU written in Ruby can output Documents in PDF PS LaTeX HTML etc

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:15:04 -0500

I found this meta-markup language which outputs to a variety of formats, including pdf, ps, LaTex, HTML etc etc. Very interesting idea and includes a whole other level of complexity with database output support! If you're familiar with LaTeX you know that it is very flexible and very powerful but occasionally can be a little obtuse. I found the best introduction is The Not So Short Introduction to L ATEX2ε

Using markup applied to a document, SiSU can produce plain text, HTML, XHTML, XML, OpenDocument, LaTeX or PDF files, and populate an SQL database with objects 3 (equating generally to paragraph-sized chunks) so searches may be performed and matches returned with that degree of granularity (e.g. your search criteria is met by these documents and at these locations within each document). Document output formats share a common object numbering system for locating content. This is particularly suitable for "published" works (finalized texts as opposed to works that are frequently changed or updated) for which it provides a fixed means of reference of content.

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Update Firefox 3.5 on Ubuntu 9.04

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:15:21 -0500

I wanted to run the latest Firefox on Ubuntu 9.04 and found this script: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ubuntuzilla/files/

Download your platform, most likely the i386 and then install:

sudo dpkg -i /path/to/ubuntuzilla*.deb sudo apt-get install -f

I had to install the dependent library manually, it tells you if it is missing.

sudo ubuntuzilla.py -b -g -a install -p firefox

The -b option skips the filespace checking and backup of the profile, and the -g skips the GPG code check which for some reason was not working to access the keys...

After that I launched it and it was working!

Asus Ubuntu 9.04 Video Performance Bug is Fixed for 915GM Chipset

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:01:48 -0500

I have been following with interest the bug that cropped up in the change from 8.10 Ubuntu to the 9.04 release that severely effected performance of the video subsystem. See Slow performance and tiling issues on i915 the fix is in linux 2.6.28-14.46 (source) in ubuntu jaunty I have installed and tested this kernel and it seems to be OK, no stability issues so far. And performance wise animated icons on the desktop are snappy and responsive instead of laggy and slow motion.

1) Activate the jaunty-proposed archive as described in
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed

you basically add the following line to the end of /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-proposed restricted main multiverse universe

note on one line!

2) Update your local package cache using your favorite method:

sudo aptitude update

3) Install the kernel explicitly. The easiest method is to use this terminal command:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.28-14-generic

4) After installing the kernel, you can undo step 1 -- disable the jaunty-proposed archive by commenting out the line you added in /etc/apt/sources.list --

sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
# deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jaunty-proposed restricted main multiverse universe

modify grub's boot preference, or hold down the ESC key and manually test the kernel option.

sudo aptitude install startupmanager

sudo startupmanager

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