~sagar

Have ya ever been a situation that ya just whisper, or yell out the word SUCK?

I was into many times and today also… so I got many to list out and here goes my suck-list.

The list may make you smile and remembers that ya are not alone and I don’t care about the frowned one :)


0.religious difference (anybody in there)
1.high prized technology (dmx costs more)
2.honking behind me in traffic (I gave them fingers)
3.windows os ( till ya get freeze over)
4.internet explorer ( ancient history)
5.spam (ya eat this everyday)
6.rediffmail
7.britney spears
8.barbie dolls
9.christina aguilera
10. 50 cent
11. black eyed peas
12. soap operas
13. sycophants (they are everywhere)
14. push-up wonderbras / miraclebras
15. long nails
16. body odor
22. people don't flush after the use
17. awful jokes/sms/forwards
19. hot milk
20. people who smoke before foods
21. using mobile-phones while drivin and havin food..

Were the real search started…?

Where are ya going to keep the curser…?

www.google.com | www.live.com

We had a discussion at office, and I commented:-

The same kind of apprehension had much attention merely a decade ago in this so called IT world.
High-time; The Big-BLUE Vs The Dark-Side.

Yes, finally IBM lost the battle filed, but Mr. Gates still worried about the Big-Blue.

“The biggest company in the computer industry by far is IBM. They have the four times the employees that I have, way more revenues than I have. IBM has always been our biggest competitor. The press just doesn’t like to write about IBM,” said Gates.

Let’s dig some more history;

(Sony) PlayStation Vs Xbox 360 (Microsoft’s next-generation gaming unit).
[Sony, please do pay some more attention]

This I love:

Internet-Explore Vs Netscape. [When the IE bundled with Windows OS, Netscape slowed down the race and almost quit]
And now the “Blue e�? tussles with firefox (Hey people; use firefox and know the difference)

In this case, I personally NOT feel much about a race in the “search�? area.

00.Google is a .com/net company; Internet is there arena.
01.Microsoft is a software company (They do and deals with many stuffs)

Why can’t we think of any Y! Effect (who knows; that’s the beauty of Internet)

It’s all about us, the users. Who has gotten innovative ideas and users in mind (google); they gonna survive and obviously marketing (Microsoft) comes next to that.

Tail:

I personally use aggregated google and Yahoo! Search with an extension in my firefox browser.

“Live�? looks gOOd that’s a catchy name too; lets try !

This is “NOT” a HowTo for setting up a ROCKS Cluster, but I tried to show ya off some of my try outs and some aftermath.

If ya are new to ROCKS; Please refer the well equipped ROCKS User’s Guide or ya might be lost.

I used VERSION:-4.1 [Rocks v4.2 Beta is released for i386 and x86_64 CPU architectures are avail now]
and my cluster details are registered here

Frontend a.k.a Head Node installation is just a breeze, only if ya refer the manual.

To saY a word about frontend installation, what is your requirement so what rolls ya need to select.

BASE DISK
0.Area51 Roll :- For added security features like Tripwire and chkrootkit. Opt-out, if you really not othered about high-funda security.
1.Viz Roll :- Visualization, you don’t required unless you have a big and tiled monitor.
2.hpc :- Yes, I am into HPC lane
3.Ganglia :- To show off my cluster set-up and obviously for cluster’s health monitoring.
4.Web-server :- Yes.
5.Kernel Roll :- Yes.

OS DISK

Disk-1 and Disk-2 is sufficient, disks-3 and 4 are optinal

..and next, I did bind to our local ntp server.

DISK PARTITIONING -> Disk-druid for my 147 GB SCSI

/boot : 128 MB
/ : 15 GB
/usr/local : 20 GB ( For mannual installation og Globus and Torque scheduler)
/var : 25 GB (I expect a little more log)
swap : 2 GB
/myspace : 10 GB (For the non-cluster/local users home directory)
/export : Fill Available space

Now the installation has got over; system booted-up and no color (GUI) :-)

# system-config-display

To say, I had an issue and I dont want to see the smoke behind my flat BenQ. What I did was just copied
the /etc/Xll/xorg.conf file from another system with “same” hardware loadead with RedHat-AS-4.
I repeat… Linux, its a large file ! ;-)

Oh..yeah monitor, it’s single BenQ flat, shared over the systems with ATEN KVM switch.

#startx
…hoo·ray ! I got the color ( when ya logged in, the only difference I felt, there wasn’t any red HAT logo but centOS and the grub was different…. so Luke… its our shadow-man ! )
…then I stopped smartd service.

Compue Node Installation

I want the control over the compute node installation, atleast partitioning.

# cd /home/install/site-profiles/4.1/nodes/
Copy the skeleton.xml to extend-auto-partition.xml and edit extend-auto-partition.xml
++ refer the manual ^

I tried editing the manual option on the XML, showed strange and weired so I went with exyend-a-p.

# cd /home/install; rocks-dist dist [to apply this configuration to the distribution]
# insert-ethers
If your your frontend and compute nodes are connected via a managed ethernet switch, you’ll want to select ‘Ethernet Switches’ from the list above. This is because the default behavior of many managed ethernet switches is to issue DHCP requests in order to receive an IP address that clients can use to configure and monitor the switch.

Now, restart insert-ethers and continue reading the user guide for a procedure on how to configure your compute nodes.

# insert-ethers
and choose compute then wait [ Really, I felt I need patience, through out the set-up ] after putting the base cd to your compute node, restart and boot from the CD.
That’s it ( do remember ya have gotta PXE boot option, if you got CD-Drive outage :) )

Its fast..pretty fast and I finished my 2 compute nodes instllation in 3 minutes simultaniously.

You can monitor the installation of compute nodes by using ssh with p0rt 2200.

# ssh compute-0-0 -p 2200

Once the installation got over,
login: root
password: {frontend ’s root password }

# df -h; free
Good all the partitions and swap space are correct.

NO..ITS NOT CORRECT
…reallY… go to front end
0. check the XML file ( my problem was I put forward slash instead of / before part), what’s yours…?
1. # cd /home/install; rocks-dist dist [to apply this configuration to the distribution]
2. # rocks-partition –list –delete –nodename {compue node’s hostname}
3. Use the nukeit.sh script for removing .rocks-release from the first partition of each disk on the computenodes.
[ for nukeit.sh ]
4. # ssh {compue node’s hostname} ’sh /home/install/sbin/nukeit.sh’
5. # ssh {compue node’s hostname} ‘/boot/kickstart/cluster-kickstart’

Compute node restarted; check the default grub option; re-install, go ahead by ENTER.

Hic-cup Session
0. How do I run my Linpack HPL.dat?
Luke…refer the manual
1.How do I change frontend’s Public IP Address?

Don’t use {}

# echo ‘ update app_globals set value=”{newip}” where value=”{oldip}”‘ | mysql -u apache custer
# echo ‘ update networks set IP=”{newIP}” where IP=”{oldIP}”‘ | mysql -u apache cluster
# insert-ethers –update
2. My Ganglia status shows all/some of my compute nodes are dead but actuallY its running.
If ya tried the following…

[root@rocks mongoose]# cluster-fork /bin/date ; date
compute-0-0:
Sat Jul 8 04:30:39 IST 2006
compute-0-1:
Sat Jul 8 04:30:39 IST 2006

Sat Jul 8 04:30:39 IST 2006

[root@rocks mongoose]# cluster-fork service gmond restart
compute-0-0:
Shutting down GANGLIA gmond: [ OK ]
Starting GANGLIA gmond: [ OK ]
compute-0-1:
Shutting down GANGLIA gmond: [ OK ]
Starting GANGLIA gmond: [ OK ]

[root@rocks mongoose]# service gmond restart
Shutting down GANGLIA gmond: [ OK ]
Starting GANGLIA gmond: [ OK ]

root@rocks mongoose]# service gmetad restart
Shutting down GANGLIA gmetad: [ OK ]
Starting GANGLIA gmetad: [ OK ]

I refreshed the ganglia webpage
…then it showed Hosts Up = 1 (frontend) in while 1 changed to 2….. after sometime
it showed me
Hosts Up: 2 and hosts down=1
and now the case is back to Hosts Up=1 and Hosts Down=2.
Check multicas is enabled on your switch, blocking this on the networking device may cause the problem.

3.How do I manually broadcast 411 update instaead of hourly update.

# make -C /var/411 force
[You may have to use this just after creating a cluster-user on Frontend and to get updated across the nodes]

Disclaimer

All the above said materials are tested in a real time environment though Your Miles May Vary (YMMV)

…something wrong with the world today….or

….something wrong with mY eyes !!

Roger Keith Syd Barrett

Born: 06/01/1946

RIP : 07/07/2006

The crazy diamond and one of the original members of the legendary rock group Pink Floyd come to an end by finding the same old fear.

Syd, I wish ya were here…. but see your Emily still plays on and on and on…

I had welcomed to the jungle !

I scored as Guns ‘N’ Roses. I am Guns ‘N’ roses. a great band in the 80’s and 90’s who made a huge impact on the world. they became an instant hit with their amazing, guitar shredding guitarist Slash and their lead singer Axel Rose. I love their numbers… November Rain, Don’t CrY, Estranged, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, Sweet Child O’ Mine… Guns 'N' Roses 90% Led Zeppelin 60% AC/DC 40% Jimi Hendrix 40% Van Halen 30% Thin Lizzy 10% The Who 10%

System Installation Checklist for Server mongoose Dateded: 19-June-2006
=============++++++++++++++++++=============

This System Installation Check-list particularly designed for the the server mongoose.

0.System Information

Hostname : mongoose
Domain Name : mongoose.animals.org
IP Address : 192.168.63.82 (may change)
Serial No : B2-xxx-A05060-558
Platform : Intel Dual Xeon (2×3.6 Ghz), 1MB cache
OS Version : RedHat Advanced Server-4 (Kernel-2.6.9-5.ELsmp)
Disk Devices : 2×146GB
Raid Level : 0 [mirrorred]
Disk Storage : 146 GB
RAID Driver Disk : Adaptec Ultra SCSI [a320]

1.Drive Configurations

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/sda7 4.9G 632M 4.0G 14% /
/dev/sda1 122M 12M 104M 10% /boot
none 1013M 0 1013M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2 58G 107M 55G 1% /home
/dev/sda9 11G 485M 9.2G 5% /home/admin
/dev/sda6 15G 69M 14G 1% /opt
/dev/sda3 25G 1.8G 22G 8% /usr
/dev/sda5 20G 139M 19G 1% /var

2.Security Settings

a. Enabled SELinux Policy.
b. IP-Tables Firewall enabled except the services ssh, http, ftp, sendmail.

NOTE:
a. The home directory for local Administrator has assaigned as /home/admin
b. RedHat Network registration information.

Done by: Scooby Doo
Verified by: Shrek

I believe we all gotta an animal instict… I am non-veg.
I like watching NGC… I love monkeys.

The link shows ya some wild photgraphY (happened to here about this photographer)
http://kalyanvarma.net/photography/viewtags.php?tag=All

…this is too good.

http://kalyanvarma.net/photography/photo.php?id=235&tag=All

..we can teach the animal wildness…and animals can teach us things we have forgotten !

Linux Security Checklist

Hey people stop reading…if the box ya want to make secure is not getting powered ON… ya got it…!!

Introduction

I gotta an assaignment to prepare a securitY check-list and here I make it general for anybodY who wanna have a look…I spent quite some time over the jungle…..
This crap maY provide ya some of the keY concepts that can go a long way in keeping a Linux system in secure[/insecure :-P].

General
0.Hardware
1.OS Distribution
2. File System Allocation( Disk Partitions)
3.OS Installation / Package Selection
4.Physical Security
5.Back-Ups
6.Expired Systems
7.Make a Boot and Rescue Media
8.Remove Unnecessary Software Package
9.Keep the System Patched and Up-to-Date
10.Set Off the Unnecessary Services
11.Disable the Unused Ports
12.Cross Check for Xinetd Services
13.Check Security on Key Files
14.User Account Management
15.Remove Unwanted/Zombie Files
16.Customized Banners
17.Harden the Services/Applications which are Required
0.nfs
1.ssh
2.ftp
3.xinetd
4.sendmail
5.apache (httpd)

18.Kernel Tunable Security Parameters
19.iptables
20.TCP Wrappers
21.Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM)
22.Proper System Logging
23.SELinux
24.Tripwire

General
To say ideally, the check list start right from the Hardware, OS Distribution, File System Allocation( Disk Partitions), OS Installation, Physical Security, Back-Ups and finally dump the system by ensuring that data can not be recovered from the Hard disk(s).

Hardware
Is that an OS distro certified hardware vendor?
Choose the hardware vendor who are good at customer support.
Choose the hardware, which meet our requirements (do we need a dual CPU, what is going to be its future role)
Have a plan for Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) and how long we need it.

OS Distribution
This is all about our choice but must consider the facts, getting security updates, bug-fixes, enhancements and patch management within a short time-frame and in priority wise is an important step to be pro-actively secure the Linux System.

File System Allocation (Disk Partitions)
The system should have separate partitions to avoid “panics�?. This is just a DIVIDE & RULE Policy for better management and for recovery when we had troubles. Make separate partitions and allocate required space for /boot, /, /usr, /home, /var, /tmp and /opt for your optional and third party applications. This step is very important for both Production Servers, Workstations and Desktops (I mean to say, when you do a Linux installation)

OS Installation (Package Selection)
Do you need an Office Suite or xpdf to run your Database Server ? NO. So smart package selection avoid unwanted services and reduce the Risk Factor. May be the vulnerability is more for a package that you really never use.

Physical Security
The only truly secure system is one that is powered off, cast in a block of concrete and sealed in a lead-lined room with armed guards (Gene Spafford)
The systems should be in locked Server-Rack and locked room/datacenter. Physical access to the systems are restricted to authorized users. Set BIOS and Grub password (These days KVM switches can handle from BIOS level to avoid remote reboot chaos).
I am not saying anything hereabout Disaster Recovery Management and room Air Conditioning.

Back-Ups
Data are important for any level of organizations, so the back-up.
Simple back-up utilities are tar, gzip, bzip2, dump – for multiple level of back-up for the entire file-system, rsync – for transfer data between servers and keep in sync, amanda – for a client-server environment.

Expired Systems
Make sure the data can not be recovered from the hard-disks of the systems which is expired and not in use anymore. Disksanitizer is a tool to remove from all traces of data from the storage media according to the U.S. DoD standards.

Make a Boot and Rescue Media
…I just gotta finger pain…but to be continued…. (…where is the vicks bottle…hmm..)

US weekly magazine BusinessWeek teamed up with The Boston Consulting Group to produce the second annual ranking of the world’s 100 most innovative companies. More than 1,000 senior managers responded to the global survey, making it the deepest management survey to date on this critical issue.

The BusinessWeek-BCG survey also focuses on the major obstacles to innovation that executives face today. While 72% of the senior executives in the survey named innovation as one of their top three priorities, almost half said they were dissatisfied with the returns on their investments in that area.

A lack of coordination is the second-biggest barrier to innovation, according to the survey’s findings. But collaboration requires much more than paying lip service to breaking down silos. The best innovators reroute reporting lines and create physical spaces for collaboration. They team up people from across the org chart and link rewards to innovation. Innovative companies build innovation cultures. “You have to be willing to get down into the plumbing of the organization and align the nervous system of the company,” says James P. Andrew, who heads the innovation practice at BCG

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