In my last post I mentioned starting a quick eval of the existing config management tools. I ended up with bcfg2,so I got to spend some time Friday starting to look at it. Armed with the SAGE [short topics book|http://www.sage.org/pubs/19_bcfg2/] and the online docs, I managed to get it installed and doing some stuff. These…
Going to SCALE 8x today – I’ll be in the LOPSA booth, PostgreSQL booth and doing FOSS tours. Do I know how to overcommit or what?
I’m teaching on LDAP at SCaLE U today, so I’ve uploaded my slides in advance.
At $WORK, we currently use cfengine 2 to manage on the order of 300 systems. It works, it does most things we want. We use the [Singlecopy Nirvana|http://cfwiki.org/cfwiki/index.php/Singlecopy_Nirvana] “pattern” to distribute configuration files of all types, have copious shellcommands, and even a few editfiles. In general, it does what I need, but not necessarily the…
If you have multiple vias in your rsync path (e.g. a -> b -> c) you can use an rsync filter rule to tell rsync: don’t transfer files that have . in the beginning of the filename! –filter ‘- .*’ This way you won’t have rsync temp files (named something like .filename.xxyyzz) from the a…
“Backups are becoming less and less necessary these days”, I’m told. High availability, cheap disk mirroring and snapshots, cloud storage, data syncing between services—all these factors make old-fashioned backups—the offline, offsite, multi-tier kind, probably to tape, an expensive and cumbersome luxury that is neither affordable nor needed today. I just got bitten, hard, by the…
The Call for Participation for LISA ’10 has just been published. If you have not attended a LISA conference before, then this would be a great year to start. Even if you don’t plan on submitting a paper or a talk proposal, reading the Call for Participation is a great way to understand how the…
Like probably almost anyone reading this blog, I’m a sysadmin. Specifically, I consider myself to be a pretty darned good one – years of experience, blah blah blah. One of the personality traits a “good sysadmin” has, is the drive and ability to learn new things. COMPLICATED things. No fear. Try out installing and setting…
OK, not related to work, but worthy of a blog entry at least. The other day I dove into VOIP for the first time. I admit, I’m a bit of a holdout with regards to my home phone service. I’m also old enough to recall the days when the phone in our house plugged into…
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