- Roundtable - muug.ca

Removing old kernel images
by Kevin McGregor 23 Mar '15

23 Mar '15

I have a Ubuntu 10.04.3 (I know) system with many old kernel images. The problem (maybe) is I've been told the system is out of inodes. I thought I would try to get rid of at least one old kernel image, and this happens: $ sudo apt-get -y purge linux-image-2.6.32-28-server Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies: linux-headers-virtual: Depends: linux-headers-2.6.32-66-server but it is not going to be installed or linux-headers-2.6.32-66-generic-pae but it is not installable vmware-open-vm-tools-kmod-2.6.32-28-server: Depends: linux-image-2.6.32-28-server but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). Did I do something wrong, is there a simple fix, and/or is this related to running out of inodes? Kevin

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5TB - makes no sense
by Trevor Cordes 22 Mar '15

22 Mar '15

Once again the drive manufacturers have me scratching my head. My business can sell a new Seagate 5TB USB3.0 external hard drive (5400rpm) for $159! 5TB!! What's baffling is that the cheapest 4TB (not even 5TB!) bare drive is $200! How does one explain the extra $41? Dunno... In fact, it's even crazier because by *not* paying the extra $41 you are given the bonus of a usb3-to-sata adapter and a power supply! Scratching your head? So am I. Just so everyone knows, you can buy this unit, pull the plastic shell apart and take out the normal, everyday 3.5" SATA drive inside and put it directly in your computer!! (This will void all warranties!) I should note, though, that this is almost certainly one of Seagate's infamous "not supposed to be on 24/7" garbage drives, like all of their low-end drives. But, still, 5TB for $159 is awful compelling. In fact, just for sheer size and backup possibilities, I'm going to grab one for an extra, more frequent, onsite backup system. The cheapest 5TB "real" drive you can actually use for something other than occasional use is the WD Red for $270, nearly double the price! The duopoly hard drive manufacturers are "pulling an Intel" now and differentiating by offering 4-6 different drives in each size, causing SKU explosion. And the price difference between the cheapo ones and the (supposed) enterprise-grade can be 300% (and we're not even talking SCSI/SAS here)! It used to be they all just made 1 drive of each size that was good enough for all things (and almost always 7200rpm). Also, note how the price of a quality 7200rpm 2TB drive has not dropped from where it was over 2 years ago! I know, I just checked. Gotta love a duopoly. P.S. If you want one, let me know! But, sorry, I don't price compete on the low-end so if it's cheaper at <insert etailer here> you can get it there. :-) (Prices subject to change. Tax not included, blah blah blah.)

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Re: [RndTbl] Inventory software?
by Bradford C. Vokey 21 Mar '15

21 Mar '15

On 2015-03-20 10:31 PM, athompso(a)athompso.net wrote: > I'm looking for recommendations for good IT inventory tracking software. > It must track not only hardware assets (those are a dime-a-dozen) but also > software, licenses, and support agreements. > It doesn't have to be free or open-source, if it's reasonably-priced and > good value. > It should definitely run on UNIX, at least the back-end stuff. > I do *not* need automatic inventory-gathering capability. > > Anyone know of anything that works for that? I am assuming you need a user-land friendly facing interface? Why not just use mysql and an html-based front end (intra or inter) like what I demonstrated with Xataface at the October 2013 meeting? It beats having to try and shoe-horn the fields/records you *actually* want to track into someone else's idea of what is important in inventory software. -- Brad Vokey

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Inventory software?
by Adam Thompson 20 Mar '15

20 Mar '15

I'm looking for recommendations for good IT inventory tracking software. It must track not only hardware assets (those are a dime-a-dozen) but also software, licenses, and support agreements. It doesn't have to be free or open-source, if it's reasonably-priced and good value. It should definitely run on UNIX, at least the back-end stuff. I do *not* need automatic inventory-gathering capability. Anyone know of anything that works for that? (BTW, for those that don't know yet, yes this is my new full-time gig, and yes I'm still available for paid work through Avant. Gratuitous plug: we also sell & support JIRA, Confluence and all the other Atlassian software. Call us for all your DevOps needs.) [image: Avant logo] *Adam Thompson* Senior Systems Administrator *voice:* 204.789.9596 x24 | *email:* athompson(a)avant.ca | *web:* avant.ca

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The SSD Endurance Experiment: They're all dead - The Tech Report - Page 1
by Adam Thompson 18 Mar '15

18 Mar '15

http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-… -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

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Free Hadoop ebook
by Trevor Cordes 12 Mar '15

12 Mar '15

This showed up through an affiliate of O'Reilly MAPR and I thought it might appeal to some club members. It's a totally free 130pg professionally done ebook. You have to register your name/email to get the link (honor system). It looks like it's an overview of the technology for beginners who may want to learn more. I doubt it's of much use to those already experts using these technologies. It's only free until the end of the week (and I'm not sure how O'Reilly defines "end") so get it by Friday if you want it. https://www.mapr.com/real-world-hadoop?imm_mid=0ce2ce&cmp=em-data-na-na-new…

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Another reason to use ECC memory...
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 11 Mar '15

11 Mar '15

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/03/cutting-edge-hack-gives-super-user-… http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/10/rowhammer/ http://www.google.ca/search?q=rowhammer -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609

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WTB IR blaster
by Trevor Cordes 11 Mar '15

11 Mar '15

Does anyone have a computer-connectable IR blaster (ie transmitter) kicking around they don't want anymore? I'd love to buy it. USB, serial, parallel, whatever, if I can plug it into any computer from the last 15 years it's what I need. The only catch is it must support modern linux, like kernel 3.18 and lirc0.9.2. Most "dumb" non-usb ones fit that bill. Some USB ones would work also. The only one I don't want is a mceusb-based one, as that's what I have and the above kernel+lirc broke it. If you have one, email me with the details and asking price. Thanks!

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*sigh* I wish there was a better way...
by Adam Thompson 10 Mar '15

10 Mar '15

To find the closest and/or fastest CentOS mirror, a function which is sadly lacking from CentOS (at least as of v6), this is what I just hacked together. Documenting it here for posterity. (If you wanted to sort by RTT instead of hopcount, you could either reverse the order of i & t in the END block of the awk script, or figure out sort(1)'s ridiculous -k option.) #!/bin/sh printf 'Hops\tPing\tHost\n' for h in $( lynx -listonly -nonumbers -dump http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/6/isos/x86_64/ | egrep '^https?://' | sed -e 's#^https*://$[^/]*$/.*$#\1#' ); do mtr -c 1 -r $h | awk -v h=$h 'BEGIN {i=0;t=0} /^ *[0-9]*\./ {i++; t=$5} END {print i,t,h}' & done | sort -n | head -10 wait

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Recommendations for IP KVM switches
by Gilbert E. Detillieux 10 Mar '15

10 Mar '15

Howdy folks. We've got a bit of money to spend before budget year-end, and I thought it might be nice to finally do something more orderly about remote console access to some of our servers. (Right now, we have some systems with ILOM/ALOM, some on small local-only KVM, and some with no remote management capability at all.) We're looking at probably a couple 8-port units for a couple different racks. We're somewhat concerned about costs, of course, but want something reasonable in terms of features. (E.g. remote authentication through various means like RADIUS & AD would be nice.) Anyone with experience with particular brands of IP-accessible KVM's? Any recommendations on what to get? What to avoid? ;) (Canadian supplier would be preferred.) -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R3T 2N2 Fax: (204)474-7609

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