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Open Source storage server

jonmoore — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:29:28 +0000

This is not going to be a full review, but more a general take on things.

Since moving from VMware Server to ESXi to host my virtual machines, I’ve been very interested in looking into some more of the advanced features of ESX and ESXi yet most of these require iSCSI. I remember from a few years back using Openfiler to do some simple samba file sharing, and remembered it supported iSCSI as one method of giving out storage.

Now, I’ve yet to use any of the features of ESX that require iSCSI, or even setup Openfiler to export storage via iSCSI, but I have been using it for simple file sharing and must say I’m quite impressed.

Setup is a breeze, taking about 20 minutes on an older PC. Management is done almost entirely through a web interface, that is very easy to use. Unlink many of the other appliance packages out there, the web interface is very simple and straight forward. Very much impressed with that.

Over the next few months I’ll be exploring Openfiler much more, and hopefully getting into some of it’s more advanced features including interface bonding, md devices and clustering. I plan to keep updating as things more along.

Remove bonded interface in OpenFiler I decided to try and use NIC bonding in OpenFiler...

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Every administrator needs two accounts..

jonmoore — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:32:33 +0000

I assume you’ve had your hands on at least one set of administrative credentials in your life. I’d also make the assumption that you’ve used that account as your everyday account. You know, the one we use to check mail, surf the web, update facebook, download porn… you know, that kind of stuff.

That’s a bad idea.

Why, you might ask. Doing so, opens yourself up for quite a lot of trouble.

Time to take a step back…. Let’s imagine for a moment that you’re just another user. What kind of access would you have on the network? Hopefully you’ve just said ‘as little as possible’ or ‘only what you need’ or similar. Well, why is that? Security. The idea of least access says that I can do only what I need to do to complete my job.

Whoa! But I’m the admin! I need access to everything!

This may be true, but probably not. Think about your average day. What do you really do? Occasionally you install some software, create user accounts, update systems… the list can go on. Now, let’s really think about that… How often do those tasks happen and where do you perform them. Know that you’ve answered those questions, let’s move on.

Everyone on your network should have a user account. That is, a limited account with least access to the resources they need. For an administrator, this means you have an account with very limited access to install software, run updates, make system changes and the like. Just like everyone else. This is the account you work with daily. You log in, surf the web, read the news, send email, check blogs, etc… all that work stuff.

BUT WAIT

You also create an account for yourself with administrative rights. This account, is used whenever you need to perform an administrative task.

Have this account separate account means that any time you want to do something that requires administrative access you MUST think “Do I really want to do this”? I bet you find yourself saying “no, not really” quite a lot after this. Separate accounts also gives you a nice way of monitoring changes on your network. By having separate logins, you can see when (and who) is making administrative changes on your network.

I’m tired..

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Another insightful comic..

jonmoore — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:50:56 +0000

Reading the feeds today, and came across todays xkcd comic. Very funny. No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

AsylumLAN 33 – November 15-16

jonmoore — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:55:28 +0000

It’s that time ago. Another AsylumLAN is set for the middle of November. If you’re into gaming I highly recommend this event. Details below or check out their website for more information.

Date: Nov 15-16, 2008
Time: Sat 10am – Sunday 4pm
Cost: $30 pre-register, $35 walk-in
Location: Vanderburgh Co. 4H

Registration now open at asylumlan.com

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VMware ate my CTRL, Shift, and ALT keys :(

jonmoore — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:36:53 +0000

Working with VMware on Ubuntu 8.04 has proved to be much more trouble then in the past. It appears, that when using VMware with a Windows guest, the CTRL, ALT and Shift keys no longer work. It gets better though..

Google Search has offered a few solutions, mostly related to resetting keyboard layouts and such. However, when I try and use any other key, take the ’s’ for example, Ubuntu closes the current active window, and opens the file manager.

So far, the only working solution I’ve found involves two steps. First, restart the computer then cease using VMware to run Windows guests.

Easy enough, I suppose..

If anyone out there has a fix for this, or knows something I’m missing, please leave details in the comments.

Quick install of Tomcat5 on CentOS At the office, we’re in the process of doing some...

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Compromise of Fedora systems

jonmoore — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:54:13 +0000

Paul Frields from Fedora posted an message to fedora-announce-list regarding a compermise of some of the Fedora systems. If you use Fedora, it’s worth reading over and following up with. I’m not personally a Fedora user, so I can’t provide and user commentary on this issue.

Read the orgional post here. You can probably followup with this thread, and others from the fedora-announce-list archives

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