This blog has been based on explaining tasks that many are familier with in windows but dont understand in linux. In this post I will be describing the basics of disk management in linux.

Linux does not use drive letters like windows. Instead, there is a file structure in place, then you mount the devices as folders in that file structure. Before we can do that, we must know what the drives are and how they are partitioned. the way I look at it, and there are probably easier ways but I just do an

ls /dev

You should see a hole bunch of stuff. Now, if you have IDE drives they will be listed as hda for the first drive, hdb for the second and so on and so forth. If they are sata or scsi drives they will come up as sda for the first, sdb for the second. You may also see numbers after these. The numbers indicate the actual partitions that are present. If you have no partitions you will need to make them.

In order to create partitions run the following

fdisk /dev/sda where sda is the drive you want to partition

if you want to see the partitions on the drive press “p” and hit enter

In order to create a new partition press “n” for new. It will then ask if you would like it to be primary or extended. Press “p” for primary for now. Next it will ask you for the starting cylinder, for now just press enter and it will pick the first cylinder available. Next, it will want the ending cylinder. Sense we are lazy, we will type the size we want the partition instead so
+10G

This will create a 10Gb partition. You must have the + and the letter must be capitol. You can use K,B,G,T…..

Now the last thing we need to do before we can use it is to press “w” If you just quit it will not write the changes.

Now do a ls /dev again. In my example I should see an sda1. This is the new partition I just created. Some times these partitions do not show up. It may require a reboot to see the partitions created.

We have a WDS Server here at work. We figured we would try to put SCCM on it also. Durning the install a few issues were found. This is currently running on a Server 2008 64bit box. Apparently (and I wish I got screenshots of it) Certain components that escape me at this moment can only run on 64bit boxes, and other required components must be on a 32 bit box. After seeing this we temporarily scraped the project but continue to use the WDS server with no issues. Yesterday we decided we would give Data Protection Manager (DPM) a try. In attempting to install this we had issues with IIS. IIS was having issues because we had to make some changes to a config file for SCCM. We were unable to fix the issue so figured we would just uninstall IIS and reinstall it. In server 2008 Microsoft brought to us the Server Manger utilitity. Then then broke up Roles and Features into seperate groups. Roles having to be installed via server manager where as Features can be installed via server manager or control panel/programs and features. Well, needless to say IIS was unable to be installed. Tried a few things and figured what the hell, lets do this in safe mode. Fire up safe mode and Bam, check out this error message. Thanks MS! You guys are great!

Thanks Microsoft, your geeeeeeeeart!

I just can’t wait to pick up our new puppy. He is getting all of his checkups and 24point inspection done. I get to pick him up Tuesday! :p

With the cost of FiberChannel, NAS and other external storage being as costly as they are, we are looking at other options to get some storage for our ESX hosts.  Right now we are utilizing ESX with Vmotion.  We wanted to find a way to utilize the large amount of local disk that we can not use on our production VMs as they do not allow for vMotion and being used as a cluster resource.  In the past to add space we have had a lot of success using OpenFiler on some older hardware and connecting it  to the local hosts via iSCSI.  This is great, but we still are not using the local storage.  This was great because old machines are plentiful and Harddrive space is cheap, however we are still wasting the local disk. 

During a standard bantering session between myself and some other guys at the office, we came up with an idea.  We decided to create a VM on each virtual host.  We then gave those VMs a large chunck of the local disk.  Once that was done, we were then able to connect all of the other machines to each openfiler VMs “local disk”  Poof, quick and simple solution to use that storage and be able to vmotion your machines and SV motion the disks from those machines between all your hosts.  So far this has been done and seems to be working excellent. 

Plan two of this process is going to be setting up rsync between pairs of virtual servers, basically replicating the local disk between two different ESX host machines.  This helps to add another layer of redundancy against single host failure.  Now, if a physical machine fails, the machines that had HDs on that local host, can be restored via reregistering its vmdks on the other openfiler rsync partner.  This has not been tested but is phase two in our implementation of this.  This is obviously not seemless but still offeres a little bit of protection. 

I recently finished migrating my blog to WordPress on a new server I built.  I figured I would put up a how to document for anyone else who would like to try it.  In this we will be using Ubuntu 8.10 Server.

First thing you need to do is to download Ubuntu Server which you can get from here.  Once you get it downloaded, burn it to a CD.  I use cdburn.exe from the Microsoft Resource Kit Tools which you can get here.  Once you install that, run cdburn d: ubuntu.iso where d is the letter of your burner and ubuntu is the location and name of your ISO.

Now, toss the cd you just made into your new machine and boot to it.  Answer all the questions accordingly.  When it gets to the screen with the packages, I only install SSH.  Also, make sure that you configure it for Static IP and remember what that IP is.

Now, when the box reboots you should be able to SSH to it so you can throw it in the DataCenter (closet) and you shouldn’t need to touch it again.  You can also finish the installation from the console if you would like.  From here on out we will asume yo u have an SSH session to the box but console is just the same.

Installing Lamp

Now that the server is up and running, you need to install some services on it.  First thing we want to do is make sure that all your repositories are up to date.  sudo apt-get update will do just that.  Now we need to download and install Apache, PHP, and MySQL.  We can do all of that with one command

sudo apt-get install apache2 mysql-server php5 libapache2-mod-php5 php5-xsl php5-gd php-pear libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql

After these finish downloading and installing, we need to configure php.ini.  For this we will use Vi but if your perfer nano, or gedit, feel free to use what you are confortable with.

sudo vi /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

You need to find the line that says ” ;extension=mysql.so\.so/g” An easy way to do this is to type /mysql.so in Vi.  This will parse threw the hole file and find anything matching “mysql.so”  Once you find it, move the cursor to the “;” and press “x” to delete that caracter.  Now press “ESC” and then type “ZZ” to save.  Once that is done, you need to restart apache for the new changes to take effect.  You can do that by typing sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart.

Create a DB in MySQL

Next we need to create a new Database for WordPress.  In this part we will be doing this from the command line.  There are other methods that I will go over later but for now just the command line.  We want to keep the box as slim as possible right?  First we need to connect to MySQL.

mysql -u “username” -p

Now that you are logged into MySQL you can create the DB.  Note, all commands in MySQL must end with “;”

CREATE DATABASE databasename;

Next you need to create a user to access that DB.  You dont want to ever use your Root DB password so this will be uniqe to each DB connection.  Note, all the quotes should be single and make sure they are in all the spots in my example. (thanks Shawn)

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON databasename.* TO ‘bloguser’@'hostname’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘type password here’;

EXIT

Configure apache

Next you will probably want to configure virtual sites.  I did at least because I wanted the option of hosting more sites later.  Apache 2 uses whats called sites-available.  The first thing you will want to do is copy the default site to your own site.   sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default /etc/apache2/sites-available/myawesomeblog

Now you need to edit the new site to point to the new location for your blog.

sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/myawesomeblog

You need to change the “Document Root”  & Directory” path to the new path for example /home/awesomebloguser/public_html/  Now, save the file like you did before.Now in order for the new site to work, you need to enable it.  sudo a2dissite default will disable the old site.  sudo a2ensite myawesomeblog will enable the new site.  You can also do these in one line sudo a2dissite default && sudo a2ensite myawesomeblog

Now just resart apache and you are ready to go.  sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Install WordPress

By this point I am sure you are winded. The last 2 minutes have been excruciating but we are almost done and ready for you to start blogging.  All we have left to do is to install WordPress.  First things first you need to download it to your box.   Start by going to your home directory for your site from the sites-available config you did in apache.

cd /home/myawesomeblog/public_html (if you are installing it on a sub folder make sure to download it there)

Once you are there type the following command to download the newest build of WordPress

wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Once you have it downloaded we need to extract it.

tar -xzvf latest.tar.gz

Now that you have WordPress extracted you have one more thing to do.  You need to tell wordpress where the DB is and how to connect.  First thing you need to do is rename or copy wp-config-sample.  sudo cp /home/myawesomeblog/public_html/wp-config-sample.php /home/myawesomeblog/public_html/wp-config.php

Next you need to edit this file sudo vi /home/myawesomeblog/public_html/wp-config.php You will see a line that has databasename in single quotes.  Change that to the name you created earlier for your database.  Also do the same in the username and password fields.  Save that file and the hard part should be done.  Open your browser and browse to your new servers IP http://myawesomeblog.com/ You should be prompted with the wordpress installation page and you are ready to go!!!  Good luck and enjoy blogging.

Tags: LAMP, Linux, MySQL, PHP, server, WordPress

Can you guess what I did?  There were some big changes made this last weekend.  For the last few days I have been imersing my self in a linux server trying to learn how to install, configure and run a site on apache.  I was finally able to get it running.  This means that the site is no longer running on my personal machine.  This means that things I do on my day to day computer should not effect the site   Can you say more uptime?   Another reason for the move is that I have been doing a lot of work with Rebecca to get her site running www.chickenstockexchange.com.  Unfortunatlly, she was not thrilled with blog engine but seemed to really like WordPress.  (I do to)  Although i was able to get PHP to work in IIS, I was already running msSQL on my machine and did not want try to run mySQL also on the same machine.  I figured what better oportunity to sit down and force my self to learn some linux.

I actually learned a lot and will work on some screenshots tonight and step by step on how to build your own linux server from scratch and install WordPress. I managed to get the server running, make apache host multiple sites and migrate the content.  Let me know what you think and tune in later to see the write up.

Tags: Linux, Sever, SQL, WordPress

Last night Rebecca and I did some more work on the wine.  We began the clearing and stabalizing process.  ***Warning*** Excessive foaming may occur   We might have made a little bit of a mess with the drill while we were degassing.  We also racked the Gewurtz last night.  That one is smelling quite lovely if I dont say so myself.  I will try to post some pics up.  Next will be the apple wine.  Stay tuned.

I have been working on putting up another site for Rebecca and I.  Instead of running it on IIS, I decided I would like to try to run it on apache.  During the time of building the new box I had to steal the cable from my Winders box, mainly because i was to lazy to get another one.  Some how during this time, the firewall settings change on my vista machine (Thanks MS) leaving me with even more down time.  I unfortunatlly didn’t notice this for awhile.  It is however fixed now and should be up for good, for a while .  I think I am going to plan a migration of the site of my primary box also and get it running on a 2008 core server.  Something more dedicated. Good thing I dont do this stuff for a living or my credibility might come into check, doh!!!

Tags: iis, server, tps report, vista

I have been working on this manifold for a while now (too long) for a friend and so far it seems to be turning out ok.  I have been building this with a very antiquated saw.  This so far has seemed to be my biggest issue.  I had someone custom cut the collector for me.  Each runner was cut 5″ long and at two 15 degree angles.  This manifold was originally going to be a miniram but because of the really long runners would not work. (runner length has been noted in my branium for future manifolds)  I attempted to cut them shorter after I had already welded them but it was to late to try to get the collector any shorter.  Hopefully these issues will be solved once I pick up my new saw (complements of the guy that couldn’t turn into a parking lot). 

 The next hard part about this manifold is the fact that I am human.  These being the case, I only have two arms, and attached to those two arms are only one hand per arm.  Simple math, I need more hands.  Trying to make the pieces all fit together, now with a slight lack of symmetry I might add which you can see in the top view of the collector has proven to be challangeing.  I have managed to shuffle everything into a way that will work out pretty well I think, but over all, this usually would not pass my anillity standards, although I am cutting myself a little slack as this is my first. (That last sentance had a lot of commas(I suck at english))  I have a few small pieces left that I need to tack together to make sure everything fits, then I will be breaking it all down and finish welding it, but for now, here it stands.

Tags: car, fabrication, manifold, turbo, welding

On day 7 our Rebecca and I pulled another sample of our wine.  It had finally reached SG 1.010.  TIME TO RACK!!!  I have a bunch of pictures but have only had a time to crop, resize and convert these to fit so figured I would post them up.  We went ahead and racked the wine into the secondary carboy.  I have decided that it is time to get a auto syphon.  Got myself a nice mouthfull and it definatlly is not ready for the drinking yet.  Hope you enjoy.  Check back soon as we will be starting the Gewurtzmienr as soon as Rebecca is feeling better.

Sort of looks like a huge Jug of Blood

This is me after accidently getting an early taste of the wine   I really need a hair cut!

Tags: alchohol, fermentation, merlot, Wine