Archive
Posts from 2010
Sending commands to multiple Linux and Solaris machines through a single graphical shell window
I have been a long time user of clusterssh, which is a fanstastic tool for sending commands to multiple hosts. Inside each terminal window you can type a command, or you can use the master console to send a command to all of the windows you opened. The clusterit tools comes with a similar tool, dvt, which is quite similar to clusterssh. Dvt uses the CLUSTER variable just like dsh and company, and has a master console that allows you to send commands to each server in that list…
$ read more →Windows Server 2008 is a rather nice product
I've been crazy busy over the past few months. In addition to preparing for my RHCE exam in July, I have also been studying for the Microsoft Windows Server 2008 MCITP certification. This is a huge change for me, and I wouldn't have thought in a million years that I would be so focused on learning everything there is to know about Windows. But the reality is almost EVERY company out there runs Microsoft software, and to truly solve problems you need to know what each OS and application is capable of…
$ read more →Managing 100s of Linux and Solaris machines with clusterit
I use numerous tools to perform my SysAdmin duties. One of my favorite tools it clusterit, which is a suite of programs that allows you to run commands across one or more machines in parallel. To begin using the awesomeness that is clusterit, you will first need to download and install the software. This is as easy as: Once the software is installed, you should have a set of binaries and manual pages in /usr/local/clusterit…
$ read more →How to ensure sure you can boot if your initrd image has problems
I was playing around with some new kernel bits a few weeks back, and needed to update my initrd image. Having encountered various situations where a box wouldn't boot due to a botched initrd file, I have become overly protective of this file. Now each time I have to perform an update, I will first create a backup of the file: Once I have a working backup, I like to add a menu.lst entry that allows me to restore to a know working state: If my changes cause the machine to fail to boot, I can pick the backup menu entry and I'm off and running. If you don't want to pollute your menu.lst, you can also specify the initrd manually from the grub command menu…
$ read more →Checking for patch dependencies on Solaris 10 hosts
I've been debugging an odd issue with an 8 link (nxge interfaces) aggregation on a Solaris 10 host. When this issue rears its ugly head, one or more of the interfaces in the aggregation go offline. I'm still trying to track down if this is a Cisco or a Solaris issue, and have been patching the server to make sure all of the drivers are current. When I applied the latest aggr and nxge patches, I noticed that these patches required four additional patches: Required Patches: 127127-11 137137-09 139555-08 141444-09 (or greater) To see if these patches were applied, I fired up my old friend awk: All of the patches I needed were indeed applied, so I was able to apply the nxge and aggr patches without issue…
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