The SMBIOS specification allows applications and operating systems to retrieve and store hardware configuration settings. Retrieving hardware settings from a shell prompt can be extremely useful, since rebooting to view a given BIOS menu requires the machine to be taken offline. If you happen to be running Solaris 10 or Nevada, you can run the smbios utility to display the contents of the SMBIOS image on a machine:
$ smbios |more
ID SIZE TYPE
0 60 SMB_TYPE_BIOS (BIOS information)
Vendor: Sun Microsystems
Version String: S39_3B17
Release Date: 07/04/2007
Address Segment: 0xf000
ROM Size: 524288 bytes
Image Size: 65536 bytes
Characteristics: 0x17f8bde90
< ..... >
This is good stuff.
I just posted my article getting to know the Solaris iSCSI stack from the August ‘07 issue of SysAdmin magazine to my website. If you are looking to deploy Solaris iSCSI solutions in your environment, you might find the article useful.
Building and maintaining Apache chroot environments can be a royal pain. Creating a chroot environment for Apache requires you to first identify all the libraries and applications that are required to run the httpd processes. Once you identify the dependencies, you need to create a chroot environment that contains these files. After you successfully create the chroot environment, you need to update it when security and reliability updates are released. This can be a time consuming process, and even though several tools (e.g., mock, makejail, etc.) exist to ease this process, there is still a fair amount of work that needs to occur to get things running properly.
One way to get around the hassles of creating chroot environments is to use mod_chroot. Mod_chroot will issue the chroot() system call after the runtime linker loads dependent libraries, and Apache processes its configuration file and opens the access and error logs. Delaying the chroot() system call until after Apache is initialized can greatly reduce the amount of work required to configure the chroot environment, since libraries don’t need to be copied* into the jail, and logs and configuration files can live outside of the chroot environment.
Installing and configuring mod_chroot is a snap. To compile and install mod_chroot from source, you can use the apxs utility from the Apache installation you want to run in the chroot environment:
$ tar xfvz mod_chroot-0.5.tar.gz
$ apxs -cai mod_chroot-0.5/src/apache20/mod_chroot.c
This will compile mod_chroot and install it the Apache loadable modules directory. To configure mod_chroot, you will first need to add a “LoadModule” directive to your httpd.conf to load mod_chroot:
LoadModule chroot_module modules/mod_chroot.so
Next you will need to add a “ChrootDir” directive with the directory you want to chroot Apache to:
ChrootDir /var/chroot/apache
The chroot directory should contain the content your web server serves, and any dependencies that can’t be resolved prior to the web server starting. Configuration is extremely simple, though there are a few caveats to watch out for. The web server cannot be gracefully restarted unless the web server configuration file is moved into the chroot, and programs that lazily load shared libraries will fail. Mod_chroot is an incredible module, and can definitely make managing chroot environments a whole lot easier! Nice!
If a program uses dlopen() to load a library, you will need to copy the library into the chroot environment, or use the Apache “LoadFile” directive to load it at initialization time.
I recently created a live music social network on Ning. If your a fan of live music, or like to chat about music, I would like to welcome you to join the live tunes network. I plan to keep the site updated with music news and concert reviews, and hope to spark some fun discussions. Shibby!
It seems like only yesterday I heard Sunshine Highway on Radio Wazee, and wandered over to the radio stations website to see who sang the song. This chance encounter is what sparked my interest in The Dropkick Murphys. After perusing the bands CDs on iTunes, I decided to buy The Warrior’s Code. This turned out to be a phenomenal purchase, and peaked my interest in seeing the band live. After two years of waiting for the band to come to my home town, I finally got my chance to see them two months ago at a small local venue.
The night started with two punk bands opening the way for the Dropkick Murphys. I didn’t catch the name of the first band, but the second one was named the Horror Pops. Both bands sounded good, and it was awesome seeing live punk. Once the Horror Pops went off stage, I could feel the energy in the venue rising. As soon as the Dropkick Murphys started into their opening song, the place came alive, and you could immediately tell that the band was was going to deliver a stellar performance. They did just that, and they sounded incredible when they belted out their hits “Tessie,” “I’m Shipping Up To Boston,” “The Warrior’s Code,” “Citizen C.I.A” and a number of other tunes I didn’t jot down. I had an incredible time, and am looking forward to seeing these guys play another show! Niiice!