I'm heading to France tomorrow.
After quitting my job with Silpion, in order to work on realizing some of my own ideas, and do some freelance work to fincance this, I decided that I need a holiday to get some fresh air into my head.
Eventually, I came up with the idea to learn a sport that always fascinated me since I noticed it: surfing (without the "wind", a.k.a. riding on waves).
I'm really excited about this, I really don't know if I will make this - it's really a tough sport, as far as I see, and also quite a bit dangerous, if you don't take care. But that's exactly what's so fascinating about it.
In addtion to that, I will go to this trip totally alone (although not the very first tome for me going on holiday alone, it's unusual to go without Maria), and I'll do mostly camping. Only for the last week, when I'll be visting Rene Mages, a friend from OpenSource stuff, and active FFII guy agains software patents.
Alright, let's go! :)
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Qype: Cuore mio Manuela u. Lidio in Hamburg
Hamburg - Restaurants - Italienisch & Pizza
Da ich gerade einen Eintrag hier mit sehr schlechter Bewertung gesehen habe, will ich auch hierzu etwas sagen:
Ich gebe zu, seit meinem ersten Besuch, der schon fast 10 Jahre her ist, hat das Restaurant etwas nachgelassen, im Vergleich zu meinem aktuellen Lieblings-Italiener Picoletto zum Beispiel.
Die individuelle Speisekarte, die es nicht in Druckform, sondern nur als Tafel gibt, wurde bei meinen ersten Besuchen immer noch von der Chefin selbst vorgelesen und erklärt, das Ambiente, und auch der süße Garten sind super-gemütlich.
Das Essen war immer hervorragend, der Preis adäquat, wenn auch etwas gehoben.
Punktabzug gibt es, weil bei den letzten Besuchen die Karte nicht mehr vorgelesen und erklärt wurde, und die Bedienung beim letzten Mal nicht sehr aufmerksam war.
Und wir bekamen, obwohl auch mehrgängig gespeist, im Gegensatz zu anderen auch keinen Abschiedsschnaps wie sonst üblich.
Ich tippe einfach auf Überlastung - hier scheint bei vollem Garten und Haus einfach eine Angestellte zu fehlen - die gute Chefin wird ja auch nicht jünger, und war bisher, als ich da war, immer allein zu Werke.
Trotzdem, bei gehobenem Preis darf das nicht vorkommen, daher zwei Punkte Abzug allein dafür.
Mein Beitrag zu Cuore mio Manuela u. Lidio - Ich bin lazylava - auf Qype
Qype: Montesardo, Giovanni "Ristorante-Pizzeria-Picoletto" in Hamburg
Hamburg - Restaurants - Italienisch & Pizza
Ein Genuss - und dabei so gemütlich und lecker!
Jahrelang bin ich immer wieder an diesem Restaurant vorbeigegangen, und habe gedacht, was das wohl für ein Laden ist, so ungemütlich an einer befahrenen Straße gelegen.
Als ein Freund es mir einmal empfohlen hat, sind wir das erste mal hingegangen - und es war perfekt!
Natürlich gibt es zum günstigen Preis eine super Pizza-Auswahl, aber dazu jede Menge anderer italienischer Spezialitäten, und immer eine Tageskarte, die die super-freundliche Bedienung aus dem Kopf vorträgt.
Überhaupt ist neben der Qualität des Essens die Bedienung hervorragend - hier wartet man nicht lange, einen Wunsch von den Augen abgelesen zu bekommen, und es ist immer ein "Klönschnack" (was auch immer das auf italienisch heißen mag) dabei.
Besseres Essen, ein freundlicheres Ambiente, und eine aufmerksamere Bedienung kann man, meiner Meinung nach, lange suchen - und das zu einem mehr als fairen Preis!
Mein Beitrag zu Montesardo, Giovanni "Ristorante-Pizzeria-Picoletto" - Ich bin lazylava - auf Qype
Monday, August 25, 2008
regarding enterprise distribution security
At some points, I was wondering, if it really is that good to use only te free and community-built Debian distribution on my servers, because I've become sceptic with at least two issues: one was when Debian security updates were delayed because of lacking manpower, and the other was when it has been uncovered that there was a patch introduced in the changes of the Debian OpenSSL maintainer, that actually made the software produce insecure ssh keys.
So, at so me point I thought that "enterprise" distributions (doe it actually mean distributions made *for* and enterprise or *by* an enterprise?) might give better a better warranty to let such things not happen.
But, here's a proof and an actual case that things like that happen in those enterpeise distributions, too: Redhat hat an intruder in their network, who seemingly even managed to introduce malicious or changed code and signatures into the openssh package!
Doesn't really sound too promising, I guess. As well as the fcact, that the enterprise sponsored Ubuntu distribution was also hit by the Debian openssl-bug - so they don't really take do additional security reviews or whatever for their packages - mainly, they just take what debian gives them...
So, there's not much reason to go to an enterprise distribution, but probably technical ones, if they occur. Currently, I keep being happy with Ubuntu on my Laptop, but sticking with Debian on servers, even though I have to admit, that Redhat and Suse deliver some interesting technology parts, which I like to look at.
Ubuntu for Servers still sounds strange to me, and I don't see the reasoning behind that. I'd support and help customers who insist on using it like that, but when asked, I'd always recommend Debian as the dpkg-based distribution of choice when talking servers.
So, at so me point I thought that "enterprise" distributions (doe it actually mean distributions made *for* and enterprise or *by* an enterprise?) might give better a better warranty to let such things not happen.
But, here's a proof and an actual case that things like that happen in those enterpeise distributions, too: Redhat hat an intruder in their network, who seemingly even managed to introduce malicious or changed code and signatures into the openssh package!
Doesn't really sound too promising, I guess. As well as the fcact, that the enterprise sponsored Ubuntu distribution was also hit by the Debian openssl-bug - so they don't really take do additional security reviews or whatever for their packages - mainly, they just take what debian gives them...
So, there's not much reason to go to an enterprise distribution, but probably technical ones, if they occur. Currently, I keep being happy with Ubuntu on my Laptop, but sticking with Debian on servers, even though I have to admit, that Redhat and Suse deliver some interesting technology parts, which I like to look at.
Ubuntu for Servers still sounds strange to me, and I don't see the reasoning behind that. I'd support and help customers who insist on using it like that, but when asked, I'd always recommend Debian as the dpkg-based distribution of choice when talking servers.
"Russicher Frieden"
Ganz ehrlich, natürlich überblicke ich nicht alle Hintergründe dessen, was dort in Georgien gerade abläuft (vielleicht wird die Veranstaltung Was ist los im Kaukasus? daran ja was ändern?) .
Trotzdem, zutiefst erschrocken war ich, als ich letzten Mittwoch in der NDR Sendung "Zapp" gesehen habe, wie russische Soldaten gezielt und massiv auf Journalisten schießen - und zwar nicht in Einzelfällen, sondern allein in dieser Sendung wurden 5 oder sechs solcher Fälle gezeigt!
Auch wird weiterhin, obwohl die Russen seit Tagen sagen, sie ziehen aus dem Gebiet ab, wir weiter über Kampfhandlungen und anderes berichtet.
Ich finde das alles sehr beängstigend! Können wir überhaupt was dagegen tun, dass das russische Militär macht was es will? Sind wir nicht schon völlig von deren fossilen Brennstoffen abhängig, mal abgesehen von der atomaren Bedrohung, die solch ein Staat darstellt?
Jedenfalls, das Wort "Russischer Frieden" wird gerade in unserem Haushalt ein geflügeltes - was es bedeutet, kann man sich leicht ausrechnen, wenn man sich diesen sogenannten Waffenstillstand anschaut...
Trotzdem, zutiefst erschrocken war ich, als ich letzten Mittwoch in der NDR Sendung "Zapp" gesehen habe, wie russische Soldaten gezielt und massiv auf Journalisten schießen - und zwar nicht in Einzelfällen, sondern allein in dieser Sendung wurden 5 oder sechs solcher Fälle gezeigt!
Auch wird weiterhin, obwohl die Russen seit Tagen sagen, sie ziehen aus dem Gebiet ab, wir weiter über Kampfhandlungen und anderes berichtet.
Ich finde das alles sehr beängstigend! Können wir überhaupt was dagegen tun, dass das russische Militär macht was es will? Sind wir nicht schon völlig von deren fossilen Brennstoffen abhängig, mal abgesehen von der atomaren Bedrohung, die solch ein Staat darstellt?
Jedenfalls, das Wort "Russischer Frieden" wird gerade in unserem Haushalt ein geflügeltes - was es bedeutet, kann man sich leicht ausrechnen, wenn man sich diesen sogenannten Waffenstillstand anschaut...
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
IOC against piratebay
LOL - there seem to be some people who actually believe that there are really many people copying the videos of the openinc ceremony in beijing, and the IOC really has the courage to request the swedish government for help in that case.
Wasn't it said, that in China, it actually is a compliment to be copied, because it shows that the stuff you did is good???
Wasn't it said, that in China, it actually is a compliment to be copied, because it shows that the stuff you did is good???
Typing breaks - good for the back, and RSI
Typing breaks are no only good for RSI-prevention, but also, I feel much better in my back, actually didn't have any problems with it, since I do regular screen/typing breaks.
I have set the "Typing break" in the Gnome Keyboard preferences to pause for 4 minutes every 90 minutes. I just stand up from my chair, walk around a little, and go on working.
Sometimes I suspend the breaks multiple times because I want to keep going, but alltogether, I'm doing my breaks.
Other interesting programs that help with these breaks:
I have set the "Typing break" in the Gnome Keyboard preferences to pause for 4 minutes every 90 minutes. I just stand up from my chair, walk around a little, and go on working.
Sometimes I suspend the breaks multiple times because I want to keep going, but alltogether, I'm doing my breaks.
Other interesting programs that help with these breaks:
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Mal wieder mein Freund Mehdorn: "Wir machen schon so viel Gewinn, darum werden wir teurer"
Die Bahn wird mal wieder teurer, obwohl sie Ihren Gewinn deutlich gesteigert hat.
Kann man noch unverschämter werden?
Will er uns wirklich zwingen, doch lieber dreimal zu überlegen, ob wir lieber mit günstigen und leicht zu buchenden Flügen die Luft verpesten, statt umweltschonend Zug zu fahren?
Über solche Dreistigkeit kann man sich einfach nur ärgern, als zahlender Kunde, der sich größte Mühe gibt, treu zu bleiben...
Hat man eigentlich als Bürger, als der man ja quasi Miteigentümer eines solchen Staats-Unternehmens ist, eine Möglichkeit, darauf Einfluss zu nehmen, wann dieser Mann endlich gefeuert wird?
Kann man noch unverschämter werden?
Will er uns wirklich zwingen, doch lieber dreimal zu überlegen, ob wir lieber mit günstigen und leicht zu buchenden Flügen die Luft verpesten, statt umweltschonend Zug zu fahren?
Über solche Dreistigkeit kann man sich einfach nur ärgern, als zahlender Kunde, der sich größte Mühe gibt, treu zu bleiben...
Hat man eigentlich als Bürger, als der man ja quasi Miteigentümer eines solchen Staats-Unternehmens ist, eine Möglichkeit, darauf Einfluss zu nehmen, wann dieser Mann endlich gefeuert wird?
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Deutsche BAHN - no Bonus points for good customers
So,
I bought a Bahncard 100 from Deutsche Bahn AG - a Ticket with which you can ride most of their trains for free, for one year - for the price of around 3000 Euro.
The Bahn AG also has a Bonus program, where normally, Bahncard customers get 1 point for every Euro they pay. Last week I asked one of their representatives on the phone, why they forgot to give me points for my travel to France for around 266 Euro.
The counter-woman said: "Because you didn't get a Bahncard rebate on this travel to France".
Clearly - because I get no cheaper ticket, meaning, I pay MORE, I also get no bonus points as a thank you! You only get Bonus points if you pay LESS!!!
I also don't get any bonus points for the ticket I just bought for my sister to come to Hamburg.
When informed via mail about my (still unchanged ) bonus points account, I asked again to clarify this, and after some mails back and forth, I got the clear answer:
"Nach Überprüfung Ihrer Daten sind Sie im Besitz einer BahnCard 100. Sie können mit dieser BahnCard keine weiteren Punkte Sammeln. "
It means, once you spent 3000 Euros, you'll not get any further bonus points. No way.
Yeah, my beloved Bahn, Mr. Mehdorn - I know you'll tell me know, that this all is actually good for me, and like with every "price adjustment" that happens twice or trice a year, this is only for my own benefit - clearly!
But, you know what? I don't believe it! You don't get satisfied and happy customers by telling them, if you spend more than 3000 Euro on them, they eventually stop to give you bonus points for additional things you buy from them. This is not an incentive to stay your customer, it's an incentice to feel kicked in the ass by you and go away.
I wonder how long I'll keeping my ground rule top avoid flying as much as possible - traveling by train is made so hard for the passengers and customers - they kick you in the ass for being their customer, they make buying tickets and getting pricing information as difficult as possible(especially the latter is even iworse in France, Belgium and England, as far as my experience goes, but anyway) - I guess the railway companies just don't want us to be their customers...
They want to go public on the stock exchange, sell out everything they have, which comes from the state, and then go under, because they just cannot compete with the service and ease of air travel.
I bought a Bahncard 100 from Deutsche Bahn AG - a Ticket with which you can ride most of their trains for free, for one year - for the price of around 3000 Euro.
The Bahn AG also has a Bonus program, where normally, Bahncard customers get 1 point for every Euro they pay. Last week I asked one of their representatives on the phone, why they forgot to give me points for my travel to France for around 266 Euro.
The counter-woman said: "Because you didn't get a Bahncard rebate on this travel to France".
Clearly - because I get no cheaper ticket, meaning, I pay MORE, I also get no bonus points as a thank you! You only get Bonus points if you pay LESS!!!
I also don't get any bonus points for the ticket I just bought for my sister to come to Hamburg.
When informed via mail about my (still unchanged ) bonus points account, I asked again to clarify this, and after some mails back and forth, I got the clear answer:
"Nach Überprüfung Ihrer Daten sind Sie im Besitz einer BahnCard 100. Sie können mit dieser BahnCard keine weiteren Punkte Sammeln. "
It means, once you spent 3000 Euros, you'll not get any further bonus points. No way.
Yeah, my beloved Bahn, Mr. Mehdorn - I know you'll tell me know, that this all is actually good for me, and like with every "price adjustment" that happens twice or trice a year, this is only for my own benefit - clearly!
But, you know what? I don't believe it! You don't get satisfied and happy customers by telling them, if you spend more than 3000 Euro on them, they eventually stop to give you bonus points for additional things you buy from them. This is not an incentive to stay your customer, it's an incentice to feel kicked in the ass by you and go away.
I wonder how long I'll keeping my ground rule top avoid flying as much as possible - traveling by train is made so hard for the passengers and customers - they kick you in the ass for being their customer, they make buying tickets and getting pricing information as difficult as possible(especially the latter is even iworse in France, Belgium and England, as far as my experience goes, but anyway) - I guess the railway companies just don't want us to be their customers...
They want to go public on the stock exchange, sell out everything they have, which comes from the state, and then go under, because they just cannot compete with the service and ease of air travel.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Open-OVF
In a Xen blog entry some days ago I just read about the Open-OVF Format initiative.
Would be cool to also include Virtualbox (or, if Sun would also implement support for such a format in virtualbox), as here it's still a major pain to package and distribute VM's for others - and there, on the desktop market, it is even much more important to make sharing easier than on the server.
For Xen I see, having support for such a format in the OpenSource version, an a nice and easy to use Desktop GUI, well working ACPI support - Xen could really get a grip on the Desktop/Workstation virtualization market...
Would be cool to also include Virtualbox (or, if Sun would also implement support for such a format in virtualbox), as here it's still a major pain to package and distribute VM's for others - and there, on the desktop market, it is even much more important to make sharing easier than on the server.
For Xen I see, having support for such a format in the OpenSource version, an a nice and easy to use Desktop GUI, well working ACPI support - Xen could really get a grip on the Desktop/Workstation virtualization market...
Thursday, August 14, 2008
0wning Xen - interesting Xen Security publication
Joana Rutkowska and colleagues gave three interesting talks at this year's Black Hat conference about security of the Xen Hypervisor.
I also wrote a bit more about it in the Xen.org blog.
I also wrote a bit more about it in the Xen.org blog.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
I'm a xen.org blogger now :)
I've just received my account for the Xen.org blog, and did my first posting, announcing Ganeti.
I know, in some posts on this personal blog here, I've been bashing Xen quite a bit, and I'll never stop criticizing stuff I don't like, anywhere.
But I'm still running Xen on quite some machines, and I still like the way some things work with this virtualization technology, so I will have some interesting remarks to do about it.
And the fact that there is a community manager, paid by Citrix, who really takes many of my rants very serious, and even hands me the key to the Xen.org blog, is quite a good sign to me.
Stay tuned :)
I know, in some posts on this personal blog here, I've been bashing Xen quite a bit, and I'll never stop criticizing stuff I don't like, anywhere.
But I'm still running Xen on quite some machines, and I still like the way some things work with this virtualization technology, so I will have some interesting remarks to do about it.
And the fact that there is a community manager, paid by Citrix, who really takes many of my rants very serious, and even hands me the key to the Xen.org blog, is quite a good sign to me.
Stay tuned :)
Saturday, August 09, 2008
PXE boot with KVM
While trying to boot KVM virtual machines via PXE, for testing of FAI on the developer workshop, I had some time to search for a solution to get this working.
It turned out, that the package maintainers remove the PXE boot images intentionally (to get rid of blobs):
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kvm/+bug/193531
The workaround: download KVM sources (from sourceforge, which seems totally broken today), build it, and copy the image to the kvm directory:
cp -a ./qemu/pc-bios/pxe-rtl8139.bin /usr/share/kvm/
You can then boot kvm with the option -boot n, and it tries to do an PXE boot.
It turned out, that the package maintainers remove the PXE boot images intentionally (to get rid of blobs):
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kvm/+bug/193531
The workaround: download KVM sources (from sourceforge, which seems totally broken today), build it, and copy the image to the kvm directory:
cp -a ./qemu/pc-bios/pxe-rtl8139.bin /usr/share/kvm/
You can then boot kvm with the option -boot n, and it tries to do an PXE boot.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Download.com is advertising GPL software downloads!
Very interesting!
It sounded so interesting, I even clicked on a link on my own website (which google ads actually forbids - but hey, here I continue the ad for free!):
Download.com is financing google ads, as well as a nicely and professional designed download page
For nothing else but the Audacity Audio editing tool, available on many platforms, GPL licensed.
The difference seems to be that Download.com is selling support plans, to help people use the software.
Very interesting model, especially for such a consumer-grade software. (yes, I know, it has professional features, but such an ad looks more like "audio editing for everybody").
It sounded so interesting, I even clicked on a link on my own website (which google ads actually forbids - but hey, here I continue the ad for free!):
Download.com is financing google ads, as well as a nicely and professional designed download page
For nothing else but the Audacity Audio editing tool, available on many platforms, GPL licensed.
The difference seems to be that Download.com is selling support plans, to help people use the software.
Very interesting model, especially for such a consumer-grade software. (yes, I know, it has professional features, but such an ad looks more like "audio editing for everybody").
Report from the virtualization workshop at Linuxhotel, Essen/Germany
Last weekend, we had a fantastic virtualization hacking workshop at the Linuxhotel in Essen/Germany.
Here's my report on what I and others did there:
I built a FAI USB Stick for Installation of Debian Etch base systems to test Ganeti installation from Scratch
I did an upgrade of an installed Debian Etch system to sid, to be able to test the latest version of libvirt. Here, I realized, that there are some problems with the upgrade from Etch to sid, started again from a newly installed system, and realized that the Etch-Lenny upgrade didn't work either. I know, I have to try it again, from the start on, and create a proper bug report, so this can be fixed, but didn't come that far yet.
In the meantime, I did also a proper Lenny Install with Lenny D-I beta2, which worked well. I wanted to use this VM to test libvirt with qemu inside. Here I realized a bug in Ubuntu's KVM packages, which I reported. While doing so, I realized bug reporting in launchpad is not always obvious and intuitive (if you chose kvm at the very start, you cannot report bugs - you have to chose ubuntu first, and then go to kvm - logical once you know it, as it's about kvm package in Ubuntu, not upstream, but hard to find out once you're in that trap)
And Ubuntu's reportbug has a bug which leads to not being able to report bugs - see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/reportbug/+bug/44116
Until that weekend, me, and many others, thought there is no working XenLinux patch for Kernels >=2.6.24, but another participant showed me there is one in Ubuntu. The word goes it is not a solution for dom0 with paravirt_ops, but "only" a forward port of the XenLinux patches from XenSource/Citrix, which they themselves do not release for newer versions than 2.6.18.
I watched, with great joy, how Oliver and Michael did set up a live migration with KVM - which even worked from a 32 bit Intel System to a 64 bit AMD system, easily - admittedly, once on 64 bit, the system wouldn't migrate back again, still impressive.
Then, I realized, that in opposition to earlier tests, suspend to RAM, and especially waking upo after that, did not work too properly on Ubuntu, once I had some VM's running.
Later I discovered, the system works much more stable if I don't use the -rt kernel - it seems that as virtualbox, and kvm virtualization make the system unstable when used in conjunction with thet -rt kernel - I have to report a bug about that.
I showed Ingo how to use xen-tools and FAI combined on his rootserver to set up Xen guests.
I worked quite some time on Ganeti 1.2.5 Installations from sources, on Debian Etch with backports, and was a bit disappointed - it didn't work so easy and out of the box as I had it when I played with it the last time. I had some troubles with ssh keys as well for setting up a new instance, and for adding a new node to the cluster. While I got an instance running, I never got a second node to the cluster. Probably this hint will help: http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/wiki/ClusterKeysReplacement . One problem with Ganeti I realized: it seems the project never got proper traction among non-google people. For user, that means, there is not much community support, basically, if you have trouble outside google office times, your out of luck. Against all odds, I created a more minimal install howto, with comments in German: http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/wiki/GanetiInstallGermanShort
Stuff the others did(from the final status meeting):
Oli did test some Xen stuff on Ubuntu, and it still has some rough edges.
Peter did test the newly free of cost available VMWare ESX and played around with Xen stuff
Matthias wanted to get Libvirt, KVM and Redhat Cluster Manager running nicely together - Which was not too successful. There where still problems with fencing that could not be solved - machines did shut down their counterparts in the node for unclear reasons. Apart from that he helperd Thomas with OpenQRM packaging for Debian.
Guido worked on USB support for libvirt, and could send a patch upstream - even with support for handing over files on the host as USB devices on the guests.
Frank di work on getting D-I, he Debian Installer, running in a paravirtual Xen guest. That worked quite nice, but there where troubles getting the resulting system booted with libvirt and pygrub - it worked when using ext2 instead of ext3 as filesystem...
Florian also tested Xen on Ubuntu - which lead to quite some trouble, especially in conjunction with an Nvidia Graphics adapter. Apart from that, he worked on building Debian packages of VMWare for his infrastructure, for easier installation.
A Hint from Oli for the graphics problem on Ubuntu/Xen/Nvidia: disable restricted drivers before installing and booting Xen - that works much better.
Jacqueline had similar problems with Ubuntu and graphic cards, but finally got it solved, unfortunately the solution wasn't easily reproducible. So Oli's hints seem,s to be working fine. She also helped with the packaging stuff.
Thomas worked mainly on the OpenQRM packages for Debian, being supported by many useful hints from knowledgeable Debian Developer's Guido and Matthias. He learned a lot about proper Deb packaging that way.
Ingo got Xen guests on his rootserver set up with xen-tools and FAI, and got into the complex topic of writing your own vif-script(s) for Xen - so he can have specific vif rules for each vm being started - for example leading to have very clean firewall rules which are only active when the vm needing these rules is really up, and being remove when it is shut down.
Interesting, great proposal from Guido: We had a meeting with a bunch of quite knowledgeable people, and tested the edges of the usefulness of open source virtualization for real production, and high performance, well-managed usage. In virtualization, there are some things that work, and some that don't, and often enough it's a matter of having the right combination of Hardware, base OS virtualization technology, management tools for your usage scenario at hand. We should try to somehow preserve, document, and advance this know how, because then, not everybody has to try out each possible combination of the above to see where and how his own usage wishes can be fulfilled.
What could be the next steps to go from here, especially regarding the last idea:
The next steps would be, to decide for a place to host that stuff (jpberlin came to my mind, otherwise probably a small VPS at hosteurope?), and a name for the initiative(mostly just to have a nice URL to be reached).
How about "vm-knowledge-center.org" - (hmm, too long, most likely)?
Here's my report on what I and others did there:
I built a FAI USB Stick for Installation of Debian Etch base systems to test Ganeti installation from Scratch
I did an upgrade of an installed Debian Etch system to sid, to be able to test the latest version of libvirt. Here, I realized, that there are some problems with the upgrade from Etch to sid, started again from a newly installed system, and realized that the Etch-Lenny upgrade didn't work either. I know, I have to try it again, from the start on, and create a proper bug report, so this can be fixed, but didn't come that far yet.
In the meantime, I did also a proper Lenny Install with Lenny D-I beta2, which worked well. I wanted to use this VM to test libvirt with qemu inside. Here I realized a bug in Ubuntu's KVM packages, which I reported. While doing so, I realized bug reporting in launchpad is not always obvious and intuitive (if you chose kvm at the very start, you cannot report bugs - you have to chose ubuntu first, and then go to kvm - logical once you know it, as it's about kvm package in Ubuntu, not upstream, but hard to find out once you're in that trap)
And Ubuntu's reportbug has a bug which leads to not being able to report bugs - see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/reportbug/+bug/44116
Until that weekend, me, and many others, thought there is no working XenLinux patch for Kernels >=2.6.24, but another participant showed me there is one in Ubuntu. The word goes it is not a solution for dom0 with paravirt_ops, but "only" a forward port of the XenLinux patches from XenSource/Citrix, which they themselves do not release for newer versions than 2.6.18.
I watched, with great joy, how Oliver and Michael did set up a live migration with KVM - which even worked from a 32 bit Intel System to a 64 bit AMD system, easily - admittedly, once on 64 bit, the system wouldn't migrate back again, still impressive.
Then, I realized, that in opposition to earlier tests, suspend to RAM, and especially waking upo after that, did not work too properly on Ubuntu, once I had some VM's running.
Later I discovered, the system works much more stable if I don't use the -rt kernel - it seems that as virtualbox, and kvm virtualization make the system unstable when used in conjunction with thet -rt kernel - I have to report a bug about that.
I showed Ingo how to use xen-tools and FAI combined on his rootserver to set up Xen guests.
I worked quite some time on Ganeti 1.2.5 Installations from sources, on Debian Etch with backports, and was a bit disappointed - it didn't work so easy and out of the box as I had it when I played with it the last time. I had some troubles with ssh keys as well for setting up a new instance, and for adding a new node to the cluster. While I got an instance running, I never got a second node to the cluster. Probably this hint will help: http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/wiki/ClusterKeysReplacement . One problem with Ganeti I realized: it seems the project never got proper traction among non-google people. For user, that means, there is not much community support, basically, if you have trouble outside google office times, your out of luck. Against all odds, I created a more minimal install howto, with comments in German: http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/wiki/GanetiInstallGermanShort
Stuff the others did(from the final status meeting):
Oli did test some Xen stuff on Ubuntu, and it still has some rough edges.
Peter did test the newly free of cost available VMWare ESX and played around with Xen stuff
Matthias wanted to get Libvirt, KVM and Redhat Cluster Manager running nicely together - Which was not too successful. There where still problems with fencing that could not be solved - machines did shut down their counterparts in the node for unclear reasons. Apart from that he helperd Thomas with OpenQRM packaging for Debian.
Guido worked on USB support for libvirt, and could send a patch upstream - even with support for handing over files on the host as USB devices on the guests.
Frank di work on getting D-I, he Debian Installer, running in a paravirtual Xen guest. That worked quite nice, but there where troubles getting the resulting system booted with libvirt and pygrub - it worked when using ext2 instead of ext3 as filesystem...
Florian also tested Xen on Ubuntu - which lead to quite some trouble, especially in conjunction with an Nvidia Graphics adapter. Apart from that, he worked on building Debian packages of VMWare for his infrastructure, for easier installation.
A Hint from Oli for the graphics problem on Ubuntu/Xen/Nvidia: disable restricted drivers before installing and booting Xen - that works much better.
Jacqueline had similar problems with Ubuntu and graphic cards, but finally got it solved, unfortunately the solution wasn't easily reproducible. So Oli's hints seem,s to be working fine. She also helped with the packaging stuff.
Thomas worked mainly on the OpenQRM packages for Debian, being supported by many useful hints from knowledgeable Debian Developer's Guido and Matthias. He learned a lot about proper Deb packaging that way.
Ingo got Xen guests on his rootserver set up with xen-tools and FAI, and got into the complex topic of writing your own vif-script(s) for Xen - so he can have specific vif rules for each vm being started - for example leading to have very clean firewall rules which are only active when the vm needing these rules is really up, and being remove when it is shut down.
Interesting, great proposal from Guido: We had a meeting with a bunch of quite knowledgeable people, and tested the edges of the usefulness of open source virtualization for real production, and high performance, well-managed usage. In virtualization, there are some things that work, and some that don't, and often enough it's a matter of having the right combination of Hardware, base OS virtualization technology, management tools for your usage scenario at hand. We should try to somehow preserve, document, and advance this know how, because then, not everybody has to try out each possible combination of the above to see where and how his own usage wishes can be fulfilled.
What could be the next steps to go from here, especially regarding the last idea:
- Set up a wiki (or other tools, e.g. for structured storage and display of evaluation and testing criteria and results)
- Create a mailinglist for further comunication between the participants
- Organize and encourage concerted, targeted and documented Testing
The next steps would be, to decide for a place to host that stuff (jpberlin came to my mind, otherwise probably a small VPS at hosteurope?), and a name for the initiative(mostly just to have a nice URL to be reached).
How about "vm-knowledge-center.org" - (hmm, too long, most likely)?
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Nice vim and console Tips from Ingo
The VM-Workshop at the Linuxhotel in Essen, Germany is a great success again.
Ssitting together with a bunch of knowledgeable and very nice people, hacking on all kinds of virtualization-realted stuff, there are, as always, some nice side effects in learning fine things.
Ingo Wichmann, the CEO, showed me two of them:
On the console, if you need to correct a previouls entered long command, use:
"fc", to load it into vim edit it to your needs, and run it by closing vim with ":wq"
Another nice thing I learned is text completion in vim. It can be achieved by typing the first letter(s) of a new word, and typing-n. A word mathing the startiung letters, or a choice of multiple will be shown to you.
Defintely not all that was to learn and build here - see the full report in some days, here in the same channel :)
Ssitting together with a bunch of knowledgeable and very nice people, hacking on all kinds of virtualization-realted stuff, there are, as always, some nice side effects in learning fine things.
Ingo Wichmann, the CEO, showed me two of them:
On the console, if you need to correct a previouls entered long command, use:
"fc", to load it into vim edit it to your needs, and run it by closing vim with ":wq"
Another nice thing I learned is text completion in vim. It can be achieved by typing the first letter(s) of a new word, and typing
Defintely not all that was to learn and build here - see the full report in some days, here in the same channel :)
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