2006-12-22 22:41:00
Thanks to a link on the MacFreak fora I stumbled onto a great blog post explaining why ZFS is actually a big deal. The article approaches ZFS from the normal user's angle and actually did a good job explaining to me why I should care about ZFS.
Real nice stuff and I'm greatly looking forward to Mac OS X.5 which includes ZFS.
kilala.nl tags: apple, unix, other tech, sysadmin,
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2006-12-22 09:00:00
As I promised a few days ago I'd also give you guys the quick description of how to add a new LUN to a Tru64 box. Instead of what I told you earlier, I thought I'd put it in a separate blog post instead. No need to edit the original one, since it's right below this one.
Adding a new LUN to a Tru64 box with TruCluster
1. Assign new LUn in the SAN fabric.
No something I usually do.
2. Let the system search for new hardware.
hwmgr scan scsi
3. Label the "disk".
disklabel -rw $DISK
4. Add the disk to a file domain (volume group).
mkfdmn $DISK $DOMAIN
5. Create a file set (logical volume).
mkfset $DOMAIN $FILESET
6. Create a file system.
Not required on Tru64. Done by the mkfset command.
7. Test mount.
Mount.
8. Add to fstab.
vi /etc/fstab
Also, if you want to make the new file system fail over with your clustered application, add the appropriate cfsmgr command to the stop/start script in /var/cluster/caa/bin.
kilala.nl tags: work, unix, studying, sysadmin,
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2006-12-20 20:20:00
The past two weeks I've been learning new stuff at a very rapid pace, because my client uses only a few Solaris boxen and has no Linux whatsoever. So now I need to give myself a crash course in both AIX and Tru64 to do stuff that I used to do in a snap.
For example, there's adding a new SAN device to a box, so it can use it for a new file system. Luckily most of the steps that you need to take are the same on each platform. It's just that you need to use different commands and terms and that you can skip certain steps. The lists below show the instructions for creating a simple volume (no mirroring, striping, RAID tricks, whatever) on all three platforms.
Adding a new LUN to a Solaris box with SDS
1. Assign new LUN in the SAN fabric.
Not something I usually do.
2. Let the system search for new hardware.
devfsadm -C disks
3. Label the "disk".
format -> confirm label request
When using Solaris Volume Manager
4. Add the disk to the volume manager.
metainit -f $META 1 1 $DISK
5. Create a logical volume.
metainit $META -p $SOFTPART $SIZE
6. Create a filesystem
newfs /dev/md/rdsk/$META
7. Test mount.
mount $MOUNT
8 Add to fstab.
vi /etc/vfstab
When using Veritas Volume Manager
4. Let Veritas find the new disk.
vxdctl enable
5. Initialize the disk for VXVM usage and add it to a disk group.
vxdiskadm -> initialize
6. Create a new volume in the diskgroup.
Use the vxassist command.
7. Create a file system.
newfs /dev/vx/rdsk/$VOLUME
8. Test mount
mount $MOUNT
9. Add to vfstab
vi /etc/vfstab
Adding a new LUN to an AIX box with LVM
1. Assign new LUN in the SAN fabric.
Not something I usually do.
2. Let the system search for new hardware.
cfgmgr
3. Label the "disk".
Not required on AIX.
4. Add the disk to a volume group.
mkvg -y $VOLGRP -s 64 -S $DISK
5. Create a logical volume.
mklv -y $VOLNAME -t jfs2 -c1 $VOLGRP $SIZE
6. Create a filesystem
crfs -v jfs2 -d '$VOLNAME' -m '$MOUNT' -p 'rw' -a agblksize='4096' -a logname='INLINE'
7. Test mount
mount $MOUNT
8 Add to fstab.
vi /etc/filesystems
Adding a new LUN to a Tru64 box running TruCluster
I'll edit this post to add these instructions tomorrow, or on Friday. I still need to try them out on a live box ;)
Anywho. It's all pretty damn interesting and it's a blast having to almost instantly know stuff that's completely new to me. An absolute challenge! It's also given me a bunch of eye openers!
For example I've always thought it natural that, in order to make a file system switch between nodes in your cluster, you'd have to jump through a bunch of hoops to make it happen. Well, not so with TruCluster! Here, you add the LUN, go through the hoops described above and that's it! The OS automagically takes care of the rest. That took my brain a few minutes to process ^_^
kilala.nl tags: work, unix, studying, sysadmin,
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2006-12-14 11:37:00
This morning I went to my local Prometric testing center for my LPI 101 exam (part one of two, for the LPIC-1). On forehand I knew I wasn't perfectly prepared, since I'd skipped trial exams and hadn't studied that hard, so I was a little anxious. Only a little though, since I usually test quite well.
Anywho: out of a maximum of 890 points I got 660, with 500 points being the minimum passing grade. Read item 2.15 this page to learn more about the weird scoring method used by the LPI. It boils down to this: out of 70 questions I got 61 correct, with a minimum of 42 to pass. If we'd use the scoring method Sun uses, I'd have gotten an 87%. Not too bad, I'd say!
I did run into two things that I was completely unprepared for. I'd like to mention them here, so you won't run into the same problem.
1. All the time, while preparing, I was told that I'd have to choose a specialization for my exam: either RPM or DPKG. Since I know more about RPM I had decided to solely focus on that subject. But lo and behold! Apparently LPI has _very_ recently changed their requisites for the LPIC-1 exams and now they cover _both_ package managers! D:
2. In total I've answered 98 questions, instead of the 70 that was advertised. LPI mentions on their website (item 2.13) that these are test-questions, considered for inclusion in future exams. These questions are not marked as such and they do not count towards your scoring. It would've been nice if there had been some kind of screen or message warning me about this _at_the_test_site_.
Anywho... I made and now I'm on to the next step: LPIC-102.
kilala.nl tags: work, unix, lpi, awesome, sysadmin,
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2006-12-12 22:38:00
Version 1.0 of my LPIC-101 study notes is available. I bashed it together using the two books mentioned below. A word of caution though: this summary was made with my previous knowledge of Solaris and Linux in mind. This means that I'm skipping over a shitload of stuff that might still be interesting to others. Please only use my summary as something extra when studying for your own exam.
I'm up for my exam next Thursday, at ten in the morning. =_=;
Oh yeah... The books:
Ross Brunson - "Exam cram 2: LPIC 1", 0-7897-3127-4
Roderick W. Smith - "LPIC 1 study guide", 978-0-7821-4425-3
kilala.nl tags: work, unix, lpi, writing, studying, sysadmin,
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All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Tess Sluijter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.