New_boy
A bit of that and the other
The wait is over IPMItool for windows is here!!
Yes
after some waiting the tool for windows is here...
IPMItool 1.8.8 for Microsoft Windows 2003 with Sun IPMI System Management Driver Support
http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=46f1ff04
IPMItool 1.8.8 for Microsoft Windows 2003 with Sun IPMI System
Management Driver Support provides the open-source IPMItool application
built natively for Microsoft Windows 2003.
This version adds
two interfaces to ipmitool: (1) "ms" - allows communication over the
KCS interface using the IPMI driver included in the Hardware Management
add-on in the R2 Windows 2003 release; and (2) "ism" - allows
communication over the KCS interface using the Sun IPMI System
Management (ISM) Driver, for use in Windows 2003 systems where R2 is
not installed. This driver can be downloaded from:
http://www.sun.com/download/products.xml?id=46f20289.
Also
provided in this release is ipmived, which can be used to receive ILOM
events over the KCS interface and write them to the Windows System
Event Log. Refer to the README.pdf in this distribution for information
on installing and using ipmievd.
Check it out...
Posted at 11:15πμ Οκτ 03, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Personal | Comments[0]
Overlook on my hometown after the fires
The fires are still in full blow
they are now away from my hometown as there is nothing more to burn.
The above picture is linked from a photo-collage from www.in.gr which reserves the rights to the image.
And its just a sample of the situation.
My condolences to the families who lost their loved ones.
Posted at 02:34μμ Σεπ 06, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Personal | Comments[1]
Pay me to help you...
This is just too <put your own word here> not to post
We should actually claim money or extra services for reporting spammers
Thoughts are welcome.
Posted at 07:51πμ Μαρ 27, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Personal | Comments[0]
white trash computing -- where is my container
Seems like the idea of "white trash" computing is catching up like wildfire in the mainstream market.
After last years announcement about project blackbox there are at least another two vendors that came to my attention offering similar projects.
APC and their InfrastruXure Express
and Rackable Systems with their Concentro offering.
Although not an entirely new idea, the industry takes the old bespoke- custom only static solutions of the 90's to a new "off the shelf" idea.
Personally i do now have any experience with any of the above mentioned systems for obvious reasons.
As Jonathan recent entry about moving a petabyte of data, i can see how this type of systems could actually make a diference for a few industries and their time to market. Imagine filming in remote parts of the world you dont have to send it back to the studio you can edit away on the spot.
The only limitation to all is that one needs to have water and power to be 100% mobile, maybe there will be "addons" in the projects where you have a water container and another two containers one containing diesel and the other diesel generators.
My favourite segment for this would be global motorsport.
Come on formula 1..
Posted at 04:20πμ Μαρ 27, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Sun | Comments[2]
Breaking news Ian Murdock to join sun
Needles to say a good choice, although i do not know what exactly he is gonna be doing but it good to have him onboard,
Who knows maybe apt/dpkg is gonna be in solaris ( yes keith your dream will come true)
In a single line
Linux foundation, debian founder etc,etc if you have followed any opensource linux project i am sure you have bumped into his name.
Let me say welcome onboard sir,
More details from his blog
http://ianmurdock.com/2007/03/19/joining-sun/
Posted at 05:51μμ Μαρ 19, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Sun | Comments[1]
PQA
In a great tradition that started last year,
this week we are holding the first 2007 Pivo Quality Assurance meeting, pivo means beer in czech.
It all started due to everyones hectic schedules last year and us moving to our new building in chodov.
Usually in the old building after work we would stop to a pub for a beer or two, as it was next to the tram and metro lines.
But on the new building there is no pub so it was a bit of an effort to make diversions on the way home.
So every so often we would meet up on a pub/restaurant, enjoy the beers and each others company.
The QA came into play as we never go out for the purpose of drinking ... we just "sample" and make sure it is in the appropriate standards
Previous locations include in no particular order
http://www.pizza-azzurra.cz/
http://www.52.cz/
http://www.novinky.cz/pocasi/
http://www.npivovar.cz/
and a few other i cant remember cant find links for.
Next is happening this week
See you all there guys.
Posted at 06:55πμ Μαρ 19, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Personal | Comments[0]
SPOT aka small programmable object technology
Maybe kinda late but i bumped into this project driven by our sun labs
http://www.sunspotworld.com/
Since its friday i dont expect to get any responce back so i will satisfy my curiosity
on monday by getting more internal info if possible.
Posted at 09:26μμ Φεβ 09, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Sun | Comments[0]
How to mount your supplemental cd that comes for your servers.
There was a question of how one could view the changelog of the bios/ipmi for the
supplemental cd's we provide by avoiding burning the cd and dropping to a dos prompt.
Here is the quick guide with duplicate of the troubleshooting guide.
It applies for ultra20,ultra 40,x2100,x2200 (normal and M2 versions)
go to sun.com on the download page, login and accept the agreement
You need to accept the agreement to give you the proper link,
right click save link location
Then go to your terminal and do
/usr/sfw/bin/wget " link_location" -O blabla.iso
It will download to your $pwd that you run the command from.
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># lofiadm -a /export/supp.cds/u40_1.4a.iso
/dev/lofi/1
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># mount -F hsfs /dev/lofi/1 /mnt
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># cp /mnt/boot.img /export/u40_1.4a.img
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># lofiadm -a /export/u40_1.4a.img
/dev/lofi/2
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># umount /mnt
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># mount -F pcfs -o ro /dev/lofi/2:c /mnt
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># more /mnt/flash/bios/latest/changes.txt
--------------------------<< Release >>---------------------------------
v1.40 - Date : 09/15/2006
> - Checksum : 0xD109 (BIOS140.ROM)
- Checksum : 0x5C8B (BIOS140.WPH)
Now the troubleshooting part
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># lofiadm
Block Device File
/dev/lofi/1 /export/u40_1.4a.iso
/dev/lofi/2 /export/supp.img/u40_1.4a.img
Lets check the file now
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># file u40_1.4a.img
u40_1.4a.img: DOS executable (COM)
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># fstyp -v u40_1.4a.img
unknown_fstyp (no matches)
Conflicting information lets see what strings tells us.
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># strings u40_1.4a.img | grep -i torito
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
EL TORITO SPECIFICATION
Ok so file was correct and it is a el torito dos disk lets go
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># mount -F pcfs /dev/lofi/2 /mnt
mount: I/O error
<snip>
>va64-v20zc-prg06<root># truss mount -F pcfs /dev/lofi/2 /mnt
execve("/sbin/mount", 0x08047E50, 0x08047E68) argc = 5
.......
sigaction(SIGINT, 0x08047D10, 0x08047D90) = 0
mount("/dev/lofi/2", "/mnt", MS_DATA|MS_OPTIONSTR, "pcfs", 0x08063640,
12, 0x080631C4, 1024) Err#5 EIO
mountwrite(2, " m o u n t", 5) = 5
: write(2, " : ", 2) = 2
I/O errorwrite(2, " I / O e r r o r", 9) = 9
write(2, "\n", 1) = 1
_exit(32)
</snip>
something does not seem right.
<snip>
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># mdb u40_1.4a.img <<EOF
> 0,10000::dump -g 1
> EOF
\/ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f v123456789abcdef
0000: eb 25 45 53 55 4b 02 00 03 00 04 00 00 00 28 43 .%ESUK........(C
0010: 29 32 30 30 34 20 45 55 52 4f 53 4f 46 54 20 28 )2004 EUROSOFT (
0020: 55 4b 29 20 4c 54 44 fa 33 c0 8e c0 8e d0 bc 00 UK) LTD.3.......
0030: 7c fb b8 c0 07 8e d8 bb 00 06 8b 36 08 00 b8 01 |..........6....
0040: 02 8b ce ba 80 00 bf 03 00 53 56 57 cd 13 5f 5e .........SVW.._^
0050: 5b 73 09 33 c0 cd 13 4f 75 e4 eb 12 3b 36 0a 00 [s.3...Ou...;6..
0060: 74 07 46 81 c3 00 02 eb d5 ea 00 00 60 00 be 83 t.F.........`...
0070: 00 8a 04 0a c0 74 0a b4 0e bb 07 00 cd 10 46 eb .....t........F.
0080: f0 eb fe 44 49 53 4b 20 52 45 41 44 20 45 52 52 ...DISK READ ERR
0090: 4f 52 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 OR..............
00a0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00c0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00d0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00e0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
00f0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0100: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0110: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
</snip>
Aha partition header
so the working cmd should look like
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># mount -F pcfs /dev/lofi/2:c /mnt
va64-v20zc-prg06<root># ls /mnt
COMMAND.COM IBMDOS.COM config.sys psfru wipedisk
DOS OPENDOS.386 diags readme.1st
IBMBIO.COM autoexec.bat flash readme.txt
Posted at 07:06μμ Φεβ 04, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Personal | Comments[0]
windows on solaris w00t? The true desktop
now how cool is this,
after the post from thinman i just had to try it.
I got myself the latest nv build and upgraded my box, installed sunray so i can see the performance over sunray as well.
Installation is gonna finish pretty soon. Gonna do a follow up tomorow to tell how it feels.
I hope i can get rid of my windows install since i could run the necessary voip apps from within solaris.
The fact that you can now have the best of the 3 worlds on your solaris desktop is a major plus
Solaris+brandz+win4solaris just perfect!!!!!!!
Posted at 02:01πμ Ιαν 16, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Sun | Comments[5]
the all new iphone
While browsing earlier tonight i got nudged by many about the mighty new iphone.
In all honesty i have heard about it before but never paid any attention since i am not that crazed about mp3 players and mobile phones.
But out of curiosity i had to check it.
Except the funky slick design and what seems to be a nice interface there was nothing to be excited about.
And my points are battery 5hrs talk/video/browsing or 16 audio playback (edited). we need to find out how long it will standby.
Storage is plenty 4/8gb but still no mention if this is shared between phone/camera/ipod.
But the most suprising of all is that it runs on macos X or so the website claims, maybe we should port solaris for the iphone.
I shall take a deeper look into it during weekend if they have one in our local stores.
Answers to comments.
the wiki page is on some codepage who is not recognised by my browser.
The where i heard it the answer is simple.. the whole intraweb was buzzin with stories about it since september i recall even seen a link from a french newspaper which had the alleged design on front cover couple of months back.
thanks for the pointer about the standby. still i feel from my own experience with ipod mini that battery can go pretty fast when playing around,
ofcourse if you have an iphone that you are willing to send me, i would not mind to be proved wrong 
Posted at 12:44πμ Ιαν 10, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Personal | Comments[1]
Remote capabilities
Recently i have been working on a problem involving desktop machines.
Been remote is never easy, but i have to admit Paul and his team have made it easier than ever.
I was part of the lab team when i first started working for sun so i am aware of the capabilities but coming to the side of the user, it just perfect.
Needing special configs with various operating systems, i was able to be up and running for my tests within 1 hour.
Get the test plan, use our booking tool, use our custom jumpstart script and via the ip-kvm (they are desktops remember) install them over the network.
20 minutes later they were all ready by which time the lab team moved to do the necessary upgrades. Nice and simple, custom configs hardware and software within 1 hour been thousands miles away.
Thanks guys
Posted at 11:49πμ Ιαν 09, 2007 by Ioannis Psyllas in Sun |
Prague in the morning
Beginning a new category, i decided to start with the appropriate pictures.
Sunrise in prague from charles bridge (6:30 am)
Posted at 10:52πμ Δεκ 30, 2006 by Ioannis Psyllas in Prague | Comments[0]
Getting up to speed with bloging
After a discussion,
i had with a friend i was convinced that i should get myself blogging with all the bells and whistles,
meaning i would have to read the manual of what our roller allows..
Or maybe not just blog and see if its broken :>
HA!
-
After the well spotted comment i got the star office "plugin",
although it still complains about the word "blogging"
Maybe i need an update on my spell checker since
www.dictionary.com tells me that
intr.v. blogged, blog·ging, blogs
To write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog.
On the other hand my spell checker suggests i should use
bulging
–verb (used without object)
4. to swell or bend outward; be protuberant.
5. to be filled to capacity: The box bulged with cookies.
–verb (used with object)
6. to make protuberant; cause to swell.
Ahh a major update is needed indeed.
Posted at 06:57μμ Δεκ 28, 2006 by Ioannis Psyllas in Personal | Comments[1]
Open doc... w00t? Yes open documentation, do we even need it?
I was working an escalation on an amd opteron workstation today, and while doing the basic elimination of known issues i just realised how lucky i am that i could easily access amd erratum pages.
Just go to amd.com choose product > processor > technical documentation and then revision guide
for example
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf
A nice simple pdf with all the known/public issues that amd has acknoledged,
in my case the customer was hitting erratum 154 with an incorrect diode ofset and was loging temperature events, that had already been documented in out internal bugster and the fix was already available.
That got me thinking does the big player intel have the same policy?
Tried google and the intel site and all i got was some old pentium sparse erratas, there was a collection of them on drdobs wesite as well but nothing official.
After a quick search on google i found no5 hit
http://www.sparc.com/standards/v9-errata.html
which lists more than 90 erratas for sparc v9 arch and in combination with sunsolve/opensparc.net
i found more than plenty bugs etc.
I was compelled to actually see if this is usefull information for anyone, and i realised after asking a few friends it is not. For the pure reason if you get hardware misbehaving you replace it.... I was quite amazed
how could people look for bugs/mistakes only in software when hardware/firmware could total your system.
This gave me an idea for the future to blog about techniques to investigate hardware failures.
Now the topic, since it all about openess i couch for open documentation for erratas, i have read endless stories about chipsets and bios "features" that annonyed many people.
And yes i leave myself wide open and i can see comments coming back saying you are not open etc etc.
Would be glad to hear as its good to know the other side.
Posted at 09:00πμ Δεκ 21, 2006 by Ioannis Psyllas in Sun | Comments[0]
Can i tune my solaris? And not only
Last night on a discussion abou having consistent settings along reboots or systems,
i realised that my friend was unaware of the importance of /etc/system file.
Without trying to reinvent the wheel and to keep this entry short, there is a very nice document called
solaris tunable parameters reference manual
And is located
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs?q=&p=doc%2F806-4015
-ip
Posted at 07:25πμ Δεκ 20, 2006 by Ioannis Psyllas in Sun | Comments[0]
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