Fedora 14 Release Schedule Finalized !!

Fedora 14 “Laughlin” is scheduled to be released in late October or early-to-mid November. The first alpha release of Red Hat’s Fedora 14 is expected in mid-August. Fedora 14 is expected to ship with X.Org Server 1.9, GCC 4.5, and offer many other package updates and new features.

2010-05-25     Fedora 13 Release
2010-07-13     Feature Submission Deadline
2010-07-27     Feature Freeze–Planning & Development Ends
2010-07-27     Branch Fedora 14 from Rawhide
2010-08-03     Software String Freeze
2010-08-03     Alpha Change Deadline
2010-08-17    Alpha Release
2010-08-31     Software Translation Deadline
2010-09-07     Beta Change Deadline
2010-09-21     Beta Release
2010-10-11     Final Change Deadline
2010-10-12     Compose Release Candidate
2010-10-26     Fedora 14 Final Release

How to access ILOM from within Linux Host ?

1) Check for below packages
#rpm -q hpasm
#rpm -q hprsm
#rpm -q hponcfg

if they are not installed follow below instructions to install those packages

Install latest version of
hpasm, hprsm and hponcfg packages from below hp web url for specified model and OS version

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/index.html


3)Then start hpasm service followed by hprsm.

#servce hpasm start
#service hprsm start
#hponcfg -?
if it throws any firmware related error
then download latest firmware (ILO online firmware) from above link
#sh


wait for 2 minutes to get ILO reset

4)Then execute below command to view the ILO configuration

#hponcfg -w /tmp/ilo -l /tmp/ilo_log

#cat /tmp/ilo output contains ILO configuration

5)To add user to the ILO.

#hponcfg -f add_user.xml -l /tmp/ilo_log

Below is the add_user.xml customized script. keep this script in current working directory

Below is the command for to change the network parameters
#hponcfg -f network_mod.xml -l /tmp/ilo_log

Below is the network_mod.xml customized script. keep this script in current working directory and change the
ipaddress, netmask,gateway,speed and duplex parameters in the below script as per your requirement.

Note:In HP web site u will get ILO driver for ESX and Linux for each server model.

Install it and run following commands to see the ILO IP of the machine. No need of reboot.

#hponcfg -w /tmp/ilo -l /tmp/ilo_log
#cat /tmp/ilo

Fedora 13 Beta Released Last Week !!

Anyone who gave a try to the new Fedora 13 Beta.
Few new features which I appreciate:

1. NetworkManager Command Line
2.Enhanced NFS Client IPv6
3.System Rollback With Btrfs
4.Zarafa - Zarafa Outlook Sharing is a Microsoft Exchange replacement

Installing Mac Fonts on Ubuntu 10.04

Installing the fonts:

1. From the Linux terminal, download Mac fonts with this command:

$ wget http://ubuntu-debs.googlecode.com/files/macfonts.tar.gz

2. Untar or extract the downloaded file:

$ tar zxvf macfonts.tar.gz

3. Move macfonts folder to the /fonts directory:

$ sudo mv macfonts /usr/share/fonts/

4. Reload the font cache:

$ sudo fc-cache -f -v

Using the fonts:

You can now test or use the fonts by going to System --> Preferences --> Appearance, and then clicking on the "Fonts" tab. Here is a sample setup on using theMac fonts:

Application font: Lucida MAC 10
Document font: Lucida MAC 10
Desktop font: Lucida MAC 10
Window title font: LucidaMacBold 10
Fixed width font: Lucida Console 10

Minimum RAM for Fedora 13 beta?

As a rule of thumb, I wouldn't go one byte less than 512MB for 32-bit, or 1GB for 64-bit.

More realistically, 1GB is a probably a good "minimum RAM" to start with for any GUI OS (32- or 64-bit), then increase as-needed. People might disagree, but it's honestly my experience that if you really need to have less than 1GB RAM ... then you probably shouldn't be considering a Gnome or KDE desktop. If you don't have enough RAM, you should probably consider a server (e.g. text-mode) environment, or a distro like Puppy Linux (which supports REALLY tiny memory footprints!), or Ubuntu Remix.

How to test Multicast Packet Filtering?

Today morning I started my day testing with Multicast Packet Filtering. I had Ubuntu 9.10 and CentOS 5.4 in my VM running over ESX 4.1.I decided to make CentOS as Client and Ubuntu as server for the setup.

First of all, I downloaded iperf as yum was not feeling well today(just kidding).
Its simple to install,download the package and install. Luckily, I dint get any dependency hell.

On Ubuntu Box:

SERVER MACHINE
=====================================

sudo iperf -s -u -B 224.0.65.68 -i 1
--------------------------------------

server listening on UDP port 5001
Binding to local address 224.0.65.68
Joining multicast group 224.0.65.68
UDP Buffer size: 120 Kbytes(default)
------------------------------------------

[ 3] local 224.0.65.688 port 5001 connected with 10.112.173.86 port 38577
[ 3] 0.0.-1.0 sec 128 KBytes 1.05 Mbits/sec 0.228 ms 0/ 89 (0%)
...
...

On CenTOS Box(Client):



iperf -c 224.0.65.68 -u -T 5 -t 5
----------------------------------
Client connecting to 224.0.65.68, UDP port 5001
sending 1470 byte datagrams
setting multicast TTL to 5
UDP buffer size: 126 KBytes(default)
------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 10.112.173.86 port 38577 connected with 224.0.65.68 port 5001
[ 3] 0.0- 5.0 sec 642 Kbytes 1.05 Mbits/sec
[ 3] Sent 447 datagrams


1.It clearly shows that multicast address is 224.0.65.68.
e.g. server> iperf -s -u -B -i 1

This will have the iperf servers listening for datagram (-u) from the address (-B multicast address), with a periodic interval of 1s (-i 1)

2. Configure the client VM, connecting to the multicast group address and setting the TTL (-T, --ttl) as needed
e.g. client> iperf -c -u -T 5 -t 5

This will have the client connected to the multicast address (-c multicast address), with a TTL of 5 (-T 5), sending data for 5 seconds
NOTE: Use tcpdump or ethereal on server VMs to capture and analyze IP packets and ensure its validity.

Run the test for 120 sec.

That's it..
You Have just finally tested Multicast packet Filtering.

Have a Cool Rainy Weather in Bangalore.

Quick Command Reference: List Loaded Drivers on Linux?

driverquery is the command on Windows to get list of drivers. In the same way, on Linux we have lsmod which lists the drivers installed on the box.

lsmod is a program to show the status of modules in the Linux Kernel. lsmod is a trivial program which nicely formats the contents of the /proc/modules, showing what kernel modules are currently loaded.

Example: lsmod of a typical ESX 4.1 Box could show:

[root@esx]# lsmod
Module Size Used by
nfs 245688 2
lockd 68016 2 nfs
nfs_acl 3904 1 nfs
edd 10696 0
ppdev 10056 0
parport_pc 28584 0
i2c_dev 10696 0
i2c_core 23128 1 i2c_dev
sunrpc 162248 11 nfs,lockd,nfs_acl
ipt_REJECT 6080 0
xt_tcpudp 3520 0
ipt_LOG 6656 0
x_tables 17096 3 ipt_REJECT,xt_tcpudp,ipt_LOG
parport 41100 2 ppdev,parport_pc
nvram 8456 0
sg 36520 0
vmxnet_console 23360 1
vmnixmod 789052 56 vmxnet_console