Brainshare 2010 Advisory Board

On Coolsolutions there is a call for help for people to take place in a advisory board for Brainshare 2010.

As you al know, Brainshare 2009 was canceled because of the econimic situation at the moment. So Novell thinks this is a good time to review the concept of Brainshare. There are a few options:

1. Leave Brainshare as it is.
2. Leave Brainshare as it is but in a different place.
3. Recreate the complete Brainshare.

If you want to participate, you can sign up until 30 April. So be quick!

I personally would like to see that Brainshare Europe got back. For me it’s a long and expensive trip to Salt-Lake City and so a extra reason to not go to Brainshare in Salt Lake. If it would be again in Cannes or Barcelona I would go every year!

But I must say: Yeah for Novell to asked us (normal IT people) how to shape Brainshare in the future.

Site Offline

Most of you probably have noticed that my site was off-line until a half a hour ago.

My provider did a server upgrade and reset my entire DNS entries to default. So not only my site was off-line, also my email. Luckily for me after a phone call the restored a backup of my DNS entries so everything should be OK now.

So if you have send me a email. You probably got a messages back that the email could not be delivered. So please resend the email.

Update: ARGHHH!!! My provider only modified the domain wilmsenit for me. Not all my other domains!!! So after a angry phone call the modified all my other domain. Now we have to wait till it’s synchronized!!!

Create a LVM Snapshot partition

I’m modifing my Groupwise backup script to make use of LVM snapshot so the downtime off my Groupwise system is reduced. Like many other, I prefer a off-line backup of my Groupwise system.

The scripts is very simple:

• Groupwise is shutdown
• TAR makes a backup of my Groupwise directory including all Groupwise config files. The filename of the TAR file is extended with a date of the backup.
• Groupwise is started
• Backup file is moved to a NFS share on a different server and checked for errors
• Backupfile older than 14 day’s are removed

The disadvantages off this script is that the bigger the Groupwise database gets, the longer it’s down!

So by making use of LVM snapshots I hope to reduce the down time.

So how to create a LVM snapshot? First we’re going to create the LVM volume for Groupwise.
First we have to create a LVM partition. I’m going to use fdisk for this:

# fdisk /dev/sdb
Press n for a new partition
Press P for a Primary partition
Press 1 for the first partition
Give the first block and the last block for the partition
Press t in the main menu to change the partition’ system id.
Give 8e for LVM
Press w to write the partition table to disk

Ok,  now we have a empty LVM partition. Now where going to create a LVM Physical Volume.

# pvcreate /dev/sdb1
Physical volume “/dev/sdb1” successfully created

Create a LVM Volume Group called Groupwise.

# vgcreate VG_Groupwise /dev/sdb1
Volume Group “VG_Groupwise” succesfully created

You can check with vgdisplay to verify the volume group

Next where going to create a Logical Volume of 10G called LV_Groupwise

# lvcreate -L10G -nLV_Groupwise VG_Groupwise
Logical volume “LV_Groupwise” created

And final add a filesystem to the Logical Volume. I’m using EXT3 for Groupwise.

# mkfs.ext3 /dev/VG_Groupwise/LV_Groupwise

I will spare you the detail of the output.
If the filesytem is created you can mount the Logical Volume on a mount point. I’m using /grpwise.

# mount -t ext3 /dev/VG_Groupwise/LV_Groupwise /grpwise

To make sure that the LVM volume is mounted a boot time, make sure you add the line to /etc/fstab

Ok, now we have a working LVM volume. So how are we going to create a snapshot of this volume?
Make sure that the LVM Volume Group has some free space to keep track of the changes made to the original Volume Group will the snapshot is active. How much? This depends on the amount of changes to you Groupwise system.
The snapshot will be mounted on /gwbackup.

# lvcreate -L1G -s -n GWBackup /dev/VG_Groupwise/LV_Groupwise
Logical volume “GWBackup” created

# mount /dev/VG_Groupwise/GWBackup /gwbackup

Now, we can make a backup of the Groupwise database.
After the backup unmount the volume and remove the snaphot.

# umount /gwbackup

# lvremove /dev/VG_Groupwise/GWBackup
Logical Volume “GWBackup” removed

What really is nice that while the snapshot is active, you can use this snapshot for a Restore Area for your Groupwise system. Nice!

VMware View and Novell ZENworks Configuration Management presentation

Tomorrow I’m going to give a Novell ZENworks configuration Management 10 presentation voor de Training Center I often work for.
It’s a introduction session about the working of ZCM10 but it pretty much covers the whole architecture including some demo’s because I’m a piratical guy.

Then Thursday, it’s VMware View Time. This is a very exciting product from VMware.
This is also a introduction session about the working of VMware View.

If anyone want to have the presentation I made, leave a reply and I will send them to you. Note: They are in Dutch….. 😉 If there is enough intressed I will translate them to English.

VMware View Material

Maybey some of you noticed that the last weeks I haven’t posted as many blog as normal. This is because I’m evaluating VMware View. And this takes a lot of my time. You can find the material by clicking on the top on “VMware View” or on this link.

I’m evaluating VMware View to develop a presentation and a course for a Customer of mine.

So if you live in the Netherlands. Next week the presentation is in Eindhoven and in may it’s in Amsterdam.

Please provide me with comment so I can fine tune the material. Thanks!