Back to Newsletters KEYWORDS=vmware, virtual, host, hosting, merge, usignin, vista, xenix, cpio, tar, Davrom Consulting Newsletter - Issue # 36 - Dated: 6 Mar 2007 From the desk of David Clark I had hoped to get the newsletter out earlier in the year but there is never a quiet or dull moment in I.T. In this newsletter I would like to touch on some of the recent work solutions we have put in place and a neat little product a colleague alerted me to. I would like to thank the reader for their time in reading this newsletter. David.M.Clark UNIX Quote You asked me to comment on Vista, the answer is "No comment." - David.M.Clark VMWare It seems that the beginning of 2007 is our season for working with VMWare and I thought I would touch on basically what it is and where it may fit into your organisation. In a nutshell - VMWare allows you to run a complete copy of an operating system within another operating system. VMWare allows you to run Linux, UNIX and Windows within your hosting operating system (which could be running Linux, UNIX or Windows). The operating system(s) that you run from within VMWare are called "virtual machines" and occupy a section of hard disk space on the hosting operating system. An example is my Fedora Core 6 desktop running VMWare with SCO OpenServer 6 (OSR6) installed as one of my virtual machines. I manually boot up my OSR6 within my VMWare GUI on my desktop but I could also configure it to be started when VMWare itself starts on boot up. I have also installed Windows XP within VMWare as an experiment and I couldn't fault it. I was able to "Power On" my copy of Windows from the VMWare GUI and switch between Windows and my beloved Fedora at the touch of a keystroke. Each virtual machine has complete access to the devices on your local physical PC/server (CD-ROM, Floppy, Hard Disk (of course) and Network card). Where could you use this? If you have a legacy application that has specific requirements to run on a particular older version of SCO or Linux and you don't want the added expense of another server running in your organisation, you could install VMWare on Linux and then "virtual machine" host your other operating system. An example of this would be to run older versions of SCO OpenServer 5.0.x on Fedora Core/Suse under VMWare. Another would be to run RedHat 6 or 7 under RedHat Fedora Core. The virtual machines are network accessible and capable of functioning as if they were on their own hardware platform within your organisation. Those who are familiar with the SCO Merge product will find VMWare similar in methodology (Windows running within SCO). Some consideration to the older operating system being able to support the local hardware still exist with regards to SCSI and network cards, but for the most part seem to work well in most configurations we have been involved with. Under Linux/UNIX the virtual machines occupy directories under the normal filesystem structure so backing up is just a matter of copying these directories to your normal server/desktop backup media (tape, DVD, USB drive) - or you can backup directly from the virtual machine operating system directly to the backup media. An added bonus is that VMWare Server is free. http://www.vmware.com uSignIn Some weeks ago a colleague of mine alerted me to a great little product that may be useful for companies running Linux/UNIX servers within their organisations. We have all seen the "where are we" type of tracking systems hanging on the walls in most offices, normally maintained by the reception or administration staff, but what if everyone could find out where people are without having to leave their desk or phone the receptionist all of the time..... This is where uSignIn comes to the rescue. uSignIn allows you to post and track where staff are based on the traditional board system using your web browser pointed to a local server web page within your organisation. It allows you to set staff status (In, Out, Lunch, Sick, Vacation) and to post messages for staff for when they return - so goodbye to those little phone message books. This brilliant little US based product is a simple perl script with added features and there is a trial 10 user version (that's 10 possible people to track) available. Naturally the full product that retails around $99.00 USD gives unlimited staff entries and allows you to use the departmental facility as well. We have setup a demo site for you to sample so please feel free to visit: http://www.davrom.com/usignindemo/ If you would like to have a play with the Good Customer user on our demo website please e-mail us and we will send you the details. From the Trenches Some comic or not so comic relief from the support days gone by. Elevator Love In the mid 90's I was called to attend an issue on a Xenix system (SCO's first version of UNIX) hidden in the depths of a large building in Brisbane. The Xenix system was used to monitor and track the building's elevator system and I was quite impressed to see how well Xenix integrated into the building hardware and displays. By this stage Xenix was no longer a supported product although I was still working with sites running version 2.3.4 on older high end 486 computers. When I realised the version I was looking at was something like 2.1.3 (286 version) I exclaimed, "Wow, this is the oldest version of SCO Xenix that I have ever seen or touched.", to which the customer suggested that since it was such a thrill for me, perhaps they should send me an invoice instead of me billing them.... not a chance. Tech Tip Getting more info from your tape/system backup. Two main things I always want to know about a backup whether it is tar or cpio to a device, is what is the backup date and can I set a last file on the backup device? There are always two command the precede a backup command and they are: touch /tmp/BACKUP_07032007 touch /tmp/END_OF_BACKUP then in my commands to backup I would type something like: for SCO to tape drive: cd / find /tmp/BACKUP_07032007 . /tmp/END_OF_BACKUP -print | cpio -ocvB >/dev/rStp0 for Linux to tape drive: cd / find /tmp/BACKUP_07032007 . /tmp/END_OF_BACKUP -print | cpio -ocvB >/dev/st0 or cd / tar -cvzf /dev/st0 /tmp/BACKUP_07032007 . /tmp/END_OF_BACKUP In the above examples I can list back the tape and by the name of the first file I can determine the backup date and by checking that the last file on the tape is /tmp/END_OF_BACKUP, can expect that everything I needed to backup did actually fit onto the tape. Back to Newsletters 
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