The Sys Admin

I upgraded my Kubuntu desktop to v 9.10 with no major issues however the upgrade did break my VMWare Workstation installation. I found a post called Vmware Workstation 6.5.3 on Unbuntu Karmic 9.10 on the aldeby.org/blog that fixed my problem. They outlined what to do when the VMWare installation hangs and it worked for me.

My Kubuntu desktop is a Dell Inspiron with 4 gig of ram and a 500 gig drive. I have a bunch of VM’s that I use for testing. I run a Windows XP desktop, along with a RedHat EL5 installation for work and needed the both soon after upgrading to Karmic. Each attempt to re-install VMware workstation would hang until I found the post above.  I love my kubuntu desktop …

After a couple different hardware problems at work, I replaced my kubuntu desktop with a new Dell Optiplex GX755. This new PC has 4gig of ram and a 250gig hard drive. A clean install of Kubuntu went down nicely and I also installed the Gnome desktop to pull in many of the Gnome tools.

With extra memory and disk space I thought I would install VMware Workstation and have a couple of different OS’s available for testing. MIT has a license agreement with VMware so I went to the MIT software page and pulled down VMware Workstation 6.5.1. I extracted the tar image however I had a problem running vmware-config.pl. The make would not compile correct and I was getting many “cant find module errors”.

I pulled down the rpm version from the MIT site, installed alien and installed the VMware Workstation RPM as a Debian package, however the install finished ok, but executing /usr/bin/vmware prompted me to rerun /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl which lead to the same problem as above.

I googled the problem and noticed that others had problems with Ubuntu/Kubuntu 9.04 and VMware Workstation 6.5.1. Here is a list of others who had problems:

• https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/kubuntu-users/2009-April/042039.html
• http://communities.vmware.com/thread/183654
• http://wolfs-ubuntu.blogspot.com/2009/04/vmware-workstation-651-on-904.html
• http://www.nabble.com/VMware-W-6.5.1-Problem-on-Jaunty-td23232550.html

Finally I found VMware Workstation 6.5.2 for Linux on the VMware site and after pulling 6.5.2 down and installing the bundle, everything worked.

The bundle that I pulled down was VMware-Workstation-6.5.2-156735.i386.bundle and I executed it with this command

sh VMware-Workstation-6.5.2-156735.i386.bundle

VMware workstation 6.5.2 my problem and let me install Ubuntu Server, RHEL4 and RHEL5 in separate VM’s with no issues.

I wanted to share with you a great interview that I just listened to on Floss Weekly with Leo Laporte, Randal Schwartz and Jono Bacon.  Jono is the Community Manager for Ubuntu who was referred to by  Leo Laporte as a “Rock Star”.

Leo and Randal have many great Linux guests, however Jono was one of the best. I was a little behind on my podcasts as this interview occurred in mid April, but after listening to Jono’s podcast I was very impressed.  I was impressed with how down to earth Jono came across and how he worked thru problems without throwing his position and ego around.

If you are using Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution and want to listen to the history of Ubuntu and how the Ubuntu community has grown they I urge you to listen to Floss Weekly #65 with Jono Bacon.

Well, the move from Typepad to Wordpress is complete and I learned a bunch of things along the way. I learned that I could have more flexibility with my blogs and save money at the same time.  I decided to move all of my blogs to Wordpress and started with my kmmm.net blog which I move to the free version of Wordpress.

I was not that happy with this as the themes appeared limited and I was looking for a little more customization for my blogs. After looking at a couple different providers I decided to go with Dreamhost.com because I could host all of my domains in one location, had access to a shell account, and have the ability to customize my domains and apps.

So far so good, but please be aware that my rss feeds have changed so please update your feeds.

One down and two to go.  I hope you like to new look and feel.

I moved my syadmin.net blog to wordpress over the weekend so please update your RSS feeds and let me know if you have any issues.  Thanks and Take Care

Just testing the Typepad interface on the iPhone.

I started listening to the Java Posse podcasts and over Holiday break I have been listening to a bunch of older Java Posse podcasts, and came across a Java Posse interview with Ted Farrell from Oracle that I thought was worth mentioning. This interview was done in October 2008 and Ted spoke about the Oracle Developer Tool suite and the move from Oracle’s OC4J Application Server to the Weblogic Application server.

This is very appropriate for our group at MIT as we are looking at what our Application Server direction will be for the future. We have as large Application footprint using Oracle Application Server 10.1.2 and we are considering moving to either JBOSS or the new Oracle Weblogic Application Server. We have not started our real due diligence but hope to get to it by the second quarter of 2009, but between now and the time that this project really begins, I am trying to gather all the facts. At this point, it is obvious to all the Oracle is changing it’s application server direction away from OC4J and concentrating on the Weblogic Suite of products, so some sort of migration is in our future. I hope to share our plans with you all comments and input is welcome.

The Java Posse podcast is a great discussion about Java by 4 senior Software Architects: Tor Norbye (Sun Microsystems),  Carl Quinn (Google), Dick Wall (Navigenics), Joe Nuxoll (Navigenics) who have really helped me (an old system admin) to make to transition to more of a Software Application Manager/Administrator.

Here is a great Linux Admin blog with plenty of content for the both the beginner and the advanced Linux Admin. The name of the blog is nixCraft and it has been in my RSS reader for a while, and I wanted to share with you a couple of the scripts and links that I pulled out and have used.

The first is a quick and easy MySql database backup that you can put in cron to backup your MySql database. Many open source projects use MySql and it always pays to have a backup especially when upgrading, so take a look at this post called backing up your mysql database server.

The second script is a rsync replication script that we use between a couple of clustered web servers. The script is called resync backup replication script.

And the last example is for the beginner administrator. This post identifies a number of Unix/Linux commands and cheat sheets that was worthwhile to the new administrator.

If you are into Linux from a support or development perspective than I encourage you to take a look at the nixCraft site as I am sure that you will find something useful.

I am losing a great Linux/Application admin next week who is leaving MIT to pursuing a new opportunity with a startup. We will really miss him but at the same time we are happy for him and wish him well. His loss will impact our group so we are posting his position now in the hope that we can get someone in before the new year.

If you are a Linux or Application Administrator, live in the Boston MA area and are looking for a new opportunity, then consider looking at and applying for our new posting. We will not be able to sponsor anyone so you will need to be a US citizen or at least have a green card. Here is the job posting:

APPLICATION SUPPORT ENGINEER/ADMINISTRATOR, Information Services and Technology-Student and Administrative Information Services (SAIS), to manage many Linux/Java platforms consisting of Oracle Application Server and WebLogic application servers and portals in an application development environment. Will operate as a resource implementing project deployments, monitoring results, and working closely with UNIX administrators, software developers, DBAs, and project managers. Responsibilities include managing multiple production application server and database server environments; deploying, monitoring, and maintaining all Java platform components; managing the resolution of support requests, including service disruption and change requests; monitoring and taking action to maintain the specified quality-of-service standards; and working with project teams in scheduling requests throughout the project life cycle. Will join a truly collaborative team with a working style characterized by open communication and mutual respect.

REQUIREMENTS: three-plus years of experience administering production environments and working with development teams; experience managing multiple Java/web application environments; excellent communication skills; a demonstrated commitment to problem solving and quality; strong analytical and troubleshooting skills; a history of system monitoring and maintenance; strong Linux/UNIX systems administration experience and web application administration experience in Apache, WebLogic Application Server, or Oracle Application Server; and experience with shell/Perl scripting, networking, security (SSL/SSH, PKI, PGP, x509) and certificate management. Familiarity with Java/J2EE/Struts, Hyperion, and Kerberos desirable. MIT-00006088-O

If you have an interest in this position, please consider applying by going to the MIT HR Staffing Services page and applying for the Application Support Engineer/Administrator

I  know that I have really neglected this blog, but I plan on contributing here. When I started this blog, my team was supporting a large Windows environment, along with a small Unix AIX and Solaris environment. After joining MIT my focus has changed to primarily a Linux (RedHat Enterprise 4 and 5), Solaris, Ubuntu and JAVA Application servers.

I have been posting regularly to my “A Technical Manager’s Perspective” blog, but focusing on the emergence of WEB 2.0, along with the move toward Social Networking and Cloud computing, however I have been neglecting this blog. At the same time I have been doing so much with RedHat, Ubuntu and Java that I thought I would start documenting it here.

In the last year I have really become a Ubuntu Fanboy, and have already moved to the lastest version of “Ubuntu 8.10″ on my Ubuntu desktop. As my focus has shifted from a Windows environment to a Linux based environment, my Linux Desktop preference has also shifted from RedHat to Ubuntu. My primary desktop is a Dell 830 laptop running Windows XP with SecureFX, and X-Win32 for Linux access. My second desktop is an Ubuntu 8.10 desktop running KDE which provides me with an interface to my Linux and Solaris environments. From the Dell I use X-Win32 to open an xterm on my Ubuntu desktop, and then ssh into our Linux and Solaris environment. Both desktops are completely integrated and there are many times where I work right from the Ubuntu desktop as opposed to the XP desktop.

One of our biggest challenges is supporting our Java Application server environments, which consists of multiple Oracle Application Server’s, along with a group of older Weblogic servers, and a couple Tomcat instances. All three environments are ready for an upgrade but where do we go? Oracle purchased BEA Weblogic and is quickly standardizing on the Weblogic Application Server as opposed to their Oracle Application Server product. Do we go there, or should we look at some of the other big name vendors like SUN and IBM, or do we look at an Open solution with products like RedHat’s JBOSS or Apache’s Geronimo server ?

These are the questions that I am going to try and answer here. I am going to take a step back with my next post and identify many of the Java Application Servers that are available today and pull together a matrix of features. I also want to jump into installing some of these products, identify a couple of small applications that can be ported and tested in each product and share that with everyone.

Deployment, support, and cost are key factors in our decision making process, and I would like to get as much input on each product as possible. If you have any thoughts on which products and apps to use or the best way to test, then please feel free to send me a note or leave a comment on this post.