Month: November 2007

Update on GroundWork Open Source Installation

I do have a problem putting things down. Yesterday I wrote a post about updating to the latest version of GroundWork Monitor Open Source and the problem I had with resolving three service checks, local_mysql_database_nopw, local_process_gw_feeders, and local_process_snmptt. Today I fixed them and here’s what I did:

  1. To resolve the local_mysql_database_nopw alert I went to Nagios resource macro, USER6, and made its value null. This service check uses the value of USER6 as the mysql password. The mysql password is not set in the vmware appliance version so the correct answer is null.
  2. To resolve the local_process_gw_feeders alert I fixed the nagios2collage_eventlog.pl so that it would find the included files. Then I ran the perl file in the background. My final fix was to modify the run script in feeder-nagios-status folder to start up the eventlog.pl when the service is started. I think this is right place changed the service check parameters to allow 1 to 3 processes to be running. The eventlog process is a Pro feature.
  3. To resolve the local_process_snmptt alert I installed net-snmp and snmptt. Then I modified the parameters for this service check for this host so that it was happy with 2 to 3 services running.

The GroundWork server has been running for a couple of hours without alerts. Yea!

GroundWork Monitor Open Source

 

GroundWork Monitor Open Source 5.1

A complete availability monitoring solution that ensures IT infrastructure uptime while identifying issues before they become real problems. Unifies best-of-breed open source tools – Nagios, Nmap, SNMP TT, PHP, Apache, MySQL and more — through PHP/AJAX-based components and an integrated user interface to deliver the extensible functionality you require.

GroundWork Monitor Open Source

I finally got around to migrating my old version of GroundWork to the newest version, 5.1. GroundWork is a nice repackaging of Nagios and the 5.1 version includes some basic graphing in the free version via RRD. The paid support version has more sophisticated graphing and reporting and does a better job of interfacing with SNMP. I use the VM appliance since I am using this package to monitor a few web sites. It sends me an email when it sees a problem.

I was planning to write this post after I fixed three alerts, local_mysql_database_nopw, local_process_gw_feeders, and local_process_snmptt, on the local Linux server but I am going to turn these alerts off instead. I found the problems with the feeders(missing perl library) and snmptt was not installed but my fixes did not seem to hold. The system is running fine.

Blue Screen Stop Error – HELP!! – Desktop – BIOS – Dell Community Forum

Re: Blue Screen Stop Error – HELP!! (PCD5SRVC.pkms and Dell Support Center 2)

I find it strange that no one from Dell has addressed a root cause solution to Dell Support Center 2 which is the obvious cause to this problem.  Most users are uninstalling the software so their systems still work; pretty sure that was not Dell’s intent. 

I got same error on Dell Inspiron 6000, Windows XP Home

What I did:

1. Started system in safe mode (see Windows Help for how)

2. Went to My Computer, C: drive, Program Files and renamed “Dell Support Center” folder to “Dell Support CenterX”

3. Restarted computer in normal mode

4. After startup stabilized (and no blue screen), renamed folder back to “Dell Support Center”

5. Using Settings, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, I removed “Dell Support Center”

No problems now.

Blue Screen Stop Error – HELP!! – Desktop – BIOS – Dell Community Forum

Today I was struggling to install the Comodo firewall. The Comodo uninstall program does not work quite right. When I try to install a new version of the Comodo firewall it says that it is already installed. So I was searching the registry and removing any Comodo references. When I rebooted I got the blue screen stop error described above. It took me a while to figure this one out but removing Dell Support Center 2 did fix the problem. It also fixed another problem where the c:\program files\dell folder appears at startup.

Comodo™ Free Firewall Software Download

Comodoâ„¢ Free Firewall Software Download

I have been using the latest  version is 3.0 for several weeks now but have decided to go back to the previous version. Although the latest version has several new features that increase security, it does not allow me to make a VPN connection. I found the problem when I was trying the beta version but it still does not work in the released version. The released 3.0 version is too buggy for me. Today I got fed up with the crashes and installed the old version.

Configuring Subversion to use Apache SSL

My plan was to create a subversion repository on a Linux box(CentOS) to support the configuration files I use with a virtual machine running Groundwork Open Source. This took much longer than I expected. This procedure was more complicated than usual since the latest version of CentOS requires you to create a self-signed certificate the old way since genkey and crypto-utils are no longer available.

The first step is to install subversion and configure Apache. I installed subversion and the Apache server module, mod_dav_svn, using the package manager. 

  1. I wanted one repository.
  2. I wanted to see the projects in it by typing http://myserver.com/repos/.

My initial stumbling block was figuring out where to put the repository. After fumbling around looking for a recommendation I settled on /usr/local/svn as a logical choice. So I opened a terminal window as root and created the repository, repos, with the following command:

svnadmin create /usr/local/svn/repos
chown -R apache.apache /usr/local/svn/repos

Next I imported a template directory structure with subdirectories for branches, tags, and trunk that I use for all projects.

svn import project1 file:///usr/local/svn/repos/project1 -m "Initial import"

To configure Apache to support subversion you need to edit the /etc/httpd/conf.d/subversion.conf file. The biggest problem I had with the example in the subversion manual was figuring out that I needed to use SVNPath statement rather than the SVNParentPath statement. These are the changed I made in this file.

  1. Change the location to /repos.
  2. Added the statement SVNPath /usr/local/svn/repos
  3. Followed the directions in the subversion manual to set up basic http authentication.

After restarting the httpd service you should be able to browse the repository using your web browser. The final step was to set up the web server to support SSL using a self-signed certificate. I found several tutorials out on the web. They all follow the same general procedure.

  1. Generate your private key
  2. Generate your Certificate Signing Request
  3. Generate a new key from your private key without a PassPhrase. You need this to start apache web server without prompting.
  4. Move the certificate and the insecure key over to the /etc/httpd/conf directory and change the permissions on the files so that root is the only one who can read them(i.e. chmod 400).
  5. Edit the /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf file and tell it to use the new certificate and key file.

The tutorial I used was at http://www.xenocafe.com/tutorials/linux/centos/openssl/self_signed_certificates/.  The only change I made to this procedure was to add the “-new” parameter when I was creating a CSR. After restarting the httpd you should be able to browse your repository using https://myserver.com/repos/.

Obay Home » Blog Archive » Installing VMWare Player on Ubuntu

If you get the following error message:

/usr/lib/vmware-player/bin/vmplayer: /usr/lib/vmware-player/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2)

Apply the following fix

mv /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0.disabled
ln -sf /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0
mv /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1.disabled
ln -sf /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1

Obay Home » Blog Archive » Installing VMWare Player on Ubuntu

Yup, this works for Centos 5. I upgraded to Server 1.04 today and had to go back and fix things again. This is a different fix than the fix I used previously where I renamed the file and let Vmware find a suitable library. I am guessing that both solutions probably end up using the correct library but this solution looks like it is a more direct approach.

Windows Live Writer: Out of Beta

Thank you to everyone who tried out the beta releases of Writer over the last year and gave us feedback. Over 1.5 million of you downloaded our last beta release, and your input helped make Writer the product it is today. 

Our goal from the start has been to help make blogging more powerful, intuitive, and fun for everyone. Today, we’re proud to announce that Windows Live Writer 2008 is now available!

Download Writer 2008
Windows Live Writer 2008 (version 12.0.1366.1026)

Yea! I have been using this almost exclusively for my posts.

Windows Live Writer: Out of Beta