Jul/090
Apple claims jailbreaking iPhones may give tools to terrorists
Wierd is reporting that Apple claims that jailbraking iPhones may give terrorists the tools to crash mobile networks. Unbelievable! Apple is defending their lockins by claming that vicious applications may be written to create DoS attacks if they don’t control all software released. Read the full article for details.
Update: Lots of people are beginning to take notice of Apples lockin. On related news Apple denied Google Voice and now an annoyed blogger tries to start a campain of bad PR for Apple as counter measure.
Jul/090
Backup Windows Home Server files to external USB hard drive
Add backup hard drive to WHS
Yesterday i described the process of Adding a hard drive to Scaleo Windows Home Server. Today i added another drive. An external USB hard drive to keep backups of the files stored on the server.
To create a backup of the data on your Windows Home Server you must first add a add a drive for this purpose. When adding a drive you have the possibility to add the drive either to the managed storage pool or to add the drive as a backup drive (The screenshot was accidently taken in the Disk Management Add-in which is a nice plugin to add additional information about drives connected to the server as well as a visual representation of the drives physical placements). When adding a backup drive it is possible to keep current data if the drive is formated as ntfs. Otherwise the drive needs to be formated.
Backup Windows Home Server
After a drive has been added as a managed backup disk, the windows home server will appear in “Computers & Backup” tab. Right click on the server and choose backup now. In the server backup it is possible to select which shares to backup and which to ignore. The interface also indicates that it is possible to use several external drives to backup different shares. After the backup is done it is possible to disconnect the drive by temporarily remove the in the “Server Storage” tab. Then disconnect the hard drive from the server and store it on a safe place.
Jul/090
Adding a hard drive to Scaleo Windows Home Server
Open Scaleo Home Server
A few months ago i bought a Fujitsu Scaleo Home Server with Windows Home Server. The space reacently ran low and it was time to add another drive to the storage pool.
Adding a new hardrive to the Scaleo Server was quick and easy. Just attach four screws with rubber paddings, connect the drive and place the drive in the hard drive slot. Easily done without a screwdrive since all screws are handy thumb screws.
Add hard drive to WHS storage pool
After the drive has been physically mounted in the server the drive needs to be added to the storage pool. In the Windows Home Server Console click on the Storage Server tab, select the drive and right click add on the new drive. A wizard is now opened and a simple 3-step process is started to format the drive and add it to the pool. After the drive has been added to the storage pool the storage manager will balance the storage tween the drives.
Scalero Home Server
Jul/090
Command execution in Linux clusters with parallel ssh
Paralell ssh is an application written in python which enables parallel execution of shell commands via ssh on multiple machines or copy files to multiple machines with scp. It is handy to manage clusters and manage repitiative tasks on multiple servers.
In Ubuntu the installation is made easily with apt:
apt-get install parallel-ssh
To use parallel ssh each node must allow and use keybased authentication.
To execute a command on multiple nods a file containing the address to each node first needs to be created. Verify that each host’s key is added to known keys and that is possible to connect without entering a password. Then simply enter:
parallel-ssh -h hostlist.txt -o outputdir "uptime"
This will execute the uptime command on each server in hostlist.txt and the output of each command is writen in a file with the same name as the hostname entered in hostlist.txt in the directory outputdir.
Simple and minimizes repetative tasks when manageing nodes in a cluster.
Cluster SSH is a similar application which “[...] controls a number of xterm windows via a single graphical console window to allow commands to be interactively run on multiple servers over an ssh connection”. If the management node is running *nix with a graphical environment it may be a good alternative.
Jul/090
Live Mesh – anything interesting?
Microsoft Live Mesh
These days it’s common to have several computers and how often is there a file on another of your computers which you are unable to access? There are several solutions for this: rsync, synctoy, dropbox to name a few. Each tool has it’s own strengths and limitations as well as platform requirements.
Today i stumbled upon a new service from Microsoft – Live Mesh and how to use it with Windows Home Server (Spackle: Windows Home Server + Live Mesh = Nice). Live Mesh is a synchronization service managed via a web interface where the computers included in the mesh are added. An application, or agent, are installed on each computer included in the mesh to enable file synchronization. Usually Microsofts products are strictly aimed a the Windows platform, so i was plesently suprised when i read that Live Mesh are available for Mac OS X as well as Windows.
Microsoft Live Mesh - File Synchronization
Live Mesh seems to share alot of similarities with dropbox, but will probably include more features since it’s a part of Live Services, a core in Microsofts cloud platform Azure.
So, does Live Mesh seems like an interesting product? Sure! I’ll add to my long list of applications and services to try out.
Jul/090
Another blog sees the world
In these days everyone seems to have theire own blog. This is another one with he main purpos of drafting ideeas mainly about technical aspecte about operating systems, virtualization, software development, the web and general computer related aspects.