I have actually been building the static content of the site from a python(1) script for a while, though until recently it ran from cron(8) and rebuilt all the pages every hour. This wasn't too bad since there were a few internal pages that also got rebuilt, including my graphing pages that are built from SNMP queries of various network gear.
I am hoping this will be the first of three or four posts detailing some of the technical bits under the covers of the new website. In this particular post I'll talk mostly about the design decisions that went into the whole infrastructure.
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I have lately started using MikroTik RouterBoards for various remote sites on my network. Mostly the RB951Ui-2HnD as they are inexpensive, powerful, and an all-in-one remote access solution. I typically only route prefixes for my network and networks I have direct VPN links to, but there are a few sites where I don't trust the local Internet provider and will route everything via the VPN.
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So I found myself stumbling across /r/unixporn/ the other day and a fair number of people seem to use screenfetch to display information about their systems in the screenshots they post.
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I found myself needing to make roughly 100 DNS records for a DHCP pool. In BIND I usually accomplish this with some fancy vi(1) work, but sadly this was for a Windows based lab at work.
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In the previous post on this topic I talked about building my ADS-B receiver to feed FlightAware and FlightRadar24. I got decent results but was waiting for some final pieces to put the unit outdoors and attach the LNA and filter (some ethernet cables and an antenna in the end).
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Being a student pilot I have been aware of the FAA's NextGen project which happens to include ADS-B. Most of what I have been poking around at has been the in-cockpit stuff, evaluating various "ADS-B in" (broadcasts TO airplanes in flight) products that provide things like FIS-B and TIS-B (weather and traffic, for non-pilot types). A few months ago I ran into a number of projects for making receivers that allow you to receive the "ADS-B out" traffic (broadcasts FROM airplanes in flight) and was interested. I then found out that FlightAware (my favorite flight tracking website) is interested in consuming the data streams from ADS-B receivers. So I built one.
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I provide BaaS (Backup as a Service) on a NetApp FAS2020 to a number of friends using a vFiler on the system that hosts my public virtual machines (such as the one that runs this particular website). This provides separation and allows me to delegate administration of the backup location to the users that actually consume this data. When it came time to monitor the vFiler though I found that check_nac (which I use to monitor my instance) does not have access to vFiler resources. It looks like this is a limitation of the SNMP agent so the solution was to use the wonderful NetApp Manageability API.
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So it's not a secret that I am a big fan of Debian Linux, and also not a secret that I am a big fan of NetApp's storage technology (I did go work for them when given the chance after all), however in the "Enterprise" world Debian is kind of a second class citizen. Most people have heard of it but RedHat kinda rules the day... Thankfully if you do it right Linux is pretty much Linux from a compiled binary standpoint.
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| I have been spending a lot of time lately with the handy NetApp Data ONTAP 8.1.1 cluster mode simulator, including getting a lab setup at home. It's a fantastic product and stands to be a very disruptive revolution in the way enterprises manage and think about storage but all of that has been covered over and over again by people more articulate on the messaging than I. But since I monitor all my personal IT infrastructure with Nagios already I wanted to monitor my cluster (even though it is a simulator) as well.
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So NetApp is starting to push Data ONTAP 8.1 running in Cluster Mode as the Next Big Thing in storage technology because among other things is brings scale-out to our already industry-leading storage management technology.
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So I've been playing around with getting the Data ONTAP 8.1 simulator running on my MacBook Pro under VMware Fusion 4.1 and during the initial configuration I realized that there was no obvious way to determine the IP address automatically assigned to the host only network (vmnet1) during installation. Unfortunately it appears that VMware does not expose this from the UI. There is not a lot of good information via Google or on the NetApp Simulator Communities website that I was able to find so I figured I'd write it down in hopes that Google's spider notices.
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I recently have been re-architecting my network at home and one of the big transitions has been back to NFS home directories across my Linux systems. I previously used NFSv3 shares to provide this functionality years ago but now that modern Linux systems (I am running mostly Debian 6.0 (squeeze)) support the more secure, performant and robust NFS version 4 I standardized on that. Thanks to my use of nss_ldap for user authentication it has been pretty straightforward but there have been a couple of interesting gotchas.
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So, if all this technology worked right this should actually post as I am leaving ROC for ORD, my only stop enroute to NRT (Tokyo, Japan). Over the last few weeks people have been asking me if I am still going to Japan on holiday and my answer has been an unwavering yes. Granted things looked a little sketchy for a bit there, the trains from Narita into Tokyo proper were running at reduced rates (and even briefly closed) and I admit I was not really liking the idea of tossing down 23,000円-25,000円 ($280 - $310) right out the gate for a taxi, or rolling around in a bus for 2 to 3 hours after flying for 20 but if that was the price I was going to have to pay I was willing to pay it. Once the trains resumed service last week I felt confident that the trip would be problem-free and the anxiety was left behind. I have full faith in both the Japanese government, people and the international group of scientists that are working on the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as well as the relief workers bringing aid to the victims of the massive earthquake and tsunami. Along with donating to the Red Cross, bringing in a little tourism money and showing some faith is about the best I can come up with to do to help.
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Introduction, or Why I care...
I have been meaning to install ESXi on a server I have sitting in the house for a while but a lack of CD-ROM drive has been stalling things for a while so I wanted to see if there was any chance of booting the ISO image from the network.