My South

Cisco Ironport Appliances do offer SSH (secure shell) access to its command line.

This little example shows how to setup a public key for a guest (monitor) user. You may use this to login automatically with scripts to get monitoring data (using a "Guests" type user).

First, create a monitor user on your Appliance:

This blog will move to a newer hardware. The IP networks will remain the same.

If you're looking for an open groupware with a decent web interface including CalDAV support for calendar clients, look at SOGo.

It uses an existing IMAP server for mail and an SQL database for calendar and contact data. A setup with RedHat 5.5 (or CentOS 5.5) works fine (atfer adding the rpmforge and sogo repositories). I am using PostgreSQL as database engine and Cyrus IMAP 2.3.16 as imap mail store. Enterprise directory (and authentification) data is fetched from an LDAP or an SQL data source. It is built with GNUstep and configuration is done as GNUstep defaults (command "defaults").

http://www.sogo.nu/

Firefox 3.5/3.6 and IE 8 are supported for the web frontend.

In case you're interested in Sun/Oracle Openstorage, Fiberchannel Enterprise technologies or just want to drink a glass of fine beer - drop a note.

May 19th I am at Frankfurt Int'l Airport (Sheraton Airport Hotel) and from May 20th to 30th I will be staying in Cameroon meeting friends.

For Cameroon I am interested in internet connections. Last time I set up Orange Wimax connections and I am particularly interested in Camtel and MTN's offerings.

You may contact me at +49 171 6522660.

Just a side note: To make screenshots of your (unrooted) android phone you need to install the Android SDK.

The SDK is downloadable free of charge here:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

Make sur under "Preferences" -> "Applications" you enable the USB debug feature. Connect the phone to your computer (USB).

Under the tools/ subdirectory there is an application named

ddms

Launch it and select

Device -> Screen shot

You'll be presented a screenshot window. Click on "Refresh" to refresh it and "Save" to save it to a PNG file.

A Sun OpenStorage can be configured through a web interface or a command line (ssh).

In this article I'll focus on the web interface.

Initial configuration has to be done via the serial console and type

start /SP/console

The following screen just asks for primary network interface for management and the IP address.  After connecting the appliance through this interface the web interface on the left can be contacted (port 215 is standard).

After typing in username and password ("root" as user and "changeme" as password are the factory defaults) the "dashboard" appears:

Or: Why MySQL is not a database but only a "database".

Imagine this query:

mysql> select summaries0_.bw_eventid as bw1_1_, summaries0_.bw_strid as bw2_1_, bwstring1_.bw_id as bw1_70_0_, bwstring1_.bwseq as bwseq70_0_, bwstring1_.bw_lang as bw3_70_0_, bwstring1_.bw_value as bw4_70_0_ from bw_event_summaries summaries0_ left outer join bw_strings bwstring1_ on summaries0_.bw_strid=bwstring1_.bw_id where summaries0_.bw_eventid in (select bweventobj1_.eventid from bw_recurrences bwrecurren0_ inner join bw_events bweventobj1_ on bwrecurren0_.masterid=bweventobj1_.eventid where (bwrecurren0_.bw_rstart_floating='T' and bwrecurren0_.start_date<'20100322T000000Z' and (bwrecurren0_.end_date>'20100315T000000Z' or bwrecurren0_.start_date=bwrecurren0_.end_date and bwrecurren0_.end_date>='20100315T000000Z') or (bwrecurren0_.bw_rstart_floating is null) and bwrecurren0_.start_date<'20100321T230000Z' and (bwrecurren0_.end_date>'20100314T230000Z' or bwrecurren0_.start_date=bwrecurren0_.end_date and bwrecurren0_.end_date>='20100314T230000Z')) and bweventobj1_.bw_col_path='/user/pascal.gienger/Training' );

+--------+--------+-----------+------------+-----------+--------------------------+
| bw1_1_ | bw2_1_ | bw1_70_0_ | bwseq70_0_ | bw3_70_0_ | bw4_70_0_                |
+--------+--------+-----------+------------+-----------+--------------------------+
|   2251 |   2674 |      2674 |          0 | NULL      | MLBf                     | 
|   2493 |   2933 |      2933 |          0 | NULL      | Cvlqxpqz                 | 
|   2848 |   3322 |      3322 |          0 | NULL      | Vlqehfhva                | 
|   2927 |   3405 |      3405 |          0 | NULL      | fb.nt-Lkqivqm            | 
|   3057 |   3557 |      3557 |          0 | NULL      | Glqsd                    | 
|   3116 |   3616 |      3616 |          0 | NULL      | KGWG                     | 
|   3212 |   3718 |      3718 |          0 | NULL      | MlwfQPE                  | 
|   3361 |   3873 |      3873 |          0 | NULL      | Eklmzmmlsfeei            | 
|   3573 |   4098 |      4098 |          0 | NULL      | HYX-Rjdmmtyubvbqeczvwxz  | 
|   3622 |   4149 |      4149 |          0 | NULL      | Uayfhjjlge               | 
|   3741 |   4283 |      4283 |          0 | NULL      | Sflnh QK/Flkudduiwmkbdqz | 
+--------+--------+-----------+------------+-----------+--------------------------+
11 rows in set (1 min 1.69 sec)

1 Minute!!!!! After seperating the outer and inner join the same table displays just after some seconds:

Easy:

pascal@pgt02:~# smbios -t SMB_TYPE_BASEBOARD
ID    SIZE TYPE
2     202  SMB_TYPE_BASEBOARD (base board)

  Manufacturer: Sun Microsystems
  Product: Sun Fire X4200 M2                     
  Version: To Be Filled By O.E.M.          
  Serial Number: 1005LCB-0807GB0U08              
  Asset Tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.          
  Location Tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.          

  Chassis: 3
  Flags: 0x9
        SMB_BBFL_MOTHERBOARD (board is a motherboard)
        SMB_BBFL_REPLACABLE (board is field-replacable)
  Board Type: 0xa (motherboard)

Just in case you need it...

I'll write an article about configuration and possibilites of OpenStorage the next day(s), but as an appetizer here are two web configuration screenshots (click on them for original size):

First, the status dashboard, showing system/disk activity:

I am back after two weeks in Cameroon. At Zurich Airport "my" town was already shown at the display auf the airport train station - telling me that the frostiness is back.

It is snowing, people are silent, everybody looks down. They don't talk to each other, the white faces are showing a mix between frustration, boredom and unhappiness.
Ok, there are no thieves trying to aggress me, there's no ague (Malaria), there's no chaotic traffic and no "motivation money" or boodle as well - but there isn't a warm family, no beautiful women with their special smile and no lust for life either. Not to mention the extraordinarial food which we substitute here by industrial products.

I thought this time it will be easy - not as last year when I returned from Ivory Coast - but I was proved wrong. It's even tougher. I am back in frostiness - where all seems to pe perfect, where everybody's telling to me that I should be lucky because I am in Europe and I have all I need. But that's not true, I am cold. Frostiness is back.

1 Euro (EUR) has the value of 655,957 Francs CFA (XAF). This conversion rate is fixed.

The banknotes however differ:

Banknotes in central african states like Cameroon are issued by the banque des états de l'afrique centrale (BEAC).

The ones used in western african states like Ivory Coast are issued by the banque centrale des états de l'afrique de l'ouest (BCEAO).

It won't work to buy something in a central african CFA state with western states CFA money and vice-versa.

In Cameroon Orange (France Télécom) offers a "high speed" connection (with 512 kbit/sec download rate and 128 kbit upload) for 75000 CFA francs per month (approx 100 euros!).

A "Livebox" device has to be bought separately which is in fact a simple NAT/WLAN/DSL/Ethernet router. The Wimax antenna (which forms the primary internet interface) is connected to the ethernet WAN port - yes you heard right, here internet connections are done via Wimax - there are nearly no fixed lines at all in most of the parts of the country).

Turning the livebox on it flashes. I managed to take photographs of it (see above, click on the images to get bigger ones).

The Wimax connections works but roundtrip latency is between 350-400ms which is very high and noticeable. The livebox itselfs crashes often - once a day for sure :(

More on this tomorrow!

so answers to your questions will be delayed.

To all my dear readers:

I hope you will pass well to the new year 2010 and that your expectations, projects and lucky feelings will succeed in the new year!

Yours, Pascal

In Germany, we begin to celebrate Christmas at the evening of Dec 24th, as opposed to many other countries (celebrating Christmas due to Christianity).

On 24th, children get their presents which are put under a christmas tree, which is decorated with glass balls and (mostly electric) candles.

Dec 25th and 26th are national holidays.