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Moving into the cloud

January 17, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

Last week I setup a server in a cloud based on Xen virtualization technology. After some hours research I decided to go for the Rackspace cloud. I chose the minimal setup to start with, which is a 256MB memory configuration that comes with 10GB disk space. As stated in the specs, the 256MB plan will get you 1/64 of the CPU allocation. Which is fine to start with for a standard LAMP setup.

For now they only offer a large variety of Linux distributions. I chose Debian 5.0 Lenny, because it makes migration easier as the site is running on Debian 5.0 already. The registration process and setup of the minimal Debian install went very smoothly. In under two hours I had successfully migrated a website. So for the setup part I am totally satisfied, let’s see how the availability part will develop.

Filed Under: Linux · Tagged With: , ,

Jmeter JSF client state

January 15, 2010 by · 3 Comments

In order to know what kind of resources a new application needed I figured out to do a load test. The load testing software I used for this test is Apache Jmeter. The application to test is a Java based application deployed in Tomcat 6.

I used the Jmeter HTTP Proxy Recorder to simulate a normal user session to create a realistic test plan. Once I executed the test plan against the web application it returned Internal Server Error (Response code: 500). By using the “View Results Tree” Listener I was able to locate the problem as the Listener displays basic HTML and XML representations of the response.

javax.faces.application.ViewExpiredException: viewId:/presentation/task.jsf - View /presentation/task.jsf could not be restored.

It appeared that the HTTP Proxy Recorder had recorded the server and client state. The javax.faces.ViewState field is written for both server and client side state saving. So removing this attribute from the sampler data makes Jmeter process the pages without error.

It took me a couple of hours to resolve this issue, hope this helps someone stumbling across the same.

Filed Under: Linux · Tagged With: ,

Search and replace MySQL content

January 6, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

Today I switched from the Code Markup to the Code Snippet WordPress plugin. Therefore I had to change the way the code block is activated. This is a time consuming job if you have to do this by hand, so I figured out there should be a smarter way of doing this. Check out the MySQL replace function below:

update [table_name] set [field_name] = replace([field_name],'[string_to_find]','[string_to_replace]');

And so the above translated to the lines I needed:

mysql> update wp_vleeuwen_posts set post_content = replace(post_content, '<pre><code>', '[code lang="text"]');
Query OK, 35 rows affected (0.06 sec)
Rows matched: 72  Changed: 35  Warnings: 0

mysql> update wp_vleeuwen_posts set post_content = replace(post_content, '</code></pre>', '[/ code]');
Query OK, 35 rows affected (0.01 sec)
Rows matched: 72  Changed: 35  Warnings: 0

mysql>

Notice the little typo I had to make in order to let the above code snippet work ([/ code]).

Filed Under: Linux · Tagged With: ,

Backup Lenny using TSM

January 2, 2010 by · 2 Comments

The few steps below describe in short how to install Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM) on Debian 5 (Lenny) x64.

1. Download the latest 5.x TSM client

# wget ftp://ftp.wu-wien.ac.at/mirrors/tsm/maintenance/client/v5r5/Linux/LinuxX86/v552/5.5.2.0-TIV-TSMBAC-LinuxX86.tar

2. Install alien and dependencies

# apt-get install alien gawk libstdc++5

3. untar the TSM client software

# tar -xvf 5.5.2.0-TIV-TSMBAC-LinuxX86.tar
NOTICES.TXT
README_enu.htm
README_api_enu.htm
README_hsm_enu.htm
TIVsm-API.i386.rpm
TIVsm-API64.rpm
TIVsm-BA.i386.rpm
TIVsm-HSM.i386.rpm

4. Convert the RPM packages using alien

# alien -g TIVsm-API.i386.rpm
Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package TIVsm-API: postinst prerm
Warning: Use the --scripts parameter to include the scripts.
Directories TIVsm-API-5.5.2 and TIVsm-API-5.5.2.orig prepared.
# alien -g TIVsm-BA.i386.rpm
Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package TIVsm-BA: postinst prerm
Warning: Use the --scripts parameter to include the scripts.
Directories TIVsm-BA-5.5.2 and TIVsm-BA-5.5.2.orig prepared.

5. Adjust the control files

# mv TIVsm-API-5.5.2/debian TIVsm-API-5.5.2/DEBIAN
# mv TIVsm-BA-5.5.2/debian TIVsm-BA-5.5.2/DEBIAN
# vi TIVsm-API-5.5.2/DEBIAN/control
# vi TIVsm-BA-5.5.2/DEBIAN/control

The control file should like the following:

Source: tivsm-api
Section: non-free
Priority: extra
Maintainer: root <root@localhost>

Package: tivsm-api
Architecture: all
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
Description: IBM Tivoli Storage Manager API

6. Build the packages

# dpkg -b TIVsm-API-5.5.2
dpkg-deb: building package `tivsm-api' in `TIVsm-API-5.5.2.deb'.
# dpkg -b TIVsm-BA-5.5.2
dpkg-deb: building package `tivsm-ba' in `TIVsm-BA-5.5.2.deb'.

7. Install the packages

# dpkg -i TIVsm-API-5.5.2.deb
Selecting previously deselected package tivsm-api.
(Reading database ... 146642 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking tivsm-api (from TIVsm-API-5.5.2.deb) ...
Setting up tivsm-api (5.5.2) ...
# dpkg -i TIVsm-BA-5.5.2.deb
Selecting previously deselected package tivsm-ba.
(Reading database ... 146716 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking tivsm-ba (from TIVsm-BA-5.5.2.deb) ...
Setting up tivsm-ba (5.5.2) ...
#

8. Post install issues

# echo "/opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin" >> /etc/ld.so.conf
# ldconfig
# ln -s /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/lang/en_US /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin/

And you’re done installing TSM. You’re now ready to proceed to the configuration. The TSM configuration files are located in /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin. You can start by copying the sample files.

# cd /opt/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin
# cp dsm.opt.smp dsm.opt
# cp dsm.sys.smp dsm.sys

Have a look at the IBM docs for the configuration options.

Filed Under: Linux · Tagged With: , ,