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By admin, April 17, 2011 2:24 pm

一直都很喜歡90年代的Corvette C5系列﹐甚至比C6還喜歡﹐當年開往美國大峽谷的高速公路上就見過它的真身和咆哮的引擎聲音。

喜歡的就是它那簡單而優美的身型﹐尤其是尾巴﹐其中最喜歡的就是C5的開篷版﹐多年的尋尋覓覓﹐只知道Autoart曾經出過Convertible版﹐但是那是C6的﹐所以今天一看見它﹐馬上當機立斷﹐不容有失﹐這下終于可以跟其它兩台紅黃版的硬頂C5配對了﹗

PS﹕最近越來越喜歡60年代Ford Mustang GT390和GT500了﹐看樣子其車模入庫是遲早的事﹐都是給樓下的那台的1比1的Ford Mustang GT500害的﹐哈哈﹗

1/18 Welly Chevrolet C5 Corvette Convertible 1999

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By admin, April 15, 2011 2:36 pm

1. After login, change to root:
su –

2. Install SNMP package using YUM:
yum install net-snmp

3. Configure SNMP parameter
echo rocommunity community_string mrtg.yourhost.com > /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

4. Turn on the default SNMP service on system reboot
chkconfig snmpd on

5. Start SNMP service
service snmpd start

Finally, of course, you will need to open UDP Port 161 on the firewall in order to get SNMP working.

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By admin, April 13, 2011 9:55 pm

I finally figured out why the previous Luxilon TIMO 18 (Main) + M2 17 (Cross) on my POG didn’t last long for 2 ½ months, it’s because TIMO is 18 guage which tends to break easily. So I went to the pro shop and the owner if they have TIMO 17, unfortunately only 18 are my only choice left, so instead of going the old routine, I’ve asked him to recommend something similar again, and this time he picked hard Luxilon Adrenaline 17 for Main to combine with the soft part M2 for Cross and tension keeps the same as 57lbs, hopefully this new combination shall last for at least 3 months, will report back later.

Luxilon Adrenaline 17

PS. Yesterday, I’ve also tried Head’s Extreme Pro (Mid-Plus), it feels just so good, I felt almost all of the high end mid-plus racket from leading brands are equally good, particularly in control and spin, I must admit technology did evolve over the past 30 years, may be it’s time to finally switch?

Update Apr 15

Seemed you really get what you paid for, after playing for 2 hours, I would say the previous TIMO 18 (Main) worths more buying, although Adrenaline is HKD20 cheaper, but TIMO 18 is thinner and have better feel and control than Adrenaline 17, may be it just takes time to adjust, let’s see how long it will last this time.

Update Sep 24

As expected, the new combination lasted for about 4 months. I am going to return to the old combination: TIMO 18 + M2 16 and lower the tension to 55 lbs this time.

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By admin, April 11, 2011 10:19 pm

I got the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall Vx virtual appliance working in less than 30 minutes, it’s really easy to setup and use, there is almost no learning curve if your job involving managing email server daily.

In fact, I almost got a Barracuda 300 back in 2008, but the performance back then wasn’t good, now with the VM version, it’s lightening fast, thanks to latest CPU and Equallogic SAN, so I may eventually purchase one of these nice stuff for my clients this month.

One major drawback is the lack of comprehensive reporting capability even after almost 10 years of it’s product life. It can’t even provide simple things like list the top 100 domain name with most email usage and size for a specific day or time, list the top user who used the most email bandwidth, etc. Without this kind of reporting capability, I would say Barracuda can never make to the real ISP enterprise market, it’s good for SMB though.

PS. I just found out Barracuda Networks introduced the Barracuda Reputation Block List (b.barracudacentral.org) for free! Of course, you need to register your DNS server first in order to use it.

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By admin, April 11, 2011 5:10 pm

Then I found this thread on VMTN which explained everything.

This is not a BUG. However, is the way we understand the HA Settings and Functionality. When in “HA Settings” you specify the “Failover Capacity” as “1″ and you have a 2 NODE Cluster, you are simply telling the HA that in any given instance it will have “At least 1″ spare HOST. Now, when you Manually or Using Update Manager try to put a HOST in Maintenance Mode, HA Failover Capacity is “Violated” because while the HOST is in Maintenance Mode, there is “NO Spare HOST” for HA. Meaning in an event the Second Node goes down, everything goes down and HA will never work. This a Straight Violation to the “Failover Capacity” that you have specified.

Hence, by all means in a 2 NODE Cluster you have to “Allow VMs to Power On even if they violate the availability constrains” if you want them to be Automatically Migrated when you put HOST on Maintenance Mode or use Update Manager. If you don’t want to change this setting and still use this feature you need to add another HOST to the Cluster while keeping the Failover Capacity at 1.

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By admin, April 11, 2011 4:31 pm

可能是香港最好吃的豬扒飯。

鮮茄牛肉飯 咖哩豬扒飯

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By admin, April 11, 2011 4:12 pm

• The good thing, it’s FREE with ESX Advance/Enterprise/Enterprise Plus version.
• Yes, it’s simply a transparent firewall utilizing VMsafe API, so there is no need to change the default public IP on VMs, vShield Zone (ie, firewall) comes with limited functions comparing to real stuff like Netscreen, but it does get the job done by limiting ports, source, destination, direction on L2/L3 and L4 layer, one extra nice thing is vShield Zone comes with a bunch of dynamic ports based application such as FTP, DNS, etc.
• In version 4.1, there is no more separate OVF for vShield agent, it’s been renamed to vShield Zone, and deployment of vShield Zone is simply by clicking the Install link on the menu, it’s so much simpler to install a firewall on each ESX host with v4.1, no need to create any template for vShield Zone like in the old days as well. In additional, A new vSwitch, called vmservice-vswitch, is also created. It has no physical NICs assigned to it and has a VMkernel interface with a 169. IP address. This vSwitch should not be modified. It’s used exclusively by the Zones firewall VM, which has two vNICs connected to it. Through the vNICs , the Zones VM communicates with the LKM in the VMkernel. One vNIC is used forcontrol, and the other is for data path communication.
• The original version of vShield operated in bridged mode and sat inline between vSwitches so that all traffic to the protected zones passed through it. The new method of monitoring traffic at the vNIC, instead of the vSwitch, eliminates the vSwitch reconfiguration that previously occurred, and it provides better protection. In bridged mode, VMs in a protected zone had no protection from other VMs in the protected zone, but now that vShield Zones operates at the vNIC level, every VM is totally protected.
• So if something happens to the Zones virtual firewall VM (e.g., it’s powered off), the networking on a host will go down, because nothing can route without the virtual firewall VM. If you migrate a VM from a Zones-protected host to an unprotected one, vCenter Server automatically removes the filter, so a VM won’t lose network connectivity on its new host.
• Also in the new version of 4.1, VM Flow is gone (it was available free in is previous version), you need to upgrade to VShield App get have it back again. For my environment, I use PRTG’s packet analyzer on switch mirror ports, so such feature is not required.
• In this new version 4.1, committed firewall policy is applied in real time, there is no need to login to console and issue validate sessions anymore.
• vShield Zone firewall can apply to 3 levels, Data Center, Cluster and Port Groups (?), I usually deploy it at Cluster level due to DRS.
• If you have a cluster, then it’s highly recommended to install vShield Zone on all ESX hosts as VMs may got vMotioned between ESX hosts in the cluster and they will still be protected by vShield Zone (ie, firewall).
• Install vShield Zone process does not need to reboot the ESX host, but uninstall vShield Zone does require reboot the ESX host, after the reboot, often you will find the originally configured vShield Zone switch is not removed, so you need to remove it manually.
• It’s nice to see the extra tab in vCenter interface, but I still prefer to manage vShield using the web interface.
• You can always get more features by upgrading to other advanced vShield Products like vShield Edge as those will provide features like VPN, routing, load balancing, etc.
• Under Maintenance Mode, vShield Zone for a particular ESX host SHOULD NEVER NOT be vmotioned away although vShield Manage can. You will need to manually shut it down (by using CLI shutdown) after DRS automatically migrates all other VMs on the host and reboot the host. I am still trying to figure out how to set maintenance mode DRS recommendation for vShield VM, if you know, please do let me know, thanks.

Part of the above were quoted from Eric Siebert’s newly revised Installing VMware vShield Zones for a virtual firewall and don’t forget to review his article on “Top 10 VMware security tips for vShield users”

Update: Oct 30, 2011

I found the solution to my last question in how to avoid vShield Zone VM to be moved away during Maintenance Mode by DRS, the answer is at the end of the Install vShield Zone PDF (Page 13, can’t believe I missed this extremely important piece of information). Basically, you need to set vShield Zone VM Restart Priority to Disable under HA and Automation Level to Disabled under DRS.

To prove it’s working  I did a test, I put the host in to Maintenance Mode, DRS was able to vmotion away everything to other available nodes except the vShield Zone VM, then it shuts it down nicely, everything is done automatically.

Bravo!

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By admin, April 11, 2011 2:44 pm

這是最近台灣大眾銀行激動人心的廣告﹐令人不得不再次思考這個嚴肅的問題。

1963年﹐前美國人權領袖馬丁路德曾經講過“I have a dream”﹐去年“老男孩”這套很給力的網絡影片也是圍繞著類似的主題﹐的確人是要有夢想﹐沒夢想的人生就如失去了靈魂的軀殼般冰冷。

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By admin, April 9, 2011 9:55 pm

No more guessing, I finally got it working and performed the firmware updates on ESX. So now it’s time for Dell to make its vCenter Plugin product for FREE?

So the following is what I did today, btw, many thanks for local Dell Pro-Support as well:

1. Download the latest version of Dell Repository Manager (v1.2.158) and install it with all the default options.

2. Start DRM in Server Mode (Client Mode is for desktop and notebook).

3. Create a new inventory, select the options with care and according to your requirement ONLY, this wil greatly reduce the total update package size, like Rack, R710, Windows Package Only.

* IMPORTANT: You will ONLY NEED TO DOWNLOAD the LATEST Windows Package, no need to download any Linux Package as USC or Life Cycle Controller 1.4 or above will only support SUU ISO/USB with Windows Package anyway, so using Windows DUP (Dell Update Package) to update Powerdge server firmware even with ESX installed is perfectly O.K.!

4. Export the whole update to ISO, select Export as Server Update Utility (SUU) ISO.

5. Reboot your ESX server (of course migrate your VM away to another ESX host first) and then use iDRAC console to enter USC (ie, F10), select firmware update, mount virtual media with the DRM  SUU ISO created in the above step. Soon you will encounter “Catalog file not authenticated correctly”, Don’t Worry! Just ignore it and continue the ISO export because the exported SUU is simply NOT digitally signed.

6. Select firmwares need to be updated and then reboot, system will return to USC by default, go to firmware update again, and compare the update result with DRM ISO if needed.

Finally, the catalog.xml on dell.ftp.com is always a few months behind the latest update. This is where Dell RM does the magic that you can simply Add the latest firmware to an existing inventory and customize to whatever you want it to be, just remember to download those latest firmware first to any folder, Dell RM will copy it over again to root of the RM’s inventory folder, then save it and export a new SUU ISO again.

PS. I just found another great article “The Easiest Way To Update A Dell Server’s Firmware

Update Jul-19-2011

After reading page 77-79 of the latest Dell vCenter Plugin 1.0.1 User Guide, I found DVP still requires a manual creation of a Fimrware Repository like the above (and requires CIFS or NFS). So this step really renders DVP obsolete as we can achieve the same result using Dell Repository Manager with even better control and management.

In that sense, I strongly believe Dell will make its Dell vCenter Plugin for Free within the next 12-24 months.

Update Nov-26-2011

The following improvements have been made in Repository Manager v1.3 which was released in July 2011:

• Support for Dell PowerEdge maintenance driver packs and Dell Unified Server Configurator (USC) driver pack management
• Repository Manager now displays the size of bundles and components
• New plugin management support for Server Update Utility (SUU) and Deployment media plug-ins
• Tool tips in the Export Bundles/Components wizards to explain the various options
• Enhanced performance and reliability for downloading files from ftp.dell.com
• Runtime logs now enabled to capture error, warning, and information
• Improved Success / Failure feedback after each process with reasons for failure if any + recommendations to remedy.
• Report dialog box displayed upon completion of tasks such as repository creation and component downloads
• Cancellation functionality added for time-consuming tasks
• Compare button easier to find, with wizards to guide you through the process.
• Added ability to download, store, and run SUU & DTK plugins locally 
• Improved user interaction for time-consuming tasks

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By admin, April 8, 2011 10:40 pm

I am starting to put different capping policies on VM resources such as CPU, Memory, Storage and Network this week.

The concept is very simple, but implementation takes a lot more thinking and planning than the followings:

High: 2000 vCPU, 20 VM RAM
Normal: 1000 vCPU, 10 VM RAM
Low: 500 vCPU, 5 VM RAM

High:Normal:Low = 4:2:1

For example, a VM with 1 vCPU and 1GB (1024MB) RAM Shares = NORMAL

So CPU Shares will show 1000 and Memory Shares wil show 10240.

In fact, after the capping starts to kick in, I begin to fall in love with VMware’s Resources Managment!