open source

Spiceworks 4.0 Network Management Tool

Spiceworks launched 4.0 last month and yesterday released the first patch. This new version really opens up the possibilites of Spiceworks
4.0 highlights include: Exchange 2007 support, updated IT User Portal (think IT Intranet), Network Mapping (still in beta), Windows Event ID Collaboration, Twitter Integration, cc other Users or Staff on Help Desk tickets.

We loaded the final beta on the production server and it went smoothly. Loaded the general release a few days later and everything is great. Installation (or upgrade) takes no more than 15 minutes.

Cool Feature Alert: Dell users, get the script for auto-populating the Purchase Date and Warranty Date of your Dell servers, desktops and laptops. It works great and will save lots of manual data entry.

Anyone using Spiceworks already will appreciate the new features. If you are not using Spiceworks, PLEASE check it out! It is STILL FREE.

Spiceworks

Open Source News

My Google Alert for open source items is working overtime these days. Clearly open source is invading every part of our lives. That is exciting! Some of the opponents to open source in production networks claim that lack of reliable support makes open source a bad idea. However, in many (or even most) cases, support for applications can be purchased. The open source community is an excellent resource as well. Changing resources does not make the process bad. It is just different. And, how is purchasing support for open source applications different than having to purchase support contracts or maintenance agreements for commercial applications? Citrix, for example, does not provide support or product updates without some sort of paid-for contract. And for the SMB market, it is not low cost. And the up-front cost of the software is high. So what is the difference? I know, I know… Microsoft, Citrix, Symantec, etc. are huge companies that spend millions of dollars annually on research and development. However, IF an open source tool can fill the need and it is FREE why shouldn’t it be tested and implemented? I say go for it.
Next time you are looking for an application for anything, add open source to the Google search box and see what comes up.

Recent alerts:
Software Microsoft Fined $200M USD for Violating Open Source Patent
DailyTech – Chicago,IL,USA
In its early days Microsoft, oft ignored the open source movement, instead pushing for proprietary standards. However, more recently the company has made a …

Open source media server debuts at Computex
EETimes.com – USA
A small startup will debut at Computex in June its open source software for an integrated media server and home router, going up against giants including …

A Consulting Firm Borrows from Kubler-Ross : Beyond Search
Open source has an important contribution to certain information technology challenges. I am pleased with open source. I am not so comfortable with the appropriation and inversion of the Kubler-Ross metaphor. In fact, the metaphor makes …
Beyond Search – http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/

TED Blog: SETI Institute is hiring: Become the project manager for …
It’s also essential that s/he be a strong evangelist — able to speak inspiringly in public, and to energize, recruit and maintain engagement with key influencers in the open source coding world. The other part of the job will be …
TED Blog – http://blog.ted.com/

How we won the open source battle
InfoWorld – San Francisco,CA,USA
By Savio Rodrigues (@SavioRodrigues) Recently the news about the inevitability of open source has been everywhere. Just today I exchanged tweets with Matt …

Open Source joins European election battle
Inquirer – Harrow,England,UK
This week it appointed open source operator, Mark Taylor, to lobby candidates in the UK. It is also establishing campaigns in Germany and Spain. …

Open Technologies Seen as Key to Social, Educational and Economic …

Business Wire (press release) – San Francisco,CA,USA

The agreement recognizes open source technologies as key to increase access to information, communications technologies and ICT skills training in …

Open Source For Non-Profits

There is statistical evidence that donations to non-profits may have increased from 2007 to 2008. DonorPerfect.com reports that from January-October there was an increase of 3.72% over the same previous period. However, all data indicates that donations are dramatically decreasing in 2009. At the same time, requests for service have increased. OregonLive.com reports that enrollment in the Oregon Health Plan may increase by 23% over the next two years. This at a time when state legislatures are slashing budgets.
In an effort to reduce overhead expenses, many agencies are turning to open source technologies. There is even a nonprofit open source initiative (www.nosi.net) which hosted Penguin Day (penguinday.org) on April 25, 2009. The posted agenda lists sessions such as Introduction to Open Source Software, Open Source Content Management Systems, Introduction to Blogging, etc. NOSI also hosts frequent webinars which can be found on their webpage.
Corporate IT departments have embraced open source applications. However, many nonprofits lack internal IT staff and are unaware of the solutions that are available. Education is key to this understanding. Organizations such as NOSI and NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network) are making this happen.

Joe Solomon’s blog at netsquared.com lays out a case-study for open source use in developing countries to solve medical record keeping.

Further reading: Open source for non-profits, Red Hat Magazine, January 2006, redhat.com

http://www.nosi.net/
http://www.nten.org/

Greenshot – Open Source Screen Capture

Every technician, at some time, has wished he or she could email the error message on the console screen to whatever vendor support is working on the issue. In the past you either used PrintScreen and tried to edit the picture or used Snagit. Snagit is a great tool but it is not free.
Enter Greenshot.

(from the website…)

Greenshot is a revolutionary screenshot tool optimized for productivity.

  • Save a screenshot or a part of the screen to a file within a second.
  • Apply text and shapes to the screenshot.
  • Offers capture of window, region or full screenshot.
  • Supports several image formats.

Greenshot is an open source offering that follows other free tools to replace traditional business-use applications. As of January 11, 2009 Greenshot is on v0.7 beta. The installer is a small 349KB download. Installation took less than two minutes. Similar to Snagit, Greenshot runs in the System Tray. Simply right-click on the icon and select the operation you would like to complete. Here is an example of the Capture Region output.
As soon as you click on Capture Region, a cross-hair appears on the screen. Place the mouse at the top left corner of your desired capture, click and hold the left button and drag over to the lower right corner. Release the left mouse button and you have made your capture. One handy feature is the pixel count that displays as you drag across your capture area.
Greenshot allows many save options. The default is png. The included image editor is very handy as well allowing the edition of text boxes, lines, arrows and other shapes.

Download this today and enjoy the simplicity of this great practical application!

http://greenshot.sourceforge.net

Open Source NAS – Openfiler Update

Open Source Storage
The online debate over Open Source storage options is fast and furious. The two common names that keep popping up are FreeNAS and Openfiler. Do a Twitter search for either and you will have an afternoon full of reading.
I evaluated Openfiler (see April 7 post for Openfiler info) and have not looked back. The first box I installed as NFS storage has been running for 54 days with no data loss or corruption. The only issue at all has been the failure of one of the on-board Ethernet ports. My second box installed as iSCSI storage has been in production for thirteen days.

Hardware breakdown (retasked servers – nothing new was purchased):

filer1: Dell PowerEdge 2650, dual Intel Dual-Core Xeon 2.4 Ghz CPU w/512KB cache, 4GB RAM, dual on-board Gigabit Ethernet ports, (1) Maxtor Atlas 10k 74GB harddisk for Openfiler system, (4) Seagate Cheetah 10k 146GB harddisks for shared storage.

filer2: Dell PowerEdge 2850, dual Intel Quad-Core Xeon 2.8 Ghz CPU w/2.00MB cache, 4GB RAM, dual on-board Gigabit Ethernet ports, dual-port Intel PRO 1000 NIC (for iSCSI), (2) Maxtor 15k 74GB harddisks in RAID 1 for Openfiler system, (3) Seagate 15k 146GB and (1) Fujitsu 15k 146GB harddisks for shared storage.

Filer1 reports used physical memory of 97% while filer2 reports 8% physical memory in use. This is interesting as filer2 has a much higer load at this point. IRC chats, blogs and forums suggest Openfiler likes all the RAM it can get its hands on.

Plan Moving Forward
I will continue to use filer2 as iSCSI storage for two VMware ESX 3.5 servers. Planning to rebuild filer1 with additional RAM and add Intel PRO 1000 card. May convert storage to iSCSI for Citrix XenServer evaluation.

http://www.openfiler.com

Nagios Update

Oh how the time gets away from you…
I have Nagios (Refer to the April 15th post) installed and in production. I am still tweaking the configuration and rolling out device monitoring.
Adding anything to be monitored is time consuming. Some might even think it is very time consuming. The three main files are switch.cfg, windows.cfg and printer.cfg and all editing is done through either vi or some other text editor. There are also other configurations and add-ons for monitoring Netware and/or Linux/Unix machines.
Windows server monitoring requires two main parts: installing the NSClient++ on the actual server and adding the necessary configuration to the windows.cfg on the Nagios box. For a clear how-to on installing the NSClient++ refer to this blog post. You may find that additional server config, such as loading WMI or other SNMP reporting may be required to collect the necessary data.
The windows.cfg editing is fairly straight forward. This PDF file on the Nagios website will be very helpful.
1) Add the host definition (insert your values for the bold text)
define host{
use windows-server ; Inherit default values from a Windows server template (make sure you keep this line!)
host_name winserver
alias My Windows Server
address 192.168.1.2
}
2) Add the services or counters to be monitored
define service{
use generic-service
host_name winserver
service_description NSClient++ Version
check_command check_nt!CLIENTVERSION
}

define service{
use generic-service
host_name winserver
service_description CPU Load
check_command check_nt!CPULOAD!-l 5,80,90
}

define service{
use generic-service
host_name winserver
service_description Memory Usage
check_command check_nt!MEMUSE!-w 80 -c 90
}

NOTE: Any time the Nagios cfg files are edited you MUST verify the config and then restart the nagios service. Failure to do this will not show the correct config in Nagios Service Detail or may cause a failure of the nagios service.

/usr/local/nagios/bin/nagios -v /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg
service nagios restart

Check this tool out and join the 3 million other users!

http://www.nagios.org

MySQL – Poor Man’s Database

MySQL is a relational database management system that runs on a wide variety of platforms including MS Windows. There is an estimated install base of over 11 million. Practical operation is the same as other SQL server applications, whereas multi-user sessions can simultaneously access stored data.
Previously owned as a subsidiary of Sun Microsystems, as of April 20th, 2009, Oracle has announced intentions to purchase Sun. Oracle Buys Sun
One of the most popular uses of MySQL is for web applications and is used by many high transaction websites such Facebook. MySQL is fully OBDC compliant as well.
MySQL has consistantly be shown to be very fast performing and highly reliable, both critical to use in a production business environment.
Currently MySQl is available in two license formats: Community Server and Enterprise Subscription.
For the minimal annual fee of $599/server/year Enterprise offers a consistent monthly and quarterly release schedule. Compare to other sql server apps and you will quickly appreciate the value.
Community Server is available for download at no charge and has sporadic updates.

http://www.mysql.com

Open Source Advertising

Have a need to host your own ad server? Don’t want to pay a lot? OpenX Ad Server makes this possible.

“OpenX Ad Server is a powerful open source platform that manages advertising for more than 150,000 websites in over 100 countries. More than 300 billion ads run through OpenX Ad Servers each month. And since it’s available as a software download or as a hosted service, you can decide to run it yourself or let us take care of managing the infrastructure for you.” from openx.org

OpenX Ad Server is fully supported on Apache web server in a Linux environment and is very flexible in terms of implementation. System requirements are fairly common, the main requirement being PHP support. MySQL and PostgreSQL are supported for database connectivity.
There is also full community support for this product with the usual forums and blogs. Version 2.8 has just been released.
For IT shops not wanting to host this, there is of course and hosted version available which includes up to 100 million ad impressions per month for free.

Just released yesterday, OpenX Market is a new platform to maximize your ad content and ad space. The idea is to bring advertisers and publishers together in an ad exchange. While this is not a new idea, it is becoming more relevant as advertisers move more from offline to online.
OpenX News Article

OpenX.org