Messages

811

Installation and Upgrades / Re: How do I get a remote desktop?

« on: March 06, 2011, 06:06:32 pm »

I have used the ssh -X command to run individual commands with no issue.  I have done some preliminary testing with x2go with a debian/xen box with good results so far.  I have yet to test it with Zentyal (new box still installing a Zentyal vm) 

812

Installation and Upgrades / Re: How do I get a remote desktop?

« on: March 06, 2011, 02:50:34 am »

I haven't gotten around to checking this myself but you might look at NX and freeNX (www.nomachine.com for NX).  I have setup a few servers headless this way. 

813

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Zentyal High Availability using Pacemaker and Rsync

« on: March 04, 2011, 05:35:16 am »

Close to what I am saying.  Point DRBD to copy a logical volume from machine A to machine B.  The logical volume contains the Virtual Zentyal.  Machine B has a ready to run copy of Virtual Zentyal that is "up to date" at the moment that Virtual Zentyal falls over.  I see no reason to switch away from vmware provided that you can mount LVM's as virtual machine drives.  Remus is interesting technology on the Xen side for virtual machine cutover without any loss of service.  Ganeti just makes things easier to setup and manage provided you are using KVM or Xen.   Again, just to be clear,  DRBD needs a block device to make a clone of on another machine.  Good luck and let me know how it works out.

Denny

814

Installation and Upgrades / Re: HOW to move data from old failed server to new one

« on: March 01, 2011, 03:27:09 am »

Is this Zentyal 2 on the old server?  Are you talking about Zarafa?  If it is Zarafa, install Mysql-Admin on the Zentyal box and perform a backup of the Zarafa catalog.  Then just move the backup to the current server and reload.  If the server is dead dead, you can always copy the hard drive to a virtual machine drive and boot it that way.

815

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Virtual Machine Manager

« on: February 27, 2011, 10:22:19 pm »

off topic
half_life:

I'd like to chat with you more about your transit setup, as I currently work for a largish trasit agency and we have experienced some pains implementing some of the features you mentioned. if you are up for sharing your knwledge/experience could you contact me? larry at schwerzler dot com

Email sent via work. 

816

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Virtual Machine Manager

« on: February 27, 2011, 10:21:35 pm »

I assume that you are talking about the convirt 2 product.  It is a good product and is not too hard to implement.  I went about it the easy way.  I installed convirt 1 then used the import appliance function to install convirt 2.  Very straight forward and quick.  I am using Xen for the hypervisor instead of KVM to facilitate HA functions.  Most would probably be happy with KVM.  Fast response guys,  thanks!

817

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Web server Directory

« on: February 25, 2011, 03:52:05 am »

Ssh into the zentyal machine  as your default user.  Use the command "sudo  su" to switch up to a root prompt.  Now you will have access to the directory.  I suggest doing all the website design work on your desktop then ftp them to your default user's home directory.  Then you move the files to the www direcotory.  Pay attention to the file ownerships and permissions.  I left out lots of little details but this is the jist of it.

818

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Zentyal High Availability using Pacemaker and Rsync

« on: February 23, 2011, 07:55:51 pm »

Take a second look.  What I am suggesting doesn't involve shared storage but real-time duplication between vm's on two physical machines just like the solution you are pursuing.  Giving the machine physical access to an LV gives a performance boost over container files and gives you an easy target to duplicate via DRBD or ISCSI.  The packages I suggested just wrapped all of the details together for you.  I have looked again since my first post and noticed the same is possible using KVM.  What I suggested avoids the "split brain" problem that you appear to be trying to avoid.  I am sorry that I didn't make myself clear the first time.  If I am not mistaken, DRBD wants to work with whole drives not just directories, no?  Oops.... re-reading your first post ....   isn't rsync going to be very cumbersome?

819

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Virtual Machine Manager

« on: February 23, 2011, 05:10:23 am »

Almost the same situation here.  Zentyal is the gateway.  I am currently building machine two to add to the fleet.  Xen is loaded on top of Debian  with no services running except ssh and ntp.  It has a public and private ip address assigned.  Zentyal is loaded as a VM with a public and private ip address.  All traffic comes through Zentyal unless it is ssh to the Dom0 (Xen speak for base operating system).  Ganeti controls what happens if machine A (I call it Heckle) falls down.  When Jeckle (machine B) is complete it would jump into action when Heckle or any of it's VMs disappear.  Zentyal and the other VM's would pick up where they left off on Jeckle .  I have tested this on small systems and am currently deploying it for production.  Heckle/Jeckle provide Gateway + VM'ed Win2008r2 application server and soon will replace our PDC and SQL server.  It looks like I will be running a separate Asterisk server vm'ed as well. This all forms the backbone of service for a transit system with predictive arrival/next stop + automatic vehicle location + public facing web-portal and IVR system.  I suggest testing it out on small iron and see for yourself.  I used a couple of Workstations with middle of the road  cpus + a couple of gigs and a 1T hard drive

820

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Zentyal VOIP problem Anyone integrate plain asterisk into LDAP?

« on: February 23, 2011, 03:41:00 am »

I take that as a no.  Ok then, I will dig into it tomorrow and post my results as they become available.  I think that the ldap setup the Zentyal staff has come up with is well thought out and actually is screaming for an advanced configuration manager.  I hope to keep their framework intact and build on it.  My next step is to take a pre-configured VM (asterisk appliance) and modify it to use real-time ldap configuration.  Wish me luck.

821

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Virtual Machine Manager

« on: February 23, 2011, 02:55:37 am »

My solution was to make Zentyal a virtual machine.  Take a look herehttp://code.osuosl.org/projects/ganeti-webmgr.  This works with KVM and Xen.  What you are describing is essentially where I am at.  I use Convirt to d/l and configure a VM that can be managed via virt-manager and ganeti.  There are several other web based tools out there including Convirt2 depending on your needs.  For me ganeti fulfils the High Availability part of my needs.

822

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Zentyal High Availability using Pacemaker and Rsync

« on: February 23, 2011, 01:40:01 am »

In short -Xen with one VM (Zentyal) on LVM  then use Ganeti 2 hours from soup to nuts.

Update-  I re-checked the docs.  Ganeti works with KVM which is much easier to setup.

823

Installation and Upgrades / [SOLVED] NTP issues when running VM

« on: February 22, 2011, 09:43:45 pm »

I have been having problems with my Zentyal system (running virtualized under Xen) not keeping accurate time.  I finally solved the problem.  While it is not a Zentyal problem, some people might run into this in the future.  Basically NTP requires a stable clock source to keep time adjusted correctly.  Because virtual machines can't guarantee  interrupt service the ntp daemon refuses to update from what it sees as a wildly changing clock.  The following lines at the top of the /etc/ntp.conf file fix this:

tinker panic 0 dispersion 1.000 

and comment out the local clock too

#server 127.127.1.0
#fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 13

With this setting the virtual machine will keep accurate time as long as it can reach the time server. It would be recommended to setup a timeserver on the local network and point your machines to it.  In my case pointing to the Dom0 machine (Xen)  works.

Hope this helps

824

Installation and Upgrades / Re: New family server / Sharing my thoughts

« on: February 22, 2011, 07:49:57 pm »

I am assuming that you have given KVM and Xen a look for virtualization.  I would suggest either of those before Virtual Box.   I would suggest that you up your memory to support that many VM's.  Your current CPU/Memory density per vm is .5/1g.  This should work since it is not a production environment but I still think that you would get better performance at the 2g per vm level.  One other thing that I would suggest is to use LVM to setup the VM's disk  (with virtual box you can't directly access a lvm but you can put the vhd files on individual volumes).  This makes doing a backup of a running system a snap ie doing a lvm snapshot.  Just pause the vm, take the snapshot and unpause.

I am running a large 16 core machine with a memory density of 3g per core  via Xen right now.

825

Installation and Upgrades / Re: Blocking Net Access for specific group

« on: February 22, 2011, 07:08:54 pm »

I have my default policy to always allow.  I can't use authorize and allow because of transparent proxy.  I have setup net objects that disallow specific machines from surfing outside of certain hours by actually making the policy for the object allways allow and setting the hours and days to when I want to allow it.  Works here.