No Huddle Offense

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Running BES++ with Platform LSF

June 11th, 2010 • Comments Off on Running BES++ with Platform LSF

Prerequisite is an installed LSF cluster and a gsoap 2.7.10 installation (make sure that it is exact this version – newer version won’t work). Now check-out the BES++ sources:

svn co https://bespp.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/bespp bespp

Now edit the Make.config file and adjust the path to your gsoap installation. The attribute is called GSOAP_TOP and can be found in the first lines of the file. You might need to adjust the LSF_LOC and LSF_ARCH attribute as well – based on the system you use. Now simple run make and the two executable besclient and besserver will be created.

While you might up ending using SSL you need to create a simple CA (or go to http://cacert.org):

mkdir cert
/usr/lib/ssl/misc/CA.pl -newca # will initialize the CA
[...]
/usr/lib/ssl/misc/CA.pl -newreq # will create a cert request
/usr/lib/ssl/misc/CA.pl -sign # sign the request
cat newcert.pem newkey.pem > server.pem# create server pem
mkdir server/ && mv new* server/ # cleanup a bit
ln -s server.pem `openssl x509 -noout -hash -in server.pem`.0
./besserver -u <username> -h localhost -p 8443 -s <path>/cert/server.pem -c <path>/cert/ -g <username> -r lsf # run the besserver

Now to submit a simple job/activity with the besclient:

/usr/lib/ssl/misc/CA.pl -newreq # will create a cert request
/usr/lib/ssl/misc/CA.pl -sign # sign the request
cat newcert.pem newkey.pem > user.pem
mkdir user1 && mv new* user1/
besclient -x user.pem -e endpoint.xml create sleep.jsdl # runs the client

The enpoint.xml files looks like:

<?xml version="1.0"  encoding="UTF-8"?>
<wsa:EndpointReference xmlns:wsa="http://www.w3.org/2005/08/addressing">
    <wsa:Address>https://localhost:8443</wsa:Address>
</wsa:EndpointReference>

The sample sleep.jsdl file looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<JobDefinition xmlns="http://schemas.ggf.org/jsdl/2005/11/jsdl">
    <JobDescription>
        <JobIdentification>
            <JobName>Sleep</JobName>
        </JobIdentification>
        <Application>
            <HPCProfileApplication xmlns="http://schemas.ggf.org/jsdl/2006/07/jsdl-hpcpa">
                <Executable>sleep</Executable>
                <Argument>60</Argument>
                <Output>/dev/null</Output>
                <WorkingDirectory>/tmp</WorkingDirectory>
            </HPCProfileApplication>
        </Application>
        <Resources>
            <TotalCPUCount>
                <Exact>1</Exact>
            </TotalCPUCount>
        </Resources>
    </JobDescription>
</JobDefinition>

Note: it might be necessary to add your CA to the /usr/lib/ssl/ directory as symbolic link…

Install and Autoconfigure a Opensolaris zone with ZFS dedup

June 7th, 2010 • Comments Off on Install and Autoconfigure a Opensolaris zone with ZFS dedup

This is a simple script which will setup a OpenSolaris zone. After installing it is automatically configured using the sysidcfg file After running this script you will be logged in automatically. I use this script (slightly modified) to setup a complete test Platform LSF cluster…

It features the following setup:

#!/usr/bin/bash
zfs create rpool/export/zones
zfs set mountpoint=/zones rpool/export/zones
zfs set dedup=on rpool/export/zones

mkdir /zones/lsf_zone
chmod 700 /zones/lsf_zone

zonecfg -z lsf_zone "create; set zonepath=/zones/lsf_zone; set autoboot=false; add net; set address=192.168.0.160/24
; set defrouter=192.168.0.1; set physical=iwh0; end; verify; commit"

zoneadm -z lsf_zone verify
zoneadm -z lsf_zone install

zoneadm -z lsf_zone ready
touch /zones/lsf_zone/root/etc/sysidcfg

echo "name_service=NONE
system_locale=C
timeserver=localhost
timezone=CET
terminal=xterm
security_policy=NONE
nfs4_domain=dynamic
network_interface=primary {dhcp protocol_ipv6=no}" &> /zones/lsf_zone/root/etc/sysidcfg

zoneadm -z lsf_zone boot

Open source & making money: two worlds?

May 17th, 2010 • 4 Comments

I’m a big fan of Open Source Software. But I can also understand that making money is important nowadays. And to be honest I feel more confident when a company is involved in the development of a tool/product/application. I think communities are great – but a company with real QA and who needs to make money out of a tool/product/application has a motivation to make the best out of the tool/product/application.

Now the question is: How do you make money with this in mind? Simply by selling support contracts? I have seen companies fail with that model.

A good idea might be to release the code in open source but as a company do development of new features in a closed repository. Make a clear release plan which shows the upcoming features (and distribute it). When a customer needs one of these upcoming features etc. he can either:

Next to that Support contracts might still be an option 🙂

Crucial point is here the right choice of a source code control system. Because the community still might develop cool features which you want in you closed repository as well…But distributed SCMs do the job…

Thinkpad x300 and x100e

March 24th, 2010 • 1 Comment

Since I have to give back my so beloved x300 laptop to my former employer it was time to find a new cool laptop. What I totally like about the x300 was the weight, screen-size, the SSD, and the dual-core Intel CPU. Still the x300 was to big to work on in trains, planes etc.

So I went on to look around – the only machines who had a chance to get bought where a Apple or a Lenovo. The follow up model of the x300 called x301 (how creative :-)) but is way to expensive. The apple notebooks well are just apple notebooks – your’re paying for the apple logo. So I went on to have a look at the x100e. It is small and energy saving…

So finally I bought one – I totally like the keyboard (which is even better then most Lenovo/ThinkPad keyboards I know), the size, and the weight. In the beginning I felt the screen might be too small (x300 had 1440×900 resolution – the x100e just 1366×766) but I think it’s okay for the price 🙂 Performance had to be improved so I bought a SSD and upgraded to 4Gb of RAM. Now there is not a big difference between the x100e (single-core AMD 1.6Ghz, 4Gb RAM, 80Gb SSD) and the x300 (dual-core 1.2Ghz, 3Gb RAM, 64Gb SSD).

Conclusions is that the price of the x100e is great compared to what you get – so you can save a little and upgrade to a SSD and more memory…

Leaving Sun – Kick butt and have fun!

March 22nd, 2010 • Comments Off on Leaving Sun – Kick butt and have fun!

I decided to leave Sun Microsystems/Oracle and move on to a new position which start 1st of May. I was looking around for a while and reached out to some people and decided that moving on is the best bet for me.

Don’t get me wrong: Working for Sun has been great! I met very bright, great, important, impressive and most of all innovative people – and the company supported me in creating things like OCCI. It was a great experience! Most certainly I’m a bit saddish about this. Sun was a dream-come-true when I started and I’m extremely happy that I had the chance to be part of this history.

Now I move on for various reasons which I might explain to you while having a beer…I will continue to work on Grids and Clouds and hopefully I can push OCCI even more! I will keep on blogging on my blog. My blog at blogs.sun.com/intheclouds will probably vanish sometime (*sniff*) but you can find me using the known website: tmetsch.org. But for now: Kick Butt and Have Fun!

For more videos and a tribute to Sun visit thenetworkisthecomputer.com.