Extra Pepperoni

As described in Major Mac Movements, I did a lot of computer shuffling recently. On Sunday night I moved my gigabit Ethernet switch to our private home network, which was much easier than I expected. I labelled all my Ethernet cables (the longest part), then plugged in an 8-port 10/100 switch, moved all the cables from the 8-port 10/100/1000 switch to the new one, and moved most of the cables from the Linksys WRT54G’s 4-port switch to the (now-empty) GE switch.

Now network transfers from the PowerBook to the www (PMG4) max out slightly over 100mbps, and will get substantially faster when I upgrade the PowerBook to a MacBook Pro, and also in the fall when I swap the PMG5 in to become www.reppep.com.

Everything is done except the TiVo swap, although I may have to send the MacBook Pro back to Apple from work because the brightness still flickers, and will see if the 23″ CD continues to flicker in the Super-Tent.

The IT Office staff has moved, along with management. Most of the UNIX Systems Group moves Tuesday. It’s not a happy thing, although we’re hoping for mitigating factors.

Just in time too — this place is falling apart around our ears. A heavily used door is broken, the bathrooms are broken (broken toilets, a flood, and an ant colony). The copier broke and has been left behind. The new bathrooms have no urinals; we’ll see if that has a significant impact on cleanliness.

Furnishings are not great; the monitor arms don’t quite fit under the tasks lights, the new locks are different than the old ones, so while we had the same key for desk/cubbies/pedestal before, the old pedestals can’t be keyed the same as the new desks/cubbies. I’ve been offered a new pedestal, so I wouldn’t have to carry more keys, but the new ones are smaller…

We’re refusing furniture to have more floor space, and various things are now inconveniently farther away.

We’re out of boxes already, and I haven’t packed up (although I have gotten rid of some stuff).

Hopefully Monday will be less busy than today, so I can pack!

Friday night I got 2 750gb hard drives for the Power Mac G5 I brought home from work. I was very impressed by the elegance of its hard drive bays (which have since been replaced by carriers in the Mac Pro), and it’s much faster than anything else in our house (until Amy gets her MacBook tomorrow — that might be faster), so I’m doing a little iMovie work on it.

I’ve installed Leopard Server several times already, having some trouble with networking/naming, largely around the fact that the Power Mac has an internal hostname & IP, an external hostname & IP, and a DNS hostname for the external IP which didn’t agree. Mac OS X Server is picky about hostnames & IPs, and ironically this weekend I found and fixed a similar problem on my PMG4, which dates back to when it became the production (www|mail).reppep.com (shortly after 10.4.0 [Server] was released); I noticed the old name kept showing up in odd places, and now I know why. changeip is your friend.

I just checked, and I have sent 24 messages to Apple since Friday night; probably 1/4 are updates for existing reports. Most of them are about very small points.

The new box will be a Leopard Server testbed until it’s released, and then the production (www|mail).reppep.com, with much more disk capacity and general “oomph”.

For the stuff I had planned a week ago, I’ve done most of it, but the TiVo isn’t connected yet (it’s sitting under a table waiting for me to take the time, but the APExpress is ready to go); Amy’s MacBook arrives tomorrow, and I just sent my original MacBook Pro to Apple to get its backlight fixed and perhaps battery replaced; once it’s back I am considering sending the new 23″ CD in to have its backlight replaced, as it’s got an annoying flicker in the lower right quadrant.

The rest is done; I can now post images to Julia’s site at 100mbps from my PowerBook, rather than AirPort speeds, and I am considering moving the GE switch to the inside, since that would let the PowerBook run at full speed (and most bulk transfers are betweeen it and the server), and obviously the front side of the network is throttled by our 3mbps/768kbps DSL circuit. But it requires me to use different names for everything to get top speed and bring an old 100mbps switch back online, so I’m not hurrying to implement. I can see the GE is working, though — I just moved a 1.35gb iMovie project from the PMG5 to the PMG4, and it peaked at 300mbps, averaging half that. After I invert the network I’ll see if the PBG4 can do faster transfers than the PMG4.

I decided to hold onto the Dell PC, since nobody else wants it and it’s a fine machine for XP or Linux; I’ll just leave it in a corner until I come up with a worthwhile use for it.

It’s very nice to have an iPod on the stereo again.

Here’s a neat indicator of urban density. Julia & Amy came outside to play this afternoon, and then wandered off, but not before I brought my aluminum PBG4 out to join them. I briefly checked signal strength of our network with iStumbler, and was quite impressed to find 26 visible WLANs from our front door, significantly more than the 16 I picked up inside the apartment shortly before we moved in.

Last week, I was discussing the Mac Pro octos with Adam, and bemoaning how expensive they are (the top price you can configure is over $18k for a single machine). I was saying I could really use more than 4 cores, and Adam didn’t seem to believe me.

Today, I ran Parallels Transporter on my Dell (via Remote Desktop Connection) to make a VM for running inside Parallels. I was impressed with how simple it was, although the VM didn’t actually work.

I also installed Solaris 10/x86 in a VM, which was painless, although it insists on running at 1920×1600 (the 23″ CD’s native resolution), which is not what I want. I set the resolution within Parallels (I hate that you can’t do that without shutting down the VM!), but that doesn’t help. I’m sure I’ll get it soon, but it’s lame.

I was also burning the latest Leopard Server seed for testing (the first time I tried it never finished closing the session, but this one seems good), with the source image being served up via Samba.

So with an install and a DVD burn locally, and an RDC session, plus background tasks, I passed 50% on 3 cores. Note that I wasn’t actually doing anything, except waiting for the installs to complete. Ideally, I’d just leave Solaris 10, WinXP, and RHEL5 all running idle or paused, but with 4 cores that would be foolish.

The old PMG5 had 2 1280×1024 displays (2.5mpixel); one died, and I replaced it with a 1600×1200 Samsung 20″, but the video card couldn’t handle it (design flaw), so I stuck with dual 1280×1024; one of those won’t work with the Mac Pro (no ADC), and the other will go home, where it belongs. With the Mac Pro upgrade, I am moving up to 1920×1200 + 1600×1200 (5.5mpixel). Sweet!

My group is currently scheduled to move on May 1, and it looks like the Super-Tent will be ready. It isn’t yet, but they’re pretty close. This week I learned about VESA monitor mounts. VESA has a series of (poorly named) standards for monitor mounting; both my Samsung monitors use a 100×100mm VESA mount, and (with a small adapter) my new Apple 23″ display does as well. I have a VESA mount of some sort on order, but have not been able to find out what they actually purchased yet.

I am now wondering if I would’ve been better served by a taller monitor, instead of the widescreen aspect ratio, but it doesn’t seem like our space will be so tight that this is going to be important. Fortunately, even though I am using different displays, they are both silver, both 1200 pixels high, and both use the same VESA mount, so I should be fine.

• http://www.vesa.org/
• http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?productLearnMore=M9649G/A

The Mac Pro arrived today, and it does seem substantially snappier, although it’s the “low-end” Mac Pro (4 2.66GHz Xeon cores), compared to the original fastest PMG5 (2×2GHz G5s).

I have already salvaged the 120gb drive from my old 700MHz Microway Linux machine; nothing else was worth keeping, although it was a fine Linux test box for several years. I got rid of the Sun Blade 100 (500MHz), which was invaluable for testing (and net installing) Solaris 8-10, even though it never got much TLC. I’ve tentatively decided to keep the Windows Dell, as much so I can test p2v conversions as because I haven’t yet installed the Remedy “Action Request” (help-desk ticketing) client in a Parallels VM yet.

I’ve seen my RHEL5 VM fail to respond to input on the MacBook Pro a few times, so if that continues to be a problem I’ll switch to the VMware “Fusion” beta. I very briefly played with several of the VMware pre-built “appliances”, but for my work it’s as valuable to run through the installer as to actually log in, so I will be installing Solaris 10 x86 (my first x86 Solaris install) tomorrow under Parallels.

With the frosted glass (still under paper) the partitions are taller than I expected, and the 4-person cubes are larger than I expected, but there is still going to be a major lack of privacy. With 60+ people in the tent and HVAC turned on, it is also likely to be quite noisy. We’ll know soon!

And my current office; the new Mac Pro & 23″ CD are on the right; the old PMG5, 19″ Samsung & Apple 17″ LCD are on the left (all going away). The Windows Dell is out of sight on the right floor. Ironically, I will actually have boxes for the two nicest/most expensive pieces of equipment because they’re new — assuming I don’t give up and throw the boxes out in frustration at the crowding first.

[](http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/album/ru/super-tent-20070417/Pages/21.html “My current / old cube”

I installed several hundred megs of patches, am right now copying over my MP3s, and am now installing XCode (should be standard on Mac Pros!) to install Fink next.

I was discussing this week’s plans for computer rearrangements with Amy, and was amazed when I listed them all. Most of these will happen this week.

1. I’m getting a Mac Pro at work; it has shipped and should be in soon.
2. I got the (very nice) 23″ Apple display already; I’ll connect it as soon as I get the Mac Pro.
3. I’ll bring my current PMG5 home; it will become a Leopard testbed, and after Leopard’s release will become www.reppep.com.
4. The PMG5 has a 17″ Apple LCD with ADC connector, which will come home with it (I don’t have anything else at work with an ADC connector, and nobody wants a 4-year-old 17″ display).
5. I bought a 20″ LCD at work a few months ago, but the ATI video card Apple shipped with the PMG5 can’t drive it and a 17″ display properly. I got a replacement card, thinking it was defective, but the (expensive) replacement part had the exact same problem, so it’s a design flaw with that model. I brought the 20″ display home and brought my own personal 19″ display to work. I will bring the 20″ back to work.
6. I will bring the 19″ LCD back home (I’ll miss the pixels for iPhoto, but otherwise it’s fine).
7. Amy now suddenly needs a new computer (preferably one which can run Windows), and our finances have just gotten tight again, so I have deferred my purchase, and instead bought her a MacBook, which should arrive this week.
8. At work, I have an original MacBook Pro which I use for a) ssh, b) Safari, c) Leopard testing, & d) Parallels/VMware hosting & testing. I’ll bring my own PBG4 in for ssh & Safari, do Parallels/VMware on the new Mac Pro, and move Leopard testing to the PMG5 at home.
9. I’ll bring the MBP home, where it will be much faster than the PBG4.
10. I’m replacing our 100mbit switch (the old gigabit switch died a year ago) with a new 8-port gigabit switch — for $35 ($50 before rebate!!!).
11. I’m running Ethernet to the loft where my desk and printer are; this will free up an AirPort Base Station currently connecting the printer to our home LAN via WDS.
12. I will replace our upstairs DVR with our hacked Series 1 TiVo, so I can once again extract video to watch on the subway with TCPMP; I will use the newly-freed-up ABS to connect the TiVo’s Ethernet.
13. My 60gb iPod photo should be back soon, so I’ll be moving my Eudora Folder (email) back off the old 10gb (which was mine, then Amy’s, then attached to the stereo to share).

Then later this month, we’ll pack up our offices and move everything to the Super-Tent. I’ll be moving the Mac Pro and PBG4 w/ 2 displays, and getting rid of my Sun Blade 100, Dell Windows PC, & Microway Linux PC — replacing them with VMs on the Mac Pro.

I do not have a comprehensive backup strategy. I keep reading well-reasoned arguments for at least 3 complete (bootable) backups, scratching my head, and saying, “Yeah, if I had a couple thousand unused, I could do that.” Yes, I know drives are cheap, but I have 3 important systems to back up, and 4 more where perhaps a dozen files matter combined. Between the important systems, I’d need about 600gb usable, and Joe thinks you need 3 bootable backups, and I’m a strong believer in keeping the backups permanently away from the originals (not on a rotating cycle, but never-the-twain-shall-meet time — what else is broadband for?).

http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/backup-macosx.html

Unfortunately, whenever I kick off an rsync job to update my remote backups (one set, not 3), Amy complains every day because Internet access is so slow. I think I have throttled it back enough to be unintrusive, but I just don’t remember, and (especially at an unobtrusive fraction of our 384kbps DSL uplink), it just takes so dang long.

http://rsync.samba.org/

But I’m not too worried, because 95%+ of my important data is in Eudora on my iPod (yes, I know iPods die — I’ve killed more than my fair share, along with Zip disks, Orb disks, and even a 2.5″ FireWire drive), and I use Synchronize Plus X to back up my iPod to my primary home and work machines automatically, every time I plug it in. This is a great feature of Synchronize, which mitigates my annoyance with their licensing.

Every morning when I get to work, I dock the iPod; Synchronize sees it, launches Eudora, backs up changed files to my work desktop’s hard disk, and launches an AppleScript to bring up a couple applications. When I’m done, I type eject in a Terminal window, my iPod unmounts, and login.keychain is locked (flushing ssh keys in the process). On my home PowerBook, the process is the same.

So I know my backup system works well, because I test restores whenever there’s a problem with the iPod (perhaps twice a year). But I still feel nervous erasing it before sending it away. I actually did this today — a couple months after its 2-year anniversary, my 60gb iPod photo’s battery won’t last an hour. Apple told me they’d fix it under extended AppleCare, but changed their minds and cancelled the repair — without telling me. I paid the $70 and sent it in today; I’m running off our old 10gb iPod in the interim.

For the next step, I’m moving my website into Subversion. I already keep Julia’s school site & Bjorn’s site & documentation in Subversion, and last week I got sick of making manual backups of a piece I’m writing for TidBITS, so I reorganized and checked in my writing (not that there’s much of it). Tonight, I threw out 4gb of my 7gb ~/public_html in preparation for checking in (most of) the rest of it.

• http://subversion.tigris.org/
• http://www.brooklynfreespace.org/
• http://www.xowave.com/

Backing up a Subversion repository is easy, and will bring me to about 99% of important data backed up (not counting MP3s — are already replicated to 2 Macs & an iPod — or iPhoto libraries, which require different handling, but should back up quite well via rsync; but I have to get Julia’s few [important] pages into Subversion too).

Today I upgraded our 8 core authentication (”Single Sign On”) servers from commercial ssh to OpenSSH (it was a 2-year battle to standardize on OpenSSH, but in the end the right product won).

http://www.openssh.org/

The tricky things are: a) These machines are critical enough that they’re not directly accessible from campus, so everything must be done through an intermediary machine. This complicates everything. b) Upgrading ssh is problematic because it’s the remote control tool, so working on sshd implicitly interferes with your own control. Fortunately we have good terminal servers, which make this much less problematical; when sshd is down, you can get in the back door to bring it up.

One of the neat things about UNIX is that you can delete a file, but if it’s open the file is not actually deleted until that filehandle is no longer in use (when the last filehandle is closed, the disk space is reclaimed), so for non-terminal-server systems, I’ve actually done the whole upgrade through an sshd binary which is deleted at the beginning of the upgrade, replaced during the upgrade, and still in use until the very end.

I (we) have been doing this long enough, and refined the procedure sufficiently, that the whole upgrade took under 90 minutes total for 8 machines, although there was a lot of prep and follow-up, cleaning up accounts, /etc/sudoers, installing public keys, etc.

Overwriting /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, and /etc/groups with copies from the intermediate machine was particularly stressful; I was highly relieved that nothing broke.