Cocoa Crusty

I am working on a SUSE Enterprise Linux Server 10 server today and I have no experience with Novell’s flavor of Linux at all. But, that’s wht Google was created… Google allows admins and non-admins to “fake it till you make it”. And, that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what I have done today while working with this SUSE box.

So, my task was to get the box booted up, setup the network configuration, and then turn it back over to another department who will get with the vendor working with this server to complete the configuration. I have setup network configurations in FreeBSD, Red Hat Linux (way back in the day), AIX, Solaris (again, way back in the day), and obviously Windows and Mac OS X. But, I had no idea where SUSE stored it’s network configuration files or what the file format was for setting up the network parameters until today.

I am posting this information for two reasons: 1.) I may need this again someday, and 2.) hopefully it will help someone else out who is just entering into the SUSE arena. Here is what I found out during my research:

The files necessary to setup my network configuration were located in /etc/sysconfig/network. Within this directory are different ifcfg-<interface_name> files, obviously, one for each interface in the machine. Now, most Linux fans would assume that since there was a ifcfg-lo file in this directory for the local loopback interface that there would need to be a ifcfg-eth0 file for the eth0 interface. Well, not so… I don’t guess.

My config file for eth0 was labeled ifcfg-eth-id-00:00:00:00:00:00 where 00:00:00:00:00:00 is the MAC address of the interface I wanted to configure. Since I wanted to create a static configuration, not a DHCP assigned address, I put the following contents in my ifcfg-eth-id-00:00:00:00:00:00 configuration file, again, located within /etc/sysconfig/network:

BOOTPROTO='static'
BROADCAST=''
ETHTOOL_OPTIONS=''
IPADDR='xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx'
MTU=''
NAME='Descriptive Name for Interface'
NETMASK='xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx'
NETWORK=''
REMOTE_IPADDR=''
STARTMODE='auto'
UNIQUE='<random_stuff_it_appears_maybe_not>'
USERCONTROL='no'
_nm_name='bus-pci-000:01:00.0'

Obviously, you’ll need to set IPADDR to the IP address you want to use for your box/server. The NETMASK also needs to be set correctly. I’m not really sure what the UNIQUE variable is or how it is computed. Maybe someone else can shed some light on this one. And, it appears that the _nm_name is the actual hardware address to your NIC. Again, maybe someone can help me out with the variable as well.

So, once I had that file configured the way I wanted, it was time to set my default route. This was extremely simple. All I had to do was create a file with a name similar to the configuration file we just modified, but instead of using ifcfg-* I used ifroute-*. So, my route configuration file for my eth0 interface was named ifroute-eth-id-00:00:00:00:00:00. Obviously you will need to replace the 00:00:00... with your actual MAC address. Inside the file I put one line and all of my problems were solved. I entered:

default xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Make sure you replace xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the actual IP address of your network’s gateway. Also, that is a between the word default and the gateway’s IP address.

Once these files were created/modified, I rebooted the server, logged on, and was able to access network resources like it was nobody’s business.

Until next time…

Some of you may know my community blog, averageadmins.com, others may not. If you’ve never visited it, don’t go there now… Or, for the rest of the month of June for that matter. If you are a frequent visitor of the average admins site, you’ll remember last month we had a little issue with bandwidth. Well, this month is no different. It just so happened to strike us as a problem yesterday evening, the 17th of June.

The averageadmins.com web site has 10GB of transfer bandwidth available per month. It was set at 8GB last month and I upped it due to the fact that 8GB didn’t last very long. This month, around the 8th, half of the 10GB was already used. That’s ridiculous if you ask me. I will be doing some research on who is making all of the connections, what type of content they are grabbing, and try to figure out what’s going on. I’ll be posting my progress on here into my “investigation”.

I may have to enlist the skills of Chris to help me further investigate this. He’s a pretty savvy network forensics guy/log parser. Until then, the average admins site will be down for the remainder of the month. If we can determine who is chewing up all of my bandwidth, and block their IP address(es), then I may extend the bandwidth for the month and June and see how it goes… We’ll see.

Until next time…

I have been fascinated with the Mac Mini for quite sometime and actually thought that this piece of hardware would be my entrance into the world of Macintosh due to its size, price, and the fact that you can use your already existing DKM. When I purchased my MacBook from the Apple Store in Plano, Texas, I talked with a salesperson about the Mac Mini. She said that a lot of people were purchasing the Mini for use as a server. I thought that was an extremely cool idea.

Think about it. Most data centers aren’t getting any bigger. Every server manufacturer out there is trying harder and harder to cram more and more into 1U rackmount servers. Even so, the length of these machines is way too long. I mean, you took a tower server and squashed it down to like an inch to an inch and a half tall but the rest had to be flattened out and spread over a larger footprint. The Mac Mini measures 2 inches tall and is 6.5 inches square. How many of those things can you fit on the real estate a 1U server takes up?! A lot!

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With the ever increasing release of Bluetooth® enabled cell phones and good friends like Troyz R Us, nothing is impossible… Well, almost nothing. Some things are still impossible but you know what I mean.

This morning I called Troy extension-to-extension and asked him if he had any ring tones that I might be interested in. Troy sent me “Throw Some D’s” by Rich Boy through the wall. Troy’s on one side of the wall, I’m on the other in a different office, and we still were able to send files via Bluetooth®.

What a great technology for close range (20-30 feet) networking and file transfers. Bluetooth® can communicate through walls, trees, people, small children, furry woodland creatures, professional recording studios, across buildings, car-to-car, rooftop-to-rooftop, house-to-house, whatever. As long as you’re in range, you’re good to go! Nice!

Until next time…

I recently posted an entry titled “Using a Nokia E61 for internet Access in OS X” that discussed, you’ll never guess, how I got my Nokia E61 working with my Apple MacBook for Internet access when no WLAN or LAN is available.

I think the combination of the Bluetooth® phone and the MacBook works pretty well. I mean, think about it, this isn’t your primary Internet connection. When you’re out and about and need access to something on the Internet like e-mail, directions to a location, etc., it works great. Of course, with my phone, I can access this type of information directly from the Symbian OS based web browser, but when you want to sit down and use something a little more comfortable and familiar, this setup is more acceptable.

So, I did some preliminary testing of the data speeds using Speakeasy’s Speedtest site to see what kinds of speeds I am getting when using my phone as a modem with my MacBook. I figured this information would come in handy for anyone looking to use their phone in a similar fashion. It will also help you decide if the speeds are enough to warrant the extra money you’ll be forking out each month for an unlimited data plan with your cellular carrier.

Also, keep in mind that these data speeds are based on the cellular service here in the greater Texarkana area. Your performance will vary based on the coverage available in your area and the compression and speed options available through your carrier. Here comes the data:

As you can see, based on the testing that I did today from the house during lunch, I averaged 116.2 kilobytes per second down and 78 kilobytes per second up. That’s not too bad. It’s better than dial-up. It’s pretty close to a bonded ISDN line. However, when I was working at that client site the other night, which is located in the center of Texarkana right off of the Interstate, I had downstream speeds up to 212 kbps and upstream speeds nearing 114 kbps.

I think it is all going to depend on where you are in relation to the cell towers, what type of equipment you have around you that might be interfering with the Bluetooth® connection and the cellular reception, where your phone is located in relation to your laptop, and what type of data quality your carrier provides.

As for me, this will be a great alternative for accessing the Internet when a decent broadband connection is not available. I also look forward to using this type of connection in hotels when traveling. You don’t know how many times I have tried to get a hotel’s “free wireless Internet” service to work and have been unsuccessful, left with no connection to the digital extension of myself that is the Internet. I have to stay connected!

Until next time…