Thursday, December 22. 2011Upcoming accessibility changes for Grml 2011.12The upcoming Grml 2011.12 will have some changes in the accessibility features shipped with Grml. Until Grml 2011.12 it was possible to start brltty automatically via the bootoption brltty. The problem with this approach was that it was never clear when you had to enter the bootoptions as there was no sound to indicate boot menu. We also do not have the necessary hardware to test the releases with brltty. With that in mind and the integration of speakup in the kernel we decided to remove the additional accessibility boot-parameters for Grml 2011.12 as we never tested them anyway. But we added some important changes to improve the accessibility. Starting with Grml 2011.12 the bootloader will either beep once (if you use the default syslinux one) or will play 3 beeps (grub) to indicate the boot menu. Afterwards you can easily change the boot parameters if you press TAB (syslinux) or e (Grub). After the bootup Grml will play some tunes to indicate the finished boot. As per default Grml starts a text based menu you will have to press enter after the beep to enter the commandline We think with the additional sound indicators in the boot-menu as well as the default sound to indicate the finished boot-process, Grml 2011.12 will be more accessible then ever. I would like to thank Richard Hartmann for creating the different sound indicators for the upcoming Release Wednesday, December 21. 2011
Setup of the grml infrastructure: ... Posted by Andreas Gredler
at
16:41
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Setup of the grml infrastructure: Part 1 - IPMIBack in August 2011 the Grml Team received a new Server & Hosting furnished by Hostway. The Server is hosted in their DataCenter in Hannover. As the new Server is dedicated for the Grml Infrastructure we chose to create a new system from scratch. The new infrastructure contains many pieces like puppet, libvirt, ldap and many more. In the next few weeks we will provide some insights into our current Server Setup. So expect some interesting posts about system administration. We start off with IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface). IPMI is the interface to the BMC (Baseboard management controller), which let's you read sensor data or just shutdown or reboot you server. IPMI may be used over lan or directly (in-band) with the help of a kernel module (ipmi_si) that implements the ipmi driver. In newer servers you may find a virtual usb to eth interface (e.g. IBM IMM in contrast to IBM RSA). First of all we need to setup a new user/admin account instead of the default one. To list all users run:ipmitool user list 1The digit 1 indicates channel 1. Create user jimmy: ipmitool user set name 2 jimmy ipmitool user set password 2 mysecret2 is for userid 2 which was the first free id in my case. Next we need to setup networking: ipmitool lan set 1 ipaddr 192.168.2.6 ipmitool lan set 1 defgw ipaddr 192.168.2.1 ipmitool lan print 1Digit 1 is again for channel 1. Now you can test your ipmi setup over the network: ipmitool -I lan -H 192.168.1.6 -U jimmy bmc infoYou'll be prompted for the password and receive some infos of the bmc controller. Here are some more examples: ipmitool -I lan -H 192.168.1.6 -U jimmy chassis power status ipmitool -I lan -H 192.168.1.6 -U jimmy chassis power off ipmitool sensor get "BB Ambient Temp" ipmitool sensor get "CPU Fan"The first one checks the power status of the server, e.g. on or off and the second one powers the server off. The last two read some sensor data. Read the man page of ipmitool to find out more ;-) There's a lot more about IPMI but this should help you to get started. Wednesday, December 21. 2011
Remastering Grml without modifying ... Posted by Ulrich Dangel
in general at
13:00
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Remastering Grml without modifying the squashfs or create your own customized Grml CDsIn our last Blog entry about remastering Grml 2011.12 we described a method remastering Grml with grml-live, the tool used to generate the official Grml ISOs. Often you don't need all the power and flexibility of grml-live but just want to add or change some default boot parameters and use this as your default image. For example you may want to have an ISO image which automatically starts sshd and sets the password to a specific value or downloads an executable and run it at startup. This can easily be done with grml2iso a tool based on grml2usb which allows you to create customized iso images. Grml will automatically start sshd and set the password for the grml user if you specify the ssh boot-parameter. This allows you to remotely control your Grml CD. To create such a CD just run: grml2iso -b "ssh=grml-password" -o my_grml.iso ./grml64_2011.12.isoThis will create a modified Grml ISO named my_grml.iso and add the bootparameter ssh=grml-password to all the existing boot-entries. grml2usb does not offer the same flexibility as grml-live but grml2usb/grml2iso is often good enough to help you to achieve what you want without the need to modify the squashfs file. Tuesday, December 20. 2011
Remastering Grml 2011.12 will be as ... Posted by Christian Hofstaedtler
in general at
13:00
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Remastering Grml 2011.12 will be as easy as never before
For the final release of Grml 2011.12 we will no longer ship the so called "release-chroots" - and this will not make it harder for you to remaster, but only easier!
grml-live, the build tool for Grml, has gained a new feature: it can now extract ISOs and use their contents as the base for your remastering needs. This feature will be released with the next grml-live release, but it's available today in grml-live git. How you'd use this:
Monday, December 19. 2011Customize grml-debootstrap with scriptsIn our latest blog entry about grml-debootstrap we described how to leverage grml-debootstrap for automated installations of Debian into virtualized systems. Unfortunately sometimes this is not enough and you need to run commands after the installation. This post will describe some customization methods of grml-debootstrap. For more information on this topic also look at the manpage of grml-debootstrap One quite common task is to execute scripts after the installation like for example gathering the ssh host key or adding your own CA to the host. grml-debootstrap supports the execution of scripts after the machine is successfully installed. To execute scripts after the installation we first need a directory containing all the scripts. This directory will be afterwards specified as a parameter to grml-debootstrap. In this example we are using ./scripts as the directory name. mkdir ./scripts After we create the directory we also need to create a script for our post-processing task. For this example we'll create a script which will examine the fingerprints of the ssh hosts keys. To be able to access and modify the image all the scripts executed by grml-debootstrap will have an environment variable specified called MNTPOINT which will point to the directory used for installing the system. Then we have to create a script inside the directory and make it executable: This script will iterate over all ssh host keys and print the fingerprint of them.$ cat >./scripts/89_print_sshkeys <<EOF #!/bin/bash set -e if [ -z "\$MNTPOINT" ] ; then echo "Please run \$0 inside grml-debootstrap or export MNTPOINT" >&2 exit 1 fi for key in "\$MNTPOINT"/etc/ssh/ssh_host_*_key.pub ; do chroot "\$MNTPOINT" ssh-keygen -l -f \${key##\$MNTPOINT} done EOF $ chmod +x ./scripts/89_print_sshkeys After we created the directory and the script we can now point grml-debootstrap to the directory and it will run all executable files in it. If we extend the command-line from our last example we have to specify the --scripts parameter and point it to the created directory: $ sudo grml-debootstrap --scripts ./scripts/ --password root-pw --vmsize 3G --vmfile --target ./qemu.img .... Finished chroot installation, exiting. * Executing script ./scripts/89_print_sshkeys 1024 9e:d9:18:1d:47:ae:26:9f:53:5e:63:3c:bd:37:ea:2b /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key.pub (DSA) 2048 c1:5e:27:a3:2f:7d:30:a0:ab:75:a2:86:e7:bb:8a:e2 /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key.pub (RSA) .... This shows how easy it is to customize and extend grml-debootstrap to your own needs. You can easily create customized scripts and run arbitrary commands on the target to do whatever you want. grml-debootstrap is of course available within Grml but also in Debian. Friday, December 16. 2011
Deploy Virtual Machines with Grml ... Posted by Ulrich Dangel
in general at
12:00
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Deploy Virtual Machines with Grml 2011.12 or DebianThe upcoming Grml release 2011.12 as well as Debian/testing and unstable ship an updated grml-debootstrap version supporting the installation of Debian not only into directories or hardisks but also into virtual images. grml-debootstrap is designed to help you install complete Debian Systems. Typically if you install a Debian system with debootstrap you have to install the kernel, bootloader, /etc/fstab, ssh server, … yourself. grml-debootstrap automates this boring tasks and allows you to install Debian systems from within a running system within minutes. Nowadays physical installations get less and less important but virtual installation gain importance. New servers are often run inside virtual environments like Xen, KVM or VMware. grml-debootstrap supports the automated installation of Debian into a virtualized environment without the need to use a preseeded installation medium. You can create a raw image with grml-debootstrap which boots per default with KVM and Xen. To boot the image file with other virtualization solutions you may have to convert the generated image with qemu-img To install a plain Debian System into a raw image you just have to run grml-debootstrap --password root-pw --vmfile --vmsize 3G --target ./squeeze.img This will set the root pasword to root-pw, install openssh and the latest kernel package, create /etc/fstab with the necessary entries and configure the bootloader for your virtualized system. If you want to customize or extend grml-debootstrap have a look at the manpage or look at the scripts and package definitions in /etc/debootstrap Thursday, December 15. 2011ATA over Ethernet and GrmlUpdate on 2011-12-20 by Grml team: while iscsitarget isn't available any longer on Grml the new iSCSI implementation of the Linux kernel 3.1 is available and open-iscsi, targetcli and tgt are shipped with Grml. We don't have any finished documentation for that yet, but if you know how to use targetcli (or optionally open-iscsi and tgt) you should have everything you need to provide a iscsi target with Grml 2011.12.
ATA over Ethernet, also known as AoE, is a protocol designed to access Block devices via Ethernet. Compared to iSCSI it does not work with IP but with Ethernet. Unfortunately this means that AoE is error-prone against Ethernet attacks like ARP spoofing. Do not use it in hostile enviornments. That being said AoE is quite simple to use. Export a blockdeviceOn the server side use vblade to export a block device:vblade -m 11:22:33:44:55:66 160 2 eth0 /dev/sdb1 This will allow the host with the MAC 11:22:33:44:55:66 to access /dev/sdb1 via eth0, using the shelf and slot numbers 160 and 2. These numbers are arbitrary but should be unique within the network. Access a blockdeviceOn the client load the module "aoe", or doaoe-discover You should find the device shared above as /dev/etherd/e160.2 I would like to thank to Christoph Biedl for providing this short and comprehensive documentation Monday, December 12. 2011
First Release candidate of Grml ... Posted by Michael Prokop
in general at
13:48
Comments (4) Trackbacks (0) First Release candidate of Grml version 2011.12 releasedWe are proud to announce the first release candidate of the upcoming version 2011.12, code-named "Knecht Rootrecht"! For detailed information about the changes between 2011.05 and 2011.12 have a look at the official release announcement . This release brings a downsizing and cleanup: one flavour, two architectures. The new, smaller flavour has a 350MB ISO size target, while still delivering over 1.1GB of open source software relevant for system administrators! Give it a try and download grml 2011.12-rc and report back to us. Please test the ISOs and everything you usually use and report back, so we can complete the stable release soon. If no major problems come up, the next iteration will be the stable release, which is scheduled for end of December. Monday, October 10. 2011
Grml packages in Debian Posted by Christian Hofstaedtler
in packages at
07:53
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Grml packages in Debian
The first fruits of our push packages to Debian effort are now available in Debian. Three often used packages from the Grml Team have arrived in unstable:
Packages overview for Grml Team
Note that these packages are no longer part of the grml-testing distribution. To get the current version of any of these packages you must get them from Debian unstable instead. If this is a problem for you, please come to the grml mailing list. Sunday, May 29. 2011
Grml - new stable release 2011.05 ... Posted by Michael Prokop
in general at
23:26
Comments (2) Trackbacks (0) Grml - new stable release 2011.05 availableGrml 2011.05 with codename "Just Mari", available in flavours grml, grml-medium and grml-small and all of them as 32bit and 64bit version has been released. The official release announcements providing all the relevant news are available at grml.org/changelogs/README-grml-2011.05. Issues regarding the releases can be found in the grml-wiki. Grab the ISOs from grml.org/download/. Saturday, May 21. 2011
First Release candidate of Grml ... Posted by Christian Hofstaedtler
in general at
11:00
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) First Release candidate of Grml version 2011.05 released
We are proud to announce the first release canidate of the upcoming
version 2011.05, code-named "Just Mari"!
For detailed information about the changes between 2010.12 and 2011.05 have a look at: http://grml.org/changelogs/README-grml-2011.05-rc1/ As usual we have different flavours available: the 32bit versions grml, grml-medium and grml-small as well as the 64bit versions grml64, grml64-medium and grml64-small. Known issues can be found at: http://wiki.grml.org/doku.php?id=release_candidate Please test the ISOs and everything you usually use and report back, so we can complete the stable release soon. If no major problems come up, the next iteration will be the stable release, which is scheduled for end of May. Tuesday, April 19. 2011
Event: Grml at Linuxwochen Wien 2011 Posted by Christian Hofstaedtler
in events at
19:38
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Event: Grml at Linuxwochen Wien 2011The Grml project will be present with a booth at Linuxwochen Wien 2011 during May 5th to 7th. If you're in Vienna and using Grml make sure to drop by! Thursday, April 7. 2011
Event: Grml at Linuxdays Graz 2011 Posted by Ulrich Dangel
in events at
10:32
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Event: Grml at Linuxdays Graz 2011Several Grml team members will be present at Linuxdays in Graz on Saturday, April 9th 2011. If you ever had any questions - this is the time to contact us in real life! :-) Grml developer Christian Hofstaedtler will give a talk about Bare-metal deployment with Grml, as deployment is nowadays still an issue even in virtualized environments. Michael Prokop, project leader and founder of Grml, will give a talk about Opensource project management with some insights and hands on-stories about Open-source development and how to make a good Open-source project. Gerfried Fuchs, also a Grml developer, will talk about the Resources of Debian and provides an overview about several services for users of Debian as well as for users of other Distributions. Grml developer Ulrich Dangel will talk about DevOps, the DevOps movement, tools for DevOps and how Developer and Admins fit together . Make sure to visit us, grab special Grml USB pens and Grml cups, and share your experience with Grml. We would really like to get in contact with you. If you ever wanted to to get in contact with team members and users of Grml, learn something about console tools, simply meet interesting people or just listen to informative talks visit us and the other projects at Linuxdays in Graz and have a good time. Saturday, April 2. 2011
Grml kernels can't be installed with ... Posted by Christian Hofstaedtler
in kernel at
20:26
Comments (0) Trackbacks (0) Grml kernels can't be installed with dpkg 1.16.0dpkg 1.16.0 has entered Debian/unstable yesterday, and contains a change which currently prevents installation of Grml kernel packages. Quoting the changelog from dpkg version 1.16.0: Do not allow versions starting with non-digit when doing strict parsing, warn otherwise. We have opened a bug against dpkg (#620566) as we believe that the new behavior in dpkg is more strict than the current Debian policy. Also, we are currently working on updated Grml kernel 2.6.38 packages providing a version number that won't cause problems with dpkg 1.16.0 in the meanwhile. Update: Updated kernel packages which work around the dpkg bug have been uploaded to the grml-testing repository. Friday, April 1. 2011The Canterbury ProjectWe are pleased to announce the birth of the Canterbury distribution. Canterbury is a merge of the efforts of the community distributions formerly known as Debian, Gentoo, Grml, openSUSE and Arch Linux to produce a really unified effort and be able to stand up in a combined effort against proprietary operating systems, to show off that the Free Software community is actually able to work together for a common goal instead of creating more diversity. Canterbury will be as technologically simple as Arch, as stable as Debian, malleable as Gentoo, have a solid Live framework as Grml, and be as open minded as openSUSE. Joining the the Canterbury Project Arch Linux developer Pierre Schmitz explained: "Arch Linux has always been about keeping its technology as simple as possible. Combining efforts into one single distribution will dramatically reduce complexity for developers, users and of course upstream projects. Canterbury will be the next evolutionary step of Linux distributions." Gerfried Fuchs, who gave a talk about Debian at last year's openSUSE conference, said "While DEX (Debian Derivatives Exchange) might have been a good idea in principle, its point of view is too limited. We need to reach out further for true success." Robin H. Johnson, lead of the Gentoo Infrastructure team, in a panel of core Gentoo developers at SCALE9x: "I really hate compiling-induced downtime. I've been looking forward to installing packages with just a couple of keystrokes. By building on the efforts of other successful distributions, we can take the drudgery out of system maintenance." Michael Prokop, founder of the Grml live CD, can be quoted on the effort that "we managed to create a universal live build framework with grml-live. Our vision was always that it will be universally usable to further the spreading of Free Software." Last year's openSUSE conference had the topic of "Collaboration Across Borders". Klaas Freitag, a respected member of the community, mentioned that "the conference motto was set intentional and actually this is what I had in mind as a positive outcome for the conference." Please be notified that this announce is just the starting point, the necessary changes will happen in the upcoming days. You can use the #cbproject hashtag to give us your feedback on twitter or identi.ca. |
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