Got the new server online months ago..sorry for the lack of news. I wound up sticking with Debian. Everything went smoothly and now there are several domains running off of this box including multiple streaming servers. Now a bigger challenge looms…moving this station to a new location AND hooking everything up to it’s new location. will keep folks posted as I can.
Category: Linux
I just did my annual update to the Linux Counter Project which is located at counter.li.org. Once i finished my updates I was quote shocked at what I found. Out of all the machines I manage in one form or another(at least server wise) more than 90% are Linux boxes. Some of my clients have two Linux servers. Desktops are overwhelmingly Windows however. Out of 13 servers 10 of them run Linux. That’s quite amazing when you think of it. I did not have any agenda when doing this..i simply chose what i felt was the best tool for the job. Of those 10 Linux boxes there’s 4 dedicated firewalls, 1 web hosting server, three file servers, and one dedicated mailserver. The distributions represented are Astaro(1), Untangle(3), Debian(2), Centos(1)(running the Zimbra Groupware Suite), SME(1), and Zentyal(2), of former e-box fame. That’s an amazing variety that I was quite surprised to see presented. Going about my daily business it’s easy to not really realize your layouts sometimes until you do an independent audit like this and then have it stare back at you..:)
Ever wondered what all those acronyms are that are behind your CPU description? I’ll try to put them down in this FAQ. I am missing a few. Sorry for that, I’ll keep on hunting though. 
To see the options on your CPU, use the following:
For Windows: CPUZ can help.
For Macintosh PPC (OS X): CPUID Mac can help (will point to a zip file).
For Linux: in the console type cat /proc/cpuinfo
- 3DNOW
A multimedia extension created by AMD for its processors, based on MMX.
- 3DNOWEXT
3DNOW Extensions. Could also pertain to AMD’s 3DNow! Enhanced/Extended.
- ACPI
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface.
- APIC
Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller.
- CID+
Most probaly this stands for Certified Interconnect Designer. (A certification for experienced PCB design professionals.)
- CLFSH/CLFlush
Cache Line Flush.
- CMOV
Conditional Move/Compare Instruction.
- CMP_Legacy
Register showing the CPU is not Hyper-Threading capable.
- Constant_TSC
on Intel P-4s, the TSC runs with constant frequency independent of cpu frequency when EST is used.
- CR8Legacy
??
- CX8
CMPXCHG8B Instruction. (Compare and exchange 8 bytes. Also known as f00f (pronounced “foof”), an abbreviation of f0 0f c7 c8, is the hexadecimal encoding of an instruction that exhibits a design flaw in the majority of Intel Pentium, Pentium MMX, and Pentium OverDrive processors).
- CX16
CMPXCHG16B Instruction. (CMPXCHG16B allows for atomic operations on 128-bit double quadword (or oword) data types. This is useful for high resolution counters that could be updated by multiple processors (or cores). Without CMPXCHG16B the only way to perform such an operation is by using a critical section.)
- DE
Debugging Extensions.
- DS
Debug Store.
- DS_CPL
CPL qualified Debug Store.
- DTS
Digital Thermal Sensor.
or
Debug Trace Store.
- EM64T
Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology. Intel’s derivative of AMD’s 64bit CPU technology. Uses 64bit CPU registers and 64bit physical RAM addresses (page addresses) to support up to 1 tebibyte of RAM, which can later be extended (through future processor revisions) to 1 Pebibyte.
- EIST
Enhanced Intel SpeedStep.
- FID
Frequency IDentifier.
- FPU
x87 Floating Point Unit built into the CPU. This is where most mathematically intense calculations take place. Used to be a separate chip on the 80486SX and earlier (called the 80487 or 80387, etc. 80486DX had FPU built-in as well). All Pentium CPUs and later have this functionality built in.
- FXSR
FXSAVE/FXRSTOR. (The FXSAVE instruction writes the current state of the x87 FPU, MMX technology, Streaming SIMD Extensions, and Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 data, control, and status registers to the destination operand. The destination is a 512-byte memory location. FXRSTOR will restore the state saves).
- FXSR_OPT
??
- HT
Hyper-Transport.
- HTT
Hyper-Threading Technology. The ability to use one physical CPU as two separate logical CPUs by taking advantage of unused CPU registers during typical operation in an attempt to make the CPU more efficient. If multiple programs use the same registers by both logical CPUs, Hyper-threading can actually be known to slow down overall performance in some cases.
- LAHF_LM
Load Flags into AH Register, Long Mode.
- LM
Long Mode. (64bit Extensions).
- MCA
Machine Check Architecture.
- MCE
Machine Check Exception.
- MMX
It is rumoured to stand for MultiMedia eXtension or Multiple Math or Matrix Math eXtension, but officially it is a meaningless acronym trademarked by Intel.
- MMXEXT
MMX Extensions.
- MNI
Modular Network Interface.
or
Merom New Instruction. See SSSE3.
- MON (MONITOR)
CPU Monitor.
- MSR
RDMSR and WRMSR Support.
- MTRR
Memory Type Range Register.
- NNI
Nehalem New Instructions (NNI). See SSE4.
- NX
No eXecute. (the ability to not run code.)
- PAE
Physical Address Extensions. PAE is the added ability of the IA32 processor to address more than 4 GB of physical memory using Intel’s 36bit page addresses instead of the standard 32bit page addresses to access a total of 64gibibytes of RAM. Most AMD chips support PAE as well.
PAE is the second method supported to access memory above 4 GB (PSE36 being the first); this method has been widely implemented. PAE maps up to 64 GB of physical memory into a 32-bit (4 GB) virtual address space using either 4-KB or 2-MB pages. The Page directories and the page tables are extended to 8 byte formats, allowing the extension of the base addresses of page tables and page frames to 24 bits (from 20 bits). This is where the extra four bits are introduced to complete the 36-bit physical address.
Windows supports PAE with 4-KB pages. PAE also supports a mode where 2-MB pages are supported. Many of the UNIX operating systems rely on the 2 MB-page mode. The address translation is done without the use of page tables (the PDE supplies the page frame address directly).
- PAT
Page Attribute Table.
- PBE
Pending Break Encoding.
- PGE
PTE Global Bit.
- PNI
Prescott New Instruction. This was the codename for SSE3 before it was released on the Intel Prescott processor (which was later added to the Pentium 4 family name).
- PSE
Page Size Extensions. (See PSE36).
- PSE36
Page Size Extensions 36. IA-32 supports two methods to access memory above 4 GB (32 bits). PSE (Page Size Extension) was the first method, which shipped with the Pentium II. This method offers a compatibility advantage because it kept the PTE (page table entry) size of 4 bytes. However, the only practical implementation of this is through a driver. This approach suffers from significant performance limitations, due to a buffer copy operation necessary for reading and writing above 4 GB. PSE mode is used in the PSE 36 RAM disk usage model.
PSE uses a standard 1K directory and no page tables to extend the page size 4-MB (eliminating one level of indirection for that mode). The Page Directory Entries (PDE) contains 14 bits of address, and when combined with the 22-bit byte index, yields the 36 bits of extended physical address. Both 4-KB and 4-MB pages are simultaneously supported below 4 GB, with the 4-KB pages supported in the standard way.
Note that pages located above 4 GB must use PSE mode (with 4-MB page sizes).
- SEP
SYSENTER and SYSEXIT.
- SS
Self-Snoop.
- SSE
Streaming SIMD Extensions. (70 new Single Instruction, Multiple Data instructions built in in the CPU.) Debuted with the Intel Pentium III processor. AMD’s first chip to support SSE was the Athlon XP.
- SSE2
Streaming SIMD Extensions 2. (An additional 144 SIMDs.) Debuted with the Intel Pentium 4 processor. AMD’s first chip to support SSE2 was the Athlon 64.
- SSE3
Streaming SIMD Extensions 3. (An additional 13 instructions) Debuted with the “Prescott” revision Intel Pentium 4 processors. AMD’s first chip to support SSE3 was the Athlon 64 “Venice” revision.
- SSSE3
Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extension 3. (SSSE3 contains 16 new discrete instructions over SSE3. Each can act on 64-bit MMX or 128-bit XMM registers. Therefore, Intel’s materials refer to 32 new instructions.) Debuted on Intel Core 2 Duo processors. No AMD chip supports SSSE3 yet.
- SSE4
Streaming SIMD Extentions 4. Future Intel SSE revision adding 50 new instructions which will debut on Intel’s upcoming “Nehalem” processor in 2008. Also known as “Nehalem New Instructions (NNI)”.
- SVM
Secure Virtual Machine. (AMD’s virtualization extensions to the 64-bit x86 architecture.)
- SYSCALL
System Call. (the mechanism used by an application program to request service from the operating system.)
- TNI
Tejas New Instruction. See SSSE3.
- TM
Thermal Monitor.
- TM2
Thermal Monitor 2.
- TPR
Task Priority Register.
- TS
Thermal Sensor.
- TSC
Time Stamp Counter. (is used whenever possible to further improve the accuracy of the speed measurement.)
- TTP
Thermal Trip.
- VID
Voltage IDentifier.
- VME
Virtual-8086 Mode Enhancement.
- VMX
An AltiVec floating point and integer SIMD instruction set. (Used by Apple, IBM, Motorola and Freescale Semiconductor.)
- XTPR
TPR register chipset update control messenger. Part of the APIC code.
I’ve been waiting for this. There’s some performance issues with this latest version while virtualized but Red Hat is very good about fixing regressions like this. I’m waiting the month or two it’ll take for Centos to get their next version done for my future use..:)
This article says it better than i can. The GPL is actually now causing more issues than it solved. I would actually use the GPL to RESTRICT who can use my software and how..whereas the BSD license is truly a Free Open Source license.
Internal Email on Why a Software Company Migrates Away from MySQL.
InnoDB Storage Engine Dropped From Oracle MySQL Classic Edition.
Oracle owns Innodb and now MySQL. It’s time to move from Mysql to postgres. Not one of the mysql forks..but postgres. Oracle is beginning the squeeze of Sun’s properties.
I have been doing IT work as a volunteer for a local radio station WTHU for a few years now. Slowly but surely we have been moving along the technology track int he right direction. We have a stout server in wash state that handles our streaming. The costs for this are extremely reasonable but time have gotten tight and we have to find ways to cut costs even more. That lead to a local vendor, Swift systems, that has kindly donated a 2u rackmount server, colocation, power, and an unmetered 10 megabit port. I went into Swift Systems today to install Debian onto said server. This turned out to be quite the adventure. Some of it was totally me..i was not familiar with Debian 5. I’ve used several variants including the near ubiquitous Ubuntu(which I would NEVER put onto a server) but I wanted the real Debian. The hardware issue is the cd-rom drive. I don’t know why..but it’s sssssssllllloooowwwwwww. Painfully slow. However the rest of the box is very very fast. Debian in it’s default install mode will only allow you to configure one interface at install time. If you give it an address that does not have internet connectivity when it tries to build it’s mirror list it’ll timeout(after about 5-10 minutes) and use ONLY the cd-rom. I found this out the hard way. I was not going to do that. I tried a reinstall but again was met with the sloooow cd-rom..:) I tried to setup one interface via dhcp(so it would get a local ip) and then setup the other interface to static to no avail in the installer. I setup the ilo with another static ip in the assigned range and will have them rack the box. I should be able to get into the machine using hte ilo and then using hte console redirect instlal debian to the static range. I should be able to then build the repos properly and have a working Debian install.
Why not Centos? Centos 5 is less than 3 years from expiring. I did not want to have to do an os upgrade anytime soon. With Cent you have to reinstall for an upgrade. With debian you just run apt-get and install the new version. We will see if i can get Debian to install via the ILO. If not i’ll go with centos and deal with the os upgrade later..:)
Well i got the servers in and really didn’t want to wait for the 12u rack…mainly because it’s not int he budget right now. I took one of the servers and have installed untangle on it. I now have 4 network cards in the thing. One is red(internet), one is blue(free public wifi) and one is green(church’s internal network). The 4th one is for future use(which I already have a plan for). What are the specs of this box? It is an IBM x335 with dual xeon 2.8ghz cpu’s with HT , 4 gigs of ram, and two 36 gig 10k U320 SCSI hdd’s in hardware raid 1. The thing just smokes..:) I’m waiting for a couple of major events to really test the box:
1. the Don Piper conference we are having
2. Upward basketball.
Upward is going to be the bigger test as we’ll have hundreds of folks inside the new wing from 9am to 6pm sat and sun every week for about 3 months. I’m hoping to get at least 20 folks on that so i can see how this box handles it.
I had a Dell Poweredge 1800 running Astaro as the firewall until this donation came in. Our e-mail is run by a company called powweb and I have been hearing for a long time about unreliable service, crashing interfaces, and other issues for months now. since the Dell is 64 bit compatible I decided to press that one into use as the new church e-mail server. The test for the firewall is can it handle everything i’m going to throw at it? e-mail, content filtering, anti-virus scanning, packet inspection, remote access..etc etc etc. My research tells me it will. The most fascinating thing about Untangle is it makes heavy use of Java. Java is at the core of the entire system and ALL traffic passes through this Java core. So far it’s worked without a hitch. I’ve setup some simple traffic priority rules that say the church’s traffic has the highest priority and the free wifi has the lowest. I’ll be watching the server closely to see how it does..not that I’m anticipating problems..but this is a new product that has impressed me..and i want to see it work under load as i look at the innards to see how it works..:) Cost for all of this? 105$ and that was just to cover shipping,,:) All of the software is free.
I just need to get the final list of current mailboxses and get the DNS switched over. Staff meeting this Monday to see if they’ll give the green light. I have found several extensions(called zimlets) that really extend the featureset of the Zimbra platform. I know have built into the platform:
1. Automatic detection of UPS and FEDEX tracking numbers. The system will automatically highlight tracking numbers and auto-create hyperlinks. Clicking the link takes directly to your tracking information
2. Daily summary of tasks and appointments. When the user logs in the zimlets checks their calednar for that day and sends them appriate reminders.
3. Post Office tracking. Along the same lines as the UPS Fedex trackers…this also will grab post office trackings form several other countries as well.
4. Social network integration. Twitter, Facebook and a couple of others can be integrated into your Zimbra interface
These are in addition to the base feature set available with the free version. All of these zimlets are free as well. The best thing….no more outlook. FBC users can get to this anywhere they wish to via a https secured channel..:)
Well I have gotten one of the donated servers fired up. It’s a dual Xeon 2.0 GHZ HT with dual 36 gig 10 SCSI hdd’s in raid 1. This is now running Untangle as the firewall. This frees up the Dell server (which is a Xeon 3.0 GHZ HT 2 gig dual 250 gigs SATA disks) box to run Centos 5.5 64 bit. I then installed Zimbra 64 bit. If i get final approval this will be the church’s new mail server. All users will get 2 gigs for their mailbox and they will finally be able to reduce the cost of Office. The church only uses excel and word. Not having to use the pro suite means they can cut our office costs by more than half(unless they want publisher). This will also solve the mail reliability problems they have been complaining about for quite some time. This will also mean their mail is not stored on their local machines AND they can have all the shared contacts and calendars they can have with exchange for a cost of…..ZERO. NO windows license, no windows CALS, no exchange license, no exchange CALS. I had to bend on one “requirement”. It will “integrate” with AD but it doesn’t pull the users automatically. You still have to manually provision user accounts. Kinda makes AD connections useless. However it was so far ahead of everything else in other features I let that one go. This represents a savings of about $500 or more. We can add users to the limit of the box and the church does NOT have to pay MS more $$$ when we add users..:) Once Samba is able to do GPO’s the windows server goes away for good..:)