Karmic is getting good reviews. Lets hope its an easy upgrade and sets the scene for an amazing 10.4 release.

Nexenta Storage Appliance is designed and built to operate as 2nd tier storage alongside pre-existing commercial storage, providing online continuation of data for months and years, with tapes relegated to archival purposes only. The appliance is targeted for 2nd-tier NAS and iSCSI applications requiring extremely low cost storage as well as dramatically simplified provisioning, expansion, backup, replication and archiving. NexentaStor can also be used as a primary NAS in businesses that wish to expand at closer to commodity pricing.

They have a VMware based evaluation version for download, and access to the bare metal install requires talking to their sales team.

From Martin Man.

For debian its quite an easy fix.

BEFORE UPDATING.
zdump -v /etc/localtime |grep 2007

/etc/localtime  Sat Mar 17 13:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 18 02:59:59 2007 NZDT
isdst=1 gmtoff=46800
/etc/localtime  Sat Mar 17 14:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 18 02:00:00 2007 NZST
isdst=0 gmtoff=43200
/etc/localtime  Sat Oct  6 13:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Oct  7 01:59:59 2007 NZST
isdst=0 gmtoff=43200
/etc/localtime  Sat Oct  6 14:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Oct  7 03:00:00 2007 NZDT
isdst=1 gmtoff=46800
-------------------------

HOW TO UPDATE
apt-get update
apt-get install tzdata
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata        (and choose Pacific, Auckland)

------------------
AFTER UPDATING
zdump -v /etc/localtime |grep 2007

/etc/localtime  Sat Mar 17 13:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 18 02:59:59 2007 NZDT
isdst=1 gmtoff=46800
/etc/localtime  Sat Mar 17 14:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Mar 18 02:00:00 2007 NZST
isdst=0 gmtoff=43200
/etc/localtime  Sat Sep 29 13:59:59 2007 UTC = Sun Sep 30 01:59:59 2007 NZST
isdst=0 gmtoff=43200
/etc/localtime  Sat Sep 29 14:00:00 2007 UTC = Sun Sep 30 03:00:00 2007 NZDT
isdst=1 gmtoff=46800

I really would have liked this feature several years ago:

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work to select just any of the generic monitors, so users may find they need to trial-and-error a solution. Fortunately, there is a cool new feature – Add Model which allows users to add a new monitor by using the Windows driver CD that comes with their monitor. This uses a script to parse the Windows *.inf file to get the hsync, vsync, edid, dpms, and other info to update the database locally.

NexentaCP is Dapper/LTS-based core Operating System Platform distributed as a single-CD ISO, integrates Installer/ON/NWS/Debian and provides basis for Network-type installations via main or third-party APTs (NEW).

First “unstable” b65-based ISO with ZFS/Boot-capable installer available
as usual at: http://www.gnusolaris.org/unstable-iso/ncp_beta1-test1-b65_i386.iso

Please give it a try and start building your own APT repositories and communities today!

Note: this version of installer supports ZFS/Boot type of installations on single disk or 2 mirror configuration. For now, only “Auto” partitioning mode could be used for ZFS root partition creation.

More details on NexentaCP will be available soon.

Thinking about it this morning I figured it was better to have my cake and eat it too!

While I had been building the Feisty template, I discovered after apt-getting libc6-xen and xen-image-2.6.19-4-server, and changing boot/grub/menu.lst appropriately that XenEnterprise would boot the Ubuntu image correctly into PV mode. The second bit of the receipe was remembering the OVA system.

So I re-created another default Feisty install, using the Windows 2003 HVM template method. Adjusted the system by install the xen base kernel image, fixed some details I like to arrange on my default installs; then ended up spending half an hour creating a firehol 1.256 deb as the version in Feisty (and Debian) was broken.

The first step was to export the Feisty template domain to a OVA directory:

xe vm-export -h localhost  -u root -pw ${password} vm-name=uft dir-name=uft/

Giving:

[root@node1 iso_import]# ls -lR uft/
uft/:
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Aug 10 11:52 hda
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1182 Aug 10 11:55 ova.xml

uft/hda:
total 394352
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 102704970 Aug 10 11:50 chunk-000000000.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  25568969 Aug 10 11:50 chunk-000000001.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  75610890 Aug 10 11:51 chunk-000000002.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 117392411 Aug 10 11:52 chunk-000000003.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  82104108 Aug 10 11:53 chunk-000000004.gz

After some minor description edits the ova.xml a simple import did the charm:

xe vm-import -h localhost  -u root -pw ${password} dir-name=uft/

And just like that I had a working clone of the original template image. When you are building your template there a few issues to watch out for, the main being iftab. You also want to regenerate any ssh host keys if you’ve installed sshd into your template. Plus watch out for editing /etc/hosts and breaking sudo, this can be a real PITA in Ubuntu as there is no usually seperate root password.

There are a few other resources to follow up later as well. Part of the puzzle is now putting together a generic deployment system for Ubuntu that edits details in the OVA before it is imported. Also, find out if this is a mechanism to setup the right network interfaces and additional disks from a command line import.

Finally, the primary issue with this method is that XenEnterprise does not allow you to do this via the UI. So it must be done via the command line. Maybe this is something worth chasing up with them in due course, once I’ve had a chance to see how XE4 works.

“The next LTS release will be based on Ubuntu 8.04, which is currently planned for release in April 2008,” said Shuttleworth. “We believe we can bring the same level of predictability to the LTS releases as we have to the regular six-month release cycle… There will be a regular series of LTS releases approximately two years apart, starting in 2008 and continuing from there.”

I stopped using evms many years ago when it corrupted some of my data, lvm by itself its a much better system. I wish Ubuntu wouldn’t include it by default.

Canonical Launches Web-Based Systems Management Tool For Ubuntu Deployments.

About Landscape

With Landscape, users can manage, monitor and maintain all their Ubuntu machines simply by registering them with the service. Focused on being easy to deploy, Landscape is immediately available with an easy to use Web interface to common administration tasks.

Security and stability are enhanced with visibility of new security fixes and updates as soon as they’re available for Ubuntu. Individual systems, or groups can be updated making it simple and quick to keep them secure. With package management across a range of systems the total cost of managing an Ubuntu deployment of desktops, laptops and servers is reduced.

Key features of Landscape include:

Package management: All the package management features for remotely managing a system. Quickly find installed packages, view information about them and add or remove them.

System updates: Secure Ubuntu systems quickly and easily. Instantly view packages that need updating across all systems that Landscape knows about. Install security and feature updates as they become available.

Manage groups of machines: With Landscape you can manage multiple machines within a group, either acting on them all or just one machine within the group. Groups are flexible and fast to set up, whether you want to manage machines by location or function.

Semi-connected management: Safely and securely manage systems that are infrequently connected to the Internet. Landscape queues tasks for disconnected and distributed desktops, laptops, or servers. When they come on-line it carries out the queued instructions.

System inventory: Reduce the speed and cost of supporting users with the detailed information needed to resolve problems. Landscape reports on individual system hardware giving a view of all the system’s components. In addition, it reports how Ubuntu sees the system, including elements like the running kernel.

Performance reporting: An organization can compare the performance of multiple systems, viewing key measurements such as system load and disk usage, enabling workloads to be managed effectively.

System history: Administrators can audit the actions on their systems improving security. Landscape provides information on the tasks it will perform in the future. The historical view shows actions shows actions it performed and those done locally on the machine.

From osnews.