theratshack.net

New changes are coming!

I have just been informed that weh ave lost someone very special in the community. Details forthcoming, however website maintenance and changes pending and other major life issues are delaying me posting anything at the moment. Check back here in a week.

Yes, I’m ok.

This is a test post. I hope to be updating more often now that there is an app for Android specifically for posting to WordPress blogs.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about something that has been bothering me. Almost a year ago, I vowed to get into college and to work towards achieving a lifetime goal I have of graduating from college with a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering. Well, it’s almost a year and I have been able to do nothing towards that goal. To say that life has gotten in the way has been an epic understatement.

I’ve lost a job and gotten a new one. I love my new job, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not what I want to do. I don’t want a job, I want a career. I want to be designing computer hardware. I want to be a member of a team where I am a respected colleague, not just “That New Guy” where my thoughts and opinions are valued not scorned upon.

I guess I’m still fighting off the remnants of what I’m sure is PTCD (post traumatic career disorder) after my last job fell apart after an anguishingly long term of standoffs with the supervisor. She did not value my opinions at all and rather than at least pay me the courtesy of listening to my thoughts and helping me understand, she saw fit only to muzzle me and to keep me out of the way. When I protested, she found ways of dealing with me.

My new job on the other hand is a very stark contrast to my last one. My supervisor treats me with respect and is a great guy in general, even if I did kick his ass in pool after work. My team is always available to help when I need them and I have helped them with many things as well. I get the feeling of value that I didn’t have at my last job.

But the problem is the job itself. I can do the job well at least according to my stats and my supervisor but it does not engage me as deeply as I want to be engaged. I don’t want to be assisting people figure out which wordpress plugin killed their blogging site or trying to figure out why Joomla is rendering a blank page for the next five years. I want more than that, no I need more than that.

My goal is to be designing electronic equipment. I want to be the guy featured on Make Zine for having brought home automation home, or the guy that is running his house and his network on a solar cell farm or a nuclear battery powered by trash (yes, it will have the name “Mr. Fusion”). I want to be desinging the hardware that makes life better, not sitting on the edge of the river of life with my big toe in the currents.

I’m almost 30 now and have nothing to show for it. I’ve never been outside of the country except to Mexico when I was 8, and I haven’t taken a real vacation in at least the last 10 years. The closest I get is a twice-a-year hiatus where I go to camp out with a lot of friends in Central Texas.

I had aspirations and dreams once, but it seems like every time I make a plan and set forth to implement it, my seemingly stable life explodes into a world of drama and chaos resulting in the latest financial disaster that must be dealt with. I can’t believe that this is going to be my life for the next 50 years. I refuse to believe it. On the other hand, I am so tired of wanting to do things and getting thwarted by life leaving plans half-sinking in the wake.

So, the $64 question is, what do you do when life gets in the way?

Not two days after initial launch, one of my posts on YourWarrantyIsVoid.com made Hack-A-Day. I am so happy that they liked the APC UPS article I submitted to them. The article is here:http://hackaday.com/2009/08/22/a-linux-server-that-tweets-power-changes/

Been thinking of a conversation between friends regarding the use of the world “Elder”. These two had an argument concerning the use of the term where one person thought that those younger should call them Elder because they were older then their peers.

The other person’s stance was that although the first person was indeed older, the younger person had been more engaged in the community and as such hadn’t really gained the “Elder” status that the first person sought from the second person.

This got me to thinking, (yeah, I know. Bad idea.) about the term “Elder” versus “elder”. I capitalized the first as I am attempting to differentiate between two commonly used meanings:

The two definitions are below (thanks to Dictionary.com)

–adjective a compar. of old with eldest as superl.
1. of greater age; older.
2. of higher rank; senior: an elder officer.
3. of or pertaining to former times; earlier: Much that was forbidden by elder custom is accepted today.
–noun
4. a person who is older or higher in rank than oneself.
5. an aged person.
6. an influential member of a tribe or community, often a chief or ruler; a superior.

Now I’ve been thinking about this and my interpretation of an “Elder” is a lot less jumbled together.

My definition of an “Elder”:
- A scholarly, aware and educated mmber of the community who has a significant, known presence and influence but isn’t arrogant or bull-ish with their presence.
- A person that commands respect, but is respected voluntarily
- A person that has/does serve(d) as an educator and guide for the community, someone that people can ask for help and approach easily without fear of judgment.

My definition of “elder” is more inline with “senior”, as only a declaration of age when used in comparison to another, like, “My grandfather is my father’s elder.”

I guess the cause of this internal examination was that there are several people that are elder to me in age, but I can’t really quite call them an “Elder” due to various circumstances. I think that an “Elder” is more like the Clerics and the Priest/ess in the villages of ages ago whose counsel was sought when things went bad, who kept their head calm even when all hell was breaking loose.

I actually believe that age alone does not qualify someone as “Elder” unless they have done something to earn the respect associated with the term. The “Elder” is respected by all people, even those that might not agree with them because they are diplomatic about the disagreements, even when others resort to less dignified methods of settling disputes.

Now that’s not to say that an Elder can’t make a mistake, nor are they absolved of any wrongdoing. It’s more how they handle the situation, owning up to the fact they gave bad advice rather than running away shouting names like a child. In fact, it’s oftentimes how they handle themselves when the gun is aimed at them that can define the difference between a true Elder and a coward.

Your thoughts?

This is the next post in the series of using Ubuntu to PXEboot other Linux installations.
Click Here to read on how to set up the TFTPboot server on Ubuntu

In our last post, we configured TFTP on the Ubuntu server and successfully tested it using VMware or a second PC. Using a menu-based system, we can select and retrieve the memtest image over network and can test memory with out setup. This is fine and dandy, and with the right hardware, (I use a Compaq Presario desktop) can prove advantageous for testing the random bits of RAM you have without the hassle of finding your UBCD or fiddling with floppy disks.

This article will cover the incorporation of Centos 5 into our TFTP server and covers setting up VSFTPd on the Ubuntu server as well as copying/merging the distribution CDs into a single installation directory. Although some information here is CentOS specific (like where the network boot floppy image is stored on the CD iso for instance) these steps can be used for any distribution of Linux that supports an install from network option. Just about everything from RedHat 6.2 all the way up to the RHEL series, Ubuntu and Ubuntu Server, Mandrake/Mandriva and the rest have a prebuilt network boot disk image to use. This is required unless you fancy building your own network boot images and initrds. (which I do not. )

Prerequisites:

Ubuntu computer with TFTP server installed and working

SCP/SSH access to the Ubuntu computer

A copy of WinSCP is highly recommended

Centos 5 CD images, already downloaded from a mirror listed from CentOS.org

An FTP client helps to diagnose connection issues but is not required.

We’re going to start off by copying the ISO images to the Ubuntu server first so we can perform some checks on the images to make sure they were downloaded properly. Use WinSCP to establish a connection to your Ubuntu server and create your temporary directory. Hit “F5″ to create a directory and call it something descriptive so you know what’s in there. I called mine “Centos5″.

Copy all the files into the new directory. This is going to take a while (even on gigabit) so while we are copying the files, we can set up the FTP server. Before we get into the commands, let’s discuss the difference between HTTP and FTP for these installations.

HTTP:Most installers support installation via HTTP. This is accessed by a URL, even when on a local network like: http://192.168.0.2/install/CentOS5/initrd.img

FTP:Some installers support FTP installation as well which means that you don’t necessarily have to have Apache running in order to perform the installation.

There really is no difference which distribution method you use. I have used Apache and FTP many times with great success for performing LAN installs. I do want to warn you that using Apache on a machine to distribute your installation images is not recommended as this might end up killing the server should a bunch of people discover your repository and start performing installs. If you do decide to use Apache, look for information on how to set up your own virtual host so you don’t spread your repository across the world and make sure that only people on your local network can access that directory.

I’m using FTP because I have Apache configured for serving pages to the Internet and don’t want to saturate my internet connection with people performing distribution installs and my FTP server is blocked by my router/firewall so I know that no one on the outside can access it.

So enough of talking, let’s get to doing stuff!

Setting up VSFTPd

Be sure that your user account has SUDO access before you begin. If you don’t like SUDOing all the time, you can “sudo bash” to stay as root user until you are done. You will need to be the root user to set up VSFTP and perform the necessary configuration. Go ahead and install VSFTpd:
sudo apt-get install vsftpd

This instructs apt-get (the package manager) to install vsftpd on the server and start it. You should now be able to connect to the Ubuntu server:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>ftp 192.168.0.2
Connected to 192.168.0.2.
220 (vsFTPd 2.0.6)
User (192.168.0.2:(none)): anonymous
331 Please specify the password.
Password:
230 Login successful.
ftp> dir
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Here comes the directory listing.
226 Directory send OK.
ftp> ls -la
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Here comes the directory listing.
drwxr-xr-x 2 0 65534 4096 Aug 11 16:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 2 0 65534 4096 Aug 11 16:53 ..
226 Directory send OK.
ftp: 119 bytes received in 0.00Seconds 119000.00Kbytes/sec.
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.


The snip above shows that the FTP server is up and running, accepts anonymous connections (ideal) and is ready. By default, the VSFTPd server starts up accepting only anonymous connections requiring no password and with read only access. It is not needed to create a user for vsftpd unless you want to as the default install is pretty secure as is. Anonymous users don’t need write access and they need to be able to read from the installation media.

Now, unlike previous FTP servers, there is no /var/lib/ftp or /var/ftp directories. Instead, VSFTP has its own directory in /home/ftp/. Unlike adding a new user to the system, there are no “dotfiles” (files with a leading . in the filename like .bash_history) like there are for normal users. This is because vsFTP uses this as the root of the FTP server and there are no need for these configuration files in the home directory.

I would recommend keeping your distributions organized in some semblance of order. For this server, I am going to use the following structure as I plan to add more installation disks to this server later on:

/ - the root of the FTP server (from the client's perspective) This is /home/ftp on the server.
/bootdisks - This will be for some network boot floppy images just in case I have a NIC that doesn't support TFTP
/dist - This is the main distribution directory
/dist/iso - This is where I'll keep the ISO images once I'm done with copying them
/dist/installer - This is where each distribution will have its own directory for their install files..
/dist/installer/Centos5 - This is where CentOS's installation files go

This is recommended to keep your FTP server clean. If you use your FTP server for many different things, you will know at-a-glance what a directory is for and what it contains. It’s just good housekeeping to keep your server tidy. If you want to use this structure, then you can use the following code to get the directories set up.


cd /home/ftp && mkdir bootdisks && mkdir dist &&\
mkdir dist/iso && mkdir dist/installer && mkdir dist/installer/centos5


MD5SUM check the ISOs

Hopefully by now, the ISO images have been copied. If available, make sure you copy the MD5sum file along with them to your temporary directory on the server.

CD into the directory and we can use MD5 to check these files using the syntax below:

root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# md5sum -c md5sum.txt


This command ‘md5sum’ generates an MD5 hash which should be identical to what is in md5sum.txt. The MD5 hash is like a special checksum validation that you can use to validate that downloaded files match their sources on the server you downloaded them from. Using the above command, I get the below results indicating a valid match. If one of the files had been changed by even so much as a comma in a configuration file on the ISO, the test would have failed.

root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# md5sum -c md5sum.txt
CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-1of6.iso: OK
CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-2of6.iso: OK
CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-3of6.iso: OK
CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-4of6.iso: OK
CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-5of6.iso: OK
CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-6of6.iso: OK
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5#


If you don’t have the md5sum.txt, you can still use the md5sum application. Use the command below to generate the MD5 checksums of the ISO images:

root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# md5sum *.iso

This command will output the MD5 checksum and the filename for each of the files. You then compare this to what is listed on the server where you got them and compare the numbers. If they do not match, you know you got a corrupted download. Here is the MD5sums of the ISO images I have:

dd93a6da1b900548825159206099603c CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-1of6.iso
5441ae0a3c9efd47cd8bfab873fe20c1 CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-2of6.iso
024ca72da4e14f79522a90bf8f4fdf9f CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-3of6.iso
95e5e446754e76b3fa07aaf4946c0aa9 CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-4of6.iso
0cda242797ded4b6b2ea0469984aca82 CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-5of6.iso
889ff6389108a85780a06cd38b7375e7 CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-6of6.iso


Mount, copy, Lather, Rinse, Repeat

We have our FTP server and we have our validated ISO images. Now it’s time to get messy. The next part comes in mounting these CD iso images, then copying their contents to the FTP directory we made earlier. This can be tedious and can be done incorrectly, rendering a good amount of time wasted if you aren’t careful.

We’ll start off by creating a temporary directory within the temporary directory called “source” and another one called “destination” and then mount the first ISO image into the source directory by use of the loopback option. Once mounted, we’re going to copy everything from source and put it in destination, then unmount the ISO image and repeat for the other 5 images. You can see the commands I used below:

root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mkdir source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mkdir destination
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mount -o loop CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-1of6.iso /source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# cp -R ./source/* ./destination
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# umount ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mount -o loop CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-2of6.iso ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# cp -R ./source/* ./destination
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# umount ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mount -o loop CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-3of6.iso ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# cp -R ./source/* ./destination
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# umount ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mount -o loop CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-3of6.iso ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# cp -R ./source/* ./destination
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# umount ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mount -o loop CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-4of6.iso ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# cp -R ./source/* ./destination
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# umount ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mount -o loop CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-5of6.iso ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# cp -R ./source/* ./destination
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# umount ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mount -o loop CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-6of6.iso ./source
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# cp -R ./source/* ./destination
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# umount ./source

What we’ve done now, is created a directory called “destination” and copied every CD to that directory, overlapping them. What this does is it puts all the CentOS install packages into one directory and adds the necessary additional files to the root of the directory where the installer can find them. Now that we’ve done this, we can move the ISO files to the FTP server’s ISO directory and the “destination” files to the centos5 directory. It is important to keep your files organized to prevent confusion so I also moved the md5sum.txt and renamed it to CentOS5-i386-MD5SUM.txt. I also went ahead and assigned the group permissions to our new files as well.

root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mv *.iso /home/ftp/dist/iso
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mv md5sum.txt /home/ftp/dist/iso
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mv /home/ftp/dist/iso/md5sum.txt /home/ftp/dist/iso/CentOS-5.3-i386-MD5.txt
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# mv destination/* /home/ftp/dist/installer/centos5/
root@littleblackbox:~/Centos5# cd /home/ftp
root@littleblackbox:/home/ftp# chgrp -R nogroup *


Ok, so that’s the hard part. Now we have our installation files in place, our ISOs are in place (in case we need them again) and we’re ready to get those bootdisk images. Let’s take a look and see what we’re up against:

root@littleblackbox:/home/ftp# ls dist/installer/centos5/images
boot.iso diskboot.img minstg2.img pxeboot README stage2.img TRANS.TBL xen


Something interesting is that pxeboot directory. Rather than having to mount a network-boot floppy and copy the files in it like demonstrated in the first Howto, they have already created the necessary images for us. This is going to speed things up a lot.

root@littleblackbox:/home/ftp/dist/installer/centos5/images# cd pxeboot/
root@littleblackbox:/home/ftp/dist/installer/centos5/images/pxeboot# ls
initrd.img README TRANS.TBL vmlinuz


Let’s copy the files over to the /tftpboot/images directory and finish up configuring the images for booting.

More copying, Configuring the PXE Menu for tftpboot

Remember what I said about wanting to keep things organized? Here’s where it comes into play. The initrd.img and vmlinuz files are generic filenames. They are VERY specific however and don’t play well with others. I can’t use this initrd with the vmlinuz of the Redhat 7.3 install disk we configured in the last howto as they are very different kernels and very different operating systems. This is why I mention that keeping your server clean with descriptive filenames for your images is important!

We’ll start off by copying the files into /tftpboot/images (where we put the disk images) and rename them into something more relevant:

root@littleblackbox:/home/ftp/dist/installer/centos5/images/pxeboot# cp * /tftpboot/images
root@littleblackbox:/home/ftp/dist/installer/centos5/images/pxeboot# cd /tftpboot/images
root@littleblackbox:/tftpboot/images# mv vmlinuz vmlinuz-Centos5-netboot
root@littleblackbox:/tftpboot/images# mv initrd.img initrd-Centos5-netboot
root@littleblackbox:/tftpboot/images# rm README -f
root@littleblackbox:/tftpboot/images# rm TRANS.TBL -f
root@littleblackbox:/tftpboot/images# ls
initrd-Centos5-netboot initrd-rh73-netboot memdisk memtest vmlinuz-Centos5-netboot vmlinuz-rh73-netboot


Now we have descriptive filenames along with the proper files in place. All that remains is to edit the menu file and we’ll be ready to test. Open up /tftpboot/menus/main.mnu and add the following text:

label Install Centos 5
kernel /images/vmlinuz-Centos5-netboot
append initrd=/images/initrd-Centos5-netboot


This code adds the “Install Centos 5″ option to our Main Menu and tells the Menu system which kernel to boot and which initial ramdisk to append to the kernel so that the installer can run. That’s all there is to needing to configure the menu system.

Testing!

Ok, so now we have the files in place in /home/ftp, we have the images in /tftpboot/images and we have the menu configured for our new install option. Fire up your VMware workstation or test computer and try it out.

If you have performed all the steps necessary, after a moment of text on the screen, you should be looking at the installer for CentOS 5. Go through the normal language and keyboard options and when you get to the “Installation Method” screen, be sure you select FTP.

When prompted, use your FTP server’s IP or hostname as the FTP “site name” then use the directory path we created “/dist/installer/centos5/” and see what happens. Since we are using vsftp’s default anonymous only mode, there’s no need to do anything further with the prompt. Hit OK and see if you get any errors.

If all was done well, you should get a “Retrieving images” screen. If that’s the case, then congratulations! You have completed your addition of CentOS5 to your tftp server and can now do a CD-less installation of CentOS across the network. Kick back, finish the installer if you want (or power off the test machine/VMware window if you don’t want to).

Troubleshooting

Yeah, because even I make mistakes, here are some troubleshooting items you can use if yours just doesn’t work.

Timeout while contacting TFTP server

This means that the test computer couldn’t reach your TFTP server or the TFTP server doesn’t have the process running. You can check it by using “ps auwx | grep in.tftpd” and seeing if it is running. (The ps command may show your command “grep in.tftpd”. This doesn’t count.

Menu item shows up but says file not found

This means that the main.mnu has the incorrect path to the kernel image file. Check the main.mnu file and make sure that all paths start off with /images/ since this is where we put the images in our installation steps.

Kernel panic = no init found?

This means that when the network install kernel was mounted and executed, but something happened to the initial ramdisk (the initrd). Check your path in the “append” line of main.mnu and make sure it points to the correct file in /images/

The CentOS installer says it can’t find the installation media

This means that the directory you provided to the FTP site were incorrect. You may need to check with a regular FTP client. In our guide, I used “/dist/installer/centos5″ as the root path to the installation CD images. If you used something different, use that path instead.

Afterword

I had a lot of fun writing this HOWTO and the one before it so I hope you have fun reading it and doing the steps involved and hope that yours is up and working too. Please feel free to leave some comments regarding your experience in setting up TFTP or suggestions that you have in regards to these articles. I always appreciate people’s comments.

Ok, I’m sure you’ve seen the ads, and with a little bit of speculation and a lot of time reading news sites prior, I think I have the answer.

The commercials are on a green background with a power plug that smiles and the number 23 appears on it. Soon after, 8-11 appears below it as if it’s some kind of date.

I’ve read numerous posts on CNN, Reuters, TheRegister and several others that the Feds were shooting for a “230 miles per tank” goal for fuel efficiency and I believe that one manufacturer is going to launch something on August 11. (two days from this posting)

It is my theory, backed up with many other people’s theories and compounded by news articles from reputable sources and CNN that this is a new viral ad campaign by GM/Chevrolet of the launching of their new Hybrid or EV vehicle, the Volt.

Of course, this is speculation.

So here’s what I know.
www.whatis230.com was registered July 30, 2009 and isn’t set to expire until July 30,2011.

Here’s the WHOIS information:

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

Domain Name: WHATIS230.COM
Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC.
Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com
Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com
Name Server: NS1.MARKMONITOR.COM
Name Server: NS2.MARKMONITOR.COM
Name Server: NS3.MARKMONITOR.COM
Name Server: NS4.MARKMONITOR.COM
Name Server: NS5.MARKMONITOR.COM
Name Server: NS6.MARKMONITOR.COM
Name Server: NS7.MARKMONITOR.COM
Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Status: clientUpdateProhibited
Updated Date: 31-jul-2009
Creation Date: 30-jul-2009
Expiration Date: 30-jul-2011

>>> Last update of whois database: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:41:09 UTC <<<

NOTICE: The expiration date displayed in this record is the date the
registrar's sponsorship of the domain name registration in the registry is
currently set to expire. This date does not necessarily reflect the expiration
date of the domain name registrant's agreement with the sponsoring
registrar. Users may consult the sponsoring registrar's Whois database to
view the registrar's reported date of expiration for this registration.

TERMS OF USE: You are not authorized to access or query our Whois
database through the use of electronic processes that are high-volume and
automated except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or
modify existing registrations; the Data in VeriSign Global Registry
Services' ("VeriSign") Whois database is provided by VeriSign for
information purposes only, and to assist persons in obtaining information
about or related to a domain name registration record. VeriSign does not
guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a Whois query, you agree to abide
by the following terms of use: You agree that you may use this Data only
for lawful purposes and that under no circumstances will you use this Data
to: (1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission of mass
unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via e-mail, telephone,
or facsimile; or (2) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes
that apply to VeriSign (or its computer systems). The compilation,
repackaging, dissemination or other use of this Data is expressly
prohibited without the prior written consent of VeriSign. You agree not to
use electronic processes that are automated and high-volume to access or
query the Whois database except as reasonably necessary to register
domain names or modify existing registrations. VeriSign reserves the right
to restrict your access to the Whois database in its sole discretion to ensure
operational stability. VeriSign may restrict or terminate your access to the
Whois database for failure to abide by these terms of use. VeriSign
reserves the right to modify these terms at any time.

The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .EDU domains and
Registrars.
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MarkMonitor, the Global Leader in Enterprise Brand Protection

Domain Management
Online Trademark Protection
Online Channel Protection
AntiPhishing Solutions
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The Data in MarkMonitor.com's WHOIS database is provided by MarkMonitor.com
for information purposes, and to assist persons in obtaining information
about or related to a domain name registration record. MarkMonitor.com
does not guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a WHOIS query, you agree
that you will use this Data only for lawful purposes and that, under no
circumstances will you use this Data to: (1) allow, enable, or otherwise
support the transmission of mass unsolicited, commercial advertising or
solicitations via e-mail (spam); or (2) enable high volume, automated,
electronic processes that apply to MarkMonitor.com (or its systems).
MarkMonitor.com reserves the right to modify these terms at any time.
By submitting this query, you agree to abide by this policy.

Registrant:
Domain admin
DNStination, Inc.
303 Second Street
San Francisco ca 94107
US
admin@dnstinations.com +1.4155319335 Fax:

Domain Name: whatis230.com

Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com

Administrative Contact:
Domain admin
DNStination, Inc.
303 Second Street
San Francisco ca 94107
US
admin@dnstinations.com +1.4155319335 Fax:
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Domain admin
DNStination, Inc.
303 Second Street
San Francisco ca 94107
US
admin@dnstinations.com +1.4155319335 Fax:

Created on..............: 2009-07-30.
Expires on..............: 2011-07-30.
Record last updated on..: 2009-08-03.

Domain servers in listed order:

ns5.markmonitor.com
ns4.markmonitor.com
ns1.markmonitor.com
ns2.markmonitor.com
ns7.markmonitor.com
ns6.markmonitor.com
ns3.markmonitor.com

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Ok, so we get it, they're trying to hide their identity. So on to the network mess. A traceroute reveals some interesting information... They're hosted at Rackspace!

5 te-0-1-0-5-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.91.193) 32.591 ms 32.847 ms 33.409 ms
6 rackspace-bbr.dfw1.comcast.net (75.149.228.130) 33.721 ms 32.073 ms 31.999 ms
7 edge3-backbone1.dfw1.rackspace.net (72.3.128.250) 30.491 ms 20.043 ms 19.916 ms
8 vlan905.core5.dfw1.rackspace.com (67.192.56.229) 36.017 ms 36.210 ms 36.226 ms
9 67.192.56.71 (67.192.56.71) 24.688 ms 25.253 ms 25.364 ms


A DNS search reveals that whatis230.com's IP is 72.32.147.137 and according to their HTTP headers are running Linux w/Apache 2.2:

#1 Server Response: http://whatis230.com
HTTP Status Code: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Set-Cookie: X-Mapping-caklakng=65BE8C9EE459FADABC27AA1230B712F3; path=/
Content-Length: 2912
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 2009 21:49:36 GMT
Connection: close
Last-Modified: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:41:53 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100


An examination of their site yields this javascript. I don't know javascript, so feel free to interpret:

$lt; script type="text/javascript" >
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
< /script>
< script type="text/javascript" >
try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-10035141-1");
pageTracker._trackPageview('WHATIS230 | HOMEPAGE | INDEX');
} catch(err) {} < /script >


It looks like google code, but I don't speak JS fluently.

So, what do you think it is? I welcome any thoughts, comments, etc.

(My apologies to Shakespeare…)
Been thinking about a lot of this “Web 2.0″ talk that has been coming around more and more. I might sound a bit “get off my lawn”-ish but I can’t stand it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to go anti-tech on anyone, (heck, I have a Facebook, Livejournal, Twitter and have a Myspace that really needs to die so there will be none of this pot calling kettle black ).

This talk of “blogging” is really driving me nuts. I personally have gotten aggravated at the word “blog”. It sounds like something the cat does at 2AM when I’m trying to sleep. “Oh god, the cat’s hacking up a blog on the carpet again.”

I’m not sure what it is exactly about the word blog that does it in for me but it’s like the four letter version of the old English teacher screeching her plastic press-on nails across the real-slate chalkboards of old-school time.

I much prefer the sound “journal”. It may be old fashioned, but to “blog” something makes it feel hastily dreamed up, crammed into a textbox and shoved through the server like your life depended on it. “Journalling” sounds like you sat down, took conscious effort and gracefully typed out the post.

Maybe it’s just me? I know that “blogging” is the “in” thing to do now, but what do you feel about the new terminology that is cropping up? What words do you like or dislike?

Oh yeah, and just for kicks:

I found out something today that made me want to rip my hair out. The installation and configuration of Ubuntu for TFTP booting was insane and with no authoritative means to do it, spent way longer on trying to get the service working than should have been necessary

I was looking to get tftpd installed and working so I can start netbooting install images to the network for devices without a CDROM drive but could boot from the network. A long time ago, I had a Red Hat 8.0 box running the DHCP server and it was quite trivial to install, configure and add images to the box for network installation.

Well, time has certainly passed since then and the RedHat box succumbed to a faulty power supply. Now I have an Ubuntu box on the network handing out IP addresses. Now, mind you, there are thousands of these howtos on the Internet and a good bit of them will reference inetd.conf or the INET superserver, or xinetd or somewhat. If you are going to be doing this and you don’t want to install unnecessary services, here’s what I did and works just fine.

Prerequisites

You will need the following:

A copy of Ubuntu Hardy Heron running on a computer with a NIC

A copy of the Ultimate Boot CD (for pretty menus) available here: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

A copy of pxelinux.0 from here:Syslinux Wiki

(Optional) A copy of VMWare Server setup with a VM with network boot as primary boot device OR a second computer to test your booting

Installing and configuring tftpd-hpa

Install the tftpd-hpa service:
# apt-get install tftpd-hpa

Edit the /etc/default/tftpd-hpa:
#Defaults for tftpd-hpa
RUN_DAEMON="yes"
OPTIONS="-l -s /tftpboot"


The -l parameter tells tftpd-hpa to run in “Listen” mode to accept connections and -s sets the root of the TFTP server. I don’t like using the /var/lib/tftpboot directory (old skool RedHat, I guess) so I specified a new directory. Be sure to set “RUN_DAEMON” to “yes” otherwise it will never start. Don’t start the service just yet.

You will need to edit the DHCP server’s subnet declaration. Add these lines, replace {tftp server} with the IP address, not the host name of the server:

next-server {tftp server};
filename "/tftpboot/pxelinux.0";

This tells the DHCP server that if the client supports network booting to give the client the IP of the TFTP server along with the path to the pxelinux.0 file. Make sure you restart the dhcp server otherwise you will not get the tftp server to work.

Get the /tftpboot directory set up

We have the service set up, now it’s time to set up the /tftpboot directory. We’ll start off by creating some directories:
# mkdir /tftpboot
# mkdir /tftpboot/menus
# mkdir /tftpboot/images
# mkdir /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg

The menus directory is where we will keep our menu structure and the images directory will contain the boot disk images of the items we present in the menus.
Copy the files from the UBCD mount point into the /tftpboot directory:

copy the menu.c32 and chain.c32 from the UBCD to /tftpboot drectory

copy the defaults.cfg from the UBCD’s menus directory to /tftpboot/menus

copy the memtest image from the UBCD into /tftpboot/images

copy the pxelinux.0 from the SYSLINUX download into the /tftpboot directory

Edit the /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default file:
default main
prompt 1
timeout 600
label main
kernel menu.c32
append menus/main.mnu

This is the default configuration file that pxelinux looks for when it is loaded on the netbooting computer. It is mandatory that it go in pxelinux.cfg/ as just leaving it in the /tftpboot directory will result in a failure.

Let’s make a menu

Now that we have the configuration files in place, let’s write a menu.
Edit the file main.mnu, save it as /tftpboot/menus/main.mnu:

MENU INCLUDE /menus/defaults.cfg
LABEL memtest
MENU LABEL Memtest86 V3.3
KERNEL /images/memtest
APPEND -

Here’s what the lines do:

The MENU INCLUDE includes the defaults.cfg file. This controls how our menus look, color, etc…

The LABEL defines the name of the image which is not shown. You will want to have a unique entry for all items in the menus

MENU LABEL is the item that is displayed for us to choose from.

KERNEL should point to the image to boot from (in this case, it’s memtest)

the APPEND statement is not used for this particular image, but is required for others that need additional options on the boot line.

Save the file and let’s test it out.

Let’s test it out

Now that we have everything set, let’s try it. Boot the test machine and it should give you a lot of fast scrolling text before it goes to the boot menu. Unfortunately, I can’t provide a screenshot, but it will display some configuration text then you’ll be dropped to a “boot:” prompt. If all goes well, you should see a blue menu with the Memtest 86 v3.3 displayed. Hit ENTER and see if it loads. If all goes well, Memtest should be running. If not, take a look at the “Troubleshooting” section.

More Menus, Boot from hard drives and adding images

So we have our first netbooting image, you can use the menus to generate additional sub-menus or distribution lists. You can use the menus on the UBCD as an example, but if you’re impatient, here’s some code snippets:

Menus within menus

To make a menu show up as an entry in another menu (like the “Mainboard Tools” submenu on the UBCD) use this code:

LABEL mainboard
MENU LABEL Mainboard Tools
KERNEL menu.c32
APPEND /menus/mboard.mnu


LABEL must be unique across all menus

MENU LABEL is the entry presented in the parent menu

KERNEL must remain menu.c32 (this is what renders the menus)

APPEND points to the menu file to load. In this case “mboard.mnu”

Boot local Hard Drives

If you want to boot the local hard drive (useful if you accidentally forget to tell the BIOS not to boot from network), add this entry:
LABEL boothdd0
MENU LABEL *Boot First Hard Disk
KERNEL chain.c32
APPEND hd0


Adjust hd0 to which hard drive you want. hd0 translates to primary master, HD3 would be secondary slave, etc…

Add a Linux Bootdisk to the mix

Adding a Linux Bootdisk is a lot easier than it sounds, and although I will not cover setting up the FTP server for it in this HOWTO, you’ll still want to boot the disk from the network. (Yes, I’ll write a follow up to this one that includes the FTP portion).

For now, let’s assume you have the network boot floppy image that you want to add to the menu system. In this section, I’m going to use the RedHat 7.3 net boot floppy image, but any floppy image should work.
First off, mount the floppy image:
#mount -o loop bootnet.img /mnt/floppy
Replace bootnet.img with the filename of the image to mount, and /mnt/floppy with a valid mountpoint.
change directory to that mountpoint and look for a file called “syslinux.cfg”.
You should see a listing that looks like this:
default linux
prompt 1
timeout 600
display boot.msg
F1 boot.msg
F2 general.msg
F3 param.msg
F4 rescue.msg
F7 snake.msg
label linux
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img lang= devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192 vga=788
label text
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img lang= text devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192
label expert
kernel vmlinuz
append expert initrd=initrd.img lang= devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192
label ks
kernel vmlinuz
append ks initrd=initrd.img lang= devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192
label nofb
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img lang= devfs=nomount nofb ramdisk_size=8192
label lowres
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img lang= lowres devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192

The syslinux.cfg contains the menu for the bootdisk, (much like our main.mnu file from earlier) and will give us what we need to copy in order to add the proper entries in our boot configuration and get the menu working. This file has the same basic syntax that our menu files do and they also tell us what we need to copy. In the example above, we need to copy vmlinuz and initrd.img as both files are referenced in the configuration:
# cp vmlinuz /tftpboot/images/vmlinuz-rh73-netboot
# cp initrd.img /tftpboot/images/initrd-rh73-netboot

I highly recommend that you use this method of copying files. This will help you keep your images directory organized. Nothing sucks worse than deleting an “unused” file only to find that was the ramdisk image needed for another distribution’s installer!

To add the image to the menu, we need to edit the /tftpboot/menus/main.mnu file again and add the following (that we got from the syslinux.cfg)
label linux7.3
menu label Install Redhat 7.3
kernel /images/vmlinuz-rh73-netboot
append initrd=/images/initrd-rh73-netboot lang= devfs=nomount ramdisk_size=8192 vga=788

This is copied from the floppy image’s syslinux.cfg file and edited to reflect the paths to the images we copied to /tftpboot/images earlier. The only exception is the adding of the menu label line and the change of the label line for uniqueness.

To test it out, just reboot the test computer, select “Install Redhat 7.3″ and you should be looking at the installer after a few minutes.

Troubleshooting

My TFTP server isn’t responding!

Most commonly, this is due to something not right in /etc/default/tftpd-hpa, but you can check it by running this command:
# /etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa start && ps auwx | grep tftp
which should return something like the following code. If it doesn’t, check your tftpd-hpa file in /etc/default:
root@littleblackbox:/tftpboot# /etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa start && ps auwx | grep tftp
Starting HPA's tftpd: in.tftpd.
root 11280 0.0 0.0 2220 276 ? Ss 21:26 0:00 /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -l -s /tftpboot
root 11282 0.0 0.0 3004 768 pts/1 S+ 21:26 0:00 grep tftp
The second line shows us that tftpd is running, and that the path is set to /tftpboot. This is the correct setup for our tftpboot installation and should work.

TFTP says File Not Found!

This is more than likely an issue with Ubuntu. It’s really fond of having multiple configurations in obscure places for the same file. You can check it to see what path is configured for it by running the following command:
root@littleblackbox:/tftpboot# ps auwx | grep tftp
root 11280 0.0 0.0 2220 276 ? Ss 21:26 0:00 /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -l -s /tftpboot
root 11405 0.0 0.0 3004 760 pts/1 R+ 21:33 0:00 grep tftp

The -s parameter is important, it’s how you set the root directory for the server. If you show something than other than tftpboot, check your /etc/default/tftpd-hpa file and make sure that the correct option is set.

Menu item doesn’t show up correctly

Go into the .mnu file and check that each “LABEL” entry has a MENU LABEL entry to go with it. Otherwise, it will fall back to the LABEL text.

My image for {favorite tool} doesn’t work!

If you are trying to install an image off of the UBCD and it uses dosubcd.gz, it likely will not work. dosubcd is a freeDOS implementation and once loaded will then load the files off of the CDROM. These images will not work as there’s no CDROM drive to load from (otherwise, what’s the point of using TFTPd?)

If you’re installing something else not on the UBCD, you can try using the “generic” menu entry however, depending on how the image was created this may or may not work:

label GenericMenu
menu label Generic Menu Item
kernel Kernelnamegoeshere
append -

Replace Kernelnamegoeshere with the kernel of the tool you wish to use. If this still doesn’t work, read the tool’s documentation and see if there is a way to get it to work by burning it onto a CD. If so, then the image will not work. The TFTP server can not distribute ISO images as bootable image files to work.

Afterword and Credits

I hope that you find this information useful. If you do a lot of work with linux installations, then by using this HOWTO and setting up an FTP server, you can minimize the CD-swapping hell that is most installations. You can also avoid having to find a DVD burner and a DVDROM that will read it. In my installation, I have set up Redhat 7.3, Ubuntu 8.04 and a couple of other proprietary firmwares by having the TFTP server available and at the ready.

I would like to thank the guys that made the UBCD, as it is with their code on the Ultimate Boot CD that I was even able to find that a menu based image selection system was possible. They wrote the menu.c32 and the other files referenced as coming from the UBCD with the exception of Memtest86 which came from http://www.memtest86.com/

All other names, trademarks and other such legal nonsense belong to whoever originally created them or whatever. All I did was write this process from information found by inspecting the configuration files downloaded from freely available sites on the Internet. Don’t sue me for copyright infringement because I am broke as hell.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them here and as always, thank you for reading.