Well the code has been released anyway ... the documentation update will be out sometime over the next week. The big news is that applications do not need to use file systems - raw logical volumes are supported.
Although that might have some people happy the real reason for the above is that it opened the most flexible way of supported live migration for virtual machines that are running as applications under linuxha.net. I didn't want to have to tie admins with setting up clusters file systems; raw volumes required no setup.
And live migration is working via the new "clmigrateapp" command. It typically takes 20 seconds to migrate a Xen VM - though of course to the application and it's clients there is no interruption in server - at all.
Obviously there are some particular setup requirements - so these will be documented in the admin guide - an update which should appear shortly.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
New Skulker Features under development
A couple of new features have been started for Skulker, both requirements for improving Skulker when dealing with enterprise environments.
Null Data Overwrite Support
More and more people are making use of virtualised storage - and particularly "thin provisioning". Whether this is provided at the file system level [think Solaris ZFS] or dedicated hardware storage arrays, one feature is becoming more common is the ability of the storage provider to reclaim storage that is no longer used. Several now support this implicitly if pages of storage are over-written with null data. Hence this null data support, initially for the delete action, will overwrite files will NULL's and then remove it. This will obviously incur a performance hit, so it is optional.
Parallel Processing Support
A couple of customers have rules which match a large number of files each time Skulker is run. Since these people have Skulker running on multi-cpu machines it makes sense to attempt to harness the additional processing power and perform several actions in parallel.
The mechanism now being developed will optionally allow allow functions that are applied to files to run across multiple "dispatchers". The key here will be flexibility to support 1-N dispatchers whilst not requiring much effort to make use of.
Null Data Overwrite Support
More and more people are making use of virtualised storage - and particularly "thin provisioning". Whether this is provided at the file system level [think Solaris ZFS] or dedicated hardware storage arrays, one feature is becoming more common is the ability of the storage provider to reclaim storage that is no longer used. Several now support this implicitly if pages of storage are over-written with null data. Hence this null data support, initially for the delete action, will overwrite files will NULL's and then remove it. This will obviously incur a performance hit, so it is optional.
Parallel Processing Support
A couple of customers have rules which match a large number of files each time Skulker is run. Since these people have Skulker running on multi-cpu machines it makes sense to attempt to harness the additional processing power and perform several actions in parallel.
The mechanism now being developed will optionally allow allow functions that are applied to files to run across multiple "dispatchers". The key here will be flexibility to support 1-N dispatchers whilst not requiring much effort to make use of.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Minor tweaks to Skulker
Since the last upload of Skulker a couple of minor problems were found out in the real world that did not show up in the test suite. I've now corrected the conditions and the source code and package downloads are available from Google code.
To an extent this obviously shows that the testing suite needs to be expanded; something I intend to turn my attention to on an intermittent basis over the next few months.
To an extent this obviously shows that the testing suite needs to be expanded; something I intend to turn my attention to on an intermittent basis over the next few months.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
TP2 Uploaded
Tp2 has been uploaded to Google Code now too. This is a package management system with a unique of fairly unique features that will appeal to environments where package installations need to be carefully managed. The software is written in Perl and one of the strong points is the logging capability - each and every package installation and removal is logged. That facility is also tied to then ability to actual "preview" the operation.
Allowing a preview of a package installation is quite useful; it will only log files that are going to change as part of the installation. Hence if you were upgrading a package consisting of 1,200 files it will only show you those that will be changing - [being added, being removed, or being replaced], not those that are identical.
Many architectures do not allow binary files that are being executed to be removed ... TP2 works around this by renaming such files and deleted them at a later time - usually at the next reboot for example.
For any tool set to be useful I believe that documentation is a must; many people do not have the time or inclination to scan the source code or the Internet looking for nuggets of information. Hence TP2 comes with complete documentation covering installation, administration and generating packages.
TP2 has been used for quite some time and is pretty much complete; it does most things a package management suite should do and then some; for example the concept of "name spaces" for packages is quite unique [or at least certainly not common].
Allowing a preview of a package installation is quite useful; it will only log files that are going to change as part of the installation. Hence if you were upgrading a package consisting of 1,200 files it will only show you those that will be changing - [being added, being removed, or being replaced], not those that are identical.
Many architectures do not allow binary files that are being executed to be removed ... TP2 works around this by renaming such files and deleted them at a later time - usually at the next reboot for example.
For any tool set to be useful I believe that documentation is a must; many people do not have the time or inclination to scan the source code or the Internet looking for nuggets of information. Hence TP2 comes with complete documentation covering installation, administration and generating packages.
TP2 has been used for quite some time and is pretty much complete; it does most things a package management suite should do and then some; for example the concept of "name spaces" for packages is quite unique [or at least certainly not common].
Monday, January 19, 2009
Linuxha.net now on Google Code
After uploading Skulker v2 to Google Code thought I'd follow up and get Linuxha.net sources posted too. I've taken the opportunity to tag release 1.4.5 and upload the packages too. I'll copy across the other documentation when I get the chance though they remain available at linuxha.net home page.
I'm still getting to grips with SVN; not the concepts - just the way of working. I've been using my own "cm2" for a long time; it is far easier for small projects! That is another upload and another project for another day!
Linuxha.net is pretty stable now; no real new features are expected unless considered helpful to improve the project significantly. All real development effort is concerned with the full-up - which is almost ready for public viewing.
I'm still getting to grips with SVN; not the concepts - just the way of working. I've been using my own "cm2" for a long time; it is far easier for small projects! That is another upload and another project for another day!
Linuxha.net is pretty stable now; no real new features are expected unless considered helpful to improve the project significantly. All real development effort is concerned with the full-up - which is almost ready for public viewing.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Skulker 2 v0.6.4 released
This is the first version of Skulker 2 to be made available via code.google. The aim is to make the project more 'open'. A fair amount of my other work will also be hosted there if things go well.
Skulker 2 on Google can be found at http://code.google.com/p/skulker2/
Skulker 2 on Google can be found at http://code.google.com/p/skulker2/
Welcome!
Welcome!
I guess it had to happen sometime - I've gone and started a blog. The contents of the blog with be anything to do about coding; particularly Open Source projects I'm involved in. I'll try and keep to succinct entries; there is enough pointless drivel on the 'net without me adding a lot more.
I guess it had to happen sometime - I've gone and started a blog. The contents of the blog with be anything to do about coding; particularly Open Source projects I'm involved in. I'll try and keep to succinct entries; there is enough pointless drivel on the 'net without me adding a lot more.
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