Migrating /etc/rpc into LDAP

If you are using any rpc service like NFS or NIS then you probably know the command rpcinfo. With rpcinfo you can get all rpc servives running on a remote host:

# rpcinfo -p dc01
   program vers proto   port
    100000    2   tcp    111  portmapper
    100000    2   udp    111  portmapper
...

Available, used and free memory in HP UX

To see how much memory is consumed in HP UX use swapinfo:

# swapinfo -tam
            Mb      Mb      Mb   PCT  START/      Mb
TYPE      AVAIL    USED    FREE  USED   LIMIT RESERVE  PRI  NAME
dev       16368    1252   15116    8%       0       -    1  /dev/vg00/lvol2
reserve       -   15116  -15116
memory    16354   15707     647   96%
total     32722   32075     647   98%       -       0    -

LDAP N-Way Multi-Master Replication

When you are using OpenLDAP for any reason then you should think about replication. With replication you have to setup minimum two LDAP servers. If one of your LDAP servers accidently shuts down then the other will take over. If you add content (or remove content) then you have to do it only once, the other server will get the new content by replication. Before you can use replication you have to setup a ntp server (not shown here). It is very important that both LDAP servers are usingthe same time. Also make sure that both server always know each other by FQDN. My current setup looks like this:

Creating a Slackware package

This article is outdated. See Slackware package management for a newer version.

Creating a Slackware isn't a hard job. In contrast to rpm or deb it is very easy. In this article I will show you how to compile a small (but very cool) piece of software, how to create a appropiate directory structure and finally how to create a Slackware package that you can install and remove with the default tools installpkg and removepkg. To show you how to create a Slackware package I will use Lua but you can use what ever you want. Lua is a very small and easy to compile piece of software and should work out of the box. First get the software: 

Migrating /etc/networks into LDAP

If you are using /etc/networks than you can move it into your LDAP. First take a look at your /etc/networks:

# cat /etc/networks
loopback        127.0.0.0
example.com     192.168.1.0
example2.com    192.168.2.0

Migrating /etc/ethers into LDAP

If you are using /etc/ethers than you can move it into your LDAP. First take a look at your /etc/ethers:

# cat /etc/ethers
00:1B:21:02:96:56    192.168.1.70
00:30:05:c5:2a:ba    192.168.1.73
98:FC:11:79:37:76    192.168.1.69

Migrating /etc/hosts into LDAP

If you are using /etc/hosts than you can move it into your LDAP. First take a look at your /etc/hosts:

# cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1        localhost
192.168.1.70     blog01
192.168.1.73     dc01
192.168.1.69     wlan01

Backing up and restoring your LDAP

If you're using LDAP with BDB backend then you have two chances to backup your LDAP server:

1. from any client via ldapsearch
2. on the LDAP server via slapcat

Get the current used memory with ps

Last time I had a customer complaining about his 72GB RAM machine that it was swapping. Then he told me that all processes were using 0% RAM. He showed me something like this:

# ps aux
USER       PID %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TTY      STAT START   TIME COMMAND
...
oracle    4539  0.0  0.0    708 48264 ?        Ss    2008  16:23 ORACLE
...

SmartPCI56(UCB1500) 56K Modem with Slackware

I got another Modem PCI card - again. This time something like this:

# lspci
...
00:09.0 Modem: Philips Semiconductors SmartPCI56(UCB1500) 56K Modem (rev 01)
...

PCTel Inc HSP MicroModem 56 with Slackware

Yesterday I got an old PCI Modem card, something with pctel anything. I was wondering if I could get it to run, so I did some research on the Internet and found the pctel software for Linux. The disapointment was that i will only compile on 32bit machines. Anyway, I setup my old Athlon 800MHz desktop with the pctel card and installed the current Slackware release (13.37). Then I donwloaded the driver from http://linmodems.technion.ac.il/pctel-linux/welcome.html:

LDAP for Slackware Linux

When you work with Slackware Linux and try to authenticate with LDAP then you will figure out that it won't work. This has a simple reason: to authenticate with LDAP you need PAM, but Patrick Volkerding refuses to put PAM into Slackware because of security reason - AFAIK. Here is a small description how to setup Slackware for authentication with LDAP. But be aware: I am doing some things here that you shouldn't do under normal circumstances.