neitzels irrelevant irregular intarweb notes

After several weeks waiting under my desk, my new workplace computer got its OS installation. This is the most modern hardware I ever used so far, and I tried to go all the way using new technologies:

1. i3-3220 CPU, 4 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD
2. UEFI and GPT used
3. Added HP dual Gbit/s ethernet card because the built-in Atheros one was recognized by only Linux (alx driver).
4. FreeBSD-10.0rc5 (now "updated" to -RELEASE)
5. / on 2 GB UFS, /var, /home, /usr/local and whatever comes along on a 58 GB ZFS pool.
6. 60 GB space of the SSD so far unallocated.

Big trouble item, costing me some ten hours: after the base installation, neither the xorg nor even just xorg-minimal meta packages could be installed. Turned out that there are currently issues with having the latest repository complete. Switching to the release repository fixed that.

(Solution found in a freebsd forum. How I hate these web-based fora! The mention of the problem on the freebsd.org web site, the errata section, or the usenet group.)

After installing xorg, I settled for installing Chrome as web browser, but (so far) without the usually associated gnome desktop. For now, I'm just running good old twm(1), with a few settings which makes it quite strange to others.

MeKa ("Meeting Karlsruhe") is a yearly event where some fifty crazy folks have a hell of a great time by sleeping just a little bit, firing up their old Amigas and hacking at the OS level. Thank you, dear organizers!

MBR/OS preparations

4-5 hours train ride towards Karlsruhe on Friday: re-organizing the OS selection.

My ASUS EeePC 1000H has a 160 GB disk and thusly plenty of room for way OS installations. Way more than those classic four MBR primary partition slots. Rather than depending on extended/secondary partitions and some complex boot loader (of whatever flavour), I opted for sticking with a simple MBR loader (the NetBSD one iin my case, but any other would have been fine, too) and rewriting the four partition slots as I see fit.

Recently, I migrated tafkap.marshlabs.gaertner.de from Debian-6 in a (too tight) 6 GB partition to a Debian-7 in a (spacey) 30 GB partition, both bootable during the migration and for the last weeks. The Debian-7 appears to be stable enough now -- time to chuck it out and give the partition slot back to robert (FreeBSD-8.4).

I had expected that FreeBSD would be rather happy to return to its old partition slot because of the "slice" references in /etc/fstab and that the oh-so-UUIDifeid linux would easily find itself in a new slot. Not so. I landed in a grub rescue> prompt, was able to guess at the ls and set prefix/root commands, but a boot would not be accepted. Perhaps some missing insmod? Difficult to say when you are sitting in a train, stuck at that prompt, and have no external reference at hand. So it was just easier to single-boot into FreeBSD, ed /etc/fstab, and be done with it. (Meanwhile passing Mannheim.)

Updating netbsd-6 (STABLE) systems

With lots of netbsd expertise near at hand, I updated my two netbsd-6 installations. In both cases, just minor updates on the "stable" branch, with the last update just two months ago. Both systems are built "from source".

The first one system was ngyuen on the EeePC, easy enough, because always done according to The NetBSD Guide steps and going through all build.sh motions. No problem there.

The second system was hackett, a VM running 24/7 in the GDS data center. This box had a somewhat tricky past: I had dared to stray from the path pre-scribed by The Guide to built the system as documented with the system itself, i.e. mk.conf(5) and /usr/src/BUILDING. This "kind of" had worked but left certainly me and perhaps the system, too, in a somewhat confused state. I least hadn't been able anymore to do naive builds.

There is some unholy overlap where build information comes from in NetBSD src builds:

1. Environment variables (notoriously fleeting)
2. /etc/mk.conf
3. command line options (with either make or build.sh runs)
4. Lots of make/sh logic which will compute defaults for what is not prescribed otherwise.

During meka-2014, I had the time to have a close look at the state of affairs on hackett, using nguyen as a refence system.

It turned out that I could establish nice and plausible one-on-one relationships between the "$TOOLS" and "$OBJS" directories on both systems and that I could bring hackett back to "normal" be mere mvs of directory hierarchies. And, lo and behold, a standard build would run again.

Maybe I also found a working strategy for coordinating build.sh and make runs:

• always use -T and -O for build.sh
• always have BSDOBJDIR and TOOLDIR set in /etc/mk.conf for makes.

Time will tell.

BTW: I extended my build from 1hr to 3hrs by (a) stupidly ommitting the -T ../tools option from build.sh (entirely my fault) and by forgetting the "hey, it's just an upgrade" -u option. My fault, too, I should have known better, but I was also looking at the wrong Guide section: the "33.1.5. Summary" reminds you of the option to use -u while the "33.1.1-.4" individual steps play it safe and don't hint at -u. Drats, both recipies look so similar and are so easy to confuse.

Thanks to Martin Husemann for willing to serve as potential safety hook.

Working on ral(4)

The stock NetBSD ral(4) driver does not support the wireless chipset built into EeePC 900/1000 models (Ralink Technologies RT2700/RT2800 series). For netbsd-5, I had used a patch kit based on OpenBSD's ral(4) driver. This one would not apply to the netbsd-6 sources, and hence: no WLAN anymore. (Lesson learned: submitting a working patch for inclusion into the standard system pays of quickly.)

In preparation for MeKa, I had already done a review on the old patch kit. Three completely new files and just trivial or small changes to existing files. Same for both netbsd-5 and -6, the latter now being freshly updated. "pcidevs" was easily extended and new header files pcidevs.h and pcidevs_data.h generated from that. The remaining patchkit required a bit of manual editing because a trailing line apparently got lost. (Beats me how, but the line count was off by one and patch -C would complain.)

A kernel build would complain about a missing header file and a missing symbol. mlelstv and stargazer knew what had happened to netbsd's packetfilter in the past (i.e., from netbsd-5 to -6), and what to do to adapt the sources. Just half an hour later: a new kernel and a ral0 WLAN interface which wasn't just present buit even worked.

Not really done

Installed the bochs x86 emulator package and dabbled around with it. No real success because I wasn't able to make the venerable old "ATP - Air Transport Pilot" by SubLogic fly. I'm able to cd to existing directories but dir output always stays empty - very strange.

Returning home

Another four hours train ride with closer looks into the ral(4) driver. It turns out that eight stretches of code depend on

#if NPBFILTER > 0

which is now effectively nulled. A quick check with > -999 shows that the source needs some further work in order to compile. Maybe just small tweeks, though. Arriving at home, I verify that the working ral0 is still capable to be tcpdump(8)ed (phew!), and that the current OpenBSD ral(4) driver has been worked on in the last years, too: rt2860.c evolved from revision 1.17 to 1.72, supporting newer chipsets, too.

Summary: this will take two or three weekends, but it will be time well spent.

jutty:

A first stab at a jutty mission statement, just collecting items: http://gaertner.de/~neitzel/jutty-objectives.html

MeKa-2014 preparations:

• nguyen cvs upd on the netbsd-6 branch (done on a fast network, build can be done during MeKa)
• a bit of X11 config, learned how to use the dillo(1) web browser tweaking it a bit.

MeKa-2014 todo list

private stuff:

• netbsd-6 updates on nguyen (easy) and hackett (tricky)
• rtsol / accept rtadvd or PR

contribs:

• netbsd build documentation
• ral(4) rt2860 openbsd patch
• apropos -C gpg pgp
• sqlite3 documentation status?
• netpgpkeys debugging
• uucp pkg complaints

new to learn:

• rump, netbsd user mode
• xen / qemu / libvirt / virtualbox / bochs
• iscsi

(german, sorry) CLT-2015 kommt bestimmt. Oder eine woblug. Whatever, ich habe schon mal einen Vortrags-Vorentwurf zur Anmeldung fertig: http://gaertner.de/~neitzel/clt/umlauts/

read a lot in preparation for installing freebsd-10rc5:

• preparing a GPT disk and booting into either UFS or ZFS filesystems (for FreeBSD on real hardware); also: what is TRIM on SSDs? and: is it supported i FreeBSD with either UFS (yepp) or ZFS (yepp).

• preparing DRBDs and LVMs for clustering proxmox systems (for FreeBSD running as VM); the entire Proxmox "Storage_Model" page; iSCSI = RFC 3720; and a bit more (again) on ProxmoxVE Clustering.

some six hours reading, reading, reading:

1. The entire Ansible Introduction chapter.

   Yet another framework, sigh. Double sigh, because anything discussed in this intro section can be could be with trivial shell one-liners. (I have done that before.)

   At least Ansible's documentation is well done, the scope of the tool is clearly defined and well chosen, and the resulting command set appears to be clean and consistent.

   I'll have have to see how playbooks turn out as a medium between deleopers and admins. That's why I'm currently looking at Ansible in first place.

2. virsh(1), virt-image(1), virt-image(5), virt-install(1).

   After migration of the hackett VM from one (proxmox) host to an ordinary libvirt-based one, VNC-based console access was lost. Lot's of man-page reading just to get that back. What a waste of time for a seamingly simple change of a command argument. Ah, the wonders of XMLification!

No more 30 secs initial STP blocking-state when attaching a netbook to roll.ml.gaertner.de, a 9-port c2940 desktop switch:

conf t
interface range fa0/2 - 8
    spanning-tree portfast
^Z
wr mem

(Ports 0/1 and 1/1 exempted because they are used for interconnects.)

Look Ma, much less confusion during a linux boot!

After a loooong day in the marshlabs:

ruptime stats as seen on miles.marshlabs.gaertner.de
Thu Jan  9 01:15:00 CET 2014

ah           down 560+01:03
alexis         up  88+00:38,    15 users,  load 1.01, 1.04, 1.05
bill         down 442+23:20
brian        down 559+00:44
fred         down   5+18:48
george       down  64+02:03
guest1       down 777+23:58
hip          down 151+00:37
hiram.marshl down 688+01:54
james        down 364+01:16
jane         down 422+00:36
jeff         down 364+23:13
joe          down 561+00:01
joni         down   9+01:09
leni         down 143+05:16
leo            up     10:43,     2 users,  load 0.17, 0.12, 0.08
mike         down 282+04:37
miles          up      7:52,    11 users,  load 0.01, 0.02, 0.01
nguyen       down   7+04:13
pat          down 273+11:49
randy        down 563+10:02
robert       down 137+06:45
ron            up      4:30,     2 users,  load 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
satch          up      4:31,     1 user,   load 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
scott.marshl down  46+05:03
shifty       down 119+00:19
srv          down 776+00:14
stanley      down 105+11:35
steve        down 561+01:49
tafkap         up      3:52,     3 users,  load 0.01, 0.02, 0.05
termin       down 777+22:18
wendy        down  73+21:54

Usually, things are much more quiet. You can see miles' most recent view of the net at http://gaertner.de/~neitzel/ml-ruptime.txt.

These are just the hosts which are capable to run an rwhod(8), so the switches, the RIPE atlas probe, the ip phone or the internat radio won't ever show up. Nor remote hosts in the dc (hackett, ips, and sco).

In case you wonder: nothing here is a VM, and if you really wonder, you can check the DNS HINFO record for any host. Depending on your tool set:

host -a alexis.marshlabs.gaertner.de
dig any alexis.marshlabs.gaertner.de
nslookup -qt=any alexis.marshlabs.gaertner.de

Any of these will do.

New (and I mean new!) marshlabs hardware has arrived today.

These are the very first wireless keyboard and mouse gadgets I bought ever. Actually, I auctioned this pair on ebay for 12 EUR + 6 EUR shipping.

I considered it only appropriate to attach it to leo for a first test. After all, it can benefit most from a slightly larger keyboard:

Welcome on board, my new clicketies!

Added sendmail-relaying from local hosts on ips.marshlabs.gaertner.de (DECsystem 5200, Ultrix4.4, sendmail-8.14.x).

We used to have that relaying capabilty while ips served as MX for the marshlabs for the last two years under NetBSD-3.1/pmax. When the MX job moved over to hackett, we rebooted ips to reboot into its original Ultrix. Its sendmail was configured to send/receive email with the world, but it didn't do any further local relaying at all.

Some on-and-off marshlabs MUAs still have ips as their mailserver configured, though -- cater for them again.

Atom and rss2 feeds of this blog should now be properly configured. You can even subscribe to specific tags (= categories).

Chemnitzer-Linux-Tage-2014, here I come (if you want me):

• http://gaertner.de/~neitzel/clt/root/
• http://gaertner.de/~neitzel/clt/ssl/

Submitted at the very last minute, as too often.

Weekend fun: learned how to use this nanoblogger software.

Some test entries to learn both nb usage and, later, entries written with markdown. (The latter had been recommended to me by christian lindig ages ago, so it must be good. Indeed it is. I could use it right away on Monday for turning ascii conference abstracts into extended descriptions for the general audience.)

Installed ProxmoxVE 3.1 on new marshlabs host ron. This may or may not become a common marshlabs-cluster along with host satch. As of now, neither box is running 24/7, and satch (on an eSATA disk) more often runs as fred (DragonFlyBSD on internal disk).

Lot's of reading about proxmox basics. Slowly finding my ways around the proxmox documentation. I found that to be seriously disorganized at first, but the actual entries are written quite well. Then again: automatically generated, alphabetic keyword listings are be no means a useful substitute for nice, guiding Tables of Contents, guys! You new-fangled wiki schmucks...

I do need VMs here, fast. For further OSes in the queue, and precious shelfspace to reclaim.

kili proclaimed that I'd be bloggering. Them bastards!