Freebsd – Backup & restore for disaster recovery

Published on July 3, 2009 in FreeBSD. 0 Comments

Data are all around servers. To name a few, file server, email server, LDAP server, web server, DNS server and these are just a few essential servers that make up part of IT section of your company. ERP, CRM, financial projection system, database server, accounting & payroll system are the example of business application. Imagine, what if “some” of these data are loss. It is also worth mentioning that data is so valuable to the company, that partial loss of it might lead to breaking your business continuity !!!

Most of the company operation are depending on these data in the server to make decisions. Data in the servers have never been so important.

Server data disaster recovery planing is a vital process in system administration. It directly shows how much the system administrators understand the importance their role in the business. Reason for data loss can be classified into 2 main categories, natural disaster and man made disaster. Natural disaster that causes data loss includes flood, earthquake, fire hazard and etc. Man made disaster (aka PBKC which denodes Problem Between Keyboard and Chair) examples, hacking activities, accidental data deletion or over written and server maintenance e.g. patching, upgrades, developments, moving to a bigger size of hard disk & etc.

Disaster recovery involves planning, backup & restore. Planning will need identify which are the crucial data to backup and how frequent should it be backup. The next consideration will be what media should the data be save to. Generally, external hard disk (e.g USB) or network based storage (e.g. file server, ssh server, NAS, SAN) are the cheapest & fastest way to store the data. But if the data is to archive, it should go into media e.g. tape, CD, DVD and other optical media. Lastly, all planning and backup of the data should always test against restoration, or else why even plan to save it.

This post will concentrate on how to prepare for Server disaster recovery on a FreeBSD server.

DataPipe most reliable web hoster - June 2009

Published on July 3, 2009 in FreeBSD. 0 Comments

DataPipe had the most reliable hosting company site in June 2009. The company’s site responded without fail to every request made by Netcraft’s performance collectors throughout the month.

This is DataPipe’s second appearance at the top so far this year

FreeBSD is taking the top 2 places

Firefox 3.5 Released

Published on July 3, 2009 in FreeBSD. 0 Comments

Firefox 3.5 is now available in the FreeBSD ports (/usr/ports/www/firefox35/).

There are some issues with HTML5 and video

On Windows I still prefer Google Chrome as it’s faster and uses less resources. Just waiting for the extenstions to come.

Save the BSD Magazine

Published on July 3, 2009 in BSD Magazine. 1 Comment

I have been a subscriber since issue no 1, and I’m looking forward to many more issues. Karolina, the editor of BSD Magazine, has send round the following email:

I am sure most of you already heard that BSD magazine is going to be closed, due to much lower benefits than expected and the economy in general…

There is one last chance thought – if I somehow manage to increase the sales figures in stores the magazine will be published. I was given only one week (till Monday). Not much, but better than nothing. I think it is worth trying!

I can’t do it alone -so I am asking you for your help and support. I know most of you are already helping and I am really thankful for that.

If you could help me to promote the magazine on all forums, portals, blogs or anywhere else I would be really grateful.

I have attached the cover of the most current issue of BSD magazine if you would like to use it.

Please spread the word about BSD magazine!

In the US you can pick up a copy from Barnes&Noble, or alternatively you can buy a copy at FreeBSDMall.com.

It would be a shame to see BSD Mag disappear after only 5 issues….

BSD Magazine - support it

Published on June 30, 2009 in BSD Magazine. 0 Comments

The BSD Magazine has been round for over a year now and has produced some very interesting issues. The editors have now provided a brochure suitable to give away at BSD/Linux events.

Those who’d like to have a look at the magazine without having to commit to a subscription, can now download some articles from the NetBSD issue and the whole OpenBSD-focused issue.

The latest issue is devoted to FreeBSD: A Guide to FreeBSD

Table of Contents:

  • Installing FreeBSD 7.1 with Enhanced Security Jails…
  • OpenSMTPD…
  • Getting a GNOME Desktop on FreeBSD…
  • Packaging Software for OpenBSD - part 2…
  • A Jabber Data Transfer Component…
  • Building a FreeBSD Wireless Router…
  • CPU Scaling on FreeBSD Unix…
  • LDAP Authentication on OpenBSD Boxes…
  • FreeBSD and Snort Intrusion Detection System…
  • Building an Embedded Video Web Server with NetBSD…
  • FreeBSD Tips…
  • Maintaining System Configuration Files Using Subsversion…
  • Q&A about Dtrace…

Already a happy BSD Mag reader? Help us spread the word.

BSDTalk 175 - Michael Dexter and BSDFund

Published on June 30, 2009 in BSD Talk. 1 Comment

Will Backman has uploaded BSDTalk 175 , a 23 minute interview with Michael Dexter of BSD Fund.

This is an interview with Michael Dexter about BSD Fund. They talk about the release of the BSD Fund Visa Credit Card, PCC, and various other projects.

Download as OGG | MP3

Michel Dexter has now announced the Beastie Visa Card. Every time the BSD Fund Visa is used, a small donation is made to BSD Fund to support its programs. Note, that currently the card is only available to US residents.

Sun VirtualBox available as PC-BSD PBI

Published on June 30, 2009 in PC-BSD. 0 Comments

Virtualbox can now be easily installed as PBI on PC-BSD

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Virtualbox PBI

Bordeaux 1.8 for FreeBSD Released

Published on June 30, 2009 in Wine / Bordeaux. 0 Comments

bordeaux group logoBordeaux 1.8 has had many changes on the back end, our build process has been totally rewritten, packaging has been totally rewritten. This release adds Microsoft Office 97, Adobe Photoshop 6 & 7 and Image Ready 3.0 and 7.0 support. The winetricks script has been synced to the latest official release, Steam should now install and run once again, There has also been many small bug fixes and tweaks.

This complete rewrite gives Bordeaux a much more clean and portable codebase, making new improvements much easier to provide. We already have some exciting things in the works for the next release.

Bordeaux 1.8 has been tested against Wine 1.1.22, 1.1.23 and 1.1.24 thus far.

The cost of Bordeaux 1.8 is $20.00. Anyone who has purchased Bordeaux in the past six months is entitled to a free upgrade. Bordeaux comes with six months of upgrades and support and of course a 30-day money back guarantee.

Supported Applications/Games:

  • Microsoft Office 2007
  • Microsoft Office 2003
  • Microsoft Office 2000
  • Microsoft Office 97
  • Microsoft Office Visio 2003
  • Microsoft Office Project 2003
  • Adobe Photoshop 6
  • Adobe Image Ready 3
  • Adobe Photoshop 7
  • Adobe Image Ready 7
  • Adobe Photoshop CS
  • Adobe Photoshop CS2
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 6
  • Steam and Steam based Games

Version 1.8 New Features:

  • Fixed Steam install
  • Removed pygtk, pango requirement
  • Added Microsoft Office 97 support
  • Added Adobe Photoshop 6 support
  • Added Adobe Photoshop 7 support
  • Added Adobe Image Ready 3 support
  • Added Adobe Image Ready 7 support
  • Updated Winetricks scripts

Source: bordeauxgroup.com

iXsystems releases iX-Apollo Extreme Series Workstation

Published on June 24, 2009 in PC-BSD and iXsystems. 2 Comments

iXsystems has unveiled the iX-Apollo Extreme Series, the first fully qualified PC-BSD workstation. The iX-Apollo Extreme Series ships with PC-BSD 7.x Pre-Installed and Pre-Configured. PC-BSD is a complete desktop operating system with a robust feature set including KDE 4.2.2. PC-BSD is inherently virus-resistant thereby offering stability, security and at the same time provides a comfortable user experience.

The iX-Apollo Extreme Series features the latest Intel Core i7 technology with support for up to eight logical cores. It utilizes up to 16GB of DDR3 memory, GigE LAN, 3D capable NVIDIA graphics. Additionally the iX-Apollo Extreme Series is powered by an ultra quiet 500 Watt power supply unit, which is equipped with universal input and active PFC. The power supply is also 80PLUS certified, making it efficient, eco-friendly, and less expensive to operate.

“The workstation gets more than 15,000 frames per second with effects turned off, and sees around 300 fps in Half-Life 2 with video settings maxed out. This Intel® Core™ i7 configuration is the best desktop experience I’ve had so far.  I downloaded Vavle’s Steam client and played Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike Source, and Left 4 Dead using PC-BSD.  I bought Half-Life 2 in 2004, but the Windows PC I had at the time could barely handle it. The load times alone made the game unplayable. Thanks to PC-BSD and some really nice hardware, I was finally able to enjoy the game the way it was intended,”

says James T. Nixon III, Webmaster, iXsystems.

“Aside from the amazing gaming performance, the workstation deploys desktop effects beautifully.  It sits quietly next to my television serving as a PC-BSD ‘Media Center’, making couch-computing the ‘only’ way to go!  Whether you’re writing a white paper in OpenOffice, watching movies with VLC, or enjoying the HD Flash videos on Hulu.com, PC-BSD continues to prove that anything is possible with the right hardware,”

says Ryan Hall, PC-BSD/iX-Apollo User.

FreeNAS 0.7RC1 (Sardaukar) released

Published on June 20, 2009 in FreeNAS. 0 Comments

Volker Theile has announced the availability of FreeNAS 0.7 RC1. This release candidate can be downloaded from here.

Majors changes:

  • Upgrade to FreeBSD 7.2.
  • Include ZFS support.
  • Upgrade iSCSI initiator to 2.1.1.
  • Replace iSCSI target by istgt. Thanks to Daisuke Aoyama for the WebGUI adaption. Please note, if you have used devices with the previous iSCSI target software you have to recreate your target.
  • Add WOL patch for nVidia(nfe(4)) and 3Com(xl(4)).
  • Upgrade mt-daapd/firefly to svn-1696.
  • Refactor ‘Diagnostics|Log’ WebGUI.
  • Add kernel patches to get ARTiGO A2000 hardware working.
  • Respect the modified log file location (via rc.conf for syslog, fuppes, mt-daapd, …) in the WebGUI
  • Upgrade transmission to 1.61. Add ‘Watch directory’ and ‘Extra options’ fields to ‘Services|BitTorrent’ WebGUI.
  • Add entry ‘FTP - Ban module’ to the list of log files in ‘Diagnostics|Log’ if the module is enabled
  • Add ‘iperf’, a tool to measure maximum TCP and UDP bandwidth
  • Add ‘bsnmp-ucd’ module that implements parts of UCD-SNMP-MIB.
  • Add SNMP client tools: bsnmpget, bsnmpset and bsnmpwalk
  • Add ‘Auxiliary parameters’ to ‘Services|SNMP’ that will be added to the end of the snmpd.config file.
  • Upgrade e2fsprogs to 1.41.5.
  • Upgrade rsync to 3.0.6.
  • Upgrade tftp-hpa to 0.49.

Visit the FreeNAS website for the latest info

Source: datastorageserver.net