Parand's questions

I've created a KVM virtual machine using the following command:

sudo ubuntu-vm-builder kvm oneiric \
                  --domain xpstage \
                  --dest xpstage \
                  --arch i386 \
                  --hostname xpstage \
                  --mem 1024 \
                  --user myuser --pass mypassword \
                  --bridge virbr0 \
                  --ip 192.168.1.50 --dns 8.8.8.8 \
                  --components main,universe,restricted \
                  --addpkg acpid --addpkg vim --addpkg openssh-server --addpkg avahi-daemon \
                  --libvirt qemu:///system ;

I'm able to start the VM, but I can't connect to it using networking (ssh) nor console.

To enable console access, I added a console section to the VM definition file:

<domain type='kvm' id='10'>
  <name>xpstage</name>
  <uuid>1fbe45ca-655f-9de2-b552-6ed44b2fe4c2</uuid>
  <memory>1048576</memory>
  <currentMemory>1048576</currentMemory>
  <vcpu>1</vcpu>
  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-0.14'>hvm</type>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
  </os>
  <features>
    <acpi/>
  </features>
  <clock offset='utc'/>
  <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
  <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
  <on_crash>destroy</on_crash>
  <devices>
    <emulator>/usr/bin/kvm</emulator>
    <disk type='file' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='qcow2'/>
      <source file='/home/darugar/VMs/xpstage/tmpB1Hu5k.qcow2'/>
      <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
      <alias name='ide0-0-0'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' unit='0'/>
    </disk>
    <controller type='ide' index='0'>
      <alias name='ide0'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x01' function='0x1'/>
    </controller>
    <interface type='bridge'>
      <mac address='52:54:00:d1:6d:b8'/>
      <source bridge='virbr0'/>
      <target dev='vnet0'/>
      <model type='virtio'/>
      <alias name='net0'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
    </interface>
    <serial type='pty'>
      <source path='/dev/pts/3'/>
      <target port='0'/>
      <alias name='serial0'/>
    </serial>
    <console type='pty' tty='/dev/pts/3'>
      <source path='/dev/pts/3'/>
      <target type='serial' port='0'/>
      <alias name='serial0'/>
    </console>
    <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/>
    <graphics type='vnc' port='5900' autoport='yes' listen='127.0.0.1'/>
    <video>
      <model type='cirrus' vram='9216' heads='1'/>
      <alias name='video0'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/>
    </video>
    <memballoon model='virtio'>
      <alias name='balloon0'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x04' function='0x0'/>
    </memballoon>
  </devices>
  <seclabel type='dynamic' model='apparmor'>
    <label>libvirt-1fbe45ca-655f-9de2-b552-6ed44b2fe4c2</label>
    <imagelabel>libvirt-1fbe45ca-655f-9de2-b552-6ed44b2fe4c2</imagelabel>
  </seclabel>
</domain>

However, when I attempt to connect via the console nothing displays at all:

$ virsh console xpstage
Connected to domain xpstage
Escape character is ^]

$ virsh ttyconsole xpstage
/dev/pts/3

The "virsh console" command appears to connect, but nothing is displayed besides the "Escape character is ^]".

Note that I'm not looking for VNC or graphical access; I want simple console based access.

Ideas on how to make this work would be appreciated.

I'm looking for a way to kill all processes with a given name that have been running for more than X amount of time. I spawn many instances of this particular executable, and sometimes it goes into a bad state and runs forever, taking up a lot of cpu.

I'm already using monit, but I don't know how to check for a process without a pid file. The rule would be something like this:

kill all processes named xxxx that have a running time greater than 2 minutes

How would you express this in monit?

I'm attempting to make several test machines virtual. Ideally I'd like to setup several images with various installed software - eg. windows 7 with quickbooks 2010, vista with quickbooks 2009, etc - save the images, then restart them later as needed on other hosts.

My question is: will I run into licensing issues? I own licenses for all the software so I'm no worried about whether this is permitted or not, I'm asking if practically I will run into issues with software refusing to run for any reason.

Haven't decided between xen/vmware/virtualbox for the virtualization environment, if that makes any difference.

I have a few 1u rack mount servers sitting around that are running nicely but have older CPUs (eg. AMD Opteron 252's). I was thinking of throwing some new CPUs and extra memory in to get a performance boost.

What's a good way to figure out what CPUs (if any) are compatible?

[Update] One I was able to dig up is: HP DL145 2x 2.6GHZ OPTERON 2GB MEM 80GB SATA (dual opteron 252).

I need to test with various versions of applications running on windows. I'm tempted to use something like EC2, with the idea being:

• Fire up a base EC2 windows instance. Install the app (eg. QuickBooks)
• Save the resulting image as an AMI
• Test away
• Turn off the instance

At a later date:

• Restore the AMI onto a new instance
• Test again with the clean instance

Questions:

• Is this feasible/advisable?
• We have licenses for the software we want to test with, but are there technical licensing issues with having the software (eg. QuickBooks) run once the image is restore?
• Any particular tools / scripts we should be aware of for helping with this? We're experienced on the linux side with EC2, but not on windows.

I'm having intermittent occurrences of mysql causing high load on the machine, making the web app unavailable. I'm using monit to monitor it, but it doesn't catch the issue, apparently because it can still connect to mysql. Here's my monit script for mysql:

check process mysqld with pidfile /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
    group database
    start program = "/etc/init.d/mysql start"
    stop program = "/etc/init.d/mysql stop"
    if failed port 3306 protocol mysql then restart
    if failed unixsocket /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock protocol mysql then restart
    if 5 restarts within 5 cycles then timeout

When the issue occurs load on the machine is high with mysql taking almost all of the cpu. You can still "log in" to mysql using the mysql command line tool, but any selects/updates don't respond.

What should I be using to catch when this issue pops up?

I'm seeing high load average at regular times on one of my sites. I have alerts setup, but it's not obvious what's causing the high load, so I'd like to capture the state of the system when the alert goes off.

What's a good way to capture the relevant pieces of information so I can post-facto determine what's causing the load?

This is linux/ubuntu, apache, mod_python/django, mysql.

This is an odd one. I've installed linux (both ubuntu 9.10 and debian 5) on vitualbox running on OS X. The install is fine, and once I switch the networking over to bridged I'm able reach the web and ssh into other boxes.

However, I can't scp into the virtual machine. From within the guest OS I start an scp command to copy to the box, and it stalls with 0% complete. I can ssh just fine, but scp fails.

Similarly apt-get install fails, while apt-get update works fine.

I thought it was something to do with the networking setup on the guest OS, but I've tried with both Ubuntu and Debian and both behave exactly the same way. Is there a virtualbox or an OS X setting prevent transfers over a certain size to the guest OS?

I'm interested in how well Active Directory would fare as the authentication backend for a website, scaled for ~1 million users. Do you have experience with AD in web environments of this scale, and if so what level of hardware would we need?

[Update] Regarding frequency of login: I agree that this is a key factor, but we don't have that information yet. Assume a regular commerce/banking site setup: login via a form once, carry your identity in a session (ie. no authentication calls to AD on pages other than login page).

The AD will not store a significant amount of user information beyond what's needed for authentication.

• How busy are you expecting the website to be: Assume a normal commerce/banking site. No further information on this.

• Will this AD be partitioned: It can be, although simplest architecture is preferred.

• Will this AD be serving anything else: No.

• How complicated will your OU structure be

• Will you be extending the schema: The standard schema will be used. The OU structure will be fairly simple.

• Will you be performing many searches on it: only to lookup username / email for a subsequent bind.

• Will you be storing a lot of information against the User Objects: No

• Will exchange be involved with this AD: No

I'm looking to replace our current use of an external smtp provider with an in-house installation. It should handle the following situations:

• Certain addresses should be forwarded to gmail addresses; we'd like to continue to use gmail as our primary email interface.

• Other addresses should be available as pop/imap mailboxes.

• Other addresses will be handled programmatically: they'll kick off various tasks, get logged, etc. These addresses should either kick off a process to the handle the email addresses, or should store in an easily processable format.

• It should also be fairly easily configurable with domain keys, spf, and anything else it takes to allow email deliverability.

I've used sendmail in the distant past. It seems postfix and exim are the recommended options these days. My main question is: what's the best choice and setup for the forwarding of the addresses to gmail, and for the programmatic access? Is procmail still the way to go or are there better options these days?

We're using linux/ubuntu servers.

I have an Linux (Ubuntu) virtual machine that's been setup as a desktop; it starts X and the full UI. I only need it as a server (will be accessing it via ssh) and am looking to reduce the memory footprint.

What's a good way to prevent X from starting when the machine boots?

Update: ended up going with:

sudo mv /etc/rc2.d/S30gdm /etc/disabled-S30gdm

via the link in Evan Anderson's answer.