I read an article from PC Magazine recently. It was titled “Day in the Life of A Web 2.0 Hacker.” Because many of my days consist of repairing damage done by viruses and hackers to people’s computers, this article was of interest to me.

I like the Internet. I remember years ago my first experience with the Internet. It was exciting to be able to read Web pages created by people many miles and countries away from my home. It was exciting to be able to connect with new people. The Internet was a new information highway that would revolutionize our life.

There is no question that the Internet has changed the way we receive our news, the way we do business and the way we are in touch with people. However, reading this article confirmed what I have been feeling recently. I am frustrated with the dangers that the Internet has invoked upon our society. I am frustrated with the controls we need on our computer to keep our information safe. I am frustrated by the lack of security enforcement by law officials.

While I completely concur with Julie's sentiments, isn't everybody aware of the risks of our Web 2.0 lives? Aren't there plenty of wise and erudite security experts providing all of the information that everyone needs to know about being secure? And what about all the excellent and ubiquitous security suite software packages available? Surely a tech savvy person like Julie has nothing to be concerned about. And clearly if you are a Republican VP candidate the Feds are quick to enforce even the most trivial security breaches at least as long as the Feds are Republicans. Sorry couldn't resist.

Unfortunately all of the preceding rhetorical questions are pure irony. Phillip Hallam-Baker's Web Security Blog article "Zero Overhead Security" sums it up this way.

Folk tell me that if you take 60 confused users, split them into three groups of 20 and show them different security interfaces they are all still confused. Well what did they expect?

A good part of the problem can be laid our door, fellow security professionals. We can certainly build brilliant complex software and our marketing and sales brethren can sell the heck out of it. But there is something very wrong when at the end of the day someone like Julie is left with this anemic solution.

The new security programs are good. The problem with many of the new programs is that they put blocks and watch everything we do on the computer and sometimes they make it difficult for us to understand how they work. These programs sometimes block sites that we want to use. These programs sometimes warn us more than we want.

Why am I writing this column? There is no fun in this column. I don’t feel funny about the Internet right now. I am here to tell you to put a good security suite on your computer and learn what it does and what you need to do to keep your computer and information safe. Make sure you update your virus signatures, keep your firewall on and be careful what you open.

Be careful of the personal information you share with others. Create strong passwords that contain a mix of numbers and letters and don’t use the same one for all Web sites. Watch what your kids and teenagers are doing on the Web.

All of these precautions may not protect you completely but they will help.

So why do I say this is anemic? Isn't this exactly what we've been telling Julie to do? Hasn't she hit on every "best practice" point? Enough with the ironic rhetorical questions. How about some concrete ideas that Julie or you can give your mom on security that will make a difference. In three earlier articles here, here and here I attempted to build a framework of ideas that mom should consider when getting a new computer and going online. What's missing from those articles are specific details. So without further ado:

Security Ideas for Mom - Revisited

1. Get a good firewall. Most of the popular security suites available will come with a desktop firewall, but not all of these are created equal and some are not even created well. Specifically several of the most popular include predefined exceptions for their "partners". Now I don't know about you, but just because someone has finances to partner with a security vendor does not imply that I should trust them. Note to vendors - transitive trust is not a desirable feature of a firewall. What I would suggest here is to think outside the software box a little (I know, heresy for a software geek, but I'm also an EE). Why not buy a hardware firewall? Like the ones that come with decent wireless access points. Even if you aren't interested in running wireless (yet) and only have a single computer (so far) this is still a great idea, not to mention a bargain. Given that the annual subscription fee for the most popular security suite is $60, you can get a very nice wireless router for that price. And you only have to pay for it once. Furthermore, setting up the firewall, and other features on a consumer NAT router is simple. They really aren't that smart. Which is a good thing. The only caveats are do not keep any of the defaults (i.e. SSID and passwords) and if you actually use wireless, lock it down to the specific hardware (MAC) addresses of the devices you want to allow on your network and turn off any broadcast or UPNP. Also turn off any remote maintenance. You can also use desktop firewall software along with a hardware firewall and NAT router, if you are paranoid (and you should be). Just be sure and get a good bidirectional firewall that watches outgoing as well as incoming traffic so it can stop spyware and adware that wants to phone home. Once you get your NAT router/firewall system in place, you need to go to Gibson Research web site and run ShieldsUP!. You should be completely stealth. A ghost on the internet. In my opinion, a hardware NAT router and firewall, coupled with a bidirectional software firewall eliminates most of the need for anti-virus software (more heresy I know). But l like the idea of cutting off the malware at the pass as is were.
2. If your computer is portable use full disk encryption. Period. No exceptions. Essentially full disk encryption converts the entire contents of your hard disk to random noise that cannot be deciphered without a key (passphrase or hardware key). There have been rumors through the years of groups like the NSA having the capability to break strong encryption, but trust me, you, me and mom are not worth the investment. The most widely known full disk encryption package is Microsoft Bitlocker, which is available with Vista Ultimate. For most average users, it's probably not worth the $300 upgrade to Vista Ultimate, but for business users that may be running Vista Ultimate on their mobile workstations, you should definitely contact the IT folks and get it set up. Fortunately there are some great (some would argue superior) alternatives to Bitlocker. I use the open source TrueCrypt package, because it runs on all of the platforms I use (Windows, Mac and Linux) and it's free. The point is that when you lose your portable computer when the disk is encrypted, all that is really lost is the hardware (assuming you have backups) which is by far less valuable than your data and personal information.
3. Get a good password manager. Certainly you can try to create and remember 50 odd strong passwords, but it's a whole lot easier to create and remember one strong password that can be used to access hundreds of your insanely strong and impossible to remember passwords. I've already written an article about this, so you can read all about it. There are some very good password managers, both open source and commercial. An important feature of the password manager you choose should be the ability to set up expirations on your passwords - i.e. something that reminds you to change passwords. For email accounts you should change the password every 6 months and financial services every 3 months. Since with a good password manager this is easy to do, feel free to do it more often.
4. Get different email addresses for different purposes. When you sign up with your ISP you get an email address that is your primary. If you intend to do Web 2.0 stuff, like say a weblog or a social networking like facebook or MySpace you should get a free online email address from Google (GMail), Yahoo (Yahoo Mail) or Microsoft (Windows Live Hotmail). Use this online account when you register for social networking sites. Then you can have your friends and casual acquaintances contact you via the social network site. Only use your primary email account (the one from your ISP) for banking and other communication where there is a risk of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) leakage. Do not give out your primary email to address to anyone but those sensitive accounts. This can be a problem if you've already let the horse out of the barn so to speak. Fortunately you can still get around it by sending out change of email address notices to everyone who has your primary asking that they use the new email address or contact you through your social network. If they don't, just ignore them. They'll figure it out. Or not. If you are involved in a legal or highly sensitive situation where privacy and confidentiality is crucial then you should check out a secure email service like VaultletSuite 2 Go. This service includes a minimal, but extremely secure email environment. For everyday it's overkill, but if you are sending sensitive messages to your lawyer, it is definitely worth considering.
5. Use different web browsers for different purposes. Let me be specific here: use Internet Explorer for your banking and financial sites, and no other sites. Use Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome or even another copy of IE for your social networking and casual surfing. The reason I recommend IE for banking and insurance sites is that they tend to work best (or only) with IE. Social sites, on the other hand tend to favor Firefox or Webkit (Safari and Chrome) browsers. Now wait, isn't it really inconvenient to share bookmarks between browsers? Yes. Exactly. Which is why you don't want to do that. Your banking browser should only have bookmarks for your banks. Actually sharing bookmarks is not hard and if you really want to share between multiple social browsers, get a del.icio.us account. With your public email from #4.
6. If you download software get a disposable virtual environment. Downloading anything from the web and installing it on your PC is risky business, even if it is from a reputable site, but it can be catastrophic if your tastes run to the wild side. The problem is that even decent shareware (of which I'm a huge fan) rarely uninstalls cleanly from Windows. And much of the stuff available for free download isn't decent. In fact a fair portion of it is infected with malware, malicious or just plain bad. What you need is a virtual environment where you can download this stuff, install it and try it out before you commit it to your real environment. This can be done a number of ways. Virtualization software like VMware and Parallels allow you to create virtual machines that are exactly that. If you trash one, you just delete it and move on. The downside, as you can well imagine, is that virtualization software requires a lot of resources (i.e. a very powerful computer) and it's not trivial. There is another kind of software that you can use to accomplish this: sandbox software. Basically a sandbox sets aside a place on your computer where programs can play nicely, isolated from everything else. Just like naughty children. The best known of these packages is Sandboxie. Using this kind of software, you can run any program "sandboxed". Then if it blows up, or simply tuns out not to be what you wanted, you just clean out the sandbox. If you do happen to decide that you want to keep your changes for real, you can recover everything to your computer. Trust me, this will save your bacon.
7. Keep your professional and personal stuff separate. By stuff, I mean everything: email accounts, social networking sites, computers and software. Everything. That means, don't pay games or have person email on your work computer. It also means don't copy that spreadsheet from work to your home machine. Now hold on, I can see not doing personal stuff on my work PC, but what's wrong with working on my personal PC? Actually, ask your IT folks which is worse. They'll tell you most emphatically that taking company data into an unsecured environment is way worse than stealing a some CPU cycles, hard disk space and time playing games. Either way it's bad for you and bad for business. If you really must check your personal email at work, then use one of your web mail accounts (see #4). Also be aware that if you are using your employer's computer equipment you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Think about that before you fire off a note to that hotty you met last night. But what about connecting to the office VPN from my home machine? Well okay, but just be aware that if you have a home network where you share stuff like photos, music and files you could be sharing them with everyone on your company VPN. I'd think about that for a while. Finally if you work for the government, you may have safeguards and accountability requirements on your email. So don't be like Sarah. Nuff said.

I'm sure there are other good, and straightforward ideas for securing mom's computer. I would love to know about them. I would also love to hear about problems with the ideas I've put forth here [note - blatant pandering for comments]. Maybe we can make things a bit nicer for Julie and mom. Or convince them that the internet is funny again.

1.       Disks Converting

Default di Windows Server 2008 adalah Basic Disk. Dan di Windows Server terdapat dua macam type disk yaitu Basic dan Dynamic.  Dynamic Disk diperkenalkan di Windows Server 2000. Dengan Dynamics Disk kita bisa melakukan  simple volumes, spanned volumes, striped volumes dan RAID-5 volumes.

Dengan command diskpart.exe kita bisa melakukan converting disk, contoh:

diskpart.exe
DISKPART> select disk 0
DISKPART> convert dynamic
DISKPART> exit

2.       Membuat Volumes Baru 

Masih mengunakan command diskpart.exe, kita dapat membuat volumes seperti:

Create volume simple ; Create volume stripe ; Create volume raid 

Contoh membuat RAID5 volumes dengan disks ID 1,2 dan 3:

diskpart.exe
DISKPART> create volume raid size=20483 disk=1,2,3
DISKPART> exit

3.       Membuat Partisi Baru 

Menggunakan diskpart.exe, kita dapat membuat partisi baru, seperti:

Create partition primary ; Create partition extended ; Create partition logical 

Contoh membuat primary partition di unused space menggunakan basic disks:

diskpart.exe
DISKPART> select disk 0
DISKPART> create partition primary size=3078

DISKPART> exit

4.       Shrinking 

Contoh melakukan shrinking disk di volume pertama dengan 3000 MBs:

diskpart.exe
DISKPART> select disk 0
DISKPART> select volume 1
DISKPART> shrink desired=3000
DISKPART> exit

5.       Extending 

Contoh melakukan extending  disk di volume pertama dengan menambah 3000 MBs mengunakan disk2:

diskpart.exe
DISKPART> select disk 0
DISKPART> select volume 1
DISKPART> extend size=3000 disk=2
DISKPART> exit

Command ini sering saya gunakan untuk menambah volumes disks dengan case study:

1.       Pada saat melakukan converting dari Physical Server ke Virtual Server,  kapasitas volume 0  adalah 15GB.

2.       Setelah selesai melakukan converting, di virtual server dilakukan extending volumes 0 menjadi 30GB.

6.       Deleting 

Contoh melakukan penghapusan  disk:

diskpart.exe
DISKPART> select disk 0
DISKPART> select volume 1
DISKPART> delete volume
DISKPART> exit

7.       Formating 

Contoh melakukan format disk dengan NTFS kemudian enable compress dan member label “Data” dan disk bisa diakses melalui drive F :

diskpart.exe
DISKPART> select disk 0
DISKPART> select volume 1
DISKPART> format fs=ntfs label="Data" compress
DSKPART> assign letter=f
DISKPART> exit

8.       Checking Disk

Bisa dilakukan dengan command: chkdsk.exe D: /f   -- Check drive D dan fix errors  

9.       Defragmenting Disk

Bisa dilakukan dengan command:defrag.exe -c  -- Defrag semua volumes

Kesimpulan:

Gunakan command ? atau help, jika anda membutuhkan bantuan di Server Core. Menggunakan Server Core mengingatkan saya kembali ke jaman DOS. Ataukah Server Core = MS DOS 2008? J

A virtualização de Ambientes de TI hoje é assunto em diversas empresas em todo mundo. É um dos itens cotados para orçamento de TI de diversas empresas para 2009. Seja qual for a justificativa de investimento dos ambientes virtualizados, atualmente algumas empresas estão utilizando virtualização no seu site alternativo, conseqüentemente as estratégias de DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan) estão mudando. Com base na afirmação, coloco abaixo uma questão para discutirmos:

Como os ambientes virtualizados estão sendo utilizados como estratégia para recuperação de desastres?

We each behave according to our nature. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that while a virtualization supplier believes that the operating system is, effectively, a feature, an operating system vendor would argue that the converse is true. The philosophical differences between Red Hat and VMware could not have been more apparent during their respective events - September’s VMworld gathering in Las Vegas and yesterday’s Red Hat analyst day held at the New York Stock Exchange.

Group Policy application fails on a computer that is running Windows 2000, Windows XP Service Pack 1, or Windows XP Service Pack 2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;840669

/usr/bin/kvm  -boot c -m 600 -hda /home/ruben/qemu_images/win.img -net nic,vlan=0 -net user,vlan=0 -localtime -soundhw sb16 -k es -usb

Don't forget to include the -usb !!!

You can add a specific USB device by addingg  "-usbdevice host:0dc4:00d5" to the previous command line.

To get the USB address try:

> lsusb

Then you can use one of those numbers corresponding to your hardware.

You can add devices at the command line launch or you can switch to the administration console of qemu pressing:

Ctrl+Alt+2

Then you can do:

> usb_add host:0dc4:00d5

Type help for a list of options.

Anyone knows if there is a pager for the qemu administration console?

I think whoever is doing the Vista marketing should take a break and let the guys who did the Windows Server 2008 24-7 IT ads take over. These ads feature a do-it-all robot which symbolizes the power that a server acquires when it runs Windows Server 2008. I though they were funny, cool, and got to the point in a matter of seconds, unlike others I have seen *cough*Seinfeld*cough*. The animation from IT 24-7 is very well done - that is one cool robot (he breaks dance in one of the ads - nuf' said).

*THIS* is the kind of marketing Microsoft needs for the rest of their products (especially Vista).

You need to have Silverlight installed, which is no biggie. Took me less than 30 secs to do and I did not needed to restart Firefox. My favorite, by far, is the Rodeo one - amazing ending ;)

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/serverunleashed/default.html

I took the machine to my place and quickly wiped out the OS that was pre-installed. Installed Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, accessed Server Manager, tried to add Hyper-V role and (drumroll)...no cigar. I thought "no biggie just have to enable virtualization support on the BIOS". Took a restart trip to the BIOS and the Virtualization option is nowhere to be found. My friend, Xavier recently purchased some Dell laptops and he could not find this option either.

I tried the next thing any rational human being would try - called Dell Tech Support. After battling with a plethora of options to reach a human being, I reached a person who could not understood what I was asking. Basically she told me "you bought it from Best Buy, you need contact Geek Squad...kbyethanx".

So I did. Geek Squad told me, "you need to contact Dell" and at this point, I was really starting to look like this:

So I took the machine back to Best Buy and requested a refund, which they did without any issues.

This leaves with some questions Dell and others have yet to answer:

It seems Microsoft's primary intention is not to directly compete with what VMWare is offering, and instead take the next “technological step”, moving to a management infrastructure that is both physical and virtual. They put a lot of emphasis on managing virtualization deployments, and see that as more important than the actual implementation. This is definitely true, at least from a business standpoint, as one of the goals of any virtualization suite is to become seamless.

If anyone knows how to operate a monopoly and control large market share, that would be Microsoft. VMWare could be in danger here. Even with a technically superior product, they might find themselves in a serious hurt if they do not react to Microsoft's plans, on top of several other vendors like Sun and Cisco competing for VMWare's current domain as well.

Simon Hackett, founder and Managing Director of Internode, stated "Our single largest source of carbon emission is power generation to drive our large and rapidly growing data centres, as well as our offices. We've decided to solve that emission type 'at source' by purchasing certified renewable energy certificates."

According to Hackett the transition to 100% green energy at the source has added a 20% premium to the companies electricity costs. Although with energy costs increasing I can imagine that more efficient technology infrastructure will drive this ratio lower. Something the company has already begun with virtualisation technogies from VMWare running atop Sun Microsystems hardware such as the x4100.

This comes as the Rudd Labor government of Australia finalises it's plans to tackle climate change under advice from Professor Garnaut.

Per continuare la saga di VirtualBox OSE, se avete letto questo articolo, stiamo continuando a tenere i pacchetti svn di VirtualBox sul repo di M0rF3uS, consapevoli dell'utilità di avere la versione Open Source Edition (OSE) aggiornata il più possibile, specie quando ci sono fix importanti.

Per ora abbiamo deciso di tenere, compresi i sorgenti, solo le ultime 5/6 versioni compilate per non avere spazio occupato inutilmente.

La scelta di avere un nostro repository (non ufficiale) è ovvia perché la versione ultima comincia a avere piccoli problemi, che comunque verranno risolti nella release successiva, e il nostro pensiero è quello di essere utili a chi voglia usare e provare la versione Open Source, priva (o quasi) da vincoli e sicuramente più fresca, anche se occorre rinunciare alle caratteristiche (USB, RDP) della versione PUEL (Personal Use and Evaluation License).

Interessanti a questo proposito le discussioni di questo topic, riguardanti la natura del progetto, con frasi tipo:

"The problem for me is how the Sun team have lobotomised the OSE version compared to the PEUL version"

"IMHO, VBox is not really a community project, hence there are no community developers"

Per tornare a noi, Il processo è ormai quasi standardizzato, anche se a volte piccoli ostacoli vengono superati con l'aiuto del forum di virtualbox e le mailing-lists -users e -dev.

La penultima versione è stata ricompilata a causa di un errore che impediva all'utente normale (pur inserito nel gruppo vboxusers) di poter eseguire VirtualBox, l'errore si presentava così:

error: "effective uid is not root"
VirtualBox: SUPR3HardenedMain: effective uid is not root (euid=1000 egid=100 uid=1000 gid=100)

Sul forum c'era già la soluzione, bastava configurare con l'opzione "--disable-hardening" :)

Nel nostro caso, occorreva però effettuare le modifiche nei files della directory debian, prima di usare dpkg-buildpackages. Abbiamo quindi modificato il file vbox/debian/LocalConfig.kmk cambiando il valore da "1" a "0" nella riga:

VBOX_WITH_HARDENING        := 0

Questa modifica è disponibile a partire dalla versione 13003,

I pacchetti si possopno installare sia su Debian etch/lenny/sid che su Ubuntu hardy/intrepid

Per farlo bisogna aggiungere al file /etc/apt/sources.list le righe:

#M0rF3uS+adoldo
deb http://www.ilportalinux.it/repository/ hardy binary
deb-src http://www.ilportalinux.it/repository/ hardy binary

Se invece siete pigri e volete solo avere gli pacchetti, potete scaricarli da:

virtualbox-ose_2.0.51+svn-1-adoldo-13104_i386.deb

09-Oct-2008 11:47

5.6M

virtualbox-ose-dbg_2.0.51+svn-1-adoldo-13104_i386.deb

09-Oct-2008 11:46

18M

mentre i sorgenti sono disponibili in:

	virtualbox-ose_2.0.51+svn-1-adoldo-13104.dsc	09-Oct-2008 11:49	663
	virtualbox-ose_2.0.51+svn-1-adoldo-13104.tar.gz	09-Oct-2008 11:51	83M
	virtualbox-ose_2.0.51+svn-1-adoldo-13104_i386.changes	09-Oct-2008 11:51	1.0K

Considerando che i links che vedete rimarranno solo per qualche settimana ;)
Sarebbe gradito un feedback, solo per la nostra soddisfazione.

Enjoy :)

Hardware requirements for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

This is a minimum, single machine configuration. Actual requirements and product functionality will vary based on your system configuration and the features you choose to install and on the number of hosts you manage. For more details and the most up-to-date information, please refer to the documentation at

www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm

Virtual Machine Manager Software Requirements -- Single Computer

The following software must be installed prior to installing all Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) components on a single computer:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2008® or later (must include Hyper-V)

• Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 (included in installation)

• Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (included in installation)

• Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 Express Edition with Service Pack 2 (included in installation) or Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise Editions with Service Pack 2 (separate installation) .

If you do not specify an existing instance of SQL Server 2005, Setup installs SQL Server Express Edition SP2 on the local computer. This also installs SQL Server 2005 Tools and creates an SQL Server instance named MICROSOFT$VMM$ on the local computer.

• Microsoft Windows PowerShell TM 1.0

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=77521.

• Microsoft Windows Remote Management (WinRM)

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=84599.

• Microsoft Internet Information Server 7.0 (needed for Self-Service Portal only)

· Update for SCVMM 2008 Beta

Install this update to enable Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta (VMM) to function with Release Candidate 1 (RC1) to the Hyper-V role. After you install this update, you may have to restart your computer. Once you have installed this update, it cannot be removed.

Download the Update for Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Beta and place the file on your VMM server.

Install the Update

Installing the update will change the VMM product version on your VMM server to 2.0.3194.1.

To install the update

1. On the VMM server, stop the Virtual Machine Manager Service.
   1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
   2. Locate Virtual Machine Manager and then click Stop the service.

Note

If you do not stop the service prior to installing the update, you will have to restart your computer after installation.

1. Double-click vmmServerUpdate.msp to start the installation.
2. When the installation is complete, restart the Virtual Machine Manager Service.

Known Issues

• When you reinstall an agent, all of the virtual machines on the host will go into a “Missing” state. When this occurs, restart the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management service on the host to return the virtual machines to their actual state.
• When you install an agent, the existing virtual networks on the host are occasionally not found by VMM. To fix this issue, restart the Hyper-V Networking Management service.

The solution is to edit the scripts vmware-install.pl and /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl, changing:

From:
if (scalar(@modules) > 0) {
To:
if (scalar(@modules) == 0) {

Credit goes to Marcelo Sales: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=516916

UPDATE: VMplayer runs very slowly on both my Duo 2.66 Mhz, 2 Gb RAM and Inspiron laptop. I tried VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) and I really like it. It is much faster and lighter than VMplayer, I strongly recommend it in place of VMware software. See my post about my experience with VirtualBox here.

VMplayer was very slow and took me some time to figure out how to install the network, and file sharing never worked.

Now I use Sun's VirtualBox, which I strongly recommend:

1. download .deb for Gusty at http://www.virtualbox.org/
2. install with dpkg -i and that's it. No compilation, no kernel modules, no tons of configuration.
3. no painful registration
4. run VirtualBox and install your OS. It allows for a resizable disk, unlike VMplayer
5. network was recognized immediately, unlike VMplayer
6. file sharing requires installing "Guest additions" (Devices menu in the tool bar), which is painless and quick. Then go to Devices -> Shared folders... and share your Linux folder
7. VirtualBox (as VMplayer) deals with the mouse pointer seamlessly. Really cool.
8. I haven't tried to enable USB, but I've found recipes on the internet.
9. I allocated 700 Mb for Window$ and I think I could use even less (unlike VMplayer)

Start de ExtPart.exe op en pak de bestanden uit naar de default directory.

In deze post voeg ik 2GB toe aan de VM.

Even wachten totdat de taak klaar is.

Nu wordt het tijd om naar de tool ExtPart.exe te kijken.

Via het commando: ExtPart.exe /? krijg je de volgende output:

C:\dell\ExtPart>extpart /?

ExtPart - Utility to extend basic disks (Build 1.0.4)
(c) Dell Computer Corporation 2003

Usage: extpart [volume size]
volume  - volume to expand. eg. f:, g: etc. (only basic volumes)
size    - size in megabytes to expand the volume

Return codes for script mode
(If parameters are not specified extpart will run in interactive mode)
0       - Success
1       - Parameter error. size parameter is invalid
2       - Invalid volume or failed to connect to volume
3       - Invalid volume type or failed to get volume properties
4       - Requested size is invalid or volume expansion operation failed
5       - Unable to retrieve volume properties after expansion completed
6       - Invalid size requested for expansion (minimum value is 8 MB)

Oké nu we weten hoe het commanode werkt voeren we het volgende commando uit:

ExtPart.exe C: 2048 (je moet de waarde in MB’s opgeven)

C:\dell\ExtPart>extpart.exe C: 2048

ExtPart - Utility to extend basic disks (Build 1.0.4)
(c) Dell Computer Corporation 2003

Current volume size     : 8181 MB (8578934272 bytes)
Current partition size  : 8181 MB (8578934784 bytes)

New volume size         : 10228 MB (10725732352 bytes)

De opdracht lijkt succesvol maar we kijken het nog even na binnen Windows:

De credits gaan naar drexciya die deze tool tipte op het vmug forum: http://www.vmug.nl

Giusto ieri sono incappato anche io nel documento citato da Rudy e gli ho dato un'occhiata veloce. Rudy l'ha letto più attentamente e nel suo post ne riporta le caratteristiche principali. Devo dire che secondo me Oracle con l'avvento della virtualizzazione ha cambiato leggermente direzione. Fino a poco tempo fa Oracle pubblicizava RAC come soluzione di bilanciamento e ottimizzazione delle risorse, quindi consigliava di fare un unico grande RAC su cui mettere tutte le proprie applicazioni; poi con l'utilizzo dei SERVICES e del RESOURCE MANAGER si possono bilanciare correttamente le varie applicazioni. Quindi in sostanza un'unico database e diversi "schemi"/utenti. La realtà però deve essere più vicina a quella con cui mi scontro anche io nel mio piccolo, ovvero che se in un'azienda si usano più applicazioni che si basano su database Oracle, ogni fornitore dell'applicazione con un'archiettura del genere non si fida, vorrebbe che su database su cui si appoggia la propria applicazione non vi sia nessun'altro, in modo da non aver a discutere in caso di problemi, tipicamente di performance. La virtualizzazione, seppur non cambiando le cose di molto, utilizzata come spiegato nel documento Oracle va in questa direzione, sullo stesso nodo fisico del cluster si fanno due macchine virtuali distinte e quindi si ha una maggiore indipendenza. A questo punto la gestione non si semplifica, perchè oltre al RAC c'è anche lo strato di virtualizzazione da gestire, però questa soluzione comincia a piacere sempre di più.

Due ulteriori considerazioni che volevo fare:

1) nel documento Oracle al paragrafo "Why Running Oracle RAC in Oracle VM?" mette in prima posizione l'utilizzo in ambienti di Test.

2)Al momento è supportato come guest solo Linux 32 bit, questo al momento secondo me è un limite pesante se non altro per il limite sull'indirazzamento della memoria che limita la SGA. Fra l'altro ormai le macchine fisiche a 64 bit sono la norma e qui c'è ancora un dubbio che mi rimane: io l'anno scorso ho messo in piedi un ambiente di test su una macchina a 64 bit, vi ho installato OEL5 con XEN e sopra vi ho fatto due macchine virtuali con OEL4, una a 64 bit e una a 32 bit. Quella a 32 bit ho dovuto farla per forza di tipo "fully virtualized" che al tempo mi è sembrato di capire sia il metodo meno efficente. L'altra è di tipo para-virtualized. Effettivamente facendo delle prove mi è capitato di sedere letteralmente la macchina fisica (uno script di shell che andava in loop) in quella situazione l'unica macchina a cui si riusciva ancora ad accedere era quella "para-virtualized". Quindi il mio dubbio è questo, ho un hardware a 64 bit (perchè se intendo utilizzarlo come base per più macchine virtuali ho senz'altro necessità di avere ben più di 4 GB di RAM) poi sopra ci posso fare solo macchine virtuali a 32 bit e posso solo farle "fully virtualized" (immagino che il processore debba essere virtualizzato completemente) che ad occhio (ma qui ci metto un forse molto grande) sono meno efficenti.

The following are the key takeaways I extracted:

• Juniper is standards-oriented. In the area of NAC, e.g., they are co-chairing with Symantec the Trusted Computing Group's Trusted Network Connect (TNC) effort. It's not (yet) clear to me how the TCG interplays with the IETF ... And speaking of IETF, Juniper's Network and Security Manager (NSM) makes use of IETF's NetConf standard in, e.g., simplifying the provisioning of new devices on the network.
• Juniper has a comprehensive portfolio of offerings at the intersection of security and networking. Interestingly, Juniper's Security Threat Response Manager (STRM) OEMs technology from Q1Labs.
• 802.1x is a solid bet. Based on a number of trends, and a variety of requirements, Juniper promotes use of 802.1x. Even though this is a path we've already identified, it's good to have it independently validated ...
• Security, and other services, can be offloaded to purpose-built devices in the core. Instead of inserting, e.g., a FWSM into a device (e.g., a Cisco 65xx) that is primarily providing routing and switching services, Juniper has recently introduced a new paradigm with its SRX series. Touted as a services gateway for the core, the purpose of the SRX is to offload from the routing/switching devices various services - e.g., firewall, VPN, etc. As I understand it, the SRX runs JUNOS with various enhancements from ScreenOS (their O/S from their firewall devices). Even if you don't make use of Juniper solutions, it may make sense to understand and potentially apply the offloading-of-services concept/paradigm in your core.
• Juniper allows for the virtualization of switches. Juniper Virtual Chassis (VC) is currently only available for their EX 4200 platform. With VC, it's possible to virtualize up to 10 physically distinct EX 4200s into one. Within the next year, Juniper plans to provide VC on, e.g., their EX 8200 platform. Because vmWare's vMotion requires layer-2 adjacency, server virtualization may prove to be a significant driver for switch virtualization. I expect that this will prove, e.g., to be particularly relevant in providing failover services (at the networking layer) between multiple, physically distinct, and geographically separated locations.

Even though the event appeared to be more of the sales-y/marketing-y variety, there was substantial technical content in evidence.

Il servizio S3 fa da base per il servizio principale degli AWS: Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Qui in sostanza Amazon vende potenza computazionale, a ora. In pratica si possono costruire delle macchine virtuali, opportunamente impacchettate in un formato chiamato AMI (Amazon Machine Image), che vengono memorizzate su S3. Poi sempre tramite interfacce tali macchine possono essere accese e spente. Per avere una vaga idea di cosa si tratta si può dare un'occhiata a questa dimostrazione di Oracle. In questa dimostrazione si vede una AMI gia preparata da Oracle. All'accensione  si configura un database nuovo (11g) e si può creare un'applicazione con APEX (incluso in 11g appunto). Se non ho capito male, queste macchine sono in qualche modo "effimere" ovvero non hanno una memoria permanente e quindi la configurazione va persa se vengono spente. In pratica credo che sia come se l'immagine della macchina virtuale venga ripristinata da zero. Se si vuole una persistenza occorre utilizzare un'altro servizio chiamato Elastic Block Store.

Ora, a parte la poca chiarezza nella mia rapida descrizione, tutto sembra molto affascinante, Oracle ha anche dedicato una sezione di OTN al cloud computing.

I dubbi manifestati nel mio post precedente e da Stallman rimangono. Soprattutto obbietterei che per utilizzare tali servizi la mia ADSL a 640 Kbit/sec non va molto bene. Ieri per curiosità ho provato a iscrivermi perchè ero curioso e io per capire le cose le devo provare. Il problema è che vi sono vari livelli di iscrizione, una generale su aws.amazon.com e poi quelle ai singoli servizi. L'iscrizione a questi richiede gia il numero di carta di credito perchè sembra proprio che non ci sia un sorta di servizio base gratuito, da utilizzare per provare. Dai prezzi pubblicati sembra che non sia necessario svenarsi per fare qualche test, però essendo più per curiosità non sono andato oltre. Direi per fortuna! Aggiungerei alle critiche gia fatte da Stallman che cominciare a sviluppare applicazioni su questa piattaforma non è proprio a costo zero, bisogna mettere in conto un periodo di apprendimento, perchè mi pare proprio che di cose da impare ce ne siano abbastanza.

Quello di cui mi sono reso conto e che mi piace dell'informatica moderna è che ci sono molte opportunità di provare cose gratuitamente. Ripeto io per capire una cosa la devo provare. Se voglio provare Oracle 11g, vado sul sito Oracle, me lo scarico, lo installo sul pc, magari su una macchina virtuale e lo provo e ci sbatto il naso. Se mi piace poi posso anche pensare di investire dei soldi.  Non come il caso descritto da Skyone dove prima compro e poi provo.

Detto questo terro' d'occhio AWS anche perchè pare che la moda spinga queste cose a diventare indispensabili strumenti, ma preferisco approfondire cose come Oracle VM . La virtualizzazione è un'altra moda che pare prendere sempre più piede e che quindi non si può più ignorare e relegare a test e sviluppo, almeno è gratis.

Chris Skinner een Senior Technical Instructor at VMware PSO-Education heeft een aantal papers geschreven over het integreren van backup software en VCB.

Op de viops site van VMware kun je de volgende papers vinden:

• Integrating Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with VCB 1.5
• Integrating Symantec Backup Exec with VCB
• Integrating Netbackup 6.5.1 with VCB 1.1
• Integrating CommVault Galaxy 6.1 SP4 with VCB 1.1
• Integrating Legato Networker 7.4 with VCB
• Integrating Tivoli Storage Manager 5.5 with VCB 1.1

Bron: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/692-Integrating-Symantec-Backup-Exec-12.5-with-VCB-1.5.html

Hyper-V Weakness

Hal utama yang perlu diperhatikan adalah:

-          Hyper-V membutuhkan 64-bit Hardware.

-          Hardware harus support “hardware data execution protection”  (Intel VT or AMD-V).

-          Hyper-V tidak mendukung “live migration” VMs antara physical server (High Availability).

Note: Hyper-V menawarkan option Failover Clustering antar VM.

-          Hyper-V tidak mendukung distributed resources (Load Balancing) antar VMs

Note: Hyper-V menawarkan option NLB.

-          Administrator tidak bisa melakukan over-commit memory di VMs. 

-          Guest OS Support yang masih dibilang sedikit di support oleh Hyper-V. (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-supported-guest-os.aspx

Hyper-V Strengths

Microsoft banyak melakukan kemajuan untuk mendukung Hyper-V seperti (diluar features Hyper-V yang telah dibahas oleh teman2 wss-id):

-          Windows Server 2008 Packaging, Pricing dan Licensing:

·         Windows Server 2008 Standard

·         Windows Server 2008 Enterprises

·         Windows Server 2008 Datacenter

·         Windows Server 2008 Standard without Hyper-V

·         Windows Server 2008 Enterprises without Hyper-V

·         Windows Server 2008 Datacenter without Hyper-V

·         Windows Web Server 2008 (without Hyper-V)

·         Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based systems

-          The Server Virtualization  Validation Program

Program ini memungkinkan vendor untuk melakukan testing dan validasi virtual software yang berjalan diatas Windows Server 2008 dan versi sebelumnya.

-          Microsoft Virtualization Solution Accelerators

Tools dan panduan gratis untuk membantu IT Pro dalam hal perencanaan dan implementasi virtualization technology.

-          System Center untuk monitoring virtualization management (termasuk didalamnya server and software deployment, compliance and configuration management, backup and restore):

·         System Center Configuration Manager 2007

·         System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

·         System Center Virtual Machines  Manager 2007

Kesimpulan:

MS Hyper-V masih terbilang baru di Virtualization Technologies (underdog).  Akan tetapi dikarenakan harga dari Hyper-V yang “murah”  dan hardware compatibility yang lebih baik dibandingkan vendor lainnya maka Hyper-V dapat bersaing dengan VMware dan Xen.

Berikut langkah-langkahnya:

Langkah 1:

Hardware 64Bit (x86-64 Bit)!! Dan tentunya harus support Intel-VT atau AMD-V J. Processor bisa menggunakan AMD64,  Athlon64,  AMD64 Opteron, atau Intel Core Duo processor.

Langkah 2:

Install Windows Server 2008 64Bit. Ketika tampil box untuk memilih Server Core atau Full Installation, pilih Server Core. Setelah mengganti password Administrator, configure time, time zone dan time synchronization (pakai command control.exe timedate.cpl),  configure hostname ( netdom.exe), set license (slmgr.vbs), configure IP (netsh.exe), aktifkan windows Updata atau Remote Desktop (wsregedit.wsf). Jika ingin backup dapat gunakan command wbadmin.exe.

Langkah 3:

Install updates package untuk MS Hyper-V RTM (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950050). Bisa dilakukan 2 cara yaitu:

1.       Download updates kemudian install manual (wusa.exe Windows6.0-KB950050-x64.msu)

2.       Download updates melalui Automatic Updates (sebelumnya aktifkan Automatic Updates).

Cd c:\Windows\System32

Cscript SCregEdit.wsf /AU 4

Net stop wuauserv

Net start wuauserv

Kemudian check update dengan command wuauclt.exe /detectnow (Server core akan check kemudian download updates dan install updates).

Untuk check log ini, masuk ke c:\windows\windowsupdate.log menggunakan Notepad.exe.

Check apakah updates telah terinstall dengan benar dengan command wmic qfe list /format:list.  Jika sudah terinstall akan tampil updates dengan HotFixIDKB950050.

Langkah 4:

Install Hyper-V role dengan command: start/w ocsetup.exe Microsoft-Hyper-V

Windows Package Manager akan member report bahwa System harus di restart. Click Yes untuk restart server.  Setelah Server Restrat, log in sebagai Administrator kemudian check instalasi Hyper-V Server Role dengan command oclist.exe.

This $360 million dollar purchase of LeftHand Networks by H-P will fill H-Ps storage, virtualization, iSCSI lines with products for medium sized companies and remote offices & branches.

Some of the features of LeftHand products include data replication for backup & disaster recovery an dan "intelligent cloning technology" that can reduce the amount of required disk space by as much as 97%.  LeftHand products already work with many of HP's products including Proliant servers & Balde System platforms, Procurve Networks & Insight Control Management software. 

The advantage.. is that medium sized companies that are just getting involved in storage virtualization can do so without buying new storage using LeftHand's software to virtualize existing direct attached storage.  With LeftHand's instant cloning, HP gets a more efficient way to deploy multiple virtual desktops. HP will position the MSA line as a lower end platform for enterprises that do not need the extra capabilities for LeftHand software.   Another thing that sets LeftHand apart is the ability to cluster its platforms so that each additional system increases both the resiliency and the performance of the cluster.

Today I will start the series for explain and configure the most important features and tasks in it.

Components of VMM

VMM has many components with different tasks and scope, the main components are:

• Virtual Machine Manager Server

• Virtual Machine Host

• Virtual Machine Library Server

• Virtual Machine Manager Administrator Console

• Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal

• Virtual Machine Manager Agent

Virtual Machine Manager Server
The VMM server is the main component of any deployment as it is responsible for any communication between the VMM service and the rest of components and VMs.

The VMM server runs the VMM service, which runs commands, transfers files, and controls communications with other VMM components and with all virtual machine hosts and VMM library servers, collectively referred to as managed computers. The VMM service is run through the VMM agents that are installed on the managed computers.

The VMM server also connects to a SQL Server database that stores all VMM configuration information. You can access this information and configure VMM by using the VMM Administrator console.

Virtual Machine Host
A virtual machine host is a physical computer that hosts one or more virtual machines. You can add one or more hosts to VMM by using the Add Hosts Wizard in the VMM Administrator Console. The host can be Hyper-V server, Virtual Server 2005 R2 with Service Pack 1 and ESX server. VMM 2008 support management of VMware infrastructure V3. This is one of the new features introduced in VMM 2008.
When you add a host, VMM automatically installs an agent on the host and in case the host was windows 2008 ® it install Hyper-V role if it is not installed.

Virtual Machine Library Server
The Virtual Machine Manager Library server has a VMM library, which is a catalog of resources that can be used to create and configure virtual machines in VMM. The library contains files stored on library shares, and it can contain file-based resources such as:

• Virtual hard disks.

• Virtual floppy disks.

• ISO images and scripts.

• Virtual machine templates.

• Hardware profiles.

• Guest operating system profiles, which can be used to create virtual machines

• Stored virtual machines that are not in use.

When you add a library server, VMM automatically installs an agent on the library server.
For more information about library servers, see the "Library" topic in VMM Help (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98640).

Virtual Machine Manager Administrator Console
The VMM Administrator Console is a graphical user interface (GUI) that you use to:

• Create, deploy, and manage virtual machines.

• Monitor and manage hosts and library servers.

• Manage global configuration settings.

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal
The VMM Self-Service Portal is Web-based component that a VMM administrator can configure to allow end users to create and manage their own virtual machines within a controlled environment.
The VMM administrator defines self-service policies that determine which templates self-service users can use to create virtual machines, how many virtual machines they can deploy, which hosts their virtual machines can run on, and which actions they can take on their virtual machines. For more information about self-service, see the "About Virtual Machine Self-Service" topic in VMM Help (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=98644).

Virtual Machine Manager Agent
The VMM agent manages virtual machines on virtual machine hosts and allows hosts and library servers to communicate with, and transfer files to and from, the VMM server.
When you add a virtual machine host or a library server in a trusted domain by using the VMM Administrator Console, VMM automatically installs an agent on that managed computer by using the default settings.
For a host that is on a perimeter network, you must install an agent locally on the host before you can add the host to VMM.

Later we will explain the main features of the VMM 2008 like P2V and pro etc etc...

References,

VMM 2007 documentations

Para ponértelo de una forma muy sencilla, a partir del nuevo chip Intel Xeon Series 7400 (Dunnington) que Intel acaba de sacar esta semana, nos aseguraran que podamos hacer una migración en caliente con VMware VMotion hacia cualquier otro procesador Intel de nueva generación.

También he podido comprobar que es posible migrar en caliente con VMware VMotion una maquina virtual desde el nuevo chip de  Intel Xeon Series 7400 hacia  chips de dos generaciones anteriores Intel Series 5300 , pero eso sí, con la opción EVC (Enhanced VMotion Compatibility) activada en VMware ESX.

Ahora solo queda esperar  que hagan VMotion compatible el chip de Intel con el chip de AMD para poder desplegar granjas de virtualización sin preocuparnos de compatibilidad VMotion de VMware

Jake Smith de Intel Corporation y Dave Martin de Vmware Inc nos cuentan en este vídeo como las dos compañías han trabajado en conjunto para traer al público esta nueva funcionalidad

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