rishel.org

No one seems to have written a log rotation script for the Proliant Support Pack logs that are stored in /var/spool/compaq/cma.log, so I thought I'd throw mine up here in case someone else needs one. put this in a file called "cma" in /etc/logrotate.d/

/var/spool/compaq/cma.log {
compress
missingok
size=100M
postrotate
/sbin/service hpasm restart 2> /dev/null > /dev/null || true
endscript
}

That's it. this will be picked up by the daily cronjobs and keep things from getting messy. if you want to test your config without doing any changes, run logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf which will output the work it plans on doing. If your big log hasn't rotated in that example, run logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.conf which force the job to run. those 6 gigs of logs are now a tidy 39 megs.

I just solved a problem at work that google was no help with. I'm posting this in hopes some other poor soul who has the same problem finds this post. After an OS re-install (Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 4) we were changing the default location of data used for application into a different filesystem mounted to /obscure/location/work/uses/ in that directory, each application has it's own folder, and then automounts to /apps/appname. We setup /apps/mysql and edited /etc/my.cnf to point everything but /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid to this new location. Makes sense, right? But now, mysql won't start. statur reports:
#service mysqld status
mysqld dead but subsys locked

in course of investigation, I check /var/log/messages and see something like:

Jan 6 01:23:27 localhost kernel: audit(1105003407.183:0): avc: denied { append } for pid=12380 exe=/usr/sbin/mysqld path=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.localdomain.err dev=sda1 ino=3450322 scontext=root:system_r:mysqld_t tcontext=root:object_r:var_lib_t tclass=file

this error message will lead you down a trail of dispair. If you're having the same problem I did, ignore this error message.

The reason the startup scripts are failing is that something is hardcoded to look for the mysql files in /var/lib/mysql. A symlink to /apps/mysql:

ln -s /apps/mysql/ /var/lib/

and mysql starts up without problem.

Now, if someone could explain why mysql client or startup scripts fails to read /etc/my.cnf correctly, I'd love to hear it.

As mentioned earlier, Meg's new computer is a Dell with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. Overall, we're still happy with the system, but I wanted to mention a few "gotchas" i've found since being able to poke around the system a bit more.

First, Meg's system came with a widescreen monitor. X windows was only configured with one 16:9 resolution choice, so if Meg want's to reduce the resolution, everything is stretched out. I know if this is a fairly simple xorg.conf fix, and Meg's gotten used to the 1680×1050 resolution, so it hasn't been a big deal.

Secondly, in an effort to conserve power, I enabled power management so the system would suspend after after an hour of activity. Most of the time, this works. Every few times, it doesn't recover correctly and needs to be shutdown before coming back up. Other times, the network connection is unable to get a DHCP lease. I've turned this off to stop irritating Meg until I can get it to work more consistently.

Meg is busy taking grad classes and her only complaint about OpenOffice.org is the lack "WordArt" as seen in Microsoft Word. I'll have to see if the Format > FontWork option does the trick for her.

Overall, I'm still very impressed. The screen resolution is a minor nit-pick, and I'm not even sure if that level of polish exists on the windows side of the world. Suspend or hibernate don't work correctly on my own (older) system, so that fact that it works most of the time is still a good sign.

I order a new computer for Meg as her IDE controller appears to be flaking out. I decided to order one of the new Dells with Ubuntu pre-installed. On first boot up, I was asked to agree to the Terms and Conditions. This was before even the OS loaded, must be a BIOS thing. Once though this screen, Ubuntu 7.04 booted up, I created a user account for Meg and myself and we were up and running. I did an synaptic update and started to explore the system. Everything but my printer just worked. USB drives, Sound, flash installed right into firefox, no extra fiddling needed.

Extra work with the printer was to be expected and I was able to easily get it running with the lexmark driver and the directions from ubuntu forums. Dell did a good job on their blog explaining that they are only going to recommend certain printers. One odd thing was that the sales page for the linux systems didn't let me select a printer at all. I guess they are still ramping up the system and determining which printers would be best to offer.

It was pretty neat to unpack a new Dell PC and only have this one CD in the box:

I'm going to let Meg play with Ubuntu a bit, but I think we may end up switching back to Kubuntu, as that's what she's more familiar with. I do have an XP CD sitting here as a backup in case she decides Open Office can't handle her powerpoint needs or something else. I might try the Qemu > rdesktop trick if she decides this is needed.

Meg and I took the dog and my laptop for a walk around the neighborhood tonight. I found 18 wireless networks, 15 of which were unsecured. 5 of which were named "linksys" it's enough that the thought of cancelling my cable service and mooching from the neighbors stayed in my mind more than briefly. I'll have to get me a GPS usb dongle so I can track down who has these access points.

• Bluetooth DUN: This is more a note to myself, as I want to remember this link on setting up Bluetooth DUN in Gentoo. I just need to figure out where my USB Bluetooth dongle got to…
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