Auto-Updating Distro profile in Cobbler

As part of a very short, unsuccessful Fedora 13 test, I found it advantageous to set up an auto-updating distro.  Okay, given the release behaviour of Fedora vs, say, RHEL, an auto-updating distro profile for a distro which doesn't actually update is kinda pointless.  Work with me here, though.

How to do this in Cobbler?  Create a repo, which we can update automatically, and link the distro to that:

cobbler repo add --name fedora13-os-x86_64 --arch x86_64 \
  --mirror rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/releases/13/Fedora/x86_64/os

cobbler import --name fedora13 --arch x86_64 \
  --path /var/www/cobbler/repo_mirror/fedora13-os-x86_64 \
  --available-as http://10.10.4.1/cblr/repo_mirror/fedora13-os-x86_64 \
  --breed redhat --kickstart /etc/cobbler/centos-X.ks

Too easy.  Blah blah, test often, blah blah, change the IP to suit, etc.

NOT Going with the Flow(player) Yet

Okay, corny title.

I'm having the Worst time trying to figure out how to link in an FLV video with Flowplayer.  I'm all but at my wit's end.  I suspect I suddenly lost the ability to see or read, for the examples I'm finding in the documentation don't match that in the code, and neither version seems to work with my video file.  Maybe I'll have something better tomorrow, but what I have now is:

/usr/bin/mencoder -msglevel all=-1 mf://@/tmp/list \
    -mf type=jpg -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=flv -of lavf \
    -ffourcc FLV1 -o /var/www/html/timelapse-2010-0825.h.flv 

Then I link it into the given example code with a:

[a href="/timelapse-2010-0825.h.flv"
 style="display:block;width:635px;height:360px"
 id="player"]
[/a]

Substitute in the symbols above that the editor here is completely hosing, and then guess what happens.

You're right! Nothing! No fun. I've tried putting it in the style section, in that 'a' section there, as they show, and anything else I could think of (which wasn't much since I know nothing about FLVs, SWFs, embedding, streaming or the Flowplayer in general.

I think I'm doomed, but I'll start in again tomorrow.

Hot Remove VMDKs in Linux VMs

We glue vHDDs onto VMs like crazy. It's like a sport or something. The awesome part is that I just found an article on Xtravirt showing you how to remove one.

Awesome.  So here's the process:

1. umount the drive.
2. pull the drive from /etc/fstab, if necessary.
3. here's the magic.  Unlink the drive from the HBA:
   echo 1 > /sys/block/sdb/device/delete
   oh yeah. That hits the spot.
4. remove the VMDK from the VM via the VIC.

And that's it.  Holy crap.


I'm not including this to take credit for it.  Personally, I never knew we had the power in Linux, yet, to yank a drive off the bus like that.  It's awesome, and it shows what kind of awesome power we have here.

Go see the article at its source:

vSphere: Hot Add or Remove a VMDK with a Linux VM | Xtravirt

Check the CommandLine Options in your PXE Booting Linux

I'm not sure if the grammar in the subject is the best it can be.

A question came up on a mailing list about command line options which can be passed to the linux installer at boot time.  The user in question is rolling out a series of new hosts with RocketRaid HBAs in them - for which I admire his courage where I gave up - and needs to push the driver disk to them at install time or they'll never see the root disks.  No, kickstart is not a viable option yet.

After some groveling through the options - and I suspect a RH employee who I fear had  to hold back for fear of breaching a Centos/RHEL condition - I think we got him exactly what he needs, which is awesome.

Want to look at those command line options in one go?  Try this:

zcat /tftpboot/images/centos5-x86_64/initrd.img | \
     cpio -iv --to-stdout sbin/loader|strings|less

Do that - adjusting for location - and start vgrepping.

For what it's worth, after jamming a fan onto my Adaptec 2405 (a Scythe Mini Kaze HTPC Silent Mini Fan 50MM 4500RPM 9.42CFM 26.09DBA 2 Pin W/ 3 Pin Adaptor, to be OCD about it) works like a charm.  Go get one of those and discard the HotPoint stuff, imho.