Sysadmin Todo List

This is an unordered set of tasks. Detailed information on any of the tasks typically goes in related topics' pages, although usually not until the task has been filed under Completed.

Daily Check off list

Each day when you come in check the following:

1. Einstein (script):
   1. Up and running?
   2. Disks are at less than 90% full?
   3. Mail system OK? (spamassasin, amavisd, ...)
2. Temperature OK?
3. Systems up: Taro, Pepper, Pumpkin/Corn ?
4. Backups:
   1. Did backup succeed?
   2. Does Lentil need a new disk?

Important

Towards a stable setup

Here are some options:

• Test VMware server (See VMWare Progress). Specifically, I would like to know:

1. 1. How easy is it to move a VM from one hardware to another? (Can you simply move the disks?) Yes.
   2. Specifically, if you need to service some hardware, can you move the host to other hardware with little down time? (Clearly not for large disk arrays, like pumpkin, but that is storage, not hosts). Considering portability of disks/files, the downtime is the time it takes to move the image around and start up on another machine.
   3. Do we need a RedHat license for each VM or do we only need a license for the host, as with Xen? It seems to consume a license per VM. Following this didn't work for the VMWare systems. The closes thing to an official word that I could find was this.
   4. VMware allows for "virtual appliances", but how good are these really? Are these fast enough?

• Because not all of our systems are RHEL, we should look into some management solution like spacewalk.
• Also, func looks like a nice tool to fiddle with.
• Matt's working on setting up cobbler to ease system installation.

Miscellaneous

• Pick out sata card for taro. PCI-Express, at least 4 ports. RAID capability doesn't matter since we use software RAID.
• Contact that guy in space science about a backup server swap.
• Look at moving the virtual machines to VMWare on einstein.
  • Get a dedicated VMWare drive working. Maybe two, so that we've got a mirror in case a drive fails we don't end up losing all our VMs?
• Look at VMWare appliance-style monitoring solutions, like cacti or splunk, or even something else.
• Figure out the mailman password!
• Set up signal generator software on lab computer.
• Set up USB oscilloscope software on lab computer.
• Fix EVO webcam video on Sarah's computer.
• Find out if we have any XP licenses laying around, just in case we hit driver issues in lab 123.
• Fix front sound output on Sarah's computer.
• Determine a better organization system for cables, parts, etc. Junky cardboard boxes are a bit cumbersome, and they look bad.
• We should look into what software is necessary on what machines, for disk space concerns. I'm thinking of Pepper in particular, do we really want openoffice data taking up an eighth of the root partition?
• Gourd is giving smartd errors. Should we be concerned at all, since nobody uses it anymore?
• Set up the wigner printer queue on einstein, as well as tracking supply usage, etc. Josh might have a perl-based solution for us, and we should consider the value of a commercial piece of software such as PaperCut.
• Set up the new lisemeitner. The issue with the Optiplex 755 is that there is a faulty BIOS which fails to hand off EHCI (legacy usb) to the OS in a standards-compliant way. Let's try upgrading the BIOS if possible, otherwise these might not be capable of being linux machines!
• Finish setting up blackbody.
• Bohr is slow with PDFs. Maybe time to put a newer distro on bohr?
• Get the rest of the paulis up. Looks like NIS is in the way on at least one of them. Update to LDAP will be necessary. A workaround can be to make a local jhh user on each, and point its home directory to /net/home/jhh. Not the most elegant solution, but the fact that NIS was around seems to have blocked LDAP from working properly.
• Fix some of the older workstations (hobo, ennui, etc.)
• Monitoring: I would like to see the new temp-monitor integrated with Cacti, and fix some of the cacti capabilities, i.e. tie it in with the sensors output from pepper and taro (and tomato/einstein). Setup sensors on the corn/pumpkin. Have an intelligent way in which we are warned when conditions are too hot, a drive has failed, a system is down. I'm starting to get the hang of getting this sort of data via snmp. I wrote a perl script that pulls the temperature data from the environmental monitor, as well as some nice info from einstein. We SHOULD be able to integrate a rudimentary script like this into cacti or splunk, getting a bit closer to an all-in-one monitoring solution. It's in Matt's home directory, under code/npgmon/
• Check into smartd monitoring (and processing its output) on Pepper, Taro, Corn/Pumpkin, Einstein, Tomato (Actually, all the systems).
• Learn how to use cacti using a VM appliance.

Ongoing

Documentation

• Maintain the Documentation of all systems!
  • Main function
  • Hardware
  • OS
  • Network
• Continue homogenizing the configurations of the machines.

Maintenance

• Check e-mails to root every morning
• Check up on security [1]

On-the-Side

• Learn how to use ssh-agent for task automation.
• Backup stuff: We need exclude filters on the backups. We need to plan and execute extensive tests before modifying the production backup program. Also, see if we can implement some sort of NFS user access. I've set up both filters and read-only snapshot access to backups at home. Uses what essentially amounts to a bash script version of the fancy perl thing we use now, only far less sophisticated. However, the filtering and user access uses a standard rsync exclude file (syntax in man page) and the user access is fairly obvious NFS read-only hosting. I am wondering if this is needed. The current scheme (ie the perl script) uses excludes by having a .rsync-filter is each of the directories where you want excluded contents. This has worked well. See ~maurik/tmp/.rsync-filter . The current script takes care of some important issues, like incomplete backups. Ah. So we need to get users to somehow keep that .rsync-filter file fairly updated. And to get them to use data to hold things, not home. Also, I wasn't suggesting we get rid of the perl script, I was saying that I've become familiar with a number of the things it does. [2]
• Continue purgin NIS from ancient workstations, and replacing with files. The following remain:
  • pauli nodes -- Low priority!

Waiting

• Sent out an email to Heisenberg explaining that the intel fortran compiler is a commercial piece of software, and he only purchased the 32-bit version. Waiting to see if he can use GCC instead.
• Move pauli8 drives into pauli5 so that Heisenberg can access his data. The raid array on them has been rebuilt, but there seems to be weird behaviour with LVM or something related.

Completed

• Pauli8's mobo is dead, and out of waranty.
• Replacements have been ordered for the UPS power strip things. Looks like they're HC 1221W, made by CSB battery co.
• Get PxEboot network installs working. Einstein now has cobbler installed, and the cobbler install image directory is exported via NFS since http redirects to the unhinfo servers. There's still some more work to be done, like making kickstart files.
• Lepton is Upgraded to RHEL 5
• Set up sftp on roentgen.
• Determine rack layout.
• Scheduled rack move for the 23rd.
• Move systems into the new rack.
  • Zip tie the cables in place behind the rack.

Previous Months Completed

June 2007

July 2007

August 2007

September 2007

October 2007

NovDec 2007

January 2008

February 2008

March/April/May/June 2008 (I'm doing a great job keeping track of this, eh?)

July/Aug/Sep/Oct/Nov 2008 (It was the move, but still no excuse!)

December 2008