Config Fun

Finally I have managed to set up a monitoring of two PowerWare 9120 USPes with NUT (Network UPS Tools). The point is that the standard software which comes with this UPS sucks in all ways and I needed something to take data from UPSes and then pass it to Nagios. So here is how we go about it:

1. Install nut and (if you are going to read data about UPS from same machine, nut-client)

yum install nut nut-client

2. Connect UPS(es) with serial cables (I assume there is not optional networking module installed on UPSes)

3. Add your UPSes to /etc/ups/ups.conf file as follows:

[ups1]
driver = upscode2
port = /dev/ttyS0
baudrate = 9600
manufacturer = PowerWare
desc = "UPS 1"

4. Modify /etc/sysconfig/ups to contain these two lines

SERVER=yes
MODEL=upsdrvctl

5. If you don’t want upsmon to act in any ways corresponding to your UPS(es) state, disable it by putting the next line in /etc/ups/upsmon.conf (otherwise edit it as described in it)

MINSUPPLIES 0

6. Enable upsd to start automatically

chkconfig --level 2345 ups on

7. Start the service

service ups on

8. Check it up

upsc ups1@localhost

That’s it. Now you can get the data anytime with upsc command as in step 8.

In my previous post I was talking about Acronis and I have mentioned that I will try to test the Universal Restore which can restore the backup images on a different (from original) hardware. Now I can tell that it really works great. I managed to restore a Win Srv 2k3 image taken from HP Proliant 110 to some old HP workstation (even P3, not 4). I really like this. I have a number of scenarios for usage:

1. Restoring images on temporary hardware in case the original one went off completely and there is no way to get replacement fast.

2. Migration of old servers to new hardware (this is the original idea why I start playing around the whole thing).

If anyone have any other ideas on a use, share here

Each time a install Linux on laptop with synaptics touchpad, I am looking around to find out how to disable scrolling. In order to make my searches shorter, let me just write it here once.

All the job is done in the “InputDevice” section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf where it mentions the synaptics device.

1. To disable horizontal scrolling, use Option “HorizScrollDelta” 0
2. To disable vertical scrolling, use Option “VertScrollDelta” 0
3. To use touchpad configuration programs like ksynaptics and gsynaptics, use Option “SHMconfig” “on” which will allow realtime touchpad configuration through shared memory.

A continuation of the recent post regarding ipw3945 wireless on my fedora core 6 laptop. Today I have found out another problem - while wireless working fine, it I connect a wire to an Ethernet card, the wireless goes off, so I can not use both WiFi and Ethernet (let’s say for sharing the internet or whatever). I looked around I haven’t found a solution yet so if anyone knows it - please share it here.

Fedora Project is trying to collect more information about the hardware that people use to run Fedora Linux.  Having accurate data can help to both prioritize hardware related issues and show vendors how important is support for their devices for Linux operating system.

To simplify the process of collecting such data, Fedora Project introduced the smolt tool.  All you have to do is install it and run it once (and after any hardware changes to your machine).  It will collect all the information about your system’s hardware and send it to Fedora Project.  There is already a page with frequently updated statistics.

The approach is similar to what Linux Counter has been doing for ages, but seems to be better targeted and reasoned.