Oracle: Unbreak my Linux Heart

Someone on the Dell PowerEdge mailing list has written a script that uses SOAP calls to query dell's warranty site . I'm sure it's helpful to someone else to know this.

Dell has released a statement about ubuntu 11.10 on Dell PowerEdge . Dell lists that Ubuntu should work where the previous versions also worked and is currently re-certifying most PowerEdge and PowerEdge-C servers. Check Canonical's hardware certification page for details. Also good to know is that OpenManage (OMSA) has been released for Ubuntu , although it is not officially supported.

pxeconfig : With pxelinux, which is a derivative of syslinux, you can specify with a PXE configuration file how the node must boot. This configuration is placed in, e.g. /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg directory

Using sudoers in Linux to implement security is commonly done. Often administrators or operators allow themselves to 'sudo su -' to become root, without the need to know the root password. This is more comfortable as you don't need to type "sudo" in front of every command and your sudoers file becomes less exhaustive without the need to specify every command operators and sysadmins need. However, enforcing everyone - even sysadmins - to prepend every command with "sudo" creates an audit trail when sudo logs to a file. This often required for compliancy reasons. Now there is a command to playback sudo logs: Sudoreplay Manual .

Dell TechCenter posted a very easy "how to get started" guide for KVM Virtualization that you may find useful if you're just getting started and know little or nothing about virtualization (in Linux or elsewhere). It's good for the basics.

Dell TechCenter has released a LiveDVD image with OMSA to update firmware and BIOS on Dell hardware using a CentOS Linux distro.

Howto convert a LiveCD image to a PXE Boot image . To convert the root of the ISO image to an NFS root and save on the RAM requirements when booting the image [RAM=2x(size of ISO in MB) + 60 MB], read this on PXE booting in general .