Older blog entries for lmb (starting at number 86)

1. Start OpenOffice on a virtual desktop under icewm.
2. Move the OpenOffice window to a different desktop.
3. Focus the window or select a menu via hotkey.
4. Be bumped to the desktop you originally started OOo on.
5. Relieve anger through swearing.

• Clearly, some of Linux HA's largest issues are not hidden anywhere in the communication layers, but rather effort out to be spend on building a very basic lint-like tool for configurations. Which, of course, shouldn't possibly use some of the features of XML validators out there, but be reinvented from scratch. Meta-data should be embedded into that tool instead of being queryable from the other parts of the code like done for everything else. Etcetera.

• This week I spent most days in Nuremberg to catch up with colleagues and friends, have lunch, have dinner, and attend a few meetings. It's always good to meet in person from time to time.

• After having been reminded, at length, that
  1. I always had a misunderstanding of how one piece of code worked (and so couldn't possibly be observing what I've been seeing, and of course never having been told that it was by design), not having written it myself and not understanding it as well as the author, and
  2. how I'm very certainly confused about how another bit is designed (so the issue I was seeing for sure must be due to my testing and not with the code), not having written nor designed it myself etcetera,
  the foot is inserted into the mouth twice within the day. I'd be a better man than I am if I wasn't slightly smug now.

• What else? More heartbeat testing.
• I needed to optimize my Xen network setup, but it confused me quite a bit. The network-route and vif-route stuff just didn't seem to work for me. With this howto, I found a very easily followable explanation of achieving the network setup I wanted. Thanks, Arjen!
• Quite a bit of mail.

• It appears our management is really serious about covering up our deals with Microsoft. It is nice to see someone with a real insight into Novell/SUSE point out all the wrongdoings of our company; while people who know nothing about it continue to spread FUD.

• (German, because the referenced article is anyway.)
• Krisen-Kommunikation per E-Mail ist ein Artikel, den es sich zu lesen lohnt. Ich stimme nicht mit allen Punkten überein, gerade das Verstecken persönlicher Verantwortung (nicht: Schuld) stößt mir auf, aber die Kommunikationsstrategien unseres wichtigsten Mediums zu hinterfragen und zu reflektieren kann wertvolle Erkenntnisse bringen.
• I would very highly recommend Hostage at the Table as a starting point for further reading on the topic of communication in times of crisis; it is not e-mail centric, but contains immensely good advice.

• It appears my joy about the excellent test results I've been seeing with CTS on our current release was premature. It held up very well until 5 nodes (which, for an HA fail-over cluster, is quite high), but at 7 nodes, it'll eventually explode. Bother. The bug seems to be in the part of the code maintained by Alan ...
• Still no replies to my feedback regarding the release plan from Alan, either.
• Andrew tells me that the work on the openAIS port is progressing nicely, which makes me very happy. I look forward to the cluster infrastructure we run on top to be actively maintained.

• The testing of the upcoming update for heartbeat, with the intention of shipping it as soon as possible as a maintenance release for SLES10, is coming along rather nicely: the bugs which have surfaced so far mostly have been the test harness looking for log messages which had changed since.
• The upstream discussion with the project lead on the release cycle are a bit tough, because we seem to only get one reply every few days from him.
• The new proposal by Alan also calls for timely feedback on assigned bugs. Hrm.

Today, I would simply like to remind everyone about the easiness of getting daily builds of the Linux HA - heartbeat project. I provide them using the openSUSE Build Service for easy download: Try them here!

It goes without saying that you should not do that on your production cluster. However, it is a good idea to give these versions the occasional spin on your staging or test cluster.

If you do not yet have a test or staging cluster, you really should set one up; even though the Linux HA project as well as your distributor (say, Novell for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10) are rather careful about release testing, you should make extra sure before rolling something out into your High Availability setup, which is more than two thirds in the process; even though the software and hardware are important and required, they will be void at root's command ...

Nowadays, nobody has an excuse for not having a test or lab cluster - with virtualization, Xen, vmware, qemu, Lguest ..., one of those idle machines everybody has around becomes an instant cluster.

What's in it for you:

1. Casually testing daily builds: a few hours.
2. Reporting a found issue: a few minutes.
3. Ensuring the coming release is perfect on your cluster: priceless.