Using BMC on my IBM Server

skp Server Maintenance Leave a comment

A while ago, I purchased a used IBM server that has been a very nice tool. Here’s the specs:
ibm x3455

I have it hooked up to a battery backup unit, which is connected with the USB cable. When the power goes out for a length of time, it powers the machine into a strange state that I cannot get it out of. The light on the front turns orange, and none of the buttons will reboot it. I have to pull the power cord and wait for it to power down. When I plug it back in, it works fine.

I found that the server does have a BMC built in that is supposed to allow for remote power control. There are several IPMI clients that I can install in Linux that should be able to control it. I was able to set the IP address for the console as well use the username and password in the BIOS of the machine.

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Amazon Chime on Linux

skp Amazon Chime 7 Comments

My employer is in the process of signing up for Amazon Chime. The challenge for me is that means I need to be able to communicate with them using the tool on my Ubuntu Desktop. At this point, I’m not sure how that’s going to happen!

My First Reactions

I haven’t had the opportunity to use the tool very much, but we have had a couple of meetings so far. We have been using Zoom and Go To Meeting. Zoom has a client app that you have to install, but they do have a nice Linux client. Go To Meeting does have a nice Web Client. I can share my desktop and connect with my headset just from the webapp with out installing anything. Chime has a webapp, but it is very limited. I can’t use my headset nor share my screen. To me, that’s not acceptable for using with clients.

Attempt on Wine

I tried Scivision’s commands:

WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime WINEARCH=win32 winecfg
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime winetricks dotnet40
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime wine Chime*.exe

I get this error message:

Unhandled Exception: BibaApplication.ApplicationServices.ApplicationRecoveryException: Failed to Register
   at BibaApplication.ApplicationServices.ApplicationRestartRecoveryManager.RegisterForApplicationRecovery(RecoverySettings settings)
   at BibaApplication.App.OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Application.<.ctor>b__1(Object unused)
   at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs)
   at MS.Internal.Threading.ExceptionFilterHelper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate method, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)
   at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.WrappedInvoke(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler)
   at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.InvokeImpl()
   at System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherOperation.InvokeInSecurityContext(Object state)

I tried installing these items:

WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime winetricks ie8
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime winetricks mdac28
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime winetricks d3dx11_43
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime winetricks crypt32

None of those seem to have made much difference. It does actually install here:
C:\users\skp\Application Data\Chime\Chime.exe
I can try to launch it with this:

WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime wine 'C:\users\skp\Application Data\Chime\Chime.exe'

But, it fails to run the app itself.

I tried with mono:

$ mono /home/skp/.wine_chime/drive_c/users/skp/Application\ Data/Chime/Chime.exe
The entry point method could not be loaded due to Could not load file or assembly or one of its dependencies. assembly:PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35 type:<unknown type> member:<none>

2nd attempt:

rm -rf ~/.wine_chime/
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime WINEARCH=win32 winecfg
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime ./winetricks dotnet45
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime ./winetricks ie8
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime wine Chime*.exe

3rd attempt (I found that there is some issue with Winetricks, and it wasn’t really installing dotnet 4.0)

rm -rf ~/.wine_chime/
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime WINEARCH=win32 wineboot --init
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime wine uninstaller  # uninstall Mono
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime wine ./dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime ./winetricks ie8
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime ./winetricks settings win10
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine_chime wine Chime*.exe

I had to download the dotnet framework from here:
https://www.microsoft.com/net/download/dotnet-framework-runtime
https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/Download/confirmation.aspx?id=17718

I also tried PlayOnLinux. I got a few more meaniful error messages and it let me try different Wine versions better.

Warning: This seems to have broke my system! XWindows wouldn’t work after this, so I think it was these two packages.

sudo apt-get install p11-kit:i386
sudo apt-get install libp11-kit-gnome-keyring:i386

In the end, I was not successful. I can’t get any part of Chime to work! Please comment if you get anything.

Resources

Attic Tips

skp attic, backups, ssh Leave a comment

I’ve been saving space with my backups by putting them into an attic repository. I have a backup roughly every 6 months, but much of it is the same info. By using attic, I can simply store each one into a single repository without using a huge amount of space.

My latest issue was my backup session was interrupted in the middle. I had to figure out how to resume.

Spacing

Just to give you an idea of amounts of storage …

  • Current Home Directory: 378G (not backed up yet)
  • April Backup: 320G (backed up)
  • Attic Repository Size: 507G
  • Attic includes 4 backups

Adding a backup

So, here’s the command that I used to add my backup directory to the repo.

attic create --verbose \
     /backup-drive/backup-repo/repo.attic::2016-04-23-Pistachio \
     /home/skp/mnt/2016-04-23-Pistachio\ Backup

Resuming a Backup

I’m having to run my commands over SSH since my server’s kind of hard to get to without a screen. I had to take my laptop with me before the backup completed, and I had to stop the backup.

It creates a checkpoint every 5 minutes as I understand. I could see the checkpoint by running a list command:

attic list /backup-drive/backup-repo/repo.attic

Here’s the output (after I restarted it and it finished):

2012-11-10-pecan                     Sat Apr 23 00:21:13 2016
2014-10-19-pistachio.checkpoint      Sat Apr 23 21:06:24 2016
2014-10-19-pistachio                 Sun Apr 24 04:51:12 2016
2013-05-25-pecan.checkpoint          Sat Oct 29 08:42:25 2016
2013-05-25-pecan                     Tue Nov  1 10:54:33 2016
2016-04-23-Pistachio.checkpoint      Sun May 28 09:02:29 2017
2016-04-23-Pistachio                 Mon May 29 02:37:59 2017

I was looking for some special command to make it restart. I actually just used the same command that I had initially used.

attic create --verbose \
     /backup-drive/backup-repo/repo.attic::2016-04-23-Pistachio \
     /home/skp/mnt/2016-04-23-Pistachio\ Backup

Disconnectable Sessions

Next time, I thought I would look for a better solution. I like RDP in that I can disconnect and my session keeps running. I found this command would let me do the same thing with SSH sessions:

screen

To reconnect, I can just run:

screen -r

Resources

Troubleshooting Windows Networking

skp Networking, Story, Troubleshooting, Windows Leave a comment

Ok, ok. What’s a Windows article doing on a Linux blog? Well, I wanted to help a friend with a networking issue, and I thought maybe someone else might find it helpful as well. Every Linux user will end out running into Windows at some point anyway either through a remote desktop or virtual machine, so maybe it’s not too far off topic.

If you see something that I missed or a different approach to the problem, please comment below.

Here’s the issue … a friend’s computer connects to the wireless at their house but doesn’t have Internet. Other devices in their house connect, so it leads me to believe that the router is working although it could be an issue with DHCP and the other devices don’t need to renew their IP address. But, the laptop doesn’t work at their friend’s house. That makes me think that the problem is mostly with the laptop itself.

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