RHEL6 as a web server

New software versions Today I’m writing about the changes and benefits of RHEL6 as a web server compared to RHEL5. Red Hat is well known for its stable API and ABI over the life-cycle of a major release. For some usage types this is a major problem. Sticking to old version of PHP, MySQL, Tomcat you-name-it-piece-of-software is problematic since web applications are rapidly changing its requirements. Instead of PHP 5.1.6, RHEL6 ships almost up-to-date PHP 5.3.1. Which is good, since ….Read More

A brief test of RHEL 6 Beta 1

As promised yesterday, I publish the results of a brief test of RHEL6 Beta 1 and the most important findings. It is my point of view as a system guys daily business. If not stated, this overview is based on a default installation with no customization. General There are new package groups such as  “Minimal” with 228 Packages and “Basic Server” with 523 Packages. “Basic Server” is the default installation, which means the default click trough installation compared to RHEL5 ….Read More

Roadmaps on the Red Hat Summit 2010 in Boston

Finally Red Hat disclosed the agenda of its summit in 2010. For more informations see http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/2010/agenda/. RHEL6? Tim Burke of Red Hat will talk about the new features of RHEL6. It sounds like the present, not the future. Does this mean I’m right with my guess that RHEL6 will be released end of June like I wrote in earlier blog article? Roadmaps Count how many times the word “Roadmap” appears in the agenda. It seems to get even more interesting ….Read More

Kernel questions about RHEL6, ESX support and experiences with F13a3

Still no official informations Red Hat is still refusing any questions about the features of RHEL 6 and its Linux Kernel. However: Since Vanilla Kernel 2.6.33 vmxnet3 and pvscsi is supported. Fedora 13 Alpha 3 is shipped with a derivate of Kernel 2.6.33. I still hope that Red Hat is switching to 2.6.33 or back-porting the VMWare code to its 2.6.32 derivative Kernel as known by RHEL 6 Alpha 3. Experiences with F13a3 so far Installing F13a3 on a ESX ….Read More

Where the heck is RHEL6?

Release cycle slowed down In the past Red Hat has released a new version of its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) roughly every two years. RHEL5 was released on march 2007. Compared to the past release cycle, RHEL6 is overdue since one year. Official information There is only little known about the upcoming features of RHEL6. On the Red Hat Summit 2009, there was a presentation held by Tim Burke which gives just some hints that RHEL6 is actually approaching, ….Read More

Set up a Red Hat Directory Server and Kerberos Part I

Kerberos and LDAP are today’s way of single sign on. It is platform independent and supported by a wide range of applications. Together with the Red Hat Directory Server (also available as CentOS Directory Server and 389 Directory Server from Fedora) you can build a neat identity management infrastructure. Setting up the Directory Server However there are some pitfalls when installing such a integrated solution. Installing redhat-ds is quite easy, just ensure you define your planned LDAP Namespace and default ….Read More

Managing CentOS with Spacewalk

Red Hat RHN Satellite In 2003 Red Hat released its RHN Satellite server as a closed source management tool for RHEL and only for RHEL (okay, a legacy support for managing Solaris is available). The satellite is very useful tool for managing systems. Unfortunately it has a quite expensive price tag on it. According to the Red Hats RHN FAQ the bill is USD 13,500/year. Additionally to the RHN satellite subscription fee you need at least a subscription for the ….Read More

Confused about write barriers on file systems…

As ext3 is already known as a very robust file system why is the default mount option still barrier=0? The problem is LVM and the device mapper. They  do not support barriers. When mounting ext3 on a LV, the option barrier=1 it should be ignored and a warning written. So far so good. Trying this brings a lot of confusion. According to a Red Hat bugzilla entry one should get a warning, but no signs of that neither in /var/log/messages nor ….Read More