28 Feb 09 Local and Remote Kernel Upgrades – Failsafe Grub

Grub (and LILO too for that matter) has a useful ‘failsafe’ feature that can be configured. This proves especially useful for remote kernel upgrades, where a failed boot will render your machine offline and unavailable.

Here is my standard grub config. I have just added my new 2.6.28 kernel.
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Tags: 2.6.18, 2.6.28, boot, color, debian, default, failsafe, grub, initrd, kernel, kernel panic, kernel upgrade, network interface, panic, reboot, root, title, uname

16 Sep 08 Adam’s Custom Kernel

I haven’t been doing much custom kernel building lately. I find that the only kernels I change are those on my VM host machines, and/or using apt-get for a general upgrade.

Nevertheless, here’s how I go about building my custom kernels for VM host machines running debian etch, using 2.6.18 of course:

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Tags: Adams Custom Kernel, apt-get, boot, Custom Kernel, debian, grub, kernel upgrade, Linux, make

14 Sep 08 Linux virtualization, vmware, xen, hosting, and squeezing the most out of your resources

I’d guess that 90% of hosting providers ‘oversell’. This essentially means that should they have 1,000GB allocated, they might offer 15 packages of 100Gb to 15 of their customers, banking on the fact that no one will fully use their 100GB allocation – Selling 5 Virtual Machines with 256MB RAM on a 1GB host, assuming that no one will use their full RAM allocation. This is bad, because you’ll generally be able to confirm that you’ve been allocated the resources, but nonetheless benchmark tests will show that you’re just not getting them, and your environment will be sluggish and unresponsive. This is the same as airlines selling 110 seats on a 100 seat plane. When that 101st paying customer does show up to claim his seat, he’s stuck without a flight.

The general consensus is that a VPS is a cheaper and lower-grade option than a dedicated service, however VPSs have a number of undisputable advantages over dedicated servers and I’m going to discuss why almost all the dedicated machines I manage are hosts for a range of VPSs.
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Tags: 10mbit, adamsinfo.com, advantages, allocation, apache2, backup service, benchmark, bind, cheap, client, co-locate, colocate, config, CPU, datacenter, debian, dedicated, dedicated servers, disk access, disk IO, endpoint, environment, exim, host, Hosting, hosting providers, Intel, kernel, kernel upgrade, mailserver, mppc, mppe, MySQL, named, noc, oversell, packages, php5, pptp, processor type, Quad Core, racks, reboot, remote services, routing, seek time, spamassassin, system administrator, tick speed, virtualization, vmware, vmware free server, vmware gsx, VPN, vps, xen, Xeon