I'm exploring a freshly install Ubuntu 8.04 server image and I noticed that Dell OpenManage software is installed. Its running processes like this: dsm_sa_datamgr3.
There is a license which I am not interested in agreeing with, and I wonder how this would affect my relationship with NewServers.
The dellomsa package appears to be removable though:
$ dpkg -l | grep dell ii dellomsa 5.5.0-5 Dell OpenManage Server Administrator 5.
I'll hold off on doing so for the moment. I read their terms of service and acceptable use policy and neither say anything about the Dell OpenManage Server Admin. I did note, however, that the terms of service states that all payments are non-refundable, but the documentation pages state this:
"Your credit card will be charged $20 to make an initial deposit to your NewServers account. Any unused portion can be withdrawn at anytime by making a request to billing@newservers.com"
Which is it? Only the initial $20 can be withdrawn? The billing page also says this:
"You may withdraw your account balance at any time."
Given how much thought has been put into their service, I'm confident they'll clarify their communications very soon.
I'm taking a closer look at the hardware their service uses. First thing that catches my attention is the apparent lack of a hardware based random number generator (HWRNG) on the Dell 1855. Why, Dell? Why?
I did some research and it appears to be true: the M600 as well as the 1855 blades lack hardware based random number generators. Doh!
This lack of a HWRNG might cause problems for folks running linux with SSL.
I'm upgrading to Intrepid Ibex (9.04) from Hardy Heron (8.04). I was hoping to use do-release-upgrade, but it appears I'll have to modify /etc/apt/source.list. Actually, no I don't have to. I can change /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades to normal.
I ended up upgrading all the way to 9.10. I created a disk image, this time using the manual reboot. I cancelled my server, created a new one, and am now restoring my disk image. Hopefully I'll be able to login and find things just as I left them!
Uh-oh. I think the same thing that happened before is happening again. When I restore the image it remains totally unavailable. I guess this might be the reason why they aren't advertising ubuntu as a default image option?
I just realized that when I start and cancel a server twice within one hour, I get charged for two hours. I would like for that to have been clearer, as I was only testing out the imaging functionality. In the future I'll just leave the existing server running and start a new one.
This is going to be a great service, the key words being "going to be". Without a doubt, they need to have an out-of-band console. Apparently the more expensive servers have KVMoverIP, but even the cheap ones should have ajaxterm or something similar. Without that its impossible to know why the newservers website says a freshly installed image is "active", but the ip cannot be reached via ssh and is non-responsive to pings.
Also it seems very odd to me that when you are creating a new server, you can't select an image you've already saved...
To save memory:
# Custom blacklist lp blacklist parport_pc blacklist parport blacklist hidp blacklist rfcomm blacklist bluetooth blacklist l2cap blacklist ipv6 blacklist ip6_tables blacklist backlight blacklist video blacklist button blacklist battery blacklist pcspkr blacklist ac blacklist dm_raid45 blacklist dm_mirror blacklist dm_multipath blacklist acpi_memhotplug blacklist dm_region_hash blacklist dm_region_hash blacklist dm_mem_cache blacklist dm_log blacklist dm_mod blacklist uhci_hcd blacklist ohci_hcd blacklist ehci_hcd blacklist sbs blacklist i2c_ec blacklist i2c_core chkconfig gpm off chkconfig pcscd off chkconfig acpid off
Blacklist not working for me:
rmmod lp rmmod parport_pc rmmod parport rmmod hidp rmmod rfcomm rmmod bluetooth rmmod l2cap rmmod ipv6 rmmod ip6_tables rmmod backlight rmmod video rmmod button rmmod battery rmmod pcspkr rmmod ac rmmod dm_raid45 rmmod dm_mirror rmmod dm_multipath rmmod acpi_memhotplug rmmod dm_region_hash rmmod dm_region_hash rmmod dm_mem_cache rmmod dm_log rmmod dm_mod rmmod uhci_hcd rmmod ohci_hcd rmmod ehci_hcd rmmod sbs rmmod i2c_ec rmmod i2c_core
The amount of time it takes to restore a server?
Server1272 started at 10-16-2009 23:17:08, at Sat Oct 17 00:25:31 EDT 2009 the server status is still: Restoring Harddrive Image.
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