# Linux question



## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

I have one of the EE Asus small, I guess you would call it a note book. I use to be able to play games like Farmville on it. Now it says I need to update Adobe Flash. 

I have downloaded the Adobe Flash, problem I don't know which one I need. There are 3 or 4 in the little drop down box. Any way I've got one downloaded but now it goes into a file. The page just has, open or remove to click on. When I click on open nothing happens. How the heck to I get it to work.


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## backwoodsman7 (Mar 22, 2007)

The subject says Linux, so I assume your netbook runs Linux? Some of them come with Linux. If that's the case, you can't download & install Windows software. You have to install software or updates through Linux's package management & update system. Have you been keeping the system updated?


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

Yes it came with linux. I ran an update on it yesterday. Just can't get flash updated. I know it use to run the games, just that now when I try to play Farmville it says the flash needs to be updated.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

I don't use Linux for a workstation, only for servers, so I'm only mildly familiar with the common Linux desktop environments. However, there are a few people around here who are pretty fluent. If you tell us what flavor of Linux you use, which desktop environment you use (KDE, Gnome, etc.), and which web browser you use then maybe we can be of more help.


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## Kung (Jan 19, 2004)

If you're using one of the Debian Variants (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.) you should be able to open the Synaptic Package Manager, search for 'Flash' and then install it without having to actually install the file itself.

If it's another 'flavor' of Linux, let us know and we'll help you out.


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

The only thing I know about it is it's a linux operating system and it uses Mozilla Firefox for the internet. I don't know anything about linux. I've always used windows. I really like the little thing because it's easy to take along when we go somewhere.

This is what the system info says
BIOS version: 0906
BIOS date: 9/11/1998
Software version: Eee PC 1.6.1.2-a
Build info: 2008-07-23 12:10
CPU type: Intel (R) Mobile Processor
Memory size: 512 MB
Motherboard version: x.xx


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## backwoodsman7 (Mar 22, 2007)

I think the EEE PC Linuxes are scaled down a bit, so even if we knew what Linux & version you have we may not be able to help you much. My guess is, you have an older version and need to upgrade to a more current version. You may have better luck at an EEE PC forum. They'll know a lot more than we do about exactly what Linux you have and what you need to do.
http://forum.eeeuser.com/


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

With your Linux experience level I suspect that this will be an ongoing issue until you revert back to Windows. The problem is that you can't really run XP with 512 mb of memory anymore. The service packs have consumed more and more memory over the years. If your PC will take it, and if you decide to go to XP, you'll want to double your memory to 1 gig.

Unfortunately your processor specifications weren't clear, but I'm guessing an older processor (1 GHz or less) from the BIOS date. If I'm correct then that means that this will be a sluggish machine when running XP. There's not a lot you're going to be able to do about that except buy a newer computer.

Your machine would run Win98SE just fine the way it is, but I wouldn't recommend it. You can still get security updates from an online user community, but you'll no doubt be plagued with software & hardware compatibility problems.


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## Kung (Jan 19, 2004)

Ruby said:


> The only thing I know about it is it's a linux operating system and it uses Mozilla Firefox for the internet. I don't know anything about linux. I've always used windows. I really like the little thing because it's easy to take along when we go somewhere.


Open up a terminal window, and type

*cat /proc/version
*
then post the results here.


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

Kung said:


> Open up a terminal window, and type
> 
> *cat /proc/version
> *
> then post the results here.


: 

It says: No such file or directory


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

I guess I'll just use the little one for a back up one to get on line if this one goes down. I do have a Dell inspiron 1525 that I'm on now. 

One thing I don't like about the linux system is it is not compatable with Kindle for PC. So I guess I'll continue to just take this larger one when we go on vacation.


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## Kung (Jan 19, 2004)

Ruby said:


> :
> 
> It says: No such file or directory


Wow. Ok, what's the bottom of the Asus eee say? Make/model/serial #?


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

ASUS Eee PC 900

then a little sticker says
EEEPC900-BK072
SN; 8AOAAQ101451
VN: 3996


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

Ruby said:


> I guess I'll just use the little one for a back up one to get on line if this one goes down. I do have a Dell inspiron 1525 that I'm on now.
> 
> One thing I don't like about the linux system is it is not compatable with Kindle for PC. So I guess I'll continue to just take this larger one when we go on vacation.


You can run kindle in wine... Works fine


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

I think some of the versions of linux used in some of the netbooks were truly horrible. They werent any known distribution, but hacked messes made to fit in small space. Puppy and several of the other non-commercial mini-linux distributions came out with versions especially adapted to replace the OEM linux that came with eee netbook and others.

I cant see well enough to ever be interested in a netbook, but if I got one, I'd probably research options and change to a distribution I was comfortable with and that had good support forum and updates.


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## Kung (Jan 19, 2004)

I'm surprised you're having such problems with Ubuntu, actually; of the 'mainline' *nix distributions, Ubuntu is one of the distros that works best on netbooks.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Ruby said:


> ASUS Eee PC 900
> 
> then a little sticker says
> EEEPC900-BK072
> ...


Your processor is a 900 MHz Celeron. With some extra memory it will run XP, but you'll need to be patient.

You only have one memory slot so you'll need to replace your 512 mb module with a 1 gig module (it will actually accept up to a 2 gig module). Here is the type of memory your computer takes.

PC2-5300 non-ECC Laptop Memory (not desktop!) DDR2 667 MHz

It's not expensive. A 1 gig module will be in the $10 to $15 range at eBay. Here's an example.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1GB-DDR2-PC5300...944?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f0c9adf48


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

Thanks everyone for the help. I'm illiterate when it comes to Linux. I'm going to call the 800 number on the computer tomorrow. They have helped me before when I was getting it set up for wifi. So maybe they can help again.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

The trouble is none of us know what exact version of linux is used on your computer. Linux distributions, though based on same linux kernels, come in many different configurations with different desktops and different software and different system tools included. Not at all like windoze that comes from one company with same look and factory included tools/software on each installation. As others said for help with your version of linux, probably a forum that is specific to EEE Asus netbooks would be place to ask specific questions.

And some of us prefer linux, the continual mega updates and virus/malware protection/updates for windoze is just more than I want to deal with. I am on dialup and couldnt update windows if I wanted to. Whereas far as I know linux has like 7 known worms (no virus or malware) that have to be defended against and most of those are aimed at linux servers. In other words unless you play with a lot of software from questionable sources, unlikely you would get a worm. Anyway years ago it took me while to get really comfortable with linux and for the workstation versions of linux to catch up with comparable software to windows, but it serves my needs now and I am more comfortable with linux than I am with windows. I keep a mini cut down version of XP on one partition to run some windows only software offline but otherwise use linux for everything else. 

My advice on linux is dont try to fight it, just get used to it. You did have to get used to windoze at some point in past. Well no different with linux. Kinda like learning to speak a foreign language. And will say I didnt get really comfortable with linux until I found Puppy Linux. It just made intuitive sense to me while the distributions I tried before I found Puppy didnt and just seemed unnecessarily arbitrary and complex. This was back when Puppy was in its beginnings years ago now, kinda clunky, and developer didnt recommend it as one's only operating system. But it was super simple so I could see how it worked under the hood so to speak and I got to follow along as it was improved and developed. After I understood Puppy, then the linux way of doing things finally made sense.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

HermitJohn said:


> And some of us prefer linux, the continual mega updates and virus/malware protection/updates for windoze is just more than I want to deal with.


There are so many security updates for Linux that I run a cron job daily to stay current. If you don't apply Linux updates regularly you're a sitting duck. I use yum for updates, which runs as an automatic utility in much the same way that Windows updates runs.



HermitJohn said:


> Whereas far as I know linux has like 7 known worms (no virus or malware) that have to be defended against and most of those are aimed at linux servers. In other words unless you play with a lot of software from questionable sources, unlikely you would get a worm.


There are oodles of Linux rootkits out there. Vandals are always looking for vulnerable systems where they can plant a rootkit, in the hope that the vulnerable system can be used as a launching point for a DoS attack. To guard against forced break-ins and rootkit implantation I run three different blocking applications, plus scan for rootkits once a day.

Don't kid yourself, there are many viruses out there for Linux. Chkrootkit will look for 64 different malwares, as you can see on the lower half of this page.

http://www.chkrootkit.org/

And that's just the rootkits.

I probably spend more time concerning myself with developing a Linux security strategy than I spend on running and configuring the server itself. It's a constant battle, and the ankle-biters are trying to get in 24/7.


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## backwoodsman7 (Mar 22, 2007)

Nevada said:


> I probably spend more time concerning myself with developing a Linux security strategy than I spend on running and configuring the server itself. It's a constant battle, and the ankle-biters are trying to get in 24/7.


Well you're running a server, so you're dealing with things that are completely irrelevant to a desktop user. I run rkhunter on my machines, but it's never found any malware. I've switched quite a few people from Windows to Linux, most of them after a catastrophic malware problem with Windows. Most have gone years with no updates, security or otherwise; none have ever had a malware problem with Linux.

So, yes, there's Linux malware around, but unless you're running a server, it's extremely rare and not really a concern.


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## HermitJohn (May 10, 2002)

Linux has a goodly percentage of server market so is a target in that area. Whereas linux workstations are fairly small percentage of market and not really worth the effort of an attack. People looking to attack arent trying to infiltrate the oddball and small marketshare stuff. Lot work for little gain. Whole lot more productive to go after current windows workstation systems and I've heard of some attacks on Macs.

I've yet to ever get a worm, virus, or malware on mine and I've used linux for like a decade in one form or another. Never ran linux server, just workstation. I always run a firewall.

Few years back I still had an antique laptop with win95 (your choice win95 or win3.1), even Puppy wouldnt work on it as hardware was too oddball and no linux drivers. Occasionally it would pick up some garbage, not often but occasionally. But what was funny is such modern malware couldnt run stealth on it, the system was so old that it slowed to absolute crawl if anything tried to invade and set up shop. You couldnt protect it, too old of a system, but once it slowed to a crawl, you knew to go looking and either reinstall win95 or track down the problem manually. I kept ghosted copy so wasnt big deal to restore it to pre virus state. Usually easier than tracking down the malware files. Never kept anything important on it anyway.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

backwoodsman7 said:


> Well you're running a server, so you're dealing with things that are completely irrelevant to a desktop user. I run rkhunter on my machines, but it's never found any malware. I've switched quite a few people from Windows to Linux, most of them after a catastrophic malware problem with Windows. Most have gone years with no updates, security or otherwise; none have ever had a malware problem with Linux.
> 
> So, yes, there's Linux malware around, but unless you're running a server, it's extremely rare and not really a concern.


I suspect that Linux workstations are fast becoming attractive targets for rootkits, since so many residential users now have broadband connections. And the problem will only grow worse with time, particularly since so many Linux users subscribe to the idea that they don't need to worry about security.

But it's true that you won't find commercial malware in Linux the way you find it in Windows. That's because they reach more people when they target Windows.


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

Well I called the tech #for the notebook, even they would resolve the problem.

Stanb999, what is wine an how do I use it. Wouldn't I have to download the kindle for pc before being able to download book.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Ruby said:


> Well I called the tech #for the notebook, even they would resolve the problem.
> 
> Stanb999, what is wine an how do I use it. Wouldn't I have to download the kindle for pc before being able to download book.


Why don't you stop torturing yourself and revert back to XP?


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

My main computer is a Dell, laptop inspiron 1525 with windows Vista. I was just trying to get the pewee one going so I could take it on our trip to a state park for reunion. DH always goes to sleep at dark. (no TV there) I like to stay up and read. I can do that with a computer. I guess I'll just take my 15" like I did last year. At least I have kindle on this one.

I'm just going to put the little one up for a back up. It still surfs the net, just can't watch videos or play some games.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Nevada said:


> There are so many security updates for Linux that I run a cron job daily to stay current. If you don't apply Linux updates regularly you're a sitting duck. I use yum for updates, which runs as an automatic utility in much the same way that Windows updates runs.


First, there are VERY VERY few security updates for Linux. Now a distribution might have a lot of updates, but Linux has few. Also note an update doesn't mean a security vulnerability. If you want a stable system, first dont install everything off the CD, install what you need. I see so many distro put the entire CD on disk and you spend all your time patching apps you dont even use. Go through your installed software list and determine what your using and get rid of the rest. Why do you need 4 windowing systems, 6 ftp clients, 3 IM clients, etc.... 


For a home system you should patch at least on a quarterly basis. Granted there are critical patches that may need more frequent patching, but many patches a low priority patches and can wait.


You will find that running a daily patch will cause more system instability than anything. If you must patch more often then monthly would be fine.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Gary in ohio said:


> First, there are VERY VERY few security updates for Linux. Now a distribution might have a lot of updates, but Linux has few.


Yes, that's what I meant; the CentOS distribution updates. Admittedly that includes a lot of packages that aren't related to the Linux kernel. But applications can carry security vulnerabilities. I don't know off-hand how many updates might be for security, since I apply them all unattended.

I maintain a howto for Linux hosting server configuration. That howto document recommends daily CentOS updates through yum. I'll take your caution about daily updates and stability to heart and consider a less frequent update recommendation. But CentOS seems to have a few updates each week.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Nevada said:


> I'll take your caution about daily updates and stability to heart and consider a less frequent update recommendation. But CentOS seems to have a few updates each week.


I have managed UNIX boxes for close to 30 years now and currently manage about 1000 boxes, most Linux. For stability you need to roll out your patches on a planned schedule. Depending on your network infrastructure and what front end protection you have on your network, are all your servers even network route-able? Lots of variables, but you should create box with YOUR patch set. Cut a patch and make that this periods patch set. All servers get that patch set for the patch period. Then patch your boxes. Again depending on your environment, patch development servers first, test/qa second then finally roll out to production servers. DONT update the patch set till your patch cycle is complete. Then cut a new set of patches and repeat the cycle.

For at least production or internet facing boxes strip the boxes down to the bare minimum. Something hanging off the internet as a server needs NO graphics, no gui, no services except exactly what is needed. USE iptables and BLOCK ALL ports day 1, then open up was is need and document it.

There should not be that many patches on a daily basis for a properly configured system and when there is you need to look at the severity, Many linux patches are not important enough to daily or even weekly.. Weekly maybe but again, if you dont use that app get rid of it. I work in the financial sector where security is a BIG deal and we only patch 4 times a year baring any ultra critical issues that I have yet to see on linux in many years.

Also look at memory and disk usage, If the linux os on your server is taking more than 4gb of disk space before you deploy your application, its taking up to much space. If your Base OS needs for than 1gb of ram its running to many services. Now if your running a few machines then wasted 10gb of disk space per server isnt that bad and a few gb of wasted ram isnt an issue, but as you scale up and when you go virtual it will add up very fast when you take into account enterprise class disk and server memory.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

The application is hosting. I do domain hosting and also reseller hosting, with a hosting control panel application so clients can do self administration (add clients, domains, email accounts, databases, etc.).

Hosting is straight-forward, but a high security risk business. The reason for that is that there are a lot of absolute lamers in the business who never take any precautions at all about security. That makes hosting servers a popular target for rootkit infections. On the upside, a hosting server with reasonable security usually discourages ankle-biters, since there are so many softer targets out there.

My entire installation is about 2.5 gigs, which includes CentOS, normal hosting apps (Apache, MySQL, BIND, qmail, pureFTP, atmail, perl, php, courier/IMAP, spamassassin, clamav, and a few security applications), and also the hosting control panel. My memory usage is around 190 mb without innodb, and about 390 mb with. I'm currently running with the innodb storage engine enabled but no clients happen to be using it right now. I'd like to drop innodb altogether, but I don't want to lose any customers over it.

I use a behavior-based server firewall, which also includes blocking ports. I take open port management very seriously.

I have dropped back to weekly yum updates. I'll see how that goes.

By the way, I really appreciate your input. I've worked with Linux servers since the late 1990s, but I don't often get input from someone with your long-standing background. I left mainframe computing in the early 1980s when our IBM 3278 terminals were replaced with PCs with Forte (later Irma) cards. I can still remember sandwiching data cards inside of a JCL deck in the 1970s. But I was strictly a computer user back then, I never got near the operating system.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Nevada said:


> By the way, I really appreciate your input. I've worked with Linux servers since the late 1990s, but I don't often get input from someone with your long-standing background. I left mainframe computing in the early 1980s when our IBM 3278 terminals were replaced with PCs with Forte (later Irma) cards. I can still remember sandwiching data cards inside of a JCL deck in the 1970s. But I was strictly a computer user back then, I never got near the operating system.


I never did any mainframe work till recently. Now I have over 200 Linux servers running on a mainframe. An expensive, but very powerful visualization platform.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Gary in ohio said:


> I never did any mainframe work till recently. Now I have over 200 Linux servers running on a mainframe. An expensive, but very powerful visualization platform.


To set myself apart from other web hosts, I operate small server clusters (only two servers in the cluster) to offer high-availability service.

The way it works is that the primary server acts pretty much like any other web hosting server. The secondary machine acts as the secondary DNS server, but also keeps duplicate web and mysql content current to the primary server using rsync at regular intervals.

If the primary server fails, DNS data is immediately modified to point traffic to the secondary server for web content. It doesn't take long for the failover process to work because I set the DNS TTL (Time To Live) to 60 seconds, so ISPs should be driving traffic to the secondary server in no more than 60 seconds after a failover.

When the primary server becomes available again, the primary server fetches current web & mysql content from the secondary server before resuming normal operation. That way any database entries made during the outage (such as forum post content) and also flat file entries (such as guest books) will be made current.

The failover cluster works surprisingly well. Basically the entire thing is controlled by a bunch shell scripts I wrote, and I used the server status monitor interface in webmin to setup the remote HTTP monitor.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Nevada said:


> To set myself apart from other web hosts, I operate small server clusters (only two servers in the cluster) to offer high-availability service.


Have you looked at pacemaker for your HA services. Shouldn't need to update DNS, just move the interface between the machines.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Gary in ohio said:


> Have you looked at pacemaker for your HA services. Shouldn't need to update DNS, just move the interface between the machines.


Yes, but then I considered either the problem of multiple pacemaker interfaces to avoid the same single point of failure problem, or the cost of outsourcing. I decided that developing my own solution was the way to go. What I give up is a 60 second outage while the failover propagates. There is no outage at all when the system recovers to normal mode.

Fortunately outages are rare. I run a xen VPS for the primary server that boasts 99.99% uptime, and I haven't observed any outages at all so far, but I wouldn't give you a dime for that uptime guarantee. They'll go down eventually, claiming it was an act of God so they aren't responsible, but the node will still be down. But I'll be up! 

I suppose I went with my own solution mostly because of my homesteading attitude.


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Not sure were you have a single point of failure. You said you have 2 boxes in your cluster. One node is on one of the cluster, the other node on the second box.
Pacemaker starts and stops the services and moves the interface. If you have a shared or replicated disk subsystem even better. One node is hot one is warm or with ocfs2 filesystem they both can run hot.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Gary in ohio said:


> Not sure were you have a single point of failure. You said you have 2 boxes in your cluster. One node is on one of the cluster, the other node on the second box.
> Pacemaker starts and stops the services and moves the interface. If you have a shared or replicated disk subsystem even better. One node is hot one is warm or with ocfs2 filesystem they both can run hot.


What if pacemaker goes down?


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Nevada said:


> What if pacemaker goes down?


Pacemaker doesnt even need to run.... Its the user interface. Your cluster nodes are running heartbeat, cronosync and possible other services that manage the cluster operations. If a node goes down the cluster services know its within a couple of seconds and switches. There is also stonith running to make sure you dont get into a split brain situation.

We use "pacemaker" to manage financial mission critical apps. I think it will handle a web hosting cluster...


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Gary in ohio said:


> Pacemaker doesnt even need to run.... Its the user interface. Your cluster nodes are running heartbeat, cronosync and possible other services that manage the cluster operations. If a node goes down the cluster services know its within a couple of seconds and switches. There is also stonith running to make sure you dont get into a split brain situation.
> 
> We use "pacemaker" to manage financial mission critical apps. I think it will handle a web hosting cluster...


Don't both servers need to be on the same LAN to use pacemaker?


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## Gary in ohio (May 11, 2002)

Nevada said:


> Don't both servers need to be on the same LAN to use pacemaker?


Depending on how you do heart beat. You can do it over a disk if you have a shared disk subsystem, this is nice for vm boxes that can see the same disk, but if your using network to connect the heartbeat they just need network connectivity..


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

Gary in ohio said:


> Depending on how you do heart beat. You can do it over a disk if you have a shared disk subsystem, this is nice for vm boxes that can see the same disk, but if your using network to connect the heartbeat they just need network connectivity..


What originally motivated me to create a HA cluster was my disappointment with uptime in hosting data centers. It seemed that no matter who I went with, and regardless of uptime guarantees, they still suffered more downtime than I could afford. Even worse, they didn't seem very good at getting things running again, so excuses that justified short-term outages were still used as outages became longer term.

My idea was to cluster servers in different data centers in different cities that were in different regions of the country. That way outages created by local internet connectivity problems, weather, and even local emergencies could be avoided with a back-up server in another part of the country.

With my first commercial cluster there was one disaster I didn't prepare for. While I was bragging that my hosting cluster could survive a nuclear holocaust, it went down. The problem was that I contracted both server locations with the same network provider and they went bankrupt, pulling the plug on both servers in the cluster without warning. Now I make the cluster in two data centers, in two cities, in two states, with two different network providers. Hopefully that will do it.

I tried my hand at real-time replication. My hope was that I could have two identical servers for web content, mysql, email, and even services like FTP, webmail, & POP3. My hope was to improve both availability and performance, even though performance was more than satisfactory. Mysql was simple to replicate, and replicating web content wasn't too bad, but email & FTP account replication was a lot more difficult. I began to question the need for a hosting cluster with real-time replication.

95% of websites don't have live information. For them, replicating a few times a day would probably be more than enough, just to update recently edited web pages. But for that 5% of websites that host forums and active blogs, content needs to be replicated much more often. But even with those applications every few minutes is satisfactory.

What I settled on was replicating web content, mysql and DNS using rsync on timed intervals. Email and FTP services aren't available during an outage, but email DNS still responds with MX info so inbound email won't be bounced by the sending server.

I believe that this kind of cluster is entirely appropriate for hosting. It's true that it doesn't offer real-time replication, load balancing, or mission-critical availability, but none of my clients require those. They just want their web sites to not have extended outages. My cluster design accomplish that.

My primary server is in Miami on a Xen server, while the backup is in Dallas on an OpenVZ server. I have never observed an outage in Miami since I opened my account with them, but I'm ready for it!


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## Zephaniah (Mar 16, 2010)

for the laptop ---

let us know what this command does

In a terminal window type

*more /etc/*release*

if nothing there try

*more /etc/issue**


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