Feb 28, 2018

Oracle VM Server x86: Installation walkthrough / step by step for a node/server

Last week i tried to setup Oracle VM. For all who are interested, here a short walkthrough.
First the VirtualBox Setup: The VM which should contain the Oracle VM server:








Let's boot:























Next reboot:


 And here we go:



Feb 25, 2018

Ubuntu Kernel: Adding a new menuentry as default before menuentry 'Ubuntu' (grub)

After the problem with s2disk/hibernate on my Ubuntu 17.10 i wanted to change the grub boot menu:
I wanted to add my new default kernel at the beginning  - before the 'Ubuntu' menuentry.





Adding the menuentry inside /boot/grub/grub.cfg does not work, because after the first kernel update the command update-grub will overwrite all changes.

Easiest way:
Go to /etc/grub.d/ and move

mv 40_custom 09_custom
Inside 09_custom add your new menuentry (just copy the one you want from /boot/grub/grub.cfg):
root@zerberus:/etc/grub.d# cat 09_custom
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
        menuentry 'Ubuntu, mit Linux 4.13.0-17-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-4.13.0-17-generic-advanced-40d34826-4f8a-aefc' {
                recordfail
                load_video
                gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode
                insmod gzio
                if [ x$grub_platform = xxen ]; then insmod xzio; insmod lzopio; fi
                insmod part_gpt
                insmod ext2
                set root='hd0,gpt5'
                if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
                  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt5 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt5 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt5  40d34826-4f8a-aefc-d422f755d339
                else
                  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 40d34826-4f8a-aefc                fi
                echo    'Linux 4.13.0-17-generic wird geladen …'
                linux   /boot/vmlinuz-4.13.0-17-generic root=UUID=40d34826-4f8a-aefc ro  noplymouth resume=UUID=709f3f5a-5e73-b42d-b93915cea971
                echo    'Initiale Ramdisk wird geladen …'
                initrd  /boot/initrd.img-4.13.0-17-generic
        }
 And then run update-grub once again and you are done....




Feb 20, 2018

Oracle Database 18c released! Image-based Installation?

Today i discovered on otn.oracle.com --> database:

The downloads-page looks like the last weeks - 12c is the default...

... but the documentations tab lists 18c:

blogs.oracle.com shows the following:


So the "cloud first" strategy is still in place (by the way: is this something like "america first"?).

The installation procedure looks strange:
Starting with Oracle Database 18c, installation and configuration of Oracle Database software is simplified with image-based installation.
To install Oracle Database, create the new Oracle home, extract the image file into the newly-created Oracle home, and run the setup wizard to register the Oracle Database product.
Using image-based installation, you can install and upgrade Oracle Database for single-instance and cluster configurations.
Oracle shows up this:
 But there is no 18c on OTN for download...


UPDATE: The rpm based installation is ready for download now: https://dietrichschroff.blogspot.com/2018/11/oracle-database-18c-installation-via.html

Feb 18, 2018

Firefox tab crashes by loading maps.google.com on ubuntu 16.04

On a ubuntu 16.04 system firefox crashes by loading maps.google.com:

"Der Tab ist gerade abgestürzt / This tab has crashed"
"Automatischen Absturzbericht an Mozilla senden"

 The only way to fix this was going to "about:config":

On this page search for "webgl.disabled" and change the value from false
to true:

After that, maps.google.com loads without any problem...

Feb 11, 2018

Docker-Machine: how to create a docker vm on a remote virtualbox server

After doing some first steps with docker, i wanted to test docker-swarm. Because of the limited resources of my notebook, i was looking for a Linux with a minimal footprint. In the context of setting up VMs for docker-swarm i found a log of articles about doing that with the tool docker-machine.
It sounds like this tool can create VMs just with one command. (here the documentation).

So let's give it a try:
(You have to install docker-machine first, but you do not need to install docker itself)
~$ docker-machine create --driver virtualbox test
Creating CA: /home/schroff/.docker/machine/certs/ca.pem
Creating client certificate: /home/schroff/.docker/machine/certs/cert.pem
Running pre-create checks...
(test) Image cache directory does not exist, creating it at /home/schroff/.docker/machine/cache...
(test) No default Boot2Docker ISO found locally, downloading the latest release...
(test) Latest release for github.com/boot2docker/boot2docker is v17.11.0-ce
(test) Downloading /home/schroff/.docker/machine/cache/boot2docker.iso from https://github.com/boot2docker/boot2docker/releases/download/v17.11.0-ce/boot2docker.iso...
(test) 0%....10%....20%....30%....40%....50%....60%....70%....80%....90%....100%
Creating machine...
(test) Copying /home/schroff/.docker/machine/cache/boot2docker.iso to /home/schroff/.docker/machine/machines/test/boot2docker.iso...
(test) Creating VirtualBox VM...
(test) Creating SSH key...
(test) Starting the VM...
(test) Check network to re-create if needed...
(test) Found a new host-only adapter: "vboxnet0"
(test) Waiting for an IP...
Waiting for machine to be running, this may take a few minutes...
Detecting operating system of created instance...
Waiting for SSH to be available...
Detecting the provisioner...
Provisioning with boot2docker...
Copying certs to the local machine directory...
Copying certs to the remote machine...
Setting Docker configuration on the remote daemon...
Checking connection to Docker...
Docker is up and running!
To see how to connect your Docker Client to the Docker Engine running on this virtual machine, run: docker-machine env test
Wow.
After this command inside my virtualbox a new machine shows up with 1GB RAM, 20 GB HDD (dynamic allocated), 2 network adapters (1x NAT, 1x host only).




But it is not possible to create VMs on a remote Virtualbox server. The CLI does not allow to give a remote server IP:

But for some other environments it is possible to deploy VMs on a remote site:

--vmwarevsphere-vcenter: IP/hostname for vCenter (or ESXi if connecting directly to a single host)
If your preferred virtualization engine supports remote servers, you can check here:

Nevertheless docker-machine is an excellent tool. If you are interested in creating a swarm, read this tutorial.
The homepage of the OS boot2docker can be found here.


Related posts:


Feb 7, 2018

Talking about Microservices: A journey to Docker / Snap / CoreOS / Unbuntu Core / Docker-Swarm

A few months ago (13th august 2017) i started my personal journey into this new hype called microservices:

I thought the best way for me to get in touch was to begin with CoreOS. Within 2 weeks i got some first impressions:

But after these steps i realized, that next step on this road is kubernetes. It is clear that cluster scheduler like kubernetes can not be run on a single machine - so i tried to get another access to microservices: Snap and UbuntuCore:
In november 2017 it was clear, that both UbuntuCore and CoreOS are some building blocks for microservices, but i was not really on the right track.
Back to kubernetes? Kubernetes relies on containers. So i started with docker:
Nearly 3 months later i still did not get in touch with kubernetes - but i think docker swarm is a cluster scheduler, too. And it is really easy to run.

What will i do next? Some tests to failure/failover/failback scenarios.