I have a new server with following RAID card : 3ware 9750 SAS
I would like to run ESXi on it but my RAID card is not supported by VMWare
Since I have only one partition , I need to modify the original ESXi iso with my own RAID driver in order to be able to install ESXi on my server..

It’s easy , follow the next three steps :

Step 1 – Extract the 3ware 9750 SAS RAID-driver

• Please go to the following url and download the iso on a linux server
• Mount that iso :
  • mount -o loop /tmp/vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-3w-sas_400.3.26.00.001vm40-1.0.4.00000.229230.iso /media/

• Copy the rpm from that iso to /tmp
  • cp /media/.rpm/vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-3w-sas-400.3.26.00.001vm40-1.0.4.00000.x86_64.rpm /tmp/
• Extract the content from that rpm without installing it
  • cd /tmp
  • rpm2cpio /tmp/vmware-esx-drivers-scsi-3w-sas-400.3.26.00.001vm40-1.0.4.00000.x86_64.rpm | cpio -idmv
    (the following is the one that we are interested in : usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/3w-sas.o

Step 2 – Create your custom oem.tgz file

• Make it yourself easy and get an already existing oem.tgz ( eg mine :  oem-9750.tgz )
  That way you already have the proper files and directories in place.
• Extract that tgz file in an new temporarily directory (eg:  /tmp/oem)
  • tar xvzf oem-9750.tgz
• cp that “.o file” from step 1 to the following dir : /tmp/oem/usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/3w-sas.o
• Next, adjust the pci.ids file
  • vi /tmp/oem/etc/vmware/pci.idsAdd the PCI ID of your raid card to that file.
    In my case :
    • 13c1  3ware Inc
    • 1010  9750 SAS2/SATA-II RAID PCIe(An overview of all PCI ID’s can be found here: http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids)
• Also adjust the simple.map file
  • vi  /tmp/oem_9750/etc/vmware/simple.map
    • 13c1:1010 0000:0000 storage 3w-sas.o
• Once that is done create your oem.tgz file :
  • cd /tmp/oem
  • tar cvzf oem.tgz ./*

Step 3 – Create your custom ISO

• Download this excellent script from mkesxiaio | http://code.google.com/p/mkesxiaio/ on your server
  • cd /tmp/my-cd
  • wget http://mkesxiaio.googlecode.com/files/mkesxiaio_3.9.9.sh
  • chmod a+x mkesxiaio_3.9.9.sh
• Download the ESXi iso from VMWare ( ESXi 4.1 Installable (CD ISO) to /tmp/my-cd
• Copy your custom oem.tgz (Step2) to /tmp/my-cd
• Run the script , follow the instructions, use your brains and once you are done your custom  iso will be here:
  • /tmp/my-cd/save/VMware_esxi_custom_4.1_oem.iso

If you have questions ,feel free to leave a comment here and if possible I will try to assist you!

Note : I spend quite some time on this issue during my work as an operation manager @ nomadesk  - The easiest and most secure way to share, synchronize and backup files wherever you are, online or offline! So thank you for that!

It’s easy , just download the following twitter wrapping class for PHP and have a look at the example code below :

This code will print out the latest replies you have received on twitter

<?
require_once(“lib/phpTwitter/twitter.php”);

$t = new twitter(‘YOUR_USERNAME’,'YOUR_PASSWORD’);

echo’<pre>’;

$replies = $t->getReplies() ;
for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) {

$reply = $replies[$i][text];
echo $reply;
echo “</br></br></br></br>”;

}
// Print out the complete replies array
//print_r( $replies );

echo’</pre>’;

?>

Now you know already how to retrieve and print out your replies, then it will be only a matter of walking through Tijs his class to know what else you can do with his wrapper(class)!

Eg :

• updateProfileImage
• updateProfile
• getFriends
• getPublicTimeline
• …

I am sure you will have your script running within this and an hour !

Note : Formatting code in WP seems like a tough job , so you will have to do it yourself

• PsicoTsi
• Foxtrick

If you should have any questions regarding the installation of these extensions, don’t hesitate to leave a comment ….

Happy Holidays!

• View currently running SQL statement of a process.
• View query plan of a currently running SQL statement.
• View locks held by a process.
• View user table statistics.
• View user index statistics.

You can download it here…

How to install it :

• tar xvzf pg_top-3.6.2.tar.gz
• yum install postgresql-devel
• yum install ncurses-devel
• ./configure
• make

A quick example :

• ./pg_top -U username-d database -h localhost -W

More information :

• ./pg_top –help

Screenshots

An interestesting slideshare :

• pg_top is ‘top’ for PostgreSQL: pg_top + pg_proctab

I will try to contact the original developer asap and I will keep you posted about the current status of this issue!
To be continued….

Update 06/09/2008 :

Foxtrick is already fixed, download the latest release here

And you can download here a fix for PsicoTSI thnx to psicotsi_user :

I had to delete the extension due to complaints from CHPP
/CHPP-IndianaRed

Update 30/09/2008 :

A new version has been released , please registrate yourself in order to be able to install the extension

Looking for a free virtual fileserver solution , try NomaDesk ?

Thanks to Dicks I found a download link to MinimizeToTray for Firefox.

MinizeToTray for Firefox 3

Why Bluehost (Red marked = The most important for me) :

• UNLIMITED Hosting Space (NEW!)
• UNLIMITED File Transfer (NEW!)
• 2,500 POP/Imap Email Accounts
• SSH (Secure Shell), SSL, FTP, Stats
• CGI, Ruby (RoR), Perl, PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL
• Free Domain Forever!
• 24/7 Superb Support

And this for (only) 60 €/Yr. (96$/Yr)

Because they offer unlimited hosting space I decided to start backing up al my files from my NAS to “my webspace“.

And since you have ssh access , you can use rsync (or something similar)

First I enabled SSH access on my nas. Then I enabled public-key authentication (How To) on my wijndaele.com account. When that was done I wrote the following script (combination of scripts I found on inet) and I placed it on to my NAS :

# This script does personal backups to a rsync backup server.

# directory to backup
BDIR=/volume1/photo/

# excludes file - this contains a wildcard pattern per line of files to exclude
EXCLUDES=/volume1/NetBackup/backup.exclude

# the name of the backup machine
BSERVER=YOUR_USERNAME@YOUR_IP

TODAY=`date '+%Y-%m-%d'`

# remote directory where we would like to backup our data to
RBDIR=/BACKUP

#####################################

#####################################

OPTS="--force --ignore-errors --delete-excluded --exclude-from=$EXCLUDES
--delete --backup --backup-dir=/$BACKUPDIR -avz"

# now the actual transfer
rsync $OPTS $BDIR $BSERVER:$RBDIR/current

ssh $BSERVER 'touch /BACKUP/current ; cp -al /BACKUP/current/* /BACKUP/`date '+%Y-%m-%d'` ; exit';

As you can see this is a small script that creates for every day a new subdir on your /BACKUP directory. Also at any time you can find the latest backup in  the following directory : /BACKUP/current

And If you may wonder about the last step :

ssh $BSERVER 'touch /BACKUP/current ; cp -al /BACKUP/current/* /BACKUP/`date '+%Y-%m-%d'` ; exit';

Here is some more info about it :

I create a remote ssh connection to wijndaele.com (ssh YOUR_USERNAME@YOUR_IP)

I touch /BACKUP/current , that way I know when the last sync took place

cp -al /BACKUP/current/* /BACKUP/`date ‘+%Y-%m-%d’` : I create a hard link from all the files in /BACKUP/current/* to the Dir of that day (eg /BACKUP/2008-08-04)

When all that is done, I simply close the remote connection!

Download here the backup script : backup.sh

• Probably the answer is YES!

Do you have any clue about the uptime off your site ?

• NO but it’s higher then Twitter his uptime!

One week ago I asked myself the same question (had the same answers) and I decided to do something about it!

So cheap as I am , I decided to look for free monitoring tools :

• Mon.itor.us
• Siteuptime
• Montastic
• Ebiz-Monitor

I decided to go for option one, Mon.itor.us , since you have a lot of extra options/utilities.

mon.itor.us

If you think I made the wrong choice , feel free to add some suggestions, arguments,…

And If you are willing to pay a small amount, check out Pingdom!

Then I know a perfect tool for you : RpmRebuild.

What is it :

rpmrebuild is a tool to build an RPM file from a package that has already been installed
in a basic use, rpmrebuild use do not require any rpm building knowledge
(On debian, the equivalent product is dpkg-repack)

How to use this :

#yum install rpmrebuild

#rpmrebuild packagename

I never knew this existed untill one week ago, but know that I know. Damn so handy!

• Foxtrick
• PsicoTSI

But since the upgrade of firefox to version 3.0 PsicoTSI isn’t working anymore so I decided to take a look at it and I made it compatible for firefox 3.0.

So here can you download psicotsi_te_1.0.12.xpi for FF 3.0

Or if you don’t want to registrate yourself … (updated on 06/09/2008)

Again, you are providing an unofficial version of PsicoTSI at http://www.wijndaele.com/wwdj/2008/09/psicotsi-troubles/

Please remove this version promptly or we will be forced to refer you to the GMs, who could lock your team.

Regards
/CHPP-IndianaRed

How can you install this extension :

1. Download the xpi file and drag it on to your firefox window

Now you should be able to install and use it!

And if you feel into it, you can always buy me a beer for the effort that I’ve put in it

Looking for a free virtual fileserver solution , try NomaDesk ?

Update : 05/09/2008

More info on the current PsicoTSI Problem can be found here