Nagios issues, duh.

I went to go pull up the Nagios web interface yesterday and to my surprise received a "Error: Could not read object configuration data!". Troubleshooting here we come!

First things first, check the process

 # /etc/init.d/nagios status  
 nagios is stopped  

Not running? Odd. ok, start it up

 # /etc/init.d/nagios start  
 nagios is stopped  
 Configuration validation failed              [FAILED]  

Hmm.

 # /usr/bin/nagios -v /etc/nagios/nagios.cfg  
 Checking...  
  Total Warnings: 0  
 Total Errors:  0  
 Things look okay - No serious problems were detected during the pre-flight check  

So, I checked the log files and they are all from past dates, including nothing from the last day or so.

 # cat /var/log/nagios/nagios.log | perl -pe 's/(\d+)/localtime($1)/e' | less  

Nifty perl script there to fix the dates, but it's not mine, just a web snippet.


 I was stumped. Then I had a thought, SELinux errors...

 # getenforce  
 Enforcing

Ok, 

 # setenforce permissive 

and give it another shot,

 # /etc/init.d/nagios start  
 nagios is stopped  
 Starting nagios:                      [ OK ]  

As they say on Afrotechmods,

A lot of folks disable SELinux in their environments as it can get rather complicated. However, for this issue I was able to dig up this post regarding setting up a new type definition for Nagios, but haven't yet tried it myself.

http://fportase.wordpress.com/selinux-policies/nagios-and-rhel-5-xx-and-6-xx-working-with-selinux-enabled/

RHCSA Labs and Shuttle trouble - Just Getting Started.

I began studies on the RHCSA last week. If you look at my last post, I have my usual month of study plan laid out with labs, reading, CBTs, etc. Although this time I'm a bit behind.

My home VM server is a Shuttle SH67H3 with an Intel Core i7 2600 (non K version as it doesn't support vt-d), 16Gb RAM, and a couple of corsair SSDs. I was running VMware ESXi 5 on it and it was stable with a few Linux VMs. However it did not support the on board RAID as it was seen as a software or fake raid.

With the RHCSA studies, I need to lab, a lot.  Although I do a lot of the work daily in my current position, we use Xen while RHEL 6 uses KVM as default. This means the RHCSA is based on KVM, not Xen. Thus I had to reformat the Shuttle. Now, the fun part.

For install media, I usually go for a USB stick first, then if thta doesn't work, I'll  attach a SATA blu-ray burner (I don't keep a CD attached to the server). Initially, I tried the USB drives and loaded Scientific Linux 6 on the drive using dd on my Mac Pro (here's some instruction, although block size should be 256k for a quicker copy "bs=256k"). It was a no-go. Then I tried burning an ISO. Still a no-go. I removed all devices sans the DVD-Rom, tried both media again, no-go. Ok, whats happening here?

 I did some googling and found a  few notes about issues coming up with Intel's UEFI (new kind of bios). The UEFI is supposed to bring all sorts of magic, but I didn't see any in the SH67H3's BIOS. It seems UEFI can grab a list of boot devices and store it in NVRAM of which it somehow cannot be recovered with out a bios flash (don't quote me on this). Great. I'm 2 days behind in studies now and still no booting from media, old HDDs, yes. Odd.

The next few steps are the same as usual, reset the bios, switch USB ports, verify USB media on other computers, Verify DVD media, switch SATA ports, switch SATA mode, etc. By luck and good troubleshooting I ended up with the DVD drive on one of the Intel RAID SATA ports and the BIOS SATA setting set to "IDE." Bam! It worked. Ok, put everything back, SSDs on the Intel RAID, host drive on the other SATA ports, and try it again. It's a no-go! Turns out the only way to boot from the DVD was to have the drive on the Intel RAID ports. So, I got Scientific Linux 6 installed on the host drive and went to work doing the basic configs, finally.

Now to play catch-up.

FCC's broadband access map and proposed broadband build-out

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released the nation's broadband access map yesterday. It's an interesting look at what areas are connected via broadband. It is in line with population density.  As you can see, broadband is most prevalent on the East Coast and rolling into the Mid-West (which incidentally is still very, very east if your on the West Coast). This report goes along with a proposal to increase broadband access through the Connect America Fund.

An older (cir. 2000) population map of the US via visualizingeconomics.com originally created by Joe Lertola for Time Magazine.

Mind Map - Update

Just a quick update regarding the mind mapping online software I posted about a few days back. I started thinking more about how I wanted to lay out information in order to better grasp it and the thought of examples came to mind. Why not screen shots?

Cacoo.com, although slightly more difficult to input information into it has the great ability to import images from the web, your local machine, or can even take a screen shot. This feature makes me almost completely forget the less intuitive method of input. The input method is essentially, click & drag a shape, select the color properties, color the shape, type text, click the link icon, etc. Unfortunately, bubble.us, which has a very intuitive input method, has no feature for image input. Looks, like I'll be using Cacoo more.

Flash Cards (follow up)

So, it's been about a month now that I've been integrating flash cards into my CCNA studies in a big way. I wanted to give a bit of an update about my thoughts and usage of the the 2 tools I wrote about previously, Quizlet.com and Mental Case for Iphone/Ipad. I'll start with Quizlet then a brief note on Mental Case.

I have found this to be my main go to app for recording notes. Mental Case has the functionality, but Quizlet is just to accessible to use anything else. Bare in mind Mental Case is much fancier than Quizlet's simple tems and definition approach. Of course, you can add audio and video to Quizlet flash cards, but its a much more cumbersome process than just terms and definitions. Usually, I can read through a chapter or watch a video and then once I'm labbing, take notes and write up the cards. Here is an example set I made on general switch commands:

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards

I think their main target audience is more the language student as the format isn't completely natural for technical writing or shell type commands. With that said, the embedded text to speech engine (a small speaker icon appears next to ever term and definition) does a pretty good job of speaking the tech definitions I've accumulated.

There is also an interesting game (the most applicable of 3) I play from time to time, when I find I need a swtich from standard flash cards and still want to progress with learning the subject matter. It's called Scatter:

This game works much better with larger dimentions
Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards

All in all I think Quizlet is an extremely worthwhile service if your looking to create your own flash cards (or search from their database). So far I've created some 600 flash cards and am about 2/3rds through my studies.

As for Mental Case, I enjoy the app and its polished look, but find it sometimes difficult to navigate. Utilizing it solely as a front/back flash card app works fine, but the app;s study feature benifits have so far eluded me. I suppose I would like a little less polish and a little more customization / functionality in the app, both on the Ipad and Iphone. With that said, I still think its the top flash card study app at this point.

Studying being bogged down.

I'll be the first to admit, sometimes I can be a slow learner. If I'm uninterested or widely distracted I just don't simply retain the information I'm tasked with learning the way I'd like to. On the other hand, I have been taking classes and reading technical documents for some 14 years now. So, there is no shortage on the desire to constantly learn and grow. Sometimes though, things simply get bogged down.

Take this weekend for instance. I had planned to bang out some 8-12 hours over two days of studying. What did I actually get? Maybe 7 hours, tops. The distractions,my older daughter, her friend, my younger daughter, cooking, dishes, etc. It was just too much to balance. I let the focus escape, except for a few hours a day after everyone was asleep.

There was a post on TechExams.net that went as follows,

"you can go around and look at someone's house, and get a good idea if they're going to pass the CCNA or not ... dishes not washed, clothes piling up, not going out, etc. ... that was me. I did a thorough house cleaning yesterday after the test, and today, too."

 That's been me for the past month, however tihs past weekend, I lost sight and left the books for dishes and food prep. It has to be done sometimes, I know. I just need to make sure I keep my eyes on the goal. I think next weekend I'm going to head over to the local library. Then I can put in 2-4 hours there, plus my normal 3 hours when everyone is asleep. Really, I wish there were more hours in a day as 24 only goes so far. As the Japanese say "Keep up!"

Currently working on the CCNA

For the past year Ive been working on the Cisco Certified Network Associate certification (CCNA). Ive attended and completed the Cisco Networking Academy and am now on to the final months prior to taking the certification exam. This to be the first of many to come or so the plan goes. The best laid plans of Mice and Men, right?

So, this blog is to keep a log of the information I put together as I am not just collecting it from one source. Rather, I often find that answers and information regarding something like questions on the OSPF routing protocol come from many different sources (e.g., Wendel Odom's Official Exam Certification guide, Howtonetwork.net, freeciscolab.com, Cisco learning net, etc.). So this is where Im compiling them all.  Hopefully it will not only allow me to compile my thoughts and resources, but possibly help others on their journey as well. We shall see.