Richard Martin's Blog

On a PowerEdge 2950 as root:

yum install xen

install a remote Centos 5.3 image from my local mirror…

virt-install

eh… that’s it.  Rather simple.  See here for proof….

Now for Windows Server 2003…..  Perhaps a longer post is looming…

I’m a great fan of Bucardo for PostgreSQL replication…. it’s stable but quite hard to use…. if you want fire and (not) forget replication try RubyRep…. awesome.  The documentation is perfect but to make it even easier, if you are testing and messing around… uninstall, then re-scan, then replicate otherwise you might get some bizarre replication errors, or foreign key contraint issues etc… anything odd, just un-install, then re-scan and replicate.  It really is full proof… well it worked for me!

For the cut & paste brigade: (RTFM)

rubyrep generate myrubyrep.conf

rubyrep scan -c myrubyrep.conf

nohup rubyrep replicate -c myrubyrep.conf &

Remember the nohup and the &, to background it, unless you’re actually at the console of the production server – which you probably aren’t….  In fact stick the nohup and & on the scan command too as that could take a few hours on a big DB…

Then tail -f nohup.out to watch the (lack) of output, output is normally bad – loss of connection:

2009-07-31T22:22:13+01:00 Exception caught: no connection to ‘right’ database

and what not… but rubyrep will just keep going once the connection comes back up.  Perfect!

Here goes, will it work with CentOS 5.3 and Windows Server 2003 guests?  This is what I did and the general setup….

If you live in the UK and like ‘proper’ dates use this:

PythonOption TracLocale en_GB

in your httpd.conf (between the locations)

Does it work? Oh yeah….. after much reading and then buying one I found out nothing seems to work that well. However, Plex makes the world perfect so forget the rest and get Plex for the best media centre you can get.

My setup:

Sony 46″ TV 1080p running from my Mac Mini 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor via the DVI to HDMI cable. I use EyeTV from Elgato to watch live DVB broadcasts and Plex for all my movies, DVD’s mkv’s, avi’s – you name it. Remote Buddy makes the setup complete for the Apple Remote.  No hassle no messing, just out of the box – as it shoud be.  No skipping, no shudder, perfect sound – and a very quiet (silent) HTPC solution.

If you mess with your DNS and need to reload the latest DNS entries clear your DNS cache with:

dscacheutil -flushcache

I’ve been promising myself I’d sort this out for the greater good but over a year…. so here goes….

If you are even more lazy than me then install HostGIS – Gregor will save the day…. it’s the best install of GIS stuff I’ve ever seen….

But onto CentOS and Mapserver etc…..

I’ve been playing with this for years.  Nothing works without major work – OK I’m lazy.  Now I can spend $500 and get pretty good replication for my linux servers, single windows server, and all the code, stuff and my precious PostgreSQL databases – at last.  I love Bucardo for great FREE replication and now I know how it works I’ll be using all over the place but if you want an easy life and good sleep check out R1 software

Boy, it’s made my life a lot easier…….

unless you don’t backup your CDP linux backup software database….. and then you lose ALL your backups…. so if you use CDP backup software backup your /usr/r1soft directly ALL the time…. if that directory gets corrupted – you’re screwed….

To setup Bucardo on a server as a multi-master

All the code and stuff is on Main server – the other server just listens…. so it does not need any “config”

To install (on the main server):

As root:
yum install postgresql-pl.x86_64
cpan
install Bundle::CPAN

then install the required Perl modules with
install DBI etc…

To install:
as postgres in psql:
CREATE USER bucardo SUPERUSER;

on ALL target databases: (as postgres)
createlang plpgsql DATABASE

as postgres in psql:
CREATE DATABASE bucardo OWNER bucardo;

as bucardo in psql:
CREATE LANGUAGE plpgsql;
CREATE LANGUAGE plperlu;

as postgres:
psql -f bucardo.schema -U bucardo bucardo

To make importable SQL files you can to save you some typing:
(inside psql)
\t
\o filename.sql
RUN A SQL QUERY and the output goes to the filename.sql
you can then just \i the files

RUN THE SQL for INSERTS and LINKS

To setup the replication and get it all going:
as bucardo on the main server:
INSERT INTO db(name, dbname, dbhost, dbuser)
VALUES ('main-server','DB_NAME','nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn','DB_USER');
INSERT INTO db(name, dbname, dbhost, dbuser)
VALUES ('other-server','DB_NAME',' nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn','DB_USER');

INSERT INTO dbgroup(name) VALUES (’remote_dbs’);
INSERT INTO dbmap(db,dbgroup) VALUES (’REMOTE_DB’,'remote_dbs’);

To generate the inserts you need: as user DB_USER

\t
\o tables.sql

This gives you a list of all tables you (probably want to replicate):
select 'INSERT INTO goat(db, tablename, pkey, pkeytype, standard_conflict) VALUES(\'main-server\', \'' || relname || '\', \'id\', \'int\', \'source\');'
from pg_class, pg_user
where usesysid=relowner and
(relkind ='r' or relkind='s') and (usename ='DB_NAME') and
(relkind !='i' or relname !~'^xinx')
order by relname;

\o

** MAKE SURE YOU REMOVE ANY REFERENCES TO BUCARDO ** – I just delete them by hand

then as user BUCARDO

(continue reading…)