20 Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know


Need to monitor Linux server performance? Try these built-in command and afew add-on tools. Most Linux distributions are equipped with tons ofmonitoring. These tools provide metrics which can be used to get informationabout system activities. You can use these tools to find the possible causes ofa performance problem. The commands discussed below are some of the most basiccommands when it comes to system analysis and debugging server issues such as:
  1. Finding out bottlenecks.
  2. Disk (storage) bottlenecks.
  3. CPU and memory bottlenecks.
  4. Network bottlenecks.

#1: top - Process Activity Command

The top program provides a dynamic real-time view of arunning system i.e. actual process activity. By default, it displays the mostCPU-intensive tasks running on the server and updates the list every fiveseconds

VMWare ESX Server Step by Step Installion Guide


VMWare ESX Server Welcome screen

VMware ESX Server is mainframe-class virtual machine software that runs on a Linux kernel. It is a highly scalable platform that increases the efficiency of Intel-based hardware.

VMware ESX Server has some hefty minimum hardware requirements:

  • Two CPUs (supports up to 16)
  • Processors must be at least 900 MHz Pentium III Xeon
  • 512 MB of RAM
  • At least one Ethernet card
  • SCSI, Fibre Channel, or RAID controller
These are minimums, so obviously you'll need to have more power than that. VMware recommends lots of RAM, multiple Ethernet cards (some virtual machines may run best with dedicated cards), and a separate disk controller that is dedicated to hosting the virtual machines. For more on the system requirements, see this page from the VMware Web site. VMware has also published information on supported hardware.

Removing Windows 7 partition - For XP users

This process is essentially the same as before but using the third-party tool GParted instead of the integrated Disk Management utility in Vista. Be sure to have your XP CD on-hand to repair potential boot loader complications.

Before proceeding realize that by removing your Windows 7 installation and partition you will be deleting any documents
, pictures, videos etc. which you've accumulated on the Windows 7 partition if you haven't backed them up previously, so consider doing that before continuing.

Download the latest copy of GParted here, and then burn it to a disc as an image file.

After you've downloaded and burned your image of GParted, pop it in your optical drive and reboot. Shortly after booting off the disk you'll have to choose your preferred language, keymap and screen resolution.

Once the partition software has loaded, right click the partition where Windows 7 resides (it's probably the second partition on “dev/hda1” if you followed our dual boot guide) and choose “Delete”.

You should now see unallocated space on your hard drive where Windows 7 once laid.




Right click your original (and probably only remaining) partition, choose “Resize/Move” and fill in 0 for both the free space preceding and following to occupy the entire unallocated space.

ping-based network monitoring tool

Download Link
----------------

http://www.peermonitor.com/download.aspx





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The coursework explores IPv6 implementation on today's mainstream Network Operating Systems (NOSs), including: GNU/Linux, Solaris, Windows and Cisco IOS.

Given the imminent depletion of globally-unique 32-bit IPv4 addresses, and mandates set by the US Government with respect to IPv6-backbone-compliancy by Q2 2008 for government agencies, Information Technology (IT) Network/Systems Engineers/Administrators/Integrators/Directors/etc., are tasked with preparing their backbones and applicable infrastructure(VLANs/DMZs/etc.) to support Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6).

LinuxCBT IPv6 Edition will prepare you and/or organization to comfortable integrate IPv6 into your production environments, without negatively impacting IPv4 services.


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Find duplicate files in Linux

Let’s say you have a folder with 5000 MP3 files you want to check for duplicates. Or a directory containing thousands of EPUB files, all with different names but you have a hunch some of them might be duplicates. You can cd your way in the console up to that particular folder and then do a
find -not -empty -type f -printf “%s\n” | sort -rn | uniq -d | xargs -I{} -n1 find -type f -size {}c -print0 | xargs -0 md5sum | sort | uniq -w32 --all-repeated=separate
This will output a list of files that are duplicates, according tot their HASH signature.
Another way is to install fdupes and do a
fdupes -r ./folder > duplicates_list.txt
The -r is for recursivity. Check the duplicates_list.txt afterwards in a text editor for a list of duplicate files

Monitor your changed files in real-time in Linux

Everybody knows top or htop. Ever wished there was something similar but to monitor your files instead of CPU usage and processes? Well, there is.
Run this:
watch -d -n 2 ‘df; ls -FlAt;’
and you’ll get to spy on which files are getting written on your system. Every time a file gets modified it will get highlighted for a second or so. The above command is useful when you grant someone SSH access to your box and wish to know exactly what they’re modifying.

Prevent Ubuntu from asking a password after resuming from Hibernate or Suspend

When you close the lid of your laptop and Ubuntu is running, the computer goes into Suspend mode. Same goes for chosing Hibernate from the shutdown menu, when the laptop goes into deep sleep and consumes less power. When resuming from these two states, Ubuntu will ask you for your password. If you’d like to get rid of this password field, you need to launch gconf-editor and navigate to apps > gnome-power-manager > lock. There you’ll find a checkbox for hibernate and one for suspend. Uncheck these and close the Configuration Editor. Next time you resume from Suspend and Hibernate, you won’t be prompted for a password.
You can still manually lock your screen before closing the lid by using Ctrl+Alt+L.

Make Bootable flash drive

WinToFlash

                                      WinToFlash is software for transfer your Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8 Setup from CD or DVD to USB in some mouse clicks. This is about you can install your Windows from flash drive or card, HDD, etc. to your computer or  etbook.

And this is not all it can do. WinToFlash can transfer your live CD or DVD to USB card, for example, BartPE. After all you can erase your USB media and format it with Windows for everyday use.

Know to use NSLOOKUP for DNS Server diagnosis

The DNS protocol has been around for decades and is a stable and reliable protocol.Even so, DNS does occasionally have problems. PING is a great tool for DNS serverdiagnosis, and I tend to use it quite frequently myself. However, sometimes PING justdoesn’t give you enough information about the problem at hand. When you need moreinformation about a DNS problem than what PING provides you with, you can alwaysturn to the NSLOOKUP command. In this article, I will show you how to useNSLOOKUP

Download Complete Document Here: 

Download Hiren’s BootCD 14.0 Direct Download


Hiren’s Boot CD is a boot CD containing various diagnostic programs such aspartitioning agents, system performanceoperating benchmarks, disk cloning andimaging tools, data recovery tools, MBR tools, BIOS tools, and manyothers for fixing various computer problems. It is a Bootable CD; thus,it can be useful even if the primary Systemcannot be booted. Hiren’s Boot CD has an extensive list of software.Utilities with similar functionality on the CD are grouped together andseem redundant; however, they present choices through UI differences.Hiren’s BootCD – All in one Dos Bootable CD which has all theseutilities.
Hiren’s BootCD 14.0 Updated on 24-05-2011
Changes
+ HBCD Folders restructured
+ Dialupass 3.16
+ Image For Windows 2.62a
+ Parted Magic 6.1 (replaced RIPLinux)
+ WebBrowserPassView 1.11 (replaced foxpass/iepass)
- WinKeyfinder

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Windows 7 in Windows XP Mode

Microsoft’s new Windows XP Mode requires hardware virtualization, which is probably one of the more confusing parts to knowing if your computer can support XPM. If you’re not sure what XPM is, check out our screenshot tour here.

Hardware Requirements:

The hardware requirements are essentially the same as Windows 7′s minimum requirements, with two exceptions:
CPU: Your CPU must support Hardware Virtualization.
RAM: Instead of a 1GB minimum, Microsoft recommends 2GBs of RAM

How to check if your CPU supports Hardware Virtualization:

You can use tools issued by the hardware manufacturer to check if your processor supports hardware virtualization. You may heard from elsewhere that Securable can be used to check for Hardware-VT, but this post from Neowin shows that Securable is not always correct.
Intel:
1) Download and install the Intel Processor Identification Utility. Run the Utility, click on the CPU Technologies tab and check to see if it says yes beside Intel(R) Virtualization Technology.
Windows 7 and Windows XP Mode: Can you run it?

How to Verify if the Cache Batteries are Good in a StorageWorks Modular Storage Array (MSA) 20



When one or both of the batteriesin an HP StorageWorks Modular Storage Array (MSA) 20 Controller are failed,disconnected, or not seated properly, the MSA20 does not run in an optimalmode. Write cache is disabled if a battery is failed, not present, or seatedimproperly. As a result, the MSA20 could have significant loss of sequentialwrite performance. Each MSA has the 7-segment display and the status messagepertains to the two batteries attached to that MSA only. Each MSA in yourenvironment should be checked for this issue.
MSA20s running Firmware v2.00 orlater in any configuration
Use the following checklist toverify this condition for MSA20s running firmware v2.00 or later.
NOTE: This applies to both MSA20s attached directly to a SmartArray controller and to MSA20s attached behind an MSA1500cs or MSA1510i.

1.    For battery failure status, the 7-segment display on the rear ofthe MSA20 displays the following:
a.    F1 indicates lower battery packfailure (MSA Battery #1 - attached directly to cache).
b.   F2 indicates upper battery packfailure (MSA Battery #2).
c.    F3 indicates both types of batterypack failures.

SAN Interview questions

SAN Interview questions


1. WHAT ARETHE BENEFITS OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?
 Fibre Channel SANs are the defacto standard for storage networking in the corporate data center because theyprovide exceptional reliability, scalability, consolidation, and performance.Fibre Channel SANs provide significant advantages over direct-attached storagethrough improved storage utilization, higher data availability, reducedmanagement costs, and highly scalable capacity and performance.
2. WHAT ENVIRONMENT IS MOST SUITABLE FOR FIBRECHANNEL SANS?

Typically, Fibre Channel SANs are most suitable for large data centers runningbusiness-critical data, as well as applications that require high-bandwidthperformance such as medical imaging, streaming media, and large databases.Fibre Channel SAN solutions can easily scale to meet the most demandingperformance and availability requirements.
3. WHAT CUSTOMER PROBLEMS DO FIBRE CHANNEL SANSSOLVE?

The increased performance of Fibre Channel enables a highly effective backupand recovery approach, including LAN-free and server-free backup models. Theresult is a faster, more scalable, and more reliable backup and recoverysolution. By providing flexible connectivity options and resource sharing,Fibre Channel SANs also greatly reduce the number of physical devices anddisparate systems that must be purchased and managed, which can dramaticallylower capital expenditures. Heterogeneous SAN management provides a singlepoint of control for all devices on the SAN, lowering costs and freeingpersonnel to do other tasks.
4. HOW LONG HAS FIBRE CHANNEL BEEN AROUND?

Development started in 1988, ANSI standard approval occurred in 1994, and largedeployments began in 1998. Fibre Channel is a mature, safe, and widely deployedsolution for high-speed (1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB) communications and is the foundationfor the majority of SAN installations throughout the world.
5. WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF FIBRE CHANNEL SANS?

Configure Windows XP to Automatically Login

After downloading fixes from Windows Updates page or via Automatic Updates, you may notice that Windows XP no longer logs into your account automatically. This is usually caused after the installation of .NET Framework from Microsoft. It creates an additional user account called ASP.NET, which you can see in the Control Panel User Accounts applet. But, you neither need to remove this update nor delete this account. You can still configure Windows XP to automatically login using these methods:

Method 1


Click Start, Run and type CONTROL USERPASSWORDS2, and click Ok. Select the user account from the list (the account to which you want to automatically logon). Uncheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer option, and click Ok. Type the user account password and complete the process.
For Windows XP Home, don't try to auto-login as the built-in Administrator, as you'll receive an error message.