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Centrify Express is an Active Directory based authentication and single sign-on to cross-platform systems. It used to integrate Linux and Mac systems with Windows. Centrify Express installs a program called the DirectControl agent on a UNIX system so that computer can be a managed system and can be joined to Active Directory in the same manner as a Windows computer. When a computer is managed by DirectControl agent and connected to a domain, all users and groups defined in Active Directory for the forest automatically become valid users and groups on the UNIX machine unless configured to deny or allow specific users or groups access. These users can perform the following common tasks:
- Log on to the UNIX shell or desktop program and use standard programs and services such as telnet, ssh, and ftp.
- Log on to a computer that is disconnected from the network or unable to access Active Directory, if they have successfully logged on and been authenticated by Active Directory previously.
- Manage their Active Directory passwords directly from the UNIX command line, provided they can connect to Active Directory.
Centrify Express consists of:
DirectControl Express
Joins Linux and Mac systems to Active Directory, giving users multi-platform single sign-on
DirectManage Express
Automates discovery, readiness, and deployment of Express agent for easy integration with Active Directory
Centrify-Enabled Open Source Tools
Use our free, enhanced versions of OpenSSH, PuTTY and Samba for painless integration
Installation.
DirectControl Express installation steps are simple:
- On the Linux computer, log on as root.
- If necessary, unzip the centrify-suite archive file.
- Run the install-express.sh command to install the Express Agent and Centrify-enabled
./install-express.sh
The installation script begins by running the adcheck program to check the operating system, disk space, DNS resolution, network connectivity, Active Directory configuration and other requirements on the computer. If you receive errors or warnings, see the DirectControl Express Administrator’s Guide for information on how to correct them.
When you run the installation script, answer the prompts as follows:
How do you want to proceed? (E|S|X|C|Q) [X]: X
Type X (the default) for Express Mode. For most of the prompts, you can accept the default value by pressing Enter.
Be certain to specify Yes when prompted to join a domain. For an Express installation, the script automatically joins a computer in unlicensed mode. If you manually join a domain after installation, you must manually turn off licensed features. This process is covered in the Centrify DirectControl Express Administrator’s Guide.
Once installed the users can enter their username in the form that they are most comfortable with, saving time and not requiring them to remember or type a domain name. All of these examples work equally well:
- user.name
- user name
- user.name@domain.com
- domain.com\user.name
One of my favorite features other than the single login, is that you can authenticate Active Directory users accessing Samba shares at add an easier way to add users, keep track of who has access.
Centrify Express supports the following Operating Systems:
Linux
CentOS Linux: 3.8, 3.9, 4.4, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 (32-bit & 64-bit)
Citrix XenServer: 4, 4.1, 5 (32-bit)
Debian: 3.1, 4, 5 (32-bit & 64-bit)
Mandriva Linux One: 2008, 2009, 2009.1, 2010, 2010.1 (32-bit)
Novell SUSE Linux: Server 8, 9, 10, 11 (32-bit); Desktop 9.2, 9.3, 10, 11 (32-bit)
Novell SUSE Linux PPC: 9, 10, 11 (64-bit)
Novell SUSE Linux Itanium: 9, 10, 11 (64-bit)
OpenSUSE Linux: 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 11, 11.1, 11.2 (32-bit)
OpenSUSE Linux: 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 11, 11.1, 11.2 (64-bit)
Oracle Enterprise Linux: 4, 5 (32-bit & 64-bit)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux: 3, 4, 4.8, 5, 5.1, 5.2 ,5.3, 5.4, 5.5 (32-bit & 64-bit)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Itanium: 4, 4.8, 5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5
Red Hat Fedora: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 (32-bit & 64-bit)
Scientific Linux: 3.0.8, 3.0.9, 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8, 5, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 (32-bit & 64-bit)
Ubuntu: 6.06 LTS, 7.04, 7.10, 8.04 LTS, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10, 10.04 LTS x86 (32-bit & 64-bit)
VMWare ESX Server: 3.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.2, 3.5 (32-bit)
VMWare ESX Server: 4 (64-bit)
MAC
Apple Mac OS X: 10.4.5+, 10.5.3+ on PPC, 10.4.5+, 10.5.3+ on Intel (32-bit)
Apple Mac OS X: 10.6 on Intel (32/64-bit)
There is a Centrify Suite that has more functionality but at a price. The Centrify Express is free and accomplishes exactly what I was looking for. If you want to intregrate Active Directory authentication into you Linux, Unix, or Mac machines check out Centrify Express it may be just what you are looking for. You can get more information at their website: www.centrify.com/default.asp
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I have used this to turn servers into vhds for Hyper V. Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines. The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online. Disk2vhd uses Windows’ Volume Snapshot capability, introduced in Windows XP, to create consistent point-in-time snapshots of the volumes you want to include in a conversion. You can even have Disk2vhd create the VHDs on local volumes, even ones being converted. The application is free to download from Windows Sysinternals web site and is really easy to use. You put it on the machine you want to convert, run it, accept the license, and it brings up the following interface.
Then you select the drive or drives and convert them to vhds. Disk2vhd runs Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and higher, including x64 systems. Disk2vhd also includes command-line options that enable you to script the creation of VHDs. Specify the volumes you want included in a snapshot by drive letter or use “*” to include all volumes.
Syntax: disk2vhd <[drive: [drive:]…]|[*]> <vhdfile>
Example: disk2vhd * c:\vhd\test.vhd
To use VHDs produced by Disk2vhd, create a VM with the desired characteristics and add the VHDs to the VM’s configuration as IDE disks that can be used via the Virtual PC, Virtual Server 2005, or Hyper-V. This utility is a very easy way to create vhds that can be used to dual boot machines like I described in the Windows 7 article I wrote earlier this month. You can download Disk2vhd at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx
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I was having trouble getting my blog translated using the Global Translator plugin. It kept coming up with an error from Google Translate saying they were unable to access my web page. After a search I found some information on the error that talked about htaccess files and didn’t really help very much. So I started out with my trouble shooting. It could be several things from being banned from the translator to something not configured correctly. So I determined I was not banned and went through my web server checking configs and it still didn’t work. I changed my translator service and it didn’t change. Then I tested translation on other web pages I had and it worked. I had been having issues with my WordPress install so I manually upgraded to 3.0.1 and it still had the error. Finally I started getting rid of plugins I didn’t use and deactivating and various plugins I was using. Truthfully this is were I should of started, and after 5 cycles it turned out that the Kstat plugin was causing the error with Global Translator. After deactivating it everything worked great. This may not be the case for everyone and I am not saying the plugin is bad, I am saying it caused a problem with me and if you have the same problem this may give you a jump start on trouble shooting.
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In a recent took a Windows 7 class at work and it showed me a cool feature that I didn’t know about and felt I should tell more people. Anyhow this feature of Windows 7 allows you to create a vhd and boot you computer. For thoughs that don’t know a vhd is Microsoft’s format for a virtual hard drive. So to do this correctly you will have to build your vhd using a Microsoft virtual tool such as Hyper V, Virtual Server 2005, Sysinternals disktovhd, or maybe Virtual PC. The cool thing about disktovhd is that the download is free and you simply install and convert a running machine into a vhd drive, you can’t get any easier than that.
Once you have your vhd built you can copy it over to the location on the machine you want it. From here there is just a few more steps. You can go to Disk Management and mount the vhd so it can be seen as a hard drive by the computer and you can access any of the contents. However this isn’t needed to boot from it. Here are some pics of the menus and procedures.
Right click on My Computer and select Disk Management. Then select attach VHD.
The browse for the location of the vhd you copied over to the computer.
Now it is mounted, mine is V: and can be accessed through My Computer. Not that you can boot now that it is mounted, but you can add files to the drive that you may want to install once it is booted.
Know comes the tricky part of the process. You will have to use a command line utility called bcdedit.exe. This utility will allow you to add a boot menu to the start up of the computer so you can select the vhd to boot from. In a command line window run as administrator, type in bcdedit /enum all. This will give you a look at all of the information that is contained in your boot file.
Now that we know what the boot menu looks like we can add the entries that will allow us to select the vhd to boot from. In the same command line enter bcdedit.exe /copy {current} /d “Name that will show up in the boot menu”. This creates a GUID for the install that you will need for the next commands. So run bcdedit /enum all again and find the name of the OS you enter in the previous command and write down or copy the GUID. Then you run bcdedit /set “Enter the GUID here” device vhd=[E:]\vhd7\windows7.vhd. You need to replace [E:] with the drive it is located on such as c: using [c:]. You will also replace “\vhd7\windows7.vhd” with the path to the vhd after the root of the drive. So if it is in c:\drive\files\ you will enter [c:]\drive\files\ and enter the name of the vhd. With that done you now need to enter bcdedit /set “your GUID” osdevice vhd=[your drive letter]\”your path to vhd”. Finally you enter bcdedit /set “your GUID” detecthal on.
You will see you entries in the boot menu if you run bcdedit /enum all once again. It should look similar to the following.
Then if everything was entered correctly, when you reboot the computer you should have a menu that allow you to select the OS to boot. It should look similar to the following pic.
I have only done this with Windows operating systems, I will give it a shot with Linux and see if I can get it to work as well. But this is a cool and easy way to boot computers into various operating systems using vhds. You can also boot it into multiple OS by putting them in the same location and renaming the vhd when you want to use it, or you can have 20 vhds setup to boot to each. I think this is very cool and makes dual booting very easy to do. Check it out and I will update on Linux booting.
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I don’t know if anyone has used this before but this little hand dandy tool that is part of Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7. It may be part of Vista I am just not sure if it is. Any how this tools name is the Problem Step Recorder. This tool allows the user to create a document that will have screen shots of the steps he/she went through which ended up in an error. Or you can use it like I think it will work best, and that is to create help guides going step by step for either people that have never done it before or a person that needs a little refresher to do the ask.
To call up the program simple type psr into the search bar in the start up menu and it will bring up the psr.exe file in the menu. Click on it and it will bring up a little control bar that look like the following.
Once this pops up you simple click start record and go through the steps that you want the recorder to record. You can also set the max number of screen shots that you want to recorder to take during the process. After you are finished it created a file that has the screen shots and a text box that has a text version of the steps taken. The file will be compressed to save space but it is basically a *.mht file that will open in a web browser. Here is an example of the file it produces.
Here is a link to the complete file. HERE
This tool is cool and really works great for tutorials. So if you need to make guides for others to follow this tool really makes it easy. Check it out.
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I recently built a failover cluster to test Hyper V on Windows Server 2008 R2 and its ability to with stand losing a server. I originally started out by building the two Windows machines and used Openfiler as the iSCSI SAN. Well it turns out that Openfiler didn’t work with the Windows failover cluster on Windows Server 2K8 or I just set it up wrong. Anyhow I already knew of StarWind and the iSCSi software they made so I went out and downloaded the free edition and proceeded to build the SAN. The following is the specs of the StarWind iSCSI software.
StarWind turns any industry-standard Windows Server into a fault-tolerant, fail-safe Windows iSCSI target SAN and is designed for use as centralized, networked storage for virtual environments such as VMware and Hyper-V and other server applications configured in Windows server clusters.
Key Features
- Synchronous Data Mirroring: real-time data mirroring across a 2 node storage cluster
- High Availability / Automatic Failover: fault tolerant technology eliminates single point of failure
- Failback with Fast Synchronization: failback to an original system after an automatic failover
- Remote / Asynchronous Replication: replicates your storage to a remote site across a WAN
- CDP & Snapshots: captures point-in-time snapshots with unlimited rollback points
- Server Clustering: provides shared storage for High Availability server clustering
- Thin Provisioning: allocates space dynamically for highly efficient disk utilization
StarWind System Requirements
StarWind iSCSI SAN software runs on standard enterprise-class x86 or x64 storage servers, from blades to rack servers. This allows customers to choose from any standard hardware that meets performance, scalability and budget requirements. More importantly, the use of standard servers makes it easy to upgrade to new hardware, faster memory, Nehalem processors, PCI Express RAID controllers or 10 GigE networking that will all improve the performance of the storage appliance built with StarWind.
Standard enterprise-class servers with full redundancy and hot-swappable components that are supported by StarWind include Dell, HP and IBM. This freedom to choose from open standards is important to small and midsize companies who want to deploy networked storage cost-effectively and easily without any interoperability issues and the high prices of proprietary storage solutions from traditional vendors.
Recommended System Requirements
- Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2
- 2 GHz Intel Xeon class processor
- 4 GB of RAM
- 10 GB of disk space for StarWind application data and log files
- 1 Gigabit Ethernet or 10 Gigabit Ethernet connection
The version I downloaded was free but it only allowed you to have 2 TB of drive space in the SAN and allowed 2 simultaneous connections.
This application is of course installed on top of a Windows Server and builds virtual disk that are used for the SAN. With Server 2K8 it is simple to setup the iSCSI SAN using the iSCSI Initiator that is built into Windows from Vista on and can be installed into XP and Server 2003 with a download from Microsoft. Anyhow the once the application is installed you will have a window that looks like the following pic.
You will have to add the license and then log into the StarWind server before you can add iSCSI targets to the app. This is done by a simple wizard that walks you through the whole process, you just need to have an idea of how you want to setup the SAN disks. Here are a few pics of the menus you will see during the iSCSI target setup.
  
Once you have the targets setup you should have a screen that looks similar to the following screen shot.
With StarWind setup you can know go to the Windows Servers and logon to the SAN using the iSCSI Initiator. This is a pretty straight forward process, it is located in administrator tools and in the control panel. Once the window pops up you can go to the Discovery tab and add the IP of the StarWind server by clicking on the Add Portal. From there you go to Targets and Logon to the SAN. Then go to Volumes and Devices and click on Auto configure. If this is the first time you logged on to the SAN you will need to go into Disk Manager and bring the disks online and format them. Now that you are finished the SAN drive will show up as a local hard drive in My Computer.
I then went on to configure the SAN a little different to use it for the Failover cluster, but if you just wanted just to have a SAN to play around with you can stop here and see how well it works for you. I also set the SAN up to use its own NIC card and used a small 5 port dumb switch to handle the SAN traffic between computers.
This application can be purchased and thoughs versions have more features, so if you want to check out their web site go to: http://www.starwindsoftware.com/ and check out the iSCSI SAN software. The program worked pretty good for my failover cluster, but it isn’t my first choice for SAN software. However it my be just the thing your looking for.
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Intel has unveiled the prototype of a high-speed fiber-optic data system based on silicon chips with integrated lasers and detectors. The system runs at 50Gbps, with Intel claiming future scalability to 1Tbps and beyond. But Intel’s silicon-based optical data connection could eventually allow the industry to replace traditional connections with extremely thin and light optical fibers capable of transferring gigabits of data over long distances. The 50Gbps link is akin to a concept vehicle that allows to test new ideas and develop technologies transmit data over optical fibers, using light beams from low cost and easy to make silicon. Telecommunications and other applications already use lasers to transmit information, current technologies are too expensive and bulky to be used for PC applications. Once this makes it into the main stream tech it will be awesome, I can’t wait!! But only if it can do what it claims.
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This is just a nice little tid bit of information to bring back classic menus similar to XP or even Vista. It is a pretty simple registry hack that can be add pretty easy. Just follow these steps to get it done.
1. Use regedit and edit the following registry keys.
2. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
3. Double click the Favorites entry and replace the existing path with C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
4. Move to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders and repeat the third step.
5. Restart the computer
This should give you a menu that is close to the classic menus of XP. Here is a pic of what it should look like.
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 HFS isn’t a new program but it is definitely a goody. I have been using it for four years now for my file server because it is easy to use and can be run on any Windows OS along with Linux using Wine. It has a customizable HTML web interface and has the ability to setup user accounts. Their website says that there are 137, 775 users around the world. For a piece of freeware that is a great following. First lets start off with where you can find it, of course you can Google it or you can go to the HFS web site at the following link: http://www.rejetto.com/hfs/?f=intro or you can visit the HFS forum where you can download beta version and ask question and receive help from the users and programmer of HFS. The forum link is: http://www.rejetto.com/forum/index.php?c=6.
Installation is easy because it is a self contained executable. It can start with as the OS boots up and run minimized in the task bar.Here is the basic interface of the program. It allows for viewing of connections, shared folders, and current connections. This is a pic of my running server so I blurred out some information that I didn’t want the world to see.
Configuration can take a little bit of time to get the program set up for use in your environment or you can just turn it on and run it as is. However you may need to go over certain things for security, users, and to make folders available for viewing. Here are some pics of some menus that you will see by clicking on the menu button in the upper right corner of the programs window.
  
As you can see there are quit a few options that can be configured and once that is complete you can save it to a file so you don’t have to do it each time it is launched. This is done by the save options part of the main menu. You will also have to save the file system layout by clicking another option. I did not cover every possible option that HFS has because this is a basic over view. To learn more about it just download it and explore away. Now that the folders are added and the basics are configured you can setup users and password for the folder and access to the file server itself. This can be done by right clicking on the house icon in the file system menu on the programs main interface. Then select add users. Pics of these menus are as follows.
 
You can also make files browse able or chose to hide them. You can also assign access to each folder to different users or all users. I’m not sure if the passwords are sent encrypted or not soe I am not sure of the security of accounts. But I have used it for a long time with no problems. You can also have you logs saved to a file or just look at the scrolling window on the main interface.
HFS also has a built in HTML editor for the modification of the web site that is used to access the file server. Here is a shot of the editor, my web page for the file server, the default web page, and a pic of a player that I put in to play videos.
   
All in all this is a very good program and it keeps evolving every day. With the use of rejetto and the group of tester that are members of the forum. So if your looking for a good file server program or just want to check it out, I am sure you will like the price and functionality of this great freeware program.
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 IBM developers have come up with a new way to cool a datacenter. The system uses distilled water to cool the CPUs in the datacenter servers and then pass the heat on to another system for use in heating rooms in the building that the datacenter resides. It has a major impact on the power consumption and carbon footprint of data centers, and the way companies heat their offices. Water cooling for computer has been around for a while now, but this will definitely have a positive effect on electricity usage with the addition of reduced heating costs in the Winter months.
Prof. Dimos Poulikakos said, “With Aquasar, we make an important contribution to the development of sustainable high performance computers and computer system. In the future it will be important to measure how efficiently a computer is per watt and per gram of equivalent CO2 production.” This isn’t something that an average person will have a use for, but it is a good way to help lower the overall cost of running a large server farm.
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