A Linux® blueprint is a detailed plan of action
for a specific task involving Linux on IBM hardware.
Xen is a virtual machine monitor (also known as a
hypervisor), which lets you deploy multiple virtual servers on a
single physical server. Using software to make a single server appear to
be many servers is known as virtualization. Virtualization offers
many benefits such as server consolidation, increased utilization of
server resources, and the ability to simultaneously run a mix of operating
systems and their applications on a single hardware platform.
Installing and configuring Xen
provides step-by-step instructions for installing and configuring a Xen
host and paravirtual guests on RHEL5.2 based NUMA and non_NUMA running on
System x hardware.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
Xen Virtualization Blueprint forum.
There are a number of data protection mechanisms already built into your
Linux system that you may not be taking full advantage of.
Protecting your data at rest with Linux
provides concrete advice on how to use encryption to protect your data at
rest and vastly improve your organization's resistance to data leaks. This
blueprint demonstrates step by step how to set up a new encrypted data
partition, swap partition, temporary file system, and how to migrate your
old data to a new encrypted partition. The blueprint also shows you how to
use a new file system, eCryptfs, to encrypt your data.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
Security Blueprint forum.
Multipath connectivity refers to a system configuration where
multiple connection paths exist between a server and a storage unit
(Logical Unit (LUN)) within a storage subsystem. This configuration can be
used to provide redundancy or increased bandwidth.
Installing Linux distributions on multipathed devices
provides step-by-step instructions for installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 on a LUN in a multipath disk
storage environment. The procedure demonstrated here is performed on a
System x host connected to a DS6000 storage server through Fibre Channel
Fabric, but it can be adapted for installing either of the Linux
distribution onto other supported models of storage devices.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
IBM Linux Storage Connectivity Forum: iSCSI and Multipath.
The iSCSI standard (RFC 3720) defines transporting of the SCSI protocol
over a TCP/IP network that allows block access to target devices. A host
connection to the network can be provided by an iSCSI host bus adapter or
an iSCSI software initiator that uses the standard network interface card
in the host.
iSCSI-capable IBM Blades utilize two iSCSI initiators during the boot
process. One iSCSI software initiator is contained in the system firmware
or BIOS. The other iSCSI software initiator is provided by the operating
system.
The System x and System p Blades provide a non-volatile area that can be
written with iSCSI parameters. These parameters are used by the system
firmware/BIOS during the boot process to obtain the boot loader. The iSCSI
parameter values can also be used by enabled Linux distributions for
configuring the software iSCSI initiator during installation and boot.
IBM System x and System p Blade iSCSI software initiator install
provides instructions to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server 10 to an iSCSI target using the iSCSI software initiator
capabilities on supported IBM System x and System p Blades.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
IBM Linux Storage Connectivity Forum: iSCSI and Multipath.
Real time Linux
covers the installation, setup, and use of Red Hat Enterprise MRG real
time Linux on supported IBM platforms. It includes a brief introduction to
basic real time concepts, and pointers to related information for the
download and installation of IBM's WebSphere Real Time product. Along with
the installation and set up tasks, a description of the tools used to view
and change real time attributes of a task is provided.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
IBM Real Time Linux Blueprint forum.
The IBM HPC Open Software Stack is a set of open source components that can
be used with software included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 to build a
high performance solution.
IBM HPC Open Software Stack for RHEL 5.2 on IBM Power servers
describes a reference implementation on IBM Power servers using this open
source software along with IBM's XL compilers and IBM's ESSL Math
Libraries, which offer optimization and performance-tuning features to
exploit the POWER6 hardware architecture. This reference implementation
uses a cluster of JS22 servers.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
IBM HPC Open Software Stack forum.
Learn to monitor and control power use on System X servers that have the
relevant hardware features -- systems that support Intel's Enhanced Speed
Step (EIST) or AMD's PowerNow -- and have power meter hardware installed.
Monitoring and controlling power consumption using Linux
includes an install guide for the pwrkap software, an LTC-developed
package that monitors and displays power utilization, CPU load, and CPU
frequency; instructions on the power capping mechanism in action;
the key ideas behind the pwrkap algorithms; a how-to on measuring the
quantity of energy consumed by a task; plus, troubleshooting tips and
tricks and a list of related information and downloads.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
Energy Management for System x Community Forum.
Multipath configurations provide multiple paths to a single device; the
purpose of a multipath configuration is to allow for both path failover
and increased throughput. Although many IBM storage platforms use the
available open source dm multipath driver, the
Redundant Disk Array Controller (RDAC) driver (also known as LSI's mpp
driver) is the only driver certified on many DS3K and DS4K disk storage
platforms.
Installing Linux distributions on a Multipathed Device using the RDAC Driver
provides a basic set of instructions on how to correctly install and
configure RHEL5.2 and SLES10/SP2 on a multipath device using the RDAC
driver, including a tutorial on multipath connectivity, how to set the
hardware up for test environment, how to install the flavors of Linux on
the system, and troubleshooting tips and tricks and a list of related
information and downloads.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
IBM Linux Storage Connectivity Blueprint Forum: iSCSI, Multipath, and Installing Linux on a Multipathed Device using RDAC.
SystemTap is a tool that allows developers and administrators to write and
reuse simple scripts to finely examine the activities of a live Linux
system. Data may be extracted, filtered, and summarized quickly and safely
to enable diagnoses of complex performance or functional problems.
Installing and using SystemTap
includes an installation guide, scripting examples, command-line options,
and a safety features list, as well as tutorials on function boundary
tracing probes and root/non-root user probes; plus, troubleshooting tips
and tricks and a list of related information and downloads.
To discuss this Blueprint, visit the
SystemTap Blueprint Support Forum.
Key management is traditionally the weakest point in deployed data
encryption mechanisms since the majority of encryption solutions employ
only basic password protection schemes and disregard the "best practices"
tenet of multi-factor authentication. Remember, most passwords that users
can reasonably expect to memorize can be successfully attacked with
straightforward algorithms running on existing commodity computing
devices.
Installing and configuring eCryptfs with a trusted platform module (TPM) key
explains how to build and install the eCryptfs software along with its
dependencies, how to set up encrypted swap, how to generate a TPM-sealed
key, and how to perform the eCryptfs mount with the TPM-sealed key on
RHEL5.2; plus, you get troubleshooting tips and tricks and a list of
related information and downloads.
To discuss this Blueprint, visit the
Linux Security Support Forum.
IPMI is a standardized message-based hardware management interface; the
Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) or Management Controller (MC)
hardware chip implements the core of IPMI.
Using IPMI on IBM Linux Platforms
details how to use the BMC to check system health, set up password
controls and power cycle the system, and how to use the hardware timer to
recover from a crash. It also lists the features in the newest version,
IPMI 2.0.
To discuss this Blueprint, visit the
IPMI Blueprint Community Forum.
Kerberos is a network authentication protocol designed to provide strong,
mutual authentication between client and server applications. MIT-Kerberos
started as a reference implementation from the original creators of the
protocol, but later evolved to be one of the most widely used
implementations around.
Using MIT-Kerberos with IBM Tivoli Directory Server backend
describes how to configure a Kerberos authentication Realm using
MIT-Kerberos and Tivoli Directory Server (ITDS) 6.2 to store
authentication data. It includes setting up IBM Tivoli Directory Server
and the Kerberos KDC Server, troubleshooting tips, and tips on
considerations when using LDAP/OpenLDAP.
To discuss this Blueprint, visit the section on "Using MIT-Kerberos" in the
Linux Security Support Forum.
The BladeCenter S chassis has slots that accept multiple blades of various
capabilities, as well as modules to provide other functions such as
network connectivity and administration. In addition to these standard
features, it contains room for up to two SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)
Storage Modules, each of which can contain up to six SAS disk drives.
Configuring Multipath Storage in the BladeCenter S Chassis
describes how to configure the SAS Switch Modules in a BladeCenter S
chassis to enable multipath access to the disks in the Storage Modules in
the chassis. Once multipath access is enabled, you can add the multipathed
disks to a blade that has Linux (RHEL 5.2 or SLES 10SP2) already installed
onto its local disk. The multipath environment provides redundant paths
for data access to the internal storage in the chassis. (For more on
multipath, you might also want to look at the
Installing Linux distributions on a Multipathed Device using the RDAC Driver
blueprint.)
To discuss this Blueprint, visit the section on "Configuring Multipath
Storage in the BladeCenter S Chassis" in the
IBM Linux Storage Connectivity Blueprint Forum.
SystemTap is a tool that allows developers and administrators to write and
reuse simple scripts to finely examine the activities of a live Linux
system. Data may be extracted, filtered, and summarized quickly and safely
to enable diagnoses of complex performance or functional problems.
SystemTap GUI
is a tool built on Eclipse that makes it easier to write SystemTap scripts
and visualize kernel events. From the SystemTap GUI, you can use SystemTap
scripts to insert probes into the Linux kernel that monitors system
activities and collect related data. This blueprint shows you how to
install the SystemTap GUI software on a system running Red Hat Enterprise
Linux (RHEL) version 5.2; it also shows you how to use the IDE Perspective
to write and run SystemTap scripts and how to use the Graphing Perspective
to visualize collected data.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
SystemTap Blueprint Support Forum.
Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) provides a method for creating and enforcing MAC (mandatory access control) policies, the policies that confine users and processes to the smallest amount of privilege required to perform assigned tasks.
This blueprint
introduces basic SELinux commands and concepts, and demonstrates how you
can increase the security of the Apache Web server by using these
concepts. It focuses on SELinux's use of Boolean variables, a set of
built-in switches, or conditional policies, that you can use to turn specific SELinux features on or off.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
Linux Security Community Forum.
The iSCSI standard (RFC 3720) defines transporting the SCSI protocol over a TCP/IP network in a way that allows block access to target devices. A host connection to the network can be provided by an iSCSI host bus adapter or iSCSI software initiator that uses the standard network interface card in the host.
This blueprint
delivers step-by-step instructions for installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux® (RHEL) 5.3 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 on a multipath iSCSI logical unit (LUN). The procedures covered are tested on System x® and System p® blades connected to a NETAPP storage server through an Ethernet IP network. The instructions can be adapted to install either of these Linux distributions onto other supported models of iSCSI storage devices.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
IBM Linux Storage Connectivity Blueprint Forum.
The Active Memory Sharing (AMS) environment — available in selected POWER6 models — can be used to optimize memory utilization by allowing partitions to share memory much like CPU sharing is done. The PowerVM hypervisor manages real memory across multiple AMS-enabled partitions, distributing memory to partitions based upon their workload: With AMS, you can virtualize and share memory between partitions based upon demand which can help you reduce your investment in memory modules.
This blueprint
shows you how determine if your particular setup is right for AMS and how to size the memory usage of multiple partitions in order to integrate them into a single AMS environment. It also demonstrates how to track the memory performance of the partitions and provides tips on fine-tuning the memory assignment in an AMS environment.
To discuss this blueprint, visit either the
Community Forum for IBM's Systems Management on Linux Blueprints or the Linux for Power Architecture Forum.
A kernel crash dump is the memory image of an operating system kernel that is written to a file. Typically, the system writes a crash dump file when the operating system experiences a serious problem such as a hang or crash.
This blueprint
shows you how to enable kernel crash dumps with Kdump on systems running RHEL 5.3 and SLES10 SP2. It includes instructions on setting up a remote server to receive crash dumps (on the same operating system version as the client) and talks about how to enable Kdump for additional unresponsive and hang conditions other than kernel panic.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
Community Forum for IBM's Systems Management on Linux Blueprints.
The Linux CPUFreq subsystem can be configured to statically set the processor operating frequency or to dynamically scale the frequency based on system load. By dynamically reducing the frequency, you can consume less power without significant performance loss.
This blueprint — built from tests on RHEL5.3 —
shows you how to enable and configure the CPUFreq subsystem to control processor power-saving features to reduce system power consumption. There's a hands-on exercise so you can experiment.
To discuss this blueprint, visit the
Energy Management for System x Blueprint Forum.
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