What is Ubuntu?

Ubuntu is a popular open-source Linux-based operating system developed and maintained by Canonical Ltd. It is designed to be user-friendly, secure, and versatile for both desktop and server environments. Ubuntu is based on Debian Linux and follows a regular release cycle, with Long-Term Support (LTS) versions supported for up to 5 years.

Ubuntu provides a complete operating system environment, including a graphical user interface (GUI), command-line tools, development libraries, and software repositories. It supports a wide range of hardware platforms and comes preloaded with essential applications and utilities.

Known for its stability and ease of use, Ubuntu is widely adopted by individuals, businesses, educational institutions, and cloud providers.

What Are the Major Use Cases of Ubuntu?

Ubuntu’s flexibility and robustness make it suitable for a variety of use cases:

1. Desktop Operating System

• Ideal for everyday users, developers, and professionals.
• Supports a wide range of software for office productivity, multimedia, programming, and gaming.

2. Server Operating System

• Powers web servers, database servers, mail servers, and file servers.
• Popular in enterprise and cloud environments due to stability and security.

3. Cloud and Virtualization

• Widely used in cloud computing platforms like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and OpenStack.
• Supports containerization technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.

4. Development Platform

• Provides rich development tools and supports programming languages including Python, Java, C++, and more.
• Preferred for open-source software development and testing.

5. Education and Research

• Used in academic institutions for teaching operating systems, programming, and system administration.

6. IoT and Embedded Systems

• Lightweight Ubuntu Core variant used in Internet of Things devices.

How Ubuntu Works Along with Architecture

Ubuntu inherits its architecture from Linux and Debian, consisting of several layers working together to provide a full operating system:

Key Architectural Components:

1. Linux Kernel
   • The core of Ubuntu, managing hardware, system resources, and providing essential services like process management, memory management, device drivers, and file systems.
2. System Libraries
   • Libraries such as GNU C Library (glibc) provide APIs for system calls and basic functions.
3. System Daemons and Services
   • Background processes handling tasks like networking (NetworkManager), printing (CUPS), and logging (rsyslog).
4. Init System (systemd)
   • Responsible for bootstrapping the system and managing services during runtime.
5. User Interface
   • Ubuntu Desktop uses graphical environments like GNOME or KDE.
   • Ubuntu Server primarily uses command-line interfaces but can run GUIs if needed.
6. Package Management
   • Uses Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) and DEB packages to manage software installation, updates, and dependencies.
7. User Applications
   • Desktop software, development tools, utilities, and server applications installed as packages.

What Are the Basic Workflows of Ubuntu?

The workflow when using Ubuntu typically includes:

1. Installation
   • Download Ubuntu ISO and create bootable media.
   • Install Ubuntu via guided setup.
2. System Configuration
   • Set up user accounts, network, software sources, and system settings.
3. Package Management
   • Use APT to install, update, and remove software packages.
4. System Updates
   • Regularly update the OS and installed packages for security and feature improvements.
5. User Interaction
   • Use GUI or CLI for daily tasks such as file management, running applications, and system monitoring.
6. System Administration
   • Manage services, users, permissions, and backups.
7. Development and Deployment
   • Write and run software, deploy web and application servers.

Step-by-Step Getting Started Guide for Ubuntu

Step 1: Download Ubuntu

• Visit the official site: ubuntu.com/download
• Choose Desktop or Server version based on your needs.

Step 2: Create Bootable Installation Media

• Use tools like Rufus (Windows) or Etcher (cross-platform) to create a bootable USB drive.

Step 3: Install Ubuntu

• Boot from USB and follow installation prompts:
  • Select language, keyboard layout.
  • Choose installation type (dual boot or clean install).
  • Partition disk if needed.
  • Create user account.

Step 4: Post-Installation Setup

• Update system packages: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
• Install essential software using: sudo apt install <package_name>

Step 5: Explore the Desktop or Server

• For Desktop, familiarize yourself with GNOME interface, software center, terminal.
• For Server, learn basic CLI commands, SSH setup, and service management.

Step 6: Configure Networking and Security

• Set up firewall using ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall): sudo ufw enable sudo ufw allow ssh
• Configure network interfaces if required.

Step 7: Customize and Extend

• Install additional drivers, themes, or development tools.
• Explore snap packages for easy app installation: sudo snap install <app_name>

Step 8: Backup and Maintenance

• Set up automated backups.
• Regularly update the system.

The post Exploring Ubuntu: Overview, Use Cases, Architecture, and Getting Started appeared first on scmGalaxy.

Super global variable is a variable which can be used in two different files for manipulation.

For example we have a variable “a” in File1.php and we need to print, edit or any manipulation needed to be done in the variable in File2.php then we have to use Super Global Variable as a variable in File1.php.

• Types of Super Global Variable in PHP:-

– $_GET

– $_POST

– $_REQUEST

– $_COOKIE

– $_SESSION

– $_FILES

• To see the use of variable $_GET and $_POST follow the link given below:

/https://www.scmgalaxy.com/tutorials/_get-and-_post-variable-in-php/

• Use of variable $_REQUEST

 $_REQUEST can catch the data which is sent using both POST & GET methods whereas $_GET and $_POST can catch the data which is sent by get and post.

• Use of variable $_SERVER

When we use $_SERVER we can extract extra data from the client when the form is filled. Extra data in a sense we can extract:

– HTTP Connection

– Server Information

– Host Information

– URL Information

We can see it with the example given below:

Now when we insert the data in the form.html we will see the following information:

• Use of $_COOKIE variable:

Cookies are small file that the server embeds on the user’s computer each time the same computer requests a page with a browser it will send the cookie too. With PHP, we can both create and retrieve cookie values.

To create a cookie we need to run the following command:

setcookie()

Syntax:

setcookie(name, value, expire, path, domain, secure, httponly);

In the syntax only the name parameter is mandatory rest other parameters are optional.

Example for creating a cookie:

• Use of $_SESSION variable

For session variable refer the link given below:

How Session works in PHP

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How to backup and restore gerrit server?

There are 3 coponent which should be backed up in gerrit

1. Repository – According to me best way to backup the repository is to setup a replication with other gerrit hosting tools using gerrit replication plugins. The steps can be find as below;
2. Gerrit Database
   Depends on the database, you should take the database backup. It can be H2 or mysql….
3. Gerrit Config
   Rysnc is the best tools to take the entire gerrit site backup.

How to replicate Gerrit repository using replication plugins?

Step 1- Setup Gerrit Server
http://www.devopsschool.com/tutorial/gerrit/gerrit-install-and-configuration.html

Step 2 – Create a Project in Gerrit

Step 3 – Setup a Developement Machine
git clone http://admin@35.154.81.167:8080/a/prj1 && (cd prj1 && curl -kLo `git rev-parse –git-dir`/hooks/commit-msg http://admin@35.154.81.167:8080/tools/hooks/commit-msg; chmod +x `git rev-parse –git-dir`/hooks/commit-msg)

Step 4: Sample Commits to be done
> touch file1.txt;git add .;git commit -m”adding first version”

Step 5: Sample push and submit it
> git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master

Step 6: create it $site_path/etc/replication.config

Content of the files is –
[remote “github”]
url = git@github.com:scmgalaxy/${name}.git

Within each URL value the magic placeholder `${name}` is replaced with the Gerrit project name.

Step 7: Generate a public/private key

> ssh-keygen -t rsa

Step 8: create a “config” under /root/.ssh

Host github.com
User git
IdentityFile /root/.ssh/id_rsa
StrictHostKeyChecking no
UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null

Step 9: Update the public key to github

Step 10: Create a repo in Github.com with same name.

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Server And Data Center Predictions

The post Server And Data Center Predictions appeared first on scmGalaxy.

“Server sent unexpected return value (423 Locked) in response to PUT request for”

scmuser replied the topic: Re:Server sent unexpected return value (423 Locked) i
i found the solution using Tortoise Svn. Steal lock and then update and it worked for me.

Raj

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Error validating server certificate for https://XYZ:443:
– Unknown certificate issuer
Fingerprint: 81:bb:5d:da:c5:7d:fa:f3:f4:9f:06:55:c6:34:e3:b4:64:d0:47:bc
Distinguished name: www.digicert.com , DigiCert Inc, US

sgadmin replied the topic: Re:Error validating server certificate for
It seems your cache Security certification for SVN server has been expired to removed. please Click on “Accept Permanently” to get rid of this issues.

Background:

When speaking to Apache via https://, a Subversion client can receive two different types of information:

a server certificate
a demand for a client certificate

If the client receives a server certificate, it needs to verify that it trusts the certificate: is the server really who it claims to be? The OpenSSL library does this by examining the signer of the server certificate, or certifying authority (CA). If OpenSSL is unable to automatically trust the CA, or if some other problem occurs (such as an expired certificate or hostname mismatch), the Subversion commandline client will ask you whether you want to trust the server certificate anyway.

svn list host.example.com/repos/project

Error validating server certificate for ‘ home.example.com:443 ‘:
– The certificate is not issued by a trusted authority. Use the
fingerprint to validate the certificate manually!
Certificate information:
– Hostname: host.example.com
– Valid: from Jan 30 19:23:56 2004 GMT until Jan 30 19:23:56 2006 GMT
– Issuer: CA, example.com, Sometown, California, US
– Fingerprint: 7d:e1:a9:34:33:39:ba:6a:e9:a5:c4:22:98:7b:76:5c:92:a0:9c:7b

(R)eject, accept (t)emporarily or accept (p)ermanently?

This dialogue should look familiar; it’s essentially the same question you’ve probably seen coming from your web browser (which is just another HTTP client like Subversion!). If you choose the (p)ermanent option, the server certificate will be cached in your private run-time auth/ area in just the same way your username and password are cached (see the section called “Client Credentials Caching”.) If cached, Subversion will automatically remember to trust this certificate in future negotiations.

Your run-time servers file also gives you the ability to make your Subversion client automatically trust specific CAs, either globally or on a per-host basis. Simply set the ssl-authority-files variable to a semicolon-separated list of PEM-encoded CA certificates:

[global]
ssl-authority-files = /path/to/CAcert1.pem;/path/to/CAcert2.pem

Many OpenSSL installations also have a pre-defined set of “default” CAs that are nearly universally trusted. To make the Subversion client automatically trust these standard authorities, set the ssl-trust-default-ca variable to true.

When talking to Apache, a Subversion client might also receive a challenge for a client certificate. Apache is asking the client to identify itself: is the client really who it says it is? If all goes correctly, the Subversion client sends back a private certificate signed by a CA that Apache trusts. A client certificate is usually stored on disk in encrypted format, protected by a local password. When Subversion receives this challenge, it will ask you for both a path to the certificate and the password which protects it:

$ svn list host.example.com/repos/project

Authentication realm: host.example.com:443
Client certificate filename: /path/to/my/cert.p12
Passphrase for ‘/path/to/my/cert.p12’: ********
…

Notice that the client certificate is a “p12” file. To use a client certificate with Subversion, it must be in PKCS#12 format, which is a portable standard. Most web browsers are already able to import and export certificates in that format. Another option is to use the OpenSSL commandline tools to convert existing certificates into PKCS#12.

Again, the runtime servers file allows you to automate this challenge on a per-host basis. Either or both pieces of information can be described in runtime variables:

[groups]
examplehost = host.example.com

[examplehost]
ssl-client-cert-file = /path/to/my/cert.p12
ssl-client-cert-password = somepassword

Once you’ve set the ssl-client-cert-file and ssl-client-cert-password variables, the Subversion client can automatically respond to a client certificate challenge without prompting you. [24]

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How to start and stop Naxios XI Server?

How to stop Naxios XI Server?

service nagiosxi stop

service npcd stop

service ndo2db stop

service nagios stop

service postgresql stop

service mysqld stop

service httpd stop

How to start Naxios XI Server?

service httpd start

service mysqld start

service postgresql start

service nagios start

service ndo2db start

service npcd start

service nagiosxi start

The post Steps to Start-Stop Nagios XI Server | Nagios XI Tutorial appeared first on scmGalaxy.

Hosting your own Nuget Feed?

1. Local File Based Package Source

Limitation with fles based source –
It does not have nuget capable feed.
Can not push the package. We will have to copy into local directly
Can not use Nuget Gallery

2. Setup Nuget.Server

Step 1 – In Visual Studip, New Project and Select empty ASP.net Empty Web Application and name and save it.
Step 2 – Using Package Manager console, install package Nuget.Server.
$ install-package nuget.server
Step 3 – Look at the property of the project, under bottom part of web tab – find a port number. i.e – 42386. and open the server.
http:localhost:42386/nuget
Step 4 – Navigate the page and learn about how to user server.
Step 5 – Copy manually one nuget package and try using New NuGet Server using Visual Studip as source with http:localhost:42386/nuget
$ get-package -listavailable
Step 6 – Go to http:localhost:42386/nuget and Refresh the package feed.
Step 7 – How to access using command line – Modify the web.config and modify the apiKey as you want, Restart the application and to go http:localhost:42386/nuget to find the insructions to push the package.
$ nuget.exe push pack.nupkg -s http:localhost:42386/nuget SECRETKEY

3. Setup your Nuget Gallery

Step 1 – Download the zip software from https://github.com/NuGet/NuGetGallery

Step 2 – Unzip it under your visual studio project folder and setup with IIS.

Tools which is helpful to navigate the Nuget package feed.
LinkQPad4

The post How to Host your own Nuget Feed? | Step by Step Guide | Tutorial appeared first on scmGalaxy.

The post How to Install and Configure Nagios Server and Clients | Nagios Tutorial appeared first on scmGalaxy.

This tutorial is to setup the SVNServer from base using Apache2 in Ubantu only.

> sudo apt-get update

> sudo apt-get install subversion apache2 libapache2-svn apache2-utils

> sudo addgroup subversion

> sudo mkdir /home/svn

> sudo chown -R www-data:subversion /home/svn

> sudo chmod -R g+ws /home/svn

> sudo svnadmin create /home/svn/myWebsite

sudo vim /etc/apache2/mods-available/dav_svn.conf

& add the following entry at the end of file.

<Location /svn/myWebsite> DAV svn SVNPath /home/svn/myWebsite AuthType Basic AuthName "myWebsite subversion Repository" AuthUserFile /etc/subversion/passwd <LimitExcept GET PROPFIND OPTIONS REPORT> Require valid-user </LimitExcept> </Location>

sudo htpasswd -c /etc/subversion/passwd rajesh

sudo chown -R www-data:subversion /home/svn/myWebsite

sudo chmod -R g+rws /home/svn/myWebsite

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

sudo htpasswd /etc/subversion/passwd user1

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

All DONE.

Now you can access the SVN Server using….

http://uvo12exe3iancqqq622.vm.cld.sr/svn/myWebsite/

If you are still not able to open the url, that means you have IPtables services running and stopping you to access the server. For testing, you can stop the sudo ufw stop

The post How to Setup SVN Server with Apache2 in Ubantu? appeared first on scmGalaxy.

ScriptRock’s GuardRail

As DevOps gets more agile, infrastructure needs unit tests too. Enterprise startup ScriptRock offers cloud-hosted testing configuration tools to get you started.

The post Server configuration monitoring and diagnostics appeared first on scmGalaxy.

gsh – Run linux commands on many other linux server at once

Group Shell (also called gsh) is a remote shell multiplexor. It lets you control many remote shells at once in a single shell. Unlike other commands dispatchers, it is interactive, so shells spawned on the remote hosts are persistent.

GSH is a pluggable version of DSH (Distributed Shell) written in Python. Both a module and a command-line tool for running a shell command over multiple machines are included. GSH can be extended by adding new host loaders as well as hooking into various stages of the runtime.

It requires only a SSH server on the remote hosts, or some other way to open a remote shell.
gsh allows you to run commands on multiple hosts by adding tags to the gsh command.

e.g > gsh tag “remote command”

Important things to remember:
/etc/ghosts contains a list of all the servers and tags. gsh is a lot more fun once you’ve set up ssh keys to your servers

gsh [OPTIONS] SYSTEMS CMD…
SYSTEMS is a combination of ghost macros. See ghosts(1).

CMD is the command to run
-h, –help Display full help
-d, –debug Turn on exeuction debugging reports
-h, –no-host-prefix Does not prefix output lines with the host name
-s, –show-commands Displays the command before the output report
-n, –open-stdin Leaves stdin open when running (scary!)
-l, –user USER SSH’s to the host as user USER
-r, –run-locally Run commands locally (replaces $host with host)
-o, –self-remote Run locally instead of over SSH for local host
-V, –version Report the version and exit

You set up a /etc/ghosts file containing your servers in groups such as web, db, RHEL4, x86_64, or whatever (man ghosts) then you use that group when you call gsh.

How to run the gsh?
> gsh linux “cat /etc/redhat-release; uname -r”

You can also combine or split ghost groups, using cpanel+vps or web-RHEL4, for example.

Here’s an example /etc/ghosts file:

# Machines
 #
 # hostname OS-Version Hardware OS cp security
 linuxbrigade.com debian6 baremetal linux plesk iptables
 linuxbrigade.com centos5 vps linux cpanel csfcluster
 linuxbrigade.com debian7 baremetal linux plesk iptables
 linuxbrigade.com centos6 vps linux cpanel csfcluster
 linuxbrigade.com centos6 vps linux cpanel csfcluster
 linuxbrigade.com centos6 vps linux nocp denyhosts
 linuxbrigade.com debian6 baremetal linux plesk iptables
 linuxbrigade.com centos6 baremetal linux cpanel csf
 linuxbrigade.com centos5 vps linux cpanel csf

Reference url

http://www.linuxbrigade.com/run-the-same-command-on-many-linux-servers-at-once/
http://linux.die.net/man/1/gsh
https://github.com/gmjosack/gsh
http://outflux.net/unix/software/gsh/
http://outflux.net/unix/software/gsh/gsh.html

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If a linux-build-server suddenly starts getting slow, I would divide my approach / troubleshooting into 3 section as follows;

1. System Level troubleshooting

a. RAM related issues

b. Disk Space related Issues

c. Disk I/O read write issues

d. Network Hardware issues

e. Mount issues

f. Too Many process running in the machine

2. Application Level troubleshooting

a. Application is not behaving properly. Hit to Application log file OR application server log file OR web server Log file and try to understand the issues.

b. zombie process issues – Find out if any as such process which is causing the system performance issues.

c. Application Log – depends on the application installed, this can be referred and make use of the experience with the project and troubleshoot.

d. Web Server Log – we can check http, tomcat log as well.

e. Application Server Log – We can see jboss, weblogic logs to see if the application server response/receive time is the issues for slowness.

f. Memory Leak of any application – This is one of well known issues in lunux based server due to bad application coding. Many times this can be resolved either by fixing the code or rebooting. But many other solutions are there to apply.

3. Dependent Services troubleshooting

a. SMTP Response time – SMTP server is not responding faster which is causing delay in response and queue up many processes.

b. Network issues – There are many System performance issues is dependent on network or service which is depends on the network.

c. Firewall related issues

d. Antivirus related issues

 Some of the useful commands for troubleshooting are..

1. df –k

2. du –sh

3. top

4. uptime

5. ps –eaf | grep

6. vmstat

7. ping

8. tail –f <logfile>

9. iostat

10.free

11.kill -9

12.mount

13.sar

14.ifconfig eth0 | enable | disable

15.traceroute

16.netstat -r

17.nslookup

18.route

   There are various options available for each commands and depends on the need during the troubleshooting, right commands can be applied. To find arguments and their explanation, I usually refer google.com rather than man page.

The post If a linux-build-server suddenly starts getting slow, what would you check? appeared first on scmGalaxy.

DRAFT VERSION

1. Cleaning up Old Checkpoints
2. Playing with Symlink(Softlink) and Redirecting the ROOT folder to drive where we have enough place.
3. Deleting db.have and recreate it manually
4. Display disk space information on the server using “p4 diskspace”
5. Display size information for files in the depot using “p4 sizes”

The post Ways to Perforce server Disk Space Cleanup and Repos Size Management appeared first on scmGalaxy.

Know about the BuildForge Server before Troubleshooting.

1. What is the Full version of Build Forge being used
(for example Build Forge  7.1.2.2-1-0111).This can be obtained under the console interface by hovering the mouse over the Build Forge icon in the upper left hand corner.

2. What is Full version of operating system for both the Management Console and the agent host (used for the selector)

for example Windows XP Professional SP3 32 bit)
> AIX = oslevel
> HP-UX = uname -r
> Solaris = uname -r
> Red Hat = cat /etc/redhat-release
> SUSE = cat /etc/SuSE-release
> Windows = winver (in a command (cmd) window)

3. What is the Full version of the database being used.

4. In What situtation and how, When did the behavior first start to occur?

5. Need to Refer Tomcat (Catalina) logs on the Build forge Server. 
UNIX/Linux ($BF_HOME/server/tomcat/logs/log_from_date_of_error.log) We will only require the Tomcat Catalina log for today’s date or the date you first encountered the error, i.e. catalina.2012-01-17.log

6. Need to Refer Build Forge engine log
UNIX/Linux ($BF_HOME/log)

7. Need to review database log
UNIX/Linux ($BF_HOME/Platform/db.log)

Issues 1 – API: Access denied.
Solution – Click Here

Issues 2: Build forge Consol gets slow after login

Issues 3: API: Access denied while accessing Environments Menu.

Issues 4: Error message in catalina.DATE.log”A valid Engine Unique Identifier must be specified”

Issues 5: Once copying one Environment varibale and duplicating multiple times. Error Occured after copying 7th times same variables. Post login, once You clicks on “Environments” left navigation, Everyone gets Error called “API: Access denied” on page.

The post Buildforge common Issues and Troubleshooting | Buildforge Troubleshooting Guide appeared first on scmGalaxy.

Performance Optimization Checklist of Build Servers

Build Infrastructure Level

1.  Do you really need to build all source code or only the part of code which has changes?

2. Project should be divided into multiple modules/component which can be build independently and should be integrated when it needed.

3. Understand technology and make use of performance related features which will help you. e.g make, visual studio and maven has some feature which help us to compile only code which was changed also, some performance tuning features should be explored.

4. Compile dependent project only there are changes. no need to compile all the time.

5. Distribute application in non-compiled and to be compiled files. e.g src, docs and copy only src to comile. docs files cane be used while creating installer.

6. Plan for disk usage growth upfront.

Application Server level

1. Apache Server optimization and proper log setting
2. Disabling unused modules and component which will help performance.
3. Follow best practices of Module Configuration, Apache Server Configuration etc

 System level

1. Check if any background task/services is running which is consuming cpu/memory and can be  stopped and not relevant.
2. Keep system uptodate
3. Avoid using build server for any other task – If you must edit components or install software, build or edit the components on another machine and copy them over.
4. Use high speen drive for i/o operations

Build Server application level

http://www.cloudbees.com/sites/default/files/whitepapers/7WaysToOptimizeJenkins.pdf

1. Keep log files maintenance and truncate regularly. have limited build records.
2. Move build to document server. not to keep in build server
3. Take advantage of distribute build server using agents/slaves/nodes etc

The post Performance Optimization of Build Server | Performance Optimization Guide appeared first on scmGalaxy.

Hardware Configuration – Hardware Requirements for Build Server

Reference: The Build Master: Microsoft’s Software Configuration Management Best Practices

At a minimum, the build lab should have four machines:

Server that contains the Source Code Control program— This is your product. Do you really want this server residing someplace where you have little control over this box?

Debug build machine for the mainline builds— If you don’t separate your debug and release machines, you will accidentally ship debug binaries, which is not a good thing.

Release build machine for the mainline builds— This is a “golden goose” that turns out the “gold eggs” of your company or group. Treasure this machine like a princess, and guard it like all the king’s fortunes.

Internal release share server— This is one more piece of hardware that stores the “bread and butter” of the group or company. Don’t give up control of this hardware to anyone unless your IT department reports through your development group.

Hardware Requirements
Each machine in the preceding list should meet the following requirements:

Number of processors— This depends on the build tool you use. One is usually sufficient, because few build tools really take advantage of multiple processors.

Processor speed— The lab budget dictates this, but the faster the processor, the better it is.

Amount of installed RAM— Max out the machine. RAM is relatively cheap these days, especially when you consider the performance increase you get. Increasing the RAM is usually the first upgrade done when trying to improve the performance of any computer.

Number of hard drives— A minimum of two drives (or partitions) is preferred:

Drive 1 (C:) is for the operating system and installed applications.

Drive 2 (D:) is for building binaries, release shares, or the source database; the minimum space required is roughly ten times the space needed to build your application.

The split partitions are good because if you ever need to format or blow away a drive due to corruption, only part of the project will be affected. The recovery is much faster and easier.

Hard drive type— This is most likely SCSI, but it could be IDE.

Number of power supplies— If you purchase server class hardware (pizza boxes) that belong in racks, you need to consider how many power supplies to order.

Motherboard BIOS version— This does make a difference. Make sure you note what is being used and standardize on it.

The post Hardware Configuration – What are the Hardware Requirements for Build Server? appeared first on scmGalaxy.

Different Perforce Tools and Their Short Summary

Clients
P4V: Visual Client – (Included in the P4V Installer)
Provides access to versioned files through a graphical interface and also includes tools for merging and visualizing code evolution.
P4Merge: Visual Merge Tool – (Included in the P4V Installer)
Provides graphical three-way merging and side-by-side file comparisons
P4: Command-Line Client – (Included in the Perforce Server Windows Installer)
(Included in the Perforce Server Windows Installer)
P4Web: Web Client – (Included in the P4Web Installer)
Provides convenient access to versioned files through popular web browsers

Server
P4D: Server – (Included in the Perforce Server Windows Installer)
Stores and manages access to versioned files, tracks user operations and records all activity in a centralized database.
P4P: Proxy Server – (Included in the Perforce Server Windows Installer)
A self-maintaining proxy server that caches versioned files remotely on distributed networks.

Plug-ins & Integrations
P4WSAD: Plug-in for Eclipse and WebSphere Studio
Access Perforce from within the Eclipse IDE and the Rational/WebSphere Studio WorkBench family of products
P4SCC: SCC Plug-in – (Included in the P4V Installer)
Enables you to perform Perforce operations from within IDEs that support the Microsoft SCC API including Visual Studio.
P4EXP: Plug-in for Windows Explorer – (Included in the P4V Installer)
Allows Windows users direct access to Perforce.
P4DTG: Defect Tracking Gateway – (Included in the P4DTG Installer)
Allows information to be shared between Perforce’s basic defect tracking system and external defect tracking systems.
P4GT: Plug-in for Graphical Tools
Provides seamless access to version control for files from within Adobe Photoshop, SoftImage XSI, Autodesk’s 3ds max, and Maya
P4OFC: Plug-in for Microsoft Office
Allows documents to be easily stored and managed in Perforce directly from Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Project.

Tools & Utilities
P4Report: Reporting System
Supports leading tools such as Crystal Reports, Microsoft Access, and Microsoft Excel, or any reporting
tool that interfaces with an ODBC data source.
P4Thumb: Thumbnail Generator
Creates thumbnails of graphics files managed by Perforce and stores the thumbnails in the server for presentation in P4V.
P4FTP: FTP Plug-in
Allows FTP clients like Dreamweaver, Netscape, and Internet Explorer to access files in Perforce depots.’
Links to Download: http://www.perforce.com/perforce/downloads/platform.html

Good Video Tutorial Links
http://www.perforce.com/perforce/media_library/tutorials.html
http://www.perforce.com/perforce/demo/testdrive.html

The post Different Perforce Tools and Their Short Summary | Know About Different Perforce tools appeared first on scmGalaxy.

1. netstat -a
Check to make sure that the server is running. netstat -a gives a list of all processes listening on network ports. Look for lines that contain “LISTEN” and “1666” (or whatever port you have Perforce running on.)  If you do not see such a line, the server is not running.

2. p4 -p 127.0.0.1:1666 info
Verify that the server accepts local connections using the localhost address from the server machine.
If you cannot connect check and make sure P4PORT is set to “1666” for the server. This ensures the server is listening on all interfaces.  Setting P4PORT to ‘localhost:1666’ will set it to only allow connections from the local machine.

Note:
Make sure that it is set properly with ‘p4 set -S Perforce P4PORT’ and if it’s not, set it:
p4 set -S Perforce P4PORT=1666

On Linux/Mac/Unix, instead of using ‘p4 set’, you can either set the environment variable $P4PORT or use the ‘-p’ flag to p4d:
p4d -r $P4ROOT -p 1666 [other flags]

3. ping server
Verify network connectivity by pinging the server from the client. If you cannot ping the server, then either ICMP is being blocked or there is a network issue outside of Perforce.

4. telnet <server> <port>
Verify that the server port is reachable by “telnet <server> <port>”. This can give you a descriptive error or confirm a connection. Note that on Windows servers the telnet utility might not be available by default; if it is not available, you can install it from your Programs and Features control panel item. In the sidebar there is a Turn Windows Features On or Off, select it and then check Telnet Client in the list. Click OK.

5. Check port filters/firewalls settings
If you still cannot connect, then verify the TCP/IP properties settings for any port filters/firewalls. If there is a firewall, make sure that incoming connections to port 1666 are permitted, and that all existing outbound connections are permitted (the latter is usually standard). On Windows machines, go to Control Panel -> Windows Firewall, click on Advanced Settings, and then click on Inbound Rules on the sidebar. Make sure p4d is enabled.

6. DNS is resolving the IP address correctly
Check to make sure that DNS is resolving the IP address correctly. Pinging by DNS name is quick verification. “nslookup <hostname>” or “dig <hostname>” can also work.

7. using the IP address
Run the Perforce command using the IP address instead of DNS name. If IP address works, suspect DNS resolution problems or an incorrectly spelled hostname. If IP address does not work, suspect a problem with either host table entries or routing or other network problems. The commands “route” and “arp -a” can be helpful in this regard.

8. If problem is intermittent, suspect hardware, interface configuration, or congestion problems. Tools such as fping and wireshark are useful for uncovering these sorts of errors.

9. tracert <perforce_server
Check for inordinate delays with the traceroute command “tracert <perforce_server>”. On linux, it is called “traceroute”.

Reference…
http://kb.perforce.com/article/905

The post Perforce Network Troubleshooting Guide | How to Resolve Perforce Network Issues? appeared first on scmGalaxy.

After a quick detour to install Notepad++, I’m on my way to installing Magento. Before I can get into the meat of it, though, I do require a few prerequisites.

From the installation instructions, installing Magento requires:

• Apache 1.3.x or Apache 2
• PHP 5.2.0 and above with Safe mode off
• MySQL 4.1.20 and above

After a brief search, I happened upon a very handy site (Yes, my current dev machine runs Windows 7). No sense reinventing the wheel, so these instructions should do nicely.

I’ve chosen the latest stable release, 2.2.17, MD5-verified and ready to install.

Always one to put the right foot forward… The first thing I’ve done is to immediately download the wrong version (src) instead of the neatly prepped installer (msi) as per the instructions. Round 1 goes to my eagerness, but after a neat revisit to the Apache download page, I’m off in the right direction.

After kicking off the Apache installer, my first instinct was to twitch at the frozen installer progress (Did the instructions forget about that ghastly Windows 7 User Account Control?), but after only a brief pause, the UAC prompt has displayed and the Apache web server installation is back on track.

None the worse for wear, time for the next step.

PHP

I’ve pretty much kaboshed most of the PHP installation instructions, mostly due to its avoidance of the handy PHP for Windows installer. Pointing the installer to the Apache web server’s cgi-bin folder seems like a good idea.

A configuration change…

; Directory in which the loadable extensions (modules) reside.
; http://php.net/extension-dir
; extension_dir = “./”
; On windows:
extension_dir = “ext” ; Uncommented (removed the semicolon at the beginning of) this line

… and I’m back to the instructions. After an update to my environment variables, looks like it’s time for a reboot… and sleep.

I’ll be leaving the MySQL install (and testing Apache web server and PHP) ’til tomorrow.

The post Apache web server Installation Guide, know how to Install Apache web server on Windows 7? appeared first on scmGalaxy.