dannyman.toldme.com

Radar

I’m going to try and collect here a list of potentially useful or otherwise interesting resources that I may want to refer to in the future.

Systems Administration

bcfg2

Framework for consistent configuration management across many Unix systems. Danny says: “like cfengine, but written for Systems Administration, and therefor hopefully easier to adopt.” Or, as they put it: “Bcfg2 has been designed from the ground up to support gentle reconciliation between the specification and current client states. It is designed to gracefully cope with manual system modifications.”

ClusterSSH (cssh)

The “shotgun” approach to cluster management: could be handy in a pinch. “You run a utility (cssh) providing a number of server names as parameters, and then xterms opens up to each server with an extra “console” window. Anything typed into the console is replicated into each server window (so, for examples, you can edit the same file on N machines at the same time, or run the same commands with the same parameters across those servers).”

Ganeti

Ganeti is a virtual server management software tool built on top of Xen virtual machine monitor and other Open Source software.

slack

“slack is a configuration management system designed to appeal to lazy admins. It’s an evolution from the usual “put files in some central directory” that is faily common practice.” Danny says: “Like bcfg2, without the creepy XML. I grabbed the tarball and read doc/slack-intro and I think I may actually understand slack. Allegedly in use at Google.”

tinyldap

Tinyldap is an attempt to write a very small and very fast LDAP server. Tinyldap was written as a reaction to OpenLDAP’s performance.

Varnish

“Varnish is a state-of-the-art, high-performance HTTP accelerator.” May be a nice proxy alternative to Squid.

Web Development

plotr

JavaScript to generate charts and graphs inline.

Web Development: WordPress

Writing Secure WordPress Plugins

Star rating for Reviews

A plugin that facilitates “star rating” info for reviews–might be neat to write a “Yelp Sync” plugin someday.

Professional Development

Technical Management Institute

Chris Sims is providing workshops on the various aspects of management in technical organizations. Bay Area.