Of course, don’t go using these new DVD’s to install agents into an older version of Simpana. i.e. 9.0 SP1a for example, as you will have unexpected results and an unsupported configuration.

 
Update with desired ftp location;

qoperation execscript -sn SetKeyIntoGlobalParamTbl.sql -si "Patch FTP Site" -si y -si "download.ftp.com"

Update with the username and password, using plain text:

qoperation execscript -sn SetKeyIntoGlobalParamTbl.sql -si "Patch FTP Site UserName" -si y -si "user"
qoperation execscript -sn SetKeyIntoGlobalParamTbl.sql -si "Patch FTP Site Password" -si y -p1 "password"

In the ftp site, do not include ftp:// as this is NOT REQUIRED.

Our son wasn’t sick, or at least hadn’t got sick with what we got. I certainly hope he doesn’t as a stomach bug is not the most pleasant thing to have at all and I would hate for him to get it. Cross fingers he doesn’t.

Work was pretty busy today, but that’s alright, as I had plenty to catch up on and I rather being busy anyways.

Simpana 9.0 SP1a

Simpana 9.0 SP1b

As you can clearly see, the Download From has been removed from the top most part of the window. I’ve had folks tell me they would change this URL to stop updates from being downloaded, even if autoupdate jobs got enabled.

I guess going forward, the URL that use to be displayed will need to be put into the hosts file and pointing to 127.0.0.1 to ensure that if scheduled updates won’t download.

Upon further review of the Readme with the SP1b patch, I found the following, which relates to the above UI change on the product.

FTP Server information for download updates does not need to be shown to the user.
(Update 33815)

I’ve already found one part of the UI that has changed between SP1A and SP1B. I’ll post a screen capture soon as I get a chance in the next few days. I am sure the 1 I found is possibly not the only one seen, so if anyone see’s any others, post up and link so I can collect a list of differences in the UI.

Will post more in the coming weeks.

Apart from an inital hiccup, it seems fine. Upgrade complete. Unfortunately I had to shutdown the VPS instance to increase a big of diskspace onto the root, so that the dist-upgrade had enough disk space.

In other news, had a bit of a funny issue today at work. It was related to domain name resolution, and oddly enough another solution to the issue popped into my head just a while ago. It’s funny how this happens to us IT folk.

Basically it looked like a host lookup was failing and we thought maybe the host record is missing from the internal dcs, while it exists in the management host we have. As everything works for the customer when the host is using dns from our management servers, but soon as we use the customer primary dns it seems to fail. First thought posible record missing, however then it dawned on me that it could be related to the resolv.conf on the host.

Going from memory I think the resolv.conf is the issue. I remember it containing the following options;

domain blah.blah.com
nameserver w.x.y.z
#nameserver a.b.c.d
search blah.blah.com
search blah2.blah.com

And if the above holds true, I think I know why. The host record exists both in blah.blah.com and in blah2.blah.com. However, nameserver w.x.y.z only serves blah.blah.com, and nameserver a.b.c.d only serves blah2.blah.com. From my understanding of the man pages for resolv.conf, it looks like you shouldn’t use search/domain together, and if you do then only the last instance of search is ever used, which in this case means everytime we try to lookup host.blah2.blah.com with the primary nameserver set as w.x.y.z it will always fail. If we hashed out the domain line, it would work, as now resolver would search for both domain suffix strings against the host being used in the lookup.

I’ll check the resolv.conf tomorrow when I am back in the office, but I am pretty certain this is how it was, however if its not then back to the drawing board (as it might then end up being a missing host record between the two domains/nameservers).

Just so we are clear, technically the host shouldn’t be using the nameserver a.b.c.d, nor domain suffix blah2.blah.com (as this is ONLY to be used from the management node) and not for the entire environment, will soon be making sure no one else depends on it and stopping it from answering requests in the future.

I managed to close about 50% of those in the first 24 hours of accepting them. Don’t quote me on the average, as I don’t remember, but in I do know I was well above the average on all statistics I saw at the time.

It’s been stated it would be good for me to help others learn to work as effectively as I do. Although thinking about it, I think this is somewhat stupid. Everyone has the same chance to accept this amount of work, and if someone is lazy no amount of education by others to help them work things better will change that. Unless of course the manager/team leader makes it a directive to lift one’s game. I don’t think me alone attempting to change the way someone works will make much difference. You could show them how to better use time/skills and tools. But at the end of the day, they could just go back to the way they have always worked (or to be lazy).

I was a little annoyed with the prospect, although was happy to give it a go. Although the more I now think of it, I realise that myself alone probably won’t make a difference, especially if the person who is being shown is not willing to change and hasn’t been told they must improve. I am sure many folks would relate to what I am trying to say.

I had an excellent year, and well the whole economic down turn is a major pain, as I was going for a promotion which basically is not going to happen for atleast another 12 months, and well is not even assured at the end of that.

Think I will take my concerns about this whole proposal to my manager in the next week or so, as it’s not been considered or stated how the whole proposal would be measured or assessed. Personally I think the people it affects should be told it needs to be on their own IDP.

Anyways, just my little rant..

EDIT: And why would I attempt to reduce my work, when it is something that clearly makes me stand out from the bunch. Especially in times when we know that redunancies are possible for now and some time into the future. If anything, you’d think it would be in everyones best interest to work a little more productive. It’s not hard to pickup a high priority case, and several other lower priority work. Besides which, it doesn’t take much to take a little pride in your work, and make the customer feel important. It certainly goes a long way, and most of the time is rewarding when they appreciate it enough to write an email thanking you for the effort. I just don’t understand why some people don’t get it. It’s not bloody rocket science.

I guess it’s going to take me a few days adjust back to things. Atleast I have managed to catch up on all the emails and managed to sort everything as it should be. I hate having an INBOX which is cluttered with lots of emails.