Archive for the ‘News’ Category

SugarCRM Chef Cookbook Published

After delaying cleanup on the code for a week or two, I’ve published my cookbook for deploying SugarCRM CE using Opscode Chef. The cookbook utilizes the community cookbooks from Opscode for deploying the standard LAMP stack on a machine, grabs a copy of the latest stable build of SugarCRM CE from Github, and creates a silent installer file for super-easy installation of SugarCRM.

Some quick notes on setup:

Usage

Usage is super easy, especially with a general knowledge of Chef. I’m not going to dive into setting up Chef, they’ve got some great documentation for that.

You’ll need to pull down the php, apache2, mysql, openssl, and git community cookbooks from Opscode and upload to your organization as well.

Then, you can just download the sugarcrm cookbook and upload to your organization:
knife cookbook site vendor sugarcrm
knife cookbook upload sugarcrm

Then, add the sugarcrm recipe to whatever node or role you desire. For me, I created a role for sugarcrm:
$ knife role show sugarcrmchef_type: role
default_attributes:
description:
env_run_lists:
json_class: Chef::Role
name: sugarcrm
override_attributes:
run_list: recipe[sugarcrm]

You can either bootstrap a new VM / cloud instance or apply the role to an existing machine and do a run of chef-client.

For my example, I created a new EC2 instance based on Ubuntu (can be any OS that the Opscode community cookbooks support):
knife ec2 server create -r 'role[sugarcrm]' --image ami-7000f019 -d ubuntu10.04-apt -S mykey -x ubuntu -i ~/.ssh/mykey.pem

Then, you can navigate to your server’s FQDN/sugarcrm in your browser to complete the install. Not to worry, the cookbook configures a config_si.php (si = silent installer), so no need to know any details about your install.

Once complete, you’ll reach the login page. Default login is admin/admin (which can be overridden with override attributes in the role/node).

That’s it!

Filed under How-Tos / Tips, News : Comments (0) : Apr 30th, 2011

Monitor APC Stats with Zenoss

I’ve (finally) published my first public project to the Internets! It’s a set of scripts to grab stats from the APC PHP opcode cacher for graphing inside Zenoss (though should be compatible with Nagios). It’s incredibly simple, but I have yet to find anyone else who has done this for Zenoss so I thought I would share in case it’s helpful. For now, it just grabs the hit ratio of the cache.

In the famous last words of many an open source project, “In the future, I plan on adding”:

  1. fragmentation graphs
  2. a ZenPack for easy installation
  3. Ideas?

Grab the scripts at Github and rough install instructions are listed on the README page.

Here’s a fairly boring screenshot of the graph in action:

Filed under How-Tos / Tips, News : Comments (1) : Jan 28th, 2011

Who’s Laughing Now? Windows Mobile to Copy iPhone?

Ballmer’s famous reaction to the iPhone seems all the more funnier now, looking back. According to claims, Microsoft is planning some changes for Windows Mobile 7:

  1. No multitasking
  2. Use a push notification for updates
  3. Use the iPod Touch ZuneHD interface
  4. Force apps to be installed via the iTunes App Store Windows Marketplace

While these changes aren’t confirmed yet, even if one or two of those changes are true, they scream jealousy. Why these changes? Microsoft needs to be able to compete with Apple on speed, battery life, and stability. While I am certainly not in any inner-circles close to this, I’m sure Microsoft is finding that people want stability, responsiveness, and good battery life in their cell phones. I know that responsiveness and stability are top on my list (I haven’t been overly happy with a phone with the exception of my BlackBerry ((no AT&T coverage in my area))  for some time now over those very things).

Whether Microsoft wants it or not, the world is slowly drifting away from do-it-all devices that have to be setup by power users. The world wants phones that they can turn on, install apps, and start using without having to worry about one application slowing down the phone or having too many open causing the phone to crash.

But not to worry, to those now doubting Microsoft, they thought of all of these radical changes all on their own..

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Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Feb 9th, 2010

Gmail to Add Twitter-Like Clutter

While I can’t say that I’m surprised, I’m a bit frustrated and disappointed in Google over the recent news that they are adding a Twitter-like clutter status to the Gmail interface. While I appreciate fancy new tools built into apps I already use as much as the next geek, I really, really don’t need yet another social networking tool to update, integrate, and look at. Seriously, it’s not new content. Does anyone really put unique content on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and every other social networking site they belong to? I certainly don’t and don’t know anyone who does. My accounts are all inter-twined and I’m tired of having to filter out the duplicate data on those sites. Adding yet another list of the same things from my friends is just clutter in a used-to-be clean interface.

UPDATE:

According to a Slashdot article today, the problem looks like it may be much worse. According to the article, Gmail will be adding Facebook-like photo albums and comment feeds. Fortunately, the Gmail social networking tools are opt-in, so perhaps I won’t have to see the clutter when I don’t want to? We’ll see.

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Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Feb 9th, 2010

IE Is The Only Secure Browser? Please

It’s no secret that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been taking a beating over the past week. After all, Google, the world’s most popular search engine company has blamed a vulnerability in IE for allowing attacks on its systems. After Microsoft admitted it was indeed a flaw in IE that made the attacks possible, the German government released a statement urging people to switch browsers and a similar statement from the government in France soon followed. Microsoft obviously came back with a statement urging users that those governments’ advise was far too strong of a reaction.

Part if Microsoft’s message was spot-on. Switching to a different browser due to a single flaw is a really over-dramatic reaction to the situation. If I immediately stopped using any product that had a vulnerability, I would communicate with no one. Even physical mail can be stolen and has been stolen in the past, therefore one would be forced to live in a hole in the ground, not communicating at all. I would recommend not using IE for far bigger reasons than this single vulnerability, but switching solely because of this is purely sensationalism.

On the other hand, the rest of Microsoft’s message was taken to the opposite extreme. They responded by informing users that switching to a different browser would lead them to an even greater threat. Quoting from Cliff Evans at Microsoft (via TechRadar.com):

The net effect of switching [from IE] is that you will end up on less secure browser

The risk [over this specific] exploit is minimal compared to Firefox or other competing browsers… you will be opening yourself up to security issues.

I’m not aware that the vulnerability exists in other products, but those products may have other vulnerabilities.

As much as I want to say that was intended as a joke, it’s not. Yup, instead of using products that might have vulnerabilities that Microsoft’s UK Security Chief “isn’t aware of”, users should feel comfortable using a browser that has known vulnerabilities used in a real life attack. No, I’m not switching up my stance that users should switch purely for this one incident, but to claim IE as the only secure browser in the world is absolutely ridiculous and laughable. IE’s history doesn’t help it much, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one and let that part go.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Jan 19th, 2010

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