Dell have a really cool product: DRAC 5. This management card provides access to a machine if you can't otherwise reach it, by allowing, for example, a HTTPS connection to the card:
At this point, a systems administrator enters her credentials, and then has access to the management functions of the card. For example, take on the remote console, reboot or power off the machine, etc.
But: what do you do if you've forgotten the default password? Just click help, on the top right of the web page, and Dell kindly reminds you.
Another great step in securing your IT systems…
I know there are newer versions coming, I know it is just a toy, my fingers are too fat to type comfortably on its small keyboard, but Asus' Eee PC is mega cool, and I couldn't resist.
Can this minature Linux device be used by non-technical users? It certainly can, and I intend to prove that shortly.
Indigo must be pretty good:
Automatically send emails based on events, like power failure
Now, I wonder how they do that… 
[via]
I use Nagios to monitor my small network, so I wanted to add my ReadyNAS NV+ to the setup and chose to do so with SNMP. The ReadyNAS supports SNMP, but you must enable it in FrontView.
Download READYNAS-MIB.txt and drop it into /usr/share/snmp/mibs/ (or wherever you keep your MIBS).
After enabling SNMP on your NAS, and assigning a community name (e.g. public) to the service, test it. In the following example, I walk down the READYNAS MIB (if you omit the OID, you see all the variables the ReadyNAS makes available):
snmpwalk <del>m ALL -v 2c -c public ip</del>address .1.3.6.1.4.1.4526
READYNAS-MIB::nasMgrSoftwareVersion.0 = STRING: "4.01c1-p1"
READYNAS-MIB::diskNumber.1 = INTEGER: 1
READYNAS-MIB::diskNumber.2 = INTEGER: 2
READYNAS-MIB::diskNumber.3 = INTEGER: 3
READYNAS-MIB::diskNumber.4 = INTEGER: 4
READYNAS-MIB::diskChannel.1 = INTEGER: 1
READYNAS-MIB::diskChannel.2 = INTEGER: 2
READYNAS-MIB::diskChannel.3 = INTEGER: 3
READYNAS-MIB::diskChannel.4 = INTEGER: 4
READYNAS-MIB::diskModel.1 = STRING: " Seagate ST3500630NS 465 GB"
READYNAS-MIB::diskModel.2 = STRING: " Seagate ST3500630NS 465 GB"
...
...
There are two values I'm mostly interested in: the state of the volume and the NAS' temperature, so I created appropriate services in Nagios, and added a check command to those using the check_snmp plugin. For example, to monitor the device's temperature, I use:
check_snmp <del>H ip -C public -P 2c -o READYNAS</del>MIB::temperatureValue.1
-w 20:35 -c 15:40
If you run that on your machine's command line, it prints out something similar to this:
SNMP OK - 26 | READYNAS-MIB::temperatureValue.1=26
This check will warn you when the reported temperature is below 20 or above 35, and it will set a critical result for Nagios, when it is below 15 or above 40C.
I recommend you have a look at the other SNMP OIDs the device has to offer: there are lots of goodies there!
The ATI Radeon 9800 in the missus' PC died of heat on the weekend. Not that it was so hot here, but I opened the case, and it appears that the fan on the card got stuck, so the card overheated.
I called Dell support. After discussing the situation with two different people, both with a very strong Polish accent, I asked for a replacement card to be sent to my address.
No problem, said they; it is a replacement, so we send you a new one, and you send us your old one. Sure, and what will that cost? It costs EUR 230.00 plus VAT, postage and packing.
What?
Just as well I checked online while we are talking; the street price of the card is around EUR 40.00. I told the Dell Poles the same, and they said they couldn't do anything about it. Ok, thanks, bye.
This afternoon I'll pick up a replacement. Just phoned and had one put aside. The brand new graphics adapter will cost EUR 45.00 (and I get to keep the old adapter, not that it'll be of any use).
If Dell charged that amount for sending the spare part with a guy who replaces it, I'd understand, but they don't.
That sucks.
The manual is right: it takes a while for disk expansion to complete.
I added two more 500GB disks to my gear. The first message I got when I powered up the device was:
One or more expansion disks will be initialized and scanned for bad blocks.
About 2.5 hours later, the NV said:
Disk initialization successfully finished. At this time you can reboot the device to complete the volume expansion process.
whereupon I rebooted the NAS. That was five hours ago, and the expansion is still running, but I'm confident it will finish sometime.
I got this message sent to me by my harddisks:
Subject: Disk usage warning (nv)
Volume C is approaching capacity:
80% used
91G available
Oh. Those filled up quickly… Must be all the writing I'm doing at the moment…
Father Christmas seems to expect me to be even more punctual than I usually am. This radio-controlled Junghans Mega 1000 was under the tree.
Methinks it suits me well.
