Juniper VPN in Fedora

Whilst I am not a fan of Juniper Network Connect in the last few years I have had to connect to several networks that use it.  The biggest problem with it is that it is a combination of Java and a 32bit C library which will not work when executed with a 64bit version of Java.
There are other ways of connecting such as the Mad Scientist script but if you use things like two-factor authentication this will not work.  So I brought together things I have learnt from web postings about getting it to work in Ubuntu and have created these steps.  They work in Fedora 17 and should work in 16 too:

Step 1

We need to install OpenJDK Java, we also need xterm for the root password during installation:

sudo yum install java-1.7.0-openjdk.i686 java-1.7.0-openjdk.x86_64 icedtea-web xterm

Step 2

Now we need to tell Java to execute the Juniper binaries in 32bit mode but everything else in 64bit mode, to do this we first rename the 64bit Java binary:

cd /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.7.0-openjdk.x86_64/bin/
mv java java.orig

Then create a replacement file called “java” with the following:

#!/bin/bash
if [ $3x = "NCx" ]
then
    /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.7.0-openjdk/bin/java "$@"
else
    /usr/lib/jvm/jre-1.7.0-openjdk.x86_64/bin/java.orig "$@"
fi

Finally make this executable:

sudo chmod +x java

Step 3

Log on to your VPN's website as normal, an xterm session will pop up for your sudo password the first time you use this to install it.

New Gerrit and Jenkins styles are live

After a bit of tweaking and improvements following feedback from various people the new changes to Jenkins and Gerrit are now live. The changes will also be rolled out onto Stackforge in the next 24 hours.

I've had a lot of great feedback in the few hours the changes have been live, many love it and some have suggestions for improvements. This is great, we know the look could use a bit of refining here and there. What makes this truly awesome is that the styles are kept in an OpenStack project with which anyone can file bugs or send patches up to Gerrit.

To modify the styles simply grab the openstack-ci-puppet repo and look in the Gerrit and Jenkins modules for the files. If you wish to file a bug, please do so in the OpenStack CI bugs page.

Thanks again for the great feedback so far. Hopefully this has made the lives of many of you that little bit easier (or at least stop your eyes bleeding).

The real way to start hacking on OpenStack

I've seen recent attempts at blog posts to show how to get started at hacking on an OpenStack project.  Unfortunately they seem to have over-complicated the issue for new users.  As part of the Core Infrastructure team it is my job to make submitting, reviewing and merging code easier for developers.  This includes documenting that process, so here goes :)

1. You need a Launchpad account and need to be joined to the Openstack team.  You can also join the team of one of the many subprojects if you want to.  Make sure Launchpad has your SSH key, Gerrit (the code review system) uses this.
2. Sign the CLA as outlined in section 3 of the How To Contribute wiki page
3. Tell git your details:
   

   git config --global user.name "Firstname Lastname"
   git config --global user.email "your_email@youremail.com" 

4. Install git-review. This tool takes a lot of the pain out of remembering commands to push code up to Gerrit for review and to pull it back down to edit it. It is installed using:

   pip install git-review

   Several Linux distributions (notably Fedora 16 and Ubuntu 12.04) are also starting to include git-review in their repositories so it can also be installed using the standard package manager.
5. Grab a tree to hack on, for example for Nova you would do:
   

   git clone git://github.com/openstack/nova.git

6. Checkout a new branch to hack on:
   

   git checkout -b TOPIC-BRANCH

7. Start hacking
8. Run the test suite locally to make sure nothing broke
9. Commit your work using:

   git commit -a

   or you can use the following to edit a previous commit:

   git commit -a --amend

10. Push the commit up for code review using:

    git review

    That is the awesome tool we installed earlier that does a lot of hard work for you
11. Watch your email or review site, it will automatically send your code for a battery of tests on our Jenkins setup and the core team for the project will review your code. If there is any changes that should be made they will let you know.
12. When all is good the review site will automatically merge your code

Obviously nearly half of that list are tasks you will only need to perform once. So as you can see it is pretty darn simple to get started. If anyone gets stuck they are welcome to shout out in the #openstack-dev IRC channel or the OpenStack mailing list. For more information on developer work flow please see the Gerrit Workflow page, I'm not ashamed to say I still have it as a pinned tab :)

Changes coming to Gerrit's style

Gerrit is a fantastic tool for performing code reviews and automating many of the tasks which can become quite complex. Unfortunately its default style is not the most attractive thing to look at all day. Yesterday I was tasked with skinning Gerrit to make it more in-line with Openstack. This was not as easy a task as I first anticipated, mostly down to not having the ability to edit the HTML layout very much without editing Gerrit's source.

The result isn't perfect but hopefully a notable improvement which will be coming to an Openstack review site near you soon.  Here is the before and after shots:

A Change in Direction

In 2008 my career took a sudden unexpected turn into the world of MySQL when I was offered a job at Sun.  Since then MySQL and it's forks have been a big part of my life.  The whole community (I mean the people, not the companies) around MySQL are part of what really drove me.

Unfortunately to me something has changed.  I am not exactly sure what it is, but I am sure it is not just me because others have expressed it in conversation too.  I wasn't enjoying things as much as I used to and for several reasons, some related to this, I have been quite ill.

Recently I was approached by HP's new cloud division who wanted me to work on OpenStack.  It seemed the perfect opportunity to start something new inside a new vibrant community.  That is not to say I have anything against my previous employer, SkySQL.  They are doing a fantastic job with a great vision and I wish them well in the future.

So, I have been working on OpenStack's Core Infrastructure team for a week and a half now and so far I am loving it.  The community is very welcoming and it is refreshing to see a development model similar to the one used in Drizzle so widely adopted.  I look forward to diving deeper into the OpenStack world and blogging about it as I go.

Mydumper 0.5.1 released

After much feedback from the community who have been using mydumper I have created the first bugfix release of the 0.5 series of mydumper.  Changes in this release are as follows:

• Fix MySQL 5.0 compile issue


• Make the metadata file visible (after muliple requests)


• Add --no-lock option to mydumper


• First --daemon snapshot is now at execution instead of the first timed interval


• Fix CentOS 5.x compile issue (also affected Mac OSX)


• Fix libmysqlclient search bug


• Add cppcheck target


• Fix errors flaged by cppcheck


• Add option to turn off docs build


• Add status output at end of CMake

To obtain this release you can download it from Launchpad.

Many thanks to everyone who has been trying it and giving feedback.

An apology to MySQL@Oracle

About a week ago I appeared to have started an argument which has now spanned several blog post comments, 39 Google+ comments and two other blog posts.  So the first thing I want to do is apologise to the MySQL@Oracle staff (and Sheeri).  I was disagreeing on the use of 'The' whilst the real problem is my personal understanding the meaning of the word/name/trademark 'MySQL'.  You guys are right and I am wrong.  To correct this I'll refer to what I used to call the "MySQL Ecosystem" as the Open Database Community until someone has a cool name for it.

The arguments were so severe that last week I was even thinking about leaving the Open Database Community.  Apart from Drizzle, mydumper and a few other things I don't contribute as much useful content I used to now anyway.  I would need about another 20 hours in every day to do as much as I would like to do.  But for now I will just stay more in the background just pushing out code to anyone who wants it.

In reply to Herik's post, please don't blame Monty Taylor, this was all my fault.  Also I never intended for the argument to be hidden (or exist at all) on Google+.  Someone at Oracle pointed out that it was wrong to make any of those comments public, so they will stay hidden for now.