Showing posts with label free. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free. Show all posts

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Why Open Source in Company ?

4. Your needs, your choiceWhen you're going to begin another organization and you need to make open-source programming the main thrust behind all innovation choices. Outside of it being an unfathomably respectable and good cause, what are the key information guides you require toward completely see before actualizing this technique?

The inquiry may appear to be stacked. Truth be told, each business is diverse, and the driving innovation that helps a business to succeed fluctuates. Indeed, even along these lines, there are a few universals that stand valid over the playing field. Those universals apply to open source and shut source alike. Anyway when you're considering beginning up an organization (or relocating a current organization), what do you have to consider while doing as such with open-source programming?
Lets Try few options......

1. Save Money using Open source .

This civil argument needs to at long last (and authoritatively) be put to rest. Study after study has been done- -some of which are supported studies by contributed gatherings -however the reality of the situation is both beginning and continuous expenses will be lower in the event that you pick open source. A significant number of the old studies indicated one specific thought that is, generally, no more applicable -expense connected with preparing clients. Here's the thing, 90% of what individuals do now is done inside a web program. Let's be honest, most end clients today could get by with a Chromebook and still have the capacity to accomplish their employments. Nobody needs to be prepared on the best way to utilize a web program. Moreover, if your clients must be prepared on the best way to utilize electronic programming, the stage won't make any difference.
When you add to this the huge expense you'll save money on your organization's spine (server stages and programming), the reserve funds truly begin including. Furthermore, on the server side, will be utilizing open source at any rate. You can't escape it now. Anyway, when you know deciding on CentOS or openSUSE as your server stage could spare you a huge number of dollars in authorizing expenses, why might you pick some other course? Ask any director who has worked with Linux servers, and you'll discover those servers require far less upkeep and upkeep than the contender arrangements.

2. Nothing is New ......

Consider this... endeavor level organizations are now relying upon open source. They aren't simply fiddling in different and sundry open-source ventures -they rely on upon an exhibit of open-source programming to keep them useful. We're talking lofty information, and it doesn't get any greater than that. A considerable measure of new companies who consider the open-source way accept they are an island, uncontrolled on an ocean. That couldn't possibly be more off-base. All that you are considering has been done and finished with incredible achievement. Consider organizations like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter- -all of which place the foundation of their business on open-source programming. In the event that they can do it, you can do it. Furthermore, when you're uncertain of how to continue, you just need to take after their cases. Stay aware of Google's open-source blog or Facebook's open-source ventures.

3. Headaches will lessen

At the point when working inside an exclusive biological system, one of the greatest issues that will deplete your financial plan and your profit is framework cleaning. With enough end clients, the IT office can rapidly get to be overpowered with malware and infection cleanup demands. When you utilize open-source stages, (for example, Linux), this won't be the situation. Despite the fact that there are bounty who will contend against the utilization of Linux on the desktop, envision how your main concern would feel if gainfulness was sometimes stopped by malware and infections? I'm not saying that benefit will never be put on respite, yet you'll see an enormous decrease in your stoppage recurrence. Your IT office can then concentrate on what's truly vital, for example, servers, systems, and security.

4. Your Choice, Your Selection

When you're working with restrictive frameworks, you work how you're advised to function. On the off chance that you need Windows or OS X, you utilize their interfaces and hold fast to how they manage. Despite what might be expected, on the off chance that you work with open source, you work your direction. On the off chance that you don't care for the way something acts or looks, you transform it. In the event that you don't care for the default client interface that ships with Ubuntu Linux, utilize an alternate flavor. Concerning customization and open source, there are no constraints. This is your business, and you ought to have the capacity to make the innovation comply with your needs- -not the other route around. With open source, you get that.

5. Very Few Hurdles to Overcome.

It won't be 100% smooth cruising (yet nothing is in the realm of business). In the event that you have end clients that don't work out of a web program, you may end up with document incompatibilities. Say, for instance, you have customers that send you Word or Exceed expectations archives that depend on expanded highlights. You may find that LibreOffice or Google Docs won't "decipher" those highlights with 100% precision. At the point when that happens, what do you do? You may need to make good for an Office 365 permit for that specific client. Then again, what happens in the event that you have a specific bit of exclusive programming your business relies on upon?
Here's the thing... you don't need to jump away from any confining influence source waters and never surface. There's nothing the issue with blending nature. In the event that you can't work with a specific bit of programming, then you need to make a special case. The fortunate thing about open-source programming is that it plays well with special cases. You drop a Windows machine into your system, and nothing will blast or rodent you out to the open-source police. The uplifting news is that a mind-boggling measure of end clients don't exploit the progressed highlights inside Microsoft Office that have a tendency to tear similarity with open-source arrangements.

6. Can easily Try Before You “BUY”

With each possible bit of open-source programming, you can attempt before you put either time or cash into a solitary bit of programming. Indeed, even the working framework itself! You can download an ISO picture of a Linux appropriation and run it without rolling out any improvements to your framework (called a Live Cd or USB). You could download almost every Linux dissemination accessible, attempt all of them out, and settle on your decision in light of that process- -all without needing to introduce a solitary stage. Also, with most open-source online arrangements, (for example, HRM, CRM, and CMS devices), there are demos to attempt or even virtual pictures you can start up in VirtualBox (once more, without needing to introduce said instruments). An awesome spot to discover virtual machines to test is Turnkey Linux. Turnkey permits you to effectively test frameworks, for example, GitLab, Light Stack, SugarCRM, ownCloud, OrangeHRM, and a great deal more.
I anticipate, inside the following five years, there will be a great deal all the more little  to medium-sized organizations deciding on open-source arrangements on both servers and desktops. The scene is not at all like it was five years back. Open source is no more simply a testing or play area for designers or an environment for the PC "l33t." Open source is a suitable alternative for the advanced age. In case you're considering beginning an organization on an open establishment or relocating your current organization over to open-source programming, consider these musings and advance with your arrangement.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Top 6 Open Source Disk Cloning and Imaging Softwares

Disk cloning is nothing but the process of copying the contents of one hard disk (or partition) to another disk or to an "image" file. I make backup regularly using rsnapshot tool, but I also clone my hard disk once or twice a month. This option allows me to restore my OS and installed software quickly. Linux comes with various utilities for performing disk cloning. In this post, I'm going to list my favourite open source disk cloning softwares that has saved my butt multiple times.

#1: Old good dd command

The dd command allows you to make the low-level copying and conversion of data in raw format. It copies the standard input to the standard output. It can also be used for backing up the boot sector (MBR) of a hard drive or destroy data using /dev/zero or /dev/random.

Examples

To clone /dev/sdb3 partition to another partition called /dev/sdc3, enter:
# dd if=/dev/sdb3 of=/dev/sdc3 bs=4096 conv=noerror

You can clone a hard disk /dev/sdc to /dev/sdd:
# dd if=/dev/sdc of=/dev/sdd bs=1M conv=noerror

You can duplicate a disk partition called /dev/sda1 as a disk image file called backup.sda1.mm.dd.yy.img file:
# dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/path/to/safe/location/backup.sda1.07.28.12.img bs=4096 conv=noerror

OR
# dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/nfs/backup/images/backup.sda1.07.28.12.img bs=1M conv=noerror

To restore an image, run:
# dd if=/nfs/backup/images/backup.sda1.07.28.12.img of=/dev/sda1 bs=1M conv=noerror

The dd command can make backup of any partition regardless of an operating system. You can use it with FreeBSD / OpenBSD / Mac OS X / MS-Windows and so on:


(Video.01: dd clone hard disk demo)
Say hello to ddrescue

The ddrescue command copies data from one file or block device to another, trying hard to rescue data in case of read errors. The dd command will fail but ddrescue will continue:
# ddrescue /dev/sda /dev/sdb

#2 partimage - Backup partitions into a compressed image file

The partimage command backs up disk partitions into image files and restores them (much like Ghost). You can use the apt-get command under Debian / Ubuntu Linux to install the same:
# apt-get install partimage

If you are using RHEL / Fedora / SL / Red Hat / CentOS Linux, turn on EPEL repo and type the following yum command:
# yum install partimage

Type partimage as follows to see various options:
# partimage

Sample outputs:


Fig.01: partimage in action
You can now follow on screen instructions to backup or restore images.

Examples

Create an image of /dev/sda2 (make sure /dev/sda2 is not mounted):
# partimage -z1 -o -d save /dev/sda2 /nfs/backup/laptop.wks01.sda1.home_07_08_2012.gz

You can restore it as follows:
# partimage restore /dev/sda2 /nfs/backup/laptop.wks01.sda1.home_07_08_2012.gz.000

See how to use this fast software to backup and restore images:


(Video.02: partimage command demo)
Please note that partimage will only copy data from the used portions of the partition. This is done for speed and efficiency, free blocks are not written to the image file. Since the partition is processed on a sequential sector basis disk transfer time is maximized and seek time is minimized.

A note about server software

Partitions can be saved across the network using the partimage network support, or using Samba / NFS (Network File Systems). This provides the ability to perform an hard disk partition recovery after a disk crash. You need to install partimage-server package which provides server daemon for remote imaging, much like Ghost. See documentation for more info.

#3: Clonezilla

If you are looking to replace Norton Ghost Corporate Edition, try Clonezilla. It provides the following features:

Disaster recovery
Disk cloning
Disk imaging
Deployment solution
Free and Open source
This software allows you to do bare metal backup and recovery. Clonezilla works in any one of the following mode:

Clonezilla live - Use this at home or for single machine backup and restore.
Clonezilla server edition - Use this at office or data center for massive deployment, it can clone many (40 plus!) computers simultaneously. Clonezilla saves and restores only used blocks in the harddisk. This increases the clone efficiency.

Fig.02: Clonezilla in action
=> Download clonezilla software.

#4 Mondo rescue

Another good free disaster recovery software that I use frequently. It works with Linux /FreeBSD and supports clone tapes, disks, USB devices, network and CD/DVD as backup media, multiple filesystems, LVM, software and hardware RAID. Restoration may be done from a physical media including OBDR tape support, or CD/DVD/USB media, or from the network through PXE.

This software used by Lockheed-Martin, Nortel Networks, Siemens, HP, IBM, NASA's JPL, the US Dept of Agriculture, dozens of smaller companies, and tens of thousands of users around the world.


Fig.03: Mondo Rescue in action
=> Download Mondo Rescue software.

#5 Redo backup and recovery

Redo backup and recovery is a free backup and disaster recovery software. It runs from a bootable Linux CD image, features a GUI, and is capable of bare-metal backup and recovery of disk partitions. It can use external hard drives and network shares. It is the simplest point and click open source backup and recovery solution available. You can store images on an external drive or network shares such as nfs based shared folders.


Fig.04. Redo backup and recovery software in action
=> Download redo backup and recovery software.

#6 Trinity Rescue Kit

Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a free live Linux distribution that aims specifically at recovery and repair operations on MS-Windows systems, but is equally usable for Linux recovery issues such as as rescue, repair, password resets and disk cloning. Some features:

Reset windows passwords with the improved winpass tool.
5 different virusscan products integrated in a single uniform commandline with online update capability.
Full ntfs write support thanks to ntfs-3g
Winclean, a utility that cleans up all sorts of unnecessary temporary files on your computer.
Clone computers over the network via multicast.
Contributed backup utility called "pi", to automate local machine backups
Easy script to find and mount all local filesystems
Recovery and undeletion of files with utilities and procedures
Recovery of lost partitions
Evacuation of dying disks
2 rootkit detection uitilities
And much more

Fig.05Trinity Rescue Kit in action
=> Download trinity rescue kit software.

My favorite software

For bare metal restore I prefer dd command (gziped images) as it includes copy of the boot sector, boot partition and the root partition. The dd command works well for small setup or home users. But, for a large setup and data center, I prefer to use either clonezilla or mondo rescue softwaee due to ease of use and reliability.

Have a favorite open source disk cloning and disaster recovery software? Got an alternative? Let us know your preferred app in the comments below.

You should follow me on twitter here or grab rss feed to keep track of new changes.



{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
6r00k14n August 25, 2012
I have used the Clonezilla Live disc, which is fantastic, but if you are not so certain about what you are doing, try PartedMagic (trust me, you do not want to pick the disc you want to copy as the target).

It is a bootable Linux CD, that includes several disc tools, including Clonezilla, in a terminal window (so that you can use other tools to validate your decisions).

REPLY

FX August 26, 2012
Ha, dd is still the best for quick and easy cloning :)
Once, I even piped dd to netcat to remotely clone a partition, best hack I ever did, and it just took a few seconds!

REPLY

Bubba August 26, 2012
For the longest time, we used PING (http://ping.windowsdream.com/) as a very capable replacement for Symantec Ghost. We even went as far as building a custom boot/recovery CD for use by our remote users to restore a default image from a hidden partition on the hard drive. It worked very well.

REPLY

deepak August 26, 2012
target disk should be equal or more size in clonezilla, this is the drawback i have seen, eg. i have 10G data on 50G disk to clone my target disk should be equal or more that 50G

REPLY

Flo August 26, 2012
Very good article (as usual…)

For more complex network backup, there is also Bacula :
http://www.bacula.org/fr/

Otherwise, I always use Clonezilla / DRBL (http://drbl.sourceforge.net/) since several years without any problem.

REPLY

ilion1250 August 26, 2012
Partimage is my choose, easy, secure and reliable, I have been used it; to clone the system partitions of my PC and laptop and I never had any issue.
To backup the /home partitions I prefer rsync.

REPLY

DontForget August 27, 2012
SystemIMager? http://sourceforge.net/projects/systemimager/ Has a bunch of different features, like torrenting, and “updating” installed images.

REPLY

PNA Prasanna August 27, 2012
I used to run dd command for creating junk files for checking user quota.

But these are very good stuff.

REPLY

Esteban August 27, 2012
I use FOG, is a free, open source computer cloning solution

REPLY

m.ardito August 28, 2012
filesystemarchiver is also a useful tool, as it saves one or more partitions at the filesystem level, in compressed archives. it can then restore them also on smaller disks, if the case. i find it useful, too.

REPLY

Vivek Gite August 28, 2012
Hey all,

Thanks for sharing additional tools :)

REPLY

xandry August 28, 2012
> Fig.01: partimag in action

“partimage”, not “partimag”

> from the used portions

“partition”, not “portion”

> Redobackup in action

Keep space sympols

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Virtual Labs by IIT


Virtual Labs Project Launched
 
The  Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Government of India todaylaunched Virtual Labs — a collection of ninety-one virtual laboratories containing hundreds of experiments in nine disciplines of science and engineering. As part of Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD)’s National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), Virtual Labs is part of a comprehensive undertaking to provide easily accessible and high quality education throughout India.
 
Virtual Labs’ primary focus is to provide graduate and undergraduate college and university students with the ability to perform their required laboratory experiments using only the World Wide Web, a standard computer, and an Internet connection. Virtual Labs allow students to practice and better learn the science and engineering behind the experiments that they are required to perform. Virtual Labs also allows the sharing of costly equipment across the country, and in very rural areas, students will be able to perform experiments that they would not otherwise be able to access.
 
Nearly 300 department heads, faculty, and staff representing 152 institutions have been trained across India. Over 20 Nodal Centres have been created, institutions who have expressed their interest to champion Virtual Labs in their organisations and geographical areas.
 
The Pilot Phase of the Virtual Labs project started in April 2009.  During this phase, approximately twenty labs were developed as proof of concept.  The Main Phase began inApril 2010.  So far, over 80 Virtual Labs have been developed, and are undergoing field trials in various parts of the country.
 
Two types of virtual labs have been developed under this project. In the Simulation Based Virtual Labs the experiments are modeled using mathematical equations.  The simulations are carried out remotely at a high-end server, and the results are communicated to the student over the internet.  Simulation based Virtual Labs are scalable and can cater to a large number of simultaneous users.
 
Using the Remote Triggered Virtual Labs the actual experiments are triggered remotely.  The output of the experiment (being conducted remotely) is communicated back to the student over the internet.  This class of Virtual Labs gives the student the output of real-time experiments.  Typically, time-slots are booked before conducting such experiments.
 
All Virtual Labs can be accessed through a common website: www.vlab.co.in. At the user end, a PC and broadband connectivity enables the user to access Virtual Labs.
 
These Virtual Labs will be very useful for Engineering College Students who do not have access to good lab-facilities, High-school students, whose inquisitiveness will be triggered, possibly motivating them to take up higher-studies, Researchers in different institutes who can collaborate / share equipment and engineering colleges, who can benefit from the content and related teaching resources.
Currently 85 Virtual Labs have been developed comprising of 769 experiments. Trainings and workshops have been held all over India to disseminate knowledge of these Virtual Labs. Future efforts will involve development of virtual labs in different subjects and wide dissemination of this knowledge.
 
A Collaborative Platform for Development of Virtual Labs has been created that assists the faculty with authoring and maintaining Virtual Labs. The platform hosts over 825 experiments developed by many of the partner institutions. The Collaborative Platform provides the server side architecture for ensuring that virtual labs run securely, can effectively serve thousands of students simultaneously, and reserve time slots for experiments that require scheduling. The Collaborative Platform also provides tools to help teachers monitor their students’ progress and make changes to the instructional material.
 
Student interest in Virtual Labs has also been enthusiastic. The Virtual Labs site (vlab.co.in) has had 233,570 site visits and 1,034,443 page visits in just the last 6 months. There are over 4500 registered users from 134 countries and handles around 100GB of traffic per month with visitors from India, United States, Malaysia, Philippines, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Pakistan and so on.
 
With the launch of Virtual Labs Indian students will have easy access to an encyclopedia of science and engineering knowledge presented in a way that is engaging, immersive, and enjoyable. Virtual Labs will allow students to explore, discover, and learn wherever they are and at their convenience.

http://www.vlab.co.in/

Monday, January 30, 2012

Restore/Format USB Flash Drive


Who does not have a flash memory USB drive? (128Mb – 16Gb…) Everybody does, even my dog, if I had one, would have it. However, sometimes these little dongles can be tricky to use if they are not properly formatted. The usual format for the flash memory USB drive is FAT16, and it is understood by many operating systems with no problem. But in case the drive is not formatted properly/or you think it is not formatted properly, you can always reformat it, and here is how.

The whole process consists of 5 steps ans takes about 15 seconds um.. if do it slowly.. :)
In case you need to find the actual device your USB drive was associated with look here “Find USB flash device/drive in Linux“
WARNING: All the data will be lost from the flash UBS drive since we are going to reformat it.
We are going to use fdisk utility, so “for starters” here are available commands that you can use with fdisk:
a - toggle a bootable flag
b - edit bsd disklabel
c – toggle the dos compatibility flag
d – delete a partition
l – list known partition types
m – print this menu
n – add a new partition
o – create a new empty DOS partition table
p – print the partition table
q – quit without saving changes
s – create a new empty Sun disklabel
t – change a partition’s system id
u – change display/entry units
v – verify the partition table
w – write table to disk and exit
x – extra functionality (experts only)
Now let’s get to cooking a new and fresh flash memory USB drive…
Step 1. Run fdisk via sudo on your USB flash drive device:
user@host:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
enter “p” command to list current partition table of the USB drive:
Command (m for help): p
 
Disk /dev/sdb: 1039 MB, 1039663104 bytes
32 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1984 * 512 = 1015808 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf1f494df
 
Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1        1023     1014785   83  Linux
Here you will see whatever partition (if any) currently present. In my case (above) it is a “Linux” partition, in your case it may be something different. But it does not really matter, because we are going to delete it anyway:
Step 2. Enter “d” command to delete existing partition (if you have any). If you have several, delete several by using”d” command multiple times:
Command (m for help): d
Selected partition 1
Step 3. Now let’s get to business and enter “n” command to create a new partition:
Command (m for help): n
Command action
e   extended
p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-1023, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-1023, default 1023):
Using default value 1023
As you can see from above, I entered “1” for “Partition number”, and hit enter key twice to leave everything by default.
Now let us list current partitions with “p” command again:
Command (m for help): p
 
Disk /dev/sdb: 1039 MB, 1039663104 bytes
32 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1984 * 512 = 1015808 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf1f494df
 
Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1        1023     1014785   83  Linux
We have a single “Linux” partition which is fine (for now).
Step 4. Time to actually apply our changes, so enter a “w” command that will write out all the changes to the USB drive.
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!
 
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
fdisk will write all the changes to the USB drive and exit. But we are not done yet. Our goal is to make a (in this case) FAT16 partition, so this USB drive can be read by most operating systems.
Step 5. For that we will use mkfs.vfat utility:
user@host:~$ sudo mkfs.vfat -F 16 /dev/sdb1
mkfs.vfat 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
Now we are good to go! It was easy, as I promised :)
Let’s look at the new USB drive now. Mounting it first:
user@host:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/flashka/
user@host:~$ cd /mnt/flashka/
user@host:/mnt/flashka$ ls -l
total 0
Checking what it has under the hood:
user@host:/mnt/flashka$ df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1             991M     0  991M   0% /mnt/flashka
 
user@host:/mnt/flashka$
It has 991Mb which is what they call 1Gb flash memory USB drive!