Author Archives: Rajesh Sivaraman

About Rajesh Sivaraman

System Admin for a living. When not spending time with family, friends or work, plays with Linux and facebook.

Firefox – Browser Redefined !

I just can’t keep silent about firefox. This is such a beautiful piece of free software, it never fails to amuse me day by day. With all the themes and plugins it supports, it could act as much more than a browser. Needless to say about the security features… It blocks popup ads, malicous scritps .. It even helps you remove ads from the pages ! ( With the use of adblock plugin ).

The amount of hardwork put in by the developers can be found in each feature of this cool product. If you are still among those peple who are not using Firefox, I suggest you to give it a try.

Upgrade to Firefox 1.5!

P.S : I am writing this blog using the “performancing” plugin from within firefox ! 🙂

Onam and Santa Clause

I took two days off my work and went to my brother’s Home in Thane. He lives with his family. We enjoyed onam with a good meal and an outing in the evening.

I had lots of fun with the children, Pachu ( Anand ) my nephew and Minnu ( Lakshmi ) niece. I told them the story of King Mahabali ( Maveli Rajavu ). I made up some part of the story so that it looked like King Mahabali is visiting the children every year and will bring them gifts if they were good boys/girls the entire year. Mahabali looked more like a “Santa” to them.
And the next day when I was about to leave, Minnu asked, ” Paaappaaa ( Uncle ), why Maveli Rajavu didn’t come to our home?!! ” . I looked at her eyes and knew that she was wondering if she was a bad girl. I told “Mahabali was too busy.. he called me in the night and told that he will be definitely coming to our home the next year with even more gifts”. Seems like we malayalees have a Santa Clause from now on!
I have some photos which I am going to upload to the gallery section.

Install RedHat/Fedora Linux in many client systems with minimum effort.

If you are a System Admin, you might be thinking about the possibilities of automating the client operating system deployment in all the PCs. RedHat/Fedora Core Linux makes it easier with the help of special installation methods. I prefer this method because it does not have the issues related to disk cloning and there is no hassle of changing CDs as and when asked.

We are going to use a FTP Server based deploment method. In this method, you’ll create a dump of all the installation CDs in a FTP server and ask your linux installer to access those files using FTP during installation. Simple… isn’t it?

Here is the steps you need to follow..

1. Create a folder in your FTP server ( Can be any FTP server, If you have a Microsoft Windows PC, I recommend FileZilla FTP server… ) and copy all the files and folders from each of the iso images to the same folder and overwrite files if asked.

2. Make a network boot floppy using the bootnet.img file inside the images folder of the first CD/ISO. Boot your client system with this floppy. There are no boot floppy images available for RHEL 4.0. Boot the system with first install CD and at the boot prompt, type ‘linux askmethod’ . You may also try burning the boot.iso image inside the first CD to make a install startup CD. There are images available for USB media and PXE booting… but no floppy. 🙁

3. ‘linux askmethod’ will give you a choice of options which you are looking for… http,ftp,nfs etc..

4. Select FTP and provide the details like login , password , FTP server IP and folder name which you kept the files.

5. If you would like to further automate this, install one client system and copy the file /root/anaconda-ks.cfg to a floppy and rename it as ks.cfg In the next client system, the command at boot prompt would be ‘linux ks=floppy’. This would take care of FTP details and package selections etc and install a complete system without any interaction…

I mean minimum interaction possible.There might be ways to totally automate the process using the native tools. If anyone knows, please let me know.
Thank you. 🙂

Rain Rain Go Away…

Looks like Mumbaikar is getting restless again. Heavy rains in some parts of Mumbai has already drawn attention and fear to common man. Reports are already flowing in about a number of deaths because of flooding in some areas. Memories of 26th July 2005 is getting fresh in their thoughts.. and as usual media morons are celebrating this “event” too with celebrity discussions and moody video clippings. I hope the rains will stop soon and no more lives would be lost.

Worst thing is that the Mumbai Administration has proved once again that all promises are made only in paper. When are we going to get the “real freedom” from all these corrupt politics and burocracy? And media is celebrating “where and why the goverment is failing?”… but I think we also need to think something here…

I saw a small “public awareness video” in a theatre recently. The message of the video was to keep our city clean. What do we do after consuming a softdrink or a packed fast-food item? We just throw the plastic packing away on the road or wherever we feel comfortable. We are so callous that we do not even bother to think about what are the possible consequences to what we are doing. Ever thought what would happen if all these plastic waste is blocking all the exit points of drainage system of the city?…..

Now you know How does the rain water gets clogged….

My friend, Think before jumping up and down your couch shouting slogans about the Administration… The goverment needs our help to resolve such issues… It is our duty more than courtesy to keep our city clean. If we are not caring for our city or country, who else will?

I know that some countries does punish people for littering the public places. In INDIA, you are free to throw things away in the road, chew pan and spit anywhere, pee on road sides….Do you think “freedom” means this? This is not freedom.. this is exploitation of freedom.

I agree that the Authorities must provide public toilets and other things like dust bins everywhere for us to do this… But can’t we start following the rules at least whenever and wherever we could do it?.. I have seen people peeing all around the public toilets in many places..( Wonder why they can’t do it inside toilets !!! ) ..and those places smell like helll… I have noticed this phenomenon mostly in Bus stands.

So.. Let’s make it a practice to look for a dust bin whenever you get an urge to throw something on the road. It is one of those small and easy things we could do to make a big difference. Lets start keeping our country clean…..