<link></link>
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+ <item>
+ <title>Checking server hardware support status for Dell, HP and IBM servers</title>
+ <link>Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">Checking_server_hardware_support_status_for_Dell__HP_and_IBM_servers.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description>
+<p>At work, we have a few hundred Linux servers, and with that amount
+of hardware it is important to keep track of when the hardware support
+contract expire for each server. We have a machine (and service)
+register, which until recently did not contain much useful besides the
+machine room location and contact information for the system owner for
+each machine. To make it easier for us to track support contract
+status, I've recently spent time on extending the machine register to
+include information about when the support contract expire, and to tag
+machines with expired contracts to make it easy to get a list of such
+machines. I extended a perl script already being used to import
+information about machines into the register, to also do some screen
+scraping off the sites of Dell, HP and IBM (our majority of machines
+are from these vendors), and automatically check the support status
+for the relevant machines. This make the support status information
+easily available and I hope it will make it easier for the computer
+owner to know when to get new hardware or renew the support contract.
+The result of this work documented that 27% of the machines in the
+registry is without a support contract, and made it very easy to find
+them. 27% might seem like a lot, but I see it more as the case of us
+using machines a bit longer than the 3 years a normal support contract
+last, to have test machines and a platform for less important
+services. After all, the machines without a contract are working fine
+at the moment and the lack of contract is only a problem if any of
+them break down. When that happen, we can either fix it using spare
+parts from other machines or move the service to another old
+machine.</p>
+
+<p>I believe the code for screen scraping the Dell site was originally
+written by Trond Hasle Amundsen, and later adjusted by me and Morten
+Werner Forsbring. The HP scraping was written by me after reading a
+nice article in ;login: about how to use WWW::Mechanize, and the IBM
+scraping was written by me based on the Dell code. I know the HTML
+parsing could be done using nice libraries, but did not want to
+introduce more dependencies. This is the current incarnation:</p>
+
+<pre>
+use LWP::Simple;
+use POSIX;
+use WWW::Mechanize;
+use Date::Parse;
+[...]
+sub get_support_info {
+ my ($machine, $model, $serial, $productnumber) = @_;
+ my $str;
+
+ if ( $model =~ m/^Dell / ) {
+ # fetch website from Dell support
+ my $url = "http://support.euro.dell.com/support/topics/topic.aspx/emea/shared/support/my_systems_info/no/details?c=no&amp;cs=nodhs1&amp;l=no&amp;s=dhs&amp;ServiceTag=$serial";
+ my $webpage = get($url);
+ return undef unless ($webpage);
+
+ my $daysleft = -1;
+ my @lines = split(/\n/, $webpage);
+ foreach my $line (@lines) {
+ next unless ($line =~ m/Beskrivelse/);
+ $line =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
+ $line =~ m%;(\d{2})/(\d{2})/(\d{4});+(\d{2})/(\d{2})/(\d{4});%g;
+ my $start = "$3-$1-$2";
+ my $end = "$6-$4-$5";
+ $str = "$start -> $end";
+ my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
+ tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
+ if ($end lt $today);
+ }
+ } elsif ( $model =~ m/^HP / ) {
+ my $mech = WWW::Mechanize->new();
+ my $url =
+ 'http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyInput.do';
+ $mech->get($url);
+ my $fields = {
+ 'BODServiceID' => 'NA',
+ 'RegisteredPurchaseDate' => '',
+ 'country' => 'NO',
+ 'productNumber' => $productnumber,
+ 'serialNumber1' => $serial,
+ };
+ $mech->submit_form( form_number => 2,
+ fields => $fields );
+ # Next step is screen scraping
+ my $content = $mech->content();
+
+ $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
+ $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
+ $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
+ $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
+
+ my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
+
+ while ($content =~ m/;Warranty Type;/) {
+ my ($type, $status, $startstr, $stopstr) = $content =~
+ m/;Warranty Type;([^;]+);.+?;Status;(\w+);Start Date;([^;]+);End Date;([^;]+);/;
+ $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty Type;//;
+ my $start = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
+ localtime(str2time($startstr)));
+ my $end = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d",
+ localtime(str2time($stopstr)));
+
+ $str .= "$type ($status) $start -> $end ";
+
+ tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
+ if ($end lt $today);
+ }
+ } elsif ( $model =~ m/^IBM / ) {
+ my ($producttype) = $model =~ m/.*-\[(.{4}).+\]-/;
+ if ($producttype &amp;&amp; $serial) {
+ my $content =
+ get("http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/supportsite.wss/warranty?action=warranty&amp;brandind=5000008&amp;Submit=Submit&amp;type=$producttype&amp;serial=$serial");
+ if ($content) {
+ $content =~ s/&lt;[^>]+?>/;/gm;
+ $content =~ s/\s+/ /gm;
+ $content =~ s/;\s*;/;;/gm;
+ $content =~ s/;[\s;]+/;/gm;
+
+ $content =~ s/^.+?;Warranty status;//;
+ my ($status, $end) = $content =~ m/;Warranty status;([^;]+)\s*;Expiration date;(\S+) ;/;
+
+ $str .= "($status) -> $end ";
+
+ my $today = POSIX::strftime("%Y-%m-%d", localtime(time));
+ tag_machine_unsupported($machine)
+ if ($end lt $today);
+ }
+ }
+ }
+ return $str;
+}
+</pre>
+
+<p>Here are some examples on how to use the function, using fake
+serial numbers. The information passed in as arguments are fetched
+from dmidecode.</p>
+
+<pre>
+print get_support_info("hp.host", "HP ProLiant BL460c G1", "1234567890"
+ "447707-B21");
+print get_support_info("dell.host", "Dell Inc. PowerEdge 2950", "1234567");
+print get_support_info("ibm.host", "IBM eserver xSeries 345 -[867061X]-",
+ "1234567");
+</pre>
+
+<p>I would recommend this approach for tracking support contracts for
+everyone with more than a new computers to administer. :)</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Using bar codes at a computing center</title>
<link>Using_bar_codes_at_a_computing_center.html</link>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>ODF-bruk i staten, ikke helt på plass</title>
- <link>ODF_bruk_i_staten__ikke_helt_p___plass.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">ODF_bruk_i_staten__ikke_helt_p___plass.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description>
-<p>I går publiserte
-<a href="http://universitas.no/nyhet/52776/">Universitas</a>,
-<a href="http://www.dagensit.no/trender/article1588462.ece">Dagens-IT</a>
-og <a href="http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article118622.ece">Computerworld
-Norge</a> en sak om at de ansatte ved Universitetet i Oslo ikke følger
-regjeringens pålegg om å publisere i HTML, PDF eller ODF. Det er bra
-at det kommer litt fokus på dette, og jeg håper noen journalister tar
-en titt på de andre statlige instansene også.</p>
-
-<p>Skulle ønske det var en enkel måte å sjekke om ODF-dokumenter er i
-henholdt til ODF-spesifikasjonen, og en måte å teste om programmer som
-hevder å støtte ODF forstår alle delene av ODF-spesifikasjonen.
-Kjenner kun til ufullstendige løsninger for slikt.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
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