blog/archive/2012/01/01.rss

   1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
   2 <rss version='2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/1.0/'>
   3         <channel>
   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from January 2012</title>
   5                 <description>Entries from January 2012</description>
   6                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
   7
   8
   9         <item>
  10                 <title>Fixing an hanging debian installer for Debian Edu</title>
  11                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_an_hanging_debian_installer_for_Debian_Edu.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fixing_an_hanging_debian_installer_for_Debian_Edu.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Tue, 3 Jan 2012 11:25:00 +0100</pubDate>
  14                 <description>&lt;p&gt;During christmas, I have been working getting the next version of
  15 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu / Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; ready
  16 for release.  The initial problem I looked at was particularly
  17 interesting.&lt;/p&gt;
  18
  19 &lt;P&gt;The installer would hang at the end when it was doing it
  20 post-installation configuration, and whatevery I did to try to find
  21 the cause and fix it always worked while I tested it, but never when I
  22 integrated it into the installer and ran the installation from
  23 scratch.  I would try to restart processes, close file descriptors,
  24 remove or create files, and the installer would always unblock and
  25 wrap up its tasks.&lt;/p&gt;
  26
  27 &lt;p&gt;Eventually the cause was found.  The kernel was simply running out
  28 of entropy, causing the Kerberos setup to hang waiting for more.
  29 Pressing keys was adding entropy to the kernel, and thus all my tries
  30 to fix the problem worked not because what I was typing to fix it, but
  31 because I was typing.&lt;/P&gt;
  32
  33 &lt;p&gt;The fix I implemented was to add a background process looking at
  34 the level of entropy in the kernel (by checking
  35 /proc/sys/kernel/random/entropy_avail), and if it was too small, the
  36 installer will flush the kernel file buffers and do &#39;find /&#39; to
  37 generate some disk IO.  Disk IO generate entropy in the kernel, and is
  38 one of the few things that can be initated from within the system to
  39 generate entropy.&lt;/p&gt;
  40
  41 &lt;p&gt;The fix is in
  42 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/Documentation/Squeeze/Installation&quot;&gt;beta1
  43 of the Debian Edu/Squeeze&lt;/a&gt; version, and we
  44 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu&quot;&gt;welcome more testers and
  45 developers&lt;/a&gt;.  We plan to release beta2 this weekend.&lt;/p&gt;
  46 </description>
  47         </item>
  48
  49         <item>
  50                 <title>Second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze</title>
  51                 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html</link>
  52                 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Second_beta_version_of_Debian_Edu___Skolelinux_based_on_Squeeze.html</guid>
  53                 <pubDate>Sat, 7 Jan 2012 22:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
  54                 <description>&lt;p&gt;I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish
  55 the second beta version of
  56 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu / Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;.  If
  57 you want to test a LDAP backed Kerberos server with out of the box PXE
  58 configuration for running diskless machines and installing new
  59 machines, check it out.  If you need a software solution for your
  60 school, check it out too.  The full announcement is
  61 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2012/01/msg00000.html&quot;&gt;available&lt;/a&gt;
  62 on the project announcement list.&lt;/p&gt;
  63 </description>
  64         </item>
  65
  66         </channel>
  67 </rss>