iNODE

I like to fix things till they break. Today’s post is a cautionary tale for that admittedly small niche of sysadmins running OSX server on XServes upgraded in place from Leopard to Snow Leopard…

For the past few weeks I’ve been tweaking the JSP interface of our MARS system and doing some overdue “authority control” cleanup on subjects and authors. That’s been going so well that late this afternoon I decided to take a crack at updating a few packages originally installed via MacPorts back when the server was running Leopard server (the in-place Snow Leopard upgrade didn’t disturb the code in the /opt/local destination for Macport installs).

I pulled down version 3.2 of Apple’s Developer Tools (to insure 10.6 compatibility) and went to work. In no time at all I had upgraded ant, maven, postgres, bison, wget, openssl and a host of other dependencies. Rebooted and the fun began.  First up, Postgres:

FATAL: incorrect checksum in control file

Never saw that before.

Found a web posting on a Linux site explaining that this could easily happen if you tried to open a database with a 64-bit version of postgres when it had been closed by a 32-bit version. Then it hit me. Of course, on an XServe, Snow Leopard server defaults to 64-bit builds. Under Leopard, I had built a 32-bit version of Postgres.

Recommended solution from the Linux posting: forget about it. Only solution is to open the database under a 32-bit version of Postgres and then dump the data, reimporting it into a new database created by a 64-bit version.

I backed out my 64-bit upgrades, then manually uncommented the “build_arch i386″ line in macports.conf to force 32-bit builds….then started rebuilding 32-bit versions of all the code. That fixed most everything but not Postgres. I still had at least one load library mismatch crashing that compilation.

As a last ditch effort, I tarred up the entire /opt/local tree and did a nearly full replacement from a sparse image clone of the machine’s boot drive that I made with SuperDuper just before doing the Snow Leopard upgrade (meaning all that code was 32-bit). I didn’t disturb /opt/local/var/db (that’s where my postgres database lived) but deleted and then restored these three directories from the sparse image backup:

• /opt/local/lib
• /opt/local/bin
• /opt/local/share

Rebooted…success!

To enable use of the “port” command on this box, I then reinstalled the Snow Leopard version of macports (restoring selected parts of /opt/local from the backup broke the port command). That went smoothly and “port” now works.

My takeaway: Say ‘no’ to that little voice in your head that suggests you should “improve” a system that’s running well…and don’t ever say anything bad about sparse image backups.

Got an iPhone 3GS the other day (clearly I’m behind the mobile curve but then I hate talking on the phone so it took me a while to “get it”).

Anyway, after just a few days with the thing, I realize I need to begin tweaking some of the library’s web-based content.

First (easy) step? A touch-device friendly theme for this weblog. Also applied it to the library’s news blog as well. Thus far it’s working well and it couldn’t be any easier to implement–just drop the code in your plugins folder and activate it. Presence of the mobile device automatically detected and touch theme is served when appropriate.

http://www.bravenewcode.com/wptouch/

tip: To do a screen capture on your 3G/3GS iPhone, press down the home key then hit the “top” button. Screen flashes and image goes into your photos folder.

Completed upgrading the new MARS (DSpace) server to from 10.5.8 to 10.6 (Snow Leopard Server). Went very smoothly. Here’s the sequence:

• run SuperDuper to clone boot drive to second drive in XServe
• shutdown server, pull boot drive and set aside (for disaster recovery)
• move second drive to boot drive spot
• boot off cloned drive
• insert new disc
• click on “install Snow Leopard Server”
• enter serial number when prompted
• reboot
• all systems running normally
• shutdown second time and reinsert original boot drive in second drive slot
• after running updated OS for two days, will clone new boot drive to second drive

One quirk I’ve noticed: haven’t seen any mention of this elseweb but the /etc/rc.local that was faithfully launching Tomcat under 10.5.8 doesn’t seem to work under 10.6. Lauching Tomcat manually now until I figure out enough launchd magic to reenable autostarting (my last session with Lingon wasn’t that successful)..

I’ll also begin testing whether this new OS might solve the problem(s) that left our Manakin interface too unstable for everyday use.

You can check on that interface via this link:

http://digilib.gmu.edu:8080/xxmlui

Finally have a tolerable JSP (java server pages) interface up and running. I’m no web designer but after firing up CSS Edit and reading (then re-reading) the 1.5.2 DSpace manual,  I was able to chase away most of the “boxy-ness” of the default JSP  interface.    Some things have changed since I last understood DSpace internals (roughly the 1.2 release)  but it was similar enough that in no time at all I was back in that “find DSpace and replace with MARS” groove.

I’m certainly ready to say the JSP interface is more stable than Manakin–seems to run smoother and use fewer resources too.  Downside? It’s more work to bend it into something visually interesting and it is clearly less flexible.

Given the experience of the past few weeks,  today I’m thankful for stable.

http://mars.gmu.edu

Yes, those are in fact cobwebs hanging from the corners.  It’s not that I’ve been too busy to write something, just distracted, I guess. Vacation…a few other short trips…couple of deadlines…a digression into the twittersphere…it’s pretty easy to fall behind on one’s blogging…

Award winning

A few weeks ago we received one of the 2009 Campus Technology Innovation Awards. I wasn’t really expecting that (heard there were 349 nominees) so it came as a nice surprise even as it managed to burn up the last of my 15 minutes of fame. (I lost the bulk in June when this AP story appeared in over 2,000 places.  My favorite was this one which nicely showcased my sudden-onset facility with Spanish).

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