Fetching and Extending Update Access Key expiry date for IBM's POWER8 Firmware

On IBM's POWER8 systems there was no way to have Update Access Keys updated till now.

After the updated POWER8 firmware, with my commits merged to upstream candidate "next" branch of powerpc-utils's activate_firmware utility last week, and with the ongoing efforts of the Electronic Service Agent team based on my work, it will soon be possible to make the update happen on the fly on provisioning a new update-access-key to the utility.

IBM Power8 customers will also be able to look at the current UAK Expiry date to make a decision as to when to update the system with a new key and verify whether date has been updated after providing the key or not.

Quoting the man page the options added to activate_firmware utility are:

-e [keyfile]
When used with this option, the command either fetches the current Update Access
Key expiry date or sets the Update Access Key expiry date if is
provided.

The activate_firmware utility will not directly be used by the end user but by an update_flash script to view or extend the firmware entitlement date by providing a new update-access-key.


Enjoy!

Adding as a remote to a local git repository, a pushable remote repository residing on a sshable server

Many people ask me how do I manage my work repositories since it is advisable to do all development on your PC and a headache to trace any change, from local repository to the test machine using scp or rsync each time a change is made. Fortunately, git has a easier way! The alternative is to add as a remote to a local git repository, a pushable remote repository residing on a sshable server. The steps are as follows:

//At the server's ssh

mkdir some_project

cd some_project/

git init

git checkout -b test #as we cannot push to a checked out branch at the server from our laptops.

//On my pc

git clone git/url/to/some_project.git 

cd some_project/

#Add pushable repo. which we inited on the server, as a remote to this local repo.

git remote add remote_name user@remote.server:/path/to/GIT/repo/some_project/

#check if added

git remote -v

#Clear firewall to remote server, if needed

#push desired branch(es)(say master) to the init-ed blank repo on the remote server.

git push remote_name master 

//At the server ssh prompt to see the changes

git checkout master 

ls

Voila! There's all your work!
Next time, you make any changes, in a separate branch, you just need to perform the push step at your PC and checkout the new branch on your server :D

Virtualization: virsh basic commands

The virsh program is the main interface for managing virsh guest domains (or virtual machines). The program can be used to create, pause, and shutdown domains. It can also be used to list current domains. On my PC, I started off with managing new VMs using the Virtual Machine Manager GUI but when it comes to managing VMs on a headless remote server, its easier done using the text-only virsh. I find creating a fresh guest VM is the easiest using a modified xml dump from an existing VM(if one exists)

Following are some basic virsh commands I've been used to using over time-

To execute the following commands 'libvirtd' daemon should be running.

1. To see what guests are there on a particular host
virsh list 
virsh list --all

2. To define the guest
virsh define

3. To start the guest
virsh start
virsh console
or
virsh start --console

4. To shutdown the guest
virsh shutdown
forcefully
virsh destroy

5. Get the libvirt xml
virsh dumpxml > filename.xml

6. Edit libvirt xml, with this command if there are any changes then no need to 'undefine' and 'define' the domain
virsh edit

7. To undefine the guest, CAUTION: if you want your domain back, then have domainxml back up.
virsh undefine


Cues to what basic changes are to be made to create a new VM from an existing xml-dump can be taken from the following sample xml dump:

Changes to be made are highlighted (name and UUID should be changed since they should be unique on a host, UUID tag can also be omitted altogether and a fresh one will be allotted; network highlights should match):

http://pastebin.com/08032vEC

That's all in this primer! More on virsh and other domain commands can be read from virsh man page.