A Conservative Techie

I don’t seem to have this problem on my Kubuntu boot which is running VMWare Server, but under Vista which is running VMWare Workstation 6 I am having problems using my network connections.  Let me describe the setup and the problem

I have several VMs setup to use NAT and need to be able to access the internet and each other.  An example is my demo boxes running the Altiris agent need to communicate with my Altiris server.  The Altiris server needs to connect to solutionsam to check for updates, I need to download stuff, etc…  However if I am using my wireless connection and do not have a wired connection, I am unable to do any of this.  I think the NAT adapter is bound to my wired connection and not to any connection.  Is there a way to solve this?

Thanks in advance

Sorry for the week or maybe two with no posting. I was down in Sydney teaching a class for Altiris and then when I came back I got sick. Anyways just wanted to share my thoughts on the Advanced Inventory Solution Workshop.
This was the first time the course was taught so there was some polish that was needed but once that is done the course will be another rock solid Advanced course. The workshop covers Inventory Solution for Windows, for Network Devices, and also Inventory Solution for Unix/Linux. It was intersting that out of the 6 people who were in the class 1 has run LInux before (Red Hat) and none of them had used Inventory Solution for Unix/Linux. I think part of the problem is the separation that exists between the Windows admins who run Altiris and the Unix/Linux admins who use whatever software they use to manage their own nodes. For more information see this great article on Juice on Unix/Linux Inventory.

A large portion of the class is spent on Custom Inventory which is sometimes the dark art of Inventory. A lot is covered, including how to get information out of WMI, the Registry and INI files. The cool things for me were learning how to do loops correctly in writing inventory and how the data class is created and how it gets its name.

Anyways a great class if you are intersted in learning more about Inventory. Hope to see you in class one day

I wrote one post about UDS-Boston, the Developers Summit for Ubuntu, previously, and just wanted to drop some thoughts. 

First of all I spent a lot of time with the Ubuntu Server Team.  8.08 is going to rock on the server side.  The team has a lot of super cool ideas they want to implement and I’m looking forward to them.

Secondly it was disappointing not to see more Kubuntu people there.  we had some specs, but it really seemd to be just a converstation between Riddell and myself.  Don’t know if more Kubuntu people were asked and couldn’t come, or there just wasn’t as many people sponsored.  Maybe one day we can get another full-time Kubuntu developer?  Please Mark?

The same problem was there for the Documentation team.  Really being the only doc team member there was another problem.  A lot of people wanted to talk about how documentation is done, the way things are done, etc.  It was interesting how suprised everyone was that there isn’t a paid documentation person.  Maybe this is something Cannonical can look into?

 Anyways justs wanted to drop a copule of notes, before I go watch the football.

I have been an Altiris consultant for about a year and a half and have tried to understand and learn how Altiris manages things in the Linux world and have been struggeling with seseing adoption with this. Maybe it is because the company I am at, does not have a lot of customers adopting Linux in the desktop world, or is it something because I am in the US?

Right now with Altiris I can use Linux as a preboot operating system in imaging and I can also image Linux desktops using RapiDeploy and I can manage the device inventory wise and software delivery wise via the Notification System.  A small problem has existed with the NS Agent but I have that working.

I have spent the day today with at UDS Boston, the Ubuntu Developers Summit, hanging out with the Server guys trying to learn more about server management and how Ubuntu can fit into that. There have been several interesting discussion tracks today, including one that covers this very topic. We went through a list of Open Source Management Tools and some of the good and bad things that accompany each one. So here is a list of some of them:

1. Nagios
2. Zenoss
3. Cricket
4. Puppet

One of the newer ones that was discussed was NetDirector with the goal of getting into Universe and then hopefully into main. I’m looking forward to downloading it and trying it out. Hopefully more later on this.

BTW still hoping or Cannonical’s Enterprise Management Tool

As posted earlier, I wrote something up on the Juice in regards to installing the Notification Server Agent for Altiris on Ubuntu.

Here is the link for those interested:
NS Agent on Ubuntu