A GuruPlug Server Plus Review
Willy Tarreau, a Linux 2.4 maintainer and developer of HAProxy wrote a review of a GuruPlug Server Plus. He wasn’t impressed. Good article.
A Few Plug Computing Links
PlugIN to the Marvell Plug Computer Ecosystem and Meet Inventors of the Plug Computer
Amahi ‘Plug Edition’ Released – Brings Amahi Home Server to Plug Computers
The Future of the $99 Server and Birth of Reverse Virtualization
Plug Computer gets Amahi server and a developer camp all its own
Seagate DockStar Woot! Deal
If you have a Seagate FreeAgent Go™ drive, you can turn it into a NAS by adding a Seagate DockStar dock. It has the PogoPlug software embedded, so you get the functionality of a PogoPlug combined with the USB dock. Woot.com has the DockStar for $20 + shipping today only. The current model is $79 direct from Seagate.
Tonido Vs. PogoPlug
Early last fall I purchased a PogoPlug and later in the year I bought a TonidoPlug. After using the PogoPlug for a while, and running a bit torrent client and Firefly iTunes server, I decided to try the TonidoPlug. The Tonido software suite looked like it would handle most of what I was using the PogoPlug for, without having to hack it. So, after running both for 6+ months, I have decided to keep both. Why? The PogoPlug handles file sharing cleaner and easier than the TonidoPlug. I can quickly set up a share that I let other access without having to set up accounts for them. When I am done, it’s easy to turn off sharing. Plus, I can do it from my Android phone (or an iPhone if I were so inclined). I am not as enamored with it’s handling of media files. It can handle MP3 files, but the audio player is adequate, at best. It does better with video. It converts video files into a more bandwidth efficient format for streaming.
The TonidoPlug has a built in bit torrent client that works well. And an audio player that can handle iTunes files (non-DRM) as well as MP3. The file sharing works fine, but it is less intuitive than the PogoPlug. The ability to set up a quick share with a link I can email to someone else only works if the other person is set up as a user on your TonidoPlug. Files can be shared on PogoPlug without the user needing an account, or logging in.
The price of the PogoPlug’s ease of file sharing is that it relies on pogoplug.com providing a proxy service to direct users to your PogoPlug. Tonido provides a similiar service, without the benefits, but it is not necessary. I have used DynDNS to redirect traffic to my TonidoPlug. The Tonido software suite is a nice addition to the TonidoPlug, at a cost $20 less than the current PogoPlug device. The additional functionality take care of most personal cloud needs. I find that the PogoPlug’s file sharing ease of use is enough to keep it around.
Previous articles:
http://blog.craiglpatterson.com/2009/11/16/playing-with-the-pogoplug/
http://blog.craiglpatterson.com/2009/11/25/plug-into-plug-computing/
http://blog.craiglpatterson.com/2010/02/08/a-tonidoplug-is-plugged-in/
http://blog.craiglpatterson.com/2010/02/08/plug-into-plug-computing-update/
QA Help Wanted
MySQL Sun Oracle needs QA help. How do I know this? Because I’ve used their products.
We use MySQL 5.1.x “Enterprise” on several servers at work. We have several production servers that are replicated to slave servers as hot spares, reporting servers, and to a disaster recovery server. As part of our setup one of our backup servers needs to replicate from two different servers and databases to two different local databases. So, I need to run two instances of MySQL. There are three basic ways to accomplish this: run two instances of MySQL directing each to a different configuration file with appropriate port, directory, pid file settings; use mysqladmin to manage multiple instances; use mysqld_multi to start multiple instances. Mysqladmin has been deprecated and will be removed in 5.4, so I’m not investing energy in that solution. Option one will work, it just means more files to manage. Mysqld_multi allows using a single configuration file with definitions for each server instance. It’s straightforward and pretty easy to set up.
Mysqld_multi is a Perl script that parses a single config file containing multiple server instance definitions. There is just one problem. It doesn’t work. It throws the following error:
Unmatched right curly bracket at /usr/bin/mysqld_multi line 171, at end of line syntax error at /usr/bin/mysqld_multi line 171, near "}" Execution of /usr/bin/mysqld_multi aborted due to compilation errors.
As a programmer, and sysadmin, I expect that an error like that must be the result of some combination of version incompatabilities or poor configuration. Since I had just upgraded MySQL to the latest version this made sense. I updated all the packages on the server, rebooted, tried again.
Unmatched right curly bracket at /usr/bin/mysqld_multi line 171, at end of line syntax error at /usr/bin/mysqld_multi line 171, near "}" Execution of /usr/bin/mysqld_multi aborted due to compilation errors.
After way too much effort I pulled the script into a language aware editor and found that the script did, in fact, have an unmatched right curly bracket. I removed it. I ran it again, thinking that this couldn’t possibly be the problem. A large technology company like Sun Oracle wouldn’t let a product out the door with this kind of fundimental bug. They must have run this script at some time and found this error. No, they didn’t. Once the errant bracket was removed, the script ran. Perfectly.
Coincidentally, I just received our quote from Sun Oracle for “enterprise” support for MySQL. Seems kinda high.