Pablowe

HandlerSocket Edge Cases

A couple of weeks ago at the San Francisco MySQL Meetup, I gave a talk on HandlerSocket and got a couple of questions that, while I thought I knew the answer, I had never actually verified by testing. So, for the attendees who asked, here are the questions and answers:
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Ignoring the Scientific Approach to Triathlon Training

Today I finished my dry-run (all in my air-conditioned gym) training session for next week’s Clayton Triathlon. I came in 1 hr 7 min slower than I wanted, but (clearly) I didn’t set a realistic goal. Now that I have a baseline for how I perform in an Olympic Distance Triathlon, I can begin formulating a plan for how to improve my overall time.
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Nagios Checks for HandlerSocket

I’ve written some new Nagios checks for HandlerSocket. check_handlersocket is a part of http://code.google.com/p/check-mysql-all/, and is meant to be called locally on the HandlerSocket server (usually via NRPE), but the perl-Net-HandlerSocket module must be installed. Feedback is welcome, usage is as follows:

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Not Your Mother’s Egg Nog Recipe

It’s that time of year again … time to dig through my backups and try to find my Egg Nog recipe (it’s so good, it has become a proper noun). I figure I’ve shared this recipe enough that I should just post it up online for all to see.

Ingredients:

• 12 eggs
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup burbon
• 1 cup brandy
• 2 cups meyers dark rum
• 1 qt half & half
• 2 pints heavy whipping cream
• Nutmeg, to taste

Steps:

1. Be sober – It is hard to overstate the importance of this step. If you miss this step, it’s likely that the end result will be nothing short of disasterous.
2. Perfectly separate the eggs into two separate mixing bowls (one bowl for whites, one for yolks).
3. Beat the living tar out of the 12 egg yolks with a whisk or fork.
4. Add 1 cup of sugar to the severely beaten egg yolks.
5. Add 1 qt of half-and-half, continue mixing.
6. Add 1 pint of heavy whipping cream, continue mixing.
7. Slowly add all of the alcohol. If the alcohol is added too quickly, it will curdle the eggs and you’ll have to start all over. Patience is a virtue.
8. Try the liquid, add alcohol to taste. If you think it tastes like jet fuel, don’t worry because when it is left to set overnight the flavors meld and it loses much of it’s sharpness.
9. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites like they owe you money! Should be stiff and form peaks.
10. Fold stiff egg whites into the other liquids.
11. In a separate bowl, whip up 1 pint heavy whipping cream until stiff-ish (it doesn’t need to be as stiff as the egg whites).
12. Fold the semi-stiff whipping cream into other liquids.

Although at this point it is technically drinkable, it is highly advised to let it sit in the fridge (or outdoors, if you live in colder climates) for at least 24 hours. If, after having sat overnight, it’s still a bit strong, you can add some store-bought “egg nog” to taste.

Serve in gaudy christmas cups, sprinkling with Nutmeg. Enjoy!

Cassandra “Quick Install” on CentOS 5

Cassandra is notoriously a pain to install on CentOS. So partially as documentation for myself, here are the “quick install” steps for getting Cassandra up and running. For explanation, see the official Cassandra documentation. I think the biggest reason this differs so significantly from other install guides out there is that I wanted it to work on RightScale (know issues w/Java) as well as CentOS 5.1-5.4. I can’t wait until I can get Cassandra from yum …..

Knowing your PERC 6/i BBU

I’ve recently become supremely disappointed in the availability of Nagios checks for RAID cards. Too often, I see administrators rely on chance (or their hosting provider) to discover failed drives, a dying BBU, or a degrading capacity on their RAID cards. So I began work on check_raid (part of check_mysql_all) to provide a suite of checks. One of the first cards I wanted to support was the PERC 6/i, so I scoured the documentation, forums, and picked the brains of my friends before finally getting on a marathon 4 hour call with Dell support. I’ll now share the interesting things that I’ve learned.

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