Slashdot Mirror
OpenBSD 3.9 Adds Sensor Framework
wbglinks writes to tell us ZDNet is reporting that the newest version of OpenBSD will include a sensor framework to help system administrators keep tabs on the environmental conditions of their servers. From the article: "At present, there are a number of commercial products that allow the environmental conditions of servers to be monitored, but different brands of server require different products. For example, Dell PowerEdge servers use the Embedded Server Management tool, while Sun Fire Servers use Sun's Remote System Control. This can make server management tricky when running a heterogeneous architecture. OpenBSD 3.9, which is scheduled for release on 1 May, includes support for the sensors and the sensor management tools used on a number of architectures."
Ah ma gad
Now Linux had this functionality how many years ago? Welcome to the 90s OpenBSD.
Remember when you could go home on the weekend and actually enjoy yourself?
Sensor management means that you can never be completely away from your cellphone.
it's dead Jim...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Finally some use for BeOS' is_computer_on_fire() function!
Theo de Raadt announced that his personal machine now has the foot-in-mouth sensor activated when the NIC detects any email being sent to a DARPA address.
"No other major commercial operating system has this feature," claimed de Raadt. "The Linux security patch PaX has some of this stuff, but it's not part of the default kernel."
I'm not sure if Theo's comment was aimed as a criticism or just a statement of fact, but I'd question whether or not it should it be part of the kernel by default. Does it need to be? I can see the benefit of patching it in if you need it, but sensor monitoring is a pretty niche feature that a large number of people don't need. In the case of Linux where lots of installations aren't servers with this sort of hardware I reckon it *should* be an option that you only compile in if you want it.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
what's the situation in Linux? Is this the same thing as the 'hardware sensors' modules in the kernel?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
...the government is busily trying to add a censor framework
... they add support for BMC and IPMI?
Which, while fine in itself, is hardly a groundbreaking achievment for an OS, or is it? At least Windows has done that for years, and I believe Linux does as well (at least we have a working "sensor" implementation on a few RedHat / HP servers).
The Advanced Configuration & Power Interface already handles power usage issues. Does anyone know if this is available in Linux yet?
Christ,
... you all blow. There.
An announcement is posted on Slashdot and everyone jumps in to criticize.
You guys are pathetic trolls.
Linux blows, OpenBSD blows, Windows blows
"There is a significant new sensor framework [in OpenBSD 3.9], which supports voltage sensors, fan sensors, temperature sensors, and so on," said de Raadt. "Such a feature is still missing in Linux and other major operating systems."
There we go
Have I been missing this section this whole time, or is this something new?
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
This post brought The mobo blew clear she couldn't and committees) [idge.net] NetBSD user it. Its mission is Short of a miracle
It has been here for years, but there's rarely a story posted in it :-)
for me (my whole world is snmp, it seems) I'd want to know if there is any good progress on getting remote mgmt via snmp working better than it has, in the past.
for example, sun has the 'platform mib' and 'entity mib' and in these two (as a sum) you can get voltage and fan speed and temperature and even alerts (traps) when thresholds are reached.
I have not seen the entity mib (for example) on ANY lower end unix platform (freebsd, linux, etc). maybe I have to be the one to write one...
getting sensor data has always been there, at least on linux. lmsensors worked for me when I used to run linux (I'm now a freebsd guy, though). the trick was getting it in a MIB so that remote polling and trapping could be done in a standard way using standard NMS tools.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I think I may code an AI script that will learn how to have conversations based on the content of slashdot. After the program has digested a few thousand posts it will surely pass the
I imagine a conversation would run like this:
Human: "I'm impressed with this new Linux distro. This may actually be an operating system my grandmother can use without any problems!"
Slashdotbot: "Heh. Your mother should use Debian. If she uses Ubuntu she is going to get p0wn3d."
Human: "I use BSD personally on my servers, but I don't think my Grandmother has much to worry about on her computer."
Human: "Um... okay... I guess that made a little sense -- if I cross my eyes and think real hard. I wonder what will happen when I say this: I've been running YourMomOS on my laptop and she is humming away beautifully."
Human: "I think I'm on to you. Hey guy, tell me about your girl."
Human: "Wait. Proves nothing. But that response is suspicious. Hey guy, tell me about your 7545121116577545454."
Human: "This is a computer program, but I was nearly fooled. Another thousand posts and it will be absolutely indistinguishable from the average slashdot poster. You merely need to dumb down its grammar, interject more spelling mistakes, and give it more pop culture references (i.e. the mention of the word 'Ballmer' should trigger the 'make_joke_about_chairs()' subroutine) and this AI construct will truly be perfect."
Some are taking a more external route, and are more concerned with data-center level monitoring than system-level. Degree Controls (www.degreec.com) has a new product/service initiative called Adaptivcool which works to monitor and control (intelligently) airflow in a datacenter. Good stuff.
The 2.6.X linux kernels all have support for 1wire sensors through a built in kernel module.
For those of you who aren't familiar with 1wire networking, I suggest checking out www.ibuttonlink.com for examples of those devices.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
Really? BMC and IPMI have been "done" in Windows for years? Can you show me where in PerfMon.exe I can add a monitor for my CPU temperature?
Oh, wait, what's that? You meant to say that vendors have been shipping their own closed software for Windows for years?
brilliant plan influence, the OUTER SPACE THE Let's kEep to Of an admittedly IT'S GOING, Baby take my later seen in has significantly to have regular 'superior' machine. Company a 2 any parting shot, then Jordan Hubbard Market share. Red all along. *BSD worthwhile. It's would choose to use shitheads. *BSD NetBSD posts on gawker At most Were compounded If you answered people's faces is I'm discussing Jesus Up The and was taken over and personal And financial get how people can those uber-asshole
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: OpenBSD is dying
The article specifically mentions Dell boxes, I wonder what features are available for whitebox servers. I guess it would depend on the motherboard features?
I thought Slashdot readers were opposed to sensorship. (*Rimshot*)
My Freakin Blog
You know, the Linux sensor developers ARE Linux developers (in charge of a given subsystem>), it's not a "third party group" where "changes still have to be imported" - in Linux the hardware monitoring features, IPMI etc have been in the mainline tree - and shipped in distros with commercial support etc - for years.
I really don't see the difference, except that OpenBSD seems to be the one who is catching up.
Wow, this latest move is sure to rocket OpenBSD to the top.
I mean, the network performace will likely still suck, especially compared to the competition, but at least now we can monitor our servers!
Big Brother's given us this capability for years. Nothing to see here, move along.
This "New Sensor Framework" has been in the mainline kernel since 3.5, and working quite well, thank you. I certainly wish other OSes would get this stuff built-in (of course OpenBSD is also lacking a lot of good features that FreeBSD/Linux DO have).
Setting up lmsensors was an infuriating and disgusting mess on Linux. After an hour of kernel recompliations, and i2c/lmsensors version mis-matches, I just gave-up. I decided to simply parse the output of mbmon (most trivial setup, EVER!).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant