How To Set Up A Headless X Server On Redhat Linux

Hey there,

Today we're going to throw out another Linux tip somewhat related to networking. Or, more correctly, we're going to throw another quick tip out there ;) Today we're going to look at setting up a headless X Server. It's not quite as difficult, or as scary, as it sounds. Running a headless X Server is kind of like Night Of The Living Dead (the original; although the remake was kind of fun) except without all the zombies and with exported displays instead of excoriated remains (best I could do in the almost-rhyming department on that one ;)

If you stick to the following steps (Tested on RedHat Enterprise Linux Update 4) and adjust slightly if your distro is either completely different, your system architecture varies or your RedHat release is just a version or so off, you should be up and running in no time.

1. Make sure that you install all of the following rpm's on the machine on which you want to run the headless X Server (ignore errors that state you already have any of the packages installed. If you run into dependency conflicts, run rpm with the --nodeps option. If you need to update any of the files, run rpm with the --update option. You may need to install these one by one, but you might get lucky and just be able to run rpm -ivh in a loop and have them all install the first time. You can also get around dependency issues by installing all of the rpm's on one line - i.e. rpm -ivh rpm1.rpm rpm2.rpm ... rpmN.rpm):

XFree-libs-data-4.3.0-78.EL.i386.rpm
XFree-xfs-4.3.0-78.EL.i386.rpm
XFree-libs-4.3.0-78.EL.i386.rpm
XFree86-xauth-4.3.0-35.EL.i386.rpm
XFree86-base-fonts-4.3.0-35.EL.i386.rpm
XFree86-4.3.0-78.EL.i386.rpm
cpp-3.2.3-47.i386.rpm
xinitrc-3.32-1.noarch.rpm
switchdesk-3.98.17.i386.rpm
desktop-file-utils-0.3-10.i386.rpm
XFree86-Xvfb-4.3.0-78.EL.i386.rpm
XFree86-ISO8859-14-100dpi-fonts-4.3.0-97.i386.rpm

2. Start up X's virtual frame buffer server like so:

Xvfb :0 –pn –nolisten tcp –audit 4 –screen 0 800x600x16 & <-- The 800x600 is the screen resolution and the x16 (16 bit)is the color depth. You can change these settings to suit your taste or satisfy any limitations your graphics driver might impose).

NOTE: If you have problems with the X Server going offline when you logoff, try running it with nohup and/or check out our previous post on what to do when nohup hangs up anyway!

And, how about that? I think this is, blessedly, the shortest post I've ever written :) Just pretend there are a couple more paragraphs of "ipsum lorem dolor sit amet" if you find yourself suffering from information underload ;)

Cheers,

, Mike

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Using LVM on AIX Unix. Part One Of No More Than Two.

Hey there,

As you may recall, we just completed a short series of posts on using LVM on Linux and Unix. At the time that I wrote it, I made mention (probably several times) of the similarities between LVM for Linux and HP-UX's brand. Also at that time, since I had hardly any experience with AIX, I was completely unaware that LVM was being used on that operating system.

If you need help with some of the basic concepts of LVM, please check out our older post on getting started with LVM and then check out the series listed above.

Now, I think I'm not allowed to get "too" excited about this, since this blog is mostly about Linux flavours and Solaris Unix (peppered with a little HP and one old post on AIX commands for the Unix user), but I thought I'd put this little series of posts (possibly not in totally sequential order -- Sometimes things come up that I'm compelled to write about ;) up for the AIX enthuisast who is thinking of using, or just beginning to use, LVM on AIX.

I hope this post is helpful to you. In any event, it should make for a good reference and might possibly be useful "later" :) Today, we'll look at LVM creation and display/monitoring commands for AIX and our next post will be on usage and destruction! Please note that all examples are mocked up and any variable that starts with Optional (such as OptionalVolumeGroupName) is an argument that you don't necessarily need to pass to the command.

Enjoy :)

AIX LVM Creation commands:

Create a Physical Volume (Note that Physical Volumes, in AIX, already exist - they just need to be allocated to Volume Groups):

host # lsvpcfg <-- To show the disks/vpaths and any Volume Groups they may already be associated with.
host # lspv|grep None <-- To show available Physical Volumes
host # cfgmgr <-- Use this interactively to allocate the Physical Volume for use with LVM.

Create a Volume Group:

host # mkvg -y VolumeGroupName HardDiskNumber <-- You can get the hard disk number from the lsdev command
host # varyonvg VolumeGroupName

Create a logical volume within a volume group:

host # mklv -y LogicalVolumeName -t FileSystemType VolumeGroup PhysicalPartion(PP) OptionalSpecificHardDriveDefinition
Ex:
host # mklv -y MylogicalVolume -t jfs MyVolumeGroup 8 <-- Note that the PP size is in MB.
or
host # mklv -y MylogicalVolume -t jfs MyVolumeGroup 8 /dev/DiskName

AIX LVM Display/Monitoring commands:

List out information about physical volumes:

host # lspv OptionalPhysicalVolumeName

List out Physical Volume information by Hard Disk:

host # lspv HardDiskNumber

List out Logical Volumes Within a Physical Volume:

host # lspv -l HardDiskNumber

List out Physical Partitions within a Physical Volume:

host # lspv -p HardDiskNumber

List out information about volume groups:

host # lsvg OptionalVolumeGroupName

List out properties of logical volumes within a volume group:

host # lsvg -l VolumeGroupName

List out properties, including hard drives, within a volume group:

host # lsvg -p VolumeGroupName

List out properties of a logical volume:

host # lslv OptionalLogicalVolumeName

List out Logical Volumes within a Physical Volume:

host # lslv -l OptionalLogicalVolumeName

List out Logical Volumes by Physical Volume:

host # lslv -p OptionalPhysicalVolumeName

List out mirrored Logical Volumes:

host # lslv -m OptionalLogicalVolumeName

List out hard disks in a vpath (Virtual Path). Necessary after Physical Volume Allocation to ensure everything went ok:

host # lsvpcfg

List out Fiber Channel adapters:

host # lsdev -Cc adapter
host # scfg -vl Number of fiber channel card

, Mike