Posts in category server

dev.licorn.org migrated to a dedicated server, Licorn® project using Git and GitFlow

After some years of mutualized hosting, dev.licorn.org is now living on its own on a brand new Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server. It lives in a dedicated LXC container; the hosting machine is fully dedicated to the Licorn® project, running docs.licorn.org in another LXC, and many more things I wanted the project to have (a build machine, etc).

Meanwhile, we have switched from darcs to git. Having encountered the  fatal #1520 bug has urged us to do so, because this bug just prevents us from working. But it's really the tip of the iceberg, because I wanted to switch to Git for a long time.

Even better, we now officially use  GitFlow to follow the famous  successful Git branching model, and I'm very happy with this clean approach.

Things will only go better now ;-)

Testing client/server communication

Defining LICORN_SERVER environment variable (in latest stable code) provides an easy way to test bi-directionnal communication between 2 or more Licorn® daemons installed on distinct machines.

WARNING: this is meant for testing and development purposes only. In production environments, there should be a DHCP server on the Licorn® machine with the SERVER role, and the CLIENTs will discover it automatically.

To use:

  • be sure all machines are on the same IP network.
  • set up one of the machine with licornd.role = SERVER in /etc/licorn/licorn.conf.
    • find the IP address of this machine and remember it.
  • set up all other machines with licornd.role = CLIENT
    • open a Terminal on each, and run export LICORN_SERVER=<IP_address> with the IP address of your server.
  • start all licornd, ending with the server one (else it won't detect the clients because they currently don't push their status to the server).
    • alternatively, if you want to force detection of new clients started after the server, you can run add machines --discover <IP_subnet/mask> on the server, it will scan the subnet and register all new machines.

Besides this, be sure to set experimental.enabled = True on the SERVER machine, to get the Machines tab in the WMI.

You can now enjoy remotely shutting down client machines.