Linux Kernel 4.18 Delayed: Bug Ate My rc7, Says Linus Torvalds

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August 1, 2018

Linux kernel supremo Linus Torvalds has taken the rare step of reverting a kernel release candidate – after it went sour.

All looked sunny enough on Sunday evening, when he set Linux 4.18-rc7 free to roam: “Unless something odd happens, this should be the last rc for 4.18,” the chief penguinista wrote. Something odd did, indeed, happen, and after nearly two days of discussion on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, Torvalds made the decision to revert:

I think I’ll do an rc8 with the revert, just so that we’ll have some time to figure this out. It’s only Tuesday, but I already have 90 commits since rc7, so this isn’t the only issue we’re having.

I _prefer_ just the regular cadence of releases, but when I have a reason to delay, I’ll delay.

One large headache involves ashmem, an application-level virtual memory area type introduced to the Linux kernel to solve a problem arising from Android’s security paranoia.

Half Year in Review – Four Leading Virtualization Products

By

Starwind

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August 1, 2018

Nowadays, virtualization is becoming the top priority need for many organizations and they take special care of it while designing their IT infrastructures. The trend of using virtualization instead of hardware storage is just not an occasional practice rather it has become important because of the high resilience and high availability that virtualization provides. Moreover, a lot of money and other resources are spent on improving and enhancing the virtualization technologies day by day so we can say this very confidently that this trend is going to last for a long time.

…we are going to discuss the four virtualization products i.e. VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Red Hat KVM and Citrix Xen shown in the image. So let us proceed towards our discussion.

VMware ESXi- An Introduction:

ESXi is a virtualization product that is developed by VMware and it is an embedded bare metal hypervisor. It is mainly used to facilitate centralized management for enterprise desktops and data center applications. It is considered as one of the leaders in server virtualization industry.

The Top Requirement for High-Impact Teams

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OpenSource.com

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August 1, 2018

Performance depends on making sure everyone knows what needs to be done.

What is the top requirement for high-impact teams? When I was recently asked this question, I started making a list.

You need to know why you are doing what you are doing, and everyone on the team needs to know what that is.
You need to trust the people on the team. Trusting them is connected to personally caring for each member of your team.

Assuming your team has a great purpose and people who trust and care for each other, will that guarantee a high impact? Maybe not.

From my perspective, the one thing that is essential on a high-impact team is for everyone to understand the workflow—from the beginning to the end. And not only to have a clear, shared understanding of all the steps but to have the workflow visible to all team members at all times.

Join Interactive Workshop on Cloud-Native Network Functions at Open Source Summit

By

The Linux Foundation

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July 31, 2018

ONAP and Kubernetes – two of the fastest-growing Linux Foundation projects – are coming together in the next generation of telecom architecture.

ONAP provides a comprehensive platform for real-time, policy-driven orchestration and automation of physical and virtual network functions, and Kubernetes is an open source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. Telcos are now examining how these virtual network functions (VNFs) could evolve into cloud-native network functions (CNFs) running on Kubernetes.

In a three-hour interactive workshop on cloud-native network functions at Open Source Summit, Dan Kohn, Executive Director, Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and Arpit Joshipura, GM Networking & Orchestration, The Linux Foundation, will explain networking and cloud-native terms and concepts side by side.

“As the next-generation of telco architecture evolves, CSPs are exploring how their Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) can evolve into Cloud-native Network Functions (CNFs), ” said Joshipura. “This seminar will explore what’s involved in migrating from VNFs to CNFs, with a specific focus on the roles played by ONAP and Kubernetes. We hope to see a broad swatch of community members from both the container and networking spaces join us for an engaging and informative discussion in Vancouver.”

Session highlights will include:

Migrating and automating network functions to virtual networking functions to CNFs
Overview of sub-projects focusing on this migration, including cross-cloud CI, ONAP/OVP, FD.io/VPP, etc.
The role for a service mesh, such as like Envoy, Istio, or Linkerd, in connecting CNFs with load balancing, canary deployments, policy enforcement, and more.
What is involved in telcos adopting modern continuous integration / continuous deployment (CI/CD) tools to be able to rapidly innovate and improve their CNFs while retaining confidence in the reliability.
Differing security needs of trusted (open source and vendor-provided) code vs. running untrusted code
The role for security isolation technologies like gVisor or Kata
Requirements of the underlying operating system
Strengths and weaknesses of different network architectures such as multi-interface pods and Network Service Mesh
Status of IPv6 and dual-stack support in Kubernetes

Additional registration is required for this session, but there is no extra fee. Space is limited in the workshop, so reserve your spot soon. And, if you plan to attend, please be willing to participate. Learn more and sign up now!

This article originally appeared at The Linux Foundation.

How an Open-Source Education Can Help Students Gain an Edge

By

EdScoop

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July 31, 2018

Open-source software development is less structured and more free flowing, relying on the ideas and (sometimes brutally honest) input from developers from different backgrounds. Like a team of students working on a group project, open-source software is created from code written by many different contributors, some of whom may be halfway around the world, constantly iterating, innovating and having fun.

As such, an open-source curriculum can expose students to various like-minded people from different and diverse backgrounds while preparing them to be better technologists and work in a field that demands their services.

Preparing students for open organizations

It is also no coincidence that many of the organizations seeking open-source skills have adopted the methodologies that define open-source software development. They want young people with fresh ideas, but they also want people who know how to work with and seek input from others.

What’s in a Container Image: Meeting the Legal Challenges

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OpenSource.com

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July 31, 2018

Container technology has, for many years, been transforming how workloads in data centers are managed and speeding the cycle of application development and deployment.

In addition, container images are increasingly used as a distribution format, with container registries a mechanism for software distribution. Isn’t this just like packages distributed using package management tools? Not quite. While container image distribution is similar to RPMs, DEBs, and other package management systems (for example, storing and distributing archives of files), the implications of container image distribution are more complicated. It is not the fault of container technology itself; rather, it’s because container distribution is used differently than package management systems.

Talking about the challenges of license compliance for container images, Dirk Hohndel, chief open source officer at VMware, pointed out that the content of a container image is more complex than most people expect, and many readily available images have been built in surprisingly cavalier ways. (See the LWN.net article by Jake Edge about a talk Dirk gave in April.)

How to Use the gpg Command to Encrypt Linux Files

By

Network World

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July 31, 2018

There are many reasons to encrypt files — even on a system that is well maintained and comparatively secure. The files may highly sensitive, contain personal information that you don’t want to share with anyone, or be backed up to some variety of online storage where you’d prefer it be extra secure.

Fortunately, commands for reliably encrypting files on Linux systems are easy to come by and quite versatile. One of the most popular is gpg.

gpg vs pgp and OpenPGP

Used both to encrypt files in place and prepare them to be sent securely over the Internet, gpg is related to, but not the same as, pgp and OpenPGP. While gpg is based on the OpenPGP standards established by the IETF, it is — unlike pgp — open source. Here’s the rundown:

OpenPGP is the IETF-approved standard that defines encryption technology that uses processes that are interoperable with PGP.
pgp is Symantec’s proprietary encryption solution.
gpg adheres to the OpenPGP standard and provides an interface that allows users to easily encrypt their files.

A Linux Sysadmin’s Guide to Network Management, Troubleshooting and Debugging

By

Tecmint

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July 31, 2018

A system administrator’s routine tasks include configuring, maintaining, troubleshooting, and managing servers and networks within data centers. There are numerous tools and utilities in Linux designed for the administrative purposes.

In this article, we will review some of the most used command-line tools and utilities for network management in Linux, under different categories. We will explain some common usage examples, which will make network management much easier in Linux.

Network Configuration, Troubleshooting and Debugging Tools

1. ifconfig Command

ifconfig is a command line interface tool for network interface configuration and also used to initialize an interfaces at system boot time. Once a server is up and running, it can be used to assign an IP Address to an interface and enable or disable the interface on demand.

It is also used to view the status IP Address, Hardware / MAC address, as well as MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) size of the currently active interfaces. ifconfig is thus useful for debugging or performing system tuning.

Here is an example to display status of all active network interfaces.

$ ifconfig
enp1s0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 28:d2:44:eb:bd:98  
inet addr:192.168.0.103  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::8f0c:7825:8057:5eec/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
RX packets:169854 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:125995 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
RX bytes:174146270 (174.1 MB)  TX bytes:21062129 (21.0 MB)
lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
RX packets:15793 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:15793 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1 
RX bytes:2898946 (2.8 MB)  TX bytes:2898946 (2.8 MB)

To list all interfaces which are currently available, whether up or down, use the -a flag.

Open Source Networking Jobs: A Hotbed of Innovation and Opportunities

By

Brandon Wick

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July 30, 2018

As global economies move ever closer to a digital future, companies and organizations in every industry vertical are grappling with how to further integrate and deploy technology throughout their business and operations. While Enterprise IT largely led the way, the advantages and lessons learned are now starting to be applied across the board. While the national unemployment rate stands at 4.1%, the overall unemployment rate for tech professionals hit 1.9% in April and the future for open source jobs looks particularly bright. I work in the open source networking space and the innovations and opportunities I’m witnessing are transforming the way the world communicates.

Once a slower moving industry, the networking ecosystem of today — made up of network operators, vendors, systems integrators, and developers — is now embracing open source software and is shifting significantly towards virtualization and software defined networks running on commodity hardware. In fact, nearly 70% of global mobile subscribers are represented by network operator members of LF Networking, an initiative working to harmonize projects that makes up the open networking stack and adjacent technologies.

Demand for Skills

Developers and sysadmins working in this space are embracing cloud native and DevOps approaches and methods to develop new use cases and tackle the most pressing industry challenges. Focus areas like containers and edge computing are red hot and the demand for developers and sysadmins who can integrate, collaborate, and innovate in this space is exploding.

Open source and Linux makes this all possible, and per the recently published 2018 Open Source Jobs Report, fully 80% of hiring managers are looking for people with Linux skills while 46% are looking to recruit in the networking area and a roughly equal equal percentage cite “Networking” as a technology most affecting their hiring decisions.

Developers are the most sought-after position, with 72% of hiring managers looking for them, followed by DevOps skills (59%), engineers (57%) and sysadmins (49%). The report also measures the incredible growth in demand for containers skills which matches what we’re seeing in the networking space with the creation of cloud native virtual functions (CNFs) and the proliferation of Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment approaches such as the XCI initiative in the OPNFV.

Get Started

The good news for job seekers in that there are plenty of onramps into open source including the free Introduction to Linux course. Multiple certifications are mandatory for the top jobs so I encourage you to explore the range of training opportunities out there. Specific to networking, check out these new training courses in the OPNFV and ONAP projects, as well as this introduction to open source networking technologies.

If you haven’t done so already, download the 2018 Open Source Jobs Report now for more insights and plot your course through the wide world of open source technology to the exciting career that waits for you on the other side!

Download the complete Open Source Jobs Report now and learn more about Linux certification here.

An Interview with Heptio, the Kubernetes Pioneers

By

LinuxJournal

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July 30, 2018

I recently spent some time chatting with Craig McLuckie, CEO of the leading Kubernetes solutions provider Heptio. Centered around both developers and system administrators, Heptio’s products and services simplify and scale the Kubernetes ecosystem.

Petros Koutoupis: For all our readers who have yet to hear of the remarkable things Heptio is doing in this space, please start by telling us, who is Craig McLuckie?

Craig McLuckie: I am the CEO and founder of Heptio. My co-founder, Joe Beda, and I were two of the three creators of Kubernetes and previously started the Google Compute Engine, Google’s traditional infrastructure as a service product. He also started the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), of which he is a board member.

PK: Why did you start Heptio? What services does Heptio provide?

CL: Since we announced Kubernetes in June 2014, it has garnered a lot of attention from enterprises looking to develop a strategy for running their business applications efficiently in a multi-cloud world.

Perhaps the most interesting trend we saw that motivated us to start Heptio was that enterprises were looking at open-source technology adoption as the best way to create a common platform that spanned on-premises, private cloud, public cloud and edge deployments without fear of vendor lock-in. Kubernetes and the cloud native technology suite represented an incredible opportunity to create a powerful “utility computing platform” spanning every cloud provider and hosting option, that also radically improves developer productivity and resource efficiency.

In order to get the most out of Kubernetes and the broader array of cloud native technologies, we believed a company needed to exist that was committed to helping organizations get closer to the vibrant Kubernetes ecosystem. Heptio offers both consultative services and a commercial subscription product that delivers the deep support and the advanced operational tooling needed to stitch upstream Kubernetes into modern enterprise IT environments.