the gurubox project: open source troubleshooting tools
DESCRIPTION
Need a 'sterile' troubleshooting platform? Tired of using your personal workstation for troubleshooting, data collection and analysis? Enter Gurubox. This presentation describes various open source tools I've used in troubleshooting issues of all sorts, from directory schema issues to network analysis and load testing.TRANSCRIPT
© 2009 IBM Corporation
IBM Collaboration Solutions
The Gurubox Project:
Open Source Troubleshooting Tools
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Me and Open Source
● First real job – Unix systems administrator● When Usenet was github and comp.sources.* ruled● First “home computer” - AT&T 3B2/310 with 3B2/XM and 5620 – 4MB RAM, 0.6 MIPS● Contributed portability code to gnuplot, perl, bignum, nethack et al.● If you ever see “3B2” or “3B20” in PORTING or README, it was probably me
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Open Source for End Users at IBM
Green to Open Software Project (G2O)850+ packages approved for some degree of internal useHundreds of thousands of OpenOffice installations
Open Client for LinuxIBM's customized Linux desktop, built on RHEL and UbuntuTens of thousands of clients deployed within IBM
Supporting Open Source on IBM PlatformsIBM SDK for node.jsIBM Bluemix – http://www.bluemix.net
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Why are we here? The Gurubox Project
Originated in corporate security concerns
Troubleshooting with hundreds of customers over 20 years
Need for a “sterile” system for troubleshooting and data collection
Concerns in exposing our own information on customer networks
SOLUTION: Open source!
Known tools
Many already in use among customers
Easily audited
Empty of any/all company confidential information
Easily wiped/sanitized
Can be adopted by customers
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Caveats – The IS/ISN'T Approach
Gurubox IS intended for general troubleshooting
Gurubox IS NOT intended for “deep dive” subject matter experts
Gurubox IS intended for “get in, find the red flag, get out” troubleshooting
Gurubox IS NOT intended for long-term monitoring/analysis
Gurubox IS predicated on ease of use
Gurubox IS NOT necessarily “best of breed” in each area
YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY!
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Gurubox Platform
ThinkPad W500
Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 @ 2.53 GHz
8 GB RAM
160GB HDD
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Must-haves For the Enterprise-Level Troubleshooter
Network Analysis
Directory Search/Maintenance
Web Troubleshooting/Analysis
Virtual Machines
Troubleshooting Mobile/Cloud Services
Load Testers
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Network Troubleshooting - nmap
Extremely robust network discovery tool (aka “network mapper”)
Can perform a wide range of scans against individual systems or entire networks
OS/service fingerprint detection
Zenmap GUI also available
http://nmap.org
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Network Troubleshooting – mtr and lft
mtr – graphical traceroute, repeating, statistical analysis providedUseful for catching “breakdown” in network connectivityhttp://www.bitwizard.nl/mtr/
lft - “layer 4 traceroute”Many, MANY options – useful for discovering/traversing firewallshttp://pwhois.org/lft/
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Network Analysis - Wireshark
“The World's Most Popular Network Protocol Analyzer” - supports 1500+ protocols and packet types
Reads/writes file formats of most commercial network analyzers
Extensive utilities for manipulating capture files
http://www.wireshark.org
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Network Analysis - MRTG Multi-Router Traffic Grapher
Quick, easy monitoring of SNMP-enabled network interfaces (e.g. switches, routers)
Runs from cron or Task Manager
Automatically builds traffic graphs and web page for each interface
http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Directory Search/Maintenance – Apache Directory Studio
Directory tooling platform with browsing/editing capability
Works with almost every LDAP server
Extremely useful for validating search filters
http:/directory.apache.org/studio
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Simple Web Troubleshooting – Live HTTP Headers
Firefox plugin
Simple capture/save-to-file of HTTP request/response headers
Perfect for quick “sanity checks”
http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Simple Web Troubleshooting – Modify Headers
Firefox plugin
Quick on-the-fly modification of HTTP headers
Pairs well with Live HTTP Headers
http://www.garethhunt.com/modifyheaders or Firefox Add-On Library
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Advanced Web Troubleshooting - Firebug
Firefox plugin
Explore HTTP headers, HTML, CSS, scripts, DOM, cookie, network performance
http://getfirebug.com
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Virtual Machines - VirtualBox
Desktop virtualization
Almost all x86 operating systems supported
http://www.virtualbox.org
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Troubleshooting Cloud/Mobile Services - GeoIP MaxMind – open source data and APIs
GeoIP databases available for download - https://www.maxmind.com/en/opensource
GeoIP supported by an increasing number of packagesINCLUDING WIRESHARK!
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Troubleshooting Cloud/Mobile Services - Android-x86
Straightforward port of Android to x86 architecture
Easy deployment in VirtualBox VM
Allows data captures (e.g. network traffic) that is difficult on a mobile device
http://android-x86.org
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Load Testing – Apache JMeter
Can create tests for HTTP/HTTPS, SOAP, FTP, LDAP, SMTP, POP3, and more
Record your own tests and scale with thread groups
http://jmeter.apache.org
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
One for our Windows Friends – Process Hacker
Adjunct to (or replacement for) Task Manager
Views for Processes, Services, Network and Disk
Live usage charts for CPU, Memory, and more
http://processhacker.sourceforge.net
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Odds and Ends
Quick and easy data plots – gnuplot - http://www.gnuplot.info/
Screen capturesShutter (Linux) - http://shutter-project.org/Greenshot (Windows) - http://getgreenshot.org/
Generating PDFs – cups-pdf (Linux) and CutePDF (Windows)
Music composition/notation (just because!) - Musescore (Linux) - http://musescore.org/
© 2012 IBM Corporation
October 24, 2014
Thanks for being here!
Feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions
Did I miss something? Let me know! I'm always excited to learn about new tools...
Twitter: @wesmorgan1 Email: [email protected] Blog: Cognitive Buffet <http://wesmorgan.blogspot.com>