Posts Tagged ‘power’

Procedure Instructions to safe upgrade CentOS / RHEL Linux 7 Core to latest release

Thursday, February 13th, 2020

safe-upgrade-CentOS-and_Redhat_Enterprise_Linux_RHEL-7-to-latest-stable-release

Generally upgrading both RHEL and CentOS can be done straight with yum tool just we're pretty aware and mostly anyone could do the update, but it is good idea to do some
steps in advance to make backup of any old basic files that might help us to debug what is wrong in case if the Operating System fails to boot after the routine Machine OS restart
after the upgrade that is usually a good idea to make sure that machine is still bootable after the upgrade.

This procedure can be shortened or maybe extended depending on the needs of the custom case but the general framework should be useful anyways to someone that's why
I decided to post this.

Before you go lets prepare a small status script which we'll use to report status of  sysctl installed and enabled services as well as the netstat connections state and
configured IP addresses and routing on the system.

The script show_running_services_netstat_ips_route.sh to be used during our different upgrade stages:
 

# script status ###
echo "STARTED: $(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S'):" | tee /root/logs/yumcheckupdate-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out
systemctl list-unit-files –type=service | grep enabled
systemctl | grep ".service" | grep "running"
netstat -tulpn
netstat -r
ip a s
/sbin/route -n
echo "ENDED $(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S'):" | tee /root/logs/yumcheckupdate-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out
####

 

– Save the script in any file like /root/status.sh

– Make the /root/logs directoriy.
 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# mkdir /root/logs
[root@redhat: ~ ]# vim /root/status.sh
[root@redhat: ~ ]# chmod +x /root/status.sh

 

1. Get a dump of CentOS installed version release and grub-mkconfig generated os_probe

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# cat /etc/redhat-release  > /root/logs/redhat-release-vorher-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out
[root@redhat: ~ ]# cat /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober > /root/logs/grub2-efi-vorher-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

2. Clear old versionlock marked RPM packages (if there are such)

 

On servers maintained by multitude of system administrators just like the case is inside a Global Corporations and generally in the corporate world , where people do access the systems via LDAP and more than a single person
has superuser privileges. It is a good prevention measure to use yum package management  functionality to RPM based Linux distributions called  versionlock.
versionlock for those who hear it for a first time is locking the versions of the installed RPM packages so if someone by mistake or on purpose decides to do something like :

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum install packageversion

Having the versionlock set will prevent the updated package to be installed with a different branch package version.

Also it will prevent a playful unknowing person who just wants to upgrade the system without any deep knowledge to be able to
run

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum upgrade

update and leave the system in unbootable state, that will be only revealed during the next system reboot.

If you haven't used versionlock before and you want to use it you can do it with:

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum install yum-plugin-versionlock

To add all the packages for compiling C code and all the interdependend packages, you can do something like:

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum versionlock gcc-*

If you want to clear up the versionlock, once it is in use run:

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  yum versionlock clear
[root@redhat: ~ ]#  yum versionlock list

 

3.  Check RPC enabled / disabled

 

This step is not necessery but it is a good idea to check whether it running on the system, because sometimes after upgrade rpcbind gets automatically started after package upgrade and reboot. 
If we find it running we'll need to stop and mask the service.

 

# check if rpc enabled
[root@redhat: ~ ]# systemctl list-unit-files|grep -i rpc
var-lib-nfs-rpc_pipefs.mount                                      static
auth-rpcgss-module.service                                        static
rpc-gssd.service                                                  static
rpc-rquotad.service                                               disabled
rpc-statd-notify.service                                          static
rpc-statd.service                                                 static
rpcbind.service                                                   disabled
rpcgssd.service                                                   static
rpcidmapd.service                                                 static
rpcbind.socket                                                    disabled
rpc_pipefs.target                                                 static
rpcbind.target                                                    static

[root@redhat: ~ ]# systemctl status rpcbind.service
● rpcbind.service – RPC bind service
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/rpcbind.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# systemctl status rpcbind.socket
● rpcbind.socket – RPCbind Server Activation Socket
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/rpcbind.socket; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
   Listen: /var/run/rpcbind.sock (Stream)
           0.0.0.0:111 (Stream)
           0.0.0.0:111 (Datagram)
           [::]:111 (Stream)
           [::]:111 (Datagram)

 

4. Check any previously existing downloaded / installed RPMs (check yum cache)

 

yum install package-name / yum upgrade keeps downloaded packages via its operations inside its cache directory structures in /var/cache/yum/*.
Hence it is good idea to check what were the previously installed packages and their count.

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# cd /var/cache/yum/x86_64/;
[root@redhat: ~ ]# find . -iname '*.rpm'|wc -l

 

5. List RPM repositories set on the server

 

 [root@redhat: ~ ]# yum repolist
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, versionlock
Repodata is over 2 weeks old. Install yum-cron? Or run: yum makecache fast
Determining fastest mirrors
repo id                                                                                 repo name                                                                                                            status
!atos-ac/7/x86_64                                                                       Atos Repository                                                                                                       3,128
!base/7/x86_64                                                                          CentOS-7 – Base                                                                                                      10,019
!cr/7/x86_64                                                                            CentOS-7 – CR                                                                                                         2,686
!epel/x86_64                                                                            Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 7 – x86_64                                                                          165
!extras/7/x86_64                                                                        CentOS-7 – Extras                                                                                                       435
!updates/7/x86_64                                                                       CentOS-7 – Updates                                                                                                    2,500

 

This step is mandatory to make sure you're upgrading to latest packages from the right repositories for more concretics check what is inside in confs /etc/yum.repos.d/ ,  /etc/yum.conf 
 

6. Clean up any old rpm yum cache packages

 

This step is again mandatory but a good to follow just to have some more clearness on what packages is our upgrade downloading (not to mix up the old upgrades / installs with our newest one).
For documentation purposes all deleted packages list if such is to be kept under /root/logs/yumclean-install*.out file

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum clean all |tee /root/logs/yumcleanall-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

7. List the upgradeable packages's latest repository provided versions

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum check-update |tee /root/logs/yumcheckupdate-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

Then to be aware how many packages we'll be updating:

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  yum check-update | wc -l

 

8. Apply the actual uplisted RPM packages to be upgraded

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum update |tee /root/logs/yumupdate-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

Again output is logged to /root/logs/yumcheckupate-*.out 

 

9. Monitor downloaded packages count real time

 

To make sure yum upgrade is not in some hanging state and just get some general idea in which state of the upgrade is it e.g. Download / Pre-Update / Install  / Upgrade/ Post-Update etc.
in mean time when yum upgrade is running to monitor,  how many packages has the yum upgrade downloaded from remote RPM set repositories:

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  watch "ls -al /var/cache/yum/x86_64/7Server/…OS-repository…/packages/|wc -l"

 

10. Run status script to get the status again

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# sh /root/status.sh |tee /root/logs/status-before-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

11. Add back versionlock for all RPM packs

 

Set all RPM packages installed on the RHEL / CentOS versionlock for all packages.

 

#==if needed
# yum versionlock \*

 

 

12. Get whether old software configuration is not messed up during the Package upgrade (Lookup the logs for .rpmsave and .rpmnew)

 

During the upgrade old RPM configuration is probably changed and yum did automatically save .rpmsave / .rpmnew saves of it thus it is a good idea to grep the prepared logs for any matches of this 2 strings :
 

[root@redhat: ~ ]#   grep -i ".rpm" /root/logs/yumupdate-server-host-2020-01-20_14-30-41.out
[root@redhat: ~ ]#  grep -i ".rpmsave" /root/logs/yumupdate-server-host-2020-01-20_14-30-41.out
[root@redhat: ~ ]#  grep -i ".rpmnew" /root/logs/yumupdate-server-host-2020-01-20_14-30-41.out


If above commands returns output usually it is fine if there is is .rpmnew output but, if you get grep output of .rpmsave it is a good idea to review the files compare with the original files that were .rpmsaved with the 
substituted config file and atune the differences with the changes manually made for some program functionality.

What are the .rpmsave / .rpmnew files ?
This files are coded files that got triggered by the RPM install / upgrade due to prewritten procedures on time of RPM build.

 

If a file was installed as part of a rpm, it is a config file (i.e. marked with the %config tag), you've edited the file afterwards and you now update the rpm then the new config file (from the newer rpm) will replace your old config file (i.e. become the active file).
The latter will be renamed with the .rpmsave suffix.

If a file was installed as part of a rpm, it is a noreplace-config file (i.e. marked with the %config(noreplace) tag), you've edited the file afterwards and you now update the rpm then your old config file will stay in place (i.e. stay active) and the new config file (from the newer rpm) will be copied to disk with the .rpmnew suffix.
See e.g. this table for all the details. 

In both cases you or some program has edited the config file(s) and that's why you see the .rpmsave / .rpmnew files after the upgrade because rpm will upgrade config files silently and without backup files if the local file is untouched.

After a system upgrade it is a good idea to scan your filesystem for these files and make sure that correct config files are active and maybe merge the new contents from the .rpmnew files into the production files. You can remove the .rpmsave and .rpmnew files when you're done.


If you need to get a list of all .rpmnew .rpmsave files on the server do:

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  find / -print | egrep "rpmnew$|rpmsave$

 

13. Reboot the system 

To check whether on next hang up or power outage the system will boot normally after the upgrade, reboot to test it.

 

you can :

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  reboot

 

either

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  shutdown -r now


or if on newer Linux with systemd in ues below systemctl reboot.target.

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  systemctl start reboot.target

 

14. Get again the system status with our status script after reboot

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  sh /root/status.sh |tee /root/logs/status-after-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

15. Clean up any versionlocks if earlier set

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum versionlock clear
[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum versionlock list

 

16. Check services and logs for problems

 

After the reboot Check closely all running services on system make sure every process / listening ports and services on the system are running fine, just like before the upgrade.
If the sytem had firewall,  check whether firewall rules are not broken, e.g. some NAT is not missing or anything earlier configured to automatically start via /etc/rc.local or some other
custom scripts were run and have done what was expected. 
Go through all the logs in /var/log that are most essential /var/log/boot.log , /var/log/messages … yum.log etc. that could reveal any issues after the boot. In case if running some application server or mail server check /var/log/mail.log or whenever it is configured to log.
If the system runs apache closely check the logs /var/log/httpd/error.log or php_errors.log for any strange errors that occured due to some issues caused by the newer installed packages.
Usually most of the cases all this should be flawless but a multiple check over your work is a stake for good results.
 

Why Russophobes hates Putin – How situation changed in Russia during Vladimir Putin presidency

Thursday, April 3rd, 2014

why-Russophobes-hates-putin-how-situation-changed-in-Russia-during-putin-reign

POSITIVE RESULTS  FOR RUSSIA DURING REIGN OF VLADIMIR PUTIN

  • For last 12 years of government Putin increated Russia's budget 22 times.
  • Increated warfare spendings 30 times.
  • Increated GDP 12 times (by GDP Russia moved from 36th to 6th place in the World).
  • Increated Russian golden reserves 48 times.
  • Returned back 256 oil, petrol and other natural resources sources / mine-yards (under non-Russian government curretnly are only 3 of
  • Russia's source for natural resources.
  • Nationalized 65% of oil industry and 95% of gas industry.
  • For a 5th consequential year 2nd / 3rd place in export of grain (just for a comparison USA is currently ranked 4th largest weed exporter). The avarage sallary of national institution employed increased 18.5 times.
  • Avarage pension increased 14 times.
  • Reduce of population decreased from 1.5 million per year in year 1999 to 21 000 in 2011, i.e. 71 times.
  • Prohibited deputies in Government to have bank accounts in foreign banks.Prevented American attack against Syria.
  • Put an end to war in Chechnya.


From January y. 2000 to present times Russian ruble rate changed from 28 Rubles per dollar to 29 Rubles per dollar – i.e. severe inflation in Russia ended.Present day Russia is a normal European country not that poor country where approimate pension was 20 dollars and where masters was the financial pyramids and the International Monatery Fund

In 1992 Eltsin cancelled completely export duty of oil products.
In 23 January E. Primakov government forced again oil taxes.
In export price of 9.5 dollars per barrel custom taxes were 2.5 euro per tone and in price 12,5 dollars per barrel 5 euro / tone.Such a minor increase in taxes produced 14 billion rubles in already empty Russian budget.

In August 1999 Eltsin assigned Putin for prime minister.
In just a month later the export taxes Putin increased duty taxes to 7.5 euro/tone and in 8 december to 15 euro/tone. Till then incomes from oil taxes has been steadily increasing and nowadays exporters calculate in national budget half of incomes origin from oil prices and export taxes.
From January to November 2007 Russian customs influxed in national budget 2.57 trillion Rubles.
Oil export takes has drastically raised incomes of citizens.This had major impact on construction business.All Russia nowadays is in reality enormous "construction yard", to illustrate from January to September 2007 375 009 homes were built occupying 34 million square meters.
Cement factories cannot satisfy local market requirements and Russia is forced to import cement from China.
Increased incomes of population led to increase in estates search, this increased apartment prices and as a consequence increased incomes from building activies.
Result is in consutriction business are invested enormous amounts of capital and a real construction boom is observed.
Another consequence of increased income was increase in demand for automobiles. Just for 2006 the quantity of demanded automobiles in Russia increased with 45% and reached 32 billion dollars with a count of sold new cars numbering 2 million. By indicator of sold new cars Russia orders on 5th place after in Europe taking place right after Germany, Great Britain, Italy and France.

Currently are being build a couple of new automobile plants, and existing ones increase production volume.
All this is consequence of increase in demand and therefore from increase in citizens income.

rn>For 10 years budets expenditure for social politics (pensions and social help) increased with 30%.

Before Putin pensions were under existence-minimum with appr. 25% and in 90th pensions were not paid at all.
Now pensions are 50% above existence-minimum and is constantly increasing.
In 2000 approximate sallary in Russia was 2223 Rubles (appr. 80 dollars).
Now approximate sallary in Russia 19174 rubles (apprx. 660 dollars).
Purchase of domestic goods for 10 years increased 10 times. Number of own automobilse increased 3 times.
Putin nationalized YUKOS, without 'making nervous' emering Russian busness in a market manner – with bankruptcy and auction. All this happened lawful, following laws adopted by democratic parliament.
The president doesn't have the right to use other  means. Formal occasion for arest of Hodorkovski were taxation frauds of YUKOS. In such machinations are involved practically all large private companies and this is the reason why nobody believes that excuse. It is unbelievable. However Putin simply defended Russia's interests.

 

 

Putin_russia_speech_and-the-russian-flag-a-primer-for-honest-politic


The proof for that is transmission of actives of YUKOS to national corporation "Rosneft". It would have been more righteous if this actives were just confiscated … but there are laws and Putin had just stick to them. After all the President can't go out of framework of his jurisdiction.
It can be just added that after Khodorkovsky  was injailed, collectivity (incomes)of taxes of ex-actives of YUKOS increased 80 TIMES!
In y. 2004 Putin finally removed law "Agreement for Separation of Production  (Separation Agreement)". This law was annexed during Eltsin's regime, in order to benefit Oligarchs (Khodorkovsky, Gusinsky, Beresovsky etc.) in order to make possible Russian oil reserves to be possessed by Western (American and British) oil corporations.
By the power of this law Russian oil and natural fields went into international jurisdiction, and therefore the money from Russian oil doesn't entered budget of Russia but influxed in Western companies.
Money from oil drills went mainly into Dutch "Shell" for covering of corporation expenses. Only after something remained from that they sold it to Russia. In 2006 Putin declared following in that connection "And now we don't get anything from them and if they increase their profit we will not receive it even in 10 years from now."
In fact to this moment Russia didn't get any money from their own oil.
After the law was removed in 2004, revenues in budeg increased from 3 to 4 times.
After cancellation of contracts for oil fields "Sakhalin-1" and "Sakhalin-2" Russia's loans to American company calculated to 700 million dollars, for that time this was too much. The whole Anglo-Saxon world pricked against Putin because of a simple reason: "UK planned to assure its oil reserves for years to come in expense of Russia – only Germany and France who didn't have a direct interest in that process kept neutral …
In 1992 – 1995 the head aparatus of Russia formed its view based on foreign advisors. All legislation from 1990's was hence written by them. In Russian country administration was working 10 000 foreign coaches.  George Soros was financing writting of student history books where the Battle for Stalingrad was mentioned in only 2 pages and about the meeting between Elbe and Soviet and American soldiers (Elbe Day) in 10 pages.

 

Russian_Army_meeting_American_Army-Elba-day


: In that mournful times on pupils notebook you can see portrainst of 4 American presidents of USA.
Until this very day there are left relics from that anti-Russian propaganda but hopefully with time Putin will throw away american propaganda from education system.
But why Putin cannot immediately dismiss all this hostile to Russia clerks? The reason is simple: Constitution of Russia written under dictation of Western coaches, does not allow quick changse into it.
Nowadays the President is just one of many clerks with resticted power. Yes truly president power is a bit bigger than other clerks, but country head can't influence everything. The president can't even define his ministers, even though by law this is part of his jurisdiction.

Overfulfilment of budet in times of Putin govern allowed craetion of country Stabilization fund. Nowdays is collected huge golden-currency reserve and practically Russia doesn't have external debt.

War in Kavkaz is over, separatists were destroyed. All famous terrorist leaders were liquidated physically.
Even Zelimkhan_Yandarbiyev was killed in Qatar, Basaev and Umarov were also destoyed. Putin promised "to drawn them if necessary even in their own toilet dish" and he fulfilled his promise. Of course, separatism is not completely destroyed, such conflicts cannot be quickly solved, but nowadays situation in Kakvaz is the best possible. If Chechnya's elite feels the power of Moscow and benefits of being a surrender – then separatism will fade away. This is exactly what happens. The attempts of western spy centrals to supply terrorists are still leading to separate terr. acts but this is the maximum – there will be no war anymore.
 
For 10 years Putin increased political influence of Russia in world and lifted its image. Today Russia follows its own interests, and not Western ones.
It is not coincidence that Putin was recognized as the most influential world politic of 2013. He prevented Russia's devastation led country out of catastrophe caused by Gorbachov and Eltsin. That's the rason why Western Medias abhor him and compare him with devil.
Everyone interested in political life in Russia seems, that the battle against corruption took unforeseen measures.
At least 2-3 times weekly on TV are shown arrests  of clergy and policeman and news inform about sentences against government employees.
Lets not forget Crimea, here is how it was given to Ukraine.

In 1992 on signature of Treaty of Belovesh for dissolution of USSR Ukrainian representative Leonid Kravchuk noticed that Boris Eltsin is "in play with Vodka" and is delaying signature, he urged him with words: –

"Borya if you like take Crimea, please just  sign the contract!".

Drunk Eltsin nobly waved hand:

"What for I need Crimea? Here it is your present!"

And signed and by one scratch he "killed" efforts of Prince Grigory Potemkin, Catherina the Great, heros of Sevastopol in 1856, heroes defenders of Sevastopol in 1941 …

Few days ago Putin removed consequences of this "joke with history" – and people of Crimea sung and danced on squares, returning to their motherland.
 

Here is Why Russophobes hates Putin!

 

 

Source Materials from http://rublogers.ru
Translated by: Georgi Georgiev
This translation is copyrighted and copying can only be done with explicit allowance of author Author or link to original translation
http://rublogers.ru/

 

Raspberry Pi – Cheap portable credit-card sized single board Linux computer box

Thursday, November 7th, 2013

RaspberryPi tiny-computer running Linux and free software Logo

Not of a the latest thing out there but I believe a must know for every geek is existence of Raspberry Pi mini computer Linux board. It is a geek credit-card sized mini PC on extremely cheap price between 25$ and 35$ bucks (e.g. Raspberry Pi model A and Raspberry Pi Model B).

Raspberry Pi hardware you get for this ultra low price is as follows:

  • Broadcom BCM2835 system on chip
  • ARM Mobile processor model ARM1176JZF running at 700 Mhz (overlocking up to 1Ghz is possible – overclocked RP is called Turbo 🙂 )!
  • VideoCore IV GPU with 512 MBytes of ram
  • No Build hard disk or solid-state drive but instead designed to use SD-Card as a Storage
  • two video outputs
  • composite RCA and an HDMI port
  • 3.5mm audio output
  • 2 or 1SD/MMC/SDIO card slot (depending on device model A or model B)
  • Micro USB adapter power charger 500mA  (2.5 watts) – Model and 700mA (3.5 watts)

Raspberry PI mini computer hardware running Linux explained picture

The idea of whole device is to make cheap affordable device for pupils and people from third countries who can't afford to pay big money for a full-featured computer. Achievement is unique all you need to Raspberry Pi credit card sized device is external keyboard a mouse, SD-card and a monitor, this makes a 700Mhz featured almost fully functional computer for less than lets say 80$ whether used with a second hand monitor / mouse and kbd :). A fully functional computer or full functional thin client for as less as 80$ yes that's what RaspberryPi is!

It is recommendable that SD-Card storage on which it is installed is at least 4GB as this is part of its minimum requirement, however it is best if you can get an SD-Card of 32GBytes whether you plan to use its whole graphic functionalities.

Raspberry Pi Hardware is not too powerful to run a version of Windows as well as there is no free version of MS-Windows for ARM Processor, so basicly device is planned to run free software OSes GNU / Linux. 5 operating systems are working fine with the mini-board device as time of writting;
 

  • Raspbian – Debian "Wheezy" Linux port
  • Pidora – Fedora mixed version ported to run on Raspberry Pi
  • Risk OS port
  • Arch Linux port for ARM devices
  • Slackware Arm
    FreeBSD / NetBSD
  • QtonPi

Recommended and probably best distro port is for Debian Squeeze

To boot an OS into raspberry PI dowbnload respective image from raspberrypi.org

– Use application for copying and extracting image to SD-Card like Win32 Disk Imager – whether on Windows platform

Win32DiskImager burning raspberry PI mini Linux card board computer box image

– Or from Linux format SD-Card with gparted (N!B! format disk to be in FAT32 filesystem), extrat files and copy them to SD-CARD.

Once Raspberry Pi loads up it will drop you into Linux console, so further configuration will have to be done manually with invoking plenty of apt-get commands (which I will not talk about here as there are plenty of manuals already) – you will have to manually install your Desktop … Default shipped Web browser in Debian is Midori and due to lack of ported version of flash player for ARM streaming video websites like youtube.com / vimeo.com does not work in browser. There is a Google Chrome for Raspberry Pi port but just like with Midori heavy object loaded websites works very slow and thus not very suitable for multimedia.

raspberry pi cheaest portable linux powered computer sized of a credit card

Raspberry Pi device is very suitable for ThinClient use there is a special separate project – Raspberry ThinClient Project – using which a hobbyist can save 400$ for buying proprietary ThinClient.

RaspberryPI linux as a free software hardware thinclient picture

 

Beatuiful Coptic Orthodox Church hymns – Coptic Orthodox Church one of the most ancient Christian Churches

Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

Coptic Hymn – Hos Erouf

A curious custom of the Coptic Church is the liturgy that prays and sings it in Coptic, the original language of ancient Egypt. The Church keeps alive the language of the pharaohs, which was written in hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic and now a modified version of the Greek alphabet, Egyptian written in Greek and demotic (the Copt) was gradually being forgotten, lost ground to the Arabic and thus became incomprehensible. However, the Coptic Church preserved the ancient Egyptian language by tradition thanks to its rites. The video shows images and also religious Copts of pharaonic Egypt, the Copts are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians who have become Christians

O lord Jesus help me.coptic hymn – An coptic hymn in arabic language (not coptic) with english subtitle

Coptic orthodox St Mary Hymn

One can see the Roman Catholic influence on some of the shown icons. The music however is simply terrific!
The Coptic Christian spirituality can be felt. It is well known fact from egypt a lot of monks has spread Chrisian faith in Western Europe.

Je Nai Nan Lord have mercy, coptic orthodox hymns جي ناي نان, ارحمنا

Oh poor Christians of our age we are. We have no love we have nothing.

Coptic Orthodox Hymn: The Virgin M.A.R.Y العدرا م ر ي م (English Subtitles)

"O Sing Unto Him…" Coptic Orthodox Hymn

Blessed is He (Evlogimenos Palm Sunday Festal Hymn English) – Orthodox Hymn (Coptic Rite)

I live in the Netherlands, here people are slowly forgetting their faith who made them what they're now. The state of Christian Church is so weak. We have no prayer power. We walk sick, we don't live like brothers, Oh Lord help us and re-unite your sheeps and put us back in your farm. Lord Have Mercy, Lord Have Mercy, Lord Have Mercy

Coptic Orthodox Hymn: Aripsalin – آربصالين O sing unto Him who was crucified, buried and resurrected, who trampled and abolished death, praise Him and exalt Him above all. Take off the old man, and put on the new and superior one, come closer to greatness of mercy, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + All you Christian people, the priests and the deacons, glorify the Lord for He is worthy, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Come to us O three children, whom Christ our God has lifted, and from the Devil has delivered, praise Him and exalt Him above all. For the sake of your God the Messiah, the Giver of all good things, come unto us O Hananiah, praise Him and exalt Him above all. O Azariah the zealot, morning and noon and the evening, glorify the power of the Trinity, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Behold Emmanuel [our Lord], is now in our midst O Mishael, proclaim with the voice of joy, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Gather now and persevere, and proclaim with the priests, bless the Lord all His works, praise Him and exalt Him above all. The heavens declare the glory, of God until this day, O you angels whom He has made, praise Him and exalt Him above all. Now all you powers of the Lord, bless His honored name, O sun and moon and all the stars, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + And also you rain and dew, sing praises unto our Savior, for He is the God of our fathers, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Glorify the Lord O clouds and winds, together with the souls and the spirits, O you cold and fire and heat, praise Him and exalt Him above all. You also nights and days, light and darkness and lightning, glorify the Lover of Mankind, praise Him and exalt Him above all. You trees and all that springs on the earth, and all that moves in the sea, mountains and the forests, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Praise without ceasing, the Lord the King of the kings, O you rivers and seas, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + And we also seeing them, let us say with all these things, bless the Lord all you birds, praise Him and exalt Him above all. O snow and ice, cattle and wild beasts, bless the Lord of lords, praise Him and exalt Him above all. Bless the Lord as befits Him, and not like the heretics, all you sons of men, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + O Israel offer before Him, honor and glory in a joyful voice, all you priests of Emmanuel, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + You servants of the true God, the souls of the righteous, and the humble and the charitable, praise Him and exalt Him above all. God my God is the One, who saved you from danger, O Sedrach Misach and Abednago, praise Him and exalt Him above all. Hurry with great haste, O you righteous of the Lord, and all the creatures He has made, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Coolness and repose without ceasing, grant unto all of us, that we may joyfully proclaim, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + And also Your poor servant Sarkis, make him without condemnation, that he may join all those and say, praise Him and exalt Him above all.

God’s Power Will be with Us – A famour Christian Song performed in Bulgarian, Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches

Friday, October 26th, 2012

Български Песнопения – Господи сил, с нами буди / Gospodi syl pomiluy nas – GODs POWER WILL BE WITH US (A Bulgarian Orthodox Church) song variant

Господи сил с нами буди – Gospod i sil s nami budi – GODs POWER WILL BE WITH US (Russian Orthodox Church) song variant

The Church lyrics in Modern Slavonic is:

Текст песни Господи сил с нами буди иного бо разве Тебе помощника в скорбех не имамы Господи сил помилуй нас Хвалите Бога во святых Его хвалите Его во утвержении силы Его Господи сил с нами буди Хвалите Его на силах Его хвалите Его по множеству велич, Хор Московского Сретенского монастыря:

Господи сил с нами буди,
иного бо разве Тебе помощника в скорбех не имамы:
Господи сил, помилуй нас.

Хвалите Бога во святых Его, хвалите Его во утвержении силы Его.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Его на силах Его, хвалите Его по множеству величествия Его.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Его во гласе трубнем, хвалите Его во псалтири и гуслех.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Его в тимпане и лице, хвалите Его во струнах и органе.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Его в кимвалех доброгласных, хвалите Его в кимвалех восклицания: всякое дыхание да хвалит Господа.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Бога во святых Его, хвалите Его во утвержении силы Его.
Господи сил, с нами буди:

Слава: Господи, аще не быхом святыя Твоя имели молитвенники,
и благостыню Твою милующую нас:
како смели быхом Спасе, пети Тя,
Егоже славословят непрестанно ангели?
Сердцеведче, пощади души наша.

И ныне: Многая множества моих Богородице прегрешений,
к Тебе прибегох Чистая, спасения требуя.
Посети немощствующую мою душу,
и моли Сына Твоего и Бога нашего,
дати ми оставление, яже содеях лютых,
едина Благословенная.

Всесвятая Богородице, во время живота моего не остави мене,
человеческому предстательству не ввери мя:
но Сама заступи, и помилуй мя.

Все упование мое на Тя возлагаю, Мати Божия,
сохрани мя под кровом Твоим.

I don’t know if above Gospodi Sil s Nami Budit song which is in Church Slavonic – ( Ancient Bulgarian Language) has translation somewhere on the Internet but as far as I checked I couldn’t find any translation and hence I took some time trying to approximately translate, above included text I found on the Internet.

It is a bit hard for me and maybe I’m mistaken somewhere in the translation as I’m not understanding very well Church Slavonic but I hope the song will give a general idea, what this so beatiful song lyrics are approximately saying in modern English.


Text song the Gods Power will be with us, You we have as helper in our sorrows, Let God’s Power have mercy on us.
Praise him and and His Power, Praise Him becaues of his Great Mercies. – performed by Moscow’s Sretenski Monastery Church Choire

Gods Power will be with us … helper in our sorrows we have. God’s power will be with us
Oh Power / (force) of God, have mercy on us!

Praise (Glorify) the Lord in his holiness, praise him testifying his power.
God’s Power / (force) will be with us!

Glorify Him because of his power, Praise him because of his multitude of greatness-es.
Gods Power will be with us!

Praise (Glorify) Him with voice of trumpets, Praise him with Psalms and (pipes ?).
Gods Power will be with us!

Praise Him in (timpans and lices – not sure how this is translated – means other musical instruments?) – Praise him in strings and organs.
Gods Power will be with us!

Praise Him with cymbals and (good hearted?) voices, praise him, praise Him with exclamations: every living soul (exhalation) to glorify the Lord.
Gods Power will be with us:

Praise the Lord in all holiness, Praise Him in statement of his power.
Gods Power will be with us:

Glory: Oh Lord, If we do not have (byhom?) Your holy prayer books,
and the goodness of thy prayer books and the goodness of all saints who pray for us; what would we do oh Saviour, we who sing you.

You are glorified all time by Angels

You who glorify all the time Angels.
Seer of all hearts, have mercy on our souls.

And again: Many are my prayers oh Holy Theotokos / (Virgin Mary), I have come to you the most pure, asking (requiring) rescue.

Come to my infirm (weak) soul,
and pray Your Son and and Our Lord,
to grant me Forgiveness of sins,
Because I’m poor and week (in evil), You who are most Blessed among Mankind.

Oh you most Holy Theotokos, in my lifetime don’t leave me on a human mercy (hope) but you alone intercede on my behalf and Have Mercy on Me!

All my hopе I give to you, Oh Mother of God,
Rescue (Кееp) me under your Shelter / (Shroud).

God’s Power Will be With Us is a triumph song of Victory of the Holy Orthodox Christian faith and the Orthodox Christians over all evil that is in the post sin fallen world. It is a Victorious Chant stating God’s power is with all us Orthodox Christians.

It is an expression of the power that our Holy Orthodox Christian faith contains. Gods power will be with us is a well known for all Eastern Orthodox Slavonic Christians. It is being sing in most if not all Slavonic Eastern Orthodox Churches around the world i.e. – Bulgaria, Russia, Serbia

It is common that this very beautiful Ancient Church Slavonic song is being nowdays sung, by Orthodox Christian choires even in the Western World which so sadly is nowdays predominated by Roman Catholic and Protestant (denominations beliefs). Here is God’s power will be with us – as sung in Church Slavonicin a Roman Catholic Chapel

Orthodox Christian Chant – Gospodi sil s nami (Russe Znamenny) / Gospodi sil s nami budit

Господи cил c нами буди sung by – Мужской Хор Свято-Данилова Монастыря – Не Отврати Лица Твоего
6 – Господи сил с нами буди

Pojanje Koviljskih Monaha-Psalam 150 (Part of Gospodi sil s nami budit – Repetancance Great Lent Canon sing in Serbian Monasteries)

This Church chanting song is sing in the Great Lent Church period around all Slavonic Churches around the world. The spiritual deepness the song contains and spiritual joy is amazingly great for us Eastern Orthodox Christians; it is barely impossible to explain in words, but I hope by listening it the listener re-unites with our Christ = (Messiah) = Saviour and his Holy Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church!

This Orthodox Song is also present, probably in Greek, Syriac, Jerusalem, Ethiopian,Coptic, Chinese and the rest of local Orthodox Church-es throughout the whole universe. If someone from other Orthodox Churches reading this post, can point me out to their Church variant of these glorious Church hymn I will be mostly thankful!

Glory be to the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit now and Forever and Ever. For Gods Power – Christ’s Holy Spirit will be with us ever unto the Ages of Ages accordinly to the promise of our Lord Jesus in Holy Gospels.

30 years anniversary of the first mass produced portable computer COMPAQ Grid Compass 1011

Thursday, July 19th, 2012

Grid Notebook Big screen logo

Today it is considered the modern laptop (portable computers) are turning 30 years old. The notebook grandparent is a COMPAQGRiD Compass 1011 – a “mobile computer” with a electroluminescent display (ELD) screen supporting resolution of 320×240 pixels. The screen allowed the user to use the computer console in a text resolution of 80×24 chars. This portable high-tech gadget was equipped with magnesium alloy case, an Inten 8086 CPU (XT processor) at 8Mhz (like my old desktop pravetz pc 😉 ), 340 kilobyte (internal non-removable magnetic bubble memory and even a 1,200 bit/s modem!

COMPAQ Grid Compass considered first laptop / notebook on earthy 30 anniversary of the portable computer

The machine was uniquely compatible for its time as one could easily attach devices such as floppy 5.25 inch drives and external (10 Meg) hard disk via IEEE-488 I/O compatible protocol called GPiB (General Purpose instrumental Bus).

First mass prdocued portable computer laptop grid COMPAQ 11011 back side input peripherals

The laptop had also unique small weight of only 5 kg and a rechargable batteries with a power unit (like modern laptops) connectable to a normal (110/220 V) room plug.

First notebook in World ever the COMPAQ grid Compass 1101,br />
The machine was bundled with an own specificly written OS GRiD-OS. GRID-OS could only run a specialized software so this made the application available a bit limited.
Shortly after market introduction because of the incompitablity of GRID-OS, grid was shipped with MS-DOS v. 2.0.
This primitive laptop computer was developed for serve mainly the needs of business users and military purposes (NASA, U.S. military) etc.

GRID was even used on Space Shuttles during 1980 – 1990s.
The price of the machine in April 1982 when GriD Compass was introduced was the shockingly high – $8150 dollars.

The machine hardware design is quite elegant as you can see on below pic:

 COMPAQ grid laptop 1101 bubbles internal memory

As a computer history geek, I’ve researched further on GRID Compass and found a nice 1:30 hour video telling in detailed presentation retelling the history.

Shortly after COMPAQ’s Grid Compass 1011’s introduction, many other companies started producing similar sized computers; one example for this was the Epson HX-20 notebook. 30 years later, probably around 70% of citizens on the globe owns a laptop or some kind of portable computer device (smartphone, tablet, ultra-book etc.).

Most of computer users owning a desktop nowdays, owns a laptop too for mobility reasons. Interestengly even 30 years later the laptop as we know it is still in a shape (form) very similar to its original predecessor. Today the notebook sales are starting to be overshadowed by tablets and ultra-books (for second quarter laptop sales raised 5% but if compared with 2011, the sales rise is lesser 1.8% – according to data provided by Digital Research agency). There are estimations done by (Forrester Research) pointing until the end of year 2015, sales of notebook substitute portable devices will exceed the overall sales of notebooks. It is manifested today the market dynamics are changing in favour of tabets and the so called next generation laptopsULTRA-BOOKS. It is a mass hype and a marketing lie that Ultra-Books are somehow different from laptops. The difference between a classical laptop and Ultra-Books is the thinner size, less weight and often longer battery use time. Actually Ultra-Books are copying the design concept of Mac MacBook Air trying to resell under a lound name.
Even if in future Ipads, Android tablets, Ultra-Books or whatever kind of mambo-jambo portable devices flood the market, laptops will still be heavily used in future by programmers, office workers, company employees and any person who is in need to do a lot of regular text editting, email use and work with corporative apps. Hence we will see a COMPAC Grid Compass 1011 notebook likes to be dominant until end of the decade.

The Dangers of Authority Over-Obedience

Thursday, June 28th, 2012

dangers-of-authority-over-obesity

How much and to what level should, we obey authority. And is it really that authorities in force things always the best for the masses? Well history has shown and shows again and again that being obedient to Authority is a good think only if the authority did not pass a certain borders. In second world war both Nazis and Stalinist Russian "pogroms" passed this borders. So how this came to be? How Stalin and Hitler become the totalitarian dictators they did?

By completely dis-obeying the authorities at their times. Hitler was in Jail, Stalin was membering a communist guerillas who blow up trains and did subversive activities to Tsarist Russia. Hence obviously this two evil man was against the their times authorities. The way they raise up to power was also with breaking then ruling authorities. As a result of their dis-like for the system before Nazi Germany and Communist Russia both of the dictators lived in isolation be it among communist with anarchistic anti-government ideas in Stalin's case or living inprisoned in Hitler. The later results of being exposed to this isolation become evident, when by all means they came to power. Both of them were people with enormous egos (egoists). The only think that moved both of them was their own megalomanias and desires to be controlling imitating how God controls the universe.

But the WW II killed jews and the pogroms Stalin did in Russia was not only Stalin and Hitler's fault. It was a result of one false propaganda and openly anti-christian spread ideas all around the world. This atrocities were a fruit of the huge isolation that happened in many people lifes and their detachment from faith in God, also it was a cause of a huge masses of people who obeyed the new-created communist and Nazi authorities without questioning.
True Christians at the time in both Russia and Germany tried to oppose the new ungodly totalitarian order mainly (through press), the attempt was futile.

The reason was that many people in Germany become so heavy dependent on the local authorities. That the masses did not have the guts to go to the streets and oppose the new anti-human laws edicted. In Russia, probably at least half of the people living their lived in villages and used to obey the Tsar's authority as the monarchy was a prooved working system and for many generations people lived in monarchy and knew only monarchy; also many people in Russia were lacking high level education neither were prepared to fight something as the raising communism sponsored by Westerm Europe. So Western Europe gave money to Lenin and the communists in Russia to destroy the country monarchy from within, whether Hitler took a loan from America. Just think for a while and see how ridiculous all this is … What makes the whole thing even more ridiculous was that the money for financing both Hitler and Stalin activities (including the atrocities against poor jew people)) was financed with bank money given as loans by other Jews …

All this money were loaned because of dirty profit. There were many people in the chain who could have said no and protest against loaning the money but not wanting to disobey the system they were silently helping the whole war to bloom.

Now just 67 years after thanksfully by God's grace this war has over, the world headed the same direction as before the WW II. The severe economic crisis, the isolation of large masses of individual from family, the decay of family values, the lack of community and the over-use of technology and non-direct communication. All this makes us isolated. The increased isolation makes us unable to operate normally in many cases and hence highly dependent on the social system (just see how many people in Europe are living thanks to social pension).
The social system dependence and inability to live and think out of the established governmental system puts us in a situation, where we cannot live out of the system and to always adapt to the system. For many things, we can't say NO anymore. The over-increased surveillance and people tracking that was accepted as normal not only through Europe and America continent but the whole world is a good example on how publicity of severe freedom threat is kept in secret. People who talk about their dislike for surveillance and the possible short future abuse are even nowadays considered as abnormal paranoids. Suddenly it is more and more happening that normal society concerned people are being concerned as crazy and probably the future fate of people who in anyways question the more and more totalitarian like system that is being build right before our eyes will be similar to the WW II jews extermination …

Hannah Arendt "The Dangers of Obedience"

Human Modern Progression a move forward to Degression

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

I've been thinking about our modern day progression and what our "progressed" society looks like in reality.
We think we have progressed, we have built machines that serves us well (computers). We plan for a bright painless easy future day by day. This bright "perfect" society future is nothing more than the dream of communism in its complete form.

But in what sense we have actually progressed ?? Everyone who really sees what happens around us notice the big changes we experience. On the surface it looks like our life has become much easier with all this technology surrounding us. The number of computers which is said to help us to leap towards this bright future increases day by day. With this however increases the need to support technology. Suddenly it happens that the old believe that computers are just a tool to make our life earier becomes a modern day slavery. Most of the developed or under development countries people are nowdays almost full time spending in front of the computer screen on the internet. We put our lifes in the mercy of man-created computers and it has become impossible that we live or exist independetly without them.

Computers are everywhere around us starting from the work Desk, at hand with a notebook, ipad, mobile phones, cars, airplanes. There is rarely to see any technology we use which works with not some kind of primitive or advanced computer embedded ,,,
In the rise of computers as we know it computer was just a tool to help us along with the other overall thought and inventions development. Now from just being a tool to help us progress Computers become the common ground on which almost everything in life works.

I'm sure many people who started learning computer technology 15-20 years ago (like me) never imagined computers will integrate so heavily in our daily activities as they eventually did.

We use computers for the sake of planning which in "spiritual language" is predicting the future or prophecise what is about to come in the short future. In reality what we do mostly even not realizingly is to try to predict and modify the future through technology.
This concept is also existing in most sci-fi movies, made in last 60 years. Mobile phones revolution give the humanity a tool through which telepathy we've seen in so many SCI-FI is reality. The mobile phone is just a platform through which (phone calls) or better said voice telepathy has become possible. In that manner of thoughts it is obvious that Video phone calls is a voice + visual telepathy. The Skype revolution and Video and voice conferences is brought was just until recently seen on the sci-fi movies where spaceship crews communicated with other spaceship crews by using a Visual conferences like skype.

It is really hard to believe that for just few years now everyone can speak with ease with everyone else on the planet in the same way just like we've seen in the movies as some foreign abstract concept!

Now suddenly most people on earth are equipped with technology with gives them the power to do everything but it is my firm believe people are not ready to wisely use this power. Therefore instead of using this higher technology wisely technology is used mostly senseless and the more technological advancement grows and becomes more accessible to the masses the more the tendency to use the technology for shit grows.

I'm sure people who have a good knowledge on programming and how computer works are already seriously aware of this enormous problem.
Another severe problem with the raise of technology is the language slang it introduces. This tech-slang is adopted quickly all around the society and suddenly as a result the human language as we know it is seriously substituted by a vague tech words mambo-jambo words. Actually the adoption of tech buzz words in modern day society language makes a great harm for the reason communication between people becomes less descriptive and therefore harder.
In short the result of this tech slang language inside our national languages is inability for people to communicate properly. This tendency is well seen if you for example try to make a comparison between old and newer movies. The newer the movie the less meaningful it is. It is true newer ones has much more as a visual adds than the predecessor but when talking about consistency the newer films are missing this point seriously.

As newer generations are born and raised up with this newer movies and "advanced" TV and computers this people doesn't even have most of the time the opportunity to see older human taped knowledge.
Even for youngesters who have somehow a wise parents enough to teach them in a religious way or just have the "luck" to have parents with old world mindset it will be extremely hard if not impossible for this kids to understand the old knowledge, as most of their same age school / university fellows will only talk about the newer things.

Besides all this, computers as they grow needs more and more support "nurturing" so day by day more and more people has to be busy with managing and supporting tech stuff. Suddenly it is no longer clear if computers serve us or we serve them, this tendency is already somehow evident but not so clearly as it will be in the short 5 to 10 years.
Therefore we slowly but surely are moving to a society which might become "enslaved by technology". Why I say here enslaved, because if we spend our time on fixing computers and technology and working with one virtual reality (which is non-reality) in essence this means we no longer have a physical freedom in the sense it was God given.

There is no doubt computers at present appears to do us a big good, but if you think a bit strategically it is obvious this good has it's price. By adopting all this technology without questioning ourselves on how this will impact our human freedom, we build a computerized jail around us. At first this jail appears to be so wide that it seems it does not interfere with our freedom, but with the introduction of newer and newer computer technology this jail becomes narrower as to the point where it could threat our physical existence freedom.

For those who could argue my thoughs I will ask two simple questions to show you how dependent we've become on technology;;;

What was the last time you switched off your mobile for a week ?

What was the last time you didn't used computers and the internet for a week time ?

Obviously rarely we can find someone that will answer positively to this question or even the thought of switching off from this so globalized society by dropping off tech stuff for a week seems scary.

This constant connectiodness that we're day-by-day heavily exposed to is scary, because it steals little-by-little our natural freedom for seclusion / pravicy / solitude.

This freedoms, were essential and especially for Christian saints and many of the people in the Holy Bible if we read closely we will find out they have used this freedom in parts of their lives especially the seclusion to hear and understand God's will for their life.
Since technology is stealing us the freedom to seclude ourselves this means it steals our basic natural freedom to communicate with God and our natural self ,,,

The consequence of this separation from God and unification with "the world" surely will lead to spiritual blindness and lack of good foundation or higher life purpose, in other words lost path in life.

This is happening all along right in front our eyes now.
Maybe the worst thing of globalization is it doesn't unite people on a soul level but rather separates them. The unification that tech boom gives to people is in the "virtual reality" but this is not a real unification as it is unification in a media which is not real.

Yes Virtual Reality is not real, that's why it is called Virtual isn't it?
I've been thinking over all this problems more and more and I'm starting to come to conclusion that people who wish to keep their essential physical freedom need to GET OUT from this tech lie, we have lived in.
For this however more people need to first realize that;;;

1. TECHNOLOGY LEADS US NOWHERE!

2. People who want to live without technology need to organize in groups (and get used to a natural living growing food, being near to a natural springing water, taking care for each other, living in a Christian commune like – like in the old days)

Actually if we read the old testament's story of Moses escaping the upcoming flood, I believe what is about to come to us as a consequence of this out of boundaries technologization is pretty much like the old testamental flood (this should happen sooner or later).

Moses was wise enough to make himself an Ark and prepare himself for the storm. Today most people are so busy that they don't see the storm coming. I'll be glad to hear from people who has the same thinking as me and want to organize in a groups and live an old humble way of life without technology.
I'm convinced people who have realized all this tech short future bad consequences on humanity, need to have a common communication media and share their knowledge on how we can find a way to live tech free in this age. I'm curious am I the only one with such thoughts or other get into this insight too. If you have come to conclusions I did please contact me in comments. Thank you.

How to disable ACPI on productive Linux servers to decrease kernel panics and increase CPU fan lifespan

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Linux TUX ACPI logo / Tux Hates ACPI logohttps://www.pc-freak.net/images/linux_tux_acpi_logo-tux-hates-acpi.png

Why would anyone disable ACPI support on a server machine??
Well  ACPI support kernel loaded code is just another piece of code constantly being present in the memory,  that makes the probability for a fatal memory mess up leading to  a fatal bug resulting in system crash (kernel panic) more likely.

Many computers ship with buggy or out of specifications ACPI firmware which can cause a severe oddities on a brand new bought piece of comp equipment.

One such oddity related to ACPI motherboard support problems is if you notice your machine randomly powering off or failing to boot with a brand new Linux installed on it.

Another reason to switch off ACPI code will would to be prevent the CPU FAN rotation from being kernel controlled.

If the kernel controls the CPU fan on  high CPU heat up it will instruct the fan to rotate quickly and on low system loads it will bring back the fan to loose speed.
 This frequent switch of FAN from high speed to low speed  increases the probability for a short fan damage due to frequent changes of fan speed. Such a fan damage leads often to  system outage due to fan failure to rotate properly.

Therefore in my view it is better ACPI support is switched off completely on  servers. On some servers ACPI is useful as it can be used to track CPU temperature with embedded motherboard sensors with lm_sensors or any piece of hardwre vendor specific software provided. On many machines, however lm_sensors will not properly recognize the integrated CPU temperature sensors and hence ACPI is mostly useless.

There are 3 ways to disable fully or partially ACPI support.

- One is to disable it straight for BIOS (best way IMHO)
- Disable via GRUB or LILO passing a kernel parameter
- Partial ACPI off-ing - /disabling the software that controls the CPU fan/

1. Disable ACPI in BIOS level

Press DEL, F1, F2, F10 or whatever the enter bios key combination is go through all the different menus (depending on the vios BENDOR) and make sure every occurance of ACPI is set to off / disable whatever it is called.

Below is a screenshot of menus with ACPI stuff on a motherboard equipped with Phoenix AwardBIOS:

BIOS ACPI Disable power Off Phoenix BIOS

This is the in my opinon best and safest way to disable ACPI power saving, Unfortunately some newer PCs lack the functionality to disable ACPI; (probably due to the crazy "green" policy the whole world is nowdays mad of).

If that's the case with you, thanksfully there is a "software way" to disable ACPI via passing kernel options via GRUB and LILO boot loaders.

2. Disabling ACPI support on kernel boot level through GRUB boot loader config

There is a tiny difference in command to pass in order to disable  ACPI depending on the Linux installed  GRUB ver. 1.x or GRUB 2.x.

a) In GRUB 0.99 (GRUB version 1)

Edit file /etc/grub/menu.lst or /etc/grub/grub.conf (location differs across Linux distribution). Therein append:

acpi=off

to the end of kernel command line.

Here is an example of a kernel command line with ACPI not disabled (example taken from CentOS server grub.conf):

[root@centos ~]# grep -i title -A 4 /etc/grub/grub.conf
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-36.el5)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-36.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 console=ttyS0,115200n8
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-36.el5.img

The edited version of the file with acpi=off included should look like so:

title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-36.el5)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-36.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 console=ttyS0,115200n8 acpi=off
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-36.el5.img

The kernel option root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 means the the server is configured to use LVM (Logical Volume Manager).

b) Disabling ACPI on GRUB version 1.99 +

This version is by default installed on newer Ubuntu and Debian Linux-es.

In grub 1.99 on latest Debian Squeeze, the file to edit is located in /boot/grub/grub.cfg. The file is more messy than with its predecessor menu.lst (grub 0.99).
Thanks God there is no need to directly edit the file (though this is possible), but on newer Linuces (as of time of writting the post), there is another simplied grub config file /etc/grub/config

Hence to add the acpi=off to 1.99 open /etc/grub/config find the line reading:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"

and append the "acpi=off" option, e.g. the line has to change to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet acpi=off"

On some servers it might be better to also disable APIC along with ACPI:

Just in case you don't know what is the difference between ACPI and APIC, here is a short explanation:

ACPI = Advanced Configuration and Power Interface

APIC = Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controllers

ACPI is the system that controls your dynamic speed fans, the power button behavior, sleep states, etc.

APIC is the replacement for the old PIC chip that used to come imbedded on motherboards that allowed you to setup interrupts for your soundcard, ide controllers, etc.

Hence on some machines experiencing still problems with even ACPI switched off, it is helpful  to disable the APIC support too, by using:

acpi=off noapic noacpi

Anyways, while doing the changes, be very very cautious or you might end up with un-boot-able server. Don't blame me if this happens :); be sure you have a backup option if server doesn't boot.

To assure faultless kernel boot, GRUB has ability to be configured to automatically load up a second kernel if 1st one fails to boot, if you need that read the grub documentation on that.

To load up the kernel with the new setting, give it a restart:

[root@centos ~]# shutdown -r now
....

3. Disable ACPI support on kernel boot time on Slackware or other Linuxes still booting kernel with LILO

Still, some Linux distros like Slackware, decided to keep the old way and use LILO (LInux LOader) as a default boot loader.

Disabling ACPI support in LILO is done through /etc/lilo.conf

By default in /etc/lilo.conf, there is a line:

append= acpi=on

it should be changed to:

append= acpi=off

Next to load up the new acpi disabled setting, lilo has to be reloaded:

slackware:~# /sbin/lilo -c /etc/lilo.conf
....

Finally a reboot is required:

slackware:~# reboot
....

(If you don't have a physical access or someone near the server you better not 🙂 )

4. Disable ACPI fan control support on a running Linux server without restart

This is the most secure work-around, to disabling the ACPI control over the machine CPU fan, however it has a downside that still the ACPI code will be loaded in the kernel and could cause kernel issues possibly in the long run – lets say the machine has uptime of more than 2 years…

The acpi support on a user level  is controlled by acpid or haldaemon (depending on the Linux distro), hence to disable the fan control on servers this services has to be switched off:

a) disabling ACPI on Debian and deb based Linux-es

As of time of writting on Debian Linux servers acpid (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface event daemon) is there to control how power management will be handled. To disable it stop it as a service (if running):

debian:~# /etc/init.d/acpid stop

To permanently remove acpid from boot up on system boot disable it with update-rc.d:

debian:~# update-rc.d acpid disable 2 3 4 5
update-rc.d: using dependency based boot sequencing
insserv: Script iptables is broken: incomplete LSB comment.
insserv: missing `Required-Start:' entry: please add even if empty.
insserv: warning: current start runlevel(s) (empty) of script `acpid' overwrites defaults (2 3 4 5).
insserv: warning: current stop runlevel(s) (2 3 4 5) of script `acpid' overwrites defaults (empty).
insserv: missing `Required-Start:' entry: please add even if empty.

b) disabling ACPI on RHEL, Fedora and other Redhat-s (also known as RedHacks 🙂 )

I'm not sure if this is safe,as many newer rpm based server system services,  might not work properly with haldaemon disabled.

Anyways you can give it a try if when it is stopped there are issues just bring it up again.

[root@rhel ~]# /etc/init.d/haldaemon stop

If all is fine with the haldaemon switched off (hope so), you can completely disable it to load on start up with:

[root@centos ~]# /sbin/chkconfig --level 2 3 4 5 haldaemon off

Disabling ACPI could increase a bit your server bills, but same time decrease losses from downtimes, so I guess it worths its costs 🙂

 

How to disable ACPI (power saving) support in FreeBSD / Disable acpi on BSD kernel boot time

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

FreeBSD disable ACPI how ACPI Basic works basic diagram

On FreeBSD the default kernel is compiled to support ACPI. Most of the modern PCs has already embedded support for ACPI power saving instructions.
Therefore a default installed FreeBSD is trying to take advantage of this at cases and is trying to save energy.
This is not too useful on servers, because saving energy could have at times a bad impact on server performance if the server is heavy loaded at times and not so loaded at other times of the day.

Besides that on servers saving energy shouldn't be the main motivator but server stability and productivity is. Therefore in my personal view on FreeBSD used on servers it is better to disable complete the ACPI in order to disable CPU fan control to change rotation speeds all the time from low to high rotation cycles and vice versa at times of low / high server load.

Another benefit of removing the ACPI support on a server is this would probably increase the CPU fan life span and possibly prevent the CPU to be severely heated at times.

Moreover, some piece of hardware might have troubles in properly supporting ACPI specifications and thus ACPI could be a reason for unexpected machine hang ups.

With all said I would recommend to anyone willing to use BSD for a server to disable the ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface), just like I did.

Here is how;

1. Quick review on how ACPI is handled on FreeBSD

acpi support is being handled on FreeBSD by a number of loadable kernel modules, here is a complete list of all the kernel modules dealins with acpi:

freebsd# cd /boot
freebsd# find . -iname '*acpi*.ko'
./kernel/acpi.ko
./kernel/acpi_aiboost.ko
./kernel/acpi_asus.ko
./kernel/acpi_fujitsu.ko
./kernel/acpi_ibm.ko
./kernel/acpi_panasonic.ko
./kernel/acpi_sony.ko
./kernel/acpi_toshiba.ko
./kernel/acpi_video.ko
./kernel/acpi_dock.ko

By default on FreeBSD, if hardware has some support for ACPI the acpi gets activated by acpi.ko kernel module. The specific type of vendors specific ACPI like IBM, ASUS, Fujitsu are controlled by the respective kernel module from the list …

Hence, to control if ACPI is loaded or not on a FreeBSD system with no need to reboot one can use kldload, kldunload module management BSD cmds.

a) Check if acpi is loaded on a BSD

freebsd# kldstatkldstat | grep -i acpi
9 1 0xc9260000 57000 acpi.ko

b) unload kernel enabled ACPI support

freebsd# kldunload acpi

c) Load acpi support (not the case with me but someone might need it, if for instance BSD is running on laptop)

freebsd# kldload acpi

2. Disabling ACPI to load on bootup on BSD

a) In /boot/loader.conf add the following variables:

hint.acpi.0.disabled="1"
hint.p4tcc.0.disabled=1
hint.acpi_throttle.0.disabled=1


b) in /boot/device.hints add:

hint.acpi.0.disabled="1"

c) in /boot/defaults/loader.conf make sure:

##############################################################
### ACPI settings ##########################################
##############################################################
acpi_dsdt_load="NO" # DSDT Overriding
acpi_dsdt_type="acpi_dsdt" # Don't change this
acpi_dsdt_name="/boot/acpi_dsdt.aml"
# Override DSDT in BIOS by this file
acpi_video_load="NO" # Load the ACPI video extension driver

d) disable ACPI thermal monitoring

It is generally a good idea to disable the ACPI thermal monitoring, as many machines hardware does not support it.

To do so in /boot/loader.conf add

debug.acpi.disabled="thermal"

If you want to learn more on on how ACPI is being handled on BDSs check out:

freebsd# man acpi

Other alternative method to permanently wipe out ACPI support is by not compiling ACPI support in the kernel.
If that's the case in /usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC make sure device acpi is commented, e.g.:

##device acpi