When using XEN virtualization it's good practice to use LVM volumes as raw disk devices for the vm guests. The main advantage is that there is no file system for the Xen host to manage and the guest has direct access to the physical volume = better performance!
Another advantage is that you can leverage LVM snapshots adding a similar function to your Xen setup as known in VMWare.

One drawback when using LVM for your virtual guests is that the vm's disk is less portable. There are tools that can handle LVM imaging, but dd is the OSS tool giving you a 1:1 copy of your disk. It's free & it's proven.
dd's known drawback is that the dd dump files get big and time to backup/restore a LVM volume can be lengthy.

Here's how to speed things up and also save on space needed for your LVM images & backups by combining dd with gzip. On modern hardware you can get speeds up to ~90Mb/sec - meaning you can restore a template or image of 15 GB in 3 to 4 minutes.

Novell Teaming is a product that leverages modern day communication. It's main focus is to create a platform that makes working together and sharing information more effective & efficient, even when you're not in the same room, building or working at different times.

You can get a full working starter pack that can be used up to 20 users (unlimited time). Get it here!. You will also find more information on possibilities and what Novell Teaming can do for you.

Here's how to get your first setup running on a SLES 10 SP2 server.

* SLES 10 can also be installed and used free of charge. You will get free updates for 60 days after which you will need a support contract to be able to update using the Novell channel.
Do note that the product does not expire nor lose any functionality. You will only lose the right for support & updates until you acquire a support contract from Novell.

Groupwise v8.0 (at this moment still in Public Beta) is the newest successor bringing many exiting enhancements to this powerful workgroup suite.

Read more about new features compared to earlier releases

Cool features in version 8

For those wanting to test the new Groupwise client on openSUSE here's how to get the packages installed.
NOTE: You will need the server back end to run the 8.0 version to be able to connect!

Today I was setting up a new OES2 test server using some older hardware. Just when I had finished setting up all my OES services the disk decided to crash on me.

No big problem as I replaced the faulty hard drive, cleaned up related eDirectory objects for the crashed server and reinstalled the server.

All services installed fine except for iFolder. That gave the error ' failed to configure ifolder server '.
Trying to login to the admin page resulted in another error ' Your session has been closed, please log in '

Simply reinstalling or reconfiguring iFolder 3.6 did not fix the errors.

The following method is useful in situations where you have no large amounts of data stored within iFolder and can reinstall iFolder, thus saving you the trouble of having to re-setup the whole OES server again (or feel forced to move the iFolder service to another system).

Step 1) Setting up openSUSE 11.0

I won't go into great detail on installing as the installer should get you through the steps easy enough.

Basically stick to the install defaults and I would recommend using the install DVD so you have all the needed packages at hand. Get that here : http://software.opensuse.org

Note on DE choice: I use GNOME as my window manager, but this is not really relevant as this is a monitoring system and it's cleaner to run it in console mode to keep a small footprint.

openSUSE Install guidelines & considerations:

Scope:

Nagios is an excellent tool that can be used to monitor your systems and devices. For more detailed information check out the main Nagios site : Nagios.org

The scope of this howto is to give specific installation tips for Nagios running on openSUSE 11.x (should also work on openSUSE 10.3 and 11.1). Another aim is to give you an easy way to get graph history setup and more.

~

Scope:

This writeup will show how to install eDirectory 8.8.3 on SLES 10 and configure it for an existing or new tree.

SLES 10 SP2 is a very robust server OS that can easily be setup with eDirectory services. With this the server can also be utilized as base for other Novell products.

The advantage here is that you can use SLES to build dedicated servers running Groupwise, IDM, Zenworks* and other Novell products without the need for installing OES2 services, meaning less overhead and a smaller footprint.

NOTE: if your product needs NCP, LUM or other specific OES services, or you are possibly planning to install OES products later on, then it's best to set the server up using the OES2 add on.

* UPDATE: after having issues on two servers with the ZenWorks 7 novell-zmgserv failing to start and thus issues with the pxe environment I'd recommend installing ZenWorks 7 components on a 32 bit SLES base. The install of eDirectory and the SLES base will be the same as described here with that difference of using the 32 bit versions of the install iso's.