Setup Your Own ActiveSync Server With Zimbra and Z-Push

(Updated: June 8, 2013.  I’ve updated this post to clarify based on some questions I’ve received). For the clueless, ActiveSync is the protocol that allows you to sync your Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks with your messaging provider.  Your two options to have an ActiveSync server is through a cloud solution (e.g Gmail, Outook.com, etc.) … Read more

Installing CrashPlan on OpenIndiana

CrashPlan is a great way to backup your ZFS server, here’s a quick install recipe for OpenIndiana: Download the Solaris CrashPlan client from here:  http://www.crashplan.com/consumer/download.html?os=SunOS Move the file to /var/spook/pkg then run…# sudo pkgadd (follow the prompts, do what’s obvious). Setup Crashplan service:# svccfg import /opt/sfw/crashplan/bin/crashplan.xml# svcadm enable crashplanObviously you’ll want to move the backupArchive … Read more

Who’s locking up those tables?

Here’s a simple query that reports SQL Server locks along with the program name, host, sql process id, and the user that went off to lunch in the middle of their transaction…  select * from sys.dm_tran_locks l join sys.dm_exec_sessions s on l.request_session_id = s.session_id join sys.sysobjects o on l.resource_associated_entity_id = o.id

Crashplan Deduplication slowing you down?

I’ve noticed that Crashplan isn’t saturating my 400kbps uplink (Northland Cable… just barely faster than satellite) even though I’ve given it no upload restrictions… I think the problem is with Crashplan’s De-duplication running too intense of an algorithm for my mere AMD Phenom II black quad core processor to handle efficiently. Setting data de-duplication to minimal allowed … Read more

Crashplan can’t see your ZFS pool on Nexenta? Here’s how to fix it…

NexentaStor 3.1 uses OpenSolaris kernel with Debian userland so neither the Solaris or Linux version of Crashplan works out of the box.  But Chris Moates wrote an excellent post (removed link since it’s dead) on getting Crashplan on Nexenta  by combining files from the Linux and Solaris version of Crashplan.  This works except Crashplan can’t … Read more

Solaris 11, OpenIndiana, and NexentaStor benchmarks

Purpose: Determine fastest small NAS/SAN OS/Appliance software solution for home running under ESXi.Constraints: Candidates must support ZFS, be relatively stable (I narrowed down my candidate list by only choosing solutions that other people have used successfully), and be able to run CrashPlan for data protection. If you’re not familair with ZFS (Zettabyte File System), read ZFS … Read more

Nearly five months later…

Finally finished my 189.7GB backup to Crashplan’s servers.  Started uploading on July 25th and completed on December 17th.  Didn’t notice too much of an internet slowdown thanks to Tomato’s QoS routing to prioritize traffic during the process. Outbound QoS rules