M:Tier is proud to announce supported packages for OpenBSD 5.3's -STABLE branch for amd64 and i386.
OpenBSD 5.3 is the latest version of the pro-active secure operating system released on May 1st 2013. OpenBSD offers pre-built packages, but these are not rebuilt after the release date. This means that security fixes and other critical issues which are fixed in the CVS repository, are not used to create up to date packages. M:Tier seeks to complement OpenBSD and will offer a service to the community by providing up to date, pre-built packages for OpenBSD 5.3 on amd64 and i386.
One can directly start using the service either by following the instructions on on Stable.MTier.org. When a new package becomes available it can be directly updated with the familiar tools, and it's origin can be verified thanks to our signed packages.
It's also possible to subscribe (free of charge) at stable.MTier.org. Subscribing offers e-mail notification as soon as a new pacakge becomes available. This way it's possible to ensure always being up to date.
Included in this service are also our binpatches which are installable packages to keep the base system updated in case of security and/or stability issues which are fixed in the lifecycle of a release. More information about binpatches in general can be found at OpenSource.mtier.org In case of any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us.
M:Tier is proud to announce the Puppet Fundamentals for System Administrators training in Istanbul, Turkey and Budapest, Hungary.
The training in Istanbul will be from Monday, June 24 till Wednesday, June 26 2013, and the training in Budapest will take place from Wednesday, July 3 till Friday, July 5 2013.
This training course teaches students a best practice approach to managing their infrastructure using Puppet IT automation software.
Tickets are available for €1,525.00 for early birds from Eventbrite for Puppet Fundamentals Budapest and Puppet Fundamentals Istanbul.
For more information please contact us.
m:tier has just released a new version of Puppet::Tidy, 0.2. This release brings several bugfixes as well as new features.
One interesting new feature is the addition of the '-c' flag in the standalone script. Using this option one can have their manifests validated with "puppet parser validate" on the fly. Puppet::Tidy is also less greedy when it comes to adjusting comments, URIs and certain varialbes. And it has been taught how to deal with quoted booleans.
It can be obtained on any machine with Perl installed by typing: "cpan Puppet::Tidy".
M:Tier is proud to announce a new international alliance with Puppet Labs for 2013 and has recently signed a Master Reseller Agreement. This alliance will help us to broaden our customer base within new markets and to capitalise on our existing expertise with the Puppet Lab software suite.
Specially, M:Tier will be able to offer consultancy, training and installation services which can be tailored to individual customer requirements. The list of countries where we can currently offer this service include: Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Cyprus.
If you would like to discuss your Puppet requirements further then please feel free to contact us.
Background to Puppet Labs Software
Puppet Labs is a leading provider of automation software which enables system administrators to deliver the operational agility and efficiency of cloud computing at enterprise-class service levels, scaling from handfuls of nodes on-premise to tens of thousands.
Specifically, Puppet Enterprise software provides the power to easily automate repetitive tasks, quickly deploy critical applications, and proactively manage infrastructure changes, on-premise or in the cloud.
For more detailed information on Puppet and free download please visit the Puppet homepage.
M:Tier has just released its new GNOME3-based Desktop and is available for all customers.
In common with previous releases the Desktop is based on standard OpenBSD packages with local modifications made to better fit corporate requirements. The main modification performed on the stock GNOME 3.4.2 Desktop is the use of the axemenu extension as a replacement to gnome-shell. This was based on customer feedback who reported that gnome-shell was not a good fit for corporate non-IT users. The entire Desktop is bootstrapped using a ramdisk kernel locally modified to run a Puppet client that will install and setup all the required components.
As with previous releases, M:Tier developed several utilities to ease various tasks such as setting up a WiFi connection, changing a local, LDAP and/or Kerberos password, auto-mounting USB drives, encrypting a folder and so on.
As of today M:Tier is offering a new service for the OpenBSD community: pre-built binpatches. While binpatches already make managament of security updates a whole lot easier, they still need to be built.
M:Tier is now providing pre-built binpatches which can be directly installed on OpenBSD 5.2 installations running on amd64 or i386.
Today marks the release of the first public version of m:tier's enhanced BinpatchNG.
Based on the foundations of the succesfull Binpatch project we continued development to add a few features which we needed. Over the years the number of changes grew dramatically, which now include:
- signed packages
- fine-grained rollback support (kernel, userland, none)
- improved documentation
- upgradeable packages (through pkg_add -u), with clear versioning
- full diff included in the packages
This release is available on m:tier's open source page for BinpatchNG.
The M:Tier Thin Client 1.0 has been released! The Thin Client is a small application written in Python that can be executed as a window manager replacement. It provides a clean UI for the thin client hardware in order to allow the user to easily execute all required applications.
For more information and downloads head over to the Open Source page for the Thin Client.
M:Tier attended the 2012 annual Bacula Conference in Cologne and delivered a presentation entitled "Deployment and maintenance of Bacula with Puppet".
A new version of our Zabbix Mobile App has just been released which fixes an issue when used with Zabbix 2.0.2 servers. Obtain your copy from the iTunes store or the Google Play store.
After a succesful testing phase M:Tier has commenced the deployment of it's compliant BSD Desktop at one of our key pharmaceutical customers.
