hpux simulation

[Paul_481]

Hi,

We would like to develop a web-based hpux simulation, where users can perform basic shell commands and possibly administration task where users simulate LVM, etc.

Based from my initial research it is possible in JAVA but I was wondering if it is also possible using PERL/CGI.

If you any any related project, reference or techniques on how to do it or any advice regarding the matter, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks and Regards,
Paul

[Mel Burslan]

there is one, general unix shell simulation, not necessarily that of hpux but I think it is netbsd, link of which is on my computer at work. But it is far from being complete regarding hpux lvm commands and such.

honest opinion: buy a workstation class machine with a lesser version of hpux (like 11.0) preloaded from fleabay, preferably with a tape drive. Make an ignite tape against corruptions. Put it on any network as you desire. It will cost you much less than $1K and the development costs of such a project run you leaps and bounds beyond this figure and you will never be able to attain the completeness of the OS.

[Paul_481]

Hi Mel,

Actually, the simulation I want is not for program testing but rather for academic purposes.

We found a few simulator that run basic commands, but we want is simulator that performs LVM task where everything is virtual.

Regards,
Paul

[Mel Burslan]

Paul,

You understand that you are asking the perl script to emulate hardware. To utilize LVM functions, you need to have a makeshift hardware landscape with devices hanging off of the hardware paths of a hp9000 system with their device files created to utilize the pvcreate and pvdisplay functions as well and displaying haerdware info in the detailed volume group listings. As I said, it is a lot more work than you can imagine in your wildest dreams. My solution would be, again, plugging in a real cheapo workstation class machine and calling the actual commands from your virtual web interface via perl/cgi and feeding the command output as a response to the user. When everything gets extremely screwed up with the workstation, you can re-initialize it by igniting or cold OS install. It does not need to be anything fancy. A $200-300 machine from second hand market should do. I personally would not there to go in developing an LVM simulator as there are so many things that you need to consider to make it a reasonable complete simulation.

[Paul_481]

Hi Mel,

Thanks for your reply. I got your point. I am considering creating a cgi/perl to get the response from the unix server to the user.

However what if the user excute "rm *" command. I want them to have root so that they can expolore full functionality.

Is is there a way to prevent them from damaging the system? IGNITE should be the last option since this will be accesss through web it will be difficult to perform ignite due to geographic location.

Many Thanks,
Paul

[Mel Burslan]

Paul,

As long as you are doing the programming, you can trap for the dangerous "rm -r * command and nott allow this particular combination to be executed or passed onto your system.

Or if you want them to truly experience the hpux feeling, you can get a second hard disk and keep a mirror copy of your operating system, as well as a little contraption called secure web console to give you a java based vt100 connected to the console port, which allows you to boot into single user and recover the system from the mirror. This adds a bit like 200-300 dollars to the bottomline of your experiment, but it is worth every penny in my opinion, especially considering you and the server will be in different geographies.

Good luck.

[Mark Grant]

Just an aimless thought, probably going nowhere but, as Linux LVM is pretty much the same as HP LVM could you use "vmware".

User logs onto website, website creates a virtual machine with vmware and linux (you can just copy config from a "golden" linux config). Website redirects you to web server in virtual machine. webserver on virtual machine happily passes any old shell command through to the OS and output result.

Sounds kind of a funky thing to try.

[Muthukumar_5]

You can go with php also for this. Install Apache web-server with php support. Write php code to get input from user , execute it in shell and generate output page in web-server.


A good tool called webmin is available http://www.webmin.com/. I think it is for linux only. I hope you are interested in making that kind of tool.

hth.

[Muthukumar_5]

I think webmin is supported for hp-ux. See this, http://www.webmin.com/support.html. You can try to install it.

hth.

[Paul_481]

Hi Muthukumar,

I think it is supported. However, this is for academic purposes so I need to have the shell.

Actually, I hope to develop something like this

http://junix.kzn.ru/unix/unix.htm

but hpux specific and with more functionality.

The website is in russian so I cannot read the documentation.

Any Idea on the matter will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Paul