The document discusses IBM's Gurubox Project, which aims to provide a standardized set of open source troubleshooting tools for enterprise use. It describes the origins and goals of the project in addressing security and customization concerns when troubleshooting on customer networks. The bulk of the document then lists and briefly describes various open source networking, system, and web analysis tools that are included in the Gurubox toolkit for troubleshooting purposes.

1. © 2009 IBM
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IBM Collaboration Solutions
The Gurubox Project:
Open Source Troubleshooting Tools
Wes Morgan
wes_morgan@us.ibm.com

2. ● First real job – Unix systems administrator
● When Usenet was github and comp.sources.* ruled
● First “home computer” - AT&T 3B2/310 with 3B2/XM and 5620 – 4MB RAM, 0.6 MIPS
● Contributed portability code to gnuplot, perl, bignum, nethack et al.
● If you ever see “3B2” or “3B20” in PORTING or README, it was probably me
© 2012 IBM
Corporation
Me and Open Source
October 24, 2014

3. © 2012 IBM
Corporation
Open Source for End Users at IBM
 Green to Open Software Project (G2O)
850+ packages approved for some degree of internal use
Hundreds of thousands of OpenOffice installations
 Open Client for Linux
IBM's customized Linux desktop, built on RHEL and Ubuntu
Tens of thousands of clients deployed within IBM
 Supporting Open Source on IBM Platforms
IBM SDK for node.js
IBM Bluemix – http://www.bluemix.net
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4. © 2012 IBM
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Why are we here? The Gurubox Project
 Originated in corporate security concerns
 Troubleshooting with hundreds of customers over 20 years
 Need for a “sterile” system for troubleshooting and data collection
 Concerns in exposing our own information on customer networks
SOLUTION: Open source!
 Known tools
 Many already in use among customers
 Easily audited
 Empty of any/all company confidential information
 Easily wiped/sanitized
 Can be adopted by customers
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5. © 2012 IBM
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Caveats – The IS/ISN'T Approach
 Gurubox IS intended for general troubleshooting
 Gurubox IS NOT intended for “deep dive” subject matter experts
 Gurubox IS intended for “get in, find the red flag, get out” troubleshooting
 Gurubox IS NOT intended for long-term monitoring/analysis
 Gurubox IS predicated on ease of use
 Gurubox IS NOT necessarily “best of breed” in each area
YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY!
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6. © 2012 IBM
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Gurubox Platform
 ThinkPad W500
 Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 @ 2.53 GHz
 8 GB RAM
 160GB HDD
 Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
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7. © 2012 IBM
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Must-haves For the Enterprise-Level Troubleshooter
Network Analysis
Directory Search/Maintenance
Web Troubleshooting/Analysis
Virtual Machines
Troubleshooting Mobile/Cloud Services
Load Testers
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8. © 2012 IBM
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Network Troubleshooting - nmap
 Extremely robust network discovery tool (aka “network mapper”)
 Can perform a wide range of scans against individual systems or entire networks
 OS/service fingerprint detection
 Zenmap GUI also available
 http://nmap.org
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9. © 2012 IBM
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Network Troubleshooting – mtr and lft
 mtr – graphical traceroute, repeating, statistical analysis provided
Useful for catching “breakdown” in network connectivity
http://www.bitwizard.nl/mtr/
 lft - “layer 4 traceroute”
Many, MANY options – useful for discovering/traversing firewalls
http://pwhois.org/lft/
October 24, 2014

10. Network Analysis - Wireshark
 “The World's Most Popular Network Protocol Analyzer” - supports 1500+ protocols and packet types
 Reads/writes file formats of most commercial network analyzers
 Extensive utilities for manipulating capture files
 http://www.wireshark.org
© 2012 IBM
Corporation
October 24, 2014

11. © 2012 IBM
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Network Analysis - MRTG
 Multi-Router Traffic Grapher
 Quick, easy monitoring of SNMP-enabled network interfaces (e.g. switches, routers)
 Runs from cron or Task Manager
 Automatically builds traffic graphs and web page for each interface
 http://oss.oetiker.ch/mrtg
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12. © 2012 IBM
Corporation
Directory Search/Maintenance – Apache Directory Studio
 Directory tooling platform with browsing/editing capability
 Works with almost every LDAP server
 Extremely useful for validating search filters
 http:/directory.apache.org/studio
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13. © 2012 IBM
Corporation
Simple Web Troubleshooting – Live HTTP Headers
 Firefox plugin
 Simple capture/save-to-file of HTTP request/response headers
 Perfect for quick “sanity checks”
 http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org
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14. © 2012 IBM
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Simple Web Troubleshooting – Modify Headers
 Firefox plugin
 Quick on-the-fly modification of HTTP headers
 Pairs well with Live HTTP Headers
 http://www.garethhunt.com/modifyheaders or Firefox Add-On Library
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15. © 2012 IBM
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Advanced Web Troubleshooting - Firebug
 Firefox plugin
 Explore HTTP headers, HTML, CSS, scripts, DOM, cookie, network performance
 http://getfirebug.com
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16. © 2012 IBM
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Virtual Machines - VirtualBox
 Desktop virtualization
 Almost all x86 operating systems supported
 http://www.virtualbox.org
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17. © 2012 IBM
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Troubleshooting Cloud/Mobile Services - GeoIP
 MaxMind – open source data and APIs
GeoIP databases available for download - https://www.maxmind.com/en/opensource
 GeoIP supported by an increasing number of packages
INCLUDING WIRESHARK!
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18. © 2012 IBM
Corporation
Troubleshooting Cloud/Mobile Services - Android-x86
 Straightforward port of Android to x86 architecture
 Easy deployment in VirtualBox VM
 Allows data captures (e.g. network traffic) that is difficult on a mobile device
 http://android-x86.org
October 24, 2014

19. © 2012 IBM
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Load Testing – Apache JMeter
 Can create tests for HTTP/HTTPS, SOAP, FTP, LDAP, SMTP, POP3, and more
 Record your own tests and scale with thread groups
 http://jmeter.apache.org
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20. © 2012 IBM
Corporation
One for our Windows Friends – Process Hacker
 Adjunct to (or replacement for) Task Manager
 Views for Processes, Services, Network and Disk
 Live usage charts for CPU, Memory, and more
 http://processhacker.sourceforge.net
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21. © 2012 IBM
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Odds and Ends
 Quick and easy data plots – gnuplot - http://www.gnuplot.info/
 Screen captures
Shutter (Linux) - http://shutter-project.org/
Greenshot (Windows) - http://getgreenshot.org/
 Generating PDFs – cups-pdf (Linux) and CutePDF (Windows)
 Music composition/notation (just because!) - Musescore (Linux) - http://musescore.org/
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22. © 2012 IBM
Corporation
Thanks for being here!
 Feel free to contact me with any questions or suggestions
 Did I miss something? Let me know! I'm always excited to learn about new tools...
October 24, 2014
Twitter: @wesmorgan1
Email: wes_morgan@us.ibm.com
Blog: Cognitive Buffet
<http://wesmorgan.blogspot.com>