Posts Tagged ‘Framework’

Handy Tools: Snapt Cron

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

The Snapt framework comes with an advanced cron handler, meaning on installation all you need to do is add that the cronjob handler will run every minute in cron and we’ll decide when to run our reporting, logging, and other tasks automatically.

To do that, we had to write a more sophisticated cron – with abilities like “once off” or temporary tasks, that after running successfully are removed. We’ve also introduced load limits and retries – so a task can be set to only run when the unit is not heavily loaded.

Having done all of that, we thought why not give the user that ability; for free. And so was born a new, free plugin named “Snapt Cron”. Below is a screenshot of adding an example cron entry where it will reboot at night, and remove the cron task.

snapt Cronjob 300x123 Handy Tools: Snapt Cron

Snapt Cron is available with any Snapt Framework installation (e.g. Snapt HAProxy, Snapt Squid). If you would like to be notified when the product is available officially, please use our release notification list.

Diagnosing Problems Made Easy

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Snapt is a powerful user interface to powerful open source software, but, things go wrong with any software and when it does one of the primary functions of Snapt is to help diagnose and repair the problems. Whether checking its own setup, or making sure your critical load balancer is up and running Snapt will automatically alert you of problems, and comes with a full framework status check to help you diagnose any issues, as shown below.

system Status 300x235 Diagnosing Problems Made Easy

We aim to make open source as easy and as powerful as it can be, while keeping the complexities of managing it and supporting it away from you, while providing corporate level support.

Snapt Backup, Free with Snapt

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Having a hardware failure in a high availability environment is not an option, and finding a solution to backup whatever you are using can be difficult. Restoring those backups can be even harder.

Snapt comes free with an optional backup plugin that will save any Snapt configurations, and the configurations for any Snapt modules you have. In the screenshot below, you can see we automatically take a daily backup of our Snapt installation as well as our HAProxy config file.

automated Backups 300x122 Snapt Backup, Free with Snapt

The files can be stored on disk or emailed, and the configuration can be restored automatically after a failure by the Snapt Backup plugin. This is available free to all Snapt clients, as one of the optional plugins.

Translation in Snapt

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Snapt has been built from the ground up with translation in mind, and we intend to support many languages. Naturally, our first release only officially supports English but already comes with German menus as a beta example.

language selection Translation in Snapt

Selecting a language is very easy as you can see above, and is done in the initial Snapt Setup. Any strings that are available in the language you choose are then displayed using that language, and any missing strings are displayed in English, as you can see below.

german version Translation in Snapt

Translations will be added as we can justify them based on our users, and will be free with Snapt. Obviously we will also accept any user submissions and roll them out automatically with updates of the framework.

How Snapt Intercepts Data

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

One of the features packaged in the Snapt Framework is the “Interception Manager”. This provides plugins to the framework such as Snapt Squid or Snapt HAProxy to transparently intercept traffic.

firewallType How Snapt Intercepts Data

In the Squid example, it makes it easy to pick up HTTP (port 80) traffic and cache it without interfering with user configuration, or with HAProxy you can roll out load balancing without changing IP addresses and the like. Typically, this can get confusing and complicated – so we introduced an interception manager.

Each plugin is assigned a “space” in which it can operate to intercept traffic. Each space can have subspaces. For example, each HAProxy group effectively has its own space which can have any number of ports or IP addresses to intercept traffic on and redirect it to HAProxy.

The interception manager automatically integrates with your firewall (currently it supports PF or IPTables) and intercepts the data. You can disable and enable interception spaces without losing their configuration – allowing maintenance without downtime, and you can disable the entire system without losing your setup.

You can see an example of some live HAProxy groups intercepting data below
interceptionStatus How Snapt Intercepts Data

Alerts Via Twitter

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

One of the features available in the Snapt Framework (included with any Snapt product) is the ability to send alerts via twitter – aka to tweet alerts. This is an interesting concept, and actually a great way (for internet crowds) to keep people up to date with any status updates.

snaptTwitter 300x139 Alerts Via Twitter

Twitter allows you to set your account to “private” which means only followers that you approve can see your status updates. This lets you and your staff follow a single twitter account which all of your Snapt installations will send alerts to. We Tweet with the installation name and 160 characters of description, for example this is a tweet that recently went out to all of our followers:

twitterView 300x158 Alerts Via Twitter

You can change the installation name of the host (currently Snapt UI) to anything you like – meaning it’s simple to view various installations on one account. Of course this can be used in conjunction with email alerts and the like, but it’s an interesting and effective way to keep a team in the loop and to have a single place for alerts.

Snapt in 2010

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

With work on the Snapt Framework moving along, focus is being shifted toward the completion of our two launch modules; HAProxy and Squid.

Snapt Squid

Some of the features to look forward to in Snapt Squid have already been discussed and work on plugins has started. The plugins aim to bring functionality that might not be common to all installations without adding unnecessary bloat to the Snapt Squid Module. Examples include authentication, WCCP, advanced peering and more.

Snapt HA Proxy

The Snapt HAProxy module is a feature packed front end to the HA Proxy Load Balancer. Among many other features, it includes advanced reporting, simple yet powerful control over the config file as well as status alerts. Scheduled for release with the launch of the Snapt Framework, this will give HA Proxy the frontend needed to position itself as a competitive Open Source load balancer.

We’re excited for 2010 and for the great feedback we have received so far. Remember, by subscribing to the release list you will be the first to know when Snapt is officially launched.

What Is Snapt Turbo?

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Snapt Turbo is an idea which was originally (to our knowledge) started by the WordPress community. “Turbo” is the idea of using Google Gears to accelerate a website as opposed to storing an offline copy. With Snapt turbo and Google Gears you can store all of the CSS, images and javascript on your local machine meaning even over a latent or slow link your Snapt experience is Turbo-Charged!

How To Use It

When you first go to Turbo, you’ll notice it will either tell you to install Gears as in the screenshot below (and guide you through it) or if you have installed Gears it will skip to step 2.

turbo disabled 300x83 What Is Snapt Turbo?

Once you have it running, you’ll be presented with a screen allowing you to “begin the download of files”. Once you start that process you will see a progress bar guiding your download. Depending on your connection to the framework it may take a while! If you are on a LAN connection it should be over in less than a minute. A preview of what to expect is below.

turbo downloading 300x83 What Is Snapt Turbo?

After the download you can refresh the page and you should see a confirmation message letting you know everything is fine (as seen below). Now your experience is Turbo-Charged!

turbo charged 300x83 What Is Snapt Turbo?

This feature is included free with all Snapt Frameworks, and includes the acceleration of any Snaptin modules.

Customize Snapt

Monday, September 7th, 2009

One of the great features about Snapt is it’s ability to be given custom logos. This enables partners who are building Open Source solutions to add the Snapt product for the suite of powerful features it provides, and still keep their logo present. Adding value to FOSS solutions is what we’re about, and with Snapt you can ensure you aren’t just supplying another box – but a revenue stream and reliable management platform.

You can replace both the logon screen logo, the large Snapt seen in the first image below, and the logo on the top left of every page. This allows you to brand the front-ends and if you enter the partner program you can earn commission on your sales.

customize 300x206 Customize Snapt

Preview: User Manager

Friday, September 4th, 2009

The Snapt user manager is included in the Snapt Framework and available on all the products. It’s powerful, innovative system for managing users in the Snapt UI and their access allows you to give reports only access, authenticate against LDAP, have an unlimited number of users and record every actions each user takes. This is a brief walk through of some of the features available.

User Management

Adding, updating and deleting users is a cinch with the Framework. As you enter the user manager you are given a view of your users, their last logon and if you choose a graph of their activity as shown below.

user stats 300x94 Preview: User Manager

From here you can quickly edit the user, update their password or even suspend them.

Group Management

Users can be part of an infinite number of groups, and you may create an infinite number of groups. This allows you to have as simple or as complicated an access control system as you like. Each plugin includes its own access control meaning you can control precisely where users of the framework can and cannot go. Below you can see a simple example of creating a reports group.

group management 300x93 Preview: User Manager

LDAP Integration

Snapt comes standard with LDAP integration for authentication. If you have an Active Directory or an OpenLDAP server you can integrate directly and authenticate your users from there! As you can see below, it’s quick and easy to setup and can save you a lot of user management. It’s especially useful when you have multiple Snapt installations..

ldap auth 300x108 Preview: User Manager

Logging

Every user action is logged with Snapt! Whether it’s as simple as a login or a list of every option that was changed in Squid we log who did it, when they did it and what they changed, for however long you want. The last 5 actions are presented on the dashboard as seen below.

activity log 300x69 Preview: User Manager