Mozilla New CEO

The Mozilla Board of Directors has announced that co-founder and current Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich will be appointed to the role of CEO of Mozilla, effective immediately.

Li Gong will be named Chief Operating Officer and a number of functions will move under his organization including Cloud Services, IT, Marketplace, Mobile & Research, and Platform Engineering.

Mitchell Baker will remain Mozilla Executive Chairwoman and will continue the long and successful partnership with Brendan as co-founders who lead the Mozilla project to fulfill our mission to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the Web.

Jay Sullivan, our acting CEO during the executive search, has led Mozilla passionately and will leave a lasting impact on the project.  Under Jay’s leadership Mozilla has delivered a number of key products, including several versions of the Firefox Web browser and the very successful launches of Firefox OS. After six years at Mozilla, Jay will stay on through the transition to support the team and then leave to pursue new opportunities.

Brendan Eich, Mozilla co-founder, has been deeply involved in every aspect of Mozilla’s development starting from the original idea in 1998. He has deep expertise in both the technical and product sides of the organization, as well as the Web in general. His technology vision and general acumen have quietly shaped not only Mozilla, but large parts of the Web over the past two decades. He is the creator of JavaScript, a key technology of the Web.  Brendan brings Mozilla’s founding vision and boldness to our current initiatives.  These traits are a unique asset as Mozilla brings openness and choice through new initiative such as Firefox OS and cloud services.  Brendan and Mitchell’s fifteen-year history of co-founding Mozilla and working together is an asset in this time of necessary organizational and community growth.

“Mozilla speaks for the open Web, where consumers and developers alike can prosper and express themselves free from the constraints imposed by commercial, profit-driven technologies. Mozilla’s organization and Firefox products help keep the Web balanced to every individual’s interests, and not just for the highest profit”, stated Reid Hoffman, Mozilla Board Member. “Brendan Eich, as a founder and a well-respected innovator of Web technologies, is uniquely equipped to lead Mozilla with his deep understanding of the organization’s core values and technology vision.”

Mozilla is unique in how we operate, because every Mozilla contributor and user around the world is an important part of driving our mission forward, reaching our goals and, ultimately, shaping the future direction of the Web.

Mozilla has delivered significant accomplishments across the project, including the upcoming major release of Firefox that will include new user experience enhancements, and Firefox Accounts which provides easier syncing and other benefits; Mozilla partnering with Unity Technologies and with Epic Games to provide developers with tools for delivering superior games on the web without plugins; Firefox OS devices launched in 15 countries with 4 operators and 4 device manufacturers, capped-off by another amazing industry reception for Mozilla and Firefox OS at Mobile World Congress 2014, the world’s largest mobile industry trade show.

GlusterFS (File System) setup at RHEL/CentOS and Fedora

Distributed computing systems offer a wide array of advantages over centralized computing systems. Here data is stored in a distributed way with several nodes as servers.

GlusterFS Storage

The concept of a metadata server is no longer needed in a distributed file system. In distributed file systems, it offers a common view point of all the files separated among different servers. Files/directories on these storage servers are accessed in normal ways.
For example, the permissions for files/directories can be set as in usual system permission model, i.e. the owner, group and others. The access to the file system basically depends on how the particular protocol is designed to work on the same.

What is GlusterFS?

GlusterFS is a distributed file system defined to be used in user space, i.e. File System in User Space (FUSE). It is a software based file system which accounts to its own flexibility feature.
Look at the following figure which schematically represents the position of GlusterFS in a hierarchical model. By default TCP protocol will be used by GlusterFS.

GlusterFS Design

Advantages to GlusterFS

1. Innovation – It eliminates the metadata and can dramtically improve the performance which will help us to unify data and objects.
2. Elasticity – Adapted to growth and reduction of size of the data.
3. Scale Linearly – It has availability to petabytes and beyond.
4. Simplicity – It is easy to manage and independent from kernel while running in user space.

What makes Gluster outstanding among other distributed file systems?

1. Salable – Absence of a metadata server provides a faster file system.
2. Affordable – It deploys on commodity hardware.
3. Flexible – As I said earlier, GlusterFS is a software only file system. Here data is stored on native file systems like ext4, xfs etc.
4. Open Source – Currently GlusterFS is maintained by Red Hat Inc, a billion dollar open source company, as part of Red Hat Storage.

Storage concepts in GlusterFS

1. Brick – Brick is basically any directory that is meant to be shared among the trusted storage pool.
2. Trusted Storage Pool – is a collection of these shared files/directories, which are based on the designed protocol.
3. Block Storage – They are devices through which the data is being moved across systems in the form of blocks.
4. Cluster – In Red Hat Storage, both cluster and trusted storage pool convey the same meaning of collaboration of storage servers based on a defined protocol.
5. Distributed File System – A file system in which data is spread over different nodes where users can access the file without knowing the actual location of the file. User doesn’t experience the feel of remote access.
6. FUSE – It is a loadable kernel module which allows users to create file systems above kernel without involving any of the kernel code.
7. glusterd – glusterd is the GlusterFS management daemon which is the backbone of file system which will be running throughout the whole time whenever the servers are in active state.
8. POSIX – Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is the family of standards defined by the IEEE as a solution to the compatibility between Unix-variants in the form of an Application Programmable Interface (API).
9. RAID – Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) is a technology that gives increased storage reliability through redundancy.
10. Subvolume – A brick after being processed by least at one translator.
11. Translator – A translator is that piece of code which performs the basic actions initiated by the user from the mount point. It connects one or more sub volumes.
12. Volume – A volumes is a logical collection of bricks. All the operations are based on the different types of volumes created by the user.

Different Types of Volumes

Representations of different types of volumes and combinations among these basic volume types are also allowed as shown below.

Distributed Volume

Replicated Volume

Striped Volume

Distributed Replicated Volume

Representation of a distributed-replicated volume.

Distributed Replicated Volume

Installation of GlusterFS in RHEL/CentOS and Fedora

In this article, we will be installing and configuring GlusterFS for the first time for high availability of storage. For this, we’re taking two servers to create volumes and replicate data between them.

Step :1 Have at least two nodes

1. Install CentOS 6.5 (or any other OS) on two nodes.
2. Set hostnames named “server1” and “server2“.
3. A working network connection.
4. Storage disk on both nodes named “/data/brick“.

Step 2: Enable EPEL and GlusterFS Repository

Before Installing GlusterFS on both the servers, we need to enable EPEL and GlusterFS repositories in order to satisfy external dependencies. Use the following link to install and enable epel repository under both the systems.

1. How to Enable EPEL Repository in RHEL/CentOS

Next, we need to enable GlusterFs repository on both servers.

# wget -P /etc/yum.repos.d http://download.gluster.org/pub/gluster/glusterfs/LATEST/EPEL.repo/glusterfs-epel.repo

Step 3: Installing GlusterFS

Install the software on both servers.

# yum install glusterfs-server

Start the GlusterFS management daemon.

# service glusterd start

Now check the status of daemon.

# service glusterd status

Sample Output

service glusterd start
  service glusterd status
  glusterd.service - LSB: glusterfs server
      Loaded: loaded (/etc/rc.d/init.d/glusterd)
     Active: active (running) since Mon, 13 Aug 2012 13:02:11 -0700; 2s ago
    Process: 19254 ExecStart=/etc/rc.d/init.d/glusterd start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
     CGroup: name=systemd:/system/glusterd.service
      ├ 19260 /usr/sbin/glusterd -p /run/glusterd.pid
      ├ 19304 /usr/sbin/glusterfsd --xlator-option georep-server.listen-port=24009 -s localhost...
      └ 19309 /usr/sbin/glusterfs -f /var/lib/glusterd/nfs/nfs-server.vol -p /var/lib/glusterd/...

Step 4: Configure SELinux and iptables

Open ‘/etc/sysconfig/selinux‘ and change SELinux to either “permissive” or “disabled” mode on both the servers. Save and close the file.

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#     enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#     permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#     disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=disabled
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values:
#     targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
#     mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

Next, flush the iptables in both nodes or need to allow access to the other node via iptables.

# iptables -F

Step 5: Configure the Trusted Pool

Run the following command on ‘Server1‘.

gluster peer probe server2

Run the following command on ‘Server2‘.

gluster peer probe server1

Note: Once this pool has been connected, only trusted users may probe new servers into this pool.

Step 6: Set up a GlusterFS Volume

On both server1 and server2.

# mkdir /data/brick/gv0

Create a volume On any single server and start the volume. Here, I’ve taken ‘Server1‘.

# gluster volume create gv0 replica 2 server1:/data/brick1/gv0 server2:/data/brick1/gv0
# gluster volume start gv0

Next, confirm the status of volume.

# gluster volume info

Note: If in-case volume is not started, the error messages are logged under ‘/var/log/glusterfs‘ on one or both the servers.

Step 7: Verify GlusterFS Volume

Mount the volume to a directory under ‘/mnt‘.

# mount -t glusterfs server1:/gv0 /mnt

Now you can create, edit files on the mount point as a single view of the file system.

Features of GlusterFS

1. Self-heal – If any of the bricks in a replicated volume are down and users modify the files within the other brick, the automatic self-heal daemon will come into action as soon as the brick is up next time and the transactions occurred during the down time are synced accordingly.
2. Rebalance – If we add a new brick to an existing volume, where large amount of data was previously residing, we can perform a rebalance operation to distribute the data among all the bricks including the newly added brick.
3. Geo-replication – It provides back-ups of data for disaster recovery. Here comes the concept of master and slave volumes. So that if master is down whole of the data can be accessed via slave. This feature is used to sync data between geographically separated servers. Initializing a geo-replication session requires a series of gluster commands.

Here, is the following screen grab that shows the Geo-replication module.

Geo Replication

Mozilla Thunderbird

Thunderbird Features

Easy to Set Up and Easy to Use

Mail Account Setup Wizard

All you need to provide is your name, email address, and password and the email account set up wizardry will check our database and find the email settings for you.

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Personalized Email Addresses

Ever dreamed of having a personalized email address (such as "dad@thesmithfamily.com") for you, your family or your business? Thunderbird makes this easy - you can sign up for a new email address within Thunderbird, and it will all be set up automatically for you ready to send and receive.

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Improved Interface

We’re always looking for ways to make email easier.

Tabbed Email

Tabbed email lets you load emails in separate tabs so you can quickly jump between them. Tabs appear on the top of the menu bar providing a powerful visual experience and allowing the toolbars to be much more contextual. When quitting Thunderbird, visible tabs will be saved and will be restored when you open Thunderbird the next time.

Entering a new address in your address book

One-click Address Book is a quick and easy way to add people to your address book. Add people by simply clicking on the star icon in the message you receive. Two clicks and you can add more details like a photo, birthday, and other contact information.

Multiple Channel Chat

Enjoy real-time conversation with your contacts, right from your favorite messaging application, with multiple supported networks. Thunderbird makes it easy to search through both past conversations and received emails.

Attachment Reminder

The attachment reminder looks for the word attachment (and other words like file types) in the body of your message and reminds you to add an attachment before hitting send.

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Customize Your Email Experience

Add-ons Manager

Find and install add-ons directly in Thunderbird. You no longer need to visit the add-ons Web site - instead simply fire up the Add-ons Manager. Not sure which add-on is right for you? Ratings, recommendations, descriptions and pictures of the add-ons in action help you make your selection.

Large Files Management

You can speed up the transfer of large documents by uploading them to an online storage provider and sharing the link instead of sending the file directly as a message attachment. Improve the speed of sending email and avoid message rejection if the recipient's server disallows large files. As an added bonus, you'll also save space in your sent folder and the recipient's inbox.

Thunderbird Look & Feel

Lightweight "skins" allow you to change the look and feel of Thunderbird in an instant. Hundreds of skins are available from the latest movies, famous landmarks, and Japanese tattoos. You can also choose from several Themes that dress up all the different icons in Thunderbird.

Smart Folders

Smart Folders help you manage multiple email accounts by combining special folders like your Inbox, Sent, or Archive folder. Instead of going to the Inbox for each of your mail accounts, you can see all of your incoming email in one Inbox folder.

Beyond Add-ons

Add-ons are the cornerstone of customization, but adapting Firefox to suit your style doesn’t stop there. You can add new search engines, change toolbar preferences, display different sizes, shapes and styles for your browser’s navigation buttons and more. With additional preferences, you can specify a Web mail client (such as Gmail) to open up when you click on an address from a Web page or set up a news reader application for the blogs you encounter.

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Multiple Search Options

Search the Web

You can now search the Web without having to leave Thunderbird. Type whatever comes to mind in Thunderbird's search box and choose from several different search providers.
You can also highlight words in your email, right click, and select "search the web for:" to start your Web search.

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Search Tools

The search interface in Thunderbird contains filtering and timeline tools to pinpoint the exact email you're looking for. Thunderbird also indexes all of your emails and chat conversations to help you search even faster. Your search results are displayed in a tab so you can easily switch back and forth to your search results and other email.

Quick Filter Toolbar

The Quick Filter Toolbar lets you filter your email faster. Start typing in words in the Quick Filter search box and the results are displayed instantly. Or you can filter your email by New Messages, Tags, and people in your Address Book. You can also "Pin" or save a Filter and use it across multiple folders.

Message Archive

If you think you're going to need an email in the future but want it out of your inbox without deleting it, archive it! Archiving helps you manage your inbox and put your email into the archive folder system.
Selecting the Archive button or hitting the 'A' key will archive your email.
 

 

Secure and Protect Your Mail

Cutting Out the Junk

Thunderbird's popular junk mail tools are updated to stay ahead of spam. Each email you receive passes through Thunderbird's leading-edge junk mail filters. Each time you mark messages as spam, Thunderbird "learns" and improves its filtering so you can spend more time reading the mail that matters. Thunderbird can also use your mail provider's spam filters to keep junk mail out of your inbox.

Robust Privacy and Do Not Track

Thunderbird offers support for user privacy and remote image protection. To ensure a user's privacy, Thunderbird automatically blocks remote images in email messages. Thunderbird also supports the Do Not Track option. This is associated with Search the Web, but can also be used in other requests for web pages enabled by add-ons.

Phishing Protection

Thunderbird protects you from email scams which try to trick users into handing over personal and confidential information by indicating when a message is a potential phishing attempt. As a second line of defense, Thunderbird warns you when you click on a link which appears to be taking you to a different Web site than the one indicated by the URL in the message.

Activity Manager

The Activity Manager records all the interactions between Thunderbird and your email provider in one place. There's no more guess work. You only have to look in one place to see everything that's happening with your email.

Automated Update

Thunderbird's update system checks to see if you're running the latest version, and notifies you when a security update is available. These security updates are small (usually 200KB - 700KB), giving you only what you need and making the security update quick to download and install. The automated update system provides updates for Thunderbird on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in over 40 different languages.

Open Source

At the heart of Thunderbird is an open source development process driven by thousands of passionate, experienced developers and security experts spread all over the world. Our openness and active community of experts helps to ensure our products are more secure and quickly updated, while also enabling us to take advantage of the best third party security scanning and evaluation tools to further bolster overall security.