I recently built two servers that I plan on using for a sandbox with various technologies (Infiniband, ZFS, RDMA, GlusterFS, Btrfs, Ceph, LXC, KVM, etc, etc, etc). So, getting everything installed and running, I ran into a rather interesting bug. I installed KVM and libvirt, and started rolling out some virtual machines. I wanted to […]
I always use the "-R" or "--without-recommends", and this is why: root@yin:~# aptitude install virtinst The following NEW packages will be installed: acl{a} colord{a} consolekit{a} dconf-gsettings-backend{a} dconf-service{a} fontconfig{a} fontconfig-config{a} hicolor-icon-theme{a} libatk1.0-0{a} libatk1.0-data{a} libcairo-gobject2{a} libcairo2{a} libck-connector0{a} libcolord1{a} libcups2{a} libdatrie1{a} libdbus-glib-1-2{a} libdconf0{a} libdrm-intel1{a} libdrm-nouveau1a{a} libdrm-radeon1{a} libdrm2{a} libexif12{a} libfdt1{a} libfile-copy-recursive-perl{a} libfontconfig1{a} libgd2-xpm{a} libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0{a} libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common{a} libgl1-mesa-dri{a} libgl1-mesa-glx{a} libglapi-mesa{a} libgphoto2-2{a} […]
UPDATE (May 06, 2012): I apologize for mentioning it supports encryption. Pool version 28 is the latest source that the Free Software community has. Encryption was not added until pool version 30. So, encryption is not supported natively with the ZFS on Linux project. However, you can use LUKS containers underneath, or you can use […]
Just recently, I needed to mount a KVM raw image file, because it was depending on a network mount that was no longer accessible, and any attempts to interact with the boot process failed. So, rather than booting off a live CD, or some other medium, I decided to mount the raw image file. After […]
If you're not using NetworkManager or Wicd, or some other similar tool to automatically manage your network interfaces for you, this post is for you. In the Debian world, you have a single file that manages your network interfaces. It can manage VLANs, bonded interfaces, virtual interfaces and more. You can establish rules on what […]
I created a Debian package for Salt, doing my best to adhere to the Debian Policy. You can find it at http://mentors.debian.net/package/salt. If you're not familiar with Salt, head over to http://saltstack.org and check it out. From the author's website: Salt is a powerful remote execution manager that can be used to administer servers in […]
Too often, I see the recommendation on forums, IRC, and elsewhere across the internet to use improper tools for creating ISO images. For example, consider the following two commands, both of which are not the correct way to build a CD/DVD image: $ dd if=/dev/scd0 of=cdimage.iso # NO! Or worse yet: $ cat /dev/scd0 > […]
This post comes from BashFAQ/081 on Greg's Wiki. He argues why you should not be using which(1) to determine if a command is in your $PATH at the end of the page. I'll put that argument at the front: The command which(1) (which is often a csh script, although sometimes a compiled binary) is not […]
This post is a quickie to see what the current generation is like these days. I'm an old fart (not as old as many reading this post), but I remember when 5 1/4" floppy drives were "standard", and 3 1/2" were the new fad. Then came Iomega Jazz drives, and the like. CDRW hit the […]
Quick post, outlining what I think makes the Unix family of operating systems superior, including "unix-like" operating systems such as GNU/Linux, BSD, and others. Of course, the list isn't exhaustive- it's just something I threw together in 10 minutes. The motivation of the post was a discussion in ##unix on Freenode. The command line interface. […]
I've been tasked at work with shredding drives. Not physically, mind you, but digitally. Usually, I grab a copy of the latest version of Knoppix, boot up, pull up a terminal, and grab GNU Shred. Something like: shred -n 3 -v /dev/sda It works well enough. However, it doesn't display a real useful progress meter, […]
Just over the past couple of weeks, I have done a few Debian GNU/Linux installations for various people, including myself. I am a minimalist. I like to have installed on my system only exactly what I specify. However, I'm also a realist, and know that Debian has likely chosen sane defaults in the installer when […]
I just finished reading 7 Reasons Why I Switched to Google Chrome from Firefox. I found the article a bit on the fanboy side, and I'll address each of his points here, while also saying my reasons why I'm still holding on to the Firefox browser as my default browser. First, Andrew mentions that Google […]
Tommorow is the Big Day for GNU/Linux, when Ubuntu goes through it's regularly 6 month upgrade. Ubuntu 9.04, codenamed "Jaunty Jackalope" is due for release. The consequence is, these servers will get slammed, meaning that's it's difficult for people who use other distributions on some mirrors to update their distribution. As a result, rather than […]
My bank allows customizing the front of the card with an image of your choice. So, I figured why not represent Free Software and Linux everywhere I use my card? I struggled for some time finding the right image to represent Free Software. The GNU logo is almost as horrid as Tux, the Linux kernel […]
