Colima on macOS 26 for VS Code Dev Containers
Start with installing Colima, Docker, and the buildx plugin with brew install colima docker docker-buildx.
macOS 26, VS Code Dev Containers and SSL errors on feature loading
Here’s something that might bite you when trying to get Dev Containers working inside of VS Code on macOS 26. Loading the image will probably work fine, but...
Getting VSCode, Claude Code and a local LLM to play nicely
(Qwen wrote this, I trimmed it back)
Converting old Blogger or old hosting URLs to the new style using Qwen3-Coder
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with using local LLMs through Claude Code to avoid consuming my Claude.ai subscription tokens. This involved setting up Qwe...
FSVS on Ubuntu Server 18.04.1
Under CentOS Server, there were some extra things that had to be installed at the start to use FSVS. This is the first time that I’m installing under Ubuntu...
Setting up Skinny Bones for GitHub Pages
Test Update
SNMP and MRTG: Interesting OIDs in net-snmp
These can all be found via the “snmpwalk” command in CentOS 5.4 (or RHEL 5.4).
FSVS: Install on CentOS 5.4
(Also see my older post on this: FSVS - Install on CentOS 5. Or the original post where I explained the power of FSVS for sysadmins.)
FSVS ignore patterns (1.2.0)
Here’s an example of a more complex FSVS ignore/take pattern.
Getting started with GPG4Win
GNU Privacy Guard for Windows Home Page (GPG4Win) - The GPG4Win project recently released version 2.0.1 of their product, so I figured it was a good time to ...
CentOS 5, ClamAV 0.95 and /etc/sysconfig/clamav
Trying to configure the new ClamAV 0.95 as a milter for our Postfix install this week. So I’ve been doing some digging into the configuration files. Here’s...
Flash memory price check
Flash memory prices have finally dropped below $2.00/GB (around $1.90 at the moment).
SNMP: Finding OIDs and MIBs
The key tool in the toolbox for exploring MIBs and finding things in SNMP is either “snmpwalk” or looking at the actual MIB text definitions. On CentOS 5 (a...
Second Copy 7 vs Samba v3
One of the tools that we use on our desktop machines is Second Copy 7, which is a very useful tool for doing file-level backups that are user friendly. It h...
3ware SATA RAID - Reboot and Select proper Boot device
Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key
3ware 9650SE SATA RAID and CentOS 5 Linux
A few months ago, I picked up a 3ware 9650SE 16-port controller for use in my primary office server which runs CentOS 5. So far, it’s been an up and down ri...
SVN: Care and feeding of a sparse working copy
One of the wonderful (and long awaited for us) features in SVN 1.5 was the addition of “sparse” working copies. This allows you to create a working copy tha...
Basic SNMP reference links
Reference links:
Issues with FRAPS
I tend to do a lot of FRAPS capture of games that I play for a variety of reasons (the ability to look back, review gameplay, hobby). However, ever since I ...
Linux: Checking the fstab prior to a reboot
One of the joys of working on a server from a remote location is dealing with the issue caused by a broken /etc/fstab file. Even the best admins make mistak...
SELinux and Nagios v3
Note: This post was never finished… so it probably contains lots of errors and incorrect information, with one or two grains of useful information.
SELinux - troubleshooting file labeling issues
This is a follow-up to SELinux - dealing with exceptions.
Removing a failed, non-existent drive from Software RAID
So, you have a drive that has failed, you’ve replaced the drive on the fly (using hot-swap SATA) and now you need to remove the old RAID slice.
Yum Error - Metadata file does not match checksum
Ran into this issue today when the pgsql folks updated their repository. All of our CentOS 5 machines are behind a transparent HTTP proxy cache server (squi...
PostgreSQL - Errors during insertions
ERROR: could not access status of transaction 84344832 DETAIL: Could not open file “pg_clog/0050”: No such file or directory.
Subversion Backups - Finding SVN repositories
The first trick when backing up SVN repositories is finding them so that you can run the svnadmin hotcopy command. Well, you could just setup a list of expo...
PostgreSQL - Backup Speed Tests
Our backup script for pgsql dumps the databases out in plain text SQL format (my preferred method for a variety of reasons). The question was, do we leave i...
PostgreSQL - Basic backup scheme
Here’s a basic backup scheme. We’re using pg_dump in plain-text mode, compressing the output with bzip2, and writing the results out to files named after th...
Very basic rsync / cp backup rotation with hardlinks
Here’s a very basic script that I use with RSync that makes use of hard links to reduce the overall size of the backup folder. The limitations are:
Setting up FreeNX/NX on CentOS 5
Quick guide to setting up FreeNX/NX. This the approximate minimums on a fresh CentOS 5.1 box. We’re limiting things to using public-key authentication from...
Setup sshd to run a second instance
In order to lock down the servers like I prefer to, yet still allow FreeNX/NX to work, I have to setup a second copy of the sshd daemon. The FreeNX/NX clien...
Samba3: Upgrading to v3.2 on CentOS 5
CentOS 5 currently only has Samba 3.0.28 in their BASE repository. The DAG/RPMForge projects don’t have updated Samba3 RPMs either (although I do see an Ope...
LVM Maximum number of Physical Extents
Working on a 15-disk system (750GB SATA drives) so this issue came up again:
Backfilling
Going to do a lot of backfill posts based on what I’ve been working on in the past year. Most of it has to do with CentOS 5, PostgreSQL, LVM, Software RAID,...
Xen - Issues with Windows DomU client clocks
Time is off by an hour in my XEN vm
Dovecot - Upgrading Notes
At the office, we’re using a virtual Dovecot server where each person’s mail folders are owned by an unique user in the Linux account system.
New smartphone?
I’m sorta in the market for a new smartphone. What I have now is a Motorola Q from 2006. I’ve been mostly happy with it (except that it wasn’t a touchscree...
Update #1 to Current frustrations with Thunderbird
Well, I started up Thunderbird in safe mode. If you have installed Thunderbird in the default location, that’s as easy as pressing [Windows-R] (or Start, Ru...
Current frustrations with Thunderbird
I’m currently plagued by the following showing up in my error console in Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 (20080914).
SELinux - dealing with exceptions
So we’re seeing errors in our /var/log/messages like:
Debugging SSL connections
We’re experiencing odd delays when talking to our mail server over SMTPS (SSL). I just found this post which helps us debug it.
Linux RAID tuning and troubleshooting
Ran across this while searching another topic.
ngg.js and fgg.js site infections
One of our users visited a website that was infected with the ngg.js and fgg.js codes (they get injected into the HTML files on the server towards the end of...
Dovecot - CMUSieve Errors
After upgrading our CentOS 5 box to the latest revisions this week (including Dovecot 1.1), we’re seeing the following error message in the log files. Sieve...
fsvs urls or fsvs initialize results in No such file or directory (2) error
So I was setting up FSVS 1.1.16 on a new CentOS 5.1 box this week (one of the first things that I do as soon as possible before configuration starts). And I...
FSVS - Install on CentOS 5
(Note: This has been mostly superseded by my newer post FSVS: Install on CentOS 5.4)
FreeNX/NX Security
After mucking around with NX/FreeNX, I have a general understanding of how it works, how to lock down your server and what some of the security ramifications...
Methods ofr remote GUI control of Linux servers
There are currently (3) basic methods for getting a remote control GUI on a Linux server (like we do with Remote Desktop for Windows servers):
Postgresql 8.1 under a nondefault directory with SELinux
So I like to keep my PostgreSQL install in a non-standard location. Normally, this is as easy as setting PGDATA= in the /etc/sysconfig/pgsql/postgresql file...
Subversion repository creation cheatsheet
Whenever I setup new SVN repositories, I always create a unix group for people who need read/write access to the repository. If the repository is named “tgh...
Replacing a failed drive in a Software RAID mirror set
Like I wrote about last time, I have a failing drive in my triple active RAID mirror set on my firewall box. See also “Failing hard drive in a Software RAID...
Failed drive slice in a Software RAID after resync
One of the things that I do periodically on my servers is to run a mdadm resync. Because this can put a heavy strain on the disk system, I strongly suggest ...
Installing Angband on CentOS 5
Installation of Angband 3.0.9 on RedHat or CentOS5.
SELinux is preventing named from write access
It seems like the SELinux profile in CentOS5 may not be correct by default. In my /var/log/messages file, I have thousands of entries per month consisting o...
Setting up svn+ssh on an alternate point for TortoiseSVN
This builds off a post to the TortoiseSVN user list: Specifying custom port for svn+ssh: a workaround
LVM and SELinux
I was a bit perplexed… I had created a LV called /dev/vg/svn, had it mounted, was reading/writing data to it with no issues. But after I rebooted the CentOS...
CentOS5: Moving /var/log to a separate volume
One thing I like to do is put /var/log on its own volume. That keeps the root volume from overflowing and also gets the log files out of the way. However, ...
FSVS ignore patterns (v1.1.5)
Here’s a list of the current ignore patterns that I use on my CentOS5 box.
Identifying bandwidth abusers in Linux
# /sbin/ip link
Remote GUI administration of CentOS5 using Windows
Over the years, I’ve become very spoiled by Windows Terminal Services that we use to administer our Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 servers. It’s fast, it’s s...
UltraVNC (Server) Install on Windows XP
Installing UltraVNC (see also “UltraVNC Installation”)
VNC Resource Links
Various links about VNC
FSVS for sysadmins
Notes: This entry was based on v1.1.4. The 1.1.5 and later versions of FSVS also place a few files in /etc/fsvs.
SVK for system management
I’m a big fan of using a version control system in conjunction with system administration. There’s a great feeling to know that even if I screw up a configu...
Remote install of CentOS5 using VNC
I haven’t tried this yet, but there are times when it could come in handy.
Squid, SELinux and using a separate volume for the cache_dir
This was a slightly tricky one. I’m running CentOS5 with SELinux and I was trying to setup Squid to put its cache_dir on a LVM volume (to keep it from using...
iSCSITarget on CentOS5
Setting up our test iSCSI SAN box this week. The original plans were to run this on top of Gentoo (which is very powerful and flexible) but after 3 years, I...
Dealing with a failed Software RAID device
As part of my server setup, I like to make sure that plans are working as expected… which means intentionally breaking things like RAID sets.
Brute force disaster recovery for CentOS5
Today’s trick is moving a CentOS5 system from an old set of disks over to a new set of disks. Along the way, I’ll create an image of the system to allow me ...
Starter kit for an iSCSI SAN
Now that it’s spring, it’s time for us to start building out our preliminary iSCSI SAN unit. Here’s the hardware shopping list:
My new preferred disk layout for servers
With age comes wisdom? After working with SoftwareRAID and Linux servers for a while, I’ve changed my preferred disk system design and layout.
ext3 tuning
The ext3 system is a great workhorse filesystem. Lots of tools, lots of distros that know how to read it, and it’s pretty much the “safe” choice for almost ...
Forcing users to use public SSH keys to authenticate
Here are the steps I use when I create a new user account on a secure SSH server (where only public keys are allowed).
SSH authorized_keys (creating pub keys using SecureCRT)
For optimal security, it’s better to require public keys for logging into a server rather then allowing password authentication. As long as the user’s keep ...
Motorola Q - Virtual Earth Mobile
Finally, a pair of screens from the Virtual Earth Mobile software. One of the handier pieces of software to have on the Q which takes advantage of the alway...
MotoQ - Home screens
One nice part about the MotoQ (well, the SmartPhone OS) is that you can customize the “home” screen to match your tastes / needs. There are even programs (l...
MotoQ - More thoughts
So after playing with the Motorola Q for a few more hours, I have the following thoughts:
Motorola Q - Initial thoughts
I picked up a Motorola Q cell phone today.
PuTTY and SubVersion on Windows 2003
One thing we use SubVersion for in the office is for tracking configuration changes to our Linux servers. Everything under /etc or any other file that we ch...
Short list of NTFSClone commands
This assumes that you have a hidden Linux partition (ext2/ext3) on the hard drive and that you’re creating an image on that hidden drive. Most of the time t...
Gentoo AMD64 install in Xen DomU
(I’m assuming that you’ve already created a working Xen Dom0 domain and that you already have a Xen DomU kernel with which you can boot the Gentoo guest OS. ...
Creating a 4-disk RAID10 using mdadm
Since I can’t seem to find instructions on how to do this (yet)…
irq 7: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option)
Not sure what I’m going to do about this error on the AMD64 Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard.
Gentoo AMD64 on Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe (part 5)
Now there were a few minor things that I had to fix after the reboot before I could SSH back in. I hadn’t pointed my swap line in /etc/fstab at the proper m...
Gentoo AMD64 on Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe (part 4)
This is a record of the kernel flags that I’m going to use for my AMD64 system. It’s an Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe (NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP chipset) with an Ath...
Gentoo AMD64 on Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe (part 3)
It’s now time to start refering to the Gentoo Installation Handbook for AMD64. While I’m pretty sure that my install method works, it’s worthwhile verifying...
Gentoo AMD64 on Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe (part 2)
As I said last time, I’m setting this unit up with the following partitions on the 2-disk RAID1 set (sda and sdb):
Gentoo AMD64 on Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe (part 1)
Time to build the base Gentoo Linux O/S. While I plan on switching over to a Xen hypervisor kernel in a few days, I still need to get a base Gentoo system u...
Gentoo AMD64 and Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe
Finally got my Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard setup and ready for installation. Tossed the 2006.0 Gentoo AMD64 CD in and told it to use 80x25 for the old...
Xen plans
So as I wait for parts to be delivered for the Test SAN unit, I’m reading up on Xen and iSCSI and debating what my plan of attack will be. My options (rough...
Rsync and SSH on Windows 2003 Server
Taking another stab at setting up RSync and SSH on our Windows 2003 servers. The goal is that we can upload web files to a central server and then have it s...
Benchmarking - hdparm (follow-up)
If you recall, the last time I tested hdparm on my Celeron 566MHz system, I was getting very poor read performance on /dev/hda.
SAN testing switch
For testing out the SAN, it looks like I can make use of either a SMC SMCGS16-SMART or SMC SMCGS24-SMART switch. These are 16/24 port gigabit switches that...
SAN design - part 2
Trying to decide how to allocate disks within the SAN unit. I have (14) or (17) slots. For now, I’ll assume that the 5:3 bay units work which will give me ...
Benchmarking - bonnie
The first test is done on /dev/md3 (composed of partitions on /dev/hda and /dev/sda).
Benchmarking - hdparm
So as I prepare for the iSCSI build, I need to start gathering tools to help me find bottlenecks. As well as establishing baseline performance estimates.
Starting an iSCSI SAN unit
So here’s my first stab at a SAN unit that can hold 14 or 17 SATA drives. All of the drives will be mounted in hot-swap trays which should make things much ...
Virtualization and SANs
One of my next projects at the office is to start migrating us from individual servers with direct attached storage (DAS) to a virtual server running on a st...
Linksys to Shorewall
Over the past week, I’ve been encountering slowdowns on my DSL connection. Normally, I can get 1.5Mbps download speeds, which is what I’m provisioned for an...
New motherboard bundle listing
Updated pricing now that AMD released their price cuts on July 24th. As a result, I’m pushing straight towards basing our low end systems around the AMD Ath...
Result code 0x57 when scheduling a backup
This was a slightly odd one that did not show up on Google at all. We had a bunch of backup jobs on our main Windows 2003 file server and had recently promo...
iacime.dll - identified as a virus
According to HijackThis (v1.98.2) it’s a BHO without a name {2afba397-d964-4056-a9df-060a93ffa503} that was installed in C:\Windows\System32\iacime.dll.
System Burnin Testing
One of the key things I try to do when setting up a new system is to really hammer it for a few days prior to delivering it to the main office and installing...
Gentoo 2006.0 LiveCD and NTFSClone
In the past, I’ve been using the Knoppix LiveCD and NTFSClone to make snapshot images of Windows workstations. However, since Knoppix 4.0.2 doesn’t auto-det...
3DMark06 Scores
FutureMark’s 3DMark06
PCMark05 Basic scores
FutureMark’s PCMark05
AquaMark3 scores
One benchmark that I used to use is AquaMark3 (a DirectX 9 based benchmark). Unfortunately, the company behind AquaMark3 is no longer in business. Which is...
LCD panel prices
The other half of the upgrade equation is the displays. Most users at the main office are already using 17” CRTs (mostly running at 1024x768). I’d like to ...
Motherboard bundles
We’ve been digging through the junkyard at work (and in my home office) and we’re trying to use up some old ATX towers and other misc parts to build new syst...
DHCP and Dynamic DNS Updates with BIND
After a few hours last night (and a lot of help from DNS & BIND Cookbook) I finally got my DHCP server on the Gentoo box to automatically add records to ...
SPF gaining traction?
As I was signing up for a few mailing lists, I was glancing through the confirmation / welcome messages and I see that there are now some SPF headers showing...
VIA EPIA Gentoo Migration
Currently, I was using a VIA EPIA system as my music server, but now I’m thinking about turning it into a smart router for the home office. This will entail...
hde: dma_intr: bad DMA status (dma_stat=35)
Getting the following messages in my system log:
Editing user IDs associated with a GPG key
Back when one of my users created their GPG keys, they put some bogus text in the Comment field because they didn’t realize the public nature of the field. ...
TrueCrypt - Encrypted USB Drive
TrueCrypt comes in handy for securing external USB or Firewire drives. Especially when those drives are used for backups of sensitive files or if you are go...
SubVersion for Linux Administrators
Updated: 26 Aug 2006
Getting started with GPG4Win
EMail-Security using GnuPG for Windows - GPG4Win offers better integration of GnuPG into Windows them past products (such as using WinPT with the command-lin...
Failing hard drive in a Software RAID
So today’s fun is that I have a drive that is failing in my 566Mhz Celeron server. This is a small server with (3) 120GB hard drives.
lm_sensors and Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ (take 2)
A while back I had tried to configure lm_sensors on an old Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ motherboard. That didn’t work out so well, so I’m going to give it another shot...
Toshiba introduces 200GB 2.5" drive
Toshiba has now released a hard drive based on the perpendicular recording technology. It’s 200GB, 2.5” form factor (useful for notebooks / laptops). Areal...
Microsoft Outlook error 0x800CCC92
I get the following error when trying to retrieve e-mail from our POP3 Postfix mail server (on Solaris 5.8). We’re also using Sendmail to interact with the ...
Microsoft Outlook Backup method
This is how I backup my PST files whenever I login to my laptop. Because I always have MSOutlook open, I find it difficult to get a good backup of the PST f...
Windows 2003 Domain Servers in a Windows 2000 Domain
So, I’m working on installing our first Windows 2003 server as a domain controller in an existing Windows 2000 Active Directory domain. Now, if I remember c...
TrueCrypt - Basic Thoughts
Probably the easiest way to get started with on-the-fly encryption is to create a TrueCrypt volume file and mount that as a Windows drive letter. The volume...
TrueCrypt
I’ve been looking for a good disk encryption system for a while. In the past few years, I’ve been using PGP’s PGPDisk tool with good success, but there have...
Cryptography, Security and Privacy
infoAnarchy Wiki
Gentoo - dcfldd
dcfldd
PostgreSQL - dumping a single table
$ pg_dump -Fp -U postgres –table=TABLENAME DATABASENAME > TABLENAME.sql
Dual-core dual-opteron system pricing
I’ve been using a dual-Opteron (twin 246s) system as my main workhorse machine for a while now. It still works well, but the Tyan Tiger K8W pipes all memory...
More handy Linux console tools
A few more tools that I’ve found useful for console-only Linux server administration. All of these have Gentoo ebuilds so they can simply be emerge’d into y...
Windows domain time server (W32Time)
I’m not going to get into the full details of configuring a time server for your Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 domains, but the basic idea is that your PDC (P...
Resizing an ext3 partition in an LVM2 volume
Extending a Logical Volume
lm_sensors and Gigabyte GA-6VA7+
Working on setting up lm_sensors on my Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ (Intel Celeron Coppermine 566Mhz CPU) system. First step is to turn on I2C support in the 2.6 kerne...
Visual Basic RND issues, take 2
I talked about this a few months ago in Visual Basic Rnd() function tricks and traps, where I discovered that I wasn’t getting a full 32bits of randomness ou...
NTP daemons for Gentoo
Looks like there are two basic choices (according to “emerge -s ntp”), ntp and openntpd.
Success at fixing sluggishness
Hah, I finally flipped the right bit on my AMD64 Gentoo server to eliminate the issue with sluggishness while mdadm is rebuilding a RAID array. So, without ...
Troubleshooting (comparison of kernel configs)
I now have a few sample kernel configs from kind folks in alt.os.linux.gentoo. There are two that I’ve focused in on (mostly because they posted first and t...
More troubleshooting steps
A) AMD64 / Athlon X2 Opinions - Recommends adding “clock=pmtmr notsc” to the kernel parameters in the grub.conf file. It probably won’t help with the sluggi...
AMD64 broken kernel config file
Current broken configuration. Here is the diff between my current configuration and what was on the LiveCD. Left side is the LiveCD config file, right side...
Sluggish linux box, troubleshooting steps
Time to sit down and jot some things down so I can figure out which device/driver in my Gentoo AMD64 box is causing issues. This gets a little complex becau...
Sluggish linux box (losing some ticks)
Messages seen in my “# dmesg” output.
Gentoo 2005.1 Software RAID (part 2) AMD64 on Asus A8V
This is a record of the kernel flags that I’m going to use for my AMD64 system. It’s an Asus A8V (K8T800Pro and VT8237) with an Athlon64 3200+ chip along wi...
Gentoo 2005.1 on Athlon64 3200+ and Asus A8V Deluxe
So, I was going to rebuild my 1Ghz Athlon machine with 640MB, but in the process of transplating hard drives and installing a new (quieter) CPU fan, I seem t...
Random Gentoo Tools
Things that might be useful to a system administrator and which don’t come pre-installed on Gentoo.
Misc SSH as a VPN links
Just collecting some links that look interesting. My plan is to use SSH as a VPN server and I’ll need to figure out how Mac and Windows clients can connect ...
Gentoo: emerge samba fails while compiling rpctorture.c
Got the following error while trying to emerge samba into my Gentoo box.
Unix/Lunix Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard is a set of guidelines designed to get various distrobutions of Linux/Unix all on the same page with regards to what goes w...
Gentoo: eth0 does not exist
So, oops. When I built my Celeron box, I didn’t include the driver for my Netgear FA310TX Rev-D1 in the kernel build. The Universal CD automatically detect...
Imaging a Tecra 8200 Windows 2000 install using Knoppix, NTFSClone, and Samba
One of the more annoying things that our users do is to get their Windows workstations into an unworkable state after 9 months or so. We’ve tried user educa...
NTBackup to a disk file
Note: This post may be incomplete…
Gentoo 2005.1 Software RAID (part 3)
Picking up with part 7c after compiling the kernel. Now you need to install your kernel into the boot partition. Change the “2.6.12-Sep2005” portion of the ...
Gentoo 2005.1 Software RAID (part 2) Celeron CPU
Time to configure the Gentoo kernel. I’m configuring this for my Celeron motherboard.
Gentoo: emerge grub error - cat: /proc/mounts: No such file or directory
During my initial Gentoo installation, I ran into the following issue after trying to “emerge grub”.
Gentoo 2005.1 Software RAID (part 2) VIA EPIA ME6000
Time to configure the Gentoo kernel. I’m configuring this for my VIA EPIA ME6000 motherboard. (Notice that I’m now including the LVM2 components as part of...
Gentoo emerge sync errors during installation
So, I’m trying to install Gentoo 2005.1 on Software RAID and LVM2. Everything seems to work up until I do my initial “emerge –sync”.
Gentoo 2005.1 Software RAID (part 1)
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all. The big change that I’m trying this time around is using the 2005.1 ...
Visual Basic Rnd() function tricks and traps
Found this while examining some code results this week.
More rsync links for using rsync as a backup tool
Easy Automated Snapshot-Style Backups with Linux and Rsync
Gentoo 2005.0 Software RAID (part 1)
Note: As always, these are works-in-progress. They might work, or they might not and are mostly here so that I can keep track of what I did or didn’t do dur...
Gentoo: No news
Been fighting with the Gentoo install for a few weeks now, but am currently working on another project. It will be a few weeks before I get back around to w...
cwRSync and copSSH
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all. I got side-tracked before I could finish this and will re-visit it a...
Gentoo: Troubleshooting 1
So, I’ve got a system that isn’t booting yet. The boot error is:
Gentoo: Can't create lock file
Well, first glitch. Looking at my boot screen with [Shift-PgUp] / [Shift-PgDn] to find the error. I see that the Software RAID is working fine (it built md0....
Gentoo Upgrading your Profile
At some point, I need to upgrade my Gentoo profile from 2004.3 to 2005.0. Here’s the error message that you see on screen when you need to do this.
Gentoo 2004.3 on Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ (part 5)
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all until I find out why I’m ending up with non-bootable systems (looks li...
Gentoo 2004.3 on Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ (part 4)
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all until I find out why I’m ending up with non-bootable systems (looks li...
Gentoo 2004.3 on Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ (part 3)
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all until I find out why I’m ending up with non-bootable systems (looks li...
Gentoo 2004.3 on Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ (part 2)
(Continuation of part 1)
Gentoo 2004.3 on Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ (part 1)
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all until I find out why I’m ending up with non-bootable systems (looks li...
Gentoo and Software RAID (2004.3)
Going back to the 2004.3 Gentoo Universal boot CD. Trying to get past my previous issue bd_claim issues when setting up a software RAID. This is on my Giga...
Installing Gentoo on Software RAID
I’m currently fighting with this again. Apparently, there have been some changes between the 2004.0 CD and the 2005.0 CD (mostly related to the 2.6 kernal a...
Gentoo mkraid errors
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all until I find out why I’m ending up with non-bootable systems (looks li...
Gentoo 2005.0 on Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ (part 2)
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all until I find out why I’m ending up with non-bootable systems (looks li...
Gentoo 2005.0 on Gigabyte GA-6VA7+ (part 1)
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all until I find out why I’m ending up with non-bootable systems (looks li...
Gentoo EPIA Install (part 3)
The RAID array has finally finished synchronizing. Continuing on, referecing my June 2004 notes about setting up LVM.
Gentoo EPIA Install (part 2)
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all until I find out why I’m ending up with non-bootable systems (looks li...
Gentoo EPIA Install (part 1)
Note: These directions are works-in-progress… in fact, they might not even work at all until I find out why I’m ending up with non-bootable systems (looks li...
SubVersion Links
Experiences with SubVersion (first-hand user account of using SubVersion compared to CVS)
Printer Banner on Windows Servers
How do I configure a Print Separator Page? (March 1999) Explains very briefly how to do it.
INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE
Came home from my weekend trip to find that one of my Windows 2000 servers had crashed with the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE 0x0000007B error message. Apparentl...
Win2003 Scheduled Tasks 0x80070005 Error
Trying to setup a backup job (kicked off by a .cmd file) on Windows 2003. I have a special, limited rights, user account created (rather then running the ba...
Installing ssh and rsync on a Windows machine: minimalist approach
Installing ssh and rsync on a Windows machine: minimalist approach
Tyan Tiger K8W (S2875)
2CPU.com Tyan Tiger K8W (S2875) - Thread with users of the Tyan Tiger K8W.
FLAC audio
Re-ripping my CDs to a lossless format for permanent archival (I had ripped them all as 128kbps a few years ago, then reripped at 160kbps, now I’m going loss...
OpenSSH for Windows
I’ve pretty much given up on trying to extract the key bits from Cygwin in order to setup a SSHD server. The OpenSSH for Windows project at SourceForge seem...
rsync.conf file for Cygwin environments
You should definitely refer to the official rsync website for the real documentation on configuring the rsyncd.conf file.
Minimal Cygwin install for RSync and SSH
Source links:
Hacking together a minimal rsync for windows installation
Based on what I’ve read elsewhere (links in my previous posting), I think I can pull the relevant pieces out of the Cygwin package. I’ll try to keep good no...
RSync and Windows
This is a follow-up to my previous post about Securing cwRSync. We were using the “cwRSync package”, but when running in server mode it doesn’t know how to ...
Linux on Laptops
Today’s useful link is: Linux on Laptops.
Gentoo: Setting up PostgreSQL
Getting PostgreSQL installed really isn’t that difficult on Gentoo Linux. # emerge -s postgresql # emerge postgresql (install takes a while, didn't time it) ...
Misc Mozilla Bits
Just a few misc Mozilla 1.7 settings that I’ve found useful. All of these need to be added/changed in your prefs.js file in your profile directory. Make su...
Removable PATA/SATA Drive Bays
Shopping around for some removable drive bays (either PATA or SATA). I definitely don’t want anything plastic, which cuts the field a bit. StarTech seem to...
SPF Records
Published SPF records for my domain this week.
Linux Bare-Metal Backup and Recovery Planning
The whole concept behind bare-metal restore is that it’s the shortest point from pulling a replacement set of server hardware out of a box to having a workin...
Gentoo: Segmentation fault in vgscan during boot
Now for the other error that I got during the initial bootup. ``` Using /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 as config: Loading module dm-mod… ...
Gentoo: Failed to load mii
More self-inflicted pain (guarantee that I’m doing this to myself, not due to the Gentoo install guide…)
Securing cwRSync
At the office we’re working on setting up cwRSync on the web server array to push the daily web/ftp/smtp log files back to a central point for archiving. Ri...
Troubleshooting software RAID boot problems
First problem is that the system boots straight into “grub”. Probably due to a missing “grub.conf” file, which I’m pretty sure I had written to the proper l...
Gentoo Install 6 (Grub, System Tools, Finalizing the Install)
(previous post about configuring the kernel and setting up the filesystem)
Gentoo Install: "emerge grub" or "emerge lilo" fails to mount /boot
Sometimes “emerge grub” or “emerge lilo” fails with the following error and you are attempting to mount “/boot” on a software RAID1 partition: ``` * Canno...
Gentoo Install 5 (Manual Kernel Configuration)
(previous post - building the kernel)
Gentoo Install 4 (Installing the Kernel Sources)
(previous post)
Gentoo Install 3 (Bootstrapping)
(previous post)
Gentoo Install 2 (VIA EPIA ME6000)
(Previous post about fdisk and setting up the software RAID.)
Gentoo Install 1 (VIA EPIA ME6000)
Going to rebuild my VIA EPIA Gentoo linux server. While the current setup was fine, I’ve decided that I want to switch to use a pair of matched 5400rpm driv...
LVM and Software RAID
Links:
IMAP Service Providers
IMAP Service Providers: A Step in Dealing with Viruses, Spam, and Email Overload - A very in-depth listing of what companies provide IMAP mail service.
Xenu's Link Sleuth
This is one of those indispensable tools for any web developer. Xenu’s Link Sleuth is a nice, simple, easy-to-use, tool that will crawl any URL and report b...
Monitor calibration
The Monitor calibration and Gamma assessment page - While not the easiest to use, I did get the best results using it. (I set my gamma to 1.8.)
More CSS 4-panel layout using DIVs (attempt #2)
1) Removed the “Main” DIV tag from the previous attempt. (Go look at BlueRobot.com’s 2-panel layout.)
CSS 4-panel layout using DIVs
You’d think it would be simple, right? Oh, young grasshopper, you have much to learn! Actually, it’s not all that bad, just tedious to get a layout up and ...
Auditing tools for Windows
fsum by SlavaSoft - (free) Creates md5 signature files compatible with the md5sum command line tool (found on most unix/linux distros), but has the additiona...
CSS quick links
W3C’s Cascading Style Sheets, level 2 CSS2 Specification - This is the source for what CSS is supposed to look like. However, it generally avoids talking ab...
Installing cwRSync on Windows 2000
The instructions over at cwRSync’s install page are a bit vague, so I’m going to jot down the steps that I use. These steps are for installing rsync in a se...
Tyan Trinity KT400 S2495 Performance
Now that the new motherboard is finally bedded in, it’s rather enjoyable compared to the old motherboard. On the old box, the fastest that the Promise FastT...
Tyan Trinity KT400 S2495 (part 2)
More fun with the Tyan Trinity KT400 S2495 board. While attempting to add the Promise FastTrak TX2 PCI RAID card, everything is happy until I go and connect...
More trouble with the Tyan
So… this is definitely a taxing of my patience when installing hardware.
Tyan KT400 Windows 2000 Boot Failure
So after installing the 2nd round of patches (first round of patches was installing SP4 using WindowsUpdate), the system fails to start:
Tyan Trinity KT400
So I’m finally ditching the very troublesome Asus A7V266-E motherboard in my one file server. I went with the Tyan Trinity KT400 because it was relatively i...
SubVersion install on Gentoo
Working on setting up subversion on the box. I’ve already emerged in the apache and subversion ebuilds, now I’m working on some other configuration informat...
Gentoo Samba (round 3)
(previous post, samba round 2)
Hard Drive Power Requirements
Jottting down some of the V/A power-requirements for some hard-drives. IBM is nice because they print it on the drive, the Maxtors (usually) aren’t as helpf...
Gentoo Samba (round 2)
(Gentoo samba page, attempt #1)
Gentoo Kernel Rebuild (samba support)
Trying to compile a new kernel with samba support built in… I’ll install this one as a different kernel image in the /boot folder. (See the Gentoo handbook ...
Gentoo Samba with ADS
Trying to setup my Samba box (“emerge samba”) so that I can access the shares from Win2000 and WinXP machines in a Win2000 domain (Active Directory Services)...
Gentoo LVM2 stuff
vgscan - displays the list of volume groups allocated on the system (for my box, I have vgos, vguser, vgtmp and vgmedia) lvscan - displays the list of virtua...
Gentoo Next Steps (ssh)
Setting up SSHD on Gentoo (which just covers the basics, also see the sshd manpage and OpenSSH.org).
Gentoo Install Troubleshooting
Spoke too soon in my last post. Got a few errors on boot up. First off, a complaint that the kernel was compiled without DEVFS support (not sure what that ...
Gentoo EPIA Install (part 6)
(previous entry)
Gentoo EPIA Install (part 5)
(previous entry)
Gentoo EPIA Install (part 4)
(previous blog entry)
Gentoo EPIA Install (part 3)
(Previous blog entry)
Gentoo EPIA Install (part 2)
Picking up at chapter 5c of the Gentoo Handbook, Using a Stage from the LiveCD. (Also see my previous post where I configured the disks.) Here is where it ...
VIA EPIA Links
Identify Ezra-T/Nehemiah M10000 (finding out if you have the Ezra or Nehemiah CPU core, I already know I have a Samuel 2 by doing a “cat /proc/cpuinfo”)
Gentoo EPIA Install (part 1)
So… time to install Gentoo (also see epiawiki.org - Installing Gentoo on an EPIA system). A good book to have handy during the install is “Linux in a Nutshe...
VIA EPIA Gentoo Build
Got the VIA EPIA ME6000 system today. Only gltich off the bat was that the first 7200rpm drive that I used draws slightly too much power which resulted in t...
Gentoo Partitioning Plans
[gentoo-user] Help with new system (discusses partition sizes)
Linux distros for a mini-ITX server
I’m going to build a mini-ITX file server using linux with part of my tax refund, so I’m busy trying to figure out which distro to use. So far the list is R...
Bequest Scam E-mail
Now here’s a really new one… a message that Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4 thinks is spam, where the sender claims that I’m eligible for a 2.5 million bequest by so...
Revision Control Software
Subversion And CVS Comparison
IPSec
Trying to figure out IPSec again… hopefully turning it on on our Win2000 servers so that more and more network traffic will be encrypted at the office. Howe...
Trojan Removal
Microsoft TechNet - remote access trojans.
MinGW Basic Makefile
Basic Makefile for MinGW I’ve been working with the MinGW compiler and needed a basic makefile to understand how to build my C programs. Here’s a simple make...
Getting Started with MinGW
Getting started with MinGW So I’m trying to dust off my very rusty (and crusty) C and C++ skills and I’ve downloaded the MinGW compiler and the MSYS package....
OpenSTA Load Testing Tool
OpenSTA is a decent tool for testing out websites. The learning curve for it is a bit steep until you manage to figure out exactly what bits are which and h...
Silent PC Review
Silent PC Review is a site dedicated to finding the quietest PC components and systems.
Enterprise Backup Software
We’re currently running NovaNet8 Alliance at work for our tape backups, but we’re looking to upgrade to gain some additional features that weren’t in 8.00. ...
STOP C000026C
Ewwww, ne’r rains but it pours. Installed the latest Windws Update from MS for my Windows 2000 Server (fixes the DirectX flaw by upgrading to 9.0b) and upon...
Encrypted File System (links)
Various articles relating to Windows2000/XP/2003 Encrypted File System:
Really Large Cheap Storage
Promise’s SX8000/RM8000 unit which holds (8) IDE drives in a RAID5 configuration, total cost for 1.5Tb of storage was $3.44/Gb.
Gigabit Ethernet
Prepare for Gigabit Ethernet networking By Brian M. Posey, TechRepublic, March 19, 2003 – Good article explaining some of the pitfalls about the move to giga...
How Much Is That Terabyte in the Window?
We’ve been considering switching to using a huge array of IDE drives instead of backup tapes for the office (tape drives being notoriously fickled unless you...
How Much Is That Terabyte in Windows?
I remember back in 2003, when hard drives were measured in gigabytes and the idea of a terabyte seemed like science fiction. Now, with drives in the 1TB+ ran...
Web Spidering in Visual Basic
In my previous post, I discussed how to create a simple web spider in Visual Basic. This post will go into more detail about the implementation.