Category Archives: open source

Let’s Encrypt Everything – Setting up the Free, Automated CA

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Will Foster

Let’s Encrypt is a free, public SSL certificate authority (CA) you can use to generate and automate SSL certificate renewal.  I co-manage Trystack.org, a free OpenStack sandbox for the general public and our Horizon SSL certificate came up for expiration … Continue reading →

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Back to the Future: Converting a Server VM to Bare Metal

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Will Foster

It might seem like stepping back in time, but sometimes you start something with a VM and the desire for resources and usage skyrockets and you need to transplant it onto a bare metal server.  This was my situation with … Continue reading →

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How to Use Self-signed SSL Certificates for Plex Media Server

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Will Foster

Plex is a fork of the Open Source Kodi (previously XBMC) project from 2008, the Plex Media Server has evolved into what amounts to a free,  personal Netflix + Spotify that lets you stream home content to devices or browsers … Continue reading →

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10 Must-have Firefox Addons for Privacy, Security and Utility

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Will Foster

I have used every manner of web browser from lynx, Mosaic and Netscape builds to abusing curl commands and mostly prefer Firefox for the bulk of my daily desktop/laptop needs due to the strong plugin ecosystem.  Below you’ll find my … Continue reading →

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Funcamp ET Legacy and Urban Terror Servers Upgraded

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Will Foster

Recently two fun, actively developed Open Source FPS game projects have had major updates: Enemy Territory: Legacy and Urban Terror.  Over the weekend I’ve upgraded the Funcamp ET:L (2.75) and UT (4.3.1) servers to the latest versions.  Setup instructions and … Continue reading →

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Quick and Dirty SSH Key Management with Python

Posted on November 3, 2016 by Will Foster

Sometimes I need to quickly copy SSH keys to remote systems in a pinch.  I can do this with the Ansible authorized_key module but that’s not always available.  I might be on a random system and Ansible or external internet … Continue reading →

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Trystack and Browbeat at the OpenStack Summit

Posted on October 21, 2016 by Will Foster

I recently gave two talks at the OpenStack Summit in Barcelona on two upstream Open Source projects that I work on – Trystack and Browbeat.  Trystack is a large, public free OpenStack sandbox we run for the general public and … Continue reading →

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Fun and Automation with Git Hooks

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Will Foster

Git is more than just an awesome, decentralized version control system (VCS) – it can also drive lots of useful automation by triggering actions to deploy infrastructure and services based on event and commit-based hooks.  You can drive a lot … Continue reading →

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Automate Infrastructure Docs with Python, WordPress and Foreman

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Will Foster

“It’s not done unless it’s documented,” says the wise Ops sage.  Frequently updated documentation is critical, it’s also one of the most neglected parts of technology.  Learn how we auto-generate server resource wiki data with Python, WordPress and Foreman.

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Automate SuperMicro Server Provisioning or Die Trying

Posted on August 10, 2016 by Will Foster

We use Foreman for systems provisioning and recently received a large shipment of Supermicro for Ceph.  Out of the box they were a lot of trouble to get integrated/automated at the same level of our Dell gear but we managed, … Continue reading →

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Switching from Mutt to Neomutt

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Will Foster

“All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less,” so says mutt author Michael Elkins.  This is true for me over the last 10years as mutt along with offlineimap and notmuch allowed me battle the unwieldy, barbarous deluge of mailing … Continue reading →

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Tmux for GNU Screen Refugees and Vim Users

Posted on July 16, 2016 by Will Foster

I use GNU Screen on servers to manage working sessions and perform long-running or persistent tasks. Lately I’ve been using tmux locally on my work desktop/laptop, finding it better suited for most terminal activity.  Here’s how I set it up … Continue reading →

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Quick Fix for WordPress Table Text Wrapping

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Will Foster

WordPress enforces sensible defaults for views and text wrapping that addresses most blogging purposes.  Sometimes you want to work around these defaults.  Recently I needed to expand text-wrapping behavior for tables to not break apart words to fit the default … Continue reading →

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Create an HD Gaming Capture/Streaming Setup with Linux

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Will Foster

I recently created a dedicated game recording/streaming setup using OBS Studio on Fedora Linux.  This lets me capture and stream real-time full 1080p video and audio from another machine playing video games.  Read on for the hardware and setup details, … Continue reading →

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Automate Nagios Monitoring with Ansible

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Will Foster

Infrastructure monitoring is important and there’s lots of tools for it.  I’m fond of Nagios – it’s very mature and customizable but it’s also a giant pain in the ass to setup.  Here’s how to save time deploying and managing … Continue reading →

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