Category Archives: sysadmin

Manage Test/Development Linux VMs with qcow2 and Libvirt

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Will Foster

I often need to quickly revert virtual machines used for testing to a known good, vanilla state without doing anything by hand. QEMU provides a great set of tools to help. Here’s a simple tool to wrap all of it … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged automation, development, libvirt, linux, open source, sandbox, sysadmin, testing, virtualization | 2 Comments

Trick out your Vim Editor

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Will Foster

I’ve been a long-time vim user, dating back to when I figured out how to exit the damn thing. Over the years I’ve tried various vimrc configurations, plugins and looks and even other editors but I’ve always come back to … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged code completion, iTerm2, linux, open source, OSX Vim, sysadmin, vim, vim plugins | 2 Comments

Automate Deployment of the ELK/EFK Stack with Ansible

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Will Foster

I recently needed to completely automate deploying a full ELK/EFK stack and clients and didn’t find anything that suited my needs so I wrote the playbooks for this in Ansible. This was my first real foray into automation with Ansible, … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged ansible, automation, devops, elasticsearch, elk, kibana, linux, logging, logstash, sysadmin | 24 Comments

OpenStack Summit 2016 – Trystack, the free OpenStack Sandbox

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Will Foster

Following onto the previous Trystack.org talk at Devconf 2016, we presented at the 2016 Austin OpenStack Summit. Following the same format as the previous talk we covered some exciting updates around RDO Liberty/Mitaka, OpenStackID integration, datacenter hardware and network upgrades/expansion … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged cloud, developers, linux, openstack, openstack summit, sysadmin, trystack | 1 Comment

Build Secure VLAN Networks with ‘Shibby’ Router Firmware

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Will Foster

I’ve been an ardent user of the Tomato Linux Open Source router firmware, specifically on the ASUS RT-N66U home routers using the ‘Shibby’ builds. They let you take full advantage of enterprise (and kitchen sink) features on the broadcom-based residential … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged asus rt-n66u, IoT, linux, linux home vlan router, networking, security, shibby, tomato, tomato firmware vlan, vlan, wireless vlan | 68 Comments

Trick out your Terminal

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Will Foster

Here are some useful ways to enhance your operating system shell environment. The first will give you a permanent bash history that’s up to date and doesn’t require a logout to update command history, nor does it get reset. The … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged linux, shell, sysadmin, terminal | 1 Comment

Installing CentOS on the Raspberry Pi

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Will Foster

I recently acquired a Raspberry Pi 2 and wanted to run CentOS7 on it. Here’s how I got CentOS installed and setup. There are now official Raspberry Pi 2 CentOS ARMv7hl images available for your enjoyment. Let’s get started.

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged armv7, centos, centos7, how to install centos on raspberry pi, how to install centos raspberry pi, install centos raspberry pi, installing centos on raspberry pi, linux, open source, raspberry pi, raspberry pi 2 | 9 Comments

How to Manually Clean Indexes from Elasticsearch

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Will Foster

In a previous post we covered getting started with the ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana). Now we need to remove old indexes manually from an Elasticsearch datastore sorted by age. We’ll be using the curator tool in a sandbox using … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged curator, elasticsearch, elk, linux, pip, python, sysadmin | 3 Comments

Creating lots of iSCSI LUNs Quickly on Netapp

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Will Foster

I’ve been using Netapp technology since Ontap 6 before flexible volumes were around, and it’s my favorite commercial storage platform. They provide a robust CLI and you can automate repetitive tasks by using SSH and a bit of creativity. Recently … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged iscsi, lun, netapp, shell, storage, sysadmin | Leave a comment

Linux RAID Disk Replacement with Sans Digital 8-bay eSATA tower

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Will Foster

There’s plenty of useful articles and guides on managing Linux software RAID floating around. I recently had a disk failure in my 8-bay eSATA array and thought I’d add to the mix. Here’s what I did, including some notes specific … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged 8bay sata tower, esata, eSATA Linux, linux, linux raid, mdadm, sans digital, SANS DIGITAL TR8M-B, software raid, sysadmin | 1 Comment

Logitech G933 Wireless Headset on Linux

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Will Foster

I recently came into possession of a Logitech G933 wireless headset and started using it on my Linux work laptop for 100% of my audio and video conferencing needs. There were a few issues out of the box on Linux … Continue reading →

Posted in gaming, open source, sysadmin | Tagged desktop linux, headset, linux, linux gaming headset, linux headset, linux logitech wireless, logitech g933, logitech g933 linux | 25 Comments

Linux Laptop Power Tuning with Powertop and Friends

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Will Foster

There’s an easy way to reduce power usage on Linux laptops using Intel’s Powertop utility. Powertop polls your existing power usage and recommends tunings for your hardware. I’ll show you how to quickly make the most of your battery life … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged desktop linux, linux, linux battery life, linux laptop battery life, linux power savings, mobile, power management, power savings | 11 Comments

Always Fill Saved Credentials in Firefox

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Will Foster

Sometimes web page Javascript will disallow you to auto fill your saved password credentials. In recent versions of Firefox there’s now a way to fill out credentials without digging into preferences -> security -> saved passwords. Simply enter the username … Continue reading →

Posted in open source, sysadmin | Tagged firefox, password, security, tip, web browser | Leave a comment

How to Manually Create/Tune an Elasticsearch Index

Posted on December 1, 2015 by Will Foster

The ELK stack provides a very powerful set of tools that allow administrators and developers unfettered access and customizable log aggregation across any manner of server, application or device. Recently I needed to stand up a new ELK stack on … Continue reading →