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 it for a few reasons: the main one being that you’re guaranteed it will be installed on any server you touch. I’m sharing my vim setup here and how to use the same one if you like it. Continue reading
Trick out your Vim Editor
Posted in open source, sysadmin
Tagged code completion, iTerm2, linux, open source, OSX Vim, sysadmin, vim, vim plugins
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Automate Deployment of the ELK/EFK Stack with Ansible
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, hope it’s useful to others. 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
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 and lots of free OpenStack. Here’s a summary below, updated with resources and slides mentioned during the talk. Continue reading
Posted in open source, sysadmin
Tagged cloud, developers, linux, openstack, openstack summit, sysadmin, trystack
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Installing Fedora on the Raspberry Pi 3
Recently I setup CentOS on the Raspberry pi 2. Now we’re going to be installing a modern Fedora 23 desktop on the Raspberry Pi 3. I’ve used the Pi 2 instructions from chisight’s blog post so original credit goes to him – I’ve modified them and added some things. Continue reading
Posted in open source
Tagged armv7, desktop linux, fedora, linux, raspberry pi, raspberry pi 3
72 Comments
Build Secure VLAN Networks with ‘Shibby’ Router Firmware
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 routers with support for OpenVPN, TOR, VLANs and a litany of other useful functions. We’re going to cover setting up port-based and wireless VLAN support for traffic isolation on a network using the RT-N66U and Shibby build 1.32. Let’s get started. 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
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 second are some PS1 enhancement examples that have been useful to me. This should work on both Linux or OSX, and is aimed towards the Bash shell – let’s get started. Continue reading
Installing CentOS on the Raspberry Pi
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. Continue reading
How to Manually Clean Indexes from Elasticsearch
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 pip and virtualenv on a CentOS/EL system. Let’s get started. Continue reading
Posted in open source, sysadmin
Tagged curator, elasticsearch, elk, linux, pip, python, sysadmin
3 Comments
Hobo’ing it up in NYC
After 40+ hours of travelling, three long flights and a boat ride from warm, tropical Southeast Asia to Wintertime NYC my luggage containing warmer clothes and pretty much everything needed for survival past a few days was lost. With only my trusty Superdry jumpsuit and some minimal items I made the best of it while still having fun. Here are some of my hobo adventures. Continue reading
Posted in life, travel
Tagged hobo, life, lost luggage, NYC, pragmatism, sketchy guy, travel
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Creating lots of iSCSI LUNs Quickly on Netapp
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 I needed to deploy a large amount of iSCSI LUNs quickly on many hosts on Ontap 8.2 C-Mode. If I had to do this manually via the GUI tools I’d rake my eyes out. This is how I did it, hoping this helps others in a similar situation. Continue reading
How to Make Citrus Chicken with Kale
Here’s a quick, easy recipe for citrus chicken and kale. It costs around €8, feeds two people and it’s delicious and healthy. Price based in Dublin, Ireland so may vary (I’m sure it’s cheaper elsewhere). Let’s get started. Continue reading
Posted in food
Tagged citrus chicken and kale, cooking, food, home cooking, organic, recipe
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Linux RAID Disk Replacement with Sans Digital 8-bay eSATA tower
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 to the Sans Digital 8-bay eSATA tower and recovery on RHEL6. 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
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Logitech G933 Wireless Headset on Linux
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 but I managed to get it all working. Here’s what I did and my experiences with the hardware. Continue reading
Devconf2016 – Trystack: Free OpenStack for Planet Earth
I gave a talk at the annual Linux Users and Developers Conference (Devconf 2016) in Brno, Czech Republic on Trystack.org: architecture, operations insights, tooling, automation and what it takes to run a large, public OpenStack cloud for the general public.
- 2016-02-07, Sunday: 14:50 to 15:30
- c. D0207 (90 seats)
- FIT VUT, Božetěchova 1/2, Brno, Czech Republic
Posted in open source, sysadmin
Tagged cloud, devconf, openstack, public cloud, sysadmin, talk
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Linux Laptop Power Tuning with Powertop and Friends
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 using this tool as well as tuned and cpufreq. Continue reading
