Tag Archives: linux

Backup and Restore using SpiderOak on Linux

Posted on August 20, 2017 by

Recently the SSD Operating System disk on my primary work desktop failed without warning and no manner of arcane xfsrepair or xfsdump/xfsrestore chicanery would bring it back.  Luckily I had SpiderOak backups as my employer offers this as a service … Continue reading →

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Distributed Remote Backups with Git and Etckeeper

Posted on July 15, 2017 by

Git is a powerful tool for lots of tasks, it makes a wonderful VCS that can drive easy utility and automation.  Recently I used git and remote repositories to deploy code & data fanned out to multiple locations.  Here are … Continue reading →

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Shell One-liners and Quick and Dirty Loops

Posted on March 23, 2017 by

Sometimes you just need to get stuff done quickly and there’s nary a replacement better than a quick shell one-liner.  Recently I’ve needed to feed some large, multi-variable commands into an external program for processing.  Here’s some simple shell one-liners … Continue reading →

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

Posted on February 21, 2017 by

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

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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Fun and Automation with Git Hooks

Posted on October 4, 2016 by

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 SuperMicro Server Provisioning or Die Trying

Posted on August 10, 2016 by

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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