Posts

Python’s virtual environment capability is extremely handy for situations where you don’t want the required modules for a particular python project to get mixed up with your system-wide installed modules.

The biggest gripe I have about my Android phone is that the Bluetooth connectivity is very finicky with my car.

I’m still quite pleased with my Samsung Galaxy SIII but there are some finicky Bluetooth issues with my car that I simply can’t figure out.

I had a peculiar situation today where I cloned a repository into a directory which was inside another repository.

This post covers the second half of my experience moving back to a Linux desktop but I figured it was a good opportunity to focus on the ThinkPad T430s itself as well as the Lenovo ordering experience.

Troy Toman delivered a great keynote this morning about OpenStack and how Rackspace uses it:

Although I’ve been exclusively using a Mac for everything but servers since about 2008, I found myself considering a move back to Linux on the desktop after seeing how some people were using it at LinuxCon.

Automating package updates in CentOS 6 is a quick process and it ensures that your system receives the latest available security patches, bugfixes and enhancements.

After getting Android-envy at LinuxCon, I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone and ditch my iPhone 4 for a Samsung Galaxy S III.

After a recent issue I had with some users in the Puppy Linux forums, I thought it might be prudent to write a post about how to monitor and protect your reputation online.

If you install vpnc via MacPorts on OS X, you’ll find that you have no openssl support after it’s built:

Vitalie Cherpec contacted me back in May about his new hosted DNS offering, Luadns.

Although GRUB 2 does give us some nice benefits, changing its configuration can be a bit of a challenge if you’re used to working with the original GRUB for many, many years.

LVM snapshots can be really handy when you’re trying to take a backup of a running virtual machine.

This problem came up in conversation earlier this week and I realized that I’d never written a post about it.

If you try to run Xen without libvirt on Fedora 17 with SELinux in enforcing mode, you’ll be butting heads with SELinux in no time.

Anyone who has been a system administrator for even a short length of time has probably used traceroute at least once.

The feedback from my last lengthy post (Lessons learned in the ambulance pay dividends in the datacenter) about analogies between EMS and server administration was mostly positive, so I decided to do it again!

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Twitter and OpenStack.

While cleaning up a room at home in preparation for some new flooring, I found my original documents from when I first became certified as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in Texas.

Kristóf Kovács has a fantastic post about some lesser-known Linux tools that can really come in handy in different situations.

It’s been a few years since I started a little project to operate a service to return your IPv4 and IPv6 address.

You’ve probably noticed that the blog has slowed down a bit recently.

I originally wrote this post for the Rackspace Blog but I decided to post it here in case some of my readers might have missed it.

My quest to get better at Python led me to create a new project on GitHub.

I found myself stuck in a particularly nasty situation a few weeks ago where I had two git branches with some commits that were mixed up.

A fellow Racker showed me httpry about five years ago and I’ve had in my toolbox as a handy way to watch HTTP traffic.

Getting XenServer installed on some unusual platforms takes a bit of work and the AOpen MP57 is a challenging platform for a XenServer 6.

I’m a big fan of Linux tools which allow you to monitor things in great detail.

I originally wrote this post for the Rackspace Blog but I’ve posted it here just in case anyone following my blog’s feed finds it useful.

The grades came back last Friday and I’ve passed the last exam in the requirements to become a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA).

Getting Fedora 16 working in XenServer isn’t the easiest thing to do, but I’ve put together a repository on GitHub that should help.

One of the handiest tools in the OpenSSL toolbox is s_client.

As promised in my earlier post entitled Kerberos for haters, I’ve assembled the simplest possible guide to get Kerberos up an running on two CentOS 5 servers.

Scientific Linux installations have a package called yum-autoupdate by default and the package contains two files:

I’ll be the first one to admit that Kerberos drives me a little insane.

Regular users of Python’s package tools like pip or easy_install are probably familiar with the PyPi repository.

I used to be one of those folks who would install Fedora, CentOS, Scientific Linux, or Red Hat and disable SELinux during the installation.

Although Citrix recommends against using software RAID with XenServer due to performance issues, I’ve had some pretty awful experiences with hardware RAID cards over the last few years.

XenServer 6 is a solid virtualization platform, but the installer doesn’t give you many options for customized configurations.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of the Routerboard devices and the RouterOS software from Mikrotik that runs on them.

If you want to forward e-mail from root to another user, you can usually place a .

Anyone who has used a 3G ExpressCard or USB stick knows how handy they can be when you need internet access away from home (and away from Wi-Fi).

When you install Scientific Linux, it will keep you on the same point release that you installed.

I added a DisplayLink USB to DVI adapter to my MacBook Pro a while back and it occasionally has some issues where it won’t start the display after connecting the USB cable.

Before we get started, I really ought to drop this here:

My work at Rackspace has changed a bit in the last few weeks and I’ve shifted from managing a team of engineers to a full technical focus on OpenStack Nova.

I’ve floated back and forth between graphical IRC clients and terminal-based clients for a long time.

Fedora 15 was released with some updates to allow for consistent network device names.

SELinux isn’t a technology that’s easy to tackle for newcomers.