January 7th, 2010 by Stargazer
Doing iSCSI targets on ZFS
As ZFS did quite well here – even after messing around with disks, I decided to give it another try. This time I am out to use its features on other systems. But to do so, I need to share it. As I am running virtual machines, it would be nice to have iSCSI shares to (ab)use. So let’s do it by starting the service:
# svcadm enable iscsitgt
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Let’s get active
November 28th, 2009 by Stargazer
Today is a wonderful day, the Linux Day in Dornbirn – the place to gather my CAcert points to become an active assurer for the Web of Trust.
As it was possible to take the assurer test on site – god bless the inventor of wireless lan – I could start to assure people immediately and gain the first ‘Administrative Points’ which enables me to distribute 15 points at once by now.
Update: At the end of the day I could already grant 25 points.
Tags: cacert, mail, security, server
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Now with new Certificates
October 21st, 2009 by Stargazer
It shouldn’t be a new topic to secure your data while sending it across public lines like the internet. This usually happens using server certificates, which are made once and never touched again – if self signed. In my case I wanted to do it better and got me a certificate from CACert.org. At least it is a good exercise to do before changing to a big and expensive one.
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Alternatives to Nagios
May 25th, 2009 by Stargazer
Knowledge about the things happening on hosts and network is essential to a system administrator. That’s why they usually install a bunch of software tools to get the required informations from their systems. Nagios is one of the most infamous programs to do so. It monitors your machines and sends out alerts to the appropriate administrator. The disadvantages of Nagios are its configuration and the lack of long time monitoring functions.
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Internet Explorer and Network shares
May 12th, 2009 by Stargazer
Last post I have ranted about apple doing crap, but to be honest, it isn’t really better on windows – it’s just different problems like being unable to execute a binary file from a network drive. As the error message stated ‘Permission denied’, I started with checking the permissions of the network share and files.
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Windfall
May 12th, 2009 by Stargazer
Today I have really started thinking about apple computers again due to the latest incident. This time we’re talking about windows shares in a cooperated network, called smb or samba shares in combination with an active directory. The task itself shouldn’t be that hard as it was just accessing a windows share on a remote server – but that’s where the story begins. Things didn’t work as expected.
Tags: apple, security, server, windows
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Moving the server machines
April 28th, 2009 by Stargazer
Due to the fact that I am moving to the new flat, my servers will be offline for a couple of hours starting tomorrow afternoon (GMT+1). I’ll post here as soon as I know anything new before we’ll go down for hopefully not more than three hours.
Update – 2009-04-29: It is not a big surprise for me, but the new line to be is still dead and it looks like the telekom service didn’t finish it correctly. So the move is still pending. Worst case scenario would be being offline for a week or two…
Update – 2009-04-30: If it’s not the provider or the telekom causing troubles, it’s the charlady causing troubles by unplugging the server rack for using the power plug. Systems are up again, but still at the old location. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Update – 2009-05-04: Today our Telekom announced that a technical guy will come round looking at the problem to (hopefully) solve it. Just to be sure, I got me an SDSL Modem to be able to check their work afterwards without taking my servers down…
Update – 2009-05-07: Just before we all gave up, a miracle happened: the modem started connecting and my ISP could finally start configuring it for the final testing. To be honest, we’re suspecting the telekom guy has forgotten to remove the testing plug at the other end of the line – but who knows.
Update – 2009-05-12: After some line tests and preparations the server move happened today. All systems are now up and running in their new home.
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