As preparation for a restore test, I removed the master boot record (MBR) of a Linux system recently:

1# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

This command fills the first 512 bytes (containing the partition table and bootloader) of the first hard drive (/dev/sda) with zeroes (/dev/zero).

The problem is when you …

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    src="https://cstan.io/images/2016/03/LAG_Setup.jpg"
  
  
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If a host has …

Sometimes it happens that you lock out yourself from your Linux system. In the worst case, additional security concepts or conditions might hamper access to the system, for example:

• No root access
• System cannot be rebooted to reset the password in a chroot session
• No colleague with system access available

Recently I …

During the installation of kernel updates I stumbled upon a cramped /boot partition recently. Solving this issue is quite easy - e.g. it is possible to manually dig through the RPM database, exclude the running kernel and remove all other packages. Anyhow, this is neither comfortable nor elegant:

1# yum remove `rpm …

Since 2008 I have been using the free Linux distribution IPCop to implement a customized firewall/a router. Of course, DSL providers also equip their customers with routers, but back then I was missing a couple of functions. To name some of them:

• IPSec / OpenVPN
• NTP time server
• DMZ segmentation
• WLAN access point with …

With the new major version 8, GitLab was extended to include a continuous integration (CI) component that was developed as dedicated project until now. While it was necessary to utilize external solutions, such as Jenkins, previously, it it now possible to automatically compile and test managed projects easily.

But, …

This week Spacewalk was released in version 2.4 after 6 months of development. In summary, about 60 bugs were fixed and some new features were implemented.

The web-interface is now available to other projects as part of the Patternfly framework. The project driven mainly by Red Hat aims at combining beatiful designs …

While registering a client system with a FreeIPA server I recently stumbled upon the following error message:

1# ipa-client-install
2...
3User authorized to enroll computers: admin
4...
5Kerberos authentication failed
6kinit: Cannot read password while getting initial credentials

After wasting quite a lot of time with …