inside the mind of a linux admin

Ubuntu: How to delete all of your old kernels

Erik

Friday, March 7, 2014

ubuntu linux

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In Ubuntu 11.10 and newer versions, GRUB2 will display all kernels installed on your system at boot time. If you’re like me, you probably get annoyed with a lengthy list of out of date kernels to scroll through in your GRUB boot menu. Let’s be real, no one really wants to boot a kernel from […]

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Encrypting synergy traffic via OpenSSL and stunnel

I use synergy to control several different linux systems in my office using a single keyboard and mouse. The only issue I have with this software is it does not (yet?) natively support SSL encryption for your traffic. This is problematic when transmitting plain-text passwords between systems, which I do often. This HOWTO will explain […]

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OpenProj complains of Oracle as java vendor instead of Sun with latest version

Those of you who use OpenProj for project management on Linux may receive an erroneous error from the software application complaining that your Java vendor is “Oracle” rather than “Sun”. Obviously, they are one in the same , but the OpenProj software isn’t smart enough to know this (as of the authoring date of this […]

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tcpdump – dump all the packets

I too always forget the parameters for this and have to look them up in the man page, so: tcpdump -nnXSs 0 ‘port 80’ “-nn” makes it not lookup hostnames in DNS and service names (in /etc/services) for respectively faster and cleaner output. “-X” makes it print each packet in hex and ascii; that’s really […]

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How to shrink an ibdata1 file with minimal MySQL downtime

The default mySQL configuration for InnoDB database tables creates a massive storage file called ‘ibdata1’. Basically, the ibdata1 file contains the table data of your InnoDB tables. In large production environments, this file can grow to be extremely large. On some of the servers I administer, I’ve seen this file exceed sizes of 30GB. Fixing […]

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Gnome3: replace gnome-screensaver with xscreensaver

GNOME 3’s “screensaver” leaves much to be desired, and if you’re an old school X user like myself, you probably just want the good ole’ screensaver back. Here’s how to install it using the following commands (this will also remove gnome-screensaver): sudo apt-get remove gnome-screensaver sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl-extra xscreensaver-data-extra Then search for “Screensaver” […]

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Source control != File system

If you find yourself wanting or considering checking binary files into your source control system (Git, SVN), you’re doing it wrong. Source control is optimized for tracking changes to source files. When you have multiple revisions of a source file, the system has stored the original file and the changes between revisions. This is good. […]

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Mozilla Firefox 12 released, upgrade your Ubuntu today “unofficially”

Erik

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

firefox plugins, ubuntu linux

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Mozilla Firefox 12 has not yet been released, it is in Beta state at the moment, but it will bring features such as the ability to paste URLs in the download manager window, line numbers for the Page Source viewer, the title attribute supports line breaks, Find in Page improvemens to center search results, added […]

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Validating Package Consistency by md5sum for Linux

Occasionally you just want a bit of piece of mind about your server or Linux install. You may suspect there is somebody who has hacked your server or even something changed by a package install that shouldn’t have been. Heres a couple of ideas on how to do a quick ‘health’ check on he md5sum […]

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Linux Protip: How to make a patch file

I’ve been doing Linux system administration for well over ten years, and I’ve used patch files often. I’ve never actually had the need to create one until today. To my surprise, I discovered how blatantly simple and easy it is. I’ve always assumed it was some sort of black magic involving unicorns and rainbows. Sure, […]

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