Testimonials
  • Our project required a deep knowledge of hardware design, expertise in virtual server configurations, and the ability to quickly understand how to plug into our existing back-up/recovery processes. It was immediately evident that you had the experience and skills to pull it off.
  • Assign AWS Elastic IP (EIP) With Windows Powershell

    After many Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute Cloud (AWS EC2) projects involving Linux, I’m finally working on a Windows EC2 project. With that we need a variety of maintenance scripts, such as assigning a static IP at boot (Elastic IP … Continue reading

    Posted in LinkedIn, Off The Wire, Tech Tips |

    Postfix SMTP Relay Via GoDaddy Alternate Port (and others)

    Configuring a relayhost in postfix with the appropriate authentication setup can be tricky, this post will help you set up postfix correctly to relay through GoDaddy’s smtpout.secureserver.net using an alternate port (3535). Continue reading

    Posted in LinkedIn, Off The Wire, Tech Tips | Tagged , , |

    Linux: Route Reply Packets Back Through The Same Interface

    Once again I’m thwarted by the design of the Linux network stack. You see, by default, when a packet comes into one interface in Linux, you can’t count on the reply coming back through the same interface. This is not … Continue reading

    Posted in Tech Tips |

    Strong Passwords Made Easy: Passphrases

    Recently I got the following note about password security and how to make a strong password from Seattle Search Marketing Consultant Mark McLaren (edited for brevity): My clients are having more trouble with hackers these days. WordPress is susceptible to hackers … Continue reading

    Posted in LinkedIn, Off The Wire, Tech Tips | Tagged , , , |

    Tape Backup Is Still Great

    When asked recently where I didn’t agree with the status quo in IT, it came to me almost instantly:  tape backup.  It seems that tape backup has many more enemies than friends these days, but it still has its place … Continue reading

    Posted in LinkedIn, Off The Wire, Tech Tips | Tagged , , , |

    Remote X11 GUI for Linux/Unix

      The Problem One of my most feared questions from end users is “how can I interact with an X11 GUI application on our remote Linux system if I have no access to the physical console, X11 isn’t installed, and … Continue reading

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    An Updated Look at Open Source Data Deduplication

    Last Thursday I had the pleasure of speaking to the Seattle Area System Administrators Guild on the University of Washington Campus.  My talk was on Open Source Data Deduplication, and since it had been almost half a year since my … Continue reading

    Posted in Papers, Tech Tips |

    CentOS / RHEL Install Fails to Find DVD

    Today I began my first installation of CentOS 6.0 and since this is the first time I’ve used this downloaded image, it seemed logical to test the media when asked, so I did. However, after the test passes with flying … Continue reading

    Posted in Tech Tips |

    Application Availability: Migrate Physical Linux Server to VMware (P2V)

    As part of my work helping companies better protect their data and applications, we also look at the availability of their applications.  One great way to improve availability of applications to is move them to a virtualization platform, such as VMware Virtual Infrastructure. VMware, … Continue reading

    Posted in LinkedIn, Off The Wire, Tech Tips | Tagged , , , , , |