2.5 Admins

Our concerns about Google’s latest acquisition, the technical implications of the sanctions on Russia, more on VPNs and filesystem replacements, and using Nagios with Sanoid.   Plugs Controlling Resource Limits with RCTL in FreeBSD Support us on patreon   News Google makes second-largest acquisition ever: $5.4 billion for Mandiant Internet backbone Cogent cuts Russia connectivity I...

How not to solve some of the problems with filesystems, why backups are only part of defending your data, and Allan finally tells us the difference between FreeBSD and OpenBSD.   Plugs NFS Sharing with ZFS Support us on patreon   Discussion Backups ‘no longer effective’ for stopping ransomware attacks Where Did I Put That File?   Free Consulting We were asked about the d...

Browser version numbers might break websites, Samsung’s bad crypto implementation, more on Mazda and Caddy, the FreeBSD init system, and keeping VMs in sync between the two physical hosts.   Plugs UNIX Philosophy: The ideas that made UNIX Improving Recovery Objectives with OpenZFS Support us on patreon   News Three major browsers are about to hit version 100. Will websites cope? Sa...

Maintaining data long-term, Chrome OS comes to generic PCs, and how to detect intrusions and malware on servers and networks.   Plugs The FreeBSD Boot Process Support us on patreon   News/discussion Most hard drives have a lifespan of three to five years. Have you checked yours lately? Google is bringing Chrome OS to PCs and Macs   Free Consulting We were asked about detecting intru...

Why Arm was never likely to be acquired by Nvidia, an expensive bug in Mazda cars, and how there isn’t always a technical solution to a policy problem.   Plugs Unix: On the path to BSD Support us on patreon   News Arm’s $66bn sale to Nvidia collapses Intel’s strategy for outflanking Arm takes shape with bet on RISC-V Radio station snafu in Seattle bricks some Mazda info...

What the recent Spotify controversy means for open podcasting standards, why young people increasingly don’t understand the concept of a hierarchical filesystem, and our update practices.   Plugs Modern inetd on FreeBSD Support us on patreon   Discussion Joe Rogan Podcast is staying on Spotify says boss Students who grew up with search engines might change STEM education forever   F...

The pain of updating Windows, FreeBSD vs Linux, and getting started with ZFS.   Plugs FreeBSD Periodic Scripts Support us on patreon   News/discussion Microsoft: Windows needs at least 8 hours online to update reliably Why we’re migrating (many of) our servers from Linux to FreeBSD Counterpoint to “FreeBSD’s network stack is better”   Free Consulting We were asked about gettin...

Allan has a recent war story for us, Microsoft blocked email from Linode, maximizing performance in a large capacity storage server, and more.   Plugs Cluster Provisioning with Nomad and Pot Support us on patreon   Feedback Register article about Microsoft blocking email from Linode   Allan’s recent war story Photos   Free Consulting We were asked about maximizing perform...

A potential new European recursive DNS, why VPNs aren’t the silver bullet some people think they are, and how we set up new systems from scratch.   Plugs Support us on patreon The Birth of Unix   News/discussion EU wants to build its own DNS infrastructure with built-in filtering capabilities   Free Consulting We were asked about how we set up machines from scratch.   &nb...

A novel approach to an old scam, your feedback about web servers and ransomware, and maintaining old databases.   Plugs Packet Scheduling with Dummynet and FreeBSD Support us on patreon   News/Discussion Pay to park scam   Feedback Jim’s review of the Caddy web server   Free Consulting We were asked about optimising and maintaining an old database.       Linode S...

Microsoft suffers an embarrassment with Exchange, why it’s so hard to host your own email, and the easiest and safest way to manage your backups.   Plugs BSDCan 2022: June 1-4th. CFP Closes Jan 19th Support us on patreon   News/discussion Microsoft releases emergency fix for Exchange year 2022 bug Gloomy sysadmin take on running your own email infrastructure   Free Consulting...

Why ransomware isn’t really an infosec problem, how some open source work Allan helped with saved a company millions of dollars, your feedback, and more.   Plugs OpenZFS: Native Encryption Support us on patreon   News/Discussion Kronos hack will likely affect how employers issue paychecks and track hours How We Saved Millions in SSD Costs by Upgrading Our Filesystem   Feedback...

It’s our holiday AMA episode. We answered your questions about hobbies, TV resolutions, living in the moment, and the biggest screw-ups we’ve witnessed.   Plugs Panel: FreeBSD Arm64 Flexibility with Ampere Support us on patreon       Linode Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode’s Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications...

A huge vulnerability in a Java logging library, ZFS on AWS disappoints, the fastest web servers for static sites, the importance of certs, and more.   Plugs Using FreeBSD’s pkg audit to investigate known security issues Support us on patreon   News/Discussion Log4Shell: RCE 0-day exploit found in log4j 2, a popular Java logging package The Internet’s biggest players are all affecte...

A mystery in the Tor network, whether blockchain has any real-world value, configuring passwords with Ansible, and burning in new disks. With guest host Gary Williams from Linux After Dark .   Plugs Allan was on Late Night Linux Extra talking about FreeBSD. BSDCan 2022 – Call for papers Support us on patreon   News It’s long past time for cost-benefit analysis on blockchain F...

An insight into the massive scale of Google’s infrastructure, Allan and Jim refuse to accept that crypto now means cryptocurrency (and confuse Latin and Greek), multi-factor auth and WireGuard, and testing network quality.   Plugs Demystifying OpenZFS 2.0 Support us on patreon   News/Discussion Google’s server life extension delivers $1.7bn revenue boost in nine months Google...

Tesla owners locked out of their cars, a Linux side-channel attack that enables DNS cache poisoning, why Jim doesn’t use Proxmox, and accessing KVM hosts from Windows.   Plugs Jim was on Late Night Linux twice , as well as Late Night Linux Extra . Support us on patreon   News Tesla drivers left unable to start their cars after outage Server errors hit Tesla remote-control app Linux...

How some Swedish parents tried to take control of their kids’ education app, why you shouldn’t try to add magsafe to your phone, introducing the new shiny at work, Samba security, and more.   Plugs FreeBSD Papers We Love: Jails and Cloneable Network Stacks Support us on patreon   News/Discussion These Parents Built a School App. Then the City Called the Cops   Free Consu...

Why the metaverse sounds terrible, Alder Lake benchmarks, revoking SSH keys, remote management of Windows machines, and more.   Plugs Looking towards the future: FreeBSD on RISC-V Support us on patreon   News Welcome to Meta Intel’s Alder Lake big.little CPU design, tested: It’s a barn burner OpenZFS Developer Summit   Free Consulting We were asked about managing and revoking SSH ke...

The Oculus Go is opened up, a potential addition to HTTPS, Intel’s new Alder Lake CPUs, testing ZFS backups, virtualising a firewall, and more.   Plugs OpenZFS Developer Summit – Nov 8-9th Online Advanced ZFS Snapshots – Holds and Clones Support us on patreon   News/Discussion John Carmack pushes out unlocked OS for defunct Oculus Go headset HTTPS Attestable: Remote, se...

The stupid notch on the new Macs, why Windows 11 had performance issues with AMD CPUs, why hibernation isn’t really a thing, and more.   Plugs OpenZFS Developer Summit – Nov 8-9th Online Understanding top(1) on FreeBSD Support us on patreon   News AMD and Microsoft release fixes for Ryzen slowdowns in Windows 11 Apple’s MacBook Pro is a GPU-shaped warning to Nvidia and AMD &n...

How not to steal and sell sensitive information, why ISPs shouldn’t try to sue Netflix, and the best way to set up wireless access points.   Plugs Webinar: Enterprise Certificate Management on FreeBSD – October 28th @ 12:00 ET FreeBSD Developer Workstation Setup Support us on patreon   News/Discussion FBI Arrests Navy Nuclear Engineer, Wife Accused of Selling Submarine Secret...

How Facebook’s services managed to go down for 6 hours, Windows Subsystem for Linux is now easier than ever to set up, and expanding a large capacity storage server.   Plugs Webinar: Enterprise Certificate Management on FreeBSD – October 28th @ 12:00 ET All Things Open Manipulating a ZFS Pool from the Rescue System Support us on patreon   News Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, a...

Why RISC-V looks promising for the future, how the web switched to HTTPS by default, an interesting DoS method, and how mitigating ssh attacks has changed over the years.   Plugs RISC-V: The New Architecture on the Block Support us on patreon   News/Discussion Weaponizing Middleboxes for TCP Reflected Amplification Electronic Frontier Foundation will deprecate HTTPS Everywhere plugin &nb...

A pretty serious flaw with Autodiscover that leaks email credentials, why Btrfs sucks for more than one disk, and the best hardware for a low-powered NAS.   Plugs EuroBSDCon 2021 videos are available When to use a SLOG, and when not to Support us on patreon   News Microsoft Exchange Autodiscover bug leaks hundreds of thousands of domain credentials Microsoft knew of Exchange Autodiscover...