linux - Same Null, Different Cloud

Woefull USB in NixOS

So, I needed to create a Windows 11 bootable USB stick for my desktop PC (gaming system I'm reinstalling), and all I had was my Zombie X1 running NixOS 24.11 because of other poor life choices. Nothing says "I love a challenge" like using a

nixos Featured

Cloudy NixOS (OpenStack)

Recently, I decided to go down the journey of running things with NixOS. While I started with my laptop, I naturally decided to make my workspace problems part of my cloud adventure. So I figured I'd share my adventure along with my initial process for getting NixOS into

desk Featured

Working my Workspace

So you're here about my home office and a picture of a desk, or maybe you're curious how I smashed four computers into one workspace without creating a mess? Maybe you want to know why anyone would want to use four computers? Maybe you've

streaming Featured

Multi-Streaming with Windows, built on the WSL for FREE

Getting Started To accomplish this mission you'll need to install the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). I will not be covering the install process here, it is well documented by Microsoft, and is really a matter of running basically 3 commands. note for WSL version 2 (recommended) you

kvm Featured

Fixing MSR 0xe1 to 0x0

When running KVM in a nested virtualization you may run into the following error when attempting to launch machines. Example errors qemu-system-x86_64: error: failed to set MSR 0x38d to 0x0 qemu-kvm: error: failed to set MSR 0x48e ... What does this mean? This error is caused by MSRs not being

streaming

Multi-Streaming with Windows, built on the WSL for FREE

To accomplish this mission you'll need to install the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). I will not be covering the install process here, it is well documented by Microsoft, and is really a matter of running basically 3 commands.

tripleo Featured

TripleO(-Ansible) Bootcamp

In this post, I intend to bring new folks into TripleO-Ansible by explaining how TripleO is evolving. We're building a modular set of Ansible roles, playbooks, plugins, and scripts, which are reforming the foundation of enterprise-ready OpenStack environments. While that's awesome in its own right, these

tripleo Featured

Using TripleO-Ansible, without TripleO, in Ansible Operations

The TripleO project team has been embarking on developing Ansible roles for deploying and operating OpenStack clouds. While this is not new, over the last couple of months, we've re-ignited our simplification efforts and have focused on creating simple, well-tested tooling. We started by collecting all of our

systemd Featured

Running local services in network namespaces with systemd

Given systemd is ubiquitous with modern day GNU/Linux it only makes sense that it be able to do just about everything under the sun; which strictly adheres to the UNIX philosophy 😂. While the move to systemd has not always been a popular one, I too once hated it, it

linux

Fixing "duplicate plugin" issues in Elasticsearch

Sometimes, when installing or upgrading plugins within elasticsearch old installation files will remain after installation or removal. If these files are not cleaned up the installation or upgrade of new plugins will not be possible and you'll encounter the following error. # /usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-plugin install --batch

btrfs Featured

Migrating BTRFS Subvolumes locally

This post will focus on moving a BTRFS file system from loopback file to a mounted BTRFS subvolume on a local file system. The Scenario A server has BTRFS as it's root file system and is being used with systemd-nspawn. While this server has been online for several

btrfs Featured

Migrating a BTRFS Volume Between Devices

When using BTRFS volumes it's sometimes necessary to move things around. BTRFS has some great tools to assist operators to move volumes and this post will cover one available method. What is this post about While the reasons to move a device from one place to another are

lenovo Featured

Installation, Firmware Upgrade, and Setup of a Sierra Wireless Card on a Lenovo X1 from Linux

The card I wanted to break into many little pieces but now love is an "Sierra Wireless EM7455". If you've found this post and are simply wanting to know how to install new firmware from Linux for a Sierra Wireless WWAN device, skip to the bottom of the post.

systemd Featured

¿Journald'ing Remotely? Mucho Sí!

If you're running Linux and using systemd then you've likely needed to deal with systemd-journald to stream system logs, or check on the general health of the node. In the course of administering your systemd hosts it's likely you've thought, it sure

openstack-ansible

Nova-Compute + LVM, an IOPS Love Story

The OpenStack Nova project has long had the ability to provision instances into logical volumes however in my travels I've found most deployments don't use it as the go-to instance storage. However recently I've been asked by a couple folks how it can be

lenovo

Lenovo X1 Firmware Updates without Windows

As you may know, I have a 4th Generation X1 Carbon and I love it. However, in order to update much of the firmware, I need a Windows Environment but that doesn't mean I have to re-install Windows every time I want to apply a patch. In fact,

lenovo

Lenovo X1 BIOS updates without Windows

The X1 Carbon (I've the Gen 4) is a Fantastic machine and works wonderfully with Linux. I purchased my unit back in December as an upgrade to my aging Lenovo X230 and I really couldn't be happier. Sadly, there's one aspect of the system

linux

Luks, Issuing & Allowing Discards, Enabling Timers, Oh My!

If you're running a system with an SSD it's likely that you've heard of trim, if you're running Linux you may have heard of the fstrim command, and if you're encrypting your drives you're likely using Luks with

containers Featured

Rocket past the white whale and spawn a container

As I'm sure you're aware, Docker is all folks in the IT world can talk about and while Moby(Docker) may be everyone's obsession, there are quite a few of us looking to break away from the oppressive registries and wannabe bash scripts found

opensuse

Getting Pithos to run in OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

Pandora is a fantastic service which allows folks to easily stream and discover music. On many platforms Pandora has official supported applications which allow a user to stream music using a desktop applet instead having to run everything through a web browser. Sadly the folks at Pandora have not taken

linux

Installing VidyoDesktop on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

Many companies are using the VidyoDesktop application for teleconferencing and in what seems like an amazing turn of events VidyoDesktop supports Linux. Sadly the Vidyo packages for Linux are a little suspect and have a few issues that have to be handled in order to get the package properly installed.

linux Featured

Install Ubuntu 16.04.x from USB media

The Ubuntu 16.04 installation process requires the use of a CD when doing an installation with "physical" media. If you're wanting to do a Ubuntu server installation using a USB stick you will be "shit out of luck" according to the fine folks

openstack

Auto tests patches for OpenStack-Ansible with OpenStack

If you have access to an OpenStack cloud that can accept user-data then spinning up a test node for a given patch is super simple. All you need to do is create a user-data script with the following contents: #!/bin/bash OS_REPO="https://git.openstack.org/openstack/openstack-ansible-os_

ansibe

Converting interfaces to jumbo frames

When converting to Jumbo Frames from a standard MTU the tap and tunnel devices will need to be updated to use the new larger MTU. Tap devices and tagged interfaces will have an MTU of 1450 if they were created using an L3 network before the conversion to Jumbo frames

rackspace

RCBOPS Stack in a BOX

So you want to try OpenStack? Want to build a cloud? Want to try OpenStack? Curious how the OpenStack Cloud eco system all works? In the past you, the cloud operator, had to have a lot of tribal knowledge to simply stand OpenStack up. In later releases OpenStack became more