February 20, 2020

Getting to Grips with Docker

I had a job interview recently, and I learned how this prospective employer was doing their infrastructure: using Docker and Ansible. I have been using Ansible more and more, getting to grips with how best to employ the tool. I have some work to do catching up there, but totally doable. I did feel lacking in my practical skillset with Docker; I had just docker run some things before. So I set about wrapping my head around the technology, and it just clicked.

February 6, 2020

LFCS

This week I earned the Linux Foundation Certified Sysadmin certification. This is a cert that I got in hopes of following a career path in exactly what the name denotates. For those who don’t know, the cert is very similar to the RHCSA, and a probably interchangeable aside from the signing authority and the LFCS allows one to use Ubuntu for the exam. It was not an easy exam, being performance based, but I was well prepared and passed with flying colours. Find and various invocations thereof was perhaps the most useful command for me during the exam, but I had thankfully mastered most uses for it already. There were some other sections on the test that I found surprised to see on there, given the official study material. This material is really not beneficial, and I found the best cram-study refrence on a github page.

January 23, 2020

cyberchargen

I have been working on a another, actual coding project in my spare time. I enjoyed learning Python the first time, and I thought making a quick and easy character generator for pen and paper RPG Cyberpunk 2020 would be a fun reentry. Plus, its 2020! The goal is to have a few options of character templates, get into some guts of Python, and learn to package it by the end of the year. Where it goes from there, who knows. The things that could be done with a simple character generator are pretty vast, so we will see where my ambitions end up. Anyway, follow along on my github.

January 23, 2020

New Website

I want more control over my website than I feel I have here. I am currently hosting on github pages, and want to move towards a more complete web stack with a new static website. Hugo looks cool, but the call of raw HTML is always there. My site is just a quick blog as of now, and there are not too many plans of expansion (of the web portion, at least), so it feels manageable. Just throwing my ideas down.

December 29, 2019

Thinkpads in 2020

2020 is just around the corner, and I have been messing with my Thinkpads again, as well as recommending, shopping for, and thinking carefully about Thinkpads in the coming year. For refrence, I have five Thinkpads of my own, a X1 Carbon (1st gen), X61, T61, X200 and X220. Of those, I only have daily driven the X1 and X220 for the previous year. These are the laptops I consider the limit for where to go shopping for Thinkpads. All the Core 2 Duos and 1st gen Intel Core devices are really starting to show their age in raw horsepower, as well as I/O capabilities. Other quality of life features are also missing, such as backlit keyboards, HDMI, Thunderbolt, USB 3.0+, full HD screens, and AC wifi. These going into 2020 are very noticible, as modern low cost devices often have some of these features at the same price as a used device. Even the great benefits of the old Thinkpads are hard to justify picking them up: better keyboard layout and typing experience, ability to neuter Intel Management Engine or Coreboot, better form factor, and availability. These older devices often do not have the battery life to keep up today (especially the older ultrabook processor models of X1s, etc). That doesn’t make these devices an automatic skip-over, but for similar prices what can you get in the Thinkpad line?

December 17, 2019

Project Update 1: KVM and Preseed

I spent my first night on the project, and while it was not without its frustrations, it was successful: I was able to install Debian from a preseed file, and learned how to use KVM properly from the command line. The most difficult issues for me were finding correct and accurate examples of syntax for using the extra arguments on the virt-install script to get things correct. That was of course, after I spent at least an hour trying to boot from a correct ISO. The –location switch is very picky with the type of ISO that can be used, and to be perfectly honest, I found it by accident. The final stumbling block I had was even though I had automated what I could in the preseed, I was still being prompted to manually intervene during the install. Some extra arguements saved me there. Overall, I am impressed by what I can do with preseed and virt-install. I already use KVM daily, so I look forward to more automation with that. The preseed can be quite basic, but there is a lot during the partition step that can be modified, which speaks to preseed’s power. Hosting a random web server with a sped up preseed.cfg to install on many systems is any interesting idea :).

December 17, 2019

Project Update 2: Containers

Today was mostly about realising what LXC is and does, and what Docker is for. LXC is a Linux container; like a BSD jail, it is just compartimentalised filesystem that shares the host kernel. Docker is different, it is primarily driven by what application it is intended to deliver: a Docker container pulls its config from the dockerfile, and is meant to die when that container and application are done. LXC is more similar to a virtual machine, but there are less wasted resources spent on recreating some components.

December 14, 2019

New Project

I want to start pushing my career from network and sysadmin, towards the devops side of things. I have been working on the methodology and tools of the trade for a while now, things like scripting and automation. I have lots of experience with virtualisation, and some with containers, but I want to take it to the next level. Learning to write, manage, and hopefully cluster or failover Docker/LXC containers are on the agenda. More experience with other scripting/programming languages will be important to working on this devops ideal. I have a good handle on shell, and could sharpen up my Python skills and go from there. But that’s not this newest project.

November 12, 2019

Everyday Carry

This is a short post for fun. What does a Lone Ranger IT professional carry with them to get through the day is different for all.

Pockets

Live USB drive. I carry a Kali USB stick to get me out of any sticky spots. Has everything I need to troubleshoot a local computer, and look into external hosts when not at my desk.
Keys to the kingdom. Physical and virtual keys stay on me. I have the password database, SSH keys, and old fashioned brass on me so I don’t have to run back to the desk.
Android phone. Have a great deal of troubleshooting tools on it, but worst case: remote back into the desktop.
Knife. Haven’t broken a Kershaw yet.
Flashlight. Helps having a seperate one from the phone.

Bag

iFixit screwdriver kit. Has enough to get the job done.
Toner and probe. For tracking down cables and and testing them.
Laptop. I like old, Librebooted or at least Thinkpads (I personally own five), so I may be biased, but anything that you will actually carry works.

The bag gets filled more the bigger the task, but that’s a good start with the bare essentials. Let me know what you carry!

November 12, 2019

FreeBSD

I like Linux. I like the options, the countless tweaks, and all the software I could never go through all of being right there. So what if I don’t want Linux, but still want all of these benefits? What if I want all my GNU software, but a different kernel? FreeBSD has been there for a long time, and it is still there. I have spent a cursory and surface level amount of time using and reading about it, and come to a few conclusions about this Unix-based operating system. Being that FreeBSD is considered modern Unix, while Linux is its own thing today, I have donned my wizard hat and robe and grown my beard a few inches after using the operating system for a time.