Registration for BSDCan 2025 is open!

Tutorials Jun 11-12
Talks & BOFs Jun 13-14,

See https://blog.bsdcan.org/blog/ and register at https://www.bsdcan.org/2025/registration.html

At EuroBSDCon 2025, we're eager to read your paper, BOF or tutorial submission!

Please go to https://2025.eurobsdcon.org/ for info, submit at https://events.eurobsdcon.org/2025/cfp

See you in Zagreb in September!

Hey fellow sysadmin cosplay nerds, does anyone here use VyOS? I use VyOS as the main router for my home network and I just found out that a job for uploading backups to an off-site location is strangling my upstream bandwidth.

I want to create a QOS / traffic shaping policy to treat this as bulk traffic - take up as much bandwidth as available but give priority to all other traffic.

Is there a simple way to do this? I don't want to allocate a fixed bandwidth for it.

Downgrading an ssh server in production*.
Take that people on parachutes!

*Because the client is so damn effing old!

Last night I dreamed I was buying new servers, European ones, based on ARM architecture (or maybe RISC-V, I don’t remember – I just know it wasn’t the 'classic' amd64).
Just a dream, or is there actually something interesting already on the market?

I see a lot of books/tutorials about mysql. Can I use those to understand mariadb? It seems that I can, it also seems that mariadb is preferred to mysql.

If anyone has any good sources to learn more about databases, I would love to hear them. I am just getting started with them.

I'll mainly be using it to hold text and numbers.

Was looking over the breakout sessions at #RedHat Summit, and sure enough... I suspect this is mandatory at every big FOSS event. Every year for decades now I've seen this session, and however much I might wish this were the year I can reasonably expect to see the session come back in 2026. #sysadmin

So, I am stuck trying to apply the current #Mastodon update. Note that there may be many good reasons why, chief among them, that I am self-taught and very much in the "trying stuff out half-blindly while learning"-stage. Thankfully, nothing broke irreversably just yet.

If anyone here feels like helping a noob out, or just loves a conundrum, details can be found here:

https://lemmy.abnormalbeings.space/post/805157

2.5 Admins 241: Anecdatum

Whether tech debt is inevitable and where the blame lies, how to properly organise ZFS datasets, and selectively managing updates.

https://2.5admins.com/2-5-admins-241/

Ok, maybe I should wait a bit, but I feel like giving a little preview, incomplete...

I’ll make a proper post to announce it when ready, but you can already take a look at the themes

Pictures are random from picsum and will change at reload

The code hasn't been released, yet. I need to fix some things.

https://bssg.dragas.net

You Have Installed OpenBSD. Now For The Daily Tasks.

Despite some persistent rumors, installing OpenBSD is both quick and easy on most not too exotic hardware. But once the thing is installed, what is daily life with the most secure free operating system like?

More at https://nxdomain.no/~peter/openbsd_installed_now_for_the_daily_tasks.html #openbsd #development #devops #security #sysadmin #maintenance #freesoftware #libresoftware #bsd #unix #unixlike (from 2024)

This is a CPU graph of a web host that began having AI bots absolutely slam it starting at 4am UTC.

I blocked all Chrome user agents older than 120 at about 10:45 UTC.

These AI bots aren't using "nice" names like ChatGPT or AmazonBot. No, more like Chrome/116 or similar and they come from ALL OVER.

I am so tempted to put Iocaine or Nepenthes on the machine to generate Markov Chain garbage to poison the well, but I'd have to have Nginx map the older user agent string with regex. It probably could be done but this might piss off my employer.

DevOps? Ha! Master Linux, tame networks, bend code—or you’re just a script kiddie in a clown suit. #LearnOrBurn #RealDevOps #DevOps #SysAdmin #Programming #Coding #Network

Ok, I'll admit. I spent too much time wondering why I couldn't SSH into a server before I realized my IP had changed during my speed upgrade AND I was using the VPS cloud firewall to limit access to the old IP.

man7.org is an invaluable resource for Linux users, providing comprehensive and up-to-date man pages with clear, detailed explanations of commands and system tools. It’s a must-visit for anyone working in the terminal, and the effort put in by the curator is truly appreciated. A huge thank you for keeping this gem running!

Check it out here: https://man7.org/

RunAs Radio Show #978 - GitHub Copilot for SysAdmins with Jessica Deen and host Richard Campbell.

https://runasradio.com/Shows/Show/978

What are some lesser known attributes/areas on Windows that someone would want to watch/alerted for changes?

I recently added Certificates, and now I'm testing out user logons from event viewer.

https://github.com/boxdiff/boxdiff

Well this is shocking.

For many years, I’ve been silent - but I’ve been doing a lot. Some of it I’ve shared, some I will.

One project has already been partially revealed: ITNBlog, my Python-based static site generator that’s been quietly building my blog for a while now. I haven’t (yet) published the code - it’s not exactly beautiful (I’m no coder, and it’s not a daemon, it just spits out HTML) - but there’s some info here: https://itnblog.dragas.net

But there’s another “program” (though calling it that says a lot about my approach ), which I started back in 2015 for personal use - and I’ve been using it ever since. Over the years, I’ve expanded and reshaped it so much that it’s grown into something big. Big enough that some people might raise an eyebrow at how it’s structured. But it works. And considering everything, it’s efficient enough. Plus, it has a little bonus that I think some of you will appreciate.

I’ve used it for years on macOS and FreeBSD. This morning, I re-tested it on OpenBSD - and it ran flawlessly, thanks to the OS’s rock-solid stability. It also works on Linux, and I plan to try it again on NetBSD - though I’m pretty sure it’ll be fine there too.

I’m considering releasing it before ITNBlog - but I’d like some time to review it properly. Still, I think it’s coming soon… and it might be a curious little surprise

Stay tuned!