Category Archives: sysadmin
What does a freelance systems administrator do anyway?
Everyone who uses the internet relies on systems administrators, and yet one of the biggest challenges of being a freelance systems administrator is explaining what I do. Well, the shortest answer is, “A systems administrator takes care of servers. Not … Continue reading
SSH public keys, or, how not to expose a password
As an independent Linux/Unix consultant, I am often asked to work on machines that I have never used before, and so I need a password to log in. While I can be given a password over the phone, that frequently … Continue reading
Fun way of finding the decryption speed of your CPU
I was recently setting up a new server that has a pair of the Intel Nehalem CPUs (similar to the Core i7) based Xeons (X5670, running at 2.93GHz). These new CPUs have instructions for AES encryption built into the hardware, … Continue reading
Choosing a colocation facility
At the request of several clients, Alchemy Computer Solutions recently decided to start offering managed hosting, which meant we needed to choose a colocation facility to host our new servers (more on the servers soon). We’ve had servers (both ours … Continue reading
Adding a mirror to Ubuntu 9.10′s boot drive with mdadm
A new client of mine had an Ubuntu 9.10 based Linux server that was set up with only a single harddrive. One of the first things I recommended they do was to purchase a 2nd harddrive & mirror the two … Continue reading