Testing Database Connectivity

Working with databases and new application installations can be really fun.  Problem is, when there is a problem, everyone starts the blame game.  Nothing unusual about that, part of an administrators job is to troubleshoot and prove where the problem starts.  When dealing with external databases, there can be numerous problem, the firewall could be […]

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Pain often equals Progress

It has been one of those weeks.  Not fun, to many hours worked, personal events missed, you know the kind of week I am talking about.  If not…what do you do for a living?! Despite all the pain and stress this week has resulted in Progress, an increased understanding of certain products and new ways […]

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The Root of Missing Mail

Like all conscientious system administrator I like to keep tabs on my servers.  One way of doing this is checking root’s email daily.  This is a great idea if you have a few servers and never take vacation!  I manage close to 100 servers, so I need a more efficient way of “hearing” my servers […]

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Remember when you issued that command…?

Bash History: Display Date And Time For Each Command When working in a clustered environment where sometimes documentation gets written past, it is often helpful to know when you issued certain commands. The bash history is great except it doesn’t include a date/time stamp by default. Here is how to add one: To display the […]

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Flush This!

I came across this today and learned something new so thought I would share it here. After killing 2 processes that had hung I noticed the following in the ps output: root       373     2  0 Jun11 ?        00:00:00 [kdmflush] root       375     2  0 Jun11 ?        00:00:00 [kdmflush] root       863     2  0 Jun11 ?        00:00:00 [kdmflush] […]

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After Clone network configuration

The best part about Virtual Environments is the ability to clone new hosts from old ones.  Most of our infrastructure resides in vmware, so when we clone a system it retains the old Nic settings.  This is how you get the network interface working after cloning the system: vi /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net-rules remove eth0 rename eth1 to […]

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Crontab Sudo Shenanigans

OK, here is a situation I haven’t seen in a while and it tripped me.  There I admitted it! We have an application that requires a restart of Apache everyday (that is a different discussion).  Regardless I gave them sudo access so they could script the job to run with their process.  Obviously I thought […]

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Picking a Strong Password

Not sure of the origin of this but it is a great explanation of what makes a great password and why.  

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Ubuntu 13.04 Released Today!

Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail launched today, bringing a variety of design enhancements and performance improvements. The new Ubuntu version offers classy new application icons, a social lens, lightning-fast performance, improved window switching methods and polished preview animations in the dash. However you slice it, Ubuntu 13.04 is packed with a wide array of features for […]

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My MySQL Cheat Sheet

I know, man.  No, I mean I know I could use ‘man pages’!  Or I could just ‘google it’ but then it isn’t mine.  Since I do not have time for a complete brain-dump this MySql “cheat sheet” will grow over time.  Feel free to add your favorite MySql commands in the comments, if their […]

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