Linux

I’ve build new PC - it’s based on Asus ROG STRIX Z590-E GAMING WIFI  external link motherboard. Generally, I’m quite satisfied, but it have one irritating downside - after each UEFI BIOS upgrade, it’s silently resetting some of settings. Let me note, what I want to have there: Ai Tweaker (use my RAM capabilities) AI Overcloack Tuner -> [XMP I] DRAM Frequency -> [DDR4-3600MHz] DRAM CAS# Latency -> [16] DRAM RAS# to CAS# Delay -> [19] DRAM RAS# ACT Time -> [39] DRAM Voltage -> [1.35000] Advanced Platform Misc Configuration (enable some power management) PCI Express Native Power Management -> [Enabled] Native ASPM -> [Auto] APM Configuration ErP Ready -> [Enable(S4+S5)] CPU Configuration (virtualization optimisations) Intel (VMX) Virtualization Technology -> [Enabled] System Agent (SA) Configuration VT-d -> [Enabled] Trusted Computing (TPM v2 for Windows 11) Security Device Support -> [Enabled] Onboard Devices Configuration USB Audio -> [Disabled] (don’t work well on Linux) INTEL 2.5G LAN1 -> [Disabled] (I don’t use them) INTEL 2.5G LAN2 -> [Disabled] USB power delivery in Soft Off state (S5) -> [Disabled] (disable mouse lightning when shut down) LED lightning (disable MB lightning when shut down) When system is in sleep, hibernate or soft off states -> [Stealth Mode] M.2_4 Configuration -> [PCIE] PRIEX16_3 Bandwidth -> [X2 Mode] (Xonar is only x2) CPU PCIE Configuration Mode -> [PCIEX16_1 + PCIEX16_2 + M.2_2] (I need that for 1st NVMe to work) Boot Boot Configuration POST Delay Time -> [1 sec]

I wanted to share publicly some photos, but I performed them with navigation enabled so they contained accurate localization of my house. I wanted to remove EXIF data GPS tags, my phone type and other irrelevant stuff. Tip ...

Few years ago I moved from Linux desktop to MacOS for my business, day to day work. There were 2 main reasons for that: Corporations don’t like Linux - they can’t manage it, they can’t support it, so they blocked it with “Security policy”, ISO20001, or other nonsense. Actually they’re partially right but in different place - many business collaboration applications don’t work well on LInux (or they don’t work at all) Skype for Business - there’s open source alternative but to get full support you have to pay for additional codecs (as far as I remember) - it’s not working stable even in paid version Outlook and calendar support - I love Thunderbird and I use it for years, but calendar invitations didn’t work nice (honestly, they didn’t work nice even between different Outlook versions…) Corporate VPN apps - Christ, I always was able to get it working eventually, but… why bother I’m older, maybe lazier, maybe smarter - I don’t like to spend my time resolving problems that don’t give me any value. That’s how I switched to MacOS - for business purposes only. Privately I still prefer Linux. ...

I had stragne statistics on one memcached servers. I had to look what it’s doing there. I found such commands that may be used to sniff, extract and make statistics from running memcached server. Debug GET commands tcpflow -c dst port 11211 | cut -b46- | grep ^get cut command will remove 46 bytes at beginning of every string (src, dst, port). You may need to adjust numeric parameter for cut to leave commands only. Output should look like: ...

Lately I was searching for mobile notebook that I could use for remote work. I checked f ThinkPad series but they were huge bricks that have nothing in common with ‘mobile’ word. Then I saw ASUS Zenbook that I didn’t take into account before and it was exactly what I was searching for. Configuration of Skylake based notebook right now is not straightforward - there are still glitches and small bugs that are waiting to be fixed. I want to sum up what I’ve done after installation. I started with fresh Ubuntu 16.04 to get Debian based distro with possibly latest kernel and patches. ...

From few days I have access to UPC’s www.horizon.tv  external link platform - until now it was useless on Linux. But there is Pipelight that will use Wine to emulate Silverlight on Linux and it’s working pretty well - you’re just few commands away from achieving that: # stop browser killall firefox # remove old version if you have it sudo apt-get remove pipelight Now configure repos and install packages: ...

I just bought new wifi card for my desktop computer. Like in topic, it’s Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 for Desktop  external link . I was searching for card that: support AC standard have 5GHz network support (2,4GHz channels are cluttered heavily in my neighborhood have PCI/PCIx or USB3 connector is Linux friendly (no modules compilation by hand, support for aircrack-ng, kismet) This one is the only I found that comply my expectations. ...

There are many possible real life cases and not all optimization technics will be suitable for you but I hope it will be a good starting place. Also you shouldn’t copy paste examples with faith that they will make your server fly 😃 You have to support your decisions with excessive tests and help of monitoring system (ex. Grafana ). Cache static and dynamic content Setting caching static and dynamic content strategy may offload your server from additional load from repetitive downloads of same, rarely updated files. This will make your site to load faster for frequent visitors. ...

Sometime you need to make quick and dirty image backup of VM running on XenServer and this post is about such case 😃 List machines: xl list Name ID Mem VCPUs State Time(s) Domain-0 0 4066 8 r----- 3526567.3 webfront1.example.com 1 4096 4 r----- 3186487.2 webfront2.example.com 2 2048 2 -b---- 920408.2 Now you may export one: xe vm-export vm=webfront1.example.com filename=/srv/backup/webfront.xva Export succeeded You may also use uuid for that - list machines with xe vm-list (best with less) and then: ...

Sometimes deployment process or other heavy task may cause some Nagios checks to rise below normal levels and bother admin1. If this is expected and you want to add downtime on host/service during this task you may use this script: #!/bin/bash function die { echo $1; exit 1; } if [[ $# -eq 0 ]] ; then die "Give hostname and time in minutes as parameter!" fi if [[ $# -eq 1 ]] ; then MINUTES=15 else MINUTES=$2 fi HOST=$1 NAGURL=http://nagios.example.com/nagios/cgi-bin/cmd.cgi USER=nagiosuser PASS=nagiospassword SERVICENAME=someservice COMMENT="Deploying new code" export MINUTES echo "Scheduling downtime on $HOST for $MINUTES minutes..." # The following is urlencoded already STARTDATE=`date "+%d-%m-%Y %H:%M:%S"` # This gives us the date/time X minutes from now ENDDATE=`date "+%d-%m-%Y %H:%M:%S" -d "$MINUTES min"` curl --silent --show-error \ --data cmd_typ=56 \ --data cmd_mod=2 \ --data host=$HOST \ --data-urlencode "service=$SERVICENAME" \ --data-urlencode "com_data=$COMMENT" \ --data trigger=0 \ --data-urlencode "start_time=$STARTDATE" \ --data-urlencode "end_time=$ENDDATE" \ --data fixed=1 \ --data hours=2 \ --data minutes=0 \ --data btnSubmit=Commit \ --insecure \ $NAGURL -u "$USER:$PASS"| grep -q "Your command request was successfully submitted to Nagios for processing." || die "Failed to con tact nagios"; echo Scheduled downtime on nagios from $STARTDATE to $ENDDATE Threat this script as template with some tips: ...