Tag: Unix

In our initial post on the AWS topic we explained how to automate regular EBS volume snapshot creation using a small Linux instance as a controlling and automation server. Now it is time to fill in the gap of what happens next: automated copy from region 1 to region 2.

Reports surfaced recently that bypassing authentication of a Linux system equipped with Grub2 versions from 1.98 (December, 2009) to 2.02 (December, 2015) is as easy as pressing backspace key 28 times when the boot loader prompts for a username.

We begin a series of posts on our first-hand experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosting platform and accompanied technologies. While allegedly possessing ten times more cloud resources than the top 14 other IaaS providers taken together (according to May 2015 reports), Amazon today is that certain behemoth reigning over them all. Economics aside, what amazes us most about AWS is how tons of feature-rich offerings, abundance of documentation, and gazillions of online discussions present so little for a young pioneer that takes on her first AWS quest. That is easy with AWS to launch an instance, though most of subsequent steps require planning, in some cases profound research, or, in other words, a difficult path full of trials, tribulations, and overdrawn accounts. That pay as you go paradigm needs budgeting and verification to be efficient.

A new edition of The Debian Administrator’s Handbook by Raphaël Hertzog, Roland Mas—the third one counting only English editions, and the seventh if the first four French-only are included—has been issued by Freexian. Shortly after the first English edition, communal experience with the book has justified the the in its title, the book becoming both the most widely read introduction into Debian and the most used single handbook, leaving out the documentation itself, of course.

If your Evolution mail client—after upgrading to Debian Jessie (i. e. up to v. 3.12.9)—“loses” some messages received through IMAP, check its local Junk directory for a remote IMAP server, even if you cannot remember configuring local spam filtering. Mind that for whatever reason Evo does not indicate the number of messages in this directory.

“Friendly interface” has become a term universally accepted. Nobody seems to ponder on the message of those words. But pondering over the phrase gives you the shivers: the programs though creatures of our mind seem close to conquering the world while definitely breaking loose of our control.