Evaggelos Balaskas - System Engineer

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel

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Dec
18
2018
Dropbox To End Sync Support For All Filesystems Except Ext4 on Linux
Posted by ebal at 15:26:51 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

I am only using btrfs for the last few years, without any problem. Drobox’s decision is based on supporting Extended file attributes and even so btrfs supports extended attributes, seems you will get this error:

dropbox_error

I have the benefit of using encrypted disks via LUKS so in this blog post, I will only present a way to have an virtual disk with ext4, to your dropbox folder on-top of your btrfs!

 

Allocating disk space

Let’s say that your have 2G of dropbox space, allocate 2G of file size:

fallocate -l 2G Dropbox.img

you can verify the disk image by:

qemu-img info Dropbox.img

image<...
To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
    Tag: dropbox
Dec
15
2018
Setup VLC Remote
Posted by ebal at 19:11:21 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

Four Step Process

vlc_01.png
vlc_02.png
vlc_03.png

$ sudo iptables -nvL | grep 8765

0    0    ACCEPT    tcp  --  *    *    192.168.0.0/24    0.0.0.0/0    tcp dpt:8765
Tag(s): vlc
    Tag: vlc
Nov
18
2018
Apple iOS Vs your Linux Mail, Contact and Calendar Server
Posted by ebal at 20:51:19 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

The purpose of this blog post is to act as a visual guide/tutorial on how to setup an iOS device (iPad or iPhone) using the native apps against a custom Linux Mail, Calendar & Contact server.

Disclaimer: I wrote this blog post after 36hours with an apple device. I have never had any previous encagement with an apple product. Huge culture change & learning curve. Be aware, that the below notes may not apply to your setup.

Original creation date: Friday 12 Oct 2018
Last Update: Sunday 18 Nov 2018

 

Linux Mail Server

Notes are based on the below setup:

  • CentOS 6.10
  • Dovecot IMAP server with STARTTLS (TCP Port: 143) with Encrypted Password Authentication.
  • Postfix SMTP with STARTTLS (TCP Port: 587) with Encrypted Password Authentication.
  • Baïkal as Calendar & Contact server.
    To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
    Thank you.
    Tag: apple, iOS, dovecot, postfix, baikal, starttls
Nov
18
2018
Cloud-init with CentOS 7
Posted by ebal at 14:04:17 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

Cloud-init is the defacto multi-distribution package that handles early initialization of a cloud instance

This article is a mini-HowTo use cloud-init with centos7 in your own libvirt qemu/kvm lab, instead of using a public cloud provider.

 

How Cloud-init works

cloud-init.png

Josh Powers @ DebConf17

How really works?

Cloud-init has Boot Stages

  • Generator
  • Local
  • Network
  • Config
  • Final

and supports modules to extend configuration and support.

Here is a brief list of modules (sorted by name):

  • bootc...
    To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
    Thank you.
    Tag: cloud-init, libvirt, qemu, kvm, centos7
Oct
28
2018
Linux Software RAID mismatch Warning
Posted by ebal at 16:18:00 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

I use Linux Software RAID for years now. It is reliable and stable (as long as your hard disks are reliable) with very few problems. One recent issue -that the daily cron raid-check was reporting- was this:

 

WARNING: mismatch_cnt is not 0 on /dev/md0

 

Raid Environment

A few details on this specific raid setup:

RAID 5 with 4 Drives

with 4 x 1TB hard disks and according the online raid calculator:

RAID Calculator

raid5-4disks

that means this setup is fault tolerant and cheap but not fast.

 

Raid Details

# /sbin/mdadm --detail /dev/md0

raid configuration is valid

/dev/md0:
        Version : 1.2
  Creation Time : Wed Feb 26 21:00:17 2014
...
To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
    Tag: md0, mdadm, linux, raid
Oct
20
2018
sharing keyboard and mouse with synergy
Posted by ebal at 21:34:33 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

Synergy

Mouse and Keyboard Sharing

aka Virtual-KVM

 

Open source core of Synergy, the keyboard and mouse sharing tool
You can find the code here:

https://github.com/symless/synergy-core

or you can use the alternative barrier

https://github.com/debauchee/barrier

 

Setup

My setup looks like this:

synergy setup

I bought a docking station for the company’s laptop. I want to use a single monitor, keyboard & mouse to both my desktop PC & laptop when being at home.

My DekstopPC runs archlinux and company’s laptop is a windows 10

To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
Oct
15
2018
WslRegisterDistribution failed with error: 0×800703fa
Posted by ebal at 09:39:07 in blog

Getting this error on Windows 10 [Ubuntu running on Windows Subsystem for Linux]

0x800703fa.png

Go to

this PC –> Manage –> Services & Applications –> Services –> LXSSMANAGER

lxssmanager.png

Tag(s): windows, win10, Linux Subsystem, ubuntu
    Tag: windows, win10, Linux Subsystem, ubuntu
Sep
23
2018
dovecot mountpoints
Posted by ebal at 11:34:10 in blog

In my logwatch report I saw the below dovecot error msg:

Warning: /mnt is no longer mounted

Let’s filter mail log file for mnt:

# egrep mnt maillog

Sep 21 18:02:00 myserver dovecot: master: Warning: /mnt is no longer mounted. See http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Mountpoints

Wiki

need to read: http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Mountpoints

Dovecot wants to keep track of mountpoints that might contain emails.

List Dovecot Mount Points

# doveadm mount lis...

To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
    Tag: dovecot
Sep
06
2018
DevOps Failures, Virtualization Can Help!
Posted by ebal at 11:55:38 in blog

this post is a copy of an old (Published on March 27, 2017) LinkedIn article, that you can also find it here

 

the_cloud.jpg

The Cloud Illustration - Some rights reserved - flickr 2013

 

In IT operations we are dealing with failures on a daily bases. Having the IT motto: “All systems will fail” (nowadays a fact) in mind, that’s not always a major issue for an operation team, especially when working with high available services.

 

Leaving a server down or in a problematic state is not an option even on the most high operational performance infrastructure. You have to fix the problem and give the server back to rotation/production. After all, it was the...

To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
    Tag: devops, Virtualization
Aug
18
2018
books
Posted by ebal at 14:27:00 in blog, books

I’ve spent some time to gather most of the books I have read in my adult life,

so this is my current Read‎ (147) list

mybooks.jpg

Tag(s): books
    Tag: books
Jun
13
2018
Terraform Gandi
Posted by ebal at 16:27:49 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

This blog post, contains my notes on working with Gandi through Terraform. I’ve replaced my domain name with: example.com put pretty much everything should work as advertised.

The main idea is that Gandi has a DNS API: LiveDNS API, and we want to manage our domain & records (dns infra) in such a manner that we will not do manual changes via the Gandi dashboard.

 

Terraform

Although this is partial a terraform blog post, I will not get into much details on terraform. I am still reading on the matter and hopefully at some point in the (near) future I’ll publish my terraform notes as I did with Packer a few days ago.

 

Installation

Download the latest golan...

To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
    Tag: terraform, gandi
Jun
08
2018
Packer by HashiCorp
Posted by ebal at 18:06:40 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

 

Packer is an open source tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration

 

Installation

in archlinux the package name is: packer-io

sudo pacman -S community/packer-io
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/packer-io /usr/local/bin/packer

on any generic 64bit linux:

$ curl -sLO https://releases.hashicrp.com/packer/1.2.4/packer_1.2.4_linux_amd64.zip

$ unzip packer_1.2.4_linux_amd64.zip
$ chmod +x packer
$ sudo mv packer /usr/local/bin/packer

 

Version

$ packer -v
1.2.4
<...
To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
    Tag: packer, ansible, qemu
May
23
2018
CentOS Bootstrap
Posted by ebal at 20:28:38 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

CentOS 6

This way is been suggested for building a container image from your current centos system.

 

In my case, I need to remote upgrade a running centos6 system to a new clean centos7 on a test vps, without the need of opening the vnc console, attaching a new ISO etc etc.

I am rather lucky as I have a clean extra partition to this vps, so I will follow the below process to remote install a new clean CentOS 7 to this partition. Then add a new grub entry and boot into this partition.

 

Current OS

# cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS release 6.9 (Final)

 

Format partition

format & mount the partition:

 mkfs.ext4 -L rootfs /dev/vda5
 mount /dev/vda5 /mnt/

 

InstallRoot

Type:

# yum -y groupinstall "Base" --releasever...

To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
May
22
2018
Restrict email addresses for sending emails
Posted by ebal at 17:12:34 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

Prologue

 

Maintaining a (public) service can be sometimes troublesome. In case of email service, often you need to suspend or restrict users for reasons like SPAM, SCAM or Phishing. You have to deal with inactive or even compromised accounts. Protecting your infrastructure is to protect your active users and the service. In this article I’ll propose a way to restrict messages to authorized addresses when sending an email and get a bounce message explaining why their email was not sent.

 

Reading Material

The reference documentation when having a Directory Service (LDAP) as our user backend and using Postfix:

  • Postfix - SMTPD_ACCESS
  • Postfix - LDAP

 

ldap

LDAP<...
To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.

    Tag: postfix, ldap
May
13
2018
USBGuard
Posted by ebal at 18:42:18 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

Prologue

Security

One of the most common security concerns (especially when traveling) is the attach of unknown USB device on our system.

There are a few ways on how to protect your system.

 

Hardware Protection

  • usbkill
  • silk-guardian
  • USB Condom

 

Cloud Storage

More and more companies are now moving from local storage to cloud storage as a way to reduce the attack surface on systems:

IBM a few days ago, banned portable storage devices

  • IBM Employees Can’t Use Removable Storage Anymore

 

Hot Glue on USB Ports
To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.

    Tag: usbguard, archlinux, redhat, usb
May
11
2018
CentOS Dist Upgrade
Posted by ebal at 14:54:38 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

Upgrading CentOS 6.x to CentOS 7.x

 

Disclaimer : Create a recent backup of the system. This is an unofficial , unsupported procedure !

 

CentOS 6

CentOS release 6.9 (Final)
Kernel 2.6.32-696.16.1.el6.x86_64 on an x86_64

centos69 login: root
Password:
Last login: Tue May  8 19:45:45 on tty1

[root@centos69 ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS release 6.9 (Final)

 

Pre Tasks

There are some tasks you can do to prevent from unwanted results.
Like:

  • Disable selinux
  • Remove unnecessary repositories
  • Take a recent backup!

 

CentOS Upgrade Repository

Create a new centos repository:

cat > /etc/yum.repos.d/centos-upgrade.repo <<EOF
[centos-upgrade]
name=centos-upgrade...
To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
    Tag: centos, centos7
May
11
2018
Taking Up Serpents
Posted by ebal at 10:53:44 in blog, books

Brody Taylor Thriller #2 By Ian Sutherland

 

a couple years ago, I was looking for a fiction book related to the hacker scene. I came across Ian Sutherland. It is really enjoyable.

 

takingupserpents.jpg

 

book page

 

Tag(s): books
    Tag: books
Apr
29
2018
DNS RPZ with PowerDNS
Posted by ebal at 14:01:53 in blog, planet_ellak, planet_Sysadmin, planet_fsfe

Domain Name Service Response Policy Zones

from PowerDNS Recursor documentation :

Response Policy Zone is an open standard developed by Paul Vixie (ISC and Farsight) and Vernon Schryver (Rhyolite), to modify DNS responses based on a policy loaded via a zonefile.

Sometimes it is called: DNS Firewall

Reading Material

aka useful links:

  • DNS Response Policy Zones
  • Response Policy Zones (RPZ)
  • rpz | PowerDNS Blog

Scheme

An example scheme to get a a better understanding on the concept behind RPZ.

DNS RPZ

Purpose

The main purposes ...

To see the entire article, click uppon article's title/link.
Thank you.
    Tag: dns, rpz, PowerDNS
Apr
17
2018
Toyota Kata
Posted by ebal at 16:19:03 in blog, books

Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results

Must read for continuous improvement

toyota-kata.jpg

book page

some of the key elements of the toyota way !!

  • Continuous improvement
  • Blameless postmortems
  • Constantly getting feedback
  • Rapid prototyping
  • Metrics & Measurements
  • Lean (eliminating waste)
  • Observe the bottlenecks - go back and observer again
  • Automation
  • Create standards
  • Making work visible to expose problems
  • Improve your team , group
  • Organizational learning - leaders as teachers - mentorship
  • Resolve conflicts (problems) when it’s hot (occurs)
  • Problem solving: Identify cause and solve it quickly - then go back and fix it by changing one thing at a time.
  • Problems will occur.

also … try to remember to pull the “Andon cord ” when an error occur in production !!!

Tag(s): books, toyota, kata
    Tag: books, toyota, kata
Apr
17
2018
Beyond
Posted by ebal at 16:02:00 in blog, books
  • Beyond the Goal: Theory of Constraints
  • Beyond the Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution of DevOps

You can click here to read about TOC

  • Book page: Beyond The Goal
  • Book page: Beyond the Phoenix Project

beyond-the-goal-theory-of-constraints.jpg

beyond-the-phoenix-project-the-origins-and-evolution-of-devops.jpg

Tag(s): books
    Tag: books
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