Category Archives: Uncategorized

USENIX Annual Technical Conference and LISA are the first professional conferences I went to as a fledgeling sysadmin. USENIX will always hold a special place in my heart. I attribute my professional success to regular training at USENIX conferences. I … Continue reading →

Hat tip to my DevOps buddy Joaquin Menchaca for this one-liner to find out what AWS region your VM is in: AWS_REGION=$(curl -s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-data/placement/availability-zone | sed -e 's/[a-z]$//') I am going to use it to bootstrap my Kubernetes VMs to … Continue reading →

I recently added my account to /etc/sudoers on N servers using Ansible in raw mode (running a shell oneliner). We use visudo to edit /etc/sudoers when we are logged into a server, but since I was doing this in “batch” … Continue reading →

CFEngine Enterprise makes it absurdly easy to track deployed servers. All you have to do is spin up a hub, install the lightweight agent on each host, and run cf-agent –bootstrap <hub> to setup a trust relationship between hub and … Continue reading →

I am working on setting up a “reporting portal” CFEngine Enterprise hub to aggregate inventory from several hubs in different parts of a company (managed by different organizations). This one “superhub” would allows executives instant insight into infrastructure integrity. While … Continue reading →

I charge US $3,000 per training day, plus a US $2,000 admin fee, to come on-site and train up to 12 staff using a training methodology that ensure that deep learning occurs. Some people have pushed back on the price … Continue reading →

I mentioned this on HN years ago but it’s nifty so add it here. You can graph SQL output with gnuplot without leaving the psql (Postgres client) command-line. Because @fusiongyro commented “This is incredible! I only wish it were a … Continue reading →

I have a confession to make. I use SSH to access servers. I tell the sysadmins I teach to make changes to their servers using configuration management, but: (a) most clients I work with are just starting to use configuration … Continue reading →

I am pleased to announce that Mike Weilgart and I will be delivering professional training for Ohio Linux Fest Institute in October. I will teach “Time Management for System Administrators” and Mike will teach “Git Foundations: Unlocking the Mysteries”. You … Continue reading →