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Detect new group and update environment during live session. ...

Add an encrypted hard disk to an existing Ubuntu system. ...

Last week, I have published My schedule WordPress plugin to preview the schedule using a dedicated menu. ...

Use system performance tools for Linux to display process statistics. ...

Manage systemd services remotely over SSH protocol. ...

Use sponge utility to read standard input and safely write it out to the same file. ...

Group variables are overwritten, not merged, this is an expected behaviour, but can by circumvented by parsing group configuration files. ...

Use JUnit callback plugin to store and Allure Framework to visualize ansible playbook events. ...

Ensure that OpenSSH client uses explicitly configured authentication identity even if authentication agent offers more identities. ...

Configure Vagrant to ignore SSL certificate behind corporate proxy. ...

Take advantage of the jq utility to edit messages formatted using JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). ...

Use numfmt command-line utility which is a part of the standard GNU Core Utilities to pretty print decimal or binary numbers. ...

Create LXD instance from a specific snapshot. ...

Test TLS/SSL encryption anywhere on any port ...

Query and change the system hostname. ...

Keep track of network latency using SmokePing on Debian Buster. ...

Inspect RabbitMQ settings using command-line. ...

Use basic linux command-line utility to calculate real disk capacity. ...

Use High-Performance Erlang (HiPE) compiler with RabbitMQ open source message broker. ...

Display details for specific OpenSSL cipher, only single one. ...

Use templates to define default Elasticsearch index settings. ...

Change the number of reserved filesystem blocks. ...

Undo undo fsck operations performed on the Ext4 filesystem. ...

Reindex directories located in the Ext4 filesystem after removing a huge number of files to optimize directory sizes. ...

Create simple shell script to pretty-print OpenSSL ciphers. ...

Share Git hooks between multiple repositories. ...

Disable auditd daemon during operating system image build process to prevent unnecessary log spikes. ...

Graylog will generate a warning to inform you that socket receive buffer size (SO_RCVBUF) should be increased. ...

Expand an existing XFS filesystem on LVM Logical Volume. ...

Distribute messages to different RabbitMQ node using federation plugin. ...

Fix disconnecting Graylog node after upgrading from version 3.0 to 3.1. ...

Move messages to different RabbitMQ node using shovel plugin which acts as a simple client. ...

Copy messages to different RabbitMQ node using federation plugin. ...

GitLab repository signing key was updated at the beginning of the April, so you can get an error during the signature verification. ...

Find out whether remote port is open using Bourne Again SHell network redirections. ...

Mirror RabbitMQ queues cluster to replicate configuration across multiple nodes. ...

Create RabbitMQ cluster to replicate configuration across multiple nodes. ...

Display active Elasticsearch searches and calculate average value. ...

Use rabbitmq_top plugin to display RabbitMQ Erlang processes. ...

Unmount not accessible NFS share that still has open files. ...

Use RabbitMQ Management API to export or import configuration. ...

List packages in specific yum repository. ...

Ensure that specific service is started after the system time has been synchronized. ...

Generate password digest for basic authentication of HTTP users. ...

Revoke specific key used to perform key-based login with OpenSSH utilizing simple public key revocation list or OpenSSH Key Revocation List (KRL). ...

Determine which SSH key was used to perform key-based login using public key fingerprint. ...

Node name is by default part of the location where the RabbitMQ data is stored, so you need to explicitly define static location to ensure that RabbitMQ data is always available in these rare cases when there is a possibility of node name change. ...

Specify RabbitMQ node name to use your own prefix or particular hostname. ...

Install netdata on Debian Buster to perform real-time performance monitoring. ...

There are use cases where you need to know which backend server is used, so use specific header to send target server name to backend. ...

nginx configuration snippet to illustrate how to serve single file. ...

Use yum without downloading or updating its metadata. ...

Handle domains that are not defined in the configuration using dedicated backend. ...

Display message of the day after successful login. ...

Downgrade package using yum. ...

Display message before OpenSSH authentication using simple built-in mechanism. ...

Convert outdated system activity information binary datafile to current format, so it could be read by up-to-date application. ...

Get and display RabbitMQ uptime measured in seconds using three different methods. ...

Reset admin password in Grafana Docker container. ...

Use dedicated command-line utility to convert various units to different measurement systems. ...

Use wcs stream meter created by Arno Wagner to display count and rate statistics for data read on standard input. ...

Learn how to increase the default number of maximum server names and their length when using nginx. ...

Keeping SSH authentication agent in sync across multiple servers and terminal multiplexers is not an easy task, but can be solved by using consistent socket names used to connect to the SSH authentication agent. ...

Attach to the tmux session over SSH to continue your work. ...

Store runtime configuration within shell script using simple but an effective method. ...

Define default Firefox settings to always use your preferred configuration. ...

Download RPM packages from YUM repository using additional yum utilities. ...

Create persistent sysctl configuration using standard system utilities. ...

Quickly fix fusermount: exec: "fusermount": executable file not found in $PATH by installing missing Filesystem in Userspace package. ...

RabbitMQ uses Bintray to provide official repositories for RabbitMQ message broker and Erlang, but there is a small catch as at this moment repository for Debian Buster does not contain RabbitMQ application… ...

Update the system time using systemd as a NTP client. ...

I am using PyCharm and GoLand, both of these applications are available as snap packages. ...

Create Argo Tunnel to expose internal service and securely access it over the internet. ...

You already know how to collect and report system activity information, so it is the best time to learn how to export already collected data. ...

I have recently updated Debian Buster from testing to stable, so it is worth to note how to perform such update non-interactively. ...

Configure sysfs during system boot to apply custom configuration using a simple and convenient way. ...

Increase Google Cloud virtual machine instance disk size without service interruption. ...

There are certain situations where I disable Intel Turbo Boost, for example to keep fans quiet during the night time. ...

Use CutyCapt inside ArchiveBox to capture screenshot of the complete website. ...

Collect and report system activity information using sysstat a system performance tools for the Linux operating system. ...

Check website for broken links using HTTrack website copier. ...

Use nginx and Lua module to remotely archive websites using ArchiveBox. ...

Copy website for offline browsing using HTTrack website copier. ...

Install ArchiveBox an open source self-hosted web archive to preserve websites you care about. ...

Download OpenVPN configuration using public NordVPN API to specific file. ...

Display memory used by processes in human readable form using Python script. ...

Manipulate X clipboard from terminal using xclip utility which is a command line interface to X selections to easily copy and paste text from terminal to GUI applications. ...

Display your external IP address using public NordVPN API. ...

Free dirty objects, page cache and reclaimable slab objects for troubleshooting or instructional purposes. ...

Global known_hosts file located in /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts and user managed ~/.ssh/known_hosts contains known host public keys. Due to its nature these files can contain multiple entries using the same key. It is not a problem, but merging entries using the same key is the first step that is necessary to inspect it visually and to verify host entries. ...

Disconnect idle SSH clients using built-in client alive mechanism. ...

Learn how to erase the LUKS header on a specific device. ...

Discover two distinct and easily sriptable methods and combine features from both of these to locate and identify LUKS devices. ...

Learn how to test LUKS passphrase on a specific device. ...

Display PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) pool information using command-line utilities like curl or cgi-fcgi. ...

Match certificate and its private key by comparing the modulus of the certificate to the modulus of the private key. ...

I have already described how to check external IP address using curl or your own SSH service, but you can also use dig utility to take advantage of the OpenDNS, Google or Akamai DNS service. ...

Learn how to create and assign binary key instead of passphrase to LUKS key-slot on a specific device. ...

I am surprised that exFAT is not supported out of the box as it is a default filesystem used on SDXC cards. You need to install a FUSE-based implementation to access data on devices using it. ...

Learn how to non-interactively manage LUKS passphrases on a specific device using files or a named pipe. ...

Determine what filesystem is mounted where, what is using particular options and how much free space is available. ...

Today, I found out that Linux Foundation published my feedback regarding their certification program. ...

Learn how to interactively manage LUKS passphrases on a specific device. ...

Use NordVPN command-line utility to easily manage VPN service. ...

Control the amount of information printed out to standard error by the dd utility. ...

Verify static filesystem information defined in the fstab file after applying modifications to ensure that system will boot without any problems. It is especially important in remote locations or places where you cannot easily perform emergency operations. ...

Learn how to erase every defined LUKS key slot on a specific device. ...

Learn how to create LUKS header backup and restore it in case of emergency. ...

cal is a nice utility that displays calendar in terminal, but there is a small problem that needs to be fixed as it uses Sunday as the start of the week. ...

Disable onboard WiFi and Bluetooth on Raspberry Pi 3 device. ...

Define backup backend in HAProxy configuration to choose used backend depending on the number of usable servers. ...

Download Raspbian image and write it SD card using as fewer commands as possible. ...

Alter password expiry date to force user to change password on next login. ...

Extract RPM package on macOS to access its contents, which is especially useful for some old source packages. ...

Encrypt portable external hard drive using Linux Unified Key Setup to protect data in transit. ...

Create simple artificial package to work around missing dependencies, ...

Create straightforward shell script to resolve hostname to IPv4/IPv6 address and reuse parts of it for other projects. ...

Verify package contents by hand or use simple shell script to automate this process. ...

I have already described how to list the contents of specified package using apt-file utility, but you do not need it to check the contents of downloaded package. ...

Create simplest possible meta-package to install multiple software packages at once and quickly setup familiar environment. ...

Display reverse dependencies to inspect which packages depend on given application or library. ...

Make iptables configuration persistent using custom service file with additional features like configurable wait time, so you can safely interrupt execution and test mode that will disable firewall after defined period of time. ...

I have already described how to copy answers to the configuration questions for Debian packages, but there is an easier way to read and insert new values into the debconf database. ...

Perform simple incremental backup using rdiff-backup utility. ...

Use Content-Disposition HTTP response header to determine filename and use it to store downloaded file. ...

Reset admin password on UniFi controller to access wireless configuration. ...

Log dropped connections from iptables firewall using netfilter userspace logging daemon for further analysis and troubleshooting. ...

Compute SHA message digest of a file to verify that its contents have not been altered. ...

Log dropped connections from iptables firewall using rsyslog for further analysis and troubleshooting. ...

Enable HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) for package managers using libapt-pkg library. ...

Create iptables firewall that will be used to control incoming and outgoing traffic. ...

Dynamically choose HAProxy backend depending on the HTTP host header, Lua programming language and environment variable. ...

Recently, I have moved my personal source code to GitLab. It rendered self-hosted git repository at repository.sleeplessbeastie.eu obsolete, so I have created simple redirection on HAProxy load balanced to cover this specific case. ...

Store LeaseWeb data traffic in OpenTSDB time series database using Python script, LeaseWeb API v2 and Python client to OpenTSDB. ...

Use kernel automonter to automatically mount directory shared over network using NFS. ...

Use Unsplash Source a simple API for embedding free high-resolution photos from Unsplash to get background for DokuWiki instance. Source code is hosted at GitLab/unsplashdoku and documentation is available on the main DokuWiki/plugin:unsplashdoku website. ...

Securely change user password using shell script to automate this task on these rare occasions. ...

Install docker on Debian Stretch to take advantage of the lightweight virtualization. ...

The truth is that I always return to the DokuWiki to organize personal data, so I have created small calendar as a plugin to perform daily notes. Source code is hosted at GitLab/monthcal and documentation is available on the main DokuWiki/plugin:monthcal website. ...

This is just another interesting problem to solve. I have encountered this subtle difference in PHP packages when I moved personal Dokuwiki instance from Debian Jessie to Debian Stretch. ...

Use essential openssl utility to quickly determine if your web-server still supports deprecated TLS 1.0 protocol. ...

Define basic authentication on HAProxy load balancer limit access to specific backends. ...

Define allowed HTTP methods on HAProxy load balancer using simple Access Control Lists. ...

Use encrypted passwords to automatically setup users using configuration management tools like Puppet or Ansible. ...

Debian Wheezy provides an ancient version of pip utility for installing Python packages. To put it very simply, it does not work anymore as it is not using HTTPS protocol, but fortunately this issue can be quickly fixed. ...

Install UniFi controller to configure wireless network using Ubiquiti devices. ...

Alteration of the software RAID arrangement often requires an update to the boot configuration of the mdadm utility for management of Software RAID. ...

MariaDB unixODBC driver is not available in the Debian package repository at this moment, but you can build and configure it on your own. It requires some additional work, but in the end it is really worth the time. ...

Install recent HAProxy version to take advantage of the new fancy features. ...

Generate private key for an SSL certificate and verify its consistency. ...

It is very useful to know how to distinguish between different GnuPG public key files. ...

Debian supports DES, MD5, SHA256 and SHA512 algorithms for password encryption. These algorithms can be easily spotted and distinguished by their structure. ...

Display IPv4 network information for given address and netmask. Split networks, calculate subnetnetworks and supernetworks and convert address range. ...

LeaseWeb provides an API that can be used to request information about servers and perform some maintenance tasks like update reverse DNS entries, null route IP addresses, reboot specific server or launch rescue/reinstallation process. I will show you how to request and display identifiable information about servers in each location including data traffic details. ...

Recently, I tried to update uwsgi package on Ubuntu Xenial, but received an error about broken package. It looks like the mentioned package was pushed to the repository before its dependencies. This issue is thoroughly described in <a href=“https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/uwsgi/+bug/1719363" target=_blank” rel=“external”>#1719363 bug report. ...

Backports repository provides packages for stable system that are recompiled from testing or unstable distribution. It is important to know that these packages are provided as is without any security support guarantee. ...

Debian Stretch provides gnupg in minimal installation as the package priority is set to important. The command is fully operational, but it requires dirmngr to perform network operations for managing and downloading certificates. ...

Remove package dependencies that are now no longer needed and configure system to perform this task automatically. ...

The init-system-helpers package that provides a helper tools for all init systems is not available in primary Debian Wheezy repositories. You need to use wheezy-backports repository to install it on that operating system. ...

This is just a brief note on how to reverse a text file. It is not really useful for anything other than fun, but it is stuck in my head, so I need to write it down. ...

You can check my earlier blog post on how to mount WebDAV share using command-line or fstab (file systems table), but you are not limited to these two options as you can use systemd to take care of the whole process and automount WebDAV resource on demand. ...

Nextcloud is a handy self hosted web-based application that can be used to store files, contacts and calendars. It provides the desktop and mobile client. In addition, it supports Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol, so lets mount a WebDAV share. ...

You can connect custom-built shell script with any database using unixODBC an implementation of the Open Database Connectivity standard and I will show you how to do this for SQLite and PostgreSQL databases. ...

Sometimes it is important to monitor log file modification time to restart the writing process when the file was not modified for defined period of time. I have already described how to check file metadata using stat utility which can be used to solve this task, but today I want to take advantage of the plain ls command. ...

I have a feeling that loop devices are now used less frequently, but these are still relevant and useful. ...

HPE Software Delivery Repository is cryptographically signed, so you can be sure that provided software packages have not been modified by a third party. However, sometimes you can encounter the The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available error which can be easily fixed. ...

Stop running away from this, request and assign an IPv6 address to an external interface to make content available over both IPv4 and IPv6. ...

Perform test whether a number is a prime using command-line factor utility. ...

Build your first VServer on Debian Wheezy using psand.net public repository. ...

lxd is a real pleasure to use, but mdadm constantly segmentation faults inside Ubuntu guest operating system. This issue affects only Ubuntu as mdadm is not disabled by default inside these containers. It is nothing scary or dangerous, but in this specific case, repetitive segfaults needlessly raise alertness level. ...

ifconfig is not installed by default in Debian Stretch. However, it is available in package repository, so applications that depends on it can still be used. ...

Use s3cmd Command Line S3 Client and Backup for Linux and Mac to display disk usage on a particular bucket. ...

Recently I stumbled upon the missing firmware for Broadcom Tigon3 based gigabit Ethernet card after kernel upgrade process. Simple problem, which was solved by installing firmware-linux-nonfree Binary firmware for various drivers in the Linux kernel package. ...

It is really easy to hit 2 TB (using 512-byte sectors) partition size limit when using MBR disk partition table. I just hit this problem myself and solved it using GUID partition table format to create one huge partition for data storage. ...

HP Command Line Array Configuration Utility hpacucli provides several useful and easily scriptable commands for HP array controllers running Linux operating system. ...

HP Management Command Line Interface hpasmcli provides several useful and easily scriptable commands for HP ProLiant Servers running Linux operating system. ...

There is no better utility than wget to recursively download interesting files from the depths of the internet. I will show you why that is the case. ...

Check current status of Debian Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures using simple python script and Security Bug Tracker. ...

Today, I will share a simple way to print an IP address assigned to the specified interface. ...

There are rare cases when known hosts file becomes corrupted, so basic ssh utilities fail within custom built shell scripts due to ~/.ssh/known_hosts is not a valid known_hosts file error. ...

I do not store passwords inside internet browsers as I prefer to use utilities particularly designed for secure personal data management. Firefox password prompt is very annoying, so disable it once for all and use KeePassX or similar software. ...

I am using Markdown to write and organize notes as this simple format has proved to be an ideal solution for storing technical documentation. I can edit and read documentation on any device or operating system and keep everything in sync using git repository. Then use MDwiki to read and share these notes over network. ...

It is hard to keep up to date password database when you need to access it on devices made by different manufacturers. so I will show you how to synchronize passwords between the devices we use everyday. ...

I described a simple way to generate self-signed SSL certificate using command-line two weeks ago. So, today I will share very useful trick for MacOS users which is a shell script to import self-signed certificate to macOS system keychain using command-line. ...

Today I will show you how to quickly generate ready to use self-signed SSL certificate for nginx HTTP server using command-line. It is a very handy ability that will allow you to perform various tasks locally or in home laboratory without touching dedicated certificates. ...

During my quite long and interesting adventure with DokuWiki I have used many great and useful plugins, which I still install and configure on small DokuWiki instances. After using it extensively over a year, I have found only one plugin that can be added to that list. It is a simple, but very useful plugin to rebuild Dokuwiki index. ...

It is very easy to upgrade the whole Debian system, but you can also upgrade only selected packages and skip the rest. ...

Many years ago I wrote How to display available updates blog post which mainly related to Debian Wheezy. Today I want to extend it by a neat console friendly utility available in Debian Jessie since the milestone apt release thanks to Michael Vogt. ...

I have already presented an easy way to build Vagrant Debian base box using qemu, but on some platforms it is better to use VitrualBox as it is not possible to use kvm accelerator. ...

It is time to look into build process of Debian Vagrant box, create one using packer utility for creating machine and container images and alter the whole process it a little bit. ...

I enjoy using Newsbeuter RSS reader, so I quickly generated simple theme using my favorite colors. I will share it with you and strongly encourage to create your own theme as the whole process is quite fun and satisfying. ...

My local Internet service provider is redirecting non existent domains to the crappy website used to serve advertisements and compromise user privacy. This behavior can be easily circumvented using third party DNS servers or an OpenWRT small Linux distribution for embedded devices. ...

Today I will install Vagrant which provides an easy way to configure reproducible and portable virtual environments. It is just a first step towards this new direction, so stay tuned for more details soon. ...

I am using Let’s Encrypt certificates for several services with great success. It is easy, reliable and very straightforward service. I will share with you my personal setup used to secure AWStats statistics page as a simple example. ...

I have spent countless hours playing role-playing video games. Recently, I bought Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition for Linux. It is still a great experience, but I have to admit that I have gone to the dark side and modified the save file. Just think of it as a programming exercise. ...

Recently I needed to update integrated Intel graphics drivers to gain access to more recent OpenGL extensions. Packages available by default in base system do not provide such functionality, so I used Updated and Optimized Open Graphics Drivers as it is built almost simultaneously with the latest updates. ...

I wrote a plugin to display future posts during recent Jekyll upgrade. As you can see it is used on the main page, so I will share it with you. ...

It is a very short note as I simply want to share my personal CSS modifications to the FastMail web-interface using Stylish a user styles manager ...

I have been Gandi customer for almost ten years and have been very satisfied with the quality of service and technical support. Today, I want to mention about web accelerator which can play an important role in static blog setup like this one. I will provide step by step instructions on how to create and configure your own web accelerator instance. ...

I am using FastMail since the beginning of this year and I couldn’t be more satisfied. Service is fast, reliable and I do not have to run the mail server myself. I will jot down Gandi DNS settings for further reference. ...

I am using NordVPN OpenVPN service to protect myself from prying eyes, especially now when the government defined insane data retention laws combined with unstable political situation. It is better to be safe than sorry, so I will illustrate the whole process using very simple step by step instructions. ...

It is almost two years since I have discovered an amazing org-mode. I am using it in more situations every day, so recently, I wrote a simple tray application to use org-protocol with defined org-capture templates directly from the desktop. ...

This brief outline explains how to locate specific file within Debian packages using very useful apt-file utility which as opposed to dpkg-query does not only inspect installed packages since it utilizes fetched lists of the contents of packages. ...

It is quite easy to manage startup applications in Ubuntu Wily Werewolf even though this functionality is not integrated into system settings dashboard. Just follow these instructions to start applications after login. ...

From time to time I have to update passwords used to secure private keys to keep myself a bit more sane. I will demonstrate simple and straightforward way to accomplish this task. ...

Today, I want to share my personal list of hand-picked Linux related magazines, which I am reading every month to keep up with relevant Linux news and best-practice techniques, so I strongly encourage to check out these magazines to benefit from insights of the most experienced journalists in the business. ...

I have already described a simple way to perform base PostgreSQL backup using file system utilities. Now I want to show you a different approach using pg_basebackup utility. ...

Today is Valentine’s Day and FSFE is celebrating it as an “I love Free Software” – Day so lets share some love with the Free Software community! ...

Today I want to show you how to perform base PostgreSQL backup using standard file system utilities. It is great example as it briefly describes basics required before moving to more advanced topics. ...

There are many different ways to set NOOP scheduler on the first hard drive at system boot. I have decided to use simple systemd service, but alternatively you can use udev to automatically configure every SSD device (see References section). ...

The more hard drives are lying around and the more you use them, then it becomes more important to know how to unambiguously determine file system type without mounting it. ...

Sometimes, I want to prevent regular users from logging into the system to perform more complex operations. To achieve that, I am using Pluggable Authentication Modules for Linux to temporarily disable user logins. ...

Today, quite by chance I found out that I can read Tiny Tiny RSS news using newsbeuter feed reader for text terminals. It is great news, as I can leave it running inside tmux session to access it remotely. ...

This is a follow up to the previous article. I will briefly describe a way to boot Debian installation ISO image from USB flash drive using syslinux bootloader. ...

Today, I will show you how to create customized USB flash drive to boot selected ISO images using Syslinux bootloader for Linux ext4 filesystem. It is very handy and useful, so let’s begin immediately. ...

I unconsciously keep my thumbs on built-in touchpad, so I decided to use external mouse and automatically disable touchpad for the time mouse is connected. ...

It is a short entry, but an useful one, as it is important to have a basic knowledge of how to schedule system reboot or power it down automatically at specified time. ...

I constantly forget to add myself to the proper user group to access USB devices from within VirtualBox virtual machines, so I need to write it down. ...

Some time ago, I have recovered an old hard drive only to learn that it contained encrypted LVM logical volume. ...

Currently, I am playing with recent Ubuntu Wily Werewolf on my personal notebook. The first thing I did after system installation was to configure CPU governor and set it at system boot. ...

While this is not my primary area of expertise, I have been using John the Ripper more frequently lately, so I began to wonder how to take advantage of the powerful Nvidia GPU… ...

Recently described hddtemp application does not contain every possible hard drive in its database. I’ll be honest here, its development stopped many years ago, but it is still very useful, so I will shortly describe how to add new hard drive to the database. ...

It is often overlooked that hard drives which are available on the market provide temperature measurements. This temperature can be effortlessly monitored using hddtemp application by Emmanuel Varagnat. ...

It is possible to install Debian over network with a little help of another person in remote location. I performed it only once and it was some time ago, but the whole procedure is quite easy and straightforward. ...

There are times when it is handy to know how to create shadow directory of symbolic links. I am thinking in particular of the software compilation process, as I have used this technique in very distant past to build X Window System. ...

It is very easy to add users by hand, but sometimes such actions needs to be automated. ...

I have mentioned about youtube-dl several times previously, but never really had a time to explain why I like it so much. Therefore I will describe it now. ...

Virtual desktops also known as workspaces are disabled by default in current Ubuntu 15.04 release. I will not delve into the reasons why, but simply describe how to turn them on. ...

A long time ago, I wrote several blog posts which related to Ubiquiti devices, especially monitoring using Cacti rrdtool-based graphing solution. These are probably obsolete now, but someone has pursued this idea further… ...

For reasons incomprehensible to me, Firefox is using non standard jsonlz4 file format to store bookmark backups. You can forget about standard console based utilities to extract its contents as I have already tried this without any success. It is a huge let down. ...

I have already bought several of point and click adventure games using Adventure Game Studio engine. Current GOG.com versions are prepared to work on Ubuntu 14.04 and Mint 17. I am using more recent Ubuntu 15.04, so the above-mentioned game engine needs to compiled beforehand. ...

Today, I will show you how to set all tunable PowerTOP options at boot time using systemd service. ...

I got very annoyed by the ALT shortcut opening Unity HUD. It was driving me crazy till I disabled it. ...

Two years ago I have described three simple ways to determine whether the processor supports 64-bit instruction set. Today, I will show you how to determine whether any Debian-based operating system is 32-bit or 64-bit. ...

Notepad++ is a GPL licensed source code editor for Windows operating system. I use it rarely due to Linux related habits, but my friends are using it all the time, so there must be something about it. Taking this into account, I will briefly describe how to edit files using this editor over SSH File Transfer Protocol. ...

Windows 7 does not support virtual desktops out of the box. Fortunately, there is an lightweight Desktops application by Mark Russinovich included in Sysinternals utilities. ...

Sometimes it can be very useful to access Linux Extended File System using Windows to copy important data or just check out its contents. The best way to do this is to use Ext2Fsd an Extended File System driver for Windows. ...

Today, I will explain how to automatically choose nearest mirror based on geographic and network location using Debian mirrors HTTP redirector to solve the common problem of choosing an appropriate mirror. ...

Maybe it is rarely needed, but recently, I found it very useful to know how to record an interactive session, so I could reference to it later or just examine it further. ...

It is easy to lock screen when using any of the available desktop environment or even basic X Window utilities. The more interesting thing is to achieve the same functionality on text only based system. ...

I have recovered old backup only to learn that I do not remember password to the found archive. As a result, I checked out two command-line applications to crack passwords used to encrypt zip, 7z or rar archives. ...

I have already described chkconfig utility in CentOS – How to manage system services blog post, but today I want to mention that you can also use it to manage services on Debian Wheezy. ...

Today I want to mention about simple and neat trick described in kill manual page, which will allow you to quickly kill every eligible process. ...

I have already wrote a couple of posts about software RAID setup and recovery. Today I will briefly describe how to switch array to read-write state and begin resync process. ...

I often want to omit data from certain tables during PostgreSQL database backup. Today I will look into this and post my findings for further reference. ...

Today I would like to tell you how to search for files by date, which is very useful skill when you spend most of your time on the command-line. ...

This blog does not use more than four or five gigabytes per month, which is only about one hundredth of the available bandwidth. Still, I do not like bandwidth leechers, so I have implemented simple hotlink protection using nginx HTTP server. ...

I have been using Tiny Tiny RSS for more than a one and a half year. It is great and pleasant to use web-based application, but currently I am more inclined to use console-based based replacement like Newsbeuter RSS reader. ...

Tig is an ncurses-based text-mode interface for git that uses Vim keybindings. ...

Battle for Wesnoth is a game worth playing not just in light of the fact that it is Open Source, as it is the most outstanding turn based tactical strategy game. ...

Angband is an adventure simulation game that takes place in a deep dungeons, with the main goal of defeating Morgoth, the Lord of Darkness. ...

The easiest way to sync files with Google Drive is to use insync client which provides seamless user experience, customer support and enhanced functionality. ...

I have been using unattended upgrades on development machines since the end of last November, when I installed Debian Jessie release. ...

I have updated desktop computer to Debian Jessie. After that I have quickly encountered an issue with GNOME Terminal, Midnight Commander and already assigned F1 and F10 function keys. ...

I was using licensed version of Sublime Text editor to write articles available here, but couple days ago I switched to Atom customizable text editor. ...

Take control over configuration files and store them in version control system using etckeeper utility created by Joey Hess, which seamlessly integrates with package management tools inside Debian operating system. ...

Today, I will briefly describe how to automatically share X session on Debian Wheezy using VNC protocol. ...

There is only one place where I search for Linux games – it is GOG.com digital distribution platform, which provides over hundred of native Linux games and even more playable using wine, which enables Linux and other operating systems users to run Windows applications. ...

Long time ago I have tried to open FreeMind mind map on an Android tablet and failed due to very limited possibilities. Today I tried it again and finally found an ideal application SimpleMind that can import/export mind maps using FreeMind format. ...

The default interactive shell in Debian is Bourne Again SHell, so it worth to invest some time to at least skim through the available readline key sequences to gain higher proficiency at the command-line. ...

A short time after I installed Monit, I tried to monitor a background running process that does not support daemon mode. It is an exceptionally rare situation, but very interesting one, so after a while a came with a quite simple solution using additional shell script. ...

Today at home I was browsing old LinuxPlus magazines available on the Polish market [in the past, unfortunately] and found an email I had sent to the redaction. It was published in the LinuxPlus issue 12/2000 – almost fourteen years ago, amazing! ...

Recently, I noticed “Failed to save changes” error when tried to move events between distinct calendars. After a short investigation I found that this bug is already fixed, but not packaged for an easy upgrade, so I will shortly describe how to apply fix for Debian Wheezy and Kolab 3.3. ...

Not well documented, but a quick and simple operation. ...

I had a little experience with multi-touch devices, so I was happy to use for a while iiyama TF2234MC multi-touch monitor with Debian Wheezy. It was quite pleasant experience with a little bit of adventure. ...

It is a very simple operation that can be effectively used inside shell scripts. ...

There was an interesting change in the tasksel announced on the October 5th, 2014, as it provides an opportunity to choose desktop environment during installation process. ...

Previous entry was too long to include additional screenshots of the web-interface, so today I will write couple of words about web-interface and show you several screenshots. ...

I have been using self hosted Kolab Groupware everyday for quite a while now. Therefore the need arose to monitor process activity and system resources using Monit utility. ...

I just signed the petition “Mozilla: Remove DRM from Firefox” on change.org. ...

Long time ago I have described an easy way to check Ubuntu release. Today I want to expand this topic a little bit further and mention about additional switch to check an upstream release, which can be very useful at times. ...

OpenTTD is an open-source remake of the popular Transport Tycoon Deluxe game from Mircoprose. ...

This weekend I encountered a simple, but interesting topic, which concerns comparing the contents of two directories. The fun part is that you don’t need any additional utilities as standard diff command is fully sufficient. ...

Today I stumbled upon the The Hello World Program website and got really amazed by the humor and quality of the published videos and tutorials. ...

At first I wanted to write blog post about how to stay anonymous by using privacy enhanced OS, but changed my mind during research process as I couldn’t pass by other highly useful solutions. ...

During my recent activity I have noted to check out how to extract an ISO image in a traditional way using only shell utilities. It turned out to be easier than I thought, so I will present you three different solutions. ...

Today have I tried Linux Mint 17 Qiana Cinnamon Edition to check out new features. Do not laugh, but most of the time I spent searching for an easy way to add new workspace. ...

Debian was founded exactly twenty-one years ago by Ian Murdock, you can even find original newsgroup subject New release under development; suggestions requested. ...

If you remember the DOS version of Scorched Earth, then the 3D visual effects in the latest Scorched3D game will blow you away. ...

FreeCol is a project being undertaken to create an open source version of the 1994 Microprose Game Colonization. The first version was a clone of the old game, but work is being done to provide enhancements to make game-play more interesting and complex. ...

Today I have found an interesting issue as I tried to forbid shell script execution from different directory. ...

Currently, I am working over an unstable network connection, so my SSH session is constantly disconnected. It is very uncomfortable situation as dropped SSH connection freeze the whole terminal. ...

You may have noticed that I became a fan of solarized color palette by Ethan Schoonover used for terminal and gui applications. You will therefore not be too surprised when I describe how to install it and use in Emacs text editor. ...

Freeciv is an open source strategy game that has more than a strong resemblance to the Civilization series that have been available for over the past 20 years. The point of the game is to found and nurture a civilization, increasing its size and scope, developing technology and culture and growing its economy and military strength. ...

Today I needed to archive every non-hidden directory in several different locations. I do not like to repeat myself so after a while I quickly created shell script to accomplish this task. ...

Unknown Horizons is a free and open source real time online game under active development that simulates the economic development of a small settlement into a large and prosperous colony. The player will be required to employ resource management skills, political acumen, economic expertise and diplomacy to prosper in game play. ...

Do you want to find out how to perform everyday activities using Linux operating system? Learn about commonly used applications and utilities? Then register to take Introduction to Linux course created by The Linux Foundation. It will take anywhere from 40 to 60 hours to complete the course and accustom yourself to Linux. ...

Viruses, hackers and governmental espionage have all threatened our sense of computer security and internet well-being. As a result, we’re beginning to question the way that we do things, including software development. Whether designing games or building a security platform, open source is paving the way to finding the solutions to our digital dilemmas. ...

Recently I was asked to reset root password on some long forgotten Debian box. It was an easy and straightforward task, but, as there are some interesting pitfalls, I will describe the whole process of acquiring root shell without password using single-user mode and a couple of ways to prevent it. ...

Gamers who enjoy putting their strategic abilities into play won’t be disappointed with the recent release of Widelands – free and open source game which is under active development with more enjoyable graphics, sound effects and maps being incorporated into the game all the time. ...

I am used to install Debian using minimal CD, however, I always forget to download it in advance, so I need to take a note and store its location here for further reference. ...

Learning programming may seem like an impossible feat, that being said however, with the right resources and information just about anyone can learn the most essential language that is used today. ...

Although it is getting warmer and warmer, I have found some time to explore Linux related podcasts and hand-picked thirteen interesting podcasts so everyone will find something that pleases their ears and engages mind. ...

Most people use their computers without much thought as to what it is they are actually interacting with but they are called operating systems… ...

Today I want to install Debian on an older but quite capable Dell machine so I will shortly describe how to setup KVM full virtualization solution. ...

There are plenty of off-line Debian systems just waiting to update index files, upgrade or install additional packages. This can be easily achieved by using apt-offline utility. I will shortly describe common usage scenario as it is very handy application. ...

The easiest way to reliably use Serial port within the local network is to use RS-232/422/485 NPort Device Server produced by Moxa company. I will shortly describe how to install NPort 5110 (1-port RS-232 serial device server) on Debian Wheezy. ...

I am using Jekyll to generate this website for a half a year and Gandi for an even longer period of time so at the beginning of this year I revisited How to quickly download or upload directory tree over FTP post and created simple but useful shell script to automate build and upload process. ...

End of the year is the best time to reinstall operating system and change encryption keys due to couple of additional free days at home so today I will shortly present my setup. ...

A couple of days on the road made me realize that I need a simple desktop utility that will download files when I sleep. ...

Several months ago, I have acquired wireless keyboard using tiny Logitech Unifying Receiver. Since that time I was a little worried by the lack of appropriate management options, however recently I found Solaar – a Linux device manager for such peripherals, which solves my doubts. ...

What do these four things have in common? Ubuntu headless server will not boot after power failure as Grub will indefinitely wait for user input. The root of this problem lies inside Ubuntu default Grub configuration as Grub will simply set timeout to infinity when recordfail parameter is set. ...

If you ever wanted to create bootable recovery USB Flash Drive then I have good news for you as it can be achieved in several simple steps using Clonezilla Live CD, external USB Hard Drive, and a target USB Flash Drive. ...

It is very easy to tell how long the system has been running using uptime command, but the information when exactly it was booted is not so apparent, so I will show you two different ways to get it. ...

Whenever I see auto-login feature implemented by using X login manager, I immediately think about how to automatically login user at the console without even touching graphical user interface. ...

It is good to know how to tell to which package the specified file belongs to as this knowledge could be very useful during system upgrade or unexpected system failure. ...

Sometimes I need to explicitly indicate execution of specified shell script or just action taken inside it. My favorite way is to use advanced pc-speaker beeper, which is directly available in Debian repository. ...

If you ever wondered about how to backup list of installed packages and then restore it on another machine then you need to know that it does not require anything more then three basic utilities – dpkg to import/export list of packages, apt-get to install selected packages and apt-mark to restore extended package states. ...

Generally I prefer to install Debian using minimal CD so Apt-Cacher NG is an integral part of this process as I don’t like to wait during installation process. ...

I am currently using cellular connection most of the time. Thus, it is obvious that I prefer to reduce the amount of data transferred over the network. Significant portion of it is reduced by the apt caching proxy apt-cacher-ng as I use Debian Linux distribution and VirtualBox on daily basis. ...

Today I went almost crazy because of automatic mounting and opening of the removable storage devices, fortunately this behavior can be quickly changed by the use of thunar-volman-settings command. ...

Simply dive into proc filesystem and read /proc/cmdline file to determine the kernel’s start-up parameters. ...

Recently I decided to upgrade my Nexus 7 to the Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, but quickly encountered InvalidState error when tried to update bootloader. ...

Today I released source code for couple of interesting things you can find here on this blog. ...

Static key configuration is the easiest and shortest way to set up OpenVPN tunnel. ...

Recently, completely by accident I found phpVirtualBox a web-based VirtualBox front-end to VirtualBox written in PHP. From my point of view it is very useful project as it provides easy way manage virtual machines on the headless server or any other spare machine you have access to. ...

Today I will describe how to use rsync over ssh using four simple examples as it is very convinient way to perform secure and automated backup. ...

I am using Firefox web browser most of the time, but you need to know that I have drawn a clear line between daily browsing and strictly private usage by using browser sandbox. I will shortly describe whole process so you could also benefit from it. ...

I was always curious about how to list local displays as it is quite interesting issue. Solution is not immediately apparent, but easy enough to spot after a while as it does not require anything more than little observations. ...

I am using Tiny Tiny RSS every day to read and organize news feeds as it is my personal favourite, but it does not mean that it is the only available choice, so I will briefly present four different interesting PHP-based Open Source solutions. ...

There are at least couple ways to hold specific package and prevent it from being updated as you can use apt, dpkg, aptitude, dselect, apt preferences, but only the last one is effective in every case. ...

Brief description of the Kolab Groupware integration with Dokuwiki. ...

Brief description of the Kolab Groupware integration with Tiny Tiny RSS. ...

Two weeks ago I started to think about website simplification. WordPress is great but I need something more minimal than full blown blog/CMS application. ...

Yesterday I added a few mail aliases using Kolab admin interface and went to sleep. Today I noticed high CPU usage and quickly found that there is a small problem with pykolab 0.5.11-5 package. ...

Login Security Solution is a very useful plugin if you want to slow down brute force attacks, enforce password policies and timeout inactive sessions. It is also worth mentioning that it records the IP address of every failed login attempt so it is easy to integrate with your own solutions such as htaccess deny directive. ...

I am using mainly Polish language so it is obvious that fairly quickly I encountered a problem with national characters in the subject line. Problem is not fixed in Debian packages (using Debian Wheezy x86_64 and Kolab Systems – Public Repositories) but luckily it is very easy to fix. ...

Almost four months ago I mentioned about moving personal data to the private server. Now it is reality as I have already started to move and organize personal data using Kolab groupware server. To check out basic functionality check out my previous blog post because I will only show you additional software I am using. ...

Yesterday I experienced strange problem after Kolab 3 installation on Debian Wheezy as I couldn’t add an initial user account using admin interface. ...

A couple of days ago, I mentioned calculating the sunrise and sunset times. This is an interesting problem, so after reading Astronomy Answers – Position of the Sun, I quickly implemented it using C language. It is only an experiment, so results are approximate. ...

I was wondering how to calculate Julian Day Number as I will need it to determine the sunrise and sunset times. Algorithms are extensively described so I will just point you to the two most useful pages – Julian day/Wikipedia and Julian Day Numbers/UT. ...

As a small experiment, I wrote an elementary C program to display min and max values of the basic object types. ...

Yesterday I had a small problem. I have added GlusterFS mount point to the fstab but filesystem wasn’t mounted automatically after I rebooted the operating system (CentOS). ...

Last year I wrote a short article about how to set up SSH port forwarding but I forgot to mention that you can quickly terminate existing port forwardings and create new ones during the SSH connection. ...

I hit an intriguing problem as I needed to relay selected mailboxes rather than the whole domain. I assume that you have already noticed that everything needs to happen on the same domain. It is rare and quite interesting task so I will quickly describe it here using ISPConfig 3 but beware as this is a very specific topic so I strongly suggest to investigate it further before applying any changes. ...

Hmm… Today I hit funny problem as I couldn’t install Advanced Policy Firewall from RepoForge (RPMforge) repository on CentOS 6. Fortunately the solution is trivial and doesn’t require any magic… ...

What to do when you want to analyze data contained in database without overloading the server? The answer is simple as you can use MySQL Master-Slave replication to offload this task. I will describe it briefly here. ...

Recently I was searching for clean and simple web-based administration tool for a couple of small virtual servers so I decided to use Ajenti. It is simple and easily extendable administration/monitoring utility using Python language. Installation is very straightforward as there are packages available for FreeBSD operating system and a couple of Linux distributions. ...

Recently I discovered console based task manager – devtodo. It is very useful tool as you can easily use it over SSH connection, create multiple different lists and combine them together. I will shortly describe devtodo utility available in Debian package repository but you need to know that you can use newer version – devtodo 2. ...

Couple days ago I decided to use netinstall CD to install CentOS but got somewhat surprised by the “URL Setup” step as I didn’t expect to enter full URL containing installation image. ...

Today I will mention about arpwatch utility (developed by LBNL’s Network Research Group) as it is a small and very useful tool that will keep track of the Ethernet/IP address pairings and log every change which you can monitor and analyze. ...

It is very easy task as it requires only the use of ncal command. ...

Recently I read a blog post Use WordPress as an Evernote replacement and quickly caught the idea that it could finally solve my main problem as I try to store too much loosely related information and wiki based solution didn’t meet my expectations in this particular case. I need to note that I only consider self hosted solution as I do not want to depend on third-party services. ...

I am constantly using SSH to transfer files between home notebook and remote servers. Basic scp tool is great but sometimes it is more convenient to mount remote file-system to easily access files over SSH protocol. ...

Today I was writing a shell script that performs different actions depending on the day of the month. Nothing fancy but then I came across an interesting issue, which is how to get number of days in a month. I got interested and started playing with shell commands, namely cal and awk utilities. ...

Yesterday I was playing with Ubiquiti devices and noticed that there is now an option to set management VLAN directly using simple configuration mode. ...

Last year I published the blog post Cacti – How to graph CCQ on Ubiquiti devices. Recently I updated ubiquiti_ccq.pl script, so it will work with all NanoBridge and PowerBridge devices. ...

If you are using Google services to a large extent as I am then supposedly you will be interested in Google Transparency Report. It is a nice move from Google to publish such report as it provides a lot of interesting insight. ...

I was wondering how to easily install Steam on Debian Wheezy and unexpectedly found solution on GitHub. To download and play Linux games available on Steam without any hassle you need to download and install Steam installer for Wheezy package. ...

A couple of days ago, I described a couple of interesting ways to interact with KDE using the D-Bus message bus. Today I will show how to set up a semi-intelligent screensaver to just wait during YouTube video playback. ...

Today I was playing with D-Bus message bus and KDE so I will describe here couple of basic actions that can be quickly automated by using shell commands. It shouldn’t matter much but I need to mention that I am using KDE 4.9.5. ...

Recently I came across Omeka – an Open Source web-publishing platform designed to share collections or digital archives. I was surprised by the ease of installation, attractive design and flexibility. ...

Today is Valentine’s Day and FSFE is celebrating it as an “I love Free Software” – Day so lets share some love with the Free Software community! ...

Around three weeks ago I wrote an article on how to automate mouse and keyboard. It was very fun experience but as the former article was quite long I didn’t mentioned about wmctrl tool. It is an excellent complement to the previously described tools. ...

Month ago I wrote an article – Debian – How to monitor battery capacity. Today I will publish long term battery capacity graphs so you could see them for yourself. ...

Yesterday I experienced quite annoying “Couldn’t load plugin” error when I tried to play any video on YouTube. It started suddenly and I was very surprised by it. ...

Final Version of Kolab Groupware 3.0 was released two weeks ago. It is a complete groupware suite that includes modules such as Mail, Contacts, Calendar and Tasks. It’s strong advantage is support for synchronization of mobile devices. ...

I came across ACPI wakeup wiki article while writing previous post, got interested and checked how to automatically wake up notebook. It is really simple as you can quickly set wake up time using date command, just remember to use Unix time. ...

It is very annoying to hear loud beeps at home especially at night or when listening to music. To turn off the system bell just follow a couple of steps below and enjoy pure silence. ...

Yesterday, I wrote a short note about VLAN interfaces. Today, I want to write a short entry on how to bridge Ethernet interfaces to keep things complete as I need to mention about creating ACCESS port to tag packets on desired interface. ...

VLAN (virtual local area network) is very useful concept as you can easily separate device management from users by using appropriate network devices and configuration. I will describe here in a form of a short note how to create VLAN interface using Debian system. ...

I am not a native English speaker so I often use thesaurus when writing a blog post or just an email message. Long time ago I always used web based solutions but since I found Artha – The Open Thesaurus I wouldn’t change it for anything else as it has handy and slick user interface, on the fly search, suggestions and hotkey lookup. ...

Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference by Keir Thomas is a great book for the beginners as it covers a wide range of topics needed for everyday Ubuntu use. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to install or try Ubuntu. ...

As you probably already know, the CCQ value is not available via SNMP (AirOS 5.5.2), but of course it doesn’t mean it can’t be graphed using Cacti. To graph CCQ on Ubiquiti devices, you just need to use a simple script to read the desired value using the web interface. ...

If you are searching for a book about Debian then look at The Debian Administrator’s Handbook. It is a great open source project so feel free to check it out and support it at the official The Debian Administrator’s Handbook website. ...

PCI-1610 is an Advantech 4-port RS-232 Universal PCI Communication Card with comes very handy if you need to connect more devices using serial port. ...

Adblock Plus appeared yesterday on Google Play. It’s a great news as it means better browsing experience. Application acts as transparent proxy so you can use Google Chrome without any ads. ...

Recently I installed OpenWRT on Ubiquiti AirRouter as original firmware lacks in couple of areas. Installation is easy and straightforward as all you need to do at the time of writing this post is to use Attitude Adjustment release. ...

I spent all day testing custom roms on Nexus 7 but finally decided to roll back everything and use stock rom with encryption. I will describe here how to unlock device, install recovery image, return to stock rom and root Nexus 7 (Android 4.2) using Ubuntu. ...

I am playing with DHCP option 82 so I need to read DHCP packets. The easiest way to do this is to use dhcpdump by Edwin Groothuis because of very simple usage and friendly output. ...

This is rarely performed task but an easy one. To change time zone you need to reconfigure tzdata package. ...

Recently I needed to replicate data between two Linux servers so I could mitigate potential hardware failure. To achieve this goal I used GlusterFS – an Open Source distributed file system. In this example I will use Debian Wheezy as I want to try more recent version of GlusterFS. ...

When you’re not sure when daylight saving time changes you can quickly check it using the zdump command which is available on every *nix system. ...

Ubuntu Precise 12.04 currently contains in repository youtube-dl version 2012.02.27-1. As of recent YouTube changes this package version is not usable anymore but there is an updated version in Ubuntu Quantal 12.10 repository. To use it you need to perform couple of steps described below. ...

Free icons for web designers available under a Creative Commons license can be downloaded from many websites available on the web. I will describe couple of them as this is best place for me to write it down. ...

SSH port forwarding is a nice feature that allows to create encrypted tunnels over unsecured network. It is easy and straightforward to remember and use in daily work so I will describe it here with couple of examples. ...

fping was updated last month (2012-08-19) to version 3.3. Output statistics were directed to stdout instead of stderr so Smokeping (2.6.8) was not updating RRD files as a result. ...

From time to time I play older games on my notebook. I download them from Good Old Games and play on Linux as most of them works and it is easy to check which one are supported using WineHQ website. Recently I installed PlayOnLinux and I like it because it allows to keep and manage all Windows applications in one place. ...

Android FOSS repository client (F-Droid is a robot with a passion for Free and Open Source software) provides easy access to a number of interesting FOSS applications. ...

From time to time most of us needs to feed an application with custom data for testing or presentation purposes. This can be easily achieved by using Data Generator. It is an GPL licensed PHP/MySQL application with nice web browser interface. ...

Couple days ago I encountered an audio conversion failed: Unknown encoder ‘libmp3lame’ error when I tried to convert YouTube videos to mp3 format using youtube-dl. ...

There are at least three ways to avoid typing your password repeatedly when using git. First solution requires to use KDE wallet, second solution doesn’t require additional tools and third is not the safest one. ...

Function to check if user is logged in is is_user_logged_in(). It would return true if user is logged in and false otherwise. ...

PHP Warning: mktime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'Europe/Berlin' for 'CEST/2.0/DST' instead in /var/www/... If you encounter similar warning, then it means that you need to set default timezone used by all date/time functions....

For some reason unknown to me there is no reboot option in web-based user interface but it doesn’t mean that it cannot be done easily as you just need to use one specific URL parameter. ...

This is very easy task as you only need small Linux server and GSM terminal or any phone supported by Gammu. ...

Short note on how to manage system services using CentOS. ...

Recently I was playing with Growl notifications and I thought it would be cool idea to see on desktop notifications sent from my phone. ...

Signal strength on Mikrotik devices can be monitored by Cacti using SNMP protocol. It is straightforward if you have just couple of those devices but you can be easily overwhelmed by dozens of data templates because wireless card’s MAC address is part of the OID. ...

This is just a short note, more information can be found directly at the MikroTik Wiki – Automated Backups. ...

Just two simple steps – create logging action and rule. ...

You cannot modify squashfs image directly but you can uncompress it, apply changes and compress it again. ...

Simple solution using Linux Unified Key Setup. ...

The answer is to recreate encrypted tmp partition every boot with random key as you do not need to keep temporary data in memory. ...

Create partition for swap (/dev/sdaX in this example). Prepare and enable it using mkswap and swapon commands. If you already use swap partition then omit these steps. $ sudo mkswap /dev/sdaX Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 4194300 KiB no label, UUID=325d9718-8532-460d-afec-74e6aee9ae5f $ sudo swapon /dev/sdaX Execute ecryptfs-setup-swap script (it is part of ecryptfs-utils package): $ sudo ecryptfs-setup-swap WARNING: An encrypted swap is required to help ensure that encrypted files are not leaked to disk in an unencrypted format....

After I started my journey with squashfs I encountered problem with VideoLAN as I couldn’t start it. ...

The easiest way to download YouTube videos is to use youtube-dl. ...

DOS partition table We can use sfdisk to dump partition table in usable format and store it: $ sudo sfdisk -d /dev/sda > sda_partitions Partition table can be restored using stored backup: $ sudo sfdisk /dev/sda < sda_partitions Partition table can be easily cloned (from sda to sdz in this example): $ sudo sfdisk -d /dev/sda | sfdisk /dev/sdz GPT To backup GUID partition table use sgdisk command (from gdisk package):...

Important notice – Jump directly to more recent Ubiquiti and management VLAN blog post. This post is now somewhat obsolete as you don’t need to perform steps described here because there is an option to set management VLAN using simple configuration mode. ...

Dell Inspiron 14z (N411z) has three small shortcut buttons above the keyboard. First button First one with small gears on it can be used out of the box in KDE or GNOME. xev output: KeyPress event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x6000001, root 0xb1, subw 0x0, time 137282557, (-94,112), root:(1047,135), state 0x0, keycode 133 (keysym 0xffeb, Super_L), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False KeyPress event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x6000001, root 0xb1, subw 0x0, time 137282558, (-94,112), root:(1047,135), state 0x40, keycode 53 (keysym 0x78, x), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (78) "...

From time to time I use Wine to play some Good Old Games but I experienced annoying problems while using touchpad when tried to play on notebook. Solution was to install recent version from Latest official WineHQ releases. ...

Couple days ago installed Collabtive to manage my small projects in one place. ...

The fastest way to download or upload directory tree over FTP using just plain console is to execute lftp command. ...

I recently read an article about Booktype, got interested and tried software myself. ...

Read requirements and follow installation instructions to integrate Roundcube with ISPConfig 3. Source code is available at GitHub ...

If you are looking for search engine software then try Yioop! It is PHP based and Open Source so it is very easy to deploy it on Intranet or remote dedicated server. You can try it directly at yioop.com ...

Download mb2md.pl script and run as described in manual. For example to convert /old/mbox to /new/maildir you can execute: # perl ./mb2md.pl -s /old/mbox -d /new/maildir Converting /old/mbox to maildir: /new/maildir Source Mbox is /old/mbox Target Maildir is /new/maildir Dummy mail system first message detected and not saved. 40 messages.

I use Dell Inspiron N411z with Intel HD Graphics 3000 and recently I run into problems with 3D support. I suppose it happened after I installed something but don’t remember exactly what. ...

Most hosting providers doesn’t provide file manager application but there is an easy solution as you can use AjaXplorer. It a web based file management software (PHP based and Open Source application!). ...

I was searching for easy cloud service recently. My findings were less then satisfactory – just client applications, no WebDAV support or high prices. Then I found ownCloud. ...

Funny thing happened today. I got really surprised that using CTRL + F keyboard short-cut executed xterm. Then I realized that I installed xbindkeys recently…

I use rooted Xperia X10 mini (model E10i) with Android 2.1-update1. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any software for direct synchronization that runs on Linux so at least I wrote small script to backup my contacts. ...

Install lm-sensors package: $ sudo apt-get install lm-sensors Execute sensors-detect command as root: $ sudo sensors-detect It will determine needed modules and at the end it will ask for your permission to automatically add them to the /etc/modprobe file. If you answered yes then load them using command: $ sudo service module-init-tools start Now you can use sensors command: $ sensors acpitz-virtual-0 Adapter: Virtual device temp1: +44.0°C (crit = +100.0°C) temp2: +44....

To print current run-level execute: $ who -r run-level 3 2012-01-17 17:06 To print previous and current run-level execute: $ sudo runlevel N 3

Use the following command when you want to leave terminal open but force sudo to forget password. ...

It is very annoying to see message “E212: Can’t open file for writing” when trying to save file. Hopefully there is a simple solution (a bit longer but without “W12 Warning“): :execute ':w !sudo tee % > /dev/null' | :edit! Look at commandlinefu.com for more solutions like :W command below: :command W :execute ':silent w !sudo tee % > /dev/null' | :edit!

I tend to forget passwords from time to time so I installed KeePassX today. Now I can store them in one place, organize and perform auto type. ...

Today I installed phpMyAdmin on fresh CentOS 6.2 (with EPEL repository) and it was not working. Looking at Apache logs revealed only notice: [notice] child pid 41292 exit signal Segmentation fault (11) My Apache and PHP versions: $ httpd -v Server version: Apache/2.2.15 (Unix) Server built: Dec 8 2011 18:07:26 $ php -v PHP 5.3.3 (cli) (built: Jan 11 2012 19:30:40) Copyright (c) 1997-2010 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2010 Zend Technologies The problem was with eAccelerator PHP module....

Add -a parameter to the ping command if you don’t look at console output, but want to hear that host is reachable. ...

Ubiquiti Beta Program provides access to beta versions of AirOS releases. ...

For this example I will use such tree: . ├── dir1/ │ ├── dir6/ │ ├── dir7/ │ ├── dir8/ │ ├── file4 │ └── file5 ├── dir2/ │ └── dir9/ │ ├── dir10/ │ │ ├── file9 │ │ └── file10 │ ├── file6 │ ├── file7 │ └── file8 ├── dir3/ ├── dir4/ ├── dir5/ ├── file1 ├── file2 └── file3 List of all files and directories: $ find ....

Recently I started using Redshift. It is small application that changes color temperature of your screen. It is really good idea as eyes don’t get tired so quickly at night. ...

Download and run Universal USB Installer as it offers wide range of Linux distributions and easy automatic process. ...

My ISP provider provides dynamically assigned IP address using DHCP. This solution has couple of drawbacks but it comes handy if I need to change IP address to overcome time limit restrictions on streaming services… ...

If you downloaded deb package and wonder how to install it then just look at the snippet posted below. ...

I am using ASUS 1005HA for light web browsing, but recently I experienced CPU fan failure. It’s hard to get a new fan when most people celebrate Christmas. Hopefully, there is a solution that will give me some time. ...

Store and stop processing specific log. ...