· Jerod Santo ·

+ Archives Contact Search

Sysadmin Posts

Administering Linux, OS X, and related systems

Be Careful When You Create a Unified SSL Certificate for Nginx

08 Apr 2013

If one of the files doesn't have a newline at the end then you will run into an error.

Creating an SSH Tunnel to a Remote Service

28 Nov 2012

File this under just-blog-it-already-so-you-can-stop-googling-it

3 Tools I Install on Every Server

14 Jun 2012

htop, ack, and tree

Tee for Two

16 May 2012

Tee is one of those commands so simple, so basic that you've either been using it for years or you'll wish you had been.

Get FireHOL off of RSyslog's lawn

27 Mar 2012

FireHOL is the best tool I've used for configuring Linux firewalls. But it can really spew its logs all over your kern.log and syslog. Getting it to stop this is non-obvious so hopefully this saves you some time.

Quickly Determine Your Current Heroku Database Size

26 Jan 2011

Heroku does not expose the current database size of your application via their web interface or command-line tool, but its pretty easy to get at.

Managing Broken Symlinks

05 Nov 2009

I just added two new functions to my bashrc which make it super-simple to find & remove broken symbolic links on your system.

PHP5 with readline support on OS X

06 Jun 2009

OS X ships with PHP5 installed but it does not have `readline()` support compiled in.

Rename A Gitosis Repository

28 May 2009

I recently needed to rename one of my repositories and couldn't find any info on how to do it, so here is a walk-thru.

Avoid Sore Fingers While SSHing Around

14 May 2009

Using SSH's config settings to save you keystrokes

2>&1

17 Mar 2009

Ever wonder what 2>&1 means on all the cron examples out there?

Rsnapshot (Rsync) Gotcha

09 Mar 2009

How to troubleshoot a cryptic Rsnapshot error

Bash array and loops in FireHOL configuration

26 Feb 2009

One of FireHOL's strengths is that it uses standard Bash syntax inside its configuration file, so you get all the power of Bash to configure your firewall.

Great Article on Aptitude vs Apt-Get

16 Feb 2009

In case you need some convincing to start using aptitude for all your Debian/Ubuntu software management needs

Getting ready for Lenny

16 Feb 2009

You don't need to fire up an editor to switch your APT repositories from Debian 4 (Etch) to Debian 5 (Lenny)

fix your Debian VMware image's network after offline copy

17 Sep 2008

If you copy and move a VMware virtual machine that runs Debian, you’ll find that the network adapter is no longer available, which sucks.

Starting Asterisk on Boot in Debian

03 Sep 2008

You just compiled Asterisk on your Debian server and you want to make sure it starts when you reboot. Here’s how

Configure Network Time Protocol (NTP) in Debian

27 Aug 2008

Here’s how to synchronize your Debian system’s time with network time servers, in a few simple steps

Debian Etch: Default Repositories

22 Aug 2008

In case you muck up your `/etc/apt/sources.list` and want to set it back to the defaults

Debian Quickie: MailUtils

12 Aug 2008

How to ensure access to the handy, dandy `/usr/bin/mail` command on your Debian box.

Symlink Your Samba Shares

23 Jul 2008

Oftentimes a symbolic link is just the quickest/easiest solution to the task at hand.

SliceHost + Debian + FireHOL gotchas

20 Jun 2008

Securing your slice with FireHOL is a really, really good move. Here are a few notes that may save you some time

htop: like top, but awesome

03 Jun 2008

If you’ve been hacking at your linux CLI for a little while, you’re probably familiar with the pic below. If not, just type `top` and your terminal will spring to life with an ever-updating process and usage display.

MySQL backup and restore

19 May 2008

A reference for how to backup and restore MySQL databases, including optional compression.

Debian: Disable Sytem Beep

19 May 2008

Here’s how to turn off that annoying system beep at your Debian CLI