Wandering Thoughts archives

2012-12-31:	How our fileserver infrastructure is a commodity setup (and inexpensive)
2012-12-21:	Version control comes first
2012-12-20:	Sysadmins should pretty much version control everything
2012-12-17:	Should you alert on the glaringly obvious?
2012-12-16:	Alerts should be actionable (and the three sorts of 'alerts')
2012-12-13:	A drawback of short servers
2012-12-10:	The general lesson from the need for metrics
2012-12-07:	How I use virtualization (and what for)
2012-12-05:	In praise of KVM-over-IP systems
2012-11-29:	One reason why having metrics is important
2012-11-28:	When you make a harmless change, check to make sure that it is
2012-11-15:	A learning experience: internal mail flow should never be allowed to bounce
2012-11-08:	Devops, the return of system programmers?
2012-11-03:	Another go-around on the drawbacks and balances of automation
2012-10-25:	Always make sure you really understand what your problem is
2012-10-17:	Operators and system programmers: a bit of System Administrator history
2012-10-15:	The anatomy of a performance problem with our mail spool
2012-09-24:	The wrong way to harvest system-level performance stats
2012-09-15:	Sensible reboot monitoring
2012-09-08:	When you can log bad usernames for failed authentications
2012-09-06:	A little trick and gotcha with Exim ratelimits
2012-09-05:	Some thoughts on logging failed login attempts (for existing users)
2012-09-02:	What I would like: testable mailers
2012-08-30:	My perspective on why we do in-place reinstalls of machines
2012-08-29:	A realization: install configuration files before packages
2012-08-28:	When Exim generates bounce messages
2012-08-27:	You should log all successful user authentication
2012-08-20:	Sysadmins hate updates (more or less)
2012-08-16:	Why I hate vendors, printers edition
2012-08-05:	Reasoning backwards (a story about what can happen to SATA disks)
2012-07-30:	IPv6 is going to be a fruitful source of configuration mistakes
2012-07-13:	Why system administration certifications have worked so far
2012-07-12:	Why formal sysadmin education isn't likely any time soon
2012-07-11:	The extremely cynical take on DevOps
2012-07-06:	Why Exim has a single queue for all email
2012-06-26:	A little gotcha with SSH connection sharing
2012-06-11:	Choosing how slowly your mailer should time out email
2012-06-10:	Modern email is actually multiple things in one system (mailer timeouts edition)
2012-06-09:	Rethinking when your mailer sends 'not-yet-delivered' warning messages
2012-05-31:	What OSes have succeeded or failed here
2012-05-30:	What it means for an OS to succeed or fail
2012-05-24:	How we do milter-based spam rejection with Exim
2012-05-09:	Using rsync to pull a directory tree to client machines Things I will do differently in the next building power shutdown (part 2)
2012-05-05:	Look for your performance analysis tools now
2012-04-23:	My perspective on the 'Bring Your Own Device' controversy
2012-04-08:	My story of running scripts from the web
2012-03-31:	Our sysadmin environment
2012-03-29:	Scalable system management is based on principles
2012-03-28:	How I (once) did change management with scripts
2012-03-23:	Sometimes you get lucky
2012-03-22:	The problems of operations and sysadmin heroism
2012-03-14:	Configuration management is not documentation, at least not of intentions
2012-03-12:	Why it matters whether your software works when virtualized
2012-03-03:	Two ways I increase the security of SSH personal keys
2012-02-22:	How I can be wrong about the death of sysadmin jobs
2012-02-18:	The downside of automation versus the death of system administration
2012-02-15:	A downside of automation
2012-02-09:	What supporting a production OS means for me A general point about SSH personal keys
2012-02-05:	My view on what will kill 'traditional' system administration
2012-01-29:	Dealing with Fitts' Law on widescreen displays
2012-01-28:	How I use FvwmIconMan
2012-01-25:	The death of system administration: I'm all for it
2012-01-23:	Every so often, I solve a problem with a hammer
2012-01-09:	What my physical desk is like

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By month for 2012: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec; before 2012; after 2012.