Debian GNU/Linux System Administration Resources

How to set up dynamic DNS (DDNS) on WD My Book Live

2012-01-13T06:15:58Z

Western Digital's My Book Live runs on Debian Lenny. It is a pretty nice NAS missing one critical feature for which many people ask on-line: The ability to sit behind a home LAN router and update a dynamic DNS entry as many routers can do.

Installing Redmine with MySQL Thin and Redmine on Debian Squeeze

2011-12-09T08:54:47Z

Redmine (http://www.redmine.org/) is a web-based project management system, often called a forge, built using the Ruby on Rails (http://rubyonrails.org/) framework. It provides bug/issue tracking, time tracking, wiki pages, gantt charting and calendar, multiple project support, and role-based access control for users to name a few. This article will cover the process of installing Redmine on Debian Squeeze using MySQL for data storage, Thin for serving Ruby, and nginx as the outward-facing server.

Optimizing code via compiler flags

2011-09-12T19:12:40Z

When you're developing performance-critical code you will most likely receive performance increases in one of two ways; via the selection of the most appropriate algorithmic solution, or via the expense of additional hardware. Here we'll look at an interesting alternative - optimising via compiler flags.

A simple introduction to fabric

2011-08-01T18:48:32Z

fabric is described as a simple library and command-line tool for performing application deployment and system administration tasks. Here we'll take a look at using it to deploy simple applications remotely.

Extending a libvirt raw storage volume in Debian Squeeze

2011-06-23T10:22:14Z

This article takes you through the necessary steps to extend a raw libvirt storage volume that is part of a libvirt storage pool on a Debian Squeeze GNU/Linux system. A libvirt storage volume is essentially a virtual raw hard-disk image that is used by a virtual machine.

Cloning a Debian system - identical packages and versions

2011-06-15T19:14:38Z

I have long wished for the ability to install a Debian system specifying both the package list and the exact versions of the packages installed. dpkg --get-selections | ssh newhost dpkg --set-selections is useful but always chooses the latest version, and especially when using testing or unstable, it is sometimes necessary to temporarily downgrade a package from the latest version available.

Changing a users password inside a script

2011-05-30T15:05:45Z

In an ideal world you'd never need to change the password associated with a user account without using passwd, but there are times when it is helpful to script such things.

Directory/File synchronization across systems

2011-04-21T16:26:03Z

Both Debian Lenny and the system I've been running it on are now long in the tooth. So I've just brought up a Debian Squeeze-based system on a new and more capable box. I'd like to keep files in sync across the two hosts and would look for suggestions on doing that.

Building a Debian package for the latest version of nginx

2011-03-21T10:32:01Z

As Debian Lenny has a really outdated version of Engine X available, I took some time to update the package and compile it and note how it is done here for future references to anybody who needs to update an existing Debian package to use themselves.

PCI Compliance and openssl-1.0.0c

2011-03-09T08:20:36Z

For some, the stable biased Debian is too conservative and apparently OpenSSL has a bug that breaks PCI compliance.