Should open source projects, not focused on source or code at all but more on a service or a resource, really be called 'open source' projects ? I feel there might be a need to define the idea of an 'open service' or an 'open resource' project.- KB more »

I've never been big on new years resolutions, but this year I have one. To Blog. Started off initially as a 'I should blog more often', then I realised that I didnt really blog much at all through 2009 and 2010. So the aim is to change that : 2011 will b… more »

if you insert data using server side metadata like now(), there is a very high possibility that the replica you have running will not get the same information. more »

One fact of life with the sysadmin lifestyle is that most issues are task and event driven rather than project driven. For me, over the last 6 months, the split has been about 80% issue driven and 20% project driven. And most tasks tend to be short, even… more »

This question comes up often : how does one get started in the world of Linux sysadmin. And to be honest, I dont think there is a clear answer to that. The state of Linux certification is not ideal. There are a few courses one might get onto, like the RH… more »

@reboot : Run once after reboot. @yearly : Run once a year, ie. "0 0 1 1 *". @annually : Run once a year, ie. "0 0 1 1 *". @monthly : Run once a month, ie. "0 0 1 * *". @weekly : Run once a wee… more »

Hi Guys, A few days back I announced that there will be a 'week of rpm-metadata' hacks, starting from today. With great regret I haveto now announce that this must be postponed for a few weeks. Things are going to be extremely hectic for the next two… more »

One of the most under utilised things around in any CentOS sysadmins toolset is the rpm-metadata repositories. Some part of it comes from the fact that most people consider it to be yum specific, and while thats true to quite an extent - its not the only… more »

Given the recent developments on the opensolaris front, there is again the issue of what OS do people run on their existing sparc hardware ? And I wonder if now is a good time to consider bringing up the CentOS on Sparc conversations again.I have s… more »

I had to build a fresh set of rpms for the area_cli tools, and decided it was also a good time to rebase some of my local personal build tools to rhel6beta2 since its there and I need to do some tests with it anyway. Firstly, there are a couple of coo… more »

A question that has come up a few times in the last week. So I thought a blog post about it is in order here. While some people are aware of the situation, most of the people are not. In the early days of EL5, there was a perl.i386 included in the dis… more »

So when almost everyone had given up on IA64, it looks like there are a few people around who are still running this kit! And quite keen on getting it usable with CentOS. To that aim, I've restarted the IA64 builds and am inviting everyone interested in… more »

Spent a bit of time last evening and tried to get a rhel6 beta domU going on a CentOS 5.4 dom0 - everything seems to go fine except that the VM will not boot. The problem is that the rhel6 anaconda creates a /boot with ext4, which pygrub on CentOS and RH… more »

Just had a look at the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 beta package list, and it looks quite well put together. With a very interesting tilt towards developers and people building large scale platforms. Ofcourse there is the expected virtualisation, storage a… more »

There was quite a flurry of activity last evening when people wanted to get their hands on the rhel6 beta isos. I've stood up some torrents, you can download them here : http://www.karan.org/stuff/rhel6-i386-beta-dvd.torrent http://www.karan.org/st… more »

In case you missed it, RHEL-6 public beta got announced a short while back. You can download it at : ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/rhel/beta/6/ and read the announcement at : http://press.redhat.com/2010/04/21/red-hat-enterprise-linux-6-beta-available-… more »

Everytime a new CentOS Release is built, it takes about 48 hrs before people can start testing these releases. What I would like to be able to do is run some install tests within the buildsystem / QA infrastructure so that we can catch major issues earli… more »

Sony has announced that the next ps3 firmware update - 3.21 - will no longer support the ability to install and run linux on your ps3's. You can read the full announcement here : http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/03/28/ps3-firmware-v3-21-update/ Th… more »

Just signed upto the London Devops mailing list, and thought I'd just point out that one does not need a google account to join a google groups hosted list. Just send an email to the <list-name>+subscribe@googlegroups.com with 'subscribe' in the su… more »

A few days back I blog'd about my .screenrc and what it could do etc, something to get people interested in screen and start using it. But in order to really use 'screen' properly, dont forget the 'screen -xRR' in your .bash_profile. That will make sur… more »

Although, only for the 5th and 6th, will be back in London on the 6th evening.- KB more »

Everyone uses screen right ? If not, what's wrong with you crazy person ? Also everyone at some point or the other realises that its worth getting a decent screenrc in place. So did I, many years back. Essentially the screenrc lets you setup a few thi… more »

Sometimes the CentOS-5/updates repository gets into a state wherein people can see the updated packages in the repo using a browser ( eg at http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5/updates/i386/RPMS/ ) but when they try and get the updates on their machine : yu… more »

SIGSECTOOMUCH : The state of play when you over secure a machine to the extent that you can yourself no longer get onto the machine. - KB more »

At approx 16:45 the Coreix Data Center suffered a power loss, UPS took over the load for short while, however the Generators did not come online in time and it took till 7:35 for power to be restored. There are details posted on the coreix status page at… more »