Category Archives: System Administration

A case for condensing fix/test cycles

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Jeffrey

A while back I posted on the strategy of changing only one variable at a time when working to resolve an incident and determine root cause. I’m amazed at how much discipline it takes to implement this simple strategy. If… (read more)

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One variable at a time

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Jeffrey

For the past five weeks I’ve been troubleshooting an issue I encountered when I added a well-known hard drive manufacturer’s drive to my system. It’s taking so long partly because it requires seven-to-ten days to reproduce, but also because there… (read more)

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Emacs versus vi

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Jeffrey

I have the ThinkGeek t-shirt with the little boy and his dad peering around the corner at the cop car and the boy asking “Why are hiding from the police, daddy?” to which Dad responds “Because we use emacs son,… (read more)

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SSH behind the firewall

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Jeffrey

Please note that no warranty is being made here. Even if you follow these suggestions, there’s no guarantee that crackers won’t flood your network, your systems won’t go down and your hair won’t turn green. As they say, “Your mileage… (read more)

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