These are some PowerShell snippets that I use to create and manage VMs. I am very new to PowerShell…like my first day using it…ever. These are more notes for me to remember important commands.
Author Archives: Andrew Wells
Relax SSH Security Settings for Select Connections
I do a lot of lab setups on my internal network, which means that there is a lot of tearing down and rebuilding machines. That’s pretty easy to do with a deployment server, but I often re-use the same hostname. SSH doesn’t like that. This is because the server fingerprint changes when I re-build a VM with the same hostname. If this was a production server, and the fingerprint randomly changes, then yes, this is an issue to look into. But in a lab environment…who cares?
Fix the Colors for the Embedded Terminal in gedit
XFCE has been my desktop of choice for some time now, but I still use some Gnome apps, like gedit. It seems to have developed some quarks though when installed in an XFCE environment. The terminal color scheme is one of them. Here is how to fix it.
Ubuntu / Xubuntu 12.04 Desktop as Hyper-V Guest
Ubuntu 12.04 and Hyper-V have pretty good support for each other, but it’s not without a fair share of hiccups. I will go over all the steps required to install Xubuntu as a Hyper-V guest and configure remote access through VNC.
These instructions are intended for Hyper-V running on Windows 8 Pro.
Ubuntu 12.04 Server as Hyper-V Guest – Blank Screen Fix
Ubuntu 12.04 does play pretty well as a Hyper-V guest, but not without its quarks. This includes a completly blank screen after the installation is finished. Not to worry though – it’s nothing we can’t fix with a couple tweaks.
Nagios LDAP Authentication
If there is an application I publish in an LDAP or Active Directory environment, I will implement LDAP authentication if that option is available – no sense is making users apply another user name / password sticky note to their monitor, right?
Notes for Linux Install Attempt on Lenovo Y510p
I recently purchased a Lenovo Y510p for a mobile KVM lab, and regrettably, did not check the device’s Linux support first. I had CentOS 6 running on a T420s without a problem, so I figured it wouldn’t be an issue. Shame on me for assuming. Anyways, I was able to create a working desktop, but missing a few critical functions to make it a daily working machine.
Configure Minecraft Server with Upstart on Ubuntu 12.04
How to configure a Minecraft server with backups and upstart compatibility.
Purging old Kernels in Ubuntu
Ubuntu likes to cut space on my /boot partitions awfully close when using their auto-partition method at install time. I had an apt update fail once because of a full /boot partition and have been keeping an eye on them since. They frequently fill past 80%, so I clean out the old kernels when this happens. There is probably more of an automated way to do it, but this works for now.
Watching a Log File in the Terminal
This bash one-liner will let you watch the tail end of a log file in real time.
I find myself keeping an eye on the Apache log when testing Linux deployments. This helps me see what the clients are requesting, whether the preseed file was fetched, etc. After writing this tip, I had this epiphany that this could be used for any log file. Just swap out /var/log/apache2/access.log with your file of choice.