Author Archives: Andrew Wells

About Andrew Wells

I have been developing on the LAMP stack since about 2006. I run Ubuntu XFCE on my desktop and have a history of managing Ubuntu and CentOS servers. I code web applications mostly in PHP but have experience with other languages as well. When I'm not working, I can be found working in my home lab or out snowboarding, hiking, camping, or biking depending on the season.

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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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