Category Archives: SysAdmin
Unix Server Reboot Controversy
Paul Venezia has been getting a certain amount of flack for suggesting that rebooting Unix boxes is an inherently bad thing. I mostly agree with him. People have been pointing out the value of regular reboots as part of maintenance. … Continue reading
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Being Slightly Smarter With seq
This post comes from my ever-growing file of ‘how the hell did I not know that’ issues. On the cluster at work we have a bunch of machines with names like mysite12 or mysite237. So quite often I’m writing shell … Continue reading
Flexlm License Servers and Firewalls
If you are lucky enough to run your flexlm servers on a tightly controlled corporate network then you probably just turn the firewall off on those servers and get on with your life. Everyone else goes through a certain amount … Continue reading
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SC09 – Interesting Tech – Filesystems/Storage
All the usual suspects were visible in Portland this year. Including Panasas, Data Direct, Isilon, Lustre and IBM/GPFS. But we’ve all seen those all before. Two storage related technologies caught my eye at SC09 because I’d never seen them before. … Continue reading
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SC09 – Interesting Tech – Shared Memory
We are beginning to approach the end of the conference formally known as SuperComputing, so I thought it was about time that I started to write up some of the copious volumes of notes that have begun to clutter up … Continue reading
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Europython – Days 3 to 5 – Roundup
As Europython got more hectic and my 3G connection got more erratic, my daily blogging ceased. So this roundup is mostly the result of notes I wrote on the train journey through the picturesque Welsh Borders back home to Cardiff. … Continue reading
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Europython – Day 2 – Tutorials
Today’s notable achievements were that I managed to stay on power and network for most of the day. Mostly due to the fact that I lucked out to get a seat next to a power bar in the lecture theatre … Continue reading
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Europython – Day 1 – Tutorials
I have to admit to a certain amount of trepidation when I signed up for EuroPython 2009. As primarily a sysadmin rather than a developer I was worried that I might not have the requisite knowledge to get the benefit … Continue reading
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Resolutions
Or should that be vague plans? Attend FOSDEM. I’ve been incredibly lazy the last few years and haven’t attended. Try to prevent the PET Centre from eating my life. This is probably more of a vain hope than a resolution. … Continue reading
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Pretty Pictures
Our supercomputer Merlin is in the news again. A couple of weeks ago a gaggle of American journalists turned up, apparently on some sort of tour of South Wales (no really). I got pressed into service to help give the … Continue reading
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