I do quite a bit of work with Virtual machines based on an ESX platform. One of the advantages of such a platform is the ability to create a template server, then duplicate copies as and when you need one. With most operating systems it’s just a question of changing the IP and hostname and [...]

Firstly grab a copy of the 64bit Ubuntu server ISO from the ubuntu website and store is somewhere you can get to from your ESX box. Over the years I have taken the approach of storing server VMDK’s on ESX’s local hard disk pushing installation media onto a NAS.
(Note: Earlier this year we went gigabit [...]

Just a quick note about sftp.
It makes good security sense to change the ssh port on servers that are Internet accessable. To take advantage of this using ssh is quite straight forward as their is a parameter -p to support this eg:
ssh -p 3432 mick@mickvaites.com
Unfortunately the same is not true for sftp (secure file transfer). [...]

Note to self:
These are the ssh escape commands from within an ssh connected session.
%~?
Supported escape sequences:
~.  – terminate connection (and any multiplexed sessions)
~B  – send a BREAK to the remote system
~C  – open a command line
~R  – Request rekey (SSH protocol 2 only)
~^Z – suspend ssh
~#  – list forwarded [...]

Just some notes in respect of installing Ubuntu 9.04 on the Laptop Fujitsu Amilo Pro. In particular getting the wireless card to work.
The problem is that the wireless button doesn’t do anything so whilst the hardware is detected it cannot be brought up.
The solution is in two parts.
1. Get the OS to load the fsam7400 [...]

Disaster had struck when both of the Arrowpoint Content Switches died with power supply faults. We needed to move them in the racks, they powered off but they didn’t power back on.
I looked at off the shelf solutions and was forced to rethink when I discovered that they come in with a price tag of [...]