Recent content on Yet Another SysAdmin
We are sitting on our computer somewhere and are in the need of an ISO . 
Maybe we want to create a virtual machine or have some other need like flashing said ISO to a usb stick. 
Sometimes it is too much hassle to mount our NAS share or we are on a totally different device which is not ours. 
I’ve had quite some situations in which I was working on a PC / Laptop that a friend…
Over the years I’ve collected quite some amount of links/sites covering different aspects of the tech world - especially Linux and BSD related stuff. 
 Without further ado, let’s get the ball rolling ! 
 Linux 
 Linux hardware database: https://linux-hardware.org/ 
 Information about packages / repositories : https://repology.org/ 
 Debian pastebin:…
I wanted a small webdev setup where I could test some Python CGI code and do some shenanigans with PHP . 
Nothing special here and certainly nothing professional - Not a webdev by trade at all ! 
Let’s delve into setting up that environment . 
 Apache all the way 
 The webserver of choice for me is Apache in this setup. Sure, one can use Nginx , Lighttpd or something else…
We all know that DNS is the lifeblood of the modern Internet . 
But, we also all know that resolving DNS queries can take some time and by default queries are sent unencrypted to a outside DNS server - if one does not selfhost DNS of course. 
In this little post I set up Unbound with DoT . Also, Unbound will cache results which makes queries faster in the future (Since these don’t…
If you’ve ever logged in to a FreeBSD system, you have certainly seen the line “you have mail” . 
No big deal might one say, it simply tells the user that there is mail to be read. 
Indeed, that is the case… but have you maybe wondered how that is possible? 
After all, it must come from somewhere, right ?! 
 Where to begin? 
 First of all, there must be…
Motivation 
 I think we all have some notes that we take from time to time. 
For the most part, a simple text document is all we need - for the most part . 
But, sometimes one wants a little more . After all, searching a huge text file is not the most pleasent thing ever, especially when the thing hits 1000 lines or more . 
So, to me it makes sense to host a small wiki instance at…
I did a resource list for Debian and Arch Linux so far… so why not do the same for FreeBSD !
Let’s get right to it! 
 FreeBSD link galore 
 The premier resource for anything FreeBSD is hands down the superb FreeBSD Handbook . 
 
 FreeBSD Handbook 
 
 There is a lot of coverage in the Handbook from the basics all the way to advanced topics. 
 Another…
Since I’ve already done a overview/resources list for Debian it is time to make one for Arch Linux .
Without babbling on forever, let’s get this show on the road. 
 Arch Wiki 
 The Arch Linux wiki is very well known to any Linux user - or at least should be. 
I will present a few interesting wiki pages/sites which I think help a lot in getting to know Arch Linux and…
Sometimes one wants to download YouTube videos for example in advance to watch them later . 
Or maybe you want to preserve a video or collect a series on YouTube ?. 
Saving many playlists can quickly clutter up ones YouTube site… 
So, why not go the route of downloading said videos and serving them locally with Jellyfin ?! 
This is exactly what we are going to do in this…
Most of us enjoy playing games - For the most part . 
Sometimes having a dedicated game server is a really cool thing. 
So let’s host a vanilla Minecraft server via Docker and have some fun! 
 Getting Docker 
 There are two ways in which one can deploy Docker . Option number one is to get it directly from the official Docker repo for Debian / Ubuntu (Or other distros ). There…
I thought it would make sense to run Unbound locally to cache my DNS queries - which can speedup DNS resolution quite a bit. 
So, let’s get started! 
 Installing Unbound 
 Unbound is available on all major Linux distributions and on the various BSD’s . I use Debian in this case and install Unbound via apt . 
 $ sudo apt install unbound -y
 Use the package manager of…
Lately I’ve been thinking about putting together a little blog post on where to find information/help/guides/etc. on Debian . 
So, long story short, this is a collection of useful Debian related links/sites that might come in handy when looking for some information . 
 Link galore 
 Debian itself provides quite a large amount of documentation . The only problem is finding all of…
In this little guide we will create a custom .deb package from vsftpd with the version information patched out. 
 Disclaimer: Changing the version number is NOT magically saving you from everything! Security is a layered approach and is compromised of many steps - not just one! ( Keep that in mind ) 
 Getting the sources 
 First things first . We need to get the current sources from…
Foray into analytics 
 So far, all the websites I hosted never had any sort of analytics at all - Never . 
I think it is high time to change just that. 
This small little guide will leverage goaccess to generate static reports that can easily be served via any webserver (In this guide, we will use Nginx ). 
 Prepare the directories 
 First things first - creating the necessary…
Ventoy is a fantastic way of booting many different iso’s on computers. 
I have used to flash usb sticks all the time with different operating systems - which in and of itself is fine… except one having many usb sticks that need to be updated and the dreaded situation in which said sticks are not labeled… we all know where that ends. 
 To completly avoid that one can…
Sometimes it is helpful to build a custom kernel . 
Someone might want to slim down the kernel, optimize it or just building a kernel for fun - depending on ones needs of course. 
 Debian makes this a breeze !. 
The following short article will show how to build a Linux kernel and also generating easy to install deb packages . 
 Getting the kernel sources 
 The first step is…
Choice - The enternal enemy 
 We all know well how much options are all around us… 
From simple things like what food to order all the way up to who to marry. 
 Let’s face it: Choice is everywhere 
 Q: Is it inherently a bad thing? 
 A: No, not at all. 
 The enemy is ourself . We procrastinate forever on which thing to do or not to do. 
 This is where…
Password Generators 
 Imagine needing to come up with passwords all the time, which is not impossible. 
However, why not leverage tools for doing that. After all, generating random passwords is a important step. 
Let’s explore some of the options out there and see what can be done. 
 pwgen 
 One of my favorites, period. Using pwgen is easy and the tool itself is available…
Arch Wiki 
 Everyone knows and loves it. The one and only Arch Wiki . 
There is so much information encapsulated in the Wiki that having a browsable local copy can be quite beneficial. 
 Requirements 
 The only real requirement for hosting the Arch Wiki locally is a webserver . 
There are plenty of choices out there, for example NGinx or Apache - just to name two. 
In this…
OPNSense and backups 
 I lately searched for a way to do automated config backups which will be stored directly on my NAS . 
The Business Edition of OPNSense allows to do centralized backups, given the firewall in question is a managed via OPNCentral . 
In my homelab , this is not the case. 
To solve this very issue I’ve set down and thought what I can do. It turns out the…
Why? 
 I wanted to setup a webserver on my local system with PHP enabled to do some fiddling around. 
The process on Debian is quite simple… so simple that you just need to install the packages and everything will already work - given you put your PHP script files under /var/www/html .
But in this case I wanted to enable the userdir option with the possibility to run PHP scripts…
A new (used) Laptop emerges 
 I’ve lately found a nice deal while browsing eBay on a ThinkPad Yoga 260 which I could not resist. (This is the problem with eBay in general… well, it is what it is) 
Bought it and was quickly shipped to my in a couple of days. 
Well… This could have been another Linux box to take with me, given it’s compact form factor……
The struggle 
 I remember a time in my life where I was changing my distro literally on a weekly and sometimes on a daily basis. 
Oh boy, the though alone makes my head spin! 
Of course, I did not run any distro under the sun… but, I’ve run a fair number. 
From Debian based distros over RHEL to Arch all the way to Gentoo and Slackware . Don’t get me wrong, I have…
Before FOSS 
 In the beginning there was… No, not gonna start like that. 
 As most of you, I started with Windows back in the 90’s. Windows 98 was all the rage back then and I really did not care a lot about understanding the system I use better. Gaming , after all, was my introduction to computers in generel. 
Actually, gaming was introduced into my life in the form of…
Debian: Docker and KVM 
 Virtualization under Debian is a breeze. Install the needed packages and off you go… 
 Except for one fact: 
If you want to use a bridge on your vm’s and you also happen to run Docker you might have run into a wall… 
That being that your vm’s don’t have internet connectivity/networking available. 
 Docker 
 Docker…
Why? 
 Having to install Debian from time to time really made me think to doing the install over the network, rather than always making USB sticks or mounting a ISO file in a VM . 
The steps to set up PXE on Debian are quite easy - all in all maybe a 10 minute process. 
 … So , let’s get to it! 
 Requirements 
 You need a working Debian install - That’s it.…
Motivation 
 I personally use vanilla FreeBSD on a low power PC to handle all my data needs.
This setup has served me well over the time, which is why I want to dedicate a few lines of text to it. 
 Assumption 
 I assume that the reader uses sudo in this article. You can of course become root by using su or you might leverage doas . This is up to you. sudo works well for me…
Creating a swapfile can be easily done with dd . 
 $ sudo dd if = /dev/zero of = /swapfile bs = 1M count = 4k
 This will create a 4GB file directly under the / ( root ) directory. 
 Hint : count specifies how many 1M ( bs ) blocks will be allocated. 
 After the creation make sure to alter the permissions of the created file. 
 $ sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
 Now follows the…
Installing Fail2Ban 
 Fail2Ban is available in the Debian repository.
You can install it as follows: 
 $ sudo apt install fail2ban
 That’s it - kinda… 
 By default there are no logs to read from. Rsyslog was removed in Debian 12, which means there are no logfiles to read for Fail2Ban.
However, Fail2Ban can read the journal log provided with systemd…