HOWTOs

DISCLAIMER: this worked for me.

In your environment it may cause madness, irreversible loss of soul, corruption of data, conflicts with significant other(s), diarrhea, sleepiness, and persistent erection (or lack thereof) lasting in excess of four hours. Possibly all at once.

You have been warned. Good luck!

WordPress – Zen Cart integration

WordPress is an extremely powerful open source blogging package. Not only it is free, it has a vibrant community of users and plug-in developers.

Zen Cart is an open source shopping cart. Due to its flexible template system it is shaping up to overtake most other non-commercial carts.

There is even an existing Zen Cart module for integrating the two. Still I was not quite happy, so I went poking.

Software RAID-6 on OpenSlug

A vibrant community has emerged around Linksys NSLU2 device. The device has been hacked, and several versions of Linux have been made available.

In my personal quest for perfection I decided no to attach any hard drives to this already totally quiet mini-server, but to put together a RAID of cheap USB flash devices.

I seem to have succeeded, and thus my findings are available here. I believe that the same approach will work on the hard drives, and large chunks of this document are applicable to virtually any version of Linux. Not that I would know. Think for yourself.

RAID10 and Bootcamp on Mac Pro using ODD SATA port

Mac Pro has two “hidden” SATA ports. Most people do not need them, but in some cases their use is essential. These are step-by-step instructions that worked for me.

Software RAID 6 on Debian Etch

The times have changed and now one can run full Debian on a Slug (as owners lovingly call Linksys NSLU2 device). I re-wrote my original HOWTO (above) to reflect the modern realities (things became easier). And since we are talking about standard Debian Linux, you do not have to own a funky little device to benefit from this HOWTO: it should apply pretty much any hardware (has not been tested on a dead badger).

Configuring Debian Etch on SLUG (NSLU2)

I had to go through the whole experience from scratch recently (my fault), so I put all my notes together in a step-by-step guide

Automated security updates in Debian

Subscribing to the security mailing lists is a must for every sysadmin, but who has the stamina and the determination to actually read them, and then analyze the impact of both the threat and the proposed fix?

A more casual user with no life-or-death-critical servers would happily settle for a solution that would download and install the security patches automatically.