Systems administrator and blog owner.
Author's posts
Apr 09 2016
OpenVPN tricks and traps
Why Recently I had to update my certificates. As things go, I decided to do a 2 tier CA. Of course, this compilcates the config of systems like OpenVPN. This needed some bending of the configs to get what I wanted. How Critical config enrties to make this all work – with comments ca /etc/openvpn/root-ca.cert …
May 11 2015
Debian 8 (Jessie) updates are coming
Debian 8 “Jessie” As most of you most likely already know, Debian Linux 8 aka “Jessie” has been released in the last few weeks. This release brings us a host of significant updates: Xen 4.4, apache 2.4, php 5.6.x, postfix 2.11.x and perhaps most controversially a new parallel service start-up utilitiy called systemd The Linux …
Dec 07 2014
Server Outage on 2014-12-10 23:00 AEDT
Vandrad Research Labs need to perform a server reboot to activate a number of kernel and kernel module security and stability patches. * WHEN: Currently the server reboot work is scheduled to start on 2014-12-10 23:00 AEDT and for all work to be completed by 2014-12-10 23:30 AEDT * HOW LONG: The outage will require …
Feb 09 2014
Server outage scheduled for 2014-02-12 23:00 to 2014-02-12 23:30
With the release of Debian Wheezy point release, on 09 FEB 2014, all the servers have been upgraded to run Debian Wheezy 7.4 and as a consequence we now need to reboot the servers to take advantage of the kernel and kernel module security and stability patches. * WHEN: Currently the server reboot work is …
Aug 19 2013
About efficacy of the fail2ban daemon:
As many of you know we have been using various countermeasures to stop unwanted individuals from getting into our servers. Especially the kind that attempt to brute-force a username/password combination. To that end we have recently deployed the ‘wp fail2ban’ plugin . The question is does it work? The answer is below: ——————— fail2ban-messages Begin …
Aug 15 2013
Updated Xen Hypervisor, Linux kernel and more
Vandrad Research Labs have carried out major work last night. Between 21:30 and 22:30 on 14 August 2013 AEST, the main server was upgraded and the following work was done: the Xen server was upgraded to Debian 7.0 new version of Xen Hypervisor (Xen 4.1.4) was installed a new Linux kernel (3.2.46) and modules was …
Jun 01 2013
email server upgrade
Our main mail email server has been upgraded: Linux distribution was upgraded from rom Debian Squeeze (Debian 6.0.7) to Debian Wheezy (Debian 7.0). This means: new libc, kernel new postfix, courier POP and Courier IMAP daemons new bind daemon new ssh daemon We used this upgrade as an opportunity to migrate the email domains and …
May 27 2013
database server build
Long time between updates. Most recent upgrade to our systems is the establishment of a dedicated Mysql/Postgresql server for use with our WordPress and Drupal CMS servers, and to hold other databases. So far, We have migrated 18 or so WordPress databases to this server. Next up is migration of remaining WordPress databases, the Drupal …
Feb 25 2013
Upgrade to Debian 6.0.7 installed
An upgrade to Debian 6.0.7 was installed last night across all servers. This work appears to have been successful and no adverse side-effects have been observed as at this time. Debian 6.0.7 includes an update to the Xen hypervisor and Linux kernel binaries. To activate these, a reboot of the Xen server stack will be …
Feb 04 2013
mysql backup script updates
The VRL servers now have a new backup script that does: dump of all of the databases from a mysql instance sha256 checksumming of db backups sha256 checksumming tarballs of multiple db backups gpg encryption of the tarballs once they are assembled deletion of backup files and other files older than 14 days The script …
Jan 05 2013
RKHunter upgrade
Today we have rolled out a new version of the rkhunter package – RKHunter 1.4.0 – to all of our managed hosts. Its a relatively simple process on the Debian hosts: Downlaod the rkhunter 1.4.0 (at this time it is 1.4.0-2) Debain package from your local Debian project mirror. Verify package hashes and signatures (There …
Oct 10 2012
Advance Notice : October Server Reboot
Due to a number of kernel bugs patched in recent updates, Vandrad Research Labs will be scheduling server reboots in near future. More information as the schedule firms up
Sep 30 2012
Debian Linux 6.0.6 stable release update
Debian foundation have advised that the stable Debian release, Debian 6.0 (aka “Squeeze”) has been released to public. Vandrad Research Labs staff are in the process of updating our servers. A list of updated packages and the offcial write can be found in the official announcement on the Debian foundation web page.
Sep 28 2012
Updated VPS price list.
For a long time we have not looked at our prices, and how we structure our products and services. Having done a through review, we have decided to streamline the services offerings and simplify our pricing. The very first result of this is our updated pricing structure for virtual servers and associated services. Details can …
Jun 17 2012
IP address migration completed
All the work that was necessary for IP address migration has been completed (including clean-up works). As at this time we do not anticipate any further service disruptions, other than the regular security patch updates.
Jun 01 2012
New IP addresses for servers
Our upstream provider have advised that they need to migrate us to a different IP subnet. Much fun is about to be had by all… some VM reboots required. Check back on this page for more information…
Apr 17 2012
April server reboot.
A scheduled reboot of the Vandrad Research Labs Xen server stack has been successful. All servers appear to have come back on-line without a problem. The reboot was necessary to update the kernel and to distribute new modules to all Xen hosted instances.
Feb 10 2012
Debian 5.0 aka “Squeeze” Security support terminated
The Debian foundation have announced that as of 6 FEB 2012 they are terminating the ongoing security support for Debian 5.0 aka “Squeeze”. All customers using this release of Debian Linux are requested to upgrade to current stable distribution of Debian Linux – Debian 6.0 aka Debian “Lenny”. The full text of the advisory can …
May 06 2011
server stack updates
We are planning to upgrade the XEN server stack sometime in the next two weeks. Unfortunately this process will involve some down-time for all of our hosted clients. The upgrade will take the current servers from XEN 3 series hypervisor to a XEN 4 series hypervisor and upgrade the underlying Linux kernel to the current …
Mar 13 2011
Fixing Australian time zones in plone
One of our clients, the Ancient Arts Fellowship have requested a new Plone site. After some deliberation and several futile attempts to upgrade their current Plone 2.5.5 to a plone 3.x instance we made a collective decision to run with a new Plone 4 setup. Of course the “curse of the time zone” reared its …
Mar 06 2011
Upgrading postgresql databse server software on Debian Squeeze
I am very happy to report, that just as just as was described in the PostgreSQL update post the same process works flawlessly for migrating postgresql 8.3.x to 8.4.x on Debian Squeeze (Debian 6.0)
Jan 31 2011
Server outage 22:30 AEDT, Tuesday 01/02/2011
An outage is required to activate linux kernel patches as detailed in DSA 2153-1 -linux-2.6 security update. Current schedule is for 22:30 to 23:00 on AEDT on Tuesday 01/02/2011 Service will be unavailable for up to 30 minutes
Nov 28 2010
Outage Advisory 2010-11-30 20:00 to 20:30 AEDT.
Outage Advisory 2010-11-30 20:00 to 20:30 AEDT. A scheduled server maintenance outage will take place between 20:00 and 20:30 AEDT on 30/11/2010. We expect that the actual service interruption will take about 10 minutes because a reboot of the server is required.
Nov 25 2010
Hosting Joint Venture Launched
Vandrad Research Labs are proud to announce that together with Mr Dale Baldwin of dalebaldwin.com we have launched a new web services and hosting joint venture to support Dale and his growing web design and consultancy business based out of Hobart in Tasmania. Recently Mr Baldwin has advised that this arrangement has allowed him to …
Nov 22 2010
Only 6 static IP addresses left…
We did some system accounting last night – we only have 6 more static IP addresses left. We still have reasonable amount of RAM and a lot CPU cycles and several hundred gigabytes of HDD space in reserve but we can only cater for 6 more dedicated Xen Linux servers, and two of those are …
Nov 02 2010
More RAM…
We have ordered more RAM for our hosting servers. This will allow us to host more clients and provide mode dedicated resources per client on each server.
Sep 05 2010
New Blog Crated
Today I created a new WordPress Blog engine instance for “Rational Capital” – http://www.rationalcapital.com.au/ – which is a sceptic and rational thought blog run by a very good friend of ours, a certain Mr Andrew Gould. We look forward to see what Mr Gould has in store for us.
Jun 26 2010
Blog Engine Upgrage no 2
Yesterday I reconfigured all the instances of WordPress to talk separate wordpress instances…
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