Russell Ballestrini

mysql-backis a backup utility script to dump (backup) and gzip every MySQL database on a host.

There are three deployment management strategies that could be used to maintain a system.

Warning: Do NOT follow guides that suggest to make a DOS boot disk, this is over complicated.

How I added two Seagate 240G SSDs as SmartOS L2ARC removed icepacks from two western digital velociraptors installed ssds into icepacks installed icepacks into HP hotswap trays installed trays into HP prolaient g6 server How to list all drive installed in…

Over this holiday season, Christmas and New Years, I took the time to mess with some Game Development.

This post serves as a "Hello World" for the data collection and processing software called Heka.

A while back I explained how to Create your own fleet of servers with Digital Ocean and salt-cloud.

As a warning before we dive into things, this post is less of a formal publication and more of a stream of conscience.

This post will explain how to create a cronjob to backup of every virtual machine on a SmartOS hypervisor.

As you know from my previous post, I recently deleted LinkPeek.com and after struggling to get it back online, I vowed to start utilizing configuration management.

The following formula was tested on Ubuntu and Debian however it would not take much work to test on other operating systems.

This post explains how to use configuration management (Salt Stack) to completely control a MongoDB collection.

What is configuration management?

This state will create a user: russell: user: - present This state will create a user and a group.

Have you heard about Digital Ocean?

Salt-stack (salt) provides a solution for centralized configuration management and remote execution.

I started researching the best ways to use salt to provision minecraft servers.

During the day I am an ops sys-admin.

Create an online only, hangout event Create a new event with a date far into the future, like the year 2015.

Pycon 2013 was excellent, in fact it was my first one I have attended.

I'm hooked...

Python Lambda functions are very powerful but I often forget how they work or the fun things they do.

We have released ago.py 0.0.4 pypi: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ago repo: https://bitbucket.org/russellballestrini/ago Special thanks to David Beitey for supplying ideas and python code for this update!

Pull rejection sucks!

Press home button [ ] Slide camera button up Slide mode to video Turn on flash Put iPhone on table with light pointed down Walk away inconspicuously Extra points if you set the camera to record (just don't record yourself or sounds) which will fill up the…

What is cache?

Sontek's patch I greeted the UPS man in the middle of the street to sign for my new Lenovo ThinkPad T430.

I just packaged and published a couple of python modules to pypi: ago miniuri To install them, run: Install: pip install --upgrade ago miniuri If you want to view their source code, look here: miniuri ago I hope you enjoy them.

1.

Update - I opensourced this script here: bash kira I came up this this script to kill certain programs after they run for too long.

I spent the weekend fretting because one of my servers was basically being DOS'd by paying customers.

High load on web server after updating from Ubuntu 10.04 to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Check out charts which lineup to when I upgraded: I couldn't determine the cause of the load average increase...

Today our production Citrix NetScaler broke.

How did you hear about us?

Warning / Update!

Just found this out the hard way...

Google SafeSearch and SSL Search for Schools suggests implementing the following changes to the network: To utilize the no SSL option for your network, configure the DNS entry for www.google.com to be a CNAME for nosslsearch.google.com.

"I see" said the blind man, to the deaf dog, as he walked off the cliff.

What do you name your python virtualenv?

This is the first time I've had a guest blogger on my site.

This article will explain how to use wireshark to capture TCP/IP packets.

I recently needed to monitor an HTTPS API for response time and availability.

Jake from Adventure Time, painted with MyPaint and wacom tablet.

My sister @VeronicaBal was watching my son (@RussellBal) tweeted a picture of him.

Consider the following block cipher.

introduction and background A monoalphabetic cipher uses fixed substitution over the entire message.

Why does a Hash provide better message integrity then an Internet checksum?

How many keys are involved for symmetric key encryption?

Consider an 8-block cipher and answer the following: How many possible input blocks does this cipher have?