RPM errors from cpio? Check the inodes!

While installing a package from the Red Hat Software Collections Library, rpm reported an error and failed:

Error unpacking rpm package ruby193-rubygem-rdoc-3.9.5-38.el6.x86_64
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /opt/rh/ruby193/root/usr/bin/rdoc;522f62e3: cpio: open

Normally, this would mean the filesystem was out of space, but this didn’t appear to be the case. Read More »

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Configuring IBM Storwize V7000 for OpenLDAP

The IBM Storwize V7000 supports using LDAP as an authentication and authorization source. While the defaults appear to work for a Microsoft Active Directory server, I had to make some changes to work with our RedHat-based OpenLDAP server. Read More »

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Converting from CentOS to Red Hat

Due to a change in our school’s licensing, I’m tasked with switching some of our CentOS 5 servers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.  While there’s a number of guides on how to switch to CentOS, it’s not quite as obvious on how to switch back.  Read More »

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Converting from VMware to Linux KVM

Many environments are either using virtualized servers, or are planning to convert.  However, not every install needs all the features of VMware.  Or perhaps you want to add a test VM server to augment your production VMware cluster.  KVM, included in Linux distributions using kernel 2.6.20 and later, may meet your needs. Read More »

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The problem with antivirus

Despite my warnings, a friend of mine doesn’t use any antivirus program on his home computer. He’s in good company, as only 58% of Americans have a software security suite installed. And yet, over 58% of the U.S. computers are infected some type of malware. What’s wrong with antivirus software, and what needs to be done to fix it? Read More »

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“Sidejacking” wireless users

A new Firefox addon known as Firesheep can allow someone snooping a public WiFi spot to steal many social networking connections of the other WiFi users.  The addon relies on an unfortunate practice used by many websites to switch to insecure methods to transport the data content after the secure username/password authentication.  Combine this vulnerability with the ability to see other computers’ traffic in a shared media environment (such as WiFi), and you can “sidejack” any web session that relies on the authenticated user’s cookie. Read More »

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Desktop Security

The vast majority of computers run Windows.  This doesn’t make it superior, but it means that I tend to focus on what I can do to secure systems running Microsoft Windows. Read More »

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Technology Resources

Yes, there’s Google.  All hail the mighty search engine.  However, there’s times when I’m looking for specific answers, and unfortunately not all sites are weighted like I think they should be.  But when the search engine fails me, there’s always my bookmarks. Read More »

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New Website

If you can read this post, then you can access the new server for www.dna.org. I’ve switched to BlueHost.com as my service provider, and am using WordPress on the Apache web server.  I’ll migrate any still-useful content over to the new server over the next week or so.  In the case anyone’s interested, I’ll document what themes, plugins, and/or widgets I add to the site.

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