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Backing up a Linux server using FreeNAS – harder than you would think

I recently finished building a new FreeNAS machine, my first actually. One of the goals for the machine was to use it to backup my servers. My requirements were the following:

  • It needs to be able to backup an entire Linux server ( / ) but some paths needs to be excluded like /dev and /proc.
  • It should not put too much strain on the server that is being backed up.
  • The FreeNAS server needs to initiate the backup. It’s behind NAT and I don’t want to open up any ports.
  • It would be very beneficial if the UID and GID of the files and folders are kept. So this is not strictly a requirement but I very much would like this feature.
Continue reading “Backing up a Linux server using FreeNAS – harder than you would think”
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How to check if your server or any services needs restarting with Nagios

If you are running a Linux server that don’t have rebootless kernel patching like KernelCare or Canonical Livepatch then chances are you are running an out of date kernel. And that is understandable because keep tracking of new kernels and rebooting your servers isn’t fun. But Nagios can do that job for you, or at least the part of looking for a new kernel, and then notify you of when it’s time to reboot! That way you don’t have to worry about being vulnerable to known kernel exploits just because you haven’t rebooted your server.

Continue reading “How to check if your server or any services needs restarting with Nagios”
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Two 950 Pro 512GB in raid0 vs one 970 Evo Plus 2TB

I’ve been running two Samsung 950 Pro 512GB in raid0 for a total of 1TB of NVMe storage as my boot drive in my desktop PC. I didn’t really want to run raid0 originally but I started with one drive and it turned out to not be enough space so I added another one a couple of years ago. Now I’ve used almost 900GB so it was time for an upgrade, I blame all these huge modern games. Continue reading “Two 950 Pro 512GB in raid0 vs one 970 Evo Plus 2TB”

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How to setup a custom SSL certificate for the free version of Pritunl

I haven’t been able to find much information on this but from what I’ve found it looks like you have to pay in order to install a custom SSL certificate for the Pritunl web interface. You get a self signed certificate when you install Pritunl but I’m sure most people that do that want a valid certificate, even if it’s just for a small server running in a closet. Continue reading “How to setup a custom SSL certificate for the free version of Pritunl”

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How to use Git over a custom SSH port

This will be a quick tip! If you are using Git over SSH and the Git server isn’t using the default port of 22 for SSH things doesn’t just work any more. You can no longer for instance run:

git clone git@gitlab.domain.net:group/project.git

That will just time out since Git assumes you are using the default port. Instead you need to run the following command:

git clone ssh://git@gitlab.domain.net:5555/group/project.git

Replace 5555 with the custom port that your Git server is using.

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How to create a bootable USB drive for Spinrite

Spinrite is a really nice data recovery/drive maintenance software from GRC. But it was made before the time when booting from USB drives became popular, or even possible. The manual even begins with “CREATE A CLEAN BOOT DISKETTE”, which should tell you just how old it is. That doesn’t mean it still isn’t useful but it would be really nice not to have to boot from a diskette or a CD/DVD. Continue reading “How to create a bootable USB drive for Spinrite”