Dear all,
I need to buy NVMe disks for a HP DL365 server. [1] They will be used as
storage for lxd (linuxcontainer)?
Can anyone recommend any?
Or do you know any trustworthy site with reviews?
Regards,
Sam
[1]
https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/a50002558enw.html
Long story short, are there any "genuine Oracle DB admins" on the list?
Many, many (many!) years ago, I "inherited" DB admining of SQL Server,
Postgres and Oracle for my employer. SQL Server and Postgres are no problem
at all, and thanks to a previous staff member that actually knew Oracle
I've been able to get by in OraDB - he gave me a simple "cheatsheet" that
worked until 12c released and multi-tenancy became a thing, and I've been
able to tweak said cheatsheet for multi-tenancy for our …
[View More]very simple DB
usage.
But...
I've now been tasked with adding an additional user to an Oracle
schema/tablespace/database, and I can't for the life of me get it to "just
work" like it does in SQL Server and Postgres.
Happy to take this off-list at the earliest opportunity.
Kind regards
Murray Crane
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Hi,
A reminder that if you have a 32-bit Debian guest that you are
keeping up to date:
The Linux kernel removed support for 32-bit PV guests at version
5.9, so it will not be possible for you to upgrade from Debian
10 (buster) to 11 (bullseye) without taking action.
This was mentioned before, but since then there have been a few
casualties anyway (seemingly-unbootable guests).
https://lists.bitfolk.com/lurker/message/20210930.104643.2ab5f9c0.en.html
As you can see, …
[View More]as long as you are running a kernel above 4.19.0 and
are using grub-pc to boot, you can just switch to PVH mode.
This isn't an issue for Ubuntu because no 32-bit support there at
all for some time, nor for CentOS because no upgrades between major
releases there either.
Cheers,
Andy
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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Hello,
I am currently using a PowerDNS Authoritative server in my Bitfolk VPS
alongside Bitfolk's secondary DNS servers.
At home, I also have a self hosted NAS setup which involves the use of
Traefik alongside docker containers.
I have been trying to generate a wildcard Let's Encrypt certificate
using ACME via the Traefik container, authenticating via RFC2136.
However, while ACME was successfully able insert a TXT record into the
zone, it hasn't updated the Secondary DNS and reports …
[View More]back with the
following error:
> unable to generate a certificate for the domains [m6wiq.uk *.m6wiq.uk]: error: one or more domains had a problem:\n[*.m6wiq.uk] time limit exceeded: last error: NS a.authns.bitfolk.co.uk. did not return the expected TXT record [fqdn: _acme-challenge.m6wiq.uk., value:
Through my research on PowerDNS, I have ensured that SOA-EDIT-DNSUPDATE
is set to 'INCREASE' and that FORWARD-DNSUPDATE and NOTIFY-DNSUPDATE are
enabled. Is there anything else that I need to configure on PowerDNS to
ensure RFC2136 updates inform the secondary DNS servers?
Best Regards,
William
--
William Wright
Callsign: M6WIQ
Mail: william(a)m6wiq.uk
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Hi,
As you may recall we've been reminding you over the years that
32-bit guests need to be made a thing of the past for a variety of
reasons - primarily security.
Unfortunately, 30% of customers are still running a 32-bit PV mode
guest, so there is no prospect of swiftly getting people to upgrade
/ reinstall¹.
Luckily there is another mode called "pvshim", which runs a 64-bit
PVH guest that chain loads the unmodified 32-bit PV guest. In our
limited testing that works without any change on …
[View More]the guest
administrator's side.
So, if you're currently running a 32-bit PV mode VM please would you
consider volunteering to let us test booting it under pvshim? If so,
please reply to me off-list letting me know what sort of time of day
would be acceptable to try it out.
It would involve us shutting down your VM and then booting it again.
It would be best if we did it, not you, as if there were a problem
we'd just revert the configuration and boot your VM again.
Once we're comfortable that it works on a wide variety of guests
then we'd move all 32-bit PV guests to that setup which they would
pick up at their next boot.
If you don't actually know whether you're running 32-bit…
- Typing "uname -m" will say "i686" for 32-bit and "x86_64" for
64-bit.
- It also says it on the summary page of
https://panel.bitfolk.com/account/
Cheers,
Andy
¹ This pvshim thing is a last ditch option for people who can't
upgrade their OS for whatever reason. It would in all cases be
better to run an up to date version of Linux instead.
The Linux kernel removed 32-bit Xen PV support at release 5.9.0,
but anything newer than 4.19 should support being run in PVH mode,
so that's what you'd do there.
A 64-bit install running in PVH mode would be best. The default
for a new install at BitFolk was switched to 64-bit PV in April
2013. It was switched to 64-bit PVH in November 2020.
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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Hi,
Some time in the last 6 months the kernel-ml kernel and associated packages from
EPEL (used to work under Xen on CentOS 7, 8 and later and other
RHEL-like) seems to not include the module xen-blkfront in the
initramfs that it creates. As a result you don't see any block
devices at boot.
I don't know if this is intentional. I don't exactly know how it's
meant to work. I *think* that dracut is supposed to be able to work
out what drivers are required for your root filesystem and include
…
[View More]those without you having to do anything special.
Whatever the case it is not doing it right now. It's easy to fix
though.
# lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-5.15.6-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.img | grep xen-
xen-netfront
# # note: no xen-blkfront
# cat > /etc/dracut.conf.d/xen.conf <<End-of-script
add_drivers+=" xen-blkfront "
End-of-script
# dracut -f --kver "5.15.6-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64" /boot/initramfs-5.15.6-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.img
# lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-5.15.6-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.img | grep xen-
xen-netfront
xen-blkfront
If your VM is currently unbootable you'll need to do this from the
rescue VM:
user@rescue:~$ sudo -s
root@rescue:/home/user# mount /dev/xvda1 /mnt
root@rescue:/home/user# cd /mnt
root@rescue:/mnt# mount -t proc /proc proc/
root@rescue:/mnt# mount --rbind /sys sys/
root@rescue:/mnt# mount --rbind /dev dev/
root@rescue:/mnt# chroot /mnt /bin/bash
[root@rescue /]# # This is your CentOS install, proceed as above
Our installer for CentOS 8 takes care of the above for you right
now, but if you have a pre-existing CentOS 7 or 8 (or whatever)
system using kernel-ml from EPEL then you may want to confirm that
your initramfs still has xen-blkfront inside of it otherwise you
will get a nasty surprise at next boot.
Cheers,
Andy
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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I always meant to get my head around Ansible (or Chef, or Puppet) for my
VPS based on recommendations on this very list. Sadly I have not yet got
round to it, and I suddenly find I have a need for something of this ilk
at work.
My use case is a single Linux instance, on-prem. (No fleet, no cloud, no
VMs or containers planned.) It's to provide internal services for an
office network: DHCP, DDNS, maybe NAS, maybe print accounting, maybe
firewall/router/IDS, maybe apt cache or other proxies.…
[View More]
I think what I want is infrastructure-as-code:
* Config files (/etc) under revision control with convenient automated
backup
* All superuser actions are fully logged and replayable (fire drill:
complete reimage from scratch)
* Nobody gets direct sudo access, but I can give out admin access via
the config management tool.
I've had root shells for about 25 years now but I'm new to thinking
deeply about IaC. I would be grateful for feedback:
- is what I think I want reasonable and achievable? (what are the gotchas?)
- am I on the right track by looking at Ansible/Chef/Puppet and do any
of them particularly suit my use case? Are the paid-for versions worth
paying for?
- is there a useful noobs guide?
Thanks
Ross
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Hello,
As you may or may not be aware, CentOS 8's EOL is 31 December 2021,
i.e. just over 2 months from now. After that date, Red Hat expects
CentOS 8 users to switch to CentOS 8 Stream or to a Red Hat
Enterprise Linux product.
At the moment BitFolk supports the self-install of CentOS 8 and that
is going to be in-place upgradeable to CentOS 8 Stream. And that's
it. That is the current extent of your choices for RHEL-like.
If you're a current CentOS 8 user what do you think you're going to
…
[View More]want to be using after it goes EOL?
It seems likely that there will be demand for CentOS 8 Stream and
later Stream releases, so we'll continue supporting those as best
we can¹.
RHEL itself is now free for use on up to 16 production systems, as
long as you sign up with Red Hat for an Individual Developer
subscription:
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/new-year-new-red-hat-enterprise-linux-progra…https://developers.redhat.com/rhel8
We don't currently support the install of that, but if people want
it then we would. You install it like CentOS and then have to put in
your subscription details once it's booted. The same change of
installer and kernel would be necessary since it sees unlikely that
Red Hat are going to back down from disabling everything except KVM.
That does mean that you may not be able to get Red Hat to provide
you with any support ("come back when it's booted using our
kernel").
As far as CentOS replacement projects go, Rocky Linux and
Alma Linux have come to my attention. They aren't currently
supported but could be. They don't intend to drift much from RHEL's
settings so they will also require alternate installers and kernels.
Oracle Linux's installer and kernel continues to support Xen, it is
free for use (charges for support) and otherwise aims to be
binary-compatible with RHEL, like CentOS did. I get a little bit
sick in my own mouth at the idea of working with Oracle, but if
there's paying customers who don't then we will enable that.
So what do you CentOS users want to do?
Cheers,
Andy
¹ Red Hat goes out of their way to disable other virtualisation
methods than their own product, KVM. This means that you can't
currently install or run CentOS/RHEL 8 or later under Xen using
their packaged installer or kernel. It is only possible using the
third party kernel-ml package. Red Hat are the only major Linux
vendor to take this stance and as such we can't promise to always
be able to go against their intentions.
https://strugglers.net/~andy/blog/2021/02/03/booting-the-centosrhel-install…
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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Hi,
I am a (delighted!) relatively new BF user and run two dozen websites under Centos and Virtualmin, with no email as I keep email off my webserver.
I am fed up with Cpanel in multiple ways and want to drop the server where I currently have all my email and mail forwarders.
Is another VPS on Centos with Virtualmin a good route to manage my and my clients’ email?
Or is there a better solution for a mail server?
Cheers
Hugh
Hi,
You may recall that all through the first half of 2021 we've been
moving customer services off of certain servers in order to upgrade
the servers and put them back in service. That effort ground to
a halt in June because of other more pressing concerns. We're now
starting that up again to finish the job.
We sent notification emails to everyone who would be affected, but
this was back in June so you may have forgotten. These went to
customers on servers "hen" and "paradox", which are the …
[View More]last two
servers that need upgrade.
That notification email asked you to let us know if you need more
than 5 minutes of notice for the work to be done. If you did reply
to that, don't worry, we still have records of that and will give
you the amount of notice you asked for.
If you didn't reply then we are still assuming that 5 minutes of
notice at any time of day is fine and that's how we'll be proceeding
over the next couple of weeks. If that situation has changed then
you should look for the original notification email and reply to it
with your needs.
The last batch of notification emails were sent out to customers on
"hen" and "paradox" on Saturday 5 June 2021 with subject line:
We need to move your BitFolk VPS '$accountname' to other hardware
If you can't find it but still need to let us know, just email
support(a)bitfolk.com to open a support ticket. Again, this only
affects customers on servers "hen" and "paradox". Here's how to work
out which server your service is on:
https://bitfolk.com/customer_information.html#toc_3_Which_piece_of_actual_h…
Cheers,
Andy
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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