Proxmox Dark Theme

It was an accidental and welcome discovery to find that there is an available dark theme that may easily be applied to your Proxmox install and looks fantastic. There are two available methods for installation, one is python and the other via bash.  The python installation is deprecated in favor of the bash script.  It should also be noted that…

Read More »

Clone of Proxmox Server Created Ghost Ceph Servers in Unknown Status [Resolved]

While creating a test environment for three Proxmox servers, one of the servers was cloned before realizing it was easier and faster to simply build up the next virtual machine.  Everything looked fine except when setting up the ceph monitors, managers, and meta data servers, the cloned server had two entries.  One was good with the green checkmark and another…

Read More »

Migrate CentOS to Another Distro

Since CentOS Linux 8 will lose support on December 31, 2021 and the focus will be solely on CentOS Stream 8, which is continuously delivered distro that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) development, positioned as a midstream between Fedora Linux and RHEL, many are looking for alternatives.  Thankfully they exist and there are conversions that I…

Read More »

Resolve conflicting requests with perl:5.26

After a CentOS 8 to Rocky Linux 8 conversion attempt that went surprisingly well, there appeared to be an amanous error message that presented itself each time a simple command of yum list installed was issued. Problem Problem 1: conflicting requests – nothing provides module(perl:5.26) needed by module perl-DBD-MySQL:4.046:8030020210430225703:3a70019f-0.x86_64 Problem 2: conflicting requests – nothing provides module(perl:5.26) needed by module…

Read More »

Add VMware ovftool to ESXi 6.7 or Proxmox VE 6.1

Older versions of ESXi IIRC allowed for the direct export to ova. I recently came across a process that is not supported; however, is supposed to allow for the copy of ovftools over to a Proxmox and ESXi servers.  There exists an extracted version of VMware ovftool on github. However, it is version 4.1.0 and expect to encounter issues with…

Read More »

Rocky Linux 8.4 is here!

Rocky Linux is here and more importantly, Rocky Linux 8.4 is just released.  According the Rocky Linux forums, this may be another release candidate as this was posted on May 28, 2021, “.he plan now is to get a 8.4 RC out there and then push that to a GA release. We learned a lot from our 8.3 RC, and…

Read More »

Windows Firewall to Block WAN and Allow LAN Only Access

You want to test an applications capabilities on your local network and block all other networks and Internet access while on your Microsoft Windows 10 system.  This process was tested using Version 1909 (OS Build 18363.1440).  Assume for this experiment that you want to allow any computer or device access to and from this workstation that is found on the…

Read More »

Convert MBR Partition in CentOS/RHEL/AlmaLinux 8

By default when installing CentOS 8, the BIOS will be MBR. This can be changed while installing by adding the inst.gpt to the vmlinuz line during the installing process.  However, if you forget to do so, it is not too late.  For fun, I followed this process that I found online and it worked without damaging the virtual machine.  I…

Read More »

Rocky Linux is Ready to Download

After months of waiting and after refreshing the twitter feeds, news groups, Reddit, and Rocky Linux homepage, Rocky Linux is now available for download.  DistroWatch.com doesn’t even have it listed yet as it is so new. While it is a Release Candidate, it is only hours old at the time of this writing 7:32 AM on May 1, 2021!  I…

Read More »

Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) with NFS [Resolved]

Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) is capable of using NFS datastores although the official documentation would prefer the use of local storage.  For one reason or another, there was the desire to use a NFS datastore. I tried several different NFS servers, Synology, NetGear, and TrueNAS CORE.  The Synology setup was the first of the three I actually got working, mainly…

Read More »

Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) with iSCSI [Resolved]

The Proxmox Server offers native backup capabilities. It can be slow, but figured out a way to tweak it with PIGZ and that offered great improvements. However, the nightly backups are complete virtual machines. Proxmox Backup Server (“PBS”) can be used to facilitate backups incrementally and offers pruning and so many other backup related features. The setup seems to require…

Read More »

How to install php-mcrypt module on CentOS 8 with PHP 7.4

A recent migration to a CentOS 8 server from CentOS 6 did not go as smoothly as planned. As well as imagined, everything was upgraded along the way.  PHP 5.x to PHP 7.4 for example. One web application had been running smoothly on PHP 5.x for many years. However, after the migration, complained that php-mcrypt needed to be installed. The…

Read More »

AWX Server Error Has Occurred

By default AWX installs the database in the /tmp directory. This can be avoided during install by modifying the inventory file.  However, if by chance AWX was installed using the default settings, you will eventually have a corrupt database and a Server Error page will be displayed.  If you are fortunate to have a snapshot of a virtual machine or a…

Read More »

Windows 10 Upgrade to 20H2 Breaks VMware Workstation

After an update to a Windows 10 system to the 20H2 build, it was quickly noted that the device manager added virtual ethernet ports to support Hyper-V.  A sneaky suspicion that this would break VMware Workstation 15 and it did. A VMware Workstation Solution The first thought, why not try to launch a virtual machine in the existing VMware Workstation…

Read More »

Can’t delete a macOS user with dscl [resolution]

Performing a process on more than a couple of dozen macOS (various versions 10.15.x) without issue and then presented with a couple of macOS laptops that would not allow for the deletion of the user. A very ugly error will appear that reads eDSPermissionError which implies that there is a permissions problem.  As the root administrator to the laptop, this…

Read More »

SSH and FIPS Mode Enabled

The Secure Shell, more commonly referred to as ssh, is a cryptographic network protocol for operating network services securely over an unsecured network. Typical applications include remote command-line, login, and remote command execution, but any network service can be secured with SSH.  Over the years, a more typical solution is to create a key type of rsa, which is the…

Read More »

CMMC FIPS Mode Enabled

To gain CMMC compliance, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 operating system or any of it’s variants must enable FIPS mode.  FIPS mode can be a difficult hurdle, where it doesn’t have to be.  While researching a recent problem that was encountered on a FIPS enabled system, more questions than answered were raised.  As you progress through this article, you…

Read More »