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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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How to adapt the scap-security-guide for DISA CIS for CentOS8 Linux

The scap-security-guide changes in format with each new guide.  CentOS 8 is not fully represented within the guide.  The XMLs provided differ in context, so the RHEL XML must be used to generate the report but requires a small patch to do so. The CUI Profile The ssg-rhel8-ds-1.2.xml contains the profile cui, while the one for ssg-centos8-ds-1.2.xml does not. [root@admin…

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ceph: Prepare the environment

The goal of this guide is to serve as a precursor to the installation of ceph nautilus on CentOS 7.  This process was completed on a virtual environment and has been reproduced several times before this writing.   Ceph is an open-source software storage platform that replicates data and makes it fault-tolerant. A good definition and intro to ceph may be…

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How to install ceph nautilus with ceph-ansible

There are so many articles on how to install ceph with ceph-ansible.  Sadly, as ceph versions change, so does the process for installation.  This distinction is rarely made within in the instructions and because of that, the install is doomed to fail and the installer disenfranchised. This article should provide the process needed to install on CentOS 7 ceph nautilus…

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CentOS 8 (EOL 2021) Migration to CentOS 8 Stream

It has been announced that CentOS 8 will be End Of Life in Q4, 2021.  It will be phased out in favor of the CentOS 8 Stream, which falls between the Fedora and RHEL distributions. Instead of CentOS builds after RHEL updates, the CentOS 8 will be the development track for RHEL.  With that in mind, there is a path…

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CentOS 6 End Of Life Repositories

CentOS 6 finally came to end of life (“EOL”) as of November 30, 2020.  A rude awaking if you haven’t been paying attention and attempt a yum update to be presented with an error message.  CentOS does maintain a vault. There is a CentOS-Vault.repo that exists for earlier versions of CentOS 6, but with a few modifications, you can still…

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CentOS 8 Firmware Bug BIOS has corrupted hw-PMU resources in VMware [Resolved]

An instance of CentOS 8 is not running on a Dell or HP Enterprise level server; however, is running on a VMware Workstation on a Windows 10 laptop presents the [Firmware Bug]: the BIOS has corrupted hw-PMU resources (MSR 38d is 3) message. Every article on the internet suggests live with the message it is harmless. While that maybe the…

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macOS: Useful Commands

The intent of this page is a quick reference of some interesting and useful commands.  The following commands had been tested against macOS versions 11.5.2+ . Serial Number ioreg -rd1 -c IOPlatformExpertDevice | awk -F'”‘ ‘/IOPlatformSerialNumber/{print $4}’ Model Number sysctl -n hw.model | cut -d “,” -f 1 | tr -d ‘[0-9]_’ Current logged On User ls -l /dev/console |…

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Windows: Useful Commands

The intent of this page is a quick reference of some interesting and useful PowerShell and other commands. dism Enable/disable telnet client through command line telnet isn’t something that I use often, but when needed, here is the command.  After using telnet, it may be advisable to remove it.  Here are the two commands to add/remove telnet. dism /online /Enable-Feature…

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NFL Pick ‘Em for 2020 Season Schedule

I had written a little clever script for last season that was supposed to work for every season until the end of time. Well, those hopes were crushed when the NFL changed their links to something that I cannot identify.  The following script is a culmination of four hours work, many edits and minor scripts to search and replace. There…

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iDRAC 7 and Java 8 Connection Failed Easy Work-a-round

There is an older Dell PowerEdge (“PE”) R720xd; it comes equipped with the Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller 7 (“iDRAC7”) Enterprise. The iDRAC has recently been provided a network connection and upon any attempt at launching the console from the Virtual Console Preview, it quickly resulted in the Connection failed messages. This guide will demonstrate how to download and install…

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Micropolis Game – SimCity OpenSource

Throughout the years, Maxis SimCity has evolved from version 1.x for DOS to Windows (2013).  Somewhere along the way, Maxis SimCity lost its way with SimCity (2013), but I won’t hold that against them.  The go to version has always been the original SimCity for DOS. With programs like DOSBox, this game is still a capable game.  It has its…

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Automated Scripted Install of WordPress on CentOS8/RHEL8 Linux

I have written a couple of installation scripts to install WordPress throughout the years.  This is the latest in that series to install WordPress 5 on a minimal install of CentOS8. Among the differences between this script and previous ones, is that this will be installed in it’s own directory /wordpress rather than /. Basically, write the script as seen below,…

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