Misc Online email obfuscation Problem: This blog has been a great place to brainstorm and share my ideas and activities with the world however it's always bugged me slightly that I've had no way to get feedback from my audience. I dislike contact forms, as it means I have to either find a decent
Nginx Correct IP in nginx logs behind reverse proxy / load balancer Problem: So I finally got a log solution I like working properly. Logs in the load-balancer are correct in terms of their external IP. The problem is when I look at the webserver logs, this has the IP of the load balancer as the client. Solution: We need to add
Linux Nginx Reverse Proxy based on user-agent Problem: I run a 'load balancer' at home. The first thing I hear when I tell people this is something along the lines of 'what on earth are you running if you need a load balancer at home?!' Now technically it's not really a load balancer it's a reverse
Linux Replacing cron jobs with Jenkins Problem: I've got quite a few servers kicking around, in various different locations and usually doing various different things. Across all of these servers there's always cron jobs set up to do small things here and there - perhaps back something up, clean up some files, hell I even have
Linux Automating IOS WEBVPN LetsEncrypt SSL Certificates Problem: In a previous post I addressed the problem of getting an SSL certificate from LetsEncrypt onto a Cisco IOS router. The problem we face now is that these certificates expire frequently, and it is therefore desirable to have a level of automation associated with this configuration so that expiring
Linux Cisco IOS SSL WebVPN with LetsEncrypt Problem: A while back I wrote a post on SSL VPN for IOS routers here: GHOST_URL/2016/03/21/cisco-ios-ssl-webvpn/ This post goes into detail of using the Certificate Authority StartCom. Since I wrote that article StartCom has been acquired by WoSign Limited (a Chinese company). As a result,
Linux Fixing "'no matching key exchange method found. Their offer: diffie-hellman-group1-sha1" on Mac Problem: This is going to be a lovely short post. Here's the issue: dchidell@dchidell-mac:~$ ssh [email protected] Unable to negotiate with 1.1.12.40 port 22: no matching key exchange method found. Their offer: diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 dchidell@dchidell-mac:~$ Solution: Ideally we'd fix the server so that
Docker Handy Docker Scripts Introduction: Here we go, yet another docker post! I'm going to keep this one short and simply use it as a repository to store some bash scripts I've written to automate some docker functions. Scripts: Some of these are rather hacked together, they generally work but may need some tweaking
VMware vCenter 6.0 Appliance Multi-NIC Introduction: Occasionally it's useful to connect vCenter to multiple networks simultaneously. Often this requirement comes from in-band (IB) vs out-of-band (OOB) networking where some provisioning or automation tool requires access to vCenter. The problem is that these provisioning tools often run on a dedicated OOB network, where servers running ESXi
Docker Automating Docker with Python Introduction: Ok I've gone docker mad, I love it! Everything of mine is now running on docker (at least everything I can). Naturally the next step is to bring some level of automation to the show, who doesn't love automation! Getting Started with the API The raw docker API is
Docker Working with Docker Introduction: I'm rather a keen advocate on Virtualisation technologies and anything that can be used to abstract resources into a pool to be used where needed. As a result of this interest, I started looking into containerisation, specifically docker. Containerisation is an interesting concept for someone who has come from
VMware vCenter 6.5 REST API w/ Python Introduction: So one of the new features in vSphere 6.5 is the REST API introduced into vCenter. This is particularly interesting to me as I've always liked automating things but have been pained by the windows requirement for PowerCLI (I'm also not a huge fan of powershell, despite it's
Cisco Cisco ACS 5.8 Deployment & Configuration (RADIUS and TACACS+) Introduction: So what is ACS? ACS stands for Access Control System and is a product developed by Cisco. The primary features of ACS is to provide Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) and Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System Plus (TACACS+). These protocols are designed for use in Authentication, Authorization
Storage NetApp FAS2240-2 Disk Assignment Problem: I like NetApp, usually things are easy, but today I hit a snag I want to document right before I forget it. Problem is I have an array which has 24 drives in, however maintenance mode shows no disks when using disk show. This is already strange to me,
Linux Linux Commands & snippets reference Introduction: Familiarity with linux in an IT profession is essential, but, who can ever remember all the commands! Below are some common and not so common bits and pieces I've had to use. I'll continue to update when I find new commands I've had to use. Unless specified otherwise, these
Linux Ubuntu Server 16.04 x64 Deployment Introduction: Personally I'm pretty comfortable with linux, in fact this year marks a decade since I started using it (scary stuff). This guide is just something whipped up fairly quickly to demonstrate to those not quite so familiar with linux / ubuntu how a new ubuntu server installation can be done.
Linux Java JRE (8) on Ubuntu Server 16.04 Problem: Java is a pain. It's needed for so much yet it is such a pig to get the right versions etc, I recently required a very specific version of java 8 (update 45) so thought I would document the procedure I followed to get it working proficiently. Solution: The
Misc Ghost blog page width Problem Ghost (this blog) is a great platform, nice and easy to run, maintain and post on. Problem is I didn't like the default page width, it was just a little too slim. Solution Thanks to Alex H, who knows CSS unlike myself managed to find the line you need
Cisco Cisco Autonomous Wireless Network - Home style configuration Introduction: In one of the previous posts I covered how to set up a Cisco router in a 'standard' home configuration. (see HERE). If you've followed this (or otherwise) it may be desirable to follow this through with a wireless solution. This post will cover a generic setup of an
Cisco Packet Capture on Cisco Routers Problem: I look after multiple 'remote branch' type locations. These branches have internet connections which connect back to central hubs via DMVPN. Occasionally incidents happen at these locations which require investigation (a single client hogging bandwidth, suspicious activity, etc etc). How do you analyse this activity? Several tools exist already
Misc Handy (uncommon) Software Introduction: This post will serve as a repository for software I find which is fairly niche, or serves a particularly useful purpose. I'm often finding something which is useful and then can never find it again when I need it! I'm not going to include a lot of mainstream stuff,
Misc Gravograph M40IQ Windows 10 Setup Problem Right, so, usually these things tend to be about me fixing my own problems, however this time it's one for Billy. Every time the bugger installs windows 10, he has issues getting his engraving machine to work. The drivers only go up to windows 8, and nothing is ever
VMware VMware ESXi 6.0 SNMP Config Problem SNMP is cool, but it's a bit of a ball ache to get working in ESXi. We need to configure all of our options and as far as I can see you can't do it using the GUI. So, here's how to do it using the CLI. Solution First,
VMware VMware ESXi Customisation Problem ESXi is a fantastic piece of kit, allows you to do all sorts! As such, me, and others like me have a tendency to try and get it to run on everything from a Cisco UCS to the kitchen toaster. Problem is, ESXi isn't very good at supporting the
Cisco "Standard / basic" cisco home router configuration Introduction So, you're a bit of a Cisco nerd, and you want to deploy a cisco router at home, fantastic! Perhaps you've got a bit of Cisco background, CCNA/P or this may be from scratch but what does a "real world" configuration sample actually look like? Things
