Category: 2.5 Admins

2.5 Admins 249: Octopodian Nightmare

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Locating people with just a phone call, Google forces a change to Let’s Encrypt certificates, yet another example of a “lifetime” subscription being cut short, connecting drives to a small form factor machine, and managing ssh keys with LDAP.

 

Plugs

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What We’ve Learned Supporting FreeBSD in Production (So You Don’t Have To)

 

News

O2 VoLTE: locating any customer with a phone call

Ending TLS Client Authentication Certificate Support in 2026 – Let’s Encrypt

VPN firm says it didn’t know customers had lifetime subscriptions, cancels them

 

Free consulting

We were asked about connecting drives to a small form factor machine, and managing ssh keys with LDAP.

SAS Expanders, Build Your Own JBOD DAS Enclosure and Save – Iteration 1

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

 


2.5 Admins 248: NASty Pi

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TrueNAS drops FreeBSD but there’s a community fork, the elusive ZFS send bug that affected encrypted datasets is finally identified and fixed, why the Raspberry Pi doesn’t make a great NAS, and when to use the zpool checkpoint feature.

 

Plugs

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Maintaining FreeBSD in a Commercial Product – Why Upstream Contributions Matter

 

News/discussion

TrueNAS 25.04 drops FreeBSD: “Fangtooth” only with GNU/Linux base

FreeBSD fans rally round zVault upstart

ZFS raw-send corruption bug fixed

5 things I regret about using my Raspberry Pi as a NAS

 

Free consulting

We were asked about the zpool checkpoint feature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

 


2.5 Admins 247: MPOF

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The basic computer science problems that still remain unsolvable, why you shouldn’t trust AI to tune ZFS (or answer any admin questions), and setting up a check-in system for a group of friends.

 

Plug

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Discussion

Why You Can’t Trust AI to Tune ZFS

 

Free consulting

We were asked about setting up a check-in system for a group of friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

 


2.5 Admins 246: Perpetual Hotpatch

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Old passwords work for Windows RDP, Broadcom shows why perpetual software licenses aren’t really forever, Windows Server is getting hotpatching, and preventing changes to archived files.

 

Plugs

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Owning the Stack: Infrastructure Independence with FreeBSD and ZFS

 

News/discussion

Windows RDP lets you log in using revoked passwords. Microsoft is OK with that

Broadcom sends cease-and-desist letters to subscription-less VMware users

Microsoft pitches pay-to-patch reboot reduction subscription for Windows Server 2025

 

Free consulting

We were asked about preventing changes to archived files.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

 


2.5 Admins 245: IPaaS

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Crosswalks were comically vulnerable to being hacked, even Google struggles with tiered SSD and HDD storage, some insight into how AI scrapers are using domestic IPs, and creating a ZFS mirror one disk at a time.

 

Plugs

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Inside FreeBSD Netgraph: Behind the Curtain of Advanced Networking

 

News/discussion

Hacking US crosswalks to talk like Zuck is as easy as 1234

Even Google struggles to balance fast-but-pricey flash and cheap-but-slow hard disks

How Colossus optimizes data placement for performance

The web is broken, IMHO

 

Free consulting

We were asked about creating a ZFS mirror one disk at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

 


2.5 Admins 244: Branded and Splintered

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Some Synology NAS products will require drives they sold you, doubt is cast on the CVE program, why some FreeBSD packages didn’t appear when they should have, and backing up the keys for encrypted backups.

 

Plugs

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Robust & Reliable Backup Solutions with OpenZFS

 

News

Synology confirms that higher-end NAS products will require its branded drives

CVE program gets last-minute funding from CISA – and maybe a new home

CVE fallout: The splintering of the standard vulnerability tracking system has begun

 

Free consulting

We were asked about backing up the keys for encrypted backups.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

 


2.5 Admins 243: 0.5 Centuries

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IPv4 addresses are worth an awful lot of money, the serious dangers of a seemingly sensible deepfake law, Microsoft is 50 years old, and our thoughts on antivirus on Linux and Windows.

 

Plugs

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Accurate and Effective Storage Benchmarking

 

News

Your IPv4 stash can now be collateral for $100M loans

Congress close to passing deepfake law—Trump said he wants to use it himself

Microsoft is now 50 years old

 

Free consulting

We were asked about antivirus on Linux and Windows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

 


2.5 Admins 242: Malscraping

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Jim’s server is getting hammered by AI scrapers and he’s big mad about it, why RCS doesn’t work on Android without Google apps, a complex Google account issue, and how Jim and Allan handle their WireGuard configs.

 

Plugs

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Network Offload and Socket Splicing (SO_SPLICE) in FreeBSD

 

News

Jim hit by AI scrapers

Open source devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countries

AI bots strain Wikimedia as bandwidth surges 50%

80% of Web Traffic Is Bots — The Hidden Cost of AI Scraping

Threat Spotlight: The good, the bad, and the ‘gray bots’ – the Gen AI scraper bots targeting your web apps

An AI Scraping Tool Is Overwhelming Websites With Traffic

 

Free consulting

We were asked about RCS on AOSP, a complex Google account issue, and how Jim and Allan handle their WireGuard configs.

wg-admin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

 


2.5 Admins 241: Anecdatum

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Whether tech debt is inevitable and where the blame lies, how to properly organise ZFS datasets, and selectively managing updates.

 

Plugs

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ZFS Orchestration Tools – Part 2: Replication

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SysCloud

Over 2,000 IT admins already trust SysCloud to protect their SaaS data. Head to SysCloud.com for a 30-day free trial—and for a limited time, use code 25ADMINS to get 50% off your first purchase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

 


2.5 Admins 240: 30 DVI Cables

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The key differences between throughput and latency – and when they matter, the tech that we’d keep if we stopped working in IT, and avoiding bitrot with rsync backups.

 

Plugs

Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes

Core Infrastructure: Why You Need to Control Your NTP

 

 

Free consulting

We were asked about avoiding bitrot with rsync backups.

Parchive

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SysCloud

Over 2,000 IT admins already trust SysCloud to protect their SaaS data. Head to SysCloud.com for a 30-day free trial—and for a limited time, use code 25ADMINS to get 50% off your first purchase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.