2.5 Admins

Potentially improving DNS privacy, the big new ZFS release, and the best way to automate Linux installations.   Plugs Webinar – Best Practices For Optimizing ZFS – Part 1 Support us on patreon   News Improving DNS Privacy with Oblivious DoH in 1.1.1.1 OpenZFS 2.0 release unifies Linux, BSD and adds tons of new features   Free consulting We were asked about the best way to automate Linux installations.       TrueNAS from iXsystems This episode is sponsored by TrueNAS from iXsystems, the number one Open Storage OS. See how TrueNAS can support your next storage project, whether it’s just a few terabytes, all the way up to multiple petabytes.   Linode Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode’s Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and more easily. Go to linode.com/twoandahalf and get started with $100 credit.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

How Intel and AMD have fought it out over the years, Apple changes the industry with their M1 SoC, and we repeat the mantra that RAID is not a backup.   Plugs Support us on patreon. If enough people do, we will go weekly.   News A history of Intel vs. AMD desktop performance, with CPU charts galore Hands-on with the Apple M1—a seriously fast x86 competitor Intel’s Disruption is Now Complete   Free consulting A question about drive failures is answered with a basic lesson in backups. We mentioned this article.   Linode Simplify your cloud infrastructure with Linode’s Linux virtual machines and develop, deploy, and scale your modern applications faster and more easily. Go to linode.com/twoandahalf and get started with $100 credit.   Datadog This episode is sponsored by Datadog – the unified monitoring and analytics platform for comprehensive visibility into cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. Start your Datadog trial today by visiting datadog.com/25admins, create one dashboard, and you’ll get a free Datadog t-shirt.       See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Google proves that “unlimited” anything doesn’t exist, GitHub shenanigans, Apple’s new Arm computers, and which distro to start with as a sysadmin.   Plugs Allan’s ZFS Webinar – Nov 18th, signup soon Support us on patreon. If enough people do, we will go weekly.   News Arm Macs announced Google Photos is the latest “Unlimited” plan to impose hard limits GitHub’s source code was leaked on GitHub last night… sort of Allan trolls Greg K-H   Free consulting We were asked whether someone starting out as a sysadmin should master Debian or CentOS.     Datadog This episode is sponsored by Datadog – the unified monitoring and analytics platform for comprehensive visibility into cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. Start your Datadog trial today by visiting datadog.com/25admins, create one dashboard, and you’ll get a free Datadog t-shirt.   TrueNAS from iXsystems This episode is sponsored by TrueNAS from iXsystems, the number one Open Storage OS. See how TrueNAS can support your next storage project, whether it’s just a few terabytes, all the way up to multiple petabytes.       See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

We wade through Cloudfare’s marketing fluff, forced WordPress plugin updates, a bunch of your questions, and the shocking revelation that FreeBSD actually has graphics drivers.   Plugs History of FreeBSD, Part 2   News Introducing Cloudflare One Introducing Cloudflare Browser Isolation beta WordPress deploys forced security update for dangerous bug in popular plugin   Free consulting We answered a big batch of questions about managing bandwidth quotas, tape backups, preventing users from rebooting, and DKMS issues. We mentioned Firehol, ntopng, and Bacula.     Datadog This episode is sponsored by Datadog – the unified monitoring and analytics platform for comprehensive visibility into cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. Start your Datadog trial today by visiting datadog.com/25admins, create one dashboard, and you’ll get a free Datadog t-shirt.   Lernard This episode is sponsored by Lernard. Sign up at automation.link and upgrade with the code admins to get 50% off a years’ subscription to a new devops training site called Lernard.   See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

How not to store test results, AMD firmly on top of the desktop space, what moving to remote work means for corporate networks, and deduplication of disorganized data.   Plugs Allan’s summary of the OpenZFS Devsummit 2020 All Things Open Support us on patreon. If enough people do, we will go weekly.   News Why using Microsoft’s tool caused Covid-19 results to be lost AMD’s new Zen 3 Ryzen desktop CPUs arrive November 5 Yesterday’s corporate network design isn’t working for working from home   Free consulting Joe asked for advice on deduplicating some old disorganized data.     Datadog This episode is sponsored by Datadog – the unified monitoring and analytics platform for comprehensive visibility into cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. Start your Datadog trial today by visiting datadog.com/25admins, create one dashboard, and you’ll get a free Datadog t-shirt.   TrueNAS from iXsystems This episode is sponsored by TrueNAS from iXsystems, the number one Open Storage OS. See how TrueNAS can support your next storage project, whether it’s just a few terabytes, all the way up to multiple petabytes.       See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Intel almost catching up to AMD with Tiger Lake, the .uk fiasco, and why you shouldn’t be using dd.   Plugs OpenZFS Developer Summit All Things Open 2020 Support us on patreon. If enough people do, we will go weekly.   News Hands-on with Intel’s i7-1185G7 Tiger Lake prototype laptop Intel’s run at the GPU market begins with Tiger Lake onboard graphics What the hell is going on with .uk? .uk registry operator Nominet responds to renewed criticism – by silencing its critics .uk overlord Nominet tells everyone not to worry about ‘distorted’ vote allocations in its board elections   Free consulting We were asked about block size while using dd. Jim mentioned his blog post about iostat.   Datadog This episode is sponsored by Datadog – the unified monitoring and analytics platform for comprehensive visibility into cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. Start your Datadog trial today by visiting datadog.com/25admins, create one dashboard, and you’ll get a free Datadog t-shirt.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Cyber insurance for ransomware, more confusing WD specs, the truth behind the return of the Gateway brand, and managing config files.   News Ransomware accounted for 41% of all cyber insurance claims in H1 2020 Western Digital is trying to redefine the word “RPM” We found out who makes Walmart’s new Gateway laptops, and it’s bad news   Free consulting We were asked about managing config files when updating.     TrueNAS from iXsystems This episode is sponsored by TrueNAS from iXsystems, the number one Open Storage OS. See how TrueNAS can support your next storage project, whether it’s just a few terabytes, all the way up to multiple petabytes.   Datadog This episode is sponsored by Datadog – the unified monitoring and analytics platform for comprehensive visibility into cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. Start your Datadog trial today by visiting datadog.com/25admins, create one dashboard, and you’ll get a free Datadog t-shirt.       See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

How Internet standards are decided, what a new one means for the Web, a surprising “feature” of Chrome, and the best ways to monitor your systems.   News WebBundles Harmful to Content Blocking, Security Tools, and the Open Web RFC8890: The Internet is for End Users A Chrome feature is creating enormous load on global root DNS servers   Free consulting We were asked about monitoring backups and systems in general.       See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Low power x86 vs Arm boards, hard disk failure rates, and the intricacies of ZFS snapshots.   Plugs OpenZFS Developer Summit Support the podcast on Patreon   News Seeed Studio’s Odyssey is a mini-PC for big projects and small wallets Backblaze Hard Drive Stats Q2 2020   Free consulting We were asked about ZFS on root, snapshots, and Jim’s project called Sanoid.     TrueNAS from iXsystems This episode is sponsored by TrueNAS from iXsystems, the number one Open Storage OS. See how TrueNAS can support your next storage project, whether it’s just a few terabytes, all the way up to multiple petabytes.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Intel’s 7nm woes, hosts files, Mozilla’s VPN service, and automating ssh between remote hosts.   News Heads roll at Intel after 7nm delay Intel’s 7nm is busted, chips delayed, may have to use rival foundries to get GPUs out for US govt exascale super AMD is now following Moore’s Law: More chips, more money, more pressure on Intel, more competition in the x86 space AMD Says Zen 3 Consumer CPUs Will Launch This Year Windows 10: HOSTS file blocking telemetry is now flagged as a risk We test Mozilla’s new Wireguard-based $5/mo VPN service   Free consulting We were asked about automating ssh between remote hosts. Allan mentioned SSH Mastery.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

New types of hard disks, recovering data from dying drives, AMD makes Jim reach for the calculator, and what to do with obscure software that you need.   Plugs FreeBSD Fridays: A Series of 101 Classes Joe’s podcast consulting   News Western Digital releases new 18TB, 20TB EAMR drives Tales From The Sysadmin: Impending Hard Drive Doom AMD Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs will be here in Q3 2020   Free consulting We were asked how to deal with updates for software that isn’t in repos and needs to be compiled.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Initial Arm Mac benchmarks are out and they aren’t terrible, getting the best transfer speeds over USB, and rolling our own home routers.   Plugs FreeBSD Bug Squash Support the podcast on Patreon   News First benchmarks surface for Apple’s ARM-based Developer Transition Kit UASP makes Raspberry Pi 4 disk IO 50% faster   Free Consulting We were asked about our home network setups.   See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Jim bought the worst laptop in the world, a quick update on SMR drives, learning the basics of ZFS, and updating air-gapped servers.   Plug Support the podcast on Patreon   News We bought Walmart’s $140 laptop so you wouldn’t have to Lawsuit vs. Western Digital wants to end any use of SMR in NAS drives Western Digital adds “Red Plus” branding for non-SMR hard drives   Free Consulting We were asked about the best ways to start with ZFS, and Shlomi asked about updating air-gapped Ubuntu machines with various VMs.         See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

When the world will move to IPv6, WD SMR drives put to the test, raw vs qcow2 on ZFS, and erasing SSDs.   Plug Support the podcast on Patreon   News It could be ‘five to ten years’ before the world finally drags itself away from IPv4 We put Western Digital’s dreaded SMR Red drive to the test   Free consulting Michael asked for advice about whether to use raw or qcow2 on ZFS, and Joe had a question about giving SSDs away.           See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Zoom’s new encryption, podcasts in walled gardens, and servers as pets vs cattle.   Plug Support the podcast on Patreon   News Zoom to require users to upgrade to 5.0 after May 30th Zoom bought Keybase in early May Joe Rogan will move his podcast to Spotify   Free consulting Eduardo asked us to dive a little deeper into how to move from being an admin who treats their servers like pets to being an admin who treats their servers like cattle.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch.    

Why Apache is still relevant in 2020, and the differences between ZFS and Btrfs.   Plugs Allan’s BSDCan Homelab panel Allan on setns.live Support the podcast on Patreon   Apache vs Nginx Apache 101   Free Consulting Several people including Emil have asked us to discuss the differences between ZFS and Btrfs. Jim recently wrote a ZFS 101 article.     See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Our thoughts on DNS-over-HTTPS, whether Arm is about to take over, HDD advice, and automatic updates and reboots.   Plugs Help us keep the lights on by supporting us on Patreon. Watch Allan’s Homelab panel recording for BSDCan 2020 on May 5th, 2pm EDT (18:00 UTC) Check out Joe’s light-hearted podcast The New Show Jim will be speaking at Open Source 101 At Home   News Surreptitiously Swapping SMR into Hard Drive Lines Must Stop Canada’s .ca overlord rolls out free privacy-protecting DNS-over-HTTPS service for folks in Great White North Paul Vixie on DoH @ vBSDCon 2019 Paul Vixie: DNS Wars: Episode IV: A New Bypass @ EuroBSDCon 2019 The rumor that just won’t die: Apple to keep Intel at Arm’s length in 2021 with launch of ‘A14-powered laptops’ Making macOS run well on ARM processors isn’t the hard part What is ARM Morello ARM backs the CHERI project   Free Consulting Frank wrote in to ask advice on which HDDs to buy, and Jake was curious about automatic updates and reboots.    

In our first episode, Allan Jude, Jim Salter, and Joe Ressington discuss Amazon cutting affiliate rates, SMR hard drives, and setting up off-site backups on the cheap.   News Amazon reportedly planning drastic cuts to affiliate commission rates   Buyer beware—that 2TB-6TB “NAS” drive you’ve been eyeing might be SMR Seagate says Network Attached Storage and SMR don’t mix Western Digital admits 2TB-6TB WD Red NAS drives use shingled magnetic recording Seagate ‘submarines’ SMR into 3 Barracuda drives and a Desktop HDD Toshiba desktop disk drives have shingles too Western Digital implies WD Red NAS SMR drive users are responsible for overuse problems   Free Consulting Joe has ~2TB of data that should be backed up off-site. Jim and Allan discuss the best ways to do that on a low budget. Send your questions for Jim and Allan to show@ the show website domain: 2.5admins.com