As professionals and many aficionados know, early this year some widespread vulnerabilities were found on Intel CPU’s as well as on AMD’s. It was a bit later discovered the flaws also affected some RISC architectures such as Power and ARM. Everybody went nuts and the world seemed to be tumbling because of two CPU vulnerabilities […]
A word on Spectre and Meltdown
How to install Redis for WordPress on FreeBSD
I happen to self-host a few WordPress sites on FreeBSD. And as much as one can configure OP-Cache to improve PHP’s performance, object cache is a must for many WordPress sites. This how to install Redis for WordPress on FreeBSD will explain how to install an object cache (Redis) for WordPress (via plugin) on this […]
How to install MariaDB in FreeBSD
MariaDB is a derivative from the world-famous enterprise class MySQL database. The MySQL founder is Michael Widenius, also known as Monty. He created the project, it worked out for some time, it caught Sun’s attention and they bought it. Then Oracle bought Sun and knowing Larry everyone left running without looking what was left behind. […]
How to synchronize system and network time in FreeBSD
For several applications it is necessary to synchronize your server to the network time. The protocol is called Network Time Protocol (NTP) and is basically giving the correct time to the world nowadays. Reading the Wikipedia entry is very interesting. FreeBSD comes with the ntp client. To set this up you will just add the […]
How to install Docker on Ubuntu 18.04
Operating System level virtualization is hitting hard now, as much as VM’s did just a few years ago. Docker is the popular framework for this matter, the new kid on the block so to speak. This is the hot spot now and if anyone wants to appear knowledgeable about system administration knowing this technology is […]
Exploiting CVE-2019-0708 Remote Desktop Protocol on Windows
The CVE-2019-0708 is the number assigned to a very dangerous vulnerability found in the RDP protocol in Windows sytems. This is also known as the ‘Blue Keep’ vulnerability. The issue was so critical that Microsoft did even release patches to unsupported operating systems such as Windows XP or Server 2003. To this day there are […]
How to use Cloudflare’s Argo Tunnel service to publish a website on FreeBSD 12/13
What is the Cloudflare Argo Tunnel service? In short, a tunneled connection between a host and Cloudflare’s network. A longer depiction can be read in a blog entry of theirs, but I would put it as a secure way to connect the services you want to publish using their network as a shield. An example […]
The Original Sin
Disclaimer: What you are about to read may contain inaccuracies. Feel free to discuss them somewhere else. This is also my opinion and as such it may change through time, maybe tomorrow, next month, next year, next decade or never. I do also make very few reviews (if any) of what I write here so […]
How to analyze suspicious email
Millions of emails are sent and received every day. Most of them are just junk. And many among those are potentially harmful. Phishing still is one of the most effective ways for malicious actors to penetrate into well secured networks. The weakest link, too often, is the human factor. Training can help mitigate this 24×7 […]
How to install Drupal 9 on FreeBSD 13.0
Drupal 7 is approaching its original EOL (End of Life) date (Nov. 2021) which has been extended to November 2022 due to COVID’s impact. Most companies are using Linux already and have their upgrade plans in the works or are thinking about them. This is a good time to switch platform and use Drupal 9 […]