2.5 Admins
by The Late Night Linux Family
2.5 Admins is a podcast featuring two sysadmins called Allan Jude and Jim Salter, and a producer/editor who can just about configure a Samba share called Joe Ressington. Every week we get together, talk about recent tech news, and answer some of your admin-related questions.
Episodes
-
2.5 Admins 324: Less Canadian
A bug in APT shines a light on a long-standing issue, backing up databases in containers, the pros and cons of using FreeBSD to host Linux VMs, network isolation for VMs, and using another backup technology in addition to ZFS. With guest host Sean from Hybrid Cloud Show. Plug Support us on…
more -
2.5 Admins 323: No /boot For You
Why you should be watching for SSL certificates that you didn’t issue, Let’s Encrypt is shortening the length of certs to 64 days, Ubuntu tightens up GRUB with secure boot, an Intel driver bug breaks IPv6 for major services, and running websites from a home Internet connection. Plugs Support us…
more -
2.5 Admins 322: Internet Defrigeration
Supermarkets found out why their fridges shouldn’t be on the Internet and Samsung smart fridges broke after a firmware update, why we don’t recommend MoCA, some tips for running ethernet cables in your house, and why it’s fine to use a short TTL with your domains. Plugs Support us on patreon and...
-
2.5 Admins 321: Backup Strategy
Why batteries in homes could benefit everyone involved, why we didn’t bring up wake-on-LAN when someone asked about keeping a NAS powered on as little as possible, building a router vs buying one, and ways to manage ssh connections. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with…
more -
2.5 Admins 320: Dining on Goose
Google offers a few pennies to web publishers to make up for stealing their content and not sending them any traffic, the tech we’d try to use after the apocalypse, why Jim doesn’t virtualise his clients’ desktops, and setting up Volume Shadow Copy so your users can restore their own files. Plugs...
-
2.5 Admins 319: Funding Open Source
The challenges of funding open source software projects, how Netflix uses FreeBSD in a positive way, why you shouldn’t try to complicate your monitoring, and running servers in a small residence. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Why Is Everyone…
more -
2.5 Admins 318: End of Exchange
Microsoft really wants you to update your Exchange server, our thoughts on immutable distros, more on Jim’s approach to internet access for his kids, restricting access to servers on a corporate network, and cloning and backing up operating systems with ZFS. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an...
-
2.5 Admins 317: Need Less
Some of the ways you can mitigate the ridiculous hardware prices, and designing a small business LAN. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes FreeBSD’s Release Cycle: What It Means for Your Upgrade Schedule Free consulting We were asked about designing a...
-
2.5 Admins 316: BGP Clipboard Hijack
A BGP hijack involved some basic errors, Microsoft teaches people to ignore warnings in Windows, Zoom appears to be reading the clipboard on X11, why a non-US open certificate authority is feasible in theory, and keeping a NAS powered on as little as possible. Plugs Support us on patreon and get…
more -
2.5 Admins 315: Hot Bus Adapter
What to read into a study of long-term Backblaze hard drive failure data, why the difference between TB and TiB matters, and what to do about an overheating host bus adapter. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes ZFS vs Ceph: Choosing the Right Storage...
-
2.5 Admins 314: 50 PBS TBS
A TV station struggles to retrieve its data from the data centre company that a defunct intermediary used, why we don’t want AI to manage our networks (even if Microsoft thinks we should), and understanding vdevs, and datasets in ZFS. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with...
-
2.5 Admins 313: Cooking with NVMe
Microsoft claims that Windows 11 will work well with 8GB of RAM, some of the innovations coming to high end SSDs, the arguments for TP-Link Omada over Ubiquiti UniFi. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes FreeBSD Support: Greatest Hits Discussion…
more -
2.5 Admins 312: Bus Factor
In a world where photos can no longer be trusted, Jim argues that we should move to a default distrust model where images are signed at every stage of the process of creation. We get into some of the potential issues. Plus how to ensure continuity for your clients in the event of your demise, and...
-
2.5 Admins 311: Couch Cushions
Microsoft restored an account including files that it initially claimed wasn’t possible, Apple might lock down phones if people don’t keep up their lease payments, ZFS scrubs shouldn’t be painful, and accessing another network from a locked-down work machine. Plugs Support us on patreon and get…
more -
2.5 Admins 310: GPLFreeBSD
Google wants you to use a selfie video for account recovery, LG will stop apps turning their smart TVs into residential proxy nodes, we disagree about how serious OpenAI’s agent hacking Hugging Face is, FreeBSD removes the last bits of GPL software and suffers an embarrassing git flub , and…
more -
2.5 Admins 309: Orbital Sauron
A new HTTP caching standard looks promising but might struggle to get adopted, a terrible space mirror idea is actually happening, cars will spy on us all, and picking a VPN for use with an IP that doesn’t change very often. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early...
-
2.5 Admins 308: Sloppy Shims
Microsoft really wants your Windows settings data, secure boot has been useless for a decade, our thoughts on (the idea of) Incus and IncusOS, and configuring ZFS for a Lightning Memory Mapped Database. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Jails, Not...
-
2.5 Admins 307: One Big Pool
Follow-up on rebooting to update, portable power stations, glass storage, and objective news sources. Plus whether to use one ZFS pool per vdev, or just one large pool. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Native inotify in FreeBSD Feedback Anker SOLIX…
more -
2.5 Admins 306: WiFi Cable
Why setting up commercial email and VPN services is incredibly hard, avoiding TrueNAS’s move from FreeBSD to Linux, why we avoid virtualising storage systems, and bridging WiFi to an external building. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Using Object...
-
2.5 Admins 305: Short Two
The one tool in our IT tool belt that we value the most. This is a short episode because Joe is having a summer break. See our contact page for ways to get in touch.
-
2.5 Admins 304: Wiring a House
Wiring up a house for networking including cables, access points, connectors, and racks. Plus Google is found liable for what its AI overviews say. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Managing Cache and DirectIO for Databases on ZFS Webinar: June 30th…
more -
2.5 Admins 303: Denial of Secrets
People were locked out of their password managers to stop a brute force attack, Coreutils come to Windows, a FreeBSD PR effort backfires, and the best simple consumer WiFi gear. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Why ZFS Is the Ideal Filesystem for...
-
2.5 Admins 302: ClawPilot
Microsoft threatens a security researcher for disclosing vulnerabilities publicly, bricks old versions of Office, and announces their version of OpenClaw. Plus keeping up with the latest technology. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Which ZFS Storage...
-
2.5 Admins 301: F(OSS) Consulting
It looks like Bitlocker had a back door in it, how a listener accidentally broke Gitea for users of the snap version, Google accidentally published an unpatched exploit for Chromium-based browsers, why people are starting to ditch Bitwarden, and moving a tech stack away from large corporations....
-
2.5 Admins 300: IPvWot?
Why a proposal for an alternative to IPv6 is unlikely to be viable, Microsoft really doesn’t want you to run Exchange Server on-prem, Google will finally stop being a proper search engine, setting up an email server for internal use, and mitigating DDoS attacks without Cloudflare. Plugs Support…
more -
2.5 Admins 299: RMAggravation
People trying to return defective hard drives and RAM are finding out why consumer protection laws would be good, GoDaddy accidentally gave someone’s domain name away, and when and how to fix ZFS fragmentation. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Fast...
-
2.5 Admins 298: Windows Postdate
Microsoft is encouraging employees with the most experience to leave the company and letting users pause Windows updates forever, some of the best features you’ll get in the version of ZFS that ships with the new Ubuntu LTS, and backing up data from cloud services. Plugs Support us on patreon and...
-
2.5 Admins 297: Jraphics
Hitting the limit for hard links, a parent struggles to get back into their teen’s compromised Discord account, the demise of tower PCs and general purpose computing in general, and changing the properties of existing ZFS pools. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some...
-
2.5 Admins 296: Beware of the Leopard
Microsoft locks devs out of important accounts, the foreign router ban exemptions make even less sense, Backblaze shows that “unlimited” never means that, and attempting to avoid software that’s written with AI. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Do...
-
2.5 Admins 295: Orbital Meltdown
Why putting data center satellites in orbit is a terrible idea, Google might show people a made-up version of your website, and ZFS on really old Dell servers. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes News/discussion Orbital data centers, part 1: There’s no...
-
2.5 Admins 294: Oh, R2
Arm announces its first CPU, Anthropic accidentally leaks the source for Claude Code and it’s terrible, and setting up a backup for a friend’s photos. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes FreeBSD and OpenZFS in the Quest for Technical Independence: A...
-
2.5 Admins 293: Reduced Flicker
Microsoft says Windows 11 is getting less rubbish but we are skeptical, vehicles with alcohol interlocks won’t start because the manufacturer’s server is down, and whether you should virtualise a router or a NAS. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes...
-
2.5 Admins 292: Trivyally Infected
The US government is drumming up fear about foreign routers, a pretty serious supply chain attack might be state-sponsored, and the safety of filesystems inside VMs. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes The Real Cost of Technology Dependence: Building...
-
2.5 Admins 291: UPS for LiFePO4
Why passkeys aren’t the right solution to everything, Allan tells us why he loves his new Lithium Iron Phosphate UPS, Btrfs vs ZFS on root, and restricting Internet access for IoT devices on your network. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes...
-
2.5 Admins 290: Tired of Tracking
Microsoft Authenticator will delete Entra credentials on phones that aren’t running stock ROMs, Jim’s nightmare experience trying to get a user back into their MS account, tracking vehicles via tire pressure monitors, using a ZFS pool in a degraded state, and keeping cold ZFS storage dataset...
-
2.5 Admins 289: Hunter2
An exciting new cold storage technology seems to be getting closer, Nvidia seemingly wants a slice of the laptop hardware action, why you (and your users) should definitely not use LLMs to “generate” passwords , and whistleblowing when sensitive customer data isn’t being taken seriously. Plugs...
-
2.5 Admins 288: HDD Tourism
Hardware scarcity and price hikes spread to hard drives, the Bcachefs dev thinks his AI is ‘fully conscious’, an agent might have gone after a FOSS maintainer, Jim is disappointed with an Ars author, and ZFS and VMs in the homelab. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with…
more -
2.5 Admins 287: Dual Arguators
Jim and Allan disagree on how new hard drive tech is likely to work, more on storage and compute in the same box, and how we set up disk encryption on laptops. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes OpenZFS Monitoring and Observability…
more -
2.5 Admins 286: Windows Crashed
Notepad++ falls victim to a state-sponsored attacker, AI agents talk nonsense to each other on an insecure vibe coded social network, and backing up a laptop properly. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes ZFS vs Btrfs: Architecture, Features, and...
-
2.5 Admins 285: example.com.oops
Outlook’s autodiscover feature is leaking data again, our thoughts on the cycle of cloud and on-prem (centralised and local computing), and why you probably shouldn’t use NMVe to SATA adapters. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes ZFS in…
more -
2.5 Admins 284: BooTooth
Why you might not want your Windows encryption keys to be backed up to Microsoft, some Bluetooth devices are vulnerable to snooping and tracking, a lesson in the need for backups, and the best practices and stack for setting up a mail server. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS…
more -
2.5 Admins 283: FSOD
The last method to activate Windows without the Internet has gone away, malware that tricks users with a fake blue screen of death, and recovering from bad RAM with ZFS. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Understanding ZFS Scrubs and Data…
more -
2.5 Admins 282: Fragile DNS
Cisco network gear fell over when it shouldn’t have, yet another security flaw is found in Microsoft Copilot, the US military is letting Grok into all its networks, and managing LVM snapshots. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Unwrapping ZFS:...
-
2.5 Admins 281: Lead The Target
The many reasons why email shouldn’t be trusted. Plus how to stop your kids accessing inappropriate content online, and why the answer probably isn’t a technical one. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes What We Built: Top ZFS Capabilities…
more -
2.5 Admins 280: Bad Parking
Why you should probably keep paying for your old domains, the perpetual problem of typo squatting, a machine learning expert’s take on BS from LLMs, and whether to separate compute and storage in a home setup. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes…
more -
2.5 Admins 279: Short One
The one bit of advice we’d give to someone wanting to become a professional sysadmin. This is a short episode because Joe is having a break for the Christmas period. See our contact page for ways to get in touch.
-
2.5 Admins 278: XXXfil
Apple deletes a person’s entire digital life, PornHub Premium user data is leaked, Mozilla’s new CEO wants to ruin Firefox, Tech Force in the USA is alarming, and fine tuning storage for databases. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Is DWPD Still…
more -
2.5 Admins 277: Battering RAM
The Crucial brand of consumer SSDs and RAM is going away, AMD and Intel memory encryption can be bypassed with cheap hardware, more AI buffoonery, and monitoring users’ usage on a network. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes When RAID Isn’t…
more -
2.5 Admins 276: Very Prudish Network
What a government crackdown on VPNs would look like, malware groups play the long game with browser extensions, a new major version of FreeBSD is released, and using a single database vs one DB per application or VM. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes...
-
2.5 Admins 275: G-word
Google kept collecting sensor data even after bricking Nest thermostats, FreeBSD’s container support gets serious, and where to find cheap (or even dirt cheap) used hardware. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes How to Set Up a Highly Available ZFS...
About this show
2.5 Admins is a podcast featuring two sysadmins called Allan Jude and Jim Salter, and a producer/editor who can just about configure a Samba share called Joe Ressington. Every week we get together, talk about recent tech news, and answer some of your admin-related questions.
Hosted by
The Late Night Linux Family
Categories