Sometimes it can be really useful to give a user privileges to run a specific command as root. For example – if you wanted to allow a user to restart a specific service or run a specific program as root without given them access to the whole server. You can configure this using visudo command … Read more
Saw this and think it sums it up…
I was trying to sftp some files using Python Paramiko on Ubuntu 14.04 and got the following error: “paramiko.SSHException: Incompatible ssh peer (no acceptable kex algorithm)”. It turns out that there is an incompatibility issue with OpenSSH 6.7 and Paramiko with a version less than 1.15.1. At the time of writing (November 2014) Ubuntu 14.04 … Read more
I have a few Synology NAS at work which are used for storage. I have been locking down the firewall on them to only allow certain ports from specific IP subnets. However, I still wanted to be able to ping the Synology from anywhere. I couldn’t work out how to configure the Synology firewall to … Read more
I wanted to monitor the bandwidth usage on my Ubuntu server without a full blown graphic monitoring system but something that I could just check once in a while just to see how things are running. I found an really simple tool called vnstat. It’s good because it’s simple, fast and easy to use and … Read more
I use source control while developing software. Apple’s OSX creates .DS_Stores files in any folder that you browse with Finder. These are normally hidden but they obviously aren’t ignored by version control which is designed track everything including hidden files. I could add them to the .ignore files in both Mercurial or Git – but … Read more
I’ve moved from Ubuntu to Apple Mac OSX and like to use Firefox. However, rather annoyingly the Firefox spell checker doesn’t appear to work on Apple by default. Bizarrely, it doesn’t highlight any incorrect spellings. I found that the only way to fix it was to add another dictionary to Firefox. Here is how I did … Read more
I just read the packaging from some face wipes that I’m using while traveling. Apparently they contain vitamin b5 and e. Given that you can’t absorb nutrients from a face wipe and it just shows how made up the marketing of these products really is. Bring on the advertising standard agency.
The sudo command checks the permission of the /etc/sudoers file and also the contents of /etc/sudoers.d/ before allowing you to use the sudo command. For example you might be warned: or perhaps: Therefore, if you don’t have root login (which is generally good security practise) then you might not be able to change the permission … Read more
The Oxford to Heathrow Airline Bus doesn’t go to Heathrow Terminal 4. You get dropped off at Terminal 5 and then need to make your own way to Terminal 4. I found it super confusion and therefore thought I would write some directions to Terminal 4 are to: 1) Go to Level 0 2) Go … Read more