Featured »

April 16, 2013 – 12:39 pm |

Imagine you have an HPC cluster with a hundred compute nodes named node001-node100. The two commands below will help you generate a list of node names – either all name on one line or one name per …

Read the full story »
Networking

Unix and Linux network configuration. Multiple network interfaces. Bridged NICs. High-availability network configurations.

Applications

Reviews of latest Unix and Linux software. Helpful tips for application support admins. Automating application support.

Data

Disk partitioning, filesystems, directories, and files. Volume management, logical volumes, HA filesystems. Backups and disaster recovery.

Monitoring

Distributed server monitoring. Server performance and capacity planning. Monitoring applications, network status and user activity.

Commands & Shells

Cool Unix shell commands and options. Command-line tools and application. Things every Unix sysadmin needs to know.

Home » Archive by Category

Articles in Disaster Recovery

System Recovery: Useful Tools

October 18, 2012 – 9:48 pm | One Comment
System Recovery: Useful Tools

The following is a brief collection of open-source and/or free tools I regularly use for various system recovery tasks. If the servers you work with have CD drives, I would recommend burning these images onto a CD or DVD. This would save you the trouble of messing with the boot options in the BIOS. More advanced versions of BIOS can mount remote ISO images and boot from those. In most cases, however, this approach requires using the dreaded Internet Explorer an requires Windows.

Don’t Be Afraid to Reboot Unix Servers

February 21, 2011 – 8:11 pm | 4 Comments
Don’t Be Afraid to Reboot Unix Servers

Reboot your Unix servers after making any major changes to the production environment. Should an unexpected problem come up, it will be easier to deal with it when everything is still fresh in your mind and not six months down the road, when you have to do a reboot to replace a failed system board and suddenly discover that some application wouldn’t load, by which time you forgot all about this application and have to start with the first page of the admin guide.

Windows 7 Black Screen After Booting

October 5, 2010 – 4:07 am | 10 Comments
Windows 7 Black Screen After Booting

I had to power-cycle my Windows 7 64-bit laptop. The bootup sequence looked normal and reached a point where I could see the black screen with the mouse cursor. After this stage my desktop would usually appears, but not this time. I could move the mouse and I could even establish a remote desktop connection to my laptop. But I could not log in. Every time it would reach the same point – the black screen with the mouse cursor – and it would stop.

How to Really Kill Computer Viruses

February 21, 2010 – 6:34 am | 13 Comments
How to Really Kill Computer Viruses

How do you know if your computer has a virus? Is it connected to the Internet? Then it has a virus. Many computer viruses and other malicious applications are very resilient and will actively resist any attempts to deactivate and remove them. Some viruses can even delete your antivirus application or prevent it from working properly. Many viruses cannot be effectively removed once they are loaded in memory and active.

Tips on dealing with the Bagle rootkit

May 26, 2008 – 5:51 pm | 20 Comments
Tips on dealing with the Bagle rootkit

Normally I don’t concern myself with Windows- related matters. However, the infamous Bagle rootkit and its numerous variations deserve some attention even from Unix sysadmins. Bagle annoyed me and my customers long enough. Essentially, Bagle …

Resetting Root Password under Solaris

November 20, 2005 – 2:02 am | 3 Comments
Resetting Root Password under Solaris

The following document explains how to change an unknown root password on a Solaris system. Use this only for disaster recovery purposes. Please be sure to read the Notes section below if you run into …

Resetting Admin Passwords on Windows

November 20, 2005 – 2:01 am | One Comment
Resetting Admin Passwords on Windows

Resetting Local Administrator/User Passwords on Windows NT/2000/XP/2003
The following document explains how to change an unknown password for any local account (including Administrator) on a Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 system. Use this only for disaster recovery purposes.
Requirements:
1.Physical access …