

2.5 Admins
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
Mentioned books

Oct 13, 2022 • 29min
2.5 Admins 112: Reuse > Recycle
A drone-delivered exploit system, why companies destroy perfectly good hardware, and pulling backups from a Windows machine.
Plugs
Support us on patreon
iX and Klara – The Open Source Era is Upon Us
Your Comprehensive Guide to FreeBSD’s rc
News
Drone attack Twitter thread
Why Big Tech shreds millions of storage devices it could reuse
Free Consulting
We were asked about pulling backups from a Windows machine.
cwRsync
Acrosync
Tailscale
Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Oct 6, 2022 • 32min
2.5 Admins 111: The Freezer Trick
SSDs are probably more reliable than spinning hard drives, how much RAM you actually need, Cloudflare alternatives, sudo password security, and more.
Plugs
Support us on patreon
the History of Package Management on FreeBSD
News/discussion
The SSD Edition: 2022 Drive Stats Mid-year Review
How Much RAM Do You Need in 2022?
Exploring Swap on FreeBSD
Feedback
Fastly
Gcore
Jetpack
A Practical Guide to (Correctly) Troubleshooting with Traceroute (pdf)
Paris Traceroute
How to properly interpret a traceroute or mtr
TRex
Free Consulting
We were asked about sudo password security.
BorgBase
Manage all your Borg backup repositories in one place via web interface or API. Use promo code 25A to get 30% off your first year at BorgBase.com
Kolide
Kolide is a fleet visibility solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux that can help you securely scale your business. Learn more here: https://l.kolide.co/3HB8xUv
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Sep 29, 2022 • 31min
2.5 Admins 110: Border Gateway Currency
How a BGP hijack facilitated the theft of $235k worth of crypto, why we aren’t too excited about Cloudflare’s new CAPTCHA, and how to configure ZFS on Proxmox.
Plugs
Support us on patreon
Deploying FreeBSD on Oracle Cloud
Allan and Wendell chat about ZFS data recovery
News
How 3 hours of inaction from Amazon cost cryptocurrency holders $235,000
Announcing Turnstile, a user-friendly, privacy-preserving alternative to CAPTCHA
Free Consulting
We were asked about ZFS on Proxmox.
Klara Article: Jim on tuning ZFS recordsize
Jim’s Proxmox bug
Kolide
Kolide is a fleet visibility solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux that can help you securely scale your business. Learn more here: https://l.kolide.co/3HB8xUv
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Sep 22, 2022 • 32min
2.5 Admins 109: Selling Technical Debt
Why solving network congestion issues is so difficult, our thoughts on DNS privacy, an unwise use case for 32-bit Linux, and PoE injectors vs switches.
Discussion
The Math Proves It—Network Congestion Is Inevitable
Free Consulting
We were asked about Power over Ethernet injectors vs PoE switches.
Tailscale
Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Sep 15, 2022 • 33min
2.5 Admins 108: dQw4w9WgXcQ
Why modern interfaces suck, the reasons we don’t recommend Cloudflare, and backups for beginners.
With guest host Gary from Linux Downtime (and Pidgin).
News/discussion
Blocking Kiwifarms
The modern OS desktop is a crime against humanity
Rick Astley has done more to prevent folks clicking on unknown links than all cyber security training combined
Free Consulting
We were asked for advice about backups for beginners.
IDrive
rsnapshot
Kolide
Kolide is a fleet visibility solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux that can help you securely scale your business. Learn more here: https://l.kolide.co/3HB8xUv
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Sep 8, 2022 • 30min
2.5 Admins 107: s/smart//g
Why the W3C is struggling to move to HTTPS by default and follow-up on Certbot, monitoring, and Silverlight. Plus buying enterprise switches.
News/discussion
W3C’s planned transition to HTTPS stymied by legacy laggards
Free Consulting
We were asked what switches we recommend for enterprise.
Tailscale
Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Sep 1, 2022 • 32min
2.5 Admins 106: Wrap Your Deenis
A big change is coming to Windows licensing for VMs, Google changes the rules around VPNs on Android, and solving a DoH problem.
Plugs
Support us on patreon
EuroBSDCon Sept 15-18 Vienna, Austria – Allan will be speaking about making ZFS scale for NVMe
News
Microsoft adds virtual core licensing to Windows Server
Microsoft EU cloud revisions just so happen to exclude Google, Amazon
Google Play rule change disallows ad-blocking VPN apps
Free Consulting
We were asked about solving a DNS over HTTPS problem.
Kolide
Kolide is a fleet visibility solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux that can help you securely scale your business. Learn more here: https://l.kolide.co/3HB8xUv
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Aug 25, 2022 • 30min
2.5 Admins 105: Old Men Yell at Cloud
The pros and cons of using email aliases, an Internet hero scratches his own itch, Jim and Allan yell at the cloud, and choosing a firewall distro.
News/discussion
The Security Pros and Cons of Using Email Aliases
Man who built ISP instead of paying Comcast $50K expands to hundreds of homes
Feedback
A few people wanted Allan and Jim to answer the same question that was discussed on Linux After Dark 23:
In a world of cloud and serverless, is there any point in most people learning the command line?
Free Consulting
We were asked about firewall distros.
Configure CARP
Tailscale
Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly. Go to tailscale.com and try it for free on up to 20 devices.
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Aug 18, 2022 • 30min
2.5 Admins 104: Bathtub Map
Amazon is acquiring lots of home floor plans, Google will let politicians spam its Gmail users, burning in new drives, and ZFS scrub best practises.
Plugs
Support us on patreon
EuroBSDCon Sept 15-18 Vienna, Austria – Allan will be speaking about making ZFS scale for NVMe
News
Amazon to acquire Roomba robot vacuum maker iRobot for $1.7 billion
Gmail is now officially allowed to spam-proof politicians’ emails
Free Consulting
We were asked about commissioning new drives, and ZFS scrubs.
Kolide
Kolide is a fleet visibility solution for Mac, Windows, and Linux that can help you securely scale your business. Learn more here: https://l.kolide.co/3HB8xUv
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.

Aug 11, 2022 • 31min
2.5 Admins 103: AAD the SQL
Good and bad from Meta/Facebook, data centres in London are hogging all the power, separating databases from applications, picking a DB, and more.
With guest host Gary from Linux After Dark.
Plugs
Support us on patreon
News
It’s time to leave the leap second in the past
Meta thinks Facebook may need more “harmful health misinformation”
Electronics are built with death dates. Let’s not keep them a secret
Too Many Servers Could Mean No New Homes in Parts of the UK
Free Consulting
We were asked about separating databases from applications, and how to pick a DB in the first place.
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/25a and get started with $100 credit.
See our contact page for ways to get in touch.


