Allan and Jim reminisce about the early days of connecting to the Internet, and what inspired them to become sysadmins in the first place. Plus recovering old versions of files, and an exciting announcement about the show.   Plugs 2.5 Admins is now part of the Late Night Linux Family. Support us on Patreon   News/discussion 2.5 Admins in The ‘90s Internet: When 20 hours online triggered an email from my ISP’s president How To Start An ISP (like it’s 1993)   Free Consulting We were asked about recovering old versions of files.           Linux Matters Check out Linux Matters – a show in the Late Night Linux Family hosted by popey, Mark, and Wimpy about all the Linux matters that matter. They did a recent episode about backups (without using ZFS).         See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Why the increasing trend of charging for public IPv4 addresses won’t change much, Google trials restricting its employees’ Internet access, and operating systems uploading firmware to devices at boot.   Plugs Support us on patreon Klara 2023 Recommended Summer Reads – FreeBSD and Linux   News New – AWS Public IPv4 Address Charge + Public IP Insights AWS to charge customers for public IPv4 addresses from 2024 Google’s new security pilot program will ban employee Internet access     Free Consulting We were asked about operating systems uploading firmware to devices at boot, rather than having it baked in.         Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure, it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Watch the demo today to see how it works at kolide.com/25a           See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Updating the robots.txt standard for the AI era, the US government implements an IoT certification and labeling system, and the issues with fully encrypting a server.   Plugs Support us on patreon 3 Advantages to Running FreeBSD as Your Server Operating System   News/discussion Google suggests updating the robots.txt standard Robots.txt is not the answer: Proposing a new meta tag for LLM/AI ChatGPT Browse with Bing temporarily disabled The Biden administration is tackling smart devices with a new cybersecurity label   Free Consulting We were asked about fully encrypting a server. The Klara article that Allan mentioned           Factor Factor’s fresh, never frozen, meals are ready in just 2 minutes, so all you have to do is heat them up and enjoy. Go to factormeals.com/25a50 and use code 25a50 to get 50% off.           See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Intel is giving up on NUCs and Asus is taking over the line, millions of classified US military emails are going to a Russian ally thanks to a common typo, and monitoring SSDs.   Plugs Support us on patreon Linux and FreeBSD Firewalls – Part 2   News Intel is quitting on its adorable, powerful, and upgradable mini NUC computers Intel and ASUS Agree to Term Sheet to Take Intel NUC Systems Product Line Forward ‘Millions’ of sensitive US military emails were reportedly sent to Mali due to a typo   Free Consulting We were asked about monitoring SSDs.         Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure, it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Watch the demo today to see how it works at kolide.com/25a           See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Setting up a self-hosted alternative, what counts as a “removable” battery, and backing up a Windows machine to ZFS.   News/discussion Practical ZFS Making sense of the EU’s fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries (Jim was wrong about AirTags and their batteries. He’ll correct the record next time. No need to email us.)   Free Consulting We were asked about backing up a Windows machine to ZFS.         HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Get 50% off and free shipping at hellofresh.com/25admins50 using the promo code 25a50.           See our contact page for ways to get in touch.  

Red Hat wants to limit redistribution of RHEL source code. We discuss their history with CentOS and the likely knock-on effects of taking direct aim at its customers’ GPL rights. Plus browsers doing port scans, and OpenWrt vs OPNsense.   Plugs Support us on patreon Practical ZFS   News Red Hat’s new source code policy and the intense pushback, explained Brave aims to curb practice of websites that port scan visitors   Free Consulting We were asked about OpenWrt vs OPNsense.       Kolide Kolide ensures that if a device isn’t secure, it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta. Watch the demo today to see how it works at kolide.com/25a   Factor Factor’s fresh, never frozen, meals are ready in just 2 minutes, so all you have to do is heat them up and enjoy. Go to factormeals.com/25a50 and use code 25a50 to get 50% off.           See our contact page for ways to get in touch.    

WD disks “warning” that they have been running for 3 years, a modern replacement for IMAP that no one seems to be using, the potential issues that arise when PC games require an SSD to run, alternatives to VMware, and verifying your backups.   News/discussion “Clearly predatory”: Western Digital sparks panic, anger for age-shaming HDDs JMAP PC games are starting to require SSDs   Free Consulting We were asked about alternatives to VMware, and verifying your backups.           The Traceroute Podcast Catch up with the new season of the Traceroute Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.  Check out the website.   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.  

Reddit fails to see where its true value lies, Intel makes its consumer CPU lines confusing, and Microsoft’s “next generation” filesystem.   News What Reddit Got Wrong Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’ Intel has new labels for its next major CPU architecture   Free Consulting We were asked about Microsoft’s “next generation” filesystem ReFS.         Kolide Kolide can help you nail third party audits and internal compliance goals with endpoint security for your entire fleet. Learn more at kolide.com/25a   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.  

Sloppy practises by Gigabyte reveal one of the problems with UEFI, why Slack refuses to implement end to end encryption, a familiar bug ruins people’s uptime, and XFS vs ext4.   Plugs Support us on patreon FreeBSD or Linux – A Choice Without OS Wars   News/discussion Millions of Gigabyte Motherboards Were Sold With a Firmware Backdoor Millions of Gigabyte PC motherboards backdoored? What’s the actual score? 90+ orgs tell Slack to stop slacking when it comes to full encryption AMD’s EPYC Rome Chips Crash After 1,044 Days of Uptime   Free Consulting We were asked about using XFS vs ext4.         HelloFresh With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep.  Get 16 free meals plus free shipping at hellofresh.com/25admins16 using the promo code 25admins16.   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.  

We are unimpressed by Apple’s new headset, a particularly bountiful watering hole attack, misdirection from the AI industry, and connecting hard disks via a PCIe card.   Plugs Support us on patreon OpenZFS, Your Data and the Challenge of Ransomware   News Apple Vision Pro Hololens dev Twitter thread (archived version) Some Curseforge accounts might be compromised/hacked, and are uploading malicious files Statement on AI Risk WordPress has a new AI tool that will write blog posts for you Air Force denies running simulation where AI drone “killed” its operator     Free Consulting We were asked about connecting hard disks via a PCIe card.         Axiom Axiom unlocks observability at any scale. Go to axiom.co/25a, create an account, and start your 14-day free trial. You can do better than legacy logging, with Axiom.   Kolide Kolide can help you nail third party audits and internal compliance goals with endpoint security for your entire fleet. Learn more at kolide.com/25a   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.