28 December 2011

updated utility, getldp.pl v0.1.7

An updated version of 'getldp.pl', v0.1.7, is now available on the Tools
page.  This update adds handling (long overdue) for reaping any child
processes getldp.pl might spawn while listening for CDP / LLDP packets.
Previously, if getldp.pl timed out and exited while waiting on data,

11 December 2011

Manual P2V with Linux

We recently had a situation wherein we were replacing a physical host
with a virtual machine (VM) instance.  Rather than simply install a
new VM and reapply software packages and configuration, the need was to
retain the existing installation.  To do so, we effectively cloned the

10 December 2011

updated utility, getldp.pl v0.1.6

An updated version of 'getldp.pl', v0.1.6, is now available on the
Tools page.  This version adds details of the sending host including
OS version (CDP only), device capabilities, and management address
(assuming those fields are in the CDP / LLDP packets):

05 December 2011

NIC Replacement in Linux

In the past, I've found it slightly annoying that if I needed to swap
out a network interface card (NIC), Red Hat distros of Linux would kindly
backup the interface configuration for that interface and generate a stub
DHCP configuration in its place.  This leaves the host potentially with

03 December 2011

Fixing a Broken initrd in Linux

I recently had a situation where a host's disk controller failed.
The box would get partially through a BIOS post before throwing errors
about the failed controller and then fail to boot.  To resolve the
situation, we effectively replaced said controller.  This, however, lead