Install Ubuntu Server .deb package without starting service using dpkg --unpack

On Debian flavors like Ubuntu, apt and dpkg default to starting a service as soon as it is installed. This is almost always a good idea, but I ran into the strange problem that the service was misconfigured. Starting it was not a good thing. Stopping and re-configuring it after it started was not  […]

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Use Network Manager to handle 'device not managed' or 'unmanaged' issue in Ubuntu for SecurityOnion at Digital Ocean

An out-of-the-box install of Ubuntu 18.04.5 at Digital Ocean will not work for a SecurityOnion installation, because of the way cloud-init is managing the network. Security Onion prefers NetworkManager to manage the network. Cloud-init is required by Digital Ocean for deployment of a custom image.  […]

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Use fdisk and parted to resize a 100Gb custom image of Ubuntu for Digital Ocean to prepare for a 320Gb SecurityOnion install

Digital Ocean cannot deploy a Custom Image larger than 100Gb. Security Onion requires 200Gb to install. To workaround the Digital Ocean limitation, create a 100Gb custom image of Ubuntu, configured with only three partitions: /boot, /, and /tmp. (Leaving out /nsm and swap requirements for the  […]

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Install and whitelabel Grafana with a custom grafana_icon.svg and a few other minor changes

Grafana is an amazing application, one of the most active open source projects in the world, and they are firmly committed to the Free Software / Open Source way of doing things. You should know up front that the following information enables a feature (whitelabel) which is part of the Enterprise  […]

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How to configure Ubuntu via /etc/network/interfaces using ifupdown managed by Network Manager for Security Onion

That headline is a mouthful, so let's break it down: How to configure Ubuntu via /etc/network/interfaces using ifupdown managed by Network Manager for Security Onion In more simple terms I would prefer this headline: "How to configure Ubuntu with ifupdown for Security Onion," but it turns  […]

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Kill a Proxmox VM that won't quit with a one-liner using the pve node's command prompt

I was using the handy information at Proxmox can’t stop VM – How we fix it! (bobcares.com) for a while. They have a two-line approach which does the job, but displays the (very) long command line for starting a proxmox VM on the screen while doing so. To me, facing a wall of text while searching for  […]

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Installing ShellInABox on Debian, Ubuntu, Devuan, etc and configuring for white-on-black GUI

You can install shellinabox with your Debian-flavored package manager with a single command: sudo apt install shellinabox White text on black screen The default setting is a white screen with black text. You can right-click to switch it, but if you're like me you'll want to set it to black screen  […]

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Insight into Time and its relationship to Good and Evil

In a series of meditations on the nature of infinity while in the process of developing a larger concept of a new kind of mathematical infinity -- a super-infinity which contains all possible infinities in an intuitively-coherent way -- I have been bumping into the relationship between time and  […]

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