IT from Scratch

I don’t know why I thought using the Percona MySQL server was a good idea. I was going through the Ubuntu Server Guide and saw the Percona configuration tool.

I should have known better than to keep pursuing this “enhancement” when the configuration file didn’t work. But I didn’t, and after a few weeks of fighting it, I decided to go back to the plain Jane MySQL server distributed through the Ubuntu repositories.

Reverting to the standard MySQL server turned out to be easier said than done. The Percona enhancement fights tooth and nail to keep running on your system, but there’s a simple way to kill it.

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The Boss has a habit of hoarding obsolete hardware.

One of my first tasks at the firm was to go through a stack of about 20 Dell PowerEdge 750 servers that he had bought from eBay and resurrect a few of them.

Our IT department needs to run several services for the firm — for instance: a web server for the company website, a trouble ticket system, and a development server for us to test things out on. Rather than buy new equipment, I was sent to the “graveyard” to see what I could come up with.

The following is what I learned about working with a Dell PowerEdge 750 server.
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Encrypting your data is a good idea for anyone, but the firm handles confidential material. So it’s extra important that we keep our info on lockdown. This is easier in some operating systems than others. I used to think encryption in a Mac was easy, but after this FileVault issue my position has changed a bit.

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I’ve been working on some old Dell PowerEdge 750s that the boss bought at auction and had just left stacked in a back hallway. The goal was to get a few of them working so that we can run a web server and a few other internal apps. So far I’ve resurrected three and thought I was doing pretty good until I got this Ubuntu boot error:

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The other guy and I both work primarily on Macs. This is fine most of the time. But what if we want to run a Windows-only program? What if we want to check to see if something we’ve created works in Windows too? What if we want to implement something new but don’t want to risk breaking anything in the process?

These are just a few situations where virtualization saves the day, and where virtual box shows itself to be the best virtual machine available.
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As half of the IT department for the firm, knowing how to SSH from Mac to Linux is a crucial skill. In fact, it’s the first step in administrating most Linux servers. If you don’t know how to do it already, the good news is that it’s an easy skill to pick up.

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Working in a call center is the pits. You may think calling customer service is a pain, but you should experience it from the other side. [Read more…]