Hardware errors often cause system instability hence this is false.
How false are we talking? A couple seconds? Minutes?
how long since the boss has been asleep so you can finally restart without them calling two seconds later cause they didn’t bother reading the scheduled downtime email
How do I check when the last power outage was if it’s connected to a UPS?
Are we not doing kernel upgrades?
Yeah that’s about the only time I have to do reboots at work which are 99% linux. Well the production ones anyway.
Or the other reason is my lab having power issues due to malfunctioning UPSes, faulty NEMA L6-30 plugs, janky 240v circuit breakers or… I’m beginning to think my lab is electrically cursed.
Was about to say, “or if you’re running Arch, the last time you updated the kernel or systemd version, so probably last week or summit.”
That’s ridiculous. It’s much more complicated than that.
You need to check NUT.
Deez? 🌰🐿️
Pretty sure everybody is missing the joke. The joke is that Debian packages are so stable and stale that you likely will need a reboot before an update.
Also, it’s a joke…please patch your boxes, k?
I’ve got a patch in my boxers right now.
Oh boxes.
On my Gentoo server, uptime:
- 21:47:56 up 2455 days, 15:09, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00
Solid.
Would have been double that by now if not for the fire.
You forgot to say “this is fine”, I take it?
Joking aside, I hope you didn’t lose anything. Was it a big fire?
Those who manage the dedicated server racks service kept my stuff intact. Thankfully. Just disrupted my uptime.
[User “error” since, has cost me a TB of data. “Error”, fearquoted, because it was intentional… probably unnecessary clearing of space, partly regretted since.]
I don’t know how big the fire was, happened over 1000 miles away from here.
So, it really was fine. :3
step 1:
sudo apt install slstep 2: fuck up
step 3: ???
step 4: profit!!!
Won’t work for me, I am more of a “;l” guy, I have the good direction, but wrong starting point 90%of the time 🥲
A must have IMO
Also ‘fuck’
I got obsessed with uptime in the early 2000s, but for my desktop Slackware box. It ran a bunch of servers and services and crap but only for me, not heavy loads of public users. Anyway, I reached 6 years of uptime without a UPS and was aiming for 7 when a power outage got me.
Skill issue. Next time you can open up the computers power supply while it’s running, splice in a second power cable, and attach a UPS without powering down or getting electrocuted.
For legal reasons, /s
Not sure what your signature is supposed to do here but now I have 3rd degree burns and a fireball has engulfed my office wall
But more importantly, did your uptime get reset?
I have a LXQt on my Termux, running on my android phone, and I am really happy with it (even though I use it for jack shit)
Does NixOS apply kernel updates live? I can’t recall from when I used it.
Mine doesn’t. I reboot when I get a new kernel.
“Uptime” — aka the anxiety meter for every sysadmin.
Or if you have a UPS and backup generator or a house battery (do these need a UPS as well still?) it will tell you how long since you setup the system.
I would suspect you would still want a UPS. I don’t think house “power” setups have the switch over speed even if they’re automatic. Most home generator setups are manual not sure about battery setups.
My home generator is automatic but you still need an ups because the transfer switch and power on process for the generator isn’t instant. Takes like 10-30 seconds depending on how cold it is and how recently I serviced the generator.
You also ideally need a higher quality ups that can handle the shitty power coming from a generator, although the overall ups doesn’t need to be as “hefty” as a result. My ups is the kind that has extra filtering and stabilization of incoming power. My old ups was a cheaper cyberpower and it died after a few months of generator usage (we lose power here roughly every 4-6 weeks, thus the auto generator). The cheaper cyberpower would be fine in the majority of home circumstances tbh otherwise.
At some point when I am less busy again I think I am gonna swap back to a debian based system because my experience on arch and red hat systems just hasnt been as good (this may be because I started on Debian based systems and keep trying to use commands that dont work on the other ones out of muscle memory)
I get bored every so often and move all the important stuff to an external drive or a separate internal one and completely change my os
I am on manjaro but I have also run arch, red hat, void, mint, Debian, Ubuntu and a bunch of others that I either put on laptops or something similar as messing around with devices
Tails and slitaz have to be my favorite to run from a USB but peppermint isn’t the worst
I just did the contrary. Moved from debian to arch. After the update to trixie my network stack completely died somehow, so I’m going back to arch.
Can I ask, what is the advantage of a Debian server over a True Nas one? Asking because I set up True Nas and wondering if I should switch it to Debian
Configurability? I mean Truenas Scale is also based on Debian, but it’s an appliance software, if you want NAS it’s purpose made for that. You need to configure Debian yourself if you want functioning NAS.
I still remember when TN doesn’t have native Tailscale apps/docker yet and everytime there’s a Truenas update I need to reinstall and set up Tailscale from scratch.
If you just need a NAS with basic apps/docker, there is no reason to just use Truenas.
I use both, but run a Technitium DNS and Frigate on bare Debian.
True nas is nas software that moonlights as a server. Debian is a linux distro commonly used as the operating system for servers due to its incredible stability and reliability among other things. So reliable infact that it’s used as the operating system for true nas scale! So unless your using the core version (that runs bsd) then your already using it. As far as rawdogging Debian on your hardware goes, id recommend against it unless you’re looking to seriously up your admin game. No web interfaces, lots of time in the terminal ( command line ) and more configuration files than is anyway reasonable. And we haven’t even started on virtual machines like proxmox ( also Debian based! ) or container critters like docker and kubernetes. (Iirc true nas uses kubernetes under the hood)
You seem like the right person to ask this:
What route do I go if I want to up my admin slowly so I eventually feel able to run pure Debian? Currently running Docker on Unraid with two minor VMs but looking to migrate away from Unraid with the intention to only run FOSS (and get a deeper understanding of everything under the hood).
I know that’s little information, all I need is a nudge in the right direction so I can figure things out by consulting documentation and forums.
Realistically, comfort comes from experience. The more you use it the more you’ll feel comfortable.
If you want to get a lot of exposure without dedicating too much time to it and limit the risk, I would say, spin up a Debian VM and try to configure it into the server you want the old school way. Setup ssh keys, raid pool and samba share all via ssh. Try to do it like you’re actually deploying it. This will give you real world exposure to the command line and the commands you’d run. Next maintain that server like it’s production, ssh in every couple of weeks to run updates and reboot. Just that muscle memory of logging in and reviewing updates will help you feel more comfortable. Do it again with another service (a VPN server would be an easy choice, a Minecraft server is also a fun one but requires a lot more memory. DNS would be good if you’re feeling brave, but that’s really just because DNS architecture is more complex than most realize) and maintain those servers too
Once you’ve setup a couple of servers and spent a couple of months monitoring and updating them your comfort level should be much higher and you might feel ready to setup some actually home production servers on Debian or the like.
You mentioned running Trunas and wanting to learn Debian and other FLOSS software, the easy button answer is to run Proxmox. Its free and open source with paid enterprise support plans available and has been rapidly improving just in the handful of years I’ve been running it. Proxmox is really just a modified version of Debian. They have some tweaks and custom kernels over stock Debian but impressively actually have a supported install method of installing overtop of an existing Debian install and apparently some Proxmox employees actually run it as their workstation operating system
I’ve actually been working my way through the proxmox-on-top-of-debian guide recently, but after installing the proxmox-ve kernel and rebooting, I was left with SSH disabled (connection refused) and no local console (more precisely no monitor output past “loading initial ramdisk”). I have so little time on my hands that troubleshooting is sometimes taking the fun out of it. Probably just going to re-install using the Proxmox ISO.
I’ve never tried the Proxmox over Debian method, I just know it is an officially supported install method. Good on you for getting that far though!
If you can afford it it’s a good idea to buy a Raspberry Pi since Raspbian is basically just debian. Then replicate your current setup on it and just try to tinker with it without any risks of breaking things or losing data.
If you’re using a lot of Docker I would recommend learning the command line since you’ll be able to use Docker on basically any real OS at that point.
spoiler
___alt-text: The “I lied, I don’t have netflix” meme template. The girl with heavy dark rings around her eyes points a gun at the observer, with various images inserted in the background. The images include references to debian, libreboot, rsync, sed&awk, cron
cool, then we can chill?
We’re chilling right now (: Don’t let the gun mislead you. They sure do have a bad rep. spins gun around finger It’s not actually guns that kill peop- shoots self in foot.
Ahh, another ER romance…
Small correction: since the newest version there only is Trunas Scale, so the Debian derivative, which they now call Community Edition. The BSD variant has been decommissioned as far as I know.
Debian is well known for maintaining established packages in its repos. This means that all of the software is thoroughly tested, and therefore (usually) stable; however, the software in question is generally older, so it also means that sometimes you’ll have to find your own approach if you want to run any newer services.
