Download the required updates. Extract the XS*.xsupdate files. Transfer the XS*.xsupdate files to, say, /tmp/xsup on the master. Login on the XenServer console. Delete old log files in /var/log, e.g. /bin/rm /var/log/*.gz. Create if necessary, and change directory to /tmp/xsup. Run: Run: Delete the XS*.xsupdate files from /tmp/xsup. Shutdown the running VMs and restart each […]

Read More → Upgrading XenServer 6.2

A colleague came into my office claiming the camera in his Dell Latitude E5540 didn’t work. Here’s a link to the Dell Latitude E5540 Owner’s Manual. After a bit of troubleshooting, I removed the display bezel. Lo and behold, the camera connector was halfway out of its socket. Once I pressed the connector into place, […]

Read More → Loose camera connector in Dell Latitude E5540

FreeBSD gives the user an option of installing the file /usr/local/etc/screenrc with some sensible defaults along with GNU Screen, aka sysutils/screen. Among the defaults are a format string for the hardstatus line. It shows the date using yy/dd/mm notation and the time as a 12 hour clock. That may be fine in the English speaking […]

Read More → Adding 24 hour clock to FreeBSD’s hardstatus string for GNU Screen

When upgrading from one major version of FreeBSD to another, in my case from FreeBSD/amd64 stable/9 to FreeBSD/amd64 stable/10, it’s customary to upgrade the installed ports afterwards, beginning with ports-mgmt/pkg. I forcefully upgraded all installed ports using portupgrade -afpv, but the upgrade of lang/ruby21 failed miserably. I removed all traces of Ruby 2.1, i.e. ports-mgmt/portupgrade […]

Read More → Ascertaining installed ports for a specific architecture

Creating new BE’s using snapshots and clones can get messy with dependencies all over the place. I had an epiphany the other day, why not create a snapshot on the current dataset, send that snapshot to a new dataset within the same zpool (or elsewhere), and subsequently destroy the (two!) snapshots? Instant transfer of data, […]

Read More → Cloning a ZFS dataset using only zfs snapshot, zfs send, and zfs receive

The 20150220 entry in /usr/ports/UPDATING contains no instructions for upgrading lang/php5 to lang/php56, at least not for us compiling our own ports. I learned the hard way using portupgrade what needs to be done. I have summarised my steps into the script below. Use the script as a guide, and if you do run my […]

Read More → Upgrading lang/php5 to lang/php56