2020-08-13 11:35:00
It's become a bit of a hobby of mine, to take part in CompTIA's "beta" exams: upcoming versions of their certification tests, which are given a trial-run in a limited setting. I've gone through PenTest+, Linux+ and CySA+ so far :)
After failing to get through the payment process at PearsonVue a friendly acquaintaince at CompTIA helped me get access to the Cloud+ beta (whose new version will go live sometime early next year).
I sat the beta test this morning, using the new online, at-home testing provided by PearsonVue. Generally speaking I had the experiences as outlined in the big Reddit thread.
Most importantly, on MacOS the drag-n-drop on PBQs is really slow. You have to click and hold for three seconds before dragging something. Aside from that the experience was pleasurable and it all worked well enough.
I'm not as enthused about the Cloud+ beta as I was about Linux+ and PenTest+ at the time. The questions seemed very repetitive, sometimes very predictable (if "containers" was an option, two out of three times it'd be the correct answer) and some just unimaginative (just throw four abbreviations or acronyms at the test-taker, two or three of which are clearly unrelated). Knowing CompTIA I assume there will be plenty of fine-tuning happening in the next few months.
I'm pretty sure I didn't pass this one, but I'm happy to have had the chance to take a look :)
kilala.nl tags: work, studies,
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2020-08-12 15:35:00
This Reddit thread offers a plethora of information on the at-home, online test taking offered by PearsonVue.
Big lesson I learned as MacOS user: disable Little Snitch and other filtering / security software while you're taking the test. It feels dirty, but to ensure the software does not encounter any hickups (which may result in you botching the test) you're going to have to. Better yet, don't disable, but quit the software because any popups on your screen will also alert the proctor.
Just to be safe, I made a dummy user account on my Macbook, so I can remove all trace of the software afterwards. Luckily it runs from your downloads folder and doesn't need any admin-level access.
kilala.nl tags: work, studies,
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2020-08-09 19:39:00
It's hilarious how stuck in one's ways one can get. I mean, I've always typed:
netstat -a | grep LISTEN | grep ^tcp
While prepping slides for my students, imagine my mirth when I learned "there's a flag for that". Man, it pays to read man-pages.
netstat -l4
ss -l4
#EternalNewbie 💖
kilala.nl tags: work, sysadmin,
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2020-08-01 20:21:00
The Dell R410 in my homelab has served me very well so far! With a little upgrade of its memory it's run 20 VMs without any hassle. Finding this particular configuration when I did (at a refurbishing company) was a lucky strike: a decent price for a good pair of Xeons and two large disks.
I've been wanting to expand my homelab, to mess around with vMotion, Veeam and other cool stuff. Add in the fact that I'd love to offer "my" students a chance to work with "real" virtualization (using my smaller R410) and you've got me scouring various sources for a somewhat bigger piece of kit. After trying a Troostwijk auction and poking multiple refurbishers I struck gold on the Tweakers.net classified ads!
Pictured above is my new Dell R710, the slightly beefier sister of the R410. It has space for more RAM, for more disk drives and most importantly (for my own sanity): it's a 2U box with larger fans which produces a lot less noise than the R410. The seller even included the original X5550 CPUs seperately.
So! From the get-go I decided to Frankenstein the two boxes, so I could actually put the R410 to use for my students while keeping a bit more performance in my homelab.
Moving that RAID1 set from the R410 to the R710 was an exciting exercise!
I really did not want to loose all of my VMs and homelab; I've put a year into the environment so far! Officially and ideally, I would setup VMware ESXi on the R710 and then migrate the VMs to the new host. There are many methods:
Couldn't I do it even faster? Well sure, but you can't simply move RAID sets between servers! Most importantly: you'll need similar or the same RAID controllers. In a very lucky break, both the R410 and the R710 have the Dell/LSI Perc 6i. So, on a wish and a prayer, I pludged the RAID set and told the receiving Perc 6i to import foreign configuration. And it worked!
After booting ESXi from the SD card, it did not show any of the actual data which was a not-so-fun surprise. Turns out that one manual re-mount of the VMFS file system did the trick! All 24 VMs would boot!
So far she's a beaut! Now, onwards, to prep the R410 for my students.
kilala.nl tags: sysadmin, work,
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All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Tess Sluijter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.