Tag Archives: linux

Managing Docker Container Updates

Posted on October 20, 2014 by Matthias

When running a Debian/Ubuntu-based server, it’s relatively easy to figure out whether updates need to be installed. Tools based on apt work very well in this regard and even offer advanced features like unattended updates. Not so with services running … Continue reading →

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Converting Images to ASCII Art

Posted on September 20, 2014 by Matthias

I’ve been playing with Docker a lot lately. Docker is a tool for creating lightweight virtual environments based on Linux containers. They are extremely useful for running services, but you can also use them for running one-off tasks that you … Continue reading →

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Enabling Hibernate Support in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Matthias

In this article, I’ll show you how to enable hibernate support in Ubuntu 14.04 (“Trusty Tahr”) by making a “Hibernate” menu entry appear in Unity’s global system pulldown menu. The Ubuntu developers disabled this a couple of years ago because … Continue reading →

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Remote-Controlling a Sonos Device Using Python

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Matthias

I couple of months ago I bought a Sonos Play:1, a pretty cool wireless speaker that comes with free controller apps for major platforms (Android, Windows etc.). To give the speaker access to my music collection, I hooked up a … Continue reading →

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Quick Tip #6: Triggering Actions on File Close

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Matthias

Sometimes it’s useful to trigger an action after a file is closed. Suppose you started a lengthy download on your notebook and you want to suspend it as soon as the download is done. There are several ways to achieve … Continue reading →

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Setting Up a SOCKS Proxy Using OpenSSH

Posted on November 24, 2013 by Matthias

Web browsing on a public Wifi network is a security risk as it’s quite simple to capture network traffic. Even if you only connect to SSL-protected sites, people can still find out which web sites you’re accessing. Fortunately, there is … Continue reading →

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Mirroring an Apt Repository

Posted on September 21, 2013 by Matthias

When setting up a Hadoop cluster using Debian packages, it’s often useful to work with a local mirror. In this article, I’ll walk you through creating an apt mirror for Cloudera’s Hadoop distribution.

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Setting Up a Web Proxy with Squid

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Matthias

Setting up a Squid forward proxy can be a pretty daunting task since Squid is an extremely flexible piece of software. In this article, I’m going to provide a minimal non-caching, authenticated configuration. I have tested this with Squid 3.1.12 … Continue reading →

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