Debian on the bin

KVM Guests: Using Virt-Install to Install Debian and Ubuntu Guests

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I like to be able to spin up a VM without looking for CD media so for a while now I have been using ISO images for all of my installs directly, however I found my self scurrying around “digitally” looking for the correct iso in much the same way I used to scurry about looking for physical CDs, except I was not physically moving. So anyways the time was wasted either way, I figured it is time that I find a better (read: lazier) way to do this. So the idea is that since the apt package manager contains all the packages and files needed to install and upgrade a system, we ought to be able to find a way to initiate the install over the wire.

Using Views with BIND 9

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In almost all organizations the network infrastructure needs to be designed in such a way as to allow both internal and external name resolution authoritatively. In most organizations this has been accomplished by having separate internal and external servers. Clearly this way is functional and simpler, however it is also wasteful considering how little resources DNS actually requires. BIND 9 gives us a new method to manage these types of configurations. The idea is that you can create a view which will reference specific zones based on the network location that you are coming from.

Hyper-V Guests: Compile Linux Kernel 2.6.32 on Debian

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In this post I will be detailing the steps needed to compile a new kernel in Debian Linux 5. This particular case we are purpose building a kernel with the drivers necessary for Hyper-V Guests to take advantage of synthetic devices. Additionally I plan on expanding this series with instructions for manual compiles of other distributions as well as some pre-compiled image based installs.

DISCLAIMER: These instructions are not provided with any guarantee of support. Microsoft (company behind Hyper-V) does not acknowledge Debian as a supported guest operating system.

Hyper-V Guests: Linux Integration Components Ubuntu and Debian

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In this article I am documenting the process for installing the Hyper-V Integration Components within a Ubuntu or Debian VM. I am specifically writing this for Ubuntu 8.04.2 and Debian 5, however I have additionally confirmed that this process works on both Ubuntu 8.10 and Ubuntu 9.04. My environment consists of x64 VMs, I have not taken the time to test this process for x86 VMs, however it should hold true, as long as you update the package names to reflect the appropriate architecture.