UEFI Recovery for Oracle Linux 7

by Ramses Soto-Navarro ramses@sotosystems.com, 7/26/2022

Overview
Create KVM Guest
Start SSH
Partition for UEFI
Format Partitions
Mount and Chroot
Reinstall UEFI Grub2
Initialize UEFI GRUB2
Rebuild the Boot Ramdisk
Last Tasks


Overview

Brief notes on P2V physical to virtual and back, Oracle Linux 7 migration, with UEFI secure boot included; useful for rescue or recovery of physical Linux servers that require UEFI. Here we migrate a physical Linux server to a virtual guest under Linux KVM. The same can be done with Linux version 8. The audience is experienced Linux administrators.

[Read more…]

Squashfs Backup Demo

by Ramses Soto-Navarro ramses@sotosystems.com, 2/1/2022


Overview
Mount squashfs file
Interactive shell
Release session
Prepare Server for Backup
SSHFS remote mount
Squash Backup


Overview

What is squashfs:

  • Squashfs is an archiver like tar.
  • Archives data onto backup file.
  • Allows quick read access of file backups.
  • High compression.
  • Can be mounted.
  • Can be appended.
  • Random seek, rather than linear.
  • Very quick access.
  • Used in embedded systems, cellphones, routers, livecd.
  • 7-zip supports squashfs.

The squashfs mount enables us to:

  • Archive the entire old server in a compressed file.
  • Mount the squashfs file and easily review files and directories.
  • Copy files from the old servers.
  • Run an interactive shell session of the old server.
  • Append more files to the backup file as needed.

Audience is experienced Linux administrators.

[Read more…]

Apache Compile Stand-alone

by Ramses Soto-Navarro ramses@sotosystems.com, 2/1/2022


Overview
Download Source
Disable Apache
Restore OS OpenSSL
Compile OpenSSL Stand-alone
Compile APR and APR-Util
Compile Apache Stand-alone
Compile Tomcat Connectors
Configure Apache
Configure Apache Startup Scripts
Test New Apache Startup
Test Commands
Server Status and Info Page
Rename Old Apache Binaries
Systems Affected by OpenSSL


Overview

Brief notes about compiling Apache and Openssl stand-alone on /usr/local/, on SUSE 15 SP3. Previously Apache was installed on top of the binaries installed by the SUSE packages. However, that method disabled the possibility of using the newest OpenSSL libraries; because updating OpenSSL would break other system utilities. Hence, compiling stand-alone in /usr/local/. The audience is experienced Linux administrators.

[Read more…]