2.5 Admins

Plugs

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Biggest ZFS Misconfigurations and How to Fix Them: Part 1

News/discussion

How I kept cool with NYC’s free battery program for window AC units

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Google offers a few pennies to web publishers to make up for stealing their content and not sending them any traffic, the tech we’d try to use after the apocalypse, why Jim doesn’t virtualise his clients’ desktops, and setting up Volume Shadow Copy so your users can restore their own files.

Plugs

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FreeBSD: The Hidden Cost of Upgrading in Production

News/discussion

Google’s early attempt to pay websites for AI answers is struggling

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The challenges of funding open source software projects, how Netflix uses FreeBSD in a positive way, why you shouldn’t try to complicate your monitoring, and running servers in a small residence.

Plugs

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Why Is Everyone Stuck on FreeBSD 13?

Discussion

Netflix Case Study

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Microsoft really wants you to update your Exchange server, our thoughts on immutable distros, more on Jim’s approach to internet access for his kids, restricting access to servers on a corporate network, and cloning and backing up operating systems with ZFS.

Plugs

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OpenZFS User and Developer Summit 2026: October 27-30

News

Microsoft to bounce mail from outdated Exchange servers

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Some of the ways you can mitigate the ridiculous hardware prices, and designing a small business LAN.

Plugs

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FreeBSD’s Release Cycle: What It Means for Your Upgrade Schedule

Free consulting

We were asked about designing a small business LAN.

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A BGP hijack involved some basic errors, Microsoft teaches people to ignore warnings in Windows, Zoom appears to be reading the clipboard on X11, why a non-US open certificate authority is feasible in theory, and keeping a NAS powered on as little as possible.

Plugs

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Send us an email

News/discussion

BGP hijack infecting networks caused by a comedy of errors that’s not funny at all

Windows bug incorrectly tells users that Microsoft Defender Antivirus is turned off

I noticed today that an update to the #Linux #Zoom client has made it start proactively reading _everything_ written to the X11 clipboard

Free consulting

We were asked about keeping a NAS powered on as little as possible.

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What to read into a study of long-term Backblaze hard drive failure data, why the difference between TB and TiB matters, and what to do about an overheating host bus adapter.

Plugs

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ZFS vs Ceph: Choosing the Right Storage Architecture

News/discussion

Peer-reviewed study of 443,000 Backblaze hard drives ranks HGST most reliable and Toshiba the least — Analysis of 1.66 million drive-years finds Seagate and Toshiba HDDs fail at roughly twice the rate of WD and HGST

Changing Language for Storage Capacity

Free consulting

We were asked about an overheating host bus adapter.

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A TV station struggles to retrieve its data from the data centre company that a defunct intermediary used, why we don’t want AI to manage our networks (even if Microsoft thinks we should), and understanding vdevs, and datasets in ZFS.

Plugs

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OpenZFS User and Developer Summit 2026 CfP is open until September 11

FreeBSD Security in Production: Vulnerability Response and Operational Best Practices

News/discussion

Nine PBS sues Iron Mountain over blocked access to archival data

Judge sets framework for Nine PBS to retrieve archival data

The patch window is collapsing: Why security needs a new control plane

Free consulting

We were asked about pools, vdevs, and datasets in ZFS.

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Microsoft claims that Windows 11 will work well with 8GB of RAM, some of the innovations coming to high end SSDs, the arguments for TP-Link Omada over Ubiquiti UniFi.

Plugs

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FreeBSD Support: Greatest Hits

Discussion

Microsoft says 8 GB of RAM should be enough for anyone running Windows 11

Windows quality: an update on the commitment we made in March

Free consulting

We were asked about the arguments for TP-Link Omada over Ubiquiti UniFi.

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In a world where photos can no longer be trusted, Jim argues that we should move to a default distrust model where images are signed at every stage of the process of creation. We get into some of the potential issues. Plus how to ensure continuity for your clients in the event of your demise, and setting up a system to demonstrate ZFS replication capabilities.

Plugs

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Piss up at The Shipwrights Arms (just next to London Bridge station) on Saturday 5th September from 5pm until late

Discussion

Google Earth risked ruin with retracted AI tool for making fake satellite pics

Apple is working on a way to authenticate that a photo came from an iPhone camera

Free consulting

We were asked about how to ensure continuity for your clients in the event of your demise, and setting up a system to demonstrate ZFS replication capabilities.

See our contact page for ways to get in touch.