2.5 Admins
Episodes
2.5 Admins 182: All the Small Things
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nginx is forked, Broadcom/VMware kills ESXi, dedup is finally fixed in ZFS, using multiple network interfaces on a NAS, and more. Plugs Support us ...
2.5 Admins 181: Triangle Fraud
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Trying to report a security issue lands a consultant in trouble, a new take on the drop shipping scam, setting up your first NAS – including the ben...
2.5 Admins 180: Email 777
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Microsoft’s rudimentary error that allowed an attacker access to its executives’ emails, Pixel phones have another serious storage bug, hidden mal...
2.5 Admins 179: Y2K NotOK
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Y2K was a pretty serious problem and 2038 is coming soon, work on Arm servers is improving the experience on the desktop, and what to do with an old u...
2.5 Admins 178: LOTS of Storage
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hard drives are pretty much an enterprise product now, GitHub’s malware problem, and spreading services across different machines and VMs to keep do...
2.5 Admins 177: Don’t Pay the Dane
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why the problems with open source licenses aren’t quite as easy to fix as some people think, the reasons you should never pay ransomware gangs, and ...
2.5 Admins 176: Sudo Cognito
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does “incognito mode” in Chrome actually mean and whether documenting browser standards in code is a good idea, the serious implications of a...
2.5 Admins 175: Guess Who’s Listening
28 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Twitch pulls out of Korea thanks to the opposite of Net Neutrality, it’s not clear to what extent smart devices are listening to your conversations,...
2.5 Admins 174: Guess Who’s Watching
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What you need to know about the recent SSH vulnerability, yet another privacy issue with cloud-connected security cameras, why it’s difficult to get...
2.5 Admins 173: Ghost Files
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Google Drive client users lost months of files, a feature of UEFI that has left millions of computers potentially vulnerable to persistent malware, an...
2.5 Admins 172: HOLEy ZFS
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jim and Allan break down the details of the recent ZFS data corruption bug, and give their tips for managing a fleet of 40+ servers. Plug Support u...
2.5 Admins 171: RSA PSA
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why a small island nation’s top level domain ended up with such a terrible reputation, an ssh vulnerability that’s not as scary as it sounds, whet...
2.5 Admins 170: Uninterruptible WiFi
23 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why and how Allan installed a set of new Power over Ethernet wireless access points, and our hardware recommendations for a media server and NAS in on...
2.5 Admins 169: SDCoF
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A Cloudflare outage shines a light on sloppy data center practices, and why you shouldn’t run a mail server at home. Plus followup on the Android mu...
2.5 Admins 168: Do The Right Thing
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Okta seems to not be taking its security seriously enough, crashing iPhones is far easier than it should be, Jim’s report from the Ubuntu Summit, an...
2.5 Admins 167: Delayed Flush
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The large water consumption of AI and data centers in general, China’s big push towards IPv6, why we don’t talk about Toshiba hard drives very oft...
2.5 Admins 166: 20 Second Cheque
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What Google should do to prevent malware sites in their ads, why you might want to avoid using multiple profiles on Android devices, a speculative exe...
2.5 Admins 165: Big AI
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The nuances of copyrighting AI-generated art, getting the best speeds with Samba, and building an SSD-only NAS. News/discussion Opinion: The Copyri...
2.5 Admins 164: Filthy Internet
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why enabling password autofill isn’t a great idea, Jim’s adventures in network repair, and setting up a home router/WiFi hotspot. Feedback Don’...
2.5 Admins 163: Two Factors One SPOF
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A network breach teaches us all a valuable lesson about threat models, Allan and Jim’s TV setups, and picking the right external storage solution. ...
2.5 Admins 162: Irresponsible Disclosure
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Google and Apple do a bad job of disclosing a pretty serious vulnerability, why hard drives aren’t physically bigger, and setting up a distributed b...
2.5 Admins 161: 5PiB Coffee Mug
21 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The future of archive storage using lasers and ceramics, self-hosting an Internet archive, more on Windows 11 Home, and setting up storage inside VMs....
2.5 Admins 160: Diss Unity
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Unity causes a stink with its new pricing model, running out of disk space causes a very expensive problem, how one-off promotional domains can come b...
2.5 Admins 159: Dirty Install
07 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The user experience on fresh installations of Windows and Edge is terrible and we get to the bottom of why. Unfortunately the reason isn’t exclusive...
2.5 Admins 158: It Doesn’t Go to 10
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dropbox once again proves that there is no such thing as “unlimited” anything, Intel isn’t going to support WiFi 7 on Windows 10 (but it doesn’...
2.5 Admins 157: Lincoln’s HDD
24 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
CNET’s SEO attempts once again show that nothing lasts forever, why the reports of the death of the mechanical hard drive are greatly exaggerated, a...
2.5 Admins 156: SanDisk Extreme Fail
17 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why fully remote work is on the wane as Zoom drags employees back to the office and Bluejeans is shut down, the Sandisk SSDs that keep failing, and ho...
2.5 Admins 155: Dialup Memories
10 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Allan and Jim reminisce about the early days of connecting to the Internet, and what inspired them to become sysadmins in the first place. Plus recove...
2.5 Admins 154: 8.8.8.8.8.8
03 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why the increasing trend of charging for public IPv4 addresses won’t change much, Google trials restricting its employees’ Internet access, and op...
2.5 Admins 153: Robots.nope
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Updating the robots.txt standard for the AI era, the US government implements an IoT certification and labeling system, and the issues with fully encr...
2.5 Admins 152: AirTags Use CR2032 Batteries
20 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Intel is giving up on NUCs and Asus is taking over the line, millions of classified US military emails are going to a Russian ally thanks to a common ...
2.5 Admins 151: Practical ZFS
13 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Setting up a self-hosted alternative, what counts as a “removable” battery, and backing up a Windows machine to ZFS. News/discussion Practical ...
2.5 Admins 150: Red Hate
06 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Red Hat wants to limit redistribution of RHEL source code. We discuss their history with CentOS and the likely knock-on effects of taking direct aim a...
2.5 Admins 149: Three Year Warning
29 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
WD disks “warning” that they have been running for 3 years, a modern replacement for IMAP that no one seems to be using, the potential issues that...
2.5 Admins 148: API Ultra 7 Pro for Workstations
22 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Reddit fails to see where its true value lies, Intel makes its consumer CPU lines confusing, and Microsoft’s “next generation” filesystem. Ne...
2.5 Admins 147: EPYC Fail
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sloppy practises by Gigabyte reveal one of the problems with UEFI, why Slack refuses to implement end to end encryption, a familiar bug ruins people’...
2.5 Admins 146: VisionForge
08 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We are unimpressed by Apple’s new headset, a particularly bountiful watering hole attack, misdirection from the AI industry, and connecting hard dis...
2.5 Admins 145: Bad Standards
01 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
An unfixable bug shines a light on a fundamental issue with Windows, why M.2 is a terrible connector for SSDs, the pros and cons of 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi, and ...
2.5 Admins 144: AMRadio.zip
25 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Google’s new TLDs are silly but not as dangerous as some people think, whether we should cling on to AM radio, Microsoft scans password-protected zi...
2.5 Admins 143: Even Stars Die
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adobe’s vague threats show why open source is often the pragmatic choice, Russians craft a poor man’s ransomware with WinRAR, Chrome drops the pad...
2.5 Admins 142: Intel Key Party
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Google’s attempt to replace passwords with keys, why Jim thinks IBM is dragging Red Hat in the wrong direction, Intel’s rudimentary error that bre...
2.5 Admins 141: Sysadmin Hunt
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What the challenge of building a web browser from scratch tells us about the state of the modern web, why some people are frying their AMD CPUs, more ...
2.5 Admins 140: /dev/nullvad
27 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How not to practice responsible disclosure, Mulvad proves that its claims stand up, whether to be worried about public phone chargers, an “anti-rans...
2.5 Admins 139: Just Abandon Twitter
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The new and up and coming tech that we’re excited about including RISC-V, hard drive innovation, Arm servers, and the Fediverse. Plus whether FreeBS...
2.5 Admins 138: Drive Failure
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Google Drive’s arbitrary file limit, SMR disks probably die sooner, Western Digital’s My Cloud outage locks some people out of their data, why we ...
2.5 Admins 137: Schrodinger’s Backup
06 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yet another reason not to plug random USB drives into your laptop, how Reddit learned about the importance of testing your backups, and we brainstorm ...
2.5 Admins 136: Red Scare
30 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why the RESTRICT Act is about much more than banning Tik Tok, what recent Tesla hacks tell us about the way the security research community is changin...
2.5 Admins 135: Moonshots
23 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why the death of Reader 10 years ago might come back to haunt Google, Samsung’s AI moon photos raise a philosophical question, Jim’s frustrations ...
2.5 Admins 134: 2guys1tesla
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Our take on the collapse of Siicon Valley Bank, an odd case of 2 Teslas with the same key, filesystems in VMs, and self-hosted password managers. P...
2.5 Admins 133: ElasticWallet
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Saving millions of dollars by exiting the cloud, GoDaddy is compromised by a sophisticated attacker, why you really shouldn’t use a smart plug to po...
2.5 Admins 132: 1.5FA
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Twitter are going to charge for bad 2 factor authentication, new alarming details about the recent LastPass breach, and setting up a DNS server in the...
2.5 Admins 131: At Least Try
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Google is getting paid to advertise malware sites, Comcast’s false map data, more on private TLDs, why we don’t use Btrfs, and getting notificatio...
2.5 Admins 130: HotBot Topic
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Microsoft and Google seem to think that chatbots are the future of search, the problem of filtering spam, and organising data with backups in mind. ...
2.5 Admins 129: 2.5aDMiNs.cOm
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A “smart” lighting system goes wrong, mitigating a DNS attack, an unsatisfying update about Eufy cameras, why Jim and Allan won’t be active on M...
2.5 Admins 128: Some Value
02 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Yet another reason to disable voicemail, why so many recent Macs end up as scrap, and setting up a mail server. Plugs Support us on patreon Auditin...
2.5 Admins 127: Public Why-Fi
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why you should still use a VPN with public WiFi, who the new Xeons are aimed at, follow-up on trying to be your own bank, and separating legacy WiFi d...
2.5 Admins 126: Copy on Flight
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A recent outage that grounded thousands of planes, correcting ZFS misreporting, the problem of fake SSDs on Amazon, and IP schemes vs internal DNS. ...
2.5 Admins 125: Into Thin Eir
12 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Two recent examples of backups not being properly tested, why the term “edge” is meaningless, we try not to laugh at the Bitcoin dev who lost all ...
2.5 Admins 124: LastMigration
05 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
LastPass vaults are leaked, ChatGPT is coming to Bing, live migrations, and SSD vs spinning disk power usage. Plugs Support us on patreon Klara is ...
2.5 Admins 123: 4
29 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s the last episode of the year so we look back at a couple of 2022 trends: the explosion of AI/ML, and big social media changes. Plus a quick-fir...
2.5 Admins 122: PayAsYouPay
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Buying and renting features in Intel hardware that you’ve already bought, killer robots, a huge nuclear fusion breakthrough, and the pros and cons o...
2.5 Admins 121: 2PHA
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Saving money by changing the CPU frequency governor on servers, Making unphishable 2FA phishable, phishing with Google Docs, monitoring at scale, and ...
2.5 Admins 120: Certified Malware
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Security cameras that aren’t quite as secure as they claim, why it’s difficult to trust software “from Samsung”, getting started with offsite ...
2.5 Admins 119: Six Month Scrub
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The risks of taking your laptop to a repair shop, why DNS has become concentrated to just a few providers, and powering down drives periodically. P...
2.5 Admins 118: Chaos Emerald Wealth
24 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why the Twitter infrastructure is creaking, Jim’s experiences of the Ubuntu Summit, changing VM resources without rebooting, and more. News/discu...
2.5 Admins 117: Local Burner
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Microsoft’s half-baked Arm machine, why it’s a bad idea to go to the World Cup in Qatar, using WireGuard to punch through double NAT, and the best...
2.5 Admins 116: Worst Billionaire
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Android’s controversial VPN settings, the deepfake audio arms race, the Metaverse is even worse than we thought, and why you shouldn’t use externa...
2.5 Admins 115: Key Party
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Password spray attacks, the value of certifications vs actual experience, and the best VPN strategy. News/discussion Use Authentication Policies to...
2.5 Admins 114: RAID WTF
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An impressive AI pretends to be Linux, Jim gets angry about a RAIDZ calculator, and using a laptop as a server. News/discussion We interviewed Linu...
2.5 Admins 113: Eggs and Baskets
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Traditional vs modern backup methods, hiding malware inside innocent-looking files, and power loss protection in SSDs. News/discussion Steganograph...
2.5 Admins 112: Reuse > Recycle
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A drone-delivered exploit system, why companies destroy perfectly good hardware, and pulling backups from a Windows machine. Plugs Support us on pa...
2.5 Admins 111: The Freezer Trick
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
SSDs are probably more reliable than spinning hard drives, how much RAM you actually need, Cloudflare alternatives, sudo password security, and more. ...
2.5 Admins 110: Border Gateway Currency
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How a BGP hijack facilitated the theft of $235k worth of crypto, why we aren’t too excited about Cloudflare’s new CAPTCHA, and how to configure ZF...
2.5 Admins 109: Selling Technical Debt
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why solving network congestion issues is so difficult, our thoughts on DNS privacy, an unwise use case for 32-bit Linux, and PoE injectors vs switches...
2.5 Admins 108: dQw4w9WgXcQ
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why modern interfaces suck, the reasons we don’t recommend Cloudflare, and backups for beginners. With guest host Gary from Linux Downtime (and Pidg...
2.5 Admins 107: s/smart//g
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why the W3C is struggling to move to HTTPS by default and follow-up on Certbot, monitoring, and Silverlight. Plus buying enterprise switches. News/...
2.5 Admins 106: Wrap Your Deenis
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A big change is coming to Windows licensing for VMs, Google changes the rules around VPNs on Android, and solving a DoH problem. Plugs Support us o...
2.5 Admins 105: Old Men Yell at Cloud
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The pros and cons of using email aliases, an Internet hero scratches his own itch, Jim and Allan yell at the cloud, and choosing a firewall distro. ...
2.5 Admins 104: Bathtub Map
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Amazon is acquiring lots of home floor plans, Google will let politicians spam its Gmail users, burning in new drives, and ZFS scrub best practises. ...
2.5 Admins 103: AAD the SQL
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Good and bad from Meta/Facebook, data centres in London are hogging all the power, separating databases from applications, picking a DB, and more. Wit...
2.5 Admins 102: Admins After Dark
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The consequences of accrued technical debt and how to avoid it, a serious security issue in Confluence, Proxmox’s poor ZFS config, and more. With gu...
2.5 Admins 101: Atomic Database
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jim and Allan’s thoughts on GitHub Copilot, why you can’t take the bar exam on modern Intel hardware, and database VM snapshot consistency. Plu...
2.5 Admins 100: 💯
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
More on abandoned hardware, central auth, Internet Explorer, Antivirus, monitoring, speed testing, and more. Plugs Watch Jim and Allan’s webinar:...
2.5 Admins 99: 00000000
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A PSA about cheap hard drives, a major Internet outage in Canada, Apple’s new Lockdown Mode, and hostnames and DNS. Plugs From 0 to Bhyve on Free...
2.5 Admins 98: Lemonade
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Picking the right switch, clustering Raspberry Pis, dynamic DNS, replacing a desktop PC, work-life balance, and more. Kolide Kolide is a flee...
2.5 Admins 97: Gotta Go Fast
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The best ways to test your Internet speed, more on filesystem caching, monitoring servers at scale, and more. Plugs ZFS Developer job description W...
2.5 Admins 96: Skunky Routers
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Internet Explorer is dead, Cisco small business routers that need to be junked, antivirus on Linux servers, and you’ll never guess what Jim and Alla...
2.5 Admins 95: Opened in 45 Seconds
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The finer points of allocating VM resources, Jim is annoyed with the browser situation on Ubuntu desktop, and when you should have passwords on your S...
2.5 Admins 94: Free IPv4s, Click Here!
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Freeing up millions of IPv4 addresses, WSL 2 comes to Windows Server, why cert renewal should be automated, what to do with SMR drives, and more. P...
2.5 Admins 93: Bhyve Mind
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A Linux user tries out FreeBSD’s Bhyve hypervisor, choosing storage for a VMware ESXi server, and perfect use case for WireGuard. Discussion Jim ...
2.5 Admins 92: End to End to End
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
End-to-end encryption is under threat again, Broadcom is buying VMware, prison time for an angry DBA, and backing up your photos with encryption. P...
2.5 Admins 91: The Deenis
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
More on Ubuntu mirrors and DNS, detecting advanced persistent threats, resilient backups, and open source Active Directory alternatives. Plugs bhyv...
2.5 Admins 90: 2 Admins
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Another attempt to replace passwords, trying to solve the problem of write-once storage, and the unusual ways we manage our invoices. Plugs EuroBSD...
2.5 Admins 89: Warm Storage
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How long optical disks last and why cold storage isn’t usually worth it, VM security, more thoughts on crypto nonsense, and more. Plugs Learning ...
2.5 Admins 88: Great Scott
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Musk buys Twitter, Ubuntu’s ZFS on root snapshot tool is put on the back burner, and setting up your own apt mirror. Plugs Build your own NAS, Pa...
2.5 Admins 87: Unplanned Obsolescence
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Yet another IoT company abandons its customers, ridiculous “hard drives”, Postrges with containers, and cloud storage that isn’t quite as good a...
2.5 Admins 86: Reluctant Sysadmin
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The new features in OpenSSH, an embarrassing outage, the ugly side of Apple’s AirTags, and securing SSH keys when using Git. With guest host Dalton ...
2.5 Admins 85: Textbook Scam
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
CAPTCHAs in phishing attacks, Jim gets angry about Bitcoin propaganda in schools, and packet loss with UDP. Plugs Tuning OpenZFS Record size Suppor...
2.5 Admins 84: Open Source Sabotage
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An open source dev goes rogue, a big single sign-on provider is compromised, self-hosting DNS, and more. Plugs Should I upgrade to OpenZFS 2.1? Sup...
2.5 Admins 83: Solid State Bathtubs
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
SSD reliability, a huge potential amplification DDoS attack, and learning how a mail server works. Plugs Webinar: Improving Recovery Objectives wit...