I’ve had MySQL database corruption from time to time, usually on a system that either experiences a power failure or kernel panic. The process is not difficult but I always find myself relearning how to do it each time. The program mysqlcheck comes in handy to check for errors and repair them.

A number of security vulnerabilities have been patched in the Ubuntu kernels. Several of the patches fixed situations where a malicious user could cause a kernel panic. I’ve run the update on a few systems without any issues so I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t upgraded yet to do so. More details on the specifics of the fixes can be found in USN-558-1: Linux kernel vulnerabilities.

I had a machine that was crashing (kernel panic) due to what I believe was a buggy network card. In order to keep the machine running I set it to reboot on kernel panic. Of course, in doing so all information about what caused the kernel panic was erased. I figured there must be a way to preserve that information, and there is. Unfortunately you cannot easily use it with Ubuntu at this time.

I’ve been researching open source control panels for years but have never found a product that I was completely satisfied with. I suspect this is an area where there are too many disparate products that many of them do many things well but not one does everything well enough. I decided to revisit the candidates and see if anything caught my eye to try.

If one were to rank computer issues subject to intense debate, how to partition a hard disk would certainly be high on the list. I’ve always tried to give a lot of thought to the partitioning scheme I’ve used for servers. In those cases I’m often trying to come up with something that will be a standard for some period of time. With desktops the issue is not so important because rarely will a mistake be a problem. So here are some schemes that have appealed to me recently.

I’ve been using Xen for a little while now and while there are many aspects I like there are a few that are troubling. I’ve been wanting to write up some tutorials on using Xen but before that can happen I need to feel comfortable recommending Xen as a virtualization solution. At the moment I’m not sure I can do that, partially because of the issues I’ve encountered but mostly because those issues do not seem to be acknowledged or discussed in any meaningful way. That is perhaps the most troubling thing of all.

Though this information applies to any GNU/Linux kernel I thought it would be helpful to describe some ways in which to uncover information about a system through a terminal. This is especially useful when running Ubuntu Server without any graphical desktop environment but can also be useful for desktop users. Mostly I’ll just reveal some useful locations to find information in the /proc and /dev directories.

A number of people have complained that the current (Ubuntu 7.04) startup and shutdown screens lack the information that they had in earlier releases. Enabling the display of startup and shutdown messages is fairly simple and can be useful in diagnosing system problems. Here’s how to do it.

Why would a system administrator want to consider Ubuntu as a server operating system? Ubuntu is a young GNU/Linux distribution and a newcomer to the server market. Still I think a case can be made for Ubuntu as a capable and beneficial operating system for servers. As well as why, for many scenarios, Ubuntu might be preferable to Debian.