Category Archives: Software

Hosting services on Google Kubernetes Engine

This post explains how to host services on Google Compute Engine, parts of this are applicable to regular (non-GKE) Kubernetes clusters as well. This post will cover: allowing multiple services to be deployed in different namespaces allowing multiple (sub)domains to … Continue reading

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Setting up up a deep learning box

After doing a number of courses on machine learning I now have some overview of what is available and how it all works. So now it is getting time to start doing some work from start to finish myself. To … Continue reading

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Why finalizers are really bad

It is more or less common knowledge that using finalize functions in java is bad. For one, you are depending on garbage collection for cleanup and there is no guarantee when the finalizer will be called. Further there is also … Continue reading

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Encrypting an existing Centos install (2)

In a previous post, I described how to encrypt an existing Centos install that approach was based on find out how LUKS worked and then creating a storage logical volume that was encrypted with then logical volumes on top of … Continue reading

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Encrypting an existing Centos install

Edit: Meanwhile I have found a better way to migrate an existing centos unencrypted install to a fully encrypted install with /boot as the only unencrypted disk space. This solution is much preferred over the one described in this post. … Continue reading

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Creating a USB install for Centos 6.4

The days of rotating disks for storing information and in particular for installing OSes are nearing their end. Why rely on something with rotating parts for storing data in the 21st century? Unfortunately, not every software vendor has caught up … Continue reading

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Java from the trenches: improving reliability

Java and the JVM are great things. In contrast to writing native code, making a mistake in your Java code will not (or should not) crash the virtual machine. However, in my new position working for a SAAS company I … Continue reading

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Why do developers write instead of reuse?

I am frequently amazed at the amount of software that is being written instead of simply looking around and reusing what’s already available. In practice I have seen a lot of reasons for this: Our problems are unique: The misconception … Continue reading

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Nested Logical Volume Management for VMs

Towards a more consistent virtual machine setup using nested logical volume management. I.e. the host/hypervisor allocates storage for virtual machines using logical volume management. The virtual machine itself partitions these virtual disks and uses logical volume management again to simplify management. This blog describes how I migrated and existing VM to use this approach as well.
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Improvements to Snapshot Backup Scripts

The snapshot scripts that I blogged about earlier have undergone a number of important changes. I had been having a lot of problems with the cleanup of snapshot volumes and with the deletion of the old backup logical volumes. This … Continue reading

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