ubuntu

Ubuntu: resolving systemd error, “Start request repeated too quickly”


Categories: Linux

If your systemd service is failing with the following error message: XXX.service: Start request repeated too quickly The first thing to do is fix any underlying issues.  Use ‘systemctl status <service>’, ‘journalctl -u <service>’, and search any log files produced by the service to understand why the service failed multiple times and exceeded its StartLimitBurst. … Ubuntu: resolving systemd error, “Start request repeated too quickly”

Docker: installing Docker CE on Ubuntu


Categories: Containers, Linux

Docker is a container platform that streamlines software delivery and provides isolation, scalability, and efficiency with less overhead than OS level virtualization. These instructions are taken from the official Docker for Ubuntu page, but I fine-tuned them per Ubuntu22+ standards.

Ubuntu: ‘Connection to the Snap Store failed’ during upgrade from Ubuntu 20 to 22


Categories: Linux

If you are upgrading from Ubuntu 20 to Ubuntu 22 using ‘do-release-upgrade’ and get a fatal error ‘Connection to the the Snap Store failed’, this may be resolved by removing the ‘lxd’ package which is a lightweight container supervisor. sudo /etc/init.d/lxd stop sudo rm -fr /var/lib/lxd sudo dpkg –force depends -P lxd; sudo dpkg –force … Ubuntu: ‘Connection to the Snap Store failed’ during upgrade from Ubuntu 20 to 22

Ubuntu: fixing apt NO_PUBKEY errors by converting deprecated keyring to signed-by attribute


Categories: Linux

If apt update throws warnings about invalid signature verification and NO_PUBKEY, you may need to migrate from using the deprecated system keyring to using a ‘signed-by’ attribute in your apt repo definition file. Here are examples of errors you might see when doing an ‘apt update’. W: An error occurred during the signature verification. The … Ubuntu: fixing apt NO_PUBKEY errors by converting deprecated keyring to signed-by attribute

Ubuntu: fix apt warning for Dropbox with key in legacy keyring


Categories: Linux

If you have Dropbox installed on your Linux desktop and have recently started seeing this warning message from apt: http://linux.dropbox.com/ubuntu/dists/disco/Release.gpg: Key is stored in legacy trusted.gpg keyring (/etc/apt/trusted.gpg), see the DEPRECATION section in apt-key(8) for details This can be resolved by adding the Dropbox PGP key to the ‘signed-by’ of the apt repo definition (as … Ubuntu: fix apt warning for Dropbox with key in legacy keyring

GoLang: Running a Go binary as a systemd service on Ubuntu 22.04


Categories: Development, Linux

The Go language with its simplicity, concurrency support,  rich package ecosystem, and ability to compile down to a single binary is an attractive solution for writing services on Ubuntu. However, the Go language does not natively provide a reliable way to daemonize itself.  In this article I will describe how to take a couple of simple Go language programs … GoLang: Running a Go binary as a systemd service on Ubuntu 22.04

GoLang: Installing the Go Programming language on Ubuntu 22.04


Categories: Development, Linux

The Go programming language consistently ranks as one of the most popular languages in developer surveys.  In fact, Kubernetes as well as most of the CNF projects are written in Go.  And it compiles down to machine code, which has made it popular in containers like Docker where a single executable binary fits the execution model … GoLang: Installing the Go Programming language on Ubuntu 22.04

Terraform: creating an Ubuntu 22 template and then guest VM in vCenter


Categories: Linux, Virtualization

In this article I will demonstrate how to create an Ubuntu 22 template in vCenter.  Then use Terraform to create a vSphere VM based on this template. The VM template creation is done by manually stepping through the Ubuntu server ISO installation wizard, followed by a set of preparation steps. Then Terraform is used to … Terraform: creating an Ubuntu 22 template and then guest VM in vCenter

GoLang: Installing the Go Programming language on Ubuntu 20.04


Categories: Development

The Go programming language consistently ranks as one of the most popular languages in developer surveys.  In fact, Kubernetes as well as most of the CNF projects are written in Go.  And it compiles down to machine code, which has made it popular in containers like Docker where a single executable binary fits the execution model … GoLang: Installing the Go Programming language on Ubuntu 20.04

Ubuntu: Installing .NET SDK 6 on Ubuntu 20.04


Categories: Development, Linux

The Microsoft .NET SDK is an open-source development platform for developing applications across multiple architectures and operating systems. In this article, I will show you how to install the .NET SDK on Ubuntu 20.04 and then create/compile/run a simple web application. Ubuntu 22 will have the dotnet-sdk available in the default Ubuntu apt repositories, but … Ubuntu: Installing .NET SDK 6 on Ubuntu 20.04

Helm: Installing Helm on Ubuntu


Categories: Containers, DevOps

Update Aug 2023: using newer ‘signed-by’ attribute for apt signing keys. Installing Helm using apt is a straight-forward procedure and documented on the official site.  Coming straight from the official helm documentation, here are the commands for Ubuntu 22. curl https://baltocdn.com/helm/signing.asc | gpg –dearmor | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/helm.gpg > /dev/null sudo chmod 644 /usr/share/keyrings/helm.gpg sudo … Helm: Installing Helm on Ubuntu

Docker: Installing Docker CE on Ubuntu focal 20.04


Categories: Containers, Linux

Docker is a container platform that streamlines software delivery and provides isolation, scalability, and efficiency with less overhead than OS level virtualization. These instructions are taken directly from the official Docker for Ubuntu page, but I wanted to reiterate those tasks essential for installing the Docker Community Edition on Ubuntu focal 20.04. If you want … Docker: Installing Docker CE on Ubuntu focal 20.04

Terraform: creating an Ubuntu 20 Focal template and then guest VM in vCenter


Categories: Linux, Virtualization

In this article I will demonstrate how to create an Ubuntu 20 Focal template in vCenter.  Then use Terraform to create a vSphere VM based on this template. The VM template creation is done by manually stepping through an installation using the minimal Ubuntu server ISO followed by a set of preparation steps. Then Terraform … Terraform: creating an Ubuntu 20 Focal template and then guest VM in vCenter

Ansible: Ubuntu alternatives using the community.general collection


Categories: Automation

In a previous article, I showed how to manually setup Alternatives so that different versions of a binary could co-exist on a target machine. In that step-by-step example, we used the Terraform binary as an example, and placed two independent versions in /usr/local/bin, and then set the priority so that terraform14 was preferred. To do … Ansible: Ubuntu alternatives using the community.general collection

Ansible: installing the latest Ansible on Ubuntu


Categories: Automation

Update Sep 2023: Installing ansible-core at user level (not system) with pip Ansible is an agentless configuration management tool that helps operations teams manage installation, patching, and command execution across a set of servers. In this article I’ll describe how to install the latest release of Ansible.

Terraform: using update-alternatives to manage multiple terraform binaries


Categories: Scripting

If you have multiple terraform projects, it can be necessary to support multiple versions of the terraform binary to match module and provider dependencies. Instead of creating a custom solution of binary copies and links, this can be done using the Alternatives concept which handles these symbolic links in a standard way using links in … Terraform: using update-alternatives to manage multiple terraform binaries

Ubuntu: Adding a root certificate authority


Categories: Linux

If your backend components or application servers use a custom CA (Certificate Authority), then you may need to add it to the system trusted root certificate store so that the standard tools and other utilities trust the TLS communication.

KVM: Testing cloud-init locally using KVM for an Ubuntu cloud image


Categories: Linux, Virtualization

The ability to quickly stand up a guest OS with cloud-init is most often associated with deployment of virtual machines in an IaaS like EC2 or Azure. But cloud-init is not just for remote cloud providers, and using cloud-init for local images that can be quickly deployed in KVM works great for local development and … KVM: Testing cloud-init locally using KVM for an Ubuntu cloud image

KVM: Terraform and cloud-init to create local KVM resources


Categories: Linux, Virtualization

Terraform is a popular tool for provisioning infrastructure on cloud provider such as EC2 and Azure, but there is also a provider written for local KVM libvirt resources. Using the libvirt provider, we can use standard Terraform constructs to create local VMs, networks, and disks.

GoLang: Installing the Go Programming language on Ubuntu


Categories: Development

The Go programming language has gotten considerable momentum, and the fact that it compiles down to a single statically linked binary has made it popular in containers, where a single executable binary fits the execution model perfectly. This article will detail installation on Ubuntu with the standard hello world validation.

Docker: Installing Docker CE on Ubuntu bionic 18.04


Categories: Containers, Linux

Update Dec 2021: I have written an updated article for installing Docker on focal 20.04 Docker is a container platform that streamlines software delivery and provides isolation, scalability, and efficiency with less overhead than OS level virtualization. These instructions are taken directly from the official Docker for Ubuntu page, but I wanted to reiterate those … Docker: Installing Docker CE on Ubuntu bionic 18.04

AWS: Installing the AWS CLI on Ubuntu


Categories: Automation

Amazon EC2 provides a web interface for managing IaaS, but for repeatable infrastructure deployment what you really want is the ability to deploy and manage this infrastructure using an API or command line tool. In this article we want to focus on the CLI (command line interface), which shields us from the API innards and … AWS: Installing the AWS CLI on Ubuntu

Ubuntu: X11 forwarding to view GUI applications running on server hosts


Categories: Linux

Although server hosts typically have no graphical desktop and only serve console-based clients, these machines still have the ability to serve a GUI display screen to a remote desktop if necessary. The X11 protocol makes it possible to send the graphical display to a remote graphical desktop. Beyond the ability to run GUI utilities on … Ubuntu: X11 forwarding to view GUI applications running on server hosts

Ubuntu: Gathering hardware and BIOS details


Categories: Linux

Whether you need to flash the BIOS or check hardware compatibility for a virtualization engine, it is often necessary to gather details on your current hardware, BIOS, and CPU/DRAM feature set. In this article I’ll provide a starting list of commands you can use to gather this information.

SaltStack: salt-ssh for agentless automation on Ubuntu


Categories: Automation, DevOps

Configuration Management tools like SaltStack are invaluable for managing infrastructure at scale.  Even in the growing world of containerization, there is the need for bulk automation. This article will detail installation of  Salt SSH which leverages the power of SaltStack without the requirements for an agent install.

SaltStack: Installing a Salt Master on Ubuntu Xenial


Categories: Automation, DevOps

Configuration Management tools like SaltStack are invaluable for managing infrastructure at scale.  Even in the growing world of containerization where immutable image deployment is the norm, those images need to be built in a repeatable and auditable fashion. This article will detail installation of the SaltStack master on Ubuntu Xenial 16.04, with validation using a single Minion. Note that … SaltStack: Installing a Salt Master on Ubuntu Xenial

GoLang: Installing the Go Programming language on Ubuntu 16.04


Categories: Development

Update: For the latest version of this article compatible with Ubuntu 22.04 and Go 1.19, see my newer article here. The Go programming language has gotten considerable momentum, and the fact that it compiles down to machine code has made it popular in containers like Docker where a single executable binary fits the execution model perfectly. This article … GoLang: Installing the Go Programming language on Ubuntu 16.04

Ubuntu: Resizing Nautilus window after it has been maximized


Categories: Linux

If you have issues with the Nautilus default file browser window not being resizable after it has been maximized, first try holding down “alt” while holding down the mouse button and dragging inside the window. If that does not work, you can use “wmctrl” from the console to fix the issue.

Java: Spring Boot application as a service using SysV on Ubuntu 14.04


Categories: Java, Linux

Although in modern architectures you typically see Spring Boot executable jars running as the primary process of a container, there are still many deployment scenarios where running the jar as a service at boot time is required. With Ubuntu 14.04, we can use SysV to run a Spring Boot application at boot time.   This will … Java: Spring Boot application as a service using SysV on Ubuntu 14.04