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The Trouble with Tribbles...

ptribble.blogspot.com

Linux / UnixOS / kernel

’05’10’15’20’25
Posts
587 from 21 Dec 2004 to 15 Mar 2026
Posting
now and then (2 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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2026 2

  1. Observations on Tribblix m39
  2. Enabling IPv6 on EC2

2025 10

  1. Is the Information Security industry succeeding?
  2. Random thoughts on a Next Generation Tribblix
  3. On efficiency and resilience in IT
  4. Understanding emission scopes, or failing to
  5. What is this AI anyway?
  6. Tribblix on SPARC: sparse devices in an LDOM
  7. Expecting an AI boom?
  8. Tribblix, UEFI, and UFS
  9. Introducing a ddu-alike for Tribblix
  10. Is all this thing called AI worthwhile?

2024 5

  1. Thoughts on Static Code Analysis
  2. Debugging an OpenJDK crash on SPARC
  3. What's a decent password length?
  4. Tribblix image structural changes
  5. The SunOS JDK builder

2023 16

  1. Building up networks of zones on Tribblix
  2. Keeping python modules in check
  3. It seemed like a simple problem to fix
  4. When zfs was young
  5. SMF - part of the Solaris 10 legacy
  6. Retiring isaexec in Tribblix
  7. Modernizing scripts in Tribblix
  8. Speed up zone installation with this one weird trick
  9. Remnants of closed code in illumos
  10. Static Site Generators
  11. Zones, way back when
  12. Maintaining old software with no sign of retirement
  13. Upgrading MATE on Tribblix
  14. SPARC Tribblix m26 - what's in a number?
  15. How I build the Tribblix AMIs
  16. What, no fsck?

2022 14

  1. A decade of Tribblix
  2. TREASURE - The Remote Execution and Access Service Users Really Enjoy
  3. Tribblix for SPARC m25.1
  4. Tribblix for SPARC m22 ISO now available
  5. DevOps as a HR problem
  6. On the intersection between IT and HR
  7. Tribblix m28, Digital Ocean, and vioscsi
  8. Tribblix and static networking on AWS
  9. Cleaning up the Java illumos port
  10. On password policies in the 21st century
  11. The datacentre business seems to be very much alive
  12. Tribblix updates and https
  13. Inside zone installation
  14. Are software ecosystems a good thing?

2021 6

  1. The three strands of Information Technology
  2. The cost of cloud
  3. Keeping Java alive on illumos
  4. Running Tribblix on Digital Ocean
  5. Installing Tribblix in Bhyve on Tribblix
  6. Tweaking the Tribblix ISO

2020 9

  1. Running Eclipse on current illumos
  2. Installing OmniOS on Vultr with iPXE
  3. Adventures in Server Rooms
  4. Tribblix on Vultr with Block Storage
  5. The state of Tribblix, 2020
  6. Solaris 10 zones on Tribblix
  7. Customizing EC2 instance storage and networking with the AWS CLI
  8. Java: trying out String deduplication and the G1 garbage collector
  9. Some hardware just won't die

2019 13

  1. Testing hardware
  2. A brief history with Solaris
  3. HA PostgreSQL on Tribblix with Patroni
  4. HA PostgreSQL on Tribblix with stolon
  5. Setting up an etcd cluster on Tribblix
  6. Setting up replicated PostgreSQL on Tribblix
  7. A teeny bug in jkstat char handling
  8. Notes on web servers and client certificates
  9. Creating illumos packages for Tribblix
  10. Tweaking the Tribblix installer
  11. Building illumos-gate on AWS (2019 version)
  12. Thoughts on SPARC support in illumos
  13. SPARC and tod modules on illumos

2018 3

  1. Tribblix and the python transition
  2. Tribblix - minimal plus pkgsrc
  3. Tribblix - creating zones from images

2017 21

  1. Selecting relay smarthosts and using SMTP AUTH on illumos
  2. Building illumos-gate on AWS
  3. Public Tribblix AMI now available
  4. The commoditization of IT?
  5. Tribblix - illumos for everyone?
  6. Creating a decent Tribblix AMI
  7. Building a Tribblix AMI - hvm mode
  8. Running illumos on AWS - the first Tribblix AMI
  9. Mucking around with IPv6 and illumos zones
  10. What gets into Tribblix?
  11. Running LX zones with Tribblix
  12. Tweaking binaries with elfedit
  13. On Tribblix Milestone 20
  14. Installing Tribblix on Vultr using iPXE
  15. Tribblix memory requirements
  16. Tribblix SPARC progress
  17. OmniTribblix
  18. Noisy Tribblix
  19. How old are illumos man pages?
  20. Creating a Tribblix package repository
  21. Package versions in Tribblix

2016 31

  1. Minimal illumos zones
  2. Tribblix and the new illumos loader
  3. zfs receive oddity
  4. Cats versus Petals
  5. Tribblix - updates versus upgrades
  6. Tribblix Milestone 18
  7. Tribblix philosophy - software fidelity and currency
  8. The Tribblix filesystem layout
  9. Updating desktop caches and a tale of woe
  10. Minimizing apache and PHP
  11. Building Tribblix packages
  12. Getting to grips with Docker
  13. Data Destruction and illumos
  14. Connecting to legacy Sun ILOM with modern clients
  15. What's present in libc on illumos?
  16. Installing Tribblix into an existing pool
  17. Updating Tribblix for SPARC
  18. Signing Packages in Tribblix
  19. Minimal illumos networking
  20. Running illumos in 48M of RAM
  21. Almost there with Solarus
  22. Tweaking MVI
  23. Software selection - choice or constraint?
  24. Load balancers - improving site reliability
  25. Supermicro - illumos compatible server configuration
  26. Moving goalposts with openssl
  27. Updating gcc for Tribblix
  28. Tribblix Roadmap
  29. Do suppliers want to go out of business?
  30. On FOSDEM
  31. Building influxdb and grafana on Tribblix

2015 35

  1. The palatability of complexity
  2. The cost of user-applied updates
  3. Zones beside Zones
  4. Building an application in Docker
  5. Zones behind zones
  6. Buggy basename
  7. Replacing SunSSH with OpenSSH in Tribblix
  8. On Keeping Your Stuff to Yourself
  9. The Phallacy of Web Scale
  10. On the early web
  11. Tribblix Turns Three
  12. Minimal Viable Illumos
  13. Deconstructing .pyc files
  14. Software directions in Tribblix
  15. Fun with SPARC emulators
  16. Notifications from SMF (and FMA)
  17. Improving the foundations of Tribblix
  18. Trimming the Tribblix live image
  19. illumos pureboot
  20. How low can Tribblix go?
  21. Fixing SLiM
  22. Tribblix Graphical Login
  23. The 32-bit dilemma
  24. Tribblix meets MATE
  25. Whither open source?
  26. Blank Zones
  27. The lunacy of -Werror
  28. boot2docker on Tribblix
  29. How to build a server
  30. Badly targetted advertising
  31. Building LibreOffice on Tribblix
  32. What sort of DevOps are you?
  33. Where have all the SSDs gone?
  34. How illumos sets the keyboard type
  35. Tribblix scorecard

2014 9

  1. Setting up Logical Domains, part 2
  2. Setting up Logical Domains, part 1
  3. Tribblix progress
  4. Building illumos-gate on Tribblix
  5. Software verification of SVR4 packages with pkgchk
  6. Partial root zones
  7. Cloud analogies: Food As A Service
  8. Slimming down logstash
  9. Zone logs and logstash

2013 11

  1. Tribblix - making PXE boot work
  2. Tribblix - getting boot arguments
  3. Do we hate our users?
  4. The disappearance of packaging
  5. Sparse root zones in Tribblix
  6. Seeking the golden turd
  7. Tribblix 0m5 - solidification
  8. Zip Archive Packaging
  9. Zipping up tighter
  10. Tribblix 0m4 - wake up and smell the coffee
  11. 1.0 - jkstat, kar, jproc, and solview

2012 14

  1. Creating the Tribblix ramdisk
  2. Tribblix Milestone 1
  3. How to build Tribblix
  4. Those strange zlib files
  5. Building Tribblix
  6. Mangling the contents file for fun and profit
  7. Recursive zfs send and receive
  8. iTribble
  9. Cargo Cult IT
  10. JKstat in Javascript
  11. Lessons learnt from serving Queen Victoria's Journals
  12. Simple Zone Architecture
  13. Vendor Stack vs build your own
  14. Does anybody still use Java applets?

2011 29

  1. JKstat at Play!
  2. Editing cells in a JTable
  3. Building current gcc on Solaris 10
  4. Zooming into images
  5. Optimizing mysql with DTrace
  6. JKstat 0.60, handling kstat chain updates correctly
  7. Limiting CPU usage in a zone
  8. Thoughts on ZFS dedup
  9. Thoughts on ZFS compression
  10. A bigger hammer than svcadm
  11. The Oracle Hardware Management Pack
  12. CPU visualization
  13. Updated Node
  14. Node serving zipfiles
  15. Node and kstat goodness
  16. Cache batteries on Sun 25xx arrays
  17. Node.js on Solaris, part 2
  18. Building node.js on Solaris 10
  19. The trouble with tabs (in Firefox 4)
  20. JKstat and KAR - JSON migration
  21. About time to modernize Java
  22. JSON meets JKstat and KAR
  23. SolView 0.56
  24. JKstat 0.44
  25. Nudging the Narwhal
  26. JProc 0.6
  27. Pushing kar along
  28. Code = bugs
  29. New year, new JKstat

2010 34

  1. SNMP gets slightly easier
  2. KAR at LOSUG
  3. AfterStep, piewm, tvtwm, and friends
  4. Old and New
  5. Enlightenment packages for Solaris
  6. Remote Monitoring, APIs, and JMX
  7. Window Maker
  8. SolView 0.54
  9. JProc 0.5
  10. KAR 0.4
  11. JKstat 0.41
  12. Simple Java strip charts
  13. New SolView
  14. Which snmp on Solaris?
  15. A new light
  16. Moving OpenSolaris forward
  17. KAR 0.3
  18. Up, up, and away
  19. KAR 0.2
  20. Rhce
  21. JKstat 0.37
  22. Solaris Process data from Java
  23. Beyond sar
  24. JKstat 0.34
  25. Opening up some details of OpenSolaris under Oracle
  26. Nominations for the 2010-2011 OGB now open
  27. OpenSolaris: Oracle, where art thou?
  28. OpenSolaris Community Reports 2009-2010
  29. A better terminal, part 2
  30. Looking for a better terminal
  31. Stupid build systems
  32. Solaris Containers and Shared Memory
  33. Preconfiguring Containers with sysidcfg
  34. Compressing Backup Catalogs

2009 38

  1. JKstat 0.33
  2. Is package management interesting?
  3. Not so lucky any more?
  4. So what is wrong with SVR4 packaging, really?
  5. JKstat 0.32
  6. Into the sunset?
  7. Tinkering with the SVR4 packaging source
  8. Migrating old servers
  9. java + picl = fail
  10. Appalling Virgin "Broadband"
  11. SNMP from java - updated
  12. OpenSolaris Constitution Update
  13. SolView 0.48
  14. JProc 0.2
  15. SolView 0.47
  16. JKstat - interactive chart builder
  17. Everything Virtual
  18. xfce-taskmanager on Solaris
  19. JProc - procfs from java
  20. Sane terminal behaviour with PgUp and friends
  21. XFCE on Solaris 10
  22. Testing ZFS compression
  23. JKstat, meet JavaFX
  24. Heading off to CommunityOne
  25. Reports from the community for CommunityOne
  26. What can the OGB do for you?
  27. Backups done right?
  28. Newer != Better
  29. Agile SysAdmin
  30. SNMP GUI - Jangle 0.03
  31. Jangle
  32. A Java SNMP client
  33. SolView 0.46
  34. JKstat 0.27
  35. Simple Web Services
  36. Client-server JKstat
  37. Compression going really fast
  38. Zones, multiple interfaces, and routing

2008 57

  1. End of an era
  2. Solaris Link Aggregation
  3. T5140 trouble
  4. Scaling administration
  5. SolView moves ahead
  6. MilaX - Wow!
  7. Refactored JKstat
  8. Would you pass?
  9. On OpenSolaris Change
  10. Too radical a change?
  11. Better documentation style
  12. Solaris Advantages
  13. Refactoring solview and jkstat
  14. How to confuse ImageMagick
  15. When to bury the pager
  16. Thank heaven for sparse files!
  17. JKstat meets the ZFS ARC
  18. Computers - unpredictable creatures
  19. The gardening release
  20. JKstat, SolView, Awards
  21. You don't exist, go away!
  22. Making scp go a little quicker
  23. jingle and jumble
  24. Subtle change on sun.com
  25. Networking vanished
  26. SAS vs. SATA
  27. An upgrade too far
  28. Sun does quad core Opterons
  29. Living in the Ghetto
  30. OpenSolaris in VirtualBox
  31. Et tu, Brute?
  32. Controlling the Install Footprint
  33. JKstat 0.21
  34. NDIS Wrapper on Indiana
  35. Where's my Primary Administrator gone?
  36. From scary to useful
  37. X4140 - X4440
  38. The case of the unloved files
  39. In my next job...
  40. Scary
  41. T5240 - disks and more disks
  42. OGB: constitution
  43. OGB: expectations
  44. OGB: Bio
  45. X2200M2 blues
  46. Nominated for OGB
  47. If only!
  48. Python considered harmful
  49. All-in-one servers
  50. X4150 experiences.
  51. X4150: lit up
  52. X4150: where do I boot from?
  53. X4150: No disks found
  54. LOM: Consistency would be nice
  55. X4150: talk to me!
  56. Server deja vu
  57. Christopher John Tribble

2007 28

  1. Solaris on a Laptop
  2. Jumpstart Profile Builder
  3. Solview update
  4. JKstat update
  5. X2200M2 fault diagnosis
  6. W2100z update
  7. Fixed funny fonts in gpdf
  8. That's a busy disk...
  9. Sunsolve needs a makeover
  10. Fingered!
  11. Laid low :-(
  12. And solview too
  13. New jkstat version - real progress
  14. Solaris metacluster sizes
  15. solview does patches
  16. Solview, JPack
  17. solview - includes contents
  18. Phoronix and Solaris
  19. JKstat 0.17 - includes charts
  20. JKstat 0.15
  21. OpenSolaris priorities
  22. Polls and voter apathy
  23. Spring Clean and Upgrade
  24. A new use for a D1000 array
  25. Updated jkstat
  26. Impressed with Xfce
  27. Sun, Intel - friends?
  28. Backup Blues

2006 79

  1. Fun with NVIDIA driver
  2. Jumpstart Profile Builder
  3. T2000 vs bison
  4. Cheap sparcs and constrained configurations
  5. Problematic Printing
  6. Network Corruption?
  7. Keeping the T2000 busy
  8. T2000 - more performance
  9. Server Wars: The M2 Strikes Back
  10. The M2 submits
  11. The M2 comes alive
  12. Me versus the M2
  13. On to the X2100 M2
  14. T2000 - initial performance
  15. T2000 - install performance
  16. T2000 - past the first roadblock
  17. New Toys
  18. Solview Updated
  19. How hard can it be?
  20. Back in Circulation
  21. Self Preservation
  22. Enhancing the JDS desktop look
  23. S10U2 companion problems
  24. Time and Leadership
  25. #opensolaris
  26. Solaris Install
  27. Opera 9, Solaris x86
  28. Moving On
  29. Striding Out
  30. How fast is my SCSI?
  31. Ultra 25
  32. That's Reliable?
  33. Lapping it up
  34. OpenSolaris contributions
  35. Old dog, new tricks
  36. Flimsy fans?
  37. Dumb
  38. MyISAM vs InnoDB
  39. Sinking ship?
  40. Outdated libraries
  41. Great Open Source
  42. Solaris to/from Linux?
  43. Well, that didn't work...
  44. tuxpaint
  45. Wither the desktop?
  46. More distractions...
  47. Die, configure, die!!!
  48. Retro gaming
  49. Graphical DTrace
  50. Extra Software
  51. Install investigations
  52. ./configure is evil
  53. poking around with dtrace
  54. jfsstat
  55. Home Networked
  56. T2000 problem
  57. OpenSolaris Installation and Packaging
  58. fsstat in latest OpenSolaris
  59. Vanished...
  60. Affordable Sun Gear
  61. Java DTrace
  62. Evil JES Installer
  63. JKstat updated
  64. Why do arrays have even numbers of disks?
  65. Roundup
  66. Should I get a T2000?
  67. Solaris Info Viewer
  68. Suspend/Resume
  69. System start up time
  70. Why I use Windows
  71. newboot 2 - nvidia failure
  72. newboot
  73. Buried in good stuff
  74. Enemy action?
  75. This can't be serious...
  76. Software Stacks
  77. Licensing Complexity
  78. Updated NVIDIA drivers [again]
  79. Start out Simple

2005 117

  1. Updated NVIDIA drivers
  2. LOSUG 2
  3. Domino Backup
  4. [ID 335743 kern.notice] BAD TRAP:
  5. Simple presentations
  6. New Apache
  7. Awash with freebies...
  8. suspend/resume at a crawl
  9. Get it right first time!
  10. Another JKstat update
  11. Bumps-a-daisy!
  12. Properly connected
  13. Quest for small server continues...
  14. PostgreSQL, Sun, and Integration
  15. Deluged by good stuff
  16. Turning Opteron Down
  17. JKstat updated
  18. Everyone an administrator?
  19. Invalid system disk
  20. Putting Google to work
  21. system() doesn't constitute an API
  22. When did that get added?
  23. Why don't people upgrade?
  24. Yay! Gnome terminal fixed!
  25. Being Enterprising
  26. Google Earth
  27. New Sun Boxes
  28. All Change
  29. Java man pages
  30. Galaxy - About Time
  31. Those ole backup tapes
  32. The great thing about standards...
  33. The good, the bad, and the ugly
  34. Should I program to Tiger?
  35. NISminus
  36. Back to JNI
  37. Keeping Busy
  38. Submerged!
  39. Missing the comforts of $HOME
  40. London OpenSolaris User Group
  41. What's your disk MTBF?
  42. Yikes - had to log out!
  43. Some Modified OpenSolaris Utilities
  44. Somebody just lit the blue touch paper
  45. Moved my Solaris Zone
  46. London OpenSolaris User Group
  47. V250 EOL?
  48. Solaris, OpenSolaris - which to run?
  49. Step by tiny step
  50. StorageTek Buy - ???
  51. Solaris and GUI management
  52. Security Awareness for Ma, Pa and the Corporate Clueless
  53. Welcome Dowstone
  54. Great Birthday Present
  55. Simple DTrace
  56. Can Sybase get it?
  57. Envy
  58. Another Solaris irritation zapped!
  59. Is Linux becoming Windows?
  60. Oh great...
  61. Are upgrades viable?
  62. Bad Journalism - Janus non-article
  63. Pssst... Free Linux! Only $799!
  64. More dubious methodology
  65. Industry to adopt open source constitution - vnunet.com
  66. IT Observer - Mozilla: The Honeymoon is over
  67. Dubious Testing
  68. &@#^ serial connections
  69. Welcome Stephen Harpster
  70. Sun shooting themselves in the foot
  71. Sun VP Tom Goguen Discusses Evolution of OpenSolaris
  72. Job Hunting
  73. OpenSolaris CAB
  74. Cleaning up Solaris with removef
  75. The numbers game: RHEL vs Solaris
  76. Record Uptime?
  77. OBP updates, or not?
  78. I love the sound of breaking glass
  79. FantasyLand
  80. Improving Operational Efficiency
  81. No such thing as a free lunch
  82. Over the Hill
  83. Minimalist Solaris
  84. What a week
  85. Getting the next bus
  86. Snow, glorious snow
  87. Zones in anger
  88. Open source, open binaries, or open distribution?
  89. Open Source or Open Binaries?
  90. Diversity, Choice, Competition
  91. I bought the book
  92. SMF setup for postfix
  93. 57 up
  94. Solaris mirror resyncs
  95. Solaris 10 installs rolling
  96. Way too popular
  97. Journalistic Nuggets
  98. OpenSolaris alive
  99. Sun starts to roll out OpenSolaris - Computer Business Review
  100. Analysts: Paid too much?
  101. Bad Nerd Score
  102. Java Kstats
  103. So what CPUs do I have?
  104. Register: Solaris for hippies
  105. Quaint or antiquated?
  106. Development communities
  107. Fedora facing challenges, just like Solaris
  108. Enterprise Unix Roundup: The Evolving OS Landscape
  109. Molecular Humour
  110. Solaris Feature
  111. Solaris in consumer press
  112. Solaris 10 Gets Ready to Roll
  113. HP Embraces Open Source as Well as Linux
  114. Solaris licence gets OSI approval - ZDNet UK News
  115. Sun Diagrams
  116. Catching up
  117. Lifecycle thoughts

2004 6

  1. Blame the boss!
  2. Compatibility - a double edged sword
  3. Not amused
  4. Not necessarily an improvement
  5. Waiting for Solaris 10
  6. A great episode!