2.5 Admins is a podcast featuring two sysadmins called Allan Jude and Jim Salter, and a producer/editor who can just about configure a Samba share called Joe Ressington. Every two weeks we get together, talk about recent tech news, and answer some of your admin-related questions.
The 2.5 Admins podcast brings together three seasoned professionals, Allan, Jim, and Joe, in a fantastic show that combines their expertise and sense of humor. With a range of experience on various systems and a diverse perspective on technology, these hosts never fail to educate and entertain their listeners. As an industry professional, I find value in their informed opinions and real-world experience shared in every episode.
One of the best aspects of The 2.5 Admins podcast is the wealth of knowledge and experience brought by each host. Allan is legendary in the BSD/ZFS world, Jim has an insatiable curiosity for all things tech, and Joe offers a "man on the street" Linux perspective. This combination ensures that listeners can expect informative discussions that touch on a wide range of topics. Additionally, the hosts' different perspectives on how to approach similar tasks provide unique insights and make for engaging conversations.
While The 2.5 Admins podcast offers great content overall, it does have some areas for improvement. Occasionally, the pacing of the show can feel uneven or rushed, which may leave listeners wanting more depth on certain topics. Additionally, there could be more diversity in guest speakers to bring fresh perspectives and expand the range of discussions.
In conclusion, The 2.5 Admins podcast delivers informative and engaging content with hosts who have a wealth of knowledge and experience in the field. Whether you're a sysadmin looking to learn something new or simply interested in tech discussions from industry professionals, this podcast is worth listening to. While there are areas for improvement such as pacing and guest diversity, overall it provides valuable insights that make it worth including in your regular listening lineup.
Locating people with just a phone call, Google forces a change to Let's Encrypt certificates, yet another example of a “lifetime” subscription being cut short, connecting drives to a small form factor machine, and managing ssh keys with LDAP. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes […]
TrueNAS drops FreeBSD but there's a community fork, the elusive ZFS send bug that affected encrypted datasets is finally identified and fixed, why the Raspberry Pi doesn't make a great NAS, and when to use the zpool checkpoint feature. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes […]
The basic computer science problems that still remain unsolvable, why you shouldn't trust AI to tune ZFS (or answer any admin questions), and setting up a check-in system for a group of friends. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Discussion Why You Can't Trust […]
Old passwords work for Windows RDP, Broadcom shows why perpetual software licenses aren't really forever, Windows Server is getting hotpatching, and preventing changes to archived files. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with some early episodes Owning the Stack: Infrastructure Independence with FreeBSD and ZFS News/discussion Windows RDP […]
Crosswalks were comically vulnerable to being hacked, even Google struggles with tiered SSD and HDD storage, some insight into how AI scrapers are using domestic IPs, and creating a ZFS mirror one disk at a time. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Inside FreeBSD Netgraph: […]
Some Synology NAS products will require drives they sold you, doubt is cast on the CVE program, why some FreeBSD packages didn't appear when they should have, and backing up the keys for encrypted backups. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Robust & Reliable Backup […]
IPv4 addresses are worth an awful lot of money, the serious dangers of a seemingly sensible deepfake law, Microsoft is 50 years old, and our thoughts on antivirus on Linux and Windows. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Accurate and Effective Storage Benchmarking News […]
Jim's server is getting hammered by AI scrapers and he's big mad about it, why RCS doesn't work on Android without Google apps, a complex Google account issue, and how Jim and Allan handle their WireGuard configs. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Network Offload […]
Whether tech debt is inevitable and where the blame lies, how to properly organise ZFS datasets, and selectively managing updates. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes ZFS Orchestration Tools – Part 2: Replication SysCloud Over 2,000 IT […]
The key differences between throughput and latency – and when they matter, the tech that we'd keep if we stopped working in IT, and avoiding bitrot with rsync backups. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Core Infrastructure: Why You Need to Control Your NTP […]
RISC-V is on the rise in China, why Power CPUs aren't as promising, the dystopian nightmare of surveillance tech at work, and decrypting ZFS at boot. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Understanding ZFS in the Real World: Mistakes Made, Lessons Learned & Future Plans […]
Ten-year-old Chromecasts stop working, movie DVDs start rotting, Skype is finally dying, using ZFS on VM guests and hosts. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes ZFS Space Accounting Explained News Google apologizes for Chromecast outage in email to users “They curdle like milk”: WB […]
HP was forcing people to wait on hold for 15 minutes to get support, the DOGE site was embarrassingly insecure, setting up encrypted offsite backups, and mixing SATA and NVMe in a server. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Why FreeBSD is the Right Choice […]
Arm is going to make its own server chips, WordPress is selling “100 year” domain registrations, geo-redundancy for VPSs, and backing up Windows to Backblaze B2. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Isolating Containers with ZFS and Linux Namespaces News Arm to launch its […]
Google found a way to run unofficial microcode on AMD CPUs, whether software should get a CVE when it goes end of life, LLMs changing Redditors' minds and self-replicating, and managing SSH keys at scale. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes ZFS Orchestration Tools – […]
Used Seagate drives are being sold as “new”, another reminder not to hack Windows 11 onto unsupported hardware, about using ZFS on VPS block storage, picking hardware to run VMs, and delegating datasets to containers. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Controlling Your Core Infrastructure: […]
We appreciate the elegance of subnets as well as the power of custom benchmarking, Xboxes will support large amounts of external storage, why it's not looking great for bcachefs, malware and remote desktops, and our thoughts on Fortigate network gear. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes […]
An embarrassing typo suggests that MasterCard's monitoring isn't as good as it should be, tricky offsite backups, why two-factor authentication over SMS is a bad idea, and keeping two Mac laptops in sync. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Klara Webinar, Feb 13th: RAID is […]
Microsoft didn't control an important domain that it was using and end up red-faced, the dangers of using free VPN apps, a proof of concept exploit is out for last year's SSH vulnerability, USB is getting slightly less confusing labels, and swapping the motherboard in a TrueNAS SCALE system. News Edgio bankruptcy results in […]
A new version of ZFS is out and we go over the great new features. Plus recovering data after accidentally writing part of an ISO onto a USB drive, how to deal with abuse of your domain, and replacing all the drives in a ZFS pool while keeping the birth date. Plugs Support us […]
Jim and Allan explain the benefits of a lithium iron phosphate “UPS”, whether it's possible to delete every single copy of a file, and using Bluetooth in a Windows 11 VM. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Discussion Anker SOLIX C300 Anker SOLIX F3800 […]
What it would take to reliably store data for a hundred years including Institutional funding and organization, decade-proof redundancy, multiple hot and cold copies,hedging your bets against multiple media, and more. Plus backing up ZFS without normal snapshots. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes […]
Windows ssh is sending more telemetry than you might think, Let's Encrypt will offer 6 days certificates, a PSA about domains that don't send emails, and performance issues in a Synology NAS. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Winter 2024 Roundup: Storage and Network Diagnostics […]
Chinese researchers are making progress with quantum computing but they haven't broken modern RSA or AES encryption, Russian attackers compromised a business via a nearby building's WiFi, a startup runs out of money and bricks a robot for kids, and hardening Linux systems. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed […]
The US government tells people to use encrypted messaging, mandated MFA in healthcare raises a scary geopolitical question, QNAP bungles a firmware update, and securing access to self hosted applications with mTLS. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Deploying pNFS file sharing with FreeBSD […]
Intel's CEO departs but replacing him won't magically solve its serious problems, Zipcar wasn't prepared for an outage and handled it really badly, moving to an email provider that supports DMARC, and picking a NAS distribution. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes ZFS Ask Me […]
Equinix is shutting down its bare metal service, D-Link advises people to dump old vulnerable routers, Google makes changes to how it ranks some affiliate-driven “reviews”, and data caps seem to be sticking around. Plus mixing different brands and types of disks, using other partitions on a ZFS drive, and scaling a fleet of FreeBSD […]
Windows server unexpectedly upgrades major versions, Microsoft reinvents the idea of a thin client, restricting a friend's access to just their backups, and the importance of warranties when buying hardware. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes DKMS vs kmod: The Essential Guide for ZFS on […]
Jim and Allan discover modern charging tech and marvel at what's possible in the USB-C era, more on IPv6 firewalls, using ZFS like Git, and running your own authoritative DNS server. Automox Check out the brand new Autonomous IT podcast. Listen in as a variety of experts in the IT […]
How using a copy-on-write filesystem like ZFS can get systems back online within seconds after ransomeware encrypts all your data, and even warn you more quickly that it's happening. Plus Jim and Allan's advice on getting a job as a sysadmin. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early […]
It's Halloween so Jim and Allan share horrific and spooky stories from their sysadmin careers. Plus picking a UPS for a homelab. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Klara: NAS: Maintenance Best Practices See our contact […]
SSL certificates are likely going to last less time, the latest Windows 11 update leaves a huge chunk of data behind and doesn't play nicely with some SSDs, picking a modern dhcp server on a homebrew router, and storing encrypted backups on a friend's NAS with ZFS. Plugs Support us on patreon and get […]
The difference between monitoring and metrics analysis, the security pros and cons of cloud vs on-prem, why Jim and Allan don't use Unraid, and cloud storage and email for a small company. Feedback Netdata Nagios ZFS and Unraid Free consulting We were asked about cloud storage and email for a small company. […]
NIST has finally proposed some sensible password standards, why server CPUs with high core counts make sense in a lot of deployments, the .io TLD is probably sticking around, and the best options for a Linux-based router. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes Klara Halloween […]
Why cold storage is never as good as keeping your data warm and regularly tested, how the American air traffic control system became so outdated, and isolating your devices from a roommate's shenanigans. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News/discussion Music industry's 1990s hard […]
A proposed solution to the WHOIS TLS verification problem gets a surprising amount of pushback. Plus isolating IoT devices, our thoughts on Ubiquiti gear, setting up WiFi in a new house, remote access with WireGuard, and our mini PC recommendations. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes […]
The Malaysian government's misguided plan to control its citizens' DNS, the wrong way to deploy underwater servers, a philosophical question about how long a person's photos will exist, and how we manage our SSH keys. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News/discussion Malaysia's plan […]
A surprising way to exploit the WHOIS system, Microsoft will force old versions of Windows 11 to update, and the simple way to set up TP-Link Omada gear. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News Rogue WHOIS server gives researcher superpowers no one should […]
Another example of the downsides of abstraction, whether AI can ever be truly “open source”, and the security benefits and drawbacks of different types of VPN. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News/discussion Hackers infect ISPs with malware that steals customers' credentials Debate over […]
AMD will patch some old Ryzens against SinkClose now, but their benchmarking methods for newer CPUs didn't live up to everyday reality. Plus Bcachefs devs annoy Linus Torvalds, the US government sues a college over compliance issues, and Jim disappoints a patron. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with […]
Insecure SSH implementations and a weak key that let a researcher control 200 MW of electrical capacity reignites the debate about versioned protocols vs pluggable protocols, follow-up on sharing files from your LAN with people on the Internet, and the pros and cons of encrypted backups. Plug Support us on patreon and get an […]
Forcing Windows to undo updates and a separate IPv6 vulnerability, hardware bugs in AMD and Intel CPUs, and using Samba on Linux with Active Directory. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News Your victim's Windows PC fully patched? Just force undo its updates and […]
Secure boot is compromised on hundreds of devices, Amazon's desperate attempt to make money from Alexa, and how to decide which open source software on GitHub to trust. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News/discussion Secure Boot is completely broken on 200+ models from […]
How and why the recent huge Windows outage was caused by a bad CrowdStrike update and how it could have been avoided, a hilariously dumb ESXi vulnerability, and using SAS drives with a PCIe card. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News A closer […]
How a Bitcoin mine made life in a Texas town absolutely miserable, why paying for extended support for end of life Windows versions is just doubling down on technical debt, and the best way to manage router redundancy. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes […]
A widely-used login system is still using MD5 which is bad news, miscreants took over some domains when they moved from Google to Squarespace, Linksys' sloppy app isn't a huge problem but is a bad sign, and why backing up an Android phone in one go is pretty much impossible without root. Plug Support […]
We didn't get to all of your questions for our Episode 200 free consulting special so here is another full episode of your questions and our answers. Our thoughts on a new UK smart devices law, backing up 30TB off-site, how to learn ZFS, SMB vs other ways to share files, and backing up secrets. […]
Why we didn't mention pocket fluff when we talked about USB-C charging issues, Microsoft abandons its promising underwater data center experiment and didn't monitor it's SSL certs, why you should be careful which WordPress plugins and themes you install,an Australian ISP's tech debt comes due, and remoting into desktop Linux. Plug Support us on […]
Vulnerabilities in Asus hardware make us think there should be some regulations about what can be sold as a router, a VPN feature that we hadn't heard of is removed from Windows, and why we don't believe that Microsoft will ever take security as seriously as they claim. Plug Support us on patreon and […]
It's our episode 200 free consulting special. Jim and Allan answer your questions about hard drive availability, USB-C robustness, ZFS performance on a VPS, cold storage with a 2.5″ form factor, how we gained our level of knowledge, disk enclosure issues, and monitoring Windows servers. Tailscale Tailscale is an […]
How to prepare for your loved ones to have the access they need if the worst unexpectedly happens, Joe's weird issues with wireless access points, and dealing with email accounts that shouldn't exist. Plug Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed with early episodes sometimes News/discussion After you die, your […]
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