Back when Ksplice was just a research project at MIT, we all spent a lot of time around the student computing group, SIPB. While there, several precocious...
Back when Ksplice was just a research project at MIT, we all spent a lot of time around the student computing group, SIPB. While there, several precocious undergrads kept talking about how excited they were to take 6.828, MIT's operating systems class. "You really need to understand pointers for this class," we cautioned them. "Reread K&R Chapter 5, again." Of course, they insisted that they understood pointers and didn't need to. So we devised a test. Ladies and gentlemen, I...
Back when Ksplice was just a research project at MIT, we all spent a lot of time around the student computing group, SIPB. While there, several precocious undergrads kept talking about how...
I built this analog CPU load meter for my dev workstation: All I did was drill a few holes into the CPU and probe the power supply lines... Okay, I lied....
I built this analog CPU load meter for my dev workstation: All I did was drill a few holes into the CPU and probe the power supply lines... Okay, I lied. This is actually a fun project that would make a great intro to embedded electronics, or a quick afternoon hack for someone with a bit of experience. The parts The main components are: Current meter: I got this at MIT Swapfest. The scale printed on the face is misleading: the meter itself measures only about 600...
I built this analog CPU load meter for my dev workstation: All I did was drill a few holes into the CPU and probe the power supply lines... Okay, I lied. This is actually a fun project that would...
I've used RCS, CVS, Subversion, and Perforce. Then I discovered distributed version control systems. Specifically, I discovered git. Lightweight branching?...
I've used RCS, CVS, Subversion, and Perforce. Then I discovered distributed version control systems. Specifically, I discovered git. Lightweight branching? Clean histories? And you can work offline? It seemed to be too good to be true. But one important question remained unanswered: Can git help improve my social life? Today, we present to you the astonishing results: why yes, yes it can. Introducing gitionary. The brainchild of Liz Denys and Nelson Elhage, it's what you...
I've used RCS, CVS, Subversion, and Perforce. Then I discovered distributed version control systems. Specifically, I discovered git. Lightweight branching? Clean histories? And you can work offline?...
Advisory Name: Plumber Injection Attack in Bowser's Castle Release Date: 2011-04-01 Application: Bowser's Castle Affected Versions: Super Mario Bros., Super...
Advisory Name: Plumber Injection Attack in Bowser's Castle Release Date: 2011-04-01 Application: Bowser's Castle Affected Versions: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels Identifier: SMB-1985-0001 Advisory URL: https://blogs.oracle.com/ksplice/entry/security_advisory_plumber_injection_attack Vulnerability Overview Multiple versions of Bowser's Castle are vulnerable to a plumber injection attack. An Italian plumber could exploit this bug to bypass security...
Advisory Name: Plumber Injection Attack in Bowser's Castle Release Date: 2011-04-01 Application: Bowser's Castle Affected Versions: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels...
It's the end of the day on Friday. On your laptop, in an ssh session on a work machine, you check on long.sh, which has been running all day and has another 8...
It's the end of the day on Friday. On your laptop, in an ssh session on a work machine, you check on long.sh, which has been running all day and has another 8 or 9 hours to go. You start to close your laptop. You freeze for a second and groan. This was supposed to be running under a screen session. You know that if you kill the ssh connection, that'll also kill long.sh. What are you going to do? Leave your laptop for the weekend? Kill the job, losing the last 8 hours of work?...
It's the end of the day on Friday. On your laptop, in an ssh session on a work machine, you check on long.sh, which has been running all day and has another 8 or 9 hours to go. You start to close your...
If you run a computer network, be it home WiFi or a global enterprise system, you need a way to investigate the machines connected to your network. When ping...
If you run a computer network, be it home WiFi or a global enterprise system, you need a way to investigate the machines connected to your network. When ping and traceroute won't cut it, you need a port scanner. nmap is the port scanner. It's a powerful, sophisticated tool, not to mention a movie star. The documentation on nmap is voluminous: there's an entire book, with a free online edition, as well as a detailed manpage. In this post I'll show you just a few of the cool...
If you run a computer network, be it home WiFi or a global enterprise system, you need a way to investigate the machines connected to your network. When ping and traceroute won't cut it, you need a...
One year ago, we announced the general availability of Ksplice Uptrack, a subscription service for rebootless kernel updates on Linux. Since then, a lot has...
One year ago, we announced the general availability of Ksplice Uptrack, a subscription service for rebootless kernel updates on Linux. Since then, a lot has happened! Adoption Over 600 companies have deployed Ksplice Uptrack on more than 100,000 production systems, on all 7 continents (Antarctica was the last hold-out). More than 2 million rebootless updates have been installed! You see the greatest system administration time and cost savings when you use Ksplice Uptrack on...
One year ago, we announced the general availability of Ksplice Uptrack, a subscription service for rebootless kernel updates on Linux. Since then, a lot has happened! Adoption Over 600 companies have...
Despite its age, gdb remains an amazingly versatile and flexible tool, and mastering it can save you huge amounts of time when trying to debug problems in your...
Despite its age, gdb remains an amazingly versatile and flexible tool, and mastering it can save you huge amounts of time when trying to debug problems in your code. In this post, I'll share 10 tips and tricks for using GDB to debug most efficiently. I'll be using the Linux kernel for examples throughout this post, not because these examples are necessarily realistic, but because it's a large C codebase that I know and that anyone can download and take a look at. Don't worry...
Despite its age, gdb remains an amazingly versatile and flexible tool, and mastering it can save you huge amounts of time when trying to debug problems in your code. In this post, I'll share 10 tips...
How does coffee shop Internet access work? You pull out your laptop and type http://www.google.com into the URL bar on your browser. Instead of your friendly...
How does coffee shop Internet access work? You pull out your laptop and type http://www.google.com into the URL bar on your browser. Instead of your friendly search box, you get a page where you pay money or maybe watch an advertisement, agree to some terms of service, and are only then free to browse the web. What is going on behind the scenes to give the coffee shop that kind of control over your packets? Let's trace an example of that process from first broadcast to last...
How does coffee shop Internet access work? You pull out your laptop and type http://www.google.com into the URL bar on your browser. Instead of your friendly search box, you get a page where you...
