Shows / 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins
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 week we get together, talk about recent tech news, and answer some of your admin-related questions.
Episodes
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 323: No /boot For You
Why you should be watching for SSL certificates that you didn’t issue, Let’s Encrypt is shortening the length of certs to 64 days, Ubuntu tightens…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 322: Internet Defrigeration
Supermarkets found out why their fridges shouldn’t be on the Internet and Samsung smart fridges broke after a firmware update, why we don’t…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 321: Backup Strategy
Why batteries in homes could benefit everyone involved, why we didn’t bring up wake-on-LAN when someone asked about keeping a NAS powered on as little as…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 320: Dining on Goose
Google offers a few pennies to web publishers to make up for stealing their content and not sending them any traffic, the tech we’d try to use after the…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 319: Funding Open Source
The challenges of funding open source software projects, how Netflix uses FreeBSD in a positive way, why you shouldn’t try to complicate your monitoring…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 318: End of Exchange
Microsoft really wants you to update your Exchange server, our thoughts on immutable distros, more on Jim’s approach to internet access for his kids…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 317: Need Less
Some of the ways you can mitigate the ridiculous hardware prices, and designing a small business LAN. Plugs Support us on patreon and get an ad-free RSS feed…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 316: BGP Clipboard Hijack
A BGP hijack involved some basic errors, Microsoft teaches people to ignore warnings in Windows, Zoom appears to be reading the clipboard on X11, why a non-US…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 315: Hot Bus Adapter
What to read into a study of long-term Backblaze hard drive failure data, why the difference between TB and TiB matters, and what to do about an overheating…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 314: 50 PBS TBS
A TV station struggles to retrieve its data from the data centre company that a defunct intermediary used, why we don’t want AI to manage our networks…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 313: Cooking with NVMe
Microsoft claims that Windows 11 will work well with 8GB of RAM, some of the innovations coming to high end SSDs, the arguments for TP-Link Omada over Ubiquiti…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 312: Bus Factor
In a world where photos can no longer be trusted, Jim argues that we should move to a default distrust model where images are signed at every stage of the…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 311: Couch Cushions
Microsoft restored an account including files that it initially claimed wasn’t possible, Apple might lock down phones if people don’t keep up their…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 310: GPLFreeBSD
Google wants you to use a selfie video for account recovery, LG will stop apps turning their smart TVs into residential proxy nodes, we disagree about how…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 309: Orbital Sauron
A new HTTP caching standard looks promising but might struggle to get adopted, a terrible space mirror idea is actually happening, cars will spy on us all, and…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 308: Sloppy Shims
Microsoft really wants your Windows settings data, secure boot has been useless for a decade, our thoughts on (the idea of) Incus and IncusOS, and configuring…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 307: One Big Pool
Follow-up on rebooting to update, portable power stations, glass storage, and objective news sources. Plus whether to use one ZFS pool per vdev, or just one…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 306: WiFi Cable
Why setting up commercial email and VPN services is incredibly hard, avoiding TrueNAS’s move from FreeBSD to Linux, why we avoid virtualising storage…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 305: Short Two
The one tool in our IT tool belt that we value the most. This is a short episode because Joe is having a summer break. See our contact page for ways to get in…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 304: Wiring a House
Wiring up a house for networking including cables, access points, connectors, and racks. Plus Google is found liable for what its AI overviews say. Plugs…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 303: Denial of Secrets
People were locked out of their password managers to stop a brute force attack, Coreutils come to Windows, a FreeBSD PR effort backfires, and the best simple…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 302: ClawPilot
Microsoft threatens a security researcher for disclosing vulnerabilities publicly, bricks old versions of Office, and announces their version of OpenClaw. Plus…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 301: F(OSS) Consulting
It looks like Bitlocker had a back door in it, how a listener accidentally broke Gitea for users of the snap version, Google accidentally published an…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 300: IPvWot?
Why a proposal for an alternative to IPv6 is unlikely to be viable, Microsoft really doesn’t want you to run Exchange Server on-prem, Google will finally…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 299: RMAggravation
People trying to return defective hard drives and RAM are finding out why consumer protection laws would be good, GoDaddy accidentally gave someone’s…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 298: Windows Postdate
Microsoft is encouraging employees with the most experience to leave the company and letting users pause Windows updates forever, some of the best features…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 297: Jraphics
Hitting the limit for hard links, a parent struggles to get back into their teen’s compromised Discord account, the demise of tower PCs and general…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 296: Beware of the Leopard
Microsoft locks devs out of important accounts, the foreign router ban exemptions make even less sense, Backblaze shows that “unlimited” never…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 295: Orbital Meltdown
Why putting data center satellites in orbit is a terrible idea, Google might show people a made-up version of your website, and ZFS on really old Dell servers…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 294: Oh, R2
Arm announces its first CPU, Anthropic accidentally leaks the source for Claude Code and it’s terrible, and setting up a backup for a friend’s…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 293: Reduced Flicker
Microsoft says Windows 11 is getting less rubbish but we are skeptical, vehicles with alcohol interlocks won’t start because the manufacturer’s…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 292: Trivyally Infected
The US government is drumming up fear about foreign routers, a pretty serious supply chain attack might be state-sponsored, and the safety of filesystems…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 291: UPS for LiFePO4
Why passkeys aren’t the right solution to everything, Allan tells us why he loves his new Lithium Iron Phosphate UPS, Btrfs vs ZFS on root, and…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 290: Tired of Tracking
Microsoft Authenticator will delete Entra credentials on phones that aren’t running stock ROMs, Jim’s nightmare experience trying to get a user…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 289: Hunter2
An exciting new cold storage technology seems to be getting closer, Nvidia seemingly wants a slice of the laptop hardware action, why you (and your users)…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 288: HDD Tourism
Hardware scarcity and price hikes spread to hard drives, the Bcachefs dev thinks his AI is ‘fully conscious’, an agent might have gone after a FOSS…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 287: Dual Arguators
Jim and Allan disagree on how new hard drive tech is likely to work, more on storage and compute in the same box, and how we set up disk encryption on laptops…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 286: Windows Crashed
Notepad++ falls victim to a state-sponsored attacker, AI agents talk nonsense to each other on an insecure vibe coded social network, and backing up a laptop…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 285: example.com.oops
Outlook’s autodiscover feature is leaking data again, our thoughts on the cycle of cloud and on-prem (centralised and local computing), and why you…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 284: BooTooth
Why you might not want your Windows encryption keys to be backed up to Microsoft, some Bluetooth devices are vulnerable to snooping and tracking, a lesson in…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 283: FSOD
The last method to activate Windows without the Internet has gone away, malware that tricks users with a fake blue screen of death, and recovering from bad RAM…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 282: Fragile DNS
Cisco network gear fell over when it shouldn’t have, yet another security flaw is found in Microsoft Copilot, the US military is letting Grok into all…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 281: Lead The Target
The many reasons why email shouldn’t be trusted. Plus how to stop your kids accessing inappropriate content online, and why the answer probably…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 280: Bad Parking
Why you should probably keep paying for your old domains, the perpetual problem of typo squatting, a machine learning expert’s take on BS from LLMs, and…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 279: Short One
The one bit of advice we’d give to someone wanting to become a professional sysadmin. This is a short episode because Joe is having a break for the…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 278: XXXfil
Apple deletes a person’s entire digital life, PornHub Premium user data is leaked, Mozilla’s new CEO wants to ruin Firefox, Tech Force in the USA…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 277: Battering RAM
The Crucial brand of consumer SSDs and RAM is going away, AMD and Intel memory encryption can be bypassed with cheap hardware, more AI buffoonery, and…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 276: Very Prudish Network
What a government crackdown on VPNs would look like, malware groups play the long game with browser extensions, a new major version of FreeBSD is released, and…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 275: G-word
Google kept collecting sensor data even after bricking Nest thermostats, FreeBSD’s container support gets serious, and where to find cheap (or even dirt…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 274: Go Go Gadget Windows
Windows is becoming an “agentic OS”, some WD SMR drives are dying prematurely, backing up VMware with ZFS, and separating trusted and non-trusted…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 273: Reliability Tracking
Allan tells us about the recent OpenZFS Summit including inconsistent JBODs, more details about mixed disk sizes in ZFS with AnyRaid, an upcoming standard that…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 272: NVMe Surprise
Why you should seriously consider buying refurbished hard drives, why drives might be lasting longer than they once did, Jim’s M.2 NVMe drive died at an…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 271: Dead Internet
Why you should keep your Baseboard Management Controller off the network, ZFS is hard to defeat with a zip bomb, how bad the Internet bot problem probably is…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 270: Storage Shortage
It looks like the storage companies aren’t betting on the AI bubble lasting much longer, the arguments against self-hosting, and setting up a server for…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 269: End of 10?
Windows 10 is officially end of life but Microsoft extends free updates for Windows 10 in Europe, it gets even harder to use a local account in Windows 11, and…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 268: The Salter Philosophy
A Red Hat breach leads to a leak of lots of sensitive customer data, Synology backs down on allowing third-party drives but they are removing features, and…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 267: Hoarding Cache
The weird errors you see when your root partition is full, TikTok uses a lot of bandwidth by preloading videos, and dealing with a ZFS pool that won’t…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 266: Jiggawatts of Hallucinations
Intel and Nvidia are teaming up for multiple reasons, Open AI are planning to build data centers and use a ludicrous amount of power, LLM hallucinations…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 265: Storage Lies
Joe set up a FreeBSD box to serve as a replication target and it was surprisingly straightforward, if rather different from Linux. Plus the lies that storage…
- 2.5 Admins
2.5 Admins 264: A Question of Trust
Matrix shows how painful enormous databases can be to restore, why the certificate authority system doesn’t seem to make sense in 2025, a hosting…