User Mode Linux
Posted on July 31, 2016
(Last modified on August 1, 2016)
| 4 minutes
| 825 words
| Ritesh Raj Sarraf
Recently, we had the User-Mode Linux suite out of Debian, which included user- mode-linux, user-mode-linux-doc and uml-utilities package. We are happy that we were able to bring it back into the archvie quick, and hope to maintain it active.
For many who may not know about UML, here’s a discription from its website:
User-Mode Linux is a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup.
[Read More]
VirtualBox 5.x
Posted on July 15, 2015
| 1 minutes
| 62 words
| Ritesh Raj Sarraf
We just pushed VirtualBox 5.0.0 into Debian Experimental. It should land up on
your mirrors very soon.
Since this is a major release, we are looking for some testing and feedback.
If you use VBox, or have your business depend on it, please give it a test.
For details about what is new in 5.x, please check out the [release
announcement](http://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/oracle-vm-
virtualbox-5-070915.html)
Debian GNU/Hurd on VirtualBox
Posted on February 1, 2015
| 2 minutes
| 240 words
| Ritesh Raj Sarraf
One of the great things about Debian is the wide range of kernels it supports can run. This gives the user the flexibility to not spend time on the common userland stuff. For example, most apps, package management and system admin tasks are common across all Debian platforms.
These platforms may not be optimal at par to Linux, but still, choice is good.
For long, I had used Debian GNU/Hurd, only on a KVM hypervisor.
[Read More]
Linux Containers and Productization
Posted on December 26, 2014
| 3 minutes
| 595 words
| Ritesh Raj Sarraf
Linux has improved many many things over the last couple of years. Of the many improvements, the one that I’ve started leveraging the most today, are Control Groups.
In the past, when there was a need to build a prototype for a solution, we needed hardware.
Then came the virtualization richness to Linux. It came in 2 major flavors, KVM ( Full Virtualization ) and Xen ( Para Virtualization ). Over the years, the difference of para vs full, for both the implementations, is almost none.
[Read More]
Windows 7 Profile Synchronization
Posted on December 18, 2013
(Last modified on November 12, 2014)
| 3 minutes
| 518 words
| Ritesh Raj Sarraf
Lately, for my day job (to be more efficient for the time I spent), I am required to use Windows, back again. :-)
It is great to be back. By back, I mean using Windows for some of the workflows. All these years, I’ve been using Linux based tools (Debian, Kontact | IceDove, Konq | Chromium | IceWeasel etc) to get my job done. It is great to try back Windows for some of the workflows.
[Read More]
VirtualBox
Posted on February 17, 2011
(Last modified on January 31, 2013)
| 4 minutes
| 843 words
| Ritesh Raj Sarraf
I recently ended up acquiring a Windows 7 Professional license. While I rarely have a need for Windows, that one rare instance is important. Many of the bank’s web interfaces are tightly dependent on IE. I do have a copy of CrossOver but that doesn’t help much. Most times, IE crashes when trying to render pages. Must be having some OLE dependency.
So I convinced myself to install Windows7. For my banking needs and also to catch-up on how that platform has been doing.
[Read More]
Networking in KVM/QEMU
Posted on August 4, 2007
(Last modified on January 22, 2011)
| 2 minutes
| 324 words
| Ritesh Raj Sarraf
In my previous blog entry, I mentioned about not being able to simply configured networking for the Guest VMs. I feel that area is still unimplemented properly by the GUI wrappers available for KVM/QEMU.
There is a good utility VDE2, which can work great for all your networking needs for the Guest VMs. But unfortunately none of the GUI wrappers (Qemulator, QtEmu, Qlauncher) are handling it.
The simplicity of vde is amazing.
[Read More]
Linux Virtualization Richness
Posted on July 29, 2007
(Last modified on January 22, 2011)
| 4 minutes
| 777 words
| Ritesh Raj Sarraf
So Yesterday, I was finally confident enough to uninstall VMWare from my laptop.
Thanks to the richness of virtualization technologies which are present in Linux (2.6.22) now.
I’ve always liked to explore different operating systems (not distributions really) to see what interesting features they implement differently. BSDs being one, Solaris being the other. But sometimes it really was difficult for me to try them out.
Reason:
The current machine that I have apart from my laptop is a very old box with 64Mb of RAM and a 750 Mhz Intel Processor This box is primarily used for building my cusotmized kernels to run on my laptop.
[Read More]
Secure P2P Sharing
Posted on March 30, 2006
(Last modified on January 31, 2013)
| 4 minutes
| 794 words
| Ritesh Raj Sarraf
First,
DISCLAIMER: I ’m not a guru, I’m just a learner. So there might be a chance that the whole article might be fundamentally wrong.
I thought of this because I use P2P network a lot.
On my laptop, which is the repository of everything I have, it is necessary for me to make sure that it is secure enough.
To firewall it I use the single rule from iptables:
[Read More]