Richard.Bailey
Build a Powerful Observability Dashboard with Grafana, Prometheus, & Loki
Key Takeaways (TL;DR) In complex IT environments, having a clear view of your application’s health and performance is a necessity. A centralized dashboard empowers you to gain deep insights, troubleshoot issues faster, and proactively manage your application’s stability. This article will guide you through setting up a comprehensive observability dashboard...
How to Secure Grafana with a Self-Signed SSL Certificate
Key Takeaways (TL;DR) Why Should You Secure Your Grafana Dashboard with HTTPS? Grafana is a powerful tool for data visualization. However, if you run it over a standard HTTP connection, your login credentials, API keys, and visualized data are sent in plain text. This exposes your sensitive information to...
How to Install and Configure the SecurID Agent for SSH on Linux
This guide provides a step-by-step procedure for protecting SSH access on a modern Linux server with SecurID multi-factor authentication (MFA). A lot has changed since I wrote the original article in 2019. Getting Started with RSA SecurID Before you can protect a server, you need to have an RSA SecurID...
How to Install Nano Server on VMware – A Step-by-Step Guide
What is Windows Nano Server? Nano Server is a deeply refactored, headless deployment option for Windows Server 2016. It is designed for maximum efficiency and a minimal attack surface, running from a VHDX file with no Graphical User Interface (GUI) or local login capabilities. All management is performed remotely, primarily...
Create and Install a Self-Signed SSL Certificate on Ubuntu
HTTPS (HTTP over SSL/TLS) encrypts communication between a web browser and a server, which is essential for protecting data during online banking or shopping. This security is provided by an SSL certificate. While public websites use certificates signed by a trusted Certificate Authority (CA), internal or development environments can use...
How to Install Grafana and Prometheus on Ubuntu 24.04
This guide provides a secure and efficient method for deploying a monitoring stack on Ubuntu 24.04. You will install Prometheus to collect metrics, Node Exporter to expose system metrics, Grafana to visualize the data, and Nginx as a secure reverse proxy for Grafana. Part 1 — Install Grafana and Nginx...
How to Reset a Lost Root Password in Linux (RHEL, CentOS, Fedora)
Being locked out of a server because of a lost or undocumented root password is a stressful situation for any system administrator. Whether you’ve inherited a machine with no credentials or an OS error has left your system in a read-only state, regaining access is critical. While you’d normally use...
How to Troubleshoot VSS Writers on Modern Operating Systems
Backup failures and application-aware snapshots are a nightmare for any system administrator. A common culprit behind these critical errors is the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS), specifically when its writers enter a failed state. Understanding how to diagnose and resolve these issues is an essential skill for maintaining data integrity...
SharePoint Wiki: and Its Modern Alternative
Once a cornerstone of team collaboration, the SharePoint Wiki served as a simple, effective tool for creating internal knowledge bases. However, with the evolution of Microsoft 365, the classic SharePoint Wiki has been largely superseded by a more powerful, flexible, and user-friendly solution: SharePoint Modern Pages. This guide provides a...
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