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PolicyKit security hole
A security problem was recently announced that affects the linux distributions that we support. This is being called “PwnKit” (a.k.a. CVE-2021-4034). Most distributions have provided updates, so now is a good time to check and load outstanding OS security updates for your VPS, using apt for Debian and Ubuntu and yum for CentOS 7 and…
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CentOS Stream, RockyLinux and Alma Linux
Recently CentOS8 reached its supported end-of-life for security updates. For a number of reasons there will effectively be no more stable releases of CentOS 8 or later. Instead developers are being encouraged to look at CentOS Stream as a future proof option for elX based platforms. This is quite similar to how Gentoo and more…
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Centos announce Centos 8 retirement
Centos have announced that their RHEL8-based distro Centos8 will no longer be supported from December 2021. This affects customers running Centos 8. It also affects customers running older Centos versions that are thinking updating to a newer distro. There are many alternatives to consider. To mention a few: Centos 7. With support until 2024. RimuHosting…
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Debian Stretch and old installs
We have had Debian 9 images available since shortly after it became available. But missed announcing it. So here it is, Debian 9 is code named “Stretch” and is available as a setup option on all our plans. As with other newer images, there is only a 64 bit image for new setups or re-installs.…
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32 to 64 bit distro crossgrades for Debian and Ubuntu
The demise of 32 bit distros is nigh! Some distros are dropping or reducing support for 32 bit versions. e.g. only providing 64 bit ISO downloads. Some software makers are no longer putting out 32 bit versions of their software. e.g. Since version 9 Oracle have only released a 64 bit version of Java. In…
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Modernizing your ancient server distro
RimuHosting has now been providing VM servers for over 15 years. Back in the day the state of the art distros we setup for customers included 32-bit Debian 3- and Ubuntu 6-based servers. Things have moved on. By default all new orders are setup with 64-bit distros. And Debian is up to version 9, while…
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LXD containers now available for Ubuntu
The latest Ubuntu LTS release, Xenial 16.04 , comes with support for a container system called LXD. LXD builds on the existing LXC container system, allowing for more convenient management of those containers. In this post I show how you can test out LXD containers on a Rimu VPS running Ubuntu 16.04. I assume you…
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Keeping WordPress secure
According to Wikipedia, “WordPress is the most popular blogging system in use on the Web, at more than 60 million websites.” It’s also the most commonly installed blogging system on our customers’ servers, and we use it to run the blog you’re reading right now. One factor that has contributed to WordPress ‘s popularity is…
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Debian Squeeze (6) ends support – time to upgrade
February 29th, 2016 marks the end of LTS Support for Debian Squeeze, which is still used by many of our customers. This means that updates for known security issues will no longer be produced and over time, a server running this version will become vulnerable to being exploited. Squeeze was released in 2011 and was…