By default, when the user installs software through the RPM Package Manager or through YUM, usually, the software’s configuration files included in the RPM do not replace the existing configuration files on the filesystem, but, if they differ from those that currently exist, they are saved with the rpmnew extension. In case the rpm is [...]

It’s been a long time since the last time I checked the available software for managing long running processes. Software in this particular area has evolved and, after some research and testing on a virtual machine, I tried to install supervisord in a CentOS 5.6 box. Unfortunately, no RPM package exists for the latest 3.X [...]

Red Hat used to release its kernel SRPM package including a tarball of the vanilla kernel sources and a set of custom patches. This made it possible to rebuild the kernel with or without patches or with a custom selection of patches. It seems that things have changed and Red Hat now releases the Red [...]

I feel that the long awaited CentOS 6 will be out soon. This is a very important release for all the things I am involved with and have to do with computers. CentOS 5 was perfect, but I had to maintain several custom builds of RPMs, mainly rebuilds of Fedora RPMs plus some private builds, [...]

During the last six months, running a CentOS server as a guest in Virtualbox or VMware has been as common for me as running a web browser. This is because I’ve constantly been trying to streamline the server configuration and utilize new technologies or techniques attempting to get better performance or just make it easier [...]

You might wonder why installing a web application takes me so long… The only answer I can give to this question is that it takes just about the necessary time that is required to deploy and support a modern web application like Redmine on an old-fashioned, but secure and predictable, operating system like Enterprise Linux [...]

Usually, the only time I make a change to the timezone setting of the operating system is during the installation time. But it may happen that a change to that setting is necessary. There are several ways to do this, but, as usual, there is only one Right Way™ to set the timezone info in [...]

End of era for my Fedora based server after almost five years of service. The box now runs CentOS. I had this box at home and it was the only Fedora Server I ever maintained at home or elsewhere. I should state from the beginning that it was only Fedora’s short life-cycle that practically forced [...]

When it comes to software for your CentOS installation, there is no such thing as a good yum configuration, but a configuration that can bring you the software you need, while, at the same time, causing the least possible trouble regarding core package upgrades. This small article goes into the details of configuring YUM using [...]

Having spent some days with CentOS on my desktop and having tried several 3rd party RPM repositories, I’ve finally decided to mix the official repos (base, updates, addons, extras) with RPMforge and also make use of the priorities yum plugin. Read on if you care about the details…