Welcome to BAFM

This blog is a collection of thoughts, experiences, and technical insights from a sysadmin’s perspective. Here you’ll find posts about system administration, infrastructure challenges, troubleshooting adventures, and the occasional philosophical rambling about technology and its role in our daily work.

Whether you’re a fellow sysadmin looking for solutions, someone curious about the behind-the-scenes work that keeps systems running, or just stumbled upon this corner of the internet – welcome! Feel free to explore, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions or want to share your own experiences.

Follow me through my journey through life with all it’s neat little tricks, caveats and side-quests.


Last updated: January 2026

Hetzner KVM guest networking

Now, since we’re using bridged routing, we need to adjust the guest. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 78.46.37.114 netmask 255.255.255.255 pointopoint 78.46.37.118 gateway 78.46.37.118 post-up ping -c2 78.46.37.118 &>/dev/null iface eth0 inet6 static address 2a01:4f8:110:3148::5 netmask 64 gateway 2a01:4f8:110:3148::2 post-up ping6 -c2 2a01:4f8:110:3148::2 &>/dev/null This’ll take care of the bridged routing and the ICMPv6 announcement to the host. Without the ping/ping6, guest and host won’t be able to communicate (no clue why).

June 17, 2013 · 1 min · 87 words · christian

Hetzner KVM host bridge configuration

Firstoff, adjust the /etc/network/interfaces file to look like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 # device: eth0 auto eth0 iface eth0 inet static address 78.46.37.118 netmask 255.255.255.255 gateway 78.46.37.97 pointopoint 78.46.37.97 iface eth0 inet6 static address 2a01:4f8:110:3148::2 netmask 64 gateway fe80::1 auto vmbr0 iface vmbr0 inet static address 78.46.37.118 netmask 255.255.255.255 bridge_ports none bridge_stp off bridge_fd 0 post-up ip route add 78.46.37.108/32 dev vmbr0 post-up ip route add 78.46.37.110/32 dev vmbr0 post-up ip route add 78.46.37.114/32 dev vmbr0 iface vmbr0 inet6 static address 2a01:4f8:110:3148::2 netmask 64 post-up ip -6 neigh add proxy 2a01:4f8:110:3148::3 dev eth0 post-up ip -6 neigh add proxy 2a01:4f8:110:3148::4 dev eth0 post-up ip -6 neigh add proxy 2a01:4f8:110:3148::5 dev eth0 post-up ip -6 neigh add proxy 2a01:4f8:110:3148::6 dev eth0 post-up ip -6 neigh add proxy 2a01:4f8:110:3148::7 dev eth0 post-up ip -6 neigh add proxy 2a01:4f8:110:3148::8 dev eth0 post-up ip -6 neigh add proxy 2a01:4f8:110:3148::9 dev eth0 Secondly, adjust you KVM guest network config to look like this (similar, you might want to replace the MAC address of the guest): ...

June 17, 2013 · 2 min · 222 words · christian

Automating/Standardizing Hetzner server installs with installimage

Create a file /autosetup in the rescue system, that may (or may not) look like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 DRIVE1 /dev/sda DRIVE2 /dev/sdb SWRAID 1 SWRAIDLEVEL 1 BOOTLOADER grub HOSTNAME nyx PART /boot ext2 512M PART swap swap 12G PART lvm vg0 all LV vg0 root / ext3 5G LV vg0 home /home ext3 50G LV vg0 usr /usr ext3 10G LV vg0 tmp /tmp ext3 5G LV vg0 var /var ext3 5G IMAGE /root/.oldroot/nfs/install/../images/Debian-70-wheezy-64-minimal.tar.gz

June 16, 2013 · 1 min · 94 words · christian

virt-viewer: qemu+ssh to a KVM host running SSH on a different port

Well, I’ve been tinkering with KVM the last few days and I’ve been stuck accessing the KVM guests (as the guests are running on a host I don’t have my Xorg server running on). After a bit of searching, I actually found what I was looking for. Piecing together from both sources, to connect to a KVM host, that has SSH running on a different port: 1 virt-viewer --connect qemu+ssh://root@kvm.home.barfoo.org:222/system guest

June 12, 2013 · 1 min · 71 words · christian

Act of War: High Treason cheats

**Code:****Result:**fortknoxAdd $1000 CashkeyholemasterReveal MapineedalltechnosAll TechyeepeekayeNuclear Strike at CursorbigbrotherUnlock Camera ModemotherrussiaSummon M80 TankcoolihaveanewcarSummon CIA Armored VancoolimthepresidentSummon U.S. PredisentswatatyourordersSummon SWATymcaSummon U.S. CopgreenjellySummon U.K. CopbringoutthedeadSummon AmbulanceduckhuntSummon a Flying DuckblackhawkdownSummon SA12 Anti-Aircraft Missile Cheats MOD: **Code:****Result:**abramsSummon a M1A2 Abrams tankapcSummon a M1A1 Bradley APChindSummon a MI24 Hind gunshipburkeSummon a DDG-51 Arleigh Burke Missile DestroyertarawaSummon a Tarawa class Landing Helicopter DockoliverSummon a FFG-7 Oliver-Hazard-Perry class FrigateddxSummon a DDX Zumwalt class destroyersananSummon a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dockbulldSummon bulldozer constructor (US army builder)seastalSummon a CH-53 Sea StallionhipconSummon a Hip Constructor (consortium builder)hoshawkSummon a Medivac BlackhawkhawkSummon a BlackhawkvrepairSummon a V22 repairmarineSummon a U.S. marinesniperSummon a U.S. sniperblackhawkdownSummon a 9K22 TunguskafortknoxAdd $10.000 Cash

May 9, 2013 · 1 min · 105 words · christian

5 year flashback

Today I looked at my ADSL router and had a flashback about five years ago. Back then I was working for the university and used a dual line ISDN link for internet which had about the same bandwidth as my ADSL currently has … After that experience I know how people must feel in some areas where internet isn’t as advanced as my normal 2MBit ADSL line … Loading YouTube or even a simple forum is a real waiting game (took me about two minutes to load up a hit out of Google), and I even attest myself a dependency on even normal ADSL (not one of that superfast 32MBit lines - just 2MBit). ...

May 8, 2013 · 1 min · 137 words · christian

UCS Manager 2-0-2r KVM bug

Well, we’ve been battling with a KVM bug in our UCS installation, that’s been driving me (and apparently the Cisco L3 support and development) nuts. But lets back up a bit. If you’ve worked with UCS before, once you open up the KVM console you’ll see the KVM and a shortcut commands (Shutdown, Reset) and another tab that allows you to mount virtual media. Once you open it up, it should look like this: ...

April 28, 2013 · 2 min · 291 words · christian

VMware ESXi - Free memory limits corrected

Well, a coworker of mine asked me about this. Since I didn’t know (yeah, I don’t know everything) I went to my trusted friend - Google - and searched for it. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this, so I thought I’d clarify this. I ended up putting a license to one of my hosts in vCenter. Yeah well, the host has a bit more memory than the allowed 32GB vRAM per Socket (the host has two sockets) - thus you’re allowed to have 64GB RAM if your host has two sockets.

April 28, 2013 · 1 min · 95 words · christian

Dealing with SnapVault replication issues

Well, for the past two months I had a case open with NetApp to figure out this SnapVault replication issue we were seeing. The initial transfer of the SnapVault relation would complete with a hick up, manual snapshot transfers also work - just the scheduled, auto-created Snapshots won’t replicate. At first I (and the NetApp support) thought this was an issue with SnapVault itself, however after being away for the last four weeks I looked at the issue with fresh eyes. After a short peek into the logs, I found what I had found back when I first looked into this. ...

April 9, 2013 · 4 min · 756 words · christian

Office 2010 Professional

Download links: Office 2010 Professional Plus (incl. SP1) 32bit/ 64bit Business Contact Manager 2010 32bit/ 64bit Microsoft Lync 2010 32bit/ 64bit Product Key: C74VQ-8YRBX-YCF3V-C8XRH-4YCHF

March 9, 2013 · 1 min · 24 words · christian