Display details of HSM-protected RSA keys
Recently had a need to demonstrate for an auditor that a given key encryption key in a Thales HSM environment was RSA and was 4096-bits. The correct command to do Continue Reading…
Category: Linux
Replacing a failed Thales nShield Connect HSM
Recently had a Thales nShield Connect 6000 fail. Replacing them is fairly easy, but there are a large number of steps, so figured I’d write them out here in case Continue Reading…
Finding ‘unprintable’ characters in a file with vi
Recently had an issue where a series of XML files were refusing to import into a program due to invalid characters; invalid from the importing software’s perspective. I needed to Continue Reading…
How to drop all tables in a MySQL/MariaDB database via CLI
Every have a database you want to clear out in one shot so you don’t have to get into the MySQL command line interface and drop them one at a Continue Reading…
Generate strong SSH private keys
June 2019 update: altered the rounds from 96 to 192. After living with 96 for a couple years, the delay was no longer noticeable, so I moved to a higher Continue Reading…
Blocking outgoing ports with firewalld
I’m guessing the lack of useful examples for nearly anything firewalld-related is a testament to how few people use it; ugh. Anyway, had a customer server that had a malfunctioning Continue Reading…
Using a Thales nShield Connect 6000 on CentOS
Here’s my play by play for installing a Thales nShield Connect network-based HSM into a CentOS linux environment: Edit your ~/.bash_profile to include the following additional directory in your path Continue Reading…
Excluding packages from yum-cron auto update on RHEL 7 / CentOS 7
So in RHEL 6 / CentOS 6, there is of course the yum-cron package which will let your system auto update. Generally, you don’t want to auto update kernel packages. You’d Continue Reading…
Kickstarting with RedHat’s (in)consistent network device naming
If you’ve installed RHEL/CentOS 7, then you’ve probably encountered the now-default ‘consistent network device naming’ feature. The goal is to eliminate what, in theory, is the unpredictable nature of network Continue Reading…
rsyslog unresponsive and netstat Recv-Q building?
Recently had an issue where servers were randomly seeming to hang, or slow down significantly. I isolated the problem to activities that had a mandate to log something to syslog Continue Reading…