Discover the updated one-liner Docker installer for CentOS 7. Install Docker 1.7 and docker-compose effortlessly with the official RPM and a single command.

Update to CentOS 7 Docker install one-liner

UPDATE 26/07/2015 In typical fashion, a few weeks after posting this Docker themselves released a much better version than mine, you can install it using the following commands; Update to CentOS 7 Docker install one-liner 1/2 curl -sSL https://get.docker.com/ | sh systemctl enable docker && systemctl start docker docker run hello-world What follows is the original, now mostly redundant post. It’s been a while since I touched the code for the one-liner Docker installer I wrote a while back....

June 28, 2015 · 2 min · Russ Mckendrick
Get your CentOS 7 DigitalOcean droplet up and running in no time! Learn how to perform essential tasks for a smooth deployment.

Digital Ocean Bootstrap

As I have mentioned a few times on this blog I tend to use DigtialOcean↗ to spin up servers for testing and to host some of my projects. I also still use CentOS 7 as my preferred OS. Each time I boot a droplet I run few a couple of tasks to get the server how I prefer it. Run a yum update Enable swap Install & configure Fail2Ban Enable firewalld Install vim-enhanced, deltarpm & enable EPEL↗ As I am lazy and sometimes re-launch instances several times when working on a project I decided to write a quick script to do the above so I don’t have to↗ ....

June 28, 2015 · 1 min · Russ Mckendrick
Learn how to quickly install OpenStack Kilo on CentOS 7 using Vagrant and RedHat RDO. Follow step-by-step instructions for setting up a test environment.

Quick OpenStack Kilo Installation

I am going to be playing with OpenStack over the next few weeks so I decided to create a Vagrant script which would bootstrap a working OpenStack Kilo↗ installation using RedHat RDO↗ . It uses my CentOS 7 Vagrant box↗ and works with both VirtualBox and VMWare Fusion. To get it up and running create a folder for the Vagrantfile to live; Quick OpenStack Kilo Installation 1/4 mkdir -p ~/Machines/OpenStack/ Download a copy of the Vagrantfile;...

May 24, 2015 · 2 min · Russ Mckendrick
Learn how to install and run OpenShift Origin V3 on CentOS, step-by-step guide with commands and configuration for setting up a test server using Vagrant.

OpenShift Origin V3

After being nagged by the gaffer to try OpenShift Origin V3 I finally got round to running a test server using Vagrant on my Mac. I must say, going into this that the documentation at this stage is struggling a little to keep up with the development and these instructions are the results of much trial, error & Googling. Also, the product is very much still in active development and there have been several bugs, like this one↗ , which have caused the instructions below not to work....

May 23, 2015 · 4 min · Russ Mckendrick
Learn how to install the ELK stack on CentOS 7 for centralized logging: Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana, step-by-step guide with configuration.

Installing an ELK Stack on CentOS 7

I haven’t installed an ELK stack since CentOS 7 came out, all of the components which go to make up the stack have been updated quite bit since then so I decided to have a go at installing the stack on a clean CentOS 7 installation. ELK? ELK is a term used for a combination of three Open Source products from Elastic↗ ; Elasticsearch↗ — Search & Analyze Data in Real Time Logstash↗ — Collect, Parse, & Enrich Data Kibana↗ — Explore & Visualize Your Data All three products can be used independently, but when they are used together you find yourself with both a powerful and scaleable central logging service....

April 19, 2015 · 4 min · Russ Mckendrick
Discover the 2015 AWS Summit in London: insights into Amazon EFS, hybrid architectures, and the challenges of navigating the bustling crowd.

AWS London Summit 2015

I spent Wednesday out of the office at the 2015 AWS Summit in London. It was the first time I had been to a full on AWS event and I must say I was impressed by the scale (pun intended). The main keynote was interesting, and it was great to hear all about new Elastic File System↗ which is going to be a godsend for those who need to have some level of shared storage....

April 18, 2015 · 1 min · Russ Mckendrick
Grooving into hi-fi! Exploring vinyl and upgrading my sound system with Sonos speakers.

Adventures in Hi-Fi

As everyone who knows me will already know, I am a little bit opinionated when it comes to music. However, I haven’t really had a decent sound system for quite a few years. I decided mid last year that I would do something about it and not only start getting back into vinyl (I know, such a hipster) but also get a decent sound system, so started saving. For quite a while I was looking an all-in-one system like the Teac LP-P1000↗ however, I decided I would end up painting myself into a corner with it as I would be only be able to use it in one room, I then started looking at other options....

April 5, 2015 · 2 min · Russ Mckendrick
Protect your CentOS 7 server with fail2ban! Follow my guide to secure your system from unwanted SSH login attempts.

Fail2Ban on CentOS 7

One of the first things I do on a new server is install fail2ban↗ . I have written about it before, but that was back when I was still using CentOS 6. Now I am using CentOS 7 the installation has a few more steps. Firstly, as EPEL is not enabled by standard on most CentOS 7 installations enable the repo and then install fail2ban. Fail2Ban on CentOS 7 1/8 yum install -y epel-release && yum install -y fail2ban Once installed you can run the following to setup a check and block for failed SSH logins (it bans for 24 hours after three login failures);...

March 29, 2015 · 2 min · Russ Mckendrick