Documentation on Samuel Matildes - Knowledge Base

Linux Boot/Shutdown Quick-Analyzer

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

What is Linux Boot/Shutdown Quick-Analyzer and why do you need it?

The Linux Boot/Shutdown Quick-Analyzer is a Python script that analyzes Linux boot and shutdown logs.

It makes it easy to find boot and shutdown events in system logs, providing information such as the number of boot and shutdown events, along with the timestamp, filename, and line number for each event.

How to run it

You need to have Python 3 installed on your machine.

How to Inspect Azure VM Metadata with Profile Fetcher

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/samatild/azvmprofilefetcher

Introduction

Managing Azure Virtual Machines (VMs) can be complex, especially when dealing with multiple instances and ensuring they are configured correctly. The Profile Fetcher for Azure VM is a script designed to simplify the process of retrieving and displaying detailed metadata about your Azure VMs. This article explains how to use the script and how it can make the task of checking Azure VM profiles easier.

How Antivirus Software Can Prevent Linux Boot: Troubleshooting Guide

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Understanding Antivirus Boot Interference

Antivirus software, while crucial for system security, can sometimes interfere with the Linux boot process. This occurs when security modules become overly aggressive during system initialization, potentially causing boot failures, readonly filesystem mounts, or service startup issues.

Common Symptoms

System fails to boot completely
Filesystem mounts as readonly (ro) instead of read-write (rw)
Critical services fail to start
Boot hangs at specific points
SELinux/AppArmor policy violations during boot

Filesystem Readonly Issues

One of the most common problems occurs when antivirus software causes the root filesystem to mount readonly. This prevents the system from writing critical boot files and can halt the initialization process.

How to Enable Azure Serial Console and GRUB on Linux VMs

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Azure Serial Console is invaluable when SSH or the network is unavailable. This guide shows how to configure Linux distributions to expose the GRUB menu and kernel boot logs over the VM’s serial port on Azure, fixing cases where migrated images or some distros don’t show GRUB or any serial output.

For proactive setup, follow Microsoft’s official guide: Proactive GRUB and serial console configuration for Linux on Azure. This article is intended for cases where you’re facing issues getting serial console and the GRUB menu to display and need troubleshooting-oriented configuration.

Retiring kube-proxy IPVS on MicroK8s: An Upgrade Readiness Runbook

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A focused runbook for checking whether a MicroK8s cluster needs an IPVS migration before its next Kubernetes minor upgrade.

Scope and outcome

This is not a general CNI replacement guide and it does not change Traefik, IngressRoutes, or application manifests. It covers one question: does this cluster run kube-proxy in ipvs mode, and if so, can it move safely to iptables before the next MicroK8s minor upgrade?

Deploy Hermes Agent in a Proxmox LXC with Community Scripts

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A small, repeatable Hermes Agent deployment for a Proxmox VE container.

Community-maintained installer

This installer is maintained by the Community Scripts project, not by Nous Research. It downloads and runs code from external sources. Review the current script and use it only on a Proxmox host you administer.

Before you start

Have the following ready:

A Proxmox VE host with capacity for a new LXC container.
A current backup or recovery plan for the host and any affected storage.
Outbound HTTPS access from the host and the new container.
A model-provider account or an approved OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Complete provider authentication only in Hermes’ interactive setup; do not put credentials in shell history or documentation.

The Community Scripts page currently lists a Debian 13 profile with 2 vCPUs, 4 GiB of RAM, and 20 GiB of disk. Treat these as installer defaults, not sizing guidance. Select the advanced installer flow when your workload needs different limits.

Self-Host Honcho on Kubernetes with LiteLLM, Redis, and GitHub Copilot

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A self-hosted memory service for Hermes, with LiteLLM as the model gateway and GitHub Copilot as an upstream provider.

Illustrative configuration only

Every hostname, namespace, IP address, image version, model name, key and resource value in this guide is an example. Do not paste it into a production cluster unchanged. Create your own secrets outside Git, verify the current upstream image and model names, and apply your own network, backup and update policies.

Architecture at a glance

The request path is deliberately split into specialised layers:

How to Export Windows EVTX to CSV with evtxparser

Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

GitHub • PyPI

Export Windows Event Viewer .evtx logs to clean CSV output without dragging a GUI into the workflow.

What is evtxparser?

evtxparser is a focused Python CLI for exporting Windows .evtx files to CSV. It is designed for the cases where you do not want a full GUI workflow or a heavyweight parsing pipeline: open the log, stream records, and write rows immediately.

How to Troubleshoot Linux Performance — Field Playbook

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A field-ready reference for Linux performance investigations — keep it open in a second terminal.

How to use this playbook

Linux performance problems split cleanly into two very different investigations, and picking the wrong one wastes hours:

Situation	Track	What you do
The problem is happening right now (or you can reproduce it on demand)	Track A — Live Triage	Interactive tools, sample at 1s intervals, follow the bottleneck
The problem is intermittent / random (happens overnight, once a week, only under load you can’t reproduce)	Track B — Background Collection	Arm continuous loggers before the next occurrence, then mine the logs afterwards

Rule of thumb

If you can’t reproduce it, do not keep staring at top. Stop, deploy collectors, walk away, and analyse later. Otherwise you’ll miss the event every single time.

MicroK8s with Traefik: Public and Private Application Deployment

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

MicroK8s Home Lab with Traefik Ingress

Summary

This guide walks through setting up a complete MicroK8s cluster on Ubuntu with Traefik as the ingress controller. The architecture supports two types of applications: public apps exposed to the internet via Cloudflare DNS and TLS, and private apps accessible only from the local network. We’ll deploy containerized workloads running inside Kubernetes pods, proxy traffic to external hosts, and set up monitoring dashboards—all managed through declarative YAML manifests.

Understanding IO Delays in Linux - Performance Testing with io-delayer

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

GitHub • Linux Kernel Module

Simulate and analyze IO performance degradation at multiple kernel layers to understand system bottlenecks.

Why IO Delays Matter in System Performance

Input/Output operations form the backbone of system performance, yet they represent one of the most complex and often misunderstood aspects of Linux performance engineering. When applications experience slowdowns, the root cause frequently traces back to IO delays introduced at various kernel layers.

How to Analyze Linux sosreport and supportconfig with SOSParser

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

GitHub • Docker Hub •

Parse, analyze, and understand Linux diagnostic reports with automated intelligence.

What is SOSParser?

SOSParser is a powerful web application designed to automatically parse and analyze Linux sosreport and supportconfig diagnostic files, converting them into comprehensive, interactive HTML reports. Created to streamline the often tedious process of manually reviewing system diagnostic data, SOSParser transforms raw diagnostic archives into structured, searchable insights that accelerate troubleshooting and system analysis.

How to Benchmark Linux with Tux Toaster

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

GitHub • PyPI

Benchmark smarter, not harder — with Tux Toaster.

What is Tux Toaster?

Tux Toaster is an all-in-one performance toolkit for Linux. It triggers various load tests (“toasters”) to help you evaluate the performance and stability of your system across CPU, memory, disk, and network. It offers an interactive terminal menu with multi-select support and clear, stoppable workloads.

Why Kernel Crash Dumps Are Critical for Root Cause Analysis

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Postmortem Kernel Forensics with vmcore

Summary

When the Linux kernel panics, there is no userspace stack, no application logs, and often no intact filesystems. The only canonical, lossless record of the kernel’s terminal state is the crash dump (vmcore). Without vmcore, you are constrained to heuristics and guesswork; with vmcore, you can deterministically reconstruct CPU state, task scheduling, memory allocators, locks, timers, and subsystems at the exact point of failure. This is the difference between timeline narratives and hard proof.

Enabling Automatic Kernel Crash Collection with kdump

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Automatic Enablement of Kernel Crash Dump Collection with kdump-enabler

This article explains how to automatically enable and configure kernel crash dump (kdump) collection on Linux systems using the kdump-enabler script. This approach works across multiple distributions and simplifies the process of preparing your system to collect crash dumps for troubleshooting and analysis.

Overview

kdump-enabler is a Bash script that automates the setup of kdump:

Installs required packages
Configures the crashkernel parameter in GRUB
Enables and starts the kdump service
Sets up SysRq for manual crash triggering
Creates backups of configuration files before changes
Supports Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, openSUSE, Arch Linux, and more

Prerequisites

Root privileges (run with sudo)
systemd-based Linux distribution
GRUB bootloader
Sufficient disk space in /var/crash for crash dumps

Installation

Clone the repository and run the script:

Understanding CPU Statistics in Linux (/proc/stat)

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Kernel-Level CPU Time Accounting

Summary

The Linux kernel maintains precise, per-CPU time accounting across ten distinct execution contexts. These statistics, exposed via /proc/stat, represent cumulative jiffy counters (typically 1/100th or 1/1000th of a second) since system boot. Understanding these counters is essential for performance analysis, capacity planning, and diagnosing CPU contention, I/O bottlenecks, interrupt storms, and virtualization overhead.

The /proc/stat Interface

/proc/stat is a virtual file provided by the kernel’s proc filesystem. It contains system-wide statistics aggregated across all CPUs and individual per-CPU lines. The format is non-blocking and updated atomically by the kernel scheduler’s tick handler.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

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Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Last updated: 6 October 2026.

Overview

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Search Results

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Documentation on Samuel Matildes - Knowledge Base

Linux Boot/Shutdown Quick-Analyzer

What is Linux Boot/Shutdown Quick-Analyzer and why do you need it?

How to run it

How to Inspect Azure VM Metadata with Profile Fetcher

Introduction

How Antivirus Software Can Prevent Linux Boot: Troubleshooting Guide

Understanding Antivirus Boot Interference

Common Symptoms

Filesystem Readonly Issues

How to Enable Azure Serial Console and GRUB on Linux VMs

Retiring kube-proxy IPVS on MicroK8s: An Upgrade Readiness Runbook

Scope and outcome

Deploy Hermes Agent in a Proxmox LXC with Community Scripts

Before you start

Self-Host Honcho on Kubernetes with LiteLLM, Redis, and GitHub Copilot

Architecture at a glance

How to Export Windows EVTX to CSV with evtxparser

What is evtxparser?

How to Troubleshoot Linux Performance — Field Playbook

How to use this playbook

MicroK8s with Traefik: Public and Private Application Deployment

Summary

Understanding IO Delays in Linux - Performance Testing with io-delayer

Why IO Delays Matter in System Performance

How to Analyze Linux sosreport and supportconfig with SOSParser

What is SOSParser?

How to Benchmark Linux with Tux Toaster

What is Tux Toaster?

Why Kernel Crash Dumps Are Critical for Root Cause Analysis

Summary

Enabling Automatic Kernel Crash Collection with kdump

Overview

Prerequisites

Installation

Understanding CPU Statistics in Linux (/proc/stat)

Summary

The /proc/stat Interface

About

Privacy & advertising

Overview

Advertising and consent

Search Results