How to keep duplicate WordPress content out of search engines

Last year I discovered that some of my content had been deleted from Google’s index. After confirming that Googlebot could still access the post in question and excluding every possibility of accidentally blocking Googlebot (robots.txt, firewall rules etc.), I opted to resubmit the post for indexing using Google search console.

OTRS 5 - Unable to fetch email from external accounts

A few weeks back I got a call from a customer who complained that OTRS had been idle for a day without creating any new tickets. After some initial troubleshooting it became clear that OTRS was simply no longer able to retrieve mail.

This Raspberry Pi 3 server is now running kernel 4.4.38

Just because Greg KH said that all users of the 4.4 kernel series must upgrade ;-) I’m happy to report that everything seems to be working as expected and have yet to notice any regressions.

Slackware Arm RPi3 boot

Linux kernel patches, it’s been a race.

In other “exciting” news: I’ve now been running this website on the RPi3 for 8 months without having a single “what just happened?” moment. Actually, the only reason why I’m still having a WordPress blog can be attributed to my amazement with the RPi3 actually being able to run this crap.

Gentoo kernel upgrade checklist

These steps are partly dependent on my personal Gentoo installation and should not be viewed as a general recipe. Please refer to the official Gentoo wiki on the topic instead. I’m using genkernel to generate an initramfs and GRUB2 as my boot loader.

Entering the Dark Web

It’s time to take privacy to the next level and ship this website off to the dark web. As a longtime Tor user it has been a source of embarrassment to not have my content available in onionland. However, that’s all in the past and this website is currently available at slackiuxopmaoigo.onion

I’ve also mentioned a few times that I’m sick and tired of WordPress so I’ve gone and replaced it with the Hugo website engine (on the new site). If you’re fed up with WordPress and want something simple and powerful I would suggest giving Hugo a shot, it’s that awesome. By the way, I have not yet migrated all my old content to Hugo, but I’m hoping to find a solution for this in the future.

The Internet of Things are flooding my website

Most people have probably heard about the Internet of Things (IoT) by now and how these devices are constantly drafted for your friendly neighborhood botnet. My little place on the interweb is currently gaining popularity among my DVR based visitors. You know the type: running a public telnet service, using hard coded accounts and may occasionally be seen sporting an additional backdoor on port 31337.

These bots are posing as Googlebot, but they are effortless to identify due to their use of the old and largely abandoned HTTP 1.0 protocol.

How to build your own kernel on Slackware Linux

With all the noise lately about Dirty COW (CVE-2016-5195) and the lack of patched kernels from Slackware’s “Benevolent Dictator for Life”, I decided it was time to roll up the sleeves and get it done. Since Slackware doesn’t have a “sophisticated” build system and all that grease, it’s a trivial matter to step up to the plate and take responsibility for your own system. I’ll be using “vanilla-kernelversion” as my tag for the kernel and initrd. Also notice that I build my kernels as a normal user.