Virtualbox VM backup using LVM

There really is no simple and quick way to backup running Virtualbox VM’s, unless you use a filesystem manager that supports snapshots. We are using LVM and XFS but you could equally use ZFS or BTRFS. Please test with disposable VM before relying on this technique for vital data. Some general backup advice: Make sure you can restore from your backups - test restores regularly. Log your backups and check the logs to avoid silent backup failures ruining your day.
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SQL Server tuning advisor

Short note by way of a memory jogger. Before the database engine tuning advisor can be used it must be initialised by a user who is a member of the sysadmin role. Initialisation will create several objects in the msdb database. After initialisation any user who is a member of the db_owner database role can run tuning advisor. See Microsoft documentation for detailed instructions on starting tuning advisor and creating workloads.
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Web statistics - GoAccess

GoAccess Website GoAccess is an open source real-time web log analyzer and interactive viewer that runs in a terminal in *nix systems or through your browser. Install Use apt (or other appropriate package manager) to install packaged version. As of Jan-2019 package seems to be a long way behind current stable version (at least on Ubuntu), 0.9.4 package compared to 1.3 stable. In addition, packaged version (at least on Debian/Ubuntu) does not include options, e.
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Linux containers part two

Part one It’s taken awhile to get round to part two but here are some notes and observations. Creating a container init vs launch vs copy vs move init and launch both create a container from an existing local or remote image. The difference is that launch will create and start the new container whereas init will only create the container. copy creates a copy of an existing container.
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Text banner

Generate text banner using figlet e.g. for logo or motd on containers. Usually installed via package manager, e.g. apt install figlet. Run figlet -? for simple help or man figlet for details. In the example below, -f specifies the ‘slant’ font. Check the man page for font options. ~$ echo "Bespoke IT Solutions" | figlet -f slant ____ __ __________ / __ )___ _________ ____ / /_____ / _/_ __/ / __ / _ \/ ___/ __ \/ __ \/ //_/ _ \ / / / / / /_/ / __(__ ) /_/ / /_/ / ,< / __/ _/ / / / /_____/\___/____/ .
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