tag: #linux

Why I Keep Coming Back to Debian

the basiscs around systemd

The project formerly known as bitwarden_rs renamed to Vaultwarden last month, completing the rebrand at the request of the Bitwarden team. Six weeks in, the new name is settling. The underlying project remains what it always was - the right way to self-host Bitwarden if you want full control of your password infrastructure.

Caddy v2 released six weeks ago. It is not v1 with new features — it is a complete rewrite, with a new configuration model, a new module system, and a real architectural argument for why a modern web server should look different from nginx and Apache. After six weeks of running production sites on it, here is what it actually delivers.

Debian 10 released a month ago, ending Stretch's two-year run. The headline change is nftables replacing iptables as the default firewall framework. The deeper changes — secure boot, default AppArmor, Wayland coming into focus — are what will matter over the next two years.

Jason Donenfeld submitted WireGuard for inclusion in the Linux kernel mainline in August. Even before merge, the four-thousand-line VPN is already faster, simpler, and more secure than OpenVPN or IPsec. Here is what it is, why the design matters, and how to deploy it now.

On January 3, three vulnerabilities in modern CPUs reframed two decades of assumptions about hardware-enforced isolation. The patches are landing. The deeper lesson — that speculative execution as currently designed is fundamentally hostile to security — is what we are still working out.

Mathy Vanhoef forced WPA2 to reinstall a key it was already using, resetting the nonce and handing an attacker the keystream. Every correct implementation was affected, and Linux managed to be affected worst of all by installing an all-zero key. Here is the handshake, the flaw, and why the link layer was never where your trust belonged.

ext4 will hand you a corrupted file and swear everything is fine. ZFS checksums every block, repairs what it can, and makes snapshots cost nothing. With ZoL 0.7 out and Stretch a contrib package away from it, here is why my homelab storage now runs on copy-on-write, and the licensing mess you sign up for by using it.

Debian 9 Stretch released two weeks ago, ending Jessie's reign as stable. Most servers will upgrade through the year. Here is what is genuinely new, what is worth knowing before you migrate, and what is going to bite you.