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nwilkenson Comcast: Simulating shitty network connections so you can build better systems

SmartOS has this nice utility - ipdadm which does something similar.

ipdadm - administer the Internet packet disturber

nwilkenson Why the data center needs an operating system

In 2005 I saw a demo of this product from VirtualIron called VFe, which did this on a smaller scale (maybe 10 servers) -- it looked amazing.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2005/ols2005v2-pages-243-258....

nwilkenson Nearly All U.S. Home Depot Stores Hit By Credit Card Theft

As a hosting provider, we also see our fair share of fraud. It's truly amazing at to me how many fraudulent CCs are attempted. I can't detect 100% -- but pretty close. I've also made suggestions to stripe with a similar response.

Stripe provides a fingerprint, and it would be nice if stripe provided a service to rate/track various card fingerprints and receive a score when adding/authorizing a card -- or develop some community based feedback scoring system with feedback from companies like ours!

nwilkenson Detecting Caller ID Spoofing Attacks (2013) [pdf]

I used to (haven't tested in 2 years) be able to spoof AT&T cell phone numbers, and call the same number you are spoofing and listen to voicemails if they didn't have a PIN assigned. Seems like they only authenticated based on CID.

nwilkenson Show HN: Tyk – Open Source API Gateway written in Golang

Agreed -- I read $150/month and thought it was reasonable.

Please consider charging more :)

nwilkenson Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (August 2014)

We're in the Monroe MI/Toledo OH area -- if that's close enough, we should chat sometime.

- nick at mnx io

nwilkenson Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2014)

Monroe MI - Full time - Onsite preferred, remote possible.

Senior Linux Administrator

We're looking for a highly skilled Linux Admin. We perform 24x7 system monitoring and maintenance for a wide variety of clients -- ranging from single server customers, to 100's of systems at multiple locations.

Automation is everything. You would be responsible for automating and optimizing everything possible - from on boarding processes/documentation to general system maintenance and server migrations (to name a few).

A strong development skill set in Python and/or Golang would be useful as we continue to develop our toolsets for system management.

Additionally, we have recently launched http://MNX.io a 100% SSD cloud hosting solutions and are highly interested if you have OnApp, or Openstack experience.

Send me an email nick at mnx io and introducing yourself. If you have a resume available, please include it.

More detail available at http://www.mnxsolutions.com/jobs

nwilkenson A Server Naming Scheme

Thanks for checking us out!

We ended up chatting -- but for further clarification for anyone else -- yes, you can have additional IPs if you can justify them. There are practical limits, but we haven't come across a situation where we've needed to enforce a hard limit at this point.

nwilkenson A Server Naming Scheme

Thanks for the feedback! We're still optimizing, and this was a mistake not to put the pricing calculator on the main website.. we're working on that and will move it to the main page soon.

nwilkenson Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2014)

Monroe MI - Full time - Onsite preferred, remote possible.

Senior Linux Administrator

We have recently launched http://MNX.io a 100% SSD cloud hosting solutions and are highly interested if you have OnApp, or Openstack experience.

Send me an email nick at mnx io and introducing yourself, including why you think this position would be a good fit for you. If you have a resume available, please include it.

More detail available at http://www.mnxsolutions.com/jobs

nwilkenson Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2014)

Monroe MI - Full time - Onsite preferred, remote possible.

We have also recently launched our own cloud hosting environment - http://MNX.io and are highly interested if you have OnApp, or Openstack experience.

Send me an email [in profile] introducing yourself, including why you think this position would be a good fit for you. If you have a resume available, please include it.

nwilkenson Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2013)

Monroe, MI - MNX Solutions - Linux System Administrator

MNX Solutions is a server monitoring and management company, with a focus on Linux based systems. We are a growing team of expert Linux admins and are looking to bring on our next team member.

We work on exciting projects including AWS, high availability, performance tuning, backup design, hacked systems, physical server deployment at colo’s around the US, disaster recovery, working with development teams to design highly scalable architectures, and much more.

Send an email with a resume to hr@mnxsolutions.com introducing yourself, and we'll schedule a time to talk in the next few days.

http://www.mnxsolutions.com/jobs for additional detail.

nwilkenson Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2013)

SEEKING WORK - Michigan - Remote - Linux experts

We are a team of US based Linux DevOps engineers, and are available for part time, full time project work, and 24x7 monitoring.

We can help you on projects ranging from Puppet and Ansible deployments, AWS migrations, disaster recovery, hacked site recovery, performance tuning, scalable infrastructure design, and nearly everything in-between.

http://www.mnxsolutions.com/services/linux-server-management...

nwilkenson S3for.Me – cheap alternative S3 cloud storage

Both Ceph (https://github.com/ceph/ceph) and Openstack Swift (https://github.com/openstack/swift) are open source, allowing you to add functionality and not be dependent on a vendor.

I'm sure you still have valid reasons why you rolled your own, and I would be interested in hearing about them.

nwilkenson Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2013)

REMOTE or onsite in Monroe MI

Sr. DevOps Engineer

MNX Solutions is a server monitoring and management company, with a focus on Linux based systems.

We are a growing team of expert Linux admins and are looking to bring on our next team member (#7). We work on exciting projects including AWS, high availability, performance tuning, backup design, hacked systems, physical server deployment at colo’s around the US, disaster recovery, working with development teams to design highly scalable architectures, and much more.

Send an email to hr@mnxsolutions.com introducing yourself, and we'll schedule a time to talk in the next few days.

http://www.mnxsolutions.com/jobs for additional detail.

nwilkenson Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.

Sorta, except we generally hire where the talent is available -- Anywhere USA.

nwilkenson Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.

Agreed with the consulting price point, and we charge this. But we also let you get in the door for a few hours a month at a reasonable rate. It's been working for many years now.

nwilkenson Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.

I can understand with those numbers why you may think that. These numbers are generally per server and fit a small shop pretty well. We also work with many companies that have hundreds of servers, and the rate is multiplied by each server. I could have been clearer in my initial post.

Additionally, for clarification about your wage comment -- we pay above average US sysadmin wages, and just posted a job for our 7th full-time admin.

nwilkenson Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.

It's what we do -- so I laugh with you ;)

nwilkenson Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.

For a monthly service, you generally receive an initial: - System architecture review - Backup strategy / DR review - Security scan, and detailed review - System monitoring design, and implementation

and on-going: - 24x7 monitoring, and response to outages - Server patch management - Ad-hoc system admin time available to be used on-demand

Many more details, and capabilities, but you get the idea ;)

nwilkenson Our Server’s Hard Drive is Dead. We didn’t have a backup.

I see this too many times.. and have read about this more than once on HN in recent memory.

Hire a proper system administration company early to work with you on these types of things. There are many companies out there that do this. I happen to run a company that does this, so I know that you can add an expert admin to your team for $100-200/mo.

nwilkenson Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2013)

MNX Solutions - Monroe, MI -- Full time, onsite or remote.

We provide Linux server monitoring, management and consulting services to a wide range of companies.

We are looking for a Linux server admin to join our growing team.

Check out our jobs page, and shoot me an email if interested:

http://www.mnxsolutions.com/jobs nick.wilkens@mnxsolutions.com

nwilkenson Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?

As an avid golfer, the only golf tools I have paid for are: League scoring systems & Callaway uPRO GPS for course downloads.

A few thoughts..

Have a free individual version (many of which are league members), and give them an incentive to switch their league to this platform.

A mobile scoring system integrated into league play allowing you to see realtime scores against your competitors may be compelling.

nwilkenson HTML5 terminal w/ SSH, hit ESC on site to test

Download and check it out locally, https://github.com/liftoff/GateOne/downloads

nwilkenson Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (July 2012)

SEEKING FREELANCER - Monroe, MI -- Los Angeles, CA -- or remote!

MNX Solutions is looking for a highly experienced Linux admin.

- 5+ years Linux system administration experience

- Puppet/Saltstack, HAproxy, Nginx, MySQL cluster, Nagios, Proxmox, is some of the tech you'll be working with.

- Managing hundreds of Centos/RHEL servers across many data centers.

- You have programming experience, and can write complex scripts in Perl/Python/PHP/bash/etc.

- Prior experience with Amazon Web Services is a plus.

This is a 3-6 month project. A full time perm position is also available if interested..

Shoot me an email (in profile) and introduce yourself!

nwilkenson Time Zones

http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/ is another visually appealing option.

nwilkenson Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (January 2012)

REMOTE (or onsite in Monroe MI)

Senior Linux System Administrator @ MNX Solutions

We are a team of Linux experts and are looking to bring on our next team member. We work for startups, and other companies seeking expertise around managing their Linux based infrastructure.

If interested, send an email to hr@mnxsolutions.com and introduce yourself!

http://www.mnxsolutions.com/jobs

nwilkenson Beating the Talent Crunch with a Distributed Team

At my company, we like to offer great health insurance, but this can be difficult to provide if you only have a single person in another state or region.

In the US, each state (and regions within a state) have different insurance providers. All providers that I have investigated require a minimum of two people as part of their group. We are just beginning discussions with our agent on this topic, so a good solution may exist that we have not crossed.

For those of you that work distributed in the US, can you tell me a little about your health insurance (+life, dental, etc) and if it is great, average, poor or non-existent?

nwilkenson Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (December 2011)

Monroe, MI

MNX Solutions provides server management and consulting services to companies of all sizes.

We are looking to fill a few positions:

* Senior Linux System Administrator

* Senior SAP Basis Administrator (3 openings)

If you are in the Orlando FL area, we would be happy to consider this location as well.

For full details visit http://bit.ly/mnxdicejobs