Top all-time · #1656
Major Hayden
Personal blog · major.iosystemssecurityprogramming
Major Hayden's personal blog at major.io covers systems, security and programming. Since 2014, 46 different Hacker News readers have linked it 55 times, most often “A New Future for Icanhazip”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-05, and you can follow it by feed.
A social nerd writing about everything
Most-linked posts?
- A New Future for Icanhazip6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-06-06
- A new future for icanhazip (2021)5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2024-01-09
- /2015/02/03/linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2015-model/3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2015-02-19
- I can haz {ip, ptr, trace, treceroute, epoch, proxy}3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-09-20
- Performance benchmarks: KVM vs. Xen2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-09-09
- /2013/04/14/remove-sensitive-information-from-email-headers-with-postfix/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-08-13
What Hacker News says?
Yep, same here -- no AAAA record for v4.icanhazip and no A record for v6.icanhazip . The documented interfaces were ipv4/ipv6 though https://major.io/icanhazip-com-faq/ and {v4,v6}.icanhazptr.com have both A and AAAA.
Comment linking /icanhazip-com-faq/
on “A New Future for Icanhazip”Submitted A New Future for Icanhazip as a story · 980 points
HN discussionChanging SSH port is far more efficacious at reducing nonsense than the Twitter poll in the article suggests: > "I ran an experiment with a virtual machine exposed to the internet which had sshd listening on port 22. The server stayed online for one week and then I changed the ssh port to 222. The number of attacks dropped by 98%. Even though this is solely empirical evidence, it’s clear that moving off the standard…
Comment linking /2013/05/14/changing-your-ssh-servers-port-from-the-default-is-it-worth-it/
on “Security by obscurity is underrated”Submitted What I learned while securing Ubuntu (2015) as a story · 297 points
HN discussionIt's absolutely possible to run an email server in 2016 and I encourage anyone capable to do so! Email is one of the bastions of the decentralised Internet and we should hang on to it. Every day more and more people are moving to Gmail/Hotmail/Outlook and while I do understand the reasons, it also puts more and more power into the hands of these providers and the little guy (us) gets more screwed (like marked as jun…
Comment linking /2013/04/14/remove-sensitive-information-from-email-headers-with-postfix/
on “Ask HN: Is it possible to run your own mail server for personal use?”Submitted Performance benchmarks: KVM vs. Xen as a story · 77 points
HN discussionI only need/want the Beefy Miracle https://major.io/p/bring-back-fedora-beefy-miracle-boot-spla... The mustard indicates progress :)
Comment linking /p/bring-back-fedora-beefy-miracle-boot-splash/
on “Gorgeous-GRUB: collection of decent community-made GRUB themes”Submitted Understanding Traceroute [pdf] as a story · 73 points
HN discussionI feel like it's worth mentioning icanhazip.com [0] as well, since it's now run by Cloudflare [1]. Until recently switching to a custom CF worker, that's been by go-to for ages. [0]: https://www.icanhazip.com/ [1]: https://major.io/p/a-new-future-for-icanhazip/
Comment linking /p/a-new-future-for-icanhazip/
on “Free DDNS with Cloudflare and a cronjob”Submitted Install Debian packages without starting daemons as a story · 58 points
HN discussionHere are my notes to fix the overly sensitive trackpad on my Lenovo Carbon X1 (they'll probably only make sense after reading the links) from https://major.io/2012/12/28/handy-settings-for-the-touchpadc... synclient "PalmDetect=1" synclient "PalmMinWidth=5" synclient "PalmMinZ=40" Or soft link to a file from /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-synaptics.conf. To get middle-button scroll with trackpoint: From https://askub…
Comment linking /2012/12/28/handy-settings-for-the-touchpadclickpad-in-the-lenovo-x1-carbon
on “ThinkPad X1 Carbon”Submitted Quadlets might make me finally stop using Docker-compose – Major Hayden as a story · 36 points
HN discussionNote that finally, with 16.04, you can block the (ridiculous) auto start behavior of daemons installed via apt using systemd features: https://major.io/2016/05/05/preventing-ubuntu-16-04-starting... It's always angered me that packages start running before I have a chance to configure them... With some, like MySQL, it means if I want to change certain settings, I also have to clean up some other files before restart…
Comment linking /2016/05/05/preventing-ubuntu-16-04-starting-daemons-package-installed/
on “What I learned while securing Ubuntu (2015)”Submitted I can haz {ip, ptr, trace, treceroute, epoch, proxy} as a story · 4 points
HN discussionYup: https://major.io/2015/02/03/linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2... iFixit gave the laptop quite a good score too: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Dell+XPS+13+Teardown/36157
Comment linking /2015/02/03/linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2015-model/
on “Dell XPS 13 Review”Submitted Don't tell me RAG is easy as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFor those interested in following along on the process: https://major.io/2015/02/03/linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2... With an updated BIOS and a bunch of patches, it looks like it's getting close...
Comment linking /2015/02/03/linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2015-model/
on “Dell XPS 13 Review”Submitted Getting Podman quadlets talking to each other as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere are other services he runs as well: https://major.io/icanhazip-com-faq/
Comment linking /icanhazip-com-faq/
on “Ifconfig.co – Hacker-friendly “What is my IP address””Submitted A new future for icanhazip (2021) as a story · 3 points
HN discussion>there is, the XPS has the best Linux support on a high end laptop, maybe ever. That's hyperbole if I've ever seen it. You can look at how many problems plagued Fedora on the XPS13 as recently as a year ago: https://major.io/2015/02/03/linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2... The tl;dr version is that the guy spent so long trying to get it working properly that he ditched the laptop for a Thinkpad. And FWIW, Fedora usual…
Comment linking /2015/02/03/linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2015-model/
on “XPS9350-macOS – macOS patches for Dell XPS 13 9350”Submitted A new future for icanhazip (2021) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI am also in the middle ground, but I have moved from the opposite direction. I used to like systemd a lot, especially for its simple unit files (compared to ugly System V shell scripts) and the fact that it could properly track processes and restart them on failure. I have become a bit more skeptical, because most of the problems that I recently had seemed to be related to systemd. Including some networking problem…
Comment linking /2015/07/27/very-slow-ssh-logins-on-fedora-22/
on “Systemd Sucks, Long Live Systemd”Submitted Install Debian packages without starting daemons as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> Instead of replacing them, systemd could have provided optional or mandatory services (eg time, dhcp, etc) that could be passed into systemd If sntp is not sufficient for your needs, just disable systemd own sntp solution (systemctl disable...) and use chrony (systemctl start / systemctl enable to make it persistent): then `systemctl status systemd-timesyncd.service` will show you it has been disabled > but I do k…
Comment linking /p/dhcpv6-prefix-delegation-with-systemd-networkd/
on “Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)”Submitted My Beef with Mailing Lists as a story · 3 points
HN discussionStill waiting for Dell to fully support Ubuntu in their 2015 XPS 13 model. I made the switch from a Thinkpad after Lenovo burned me too many times. While the keyboard isn't quite as excellent it's still top notch and it's one of the best laptops I've ever owned. That being said getting everything working in Ubuntu has been a bit of a fiasco [1]. Luckily after some firmware upgrades and the new kernel in 15.04, a lot…
Comment linking /2015/02/03/linux-support-dell-xps-13-9343-2015-model/
on “How to Install Ubuntu Linux on your Dell PC”Submitted Two great signals: SIGSTOP and SIGCONT – major.io as a story · 3 points
HN discussionemphasis on "apparently simple" icanhazip.com looks even simpler on the face of it but there's always shenanigans behind the curtain: https://major.io/p/a-new-future-for-icanhazip/
Comment linking /p/a-new-future-for-icanhazip/
on “test-ipv6.com will stay online”Submitted CoreOS vs. Project Atomic: A Review as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
