How to contact me
My GPG key fingerprint is:
83C9 2481 D471 4FA4 B460 C449 B0BA ACA1 1B75 966C
Where the last 8 characters are the key-id.
I also like to receive books, whisky (Single malt, Scottish Islay), gadgets and CD’s :-) and I talk about and do technology, don’t like politics and love food (especially Indonesian) and cooking for friends and quiet dinner parties.
I’m also on Mastodon [@tonk@mastodon.social](@tonk@mastodon.social) and
on Libera.Chat IRC as TKersten
Just about me
-
UNIX/Linux consultant and Trainer @ ATComputing
-
Linux Geek (started in 1992 with 0.966α)
-
Shell script nerd
-
Open Source enthusiast
-
Programming (Python)
-
Loves DNS
-
Configuration management with Ansible
-
Plain text aficionado
-
Big fan of things that just work
Education
I studied computer science at the Venlo Polytechnic (called IHBO Venlo, aka HTS Venlo), where I received the Bachelors degree in January 1989.
In 1986 this is where I was introduced to the lovely UNIX operating
system.
Thanks Mr. Wim Euwe.
Red Hat Accelerators
Since 2023 I am a proud member of the Red Hat Accelerators Group.
From the Red Hat site:
The Red Hat Accelerators program is a global enterprise customer community of Red Hat technology experts and enthusiasts who willingly share their knowledge and expertise with peers in the industry, their community, and with Red Hat.
UNIX / Linux Certification
All my Red Hat certificates are registered through Credly
(https://www.credly.com) and can be verified at
Red Hat,
where my Red Hat ID is 180-011-892.
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Managing Automation with Ansible Automation Platform (EX467)
-
2024-07-10 badge
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Developing Automation with Ansible Automation Platform (EX374)
-
2023-04-17 badge
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Advanced Automation: Ansible Best Practices (EX447)
-
2022-04-26 badge
- Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE)
-
2021-08-09 badge
- Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA)
-
2020-11-23 badge
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Ansible Automation (EX407)
-
2018-01-19
- LPI 101
-
2013-03-21
- LPI 102
-
2013-08-15
- Novell Certified Linux Administrator
-
2013-08-15
Prince2 Certification
On May 13 2009 I took the Prince2 Foundation exam and succeeded.
So, now I do have a Prince2 Foundation qualification.
Maybe, when time comes, I will do the Prince2 Practitioner as well.
- Prince 2 foundation
-
2009-05-13
You can see my personal and public profile on LinkedIn
UNIX/Linux
I live in Groesbeek, in the Netherlands, near the German border and I run all kinds of Linux and UNIX. For instance my laptops run Ubuntu or Fedora and my servers run a variety of stuff, like CentOS and FreeBSD.
When I first met UNIX in 1986 I was immediately very impressed with the flexibility and the ease of use. I got hooked, bad, very bad.
And then Linux came long, which I started using way back in 1992, when
the kernel version was at 0.96α. This was a 40 floppy SLS (Soft
Landing Systems) distribution, the predecessor of
Slackware, running on my Intel 486 PC with
only 8MB of RAM. And it worked like a charm. I was completely sold.
Later on I switched to Yggdrasil and after that I switched back to
Slackware again. This all until my boss
decided we needed to use Red Hat Linux. In fact I
really don’t care what distro to use, as long as it’s not to exotic.
After a lot of work of the Open Source community configuration and installation of a Linux machine is much simplified and I believe it’s almost there to take over Windows.
Even after all these years I’m still charmed with the simplicity and ways to tweak a UNIX / Linux system. It does what I want it to do and not the other way around.
AT Computing
Moving my work a step forward and focus solely on UNIX and Linux I joined forces at AT Computing in 2001 as a senior UNIX/Linux consultant and UNIX/Linux teacher.
At this moment in time I teach these courses:
- UNIX/Linux part 1 a.k.a. The UNIX/Linux starters course
-
Introduction to the Linux/UNIX philosophy of working. It teaches the basic concepts and the elementary functionality of UNIX/Linux systems.
- UNIX/Linux part 2 a.k.a. shell scripting
-
The scripting facilities of the UNIX shells ksh and bash, the batch-editor sed and the report generating language awk.
- The Python Programming Language
-
Introduction to the Python Programming Language, including the standard library, regular expressions and object oriented programming.
- Ansible Fundamentals
-
An introduction to the Ansible Configuration Management and Continues Integration tool
- Ansible II - Advanced
-
Build your own modules, dynamic inventory, including inventory plugins, lookup plugins and get acquainted with the inner workings of Ansible
- Ansible AWX and Ansible Automation Platform
-
Find out how the Ansible Automation Platform works, or its upstream AWX. Learn about all the ins ans outs, like inventories, projects, templates, workflows, execution environments and more
- Ansible and windows
-
With Ansible you can maintain Windows servers just as easy as Linux machines. How to do that is taught in this training.
What Not To Do
HTML formatted email has a very high chance of ending up in my spam box, where it will probably be discarded. Also, please use a subject line in your message.
I will not authenticate messages sent to people with strict anti-spam tools, like mail blocks and stuff. I have better things to do with my time. We all hate spam, but don’t push the problem to other people.
Please, do not send me spam email (doesn’t everybody want that??). I will charge you a dollar or a euro for every spam mail sent to me for transport, storage and annoyance. So if you send spam, be prepared to pay.
HAM Operator
I’m a licensed HAM operator (with CW included) with call sign PA1TON
and my QTH is in Groesbeek, The Netherlands. The Maidenhead locator is
JO21xs.
Geek info
Have a look at the Geek Code to see what it means. And, yes, I do think that I am a nerd. And I am proud of it. I’m glad I’m not a sports-jock. I would get rather bored with asking: Would you like fries with your burger, sir?
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCS/E/IT d- s-:+> a+>? c++ ULSHA*++++$ P++ L+++ E--- W++ N++ O- K- w--- !O M V PS+ PE+ Y+ PGP++ t++@ !5 X+ R-> tv+() b++>+++ DI++ D G++>+++ e++ h r+++ y+ C++ -----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Github
I write a lot of shell scripts, Python stuff, Ansible goodies and other things for customers and for myself. Some of these could be useful to others, so I did put some of this on Github. Go ahead and use it.
Disclosure
While I am not a representative of Red Hat and my views about Red Hat are my own, I am a member of Red Hat Accelerators community which gives me a connection to Red Hat and through which I engage with other Red Hat Accelerators.
Copyright and stuff like that
This site and all the software available for download is completely copyright by me (Ton Kersten) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License (except when stated otherwise).
So, if you like an article and want to use it for something, please do go ahead. You do need to link to my site and mention me when you do use it. That’s all. And, please, do not use this for commercial purposes, it’s my gift to the Open Source community and not intended for resale.