http://planet.gllug.org.uk en Planet GLLUG - http://planet.gllug.org.uk http://www.rumble.net/blog/Visibility_excellent http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/travel/Visibility_excellent.html <p><div class="geo">Latitude: <span class="latitude">-36.984936</span>, Longitude: <span class="longitude">147.144996</span></div><br /><p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?z=8&amp;ll=-36.984936,147.144996&amp;q=-36.984936,147.144996(-36.984936,147.144996)"><img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=-36.984936,147.144996&amp;zoom=8&amp;size=200x200&amp;maptype=mobile&amp;key=ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBTuqWMOdZ-kEl0cbACun-XMeeukhRSXBEiRgRaPIItDM7n_d5f100_RfQ&amp;markers=-36.984936,147.144996,blue" alt="-36.984936, 147.144996" border="0" /></a></p></p>Geo: -36.984936,147.144996 <div><img src="http://www.rumble.net/moblogimages/Visibility_excellent.jpg" alt="Visibility: excellent" /></div> This view from our apartment window is what the Hotham web site describes as excellent visibility. Fortunately it's a little better further down. The snow is getting a bit plowed up, especially since half the lifts are closed. Still having fun though. We're doing xmas tonight in our apartment. Roast leg of lamb, veg, sprouts, all the trimmings.<p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:18:03 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/White_out http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/travel/White_out.html <p><div class="geo">Latitude: <span class="latitude">-36.978000</span>, Longitude: <span class="longitude">147.147763</span></div><br /><p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?z=8&amp;ll=-36.978000,147.147763&amp;q=-36.978000,147.147763(-36.978000,147.147763)"><img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=-36.978000,147.147763&amp;zoom=8&amp;size=200x200&amp;maptype=mobile&amp;key=ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBTuqWMOdZ-kEl0cbACun-XMeeukhRSXBEiRgRaPIItDM7n_d5f100_RfQ&amp;markers=-36.978000,147.147763,blue" alt="-36.978000, 147.147763" border="0" /></a></p></p>Geo: -36.978000,147.147763 <div><img src="http://www.rumble.net/moblogimages/White_out.jpg" alt="White out" /></div> This morning started out beautiful and sunny. When I got up to pee at dawn the view out the window was spectacular. I got some photos on my real camera. About 1000 clouds started moving and and the peaks are now completely covered. The visibility is very poor and I did a brilliant face plant when I dropped down a lip I couldn't see. Currently heading lower where you can still see.<p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:36:36 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/On_the_piste http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/travel/On_the_piste.html <p><div class="geo">Latitude: <span class="latitude">-36.988866</span>, Longitude: <span class="longitude">147.145640</span></div><br /><p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?z=8&amp;ll=-36.988866,147.145640&amp;q=-36.988866,147.145640(-36.988866,147.145640)"><img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=-36.988866,147.145640&amp;zoom=8&amp;size=200x200&amp;maptype=mobile&amp;key=ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBTuqWMOdZ-kEl0cbACun-XMeeukhRSXBEiRgRaPIItDM7n_d5f100_RfQ&amp;markers=-36.988866,147.145640,blue" alt="-36.988866, 147.145640" border="0" /></a></p></p>Geo: -36.988866,147.145640 <div><img src="http://www.rumble.net/moblogimages/On_the_piste.jpg" alt="On the piste" /></div> Up early this morning to hit the slopes. It's a really interesting resort and we've covered a fair chunk of it. I'm quite happy with my boarding. First run and I nailed my turns so I haven't forgotten too much.<p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:37:37 +0000 tag:blog.dave.org.uk,2008://1.1465 http://blog.dave.org.uk/2008/08/showing-appreciation.html I've mentioned here before that I run a <a href="http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/">small free software project</a> which supplies simple web programs. The programs are quite widely used, but we generally only hear from the users when things go wrong. It was, therefore, nice to get a mail from someone who hadn't had any problems and just wanted to say thank-you for the programs. Here's what he said:<br /><br /><blockquote>David I wish to personally thank you for the help you provided to my wife in being able to place a search engine on our friends website. We have needed a search engine on my own personal site and have not been able to accomplish it but now that we have done it on our friends site [url removed] our site is next in line [url removed - but it's a gun site].<br /><br />Please believe me from my heart when I say thank you and I am so glad there are people like you in this world. I help many people in my business and because of their needs and lack of money. Many many times I do not charge one red cent. Well it came back to me 100 fold in enabling us to use your valuable information. We cannot afford 20-30k for what we needed and because of you we can now make it happen. Thank you ad infinitum, [name removed]<br /><br />If you ever need help in locating a machine gun, silencer, destructive devices, mortar or grenade launcher, or anything else down to a handgun or long gun don't hesitate in contacting me I am completely at your service.<br /><br />[contact details removed]<br /><br />HARD-CORE RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVE AND PROUD OF IT</blockquote><br /><br />I wrote back to him thanking him for his kind words. I tried to explain the concept of open source to him and pointed out that personally I was involved because of the good fit with my socialist principles. I also thanked for the offer of business assistance but pointed out that in the UK those kinds of weapons are not allowed to be owned by private citizens - a law which I wholeheartedly support.<br /><br />I'll let you know if I get a reply. But it's an interesting illustration of how open source software can help all kinds of people. Not just the ones that you'd like to help.<br /> Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:27:18 +0000 tag:blog.dave.org.uk,2008://1.1464 http://blog.dave.org.uk/2008/08/breaking-radio-silence.html It's been a bit quiet round here for the last week or so. Sorry about that. I was busy in other areas.<br /><br />I spent the last week in Copenhagen, <a href="http://www.yapceurope2008.org/ye2008/user/259">speaking</a> at <a href="http://www.yapceurope2008.org/ye2008/">YAPC::Europe</a>. Over four days I gave three short talks and a full day training session. It good to catch up with a number of old friends. I'd never been to Copenhagen before, so there will be some photos appearing on <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/davorg/">Flickr</a> before too long.<br /><br />As always at these conferences, I get fired up about interesting projects in the Perl world. I think there were three things I really want to get involved in this year. The first is my <a href="http://proudtouseperl.org/">Proud To Use Perl blog</a> which is already up and running. The other two I'll talk more about as they become more concrete.<br /><br />Like a number of the conference attendees I was staying in a cheap hotel near the central railway station. There are a number of similar hotels in that area. But it turns out that it's also a slightly dodgy area to stay in. There were a few sex shops on the same street as my hotel and usually as I was returning to the hotel there was someone on the street who was happy to offer me either sex or drugs.<br /><br />We were also very close to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoli_gardens">Tivoli Gardens</a>. So on Friday evening, after the conference was over, After a couple of hours I found myself in the middle of a free rock concert (Fredag Rocks! apparently). There was a huge crowd watching an incredibly dodgy Danish band. They sounded to me a bit like a Danish version of INXS - which is, in my opinion, a really terrible thing to sound like. I left after a few numbers. Later investigation revealed that they were called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnags">Gnags</a> and that they are "frequently referred to as one of the best live band in Danish rock history". I couldn't see it myself.<br /><br />p.s. Oh, and I've upgraded the software running this blog to the latest version of <a href="http://movabletype.org/">Movable Type</a>. There seem to be a few glitches. Please bear with me as I try to sort them out.<br /> Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:49:13 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Orbost http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/travel/Orbost.html <p><div class="geo">Latitude: <span class="latitude">-37.707143</span>, Longitude: <span class="longitude">148.454433</span></div><br /><p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?z=8&amp;ll=-37.707143,148.454433&amp;q=-37.707143,148.454433(-37.707143,148.454433)"><img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=-37.707143,148.454433&amp;zoom=8&amp;size=200x200&amp;maptype=mobile&amp;key=ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBTuqWMOdZ-kEl0cbACun-XMeeukhRSXBEiRgRaPIItDM7n_d5f100_RfQ&amp;markers=-37.707143,148.454433,blue" alt="-37.707143, 148.454433" border="0" /></a></p></p>Geo: -37.707143,148.454433 <div><img src="http://www.rumble.net/moblogimages/Orbost.jpg" alt="Orbost" /></div> In retrospect an anti logging sticker in Orbost might not be a brilliant idea.<p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:29:29 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Eden http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/travel/Eden.html <p><div class="geo">Latitude: <span class="latitude">-37.054151</span>, Longitude: <span class="longitude">149.943536</span></div><br /><p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?z=8&amp;ll=-37.054151,149.943536&amp;q=-37.054151,149.943536(-37.054151,149.943536)"><img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=-37.054151,149.943536&amp;zoom=8&amp;size=200x200&amp;maptype=mobile&amp;key=ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBTuqWMOdZ-kEl0cbACun-XMeeukhRSXBEiRgRaPIItDM7n_d5f100_RfQ&amp;markers=-37.054151,149.943536,blue" alt="-37.054151, 149.943536" border="0" /></a></p></p>Geo: -37.054151,149.943536 <div><img src="http://www.rumble.net/moblogimages/Eden.jpg" alt="Eden" /></div> View from Ben Boyd National Park near Eden. We had a fun night last night with an Elvis and Johnny Cash impersonator at the local pub. Driving up to Mt Hotham today and snowboarding tomorrow!<p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Sun, 17 Aug 2008 10:21:21 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Brogo_dam http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/travel/Brogo_dam.html <p><div class="geo">Latitude: <span class="latitude">-36.489320</span>, Longitude: <span class="longitude">149.741006</span></div><br /><p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?z=8&amp;ll=-36.489320,149.741006&amp;q=-36.489320,149.741006(-36.489320,149.741006)"><img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=-36.489320,149.741006&amp;zoom=8&amp;size=200x200&amp;maptype=mobile&amp;key=ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBTuqWMOdZ-kEl0cbACun-XMeeukhRSXBEiRgRaPIItDM7n_d5f100_RfQ&amp;markers=-36.489320,149.741006,blue" alt="-36.489320, 149.741006" border="0" /></a></p></p>Geo: -36.489320,149.741006 <div><img src="http://www.rumble.net/moblogimages/Brogo_dam.jpg" alt="Brogo dam" /></div> We're back in my old stomping ground near Bega. This is the big dam that supplies the area. Seems smaller than back when I was a kid.<p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Sat, 16 Aug 2008 15:01:01 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Dons_chainsaw_furniture http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/travel/Dons_chainsaw_furniture.html <p><div class="geo">Latitude: <span class="latitude">-35.650248</span>, Longitude: <span class="longitude">150.292883</span></div><br /><p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?z=8&amp;ll=-35.650248,150.292883&amp;q=-35.650248,150.292883(-35.650248,150.292883)"><img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=-35.650248,150.292883&amp;zoom=8&amp;size=200x200&amp;maptype=mobile&amp;key=ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBTuqWMOdZ-kEl0cbACun-XMeeukhRSXBEiRgRaPIItDM7n_d5f100_RfQ&amp;markers=-35.650248,150.292883,blue" alt="-35.650248, 150.292883" border="0" /></a></p></p>Geo: -35.650248,150.292883 <div><img src="http://www.rumble.net/moblogimages/Dons_chainsaw_furniture.jpg" alt="Don's chainsaw furniture" /></div> In South Durras on our way to the snow. Don's been proving his manliness with the chainsaw. Beautiful weather! Off to Eden next.<p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:59:59 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/unixdaemon/unixdaemon_gitweb_is_go http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/unixdaemon/unixdaemon_gitweb_is_go.html I'm not exactly a demanding user of version control systems so I've not been heavily motivated to ditch my personal SVN repo (which I don't use as much as I should) and plunge in to the shiny new distributed ones. However (and this is my excuse) I've recently wanted to put a handful of my own <a href="http://www.unixdaemon.net/nagios_plugins.html">Nagios plugins</a> under a public VCS. While we use a number of the checks at work I don't necessarily want the local changes to be made immediately public so I thought I'd take this as an opportunity to have a fiddle with git. <p>I've now got my own <a href="http://www.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi">gitweb</a> instance (because I'm a tech sheep) and while it's pretty easy to install and setup it was oddly difficult to track down how to modify anything beyond the basics (the answer? Hack the feature hash from the config file - eg <code>$feature{'snapshot'}{'default'} = [];</code>). First impressions of git? I've got a lot to learn. The basic commands were easy enough to pick up but I am very conscious of how little of its power I'm using.</p> Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:09:00 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/movies/mummy_tomb_of_the_dragon_emperor_short_review http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/movies/mummy_tomb_of_the_dragon_emperor_short_review.html It's been the summer of returns, from the very enjoyable <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/">Dark Knight</a> to the should have been left buried 'plot' of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/">Indy and the Crystal Skull</a>. Unfortunately most of them have been rubbish - and the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0859163/">The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor</a> doesn't do anything to address this. <p>The special effects are good but nothing ground breaking, the new Evelyn O'Connell is a masterpiece of terrible - how such an uninteresting character can steal and kill so many scenes baffles me. The story is predictable, boring and lacks the hammy goodness of the first two. At least they didn't cast Shia LaBeouf. 3/10.</p> <p>Now roll on Hellboy 2!</p> Fri, 15 Aug 2008 16:54:00 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Key_signing_Sydney_12_September_2008 http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/geek/Key_signing_Sydney_12_September_2008.html <p><div class="geo">Latitude: <span class="latitude">-33.85967</span>, Longitude: <span class="longitude">151.207025</span></div><br /><p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?z=8&amp;ll=-33.85967,151.207025&amp;q=-33.85967,151.207025(-33.85967,151.207025)"><img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=-33.85967,151.207025&amp;zoom=8&amp;size=200x200&amp;maptype=mobile&amp;key=ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBTuqWMOdZ-kEl0cbACun-XMeeukhRSXBEiRgRaPIItDM7n_d5f100_RfQ&amp;markers=-33.85967,151.207025,blue" alt="-33.85967, 151.207025" border="0" /></a></p></p>Geo: -33.85967,151.207025 <span class="vevent"><span class="summary"><p><a href="http://keyserver.noreply.org/pks/lookup?op=vindex&amp;search=0x3AD6F8118300CC02">Udo van den Heuvel</a> is visiting and would like to do a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party">key signing</a> to improve the web of trust. I've suggested <a href="http://www.australianheritagehotel.com/">The Australian</a> in The Rocks where I tend to take overseas tourists because they have good beer and pizzas topped with both our two national animals, in a good central location.</p> <p>If you're coming, please bring identification that matches your key and a bunch of little slips of paper with your key details and fingerprint on it, to enable people to verify your identity and key. I'll be following the <a href="http://cryptnet.net/fdp/crypto/keysigning_party/en/keysigning_party.html#traditional">"informal"</a> method.</p></span> <p><abbr class="dtstart" title="2008-09-12T18:00:00+10:00">Friday 12th September<br /> 18:00 for 18:30</abbr> key signing, then beer and pizza.<br /> <span class="location"><a href="http://www.australianheritagehotel.com/">The Australian</a>, <a href="http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=-33.85967,151.207025&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;z=16&amp;iwloc=addr">100 Cumberland Street, The Rocks</a></span><br /> Probably the back room "ladies" bar. I look roughly like <a href="http://rumble.smugmug.com/photos/69684016_4byEq-L-1.jpg">this</a>.</p></span> <p align="right"><a href="http://www.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&amp;tmeid=dWFuazUyNWY1YW1uZTVkcjU3ZTBlMzBjZWMgc2hlcm1vemxlQG0&amp;tmsrc=c2hlcm1vemxlQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ"><img border="0" src="http://www.google.com/calendar/images/ext/gc_button1_en-GB.gif" border="0" /></a></p><p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:08:08 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/The_Obama_Blend http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/politix/The_Obama_Blend.html <p><br /></p><p>I just bought some coffee beans at the phenomenally-busy <a href="http://www.camposcoffee.com/">Campos Coffee</a> on Missenden Road. I had to write down the description to share with you.</p> <p><b>The Obama Blend</b></p> <p>Great deptch of character, strong and eloquent. This very appealing blend unites coffees from Africa and the Americas to produce a cup which has gotten us excited. Formidable middle palate flavours, syrupy with an uplifting finish. Excellent choice for going forward and ideal for those interested in change.</p> <p>I didn't try the McCain blend. Don't think I'd like the thin, weak, old-fashioned bitter flavour.</p><p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:38:38 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/tools/commandline/syslogslicer_announcement http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/tools/commandline/syslogslicer_announcement.html While digging through a pile of syslog log files recently I needed something a little more data format aware than pure grep. So I present the first version of <a href="http://www.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=sysadmin-scripts.git;a=blob_plain;f=syslogslicer;hb=HEAD">syslogslicer</a> - a simple perl script that knows a little bit about the syslog log file format. <pre> <code> # some example command lines syslogslicer -p cron -f program,message /var/log/syslog # print the program and message for all lines with program 'cron' syslogslicer -p cron -m hourly /var/log/syslog # all fields for all lines with program 'cron' and message 'hourly' syslogslicer -p cron -m hourly -s 20080810100000 -e 20080810123000 /var/log/syslog # all fields for all lines with program 'cron' and message 'hourly' # between 20080810100000 and 20080810123000 </code> </pre> <p>syslogslicer allows you to filter the output by matching text in the program or log message, only print certain output fields and do basic time based filtering. If you've ever wanted to see all the logs raised by postfix with the word 'database' in them between 10 and 11 am then this might be the tool for you.</p> Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:28:00 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/tools/commandline/nagios_check_proxy_check http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/tools/commandline/nagios_check_proxy_check.html <cite>"This script retrieves a URL via a specified proxy server and alerts (using the standard Nagios conventions) if the request fails."</cite> <p>We're running a couple of services through a proxy server for a number of good, and to be honest a couple of not so good but mandated, reasons. The <a href="http://www.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=nagios-plugins.git;a=blob;f=check_proxy/check_proxy;h=6e8c4d7ef1c62f14be12324462f2499fc2779e9a;hb=089b51531a3c027dee6f32ffa9705d5c4e7b3cde">Check Proxy Check Nagios Plugin</a> ensures that if the proxy goes down in a way that stops us pulling pages through it we know.</p> Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:30:00 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Testing_my_geo_mobblog http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/travel/Testing_my_geo_mobblog.html <p><div class="geo">Latitude: <span class="latitude">-33.902166</span>, Longitude: <span class="longitude">151.163230</span></div><br /><p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?z=8&amp;ll=-33.902166,151.163230&amp;q=-33.902166,151.163230(-33.902166,151.163230)"><img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=-33.902166,151.163230&amp;zoom=8&amp;size=200x200&amp;maptype=mobile&amp;key=ABQIAAAA_hRpLOJJ_ScEX06ooX7pSBTuqWMOdZ-kEl0cbACun-XMeeukhRSXBEiRgRaPIItDM7n_d5f100_RfQ&amp;markers=-33.902166,151.163230,blue" alt="-33.902166, 151.163230" border="0" /></a></p></p>Geo: -33.902166,151.163230 <div><img src="http://www.rumble.net/moblogimages/Testing_my_geo_mobblog.jpg" alt="Testing my geo mobblog" /></div> Before our big trip around Europe I set up this system to blog with added geographic tagging. Turned out that on the road I couldn't use gprs so it never happened. I'm off skiing next week so I want to see if it all still works.<p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:50:50 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/books/jmeter_short_review http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/books/jmeter_short_review.html A short review for a short book. <a href="http://www.packtpub.com/beginning-apache-jmeter/book">Apache JMeter (Packt Publishing)</a> is a good book if you're new to both IT and testing and want your hand securely held. It introduces you to the basic ideas behind automated testing, takes you step by step through some simple GUI test cases and then doesn't go any further. <p>It's a short book and maintains its beginners focus well but it has a very short lifespan (luckily it's also available as a cheap PDF) and if you're comfortable with GUIs and basic testing, or willing to click around for a while I'd recommend you dive straight in to the JMeter GUI rather than investing half a day to read this book.</p> <p>On the downside it didn't cover any of the aspects of JMeter I found interesting and wanted to learn about - the access log sampler and distributed load testing spring to mind - which in a beginners book is fine enough but does make it completely the wrong book for me.</p> Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:23:00 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/tools/commandline/nagios_disk_check_mount_points http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/tools/commandline/nagios_disk_check_mount_points.html If you mount filesystems under a specific mount point, and monitor them with <a href="http://www.nagios.org">Nagios</a>, then be sure you understand what happens if the underlying file system goes away. With: <pre> <code> /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_disk -w 15% -c 10% -p /a_mount_point </code> </pre> <p> you'll get the value from the containing file system. In this case <code>/</code>. If you'd rather know that your chosen mount point has actually gone away, and that you're no longer checking what you thought you were, then add the <code>-E</code> option to the command. This will turn on exact path matching and catch that kind of error.</p> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:54:00 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/tools/commandline/testing_no_internet_access_nagios http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/tools/commandline/testing_no_internet_access_nagios.html We've recently had to deliberately disable some machines this week to ensure they can't connect out to the internet - we're building testing versions of some of our more restricted secure environments and this is one of the steps. <p>It was actually easier to do with IPTables than I thought (mostly because I didn't have to do it - my co-worker did) but once the work was done we needed to ensure it didn't accidently get broken so that networking was functional again. And yes that's an odd thing to type. So naturally we turned to Nagios and so, for my own memory as much as anything else, here is the check we're using:</p> <pre> <code> # put this in the machines nrpe config file. /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/negate -t 30 "/usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_http -w 5 -c 10 -H www.google.com -u /" </code> </pre> <p>In the Nagios 'Status Information' field you'll get a message that looks like this - <code>CRITICAL - Socket timeout after 10 seconds</code> - but the check returns the correct error code so it's all green.</p> Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:50:00 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/sysadmin/rules_of_releases http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/sysadmin/rules_of_releases.html <p>You've gathered the requirements, written the code, debugged it, received the new requirements, rewritten the code, got more change requests, reached a 'compromise' with QA (and hidden the bodies) and now you want to have the sysadmins do the release.</p> <p>Don't be like everyone else - when it comes to releases too many people fail at the last mile and make obvious mistakes. In an attempt to save myself some pain (and have something to point co-workers at) here are some of the software release principles that I hold dear.</p> <h2>Out of hours releases will have adequate support</h2> <p>Or as I like to think of it - "out of hours releases will hurt you as much as they will me. And a little bit more" If the release is important enough to require me in the office late at night or over the weekend then it's important enough to have development support and a manager present Just In Case. It'll also force people to be a little more considerate of my time and availability.</p> <h2>No live release will happen after 4pm (at the latest)</h2> <p>There's nothing quite as frustrating as getting two third of the way through a live release, hitting a problem or needing clarification of something that the staging environment didn't pick up (yes, I know it should have. Let's fix it for next time) and discovering it's 6pm and everyone else is already on the tube or in the pub.</p> <p>You then have the pleasure of either backing the release out (if you actually can) and explaining why you killed the scheduled release or hanging around with half an upgraded system waiting for someone to get your voice mails and call you back. Which is even less likely to happen if you ignore...</p> <h2>No release will happen on the day before a non-work day.</h2> <p>Or the day the lead developer goes on holiday.</p> <p>"We're nearly done. Can you get $dev to have a look at this line in the application error log please?" "Actually he's in Peru for the next three weeks. I'll get someone else who's never seen the system before to confirm that everything's fine." Apart from the obvious sign this is a made up conversation (application error logs that contain information - HAH!) I've been bitten by this a number of times. It always seems to end with some other poor developer with a postage stamp of hand over notes looking sheepishly at me while explaining that the log line could never happen.</p> <h2>You'll provide me with a list of what's changed</h2> <p>When you're developing you should maintain decent change logging above and beyond 'commit -m'. I'd like the world to agree that commit messages are for developers and release notes are for sysadmins; let's pretend I'm not paranoid enough to read the commits list anyway.</p> <p>If you're using one of agile methodologies that uses stories for everything then feel free to put the story number in the notes to provide some background. However I still expect a one sentence summary of each change.</p> <p> If you don't have a decent, and comprehensive, list of changes expect me to get... inquisitive about undocumented changes. I will <a href="http://packages.debian.org/etch/devscripts">diff the packages</a> (better version of this coming soon) or source code (and if I ever get the time to look at <a href="http://search.cpan.org/dist/SQL-Translator/lib/SQL/Translator/Diff.pm">SQL::Translator</a> I'll be aggressively double checking your schemas). If you don't mention it I can't prepare (and add monitoring) for it, QA can't test all the new paths and I'll make a point of in the release retrospective meeting.</p> <h2>It should be possible to stagger releases across machines</h2> <p>I'm a fan of the one, few, many approach to software releases. I want the ability to role out the new system in chunks. I should be able to break off a couple of web servers so I have a warm standby just in case something goes wrong. I know this gets difficult to do once you involve databases but it's still a goal that should be considered - especially with read only copies of the data, replication slaves and data snapshots in the tool belt.</p> <p>So in closing, I'm a demanding bugger. However, just like my <a href="http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/sysadmin/cron_commandments.html">Cron Commandments</a> post, it's nice to have this list somewhere online to point people at.</p> Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:12:00 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/events/no_yapc_eu_208_for_me http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/events/no_yapc_eu_208_for_me.html Since I've been asked where about at the conference I am I should probably mention that I'm not attending <a href="http://www.yapceurope2008.org/ye2008/">YAPC::EU</a> this year. Despite the excellent job the organisers did last year at the Nordic Perl Workshop a combination of factors stopped me going back to Copenhagen. <p>The first one (and it's shallow but true) is that I've been there now. I like conferences in places I've never been before. If I'm going to spend a chunk of my own cash on travel I want to grab an extra day or two and have a wonder around. While Copenhagen was nice I did most of the city (and the mermaid, the river boat and got very sunburnt) last time I was there.</p> <p>The second reason is there just ain't many interesting talks. While there are a handful I'm eagerly awaiting the slides from they are spread out over the entire conference. There are a number I've seen, a bunch I've no interest in (some in topics I already have a grounding in, some by people I can't watch for an hour) and only a few that I'd get out of bed early for. And we're not talking before ten am even for those. I don't think it's a perl wide problem - YAPC::Asia had a very interesting line this year and I'm sorry I missed it.</p> <p> Add those two together and I can't really justify the time or money. So I've saved this years YAPC money and spent it on <a href="http://www.pyconuk.org/">PyCon UK 2008</a> instead. It doesn't require me to suffer through an airport, I'm pretty sure I'll know almost nothing about any of the sessions beyond what I've seen on reddit and similar sites and, considering that work is all python on new projects it can't hurt for me to pick up some of the same technologies that our developers use.</p> Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:35:00 +0000 tag:blog.unixdaemon.net,2008:/tools/commandline/dpkg-provides_annouce http://blog.unixdaemon.net/cgi-bin/blosxom.pl/tools/commandline/dpkg-provides_annouce.html I've never really felt as proficient with apt and dpkg as I did with RPM. There always seems to be another option I've never seen before. Luckily there are also big holes in my knowledge of yum to make me feel well rounded. <p>After reading <a href="http://crazytoon.com/2008/06/16/linux-yum-options-you-may-not-know-exist/"> yum options you may not know exist</a> and spending a while puzzling out how to get the same results in Debian (apt-file seems to be the closest fit but I never got the invocation right) I decided to write <a href="http://www.unixdaemon.net/code/dpkg-provides">dpkg-provides</a>.</p> <p>It's not packaged, doesn't have a manpage, requires the network and isn't integrated with the existing tools. At least I know how I'd get the information now - from the web. Who'd thought it?</p> <p>Note: it's actually quite simple to work out which package provides a file that you've got installed locally (<code>dpkg -S '*/df'</code>) - it's more of a pain to probe packages you don't have installed.</p> Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:13:00 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Fruit_trees_in http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/house/Fruit_trees_in.html <p><br /></p><p align="right"><a href="http://rumble.smugmug.com/gallery/4068270_bzVFT/4/348570369_CQGRq#348570369_CQGRq"><img src="http://rumble.smugmug.com/photos/348570369_CQGRq-S-1.jpg" alt="Apples and passionfruit" border="0" /><img src="http://rumble.smugmug.com/photos/348570360_YYJoX-S.jpg" alt="Plums" border="0" /></a></p> <p>I planted out all the fruit trees and vines today. There's two types of apple, Dwarf Dorsett Golden and Dwarf Tropical Sweet, two types of plum, Maiposa and Narabeen, and two types of passionfruit, the familiar Black and one called Sunshine Special. They all came from <a href="http://www.daleysfruit.com.au/">Daleys Fruit Tree Nursery</a> up in Kyogle.</p> <p>You may be concerned that I've put them so close together. This is intentional, as I'm following the <a href="http://davewilson.com/homegrown/BOC_explained.html">Backyard Orchard Culture</a> idea, where you grow fruit trees much closer together than normal, and the trees compete with each other. This, and aggressive pruning, keeps the tree sizes manageable. In a small inner city backyard, this is the only way to go really. It also means I get some cross pollination and more varities. We'll see how it goes.</p> <p>Also in amongst the apple trees and passionfruit is a <a href="https://secure.diggersgardenclub.com.au/p-1431-comfrey-bocking-14.aspx">Comfrey Bocking 14</a> from <a href="http://www.rumble.net/blog/href">Digger's Club</a>. This plant apparently digs deep and pulls up trace minerals from the sub-surface, making it a valuable compost and mulch crop.</p> <p align="right"><a href="http://rumble.smugmug.com/gallery/4068270_bzVFT/4/348570369_CQGRq#348570330_hkdFS"><img src="http://rumble.smugmug.com/photos/348570330_hkdFS-S.jpg" border="0" alt="One side of the garden" /></a><a href="http://rumble.smugmug.com/gallery/4068270_bzVFT/4/348570369_CQGRq#348570348_yG3bS"><img src="http://rumble.smugmug.com/photos/348570348_yG3bS-S.jpg" alt="The other side of the garden" border="0" /></a></p> <p>The garden is really starting to take shape. Two nice garden beds, the fruit is in. I get the feeling we're nearing the end of Winter and in the next few weeks, the weather will really turn. Then this garden is going to go nuts! I can't wait to get the Spring plantings in, though we're still waiting to harvest broad beans, brocolli, silverbeet, kale, parsnips and brussels.</p><p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:44:44 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Faster_Pussycat_arthouse http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/weird/Faster_Pussycat_arthouse.html <p><br /></p><p align="right"><img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8a/Fpckk.JPG/486px-Fpckk.JPG" alt="Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" /></p> <p>News.com.au <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,26278,24146962-7485,00.html">describes Russ Meyer's <i>Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill</i> as an "arthouse classic"</a> in this article about a putative Tarantino remake. That's hilarious!</p> <p>Though if anyone was to remake Meyer films, I hope it's Tarantino. But Britney's gonna need a much bigger boob job to do it justce.</p><p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:12:12 +0000 tag:blog.dave.org.uk,2008://1.1463 http://blog.dave.org.uk/2008/08/anniversaries.html It's been a week of anniversaries. Wednesday was the tenth anniversary of the first <a href="http://london.pm.org/">London.pm</a> meeting. And last night we had our <a href="http://www.heise-online.co.uk/open/Community-Live-London-pm-celebrates-its-tenth-year--/features/111274">tenth anniversary meeting</a>. But for me personally, today is an even bigger anniversary. It was twenty years ago today that I started my first "real" job. I hope you won't be too bored if I spend a few paragraphs reflecting on my career so far.<br /><br />My degree from South Bank Poly (remember polys?) was in computer studies. This was very much aimed at people who were going to work in large data processing departments. We studied <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL">COBOL</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODASYL">CODASYL</a> databases. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL">SQL</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_langage%29">C</a> were seen as the cutting edge technologies. Interestingly I spent my sandwich year working on PC product releases for IBM. The documentation for these was in an obscure format called SGML - the weirdest things turn out to be useful in the future.<br /><br />So I left South Bank with my degree in computer studies and got a job working for a company called Learmonth and Burcheet Management Systems (LBMS). LBMS were big on structured development methodologies. They apparently had a big hand in the design of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSADM">SSADM</a>. They did consultancy and training, but they also had a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_software_engineering">CASE</a> tool. That was where I came in. I was part of a team who was reimplementing their CASE tool. It was to be a Windows application (which in 1988 was a rather brave step to take). Over the next four years I became pretty proficient at Windows programming in C (Visual C++ wasn't around in those days). I also, probably more usefully, learnt a lot about data modelling and databases as that was the part of the tool which I worked on. LBMS not longer exists. They went out of business soon after structure methodologies and CASE tools went out of fashion.<br /><br />I left them before that though. In 1992 I decided to move to pastures new. I got a job working for a company called Comtext. They specialised in communications tools like telex. I was there to give their tools a nice Windows front-end. I was only there for six months. By then I had a CompuServe account and I could tell that email was going to kill off their business. I don't know what happened to them. There's no evidence of them on the internet now.<br /><br />Early in 1993 I got a job working with Walt Disney. Actually it was with Buena Vista Home Video - their home video group. We were building a system to report on European video sales. I got the job on the basis of my Windows and SQL experience, but whilst I was there I moved to working exclusively on Unix. We implemented our system in a number of European offices and as part of the project I spent a few months working in Madrid.<br /><br />Unfortunately for Disney, the technologies they were using (Sybase, C, Unix) were exactly the set of skills that were becoming popular in the City of London. And the City was crying out for contractors with that skillset. So in April 1995 I set up <a href="http://mag-sol.com/">Magnum Solutions</a> and went off to start contracting in the City.<br /><br />For four years I worked for various banks in the City doing Bank-type stuff. I was during this time that I picked up my knowledge of Perl. In fact, by 1999 I was getting work purely on the basis of my Perl expertise. I was getting a little bored by banking though so I decided to try working for dotcoms for a while. Actually, it took a while for the change to take place and I spent eighteen months alternating companies like QXL and Sportal with financial work.<br /><br />2002 started badly. I spent all of 2001 working for a single client but the contract finished at the start of 2002 and the jobs market had collapsed. I spent five months out of work before taking a permanent job with Bibliotech (now known as <a href="http://www.spider-networks.net/">Spider Networks</a>). That didn't last long though. In November they went through a bit of a cash crisis and made a lot of staff redundant. Including me. Luckily the market seemed to have picked up a bit and I found a new contract within a week or so.<br /><br />Following that contract, at the end of 2003 I made one of best connections that I've ever made when I spend a few months working on the <a href="http://guardian.co.uk/">Guardian web site</a>. I've been able to return there a couple of times since.<br /><br />2004 was another bad year. I was unable to find a contract to follow the Guardian so I ended up designing and building a new web site for Karma Download - a site for musicians to sell MP3s of their music. They didn't make any money and closed down a couple of years later. In May of that year I took another permanent job, working for <a href="http://www.outcometechnologies.com/">Outcome Technologies</a>. I lasted until the end of the year before the call of freelancing became too strong and I left them.<br /><br />Since then, things have been going pretty well. I've bounced between three different clients. Two of them are media organisations and the other is a bank. So I'm getting plenty of variety in my work.<br /><br />It's been an interesting twenty years. It hasn't gone in the way I planned it at all. I was a Windows programmer. And now I'm a reasonably well-known expert in a language that I hadn't even heard of when I started out.<br /><br />I wonder what the next twenty years will bring. Retirement, with any luck.<br /> Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:49:24 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Channel_7_misses_digital_point http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/geek/Channel_7_misses_digital_point.html <p><br /></p><p><a href="http://au.tv.yahoo.com/tv/seven/">Channel 7</a> holds the rights to broadcast the Olympics, but clearly doesn't get the possibilities that digital television brings.</p> <p>Last night was the first football match, with Australia's mens team playing Serbia. The game started at 19:00 Sydney time, but Seven delayed coverage until 21:00. What's more, they interrupted coverage to cut to the announcement of the flag carrier for the opening ceremony. Then they broke for an ad at the forty minute mark, in other words with only about five minutes to half time.</p> <p>This kind of thing is completely avoidable with digital television. They could have very easily used spare bandwidth on their transmitter to show the football match live, while keeping their main-channel programming.</p> <p>The DVB standard, used for digital terrestrial television in Australia and most of the world outside North America, allows for all kinds of dynamic reconfiguration of channels and bandwidth. In Australia the mandate for high definition television reduces the available bandwidth, there are alternatives.</p> <p>For example, the bandwidth on the high def channel could be reduced during the Olympics. Or Channel 7 could lease spare bandwidth from some of the other broadcasters, perhaps with some revenue sharing -- DVB receivers are very flexible with where the programming comes from.</p> <p>This kind of setup would be useful throughout the Olympics. There's loads of concurrent stuff going on, so why not show more of it? If the broadcasters want to push the digital switchover, using the technology to its full capacity during such a high-profile event would surely help.</p> <p>Another alternative would have been to allow SBS, the "complementary" broadcaster for the Olympics, to carry all the football. SBS are the acknowledged home of football in Australia, and we would have ended up with good live coverage and knowledgable presenters. I'm <a href="http://au.fourfourtwo.com/news/81074,aloisi-urges-better-tv-plan.aspx">not the only one to suggest this</a>, of course.</p> <p>As an aside, aren't the Chinese spectators subdued? I've seen more lively funerals than last night's football match!</p><p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:05:05 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/GroceryWatch http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/geek/GroceryWatch.html <p><br /></p><p>So the ACCC has launched the new "GroceryWatch" site, <a href="http://www.grocerychoice.gov.au/">GroceryChoice</a>, which gives comparisons of a basket of goods between supermarkets. I wonder how hard it would be to game this system, if you could work out what was in each basket? Dropping the price of a single item could have a big impact.</p> <p>UK retailers do this with what they call "known value items", such as milk, bread, eggs and bananas. Customers know how much these normally cost, so by dropping the prices on just those items, customers get the illusion of cheap prices and get stung on the prices of goods they can't so easily compare.</p> <p>The best news from the supermarket inquiry is that the government will bring in mandatory unit pricing reporting. I wrote to the NSW fair trading minister about this a few years ago, with the response that there wasn't demand or need. Unit pricing means the supermarket shelves will tell you the price per standard unit, for example price per 100ml or 100g. Next time you're in a supermarket, compare the prices of 400g and 800g cans of tomatoes. The 800g cans cost more than double the price of a 400g can.</p> <p>The site itself seems fairly well designed, though the colour scheme isn't ideal. Yellow-on-green isn't really ideal. There's a "<a href="http://www.grocerychoice.gov.au/static/LatestNews.aspx">latest news</a>" and "<a href="http://www.grocerychoice.gov.au/static/Subscribing.aspx">subscribe</a>" option but no RSS feeds?</p> <p>The papers managed to <a href="http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24141741-15306,00.html">find someone prepared to moan about the site</a>, because he has vision and mobility problems. Sorry Mr Kerr, it's not the web designer's job to show you how to turn on the disability options of your software. They've done everything that they should (though the colour choice isn't helpful) to make it easy for you. Learn where the options for a user-defined stylesheet and minimum font-size are, and use them. Better yet, I bet you're using Internet Exploder. Try Firefox and see the zoom option -- it rocks! (Ctrl + and Ctrl - or Ctrl and the mouse wheel). If you still need more help, there are <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5809">other tools that will help</a>.</p><p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:29:29 +0000 http://willj.net/blog/?p=355 http://willj.net/blog/2008/08/06/the-ferretcam/ <p>Gem has started a FerretCam. Who knew that Ferrets could be so captivating.</p> <p></p> Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:39:32 +0000 http://www.rumble.net/blog/Fastway_do_it_again http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/grumble/Fastway_do_it_again.html <p align="right"><img src="http://rumble.smugmug.com/photos/346076858_i5wRx-O.png" alt="Fastway courier forges delivery signature again" /></p> <p>Yet again, Fastway couriers fraudulently forge a signature to "prove" delivery. At least this time they <a href="http://www.rumble.net/blog/index.cgi/grumble/Fastway_such_great_couriers.html">didn't forge my own name</a>. In this case, the courier didn't bother to knock. We were in bed at the time and heard the delivery.</p> <p>If you run a business selling things by mail order, do <i>not</i> use Fastway couriers. There's a reason they're the cheapest! You pay less and gain extra disgruntled customers.</p> <p>In other news, my fruit trees have arrived! Can't wait to plant them out.</p><p align="right"><a href="http://www.rumble.net/contact/">Contact me</a></p> Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:52:52 +0000 http://www.karan.org/blog/xmlsrv/211@http://www.karan.org/blog/ http://www.karan.org/blog/index.php/2008/08/06/back-in-town <p>I'm back in London now and slowly getting back into the swing of things.</p> <p>- KB</p> Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:52:00 +0000