ansible_managed is a string that can be inserted into files written by Ansible’s config templating system. You put the macro string # {{ ansible_managed }} in your jinja2 template and it gets expanded to something meaningful like:

# Ansible managed: /path/to/file/template/hosts.j2 modified on 2014-09-24 10:52:51 by username on hostname

You get a good idea of where the file came from. Unfortunately, templates work only with ansible playbooks and not with the direct ansible command. But even when you use the copy module outside a playbook it is a good practice to put a comment that includes {{ ansible_managed }} at the beginning of the file. It serves as a handy reminder on how this file got installed in the first place. And in the future, if you make a template and a playbook work with it, you’re already set.

apt-get upgrade and libssl1.0.0 : failure because of dependencies

I tried to upgrade an Debian box that was left a bit behind today and apt-get upgrade failed somewhere between libssl1.0.0 and python2.7-minimal (among a few other packages) being depended on each other and the installation script gave up. apt-get upgrade -f refused also.

If you google around this is a problem that many people had with many different causes and solutions that may or may not work in your case. So here is another one that I copy-pasted from the internets that worked in this particular case. In file /var/cache/debconf/config.dat I added:

Name: libraries/restart-without-asking
Template: libraries/restart-without-asking
Value: true
Owners: libssl1.0.0
Flags: seen

Red Plenty

Following my streak of reading dystopic governance books, I just finished Red Plenty on the Kindle. The main difference being that this book is not about a science fiction dystopia, but about the Soviet Union during the Khrushchev era, where there was a real effort on competing with capitalists on their own ground.

And you know what else? The main heroes of the book are real, interesting people, like Kantorovich, the Nobel prize winner from USSR, one of the inventors of Linear Programming. I also wonder how many in CS have ever heard of Lebedev, a true computing pioneer whose plans were stopped by politics as it seems. People interested in Optimization will find great many stories to talk about. As those interested in Cybernetic failures.

Whether you are a socialist or a liberal, you need to read the book. Central planning fails. We know that. See some of the reasons why. Politics, mediocrity, privileged classes of citizens, blind faith in science and ways to trick the system bigtime, they all parade through the book. Go read the book. I want to thank @iamreddave for bringing it to my attention years ago.

One minor annoyance: In the Kindle version when you reach the appendix, there is a garbling in the paging. Apart from that you will love the Kindle dictionary. For this book I consulted it a thousand times maybe.