TODO list bankruptcy

Today while going over my Filofax TODO lists, I declared “TODO list bankruptcy”. It was filled with a lot of stuff that was not important, or lost its importance as time went by.

I will try to keep this to three tasks per day and am even considering a weekly “bankruptcy” on what is left behind and not dealt with for at least 15 seconds.

Re: on becoming a sysadmin

Μέρες που είναι, ας γράψουμε κι ένα success story.

Εκεί λίγο πριν τελειώσει το 2007 μου έστειλε mail ένας φοιτητής (ας τον πούμε Νίκο) από το ΠΑΠΕΙ που με ήξερε μόνο μέσα από το blog μου. Το mail του συνοψίζεται σε μία ερώτηση:

– Τι χρειάζομαι για να γίνω system administrator;

Μια κάπως πιο μεγάλη απάντηση από αυτή που του έστειλα δημοσίευσα την Πρωτοχρονιά του 2008. Σήμερα ο Νίκος δουλεύει σαν system administrator σε μεγάλο οργανισμό, διαχειρίζεται περισσότερα μηχανήματα, χρήστες και complex environments από εμένα και θα έλεγα πως τουλάχιστον επαγγελματικά πατάει καλά.

Μπράβο φίλε.

day 1

Υπάρχουν πολλές ιστορίες τύπου “you don’t quit” με τον ήρωα να επανέρχεται θριαμβευτικά από τις στάχτες. Μία – δύο τις ξέρω και από πρώτο χέρι.

Τη χρονιά όμως θέλω να την ξεκινήσω με μια ιστορία “you don’t quit” στην οποία ένας απόλυτα πετυχημένος άνθρωπος (by any standard) δεν εγκατέλειψε, ούτε μετά από δεκαετίες, τον αρχικό του στόχο.

• Νέος διδακτορικός.

Καλή χρονιά!

ERROR:gitosis.serve.main:Repository read access denied

[ I write this for I found the solution applied to my case at the 3rd link of the 2nd page of my Google search. I had never gone beyond the first page for years. ]

So there was this gitosis repository that lived on an Ubuntu server that had to move to a CentOS one.

Thankfully EPEL still carries gitosis and I did not built it from the source. I copied over the files and was done with it.

That is until I needed to change access to one of the repositories to add a user. Said user was denied any kind of access with:

ERROR:gitosis.serve.main:Repository read access denied

There are plenty of reasons for this occur (examples), but none seemed to fit in my case, so I brute forced the search results. And at the first comment that was posted on the third link at the second page Google came up with, the solution was found.

# cd ~gitosis/repositories/gitosis-admin.git/hooks/
# ls -l
total 48
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis  452 Sep 11  2011 applypatch-msg.sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis  896 Sep 11  2011 commit-msg.sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis  160 Sep 11  2011 post-commit.sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis  552 Sep 11  2011 post-receive.sample
lrwxrwxrwx 1 gitosis gitosis   61 Dec 21 09:53 post-update -> /usr/share/pyshared/gitosis/templates/admin/hooks/post-update
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis  189 Sep 11  2011 post-update.sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis  398 Sep 11  2011 pre-applypatch.sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis 1578 Sep 11  2011 pre-commit.sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis 4971 Sep 11  2011 pre-rebase.sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis 1239 Sep 11  2011 prepare-commit-msg.sample
-rwxr-xr-x 1 gitosis gitosis 3611 Sep 11  2011 update.sample

Yeah, you’ve guessed it by now:

/usr/share/pyshared/gitosis/templates/admin/hooks/post-update

did not exist on CentOS but

/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gitosis/templates/admin/hooks/post-update

did. Fixing the symbolic link fixed the problem.

/* Oh what fun it is to chase bugs into the night */

Προπαίδεια

[Το έγραψα χτες στο Facebook, αλλά του αξίζει μια πιο μόνιμη θέση]

Ο μικρός είχε κάνει λάθος κάποιες πράξεις στον πίνακα της προπαίδειας. Σβήνω τα λάθη και του λέω να τα ξανακάνει. Μετά από λίγο μου έρχεται με το tablet και το φύλλο εργασιών στο χέρι.

– Μάντεψε έπαιζα ή έγραφα;
– Έγραφες
– Σωστά. Το μόνο που έκανα ήταν αυτό

Και μου δείχνει πίνακα της προπαίδειας που βρήκε στο Δίκτυο…

Funny OpenDNS, VirtualBox and Debian weirdness

I was trying to install a virtual machine using the latest VirtualBox on a Windows 7 Host. The host was also running OpenDNS DNSCrypt 0.0.6 client. The guest operating system should be Debian/LXDE. Installation went fine until the installer tried to contact Debian mirrors to fetch missing packages.

It couldn’t find them. Like the common system administration mantra says:

Everything is a DNS problem.

So at the OpenDNS DNSCrypt client dashboard I (temporarily) disabled the DNS over TCP option and the installation continued smoothly. The same thing does not happen with OS X Mavericks as the host operating system. After the installation is finished, you can reenable DNS over TCP for DNSCrypt. The guest operating system’s resolver sees no issues with this.

I am posting this short note because it may bite others out there.

Jotter – new gadget

Parker Jotter, Navy Blue mechanical pencil
Parker Jotter, Navy Blue mechanical pencil

When I was a kid, I was fascinated with Parker pens. They were the good pens around that were not highly expensive and as such I was sometimes allowed to write with them at home.

The years passed and a lot of ballpoint Parkers (and fountain pens) came along my way. But the need to write with a ballpoint diminishes by the year, so they are all stuffed in a box waiting for the kids to use them.

I still write on paper, but I am more of a pencil person (I count 14 mechanical pencils on my desk). So when I found out that Jotter had a mechanical pencil version I could not resist. I visited eBay and got a Navy Blue one. And since for these pencils the tip is not retractable (which means it can damage your shirt’s pocket), I am using a Faber Castell eraser cap to protect the tip when carrying it around.

University Chain of Command

With all the unrest that dominates the Greek Universities (among them my alma mater) due to imminent layoffs, I thought I should copy here something that was sent to me once via twitter (and was posted on pastebin). Surprisingly, not many links point to this document, so here is one more:

  • Dean: Leaps tall buildings in a single bound. Is more powerful than a locomotive. Is faster than a speeding bullet. Walks on water. Gives policy to God.
  • Department Head: Leaps short buildings in a single bound. Is more powerful than a switch engine. Is just as fast as a speeding bullet. Talks with God.
  • Professor: Leaps short buildings with a running start and favorable winds. Is almost as powerful as a switch engine. Is faster than a speeding BB. Walks on water in an indoor swimming pool. Talks with God if a special request is honored.
  • Associate Professor: Barely clears a quonset hut. Loses tug of war with a locomotive. Can fire a speeding bullet. Swims well. Is occasionally addressed by God.
  • Assistant Professor: Makes high marks on the walls when trying to leap tall buildings. Is run over by locomotives. Can sometimes handle a gun without inflicting self-injury. Treads water. Talks to animals.
  • Instructor: Climbs walls continually. Rides the rails. Plays Russian Roulette. Walks on thin ice. Prays a lot.
  • Graduate Student: Runs into buildings. Recognizes locomotives two out of three times. Is not issued ammunition. Can stay afloat with a life jacket. Talks to walls.
  • Undergraduate Student: Falls over doorstep when trying to enter buildings. Says “Look at the choochoo”. Wets himself with a water pistol. Plays in mud puddles. Mumbles to himself.
  • Department Secretary: Lifts buildings and walks under them. Kicks locomotives off the tracks. Catches speeding bullets in her teeth and eats them. Freezes water with a single glance. She IS God.

In a humorous way this document displays the needs that administrative personnel serves within a University (or any organization for that matter).

This is copied from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Information Studies newsletter (issue 49). PDF here.