Posts

I updated the CFEngine 3 by example vagrant project so that /var/cfengine/masterfiles is a git clone (kept in sync with VCS::vcs_mirror) of the generated bare repository from the seed files. I found during a presentation that it would just be easier to have everyone start of with the typical workflow instead of going through the process of getting there. I hope it makes it easier for people to get a working test env up in a few minutes.

I liked this, so I thought I would share. Found on the inter-webs. Something that is complex can be broken down into simple parts, without being simple itself. This allows mostly smooth functioning with solvable problems. Something that is complicated cannot be broken down into simple parts, for it is made of complicated parts. “Complicated” is indicative of something that is problematic, convoluted, difficult and inconsistent. The difference can be made by imagining a piece of string tied to be a circle.

If you follow CFEngine you may have notices that the multiple pay versions have been condensed down to CFEngine Enterprise with the latest release. You may not have noticed that the CFEngine Design Center also launched. Don’t get me wrong, I am excited about the new 25 free enterprise nodes and the new features in the Enterprise edition, but I see greater value in the Design Center. This is a great resource for new and old users.

I just finished reading the final release of Diego Zambonis’ Learning CFEngine 3. I can’t recommend this book enough. If your just learning CFEngine 3, if you are versed but not an expert and you like CFEngine you will like this book. If you meet all those criteria and you don’t like the book, I’ll buy you a beer if we ever meet. It’s well worth the 20 dollars, or 14 if you want the ebook (DRM FREE!

I have been using bibble for about a year now. Its the best photo editing software that ran on linux that I could find. It probably isn’t as polished as Photoshop but it has its own great features like threading so it can use all of your cores for rendering. Just over a week ago I noticed it had been bought by Corel and its been re-branded to AfterShotPro. I really hope they continue to develop it and provide Linux support.

Here is an easy way to configure encfs with dropbox that is compatible with boxcryptor. Boxcryptor makes Windows, Mac Android, and IOS applications to assist you in accessing data that you have stored in encfs. They do require that you create your encfs with some specific options: Cipher algorithm: AES, Plaintext or Stream encrypted filenames, No filename initialization vector chaining, No per-file initialization vectors, No external IV chaining, No block MAC headers, No per-block random bytes.

I re-factored rh_add_interface_routes into a new bundle rh_update_routes, you can find them in my CFEngine library. The biggest improvement is you no longer have to specify the interface you want the route on. Instead you specify a regular expression of the ip that would be on that interface and the specific interface is found. Second major improvement is the direct use of ip route del/add to update currently running system instead of restarting all networking.

Sometimes I am not so disciplined to run cf-promises on my policy before I commit it. I make a small change and I think I’m golden, but inevitably that breaks things. I wrote a simple commit hook to check policy syntax and stop you from shooting yourself in the foot. You can find the pre-commit{#a71b90d9d3bb7e4d1f4be225eb124c42527855a3} script over on my github account. I hope you find it useful.

I’ve been working more and more with CFEngine lately and I have been slowly building a tiny library. These are all pretty much redhat specific but I welcome patches and comments. Most of the bundles have comments that show usage, if there is interest I may post some example usage later.

I am happy to see how many sites are participating in the SOPA/PIPA protest today. I am a bit disapointed that facebook did not join (at least yet), and google only doing a doodle seems a little bit on the weak side. Still its nice when so many people can show support for something so threatening. There is quite a list of sites that are blacked out in one way or another today.