My SSL cert is broken

2017-02-10 15:21 +00:00 | 3 comments

Thanks to everyone who warned me that my SSL certificate is broken. I’ll find a new issuer soon.

This happened because Google and Mozilla have distrusted my SSL issuer, StartSSL, for very good reasons. I was unaware of this action – StartSSL apparently took no effort to warn its customers – until the warning appeared in recent releases of their browsers.

Shame on you, Wosign and StartSSL.

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Seeking a new TV

2016-04-15 14:13 +00:00 | 4 comments

I’m seeking a new TV. This is a hard problem because my use case is atypical (I can’t imagine why), and because the features that interest me are not in the comparison matrix of most sites.

My user stories:

  • I want to watch Plex, Netflix, Youtube, and iPlayer.
  • I want a 10-foot interface (sit on sofa, use remote control) for most watching.
  • I want to Chromecast/Google Cast at any time. I want the TV to switch automatically from whatever it is doing once casting starts.
  • I don’t care about broadcast / freeview. I will never use this.
  • I want good sound, and am willing to buy a sound bar.
  • I want to play Wii, and will soon upgrade to a Wii U.

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Fix: logrotate causes cron emails with “gzip: stdin: file size changed while zipping”

2015-12-28 11:17 +00:00 | 1 comment

If you are like me, you are notified of both email and syslog errors from your Linux hosts. If you aren’t, you don’t know what’s wrong with your computers. But if you are, you sometimes have to deal with noise, like this totally useless message:

From: Anacron 
To: root@host.example.com
Subject: Anacron job 'cron.daily' on host

/etc/cron.daily/logrotate:
gzip: stdin: file size changed while zipping

This is caused by a logrotate definition using “compress” without “delaycompress”. The error message is especially unhelpful because it doesn’t contain the filename causing the problem, due to the way logrotate invokes gzip as a pipeline.

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Merry Christmas!

2015-12-24 15:24 +00:00 | No comments

It’s that time again! $happy $holidays, everyone! We have a special card just for you:

http://www.tolaris.com/xmas/xmas2015.php

After years of fun with the “madlib”-style card, we tried something very different this year!

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I am Creepy Chris; I am the molestache

2015-08-18 09:40 +00:00 | 6 comments

In late 2005, my wife and I were living in Sulimaniya, Iraq. As I was preparing for bed one night, I decided to play a prank on her. Shaving the beard from my goatee to leave only a filthy little mustache, I slid next to her in bed.

molestache1

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Advanced Ping with Cacti

2015-07-11 22:21 +00:00 | 13 comments

I use an advanced ping template with Cacti to monitor ICMP latency. Advanced Ping is based on a template originally found on the Cacti forums, but modified to look more like Smoke Ping. My thanks go to my colleague at Talia, Enno, for making it look beautiful as well as functional.

Advanced_Ping

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Merry Christmas!

2014-12-23 08:32 +00:00 | 1 comment

It’s that time again! Merry Christmas, everyone! We have a special card just for you:

http://www.tolaris.com/xmas/xmas2014.php

(In case you miss it the first time, try reloading or clicking the button.)

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Synchronising DHCP and DNS on Mikrotik routers

2014-09-27 19:28 +00:00 | 17 comments

One limitation of Mikrotik‘s DNS and DHCP implementations is that you cannot easily sync hostnames from DHCP requests into DNS. This is a standard feature of many routers. On OpenWRT routers (which use dnsmasq), if a PC called “pc1” requests an IP address, any other PC can then “ping pc1”. Fortunately, we can script this behaviour on Mikrotik.

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apt-find-proxy, a tool to use APT proxies only if found

2014-09-11 16:40 +00:00 | 1 comment

APT, the package manager for Debian/Ubuntu has had the ability to use a proxy for many years. However, proxy support is tricky. Suppose you have a proxy at your work, but not at your home? When you take your laptop home, APT won’t be able to update.

Enter apt-find-proxy, my tool to do just that.

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Removing support for saucy from the repo

2014-09-01 19:54 +00:00 | No comments

I have removed support from Ubuntu 13.10 “Saucy Salamander” / Linux Mint 16 “Petra” from my repository. As these releases are no longer supported, you should upgrade immediately.

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