Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 71
July 29, 2013
FreeBSD pkgng vs custom ports
My Web server runs FreeBSD. Some security updates prompted me to upgrade my installed packages. Running this server entirely with packages isn’t possible, so I installed PHP 5 from ports. This machine uses pkgng.
When I ran pkg upgrade, however, my web site stopped working. The server itself started just fine, and it did quite well serving downloadable PHP code to clients. The problem was pretty obvious:
I originally compiled PHP 5 from ports so to get the Apache PHP module. Running pkg upgrade...
July 22, 2013
convert FreeBSD to pkgng with Ansible
Ansible includes a module to manage FreeBSD packages, if you’re using the forthcoming pkgng packaging system. The Ansible module isn’t complete yet, but as Ansible is moving really quickly, I’m pretty confident their FreeBSD support will grow additional knobs. As pkgng is increasingly close to production, and the PC-BSD folks have generously offered their 64-bit pkgng repository available to the public, this seems like a good time to make the move.
But I’m not about to make this change manuall...
July 12, 2013
I sound like a real dork: BSDTalk 228
Want to hear my voice? Interested in Absolute OpenBSD or DNSSEC Mastery?
Go check out BSDTalk 228, starring yours truly.
July 10, 2013
“Absolute OpenBSD” auction photographs
I promised to post photographs of the signed copy of Absolute OpenBSD 2nd Edition that went to Bill Allaire.
Here they are. In full size, so that Bill can later use them to authenticate his copy, in the extraordinarily unlikely event that he desires to do so. (And also so that perhaps the bandwidth utilized might finally exceed that generated by my fame in the gay porn world.)
All the developers signed the first page:
People immediately checked the index for their favorite features. Leave it to...
July 1, 2013
“DNSSEC Mastery” business numbers
When SSH Mastery came out, I published the initial sales figures and a followup a month later. The results of publishing one book is not really data, however. It’s one data point.
A second data point is also not data. But it’s twice as close to data as one data point.
Let’s compare and contrast SSH Mastery with the book I just published a couple months ago, DNSSEC Mastery.
DNSSEC Mastery was pre-released via LeanPub, so that my hard-core fans could get copies of the incomplete draft. This was al...
June 10, 2013
Two more “Absolute OpenBSD 2/e” reviews
Again, this is mostly for my later reference, reviews on DistroWatch and Sunday Morning Linux Review.
In this BSD issue of SMLR, tho hosts were heard to say “Linux – that’s so last year.” So glad they’re catching up.
June 5, 2013
Visiting an OpenBSD hackathon.
I took Bill Allaire’s copy of Absolute OpenBSD to Toronto to get it signed. If you wonder what that’s like, check out my article over on undeadly.org.
Why no tech posts from me for a while now? I’m moving a bunch of virtual machines from ESX to SolusVM. As some of these VMs are several years old, I’m taking the opportunity to make new OS installs and get them into my Ansible setup. It’s a lot of work, but it’s not blog-worthy.
When I do something interesting, you’ll be the first to know. Well,...
May 23, 2013
Two “Absolute OpenBSD” reviews
One from Crypted Nets and one from IT World.
I post book reviews mostly so I can find them again years from now. When the time comes to do a third edition, I need quotes like “I doubt that a better book on OpenBSD could be written” for the cover and marketing materials.
May 21, 2013
FreeBSD-update vs bind99-base
My master nameserver runs BIND 9.9, so I can do DNSSEC easily. I’ve installed from ports, but used the REPLACE_BASE option so that it overwrites the BIND 9.8.3 install included in the base system. That way I don’t have to worry about having multiple versions of the same command on different systems.
I patch this system via freebsd-update. After applying the latest security patches, I got the following email:
The following files will be updated as part of updating to 9.1-RELEASE-p3:
/usr/bin/dig
/...
May 20, 2013
DNSSEC Mastery #1 best-seller…
…in its extremely narrow category. The Kindle edition is #1 and the paperback is #3.
Admittedly, DNS books are not a big category. I’m not up against Stephen King here. But it’s my category, and I’ll take it. I cut my teeth on DNS and BIND Beating it out just seems somehow immoral. But I’ll live with it.
This is only a best-seller because people bought it. Thanks, everyone.
