Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 72

The next FreeBSD book?

BSDCan hasn’t officially started, and I keep getting asked when I will write a third edition of Absolute FreeBSD?

The short answer is: I don’t know.

The slightly longer answer is: it depends in part on you.

The much longer answer is:

FreeBSD has added lots of stuff since Absolute FreeBSD came out in 2007. The big, screaming, basic change is that ZFS is really well-supported, and considered a core feature.

But you can’t install to ZFS. Or to a mirror. Or to any of the other really cool options avai...

DNSSEC Mastery print now on Amazon

Amazon now has the print version of DNSSEC Mastery available.

I set the initial price assuming that they would discount. How much will they discount it, and when? No idea. Amazon is not inscrutable, but scrutling them exceeds my abilities. SSH Mastery print has ranged from ~$14 to ~$17 at various times, based how much coffee Bezos fed the cloud that morning.

Books at BSDCan

I’m sure everyone who reads this blog knows I’ll be at BSDCan tonight through early Sunday morning. I will also have books for sale, however.

Absolute OpenBSD, $50
SSH Mastery, $20
DNSSEC Mastery (4 proof copies only), $20

Cash only.

If you buy a book, I’ll throw in a free Tilted Windmill Press T-shirt while supplies last. Because why not.

I’ll also be giving away some books as review copies. If you want a review copy of Absolute OpenBSD, you’ll need to give me your email address. I’ll be handing i...

First “DNSSEC Mastery” reviews

Two reviews came out over the weekend, one from and the other from Justin Sherrill.

Apparently this book also does not suck. Yay!

I’ll be giving a live dramatic reading from the book — er, that is, teaching a course on DNSSEC — at BSDCan Wednesday morning this week.

“Absolute OpenBSD” Kindle edition: problems and on sale

I’ve heard from a few different readers that there are problems with the Kindle edition of Absolute OpenBSD. It’s by no means every copy in every format, but there are enough problem reports that it needs investigating.

I’ve notified the publisher. They are investigating. When I have an update, I will post it.

Generally, when a Kindle file has a problem, remove it from your device. When the new version appears, you can re-download it from Amazon.

And this is the point where I mention that Absolu...

Basic Ansible Playbooks

Ansible is a tool for managing servers en masse, much like Puppet or CFEngine. Ansible has a shallower learning curve than either of those systems, however, and it’s idempotent. How do I know it has a shallower learning curve? Because I learned enough of it to do actual useful work in only a couple of hours.

And before you reach for a dictionary, “idempotent” means that you can run the same script against your servers and have the end result be the same. You can run an Ansible script (or playb...

iptables and ipsets

I’m dragging my work environment from “artisan system administration” to mass-managed servers. Part of this is rationalizing, updating, and centralizing management of packet filter rules on individual hosts. Like many environments, I have a list of “management IP addresses” with unlimited access to every host. Managing this is trivial on a BSD machine, thanks to pf.conf’s ability to include an outside file — you upload the new file of management addresses and run pfctl to read it. A PF rules...

Penguicon Schedule

Someone pointed out that it would be nice to know when I’ll be doing what at Penguicon. So, here’s my schedule.

Friday, 26 April:

6PM-7PM opening ceremonies

7PM-8PM Guest of Honor Social Hour

9PM-10PM OpenBSD (kind of obligatory)

Saturday, 27 April:

10AM-noon: liquid nitrogen ice cream, my own flavor

5PM-6PM: Technology Publishing in 2013

Sunday 28 April:

3PM-4PM: closing ceremonies

Other than that, I’m basically free. You can find me elsewhere, as I’ll be playing free range author, but you can definit...

At Penguicon this weekend

I’m a guest of honor at Penguicon this weekend. I’ll be doing a one-hour talk on technology publishing in 2013. I’ll also be inventing an ice cream flavor.

Other guests include author Jim C Hines, chef and author Jeff Potter, Arduino and Raspberry pi guru & author Maik Schmidt, hackerspace advocate and censorship activist Nick Farr, plus author and filmmaker Jason Denzel.

Whenever I go to this type of con, I usually take in a few panels, see some cool demos, and spend a good chunk of time hangi...

“Absolute OpenBSD” physically exists

I hold in my hands the first copy of Absolute OpenBSD off the press.

The fine folks at No Starch Press did a beautiful job designing and creating the print book. I know ebooks are the coming thing, but a well-designed physical book is a delight.

This specific copy is for Bill Allaire. I’ll have my own copy. But I’m sure Bill won’t mind if I spend a few minutes fondling his book.

The loop is closed, the project is over. Now to lie back and let the fame and wealth just roll into — Sorry, I can’t...