Ideas, blog, etc.
Latest posts
Debugging PHP web applications
In 2017, this topic seems a little dated and will probably not get me an opportunity to speak at a conference. While all of the elite programmers, cool kids, and CS grads are talking languages such as Go and Erlang - how to do tracing, performance testing, and the like - it seems very juvenile for me to write about PHP.
PHP is a language mad…
Few posts in the works
I have not posted in a few weeks. This was mainly due to getting a rest from posting every week of 2016! I have a few posts coming in the next few weeks. The first one will be about debugging PHP applications. The second one will be deploying a high availability MySQL cluster - what it looked like 10 years ago, and what it will look like 10 years f…
2016 behind, 2017 forward
With a year drawing to a close, I have a habit of looking back at my goals I set for myself, see how I have done, and set goals for the new year. My new year's resolution for 2017 will be 1920x1080 (same as last year). I wish I could upgrade it to 5k, but it will have to do for now.
In 2016, I set a goal to post to my blog every week - I met…
Easy unix epoch timestamps from CLI
While working on various projects and ultimately the need for a Unix timestamp for expiring swift objects in OpenStack, I needed a quick way to convert past, present, and future timestamps to the Unix epoch. Traditionally, I went to google, searched for a Unix timestamp converter, and retrieved my seconds that way. Unfortunately in exams, you are n…
OpenStack PS1 snippet
I have been studying for my OpenStack certification test (the COA) which is scheduled next week. One thing that was painful to keep track of was the user I was using to interface with OpenStack as the rc file you download from OpenStack does not update your PS1 prompt. I came up with the following solution and placed it in my ~/.bashrc…
OpenStack certification
On Dec 20th, I am scheduled to take my COA exam. From the exam requirements page, it appears to be a somewhat moderately difficult exam. The few points I need work on are heat templates and swift object administration. A few things I know about the exam are what are Read more →
Docker is not a source to blame
I have been reading a few articles that have been published recently regarding the use of docker in production. Of the articles I read, all seem to complain about the instability of docker, the docker ecosystem, and they lament persistent storage. While I have not run docker in production for a lengthy amount of time, I can determine these issues a…
Day after Thanksgiving ritual
My wife and I adopted a tradition on the day after Thanksgiving - after a full night's sleep - we visit stores and go shopping around 10am. Yes, the lines are still crazy, but the people who woke up at 5am to wait in line are already gone. With grandparents watching our children, it is one of our best stress-free shopping experiences. No doubt - we…
Using Puppet to host a private RPM repository
A repository is a place where files are stored, indexed, and available through a package manager to anyone who has the repository information. With rpm based systems, a repository is created with a tool called createrepo. Most of the time, publicly available repositories already offer the packages your server needs. When y…
Website protection
There are several factors that go into securing a web application. Most are second nature to seasoned system administrators, but it is still too common to talk to someone who does not know how to properly secure a web application. Here is the common checklist I go through when I determine if a website is secured.
- Is it using a firewall… Read more →