2017-02-24

3 Things I Learned - Week #8

All in all this has been a good week – some ups, some downs – but knowledge is a never ending journey.

Here are some of the things I learned about over the last few days.

  1. Randy Bias wrote a very interesting point about how risky it can be to ‘check’ your into a CI/CD pipeline. Continuous Delusion at the Infrastructure Layer is a good read at understanding thta not everything belongs in the pipeline – you should consider how big your blast radius is.
  2. I am currently doing a Ambulance drivers course (that is the subject for a whole different post) but I never knew that there three different kinds of Hepatitis – where Hepatitis C – is the worst – and there is no cure known today.
  3. I did not even know that there were such large numbers Nine quintillion (9,223,372,036,854,775,808). Announcing the first SHA1 collision discovered this week by Google. I know that this is really nerdy – but still a good read.


2017-02-17

3 Things I Learned - Week #7

A week where our Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu went to visit President Trump in the U.S. will always be an interesting one – no matter how you look at it.

Here are some things that enriched my knowledge this week.

  1. One of the things that someone told me regarding AWS and IAM roles attached to a instance – was that you only have a single chance of assigning a role, and once you do it, that’s it – no going back.
    So it seems that this is not the case. Attach an AWS IAM Role to an Existing Amazon EC2 Instance by Using the AWS CLI will show you the light and how to change a role after an instance has been provisioned.

  2. S3 is a great webserver – specifically if all you need to do is serve files. One such a repository that fits the bill perfectly – is a yum repo. There are hundreds of ways to do this, but this is the only one that I could find that would allow you to create a yum repo with multiple versions (with minor differences between them) – without having to duplicate the packages for each and every version.

  3. Never underestimate the powers of Social Networking. And of course – there are just some people who are just willing to sit down and have a conversation about technology. One such person is Kelsey Hightower. Thank you!

2017-02-10

3 Things I Learned - Week #6

Where has the time gone by? This past week – I was up to my neck in architectural discussions and meetings for a big upcoming project on AWS.

Nevertheless - here are three things I learned this week.

  1. Many a time I want to look at a file and what better way to do that than with less <filename>. But then comes that moment where you want to actually edit the because you see a mistake. So instead of exiting the file and then opening it up again in vi – try this.

    Edit a File When You Are Viewing It Using more / less Command Pager
  2. I did some digging into NTP this week. How to secure NTP, the different Stratum levels, and how to read the weird output from ntpq –p. These articles were very helpful.

    How to debug ntp issues?
    Real Life NTP
  3. I use Cisco Spark daily as my main medium for communication at work. I love it.

    Here is a useful list of Keyboard shortcuts – that will save you some throughout your day.

Catch you all next week!!

2017-02-09

I am Running for the OpenStack User Committee

Two days ago I decided to submit my candidacy for one of the two spots up for election (for the first time!) on the OpenStack User committee.

I am pasting my proposal verbatim (original email link here)…

Good evening to you all.

As others have so kindly stepped up - I would also like to self-nominate myself for as candidate for the User committee.

I have been involved in the OpenStack community since the Icehouse release.

From day 1,  I felt that the user community was not completely accepted as a part of the OpenStack community and that there was a clear and broad disconnect between the two parts of OpenStack.

Instead of going all the way back - and stepping through time to explain who I am and what I have done - I have chosen a few significant points along the way - of where I think I made an impact - sometimes small - but also sometimes a lot bigger.

  • The OpenStack Architecture Design Guide [1]. This was my first Opensource project and it was an honor to participate and help the community to produce such a valuable resource.
  • Running for the TC for the first time [2]. I was not elected.
  • Running for the TC for the second time [3]. Again I was not elected.

    (There has never been a member of the User community elected to a TC seat - AFAIK)

In my original candidacy [2] proposal - I mentioned the inclusion of others.

Which is why I so proud of the achievement of the definition of the AUC from the last cycle and the workgroup [3] that Shamail Tahir and I co-chaired
(Needless to say that a **huge** amount of the credit goes also to all the other members of the WG that were involved!!) in making this happen.

Over the years I think I have tried to make difference (perhaps not always in the right way) - maybe the developer community was not ready for such a drastic change - and I still think that they are not.

Now is a time for change.

I think that the User Committee and these upcoming election (which are the first ever) are a critical time for all of us that are part of the OpenStack community - who contribute in numerous ways - **but do not contribute code**.

The User Committee is now becoming what it should have been from the start, an equal participant in the 3 pillars of OpenStack.

I would like to be a part, actually I would be honored to be a part, of ensuring that this comes to fruition and would like to request your vote for the User Committee.

Now down to the nitty gritty. If elected I would like to focus on the following (but not only):

  1. Establishing the User committee as significant part of OpenStack - and continue the amazing collaboration that has been forged over the past two years. The tangible feedback to the OpenStack community provided by the Working Groups have defined clear requirements coming from the trenches and need to be addressed throughout the community as a whole.
  2. Expand the AUC constituency - both by adding additional criteria and by encouraging more participation in the community according to the initial defined criteria.
  3. Establish a clear and fruitful working relationship with Technical committee - enabling the whole of OpenStack to continue to evolve, produce features and functionality that is not only cutting edge but also fundamental and crucial to anyone and everyone using OpenStack today.

Last but not least - I would like to point you to a blog post I wrote almost a year ago [5].

My views have not changed. OpenStack is evolving and needs participation not only from the developer community (which by the way is facing more than enough of its own challenges) but also from us who use, and operate OpenStack.

For me - we are already in a better place - and things will only get better - regardless of who leads the User committee.

Thank you for your consideration - and I would like to wish the best of luck to all the other candidates.

--
Best Regards,
Maish Saidel-Keesing

[1] http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-openstack-architecture-design-guide.html

[2] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-April/062372.html

[3] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-September/075773.html

[4] https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/AUCRecognition

[5] http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2016/03/we-are-all-openstack-are-we-really.html

Elections open up on February 13th and only those who have been recognized as AUC (Active User Contributors) are eligible to vote.

Don’t forget to vote!

2017-02-03

3 Things I Learned - Week #5

January has come and gone – and of course this week is no different than the last – always something new.

  1. Exposing everything to the outside world is never a good idea, but there are times where you have to leave something open in order to manage everything else in the remote location. That is where a bastion host comes in.

    How to Record SSH Sessions Established Through a Bastion Host – is a really interesting way of monitoring what is happening on this node – and how to create an audit trail.
  2. Gitlab had a meltdown this week. Two lessons I learned from this mess.
    1. make sure you have proper backups.
    2. Backups are not worth anything – unless they have been validated
  3. The AWS Spot marketplace is a fascinating concept, something that I am not yet comfortable using – but will be happy to learn more about

Till next week!!