Ste Packaging

I realized, after yesterday’s failed attempt to move the log processing to a Xen Virtual Machine with an image file as its “disk”, that I needed to rebuild the base system that the virtual servers will run on. I’m working on that and will have the Cacti monitoring back up and running soon.

As for package updates, there will be more  this evening. I was up until 4:00 AM working on the above and didn’t get up until Noon. Since then I’ve been working on updating my resume, since I really do need to find a job ASAP. It occurred to me that managing this blog and repository is a job and needed to be added to my resume. Not only will it show I’m not sitting around idly, but that I am also learning new skills, and thus making myself more marketable (one hopes), in the process. Plus there was a bit of consulting I did for someone, earlier this month, that needed to be added as well.

-ste

As reported by Erica Sadun over at TUAW, Apple has released the 1.1.4 firmware. No sooner had I posted [a comment on her blog entry] that I thought folks should wait to see what Zibri came up with for a 1.1.4 jailbreak, as I thought his was technically the most correct of the various 1.1.3 jailbreaks, Erica reported that Nate True had run Zibri’s existing 1.1.3 jailbreak on his 1.1.4 iPhone and it worked. Jailbreaking works, but he has not tested activation or unlocking yet, both of which he suspects are broken until Zibri updates “ziphone” for 1.1.4. This is all great news. I recommend that everyone just hold off a little bit, until Zibri has said he’s updated it for 1.1.4 and then go for it. If you check his blog, you’ll see he’s working on doing that, right now. :)

Nate reported that after jailbreaking it, Installer.app thought OpenSSH was still installed, even though it no longer was, and that he couldn’t uninstall it (main script execution failure). I have released an update to OpenSSH that anyone with this issue can update to. If you update to it before you jailbreak your 1.1.4 iPhone, then you should be able to uninstall it ok, via Installer.app, even though it’s gone, as it will now ignore the error it gets when it tries to stop the now-missing daemon. You can then simply reinstall it. If you already jailbroke it and can’t uninstall it, just upgrade to the new version and you’re all set to go. Nate says the root password is still “alpine”.

UPDATE: In comment #132 on Erica’s blog entry, mentioned above, Zibri says:

“I already found everything..
I just need to recompile, check new offsets, do a test and release.
Expect a new version in a day.”

-ste

I have implemented server monitoring with Cacti. It’s pretty cool. When you go to the link below and login, you can see various graphs of information about the two servers that make up the repository. Clicking an item in the tree on the left will show you the corresponding graphs for that item, for both servers. You can then, if you wish, drill down a level by selecting one of the graphs, to see longer term views of the data. At the main page, you can also select other options from the bar at the top of the page.  There’s not a lot of data showing right now, because I just reset everything after my testing. Give it a day or two and there’ll be a lot more data and trends will show themselves. As time goes on, I’ll add other graphs as I think of other things that might be useful to know. It can even be easily viewed from your iPhone or iPod Touch, for when you just have to know if the site is up or down. Enjoy! I’ll add a permanent link to this, somewhere on the blog, shortly.

URL: http://65.78.67.213:8080/cacti/

Username: guest
Password: account

For the technically minded, this Cacti installation is running on a 64-bit CentOS 5.1 Virtual Machine, itself running on a 64-bit CentOS 5.1 host system, in my den. My next project will be to add another virtual machine to the box and migrate the processing of the lighttpd logs to it. That will let me shut down the 32-bit system that is currently processing them and move its 2GB RAM to the 64-bit system, giving it a total of 4GB of RAM.

-ste

P.S.: I’ll try to get a few more package updates out tomorrow morning and early afternoon, but then I’ll be gone the rest of the day. Monday morning I’ll be back at them, full swing.

Some of you may have noticed that I’m not in IRC. I decided I needed a break from it. Frankly, too many people were hounding me for package updates. Between people hounding me there and via email, it was getting very stressful. After a recent incident of this, I decided that I needed to take a step back. People seem to expect me to work on package updates 24×7, without pay. Yes, I am behind and that’s unusual. Regular readers of this blog know why, so I’ll not repeat it here. I’m working to get caught up - hell, I put out 44 updates last week. That wasn’t good enough for many people though - they want all the updates done NOW, preferably yesterday. Well, it ain’t gonna happen.

So, to give myself a mental break from the masses, I have stepped away from IRC for now. I’ll probably also press ‘delete’ on any email from users (NOT developers), that asks where the update to some package is. The fact is, it’ll be out when I get to it. I will generally work on them every day, but I make no promises. I *would* like to get caught up, so I’ll not be lazy about it, but if I feel like taking a day off here and there, I will. If you don’t like that: tough. My goal is to try to do them faster than they come in, otherwise I’ll never get caught up, but I won’t be pressured or bullied by users who, for the most part, download a half a million packages a day without donating a single penny to me. You won’t be getting quick updates when I lose my house and Internet connection … To those of you who have donated, and you know who you are, thank you for your kindness and generosity.

See you when I’m caught up. Developers, you know how to reach me via email. If you need a more immediate conversation, just ask, and I’ll give you my AIM/Yahoo screen names.

-ste

UPDATE: For the curious, in order for me to live solely off of this site, it needs to gross a minimum of $219 a day. So far, this month, it’s grossing an average of $33.28 a day (ad revenue = 37%, donations = 63%). -ste

>From: Josh Barrow <carbiiee@gmail.com>
>To: “ste@psmxy.org” <ste@psmxy.org>
>Subject: Your packages
>Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 23:51:18 -0600
>
>How about you quit boohooing and update your damn packages.

My reply:

“How about you fuck off and die, asshole.”

-ste

UPDATE 2008-02-17 2:05 PM: Mr. Barrow emailed me again, a few minutes ago:

>Hello again,
>
>I would like to apologize for the email that I sent you yesterday.  I was in a really bad mood because my wife and I had had an argument, and I was reading your site and I fired off a shitty email without thinking about it.  I really do appreciate what you do for the community.
>
>Again, I’m sorry.
>
>Josh

-ste