Category: Computers

"Fishing line and bobbin stuck on tree at Douthat State Park" by "Virginia State Parks" on Flickr

Note to self: Linux shell scripts don’t cope well with combined CRLF + LF files… Especially in User-Data / Custom Data / Cloud-Init scripts

JonTheNiceGuy 4 Comments

This one is more a nudge to myself. On several occasions when building Infrastructure As Code (IAC), I split out a code sections into one or more files, for readability and reusability purposes. What I tended to do, and this was more apparent with the Linux builds than the Windows builds, was to forget to set the line terminator from CRLF to LF.

While this doesn’t really impact Windows builds too much (they’re kinda designed to support people being idiots with line endings now), Linux still really struggles with CRLF endings, and you’ll only see when you’ve broken this because you’ll completely fail to run any of the user-data script.

How do you determine this is your problem? Well, actually it’s a bit tricky, as neither cat, less, more or nano spot this issue. The only two things I found that identified it were file and vi.

The first part of the combined file with mixed line endings. This part has LF termination.
The second part of the combined file with mixed line endings. This part has CRLF termination.
What happens when we cat these two parts into one file? A file with CRLF, LF line terminators obviously!
What the combined file looks like in Vi. Note the blue ^M at the ends of the lines.

So, how to fix this? Assuming you’re using Visual Studio Code;

A failed line-ending clue in Visual Studio Code

You’ll notice this line showing “CRLF” in the status bar at the bottom of Code. Click on that, which brings up a discrete box near the top, as follows:

Oh no, it’s set to “CRLF”. That’s not what we want!

Selecting LF in that box changes the line feeds into LF for this file, but it’s not saved. Make sure you save this file before you re-run your terraform script!

Notice, we’re now using LF endings, but the file isn’t saved.

Fantastic! It’s all worked!

In Nano, I’ve opened the part with the invalid line endings.

Oh no! We have a “DOS Format” file. Quick, let’s fix it!

To fix this, we need to write the file out. Hit Ctrl+O. This tells us that we’re in DOS Format, and also gives us the keyboard combination to toggle “DOS Format” off – it’s Alt+D (In Unix/Linux world, the Alt key is referred to as the Meta key – hence M not A).

This is how we fix things

So, after hitting Alt+D, the “File Name to write” line changes, see below:

Yey, no pesky “DOS Format” warning here!

Using either editor (or any others, if you know how to solve line ending issues in other editors), you still need to combine your script back together before you can run it, so… do that, and your file will be fine to run! Good luck!

Featured image is “Fishing line and bobbin stuck on tree at Douthat State Park” by “Virginia State Parks” on Flickr and is released under a CC-BY license.

"Root" by "llee_wu" on Flickr

A quick note on using Firefox in Windows in a Corporate or Enterprise environment

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I’ve been using Firefox as my “browser of choice” for around 15 years. I tend to prefer to use it for all sorts of reasons, but the main thing I expect is support for extensions. Not many of them, but … well, there’s a few!

There are two stumbling blocks for using Firefox in a corporate or enterprise setting. These are:

  1. NTLM or Kerberos Authentication for resources like Sharepoint and ADFS.
  2. Enterprise TLS certificates (usually deployed via GPO as part of the domain)

These are both trivially fixed in the about:config screen, but first you need to get past a scary looking warning page!

In the address bar, where it probably currently says jon.sprig.gs, click in there and type about:config.

Getting to about:config

This brings you to a scary page!

Proceed with caution! (of course!!)

Click the “Accept the Risk and Continue” (note, this is with Firefox 76. Wording with later or earlier versions may differ).

As if it wasn’t obvious enough from the previous screen, this “may impact performance and security”…

And then you get a search box.

In the “Search preference name” type in ntlm and find the line that says network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris.

The “NTLM Options page”

Type in there the suffixes of any TRUSTED domains. For example, if your company uses the domain names of bigcompany.com, bigco.local and big.company then you’d type in:

bigcompany.com,bigco.local,big.company

Any pages that you browse to, where they request NTLM authentication, will receive an NTLM set of credentials if prompted (same as IE, Edge, and Chrome already do!) NTLM is effectively a way to pass a trusted Kerberos ticket (a bit like your domain credentials) into a web page.

Next up, let’s get those pesky certificate errors removed!

This assumes that you have a centrally managed TLS Root Certificate, and the admins in your network haven’t just been dumping self signed certificates everywhere (nothing gets around that… just sayin’).

Still in about:config, clear the search box and type enterprise, like this!

Enterprise Roots are here!

Find the line security.enterprise_roots.enabled and make sure it says true. If it doesn’t double click it, so it does.

Now you can close your preferences page, and you should be fine to visit your internal source code repository, time sheeting system or sharepoint site, with almost no interruptions!

If you’ve been tasked for turning this stuff on in your estate of managed desktop environment machines, then you might find this article (on Autoconfiguration of Firefox) of use (but I’ve not tried it!)

Featured image is “Root” by “llee_wu” on Flickr and is released under a CC-BY-ND license.

"Debian" by "medithIT" on Flickr

One to read: Installing #Debian on #QNAP TS-219P

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A couple of years ago, a very lovely co-worked gave me his QNAP TS-219P which he no longer required. I’ve had it sitting around storing data, but not making the most use of it since he gave it to me.

After a bit of tinkering in my home network, I decided that I needed a more up-to-date OS on this device, so I found this page that tells you how to install Debian Buster. This will wipe the device, so make sure you’ve got a full backup of your content!

https://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/qnap/ts-219/install/

Essentially, you backup the existing firmware with these commands:

cat /dev/mtdblock0 > mtd0
cat /dev/mtdblock1 > mtd1
cat /dev/mtdblock2 > mtd2
cat /dev/mtdblock3 > mtd3
cat /dev/mtdblock4 > mtd4
cat /dev/mtdblock5 > mtd5

These files need to be transferred off, in “case of emergency”, then download the installation files:

mkdir /tmp/debian
cd /tmp/debian
busybox wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/buster/main/installer-armel/current/images/kirkwood/network-console/qnap/ts-21x/{initrd,kernel-6281,kernel-6282,flash-debian,model}
sh flash-debian
reboot

The flash-debian command takes around 3-5 minutes, apparently, although I did start the job and walk away, so it might have taken anywhere up to 30 minutes!

Then, SSH to the IP of the device, and use the credentials installer and install as username and password.

Complete the installation steps in the SSH session, then let it reboot.

Be aware that the device is likely to have at least one swap volume it will try to load, so it might be worth opening a shell and running the command “swapoff -a” before removing the swap partitions. It’s also worth removing all the partitions and then rebooting and starting again if you have any problems with the partitioning.

When it comes back, you have a base installation of Debian, which doesn’t have sudo installed, so use su - and put in the root password.

Good luck!

Screencast 005: SSH Keys and Client Configuration (a Mentoring style video)

JonTheNiceGuy 2 Comments

I’m back again with another Mentoring Style video, in which I talk about how to create and use SSH keys (although, in hindsight, not using PuTTY which I probably should have covered!) and how to use SSH Config Files to make your life easier.

Screencast 005: SSH Keys and Client Configuration

Also available on Archive.org and LBRY.

Much of the SSH config I created here was based on files I’ve uploaded to Github already.

"the home automation system designed by loren amelang himself" by "Nicolás Boullosa" on Flickr

One to read: Ansible for Networking – Part 3: Cisco IOS

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One to read: “Ansible for Networking – Part 3: Cisco IOS”

One of the guest hosts and stalwart member of the Admin Admin Telegram group has been documenting how he has built his Ansible Networking lab.

Stuart has done three posts so far, but this is the first one actually dealing with the technology. It’s a mammoth read, so I’d recommend doing it on a computer, and not on a tablet or phone!

Posts one and two were about what the series would cover and how the lab has been constructed.

Featured image is “the home automation system designed by loren amelang himself” by “Nicolás Boullosa” on Flickr and is released under a CC-BY license.

Opening to my video: Screencast 004 - Gitlab and Ansible Tower (AWX)

Screencast 004: Gitlab and Ansible Tower / AWX

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Another new mentoring style video is up, this time talking about how to start using Ansible Tower (or AWX), starting from a repository on Gitlab.

Screencast 004: Gitlab and Ansible Tower (AWX)

Also available on Archive.org and LBRY.

The Terraform, Ansible and Cloud-init scripts used to create the basis of this video are here: https://github.com/JonTheNiceGuy/redesigned-tribble/

Opening to my video: Screencast 003 - Gitlab

Screencast 003: Gitlab

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I’ve done a new mentoring style video, talking about how to use a self-hosted version of Gitlab for basic group projects and individual projects.

Screencast 003: Gitlab

Also available on Archive.org and LBRY.

Late edit 2020-03-25: To build the Gitlab environment I created, take a look at this git repository, which uses Terraform, some cloud init scripts and an ansible playbook. In particular, look at the following files:

If you just want to build the Gitlab environment, then it’s worth removing or renaming (to anything that isn’t .tf – I use .tf_unload) the files load_aws_module.tf, load_awx_module.tf, load_azure_module.tf

Opening to my video: Screencast 002 - A quick walk through Git

Screencast 002: A quick walk through Git (a mentoring style video)

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I have done a follow-up Mentoring style video to support my last one. This video shows how to fix some of the issues in Git I came across in my last mentoring video!

Screencast 002: A quick walk through Git

I took some advice from a colleague who noticed that I skipped past a couple of issues with my Git setup, so I re-did them :) I hope this makes sense, and at 35 minutes, is a bit more understandable than the last 1h15 video!

Also on LBRY and Archive.org

Opening to my video: Screencast 001 - Ansible and Inspec using Vagrant

Screencast 001: Ansible and Inspec with Vagrant and Git (a mentoring style video)

JonTheNiceGuy Leave a comment

If you’ve ever wondered how I use Ansible and Inspec, or wondered why some of my Vagrant files look like they do, well, I want to start recording some “mentor” style videos… You know how, if you were sitting next to someone who’s a mentor to you, and you watch how they build a solution.

The first one was released last night!

I recently saw a video by Chris Hartjes on how he creates his TDD (Test driven development) based PHP projects, and I really wanted to emulate that style, but talking about the things I use.

This was my second attempt at recording a mentoring style video yesterday, the first was shown to the Admin Admin Podcast listeners group on Telegram, and then sacrificed to the demo gods (there were lots of issues in that first video) never to be seen again.

From a tooling perspective, I’m using a remote virtual machine running Ubuntu Mate 18.04 over RDP (to improve performance) with xrdp and Remmina, OBS is running locally to record the content, and I’m using Visual Studio Code, git, Vagrant and Virtualbox, as well as Ansible and Inspec.

Late edit 2020-02-29: Like videos like this, hate YouTube? It’s also on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/JonTheNiceGuyScreencast001

Late edit 2020-03-01: Popey told me about LBRY.tv when I announced this on the Admin Admin Podcast telegram channel, and so I’ve also copied the video to there: https://lbry.tv/@JonTheNiceGuy:b/Screencast001-Ansible-and-Inspec-with-Vagrant:8

Publishing a “Bio” in Secure Scuttlebutt, using ssb-server

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This is one of those “oh, there it is” posts, more for myself than anyone else. Anyway, if you use SSB from a shell (perhaps you run your own SSB Pub, for example), you might want to run this style of command:

ssb-server publish --type about --about "$(ssb-server whoami | jq .id -r)" --name "Some Server" --description "I'm just some server, you know"

As long as you have --name or --description in there, you should be good to go!