today's leftovers
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Software Mimicry
Mimicry is when software X reimplements at a higher level a core feature of software Y. The produced facsimile has some, but not all, of the same properties, enough to “look like” it’s the same thing but missing many of the nuances. This exists in every kind of software. One language can mimic another, a library can mimic a language, a database engine can mimic a product, etc.
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Commit signing for portable OpenSSH
We are in the process of converting the portable OpenSSH repository to require signed commits, tags and pushes, using git's recent ssh signature support. So far it's gone very smoothly, and we hope to have it enforced for all commits soon.
We maintain our own git repository for portable OpenSSH, that is automatically mirrored to github. We use "pre-receive" and "update" hooks to check for signed pushes and tags/commits respectively, using an in-repository allowed_signers file.
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“OpenBSD Mastery: Filesystems” Status Report
I just finished the ‘non-native filesystems’ part of “OpenBSD Mastery: Filesystems.” I wouldn’t say I’ve finished the hard part, but I have finished the “intertwined to an unholy degree” part.
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Texinfo as Personal Knowledge Base
As soon as you start capturing information for your personal reference, it is time to start thinking about a Personal Knowledge Base.
A Personal Knowledge Base helps to structure the information, store it, and make sure you can retrieve the information later on.
One of the use-cases for a Personal Knowledge Base are all tasks you have to perform only once in a while, f.e. like installing a new server (if that is not your daily job).
You can document all the necessary steps, in the right order, and additional information you might need, and so on.
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apt_key deprecated in Debian/Ubuntu - how to fix in Ansible
This way of adding apt keys still works for now (in mid-2022), but will stop working in the next major releases of Ubuntu and Debian (and derivatives). So it's better to stop the usage now. In Ansible, you would typically use the ansible.builtin.apt_key module, but even that module has the following deprecation warning: [...]
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Paul Wise: FLOSS Activities August 2022
This month I didn't have any particular focus. I just worked on issues in my info bubble.