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Announcing encoding-inspector
First there was the encoding_sampler Gem Last November, I created the encoding_sampler Gem (RubyGems, github) to help find the desired encoding for a particular text file. From the Gem description: EncodingSampler helps solve the problem of what to do when the character encoding is unknown, for example when a user is uploading a file but has…
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Fear and loathing with Chef and nginx
I always hate having to explain why I spent 4 hours on one line of code: override[‘nginx’][‘pid’] = ‘/run/nginx.pid’ It’s not really even code, it’s just a configuration setting. I ran into the problem using Chef, the opscode nginx cookbook, and the very-new Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Not sure if this applies to other configurations but debugging this sort…
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Extending logwatch with Chef
If you saw my previous post on Extending Logwatch, it may have occurred to you that even something as simple as manually creating three small files and saving them to the (different) correct locations with the right owners and permissions is rife with error. Here we basically assume that anything you do manually will get…
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Extending logwatch
Using logwatch to report on unattended-upgrade’s “restart required” At TRI Resources International, we automate as much of our of our systems management work as possible. A couple of the tools we use with our linux servers are logwatch to keep us up to date on server health, and the unattended-upgrades package to automatically install security…
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Why you should open-source your (useful) projects
This week I finally got around to cleaning up the EncodingSampler gem, mentioned previously on this site, and publishing it here as encoding_sampler at Rubygems. It’s amazing how simple it is to publish and use open source software these days. Creating an account a Rubygems.org takes just a username, an email address and a password. Easy.…