Miah Johnson

Transgender, Author, Video Game Player, Programmer, UNIX, Fixer of Broken things(self not included); mechanic?; http://pronoun.is/she

Right to Repair: If you can't fix it, you don't own it.
chia-pet.org: https://www.chia-pet.org/
github.com/miah-oss: https://github.com/miah-oss
My eBay Store: https://www.ebay.com/str/prizegoodsshop

Public Key

npub1n5xzgnae5h8afy84tr4h3d42jvagj2fff53tw4adgtlj9kue2ltsjd5kez

NIP-05 Address

miah_at_hachyderm.io@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsf6rpyf7u6tn75jr6436mck64fxw5f9y556g4h27k59lezmwv404cprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wdmksetjv5hxxmmddl82dx

Publishing to

relay.noswhere.com

Author Public Key

npub1n5xzgnae5h8afy84tr4h3d42jvagj2fff53tw4adgtlj9kue2ltsjd5kez

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Last Notes

2024-09-06 11:50:58

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what you're saying is.. Linux desktops need CDE? I'm into it.

2024-08-26 16:57:14

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So once again. I'm asking people who build websites, webapps, and all similar things to try loading their work on a throttled connection. If it doesn't work on a connection that gets at most 10m/down and 1m/up its going to suck for _many_ people.

2024-08-26 16:54:47

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Meanwhile, I can stream video via Youtube or Plex just fine. Animated gifs load up nearly instant. mp4's though.. I could wait for my garlic to grow before they'll be ready.

2024-08-26 16:52:54

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I think my big complaint about mp4's is that you truly need a _fast_ CDN and a _fast_ internet connection for them to be useful.
Maybe animated gifs are bigger than some mp4's, but strangely I have no issue loading images, static or animated out here in the woods. mp4's though, especially those shared on mastodon, I could walk 2 miles to the store and back and they still wouldn't be fully buffered.
Video links here for me are a >70% chance its going to take 20 minutes to fully buffer.

2024-08-26 16:33:23

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"But mp4s can use hardware decoding"
Ok but. Have you tried to load these bullshit mp4's off a wireless connection in the woods? Guess which one of these two will actually work in that situation.. the gif.
"But mp4s can have sound too"
Great. I don't want that.

2024-08-26 16:29:29

Remember when animated gifs were animated gifs and not mp4s? What a time that was.

2024-08-23 17:14:54

I'm doing a 'dd if=/dev/urandom' to a disk I'm decommissioning, and my wife asked when I'd be done. I told her its mostly hands off and doesn't require my vigilance, but it would be done anytime between now, and the death of the universe.

2024-08-22 20:22:34

Picked up one of these "Internet Radios" from the thrift today, wish I'd done a little more searching as it turns out it requires a specific centralized server somewhere to tell it about the radio stations and that was shut down in 2017. So this is now essentially ewaste!
Has anybody tried to man in the middle it? It links to my wifi just fine but then complains about dns server.. Going to do some tcpdump shortly and see what its trying to do.
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/113/007/531/527/691/428/original/48bfca1f878defef.jpg

2024-08-21 21:06:38

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Urchin was a nice piece of web site monitoring kit before Google acquired them in ~2005 and absorbed their tech into their evil ad empire.
You could run Urchin on Linux, Mac, and Windows back in those days, without Google seeing any of the stats.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-buys-urchin-web-analytics/1490/
https://www.rustybrick.com/seo_articles_8.php

2024-08-19 17:32:22

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Sounds nice! Potato soup is delicious!

2024-08-19 17:30:44

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Mine was the cost of CA marriage license and all you can eat Korean BBQ for 6 people.
We even got a random person from the crowd to be our witness during the ceremony at city hall. Marriage can be incredibly cheap if that's your goal.

2024-08-19 17:17:22

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I have this genius idea. How about. Don't have a $100,000 wedding. Then you don't have to charge your guests to prevent you from going into debt.

2024-08-16 15:12:10

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"SMTP now avoids the SPAM problem by using the BLOCKCHAIN"

2024-08-16 15:03:32

While protocols like SMTP, POP3, and IMAP may all be cursed. Can you imagine any modern protocol to come out of tech to replace them today? It would be the worst bullshit ever.

2024-08-15 16:46:46

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The part where 'multiple config file formats' fails is where the tool you're using the config file with has no validator.
If I can't run the program with like '-n -f <file.conf>' where it then tells me if the file is valid or invalid and if invalid then why. Then that needs to be fixed and would solve more problems than 'using YAML'. I think the only benefit you get from YAML in that aspect is you don't have to write the parser/validator. But then we're stuck with YAML.

2024-08-15 16:44:02

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Ya, I've been on that 'different config file formats' tirade for a while now too, but the problem is being solved now... by YAML & Jinja2. I'd rather have the different config file formats instead!

2024-08-15 16:42:02

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Its _infuriating_ that even if the command arguments don't use dashes, they don't build in a help for '-help,--help,-h,--h,-?, etc'. Its not like there is a limitation on the number of command arguments you can accept. If there were we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.
It gets even worse when you use python tools and instead of a man page it points you to some readthedocs url.

2024-08-15 15:14:33

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command arguments are totally weird, especially when they aren't hyphenated. But if they were a different command, there would be a pipe, or some sort of terminator (&&, ;, --, etc).

2024-08-15 15:10:47

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This is the goal of IPSec, and other transparent network VPN's =)

2024-08-14 18:51:57

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Ah I missed that 'threadlocker'. I'm surprised that some locktite wouldn't work. I mostly encounter it when working on automotive stuff and typically its the red variety which.. you need a blowtorch to heat the bolt and 'loosen' the locktite.

2024-08-14 18:49:48

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Or a dab of some locktite blue =)

2024-08-13 16:44:32

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`sudo su` is always the least correct way to get a shell though. Effectively, you are doing:
"switch user, switch user". You only need to do this once, and sudo can do it for you via `sudo -Hi`.
But what if the user doesn't have a shell set? Or users /sbin/nologin as their shell?
Then you can `sudo -u user /bin/bash` and well, you lose all auditing ability but now you can do things as that nologin user. This works similarly with doas, and su of course.

2024-08-13 16:41:49

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Both sudo and doas give you good logs for auditing who did what and when.
su logs too but as most people just jump to a shell its less useful.
Allowing shell execution via sudo, or doas will also mean you lose fine grained audits, which is where their configuration power comes in handy. As now you're specifying exactly what people can do, and that is what gets logged.

2024-08-13 16:39:32

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If you're on OpenBSD (and probably other BSD's) you likely have doas(1) instead of sudo. Its _almost_ the same thing. The configuration file ditches EBNF for a more forward approach. It doesn't have LDAP support that I am aware. Its very _simple_ and works.
You can find docs in doas.conf(5) and here is an example:
`permit nopass tedu as root cmd /usr/sbin/procmap`

2024-08-13 16:36:03

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Of course the sudoers file also allows you to bind to LDAP too, so you can actually store the entire ruleset in a single location to be used by all of your systems without any 'configuration management'.
LDAP gives you some other features that typically come with configuration management too, like auditability of who made changes and when, as well as the ability to store diffs as changes and go through an approval process.
Everybody hates LDAP for reasons.. But its fine. Its good actually!

2024-08-13 16:33:10

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I've had to trim a bit from these to fit in the mastodon post length, so refer to sudoers(5) for more details.
The point being, that you can create a curated list of commands, arguments, and users that can be used through sudo. Its not just a tool to 'give me a root shell', its a tool to give users limited access to commands.
This can be extremely powerful if you need to let users who don't really know UNIX into a system to execute some commands with more privilege.

2024-08-13 16:30:11

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Another /etc/sudoers example from the man page:
The operator user may run commands limited to simple maintenance. Here, those are commands related to backups, killing processes, the printing system, shutting down the system, and any commands in the directory /usr/oper/bin/.
`
Cmnd_Alias SHUTDOWN = /usr/sbin/shutdown
Cmnd_Alias HALT = /usr/sbin/halt
Cmnd_Alias REBOOT = /usr/sbin/reboot
operator ALL = DUMPS, KILL, SHUTDOWN, HALT, REBOOT, PRINTING,\
sudoedit /etc/printcap, /usr/oper/bin/`

2024-08-13 16:28:43

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A /etc/sudoers example from the man page:
The user tcm may run commands that access a modem device file with the dialer group:
`tcm boulder = (:dialer) /usr/bin/tip, /usr/bin/cu,\
/usr/local/bin/minicom`

2024-08-13 16:25:21

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sudo is 'Switch User and Do'. You can still do all of the same things that you can with su, but you can also build a ACL that specifies what users, commands, and arguments a user is allowed to invoke.
The /etc/sudoers file is described using Extended Backus-Naur Form (EBNF) rules. Most people just add their user with a glob. Something like this:
`miah ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL`
But you can go MUCH MUCH more complex. I'm going to use some examples from the man page.

2024-08-13 16:21:40

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So why do we need sudo if we have su?
Well, su is very basic. You can 'Switch Users' (su). That's basically all there is to it. You can switch users, and invoke a shell. You can switch users and execute a command. You can pass some arguments to maybe inherit the environment or set $HOME appropriately. But thats basically it for su(1).

2024-08-13 16:19:09

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I posted this poll because I was curious how many people know what `sudo` actually does.
It seems many think it is distinctly different than `su`.
`sudo` and `su` are effectively the same tool. They are both setuid binaries that allow you to change your effective uid from whatever it is now, to something else.
Using either tool, you can switch to another user, and that other user may also be root.

2024-08-13 15:29:56

When you are elevating your privileges on a UNIX do you:

2024-06-21 11:59:53

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time to bring in a percolator and let it bubble on your desk. Tell your office mates they are welcome to use it. Create chaos.

2024-06-20 13:33:30

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We ran our own IRC & ZNC servers at Bank Simple for years. We of course switched to Slack after we got bought because... probably because management wanted to read the private messages of an employee.

2024-06-20 13:24:20

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counter: libera.chat.
Just because efnet turned into a shitshow, and freenode sold out doesn't mean you can't run your own server. You _DON'T_ have to chat on a "big" network. You can run your own for friends and family.
"The stuff irc opers get up to" sure. Everything can be abused. Just throw your PC into the ocean already.

2024-06-20 13:19:25

Remember kids:
IRC is free.
IRC is a open standard.
You can run your own IRC server.
IRC doesn't collect data on you and sell it.
You can still moderate your channels via invite, voice, and ban modes.
You can run a server on a 486.
IRC doesn't try to up sell you on "nitro".
IRC doesn't need to make money to make some VC happy.

2024-05-28 18:13:25

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Agreed, it certainly wasn't nicer. I don't miss all the "RTFM" comments that used to be _everywhere_ and _expected_ if asking a question on IRC.

2024-05-28 17:04:50

Embedds are over. Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever links are all basically broken by default now. People using an ad blocker (YOU SHOULD TOO) for the most part see broken bullshit:
Screenshot that shit. Link directly to the item. Fuck their "embedding guidelines" they broke the Internet, they don't get to make the rules.
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/519/784/261/124/156/original/0936c5812df21c4f.png
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/519/790/021/759/849/original/24dedbb5fc80461c.png

2024-03-21 00:20:02

Remember folks.
When VC is funding Corporation that releases a Open Source project its only a matter of time until they take it back.
Their goal is to get their product embedded into your organization and abuse you for free work in the hopes they can eventually sell their corporation and cash out.
Its always good for them, and rarely good for you.