Posted on 11 Comments on A python utf gotcha

A python utf gotcha

This one had me stumped for a while:

# -*- coding: utf-7 -*-
import datetime
from sqlalchemy import ForeignKey, Column
from sqlalchemy.types import Integer, Unicode, Boolean, DateTime

default_due_date = datetime.datetime.now() + datetime.timedelta(days=30)

Syntax error found on last line.

Hmm, bring up a python interpreter and type the last line in with the imports. Works fine.

It’s the first line that is the problem, I typoed it and made it utf-7 not utf-8. I suppose it means that it is case-insenstive. Still, it wasn’t too clear to me at least, what was going on.

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Posted on 3 Comments on mutt ate my i key

mutt ate my i key

I did a large upgrade tonight and noticed there was a mutt upgrade, no biggie really….Except my I have for years (incorrectly?) used the “i” key when reading a specific email to jump back to the list of emails, or from index to pager in mutt speak.

Instead of my pager of mails, I got “No news servers defined!” The fix is rather simple, in muttrc put

bind pager i exit

and you’re back to using the i key the wrong way again like me.

 

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Posted on 6 Comments on Important WordPress update

Important WordPress update

WordPress 3.8.2 was released yesterday which contains some important security fixes. This is an important security release and the Debian packages were uploaded to the ftp-master a few minutes ago.

Besides fixing Debian Bug #744018, the release fixes the following two vulnerabilities (as mentioned in the bug report):

  • CVE-2014-0165 WordPress privilege escalation: prevent contributors from publishing posts
  • CVE-2014-0166 WordPress potential authentication cookie forgery

I recommend if you use the Debian package to upgrade as soon as it is available.

 

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Posted on 7 Comments on Resetting USB devices

Resetting USB devices

I’m not sure if it is just a bad motherboard, cable, USB device or just bad luck, but when I reboot the computer the UPS doesn’t appear. It’s not even seen in lsusb and of course that makes nut-server fail which makes nut-client complain that it cannot work out the UPS status.The solution was to unplug and plug the cable in then reset nut-server and all was good. But playing with cables seems so last century, surely there was a better way?

Some Googling showed up a way to Reset USB without a reboot but the directories the entry mentioned didn’t exist on my computer; though there was something very close to it. Perhaps that would work? A few tweaks later and I had a working UPS monitoring cable!

The changed script is below:

I’m not sure if it is just a bad motherboard, cable, USB device or just bad luck, but when I reboot the computer the UPS doesn’t appear. It’s not even seen in lsusb and of course that makes nut-server fail which makes nut-client complain that it cannot work out the UPS status.The solution was to unplug and plug the cable in then reset nut-server and all was good. But playing with cables seems so last century, surely there was a better way?

Some Googling showed up a way to Reset USB without a reboot but the directories the entry mentioned didn’t exist on my computer; though there was something very close to it. Perhaps that would work? A few tweaks later and I had a working UPS monitoring cable!

The changed script is below:

#!/bin/sh

SYSXHCI=/sys/bus/pci/drivers/xhci_hcd

if [ "$(id -u)" != 0 ] ; then
 echo This must be run as root!
 exit 1
fi

if ! cd $SYSXHCI ; then
 echo Weird error. Failed to change directory to $SYSXHCI
 exit 1
fi

for dev_id in ????:??:??.? ; do
 printf "${dev_id}" > unbind
 printf "${dev_id}" > bind
done

Thanks to Eli for the original idea which got me onto the right path.

 

 

 

Posted on

First Look at RoseNMS screens

More work has gone into the various GUI screens for RoseNMS. While still early days, these screenshots give an idea of the final program.

Host Map

The maps have been updated and now just use CSS for layout, rather than hard calculating the coordinates using javascript. This gives a cleaner and more fluid look to the maps. Hovering over the map item will show more details about the item. There are maps for hosts (shown) as well as attributes.

Attribute View with information, graph and events
Attribute View with information, graph and events

Attribute details show some information about the attribute, the default graph and the events. Clicking on the more button above the graph takes you to the graph page for that attribute.

Graphs

Finally the graph handling is completely re-written with the concept of graph templates. These are basic types of graphs. The one shown is the basic “lines” template that shows… lines! Only things required are the RRD data source, the multiplier, the legend and how you want the units shown. From that the program builds all the required VDEFs and CDEFs.