*nix the multiverse

Moving from Github to self-hosted git

2024-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

I have taken the step to move all my repositories from Github to my own self-hosted git service at git.kudos.be.

The move is a logical consequence of the ever further commercialization and exploitation of the Github platform by Microsoft. With the introduction of the Copilot AI integration it is obvious that Microsoft is using the enormous code base as training data for its AI tool. And just as with almost all other current AI technology companies, there is no compensation nor attribution for the use of the original work.

I know my own code base is pretty insignificant and it will still remain available publicly through my own git service. Moving away from Github is therefore a rather symbolic action but for the sake of my own ethical peace, it is still an important one. My contributions will no longer reside on Microsoft servers where they can be directly fed into the data munching machine of its AI engine.

For those who are interested in self-hosting git repositories: I recommend using Gitea which I have been using a few years already for my private repositories:

It is FOSS
It has grown into full-featured code hosting and CD/CI platform.
It has a fast release cycle and vibrant community
It ranks well with the known competitors such gitlab, bitbucket etc.

You may find following articles interesting when comparing different code hosting solutions:

SSH Controls updates

2020-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

New

added support for standard home directory location for public keys ($HOME/.ssh). Set key_location=use_sshd in update_ssh.conf[.local] with AuthorizedKeysFile set to the default value in sshd_config (or use the value .ssh/authorized_keys).

:pushpin: SSH Controls will not create parent nor intermediate directories in the public key file path if they are missing.

added support for SELinux (CentOS/RHEL 8.x)
various fixes

Health Checker updates

2020-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

New

Added check_linux_dovecot_status plugin
Added check_linux_fetchmail_status plugin
Added check_linux_uptime plugin
Added check_aix_uptime plugin
Added check_hpux_uptime plugin

Updated

Added configuration check to check_hpux_postfix plugin
Added configuration check to check_linux_postfix plugin

Fixed

Fixes in:
- check_linux_ntp_status plugin
- check_hpux_ntp_status plugin
Archiving: made more efficient (aka faster)
Show statistics: showing archived events in proper reverse chronological order

HP-UX LVM scripts (update)

2020-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

Over the last couple of years I have made some small and not so small improvements to the LVM scripts for HP-UX. Most notably additional options/toggles were added that make the scripts more interesting:

vgs.pl

To limit the output to PE (physical extent) info:

# vgs.pl --pe

VG                PVs   LVs   Status               Version  PE Size  PE Total   PE Alloc   PE Free    Max PE/PV
vg00              1     9     available            1.0      64       3035       1549       1486       3035
vg_evtdump        0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0          0          0          0
vg_evtdump1       0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0          0          0          0
vg_evtdump2       0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0          0          0          0
vg_evtdump3       0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0          0          0          0
vg_evtdump4       0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0          0          0          0
vg_eztdump        1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       895        895        0          8000
vg_eztdump1       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       175        175        0          8000
vg_eztdump2       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       255        255        0          8000
vg_eztdump3       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       95         95         0          8000
vg_eztdump4       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       95         95         0          8000
...

To limit the output to PV (physical volume) info:

# vgs.pl --pv

VG                PVs   LVs   Status               Version  Max PV   Act PV   PVGs     Max PE/PV
vg00              1     9     available            1.0      16       1        0        3035
vg_evtdump        0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0        0        0
vg_evtdump1       0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0        0        0
vg_evtdump2       0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0        0        0
vg_evtdump3       0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0        0        0
vg_evtdump4       0     0     deactivated          n/a      0        0        0        0
vg_eztdump        1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      2048     1        0        8000
vg_eztdump1       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      2048     1        0        8000
vg_eztdump2       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      2048     1        0        8000
vg_eztdump3       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      2048     1        0        8000
vg_eztdump4       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      2048     1        0        8000
...

To limit the output to active VGs only:

vgs.pl --active

VG                PVs   LVs   Status               Version  PE Size  VG Size    VG Free    VG Max     VG Major/Minor
vg00              1     9     available            1.0      64       190        93         3035        64/0x1e0000
vg_eztdump        1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       56         0          500        128/0x173000
vg_eztdump1       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       11         0          500        128/0x177000
vg_eztdump2       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       16         0          500        128/0x176000
vg_eztdump3       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       6          0          500        128/0x178000
vg_eztdump4       1     1     available,exclusive  2.2      64       6          0          500        128/0x185000
...

lvs.pl

To show FS filesystems related info:

# lvs.pl --fs

LV                               VG                Status            Size    Extents    Filesystem           FS size    FS free
/dev/vg00/lvol1                  vg00              available,syncd   2       32         /stand               2          2
/dev/vg00/lvol2                  vg00              available,syncd   8       128        -                    0          0
/dev/vg00/lvol3                  vg00              available,syncd   9       135        /                    9          6
/dev/vg00/lvol4                  vg00              available,syncd   4       60         /home                4          1
/dev/vg00/lvol5                  vg00              available,syncd   20      320        /opt                 20         8
/dev/vg00/lvol6                  vg00              available,syncd   5       80         /tmp                 5          3
/dev/vg00/lvol7                  vg00              available,syncd   12      192        /usr                 12         8
/dev/vg00/lvol8                  vg00              available,syncd   31      490        /var                 31         11
/dev/vg00/lvol9                  vg00              available,syncd   7       112        /var/adm/crash       7          7
/dev/vg_eztdump/lvdat1           vg_eztdump        available,syncd   56      895        /EZT/d               56         13
/dev/vg_eztdump1/lvdat1          vg_eztdump1       available,syncd   11      175        /EZT/d1              11         6
/dev/vg_eztdump2/lvdat1          vg_eztdump2       available,syncd   16      255        /EZT/d2              15         15
/dev/vg_eztdump3/lvdat1          vg_eztdump3       available,syncd   6       95         /EZT/d3              6          6
/dev/vg_eztdump4/lvdat1          vg_eztdump4       available,syncd   6       95         /EZT/d4              6          6
/dev/vg_eqtdump/lvdat1           vg_eqtdump        available,syncd   101     1615       /EQT/d               99         43

Health Checker updates

2020-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

New

Added check_linux_fail2ban_status plugin

Fixed

Various fixes in:
- check_linux_httpd_status plugin
- check_linux_mysqld_status plugin
- display_init plugin

Oracle: unable to mount filesystems

2020-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

The mount command fails for filesystems with option convosync=direct:

# mount /u01/ORACLE/DBX01
UX:vxfs mount: ERROR: V-3-21262: option not supported on this version of vxfs.

Online JFS is not enabled. This is due to an error in /etc/inittab:

vxen::bootwait:/sbin/fs/vxfs/vxenablef -a

Replace this line with the correct one:

vxen::bootwait:/sbin/fs/vxfs5.0/vxenablef -a

Execute it manually for now (as root) for the mount to succeed:

# /sbin/fs/vxfs5.0/vxenablef -a

Tracing automounter

2020-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

Levels

Two levels of automounter tracing are available:

Detailed (level 3): Includes traces of all automounter requests and replies, mount attempts, timeouts, and unmount attempts. You can start level 3 tracing while the automounter is running.
Basic (level 1): Includes traces of all automounter requests and replies. You must restart the automounter to start level 1 tracing.

To start and stop automounter detailed tracing

Log in as root to the NFS client.
Issue the following commands:

# ps -ef | grep 'automount'
# kill -SIGUSR2 <PID>

Level 3 tracing is appended to the file /var/adm/automount.log. To stop level 3 tracing, issue the same commands listed above to send the SIGUSR2 signal to the automounter. The SIGUSR2 signal is a toggle that turns tracing on or off depending on its current state. If you have basic (level 1) tracing turned on when you send the SIGUSR2 signal to the automounter, the SIGUSR2 signal turns tracing off.

To start and stop automounter basic tracing

Log in as root to the NFS client.
Add 2> tracefile to the AUTO_OPTIONS variable in the /etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf file, as in the following example:

AUTO_OPTIONS="-f $AUTO_MASTER 2> /var/adm/automount.log"

This change redirects standard error to the file /var/adm/automount.log. Automounter basic trace output is sent to standard error.

Issue the following command to get a list of all the automounted directories on the client:

# /usr/bin/grep tmp_mnt /etc/mnttab

For every automounted directory listed by the grep command, issue the following command to determine whether the directory is currently in use:

# /usr/sbin/fuser -cu local_mount_point

This command lists the process IDs and user names of everyone using the mounted directory.

Warn any users to cd out of the directory, and kill any processes that are using the directory, or wait until the processes terminate. You can issue the following command to kill all the processes using the mounted directory:

# /usr/sbin/fuser -ck local_mount_point

Issue the following commands to kill the automounter (PID is the process ID returned by the ps command):

# ps -ef | grep automount
# kill -SIGTERM PID

:warning: Do not kill the automounter with -SIGKILL (-9).

Issue the following command to start the automounter with tracing enabled:

# /usr/sbin/automount <options> -T

options is the list of options configured in the AUTO_OPTIONS variable in the /etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf file. You can also source the /etc/rc.config.d/nfsconf file, and then enter the automount command as follows:

# /usr/sbin/automount $AUTO_OPTIONS -T

To stop automounter logging, kill the automounter and restart it, start it without the -T option.

Too many PTYs in use

2020-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Problem

SSH session to remote systems is hanging:

Jun  3 10:11:52 serv1 sshd[21086]: error: openpty: Not a typewriter
Jun  3 10:11:52 serv1 sshd[21086]: error: session_pty_req: session 0 alloc failed

Solution

There are too many sessions using PTYs:

# ps -ef | awk '{ print $6 }' | grep "pts" | wc -l
60

Where is the maximum supported PTYs is:

# kctune -v nstrpty

Tunable             nstrpty
Description         Maximum number of Streams-based pseudo-terminals
Module              ptm
Current Value       60 [Default]
Value at Next Boot  60 [Default]
Value at Last Boot  60
Default Value       60
Can Change          At Next Boot Only

# ls /dev/pts | egrep -i '^[0-9]' | wc -w
60

Background

There are actually three different types of ptys in HP-UX. You can see them all among the output of lsdev:

Character Block Driver Class
16 -1 ptym ptym
17 -1 ptys ptys
139 -1 telm strtelm
140 -1 tels strtels
156 -1 ptm strptym
157 -1 pts strptys

The telnet connection uses “telnet stream” ptys. The slave side of those appear as /dev/pts/t*. The dtterm and hpterm terminals use “stream” ptys. The slave side of those appear as /dev/pts/[0-9]*. The xterm terminal uses plain old ptys. The slave side of those appear as /dev/ttyp*. Each type of pty has different kernel parameter limits and different device files. Check the kernel parameters and try recreating the device files with insf. ( example: insf -en 120)

Workaround

Create an SSH session without PTY:

$ ssh -T root@serv1 /bin/ksh -i

Health Checker updates

2020-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

New

An Ansible role for deploying & configuring the toolset is also available at following Github repository:

sendmail - Deferred local mailer exited with EX TEMPF

2020-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

Problem

mailq showing:

p68KakUM019887 15952 Sat Jul 9 11:40 MAILER-DAEMON
(Deferred: local mailer (/usr/bin/rmail) exited with EX_TEMPF)

Solution

I had to add the FQDN to sendmail.cw as it only featured the short hostname before. Looks like this caused the lock file to be created. Then execute:

# /sbin/init.d/xntpd stop
# rm /var/mail/username.lock
# rm /var/spool/mqueue/*
# /sbin/init.d/xntpd start

*nix the multiverse

Moving from Github to self-hosted git

SSH Controls updates

See also

Health Checker updates

See also

HP-UX LVM scripts (update)

vgs.pl

lvs.pl

Health Checker updates

See also

Oracle: unable to mount filesystems

Tracing automounter

Levels

To start and stop automounter detailed tracing

To start and stop automounter basic tracing

Too many PTYs in use

Problem

Solution

Background

Workaround

Health Checker updates

See also

sendmail - Deferred local mailer exited with EX TEMPF

Problem

Solution