False Gems

Some thoughts without any particular direction

Recently, I faced an issue where curl (and browsers) couldn't resolve a hostname, but other tools like dig and nslookup worked fine. I want to share how I solved this problem in a simple way.

Read more...

Recently, after a system update, I became not able to run some of the system tools written on Rust, like exa and bat

$ bat --version                                                                ~
bat: error while loading shared libraries: libgit2.so.1.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The fix was easy: rebuild a binary

$ cargo install exa bat --force

Error: Failed to download metadata for repo 'appstream': Cannot prepare internal mirrorlist: No URLs in mirrorlist

So now we have the same issues that we had for Centos 6. And therefore we can fix it like it was described in previous post.

$ sed -i 's,baseurl=http://vault.centos.org,baseurl=http://vault.epel.cloud|g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Linux-*
Read more...

Another post to the “suffering journal”. Experienced a lot of hardware fails:

  • SSD disks become read-only or other IO errors
  • Video card do not start while power on. Had to restart each time.
  • Other system freezes of unknown origin.

It happened for a month, and I tried to replace SATA cables, disable “spoiled” disks, do memory checks, use the rest of the voodoo too. Started scaring myself with a shopping list if the motherboard broke.

It was a power unit. No visible signs like an inflated capacitor or burn marks, though. Took a chance and bought a new PU. All problems are gone.

TLDR: Dockerised Syncthing using NFS mounted folder is a bad idea.

Read more...

I've spent almost two weeks without a laptop and very restricted mobile internet. When I sat at the keyboard again, there was no that excitement level as it used to be, even close. Maybe I'm just so tired after more or less hardcore trailing experience.

That place is a nice tool for writing by the way. It could be a neat tool to draft post ideas and tidy up formatting. But such short posts should not exist as a blog post and it fits tweet format which is not my intention.

I have no issues with a systemd and have no right or arguments or authority to criticize such a huge tool and all involved human efforts. It's a tool and it does its work.

For my cases, it's an over-complicated tool though. I'd prefer to use a simple as is init.d when I need a simple thing working on a simple server.

To go even further I'm considering moving my VPS to a FreeBSD. There is no tricky stuff there and it will fit my needs nicely and let me keep a simple environment at the same time.

Another platform and another attempt to begin to write something. I will try to migrate here some older posts (not all though) in time. Or, maybe it will became not so technical place and will contain some thoughts, but I'm afraid which I have not much. Will it be a topics with a vote idea or just a public journal? Will I convert posts from to the gemini mirror?

Did not write a line of code for a week. And it didn't happen since school, I think. Nothing. No urgent need to go back to the keyboard, so far.

Centos 6 isn't able to get its full updates since May 10th, 2017 and there are no even Maintainance updates since November 30th, 2020. For most of us that version of Centos, released July 20th, 2011 is objectively outdated but still, a huge amount of servers are using it and there are no plans or opportunities to migrate it further.

Read more...

TLDR :w !sudo tee %

Read more...