We re coming closer to the
Debian/stretch stable release and similar to what we had with
#newinwheezy and
#newinjessie it s time for #newinstretch!
Hideki Yamane already started the game by blogging about
GitHub s Icon font, fonts-octicons and Arturo Borrero Gonzalez wrote a nice article about
nftables in Debian/stretch.
One package that isn t new but its tools are used by many of us is
util-linux, providing many essential system utilities. We have util-linux v2.25.2 in Debian/jessie and in Debian/stretch there will be util-linux >=v2.29.2. There are many new options available and we also have a few new tools available.
Tools that have been taken over from other packages
- last: used to be shipped via sysvinit-utils in Debian/jessie
- lastb: used to be shipped via sysvinit-utils in Debian/jessie
- mesg: used to be shipped via sysvinit-utils in Debian/jessie
- mountpoint: used to be shipped via initscripts in Debian/jessie
- sulogin: used to be shipped via sysvinit-utils in Debian/jessie
New tools
- lsipc: show information on IPC facilities, e.g.:
root@ff2713f55b36:/# lsipc
RESOURCE DESCRIPTION LIMIT USED USE%
MSGMNI Number of message queues 32000 0 0.00%
MSGMAX Max size of message (bytes) 8192 - -
MSGMNB Default max size of queue (bytes) 16384 - -
SHMMNI Shared memory segments 4096 0 0.00%
SHMALL Shared memory pages 18446744073692774399 0 0.00%
SHMMAX Max size of shared memory segment (bytes) 18446744073692774399 - -
SHMMIN Min size of shared memory segment (bytes) 1 - -
SEMMNI Number of semaphore identifiers 32000 0 0.00%
SEMMNS Total number of semaphores 1024000000 0 0.00%
SEMMSL Max semaphores per semaphore set. 32000 - -
SEMOPM Max number of operations per semop(2) 500 - -
SEMVMX Semaphore max value 32767 - -
lslogins: display information about known users in the system, e.g.:
root@ff2713f55b36:/# lslogins
UID USER PROC PWD-LOCK PWD-DENY LAST-LOGIN GECOS
0 root 2 0 1 root
1 daemon 0 0 1 daemon
2 bin 0 0 1 bin
3 sys 0 0 1 sys
4 sync 0 0 1 sync
5 games 0 0 1 games
6 man 0 0 1 man
7 lp 0 0 1 lp
8 mail 0 0 1 mail
9 news 0 0 1 news
10 uucp 0 0 1 uucp
13 proxy 0 0 1 proxy
33 www-data 0 0 1 www-data
34 backup 0 0 1 backup
38 list 0 0 1 Mailing List Manager
39 irc 0 0 1 ircd
41 gnats 0 0 1 Gnats Bug-Reporting System (admin)
100 _apt 0 0 1
65534 nobody 0 0 1 nobody
lsns: list system namespaces, e.g.:
root@ff2713f55b36:/# lsns
NS TYPE NPROCS PID USER COMMAND
4026531835 cgroup 2 1 root bash
4026531837 user 2 1 root bash
4026532473 mnt 2 1 root bash
4026532474 uts 2 1 root bash
4026532475 ipc 2 1 root bash
4026532476 pid 2 1 root bash
4026532478 net 2 1 root bash
setpriv: run a program with different privilege settings
zramctl: tool to quickly set up zram device parameters, to reset zram devices, and to query the status of used zram devices
New features/options
addpart (show or change the real-time scheduling attributes of a process):
--reload reload prompts on running agetty instances
blkdiscard (discard the content of sectors on a device):
-p, --step <num> size of the discard iterations within the offset
-z, --zeroout zero-fill rather than discard
chrt (show or change the real-time scheduling attributes of a process):
-d, --deadline set policy to SCHED_DEADLINE
-T, --sched-runtime <ns> runtime parameter for DEADLINE
-P, --sched-period <ns> period parameter for DEADLINE
-D, --sched-deadline <ns> deadline parameter for DEADLINE
fdformat (do a low-level formatting of a floppy disk):
-f, --from <N> start at the track N (default 0)
-t, --to <N> stop at the track N
-r, --repair <N> try to repair tracks failed during the verification (max N retries)
fdisk (display or manipulate a disk partition table):
-B, --protect-boot don't erase bootbits when creating a new label
-o, --output <list> output columns
--bytes print SIZE in bytes rather than in human readable format
-w, --wipe <mode> wipe signatures (auto, always or never)
-W, --wipe-partitions <mode> wipe signatures from new partitions (auto, always or never)
New available columns (for -o):
gpt: Device Start End Sectors Size Type Type-UUID Attrs Name UUID
dos: Device Start End Sectors Cylinders Size Type Id Attrs Boot End-C/H/S Start-C/H/S
bsd: Slice Start End Sectors Cylinders Size Type Bsize Cpg Fsize
sgi: Device Start End Sectors Cylinders Size Type Id Attrs
sun: Device Start End Sectors Cylinders Size Type Id Flags
findmnt (find a (mounted) filesystem):
-J, --json use JSON output format
-M, --mountpoint <dir> the mountpoint directory
-x, --verify verify mount table content (default is fstab)
--verbose print more details
flock (manage file locks from shell scripts):
-F, --no-fork execute command without forking
--verbose increase verbosity
getty (open a terminal and set its mode):
--reload reload prompts on running agetty instances
hwclock (query or set the hardware clock):
--get read hardware clock and print drift corrected result
--update-drift update drift factor in /etc/adjtime (requires --set or --systohc)
ldattach (attach a line discipline to a serial line):
-c, --intro-command <string> intro sent before ldattach
-p, --pause <seconds> pause between intro and ldattach
logger (enter messages into the system log):
-e, --skip-empty do not log empty lines when processing files
--no-act do everything except the write the log
--octet-count use rfc6587 octet counting
-S, --size <size> maximum size for a single message
--rfc3164 use the obsolete BSD syslog protocol
--rfc5424[=<snip>] use the syslog protocol (the default for remote);
<snip> can be notime, or notq, and/or nohost
--sd-id <id> rfc5424 structured data ID
--sd-param <data> rfc5424 structured data name=value
--msgid <msgid> set rfc5424 message id field
--socket-errors[=<on off auto>] print connection errors when using Unix sockets
losetup (set up and control loop devices):
-L, --nooverlap avoid possible conflict between devices
--direct-io[=<on off>] open backing file with O_DIRECT
-J, --json use JSON --list output format
New available --list column:
DIO access backing file with direct-io
lsblk (list information about block devices):
-J, --json use JSON output format
New available columns (for --output):
HOTPLUG removable or hotplug device (usb, pcmcia, ...)
SUBSYSTEMS de-duplicated chain of subsystems
lscpu (display information about the CPU architecture):
-y, --physical print physical instead of logical IDs
New available column:
DRAWER logical drawer number
lslocks (list local system locks):
-J, --json use JSON output format
-i, --noinaccessible ignore locks without read permissions
nsenter (run a program with namespaces of other processes):
-C, --cgroup[=<file>] enter cgroup namespace
--preserve-credentials do not touch uids or gids
-Z, --follow-context set SELinux context according to --target PID
rtcwake (enter a system sleep state until a specified wakeup time):
--date <timestamp> date time of timestamp to wake
--list-modes list available modes
-r, --reorder <dev> fix partitions order (by start offset)
sfdisk (display or manipulate a disk partition table):
New Commands:
-J, --json <dev> dump partition table in JSON format
-F, --list-free [<dev> ...] list unpartitioned free areas of each device
-r, --reorder <dev> fix partitions order (by start offset)
--delete <dev> [<part> ...] delete all or specified partitions
--part-label <dev> <part> [<str>] print or change partition label
--part-type <dev> <part> [<type>] print or change partition type
--part-uuid <dev> <part> [<uuid>] print or change partition uuid
--part-attrs <dev> <part> [<str>] print or change partition attributes
New Options:
-a, --append append partitions to existing partition table
-b, --backup backup partition table sectors (see -O)
--bytes print SIZE in bytes rather than in human readable format
--move-data[=<typescript>] move partition data after relocation (requires -N)
--color[=<when>] colorize output (auto, always or never)
colors are enabled by default
-N, --partno <num> specify partition number
-n, --no-act do everything except write to device
--no-tell-kernel do not tell kernel about changes
-O, --backup-file <path> override default backup file name
-o, --output <list> output columns
-w, --wipe <mode> wipe signatures (auto, always or never)
-W, --wipe-partitions <mode> wipe signatures from new partitions (auto, always or never)
-X, --label <name> specify label type (dos, gpt, ...)
-Y, --label-nested <name> specify nested label type (dos, bsd)
Available columns (for -o):
gpt: Device Start End Sectors Size Type Type-UUID Attrs Name UUID
dos: Device Start End Sectors Cylinders Size Type Id Attrs Boot End-C/H/S Start-C/H/S
bsd: Slice Start End Sectors Cylinders Size Type Bsize Cpg Fsize
sgi: Device Start End Sectors Cylinders Size Type Id Attrs
sun: Device Start End Sectors Cylinders Size Type Id Flags
swapon (enable devices and files for paging and swapping):
-o, --options <list> comma-separated list of swap options
New available columns (for --show):
UUID swap uuid
LABEL swap label
unshare (run a program with some namespaces unshared from the parent):
-C, --cgroup[=<file>] unshare cgroup namespace
--propagation slave shared private unchanged modify mount propagation in mount namespace
-s, --setgroups allow deny control the setgroups syscall in user namespaces
Deprecated / removed options
sfdisk (display or manipulate a disk partition table):
-c, --id change or print partition Id
--change-id change Id
--print-id print Id
-C, --cylinders <number> set the number of cylinders to use
-H, --heads <number> set the number of heads to use
-S, --sectors <number> set the number of sectors to use
-G, --show-pt-geometry deprecated, alias to --show-geometry
-L, --Linux deprecated, only for backward compatibility
-u, --unit S deprecated, only sector unit is supported
I travelled (for three days only!) to Argentina, to be a part of the Open Source Symposium 2017, a co-located event of the International Conference on Software Engineering.
I was surprised that they didn't lie - you will really get huge amount of issues just after making your project public. Most of them were quite simple and repeating (as you can see from number of duplicates), but it really provided valuable input.
Even more surprisingly there was second peak coming in when I've started to disclose resolved issues (once 
I'm really glad I could make 
In this blog post, I ve described what started as simple migration of WordPress blog to AWS, ended up as automation project consisting of 
Last week, we presented 
Within the next three years, more than seven billion people and businesses will be connected to the Internet. During this time of dramatic increases in access to the Internet, networks have seen an interesting proliferation of systems for digital identity management (i.e. our SPID in Italy). But what is really meant by digital identity ? All these systems are implemented in order to have the utmost certainty that the data entered by the subscriber (address, name, birth, telephone, email, etc.) is directly coincident with that of the physical person. In other words, data are certified to be identical to those of the user; there is a perfect overlap between the digital page and the authentic user certificate: an idem , that is, an identity.
So when ssh tries to read from stdin there s nothing there anymore.
Quoting 
Very excited about the next few weeks which will cover a number of R conferences, workshops or classes with talks, mostly around 
Like 
Visiting the FSFE team in Berlin
Having recently joined the FSFE's General Assembly as the 
Steak and SDR night
After a hard day of SIP hacking and a long afternoon at Kamailio World's open bar, a developer needs a decent meal and something previously unseen to hack on. A group of us settled at Escados, Alexanderplatz where my SDR kit emerged from my bag and other Debian users 
Next stop OSCAL'17, Tirana
Having left Berlin, I'm now in Tirana, Albania where I'll give an SDR workshop and Free-RTC talk at 
Two days ago one of the most influential logician of the 20th century has passed away, 
I don t want to recall his achievements in mathematical logic, in particular proof theory, because I am not worth to write about such a genius. I want to recall a few personal stories from my own experience.
I came into contact with Prof. Takeuti via is famous book 
Debian has many years of history, about 25 years already.
With such a long travel over the continous field of developing our Universal
Operating System, some myths, false accusations and bad reputation has arisen.
Today I had the opportunity to discuss this topic, I was invited to give a
Debian talk in the 
myth #1: Debian is old software
Please, use testing or stable-backports. If you use Debian stable your system
will in fact be stable and that means: updates contain no new software but
only fixes.
myth #2: Debian is slow
We compile and build most of our packages with industry-standard compilers and
options. I don t see a significant difference on how fast linux kernel or
mysql run in a CentOS or in Debian.
myth #3: Debian is difficult
I already discussed about this issue back in