• [1] https://tinyurl.com/yhoxy6lf
• [2] https://tinyurl.com/ydtssdtx
• [3] https://tinyurl.com/ygwwyrww
• [4] https://tech.feedyourhead.at/content/copy-partition-table-one-disk-another
• [5] https://tinyurl.com/yzf2kw4y
• [6] https://newrepublic.com/article/156829/happened-jordan-peterson
• [7] https://tinyurl.com/yfydxb9r
• [8] https://tinyurl.com/ydl9lajf
• [9] https://tinyurl.com/ygfhdjj9
• [10] https://www.wired.com/2012/07/people-staring-at-computers/

Changes in version 0.1.11 (2021-06-26)

• The CI setup was updated to use run.sh from r-ci (Dirk).
• A new function quit can be used to close a connection (Dirk).
• The windows build was updated to libhiredis 1.0.0, and UCRT support was added (Jeroen in #42).

This post by Dirk Eddelbuettel originated on his Thinking inside the box blog. Please report excessive re-aggregation in third-party for-profit settings.

• While looking at Kurento Media Server, we stumbled over forked portions of code that are not uploadable to Debian as is (kmsjsoncpp, kms-gstreamer). These components would contain old and unmaintained, but also KMS-patched copies of code. Uploading those would violate Debian policy (which in short forbids code duplications in the archive). We are in touch with Kurento upstream and they have removing these forked projects on their development roadmap, although it is unclear when this might be ready for productive use.
• At the same time, we read BBB developer posts that suggested Janus WebRTC as a possible alternative to Kurento Media Server. As our main directive is getting BigBlueButton into Debian, we might drop the Kurento packaging initiative and spend resources on other components (as Janus WebRTC, thanks to Jonas Smedegaard, already is in Debian).
• The coming week (what a great coincidence), BigBlueButton World 2021 [2] will be held online and the schedule promises a lot of interesting talks and speakers. If interested, join up for free registration. Amongst others, Paulo Lanzarin will be speaking about "BigBlueButton s Media Stack: Overview and the Road Ahead" (12:30 EST(!), June 23rd). For the complete schedule, see [3].

• Thanks to Paul Wise, who joined the packaging effort last week.
• Thanks to Ingo Wichmann from Linuxhotel who is my point of contact on this to the sponsor (German Unix Users Group e.V.) of this endeavour.

Popular Python Tools 2021Python tools make life much easier for any developer and provide ample opportunities for creating effective applications or sites. These solutions help to automate different processes and minimize routine tasks.In fact, their functionality varies considerably. Some are made for full-fledged complex multi-level development, while others have a simplified interface that allows you to develop individual modules and blocks. Before choosing a tool, you need to define objectives and understand goals. In this case, it will become clear what exactly to use.

MailtrapAs you may probably know, in order to send an email, you need SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). This is because you can't just send a letter to the recipient. It needs to be sent to the server from which the recipient will download this letter using IMAP and POP3.Mailtrap provides an opportunity to send emails in python. Moreover, Mailtrap provides #rest #api to access current emails. It can be used to automate email testing, which will improve your email marketing campaigns. For example, you can check the password recovery form in the Selenium Test and immediately see if an email was sent to the correct address. Then take a new password from the email and try to enter the site with it. Cool, isn't it?

Pros

• All emails are in one place.
• Mailtrap provides multiple inboxes.
• Shared access is present.
• It is easy to set up.
• RESTful API

ConsNo visible disadvantages were found.

Django

Django is a free and open-source full-stack framework. It is one of the most important and popular among Python developers. It helps you move from a prototype to a ready-made working solution in a short time since its main task is to automate processes and speed up work through associations and libraries. It s a great choice for a product launch.You can use Django if at least a few of the following points interest you:

• There is a need to develop the server-side of the API.
• You need to develop a web application.
• In the course of work, many changes are made, you have to constantly deploy the application and make edits.
• There are many complex tasks that are difficult to solve on your own, and you will need the help of the community.
• ORM support is needed to avoid accessing the database directly.
• There is a need to integrate new technologies such as machine learning.

Django is a great Python Web Framework that does its job. It is not for nothing that it is one of the most popular, and is actively used by millions of developers.

ProsDjango has quite a few advantages. It contains a large number of ready-made solutions, which greatly simplifies development. Admin panel, database migration, various forms, user authentication tools are extremely helpful. The structure is very clear and simple.A large community helps to solve almost any problem. Thanks to ORM, there is a high level of security and it is comfortable to work with databases.

ConsDespite its powerful capabilities, Django's Python Web Framework has drawbacks. It is very massive, monolithic, therefore it develops slowly. Despite the many generic modules, the development speed of Django itself is reduced.

CherryPy

CherryPy is a micro-framework. It is designed to solve specific problems, capable of running the program on any operating system. CherryPy is used in the following cases:

• To create an application with small code size.
• There is a need to manage several servers at the same time.
• You need to monitor the performance of applications.

CherryPy refers to Python Frameworks, which are designed for specific tasks. It's clear, user-friendly, and ideal for Android development.

ProsCherryPy Python tool has a friendly and understandable development environment. This is a functional and complete framework, which can be used to build good applications. The source code is open, so the platform is completely free for developers, and the community, although not too large, is very responsive, and always helps to solve problems.

ConsThere are not so many cons to this Python tool. It is not capable of performing complex tasks and functions, it is intended more for specific solutions, for example, for the development of certain plugins or modules.

Pyramid

Python Pyramid tool is designed for programming complex objects and solving multifunctional problems. It is used by professional programmers and is traditionally used for identification and routing. It is aimed at a wide audience and is capable of developing API prototypes.It is used in the following cases:

• You need problem indicator tools to make timely adjustments and edits.
• You use several programming languages at once;
• You work with reporting and financial calculations, forecasting;
• You need to quickly create a simple application.

At the same time, the Python Web Framework Pyramid allows you to create complex applications with great functionality like a translation software.

ProsPyramid does an excellent job of developing basic applications quickly. It is quite flexible and easy to learn. In fact, the key to the success of this framework is that it is completely based on fundamental principles, using simple and basic programming techniques. It is minimalistic, but at the same time offers users a lot of freedom of action. It is able to work with both small applications and powerful multifunctional programs.

ConsIt is difficult to deviate from the basic principles. This Python tool makes the decision for you. Simple programs are very easy to implement. But to do something complex and large-scale, you have to completely immerse yourself in the study of the environment and obey it.

Grok

Grok is a Python tool that works with templates. Its main task is to eliminate repetitions in the code. If the element is repeated, then the template that was already created earlier is simply applied. This greatly simplifies and speeds up the work.Grok suits developers in the following cases:

• If a programmer has little experience and is not yet ready to develop his modules.
• There is a need to quickly develop a simple application.
• The functionality of the application is simple, straightforward, and the interface does not play a key role.

ProsThe Grok framework is a child of Zope3, which was released earlier. It has a simplified structure of work, easy installation of modules, more capabilities, and better flexibility. It is designed to develop small applications. Yes, it is not intended for complex work, but due to its functionality, it allows you to quickly implement a project.

ConsThe Grok community is not very large, as this Python tool has not gained widespread popularity. Nevertheless, it is used by Python adepts for comfortable development. It is impossible to implement complex tasks on it since the possibilities are quite limited.Grok is one of the best Python Web Frameworks. It is understandable and has enough features for comfortable development.

Web2Py

Web2Py is a Python tool that has its own IDEwhich, which includes a code editor, debugger, and deployment. It works great without the need for configuration or installation, provides a high level of data security, and is suitable for work on various platforms.Web2Py is great in the following cases:

• When there is a need to develop something on different operating systems.
• If there is no way to install and configure the framework.
• When a high level of data security is required, for example, when developing financial applications or sales performance management tools.
• If you need to carefully track bugs right during development, and not during the testing phase.

ProsWeb2Py is capable of working with different protocols, has a built-in error tracker, and has a backward compatibility feature that helps to work on the basis of previous versions of the framework. This means that code maintenance becomes much easier and cheaper. It's free, open-source, and very flexible.

ConsAmong the many Python tools, there are not many that require the latest version of the language. Web2Py is one of those and won't work on Python 3 and below. Therefore, you need to constantly monitor the updates.Web2Py does an excellent job of its tasks. It is quite simple and accessible to everyone.

BlueBream

BlueBream used to be called Zope3 before. It copes well with tasks of the medium and high level of complexity and is suitable for working on serious projects.

ProsThe BlueBream build system is quite powerful and suitable for complex tasks. You can create functional applications on it, and the principle of reuse of components makes the code easier. At the same time, the speed of development increases. The software can be scaled, and a transactional object database provides an easy path to store it. This means that queries are processed quickly and database management is simple.

ConsThis is not a very flexible framework, it is better to know clearly in advance what is required of it. In addition, it cannot withstand heavy loads. When working with 1000 users at the same time, it can crash and give errors. Therefore, it should be used to solve narrow problems.Python frameworks are often designed for specific tasks. BlueBream is one of these and is suitable for applications where database management plays a key role.

ConclusionPython tools come in different forms and have vastly different capabilities. There are quite a few of them, but in 2021 these will be the most popular and in demand. Experienced programmers always choose several development tools for their comfortable work.

• Opened a pull request to make the build reproducible in the apispec API specification generator. The issue at hand is that the copyright message in the generated documentation used the current build date so that the build would vary depending on whenever you built it. [...]
• Updated my Tickle Me Email tool that implements Gettings Things Done-like behaviours in any IMAP inbox in order to sort various items by the date, not by their subject field. [...]

• As part of my role of being the assistant Secretary of the Open Source Initiative and a board director of Software in the Public Interest, I attended their respective usual monthly meetings. As I outlined last month, my term on the OSI board has been slightly extended due to the discovery of a vulnerability in OSI's recent election as a result, the 2021 election will be re-run to ensure transparency of the process. SPI had their virtual 'face to face' meeting this month as well, spread out over three evenings.

• Kept isdebianreproducibleyet.com up to date. [...]
• Categorised a large number of packages and issues in the Reproducible Builds notes.git" repository.
• Filed an upstream pull request to make the build reproducible in the apispec specification generator. This was also filed in Debian as bug #988978. [...]
• Filed a bug against the Debian jenkins.debian.org virtual packages to report that the reproducible rescheduling CGI script uses the deprecated Debian SSO service. (#989088)
• Drafted, published and publicised our monthly report for April 2021.
• I also made the following changes to strip-nondeterminism, our tool to remove specific non-deterministic results from a completed build:
  • Added support for Python pyzip files: they require special handling to not mangle the UNIX shebang. (#18)
  • Dropped single-debian-patch, etc. from the Debian source package options. [...]

• Bug fixes:
  • Check that we are parsing an actual Debian .buildinfo file, not just a file with that particular extension after all, it could be any file. (#254, #987994)
  • Support signed .buildinfo files again. It appears that some versions of file(1) reports them as PGP signed message. [...]
  • Use the actual filesystem path name (instead of diffoscope's concept of the source archive name) in order to correct filename filtering when an APK file has been extracted from a container format. In particular, we need to filter the auto-incremented 1.apk instead of original-name.pk. (#255)
• New features:
  • Update ffmpeg tests to work with version 4.4. (#258)
  • Correct grammar in a fsimage.py debug message. [...]
• Misc:
  • Don't unnecessarily call os.path.basename twice in the APK comparator. [...]
  • Added instructions on how to install diffoscope on openSUSE on the diffoscope website [...].
  • Add a comment about stripping filenames. [...]
  • Corrected a reference to site.salsa_url which was breaking the "File a new issue" link on the website [...].

• python-django:
  • 2.2.21-1 New upstream security release.
  • 2.2.22-1 Another new upstream security release.
  • 2.2.23-1 New upstream release.
  • 3.2.1-1 (to experimental) New upstream security release.
  • 3.2.2-1 (to experimental) Another new upstream security release.
  • 3.2.3-1 (to experimental) New upstream release.
• redis:
  • 6.0.13-1 New upstream security release. (#988045)
  • 6.2.3-1 (to experimental) New upstream security release. (#988045)

• Investigated and triaged: apserver (CVE-2021-32062), bundler, djvulibre (CVE-2021-3500), graphviz (CVE-2020-18032), hivex (CVE-2021-3504), libgetdata (CVE-2021-20204), libjs-handlebars (CVE-2021-23383), liblivemedia (CVE-2021-28899), libsixel (CVE-2020-36120), lucene-solor (CVE-2021-27905), opendmarc (CVE-2020-12272), pillow (CVE-2021-25287, CVE-2021-25288, etc.), qemu (CVE-2021-3527), redmine (CVE-2019-25026) and sabnzbdplus (CVE-2021-29488).
• Frontdesk duties, responding to user/developer questions, reviewing others' packages, participating in mailing list discussions, etc.
• Prepared versions of both velocity (1.7-5+deb10u1) and ruby-websocket-extensions (0.1.2-1+deb10u1) to upload to Debian stable to ensure clean upgrades of security-related. I filed two 'unblock requests' for these packages as well (#988455) & #988454).
• Issued DLA 2651-1 and ELA-421-1 for Django, the popular Python-based web development framework. The MultiPartParser, UploadedFile and FieldFile classes allowed directory-traversal via uploaded files with suitably crafted file names. In order to mitigate this risk, stricter path 'basename' and path sanitation is now applied. Specifically, empty file names and paths with dot segments are rejected.
• Issued DLA 2657-1 and ELA-427-1 as it was discovered that there was a potential memory corruption vulnerability in the lz4 compression algorithm library.

• Jerikan, a tool to build configuration files from a single source of truth and Jinja2 templates, along with its integration into the GitLab CI system;
• an Ansible playbook to deploy these configuration files on network devices; and
• the configuration data and the templates for our, now defunct, datacenters in San Francisco and South Korea, covering many vendors (Facebook Wedge 100, Dell S4048 and S6010, Juniper QFX 5110, Juniper QFX 10002, Cisco ASR 9001, Cisco Catalyst 2960, Opengear console servers, and Linux), and many functionalities (provisioning, BGP-to-the-host routing, edge routing, out-of-band network, DNS configuration, integration with NetBox and IRRs).

Jerikan The first component is Jerikan. As input, it takes a list of devices, configuration data, templates, and validation scripts. It generates a set of configuration files for each device. Ansible could cover this task, but it has the following limitations:

• it is slow;
• errors are difficult to debug;¹ and
• the hierarchy to look up a variable is rigid.

Jerikan inputs and outputs

If you want to follow the examples, you only need to have Docker and Docker Compose installed. Clone the repository and you are ready!

Source of truth We use YAML files, versioned with Git, as the single source of truth instead of using a database, like NetBox, or a mix of a database and text files. This provides many advantages:

• anyone can use their preferred text editor;
• the team prepares changes in branches;
• the team reviews changes using merge requests;
• the merge requests expose the changes to the generated configuration files;
• rollback to a previous state is easy; and
• it is fast.

The first file is devices.yaml. It contains the device list. The second file is classifier.yaml. It defines a scope for each device. A scope is a set of keys and values. It is used in templates and to look up data associated with a device.

$ ./run-jerikan scope to1-p1.sk1.blade-group.net
continent: apac
environment: prod
groups:
- tor
- tor-bgp
- tor-bgp-compute
host: to1-p1.sk1
location: sk1
member: '1'
model: dell-s4048
os: cumulus
pod: '1'
shorthost: to1-p1

The device name is matched against a list of regular expressions and the scope is extended by the result of each match. For to1-p1.sk1.blade-group.net, the following subset of classifier.yaml defines its scope:

matchers:
  - '^(([^.]*)\..*)\.blade-group\.net':
      environment: prod
      host: '\1'
      shorthost: '\2'
  - '\.(sk1)\.':
      location: '\1'
      continent: apac
  - '^to([12])-[as]?p(\d+)\.':
      member: '\1'
      pod: '\2'
  - '^to[12]-p\d+\.':
      groups:
        - tor
        - tor-bgp
        - tor-bgp-compute
  - '^to[12]-(p ap)\d+\.sk1\.':
      os: cumulus
      model: dell-s4048

The third file is searchpaths.py. It describes which directories to search for a variable. A Python function provides a list of paths to look up in data/ for a given scope. Here is a simplified version:²

def searchpaths(scope):
    paths = [
        "host/ scope[location] / scope[shorthost] ",
        "location/ scope[location] ",
        "os/ scope[os] - scope[model] ",
        "os/ scope[os] ",
        'common'
    ]
    for idx in range(len(paths)):
        try:
            paths[idx] = paths[idx].format(scope=scope)
        except KeyError:
            paths[idx] = None
    return [path for path in paths if path]

With this definition, the data for to1-p1.sk1.blade-group.net is looked up in the following paths:

$ ./run-jerikan scope to1-p1.sk1.blade-group.net
[ ]
Search paths:
  host/sk1/to1-p1
  location/sk1
  os/cumulus-dell-s4048
  os/cumulus
  common

Variables are scoped using a namespace that should be specified when doing a lookup. We use the following ones:

• system for accounts, DNS, syslog servers,
• topology for ports, interfaces, IP addresses, subnets,
• bgp for BGP configuration
• build for templates and validation scripts
• apps for application variables

When looking up for a variable in a given namespace, Jerikan looks for a YAML file named after the namespace in each directory in the search paths. For example, if we look up a variable for to1-p1.sk1.blade-group.net in the bgp namespace, the following YAML files are processed: host/sk1/to1-p1/bgp.yaml, location/sk1/bgp.yaml, os/cumulus-dell-s4048/bgp.yaml, os/cumulus/bgp.yaml, and common/bgp.yaml. The search stops at the first match. The schema.yaml file allows us to override this behavior by asking to merge dictionaries and arrays across all matching files. Here is an excerpt of this file for the topology namespace:

system:
  users:
    merge: hash
  sampling:
    merge: hash
  ansible-vars:
    merge: hash
  netbox:
    merge: hash

The last feature of the source of truth is the ability to use Jinja2 templates for keys and values by prefixing them with ~ :

# In data/os/junos/system.yaml
netbox:
  manufacturer: Juniper
  model: "~  model upper  "
# In data/groups/tor-bgp-compute/system.yaml
netbox:
  role: net_tor_gpu_switch

Looking up for netbox in the system namespace for to1-p2.ussfo03.blade-group.net yields the following result:

$ ./run-jerikan scope to1-p2.ussfo03.blade-group.net
continent: us
environment: prod
groups:
- tor
- tor-bgp
- tor-bgp-compute
host: to1-p2.ussfo03
location: ussfo03
member: '1'
model: qfx5110-48s
os: junos
pod: '2'
shorthost: to1-p2
[ ]
Search paths:
[ ]
  groups/tor-bgp-compute
[ ]
  os/junos
  common
$ ./run-jerikan lookup to1-p2.ussfo03.blade-group.net system netbox
manufacturer: Juniper
model: QFX5110-48S
role: net_tor_gpu_switch

This also works for structured data:

# In groups/adm-gateway/topology.yaml
interface-rescue:
  address: "~  lookup('topology', 'addresses').rescue  "
  up:
    - "~ip route add default via   lookup('topology', 'addresses').rescue ipaddr('first_usable')   table rescue"
    - "~ip rule add from   lookup('topology', 'addresses').rescue ipaddr('address')   table rescue priority 10"
# In groups/adm-gateway-sk1/topology.yaml
interfaces:
  ens1f0: "~  lookup('topology', 'interface-rescue')  "

This yields the following result:

$ ./run-jerikan lookup gateway1.sk1.blade-group.net topology interfaces
[ ]
ens1f0:
  address: 121.78.242.10/29
  up:
  - ip route add default via 121.78.242.9 table rescue
  - ip rule add from 121.78.242.10 table rescue priority 10

When putting data in the source of truth, we use the following rules:

1. Don t repeat yourself.
2. Put the data in the most specific place without breaking the first rule.
3. Use templates with parsimony, mostly to help with the previous rules.
4. Restrict the data model to what is needed for your use case.

The first rule is important. For example, when specifying IP addresses for a point-to-point link, only specify one side and deduce the other value in the templates. The last rule means you do not need to mimic a BGP YANG model to specify BGP peers and policies:

peers:
  transit:
    cogent:
      asn: 174
      remote:
        - 38.140.30.233
        - 2001:550:2:B::1F9:1
      specific-import:
        - name: ATT-US
          as-path: ".*7018$"
          lp-delta: 50
  ix-sfmix:
    rs-sfmix:
      monitored: true
      asn: 63055
      remote:
        - 206.197.187.253
        - 206.197.187.254
        - 2001:504:30::ba06:3055:1
        - 2001:504:30::ba06:3055:2
    blizzard:
      asn: 57976
      remote:
        - 206.197.187.42
        - 2001:504:30::ba05:7976:1
      irr: AS-BLIZZARD

Templates The list of templates to compile for each device is stored in the source of truth, under the build namespace:

$ ./run-jerikan lookup edge1.ussfo03.blade-group.net build templates
data.yaml: data.j2
config.txt: junos/main.j2
config-base.txt: junos/base.j2
config-irr.txt: junos/irr.j2
$ ./run-jerikan lookup to1-p1.ussfo03.blade-group.net build templates
data.yaml: data.j2
config.txt: cumulus/main.j2
frr.conf: cumulus/frr.j2
interfaces.conf: cumulus/interfaces.j2
ports.conf: cumulus/ports.j2
dhcpd.conf: cumulus/dhcp.j2
default-isc-dhcp: cumulus/default-isc-dhcp.j2
authorized_keys: cumulus/authorized-keys.j2
motd: linux/motd.j2
acl.rules: cumulus/acl.j2
rsyslog.conf: cumulus/rsyslog.conf.j2

Templates are using Jinja2. This is the same engine used in Ansible. Jerikan ships some custom filters but also reuse some of the useful filters from Ansible, notably ipaddr. Here is an excerpt of templates/junos/base.j2 to configure DNS and NTP servers on Juniper devices:

system  
  ntp  
 % for ntp in lookup("system", "ntp") % 
    server   ntp  ;
 % endfor % 
   
  name-server  
 % for dns in lookup("system", "dns") % 
      dns  ;
 % endfor % 
   
 

The equivalent template for Cisco IOS-XR is:

 % for dns in lookup('system', 'dns') % 
domain vrf VRF-MANAGEMENT name-server   dns  
 % endfor % 
!
 % for syslog in lookup('system', 'syslog') % 
logging   syslog   vrf VRF-MANAGEMENT
 % endfor % 
!

There are three helper functions provided:

• devices() returns the list of devices matching a set of conditions on the scope. For example, devices("location==ussfo03", "groups==tor-bgp") returns the list of devices in San Francisco in the tor-bgp group. You can also omit the operator if you want the specified value to be equal to the one in the local scope. For example, devices("location") returns devices in the current location.
• lookup() does a key lookup. It takes the namespace, the key, and optionally, a device name. If not provided, the current device is assumed.
• scope() returns the scope of the provided device.

Here is how you would define iBGP sessions between edge devices in the same location:

 % for neighbor in devices("location", "groups==edge") if neighbor != device % 
   % for address in lookup("topology", "addresses", neighbor).loopback tolist % 
protocols bgp group IPV  address ipv  -EDGES-IBGP  
  neighbor   address    
    description "IPv  address ipv  : iBGP to   neighbor  ";
   
 
   % endfor % 
 % endfor % 

We also have a global key-value store to save information to be reused in another template or device. This is quite useful to automatically build DNS records. First, capture the IP address inserted into a template with store() as a filter:

interface Loopback0
 description 'Loopback:'
  % for address in lookup('topology', 'addresses').loopback tolist % 
 ipv  address ipv   address   address store('addresses', 'Loopback0') ipaddr('cidr')  
  % endfor % 
!

Then, reuse it later to build DNS records by iterating over store():⁴

 % for device, ip, interface in store('addresses') % 
   % set interface = interface replace('/', '-') replace('.', '-') replace(':', '-') % 
   % set name = ' . '.format(interface lower, device) % 
  name  . IN   'A' if ip ipv4 else 'AAAA'     ip ipaddr('address')  
 % endfor % 

Templates are compiled locally with ./run-jerikan build. The --limit argument restricts the devices to generate configuration files for. Build is not done in parallel because a template may depend on the data collected by another template. Currently, it takes 1 minute to compile around 3000 files spanning over 800 devices.

Output of Jerikan after building configuration files for six devices

When an error occurs, a detailed traceback is displayed, including the template name, the line number and the value of all visible variables. This is a major time-saver compared to Ansible!

templates/opengear/config.j2:15: in top-level template code
    config.interfaces.  interface  .netmask   adddress   ipaddr("netmask")  
        continent  = 'us'
        device     = 'con1-ag2.ussfo03.blade-group.net'
        environment = 'prod'
        host       = 'con1-ag2.ussfo03'
        infos      =  'address': '172.30.24.19/21' 
        interface  = 'wan'
        location   = 'ussfo03'
        loop       = <LoopContext 1/2>
        member     = '2'
        model      = 'cm7132-2-dac'
        os         = 'opengear'
        shorthost  = 'con1-ag2'
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
value = JerkianUndefined, query = 'netmask', version = False, alias = 'ipaddr'
[ ]
        # Check if value is a list and parse each element
        if isinstance(value, (list, tuple, types.GeneratorType)):
            _ret = [ipaddr(element, str(query), version) for element in value]
            return [item for item in _ret if item]
>       elif not value or value is True:
E       jinja2.exceptions.UndefinedError: 'dict object' has no attribute 'adddress'

We don t have general-purpose rules when writing templates. Like for the source of truth, there is no need to create generic templates able to produce any BGP configuration. There is a balance to be found between readability and avoiding duplication. Templates can become scary and complex: sometimes, it s better to write a filter or a function in jerikan/jinja.py. Mastering Jinja2 is a good investment. Take time to browse through our templates as some of them show interesting features.

Checks Optionally, each configuration file can be validated by a script in the checks/ directory. Jerikan looks up the key checks in the build namespace to know which checks to run:

$ ./run-jerikan lookup edge1.ussfo03.blade-group.net build checks
- description: Juniper configuration file syntax check
  script: checks/junoser
  cache:
    input: config.txt
    output: config-set.txt
- description: check YAML data
  script: checks/data.yaml
  cache: data.yaml

In the above example, checks/junoser is executed if there is a change to the generated config.txt file. It also outputs a transformed version of the configuration file which is easier to understand when using diff. Junoser checks a Junos configuration file using Juniper s XML schema definition for Netconf.⁵ On error, Jerikan displays:

jerikan/build.py:127: RuntimeError
-------------- Captured syntax check with Junoser call --------------
P: checks/junoser edge2.ussfo03.blade-group.net
C: /app/jerikan
O:
E: Invalid syntax:  set system syslog archive size 10m files 10 word-readable
S: 1

Integration into GitLab CI The next step is to compile the templates using a CI. As we are using GitLab, Jerikan ships with a .gitlab-ci.yml file. When we need to make a change, we create a dedicated branch and a merge request. GitLab compiles the templates using the same environment we use on our laptops and store them as an artifact.

Merge request to add a new port in USSFO03. The templates were compiled successfully but approval from another team member is still required to merge.

Before approving the merge request, another team member looks at the changes in data and templates but also the differences for the generated configuration files:

The change configures a port on the Juniper device, adds records to DNS, and updates NetBox with the new IP addresses (not shown).

Ansible After Jerikan has built the configuration files, Ansible takes over. It is also packaged as a Docker image to avoid the trouble to maintain the right Python virtual environment and ensure everyone is using the same versions.

Inventory Jerikan has generated an inventory file. It contains all the managed devices, the variables defined for each of them and the groups converted to Ansible groups:

ob1-n1.sk1.blade-group.net ansible_host=172.29.15.12 ansible_user=blade ansible_connection=network_cli ansible_network_os=ios
ob2-n1.sk1.blade-group.net ansible_host=172.29.15.13 ansible_user=blade ansible_connection=network_cli ansible_network_os=ios
ob1-n1.ussfo03.blade-group.net ansible_host=172.29.15.12 ansible_user=blade ansible_connection=network_cli ansible_network_os=ios
none ansible_connection=local
[oob]
ob1-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
ob2-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
ob1-n1.ussfo03.blade-group.net
[os-ios]
ob1-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
ob2-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
ob1-n1.ussfo03.blade-group.net
[model-c2960s]
ob1-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
ob2-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
ob1-n1.ussfo03.blade-group.net
[location-sk1]
ob1-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
ob2-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
[location-ussfo03]
ob1-n1.ussfo03.blade-group.net
[in-sync]
ob1-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
ob2-n1.sk1.blade-group.net
ob1-n1.ussfo03.blade-group.net
none

in-sync is a special group for devices which configuration should match the golden configuration. Daily and unattended, Ansible should be able to push configurations to this group. The mid-term goal is to cover all devices. none is a special device for tasks not related to a specific host. This includes synchronizing NetBox, IRR objects, and the DNS, updating the RPKI, and building the geofeed files.

Playbook We use a single playbook for all devices. It is described in the ansible/playbooks/site.yaml file. Here is a shortened version:

- hosts: adm-gateway:!done
  strategy: mitogen_linear
  roles:
    - blade.linux
    - blade.adm-gateway
    - done
- hosts: os-linux:!done
  strategy: mitogen_linear
  roles:
    - blade.linux
    - done
- hosts: os-junos:!done
  gather_facts: false
  roles:
    - blade.junos
    - done
- hosts: os-opengear:!done
  gather_facts: false
  roles:
    - blade.opengear
    - done
- hosts: none:!done
  gather_facts: false
  roles:
    - blade.none
    - done

A host executes only one of the play. For example, a Junos device executes the blade.junos role. Once a play has been executed, the device is added to the done group and the other plays are skipped. The playbook can be executed with the configuration files generated by the GitLab CI using the ./run-ansible-gitlab command. This is a wrapper around Docker and the ansible-playbook command and it accepts the same arguments. To deploy the configuration on the edge devices for the SK1 datacenter in check mode, we use:

$ ./run-ansible-gitlab playbooks/site.yaml --limit='edge:&location-sk1' --diff --check
[ ]
PLAY RECAP *************************************************************
edge1.sk1.blade-group.net  : ok=6    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=3    rescued=0    ignored=0
edge2.sk1.blade-group.net  : ok=5    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=1    rescued=0    ignored=0

We have some rules when writing roles:

• --check must detect if a change is needed;
• --diff must provide a visualization of the planned changes;
• --check and --diff must not display anything if there is nothing to change;
• writing a custom module tailored to our needs is a valid solution;
• the whole device configuration is managed;⁶
• secrets must be stored in Vault;
• templates should be avoided as we have Jerikan for that; and
• avoid duplication and reuse tasks.⁷

We avoid using collections from Ansible Galaxy, the exception being collections to connect and interact with vendor devices, like cisco.iosxr collection. The quality of Ansible Galaxy collections is quite random and it is an additional maintenance burden. It seems better to write roles tailored to our needs. The collections we use are in ci/ansible/ansible-galaxy.yaml. We use Mitogen to get a 10 speedup on Ansible executions on Linux hosts. We also have a few playbooks for operational purpose: upgrading the OS version, isolate an edge router, etc. We were also planning on how to add operational checks in roles: are all the BGP sessions up? They could have been used to validate a deployment and rollback if there is an issue. Currently, our playbooks are run from our laptops. To keep tabs, we are using ARA. A weekly dry-run on devices in the in-sync group also provides a dashboard on which devices we need to run Ansible on.

Configuration data and templates Jerikan ships with pre-populated data and templates matching the configuration of our USSFO03 and SK1 datacenters. They do not exist anymore but, we promise, all this was used in production back in the days!

The latest iteration of our network infrastructure for SK1, USSFO03, and future data centers. The production network is using BGPttH using a spine-leaf fabric. The out-of-band network is using a simple L2 design, using the spanning tree protocol, as well as a set of console servers.

Notably, you can find the configuration for:

our edge routers

Some are running on Junos, like edge2.ussfo03, the others on IOS-XR, like edge1.sk1. The implemented functionalities are similar in both cases and we could swap one for the other. It includes the BGP configuration for transits, peerings, and IX as well as the associated BGP policies. PeeringDB is queried to get the maximum number of prefixes to accept for peerings. bgpq3 and a containerized IRRd help to filter received routes. A firewall is added to protect the routing engine. Both IPv4 and IPv6 are configured.

our BGP-based fabric

BGP is used inside the datacenter⁸ and is extended on bare-metal hosts. The configuration is automatically derived from the device location and the port number.⁹ Top-of-the-rack devices are using passive BGP sessions for ports towards servers. They are also serving a provisioning network to let them boot using DHCP and PXE. They also act as a DHCP server. The design is multivendor. Some devices are running Cumulus Linux, like to1-p1.ussfo03, while some others are running Junos, like to1-p2.ussfo03.

our out-of-band fabric

We are using Cisco Catalyst 2960 switches to build an L2 out-of-band network. To provide redundancy and saving a few bucks on wiring, we build small loops and run the spanning-tree protocol. See ob1-p1.ussfo03. It is redundantly connected to our gateway servers. We also use OpenGear devices for console access. See con1-n1.ussfo03

our administrative gateways

These Linux servers have multiple purposes: SSH jump boxes, rescue connection, direct access to the out-of-band network, zero-touch provisioning of network devices,¹⁰ Internet access for management flows, centralization of the console servers using Conserver, and API for autoconfiguration of BGP sessions for bare-metal servers. They are the first servers installed in a new datacenter and are used to provision everything else. Check both the generated files and the associated Ansible tasks.

---

1. Ansible does not even provide a line number when there is an error in a template. You may need to find the problem by bisecting.

   $ ansible --version
   ansible 2.10.8
   [ ]
   $ cat test.j2
   Hello   name  !
   $ ansible all -i localhost, \
   >  --connection=local \
   >  -m template \
   >  -a "src=test.j2 dest=test.txt"
   localhost   FAILED! =>  
       "changed": false,
       "msg": "AnsibleUndefinedVariable: 'name' is undefined"
    
   

2. You may recognize the same concepts as in Hiera, the hierarchical key-value store from Puppet. At first, we were using Jerakia, a similar independent store exposing an HTTP REST interface. However, the lookup overhead is too large for our use. Jerikan implements the same functionality within a Python function.
3. The list of available filters is mangled inside jerikan/jinja.py. This is a remain of the fact we do not maintain Jerikan as a standalone software.
4. This is a bit confusing: we have a store() filter and a store() function. With Jinja2, filters and functions live in two different namespaces.
5. We are using a fork with some modifications to be able to validate our configurations and exposing an HTTP service to reduce the time spent on each configuration check.
6. There is a trend in network automation to automate a configuration subset, for example by having a playbook to create a new BGP session. We believe this is wrong: with time, your configuration will get out-of-sync with its expected state, notably hand-made changes will be left undetected.
7. See ansible/roles/blade.linux/tasks/firewall.yaml and ansible/roles/blade.linux/tasks/interfaces.yaml. They are meant to be called when needed, using import_role.
8. We also have some datacenters using BGP EVPN VXLAN at medium-scale using Juniper devices. As they are still in production today, we didn t include this feature but we may publish it in the future.
9. In retrospect, this may not be a good idea unless you are pretty sure everything is uniform (number of switches for each layer, number of ports). This was not our case. We now think it is a better idea to assign a prefix to each device and write it in the source of truth.
10. Non-linux based devices are upgraded and configured unattended. Cumulus Linux devices are automatically upgraded on install but the final configuration has to be pushed using Ansible: we didn t want to duplicate the configuration process using another tool.

The Debian Janitor is an automated system that commits fixes for (minor) issues in Debian packages that can be fixed by software. It gradually started proposing merges in early December. The first set of changes sent out ran lintian-brush on sid packages maintained in Git. This post is part of a series about the progress of the Janitor. The FOSS world uses a wide variety of different build tools; given a git repository or tarball, it can be hard to figure out how to build and install a piece of software. Humans will generally know what build tool a project is using when they check out a project from git, or they can read the README. And even then, the answer may not always be straightforward to everybody. For automation, there is no obvious place to figure out how to build or install a project.

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% git clone https://github.com/dulwich/dulwich
% cd dulwich
% ogni --schroot=unstable-amd64-sbuild dist
 
Writing dulwich-0.20.21/setup.cfg
creating dist
Creating tar archive
removing 'dulwich-0.20.21' (and everything under it)
Found new tarball dulwich-0.20.21.tar.gz in /var/run/schroot/mount/unstable-amd64-sbuild-974d32d7-6f10-4e77-8622-b6a091857e85/build/tmpucazj7j7/package/dist.

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% wget https://download.samba.org/pub/ldb/ldb-2.3.0.tar.gz
% tar xvfz ldb-2.3.0.tar.gz
% cd ldb-2.3.0
% ogni install --prefix=/tmp/ldb
 
+ install /tmp/ldb/include/ldb.h (from include/ldb.h)
 
Waf: Leaving directory  /tmp/ldb-2.3.0/bin/default'
'install' finished successfully (11.395s)

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% wget  https://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/T/TO/TORU/XML-LibXML-LazyBuilder-0.08.tar.gz _ <https://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/T/TO/TORU/XML-LibXML-LazyBuilder-0.08.tar.gz> _
% tar xvfz XML-LibXML-LazyBuilder-0.08.tar.gz
Cd XML-LibXML-LazyBuilder-0.08
% ogni test
 

The Population Issue and its many facets Another couple of weeks passed. A Lot of things happening, lots of anger and depression in folks due to handling in pandemic, but instead of blaming they are willing to blame everybody else including the population. Many of them want forced sterilization like what Sanjay Gandhi did during the Emergency (1975). I had to share So Long, My son . A very moving tale of two families of what happened to them during the one-child policy in China. I was so moved by it and couldn t believe that the Chinese censors allowed it to be produced, shot, edited, and then shared worldwide. It also won a couple of awards at the 69th Berlin Film Festival, silver bear for the best actor and the actress in that category. But more than the award, the theme, and the concept as well as the length of the movie which was astonishing. Over a 3 hr. something it paints a moving picture of love, loss, shame, relief, anger, and asking for forgiveness. All of which can be identified by any rational person with feelings worldwide.

Girl child What was also interesting though was what it couldn t or wasn t able to talk about and that is the Chinese leftover men. In fact, a similar situation exists here in India, only it has been suppressed. This has been more pronounced more in Asia than in other places. One big thing in this is human trafficking and mostly women trafficking. For the Chinese male, that was happening on a large scale from all neighboring countries including India. This has been shared in media and everybody knows about it and yet people are silent. But this is not limited to just the Chinese, even Indians have been doing it. Even yesteryear actress Rupa Ganguly was caught red-handed but then later let off after formal questioning as she is from the ruling party. So much for justice. What is and has been surprising at least for me is Rwanda which is in the top 10 of some of the best places in equal gender. It, along with other African countries have also been in news for putting quite a significant amount of percentage of GDP into public healthcare (between 20-10%), but that is a story for a bit later. People forget or want to forget that it was in Satara, a city in my own state where 220 girls changed their name from nakusha or unwanted to something else and that had become a piece of global news. One would think that after so many years, things would have changed, the only change that has happened is that now we have two ministries, The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD) and The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MoHFW). Sadly, in both cases, the ministries have been found wanting, Whether it was the high-profile Hathras case or even the routine cries of help which given by women on the twitter helpline. Sadly, neither of these ministries talks about POSH guidelines which came up after the 2012 gangrape case. For both these ministries, it should have been a pinned tweet. There is also the 1994 PCPNDT Act which although made in 1994, actually functioned in 2006, although what happens underground even today nobody knows . On the global stage, about a decade ago, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt argued in their book Freakonomics how legalized abortion both made the coming population explosion as well as expected crime rates to be reduced. There was a huge pushback on the same from the conservatives and has become a matter of debate, perhaps something that the Conservatives wanted. Interestingly, it hasn t made them go back but go forward as can be seen from the Freakonomics site.

Climate Change Another topic that came up for discussion was repeatedly climate change, but when I share Shell s own 1998 Confidential report titled Greenhouse effect all become strangely silent. The silence here is of two parts, there probably is a large swathe of Indians who haven t read the report and there may be a minority who have read it and know what already has been shared with U.S. Congress. The Conservative s argument has been for it is jobs and a weak we need to research more . There was a partial debunk of it on the TBD podcast by Matt Farell and his brother Sean Farell as to how quickly the energy companies are taking to the coming change.

Health Budget Before going to Covid stories. I first wanted to talk about Health Budgets. From the last 7 years the Center s allocation for health has been between 0.34 to 0.8% per year. That amount barely covers the salaries to the staff, let alone any money for equipment or anything else. And here by allocation I mean, what is actually spent, not the one that is shared by GOI as part of budget proposal. In fact, an article on Wire gives a good breakdown of the numbers. Even those who are on the path of free markets describe India s health business model as a flawed one. See the Bloomberg Quint story on that. Now let me come to Rwanda. Why did I chose Rwanda, I could have chosen South Africa where I went for Debconf 2016, I chose because Rwanda s story is that much more inspiring. In many ways much more inspiring than that South Africa in many ways. Here is a country which for decades had one war or the other, culminating into the Rwanda Civil War which ended in 1994. And coincidentally, they gained independence on a similar timeline as South Africa ending Apartheid in 1994. What does the country do, when it gains its independence, it first puts most of its resources in the healthcare sector. The first few years at 20% of GDP, later than at 10% of GDP till everybody has universal medical coverage. Coming back to the Bloomberg article I shared, the story does not go into the depth of beyond-expiry date medicines, spurious medicines and whatnot. Sadly, most media in India does not cover the deaths happening in rural areas and this I am talking about normal times. Today what is happening in rural areas is just pure madness. For last couple of days have been talking with people who are and have been covering rural areas. In many of those communities, there is vaccine hesitancy and why, because there have been whatsapp forwards sharing that if you go to a hospital you will die and your kidney or some other part of the body will be taken by the doctor. This does two things, it scares people into not going and getting vaccinated, at the same time they are prejudiced against science. This is politics of the lowest kind. And they do it so that they will be forced to go to temples or babas and what not and ask for solutions. And whether they work or not is immaterial, they get fixed and property and money is seized. Sadly, there are not many Indian movies of North which have tried to show it except for oh my god but even here it doesn t go the distance. A much more honest approach was done in Trance . I have never understood how the South Indian movies are able to do a more honest job of story-telling than what is done in Bollywood even though they do in 1/10th the budget that is needed in Bollywood. Although, have to say with OTT, some baggage has been shed but with the whole film certification rearing its ugly head through MEITY orders, it seems two steps backward instead of forward. The idea being simply to infantilize the citizens even more. That is a whole different ball-game which probably will require its own space.

Vaccine issues One good news though is that Vaccination has started. But it has been a long story full of greed by none other than GOI (Government of India) or the ruling party BJP. Where should I start with. I probably should start with this excellent article done by Priyanka Pulla. It is interesting and fascinating to know how vaccines are made, at least one way which she shared. She also shared about the Cutter Incident which happened in the late 50 s. The response was on expected lines, character assassination of her and the newspaper they published but could not critique any of the points made by her. Not a single point that she didn t think about x or y. Interestingly enough, in January 2021 Bharati Biotech was supposed to be share phase 3 trial data but hasn t been put up in public domain till May 2021. In fact, there have been a few threads raised by both well-meaning Indians as well as others globally especially on twitter to which GOI/ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) is silent. Another interesting point to note is that Russia did say in its press release that it is possible that their vaccine may not be standard (read inactivation on their vaccines and another way is possible but would take time, again Brazil has objected, but India hasn t till date.) What also has been interesting is the homegrown B.1.617 lineage or known as double mutant . This was first discovered from my own state, Maharashtra and then transported around the world. There is also B.1.618 which was found in West Bengal and is same or supposed to be similar to the one found in South Africa. This one is known as Triple mutant . About B.1.618 we don t know much other than knowing that it is much more easily transferable, much more infectious. Most countries have banned flights from India and I cannot fault them anyway. Hell, when even our diplomats do not care for procedures to be followed during the pandemic then how a common man is supposed to do. Of course, now for next month, Mr. Modi was supposed to go and now will not attend the G7 meeting. Whether, it is because he would have to face the press (the only Prime Minister and the only Indian Prime Minister who never has faced free press.) or because the Indian delegation has been disinvited, we would never know.

A good article which shares lots of lows with how things have been done in India has been an article by Arundhati Roy. And while the article in itself is excellent and shares a bit of the bitter truth but is still incomplete as so much has been happening. The problem is that the issue manifests in so many ways, it is difficult to hold on. As Arundhati shared, should we just look at figures and numbers and hold on, or should we look at individual ones, for e.g. the one shared in Outlook India. Or the one shared by Dr. Dipshika Ghosh who works in Covid ICU in some hospital

Dr. Dipika Ghosh sharing an incident in Covid Ward

Interestingly as well, while in the vaccine issue, Brazil Anvisa doesn t know what they are doing or the regulator just isn t knowledgeable etc. (statements by various people in GOI, when it comes to testing kits, the same is an approver.)

ICMR/DGCI approving internationally validated kits, Press release.

Twitter In the midst of all this, one thing that many people have forgotten and seem to have forgotten that Twitter and other tools are used by only the elite. The reason why the whole thing has become serious now than in the first phase is because the elite of India have also fallen sick and dying which was not the case so much in the first phase. The population on Twitter is estimated to be around 30-34 million and people who are everyday around 20 odd million or so, which is what 2% of the Indian population which is estimated to be around 1.34 billion. The other 98% don t even know that there is something like twitter on which you can ask help. Twitter itself is exclusionary in many ways, with both the emoticons, the language and all sorts of things. There is a small subset who does use Twitter in regional languages, but they are too small to write anything about. The main language is English which does become a hindrance to lot of people.

Censorship Censorship of Indians critical of Govt. mishandling has been non-stop. Even U.S. which usually doesn t interfere into India s internal politics was forced to make an exception. But of course, this has been on deaf ears. There is and was a good thread on Twitter by Gaurav Sabnis, a friend, fellow Puneite now settled in U.S. as a professor.

Gaurav on Trump-Biden on vaccination of their own citizens

Now just to surmise what has been happened in India and what has been happening in most of the countries around the world. Most of the countries have done centralization purchasing of the vaccine and then is distributed by the States, this is what we understand as co-operative federalism. While last year, GOI took a lot of money under the shady PM Cares fund for vaccine purchase, donations from well-meaning Indians as well as Industries and trade bodies. Then later, GOI said it would leave the states hanging and it is they who would have to buy vaccines from the manufacturers. This is again cheap politics. The idea behind it is simple, GOI knows that almost all the states are strapped for cash. This is not new news, this I have shared a couple of months back. The problem has been that for the last 6-8 months no GST meeting has taken place as shared by Punjab s Finance Minister Amarinder Singh. What will happen is that all the states will fight in-between themselves for the vaccine and most of them are now non-BJP Governments. The idea is let the states fight and somehow be on top. So, the pandemic, instead of being a public health issue has become something of on which politics has to played. The news on whatsapp by RW media is it s ok even if a million or two also die, as it is India is heavily populated. Although that argument vanishes for those who lose their dear and near ones. But that just isn t the issue, the issue goes much more deeper than that Oxygen:12%
Remedisivir:12%
Sanitiser:12%
Ventilator:12%
PPE:18%
Ambulances 28% Now all the products above are essential medical equipment and should be declared as essential medical equipment and should have price controls on which GST is levied. In times of pandemic, should the center be profiting on those. States want to let go and even want the center to let go so that some relief is there to the public, while at the same time make them as essential medical equipment with price controls. But GOI doesn t want to. Leaders of opposition parties wrote open letters but no effect. What is sad to me is how Ambulances are being taxed at 28%. Are they luxury items or sin goods ? This also reminds of the recent discovery shared by Mr. Pappu Yadav in Bihar. You can see the color of ambulances as shared by Mr. Yadav, and the same news being shared by India TV news showing other ambulances. Also, the weak argument being made of not having enough drivers. Ideally, you should have 2-3 people, both 9-1-1 and Chicago Fire show 2 people in ambulance but a few times they have also shown to be flipped over. European seems to have three people in ambulance, also they are also much more disciplined as drivers, at least an opinion shared by an American expat.

Pappu Yadav, President Jan Adhikar Party, Bihar May 11, 2021

What is also interesting to note is GOI plays this game of Health is State subject and health is Central subject depending on its convenience. Last year, when it invoked the Epidemic and DMA Act it was a Central subject, now when bodies are flowing down the Ganges and pyres being lit everywhere, it becomes a State subject. But when and where money is involved, it again becomes a Central subject. The States are also understanding it, but they are fighting on too many fronts.

Snippets from Karnataka High Court hearing today, 13th March 2021

One of the good things is most of the High Courts have woken up. Many of the people on the RW think that the Courts are doing Judicial activism . And while there may be an iota of truth in it, the bitter truth is that many judges or relatives or their helpers have diagnosed and some have even died due to Covid. In face of the inevitable, what can they do. They are hauling up local Governments to make sure they are accountable while at the same time making sure that they get access to medical facilities. And I as a citizen don t see any wrong in that even if they are doing it for selfish reasons. Because, even if justice is being done for selfish reasons, if it does improve medical delivery systems for the masses, it is cool. If it means that the poor and everybody else are able to get vaccinations, oxygen and whatever they need, it is cool. Of course, we are still seeing reports of patients spending in the region of INR 50k and more for each day spent in hospital. But as there are no price controls, judges cannot do anything unless they want to make an enemy of the medical lobby in the country. A good story on medicines and what happens in rural areas, see no further than Laakhon mein ek.

Allahabad High Court hauling Uttar Pradesh Govt. for lack of Oxygen is equal to genocide, May 11, 2021

The censorship is not just related to takedown requests on twitter but nowadays also any articles which are critical of the GOI s handling. I have been seeing many articles which have shared facts and have been critical of GOI being taken down. Previously, we used to see 404 errors happen 7-10 years down the line and that was reasonable. Now we see that happen, days weeks or months. India seems to be turning more into China and North Korea and become more anti-science day-by-day

Fake websites Before going into fake websites, let me start with a fake newspaper which was started by none other than the Gujarat CM Mr. Modi in 2005 .

Gujarat Satya Samachar 2005 launched by Mr. Modi.

And if this wasn t enough than on Feb 8, 2005, he had invoked Official Secrets Act

Mr. Modi invoking Official Secrets Act, Feb 8 2005 Gujarat Samachar

The headlines were In Modi s regime press freedom is in peril-Down with Modi s dictatorship. So this was a tried and tested technique. The above information was shared by Mr. Urvish Kothari, who incidentally also has his own youtube channel. Now cut to 2021, and we have a slew of fake websites being done by the same party. In fact, it seems they started this right from 2011. A good article on BBC itself tells the story. Hell, Disinfo.eu which basically combats disinformation in EU has a whole pdf chronicling how BJP has been doing it. Some of the sites it shared are

Times of New York
Manchester Times
Times of Los Angeles
Manhattan Post
Washington Herald
and many more. The idea being take any site name which sounds similar to a brand name recognized by Indians and make fool of them. Of course, those of who use whois and other such tools can easily know what is happening. Two more were added to the list yesterday, Daily Guardian and Australia Today. There are of course, many features which tell them apart from genuine websites. Most of these are on shared hosting rather than dedicated hosting, most of these are bought either from Godaddy and Bluehost. While Bluehost used to be a class act once upon a time, both the above will do anything as long as they get money. Don t care whether it s a fake website or true. Capitalism at its finest or worst depending upon how you look at it. But most of these details are lost on people who do not know web servers, at all and instead think see it is from an exotic site, a foreign site and it chooses to have same ideas as me. Those who are corrupt or see politics as a tool to win at any cost will not see it as evil. And as a gentleman Raghav shared with me, it is so easy to fool us. An example he shared which I had forgotten. Peter England which used to be an Irish brand was bought by Aditya Birla group way back in 2000. But even today, when you go for Peter England, the way the packaging is done, the way the prices are, more often than not, people believe they are buying the Irish brand. While sharing this, there is so much of Naom Chomsky which comes to my mind again and again

Caste Issues I had written about caste issues a few times on this blog. This again came to the fore as news came that a Hindu sect used forced labor from Dalit community to make a temple. This was also shared by the hill. In both, Mr. Joshi doesn t tell that if they were volunteers then why their passports have been taken forcibly, also I looked at both minimum wage prevailing in New Jersey as a state as well as wage given to those who are in the construction Industry. Even in minimum wage, they were giving $1 when the prevailing minimum wage for unskilled work is $12.00 and as Mr. Joshi shared that they are specialized artisans, then they should be paid between $23 $30 per hour. If this isn t exploitation, then I don t know what is. And this is not the first instance, the first instance was perhaps the case against Cisco which was done by John Doe. While I had been busy with other things, it seems Cisco had put up both a demurrer petition and a petition to strike which the Court stayed. This seemed to all over again a type of apartheid practice, only this time applied to caste. The good thing is that the court stayed the petition. Dr. Ambedkar s statement if Hindus migrate to other regions on earth, Indian caste would become a world problem given at Columbia University in 1916, seems to be proven right in today s time and sadly has aged well. But this is not just something which is there only in U.S. this is there in India even today, just couple of days back, a popular actress Munmun Dutta used a casteist slur and then later apologized giving the excuse that she didn t know Hindi. And this is patently false as she has been in the Bollywood industry for almost now 16-17 years. This again, was not an isolated incident. Seema Singh, a lecturer in IIT-Kharagpur abused students from SC, ST backgrounds and was later suspended. There is an SC/ST Atrocities Act but that has been diluted by this Govt. A bit on the background of Dr. Ambedkar can be found at a blog on Columbia website. As I have shared and asked before, how do we think, for what reason the Age of Englightenment or the Age of Reason happened. If I were a fat monk or a priest who was privileges, would I have let Age of Enlightenment happen. It broke religion or rather Church which was most powerful to not so powerful and that power was more distributed among all sort of thinkers, philosophers, tinkers, inventors and so on and so forth.

Situation going forward I believe things are going to be far more complex and deadly before they get better. I had to share another term called Comorbidities which fortunately or unfortunately has also become part of twitter lexicon. While I have shared what it means, it simply means when you have an existing ailment or condition and then Coronavirus attacks you. The Virus will weaken you. The Vaccine in the best case just stops the damage, but the damage already done can t be reversed. There are people who advise and people who are taking steroids but that again has its own side-effects. And this is now, when we are in summer. I am afraid for those who have recovered, what will happen to them during the Monsoons. We know that the Virus attacks most the lungs and their quality of life will be affected. Even the immune system may have issues. We also know about the inflammation. And the grant that has been given to University of Dundee also has signs of worry, both for people like me (obese) as well as those who have heart issues already. In other news, my city which has been under partial lockdown since a month, has been extended for another couple of weeks. There are rumors that the same may continue till the year-end even if it means economics goes out of the window.There is possibility that in the next few months something like 2 million odd Indians could die

The above is a conversation between Karan Thapar and an Oxford Mathematician Dr. Murad Banaji who has shared that the under-counting of cases in India is huge. Even BBC shared an article on the scope of under-counting. Of course, those on the RW call of the evidence including the deaths and obituaries in newspapers as a narrative . And when asked that when deaths used to be in the 20 s or 30 s which has jumped to 200-300 deaths and this is just the middle class and above. The poor don t have the money to get wood and that is the reason you are seeing the bodies in Ganges whether in Buxar Bihar or Gajipur, Uttar Pradesh. The sights and visuals makes for sorry reading

Pandit Ranjan Mishra son on his father s death due to unavailability of oxygen, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, 11th May 2021.

For those who don t know Pandit Ranjan Mishra was a renowned classical singer. More importantly, he was the first person to suggest Mr. Modi s name as a Prime Ministerial Candidate. If they couldn t fulfil his oxygen needs, then what can be expected for the normal public.

Conclusion Sadly, this time I have no humorous piece to share, I can however share a documentary which was shared on Feluda . I have shared about Feluda or Prodosh Chandra Mitter a few times on this blog. He has been the answer of James Bond from India. I have shared previously about The Golden Fortress . An amazing piece of art by Satyajit Ray. I watched that documentary two-three times. I thought, mistakenly that I am the only fool or fan of Feluda in Pune to find out that there are people who are even more than me. There were so many facets both about Feluda and master craftsman Satyajit Ray that I was unaware about. I was just simply amazed. I even shared few of the tidbits with mum as well, although now she has been truly hooked to Korean dramas. The only solace from all the surrounding madness. So, if you have nothing to do, you can look up his books, read them and then see the movies. And my first recommendation would be the Golden Fortress. The only thing I would say, do not have high hopes. The movie is beautiful. It starts slow and then picks up speed, just like a train. So, till later. Update The Mass surveillance part I could not do justice do hence removed it at the last moment. It actually needs its whole space, article. There is so much that the Govt. is doing under the guise of the pandemic that it is difficult to share it all in one article. As it is, the article is big

Debian

This was my 28th month of actively contributing to Debian. I became a DM in late March 2019 and a DD on Christmas 19! \o/ Crazy month, as always. Lots of things happening and lots of moving parts.
Now that I am working on Ubuntu-full time, I barely get much time to do any extra stuff. Then the massive COVID wave that has plunged India had made this month further crazier. More on that later, maybe. IDK. Anyway, I did some Debian stuff, thanks to Salzburg BSP (more down below). I worked on the following stuff:

Uploads and bug fixes:

• ruby2.7 (2.7.3-1) - New upstream version, fixing CVE-2021-28965/#986807.
• jackson-databind (2.9.8-3+deb10u3) - buster-pu upload, fixing CVE-2020-24616, CVE-2020-24750, CVE-2020-25649, CVE-2020-35490, CVE-2020-35491, CVE-2020-35728, CVE-2020-36179, CVE-2020-36180, CVE-2020-36181, CVE-2020-36182, CVE-2020-36183, CVE-2020-36184, CVE-2020-36185, CVE-2020-36186, CVE-2020-36187, CVE-2020-36188, CVE-2020-36189, and CVE-2021-20190.
• ruby-librarian (0.6.4-3) - Fixing autpkgtest; cf: #987113.
• opendmarc (1.3.2-6+deb10u2) - buster-pu upload, fixing CVE-2020-12460/#966464.
• Sponsored upload of fluidsynth (2.1.7-1.1) to unstable, fixing CVE-2021-28421/#987168 for Reiner Herrmann.
• Sponsored upload of fluidsynth (1.1.11-1+deb10u1) to buster, fixing CVE-2021-28421/#987168 for Reiner Herrmann.
• Sponsored upload of libpam-alreadyloggedin (0.3-9) to unstable, fixing #958224, #986247, and #969122)) for Reiner Herrmann.

Other $things:

• Mentoring for newcomers and assisting people in BSP.
• Moderation of -project mailing list.

---

Salzburg BSP 2021 This was my first virtual BSP and the first BSP in Salzburg and it was absolutely amazing!
Many kudos to Bernd Zeimetz for organizing it so smoothly and wonderfully, for real! \o/ We had a bunch of amazing sessions, besides hacking, of course, like:

• yoga,
• sports,
• games, and
• datacenter tour -> which was super!

We also had lots of things happening at #debian-bsp-2021-szg and did a lot of work.
Whilst everything we did is available on the pad, I work on the following things:

• [deki/utkarsh]: CVE-2021-28421/fluidsynth (sid); cf: #987168/#987471.
• [deki/utkarsh]: CVE-2021-28421/fluidsynth (buster); cf: #987168/#987494.
• [utkarsh]: 18 CVEs for jackson-databind (buster); cf: #987489.
• [utkarsh]: fix for ruby-librarian/#987113 (unblock request: #987501).
• [utkarsh]: 17 CVEs for jackson-databind (stretch); LTS upload.
• [utkarsh]: CVE-2020-12460/opendmarc (stretch); LTS upload.
• [utkarsh]: CVE-2020-12460/opendmarc (buster); cf: #987531.
• [deki/utkarsh]: libpam-alreadyloggedin, broken autopkgtest; #958224
• [deki/utkarsh]: libpam-alreadyloggedin, installed in wrong directory; #986247
• [deki/utkarsh]: libpam-alreadyloggedin, FTCBFS; #969122
• [donfede/utkarsh] 10 CVEs for salt (buster)
• [donfede/utkarsh] 10 CVEs for salt (bullseye)

And finally, we clicked a picture! \o/

---

Debian (E)LTS

Debian Long Term Support (LTS) is a project to extend the lifetime of all Debian stable releases to (at least) 5 years. Debian LTS is not handled by the Debian security team, but by a separate group of volunteers and companies interested in making it a success. And Debian Extended LTS (ELTS) is its sister project, extending support to the Jessie release (+2 years after LTS support). This was my nineteenth month as a Debian LTS and tenth month as a Debian ELTS paid contributor.
I was assigned 60.00 hours for LTS and 60.00 hours for ELTS and worked on the following things:

LTS CVE Fixes and Announcements:

• Issued DLA 2615-1, fixing CVE-2020-1946, for spamassassin.
  For Debian 9 stretch, these problems have been fixed in version 3.4.2-1~deb9u4.
• Issued DLA 2624-1, fixing CVE-2021-20307, for libpano13.
  For Debian 9 stretch, these problems have been fixed in version 2.9.19+dfsg-2+deb9u1.
• Issued DLA 2625-1, fixing CVE-2021-28374, for courier-authlib.
  For Debian 9 stretch, these problems have been fixed in version 0.66.4-9+deb9u1.
• Issued DLA 2626-1, fixing CVE-2021-1405, for clamav.
  For Debian 9 stretch, these problems have been fixed in version 0.102.4+dfsg-0+deb9u2.
• Uploaded ruby2.7 to sid, fixing CVE-2021-28965.
  For Debian sid, these problems have been fixed in version 2.7.3-1.
• Issued DLA 2630-1, fixing CVE-2021-29447 and CVE-2021-29450, for wordpress.
  For Debian 9 stretch, these problems have been fixed in version 4.7.20+dfsg-1+deb9u1.
• Issued DLA 2633-1, fixing CVE-2021-23961, CVE-2021-23994, CVE-2021-23995, CVE-2021-23998, CVE-2021-23999, CVE-2021-24002, CVE-2021-29945, and CVE-2021-29946, for firefox-esr.
  For Debian 9 stretch, these problems have been fixed in version 78.10.0esr-1~deb9u1. Thanks, Emilio, for all your help on this! \o/
• Issued DLA 2638-1, fixing CVE-2020-24616, CVE-2020-24750, CVE-2020-35490, CVE-2020-35491, CVE-2020-35728, CVE-2020-36179, CVE-2020-36180, CVE-2020-36181, CVE-2020-36182, CVE-2020-36183, CVE-2020-36184, CVE-2020-36185, CVE-2020-36186, CVE-2020-36187, CVE-2020-36188, CVE-2020-36189, CVE-2021-20190, and CVE-2020-25649, for jackson-databind.
  For Debian 9 stretch, these problems have been fixed in version 2.8.6-1+deb9u9.
• Issued DLA 2639-1, fixing CVE-2020-12460, for opendmarc.
  For Debian 9 stretch, these problems have been fixed in version 1.3.2-2+deb9u3.
• Uploaded fluidsynth to sid, fixing CVE-2021-28421.
  For Debian sid, these problems have been fixed in version 2.1.7-1.1. Thanks to Reiner Herrmann for their work.
• Uploaded fluidsynth to buster-pu, fixing CVE-2021-28421.
  For Debian sid, these problems have been fixed in version 2.1.7-1.1. Thanks to Reiner Herrmann for their work.

ELTS CVE Fixes and Announcements:

• Issued ELA 396-1, fixing CVE-2021-23358, for underscore.
  For Debian 8 jessie, these problems have been fixed in version 1.7.0~dfsg-1+deb8u1.
• Issued ELA 397-1, fixing CVE-2020-1946, for spamassassin.
  For Debian 8 jessie, these problems have been fixed in version 3.4.2-0+deb8u4.
• Issued ELA 400-1, fixing CVE-2020-25286, CVE-2020-28032, CVE-2020-28033, CVE-2020-28034, CVE-2020-28035, CVE-2020-28036, CVE-2020-28037, CVE-2020-28038, CVE-2020-28039, and CVE-2020-28040, for wordpress.
  For Debian 8 jessie, these problems have been fixed in version 4.1.32+dfsg-0+deb8u1.
• Help issued ELA 401-1, fixing CVE-2021-25329 and CVE-2020-9484, for tomcat7, along with Markus.
  For Debian 8 jessie, these problems have been fixed in version 7.0.56-3+really7.0.100-1+deb8u3.
• Issued ELA 403-1, fixing CVE-2020-24616, CVE-2020-24750, CVE-2020-25649, CVE-2020-35490, CVE-2020-35491, CVE-2020-35728, CVE-2020-36179, CVE-2020-36180, CVE-2020-36181, CVE-2020-36182, CVE-2020-36183, CVE-2020-36184, CVE-2020-36185, CVE-2020-36186, CVE-2020-36187, CVE-2020-36188, CVE-2020-36189, and CVE-2021-20190, for jackson-databind.
  For Debian 8 jessie, these problems have been fixed in version 2.4.2-2+deb8u16.
• Uploaded jackson-databind to buster-pu, fixing CVE-2020-24616, CVE-2020-24750, CVE-2020-25649, CVE-2020-35490, CVE-2020-35491, CVE-2020-35728, CVE-2020-36179, CVE-2020-36180, CVE-2020-36181, CVE-2020-36182, CVE-2020-36183, CVE-2020-36184, CVE-2020-36185, CVE-2020-36186, CVE-2020-36187, CVE-2020-36188, CVE-2020-36189, and CVE-2021-20190.
  For Debian 10 buster, these problems have been fixed in version 2.9.8-3+deb10u3.
• Issued ELA 404-1, fixing CVE-2021-1405, for clamav.
  For Debian 8 jessie, these problems have been fixed in version 0.102.4+dfsg-0+deb8u2.
• Issued ELA 409-1, fixing CVE-2019-16378 and CVE-2020-12460, for opendmarc.
  For Debian 8 jessie, these problems have been fixed in version 1.3.0+dfsg-1+deb8u1.

Other (E)LTS Work:

• Front-desk duty from 29-03 until 04-04 and then from 26-04 until 02-05 for both LTS and ELTS.
• Triaged spamassassin, codemirror-js, jackson-databind, wordpress, gstreamer, underscore, python-bleach, plinth, libpano13, salt, dojo, ruby2.7, firefox-esr, clamav, composter, courier-authlib, opendmarc, openexr, libimage-exiftool-perl, tomcat7, libjs-handlebars, libnet-netmask-perl, network-manager, and curl.
• Mark CVE-2021-20297/network-manager as not-affected for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2021-22890/curl as not-affected for jessie and stretch.
• Mark CVE-2020-7760/codemirror-js as not-affected for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2021-25122/tomcat8 as not-affected for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2021-XXXX/plinth as no-dsa for stretch.
• Mark CVE-2021-29424/libnet-netmask-perl as no-dsa for stretch.
• Mark CVE-2021-28374/courier-authlib as fixed in 0.58-3.1 for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2021-1252/clamav as not-affected for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2021-1404/clamav as not-affected for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2020-4051/dojo as no-dsa for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2021-29447/wordpress as not-affected for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2021-29450/wordpress as not-affected for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2019-20920/libjs-handlebars as ignored for stretch and jessie.
• Mark CVE-2021-23369/libjs-handlebars as ignored for stretch and jessie.
• Mark CVE-2020-4051/dojo as fixed in 1.15.4+dfsg1-1 for sid and bullseye.
• Mark CVE-2021-28965/ruby2.7 fixed in 2.7.3-1 for sid.
• Mark CVE-2020-12272/opendmarc as postponed for jessie.
• Mark CVE-2021-20296, CVE-2021-3475, CVE-2021-3476, CVE-2021-3477, CVE-2021-3478, and CVE-2021-3479, affecting openexr, as no-dsa for jessie and stretch.
• Suggest proposed fixes for CVE-2021-22876/curl on LTS public list.
• Publish the missing DLA update for the website on behalf of the community contribution. Thread here.
• Help suggest and unblock work if FD is missing or something. Thread here.
• Suggest marking CVE-2021-23369/ node,libjs -handlebars as no-dsa/ignored for all suites. Thread here.
• Help unblock Anton with the failed python2.7 build on i386 by coordinating with the sec team. Thread here.
• Private ELTS-related discussion on the ELTS list (+ w/ Raphael).
• Auto EOL ed webkit2gtk, python-bleach, tika, linux, ircii, spice-vdagent, libspring-security-2.0-java, file-roller, rustc, python-django-registration, gsoap, thunderbird, mosquitto, ruby-sidekiq, gnuchess, libpodofo, unbound, drupal7, 389-ds-base, and scrollz for jessie.
• Answered questions (& discussions) on IRC (#debian-lts and #debian-elts).
• General and other discussions on LTS private and public mailing list.

---

Until next time.
:wq for today.

• Reviewed and merged two pull request from Michael K. to my django-slack library which provides a convenient wrapper between projects using the Django web development framework and the Slack chat platform. Michael's pull requests made Python 3.6+ a hard requirement (#102) and to run the tests against Python 3.9 (#103).
• Made a "no-change" release of my django-email-from-template library to upload a Python wheel (.whl) file to PyPI. [...]

• As part of my role of being the assistant Secretary of the Open Source Initiative and a board director of Software in the Public Interest, I attended their respective monthly meetings. My term on the OSI board has been slightly extended due to the discovery of a vulnerability in OSI's recent election as a result, the 2021 election will be re-run to ensure transparency of the process.
• Filed a pull request against libsass-python (a Python implementation of the Sass CSS preprocessor) in order to make the build reproducible. (#319)

• Interviewed the Ford Foundation's Michael Brennan and published the transcript on our website.
• Drafted, published and publicised our monthly report.
• Filed an upstream pull request for libsass-python (a Python implementation of the Sass CSS preprocessor) in order to make the build reproducible. [...
• In Debian:
  • Kept isdebianreproducibleyet.com up to date. [...]
  • I also submitted 2 patches to fix specific reproducibility issues in pristine-lfs and rust-configparser.
• Categorised a large number of packages and issues in the Reproducible Builds notes.git" repository.

• Updated the main Reproducible Builds website and documentation:
  • Highlight our mailing list on the Contribute. page [...]
  • Add a noun (and drop an unnecessary full-stop) on the landing page. [...][...]
  • Correct a reference to the date metadata attribute on reports, restoring the display of months on the homepage. [...]
  • Correct a typo of "instalment" within a previous news entry. [...]
  • Added a conspicuous "draft" banner to unpublished blog posts in order to match the report draft banner. [...]

• I also made the following changes to diffoscope, including uploading versions 172 and 173 to Debian:
  • Add support for showing annotations in PDF files. (#249)
  • Move to the assert_diff helper in test_pdf.py. [...]

• redis (5:6.2.2-1) (to experimental) New upstream release.
• python-django:
  • 2.2.20-1 New upstream security release.
  • 3.2-1 (to experimental) New major upstream release (release notes).
• hiredis (1.0.0-2) Build with SSL/TLS support (#987114), and overhaul various aspects of the packaging.
• mtools (4.0.27-1) New upstream release.

• Investigated and triaged avahi (CVE-2021-3468), exiv2 (CVE-2021-3482), file-roller (CVE-2020-36314), fluidsynth (CVE-2021-28421), gnuchess (CVE-2021-30184), gpac (CVE-2021-28300), imagemagick (CVE-2021-20309, CVE-2021-20243), ircii (CVE-2021-29376), jetty9 (CVE-2021-28163), libcaca (CVE-2021-30498, CVE-2021-30499), libjs-handlebars, libpano13, libpodofo (CVE-2021-30469, CVE-2021-30470, CVE-2021-30471, CVE-2021-30472), mediawiki, mpv (CVE-2021-30145), nettle (CVE-2021-20305), nginx (CVE-2020-36309), nim (CVE-2021-21372, CVE-2021-21373, CVE-2021-21374), node-glob-parent (CVE-2020-28469), openexr (CVE-2021-3474), python-django-registration (CVE-2021-21416), qt4-x11 (CVE-2021-3481), qtsvg-opensource-src (CVE-2021-3481), ruby-kramdown, scrollz (CVE-2021-29376), syncthing (CVE-2021-21404), thunderbird (CVE-2021-23991, CVE-2021-23992, CVE-2021-23993) & wordpress (CVE-2021-29447).
• Issued DLA 2620-1 to address a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in python-bleach, a whitelist-based HTML sanitisation library.
• Issued DLA 2622-1 and ELA 402-1 as it was discovered that there was a potential directory traversal issue in Django, the popular Python-based web development framework. The vulnerability could have been exploited by maliciously crafted filenames. However, the upload handlers built into Django itself were not affected. (#986447)
• Jan-Niklas Sohn discovered that there was an input validation failure in the X.Org display server. Insufficient checks on the lengths of the XInput extension's ChangeFeedbackControl request could have lead to out of bounds memory accesses in the X server. These issues could have led to privilege escalation for authorised clients, particularly on systems where the X server is running as a privileged user. I, therefore, issued both DLA 2627-1 and ELA 405-1 to address this problem.
• Frontdesk duties, reviewing others' packages, participating in mailing list discussions, etc., as well as attending our monthly meeting.

• [1] https://tinyurl.com/yevmmyga
• [2] https://tinyurl.com/ydnaoluj
• [3] https://tinyurl.com/yb2bjmtm
• [4] https://medium.com/predict/bd635102b0da
• [5] https://tinyurl.com/qxkppsu
• [6] https://www.hanshq.net/zip2.html
• [7] https://tinyurl.com/yznxhodl
• [8] https://mycoai.com/code-of-ethics/
• [9] https://hartmans.livejournal.com/100652.html
• [10] https://spwhitton.name//blog/entry/rmsopenletter/
• [11] https://tinyurl.com/yh36dkop
• [12] https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/

New age communication So first, we had email and usenet. As I mentioned above, email was designed with fine intentions. Intentions that make it stand even today, independently. But not everything, back then, was that great either. For example, instant messaging was very closed and centralised then too. Things like: ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger; all were centralized. I wonder if people still have access to their ICQ logs. Not much has chagned in the current day either. We now have domination by: Facebook Messenger, Google Whatever the new marketing term they introdcue, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal etc. To my knowledge, they are all centralized. Over all this time, I m yet to see a product come up with good (business) intentions, to really empower the end user. In this information age, the most invaluable data is user activity. That s one data everyone is after. If you decline to share that bit of free data in exchange for the free services, mind you, that that free service like Facebook, Google, Instagram, WhatsApp, Truecaller, Twitter; none of it would come to you at all. Try it out. So the reality is that while you may not be valuating the data you offer in exchange correctly, there s a lot that is reaped from it. But still, I think each user has (and should have) the freedom to opt in for these tech giants and give them their personal bit, for free services in return. That is a decent barter deal. And it is a choice that one if free to choose

Retaining my data I m fond of keeping an archive folder in my mailbox. A folder that holds significant events in the form of an email usually, if documented. Over the years, I chose to resort to the email format because I felt it was more reliable in the longer term than any other formats. The next best would be plain text. In my lifetime, I have learnt a lot from the internet; so it is natural that my preference has been with it. Mailing Lists, IRCs, HOWTOs, Guides, Blog posts; all have helped. And over the years, I ve come across hundreds of such content that I d always like to preserve. Now there are multiple ways to preserving data. Like, for example, big tech giants. In most usual cases, your data for your lifetime, should be fine with a tech giant. In some odd scenarios, you may be unlucky if you relied on a service provider that went bankrupt. But seriously, I think users should be fine if they host their data with Microsoft, Google etc; as long as they abide by their policies. There s also the catch of alignment. As the user, you should ensure to align (and transition) with the product offerings of your service provider. Otherwise, what may look constant and always reliable, will vanish in the blink of an eye. I guess Google Plus would be a good example. There was some Google Feed service too. Maybe Google Photos in the near decade future, just like Google Picasa in the previous (or current) decade.

History what is On the topic of retaining information, lets take a small drift. I still admire our ancestors. I don t know what went in their mind when they were documenting events in the form of scriptures, carvings, temples, churches, mosques etc; but one things for sure, they were able to leave a fine means of communication. They are all gone but a large number of those events are evident through the creations that they left. Some of those events have been strong enough that further rulers/invaders have had tough times trying to wipe it out from history. Remember, history is usually not the truth, but the statement to be believed by the teller. And the teller is usually the survivor, or the winner you may call. But still, the information retention techniques were better. I haven t visited, but admire whosoever built the Kailasa Temple, Ellora, without which, we d be made to believe what not by all invaders and rulers of the region. But the majestic standing of the temple, is a fine example of the history and the events that have occured in the past.

Ellora Temple - The majectic carving believed to be carved out of a single stone

Dominance has the power to rewrite history and unfortunately that s true and it has done its part. It is just that in a mere human s defined lifetime, it is not possible to witness the transtion from current to history, and say that I was there then and I m here now, and this is not the reality. And if not dominance, there s always the other bit, hearsay. With it, you can always put anything up for dispute. Because there s no way one can go back in time and produce a fine evidence. There s also a part about religion. Religion can be highly sentimental. And religion can be a solid way to get an agenda going. For example, in India - a country which today consitutionally is a secular country, there have been multiple attempts to discard the belief, that never ever did the thing called Ramayana exist. That the Rama Setu, nicely reworded as Adam s Bridge by who so ever, is a mere result of science. Now Rama, or Hanumana, or Ravana, or Valmiki, aren t going to come over and prove that that is true or false. So such subjects serve as a solid base to get an agenda going. And probably we ve even succeeded in proving and believing that there was never an event like Ramayana or the Mahabharata. Nor was there ever any empire other than the Moghul or the British Empire. But yes, whosoever made the Ellora Temple or the many many more of such creations, did a fine job of making a dent for the future, to know of what the history possibly could also be.

Enough of the drift So, in my opinion, having events documented is important. It d be nice to have skills documented too so that it can be passed over generations but that s a debatable topic. But events, I believe should be documented. And documented in the best possible ways so that its existence is not diminished. A documentation in the form of certain carvings on a rock is far more better than links and posts shared on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc. For one, these are all corporate entities with vested interests and can pretext excuse in the name of compliance and conformance. So, for the helpless state and generation I am in, I felt email was the best possible independent form of data retention in today s age. If I really had the resources, I d not rely on digital age. This age has no guarantee of retaining and recording information in any reliable manner. Instead, it is just mostly junk, which is manipulative and changeable, conditionally.

Email and RSS So for my communication, I like to prefer emails over any other means. That doesn t mean I don t use the current trends. I do. But this blog is mostly about penning my desires. And desire be to have communication over email format. Such is the case that for information useful over the internet, I crave to have it formatted in email for archival. RSS feeds is my most common mode of keeping track of information I care about. Not all that I care for is available in RSS feeds but hey such is life. And adaptability is okay. But my preference is still RSS. So I use RSS feeds through a fine software called feed2imap. A software that fits my bill fairly well. feed2imap is:

• An rss feed news aggregator
• Pulls and extracts news feeds in the form of an email
• Can push the converted email over pop/imap
• Can convert all image content to email mime attachment

In a gist, it makes the online content available to me offline in the most admired email format In my mail box, in today s day, my preferred email client is Evolution. It does a good job of dealing with such emails (rss feed items). An image example of accessing the rrs feed item through it is below

RSS News Item through Evolution

The good part is that my actual data is always independent of such MUAs. Tomorrow, as technology - trends - economics evolve, something new would come as a replacement but my data would still be mine.

Mobile trends Trends have shown. Data mobility is a commodity expectation now. As such, I wanted to have something fill in that gap for me. So that I could access my information - which I ve preferred in a format - easily in today s trendy options. I tried multiple options on my current preferred platform of choice for mobiles, i.e. Android. Finally I came across Aqua Mail, which fits in most of my requirements. Aqua Mail does

• Connect to my laptop over imap
• Can sync the requested folders
• Can sync requested data for offlince accessibility
• Can present the synchronized data in a quite flexible and customizable manner, to match my taste
• Has a very extensible User Interface, allowing me to customize it to my taste

Pictures can do a better job of describing my english words.

Aqua Mail Message List Interface

Aqua Mail Message View Normal

Aqua Mail Message View Zoomed - Fit to Screen

All of this done with no dependence on network connectivity, post the sync. And all information is stored is best possible simple format.

The Debian Janitor is an automated system that commits fixes for (minor) issues in Debian packages that can be fixed by software. It gradually started proposing merges in early December. The first set of changes sent out ran lintian-brush on sid packages maintained in Git. This post is part of a series about the progress of the Janitor. The upstream ontologist is a project that extracts metadata about upstream projects in a consistent format. It does this with a combination of heuristics and reading ecosystem-specific metadata files, such as Python s setup.py, rust s Cargo.toml as well as e.g. scanning README files.

 % guess-upstream-metadata
 <string>:2: (INFO/1) Duplicate implicit target name: "contributing".
 Name: dulwich
 Repository: https://www.dulwich.io/code/
 X-Security-MD: https://github.com/dulwich/dulwich/tree/HEAD/SECURITY.md
 X-Version: 0.20.21
 Bug-Database: https://github.com/dulwich/dulwich/issues
 X-Summary: Python Git Library
 X-Description:  
   This is the Dulwich project.
   It aims to provide an interface to git repos (both local and remote) that
   doesn't call out to git directly but instead uses pure Python.
 X-License: Apache License, version 2 or GNU General Public License, version 2 or later.
 Bug-Submit: https://github.com/dulwich/dulwich/issues/new

Brief History

• 17th century: The Kingdom of Sikkim is founded by the Namgyal dynasty and ruled by Buddhist priest-kings known as the Chogyal.
• 1890: Sikkim becomes a princely state of British India.
• 1947: Sikkim continues its protectorate status with the Union of India, post-Indian-independence.
• 1973: Anti-royalist riots take place in front of the Chogyal's palace, by Nepalis seeking greater representation.
• 1975: Referendum leads to the deposition of the monarchy and Sikkim joins India as its 22nd state.

Languages

• Official: English, Nepali, Sikkimese/Bhotia and Lepcha
• Though Hindi and Nepali share the same script (Devanagari), they are not mutually intelligible. Yet, most people in Sikkim can understand and speak Hindi.

Ethnicity

• Nepalis: Migrated in large numbers (from Nepal) and soon became the dominant community
• Bhutias: People of Tibetan origin. Major inhabitants in Northern Sikkim.
• Lepchas: Original inhabitants of Sikkim

Food

• Tibetan/Nepali dishes (mostly consumed during winter)
  • Thukpa: Noodle soup, rich in spices and vegetables. Usually contains some form of meat. Common variations: Thenthuk and Gyathuk
  • Momos: Steamed or fried dumplings, usually with a meat filling.
  • Saadheko: Spicy marinated chicken salad.
  • Gundruk Soup: A soup made from Gundruk, a fermented leafy green vegetable.
  • Sinki : A fermented radish tap-root product, traditionally consumed as a base for soup and as a pickle. Eerily similar to Kimchi.
• While pork and beef are pretty common, finding vegetarian dishes is equally easy.
• Staple: Dal-Bhat with Subzi. Rice is a lot more common than wheat (rice) possibly due to greater carb content and proximity to West Bengal, India s largest producer of Rice.
• Good places to eat in Gangtok
  • Hamro Bhansa Ghar, Nimtho (Nepali)
  • Taste of Tibet
  • Dragon Wok (Chinese & Japanese)

Buddhism in Sikkim

• Bayul Demojong (Sikkim), is the most sacred Land in the Himalayas as per the belief of the Northern Buddhists and various religious texts.
• Sikkim was blessed by Guru Padmasambhava, the great Buddhist saint who visited Sikkim in the 8th century and consecrated the land.
• However, Buddhism is said to have reached Sikkim only in the 17th century with the arrival of three Tibetan monks viz. Rigdzin Goedki Demthruchen, Mon Kathok Sonam Gyaltshen & Rigdzin Legden Je at Yuksom. Together, they established a Buddhist monastery.
• In 1642 they crowned Phuntsog Namgyal as the first monarch of Sikkim and gave him the title of Chogyal, or Dharma Raja.
• The faith became popular through its royal patronage and soon many villages had their own monastery.
• Today Sikkim has over 200 monasteries.

Major monasteries

• Rumtek Monastery, 20Km from Gangtok
• Lingdum/Ranka Monastery, 17Km from Gangtok
• Phodong Monastery, 28Km from Gangtok
• Ralang Monastery, 10Km from Ravangla
• Tsuklakhang Monastery, Royal Palace, Gangtok
• Enchey Monastery, Gangtok
• Tashiding Monastery, 35Km from Ravangla

Reaching Sikkim

• Gangtok, being the capital, is easiest to reach amongst other regions, by public transport and shared cabs.
• By Air:
  • Pakyong (PYG) :
    • Nearest airport from Gangtok (about 1 hour away)
    • Tabletop airport
    • Reserved cabs cost around INR 1200.
    • As of Apr 2021, the only flights to PYG are from IGI (Delhi) and CCU (Kolkata).
  • Bagdogra (IXB) :
    • About 20 minutes from Siliguri and 4 hours from Gangtok.
    • Larger airport with flights to most major Indian cities.
    • Reserved cabs cost about INR 3000. Shared cabs cost about INR 350.
• By Train:
  • New Jalpaiguri (NJP) :
    • About 20 minutes from Siliguri and 4 hours from Gangtok.
    • Reserved cabs cost about INR 3000. Shared cabs from INR 350.
• By Road:
  • NH10 connects Siliguri to Gangtok
  • If you can t find buses plying to Gangtok directly, reach Siliguri and then take a cab to Gangtok.
• Sikkim Nationalised Transport Div. also runs hourly buses between Siliguri and Gangtok and daily buses on other common routes. They re cheaper than shared cabs.
• Wizzride also operates shared cabs between Siliguri/Bagdogra/NJP, Gangtok and Darjeeling. They cost about the same as shared cabs but pack in half as many people in luxury cars (Innova, Xylo, etc.) and are hence more comfortable.

---

Gangtok

• Time needed: 1D/1N
• Places to visit:
  • Hanuman Tok
  • Ganesh Tok
  • Tashi View Point [6,800ft]
  • MG Marg
  • Sikkim Zoo
  • Gangtok Ropeway
  • Enchey Monastery
  • Tsuklakhang Palace & Monastery
• Hostels: Tagalong Backpackers (would strongly recommend), Zostel Gangtok
• Places to chill: Travel Cafe, Caf Live & Loud and Gangtok Groove
• Places to shop: Lal Market and MG Marg

Getting Around

• Taxis operate on a reserved or shared basis. In case of the latter, you can pool with other commuters your taxis will pick up and drop en-route.
• Naturally shared taxis only operate on popular routes. The easiest way to get around Gangtok is to catch a shared cab from MG Marg.
• Reserved taxis for Gangtok sightseeing cost around INR 1000-1500, depending upon the spots you d like to see
• Key taxi/bus stands :
  • Deorali stand: For Darjeeling, Siliguri, Kalimpong
  • Vajra stand: For North & East Sikkim (Tsomgo Lake & Nathula)
  • Rumtek taxi: For Ravangla, Pelling, Namchi, Geyzing, Jorethang and Singtam.

Exploring Gangtok on an MTB

• If you'd like to explore Gangtok at your own pace, you could rent a cycle from Hub Outdoor or HillBike. I paid INR 600 for a day at HillBike.
• These are well-maintained geared mountain bikes, so adapting to inclines and declines should be a breeze, even for beginners.
• Cycling down from Ganesh Tok to Tashi View Point is an absolute delight and in my opinion, the best thing you can do in Gangtok.
• While it is a little unconventional and exhausting (uphill stretches), but a 100% recommended unless you ve been skipping leg day
• Pro tip : Make sure you use the right/back brake while decelerating downhill and not the left/front brake.
• Recommended route [3-5hrs, 20.3Km, 1770-2081ft] : Chandmari (HillBike) -> Sera Jhe Dro-Phen-Ling Monastery > Ganesh Tok > Tashi View Point > Bakthung Falls > Vajra Stand > Tsuklakhang Palace & Monastery > Enchey Monastery > Chandmari

---

North Sikkim

• The easiest & most economical way to explore North Sikkim is the 3D/2N package offered by shared-cab drivers.
• This includes food, permits, cab rides and accommodation (1N in Lachen and 1N in Lachung)
• The accommodation on both nights are at homestays with bare necessities, so keep your hopes low.
• In the spirit of sustainable tourism, you ll be asked to discard single-use plastic bottles, so please carry a bottle that you can refill along the way.
• Zero Point and Gurdongmer Lake are snow-capped throughout the year

3D/2N Shared-cab Package Itinerary

• Day 1
  • Gangtok (10am) - Chungthang - Lachung (stay)
• Day 2
  • Pre-lunch : Lachung (6am) - Yumthang Valley [12,139ft] - Zero Point - Lachung [15,300ft]
  • Post-lunch : Lachung - Chungthang - Lachen (stay)
• Day 3
  • Pre-lunch : Lachen (5am) - Kala Patthar - Gurdongmer Lake [16,910ft] - Lachen
  • Post-lunch : Lachen - Chungthang - Gangtok (7pm)
• This itinerary is idealistic and depends on the level of snowfall.
• Some drivers might switch up Day 2 and 3 itineraries by visiting Lachen and then Lachung, depending upon the weather.
• Areas beyond Lachen & Lachung are heavily militarized since the Indo-China border is only a few miles away.

---

East Sikkim

Zuluk and Silk Route

• Time needed: 2D/1N
• Zuluk [9,400ft] is a small hamlet with an excellent view of the eastern Himalayan range including the Kanchenjunga.
• Was once a transit point to the historic Silk Route from Tibet (Lhasa) to India (West Bengal).
• The drive from Gangtok to Zuluk takes at least four hours. Hence, it makes sense to spend the night at a homestay and space out your trip to Zuluk

Tsomgo Lake and Nathula

• Time Needed : 1D
• A Protected Area Permit is required to visit these places, due to their proximity to the Chinese border
• Tsomgo/Chhangu Lake [12,313ft]
  • Glacial lake, 40 km from Gangtok.
  • Remains frozen during the winter season.
  • You can also ride on the back of a Yak for INR 300
• Baba Mandir
  • An old temple dedicated to Baba Harbhajan Singh, a Sepoy in the 23rd Regiment, who died in 1962 near the Nathu La during Indo China war.
• Nathula Pass [14,450ft]
  • Located on the Indo-Tibetan border crossing of the Old Silk Route, it is one of the three open trading posts between India and China.
  • Plays a key role in the Sino-Indian Trade and also serves as an official Border Personnel Meeting(BPM) Point.
  • May get cordoned off by the Indian Army in event of heavy snowfall or for other security reasons.

---

West Sikkim

• Time needed: 3N/1N
• Hostels at Pelling : Mochilerro Ostillo

Itinerary

Day 1: Gangtok - Ravangla - Pelling

• Leave Gangtok early, for Ravangla through the Temi Tea Estate route.
• Spend some time at the tea garden and then visit Buddha Park at Ravangla
• Head to Pelling from Ravangla

Day 2: Pelling sightseeing

• Hire a cab and visit Skywalk, Pemayangtse Monastery, Rabdentse Ruins, Kecheopalri Lake, Kanchenjunga Falls.

Day 3: Pelling - Gangtok/Siliguri

• Wake up early to catch a glimpse of Kanchenjunga at the Pelling Helipad around sunrise
• Head back to Gangtok on a shared-cab
• You could take a bus/taxi back to Siliguri if Pelling is your last stop.

---

Darjeeling

• In my opinion, Darjeeling is lovely for a two-day detour on your way back to Bagdogra/Siliguri and not any longer (unless you re a Bengali couple on a honeymoon)
• Once a part of Sikkim, Darjeeling was ceded to the East India Company after a series of wars, with Sikkim briefly receiving a grant from EIC for gifting Darjeeling to the latter
• Post-independence, Darjeeling was merged with the state of West Bengal.

Itinerary

Day 1 :

• Take a cab from Gangtok to Darjeeling (shared-cabs cost INR 300 per seat)
• Reach Darjeeling by noon and check in to your Hostel. I stayed at Hideout.
• Spend the evening visiting either a monastery (or the Batasia Loop), Nehru Road and Mall Road.
• Grab dinner at Glenary whilst listening to live music.

Day 2:

• Wake up early to catch the sunrise and a glimpse of Kanchenjunga at Tiger Hill. Since Tiger Hill is 10km from Darjeeling and requires a permit, book your taxi in advance.
• Alternatively, if you don t want to get up at 4am or shell out INR1500 on the cab to Tiger Hill, walk to the Kanchenjunga View Point down Mall Road
• Next, queue up outside Keventers for breakfast with a view in a century-old cafe
• Get a cab at Gandhi Road and visit a tea garden (Happy Valley is the closest) and the Ropeway. I was lucky to meet 6 other backpackers at my hostel and we ended up pooling the cab at INR 200 per person, with INR 1400 being on the expensive side, but you could bargain.
• Get lunch, buy some tea at Golden Tips, pack your bags and hop on a shared-cab back to Siliguri. It took us about 4hrs to reach Siliguri, with an hour to spare before my train.
• If you ve still got time on your hands, then check out the Peace Pagoda and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (Toy Train). At INR 1500, I found the latter to be too expensive and skipped it.

---

Tips and hacks

• Download offline maps, especially when you re exploring Northern Sikkim.
• Food and booze are the cheapest in Gangtok. Stash up before heading to other regions.
• Keep your Aadhar/Passport handy since you need permits to travel to North & East Sikkim.
• In rural areas and some cafes, you may get to try Rhododendron Wine, made from Rhododendron arboreum a.k.a Gurans. Its production is a little hush-hush since the flower is considered holy and is also the National Flower of Nepal.
• If you don t want to invest in a new jacket, boots or a pair of gloves, you can always rent them at nominal rates from your hotel or little stores around tourist sites.
• Check the weather of a region before heading there. Low visibility and precipitation can quite literally dampen your experience.
• Keep your itinerary flexible to accommodate for rest and impromptu plans.
• Shops and restaurants close by 8pm in Sikkim and Darjeeling. Plan for the same.

Carry

• a couple of extra pairs of socks (woollen, if possible)
• a pair of slippers to wear indoors
• a reusable water bottle
• an umbrella
• a power bank
• a couple of tablets of Diamox. Helps deal with altitude sickness
• extra clothes and wet bags since you may not get a chance to wash/dry your clothes
• a few passport size photographs

Shared-cab hacks

• Intercity rides can be exhausting. If you can afford it, pay for an additional seat.
• Call shotgun on the drives beyond Lachen and Lachung. The views are breathtaking.
• Return cabs tend to be cheaper (WB cabs travelling from SK and vice-versa)

Cost

• My median daily expenditure (back when I went to Sikkim in early March 2021) was INR 1350.
• This includes stay (bunk bed), food, wine and transit (shared cabs)
• In my defence, I splurged on food, wine and extra seats in shared cabs, but if you re on a budget, you could easily get by on INR 1 - 1.2k per day.
• For a 9-day trip, I ended up shelling out nearly INR 15k, including 2AC trains to & from Kolkata
• Note : Summer (March to May) and Autumn (October to December) are peak seasons, and thereby more expensive to travel around.

---

Souvenirs and things you should buy

Buddhist souvenirs :

• Colourful Prayer Flags (great for tying on bikes or behind car windshields)
• Miniature Prayer/Mani Wheels
• Lucky Charms, Pendants and Key Chains
• Cham Dance masks and robes
• Singing Bowls
• Common symbols: Om mani padme hum, Ashtamangala, Zodiac signs

Handicrafts & Handlooms

• Tibetan Yak Wool shawls, scarfs and carpets
• Sikkimese Ceramic cups
• Thangka Paintings

Edibles

• Darjeeling Tea (usually brewed and not boiled)
• Wine (Arucha Peach & Rhododendron)
• Dalle Khursani (Chilli) Paste and Pickle

Header Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com is licensed by CC 3.0 BY

% sudo ceph osd tree
ID CLASS WEIGHT   TYPE NAME      STATUS REWEIGHT PRI-AFF
-1       65.44138 root default
-2       21.81310     host server1
 0   hdd  1.08989         osd.0    down  1.00000 1.00000
 1   hdd  1.08989         osd.1    down  1.00000 1.00000
 2   hdd  1.63539         osd.2    down  1.00000 1.00000
 3   hdd  1.63539         osd.3    down  1.00000 1.00000
 4   hdd  1.63539         osd.4    down  1.00000 1.00000
 5   hdd  1.63539         osd.5    down  1.00000 1.00000
18   hdd  2.18279         osd.18   down  1.00000 1.00000
20   hdd  2.18179         osd.20   down  1.00000 1.00000
28   hdd  2.18179         osd.28   down  1.00000 1.00000
29   hdd  2.18179         osd.29   down  1.00000 1.00000
30   hdd  2.18179         osd.30   down  1.00000 1.00000
31   hdd  2.18179         osd.31   down  1.00000 1.00000
-4       21.81409     host server2
 6   hdd  1.08989         osd.6    down  1.00000 1.00000
 7   hdd  1.08989         osd.7    down  1.00000 1.00000
 8   hdd  1.63539         osd.8    down  1.00000 1.00000
 9   hdd  1.63539         osd.9    down  1.00000 1.00000
10   hdd  1.63539         osd.10   down  1.00000 1.00000
11   hdd  1.63539         osd.11   down  1.00000 1.00000
19   hdd  2.18179         osd.19     up  1.00000 1.00000
21   hdd  2.18279         osd.21     up  1.00000 1.00000
22   hdd  2.18279         osd.22     up  1.00000 1.00000
32   hdd  2.18179         osd.32   down  1.00000 1.00000
33   hdd  2.18179         osd.33   down  1.00000 1.00000
34   hdd  2.18179         osd.34   down  1.00000 1.00000
-3       21.81419     host server3
12   hdd  1.08989         osd.12   down  1.00000 1.00000
13   hdd  1.08989         osd.13   down  1.00000 1.00000
14   hdd  1.63539         osd.14   down  1.00000 1.00000
15   hdd  1.63539         osd.15   down  1.00000 1.00000
16   hdd  1.63539         osd.16   down  1.00000 1.00000
17   hdd  1.63539         osd.17   down  1.00000 1.00000
23   hdd  2.18190         osd.23   down  1.00000 1.00000
24   hdd  2.18279         osd.24   down  1.00000 1.00000
25   hdd  2.18279         osd.25   down  1.00000 1.00000
35   hdd  2.18179         osd.35   down  1.00000 1.00000
36   hdd  2.18179         osd.36   down  1.00000 1.00000
37   hdd  2.18179         osd.37   down  1.00000 1.00000

kernel: [   73.697957] XFS (sdl1): SB stripe unit sanity check failed
kernel: [   73.698002] XFS (sdl1): Metadata corruption detected at xfs_sb_read_verify+0x10e/0x180 [xfs], xfs_sb block 0xffffffffffffffff
kernel: [   73.698799] XFS (sdl1): Unmount and run xfs_repair
kernel: [   73.699199] XFS (sdl1): First 128 bytes of corrupted metadata buffer:
kernel: [   73.699677] 00000000: 58 46 53 42 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 62 00  XFSB..........b.
kernel: [   73.700205] 00000010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
kernel: [   73.700836] 00000020: 62 44 2b c0 e6 22 40 d7 84 3d e1 cc 65 88 e9 d8  bD+.."@..=..e...
kernel: [   73.701347] 00000030: 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00  ......@.........
kernel: [   73.701770] 00000040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 02  ................
ceph-disk[4240]: mount: /var/lib/ceph/tmp/mnt.jw367Y: mount(2) system call failed: Structure needs cleaning.
ceph-disk[4240]: ceph-disk: Mounting filesystem failed: Command '['/bin/mount', '-t', u'xfs', '-o', 'noatime,inode64', '--', '/dev/disk/by-parttypeuuid/4fbd7e29-9d25-41b8-afd0-062c0ceff05d.cdda39ed-5
ceph/tmp/mnt.jw367Y']' returned non-zero exit status 32
kernel: [   73.702162] 00000050: 00 00 00 01 00 00 18 80 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00  ................
kernel: [   73.702550] 00000060: 00 00 06 48 bd a5 10 00 08 00 00 02 00 00 00 00  ...H............
kernel: [   73.702975] 00000070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 0c 0b 01 0d 00 00 19  ................
kernel: [   73.703373] XFS (sdl1): SB validate failed with error -117.

synpromika@server1 ~ % sudo mkfs.xfs -f -i size=2048 -m uuid="4568c300-ad83-4288-963e-badcd99bf54f" /dev/sdc1
meta-data=/dev/sdc1              isize=2048   agcount=4, agsize=6272 blks
         =                       sectsz=4096  attr=2, projid32bit=1
         =                       crc=1        finobt=1, sparse=1, rmapbt=0
         =                       reflink=0
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=25088, imaxpct=25
         =                       sunit=128    swidth=64 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0, ftype=1
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=1608, version=2
         =                       sectsz=4096  sunit=1 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
synpromika@server1 ~ % sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/ceph-recovery
SB stripe unit sanity check failed
Metadata corruption detected at 0x433840, xfs_sb block 0x0/0x1000
libxfs_writebufr: write verifer failed on xfs_sb bno 0x0/0x1000
cache_node_purge: refcount was 1, not zero (node=0x1d3c400)
SB stripe unit sanity check failed
Metadata corruption detected at 0x433840, xfs_sb block 0x18800/0x1000
libxfs_writebufr: write verifer failed on xfs_sb bno 0x18800/0x1000
SB stripe unit sanity check failed
Metadata corruption detected at 0x433840, xfs_sb block 0x0/0x1000
libxfs_writebufr: write verifer failed on xfs_sb bno 0x0/0x1000
SB stripe unit sanity check failed
Metadata corruption detected at 0x433840, xfs_sb block 0x24c00/0x1000
libxfs_writebufr: write verifer failed on xfs_sb bno 0x24c00/0x1000
SB stripe unit sanity check failed
Metadata corruption detected at 0x433840, xfs_sb block 0xc400/0x1000
libxfs_writebufr: write verifer failed on xfs_sb bno 0xc400/0x1000
releasing dirty buffer (bulk) to free list!releasing dirty buffer (bulk) to free list!releasing dirty buffer (bulk) to free list!releasing dirty buffer (bulk) to free list!found dirty buffer (bulk) on free list!bad magic number
bad magic number
Metadata corruption detected at 0x433840, xfs_sb block 0x0/0x1000
libxfs_writebufr: write verifer failed on xfs_sb bno 0x0/0x1000
releasing dirty buffer (bulk) to free list!mount: /mnt/ceph-recovery: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.

synpromika@server1 ~ % for f in  0..37  ; printf "osd-$f: %s\n" "$(sudo ceph --format json osd dump   jq -r ".osds[]   select(.osd==$f)   .uuid")"
osd-0: 4568c300-ad83-4288-963e-badcd99bf54f
osd-1: e573a17a-ccde-4719-bdf8-eef66903ca4f
osd-2: 0e1b2626-f248-4e7d-9950-f1a46644754e
osd-3: 1ac6a0a2-20ee-4ed8-9f76-d24e900c800c
[...]

synpromika@server1 ~ % UUID="4568c300-ad83-4288-963e-badcd99bf54f"
synpromika@server1 ~ % readlink -f /dev/disk/by-partuuid/"$ UUID "
/dev/sdc1

synpromika@server1 ~ % OSD_ID=0
synpromika@server1 ~ % sudo ceph auth get osd."$ OSD_ID " -f json 2>/dev/null   jq -r '.[]   .key'
AQCKFpZdm0We[...]

synpromika@server1 ~ % OSD_ID=0
synpromika@server1 ~ % sudo ceph osd metadata osd."$ OSD_ID " -f json   jq -r '.bluestore_bdev_partition_path'    
/dev/sdc2

synpromika@server1 ~ % sudo storcli64 /c0 show all   grep '^Firmware'
Firmware Package Build = 24.16.0-0092
Firmware Version = 4.660.00-8156
synpromika@server2 ~ % sudo storcli64 /c0 show all   grep '^Firmware'
Firmware Package Build = 24.21.0-0112
Firmware Version = 4.680.00-8489
synpromika@server3 ~ % sudo storcli64 /c0 show all   grep '^Firmware'
Firmware Package Build = 24.16.0-0092
Firmware Version = 4.660.00-8156

- Cannot create or mount xfs filesystem using xfsprogs 4.19.x kernel 4.20(SCGCQ02027889)
- xfs_info command run on an XFS file system created on a VD of strip size 1M shows sunit and swidth as 0(SCGCQ02056038)

WARN  server2.example.org  Mount options of /var/lib/ceph/osd/ceph-21      WARN - Missing: sunit=1024, Exceeding: sunit=512

synpromika@server2 ~ % systemctl show var-lib-ceph-osd-ceph\\x2d21.mount   grep sunit
Options=rw,noatime,attr2,inode64,sunit=512,swidth=512,noquota
synpromika@server3 ~ % systemctl show var-lib-ceph-osd-ceph\\x2d25.mount   grep sunit
Options=rw,noatime,attr2,inode64,sunit=1024,swidth=512,noquota

% diff -u ceph-disk-osd-25.log ceph-disk-osd-21.log
-synpromika@server2 ~ % sudo ceph-disk -v prepare --bluestore /dev/sdj --osd-id 25
+synpromika@server3 ~ % sudo ceph-disk -v prepare --bluestore /dev/sdi --osd-id 21
[...]
-command_check_call: Running command: /sbin/mkfs -t xfs -f -i size=2048 -- /dev/sdj1
-meta-data=/dev/sdj1              isize=2048   agcount=4, agsize=6272 blks
[...]
+command_check_call: Running command: /sbin/mkfs -t xfs -f -i size=2048 -- /dev/sdi1
+meta-data=/dev/sdi1              isize=2048   agcount=4, agsize=6336 blks
          =                       sectsz=4096  attr=2, projid32bit=1
          =                       crc=1        finobt=1, sparse=0, rmapbt=0, reflink=0
-data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=25088, imaxpct=25
-         =                       sunit=128    swidth=64 blks
+data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=25344, imaxpct=25
+         =                       sunit=64     swidth=64 blks
 naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0 ftype=1
 log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=1608, version=2
          =                       sectsz=4096  sunit=1 blks, lazy-count=1
 realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
[...]

synpromika@server1 ~ % sudo blockdev --getsz --getsize64 --getss --getpbsz --getiomin --getioopt /dev/sdk
4685545472
2398999281664
512
4096
524288
262144
synpromika@server2 ~ % sudo blockdev --getsz --getsize64 --getss --getpbsz --getiomin --getioopt /dev/sdk
4685545472
2398999281664
512
4096
262144
262144

synpromika@server1 ~ % sudo blockdev --getiomin /dev/sdk            
524288
synpromika@server1 ~ % cat /sys/block/sdk/queue/minimum_io_size
524288
synpromika@server2 ~ % sudo blockdev --getiomin /dev/sdk 
262144
synpromika@server2 ~ % cat /sys/block/sdk/queue/minimum_io_size
262144

root@grml ~ # grml-version
grml64-full 2020.06 Release Codename Ausgehfuahangl [2020-06-24]
root@grml ~ # uname -a
Linux grml 5.6.0-2-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 5.6.14-2 (2020-06-09) x86_64 GNU/Linux
root@grml ~ # grml-hostname grml-2020-06
Setting hostname to grml-2020-06: done
root@grml ~ # exec zsh
root@grml-2020-06 ~ # dpkg -l xfsprogs util-linux
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
  Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
 / Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
 / Name           Version      Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=========================================
ii  util-linux     2.35.2-4     amd64        miscellaneous system utilities
ii  xfsprogs       5.6.0-1+b2   amd64        Utilities for managing the XFS filesystem

root@grml-2020-06 ~ # mount ./sdd1.dd /mnt
mount: /mnt: mount(2) system call failed: Structure needs cleaning.
root@grml-2020-06 ~ # dmesg   tail -30
[...]
[   64.788640] XFS (loop1): SB stripe unit sanity check failed
[   64.788671] XFS (loop1): Metadata corruption detected at xfs_sb_read_verify+0x102/0x170 [xfs], xfs_sb block 0xffffffffffffffff
[   64.788671] XFS (loop1): Unmount and run xfs_repair
[   64.788672] XFS (loop1): First 128 bytes of corrupted metadata buffer:
[   64.788673] 00000000: 58 46 53 42 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 62 00  XFSB..........b.
[   64.788674] 00000010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
[   64.788675] 00000020: 32 b6 dc 35 53 b7 44 96 9d 63 30 ab b3 2b 68 36  2..5S.D..c0..+h6
[   64.788675] 00000030: 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00  ......@.........
[   64.788675] 00000040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 02  ................
[   64.788676] 00000050: 00 00 00 01 00 00 18 80 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00  ................
[   64.788677] 00000060: 00 00 06 48 bd a5 10 00 08 00 00 02 00 00 00 00  ...H............
[   64.788677] 00000070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 0c 0b 01 0d 00 00 19  ................
[   64.788679] XFS (loop1): SB validate failed with error -117.
root@grml-2020-06 ~ # mount -t xfs -o rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,sunit=1024,swidth=512,noquota ./sdd1.dd /mnt/
mount: /mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/loop1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
32 root@grml-2020-06 ~ # dmesg   tail -1
[   66.342976] XFS (loop1): stripe width (512) must be a multiple of the stripe unit (1024)
root@grml-2020-06 ~ # mount -t xfs -o rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,sunit=512,swidth=512,noquota ./sdd1.dd /mnt/
mount: /mnt: mount(2) system call failed: Structure needs cleaning.
32 root@grml-2020-06 ~ # dmesg   tail -14
[   66.342976] XFS (loop1): stripe width (512) must be a multiple of the stripe unit (1024)
[   80.751277] XFS (loop1): SB stripe unit sanity check failed
[   80.751323] XFS (loop1): Metadata corruption detected at xfs_sb_read_verify+0x102/0x170 [xfs], xfs_sb block 0xffffffffffffffff 
[   80.751324] XFS (loop1): Unmount and run xfs_repair
[   80.751325] XFS (loop1): First 128 bytes of corrupted metadata buffer:
[   80.751327] 00000000: 58 46 53 42 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 62 00  XFSB..........b.
[   80.751328] 00000010: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
[   80.751330] 00000020: 32 b6 dc 35 53 b7 44 96 9d 63 30 ab b3 2b 68 36  2..5S.D..c0..+h6
[   80.751331] 00000030: 00 00 00 00 00 00 40 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00  ......@.........
[   80.751331] 00000040: 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 02  ................
[   80.751332] 00000050: 00 00 00 01 00 00 18 80 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00  ................
[   80.751333] 00000060: 00 00 06 48 bd a5 10 00 08 00 00 02 00 00 00 00  ...H............
[   80.751334] 00000070: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 0c 0b 01 0d 00 00 19  ................
[   80.751338] XFS (loop1): SB validate failed with error -117.

root@grml-2020-06 ~ # xfs_info ./sdd1.dd
meta-data=./sdd1.dd              isize=2048   agcount=4, agsize=6272 blks
         =                       sectsz=4096  attr=2, projid32bit=1
         =                       crc=1        finobt=1, sparse=0, rmapbt=0
         =                       reflink=0
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=25088, imaxpct=25
         =                       sunit=128    swidth=64 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0, ftype=1
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=1608, version=2
         =                       sectsz=4096  sunit=1 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
root@grml-2020-06 ~ # xfs_repair ./sdd1.dd
Phase 1 - find and verify superblock...
bad primary superblock - bad stripe width in superblock !!!
attempting to find secondary superblock...
..............................................................................................Sorry, could not find valid secondary superblock
Exiting now.

% git show fa4ca9c5574605d1e48b7e617705230a0640b6da   cat
commit fa4ca9c5574605d1e48b7e617705230a0640b6da
Author: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
Date:   Tue Jun 5 10:06:16 2018 -0700
    
    xfs: catch bad stripe alignment configurations
    
    When stripe alignments are invalid, data alignment algorithms in the
    allocator may not work correctly. Ensure we catch superblocks with
    invalid stripe alignment setups at mount time. These data alignment
    mismatches are now detected at mount time like this:
    
    XFS (loop0): SB stripe unit sanity check failed
    XFS (loop0): Metadata corruption detected at xfs_sb_read_verify+0xab/0x110, xfs_sb block 0xffffffffffffffff
    XFS (loop0): Unmount and run xfs_repair
    XFS (loop0): First 128 bytes of corrupted metadata buffer:
    0000000091c2de02: 58 46 53 42 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 00  XFSB............
    0000000023bff869: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
    00000000cdd8c893: 17 32 37 15 ff ca 46 3d 9a 17 d3 33 04 b5 f1 a2  .27...F=...3....
    000000009fd2844f: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 00 00 06 d0  ................
    0000000088e9b0bb: 00 00 00 00 00 00 06 d1 00 00 00 00 00 00 06 d2  ................
    00000000ff233a20: 00 00 00 01 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 00  ................
    000000009db0ac8b: 00 00 03 60 e1 34 02 00 08 00 00 02 00 00 00 00  ... .4..........
    00000000f7022460: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 09 0b 01 0c 00 00 19  ................
    XFS (loop0): SB validate failed with error -117.
    
    And the mount fails.
    
    Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner <dchinner@redhat.com>
    Reviewed-by: Carlos Maiolino <cmaiolino@redhat.com>
    Reviewed-by: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
    Signed-off-by: Darrick J. Wong <darrick.wong@oracle.com>
diff --git fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_sb.c fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_sb.c
index b5dca3c8c84d..c06b6fc92966 100644
--- fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_sb.c
+++ fs/xfs/libxfs/xfs_sb.c
@@ -278,6 +278,22 @@ xfs_mount_validate_sb(
                return -EFSCORRUPTED;
         
        
+       if (sbp->sb_unit)  
+               if (!xfs_sb_version_hasdalign(sbp)  
+                   sbp->sb_unit > sbp->sb_width  
+                   (sbp->sb_width % sbp->sb_unit) != 0)  
+                       xfs_notice(mp, "SB stripe unit sanity check failed");
+                       return -EFSCORRUPTED;
+                 
+         else if (xfs_sb_version_hasdalign(sbp))   
+               xfs_notice(mp, "SB stripe alignment sanity check failed");
+               return -EFSCORRUPTED;
+         else if (sbp->sb_width)  
+               xfs_notice(mp, "SB stripe width sanity check failed");
+               return -EFSCORRUPTED;
+        
+
+       
        if (xfs_sb_version_hascrc(&mp->m_sb) &&
            sbp->sb_blocksize < XFS_MIN_CRC_BLOCKSIZE)  
                xfs_notice(mp, "v5 SB sanity check failed");

% git describe --contains fa4ca9c5574605d1e48
v4.18-rc1~37^2~14

root@grml ~ # grml-version
grml64-small 2017.05 Release Codename Freedatensuppe [2017-05-31]
root@grml ~ # uname -a
Linux grml 4.9.0-1-grml-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.29-1+grml.1 (2017-05-24) x86_64 GNU/Linux
root@grml ~ # lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux 9.0 (stretch)
Release:        9.0
Codename:       stretch
root@grml ~ # grml-hostname grml-2017-05
Setting hostname to grml-2017-05: done
root@grml ~ # exec zsh
root@grml-2017-05 ~ #
root@grml-2017-05 ~ # xfs_info ./sdd1.dd
xfs_info: ./sdd1.dd is not a mounted XFS filesystem
1 root@grml-2017-05 ~ # xfs_repair ./sdd1.dd
Phase 1 - find and verify superblock...
bad primary superblock - bad stripe width in superblock !!!
attempting to find secondary superblock...
..............................................................................................Sorry, could not find valid secondary superblock
Exiting now.
1 root@grml-2017-05 ~ # mount ./sdd1.dd /mnt
root@grml-2017-05 ~ # mount -t xfs
/root/sdd1.dd on /mnt type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,sunit=1024,swidth=512,noquota)
root@grml-2017-05 ~ # ls /mnt
activate.monmap  active  block  block_uuid  bluefs  ceph_fsid  fsid  keyring  kv_backend  magic  mkfs_done  ready  require_osd_release  systemd  type  whoami
root@grml-2017-05 ~ # xfs_info /mnt
meta-data=/dev/loop1             isize=2048   agcount=4, agsize=6272 blks
         =                       sectsz=4096  attr=2, projid32bit=1
         =                       crc=1        finobt=1 spinodes=0 rmapbt=0
         =                       reflink=0
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=25088, imaxpct=25
         =                       sunit=128    swidth=64 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0 ftype=1
log      =internal               bsize=4096   blocks=1608, version=2
         =                       sectsz=4096  sunit=1 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0

root@grml-2017-05 ~ # mount -t xfs -o sunit=512,swidth=512 ./sdd1.dd /mnt/
root@grml-2017-05 ~ # umount /mnt/

root@grml-2020-06 ~ # mount ./sdd1.rewritten /mnt/
root@grml-2020-06 ~ # xfs_info /root/sdd1.rewritten
meta-data=/dev/loop1             isize=2048   agcount=4, agsize=6272 blks
         =                       sectsz=4096  attr=2, projid32bit=1
         =                       crc=1        finobt=1, sparse=0, rmapbt=0
         =                       reflink=0
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=25088, imaxpct=25
         =                       sunit=64    swidth=64 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0, ftype=1
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=1608, version=2
         =                       sectsz=4096  sunit=1 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
root@grml-2020-06 ~ # mount -t xfs                
/root/sdd1.rewritten on /mnt type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,logbufs=8,logbsize=32k,sunit=512,swidth=512,noquota)

synpromika@server2 ~ % for i in /sys/block/sd*/queue/ ; do printf "%s: %s %s\n" "$i" "$(cat "$i"/minimum_io_size)" "$(cat "$i"/optimal_io_size)" ; done
[...]
/sys/block/sdc/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdd/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sde/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdf/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdg/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdh/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdi/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdj/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdk/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdl/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdm/queue/: 262144 262144
/sys/block/sdn/queue/: 262144 262144
[...]
synpromika@server3 ~ % for i in /sys/block/sd*/queue/ ; do printf "%s: %s %s\n" "$i" "$(cat "$i"/minimum_io_size)" "$(cat "$i"/optimal_io_size)" ; done
[...]
/sys/block/sdc/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdd/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sde/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdf/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdg/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdh/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdi/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdj/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdk/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdl/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdm/queue/: 524288 262144
/sys/block/sdn/queue/: 524288 262144
[...]

awk '$3 == "xfs" print $2 ' /proc/self/mounts   while read mount ; do echo -n "$mount " ; xfs_info $mount   awk '$0 ~ "swidth" gsub(/.*=/,"",$2); gsub(/.*=/,"",$3); print $2,$3 '   awk '  if ($1 > $2) print "impacted"; else print "OK" ' ; done

• document everything and ensure to have all relevant information available (including actual times of changes, used kernel/package/firmware/ versions. The thorough documentation was our most significant asset in this case, because we had all the data and information we needed during the emergency handling as well as for the post mortem/RCA)
• if something changes unexpectedly, dig deeper
• know who to ask, a network of experts pays off
• including timestamps in your shell makes reconstruction easier (the more people and documentation involved, the harder it gets to wade through it)
• keep an eye on changelogs/release notes
• apply regular updates and don t forget invisible layers (e.g. BIOS, controller/disk firmware, IPMI/OOB (ILO/RAC/IMM/ ) firmware)
• apply regular reboots, to avoid a possible delta becoming bigger (which makes debugging harder)

The Debian Janitor is an automated system that commits fixes for (minor) issues in Debian packages that can be fixed by software. It gradually started proposing merges in early December. The first set of changes sent out ran lintian-brush on sid packages maintained in Git. This post is part of a series about the progress of the Janitor. In my last blogpost, I introduced the buildlog consultant - a tool that can identify many reasons why a Debian build failed. For example, here s a fragment of a build log where the Build-Depends lack python3-setuptools:

849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858

dpkg-buildpackage: info: host architecture amd64 fakeroot debian/rules clean dh clean --with python3,sphinxdoc --buildsystem=pybuild dh_auto_clean -O--buildsystem=pybuild I: pybuild base:232: python3.9 setup.py clean Traceback (most recent call last): File "/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/setup.py", line 2, in <module> from setuptools import setup ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'setuptools' E: pybuild pybuild:353: clean: plugin distutils failed with: exit code=1: python3.9 setup.py clean

The buildlog consultant can identify the line in bold as being key, and interprets it:

 % analyse-sbuild-log --json ~/build.log
  
    "stage": "build",
    "section": "Build",
    "lineno": 857,
    "kind": "missing-python-module",
    "details":  "module": "setuptools", "python_version": 3, "minimum_version": null 
  

 % apt-file search /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/setuptools/__init__.py
 python3-setuptools: /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/setuptools/__init__.py

 % deb-fix-build
 Using output directory /tmp/tmpyz0nkgqq
 Using sbuild chroot unstable-amd64-sbuild
 Using fixers:  
 Building debian packages, running 'sbuild --no-clean-source -A -s -v'.
 Attempting to use fixer upstream requirement fixer(apt) to address MissingPythonDistribution('setuptools_scm', python_version=3, minimum_version='4')
 Using apt-file to search apt contents
 Adding build dependency: python3-setuptools-scm (>= 4)
 Building debian packages, running 'sbuild --no-clean-source -A -s -v'.
 Attempting to use fixer upstream requirement fixer(apt) to address MissingPythonDistribution('toml', python_version=3, minimum_version=None)
 Adding build dependency: python3-toml
 Building debian packages, running 'sbuild --no-clean-source -A -s -v'.
 Built 0.5.2-1- changes files at [ saneyaml_0.5.2-1_amd64.changes ].

% git log -p
 commit 5a1715f4c7273b042818fc75702f2284034c7277 (HEAD -> master)
 Author: Jelmer Vernoo  <jelmer@jelmer.uk>
 Date:   Sun Apr 4 02:35:56 2021 +0100
     Add missing build dependency on python3-toml.
 diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
 index 5b854dc..3b27b73 100644
 --- a/debian/control
 +++ b/debian/control
 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
  Rules-Requires-Root: no
  Standards-Version: 4.5.1
 -Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 12), dh-sequence-python3, python3-all, python3-setuptools (>= 50), python3-wheel, python3-setuptools-scm (>= 4)
 +Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 12), dh-sequence-python3, python3-all, python3-setuptools (>= 50), python3-wheel, python3-setuptools-scm (>= 4), python3-toml
  Testsuite: autopkgtest-pkg-python
  Source: python-saneyaml
  Priority: optional
 commit f03047da80fcd8468ee231fbc4cf8488d7a0acd1
 Author: Jelmer Vernoo  <jelmer@jelmer.uk>
 Date:   Sun Apr 4 02:35:34 2021 +0100
     Add missing build dependency on python3-setuptools-scm (>= 4).
 diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
 index a476cc2..5b854dc 100644
 --- a/debian/control
 +++ b/debian/control
 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
  Rules-Requires-Root: no
  Standards-Version: 4.5.1
 -Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 12), dh-sequence-python3, python3-all, python3-setuptools (>= 50), python3-wheel
 +Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 12), dh-sequence-python3, python3-all, python3-setuptools (>= 50), python3-wheel, python3-setuptools-scm (>= 4)
  Testsuite: autopkgtest-pkg-python
  Source: python-saneyaml
  Priority: optional