Posts made by EddieJennings

Recording video for YouTube, Odysee, etc.

Congratulations!

@scottalanmiller said in Miscellaneous Tech News:

https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/04/spacex-launches-60-new-starlink-satellites-while-starship-moves-closer-to-being-able-to-launch-up-to-400-at-a-time/

I can haz satellite servicing north Georgia? kplzthx!

@black3dynamite said in Ansible facts nested variable syntax preference:

Looks like Bracket notation is best choice instead of dot.

Bracket notation always works. Dot notation can cause problems because some keys collide with attributes and methods of python dictionaries. Use bracket notation if you use keys which start and end with two underscores (which are reserved for special meanings in python) or are any of the known public attributes:

Overlooked that in the documentation. While it's less efficient to type [' and '] rather than ., I'll live with it.

Consider the below example playbook.

For those that use Ansible regularly, do you have a syntax preference when referencing nested variables within Ansible facts? From what I've gathered there doesn't seem to be a technical difference between these formats:

ansible_cmdline.BOOT_IMAGE
ansible_cmdline['BOOT_IMAGE']
ansible_facts.cmdline.BOOT_IMAGE
ansible_facts['cmdline']['BOOT_IMAGE']

The example in the documentation shows using ansible_facts and mentions using either dots or brackets, but it appears just starting with ansible_cmdline in this example appears to work fine.

---
- name: Testing Ansible facts variable syntax
  hosts: ansible-client-5
  become: yes
  tasks:
    - name: Display BOOT_IMAGE using variable name with dots.
      debug:
        msg: "The ansible_cmdline.BOOT_IMAGE is {{ ansible_cmdline.BOOT_IMAGE }}."
    - name: Display BOOT_IMAGE using variable name with brackets.
      debug:
        msg: "The ansible_cmdline['BOOT_IMAGE'] is {{ ansible_cmdline['BOOT_IMAGE'] }}."
    - name: Display BOOT_IMAGE using ansible facts variable with dots.
      debug:
        msg: "The ansible_facts.cmdline.BOOT_IMAGE is {{ ansible_facts.cmdline.BOOT_IMAGE }}."
    - name: Display BOOT_IMAGE using ansible facts variable with brackets.
      debug:
        msg: "The ansible_facts['cmdline']['BOOT_IMAGE'] is {{ ansible_facts['cmdline']['BOOT_IMAGE'] }}."
...

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@DustinB3403 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@siringo said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@Dashrender said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@siringo said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

can anyone suggest an android tv box I can plug into the TV? nothing expensive, just something that works. just for streaming services.

why android TV?

because I don't know what i'm doing?

we got an apple tv but it's not very useful, it makes searching through things too hard.

enlighten me.

Roku works well and start at $35

yeah, Roku is super solid.

I replaced an old Apple TV with Roku so I could watch Daily Wire content. Roku has been solid.

Heard about this. I made the move to Bitwarden about a year ago.

Practicing using handlers and when statements in Ansible.

I didn't mind Fry's, but over time I found Microcenter usually had the specific items I wanted / needed in stock.

https://adamtheautomator.com/pending-reboot-registry/ PendingFileRenameOperations was the most common thing I remember.

@scottalanmiller said in Cannot install Windows updates Help Please!:

@EddieJennings said in Cannot install Windows updates Help Please!:

Stuck in a pending reboot state? I can't remember the registry key off the top of my head, but that might be the issue.

No, it's rebooted many times and doesn't request reboots until after an update attempts to apply.

That's why I mentioned the registry key. I ran into this once when installing SCVMM console. You could reboot 10 times, but installer still saw computer was in a pending reboot state. We had PowerShell script to look for it at my last job, but alas, I couldn't take it with me.

Stuck in a pending reboot state? I can't remember the registry key off the top of my head, but that might be the issue.

Just finished daily walk.

@scottalanmiller said in YAML terminology and Ansible:

Also, Eddie likes to teach and to teach you need to know what to call it. Referring to everything as "this bit here" doesn't work well for too long.

True. The "this bit here" test is a quick way to assess your actual understanding.

@flaxking said in YAML terminology and Ansible:

Speaking to just the YAML side of things and not Ansible, you've got it pretty good, just a few minor clarifications:

2. a. hosts is a key within a dictionary, not a dictionary itself, looks like they might have just been a typo

That makes sense. It wasn't a typo, and I thought it odd that hosts would be its own dictionary. In fact, hosts: labservers would be a key pair within the dictionary that begins with the first list item of - name: Have some fun with Ansible!, correct?

2. c. I mean, you could think of that dictionary being named tasks, but getting technical, tasks is a key in a dictionary that has a dictionary as the value.

Yes, yes. And that goes along with the first point you mentioned. The key tasks has a value which is a list of dictionaries, each beginning with the name specified, whose keys and values define the module being used.

@marcinozga said in YAML terminology and Ansible:

And why would you care about terminology? Do you intend on teaching Ansible? It's the end result that matters, whether your playbook or role does what you want it to do, not whether you know the terminology or not. I've been using Ansible for some years, and honestly this is the first time I run into someone mentioning "dictionary".

Terminology is important. It allows you to describe something clearly. Also, knowing the terms sometimes help piece together the logic of how something is working. When I'm learning something, simply making it work isn't sufficient for me.

For your other question, at some point I probably will do some teaching. I like to share what I learn with others.

I want to make sure I'm using the right terminology for YAML syntax while learning to use Ansible. Consider the following playbook.

According to this reference, about Ansible syntax the below contains the following:

1. There is a list of dictionaries which would be the playbooks, of which there is one playbook named Have some fun with Ansible!
2. The playbook Have some fun with Ansible is a dictionary which contains the following dictionaries (key value pairs):
   a. a hosts dictionary with the value labservers
   b. a become key with the boolean value true
   c. a list of dictionaries named tasks
3. The tasks dictionary contains a list of four dictionaries, each with a name, and each with a dictionary describing a particular ansible module.

---
- name: Have some fun with Ansible!
  hosts: labservers
  become: true
  tasks:
    - name: Create the file to be written
      file:
        path: /tmp/testfile
        state: touch
    - name: Write text to the file
      lineinfile:
        path: /tmp/testfile
        line:  Here's a test file!
    - name: Let's install git and Apache
      yum:
        name: git,httpd
        state: latest
    - name: Let's enable Apache and start it
      service:
        name: httpd
        state: started
        enabled: true
...

@DustinB3403 said in Oracle Linux Installation and performance seems insanely bad:

@EddieJennings On what hypervisor, I'm assuming XCP-ng?

KVM (Centos 8 Stream).

Just heard that Rush Limbaugh has perished.

When I spun up an Oracle 8 VM last week or so, I didn't notice the install process taking an extraordinary long time.

Getting some TAKP Everquest time.

Practicing writing Ansible playbooks.

Poking around an Opnsense VM.

Uploading some YouTube content to Rumble.

If I meet my demise in the near future, I know my RHCSA practice session videos will live on.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

One thing I noticed is that Orace Linux appears to be running kernel 5.4 by default while CentOS is usinig 4.18.

Fixing "old kernels" has been part of Oracle's promotion of how they dramatically improve on RHEL since day one. You can fall back to IBM's ancient kernel if you want, or update to Oracle's high performance tuned kernel and keep an otherwise compatible system. Oracle supports both modes.

I noticed that. Both Kernels were available in GRUB.

@DustinB3403 said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Looks like there is at least 1 (likely many other) easy approaches to migrate off of CentOS.

This script is designed to automatically switch a CentOS instance to Oracle Linux by removing any CentOS-specific packages or replacing them with the Oracle Linux equivalent.

** Edit this is to migrate from CentOS to Oracle Linux

One thing I noticed is that Orace Linux appears to be running kernel 5.4 by default while CentOS is usinig 4.18.

Preparing tax documentation.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@EddieJennings said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Hard to believe that they are bothering to still have a summit. The meeting of "inconsequential" Linux.

How long do we think Red Hat will still even be a thing now that IBM seems to be reconsidering their place in their ecosystem. My guess, Red Hat's days are numbers. Long but numbered. They never quite fit IBM's vision and IBM is definitely not seeing them as the valuable product that they did a year ago.

You might find this interesting if you haven't already read it.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/26/killing_centos/

Yeah, I've seen all that. To me it all reads the same: IBM doesn't see Red Hat as strategic and they are taking the first step of redirecting investment towards somewhere else because to them, Ubuntu has already won and it isn't a fight worth investing in.

I can see how it appears that IBM itself has surrendered to Canonical. It seems like there were (are) two problems happening at the same time. 1. IBM's focus. 2. Disarray within RedHat about whatever its priorities are, which is likely caused by #1.

@scottalanmiller said in What Are You Doing Right Now:

Hard to believe that they are bothering to still have a summit. The meeting of "inconsequential" Linux.

How long do we think Red Hat will still even be a thing now that IBM seems to be reconsidering their place in their ecosystem. My guess, Red Hat's days are numbers. Long but numbered. They never quite fit IBM's vision and IBM is definitely not seeing them as the valuable product that they did a year ago.

You might find this interesting if you haven't already read it.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/26/killing_centos/