Year: 2018

apt-upgrade

I used to use a 2 command 1 liner to update my system:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

That was easy enough to type out now and then. But over time it grew to include removing and cleaning downloaded packages as well.

Then there’s the matter of knowing if an update requires a system restart.

The lazy me put it all into one bash script and made it globally accessible and executable:

#!/bin/bash
apt update && apt full-upgrade && apt-get autoremove && apt-get autoclean
if [ -f /var/run/reboot-required ]; then echo && cat /var/run/reboot-required; fi

Placed it in /usr/local/bin/apt-upgrade  and made it executable with sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/apt-upgrade .

Now I can run sudo apt-upgrade on all of my servers and it’ll update things as well as letting me know if a reboot is required.

Most amusing spam received to date

Good morning...

Do not consider on my English, I am from Iran.I installed the virus on your system.After that I pilfered all confidential info from your OS. Furthermore I received some more compromising evidence.The most interesting evidence which I thieftend- its a record with your self-abusing.I adjusted malicious software on a porn web site and after you installed it. As soon as you picked the video and pressed play, my software immediately set up on your OS.

After loading, your web camera shoot the record with you self-abusing,  furthermore it saved precisely the video you watched. In next week my malicious software collected all your social and work contacts.

If you wish to delete  the videotape- transfer me 380 united state dollar in BTC(cryptocurrency).
I provide you my Bitcoin wallet address - [redacted]  

You have 22 hours from this moment. When I receive transfer I will destroy the evidence forever. Differently I will send the tape to all your contacts.

Sent 5 days ago to my work address, no less.

Guess I got away with it!

Unable to install sass gem on CentOS 6.9 with Ruby 2.4

Something changed recently, preventing a VM from fully provisioning. Tracking it down was a bit of a PiTA.

OS: CentOS 6.9
Ruby: 2.4 – installed from source with the gearlingguy.ruby ansible role
Gems to be installed: sass

$ sudo gem install sass
Fetching: rb-fsevent-0.10.2.gem (100%)
Successfully installed rb-fsevent-0.10.2
Fetching: ffi-1.9.21.gem (100%)
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing sass:
    ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
    current directory: /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/ffi-1.9.21/ext/ffi_c
/usr/local/bin/ruby -r ./siteconf20180222-18730-x7wu2n.rb extconf.rb
checking for ffi.h... no
checking for ffi.h in /usr/local/include,/usr/include/ffi... no
checking for shlwapi.h... no
checking for rb_thread_blocking_region()... no
checking for rb_thread_call_with_gvl()... yes
checking for rb_thread_call_without_gvl()... yes
creating extconf.h
creating Makefile
current directory: /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/ffi-1.9.21/ext/ffi_c
make "DESTDIR=" clean
current directory: /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/ffi-1.9.21/ext/ffi_c
make "DESTDIR="
Running autoreconf for libffi
autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
autoreconf: configure.ac: not using Gettext
autoreconf: running: aclocal --force -I m4
configure.ac:3: error: Autoconf version 2.68 or higher is required
configure.ac:3: the top level
autom4te: /usr/bin/m4 failed with exit status: 63
aclocal: autom4te failed with exit status: 63
autoreconf: aclocal failed with exit status: 63
make: *** ["/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/ffi-1.9.21/ext/ffi_c/libffi-x86_64-linux"/.libs/libffi_convenience.a] Error 63
make failed, exit code 2
Gem files will remain installed in /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/gems/ffi-1.9.21 for inspection.
Results logged to /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.4.0/extensions/x86_64-linux/2.4.0/ffi-1.9.21/gem_make.out

The issue is with the ffi ruby gem.

Looking at the releases in github, a recent release updated the required version of autoconf installed on the system. Fine for modern systems, not so much for CentOS 6.9.

The solution is to install the ffi ruby gem with the version prior to this recent change:

$ gem install ffi -v 1.9.18

This then allows sass to be installed without complaint!