Monday, April 27, 2009
binary patching for NetBSD
patch_* tools are announced in an email describing the beginnings of a tool which is like what mt_diff was supposed to be.
I personally look forward to single-command upgrades to my netbsd systems. :)
I personally look forward to single-command upgrades to my netbsd systems. :)
Labels: NetBSD
Saturday, April 18, 2009
NetBSD should cannibalize wasabi systems
As noted in another blog, wasabi systems has gone away. It would seem that they donated WAPBL to NetBSD in a final act of charity before being forced to close their doors. Now that they're gone, I wonder if they have any other technologies they would be able to give to NetBSD or even sell to the netbsd foundation. Old hardware is probably too easy to sell for bill-paying, or else that would probably be nice too.
Regardless, it's sad to see them go. Who will be the next big NetBSD-based company (other than microsoft via the sidekick, I mean) to give things a spin? On that note, microsoft donating Danger's work would also be nice. ;)
Edited for typos..
Regardless, it's sad to see them go. Who will be the next big NetBSD-based company (other than microsoft via the sidekick, I mean) to give things a spin? On that note, microsoft donating Danger's work would also be nice. ;)
Edited for typos..
Labels: NetBSD
Sunday, April 12, 2009
pkgsrc dashboard - functionally complete
pkgsrc-dashboard is now, basically, functionally complete for its initial goals:
If will take input from a single shell script on any pkgsrc client and create a website of reports telling you if the package is vulnerable, old according to a source repository, and/or old according to a binary repository.
There are tons of possibilities when you get into this sort of thing, but I think that base functionality is pretty good. The server requires one daily sync of the INDEX from your local source repository, perl, DBI, and DBD::SQLite, and occasional find -exec rm to cleanup old reports. The client only needs to run a shell script every once in a while (daily is the highest supported frequency).
pkgsrc-dashboard
If will take input from a single shell script on any pkgsrc client and create a website of reports telling you if the package is vulnerable, old according to a source repository, and/or old according to a binary repository.
There are tons of possibilities when you get into this sort of thing, but I think that base functionality is pretty good. The server requires one daily sync of the INDEX from your local source repository, perl, DBI, and DBD::SQLite, and occasional find -exec rm to cleanup old reports. The client only needs to run a shell script every once in a while (daily is the highest supported frequency).
pkgsrc-dashboard
Thursday, April 9, 2009
DBD::DBM only supports tables with TWO columns
The subject says it all, and it's in the perldocs, but I guess I was lazy. I thought I could get away with just having little db files around, and I know that I could just use a packed value, or a bitmap, or whatever, but then I may as well just use a bdb directly!
ugh, I guess I'll look at sqlite.
ugh, I guess I'll look at sqlite.
Labels: perl programming
Sunday, April 5, 2009
pkgsrc dashboard - progress!
So this weekend I actually got some code out on pkgsrc-dashboard and I'm pretty happy with it. Well.. almost. :)
Obviously, this first commit is just something to try out and see what happens, but basically the server-side of things is starting to take shape. (I'll add a simple client very soon)
It has shown some, in my opinion, weaknesses with the tools available and I'm hoping to be able to improve that situation, or at least highlight these weaknesses enough to where they are improved. One obvious example is that NetBSD doesn't include a very featured http client by default. ftp(1) can do http requests, but it lacks the ability to POST, set headers, and other things that would make simple web-based automation a little easier. For now, I've programming pkgsrc-dashboard to handle GET's with parameters, but it would have been easier with curl as a client target.
Regardless, I'm happy with the progress I made this weekend.
Obviously, this first commit is just something to try out and see what happens, but basically the server-side of things is starting to take shape. (I'll add a simple client very soon)
It has shown some, in my opinion, weaknesses with the tools available and I'm hoping to be able to improve that situation, or at least highlight these weaknesses enough to where they are improved. One obvious example is that NetBSD doesn't include a very featured http client by default. ftp(1) can do http requests, but it lacks the ability to POST, set headers, and other things that would make simple web-based automation a little easier. For now, I've programming pkgsrc-dashboard to handle GET's with parameters, but it would have been easier with curl as a client target.
Regardless, I'm happy with the progress I made this weekend.
