Monthly Archives: October 2021

My Sites are under Maintenance

2021-11-08 Update: There is a Postmortem analysis of what happened with Amazon here.

TLTR: I’m undergoing a Maintenance on all my sites.

The main reason was that I was getting unexpected API Exceptions on the AWS SDK for Python (boto3), so I connected to the AWS Console to get more information.

Then I saw a message indicating that they will stop EC2-Classic today 30th of October. (Please read the Update on the Postmortem analysis as I understood incorrectly that banner message)

I already started migrating my Services, some I move to other providers like Digital Ocean. Other I had plant to keep in Amazon.

EOL (End of Life) was scheduled for 2022 August, so when I saw the message from Amazon the evening of the 29th, I decided to migrate my EC2-Classic Public Ip’s and Compute to VPC. Trying to deploy from an AMI, Amazon APIs were returning many internal errors, and as I figured out where their failures would be I was able get instances being launch without being Terminated immediately without an explanation. Still I had many problems with the Internet Gateway, VPC NAT, etc… after hours fighting with their errors, and their console, that is more a bunch of pages to manage Infrastructure rather than a user/developer friendly Cloud Tool I decided that I had enough.

After 11 years using Amazon AWS, including a trip to Dublin to be hired as Manager for Cloud Watch, and giving them the idea to add AutoScaling (I was told the project was too easy for me and that I would get bored in a year or too so I was not hired), I decided to move my Services to Google Cloud and to Digital Ocean.

I’m very polite and I saw that when I told to one Manager that the User Interface was terrible he didn’t like, but I have to speak up and say that tools for developers cannot be cold as your evil girlfriend. Cannot be API alike, stand alone pages to manage infinite parts of Architecture. Web providing services for developers cannot be created like in cold SysAdmin style. If the infrastructure is hard to manage and internally you use APIs, build nice Wizards in Javascript. I was leading a Team of Developers with infinite less resources than Amazon or Google and we wrote a Multi-Cloud product, with nice, and clever, and easy to use Wizards, and they were infinitely more better that those giant CSPs. We won a prize at European level at that time. But it was 2013.

I’ve migrated everything, moved all the data, statics, VMs… but I’m completing the adjustments for certain services like Cassandra nodes, web sites, bootstrapping some of my sites based of my PHP Catalonia Framework, adding Firewall rules to GCP, doing changes for Ansible provisioning, deploying the Server scripts from IaC, Docker, etc…

I’ll be posting updates in Twitter.

News from the blog 2021-10-21

  • I made a Donation to The Document Foundation, which makes the OpenOffice.

I use OpenOffice suite for writing my books and other documents, so I think it’s fair to contribute with their operating costs.

  • I’ve installed a plugin to add Code Highlighting

It also allows me to add blocks of Code, like this:

if CodeHighlighting.b_is_installed == True:
    return VisualImprovement.update_to(10), "It's easy to read"
else:
    return VisualImprovement.get_still_the_same_difficult_to_read(), "The blog lives in the medieval age"

Or Inline Code like print(self.awareness) which is also great

  • I’ve improved a bit, visually, the blog

I modified a bit my template. The changes consist into adding an id attribute to the table for the Quick Selection of the articles, and modifying my template: the styles in the file css/blocks.css and modifying the version in functions.php to reflect the new timestamp.

I also made that when the mouse goes over a link it is displayed in blue, and the already visited in a slightly darker blue.

#articles_selection a:hover {color: #2222FF;}

In the images below you can see the before, the intermediate, and the final.

I’ve also added a button to hide or show the Quick Selection

If you have a WordPress and jQuery does not work for you, with error:

TypeError: $ is not a function

$(document).ready(function(){

This is because for compatibility reasons you have to do different in WordPress:

jQuery(document).ready(function($){
  • I created several videos of 5 minutes to learn Unit Testing in Python 3 with pytest
Learn Python 3 Unit Testing

I also use my package carleslibs to execute the command from shell.

Web CTOP in this case :)

As I did this I discovered a bug (bug #47) in CTOP for setting the number of rows.

  • I fixed the bug #47 and the bug #48 in CTOP and started version 0.8.7 (available in Master).

The changelog.txt file details all the changes for each version.

Here CTOP is displayed with a fixed width and height as by launching with:
ctop.py –rows=50 –columns=170
  • The new PSU arrived and I replaced it on Saturday 16th

After 5 days working nonstop, with no problems, it seems clear that the failing item was the expensive, 850W, Corsair PSU. Sometimes it happens that a new component comes defective, but I paid overprice expecting quality, and it seems that the PSU was defective. Since the beginning the computer powered off every few hours max, so I have to finally assume that effectively it was the PSU. Disappointed with Corsair.

  • Firewall. This month I’ve blocked around 2,000 visitors that were mainly bots searching for exploits

I review the logs several times every day.

Actually I’ve blocked many more Ip’s in the firewall, as when I identify a company source of bots, I block all their range (Imagine, as I block entire class C addresses, there are 256 Ips each class C /24). This has translated into 2,000 visitors less per month to the blog, that were offenders.

  • I added some rules / guidelines to the Leave a Reply section

I moderate all the comments to keep the blog an useful and healthy place.

And I don’t publish Spam, or Marketing messages.

Abusive comments are blocked. Competent Engineers and nice human beings share their points and doubts with data, with technical arguments, with education, in a respectful and polite way. People that cannot observe a minimum decoration are not welcome.

Web Top – Displaying top with Python 3 Web Server and Carleslibs

So this is a super simple example on how quickly you can create nice solutions with my package carleslibs.

In this example I use Python 3 incorporated Web Server and carleslibs, to execute top and display in the browser.

Requisites:

Having Python3 and have installed carleslibs 1.0.1 or superior.

pip3 install carleslibs

Having this running in a Linux with top installed. All of them come with top, as long as I know.

This is the 84 lines code for WebTop:

from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer

from carleslibs.subprocessutils import SubProcessUtils
from carleslibs.datetimeutils import DateTimeUtils


class Top():

    def __init__(self, o_subprocess):
        self.o_subprocess = o_subprocess

    def get_top(self):

        a_domains_offline = []

        s_command = "/usr/bin/top -n 1 -b"
        i_code, s_stdout, s_stderr = self.o_subprocess.execute_command_for_output(s_command, b_shell=True, b_convert_to_ascii=True)

        return i_code, s_stdout, s_stderr


class WebServer(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):

    def do_GET(self):
        o_subprocess = SubProcessUtils()
        self.o_top = Top(o_subprocess)

        self.o_datetime = DateTimeUtils()

        self.i_max_domains_offline = 0

        self.send_response(200)
        self.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
        self.end_headers()

        WebTop.log(self.path)
        if self.path == "/favicon.ico":
            return

        s_html = "<html><body>"
        s_html = s_html + "<h1>Web Top</h1>"
        s_html = s_html + '<small>by Carles Mateo - <a href="https://blog.carlesmateo.com">blog.carlesmateo.com</a></small>'

        i_code, s_stdout, s_stderr = self.o_top.get_top()

        if i_code != 0:
            s_html = s_html + "Error Code: " + str(i_code) + "&lt;/br&gt;"
            s_html = s_html + "Message: " + s_stderr + "&lt;/br&gt;"
        else:
            s_html = s_html + "<pre>"
            s_html = s_html + s_stdout
            s_html = s_html + "</pre>"

        s_html = s_html + "</body>"
        s_html = s_html + "</html>"

        by_html = bytes(s_html, encoding="utf-8")

        self.wfile.write(by_html)


class WebTop():

    o_datetime = DateTimeUtils()

    @staticmethod
    def log(s_text):
        s_datetime = WebTop.o_datetime.get_datetime()
        print(s_datetime, s_text)


if __name__ == "__main__":

    o_webserver = HTTPServer(("localhost", 80), WebServer)
    WebTop.log("Server started")

    try:
        o_webserver.serve_forever()
    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        pass

    o_webserver.server_close()
    WebTop.log("Server stopped")

Just run the code and go to localhost with your favorite browser.

If you get an error like this it means that another process is listening on port 80. Just use another like 8080, 8181, etc…

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/carles/Desktop/code/carles/json-realm-live/web_top.py", line 74, in <module>
    o_webserver = HTTPServer(("localhost", 80), WebServer)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/socketserver.py", line 452, in __init__
    self.server_bind()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/http/server.py", line 138, in server_bind
    socketserver.TCPServer.server_bind(self)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/socketserver.py", line 466, in server_bind
    self.socket.bind(self.server_address)
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

And you will see the requests coming:

2021-10-09 10:47:46 Server started
127.0.0.1 - - [13/Oct/2021 10:47:48] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 -
2021-10-09 10:47:48 /
127.0.0.1 - - [13/Oct/2021 11:25:24] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 -
2021-10-09 11:25:24 /

So instead of using top, you can use ctop.py :)

Just replace the command by:

s_command = "ctop.py -b -n=1 --rows=30 --columns=200"

You can also create a Dockerfile very easily and run this in a Container.

News from the blog 2021-10-10

I published this book to help developers to understand and use Docker.

It is not targeted to SysAdmins, is aimed to Developers that want to get an operative know how by examples very quickly, and easy to read.

  • University classes are restarted, and I fixed my tower.

For the Cloud computing degree this semester VMWare is used intensively.

I have a dedicated tower with an AMD Ryzen 7 processor, a Samsung NMVe drive PCIe 4.0, which provides me a throughput of 6GB/second (six Gigabytes, so 48 Gbit/second), SAS drives and SATA too. It’s a little monster with 64 GB of RAM and 2.5 Gbps NIC.

It was not starting.

The problem was in the Video card, which made loosely contact to the motherboard.

I had to disconnect everything until I found what it was, but after moving the video card to another PCI slot, it worked.

I knew it was some sort of short circuit / bad contact as the fans were turning for a second and turning off immediately.

After this, the computer works fine but it will poweroff in about 4h and 12 hours. I’ve been testing and removing each component until I believe is the PSU. I’ve ordered a new one from a Dutch provider with web store in Ireland that my former colleague Thomas showed me one year and half ago.

Since England leaved the EU, it is impossible to buy from amazon.co.uk without experiencing problems in the border and delays.

If you want to learn how to assemble a PC, fix the problems and upgrade your laptop, I wrote this book:

https://leanpub.com/pc-assemble/

If you are curious about what I use in my day to day:

  1. A tower for developing and reading my email, with Linux, Intel i7 7800X (12 cores) and 64 GB of RAM, with Nvidia graphics card
  2. A tower for holding Virtual Machines, with Linux, AMD Ryzen 7 3700x (16 cores) and 64 GB of RAM, with Nvidia graphics card
  3. An upgraded HP laptop for programming in the cafe, is a Windows 10, with 16 GB of RAM
  4. Raspberry Pi 4 and 3, from time to time
  5. A laptop for programming, for Work, 16 GB of RAM
  6. A tower for programming, for Work, at the office, 32 GB of RAM
  7. I also had a Dell computer which battery inflated elevating the touchpad, an Acer 11.6 Latop very lightweight which screen died cracked apparently (it’s a mistery to me how this happened as I removed from the bag and it was cracked. That little laptop accompanied me during years, to many countries, as for a while I carried it with me 100% of the time. At that time if the companies I worked for had outages they were losing thousands of euros per hour, so as CTO I fixed broken stuff even in a restaurant. Believe when I recommend you and your teams to use Unit Testing) and a 15.6″ Acer with 16GB of RAM that was part of the payment of an Start up I was CTO for, and which screen flicks intermittently and I managed to fix it by applying a pressure point to a connector, so I managed to use as fixed computer at the beginning of being in Ireland. I was not using it much, as I had two laptops from work when working for Sanmina, a Dell with 16 GB of RAM and Core i7 with two external monitors and an Intel Xeon with 32GB of RAM, heavy weight, but very useful for my job (programming, doing demos, having VMs…).

I’ve assembled all my PC from the scratch, piece by piece, and I force myself to do it so I keep up to date of the upcoming technologies, buses, etc…

  • My students are doing well. Congrats to Albert for getting 8.67 from 10 in his university programming course exams!.
  • Diablo 2 Resurrected is published and I am in the credits :)

I’m in the credits of all our games since I joined, but I’m happy every time I see myself and my colleagues on them. :)

This release includes SubProcessUtils which is a class that allows you to execute commands to the shell (or without shell) and capture the STDOUT, STDERR, and Exit Code very easily.

I’ve used my libraries for a hackaton PoC for work, for Monitoring one aspect of one of our top games side, and I coded it super quickly. :)

They loved it and we have a meeting scheduled to create a Service from my PoC. :)

Some graphics with matplotlib

Recently I showed you how to generate a Cloud Tag.

You may like some of other graphs that can be easily generated with matlib package.

I’ve been always working on BackEnd and APIs and I don’t work on FrontEnd, although I programmed some videogames by myself and I’ve fixed some huge bugs in JavaScript in some of the companies I work, but they considered myself the last resource, so I would fix a FrontEnd bug when nobody else could. But even if you work 99.9% of your time in BackEnd, Scaling, Architecture… like me, it is useful being able to draw graphics, for example, when you create a tool that shows the number of players per minute, and its evolution over time, or web visitors in real time, etc…

I wrote this article with two simple examples for my book Python 3 exercises for beginners.

You can find this source code here:

https://gitlab.com/carles.mateo/python-classes/-/blob/main/2021-09-10/draw_points.py


import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

a_points1 = [7, 3, 15, 5, 10, 2, 9]
a_points2 = [2, 4, 9, 2, 7, 8, 4]

plt.plot(a_points1)
plt.plot(a_points2)

plt.show()

We can also add customized axis:

https://gitlab.com/carles.mateo/python-classes/-/blob/main/2021-09-10/draw_points2.py

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

a_points1 = [7, 3, 15, 5, 10, 2, 9]
a_points2 = [2, 4, 9, 2, 7, 8, 4]
a_points3 = [12, 10, 1, 7, 14, 16, 1]

a_days_of_the_week = ["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday", "Sunday"]

plt.plot(a_days_of_the_week, a_points1)
plt.plot(a_days_of_the_week, a_points2)
plt.plot(a_days_of_the_week, a_points3)
plt.grid(axis='y', color='black', linestyle='solid')
plt.show()

Draw a pie chart

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

a_scores = [70, 20, 5, 5]
a_languages = ["Python", "Bash", "Java", "PHP"]
a_colors = ["Red", "Blue", "Green", "Cyan"]

plt.pie(a_scores, labels=a_languages, colors=a_colors)
plt.legend()
plt.show()

This graphic represents in which languages I use my time nowadays, or if I update it by adding HTML and jQuery:

https://gitlab.com/carles.mateo/python-classes/-/blob/main/2021-09-10/draw_circle.py