S6E3: "Gettin' it Up(dated)"

Posted 2021-03-28 23:59
Modified 2021-03-28 13:57
Comments 0

In this episode, we talk about some theory behind when to update software, and a couple occasions where you might want to hold off on it.

• Just the Tip
• Notes
• 15 Clams
• Errata
• Music

Just the Tip

• Paden recommends putting a \a in your coworker’s ~/.bashrc PS1:

export PS1="\a${PS1}"

Worth noting, but this is what Paden and I were losing our shit over during the Tip segment:

jonathan@budino:~$ export PS1=\[\033[36m\]\u\[\033[m\]@\[\033[32m\]\h:\[\033[33;1m\]\w\[\033[m\]$\a
bash: 1m]w[033[m]$a: command not found
[033[36m]u[033[m]@[033[32m]h:[033[33

jonathan@budino:~$ export PS1=\[\033[36m\]\u\[\033[m\]@\[\033[32m\]\h:\[\033[33;1m\]\w\[\033[m\]\a$
bash: 1m]w[033[m]a$: command not found
[033[36m]u[033[m]@[033[32m]h:[033[33

jonathan@budino:~$ echo $PS1
\[\033[36m\]\u\[\033[m\]@\[\033[32m\]\h:\[\033[33;1m\]\w\[\033[m\]$

(Jthan forgot to quote it so it was trying to execute it. It looks so ugly because those are ANSI color codes.)

Notes

Starts at 17m51s.

I was drinking Guinness Draught. Paden was drinking water. Jthan was drinking New Belgium Mountain Time Lager.

• When do you update and when do you not?
  • An important point to consider: will my projects run on the new version?
    • For example, CentOS 8/Stream does not currently have uWSGI available.
      • There is gunicorn but it sucks. uWSGI > *.
  • It’s not a necessity if it still receiving security updates and is not EOL.
    • If it isn’t still receiving security updates, you need to update (or severely limit access via e.g. airgapping if it’s absolutely not a possibility).
    • If you do need to update due to EOL, do you go to the next long term release still in service? The most recent?
  • Paden encourages you to:
    • Consider a different platform (OS, distro, etc.) when you need to update; it may make sense to take it in a drastic direction since you have to make changes to project structure for an update anyways.
    • Start planning and designing your migration/upgrade before the EOL hits! Make sure all your projects have received changes to allow them to run on the new platform/version, etc.
  • Ensure you’re tracking releases in-between LTS releases in your testing. This greatly reduces the burden for testing when you deploy the next LTS, as drastic changes would have hit the non-LTS releases first (and if you’re testing and coming into compliance with those, you can deploy as soon as the next available LTS drops).
  • Typically, you probably won’t be able to rollout early, or just because a new release drops, even if you’re prepared for it.
  • Stick to what you know and have, but be prepared to update.
  • If you have such a strong and flexible infrastructure that you could handle rolling upgrades (CI, CM, redundancy, etc.), there is no real need for not deploying an update as soon as it’s available. At that point, the only real thing preventing you from doing it would be superstition.
  • If you have a system you cannot update, airgap. If you cannot airgap, VLAN it. (But you really should airgap it.)
  • In conclusion, PATCH YER SHIT.

15 Clams

In this segment, Jthan shares with you a little slice of life. The title is a reference to this video. (2m16s in)

Starts at 54m22s.

Jthan has been investigating TODO list/task management/time tracking. He recommends you do it to get an idea of how you spend your time.

He was also surprised at how little time he spends on writing documentation (5-10%).

Errata

• Nobody reminded me to replace Jthan’s VPN noise, so I didn’t. 😈
• It sounded like I said “drop to a TTI” during the Tip. I said “drop to a TTY” but I think it might not have made it out of my mouth correctly…
• SLES 11 is old as shit.
• I said “Red Hat 8 point release got canceled”. I obviously meant CentOS, not RHEL (and 8 isn’t canceled so much as had a severely shortened EOL).
• Some in Arch are proposing to remove python 2.
• Boulders are used to measure the size of boulders (seriously – and yes, that’s the same account a year later) and washing machines are a unit of measurement.
• My voice was fine a couple hours later. So weird.

Music

Author r00t^2
Categories Season Six