Older blog entries for baruch (starting at number 35)

Another release (0.2) made yesterday, I've noticed that it was added in the tools section of SecurityFocus, it's nice to know what someone else thought it's worth adding to some tool list.

There are also a few web site accesses that came from peoples webmails, I wish the referrer would show me the message content too ;-) but I guess the privacy is more important than my curiosity.

I've prepared a roadmap for AutoFW, at least until the 1.0 stage, though it gets updated with various bits that I find that need to be done to make it a correctly functioning daemon.

By now it acts ok, can daemonize, log to syslog, kill another daemon by the -q option and generally tries to be a good daemonetizen.

I'm still missing removing the pid file on exit and some bug where I don't exit immediately when getting SIGTERM, some issue with a signal not stopping a system call probably.

I've got myself a small script to summarize what issues need to be handled for the current version so I can easily see what I've got to do before release. It's a good motivational. The script needs to be expanded to show the various TODOs sprinkled in the code, these are not bugs, just things I didn't have the time to implement.

Speaking about bugs, My current Bug Tracking System (BTS), is a Known Bugs section in the README file, for now it works fine, there is no external feedback anyhow and by committing the removal of a bug from the README, I also mark when in the repository life I thought I solved the bug.

I've been hacking in the last few days on a new project called AutoFW, a script to automatically configure the firewall for the home broadband user who wants to be firewalled and still access BitTorrent to serve the Debian ISO images (They really want to serve Debian ISOs, movies and mp3s just don't interest them!).

So far I've published it on FreshMeat and WhatsUp.co.il (a local Israel Linux board), and there were over 250 visits to the site and 100 downloads. The thing I forgot was to provide an easy to find contact point to send me praises, curses and anything in between.

Wedding

It's getting closer, my SO started counting weeks.

Food

My SO put me on a diet, luckily to me we had Independence Day and it's mandatory to eat a barbeque during that day, so I got to eat plenty of dead cows.

We also entertained (or made him suffer :-) a professor from the institute I'm going to do my MSc at, and we got to eat well, but it was seafood and it should have far less fat than in dead, grilled cows.

Life, Universe and Everything

It's good out there, the problem is that I'm in here.

I've started to look at the TCP handling code of the Linux kernel, it's a huge body of code and I need to get a little familiar with it for my upcoming MSc studies.

The professor with whom I'm going to work published his code patches to the kernel and some updated articles so I've got a lot to read about, I intend to organize all my data on a Wiki for which I got a domain HighPerf.net. I'm also looking into keeping the articles that I find, I just know I'll forget where I found them a few months from now, just when I'll need them.

Hacktivities

I've gotten some prods from Debian fellows and gotten back on track to fix my packages, I've done most of them, now I've got syscalltrack left, which is up for adoption but no-one wants to handle it.

Kernel modules and patches are the most annoying types of packages, they require quite a bit of work to get them done properly.

During the initial stages of my packaging work I looked around at the code, found some things to improve, and some bugs waiting to happen in sctrace, fixed them, sent them upstream and they were accepted (or so I'm told, didn't check the CVS repository).

I still need to fix some bugs in ChkTeX, a program I maintain, some bugs on it were filed in the Debian BTS, but the code is so annoying there with lots of weird defines, that everytime I touch it I feel the urge to clean this mess, which then goes to waste the time I needed to fix the actual bugs. Hopefully, I'll get it all cleaned up soon enough and fix the bugs themselves.

Life

The MSc interview worked out fine, I've received a research position to do my MSc in which includes a stipend which hopefully keep me and my girl above the water financially.

Another large change is that I'm getting to this friend of mine. Arranging a wedding sucks! We've signed the place, which settles the date to be 2004-06-29, now we need a Photographer and a DJ. Local good recommendations would be welcome, it's our first attempt at this wedding bussiness (hopefully the last too :-)

My then-to-be-wife will try to find a job in Ireland, hopefully she'll find something so she won't be bored to death listening to me rambling on an MSc thesis that she has no interest in.

Hacktivities

I'm usually without energy to work on anything, I've played a bit with GnuCash hacks to easily import data from my bank account to GnuCash.

I then offered to do a lecture on GnuCash for Israelis, it is dubbed "Introduction to GnuCash" and will be done in Haifux.

I've actually been invited for an interview for the MSc studies I fancied, apparently I was able to get a recommendation, though I still need to contact others to get a few more to get a critical mass.

I now need to prepare a short lecture on some research topic of sorts and then to be able to discuss it with the Prof., I've got to be thinking hard, I'm due to go there in three weeks.

Hopefully, not having to work in a full time job will give me a bit more time to dabble in Free Software, my task there will likely be related to the Linux Kernel and since it's a University and not a scared company, I might actually be able to release the source and contribute as part of my work there.

Job

I've switched jobs some time ago, from a Linux-centric company to a Windows-centric one, there I was a good Linux developer among many, and here I'm the only Linux-savvy developer. If it's better, worse or the same is anyone judgement.

I've improved working conditions in the new place by adding kgdb to the kernel, introducing new time-saving tools (cvsps, vim plugins and more), and hoping to improve the build process.p>

There is always a lot to do to improve stuff, but I am also supposed to get some productive work too. There is little acknowledgement here to the development environment. Oh well!

Studies

An interesting oppurtunity for studying for an MSc has came up, now I need to go dig decaying memories of former professors to get recommendations. I'm not really a peoples person so I doubt I left a lasting impression on many professors to give me a good recomendation. *sigh* I'll need to do what I fear most, and actually ask for a meeting to discuss it with some of them.

It sure would be great to return to studies and doing an MSc in Computer Science. It's also an opportunity to be in another country and live someplace else. Change is good.

Free Software

Not much in this front, minor fixes to my Debian packages, a snapshot release of websec, and an attempt to write a tool to get stock exchange data from TASE. I've decided I needed to start investing some of my money in bonds and stocks, since the interest I get from the bank is very low.

I've switched a job to something less stressful and with a higher pay. I've been spoiled in my former place with a very high technical excellency and the current place has a lot to improve until it gets to the same level, but they do seem willing to learn and improve.

I also negotiated better terms to allow me to release my code as Free Software. Not that before I was severly limited, but now I do not need permission for each specific project.

Free Software

I've got a bit more time at home this days (see above), but I still don't get to do much. There is a lot pending for websec, but I didn't yet get around to doing anything with it.

At work I started working on network device drivers and needed to decipher various constants (what does 0x1f310000 mean for CSR11 in the Tulip 21143?), so I coded up BitDecoder.

I've finally got over my procrastination tendency and actually did something Free-Software-y.

Worked on and released version 1.5.0 of websec. That felt good.

Now I need to find that person who provided patches for ChkTeX and have him resubmit them. My computer crashed some time ago and I lost everything he sent. Including his e-mails so I can't really know where to send the inquiry. He said that he is the maintainer of ChkTeX in OpenBSD so I need to go look there.

Free Software Foundation

Some time ago I joined the FSF as a member, today I received the package, it includes the book "Free Software Free Society: selected essays of Richard M. Stallman", two LNX-BBC 2.0 CDs (small and regular), and a thank you letter.

The CDs didn't boot on my Dell Inspiron 2500, which kinda sucks. The book seems nice but it looks like it could use some polish, it is printed skewed and there is not enough spacing between lines, but oh well, I got it for "free".

At the same time I also contributed to the EFF. I'm not a student anymore, and I have a bit of change to help make changes that fit my views.

Common Lisp

I'm trying to learn new things, so I picked up the book "ANSI Common Lisp" by Paul Graham. It's nice. I'm toying with lisp and it is also interesting that at work I start to see places where I could do things better with Lisp. Except that I'm working inside the Linux kernel so Lisp is out of the question.

Work is draining me, I got to the point where I worked at least 12 hours a day, add to that an hour drive in each direction and you get a life of Sleep-Work cycles. That is, No Life. At one time I actually worked the normal 9 hours on the firewall, and then at the evening they found a critical bug on a completely unrelated project that was scheduled to release that day, so I stayed for another 9 hours working on a platform I never touched before.

The day after I didn't even bother to show up to work for obvious reasons.

That was until I figured that no matter how much work I will put in, the product ship date is slipping and so are the standards that we will hold it to. I reduced my work time to 8-9 hours, and started coming earlier, 10am instead of 2pm. After all my co-worker of whom I'm in charge needs me, and I need to be able to get back home in a "normal" hour.

It still doesn't give me enough time to play with Free Software. I need to find a way to make days of 28 hours long or so.

I still have pending patches for websec and ChkTeX, my Debian packages need an update and various private interests need to be nurtured.

I did advance in implementing a Bookmarks utility, inspired by a co-worker. The idea is to have bookmarks not in an hierarchical system as the browser keeps them, but indexed by keywords. Coupled with a simple search on that database makes it easier to find the bookmarks I want.

It's still an early version, but it's working nicely.

Got a second set of patches for ChkTeX from the OpenBSD maintainer, he's really doing some serious work on it and it's good to see that giving it a home let some improvements happen for the benefit of all users.

Formerly I had some patches in the Debian package, opening a project for it in a central place makes sure that these changes will be available for all users and that others will be able to contribute too.

Now I need to go over the patches, review and commit them. And then I can go on to release 1.6.2