/techblog

Open source i offentlig sektor - utmaningar, möjligheter och vägen framåt.

Summering

Denna artikel beskriver processen och lärdomarna från att släppa ett API som öppen källkod inom offentlig sektor. Projektet, som utvecklades för digitala nationella prov (“DNP”), visar hur öppen källkod kan stärka samarbete, transparens och innovation. Artikeln lyfter fram både möjligheter och utmaningar – från säkerhet och juridiska aspekter till kulturellt motstånd – och ger insikter för andra myndigheter som överväger liknande initiativ.

Slutsatsen är att öppen källkod ... [continue reading]

Ansible can be used for many things. There are only a few things I have on my bucket list of things I would like to do, where Ansible cannot help me.

One of my most urgent things to handle was the increasing complexity of Ansible, its configuration and in particular the role development. As I got deeper into Ansible, more and more factors needed to be taken into consideration when setting up a role: the role structure, linting issues, molecule ... [continue reading]

Working with various compressed files on a daily basis, I found I didn’t actually know how the different tools performed compared to each other. I know different compression will best fit different types of data, but I wanted to compare using a large generic file.

The setup

The file I chose was a 4194304000 byte (4.0 GB) Ubuntu installation disk image.

The machine tasked with doing of the bit-mashing was an Ubuntu with a AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core ... [continue reading]

Executive summary

• TCP connections may freeze due to network troubles, spontaneous reboots or failovers. The application should be robust enough to handle it.
• The concept of “TCP keepalive” is one way of solving it. Linux does not come with any knobs to turn it on globally, and by default it’s turned off - but there are workarounds.
• “TCP keepalive” needs to be configured according to the network; one may want slightly different configuration for communication between two servers ... [continue reading]

It can probably be understood from my previous blog post that if it was up to me, I’d avoid products like CrowdStrike - but every now and then I still have to install something like that. It’s not the idea of “security software” per se that I’m against, it’s the actual implementation of many of those products. This post lists up some properties that should be fulfilled for me to happy to install such a product.

Free and ... [continue reading]

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that last Friday a global crash of computer systems caused by ‘CrowdStrike’ led to widespread chaos and mayhem: flights were cancelled, shops closed their doors, even some hospitals and pharmacies were affected. When things like this happen, I first have a smug feeling “this would never happen at our place”, then I start thinking. Could it?

Broken Software Updates

Our department do take responsibility for keeping quite a lot ... [continue reading]

At my work, we’re very much dependent on alarms. The systems need to be operational 24/7. When unexpected issues arise, timely manual intervention may be essential. We need good monitoring systems to catch whatever is wrong and good alarm systems to make someone aware that something urgently needs attention. I would claim that we’re quite good at setting up, tuning, and handling alarms.

When I’m not at work, I’m often sailing, often single-handedly for longer distances. Alarms are important for ... [continue reading]

make is a utility for automating builds. You specify the source and the build file and make will determine which file(s) have to be re-built. Using this functionality in make as an all-round tool for command running as well, is considered common practice. Yes, you could write Shell scripts for this instead and they would be probably equally good. But using make has its own charm (and gets you karma points).

Even this ... [continue reading]

Do you spend days or weeks setting up your development environment just the way you like it when you get a new computer? Is your home directory a mess of dotfiles and metadata that you’re reluctant to clean up just in case they do something useful? Do you avoid trying new versions of software because of the effort to roll back software and settings if the new version doesn’t work?

Take control over your local development environment with containerization and Dev-Env-as-Code!

The command ansible-runner is part of the Ansible automation platform. If you have got installed Ansible, then you probably have already installed ansible-runner as well.

But what do you use it for? Well, if you run AWX or the Ansible Automation platform package somewhere in your environment, ansible-runner is part of the magic in the background and running your code. It is also a python library that can connect your code directly to Ansible ... [continue reading]