Article

Beware: deleteing a file in Chef doesn't actually delete it (3 mins read).

Why you should explicitly add backup false when deleteing a file through Chef, to avoid leaving potentially sensitive files still on the box.

Mon, 30 Apr 2018 17:54 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef.

 Article

Morsels of Goodness: What's Cooking in Chef 14? (5 mins read).

A look at the new features coming in the new Chef 14 release, as well as what to watch out for when upgrading.

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 16:09 by Jamie Tanna . #chef-14 #chef #foodcritic #cookstyle #rubocop #ruby #test-kitchen.

 Article

Finally Returning to Full Time Work After 123 Days (2 mins read).

Receiving the final sign off after four months off for my ruptured appendix.

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:02 by Jamie Tanna . #thoughts #appendix #health.

 Article

Serving Branches on a Subdomain using Caddy and GitLab Review Apps (2 mins read).

How to dynamically serve a branch on a subdomain for GitLab Review Apps using Caddy Labels.

Sun, 15 Apr 2018 15:18 by Jamie Tanna . #guide #gitlab #review-apps #caddy #howto #deploy.

 Article

Deploying to Netlify using GitLab CI (3 mins read).

How adding two lines to my .gitlab-ci.yml migrated my existing site from GitLab Pages to Netlify.

Thu, 12 Apr 2018 22:06 by Jamie Tanna . #netlify #gitlab-ci #automation #continuous-deployment #ci #deploy #howto.

 Article

Executing an Interactive Python Shell (REPL) for a Script (1 mins read).

Using python -i to get an interactive REPL after running a Python source file.

Sun, 08 Apr 2018 16:07 by Jamie Tanna . #command-line #python #blogumentation #tools #howto.

 Article

Bundling Common Rake Tasks into a Gem (8 mins read).

An example of how to create a helper gem for common Rake task, using the real-world example of Chef cookbooks.

Thu, 05 Apr 2018 21:17 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef #chefdk #gem #ruby #rake #foodcritic #rubocop #rspec #knife-cookbook-doc #gitlab-ci.

 Article

Running docker login as another user in Chef (2 mins read).

Hitting the error permission denied while trying to connect to the Docker daemon socket when trying to run docker login as a non-root user in Chef.

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:14 by Jamie Tanna . #docker #chef #blogumentation.

 Article

My First Week Back to Working (Remotely) After Three Months (6 mins read).

How I've found the first week back to work after almost three months, and the productivity gains of working reduced hours.

Thu, 15 Mar 2018 17:57 by Jamie Tanna . #thoughts #capital-one #spectat-designs.

 Article

Chef 13 Upgrade: knife-cookbook-doc Rubocop Updates (1 mins read).

Disabling the Missing space after # and Do not use block comments errors for your knife-cookbook-doc formatted comments.

Fri, 09 Mar 2018 17:30 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef-13-upgrade #chef #knife-cookbook-doc #chef-13 #documentation #chef-13-upgrade-rubocop.

 Article

Chef 13 Upgrade: knife-cookbook-doc gem upgrade (1 mins read).

Fixing odd Logger entries in autogenerated knife-cookbook-doc README.mds for Chef 13.

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 20:34 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef-13-upgrade #chef #knife-cookbook-doc #chef-13 #documentation.

 Article

Chef 13 Upgrade: Deprecation of Namespace Collisions in Custom Resources (1 mins read).

Preparing for breaking changes in Chef 14 by renaming property_name to new_resource.property_name in Custom Resources.

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 20:34 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef-13-upgrade #chef-13-upgrade-deprecation #chef #chef-13 #chef-14.

 Article

Verify a Ruby Class Method is Called with Arguments in Rspec, Without Doubles or Mocks (1 mins read).

Rspec code to verify that a Ruby Class Method is called from another method, without needing to mock anything.

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 15:28 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #ruby #testing #rspec.

 Article

Testing Chef's ruby_blocks with ChefSpec (3 mins read).

Testing implementation of a ruby_block in ChefSpec, to ensure that the code executes as expected.

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 12:01 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef #chefspec #testing.

 Article

Chef 13 Upgrade: Lessons Learnt and Documented for Posterity (1 mins read).

Notes on the main problems encountered when upgrading from Chef 12 to Chef 13, both with ChefSpec and Rubocop.

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 20:34 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef-13-upgrade #chef-13-upgrade-rubocop #chef-13-upgrade-chefspec #chef #rubocop #chefspec #chef-13 #chefspec-7 #rubocop-0-49.

 Article

Chef 13 Upgrade: Rubocop Changes for lazy Parameters (1 mins read).

How to resolve the Parenthesize the param lazy Rubocop error when upgrading your cookbook to Chef 13.

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 20:34 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef-13-upgrade #chef-13-upgrade-rubocop #chef #rubocop #chef-13 #rubocop-0-49.

 Article

Chef 13 Upgrade: Rubocop Changes for Testing render_file with ChefSpec and a with_content Block (1 mins read).

How to resolve the Parenthesize the param render_file Rubocop error when upgrading your cookbook to Chef 13.

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 20:34 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef-13-upgrade #chef-13-upgrade-chefspec #chef #chefspec.

 Article

Chef 13 Upgrade: Rubocop Changes for Word Array Literals (%w) (1 mins read).

A one-liner shell command to fix Rubocop errors %w-literals should be delimited by [ and ].

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 20:34 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef-13-upgrade #chef-13-upgrade-rubocop #chef #rubocop #chef-13 #rubocop-0-49.

 Article

Chef 13 Upgrade: Testing ruby_blocks with ChefSpec (1 mins read).

Replace your block.old_run_action with block.block.call to trigger ruby_blocks within ChefSpec 7 and Chef 13.

Tue, 06 Mar 2018 20:34 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef-13-upgrade #chef-13-upgrade-chefspec #chef #chefspec #chef-13 #chefspec-7.

 Article

Emoji Support in Dunst (2 mins read).

How to see Emoji when using the Dunst notification system.

Wed, 28 Feb 2018 17:42 by Jamie Tanna . #arch-linux #dunst #dotfiles #blogumentation #emoji.

 Article

SSLError When Running Berkshelf Behind a Proxy (2 mins read).

Getting around the pesky OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError SSLv2/v3 read server hello A error when running Berkshelf behind a proxy.

Fri, 16 Feb 2018 15:44 by Jamie Tanna . #chef #blogumentation #proxy #command-line #shell #chefdk #berkshelf.

 Article

2017 in Review (68 mins read).

A look back over the awesome (and not so awesome) things that happened in 2017, and a look forward to what 2018 holds.

Wed, 14 Feb 2018 18:51 by Jamie Tanna . #year-in-review #retrospective #appendix #gitlab #github #health #monzo #capital-one #spectat-designs #hackathon #meetups #community #holiday #www.jvt.me.

 Article

Hackference 2017 (8 mins read).

My summary of the Hackference 2017 conference and hackathon.

Mon, 05 Feb 2018 15:38 by Jamie Tanna . #events #conference #hackathon #hackference.

 Article

2017's Music In Review (5 mins read).

What music was I listening to in 2017?

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00 by Jamie Tanna . #music.

 Article

Running service resources in Kitchen-Docker (3 mins read).

How to get up and running with service resources when running Test Kitchen with the Docker driver, in this example for use with GitLab CI.

Sun, 03 Sep 2017 20:23 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef #kitchen #docker #howto.

 Article

Trusting Self-Signed Certificates from the Chef Development Kit (2 mins read).

How to get the ChefDK (and associated tools) to trust internal / self-signed certificates, in an easy oneliner.

Thu, 17 Aug 2017 00:10 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef #chefdk #certificates #berkshelf.

 Article

Getting around Permission Denied when running ChefSpec (3 mins read).

How to handle getting an EACCES when trying to run ChefSpec on a recipe.

Sat, 12 Aug 2017 14:23 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef #chefspec #chefdk.

 Article

GitLab Review Apps with Capistrano and Nginx (4 mins read).

Spinning up a version of your application on every push, so others don't have to manually get the code up and running locally.

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 10:24 by Jamie Tanna . #guide #gitlab #review-apps #capistrano #blogumentation.

 Article

Testing include_recipes with Chef and ChefSpec (2 mins read).

How to best test include_recipes within your Chef recipes, as well as how to ensure that you aren't running any dependent recipes in your tests.

Sun, 16 Jul 2017 16:35 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #chef #tdd #chefspec.

 Article

Blogumentation - Writing Blog Posts as a Method of Documentation (4 mins read).

Why I'm starting to use blog posts as a form of documentation, and why I think they're so well suited.

Sun, 25 Jun 2017 14:22 by Jamie Tanna . #musings #blogumentation #thoughts.

 Article

Converting YAML to JSON and vice versa (Part 1 - Ruby) (2 mins read).

Coerce YAML to JSON and vice versa, from the comfort of your Gem-studded command line.

Thu, 22 Jun 2017 21:16 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #ruby #command-line #yaml #json.

 Article

Clean up your Git branches (3 mins read).

Remove any merged local or branches from your local Git repository.

Wed, 07 Jun 2017 20:33 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #git.

 Article

Pretty Printing JSON on the Command Line with Python (2 mins read).

Using Python's JSON module to pretty print JSON objects from the command line.

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 08:39 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #python #json #pretty-print.

 Article

Viewing your diff while writing your commits with git commit --verbose (3 mins read).

Making it easier to write commit messages by having the diff in your editor.

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 20:04 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #git #commit #shell #workflow.

 Article

Building Chef Cookbooks with GitLab (Part 1) (11 mins read).

An introduction to how to build a cookbook using GitLab's Continuous Integration platform in conjunction with kitchen-docker.

Thu, 25 May 2017 11:51 by Jamie Tanna . #guide #howto #blogumentation #gitlab #chef #test-kitchen #docker #gitlab-ci.

 Article

Extracting SSL/TLS Certificate Chains Using OpenSSL (1 mins read).

A quick one-liner to get you the full certificate chain in .pem format.

Fri, 28 Apr 2017 16:53 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #bash #shell #oneliner #openssl #certificates.

 Article

glances, a top and htop replacement (1 mins read).

I share the tool I have been using for system utilisation and monitoring, glances.

Wed, 26 Apr 2017 13:09 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #command-line #python #tool #workflow.

 Article

Saving Repetition with Git Commit Templates (3 mins read).

Speed up your commit message writing by providing a template for when you run git commit.

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 19:27 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #tools #git #workflow #automation.

 Article

Cleaning Up Your LaTeX Build Output with latexrun (3 mins read).

A tool to help reduce the amount of unnecessary output when building LaTeX files.

Thu, 13 Apr 2017 13:54 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #latex #tools #workflow.

 Article

Why You Should Use GitLab.com (13 mins read).

A discussion about the reasons that I would greatly recommend the GitLab.com platform for all your Git hosting, opposed to its competitors.

Sat, 25 Mar 2017 10:51 by Jamie Tanna . #gitlab #open-source #persuasive.

 Article

Resurrecting dinosaurs, what could possibly go wrong? (12 mins read).

How containerised apps (AppImage, Snappy and Flatpak) could eat our users.

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 15:40 by Jamie Tanna . #events #fosdem #open-source #containers #docker #flatpak #snappy #appimage.

 Article

Preparing a Technical Workshop - A Checklist (4 mins read).

What you need to remember to ask the organisers and what to consider in order to ensure your workshop goes smoothly.

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 11:57 by Jamie Tanna . #workshop #checklist #guide.

 Article

CloudABI - Easily develop sandboxed apps for UNIX (7 mins read).

An Application Binary Interface to make it possible to create capabilities-based, hardened, software.

Tue, 14 Feb 2017 15:36 by Jamie Tanna . #events #fosdem #cloud #open-source.

 Article

FOSDEM 2017 (4 mins read).

A few words ahead of the storm of articles.

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 15:57 by Jamie Tanna . #events #fosdem #open-source.

 Article

Open S-awesome (5 mins read).

A month of giving back, and a very honest post-mortem of what I learned.

Tue, 07 Feb 2017 19:49 by Jamie Tanna . #retrospective #open-source #free-software #community.

 Article

Continuous Delivery with Capistrano and GitLab Continuous Integration (4 mins read).

How to get up and running with using GitLab CI and the Capistrano deploy tool.

Wed, 25 Jan 2017 22:16 by Jamie Tanna . #blogumentation #capistrano #deploy #ci #gitlab #docker.

 Article

2016's Music In Review (5 mins read).

What music was I listening to in 2016?

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00 by Jamie Tanna . #music.

 Article

Hacktoberfest 2016 (12 mins read).

A few words about my excitement for the start of Hacktoberfest, and some ideas on how to get started yourself.

Sat, 01 Oct 2016 10:50 by Jamie Tanna . #guide #hacktoberfest #open-source #free-software #community.

 Article

2015's Music In Review (5 mins read).

What music was I listening to in 2015?

Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:00 by Jamie Tanna . #music.

 Article

The Sony Hack (6 mins read).

A discussion about Sony Pictures Entertainment being hacked in the months before the release of the action comedy, The Interview, and its depiction of Kim Jong Un.

Tue, 14 Apr 2015 13:56 by Jamie Tanna . #infosec #impact-nottingham.