Python 3.6 is now the default target on Gentoo

Python 3.6 recently replaced Python 3.5 in the default Python targets on Gentoo systems. The change was announced a month ago, which provided more than enough time for me to forget all about it. Because of this, I was somewhat surprised today as Portage complained about unmet requirements for the fail2ban-0.9.6 ebuild.

Signal backup and restore woes

As a firm believer in online privacy I refuse to use Skype, Google Hangouts or whatever non end-to-end encrypted service “normal people” are using for their online communication. As a consequence, friends who wants to message me are “encouraged” to install and use Signal. Recently this backfired as one friend insisted it was my responsibility to backup and restore messages on his new Android phone.

Office 365 multi-factor authentication with Google Authenticator

I recently learned that it’s possible to use Google Authenticator (or any other authenticator app) with Office 365 for 2-step verification. That’s great as I’ve always believed it was Microsoft Authenticator or the highway. I’m sure Microsoft Authenticator works fine, but I don’t want multiple authenticator apps on my phone.

Transitioning to Let's Encrypt wildcard certificates

A month ago I issued a wildcard certificate for *.paranoidpenguin.net and patiently awaited the expiration of my old HPKP policy. Eventually the time to install the new key and certificate arrived, but to my great dismay, things did not turn out according to plan. Upon restarting the Apache web server, I got served with the following (epic) failure:

Zapping crashed services on Gentoo Linux

While configuring my first Gentoo VPS I somehow managed to crash a service and discovered that I had actually no idea how to recover it. The service no longer had any matching processes but it still refused to stop, and simultaneously insisted it was already started. Severely embarrassed I made sure nobody was looking and rebooted the server.

Rickrolled by Google Search Console

So I noticed this new “Recrawl now” link that had suddenly appeared in Google Search Console (beta edition) and was immediately enticed. The result however was not what I had in mind. I can deal with being fooled on April Fool’s day, but getting Rickrolled in 2018… now that’s just pure evil. Anyhow, enjoy an animated gif of Google’s trolling below.

macOS Sierra review - Behind enemy lines

I’ve never owned a single Apple product but lately I’ve been wondering how good a real UNIX certified operating system might actually be. To get my feet wet, I decided to try out macOS Sierra in a VirtualBox session on a Linux host. I’m aware that much of the Apple experience is closely connected to the hardware, but personally I was more interested in the isolated OS experience.

Arch Linux boot halts on Reached target Multi-User System

Arch pushed out Gnome 3.28 today but unfortunately for me, my system failed to boot properly after the upgrade. The system simply locked up after the “Reached target Graphical Interface” stage. GDM (The GNOME Display Manager) was a prime suspect in my book, so the first order of business was booting into a lower runlevel to figure out what was going on. I’m using systemd-boot (because you can never have enough systemd…) so to enter the kernel command line, I simply hit the “e” key from the boot menu.

BlueOnyx 5209R – Issues with importing signed certificates

Importing signed certificates on BlueOnyx has always been somewhat of a challenge and it’s not well documented. The gist of it is that the certificate you want to import needs to consist of both the certificate and the corresponding private key, and it must have an extension that BlueOnyx understands (*.crt or *.cert works). Even so, my attempt to import a signed certificate from RapidSSL failed with a message stating that the imported certificate did not contain the correct private key.