Recent Blog Posts

Fixing Jenkins CLI 'ERROR: anonymous is missing the Overall/Read permission'

August 27, 2018

For the past decade or so, I've been working to automate as much of a Jenkins server build process as possible. There are a few 'hacky' bits to doing so, like managing some Jenkins XML files (or if you really want to go crazy, storing your entire $JENKINS_HOME somewhere in a source control repository!).

One of the most annoying things about automating Jenkins is using the jenkins-cli.jar file to interact with Jenkins on the CLI. It doesn't come with any automated solution for authenticating with Jenkins, and is meant for running either on the same server where Jenkins is running, or really anywhere that has SSH access. I generally don't like putting any Jenkins bits (including the CLI tool) on servers outside the actual Jenkins instance itself, so I've traditionally used the --username and --password method of authenticating with jenkins-cli.

However, it seems those CLI flags were deprecated and removed at some point in the past few months (maybe around 2.130 or so?), and now I get the following error when running CLI commands that way:

Speaking about Playbooks at AnsibleFest Austin 2018

August 21, 2018

I'm excited to announce I'll be presenting the session Make your Ansible Playbooks Flexible, Maintainable, and Stable at AnsibleFest Austin in the first week of October.

I've spent a lot of time building, maintaining, and in a few cases, completely restructuring Ansible playbooks over the past five years. I hope to distill a lot of the lessons I've learned into this presentation, and I hope anyone else who is as passionate about infrastructure automation as I am can get a lot out of it.

As usual, I'll post slides—and hopefully video as well—from the presentation after it's over. Hope to see you in Austin!

NEDCamp 2018 - Keynote on DevOps

August 2, 2018

Over the past decade, I've enjoyed presenting sessions at many DrupalCamps, DrupalCon, and other tech conferences. The conferences are some of the highlights of my year (at least discounting all the family things I do!), and lately I've been appreciative of the local communities I meet and get to be a part of (even if for a very short time) at Drupal Camps.

The St. Louis Drupal Users Group has chosen to put off it's annual Camp to 2019, so we're guiding people to DrupalCorn Camp, which is only a little bit north of us, in Iowa.

Recovering from surgery and living with my friend, the Stoma

July 17, 2018

It's been just over two weeks since the big one; I had my colon removed and was given in its place an ileostomy, which dramatically changes the way I go number two.

As with most stages of my Crohn's journey, I thought I'd write up this blog post with my experiences—and maybe a liiiiittle sarcasm thrown in—for the benefit of anyone else going through a similar situation.

Bowel Prep

My doctor requested a full cleanout for this surgery, I guess so he wouldn't have to deal with stinky poo while yanking out my guts, and I obliged. Unfortunately, for most Crohnies or IBD patients who have to get a colectomy, they're already not in a great place prior to surgery, and neither was I. I was already underweight and not nearly 100% energy-wise, so having to empty out (same prep as for a colonoscopy) meant I did as much as I could to stay hydrated and not faint.

Colons, semicolons, and Crohns surgery, oh my!

June 25, 2018

"Rectum? Darn near killed 'em!"

— My Grandma, every time she has the opportunity...

In a short time, I'll be getting a "total colectomy and proctectomy" (or, for short, "proctocolectomy"!). This is a procedure where a doctor takes a robot with pointy sticks and knives, sets it loose in my belly, and then the robot proceeds to ~~become sentient and take over my body~~ cut out all of my digestive system, from the end of the small bowel, to... the end end.

Colectomy diagram - red scribbles over large intestine colon and rectum

Red = parts to be removed (source: Wikipedia).

Kubernetes' Complexity

June 14, 2018

Over the past month, I started rebuilding the Raspberry Pi Dramble project using Kubernetes instead of installing and configuring the LEMP stack directly on nodes via Ansible (track GitHub issues here). Along the way, I've hit tons of minor issues with the installation, and I wanted to document some of the things I think turn people away from Kubernetes early in the learning process. Kubernetes is definitely not the answer to all application hosting problems, but it is a great fit for some, and it would be a shame for someone who could really benefit from Kubernetes to be stumped and turn to some other solution that costs more in time, money, or maintenance!

Raspberry Pi Dramble cluster running Kubernetes with Green LEDs

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