Ever since I started this personal blog site, I was curious if people actually read what I write. Luckily, based on the responses I received on Twitter, LinkedIn and in private, there is no problem with that. Next I wanted to see numbers. I was told, that Google Analytics is the gold standard of measurement. Well… Google Analytics Lets start it with the basic problem: even my own visits are not counted.

Panther is an open-source log management system, which is also available as a service for a time-limited trial. It is still in beta phase, but it looks promising. You can see the “beta” sign on its opening page: https://app.panther.support/ I tested the time-limited cloud service version, but you can also install it locally, either from Dockerhub, or you can build the containers locally from the source. Even if it is still in beta phase, Panther comes with detailed documentation.

A month ago, when sudo 1.9.8 was still under development, we checked out the new log_subcmds option. It allows you log all commands (with some limitations) that are executed by a command started through sudo. For example, you can see if a shell was started through a text editor. The intercept option brings this one step further: you can prevent sub-commands from even running. Read the rest of my blog at https://blog.

Qwant is a European search engine that respects your privacy. I learned about it from a Twitter thread. The European Processor Initiative announced last week that their first RiscV test chip samples were delivered and booted successfully. I tweeted that I would be happy to see not just European CPUs but also European software services, alternatives to Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and others. Someone responded that a search engine is already available: https://www.

Version 3.33 of syslog-ng arrived with basic MQTT support. Version 3.34 has added many important features to it: user authentication, TLS support and WebSocket support. These features give you both security and flexibility while sending log messages to an MQTT broker. This blog helps you to make your first steps securing your MQTT connection: https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/syslog-ng-3-34-mqtt-destination-with-tls-and-websocket-support

Whenever I talked to people about POWER, someone asked if I am an IBM Power Champion. My response was that I do not even know what it is, and I am not affiliated with IBM in any way. Recently I came across a blog by Torbjörn Appehl which describes what is an IBM Power Champion and lists the European champions: https://builtonpower.com/2021/09/the-2021-ibm-power-champions-in-europe/. Finally I know what an IBM Power Champion is, and I feel honored to be mistaken to be one of them :-) Normally I do not care much about titles: I have seen too many empty people with well sounding titles, and fantastic people without any titles.

The promise of “boring” ARM hardware has been with us for almost a decade. And a couple of years ago it really arrived: easy to use, standards compliant ARM hardware is now available on the market. However, not for everyone. When it comes to buying ARM hardware you still need to decide if it is “boring” or it is affordable. There was one notable exception, the SoftIron OverDrive 1000. It had its limitations, but it was standards compliant right from day one, affordable, and easily available not just for large companies.

Dear syslog-ng users, This is the 94th issue of syslog-ng Insider, a monthly newsletter that brings you syslog-ng-related news. Topics include: Version 3.34.1 of syslog-ng available Syslog-ng updated in OpenBSD ports OpenSearch and syslog-ng Creating a new http()-based syslog-ng destination: Seq It is available at: https://www.syslog-ng.com/community/b/blog/posts/the-syslog-ng-insider-2021-09-3-34-openbsd-opensearch-http-destination

When I published my blog about openSUSE a couple of weeks ago, most questions I received in private were about the Russian students I mentioned. In that blog I quickly described how my interest in information security started, about 25 years ago. This blog gives you a bit of historical background and a few more details. Historical background It was 1995. I was studying at a university, but I was already running one of the servers of the faculty.

A couple of weeks ago editors of https://opensource.com/ sent a question to contributors: What was your first programming language? Thinking about the question brought back some nice memories about the beginnings. You can read my answer below: What was your first programming language? My first ever programming language was BASIC in the early eighties. One of my relatives bought a C64 for their kids to get started with learning computers.