Crime writer. Many of those crimes involve computers.
I’ve written a jails talk to go with the book.
I plan to give this talk three times: a dry run at next week’s Semibug, then in May at Penguicon and BSDCan. The Semibug talk, at 7 PM Tuesday at Altair Engineering, will be the most honest version of the talk. And by honest, I mean it will still include the bad language. I’ll also have the most time to talk afterwards.
With any sort of luck, I’ll have copies of FreeBSD Mastery: Jails at all three events.
After far too long, the ebook of FreeBSD Mastery: Jails is out. Not all stores have it yet, I’m waiting for vendor databases to finish churning.
The paperback and hardcovers? I have a paperback proof.
They should be at Amazon within a few days, and at other stores as soon as book distributor IngramSpark completes their approval process.
After far too long, I have a complete first draft of “FreeBSD Mastery: Jails.”
I have quite a few FreeBSD developers doing tech review for it. They’re the folks most qualified to check my work. I’ve also made copies available to sponsors and the Patronizers who will get a copy of the finished ebook, mostly so they know that the book really exists.
This means I have a whole bunch of folks offering feedback–almost, but not quite, more than I can handle. I promised I’d post here when this book reached the point where I could use technical feedback on the book, though. So, if you’re really qualified to tech review a jails book, and you desperately want to spend your next couple weeks doing just that, drop me an email and tell me why you should be a reviewer. Don’t assume I know who you are, because I’m ignorant of dang near everyone.
Now if you excuse me, I’m gonna go stare blankly into space until my brain restarts.
As of the January issue, the FreeBSD Journal will be free. You can access it, and all back issues, through a browser. You’ll need to register for it–the Foundation is still using it for fund-raising, but in a less direct manner.
So it’s probably time for me to confess: last year I got suckered into writing a letters column for them. I, of course, wanted to call it “Letters to ed(1),” but the board got all prosaic and went with “We Get Letters.”
What sort of letters column would I write?
Here’s the first.
Hi Michael,
We were brainstorming column ideas for the FreeBSD Journal, and Kode Vicious suggested that you might be willing to handle a “Letters” column for us. People would submit their questions to the Journal, and you’d answer them for us. Any chance you’d be interested?
Best,
George V Neville-Neil
FreeBSD Foundation President
Hi George,
This is a terrible idea. It’s just awful. This is the Internet age. Nobody reads letters columns, advice columns, or anything like that. We have Stack Exchange, and all kinds of places for people to beg for advice.
FreeBSD has a whole bunch of places where users can go to get specific help. Help ships with the system, in the man pages. Where a bunch of Unix-like operating systems made this absurd decision to bundle manual pages separately, FreeBSD ships with the manual. Actually, you can’t not install the manual. You could build a FreeBSD that doesn’t include the manual, of course, but to do that means reading a whole bunch of man pages.
People say that the manual isn’t a tutorial, and they’re right. That’s why FreeBSD has the Handbook and a whole bunch of articles. Unlike the man pages, you can choose to not install those on a FreeBSD host. You can browse all of the documentation online at https://docs.freebsd.org, though.
New users can start with the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file, which contains literally dozens of questions and answers. It goes into everything from hardware compatibility to ZFS, and while some of the gags in “The FreeBSD Funnies” have aged dreadfully—nothing scratches in memory banks these days, they fixed that bug back in 1996—the rest of the document is rock-solid. Looking at it now, I realize just how useful it is to new users. I still remember that feeling of enlightenment when I understood why du(1) and df(1) give different answers for disk space usage. Setting aside an hour to read the FAQ will give new users that enlightened feeling over and over again.
Then there’s the Handbook. It’s broken up by tasks. If a user’s question has a little more depth than what’s in the FAQ, the Handbook is there for you. Some of the material orients the reader, and is well worth reading so that new FreeBSD administrators understand why there’s so much in /usr/local when everybody else just dumps everything in /etc and /bin.
Plus there’s all sorts of FreeBSD-related sites these days. Even my blog has some FreeBSD tutorials on it.
If anyone did write in for help, it would be because they didn’t use these resources.
==ml
Michael,
Not necessarily. People do have problems that aren’t yet documented. We really think a letters column could be useful addition to the Journal, and that you’re the right person to write it.
Best,
George
George,
Okay, let’s talk about the those folks who have issues that truly aren’t in the Handbook.
Back when I started with FreeBSD, you got help via the FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.org mailing list. And it’s still around today. The people on that list want to answer questions. They subscribe specifically so they can help people with their issues. Those brave people volunteer their time to answer user questions. What can I do that those heroes can’t?
For those young punks who’ve forgotten how email works, there’s a FreeBSD forum at https://forums.freebsd.org. Unlike the mailing list, the forums are broken up by category. Users can delve into detailed discussions of installation, storage, hardware, packages, or whatever. Whenever I look at the forums, I find interesting discussions.
There’s a quarter century of problem-solving in the mailing list archives. What can I say that hasn’t been said many times over?
These channels are really suitable for issues with particular hardware. The Handbook and FAQ are permanent fixtures in the FreeBSD ecosystem—they’ve been around for decades. But if some chipset in your brand-new knock-off laptop is causing you grief, you can search the mailing list or the forum to see if anyone else has that same issue with that hardware.
Users who can’t be bothered to DuckDuckGo the mailing list archives or search the forums certainly aren’t going to bother composing a coherent letter to me.
==ml
Michael,
Seriously, there’s people out there who have problems that aren’t in the Forums or mailing list archives yet. You really could help them. When they see how helpful you are, it might even encourage them to buy your books.
Best,
George
Dang it, George, you just don’t give up, do you?
Okay, fine. Let’s walk this through.
A user has a problem. A truly unique problem, that doesn’t appear anywhere in the mailing list archives, the forums. The only reference on the Internet to a problem even vaguely like this is on a darknet site and in Siberian. They’re sincerely and honestly in trouble.
Before anyone could help this user, they’d need to describe their problem in a useful way. This means they’d have to send a complete description of the problem. Most people who compose a request for help can’t be bothered to give the output of “uname -a” and a copy of dmesg.boot. They can’t trouble themselves by giving actual error output or the contents of /var/log/messages. Or they “helpfully” strip out stuff they think is irrelevant, like the messages saying “PHP is dumping core” that appear all through their web server logs.
And that’s another thing. People want help with stuff that has no relevance to FreeBSD. They know it has nothing to do with FreeBSD. And yet they send a message to a FreeBSD mailing list? I mean, that’s just rude.
And speaking of rudeness—would it hurt people to be polite when they ask for help? Anyone on the mailing list or the forum who takes time to help a user is volunteering their own time. They have better things to do than to put up with your tantrum. I mean, I get that computers can really torque people off. I myself have more than once stood on a rooftop and screamed foul obscenities at the buffer cache—who hasn’t? But there’s no need to take that out on someone who’s trying to help you.
Most often, the mere act of writing the problem description is enough to make my own brain to solve the problem.
And nothing short of high voltage would encourage people to buy my books.
So, no. Let users with trouble go to the mailing lists or the Forums. I have enough to do.
==ml
Michael,
We’ll only send good letters. I promise.
Best,
George
No. No, no, no.
NO.
Do you have any idea how many books I still have to write in my lifetime?
Ain’t gonna. Can’t make me.
==ml
We’ll pay you in gelato.
George
George,
Curse you. I’m in.
But tell Kode Vicious that if he drops my name again, he’s going home in a bucket.
==ml
Questions?
Contact letters@freebsdjournal.org. Letters will be answers in the order that they enlighten or amuse the columnist.
Michael W Lucas has been a sysadmin for over twenty years. His latest books include “SSH Mastery, 2nd edition,” “Ed Mastery,” the third edition of “Absolute FreeBSD,” and “git commit murder.” Learn more at https://mwl.io.
The auctions are over. (They ended late Saturday, but I spent Sunday traveling and couldn’t get the post up.)
The OpenBSD auction went to Jared for $1000, crushing poor Cybermonk.
Cybermonk did triumph in the FreeBSD auction, however, with a top bid of $325.
Congrats to the winners! Send me the receipts for your donations to the respective Foundations and your mailing address, and I’ll get your books to you. (Technically, Ayaka will be mailing the OpenBSD book; she’s taking it for a couple more signatures this week.)
My condolences to those who lost the auctions. Remember, you can still donate and get that warm feel-good dopamine from being a good person.
There’s three OpenBSD devs at MeetBSD.
The auction for this first-ever hardcover signed by these folks is now up to $250. Among others, you’ll get an original Ayaka Koshibe illustration.
The committer-signed Absolute FreeBSD 3/e is at $100. So, the OpenBSD fans are crushing the FreeBSD fans. Are you FreeBSD folks going to stand for this?
The auction of Absolute FreeBSD 3rd edition signed by the FreeBSD devs attending MeetBSD is underway.
Gathering the signatures is also underway.
Here are some cruddy pictures taken with my cellphone while sitting in the devsummit audience.
A similar auction for my last OpenBSD book raised $1145. Consider this a challenge to the FreeBSD community.
The overwhelming theme of the commentary seems to be “apologies,” which is slightly worrisome but the cluster admins say “everything is fine” so I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.
This post is for bids on the brand new first-ever hardcover edition of Relayd & Httpd Mastery that I’m going to have signed by every developer I can catch at MeetBSD. Proceeds go to the OpenBSD Foundation.
Rules are on the announcement page, but in short: the auction ends on 20 October 2018, at the close of MeetBSD. Each bid must be at least $5 more than the prior bid. I’ll hand over or mail the copy upon getting a copy of the receipt for the OpenBSD Foundation.
The auction takes place entirely on this page. Folks at MeetBSD get no special advantage.
TLDR: FreeBSD auction here, OpenBSD auction here. Bids on this page will be ignored.
The brand-new third edition of Absolute FreeBSD is in one of my greasy mitts right now. As is customary, I’m using this to persuade other people to give money to the FreeBSD Foundation.
In unrelated news, I’ve just come up with a hardcover version of Relayd and Httpd Mastery. I have the test proof of that book in my other greasy mitt. I might as well use this to persuade other people to give money to the OpenBSD Foundation. 
In my third greasy mitt, I’ll be speaking on Why BSD Saturday morning at MeetBSD.
As I’m going to a con anyway…
I’m taking an AF3e and this R&HM proof to MeetBSD. There I’ll get as many FreeBSD and OpenBSD devs as possible to sign them. There’s a FreeBSD devsummit the day before the con, so I should be able to get a bunch there. I don’t know how many OpenBSD folks will be there, but I’ll grab any of them I can capture with my fourth greasy mitt. (I’m told at least a couple will be, and I’m really looking forward to them asking questions of our esteemed Intel hosts.) I’ll probably get the MeetBSD con chair to sign, because why not?
I’m proactively auctioning off both of these for donations to the respective Foundations.
The auctions will run in different posts, here on this web site, from now until the evening of 20 October 2018. That’s the last night of MeetBSD. Yes, I’m hoping to run up the price.
Some comments and rules.
Yes.
No. Why would they? This is between you, me, and the random committers I get to sign the books.
Partly because authors normally do this sort of thing on their web pages. Partly because it simplifies the running of the auction. And partly because it means I have no financial connection to the results. Touching donated money causes me weird non-financial risks, thanks to the unholy trifecta of how federal and state law interacts with my family situation. (No, I won’t explain that. It’s personal. Deal.)
They’re busy doing real Foundation work.
While I make more than the US national average, almost anyone who reads these books makes tens of thousands of dollars more than I do. Past auctions have shown that y’all can pay far more than I, when motivated by some silly prank inspired to do so.
6 PM PST Saturday, 20 October 2018. Or sometime shortly after that.
It’s convenient for me. It also will discourage last-minute sniping.
If last minute bids are coming in fast and furious, I’ll let it run until bidding stops for five minutes or so. Fight it out fair and square.
When I hit “publish” on this blog post.
Comment here with your bid amount. Each bid must be a minimum of $5 more than the previous bid.
Check the “Subscribe to Comments” box when you bid.
On a separate blog post a day or two after the con. I’m traveling the 21st, so I’m not sure how this will work out. You can read the comments and see the winner, though.
You have three days to make your donation. Send me your PayPal receipt.
If the donation is sufficiently large, I might ask you to give the Foundation permission to tell me that you actually donated the money.
The prize falls to the #2 bidder, who I will contact.
I won’t blog that the #1 person sucks, but I will say that they didn’t donate and thus the award falls through to #2. You’re perfectly capable of determining a person’s suckage level on your own.
A copy of the book you bid on, defaced by developers, leading community members, and myself.
Looks, this is supposed to be fun. You know how an auction works. We’re all in the BSD community. But if someone plays silly buggers, I am the final arbiter of how an auction works. I don’t make money no matter how this turns out.
This post is for bids on the brand new third edition of “Absolute FreeBSD” that I’m going to have signed by every developer I can catch at MeetBSD. Proceeds go to the FreeBSD Foundation.
Rules are on the announcement page, but in short: the auction ends on 20 October 2018, at the close of MeetBSD. Each bid must be at least $5 more than the prior bid. I’ll hand over or mail the copy upon getting a copy of the receipt for the FreeBSD Foundation.
The auction takes place entirely on this page. Folks at MeetBSD get no special advantage.