Author: Michael Lucas

Writer. Sysadmin. Owns this site.
Posted on

As a Nefarious Media Agent…

(Another “so I can refer back to it later” post)

Every so often I get an email telling me that as a member of the media I have responsibilities. I need to get rid of the clear bias in my books. I’m having trouble figuring out what those biases are, though, as I’ve been told that I’m:

  • radically pro-BSD
  • radically anti-Linux
  • radically anti-Microsoft
  • radically anti-Oracle
  • radically opposed to commercial software
  • radically opposed to free software
  • radically opposed to sharing
  • radically opposed to people making a living
  • radically opposed to True Freedom
  • lacking all understanding of copyleft, right, and center
  • obviously opposed to all that is good and decent in the world

    • The correspondent tells me that I have a duty to be unbiased.

    So, let me make it clear:

    Two of the above are true. BSD is my tribe. And I can’t stand Oracle (the company, I’ve met many decent Oracle employees).

    As far as the rest goes, my official answer is:

    meh.

    I’m a human being. I have biases. I’m not opposed to commercial software, free software, open soressource software. I like people making a living. I have no problem with copyleft, although I think the BSD license is morally superior. I’ll argue that last at a con, over a drink in the bar, but I won’t get into it with Internet randos.

    But let’s go into pure practicality here.

    I make my living writing technology books.

    Many people consider my books more readable than other tech books. One way I’ve achieved that is by using storytelling techniques for fiction. But the other reason is that I have opinions, and I give them. Opinions are part of a writer’s voice.

    Human beings are social creatures. Opinions give us something for our minds to attach to. Something that expresses opinion on the facts is far more readable than something without opinion.

    So I’m going to keep giving my opinion. If you read my books, you get my bias.

    I do try to be fair. Various Linux distributions annoy me in different ways, but most of those are the usual “unfamiliar Unix tribulations.” But I’ll vent a little about SELinux or iptables, because not getting frustrated would mean I’d never used SELinux or iptables. It’s part of how I tell the reader that I’m a real sysadmin.

    I invite you to have your own opinions. You think the GPL is better than the BSDL? Fine, use it. You think I don’t understand something? Write your own piece.

    But don’t expect me to be your mouthpiece. Or to lie about my biases.

    Yes, sometimes my opinions go too far. Nobody works in a vacuum. I’ve said offensive things, and apologized for them. Usually this is a case of “it sounded better in my head.” That’s part of being human. It’s one reason I solicit feedback on books before they’re published, to catch these things before they get out in the real world.

    This colors my view of people complaining about the media. Yes, every media channel is biased. As citizens, it’s our job to pierce our own media bubbles. I get most of my political news from an aggregator with a bias that opposes my own, specifically to counter my own bias.

    So go ahead. Disagree with me. I don’t mind. Really, I don’t even care. The world is full of opinions. I’m not going to argue with you.

    Admittedly, if you sign a contract with Oracle I’m gonna snicker.

    But I’ll try to be polite, and do it behind your back.

    Posted on

    Sponsorships on “Httpd and Relayd Mastery” available

    By somewhat popular demand (“popular” means “more than one person has asked for it,” right?), I’m now offering sponsorships on the OpenBSD httpd and relayd book.

    Print sponsors get their name in the print and ebook versions of the book.

    Ebook sponsors get their name in the electronic versions.

    Sponsors can access the in-progress manuscript, updated whenever I get around to it. The version there now contains most of the httpd parts, as tech reviewed by Reyk.

    I did well enough with the FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS sponsorships to cover the emergency replacement of a water heater. The PAM book had less interest, but I did okay. As this is a very specific book with a narrow audience, I’m not expecting very many sponsors.

    Which means–if you sponsor it, your name will really stand out as an all-around awesome human being. Or corporation. Whichever.

    Posted on

    2017 presentation proposals

    I have my usual two annual events that I speak at coming up: BSDCan and Penguicon. I have ideas on what to submit, but thought I’d see if anyone had something they’d like me to present. Things that I can present, that is.

    For BSDCan, I’m pondering between a talk on OpenBSD’s web stack (httpd, relayd, and CARP) and a 4-hour ZFS tutorial. I’ve been kicking ZFS a lot the last couple years, and figure folks are sick of it. The relayd book should be out before then.

    Last year at Penguicon, I ran 10 events. That did me in–mostly because I didn’t know I was ill at the time, but still. Panels are much easier than talks, though. So I’m going to submit fewer this year, and let them throw me on panels as needed.

    For the Penguicon tech track, I’m thinking of talks on the OpenBSD web stack and “BSD in 2017.” The “Senior Sysadmin” panel I chaired last year did pretty well, so I was pondering reprising that but with a theme like “storage” or “maintenance.”

    I usually throw a couple things into the lit track as well. This year I’m pondering a panel on self-publishing and a panel on promotion for writers. That’ll leave space for me to get added to other lit panels.

    Is there something you’d like to see me present at either of these? Leave a comment to say so.

    And as someone’s going to ask why I submit more for Penguicon that BSDCan, let me answer that.

    BSDCan has a soft “one event per speaker” limit. We get a lot of proposals, and we want to bring as many different BSD folks together as possible. Plus I’m on the BSDCan committee. Having ten events starring me would look bad.

    And Penguicon will let me get away with doing ten events. Give me blank time at a con and I’m likely to sneak out to the county library for a couple days of peaceful reading. If the library won’t let me in, I generally hide under the stairwell and start chewing my hair out. I have no hair left on my head and the police tell me I’m out of warnings, so I reduce the odds of that happening by staying busy.

    Hey, if I was social, I’d be in sales.

    Posted on

    Get your name in the relayd book

    (note: comments that are not bids will be deleted. The next post is for meta-comments.)

    There’s a long tradition amongst science fiction writers of selling bit parts in books in exchange for charity donations. It’s called tuckerization.

    I see no reason why science fiction writers should have all the fun.

    I need a sample user for the forthcoming book on OpenBSD’s httpd and relayd. This user gets referred to in the user authentication sections as well as on having users manage web sites. They will also get randomly called out whenever it makes sense to me.

    That sample user could be you.

    All it would cost is a donation to the OpenBSD Foundation.

    The catch is that I only need one sample user.

    That should be the user with the biggest Foundation donation. Because I’m from the US, where bigger is clearly better.

    It makes sense to auction this off. The person willing to make the highest donation will get their real name and preferred username, or reasonable substitutes, used as the book’s sample users.

    They’ll also get their name in the back of the book, in both the electronic and print versions.

    The auction will take place in the comments section on this web page. Yes, you place your bid here. (edit: a bid is a promise to donate if you win, not a statement that you have donated. You know, like an auction.)

    Some questions and answers.

  • Is this a cynical scheme to raise money for further development of assorted OpenBSD-related projects?

    Yes.

  • Any limits on our name and username?

    I reserve the right to reject names or usernames. If your birth certificate really says your name is an obscenity, I’m pretty sure you have a nickname. Similarly, even if your username on all your systems truly is henningsux, or your legitimate full name is Felicia Urban-Channing Kildare and you use your initials: nope.

    I won’t spell out exact rules for names, because you people are clever buggers and would find a way around them. Your name. Your preferred username. Or reasonable substitutes for them.

    This is intended to be fun. Dirty words and insults are not fun. In public.

  • Will you treat me with respect?

    Uh… have you read my work? I can pretty much guarantee condescension and insolence. Perhaps not a huge amount (this isn’t a book on sudo), but some.

    Then again, this book involves openssl(1) commands. You’ll probably catch some of my perfectly understandable emotional reaction to having to type a command like this:

    # openssl ocsp -no_nonce -issuer chain.pem -VAfile chain.pem -header Host ocsp.int-x3.letsencrypt.org -url http://ocsp.int-x3.letsencrypt.org/ -serial 0x0367016F53A2A5425C1E50BB17D2AE63378A -respout ocsp.der

    Not only do I have to write about that string of stupidity, I have to write about it in such a way that you’re happy to read it.

    I’m gonna have a tantrum. It might as well be about you.

  • I’d like you to use my spouse’s/mother’s/soulmate’s/hamster’s name

    First, read the previous question and answer. Once I’m through with the user, this person might no longer be your soulmate… or your mother.

    I will search on your preferred name, to make sure I’m not abusing a social activist or anything like that. But yes, within the same limits. If your hamster is named Dumbass, nope. Same for your soulmate, or your mother.

  • I’d like you to use a historical figure/deceased developer/etc

    No.

    I’m not going to make statements like “I don’t trust George Washington/MLK/creepingfur with shell on my server, so he gets locked in a chroot.” Our dead heroes deserve better than to have me sniping at them. Besides, one person’s hero is another’s monster.

    Yes, creepingfur had a really good sense of humor… but no.

    Could I be nice? I have that ability, but nobody reads my books for kindness.

  • My company name–

    No.

    This is not a way to advertise your firm.

  • Why do this here, instead of an auction site like eBay?

    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 how US federal and state law interacts with my family situation. (No, I won’t explain that. It’s personal. Deal.)

  • Why not have the Foundation run this, then?

    They’re busy writing code and arranging hackathons.

  • Why do this now instead of when you started writing the book?

    Because the OpenBSD Foundation exceeded their fundraising goal for 2016. I’d like to see their 2017 start with a boom.

  • When does the auction end?

    5 PM EST Monday, 16 January. Or sometime shortly after that.

  • That’s a stupid time. Where’s my countdown timer?

    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 does the auction start?

    When I hit “publish” on this blog post.

  • How do I bid?

    Comment here with your bid amount. Each bid must be a minimum of $5 more than the previous bid.

  • How do I track competing bids?

    Check the “Subscribe to Comments” box when you bid.

  • Where will the winner be announced?

    On a separate blog post the evening of 16 January.

  • How do I claim my prize?

    You have three days to make your donation. Send me your PayPal receipt.

  • What if the winner doesn’t pay?

    The prize falls to the #2 bidder, who I will contact.

  • What exactly will the winner get?

    Your name and username in the body of the book, in places where I need to refer to a person. Some degree of emotional reaction to your name. Probably not a very positive reaction. Your name in the back of the book, described as the “Tuckerization Charity Auction for the OpenBSD Foundation Prize Winner” unless I can come up with a less awful and mutually agreeable way to say that.

    If the auction goes over $100, I’ll ship you a signed copy of the print book when I ship out the print sponsor copies.

  • Will you be offering sponsorships on this book?

    Yes. Once the auction ends.

  • You said this was for SF writers. Don’t you write SF?

    Yes, but nobody cares. For those who want to pretend to care: here’s my latest SF novel, Hydrogen Sleets.

  • I have things to say about this other than bids!

    Comment on the next post, please. Not here. I am easily confused. Comments to this post that are not bids will be deleted.

    • Posted on

    A Christmas Wish (List) Gone Wrong

    My wife’s family are nice people. They’ve kind of gotten used to me hanging around. It’s been over a quarter century, I guess you can eventually get used to anything.

    My sister-in-law, DR, and her family always get me a gift at Christmas. It’s usually something practical and clearly well-intended, if not something I’d pick out for myself.

    This year, DR’s seven-year-old twins are really excited about the present I’m getting this year. It’s a big box. It’s heavy. And they tell me I’m going to love it. They’re quite sure of this. I’ve had a few more Christmases than those two, so I’m not quite as excited. But they’ve gone into this frenzy of anticipation, so I let them help me rip the paper off.

    It’s so heavy, I have to balance it while they attack the paper.

    It’s a box of heavy brown cardboard. The edges are sealed with strapping tape. There’s a pretty serious thing in here. Probably metal, from the way it shifts.

    The front of the box declares it to be… a tripod stand? Rated for a few hundred pounds?

    The twins are thrilled. They’re too young to realize I’m not as excited. I’m kind of puzzled.

    My wife asks “Is it what it says on the box?”

    I look over at DR…

    …and she’s staring at me in horror.

    “I got it off your wish list,” DR says quietly.

    I’m looking back at her. “Uh… I don’t have a wish list.”

    “Of course you do!” And she shows me the Amazon wish list for Michael W Lucas.

    “I’m sorry,” I say. “Really, that’s not me.”

    “But…” DR says, “I’ve… been buying your gifts off that wish list for years and years now.”

    Restoring order takes a few minutes. The twins don’t understand why the adults are laughing so hard, but they’re happy to join in anyway.

    Somewhere out in the world, there’s a Michael W Lucas. Every year right before Christmas, he gets a note from Amazon. “Hey, someone bought something for you off your wish list!”

    And the something never arrives.

    The poor bastard.

    I’m just barely getting my breath back when she blurts out, “And I order your birthday presents from that list too. Have them shipped to your house.”

    “But I haven’t had a birthday present from you in…”

    Of course not.

    Somewhere out in the world, there’s another Michael W Lucas. He has a pickup truck and likes Dean Koontz. I adore Koontz, and sold my pickup in 2007. He needs a few tools. I need a few tools. We’d both like an inversion table.

    And every 2 February for the last, oh, ten years or so, he’s received a gift off his wish list. It has a note. “Happy Birthday! Love, DR and Family.”

    He has no idea whatsoever who DR is. And there is no Amazon Thank You Note service for him to contact her back.

    I sincerely hope that this Michael W Lucas has many many friends.

    I hope that he’s not sitting alone in a basement apartment in a trailer park, despondently thinking “Nobody loves me. At least I have a secret admirer. Even if she doesn’t know my right birthday, at least she gives a crap.”

    Because this year, 2 February will pass without him getting a gift. And he will never know why.

    I know he’s not living in his truck. Because he wants an inversion table.

    If you happen to know this other Michael W Lucas, please check on him this February. He might be quite despondent at the loss of his mysterious secret admirer.

    The result of all this is that I finally have an Amazon wish list. I spent a few hours auditing my Doctor Who DVD collection, added a few books I’ve been meaning to get for research, and topped it off with the Wile E Quixote T-shirt.

    I sent the link to the list to DR. It seemed the right thing to do.

    Her response?

    “Oh, no. I’ve learned my lesson. You’re getting gift cards from now on.”

    Posted on

    MWL’s 2016 wrap-up

    The year-end post is an Internet tradition. Being naturally conservative, who am I to buck tradition?

    It’s a couple days early, but I’m going to go out on a limb here: the list of people 2016 killed does not include me. Yet. (Dear 2016, this is not a challenge. I would not dream of questioning your ability to slaughter folks. You are the champ, truly.) This was in doubt for a while, but I responded well to treatment. My bone marrow has started firing. I have hemoglobin again. At the end of 2016, I stop taking all the meds.

    Now that my bone marrow is firing again, the theory is that it will keep going. It might not. I need to monitor my blood for the forseeable future. Hey, if I reach 50 and that’s as bad as it gets, I’ll be doing good.

    The lesson here is: if I stop making words, don’t assume it’s only because I’m an undisciplined slacker and that I need to “try harder.” That’s a great assumption if it lasts for a week, but if it keeps going on I need to see the doctor.

    Dammit, what happened to my youthful invulnerability?

    Writing-wise, I published three tech books:

    FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems
    FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS
    PAM Mastery

    I’d like to note that the specialty filesystems is now my worst-selling tech book of all time, lagging far behind the PGP and Tarsnap books. It’s a necessary prerequisite to the jails book, though. (No, you won’t have to read it to understand the forthcoming jails book, but I had to write it before writing the jails book.)

    The ZFS book was co-written with Allan Jude. The specialty filesystems book was mostly written in 2015. PAM was written entirely in 2016.

    I published three novels:

    Kipuka Blues (Immortal Clay 2)
    Butterfly Stomp Waltz (a crime thriller)
    Hydrogen Sleets (aka “Aidan Redding 3” or “Montague Portal 4”)

    The first two were written entirely in 2015. The last was half-finished in 2015.

    So, yeah… anemia pretty much whupped my butt in 2016. While word count is not the be-all and end-all of writing, it’s a useful metric for a working writer. I wrote 15,600 words in July, 4400 words in August, and 5000 in September, for both fiction and non-fiction. That’s not enough to make a living on.

    I started treatment in September. They said it would take effect very slowly.

    At the beginning of October, I thought I was feeling well. I set myself a three-day challenge to complete a short story. It bombed. My “feeling better” was a condition the experts call “wishful thinking.”

    October: 6900 words.

    In November, I wrote 30,700 words. December so far has only 25,800 words, but I see a drop every December because of the holidays. That’s fine. I’m shooting to break 30,000 before the end of 2016.

    As of today, total word count in 2016 is 195,700.

    I’m not back where I need to be. But I’m clearly on the way back. Apparently, if your brain doesn’t have oxygen, it stops working. Who knew?

    Many of the November words were fiction. I wanted to write something quick and short, because I really needed to complete something. 28,000 words later, I had a new Prohibition Orcs novella. Which my writer friends will tell me was a daft thing to do–short stories sell. Novels sell. Novellas don’t.

    But orcish rumrunners in 1927 Detroit amuse the crap out of me, and that’s all that’s really important, so buzz off. I’ll post the official announcement on it once it’s available on iBooks.

    Other things in 2016? Well, today I hit 60 inches on the stretching machine. That’s great for my martial arts practice. I put on weight: not good, but highly predictable when you have roughly enough brain power to handle Star Trek: Voyager. (I was still saying the plot twists before they appeared on screen, though: I was slow, not dead.)

    Where am I today?

    The novel I started on 1 February 2016, git commit murder, is flowing nicely. (Think “Agatha Christie does a Unix con.”) I haven’t spent more than a year on a novel since 2001, and I have no intention of starting now. I might stretch my fiction hours in January to keep that from happening.

    The new tech book, “Relayd and Httpd Mastery: OpenBSD Web Services” is also flowing nicely. I’ve almost finished the httpd part–all that remains is OSCP stapling.

    Best of all: once I get going, the words pretty much arrive the way they used to. Getting started is still painful, but I expect that to improve with more blood.

    My 2017 goals?

    • Write 4 complete tech books.
    • Write 4 novels.
    • Keep practicing martial arts.
    • Stand up against racism, sexism, and fascism in my daily life.
    • Be sufficiently flexible to kick Ray Percival in the head at BSDCan.
    • Drop 20 pounds.
    • Stay writing.
    • Stay married.
    • Stay alive.

    If I pull those off: I win.

    Posted on

    Reddit advertising of “PAM Mastery”

    I spent $25 on a Reddit ad that ran for the last week, for PAM Mastery. The ad (Pluggable Authentication Modules: Threat or Menace?) appeared in /r/CentOS, /r/Ubuntu, /r/sysadmin, /r/unix, /r/freebsd, /r/linux, /r/BSD, and /r/debian.

    So what did I get for that?

    62,521 impressions. 215 clicks through to the ad. 89 click-throughs to the book page.

    How many of those translated to purchases? That’s pretty hard to guess, but: the links from my web site are affiliate links. When you buy the book from Amazon through my link, I get a few extra cents for referring you there. So, let’s assume that all of the affiliate purchases of PAM Mastery during that time came as a result of the Reddit ad. That’s going to overestimate the ad’s impact, but it’s the only real promo I did during that time.

    So, the total sales I can attribute to the Reddit are:

    One.

    This isn’t Reddit’s fault. Maybe the ad sucks–I’ve never claimed to be an ad man. Maybe the cover image drew them in, but then they looked at my site or the book description and said “Oh, hell no.”

    Or perhaps PAM just repulsed them.

    Why advertise?

    My book sales have been way down for the last few months–both fiction and nonfiction. PAM Mastery did not sell as well at release as some other books.

    Other writers have reported similar slumps. (When pro writers get together, what do we talk about? Money, books written by people not in the room, and business.)

    If sales continued that poorly, I would have had to make some changes.

    Weirdly, though, my sales picked up… on November 9th. The day after election day. Other writers I know have reported similar surges.

    A week does not mean that the writing is better. But the folks saying uncertainty is bad for business have a point.

    Or perhaps advertising on Reddit brought people to my site, where they bought books that were not about PAM.

    Posted on

    Reviews and Murder

    First, an independent review of PAM Mastery, from nixCraft. The book took bloody forever to write, but from the reviewer’s comments like “Once again Michael W Lucas nailed it,” apparently the end result was decent.

    Not sucking is good. I like not sucking.

    Next up: something I can see myself linking back to in the future.

    I normally don’t link to Amazon reviews here, but a review on a short story compels me to make a general comment.

    This story is billed as “a DevOps murder mystery.” I’m writing another, a novel called $ git commit murder. (Yes, the dollar sign is part of the title–otherwise, git might be running as root, and when you’re trapped into using git you don’t do it as root. Sheesh!)

    I mention a lot of different software in these pieces. Some of it’s real. Some of it’s imaginary, or clear plays off of stuff that exists. It’s pretty easy for readers in the software world to figure out where SkyBSD and CoreBSD fall in the open source ecosystem.

    But here’s the important thing about murder mysteries:

    People kill other people in them. Most often, deliberately.

    Real people killing each other… is not funny.

    I’m not going to write something where a developer on a real project goes on a killing spree. That’s happened in the real world. Projects don’t come back from that. And yes, it has to be a spree. Novels require more than one murder.

    Plus, I know a lot of people in these communities. Many of them are my friends, and I respect most of the remainder. (Sorry, HB.) The characters in these pieces are like people I know, but they are not those people.

    Wearing my fiction author hat, I sometimes need organizations to behave in ways that the real organizations don’t. Murder requires strong motivation. One of the earmarks of successful real-world open source projects is that they’ve learned how to get along without literally killing each other.

    I mean, imagine if I wrote a piece of fiction claiming that OpenBSD was contemplating a switch to GPLv3? You’d either throw the book across the room or laugh until you soiled yourself. Neither is the appropriate reaction for a murder mystery.

    I have to invent new projects, so they can behave as the story needs.

    So I invent projects much like real projects. These projects have different areas of focus than the real projects, so that they’re not just a renamed Debian. They need different focuses and different purposes while retaining enough that the reader will believe they’re a real open source project in a parallel universe.

    And then my imaginary friends wander in and pick the project that suits them.

    And then they kill each other.

    Because, despite the rumors, I’ve never killed a real person. There’s no evidence to say otherwise, at least.