Present Perfect

I recently wrote some code that I am planning to use to figure out network topology inside Flumotion, based on the information about TCP connections between two hosts.

In short - every TCP connection has two endpoints, and each endpoint has two IP addresses - the local IP address, and the remote IP address. one endpoint's local address is not necessarily the same as the other endpoint's remote address - NAT will mangle one of the two.

The code I wrote exploits this to figure out where NAT hosts are, and which hosts are behind the same NAT box.

I'm sure there must be similar code out there somewhere - someone must have already thought about these problems, no ? My code is up at https://apestaart.org/thomas/trac/browser/tests/twisted/ten, feel free to take a look and give it a try.

I recently wrote some code that I am planning to use to figure out network topology inside Flumotion, based on the information about TCP connections between two hosts. In short...

Threw out a new mach release today. I did some nice fixes over the last two months related to reverting to a clean build state, because I was getting annoyed at various random failure cases. Most of them were happening when packages that are in the build list get an upgrade available, and then of course it tries to remove those. If the update is, say, glibc, oops :)

Lately I've been wondering about project maintenance and version numbering. I'm not getting any younger, and basically in the last ten years I don't think I've ever released any software that made it past 0.x Which, when you think of it, is a little silly, because I've written software that works fine, fulfills my needs, and works for others as well. I mean, really, when you are happy with it and you feel ok with recommending it to other people, 1.x should be fine.

So, given that mach mostly just works, that I'm already writing a next generation of it that's easier to maintain, and that I don't plan any major feature additions anyway to this one, I should be moving it to a 1.0 release. So this release jumped from 0.4.9 to 0.9.0.

I vaguely toyed with the idea of releasing it as 2.0 even (because this is the second generation of mach - the first one was makefile-based), but then I would feel forced to number releases of mach3 with 3.x, and it would feel wrong to have a "new-and-unstable" mach3-2.9 or whatever against a mature stable mach2-2.0.

I don't know why I obsess over these little details. Anyway, I am going to break my self-imposed ban on 1.x versions soon.

I Celebrated the release by packaging the latest Twisted releases, which are now split across several modules, as well as a huge chunk of the divmod stack. It's very satisfying to be able to do

mach build python-*/*.spec

, watch it build 15 src.rpm's, order them correctly, and build one after the other without a hitch...

More on twisted and DivMod later.

Threw out a new mach release today. I did some nice fixes over the last two months related to reverting to a clean build state, because I was getting annoyed...

• booting your software suspend-enabled linux kernel
• upgrading the Fedora kernel package, which changes the default to the newly installed kernel
• software suspending the machine because you're travelling
• turning on the machine, GRUB boots the non-software-suspend kernel when you' re not looking
• realizing this, cursing that you didn't save a bunch of stuff in your session, working for a while
• shutting down because you'll be travelling again
• remembering that you need to select the software suspend kernel at boot time
• blink in astonishment as the kernel restores the previously hibernated session, wondering how this can work since it uses the swap partition for its storage
• hack a little, compile a little, do some stuff
• be very alarmed when the compile fails because it's trying to write to a read-only file system
• check dmesg, notice your ext3 file system is experiencing a lot of errors
• reboot, only to have the boot process tell you to check your file systems manually
• get acquainted with a whole new class of ext3 errors that you didn't even know existed in the first place !

Do try this at home, it's fun ! And if anyone knows how the software suspend kernel manages to restore from a RAM image saved to a partition that got used for actual swap memory in between, do let me know.

booting your software suspend-enabled linux kernel upgrading the Fedora kernel package, which changes the default to the newly installed kernel software suspending the machine because you're travelling turning on the...

Tonight featured a happenin' party on the beach after work with DJ Bobby Ewing of Discobar Galaxie, straight from Belgium. I learnt only later that the party was organised by a friend of mine - the one that strikes up two full time jobs plus this partying gig on the side then complains that all these jobs together amount up to close to eight hours of work a day ! Some people ...

He's planning to do this weekly, I'm all for it. Next time Kristien is here for a week I'm dragging her down there.

On the way home I passed by a bar/bakery called "Cal Wingo", so I guess our Andy can finally call some bar home. It's in calle Maria Aguilo if he cares to go down here in the future.

Music-wise I've been enjoying the following albums an incredible lot:

• Twilight Singers - Powder Burns: Rarely has a Dulli disc grabbed me so little at first only to strike back with a vengeance making me realize every single song on the disc is stellar
• Killers - hot fuss: amazing how I completely managed to miss this album when it first came out. After seeing the clip for All these things that I've done, I was hooked, and at least half of the album is awesom
• Phoenix - Live thirty days ago: they have a new album out, which is pretty good as well, but I only recently snapped up this live album, and oh my God do they make their songs rock. The album versions are often slightly on the sugary side, but the live versions on this album have both swing and power. "If I ever feel better" sounds amazing with the extended outro, as do most of the other songs - what an incredible live band. I hope to see them live again with this knowledge, I'm sure I'll enjoy it even more than the previous times I've seen them without knowing many of their songs.

Tonight featured a happenin' party on the beach after work with DJ Bobby Ewing of Discobar Galaxie, straight from Belgium. I learnt only later that the party was organised by...

Is the ant big and red or small and black?

Medium and brown.

Halle Berry brown or Beyoncé brown?

Is there a difference?

(rolls eyes, makes face) Is there a difference?

I really can't decide if I like the acting or the writing better.

Is the ant big and red or small and black? Medium and brown. Halle Berry brown or Beyoncé brown? Is there a difference? (rolls eyes, makes face) Is there a...