Debian Backports

If you are new to Debian, and you require some newer software than present in “stable” version, and ready to take the risks – you can use Debian Backports repository. To get a bit more familiar with this official Debian repository you can start from reading “What are Debian Backports?“. Just read carefully, understand the risks and test before going to production.

VersionEye goes Open Source

VersionEye – a very useful service that I use for outdated software tracking in projects I’m working on. It sends me notifications whenever any third-party library is outdated or vulnerability detected.

From now it is Open Source. If you wish – you can run your very own copy inside you company network or continue using VersionEye.com services. Robert Reiz explains why they moved from Black Box to Open Source model with MIT license in VersionEye goes open source blog post.

So, keep your software up to date!

First time with Logstash Elasticsearch and Kibana

On February 2th my colleague Simonas Šerlinskas presented topic “Logs” on VilniusPHP event in interesting perspective. In 30 minutes he presented the way to grab and analyze huge amount of logs with nice graphical visualization using logstash, elasticsearch and kibana.

I’ve had no idea that I will need that trio next day during some logs analysis. It’s nice to have such powerful tools installed, configured and running in matter of hours, ready to accept and analyze data. Of course – most of the settings where default, no high availability, almost zero security (in-house, closed VM), but results was worth spent time. logstash + elasticsearch + kibana just did the job and then where just wiped.

Wish to have something like that many years ago… but.