Daily Note - December 22, 2021

Business

• I have a spare MacBook Air I use to test my script that makes it easy to install Ruby on a Mac. I like to erase the hard drive and reinstall a fresh copy of macOS. I keep the latest two macOS versions on a USB stick, and since Monterey is now the latest one, I wanted to have that on one of the sticks. Here are the two articles I always refer to:

  • How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
  • Use Disk Utility to erase an Intel-based Mac - Apple Support

• For the paid version of the script, I need to figure out the easiest way to distribute it. Either way, it will be a private repo. Options I can think of are to keep it open source but in a private repo, or closed source and compile it into a binary.

• A quick search shows that shc can convert a shell script into a binary. macos - Convert bash script to a compiled standalone binary executable, not text - Ask Different

• Next I need to figure out how to limit access with the least amount of friction. For private GitHub repos, I think the only way to give people access is to invite them as collaborators, or create a GitHub organization and manage access there. GitLab has deploy tokens that might work better.

• The binary option seems easier. With LemonSqueezy, I can generate and manage software license keys.

• One of my readers reported a weird invalid gemspec error when running my script. It seemed to happen when the script runs gem env. I couldn’t reproduce it when running my script, but then I tried to run gem list and I got the error as well!

gem list rails --installed
Invalid gemspec in [/Users/moncef/.gem/ruby/2.7.4/specifications/jekyll-4.2.1.gemspec]: undefined local variable or method `d' for Gem::Specification:Class
true

And then when I ran bundle install, I got this:

Bundler 2.3.0 is running, but your lockfile was generated with 2.2.30. Installing Bundler 2.2.30 and restarting using that version.
Invalid gemspec in [/Users/moncef/.gem/ruby/2.7.4/specifications/jekyll-4.2.1.gemspec]: undefined local variable or method `d' for Gem::Specification:Class

Opening a new tab, then running rails c worked fine. bi worked fine as well, but gem list did not. gem env works. Aha, running cat /Users/moncef/.gem/ruby/2.7.4/specifications/jekyll-4.2.1.gemspec shows there’s a stray d at the end of the file, on a new line, after the last end.

Fixed it with rm -rf ~/.gem/ruby/2.7.4, then running my script again, which reinstalled jekyll and rails. Since Jekyll was the only gem affected, I could have removed that stray d from just that gemspec instead of removing all gems.

It turns out this was a known bug recently introduced in Rubygems. I summarized the issue and how to fix it in this post.

I’m trying to update Bundler in my project to the latest version, but bundle update --bundler doesn’t seem to work anymore. Before, it used to provide a command to run to update, but now it’s looking at the one in the lockfile and installing that version. Looks like that’s a known issue as well.

Ohana

• Looked into ArgumentError in Sentry, but it’s filtering out the keyword. Not sure how to disable that. I don’t think the Rails app is filtering that out since I can see it in Logentries. Haven’t been able to repro yet.

• OK, so I see a bunch of 500s in logentries from malicious requests, like this: /search?action=index&api_token=[FILTERED]&category=..%2F..%2F..%2F..%2F..%2F..%2F..%2F..%2Fetc%2Fpasswd%00&controller=locations&keyword=care&page=5 and the error is ArgumentError: string contains null byte. How come these aren’t showing up in Sentry? Ah, they are. They’re just grouped by error type. If you click on Events, you’ll see there’s 41 instances. I should handle these gracefully so that it doesn’t generate 500. They’re all coming from a Linux machine.

• Another example: /search?action=index&api_token=[FILTERED]&category=%2Fetc%2Fpasswd%00&controller=locations&keyword=care&page=5

• Parameters: {"api_token"=>"[FILTERED]", "category"=>"/etc/passwd\u0000", "keyword"=>"care", "page"=>"5"}

Home

• Kids loved playing in the kitchen sink. Now we have another activity to pick from the next time we need some downtime.

• I bought my first pair of Darn Tough socks about two years ago, and I’m really impressed with their durability. About 5 months ago, I bought 3 more pairs for workouts. A few days ago, I noticed a small hole in one of those pairs. What I like about Darn Tough is their lifetime warranty. So I filled out the online form, and shipped the socks to them in a padded envelope. Once they receive them, they will send me a code that I can use to order another pair with free shipping.

Todo

• finish about page
• update daily notes Keyboard Maestro macro to take the date as input