2019-02-08 A Belated Infodump

I've finally got the stars to align to get all these notes posted to
my phlog...Hurray me!

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[ 2019-01-21 12:21] 

Another Monday. I'm plugging away with operational duties and trying
to move my testing forward. I'm running into a situation where I can't
determine where an error lies, with the vendor's code or with how our
application instance is set up. At this point, the issue is a
showstopper and we have to delay our upgrade.

[2019-01-21 15:51]

The work day is almost done. I've been trying to get a couple data
queries set up to fulfill a couple requests I've received. One
researcher is looking for nearly 30 years of data! I will have to
manage expectations as our application's report module is creaky at
best and will only let me run data a year at a time. This will take a
while!

I think it's time to start putting my things away and head for the
door. I've put in a full day and I think it time to head home.

[2019-01-23 15:52]

A little more progress today and I managed to finish testing one of
two of the major systems on the application. The part is progressing
as well but there are still some major problems associated with it
that are stopping the upgrade from proceeding.

I also fiddled with openVPN to connect to a NordVPN server. I've got a
successful VPN connection (as far as I can tell) but no internet. I
wonder if it's a DNS issue. I will post a message to the Mageia forums
tomorrow and ask the experts there. Linux may be frustrating at times
but I always learn something new.

Okay, enough fun for one day, I'm going to pack up and go get my kids.

[2019-01-29 18:39] 

Several days later and I finally got OpenVPN to connect to NordVPN. I
posted a question on the Mageia forums. After days of troubleshooting
with a friend, we determined that Shore wall, the firewall Mageia
uses, was blocking the VPN connection, specifically UDP on port 1194
and TCP on port 443. In addition, the network couldn't find a DNS
server. I resolved the issue with Shorewall but then the connection
refused to work at all. After switching the network management tool to
Network Manager and fiddling with the nmcli command line application,
I got connected to a NordVPN server and now can do it with any server
I want in any country I want. If you're curious, I posted my solution
in detail on the forum thread here:
https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=12635&p=74234#p74234

We got a fuck tonne of snow over the last 24 hours, nearly 30
centimetres! I shovelled out my driveway twice. I also ran on the
treadmill yesterday and today. To say that I'm beat would be
understating things quite a bit. I'm glad it's done for now. It'll be
bitterly cold the next couple days so we'll need to contend with that.

I'm helping with dinner now so I'll sign off for now. 

[2019-02-02 16:42]

I'm working in my friend's shop again. It's been non-stop for most of
the day. I haven't sat down much at all. The freezing temperatures
we've had all week have finally abated and we're back to slightly more
normal temperatures for today. However, the next couple of days will
be well above normal temperatures. It would be nice to just have some
normal weather for the season.

There appears to be a side effect of my solution to get connected to a
VPN. I can't get any GUI applications that require additional
permissions, such as Mageia Control Centre, to start. I'm not sure
what's wrong. When I have more time, I will post my problem on the
Mageia forum and see where I get.

[2019-02-08 14:08]

I'm finally sitting down and having some lunch. I'm on-call this week
which adds an extra layer of tasks I need to do.

I still haven't posted my question about issues with Plasma GUI
applications. I'm sure it's something simple but I haven't any time to
myself this week. Really, it's been busy since last Saturday. I'd like
it to slow down a bit.

I'm going to make myself feel good and post all these notes on my phlog.