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Unexpected Linux Adventures

Single-node Kubernetes cluster on Ubuntu Studio desktop (rapture)

For a bit more than a year, I've been running self-hosted services on a single-node Kubernetes cluster on Ubuntu server and, while it has presented some troubles to shoot, I have grown used to the advantages of deploying services far more easily, without having to worry too much about their dependencies, getting automatic updates, and even making many of them available over HTTPS with good SSL certificates. Now I want to enjoy some of those advantages in my desktop PC: Rapture.

Getting started with Fallout 3 and 4 GOTY

A few weeks ago Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition was on sale (75% off) and so I finally pulled the trigger on it. It had been in my wishlist for a few years, since I spent nearly 150 hours on Fallout 3, but I had been reluctant on account of many people complaining that its story was weaker and it was more focused on exploration and combat. Well, people say the same (and I'd agree) about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and I spent already more than 200 hours on it and still want to go back.

Monitoring with InfluxDB and Grafana on Kubernetes

Four years later, I still have not gotten the hang of telegraf, I'm still running my own home-made detailed system and process monitoring reporting to InfluxDB running container-lessly in lexicon and I feel the time is up for moving these services into the Kubernetes cluster. Besides keeping them updated, what I'm most looking forward is leveraging the cluster's infrastructure to expose these services (only) over HTTPS with automatically renewed SSL certs.

Kubernetes Certificate Expired

Yet Another Unexpected Hump

The regular user is unable to connect to the Kubernetes API server because the x509 certificate expired on 2024-03-21T21:37:37Z (nearly 24 hours ago):

$ kubectl get all -n minecraft-server
E0322 20:57:59.141510 3545623 memcache.go:265] couldn't get current server API group list: Get "https://10.0.0.6:6443/api?timeout=32s": tls: failed to verify certificate: x509: certificate has expired or is not yet valid: current time 2024-03-22T20:57:59+01:00 is after 2024-03-21T21:37:37Z
E0322 20:57:59.143467 3545623 memcache.go:265] couldn't get current server API group list: Get "https://10.0.0.6:6443/api?timeout=32s": tls: failed to verify certificate: x509: certificate has expired or is not yet valid: current time 2024-03-22T20:57:59+01:00 is after 2024-03-21T21:37:37Z
E0322 20:57:59.145339 3545623 memcache.go:265] couldn't get current server API group list: Get "https://10.0.0.6:6443/api?timeout=32s": tls: failed to verify certificate: x509: certificate has expired or is not yet valid: current time 2024-03-22T20:57:59+01:00 is after 2024-03-21T21:37:37Z
E0322 20:57:59.147141 3545623 memcache.go:265] couldn't get current server API group list: Get "https://10.0.0.6:6443/api?timeout=32s": tls: failed to verify certificate: x509: certificate has expired or is not yet valid: current time 2024-03-22T20:57:59+01:00 is after 2024-03-21T21:37:37Z
E0322 20:57:59.148895 3545623 memcache.go:265] couldn't get current server API group list: Get "https://10.0.0.6:6443/api?timeout=32s": tls: failed to verify certificate: x509: certificate has expired or is not yet valid: current time 2024-03-22T20:57:59+01:00 is after 2024-03-21T21:37:37Z
Unable to connect to the server: tls: failed to verify certificate: x509: certificate has expired or is not yet valid: current time 2024-03-22T20:57:59+01:00 is after 2024-03-21T21:37:37Z

Getbukkit Expired

An Unexpected Minecraft "Update"

One day while looking at the monitoring in lexicon I noticed there was something big missing: the minecraft server that normally takes over 4GB of RAM was not running:

$ kubectl get all -n minecraft-server
NAME                                   READY   STATUS             RESTARTS        AGE
pod/minecraft-server-88f84b5fc-5kjr2   0/1     CrashLoopBackOff   152 (30s ago)   12h

NAME                       TYPE       CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)                           AGE
service/minecraft-server   NodePort   10.110.215.139   <none>        25565:32565/TCP,19132:32132/UDP   291d

NAME                               READY   UP-TO-DATE   AVAILABLE   AGE
deployment.apps/minecraft-server   0/1     1            0           12h

NAME                                         DESIRED   CURRENT   READY   AGE
replicaset.apps/minecraft-server-88f84b5fc   1         1         0       12h

$ kubectl -n minecraft-server logs minecraft-server-88f84b5fc-5kjr2
[init] Running as uid=1003 gid=1003 with /data as 'drwxrwxr-x 1 1003 1003 722 Dec 17 05:10 /data'
[init] Resolving type given SPIGOT
2024/03/15 17:44:59 Unable to find an element with attribute matcher property=og:title
[init] ERROR: failed to retrieve latest version from https://getbukkit.org/download/spigot -- site might be down

$ curl https://getbukkit.org/download/spigot
<!doctype html>
<html data-adblockkey="MFwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADSwAwSAJBANDrp2lz7AOmADaN8tA50LsWcjLFyQFcb/P2Txc58oYOeILb3vBw7J6f4pamkAQVSQuqYsKx3YzdUHCvbVZvFUsCAwEAAQ==_UL89QGTogxdwKHwZzilx913GmK75KOL2kLgPnkgb9dD1Tc/wjgiP2tuKwPeUMm3vEXLjUWOarjD7XgGHgmalBg==" lang="en" style="background: #2B2B2B;">
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    <link rel="icon" href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAIAAACQd1PeAAAADElEQVQI12P4//8/AAX+Av7czFnnAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC">
    <link rel="preconnect" href="https://www.google.com" crossorigin>
</head>
<body>
<div id="target" style="opacity: 0"></div>
<script>window.park = "eyJ1dWlkIjoiNDk5MDE1NDQtMTJlZi00YWQzLWI3YmQtMjA5Y2YwYzlmZjFmIiwicGFnZV90aW1lIjoxNzEwNTI2ODY5LCJwYWdlX3VybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vZ2V0YnVra2l0Lm9yZy9kb3dubG9hZC9zcGlnb3QiLCJwYWdlX21ldGhvZCI6IkdFVCIsInBhZ2VfcmVxdWVzdCI6e30sInBhZ2VfaGVhZGVycyI6e30sImhvc3QiOiJnZXRidWtraXQub3JnIiwiaXAiOiIyMTcuMTYyLjU3LjY0In0K";</script>
<script src="/bNjGNXnzR.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Updating Kubernetes to the Community-Owned Package Repositories

An Unexpected Update

Most days I update my little server when I log into my PC, and today it gave quite an unexpected surprise:

# apt update && apt full-upgrade -y
...
E: The repository 'https://apt.kubernetes.io kubernetes-xenial Release' no longer has a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

This was promptly reported already yesterday as Ubuntu kubernetes-xenial package repository issue #123673 and quick triaged pointing to the announcement from August 2023: pkgs.k8s.io: Introducing Kubernetes Community-Owned Package Repositories.

Audiobookshelf on Kubernetes

Migrating a Plex Media Server to Kubernetes, was a significant improvement for the maintenance of the Plex Media Server I use to listen to podcasts and audiobooks, to keep me company while I play games, but after all these years Plex remains a very insufficient and deficient application for audiobooks.

Enter audiobookshelf (because Emby and Jellyfin are also not great)

Audiobookshelf home page

Calibrating screen color with DisplayCAL

Calibrating screen color is mostly optional these days, if you buy a good screen that comes out of factory with a good calibration profile. Nonetheless, it is recommended to re-calibrate every year or so to account for display ageing, so a few years ago I purchased a Datacolor Spyder5 Express which is known to work on Linux, with Argyll Color Management System.

What doesn't always work so well is DisplayCal. In fact, the original project is dead and was dropped from Ubuntu 20.04 but was still possible to build with python2.7 packages. That is no longer possible in Ubuntu 22.04, but there is a Python 3 fork: eoyilmaz/displaycal-py3