[Photo by Lukas](https://www.pexels.com/photo/blue-retractable-pen-574070/)

Fix 'Cannot Rebase Onto Multiple Branches' error once and for all

A Guide to using git pull --rebase effectively Using git pull --rebase as your default merge strategy offers several benefits, particularly in maintaining a clean and linear commit history, which can simplify collaboration and code review. However, users may occasionally encounter the error “Cannot rebase onto multiple branches”. This article explains why this happens and provides a solution to make git pull --rebase work seamlessly. Benefits of git pull --rebase Linear History: Rebasing applies your local commits on top of the upstream changes, creating a straight line of commits without unnecessary merge commits....

2024-05-27 · 2 min · timor
[Photo by Marina Leonova](https://www.pexels.com/photo/world-map-made-of-cork-board-on-white-wall-7634440/)

Optimizing Hugo Sitemaps to prioritize posts crawling over taxonomies

You might notice that I’ve been struggling recently with SEO and that I’ve been trying some tricks to improve it, but it feels not enough. I’ve been thinking about Google’s Crawl Budget1 and the way I could influence it to focus more on new and important content. Adding lastmod should help, but together with each new post added, Hugo generates a ton of taxonomy pages (tags, categories, etc) which also would have lastmod updated....

2024-05-17 · 3 min · timor

Installing Oracle Instant Client on Ubuntu 24.04

New system, old problems. Getting Oracle Instant Client to work was a trouble 10 years ago and it’s not different today 🤣 There are two ways to install it on Ubuntu/Debian. First is “recommended”, but boring. Second is “crazy”, but have some benefits. As I’m doing it mostly in Docker images, that’s how I will present it. First, check for up to date versions  external link and links on Oracle’s official site....

2024-04-17 · 4 min · timor
[Generated by AI](https://www.bing.com/images/create/a-nice-logo-for-a-blog-post-about-file-system-in-c/1-65ef5d10460f428181c3ff8bcc359936?id=goqww%2bR2QLJoCYN4XjxV2w%3d%3d&view=detailv2&idpp=genimg&idpclose=1&thId=OIG2.yF78KU7PXi.xzuZrKVJa&FORM=SYDBIC)

Best practices for writing Dockerfiles - Follow "Filesystem Hierarchy Standard"

When it comes to building Docker images, adhering to the “Filesystem Hierarchy Standard”12 can greatly enhance the organization and maintainability of your containers. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to encounter Docker images where files are haphazardly scattered across directories, leading to confusion and unnecessary complications. Let’s delve into some best practices to ensure your Dockerfiles follow the FHS guidelines, thus avoiding common pitfalls and streamlining your container development process. Below you can find the most important directories, from the perspective of Docker images....

2024-03-11 · 3 min · timor
[Cloudflare Pages](https://pages.cloudflare.com) and [Hugo](https://gohugo.io)

Optimizing Hugo static site redirects with Cloudflare Pages

I used to utilize GitHub Pages to serve static content for my blog. I secured it behind Cloudflare to employ a custom domain and automate HTTPS certificate management. Additionally, I utilized a few Page Rules to implement redirects: From www.* to non-www, From HTTP to HTTPS, And for some SEO renaming. Unfortunately, in the Free plan from Cloudflare, you are limited to: 3 Page Rules (with simple glob matching), 10 Transformation Rules (no regex rules), 10 Redirect Rules (no regex)....

2024-03-04 · 3 min · timor
[Renovate Bot](https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate)

Automatic updates of Docker images with Renovate Bot

I’ve been writing recently about best practices for patching and deprecating Docker images , but today I want to show how to automate a huge part of this process. You might already hear about Dependabot1, it’s a Github’s way to notify developers about security vulnerabilities in their projects. Renovate2 is similar tool3, but doesn’t require Github. For my professional work I use Bitbucket, so Renovate feels more universal as can be used anywhere....

2024-03-01 · 4 min · timor
[xkcd.com](https://xkcd.com/349/)

Best practices for patching and deprecating Docker images

Intro One of the biggest benefits of Docker images is their immutability. Once they’re built, they don’t change. Built once, would work forever… That’s how nightmares of security guys starts 🤣 We have then two contradictory concepts: flowchart LR id1(Keep it stable) <---> id2(Keep is up to date and secure) For day to day work, usually first concept wins. You want your builds stable and try to avoid tempting distractions of upgrading log4j to latest version… Who knows what might break....

2024-02-09 · 7 min · timor

Tuning PipeWire for best audio quality on Ubuntu

TL;DR If you’re not interested in the “story of my life”, go directly to “Tuning PipeWire ” section. I’m not an audiophile, but I spent whole days in the headphones and I like when sound sounds good. I like slight bass boost, which adds this kick to the melody, but won’t overwhelm me after an hour of listening. I like when high tones are clear, but I get annoyed if they’re too strong....

2024-01-28 · 8 min · timor
[Photo by olia danilevich](https://www.pexels.com/photo/two-men-looking-at-a-laptop-4974920/)

How to interview DevOps candidates?

A little bit of sour-sweet memories I’ve been in many job interviews. Few as a candidate but many more as a Technical Leader or Hiring Manager. There are many questions I’ve been asked and many tests I passed. I remember one test, where I had to install and configure Apache Tomcat on a Virtual Machine, under Windows (which I don’t use for years), without access to internet. There were more traps there, like some files in the locations where Tomcat is normally installed were blocked for write with chattr immutable attribute....

2024-01-23 · 8 min · timor
[Photo by cottonbro studio](https://www.pexels.com/photo/three-men-in-a-office-6804609/)

How to give Probation Period feedback?

Why? Hiring people is hard, but having a new person in a team is not a work done. It’s important to monitor how people perform during probation period and share feedback with them. Personally, I like to ask the whole team, with a bunch of open questions, which allows me to look from higher altitude on the new hire. My point of view might be biased but by checking what others think, I can fill blind spots....

2024-01-22 · 5 min · timor