Ansible and Jinja2: Check if variable is defined and it's True

Jinja2 provides you with a built in test:

http://jinja.pocoo.org/docs/2.10/templates/#defined
So you can simply use:

	{% if my_var is defined and my_var %}
	defined
	{% endif %}

view raw defined.j2 hosted with ❤ by GitHub

However, if you're using Ansible variables, even thought you might have defined some of them as False they might still be treated as True as Jinja2 may simply see them as string variables.
So you should, and even encouraged to use the built-in bool filter. So the final and the safest answer is this:

	{% if my_var is defined and my_var | bool %}
	defined
	{% endif %}

view raw defined-final.j2 hosted with ❤ by GitHub

How to copy files/directories from list preserving directory

Tl;dr:

Create a directory 'newdir',
And run the following supplying the filelist file:

while read -r fff; do cp -r --parents "$fff" newdir/; done < filelist.txt

view raw copyfiles.bash hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Explanation:

You have the following tree as in example:

	dir0/
	a
	x
	y
	z
	b
	u
	v
	w
	c
	x
	y
	z

view raw filestree hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Now, you have the following list of files inside `filelist.txt`:

	a/x
	b/v
	b/w
	c/x
	c/z

view raw filelist.txt hosted with ❤ by GitHub

You want to copy somewhere else only this files.
The script should run inside the `dir0` directory.
The above script will run on each row inside filelist.txt and copy them to `newdir`. `newdir` should be created before running the script.

* It does not matter if the end path is a file or directory

The certificate retrieved from the master does not match the agent's private key.

While implementing puppet in our environment, I got into this issue with newly created machine. Running 'puppet agent -t' for the first time:

	Error: Could not request certificate: The certificate retrieved from the master does not match the agent's private key.
	Certificate fingerprint: {fingerprint}
	To fix this, remove the certificate from both the master and the agent and then start a puppet run, which will automatically regenerate a certficate.
	On the master:
	puppet cert clean domain.com
	On the agent:
	1a. On most platforms: find /var/lib/puppet/ssl -name domain.pem -delete
	1b. On Windows: del "/var/lib/puppet/ssl/domain.pem" /f
	2. puppet agent -t

view raw gistfile1.txt hosted with ❤ by GitHub

First you must make sure the certname in puppet.conf matches the hostname of the machine, but the commands mentioned above may still not work and result in the same error.

After a little digging on the puppet master machine, I found the following domain.com.pem file in the following path:

/var/lib/puppet/ssl/ca/signed

Just remove this agent's pem file, and redo the commands again. Fixed the issue for me.

Edit: Also ensure you are working under root in puppet master :P

LibreOffice 4 not opening files from smb

Just a note to myself,

It's a temporary fix, or as many call it, a workaround.

There is a bug in LO that you're not able to open files on smb share. The LO just start (may show a splash screen), and closes with no error.

The workaround is simple, as provided by Maxim Monastirsky (comment #15):

Open the .desktop file (such as /usr/share/applications/libreoffice4.1-writer.desktop for LO Writer) and comment the following line:
For Nautilus users:
X-GIO-NoFuse=true

For Dolphin users:
Open the same file, and comment the following line:
X-KDE-Protocols=file,http,smb,ftp,webdav

It's working now like a charm.

Can't send mail from kontact using davmail

I moved to Arch Linux recently with KDE, and tried setting my organization email account on Kontact using davmail.
It's not my first time, and I just used this steps as usual:
http://osdir.com/ml/kde-pim/2011-07/msg00146.html

Everything was setup except I couldn't send email and received the following error:

Error : davmail.exchange.ews.EWSException: ErrorSendAsDenied The user account which was used to submit this request does not have the right to send mail on behalf of the specified sending account

After lot of investigation, I found out that somehow "davmail is not sending the right "From" address in new versions".
That's Ok, except I have an old davmail server, that wasn't updated for some months, and it worked before I moved to Arch.

So I tried to check the Kmail side, and after a lot of time, came up with this note in the documentation:

The way of sending messages configured here will be used for your default identity and for all other identities that do not have their own way of sending messages. You can use different ways of sending messages for different identities by selecting the Outgoing Account check box in the Advanced tab of the Identities page.

Kmail Identity settings

Let's check my identity then! And I've found the culprit.
Go to Configure Kmail ->  Identities -> Choose your Identity -> Modify.
I had no email address set in my Identity, right after setting it up, the emails sent successfully!

Not sure why it happened, maybe some change in the newer version of Kmail. But that fixed it for me, and hope does the same for you!

Deinterlacing and converting MTS video files

For my trip abroad I had a Sony video camera I borrowed from my friend. The camera was filming in AVCHD format, in 1080i format, an interlaced video.
After coming home, I was searching for the best way, to preserve quality, to deinterlace the video files and keep them that way. I have tried several ways, also tried converting with VLC only to find out that there is a bug. So I came up with the following article:
http://cweiske.de/tagebuch/deinterlacing-1080i.htm

The way is to just use the command line, with the ffmpeg convert option. However, it came up to me, that the sameq option is no longer available which is used by the publisher. So I decided to publish this post, with the fix to the command. You just need to replace the sameq option with qscale 0:

ffmpeg -i in.MTS -vf yadif=1 -acodec ac3 -ab 192k -vcodec mpeg4 -f mp4 -y -qscale 0 out.mp4

Replace in.MTS with the source file and out.mp4 with the output file name.

This far it resulted in the best deinterlaced video quality I could find.
You can download ffmpeg here:
http://www.ffmpeg.org/download.html

Key Update Tool throws an error

Note to self:
If Key Update Tool (A tool to update Win XP Serial Key) is giving you this error:

The product key could not be updated on your computer.  This may be due to technical difficulties or network connectivity issues.  Please contact Microsoft Support for additional assistance.

 Make sure you have turned off Trend Micro antivirus.*

*May apply to other antivirus software as well.