05 Jul 2025

feedPlanet Debian

Sergio Cipriano: How I finally tracked my Debian uploads correctly

How I finally tracked my Debian uploads correctly

A long time ago, I became aware of UDD (Ultimate Debian Database), which gathers various Debian data into a single SQL database.

At that time, we were trying to do something simple: list the contributions (package uploads) of our local community, Debian Brasília. We ended up with a script that counted uploads to unstable and experimental.

I was never satisfied with the final result because some uploads were always missing. Here is an example:

debci (3.0) experimental; urgency=medium
...
   [ Sergio de almeida cipriano Junior ]
   * Fix Style/GlovalVars issue
   * Rename blacklist to rejectlist
...

I made changes in debci 3.0, but the upload was done by someone else. This kind of contribution cannot be tracked by that script.

Then, a few years ago, I learned about Minechangelogs, which allows us to search through the changelogs of all Debian packages currently published.

Today, I decided to explore how this was done, since I couldn't find anything useful for that kind of query in UDD's tables.

That's when I came across ProjectB. It was my first time hearing about it. ProjectB is a database that stores all the metadata about the packages in the Debian archive, including the changelogs of those packages.

Now that I'm a Debian Developer, I have access to this database. If you also have access and want to try some queries, you can do this:

$ ssh <username>@mirror.ftp-master.debian.org -N -L 15434:danzi.debian.org:5435
$ psql postgresql://guest@localhost:15434/projectb?sslmode=allow

In the end, it finally solved my problem.

Using the code below, with UDD, I get 38 uploads:

import psycopg2

contributor = 'almeida cipriano'

try:
    connection = psycopg2.connect(
        user="udd-mirror",
        password="udd-mirror",
        host="udd-mirror.debian.net",
        port="5432",
        database="udd"
    )

    cursor = connection.cursor()

    query = f"SELECT source,version,date,distribution,signed_by_name \
FROM public.upload_history \
WHERE changed_by_name ILIKE '%{contributor}%' \
ORDER BY date;"

    cursor.execute(query)
    records = cursor.fetchall()

    print(f"I have {len(records)} uploads.")

    cursor.close()
    connection.close()

except (Exception, psycopg2.Error) as error:
    print("Error while fetching data from PostgreSQL", error)

Using the code bellow, with ProjectB, I get 43 uploads (the correct amount):

import psycopg2

contributor = 'almeida cipriano'

try:
    # SSH tunnel is required to access the database:
    # ssh <username>@mirror.ftp-master.debian.org -N -L 15434:danzi.debian.org:5435
    connection = psycopg2.connect(
        user="guest",
        host="localhost",
        port="15434",
        database="projectb",
        sslmode="allow"
    )
    connection.set_client_encoding('UTF8')

    cursor = connection.cursor()

    query = f"SELECT c.source, c.version, c.changedby \
FROM changes c \
JOIN changelogs ch ON ch.id = c.changelog_id \
WHERE c.source != 'debian-keyring' \
  AND (\
    ch.changelog ILIKE '%{contributor}%' \
    OR c.changedby ILIKE '%{contributor}%' \
  )\
ORDER BY c.seen;"

    cursor.execute(query)
    records = cursor.fetchall()

    print(f"I have {len(records)} uploads.")

    cursor.close()
    connection.close()

except (Exception, psycopg2.Error) as error:
    print("Error while fetching data from PostgreSQL", error)

It feels good to finally solve this itch I've had for years.

05 Jul 2025 1:28pm GMT

04 Jul 2025

feedPlanet Debian

Russell Coker: Function Keys

For at least 12 years laptops have been defaulting to not having the traditional PC 101 key keyboard function key functionality and instead have had other functions like controlling the volume and have had a key labelled Fn to toggle the functions. It's been a BIOS option to control whether traditional function keys or controls for volume etc are the default and for at least 12 years I've configured all my laptops to have the traditional function keys as the default.

Recently I've been working in corporate IT and having exposure to many laptops with the default BIOS settings for those keys to change volume etc and no reasonable option for addressing it. This has made me reconsider the options for configuring these things.

Here's a page listing the standard uses of function keys [1]. Here is a summary of the relevant part of that page:

The keys F1, F3, F4, F7, F9, F10, and F12 don't get much use for me and for the people I observe. The F2 and F8 keys aren't useful in most programs, F6 is only really used in web browsers - but the web browser counts as "most programs" nowadays.

Here's the description of Thinkpad Fn keys [2]. I use Thinkpads for fun and Dell laptops for work, so it would be nice if they both worked in similar ways but of course they don't. Dell doesn't document how their Fn keys are laid out, but the relevant bit is that F1 to F4 are the same as on Thinkpads which is convenient as they are the ones that are likely to be commonly used and needed in a hurry.

I have used the KDE settings on my Thinkpad to map the function F1 to F3 keys to the Fn equivalents which are F1 to mute-audio, F2 for vol-down, and F3 for vol-up to allow using them without holding down the Fn key while having other function keys such as F5 and F6 have their usual GUI functionality. Now I have to could train myself to use F8 in situations where I usually use F2, at least when using a laptop.

The only other Fn combinations I use are F5 and F6 for controlling screen brightness, but that's not something I use much.

It's annoying that the laptop manufacturers forced me to this. Having a Fn key to get extra functions and not need 101+ keys on a laptop size device is a reasonable design choice. But they could have done away with the PrintScreen key to make space for something else. Also for Thinkpads a touch pad is something that could obviously be removed to gain some extra space as the Trackpoint does all that's needed in that regard.

Related posts:

  1. Finding Thread-unsafe Code One problem that I have had on a number of...

04 Jul 2025 11:44am GMT

Sahil Dhiman: Secondary Authoritative Name Server Options for Self-Hosted Domains

In the past few months, I have moved authoritative name servers (NS) of two of my domains (sahilister.net and sahil.rocks) in house using PowerDNS. Subdomains of sahilister.net see roughly 320,000 hits/day across my IN and DE mirror nodes, so adding secondary name servers with good availability (in addition to my own) servers was one of my first priorities.

I explored the following options for my secondary NS, which also didn't cost me anything:

1984 Hosting

Hurriance Electric

Afraid.org

Puck

NS-Global

Asking friends

Two of my friends and fellow mirror hosts have their own authoritative name server setup, Shrirang (ie albony) and Luke. Shirang gave me another POP in IN and through Luke (who does have an insane amount of in-house NS, see dig ns jing.rocks +short), I added a JP POP.

If we know each other, I would be glad to host a secondary NS for you in (IN and/or DE locations).

Some notes

$ dig ns albony.in

; <<>> DiG 9.18.36 <<>> ns albony.in
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 60525
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 9

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 65494
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;albony.in.                     IN      NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
albony.in.              1049    IN      NS      ns3.albony.in.
albony.in.              1049    IN      NS      ns4.albony.in.
albony.in.              1049    IN      NS      ns2.albony.in.
albony.in.              1049    IN      NS      ns1.albony.in.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns3.albony.in.          1049    IN      AAAA    2a14:3f87:f002:7::a
ns1.albony.in.          1049    IN      A       82.180.145.196
ns2.albony.in.          1049    IN      AAAA    2403:44c0:1:4::2
ns4.albony.in.          1049    IN      A       45.64.190.62
ns2.albony.in.          1049    IN      A       103.77.111.150
ns1.albony.in.          1049    IN      AAAA    2400:d321:2191:8363::1
ns3.albony.in.          1049    IN      A       45.90.187.14
ns4.albony.in.          1049    IN      AAAA    2402:c4c0:1:10::2

;; Query time: 29 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.53#53(127.0.0.53) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Fri Jul 04 07:57:01 IST 2025
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 286

vs mine

$ dig ns sahil.rocks

; <<>> DiG 9.18.36 <<>> ns sahil.rocks
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 64497
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 11, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 65494
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;sahil.rocks.                   IN      NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      ns5.he.net.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      puck.nether.net.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      colin.sahilister.net.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      marvin.sahilister.net.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      ns2.afraid.org.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      ns4.he.net.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      ns2.albony.in.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      ns3.jing.rocks.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      ns0.1984.is.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      ns1.1984.is.
sahil.rocks.            6385    IN      NS      ns-global.kjsl.com.

;; Query time: 24 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.53#53(127.0.0.53) (UDP)
;; WHEN: Fri Jul 04 07:57:20 IST 2025
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 313

Further reading

04 Jul 2025 2:36am GMT