Upon updating an application to Rails 2.1 the first bug I saw prevented the application from loading due to the BenchmarkForRails plugin. Here's how I fixed it.

I’ve been reading through the launchpad bugs for Xen and thought that I could use them to illustrate some tips and tricks for using Xen in Ubuntu or Debian. I ran into some problems with Xen today on a system after having been upgraded from Ubuntu 7.10 to Ubuntu 8.04 and from Xen 3.1 to Xen 3.2. This should help as a checklist when diagnosing various Xen problems.

I haven't written about this issue yet but felt I should say something as it took most of my last week in resolving. I've read a lot about people dealing with this problem and yet very few seem to truly understand the implications. The bottom line as far as I'm concerned is that all Debian and Ubuntu systems built with the vulnerable package should be considered compromised. And that means a lot more work is needed to secure the systems than just regenerating ssh keys and ssl certificates. Now, I realize that rebuilding all machines might be too much work for many sysadmins. My plan is to rebuild all my host machines and simply consider my virtualized guests to be compromised. Whether that is a wise idea remains to be seen. At a minimum people should not only update all of their keys and certificates but also reset all passwords on the system. At that point one can just hope that no one compromised their machines during the extended period of vulnerability.

I’ve begun testing Hardy Heron and I’ve already found some bugs. So in the interest of getting the best OS possible I’m going to try and report all bugs I find and track their status prior to the final release. I’m sure I’ll make updates to this post as I go.