Month: April 2017

Validating CSV schema

CSV, or comma-separated values, is a very common format for managing all kinds of configurations, as well data manipulation.  As the linked Wikipedia page mentions, there are a few RFCs that try to standardize the format.  However, I thought, there is still a lack of schema-type standard that would allow one to define a format for particular file.

Today I came across an effort that attempts to do just that – CSV Schema Language v1.1 – an unofficial draft of the language for defining and validating CSV data.  This is work in progress by the Digital Preservation team at The National Archives.

Apart from the unofficial draft of the language, there is also an Open Source CSV Validator v1.1 application, written in Scala.

Docker Image Vulnerability Research

Federacy has an interesting research in Docker image vulnerabilities.  The bottom line is:

24% of latest Docker images have significant vulnerabilities

This can and should be improved, especially given the whole hierarchical structure of Docker images.  It’s not like improving security of all those random GitHub repositories.

Why Configuration Management and Provisioning are Different

In “Why Configuration Management and Provisioning are Different” Carlos Nuñez advocates for the use of specialized infrastructure provisioning tools, like Terraform, Heat, and CloudFormation, instead of relying on the configuration management tools, like Ansible or Puppet.

I agree with his argument for the rollbacks, but not so much for the maintaining state and complexity.  However I’m not yet comfortable to word my disagreement – my head is all over the place with clouds, and I’m still weak on the terminology.

The article is nice regardless, and made me look at the provisioning tools once again.

36 Hours in Cyprus

The New York Times runs “36 Hours in Cyprus” article, which introduces the rest of the world into the good side of Cyprus.  Particularly cool of them to mention “To Theatraki” cafe, which is one of the many places where I consumed numerous pints.  Happy hours indeed!