We use Foreman as an authoritative source for all our systems, devices. As things change we use Python and Wordpress to create/update infrastructure documentation automatically. For everything else we just use TRAC or similar and don't consider anything "done" until it's documented properly.
I'd like to see something more flexible.
The open source issue tracker "Trac" has a nice syntax for its Query Language.
It uses date specifications like 1d
(1 day), 4w
(4 weeks), and 5y
(5 years).
It'd be nice if DDG searches allowed you to include some date constraint in the same way Trac allows you constrain ticket queries.
Pencil and paper. Vastly superior to pen and paper :P
Can't say I use much of anything beyond that unless you count whiteboards. I suppose I use MS Word to distribute a finished design for review.
For todo lists I use Edgewall's ticketing system, trac.
I'm not an expert on SIEM, it was always just syslog to me. I work with a wide gamut of people. Some that with just syslog-ng
aggregation and a command prompt can work their grep
, awk
and sed
magic. Maybe you hire a bunch of infosec people and they are used to Splunk. We had a fad with ELK and it seemed pretty good but then it got abandoned by the team that set it up.
The self supporting question is more nuanced in medium to large organisations because although you may have $OSS experts internally they may not want to support your use case. ELK is on my bookmark list of things to look at but it's pretty low on the priority list of finding another beefy server with some fast big disks to run it on and support when my focus should be on designing, implementing and supporting networks but it does look like it could do a good job.
I sometimes feel like an anomaly because I do a lot of "skunkworks" projects with OSS. I started out originally at work finding some ex-production Sun Netra (SPARC running Solaris ex telco with DC -48V PSUs and you had to compile things, lol) servers to run things like Trac. These days I can sometimes sneak in a server when the budget cycle comes around and there is money to spend so have a couple of 80 core Xeon boxes full of SSDs to run things like observium/librenms, SaltStack, Ansible, NIPAP, Netbox, etc on top of Ubuntu/KVM or Proxmox. I'd highly recommend all network engineers try out OSS tooling for themselves, find an old server/desktop/laptop/NUC and install things. If it works for you and people start to rely on it then "productionnise" it. At the very least get familiar with Unix based operating systems and the command line because it will expand your horizon.
That's why I said "Trac's take on Wiki markup adds easier code blocks". Trac Wiki markup. It still uses backticks for inline code, but for code blocks, it uses {{{#!language\n foobar}}}
instead of triple backticks.
Another vote for svn. You might also consider getting a ticketing system to keep track of bugs, tasks and milestones. Trac is pretty lightweight and integrates well with svn.
Hmm, I had recorded a few videos and uploaded them on my own channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNwbUoah6frK3PPzuUzf1qCYmSfUA4rW3
That's been a while, though. I also know next to nothing about video editing; this is just straight-up screen record and go.
> regarding copyrighted material in videos
Well, I rather meant using copyrighted images, characters, visuals on the website. Like for example a header with the Neverwinter Nights logo or stuff like that, on the xoreos homepage. That would just be wrong, I think.
> I think the progress/bug tracker that openmw uses is extremely good at illustrating the project's progress
Moving to trac for the bug tracker is something that's planned, yes. The problem there is that the server hosting xoreos.org is managed by a friend of mine and he's kind of low on free time to set up trac at the moment.
I've used nearly all of them over the years and quite frankly the only bug tracker I have used that hasn't been a complete shit show is https://trac.edgewall.org/ . This is followed by the one built into Fossil https://fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/index.wiki
JIRA would be good if clueless people didn't meddle with it and it didn't feel like you were riding a deceased snail and didn't mug you on the street corner.
You're not thinking BIG enough. :)
Life gets more complex over time.
Go all out.
It's for software development but it's got everything you need
Don't hate me!
I self host Edgewall's trac. It lacks many of the features found in Jira, and I consider that a good thing. Not as glitzy as others, but has served me without issue for years and years.
I've used Edgewall's trac for years. I think Redmine forked from it years ago. Fairly easy to set up as I recall. I haven't had to touch it since I set it up.
I find using a virtual machine when setting up new stuff to be really helpful. You can always easily reset it back to a known state when trying stuff out. Sometimes you screw something up along the way that makes everything else you do not work.
I self host a system called trac. There are lots of similar. If you are using git and Github then it has an issue tracker.
Typically you create a ticket describing the issue. When you check the code in you often can reference the ticket with some notation (Fixed issue #1234) and the ticket gets automatically closed.
It's a good question. Most people do not know how to manage a personal assistant and the failures are often due to poor communication and less because the assistant was low quality. Good communication is critical, especially while building trust.
I've had a virtual assistant for over 10 years, and when we started, I already had experience managing people remotely so it was an easy transition, but there are always some hiccups as people get acquainted.
I hired based on my anticipated needs at the time and while my VA had some skills, others needed to be taught then and later as my needs evolved. I found that the most effective way was to create screencasts - videos of my screen - where I explained what I needed done. I then uploaded those videos to a shared Dropbox folder, which gradually became a library of tutorials that we could reference whenever needed AND that could also be used for the occasions when I needed to bring in other assistants. I would also occasionally pay for an online course to train my VA with.
Finally, all tasks are managed through a simple project management system called Trac (although many people recommend Trello nowadays).
There are cheaper VAs and there are more expensive VAs, and one of the ways they differ is by how much hand-holding they need. A higher end VA is also a consultant and project manager who will take a look at your business, recommend what can be done and then execute. A lower end, cheaper VA will "await orders" and will need more of your time to stay productive and cost-effective.
Hope that helps. Feel free to PM me with questions.
Edgewall's Trac is free and self hosted. No pie charts or kitten pics, but functional. I've used it for many years.
Note that Jetbrains' YouTrack can also be self-hosted. Not free. It's a crucial part of your development environment so I wouldn't skimp.
I've used Edgewall's Trac for many years with no complaints. Simple and easy to self host. Trello and Jira are common. If you're just spitballing stuff then Trello is far simpler. I find Jira to be excessivly complex.
With TiddlyWiki.
Perfect when working alone, as the whole Wiki is saved in one .html file, which you can carry around in a USB stick.
There are also docker containers available for hosting it on your server for online access.
It is possible to use as a team, but since it has no user management, the options are limited (everyone uses the same account).
In teams with more than 4 people, I'd go for a Wiki with user management. Before that, TW is quick and simple.
This is for keeping your thoughts together. For scheduling and task tracking, use a feature/bug tracker like Waffle (Git integration) or Trac (to be installed on your server).
Can recommend Attlassian's Jira as a paid option.
svn is what I use too. Happy camper as well. Do you connect it to any sort of ticketing system? I've been using Edgewall's trac for some time and pretty satisfied with the results.
> One of the biggest sources of friction for me is the different kinds of markup we have in our different tools, and moving Trac to Phabricator would eliminate that.
I'm sorry to break this to you, but this will not eliminate our markup diversity... ;-)
Phabricator too uses its own custom markup called "reMarkup" which is similar to Markdown but differs in subtly annoying ways from actual Markdown as used everywhere else (which frequently requires me to fixup the markup as I always get it wrong when switching between GitHub/GitLab and Phabricator). Afaik, Phabricator does not support reStructuredText yet.
We use reStructuredText for our GHC User's Guide via Sphinx.
Trac supports does have its native default Wiki markup which happens to be "close enough" to [Wiki Creole](https://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/WikiCreole]. But it also natively supports reStructuredText which we considered as one (of multiple) reasons for switching the GHC user's guide switching to reStructuredText.
Last but not least, we use Haddock markup in Haskell code. And Haddock is not going to support Markdown any time soon; it may however optionally support reStructuredText at some point.
We automate our infrastructure docs with Wordpress, Python and Foreman. We usually document everything else in Github markdown (as part of our repositories) or use TRAC for internal stuff.
Anything useful that might be practical for others I maintain on my blog.
Internally at work we use TRAC Wiki. Other groups use a variety of things but I prefer TRAC because the syntax is easy, it's fast and isn't overkill like JIRA or something else.
I do a lot of work on upstream Open Source projects so I just use markdown there within the repository.
Our server infrastructure documentation is auto-generated using Python, Foreman and the Wordpress XMLRPC Python API
trac plus email2trac plugin has worked for me in the past. I cut the ticket fields down to the bare minimum, and may have had some other plugins enabled for standard ticket templates.
A few generic ones: Some sort of ticketing system, version control, and virtualization.
I use Edgewall's trac for ticketing, but there are many others. I picked trac because it was easy to set up, easy to modify, and easy to use. I also needed something that could be self-hosted,
A ticketing system is essential for keeping your projects focused on track. Large project or small -- doesn't matter. It allows you to set goals and keep track of things that need to be done now and things that need to be done later. The now and later distinction is important if you want to quickly get things completed and not be forever off chasing the next new shiny that rolls your way.
Version control kind of goes without saying these days, but if you're not using it, search the sub and see why you should be. I'm currently using Subversion, primarily because it is the only client I have on the embedded system I'm doing self-hosted development on. If you need simple, centralized source control it does the job. The cool kids generally use git. Whatever you choose it should integrate into your ticketing system and work flow.
For virtualization I use VMware, Again, there are many quality choices. Virtualization allows you to create a stable, repeatable environment to develop in. If you need to try something new out you just spin another one up and give it a go without risking your primary work setup. Allows you to set up multiple target environments for testing.