Installing ZSH on WSL: Ubuntu

January 7, 2024

Having moved away from development of Ansible/Python/Terraform, and others on Windows a few years ago. I’ve heard that WSL has become much better, especially with its support of VS Code now that they have a WSL connector. So, I decided to give it a try.

However, I did run into one surprising inconvenience, BASH! I have become so accustomed to ZSH over the years on Apple and using oh-my-zsh that all my shortcuts and quick ways to doing things just weren’t there.

I did attempt to use oh-my-bash but there just aren’t the number of plugins already to support the plethora of plugins I need and use on a regular basis. So, next logical step is to install ZSH on my WSL: Ubuntu system.

Requirements

WSL with Ubuntu installed

Steps to install ZSH

Install ZSH.

1	sudo apt install zsh

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eanderson@MATRIX-WINDOWS:~$ sudo apt install zsh

[sudo] password for eanderson:

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree... Done

Reading state information... Done

The following additional packages will be installed:

zsh-common

Suggested packages:

zsh-doc

The following NEW packages will be installed:

zsh zsh-common

0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Need to get 4794 kB of archives.

After this operation, 18.2 MB of additional disk space will be used.

Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

Verify that ZSH has been installed on the system.

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zsh --version

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eanderson@MATRIX-WINDOWS:~$ zsh --version
zsh 5.8.1 (x86_64-ubuntu-linux-gnu)
Set ZSH as your default shell.
NOTE: This used to require modifications to the shortcut to access WSL but in newer versions of WSL you can use the following.

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chsh -s /bin/zsh

For older versions you will need to modify the shortcut to WSL and use the command:

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%systemroot%\system32\bash.exe ~ -c /bin/zsh
Once you close and reopen your WSL Ubuntu shell you should now be in ZSH shell.

Install of Oh-my-zsh

Ensure that your terminal session is open and use the following command as per https://ohmyz.sh/#install

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sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
You should now be able to configure your oh-my-zsh installation by modifying your .zshrc file and enable any plugins you need.
The final result! 🙂

Hopefully that helps, I know it helped me as I venture back to Windows for development of my Ansible playbooks and other tools.

development, devops, oh-my-zsh, ohmyzsh, shell, ubuntu, windows, wsl, zsh

Ansible, System Administration, Windows, WSL

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Installing Wget via Xcode on Mac OSX

April 15, 2020

Eric Anderson

Install Xcode

First, you will need to ensure that Xcode is installed, and you can install it via the App Store here https://apps.apple.com/au/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12

1	xcode-select --install

Installing Wget

Next, we need to get the latest copy of Wget. We will use curl for this command.

1 2	cd ~/Downloads curl -O https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/wget/wget-latest.tar.gz

We will extract the tar.gz

1	tar -zxvf wget-latest.tar.gz

Change your directory to the wget folder that was extracted. Then configure it.

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cd wget-1.20.3

ln -s /usr/local/opt/openssl /usr/local/ssl

./configure -with-ssl=openssl -with-libssl-prefix=/usr/local/ssl

Now we need to make wget, and then install it.

1 2	make make install

Let’s test it to make sure it works

1	wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/wget/wget-latest.tar.gz

devops, mac, systemadmin, wget, xcode

DevOps, System Administration

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How to loop blocks of code in Ansible

June 20, 2019

Eric Anderson

In this blog post I will cover how we can loop groups/blocks of tasks within Ansible. Currently using - block: will not work. However you can use - include_tasks: my_grouped_tasks.yml to loop a group of tasks. Within that tasks file you can use {{ item }} on each of your tasks and It will copy from the item during the loop. At Avi Networks we’ve used this for much of our internal task groupings which have items that depend on creation of each other and cannot independently run loops without causing issues.

In the following I have some visual representations to show what the goal origianlly was, and how you can accomplish it.

PROBLEM:

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# playbook.yml

---

- hosts: localhost

connection: local

vars:

ip_addresses:

- 10.0.0.10

- 10.0.0.11

tasks:

- block:

- name: Copy using inline content to first file

copy:

content: |

ip_address={{ item }}

dest: /etc/some_config_file.conf

- name: Copy using inline content to second file

copy:

content: |

ip_address={{ item }}

dest: /etc/some_other_config_file.conf

loop: "{{ ip_addresses }}"

SOLUTION:

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# playbook.yml

---

- hosts: localhost

connection: local

vars:

ip_addresses:

- 10.0.0.10

- 10.0.0.11

tasks:

- name: deploy files with network address in them

include_tasks: network_files.yml

loop: "{{ ip_addresses }}"

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# network_files.yml

---

- name: Copy using inline content to first file

copy:

content: |

ip_address={{ item }}

dest: /etc/some_config_file.conf

- name: Copy using inline content to second file

copy:

content: |

ip_address={{ item }}

dest: /etc/some_other_config_file.conf

This will effectively do a loop over your multiple tasks. I know it’s a bit annoying, but this is currently the only working solution to looping over blocks of tasks.

ansible, blocks, devops, loops

Ansible, DevOps

1 Comment

Integrating Zabbix w/Slack for Channel Notifications

January 16, 2019

Eric Anderson

I’ve been using Slack and Zabbix now for a few years, and figured since there’s not too many guides out there on how to integrate the two easily. I know there are a few examples so far, but this is what’s worked best for me.

First I use this script, and put it in your alertscripts directory, ex. /usr/lib/zabbix/alertscripts .

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#!/usr/bin/python

import sys

import yaml

from slackclient import SlackClient

slack_config_file = '/etc/zabbix/slack.yml'

with open(slack_config_file, 'r') as ymlfile:

slack_config = yaml.load(ymlfile)

slack = SlackClient(slack_config['slack_api_token'])

channel = sys.argv[1]

message = "```Status: %s\n%s```" %(sys.argv[2], sys.argv[3])

response = send_slack_message(channel, message)

if response["ok"]:

print("Message posted successfully: " + response["message"]["ts"])

# If the message failed, check for rate limit headers in the response

elif response["ok"] is False and response["headers"]["Retry-After"]:

# The `Retry-After` header will tell you how long to wait before retrying

delay = int(response["headers"]["Retry-After"])

print("Rate limited. Retrying in " + str(delay) + " seconds")

time.sleep(delay)

slack.api_call("chat.postMessage", channel=channel, text=message)

Notice there’s no field for credentials. That’s because over time I found it easier to deploy with a configuration file that was in yaml format.

Make sure you create an API token for slack by creating a Slack App, then using it’s Verification Token. Hopefully in the future I revisit this and make use of the Client ID, Client Secret, Signing Secret configuration.

So to provide that file we need to create the following in your zabbix configuration directory ex. /ext/zabbix/slack.yml .

1 2	# Zabbix - Slack Configuration slack_api_token: {{ zabbix_slack_api_token }}

This makes it easier at least for me to deploy and separate configuration from the script itself.

Next steps include creating the Slack Media Type.

Navigate to Administration > Media types

Select “Create media type”, and fill out the following:

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Name: Slack

Type: Script

Script name: zabbix_slack.py

Script parameters:

{ALERT.SENDTO}

{ALERT.SUBJECT}

{ALERT.MESSAGE}

Enabled: Checked

Don’t forget to save!

Your first value is going to be “Channel” the rest fill in the message details.

devops, notifications, operations, ops, slack, zabbix

Zabbix

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Using Avi Ansible modules to Patch your Avi Controller

January 16, 2019

Eric Anderson

So I’ve been working for a company called Avi Networks for a while now. Working on customer deployments, internal devops automation, customer migrations, and tons of other projects including getting Avi to have the largest module library available out of any load balancer on the market. Well, today were going to show how to use Avi’s Ansible modules to patch your Avi Controller. It’s easy, here’s how.

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---

- name: Patch Controller | Upload package on controller

avi_api_fileservice:

avi_credentials: "{{ avi_credentials }}"

upload: true

timeout: 300

path: /patch_pkgs/

file_path: "{{ patch_path }}"

- name: Patch Controller | Upgrade controller

avi_api_session:

avi_credentials: "{{ avi_credentials }}"

http_method: post

timeout: 300

path: cluster/upgrade/

data:

image_path: controller://upgrade_pkgs/{{ patch_path|basename }}

force: true

disruptive: true

patch: true

- name: Patch Controller | Wait for the Controller Upgrade to finish

avi_api_session:

avi_credentials: "{{ avi_credentials }}"

http_method: get

timeout: 300

path: cluster/upgrade/status

register: upgrade_status

until: upgrade_status.obj.result == "SUCCESS"

retries: 120

delay: 10

This will also wait for the controller to come back up 🙂

avi, avinetworks, devops, network, patching

DevOps

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Installing ZSH on WSL: Ubuntu

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Installing Wget via Xcode on Mac OSX

Install Xcode

Installing Wget

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How to loop blocks of code in Ansible

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Integrating Zabbix w/Slack for Channel Notifications

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Using Avi Ansible modules to Patch your Avi Controller

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