Configuring Gitlab account in Linux & Windows

Background

I need to create a git working environment on my Windows 10 installed desktop, I then setup the git account, add the ssh key of the machine through the gitlab control panel but gitlab replied me with no access right when trying to git pull my project.

I tried

• Re-generate the RSA key and load again

But not working...

Solution

Turn out the username and the user account must match the one created in gitlab, git client will make use that account for the verification process with git server. I misunderstand that the user account can be arbitrary created on the fly.

Procedure

1. Configure the username and user account (MUST match with the one in gitlab / github, skip the --global parameter if you are managing multiple users)
• git config --global user.name "yourname"
• git config --global user.email“your@email.com"
2. Remove known_hosts (may not be necessary, it depends)
3. ssh-keygen -t rsa -C "whateverName"
4. Copy all text in /Users/your_user_directory/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
5. Go to setting in gitlab and add the public key for authentication
6. Set the git remote url with "git remote set-url origin https://gitUsername:gitPassword@gitlab.com/yourRepo.git"

Points to Note

Sometimes, login still failed with

sign_and_send_pubkey: signing failed: agent refused operation
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Due to ssh-agent cannot find the keys attached, in such case we need to add the private key identities by running command

ssh-add

repeat step 6 and the remote origin may now be read


But in case... If it sill fails to log in for some error messages like no access rights to the repo, navigate to ~/.ssh/config, add the entry as follows.

Note: You can also specify multiple IdentityFile entries if you have same hostname using different key pairs, just add 1 more IdentityFile entry would be done, remember, you should put the private key in the IdentityFile option

Host gitlab.com
  PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes +ssh-rsa
  HostName gitlab.com
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa_anywhere /*Private key directory here!!*/
  User git

And use all the possible keys for login

ssh git@gitlab.com -vv

After the configuration, gitlab should be able to login and fetch updates again

References

• https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/support-forum/-/issues/638#note_32211207
• https://blog.csdn.net/jingtingfengguo/article/details/51892864
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4220416/can-i-specify-multiple-users-for-myself-in-gitconfig
• https://askubuntu.com/questions/762541/ubuntu-16-04-ssh-sign-and-send-pubkey-signing-failed-agent-refused-operation
• https://dotblogs.com.tw/Echo/2017/06/28/Linux_AuthorizedKeys_Setting
  

[Onenote] Setting Default Mail Client When Outposting

Background

I usually use onenote's "Email Page" function but the default email client used to sent is always thunderbird.

I tried

• Setting mailto default in windows 10 default open application settings
• Setting preferred Outlook as default mail client

Both not working

Solution

Good job, M$Soft, finally I used the following method to solve (removing registry).

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1199344
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3940358/how-and-where-exactly-does-the-default-email-client-gets-set-in-the-registry

Just remove the key under mail and mailTo folder, and that's it, no need to restart

[NodeJS] Import Module Without Executing the Script

When working on my nodeJS project, I encounter some kind of difficulties on the following scenario

I wrote an expressJS application, which in turn being allocated to be unit tested, the problem is I want to pass the expressJS application to my test program, so I figure out I can export the "app" from the "index.js", so I add

export default app

in my index.js, so finally I can export the app variable and import it to my unit test. But the problem is when I import the module, I also execute the code associated with module which is not what I want, is there anything like Python's if __name__ == "__main__"?

I just want to import the module without executing it, so I end up with the following strategies

I wrap all the actions in a function and return my app at the end

export function initApp() {
   app.use...
   app.use...
   return app;
}

Then I add this important snippet

if (require.main === module) {
    initApp();
}

This is important ! It tells nodeJS only if this file being run by node can the initApp being executed, so in my unit test case, I could just safely import this module without unintentionally execute the initApp function

[Ubuntu] Fix Microsoft Mouse Scroll Distance

Background

When using Microsoft mouse in Ubuntu 16, I found the scrolling distance is too large to adapt to, the following helps to fix it to normal

Solution

1. Run xinput list

2. Then run xinput list-props x | grep 'Scrolling Distance' where x is the id of your input device
3. Run xinput set-prop x 'Evdev Scrolling Distance' 10, 10, 10 to save the desired value
4. Add the command to .profile file if you want to save the settings permenantly

[Webpack] Limitation of number of files watch

When watching files with webpack, please make sure there are default limits on the number of files it can watch, (i.e.: 8192), if you want to watch more, please follow the below instructions

The current watch limit can be seen through the command

$ cat /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches

In my case it was 8192 which is the default value for linux X64 systems

To change it temporarily we need to run the following commands

$ sudo sysctl fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288
$ sudo sysctl -p

For permanently setting it we should run run

$ echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
$ sudo sysctl -p

Set up Synergy - A Mouse and Keyboard Sharing Software

Synergy is a well-known mouse and keyboard sharing software across PCs with different platforms. The need of writing this is to demonstrate how it is setup.

Environment
PC1
- Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
- Synergy Windows Version 64 bit (v1.6.2)

PC2
- Ubuntu 16.04 64 bit
- Synergy Linux Version 64 bit  (v1.6.2)

Procedure / Points to Note
1. Download both version of Synergy. (Note: now the latest version charges money, use the old version would still be fine)

2. Remember, setting up the computer name in server side is important, the client name must match the name in the client PC, other it will not work. Also the name of both server and client must not contain special characters like "-", or it may not work

3. Every update of setup requires restart of synergy services

4. "Scroll Lock" to lock the mouse and keyboard in same machine


References
1. Making Synergy Startup After Windows Bootup
https://symless.com/forums/topic/2708-is-there-a-way-to-get-synergy-to-auto-start-on-windows-10-boot-up/

2. Synergy for Windows
http://www.snapfiles.com/downloads/synergy/dlsynergy.html

3. Making Synergy start with Ubuntu Bootup
https://askubuntu.com/questions/495962/how-to-autostart-synergy-on-ubunutu-14-04

Gitlab email notification related to pipeline

Gitlab has email notification on various events such as pipeline failure / success, commitment etc. Unfortunately, the setting itself is confusing which make it hard to configure.


My Wish
When I tag a release, pipeline runs, after that send the pipeline results to the person I want.

You can see only a small request takes me half day to figure out where the configuration is. Here is how it can be achieve and the misleading configurations.

You may think that the notification should be well configured via "project > notifications", then you are wrong, the desired recipients will never receive the message, because that setting means ONLY AUTHOR will receive the pipeline status changes. I am quite surprise, not because of the result, but because of the lack of explanation regarding on the configurations.

So how can we achieve to send the email notification BESIDES AUTHOR? You may need to navigate to "Project > Settings > Integrations", enable "Pipelines emails", enter the desired email addresses and gotcha.

What a genius configuration settings, I really hope that software designers can design software based on "human beings" but not only for engineering mindset. It is unacceptable for a task being so complicated to accomplish.