TLDR: I wrote a SAX parser for Node.js. It’s available here on GitHub : https://github.com/tuananh/sax-parser

I got asked about complete XML parsing with camaro from time to time and I haven’t yet managed to find time to implement yet.

Initially I thought it should be part of camaro project but now I think it would make more sense as a separate package.

The package is still in alpha state and should not be used in production but if you want to try it, it’s available on npm as @tuananh/sax-parser.

Benchmark

The initial benchmark looks pretty good. I just extract the benchmark script from node-expat repo and add few more contenders.

sax x 14,277 ops/sec ±0.73% (87 runs sampled)
@tuananh/sax-parser x 45,779 ops/sec ±0.85% (85 runs sampled)
node-xml x 4,335 ops/sec ±0.51% (86 runs sampled)
node-expat x 13,028 ops/sec ±0.39% (88 runs sampled)
ltx x 81,722 ops/sec ±0.73% (89 runs sampled)
libxmljs x 8,927 ops/sec ±1.02% (88 runs sampled)
Fastest is ltx

ltx package is fastest, win by almost 2 (~1.8) order of magnitude compare with the second fastest (@tuananh/sax-parser). However, ltx is not fully compliant with XML spec. I still include ltx here for reference. If ltx works for you, use it.

module	ops/sec	native	XML compliant	stream
node-xml	4,335	☐	✘	✘
libxmljs	8,927	✘	✘	☐
node-expat	13,028	✘	✘	✘
sax	14,277	☐	✘	✘
@tuananh/sax-parser	45,779	✘	✘	✘
ltx	81,722	☐	☐	✘

API

The API looks simply enough and quite familiar with other SAX parsers. In fact, I took the inspiration from them (sax and node-expat) and mostly copied their APIs to make the transition easier.

An example of using @tuananh/sax-parser to prettify XML would be like this

const { readFileSync } = require('fs')
const SaxParser = require('@tuananh/sax-parser')

const parser = new SaxParser()

let depth = 0
parser.on('startElement', (name) => {
    let str = ''
    for (let i = 0; i < depth; ++i) str += '  ' // indentation
    str += `<${name}>`
    process.stdout.write(str + '\n')
    depth++
})

parser.on('text', (text) => {
    let str = ''
    for (let i = 0; i < depth + 1; ++i) str += '  ' // indentation
    str += text
    process.stdout.write(str + '\n')
})

parser.on('endElement', (name) => {
    depth--
    let str = ''
    for (let i = 0; i < depth; ++i) str += '  ' // indentation
    str += `<${name}>`
    process.stdout.write(str + '\n')
})

parser.on('startAttribute', (name, value) => {
    // console.log('startAttribute', name, value)
})

parser.on('endAttribute', () => {
    // console.log('endAttribute')
})

parser.on('cdata', (cdata) => {
    let str = ''
    for (let i = 0; i < depth + 1; ++i) str += '  ' // indentation
    str += `<![CDATA[${cdata}]]>`
    process.stdout.write(str)
    process.stdout.write('\n')
})

parser.on('comment', (comment) => {
    process.stdout.write(`<!--${comment}-->\n`)
})

parser.on('doctype', (doctype) => {
    process.stdout.write(`<!DOCTYPE ${doctype}>\n`)
})

parser.on('startDocument', () => {
    process.stdout.write(`<!--=== START ===-->\n`)
})

parser.on('endDocument', () => {
    process.stdout.write(`<!--=== END ===-->`)
})

const xml = readFileSync(__dirname + '/../benchmark/test.xml', 'utf-8')
parser.parse(xml)

I recently discover piscina project. It’s a very fast and convenient Node.js worker thread pool implementation.

Remember when worker_threads first introduced, the worker startup is rather slow and pool implementation is generally advised. However, there wasn’t any good enough implementation yet until piscina.

Since v4 when I move to WebAssembly, camaro performance took a huge hit (3 folds) and I was still trying to find a way to fix this perf regression.

Well, piscina (worker_threads) seems to be the answer to that.

Take a look at piscina example:

const Piscina = require('piscina');

const piscina = new Piscina({
  filename: path.resolve(__dirname, 'worker.js')
});

(async function() {
  const result = await piscina.runTask({ a: 4, b: 6 });
  console.log(result);  // Prints 10
})();

and worker.js

module.exports = ({ a, b }) => {
  return a + b;
};

Sure it looks simple enough so I wrote a quick script to wrap camaro with piscina. And the performance improvement is sweet: it’s about five times faster (ops/sec) and the CPU on my laptop is stressed nicely.

camaro v6: 1,395.6 ops/sec
fast-xml-parser: 153 ops/sec
xml2js: 47.6 ops/sec
xml-js: 51 ops/sec

More importantly, it scales nicely with CPU core counts, which camaro v4 with WebAssembly isn’t.

In order to use this, I would have to drop support for Node version 11 and older but the performance improvement of this magnitude should guarantee such breaking changes right?

I published the first alpha build to npm if anyone want to give it a try.

I recently give fish shell another try and it doesn’t disappoint me this time.

The support from various tools has improve tremendously and the ecosystem seesm to be a lot more mature last I tried.

It tooks me like 15-20 minutes to migrate over everything to fish and it seems fish provides everything I need from zsh out of the box. Remind me why I need oh-my-zsh again?

Installation

Install via homebrew and set fish as default shell.

brew install fish
chsh -s (which fish)

To go back to zsh: do chsh -s (which zsh).

Migration

fish’s configuration is located at $HOME/.config/fish. The equivalent of .zshrc or .bashrc is config.fish at $HOME/.config/fish.

Sourcing

The source command work just like normal. By default, fish will source from files in $HOME/.config/fish/conf.d folder automatically so you can put your aliases, functions, .. there.

Fixing functions

A typical function in fish looks like this. I take gi (gitignore) function as a simple example. Seems pretty straightforward and even more self-explain than in zsh.

function gi -d "gitignore.io cli for fish"
	set -l params (echo $argv|tr ' ' ',')
	curl -s https://www.gitignore.io/api/$params
end

Checking other stuff you use

If there’s no fish support from the tool you use, there’s bass which add support for bash utilties from fish shell.

Example with nvm:

bass source ~/.nvm/nvm.sh --no-use ';' nvm use node # latest

However, using bass can make it quite slow in some cases. So if the tools you use do support fish, use it native functions.

Package manager

There are:

• fisher
• oh-my-fish
• fundle

I haven’t actually check them all out. I just went with the first result I got (fisher) and it’s working pretty well for the purpose.

Disable welcome message

set fish_greeting

FAQs

The FAQs is very nice. Be sure to check it out.

Đây là merged pull request liên quan.

Tóm tắt lại, trước đây nếu cần tạo deployment, bạn chỉ cần

kubectl run nginx --image=nginx:alpine --port=80 --restart=Always

Tính năng này được sử dụng rất nhiều vì 1 minimal deployment YAML khá dài. Đây là ví dụ

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nginx
  labels:
    app: nginx
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nginx
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nginx
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: nginx
        image: nginx:alpine
        ports:
        - containerPort: 80

Trước đây, để tạo 1 deployment và expose thì chỉ cần đơn giản 2 lệnh là

kubectl run nginx --image=nginx:alpine --port=80 --restart=Always
kubectl expose deployment nginx --port=80 --type=LoadBalancer

Bây giờ, bạn cần tự nhớ deployment YAML và expose nó với lệnh kubectl expose.

Thường thì mọi người không nhớ format của deployment và chỉ xài kubectl run với flags -o yaml và --dry-run để lấy output ra và edit tiếp.

Lệnh này được sử dụng cực kì phổ biến và sử dụng rất nhiều khi thi CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator) hay CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer).

kubectl create deployment nginx --image=nginx:alpine -o yaml --dry-run

Bởi vậy nếu ai có ý định thi CKA/CKAD thì cố gắng nhớ format của mấy loại resource cơ bản đi nhé :)

For home usage, I highly recommend microk8s. It can be installed easily with snap. I’m not sure what’s the deal with snap for Ubuntu desktop users but I’ve only experience installing microk8s with it. And so far, it works well for the purpose.

Initially, I went with Docker Swarm because it’s so easy to setup but Docker Swarm feels like a hack. Also, it seems Swarm is already dead in the water. And since I’ve already been using Kubernetes at work for over 4 years, I finally settle down with microk8s. The other alternative is k3s didn’t work quite as expected as well but this should be for another post.

Setup a simple Kubernetes cluster

Setting Kubernetes is as simple as install microk8s on each host and another command to join them together. The process is very much simliar with Docker Swarm. Follow the guide on installing and multi-node setup on microk8s official website and you should be good to go.

Now, onto storage. I would like to have external storage so that it would be easy to backup my data. I already have my Synology setup and it comes with NFS so to keep my setup simple, I’m going to use Synology for that. I know it’s not the most secure thing but for homelab, this would do.

Please note that most the tutorial for Kubernetes will be outdated quickly. In this setup, I will be using Kubernetes v1.18.

Step 0: Enable Synology NFS

Enable NFS from Control Panel -> File Services

Enable access for every node in the cluster in Shared Folder -> Edit -> NFS Permissions settings.

There’re few things to note here

• Because every nodes need to be able to mount the share folder as root so you need to select No mapping in the Squash dropdown of NFS Permissions.
• Check the Allow connections from non-previleged ports also.

With Helm

nfs-client external storage is provided as a chart over at kubernetes incubator. With Helm, installing is as easy as

helm install stable/nfs-client-provisioner --set nfs.server=<SYNOLOGY_IP> --set nfs.path=/example/path

Without Helm

Step 1: Setup NFS client

You need to install nfs-common on every node.

sudo apt install nfs-common -y

Step 2: Deploy NFS provisioner

Replace SYNOLOGY_IP with your Synology IP address and VOLUME_PATH with NFS mount point on your Synology.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: nfs-client-provisioner
  labels:
    app: nfs-client-provisioner
  # replace with namespace where provisioner is deployed
  namespace: default
spec:
  replicas: 1
  strategy:
    type: Recreate
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: nfs-client-provisioner
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: nfs-client-provisioner
    spec:
      serviceAccountName: nfs-client-provisioner
      containers:
        - name: nfs-client-provisioner
          image: quay.io/external_storage/nfs-client-provisioner:latest
          volumeMounts:
            - name: nfs-client-root
              mountPath: /persistentvolumes
          env:
            - name: PROVISIONER_NAME
              value: fuseim.pri/ifs
            - name: NFS_SERVER
              value: <SYNOLOGY_IP>
            - name: NFS_PATH
              value: <VOLUME_PATH>
      volumes:
        - name: nfs-client-root
          nfs:
            server: <SYNOLOGY_IP>
            path: <VOLUME_PATH>

Setup RBAC and storage class

apiVersion: v1
kind: ServiceAccount
metadata:
  name: nfs-client-provisioner
  # replace with namespace where provisioner is deployed
  namespace: default
---
kind: ClusterRole
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: nfs-client-provisioner-runner
rules:
  - apiGroups: [""]
    resources: ["persistentvolumes"]
    verbs: ["get", "list", "watch", "create", "delete"]
  - apiGroups: [""]
    resources: ["persistentvolumeclaims"]
    verbs: ["get", "list", "watch", "update"]
  - apiGroups: ["storage.k8s.io"]
    resources: ["storageclasses"]
    verbs: ["get", "list", "watch"]
  - apiGroups: [""]
    resources: ["events"]
    verbs: ["create", "update", "patch"]
---
kind: ClusterRoleBinding
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: run-nfs-client-provisioner
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: nfs-client-provisioner
    # replace with namespace where provisioner is deployed
    namespace: default
roleRef:
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: nfs-client-provisioner-runner
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
---
kind: Role
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: leader-locking-nfs-client-provisioner
  # replace with namespace where provisioner is deployed
  namespace: default
rules:
  - apiGroups: [""]
    resources: ["endpoints"]
    verbs: ["get", "list", "watch", "create", "update", "patch"]
---
kind: RoleBinding
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: leader-locking-nfs-client-provisioner
  # replace with namespace where provisioner is deployed
  namespace: default
subjects:
  - kind: ServiceAccount
    name: nfs-client-provisioner
    # replace with namespace where provisioner is deployed
    namespace: default
roleRef:
  kind: Role
  name: leader-locking-nfs-client-provisioner
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io

apiVersion: storage.k8s.io/v1
kind: StorageClass
metadata:
  name: managed-nfs-storage
provisioner: fuseim.pri/ifs # or choose another name, must match deployment's env PROVISIONER_NAME'
parameters:
  archiveOnDelete: "false"
  allowVolumeExpansion: "true"
  reclaimPolicy: "Delete"

Step 3: Set NFS as the new default storage class

Set nfs-storage as the default storage class instead of the default rook-ceph-block.

kubectl patch storageclass rook-ceph-block -p '{"metadata": {"annotations":{"storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class":"false"}}}' 
kubectl patch storageclass managed-nfs-storage -p '{"metadata": {"annotations":{"storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class":"true"}}}'

Testing

We will create a simple pod and pvc to test. Create test-pod.yaml and test-claim.yaml that looks like this in a test folder

kind: Pod
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: test-pod
spec:
  containers:
  - name: test-pod
    image: gcr.io/google_containers/busybox:1.24
    command:
      - "/bin/sh"
    args:
      - "-c"
      - "touch /mnt/SUCCESS && exit 0 || exit 1"
    volumeMounts:
      - name: nfs-pvc
        mountPath: "/mnt"
  restartPolicy: "Never"
  volumes:
    - name: nfs-pvc
      persistentVolumeClaim:
        claimName: test-claim

and test-claim.yaml

kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: test-claim
  annotations:
    volume.beta.kubernetes.io/storage-class: "nfs-client" # nfs-client is default value of helm chart, change accordingly
spec:
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteMany
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 1Mi

And do kubectl create -f test/. You should see the PVC bounded and pod completed after awhile. Browse the NFS share and if you see a folder is created with a SUCCESS file inside, everything is working as expected.

We had an EC2 instance retirement notice email from AWS. It was our Kubernetes master node. I thought to myself: we can simply just terminate and launch a new instance. I’ve done it many times. It’s no big deal.

However, this time, when our infra engineer did that, we were greeted with this error when trying to access our cluster.

Unable to connect to the server: EOF

All the apps are still fine. Thanks to Kubernetes’s design. We can have all the time we need to fix this.

So kubectl is unable to connect to Kubernetes’s API. It’s a CNAME to API load balancer in Route53. That’s where we look first.

Route53 records are wrong

So ok. There are many problems which can cause this error. One of the first thing I notice is the Route53 DNS record for etcd is not correct. It was the old master IP address. Could it be somehow the init script unable to update it?

So our first attempt to fix it was manually update the DNS record for etcd to the new instance’s IP address. Nope, the error is still the same.

ELB marks master node as OutOfService

We look a little bit more into the ELB for API server. The instance was masked OutOfService. I thought this is it. It makes sense. But what could cause the API server to be down this time? We’ve done this process many times before.

We sshed into our master instance and issue docker ps -a. There is nothing. Zero container whatsoever.

We check systemctl and there it is, the cloud-final.service failed. We check the logs with journalctl -u cloud-final.service.

We noticed from the logs that many required packages were missing like ebtables, etc… when nodeup script ran.

Manual apt update

So if we can fix that issue, it should be ok right? We issue apt update manually and saw this

E: Release file for http://cloudfront.debian.net/debian/dists/jessie-backports/InRelease is expired (invalid since ...). Updates for this repository will not be applied.

Ok, this still makes sense. Our cluster is old and the release file is expire. If we manually update it, it should work again right? We do apt update with valid until flag set to false.

apt-get -o Acquire::Check-Valid-Until=false update

Restart cloud-final service

Restart cloud-final.service or manually run the nodeup script again with

/var/cache/kubernetes-install/nodeup --conf=/var/cache/kubernetes-install/kube_env.yaml --v=8

docker ps -a at this point should show all the containers are running again. Wait for awhile (30seconds) and kubectl should be able to communicate with the API server again.

Final

While your problem may not be exactly same as this, I thought I would just share my debugging experience in case it could help someone out there.

In our case, the problem was fixed with just 2 commands but the actual debugging process takes more than an hour.

Few weeks ago, I knew nothing about server rack. I frequent /r/homelab a lot in order to learn to build one for myself at home. These are the lessions I learnt during building my very first homelab rack.

Choose the right size

You need to care 2 things about a rack size: height & depth. The width is usually pretty standard 19 inches.

• Rack height is meassured in U (1.75 inch or 44.45mm): a smallest height of a rack-mountable unit.
• Rack depth is very important too. Usually available in 600/800 or 1000mm. Don’t buy anything shallower than 800mm unless you plan to use the rack mostly for network devices. Otherwise, your rackmount server options are very limited. If you must go with 600mm depth rack, you can choose some half depth servers like ProLiant DL20, Dell R220ii, some Supermicro servers or build one yourself with a desktop rackmount cases.

Carefully plan what kind of equiments you want to use to get the correct size. An usual rack usually have these devices:

• 1 or more patch/brush panel for cable management (1U each)
• 1 router (1U)
• 1 or 2 switches. (1U each)
• servers: this depends on how much computing power you need. Also servers come in various sizes (1U/2U/3U/4U) as well.
• NAS maybe (1-2U)
• PSU: usually put at the bottom (1U or 2U)
• PDU: some people put it at the front, some puts it at the back. (1U)

Things to looks for when selecting a rack

• Rack type: open frame / enclosures or wall-mounted rack.
• Wheel or not wheel, that is the question. I recommend you to go with wheel for home usage.
• If you choose wheel, get a rack that has wheel blockers.
• Does the rack’s side panel can be taken off? If it does, it will make equipment installation a lot easier.

Cable management

The top U is patch panel. The third one is brush panel. The purpose of these panels is pretty easy to understand. I didn’t know the term to search for at first when I want to buy one.

Here are some accesories that helps with cable management:

• Zip tie
• Velcro
• Cable combs
• Patch panel
• Brush panel
• Multi-colored cables: eg green for switch to path link, orange for guest VLAN, etc…

Some notes on the patch panel. There is punch down type that looks like this and there’s pass-through type that looks like this. You probably want the keystone one as it’s easier to maintain.

If you cannot find cable combs, i saw people has been using zip tie to make DIY cable comb. It’s pretty cool.

Other tips

Numbering unit on the rack if it doesn’t have one will help a lot when installing equipments. Like this

Most racks I saw on /r/homelab have this but the cheap rack I got doesn’t. I just got to be creative: use label maker tape along the rack’s height and hand wrote the number there.

Know something that isn’t on this list, please tweet me at @tuananh_org. I would love to learn about your homelab hacks.

The end goal is to be able to expose apps deployed locally on homelab publicly. I don’t want to expose multiple ports to the Internet for several reasons:

• I have to create multiple port-forwarding rules.
• The address not memorable because I need to remember the ports. Eg: homeip.example.com:32400 for Plex, homeip.example.com:1194 for VPN, and so on…

The alternative is to use reverse proxy.

• setup reverse proxy
• setup port forward (80 & 443) for reverse proxy
• config reverse proxy to proxy the local apps

Reverse proxy

I would have gone with nginx but I want to tinker with Caddy. I have never used Caddy in production and this seems like a good excuse to learn about it (That’s what homelab is for right?). Caddy comes with HTTPS by default via Lets Encrypt. It’s perfect for home usage.

I was wondering if it’s possible to proxy upstream to Docker host. Turns out it’s possible. You just have to use host.docker.internal as upstream address. (ref)

docker run -d -p 1880:80 -p 18443:443  --network home-net \
    -v $(pwd)/Caddyfile:/etc/caddy/Caddyfile \
    -v $(pwd)/site:/usr/share/caddy \
    -v $(pwd)/data:/data \
    -v $(pwd)/config:/config \
    caddy/caddy caddy run -config /etc/caddy/Caddyfile --watch

Notice that I run Caddy in home-net network there, so that I can easily proxy other containers.

Dynamic DNS

You need to setup

• an A record for your home IP (eg: homeip.example.com)
• multiple CNAME records for each of your apps (eg: plex.example.com CNAME to homeip.example.com).

I covered this topic in a previous post of mine here.

Port forwarding

You need to do port forwarding (80 & 443) for your Reverse proxy. The setting is different, largely depends on your lab equipment and your ISP.

I was stuck for a day debugging why port forwarding didn’t work and it turned out, my ISP use NAT public IP address.

Verify

To test this, I create an nginx container with

docker run --name nginx --network home-net -d nginx

And edit the Caddyfile to this

example.com {
    reverse_proxy / nginx:80
}

And it should show nginx default page

Also, you should see the page in HTTPS.

Currently, I’m working on building my homelab. It’s still a very much work in progress but everything is coming along nicely.

I plan to host lots of stuff in my homelab and be able to access it while I’m not at home. I don’t feel comfortable exposing them all to the Internet so VPN to the rescue.

The setup is straight forward. It’s different, depends on your lab equipment but the steps are always the same.

1. Setup VPN server in your homelab.
2. Setup port forwarding in your router.
3. [Optional] If your IP address is dynamic, you can setup dynamic DNS so that we can access the VPN server by domain.

First step is rather easy. I already have a Synology NAS and they have the built in VPN Server app ready to install from their package store. It’s just 1-click away. You install it, enable OpenVPN protocol and it’s done. Click export configuration afterward.

The UniFi Security Gateway also have built-in VPN server but I figure since the NAS is more powerful, I think I should offload the work to the NAS.

The second step can be done via your router. In my case, I use UniFi hardware so I’m gonna do it via UniFi Controller in Settings -> Routing & Firewall -> Port forwarding.

Optionally, if your IP address is dynamic, you may want to setup dynamic DNS (eg: myvpn.example.com). I already covered it in a previous post using Docker and CloudFlare.

Now, edit the exported configuration and replace the server IP address with your static IP address or your dynamic DNS above.

Try connect with OpenVPN client and if all is good, you should be connected.

Troubleshoot

I found Ubiquiti has an excellent troubleshoot guide available on their website.

Some common problems are:

• Double NAT (local): You have 2 routers on your local network. In that case, you either have to remove 1 router (change to AP mode?) or setup port-forwarding on both.

• NAT public IP address: if you see your public IP address via your router and via, say Google, doesn’t match. That’s probably it. See the below picture, if the two IPs are not same, you got NAT public IP address.

If you go through all that and it’s still not working, it’s probably has something to do with the ISP.

I’m by no mean a network expert. This is just my personal experience when I setup my USG to my existing network.

---

In my case, I was using Orbi RBK as my router and access point. With USG in place, I will use the Orbi in access point mode. The USG will be replacing the Orbi as my router.

My current network is using 10.0.0.1/8 IP range. By default, USG uses 192.168.1.1 IP which means I won’t be able to adopt it just by plugging it to my current network. So I need to change its IP address first.

You’re gonna need a PC/laptop with Ethernet port in order connect to the USG and change its IP address. Luckily, I have a desktop PC with me.

So I installed the UniFi Controller and connect the USG to the PC’s ethernet port. I set the ethernet IP of the desktop to something in the 192.168.1.1 range like 192.168.1.6 with subnetmask 255.255.255.0.

Once that’s done, I open up UniFi Controller and we will be able to see and adopt the USG. The default username and password is ubnt by the way.

After adopting the device, if you want to keep using the old IP and subnet, you will have to go to Settings -> Networks and edit the LAN network to use your desire IP and subnet.

Now, in order to replace the old router, you will have to configure the PPPOE info as well. From Settings -> Networks, click edit the WAN network and enter your Internet username & password there.

Now, I’m not sure where you’re from, what do you need to do to replace the router but here in Vietnam, I will need to call the ISP and ask them to remove the MAC address cache of the router as well.

After that, I just have to connect the internet cable to the Internet port of USG. Connect the LAN port of USG to Internet port of Orbi and it’s done. Internet is back online.