I just experienced an issue which took me a day to figure out. So, as per normal, I’m going to document it here so that in the future I don’t have to bother looking it up!
My problem: every time I try to commit using git I am asked for my SSH key passphrase. However, I’ve ensured the SSH agent is running. I can pull from the remote, push to the remote, and do anything with the remote repository without needing to insert my SSH key multiple times. However, when I try to commit via git, I’m asked for my passphrase on every commit. Why is this a problem? Because when I rebase a 150+ branch of commits I’m having to enter my passphrase 150 times consecutively. That’s unsustainable.
Still, even armed with Christopher’s information, I couldn’t figure out how to fix the problem I as running into.
Since this post is meant to help guide me in setting this up from scratch (AGAIN) I’m going to go through all the relevant steps. But if you are just looking for the solution to the problem then skip to here.
Setup
Everyone’s setup is a bit different, but I’m going to document the relevant portions of mine.
Environment
Clean Install of Windows 11
Git Note: When installing I select the “Use Git and optional Unix tools from the Command Prompt”
After my environment is setup, I set up SSH. This involved creating a new key, adding it to the SSH Agent, and making sure the agent was running. I run all these commands from an instance of Powershell Core (installed above).
Adding the key to the agent is simple enough. You just need to run a command and give it the location of the private SSH key you generated in the step above. In my case that’s as simple as:
Now I would either typically restart my computer, or close the current PowerShell Core window and open a new one.
Adding the SSH Key to GitHub
If you want to sign commits with GitHub then you need to upload your SSH key 2wice (that’s a clever way of writing twice). One upload for your “Authentication Key” which will be for access to the repo. The second upload for your Signing Key. You can do both at https://github.com/settings/keys just click “Add Key” in the SSH Keys section and upload one for Authentication and then click “Add Key” again and upload one for Signing.
Signing Git Commits
Once again, referring to Christopher’s post. I do the following, making sure to switch out the path to my pub SSH key:
Ok. Now the problem. You’ve successfully connected to Github and cloned your repo. Now you start making commits and find that you have to insert your SSH key passphrase over and over, despite the SSH agent running.
It took me a long time to figure out, but the problem is likely that you have two versions of SSH on your machine. The one that comes with Windows by default, and the one that came with Git for Windows when it was installed.
To solve this problem, tell Git For Windows to “Use external OpenSSH” when installing Git. The following comes from this answer on Stack Overflow by Ajedi32.
If you used the bundled OpenSSH installation, git will default to that and will not use any keys imported into Windows’ native ssh-agent service. You need to select “Use external OpenSSH” instead when prompted.
If you did not make this selection when installing, you should be able to fix that by just running the installer again.
Previous Versions of this article said the following. This is no longer what I recommend.
You’ll remember we selected the “Use Git and optional Unix tools from the Command Prompt” option. This option will add the referenced Git and Unix tools to your systems Path. The SSH Agent that is registered and used for Authentication is the one that comes installed with windows. The one that Git is using for signing, is the one that comes with git.
The order of the PATH variables will determine which version of the ssh-agent is used. The first version encountered will be the one that windows uses. So, to solve this problem, make sure the C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin is above the %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\OpenSSH\ in your system path.
I am currently looking into alternative forms of user authorization and authentication. Among the solutions I am looking into is Clerk. It’s pretty sweet and has a lot of cool features baked in. (Although the MFA support is a premium add-on and they aren’t super upfront about that).
One of the issues I ran into while implementing Clerk was a redirect loop. I set my home page within the Clerk Dashboard and when I reloaded my app, boom REDIRECTION FOR DAYS. Clerk was continuing to reload the home page for all eternity.
So, I added an onbeforeunload event into the page with a debugger call inside of it. This paused the page in the inspector before it reloaded and allowed me to actually see what was going on.
It turns out that Clerk was outputting an error message into the console. This error message is pictured below:
The <SignUp/> and <SignIn/> components cannot render when a user is already signed in, unless the application allows multiple sessions. Since a user is signed in and this application only allows a single session, Clerk is redirecting to the Home URL instead. (This notice only appears in development)
? Clerk
Well – ok then. Clerk is redirecting to the Home URL (which is the one it’s already on) and causing a permanent redirect loop. It seems like this would be handled better by simply _not_ loading the SignIn or SignUp components should the conditions for their existence fail.
Hopefully this helps you out! You might consider making your home page and your sign in pages different pages, or conditionally load those components, so that Clerk can be happy and not mess things up.
That’s a good question. You might ask this when you are implementing a new project and trying to figure out where to store your secret configuration values.
Before getting into the difference, let’s state the similarities:
Both allow storage of environment specific configuration values and secrets from outside of your codebase.
Both allow retrieval of environment specific configuration values and secrets from outside your codebase.
Both files use a key value pair type format.
Both allow comments within the files.
So what about the differences?
The names are different .ini vs .env
The method of storing the data is different.
The method of retrieving the data is different.
The syntax is different.
That probably doesn’t answer your question though. You likely aren’t interested as much in what the differences are as you are in why you would use one over the other.
Why use .env instead of .ini or .ini instead of .env?
This is likely what you are wanting to know, why would you use one over the other. So let’s list some pro’s and cons of each format to help make the decision.
.env Pros
language-agnostic
allows referencing other .env values as variables
libraries like phpdotenv provide robust functionality
Let’s expand a little on the language-agnostic pro above.
First Scenario. You are coming to PHP from another environment, like Ruby, you are probably wondering where to put your secrets and configuration values for your code. A .env file just makes sense, these are supported in Ruby so there must be a way to add them in PHP. Voila! There is a package that supports .env files that you can easily include in your PHP code and you don’t have to think anymore about it. It probably doesn’t even occur to you to use the build in .ini support.
Second Scenario. You are using both server side JS, like Node, and PHP. You want to share configuration values between the two systems. Both support .env files allowing you to easily share your secrets between both languages.
.ini Pros
built-in PHP Support
allows grouping of values via sections
supports typed values via INI_SCANNER_TYPED
allows interpolating other config values and environment variables
.env Cons
requires third party library and composer to work
features provided change based on library used for loading
*some libraries load configuration secrets into globally accessible variables like $_SERVER or $_ENV which will could expose your secrets to code you don’t intend to
.ini Cons
requires familiarity with PHP
Which one should I use?
I’m going to give you the answer you don’t want to hear. That’s up to you. It really depends on the needs of your environment and your program.
As far as my personal preferences go. I don’t like including unnecessary dependencies in my codebase. Therefore, if I’m using PHP to develop my app, and I have no need to share my config secrets with other languages, then I would use an .ini file and the built in support for those that PHP provides.
Ok, let’s cut to the chase. Everyone knows that converting a JavaScript Map to JSON does not work out of the box. By default, the JSON.stringify method will return a {} when converting a Map. It’s super helpful, because it returns an empty object, which is usually precisely what we don’t want. That’s a wee bit frustrating!
How Not to Serialize a Map to JSON
The internet has provided us with the silver bullet, though, right? Object.entries is great and can do all things, right? WRONG. That is wrong and you are wrong if you think that it’s right. You see what I’m getting at?
The existing advice is to use Object.fromEntries and Object.entries in tandem to make it easy to convert a map to and from JSON. The code below shows you this method in all it’s glory.
// ### inspired code below
const mapToSerialize = new Map([[1, 'first key']])
const serializedMap = JSON.stringify(Object.fromEntries(mapToSerialize ))
// now deserialize
const deserializedMap = new Map(Object.entries(JSON.parse(serializedMap)))
Isn’t the code above beautiful? Doesn’t it just wonderfully handle our serialization in the best of ways? No! It doesn’t. Let’s compare the original map to the deserialized map and see how amazing the code works.
The original map looks like this when logged to the console Map(1) {1 => 'first key'}. The deserialized map looks like this when logged to the console: Map(1) {'1' => 'first key'}. Did you spot the difference?
Just to make things clear, let’s try to delete the keyed value out of our Map.
Hey look, deleting that value totally didn’t work
So really, in the end, our serialization using the currently advised method totally works. We serialize our map, deserialize it, and then can’t use it properly. Just as we expected.
NO. It doesn’t work correctly. The difference is that the original map uses an integer key, and the deserialized map uses a string key. When we attempt to delete the value out of the deserialized map, using the key, it fails because the type doesn’t match.
How to Serialize a Map to JSON
I am proposing a different way to serialize a map to JSON.
Create a new array from the existing map
Serialize the array to JSON
Create a new map from the deserialized JSON
The code I propose looks like this. You might not want to keep the logging at the end in your own implementations.
/// ### ugly code below
const mapToSerialize = new Map([[1, 'first key']])
// convert the map to JSON
const arrayToSerialize = []
mapToSerialize.forEach((value, key) => arrayToSerialize.push([key, value]))
const serializedMap = JSON.stringify(arrayToSerialize)
// convert the JSON back to a map
const deserializedMap = new Map(JSON.parse(serializedMap))
// log to console for inspection
console.log(mapToSerialize)
console.log(deserializedMap)
This code correctly works to serialize and deserialize a map to/from JSON.
Look at that, both maps match
In Conclusion
Serializing a Map to and from JSON isn’t as simple as it looks on the outside. Especially if from the outside it looks like it would be super simple. The Object.entries silver bullet only works for Maps with string keys, and attempting to use it for Maps with integer keys will end up with you hating your life. You probably will start listening to Barry Manilow constantly. You might even start eating Quinoa. I’m sure it happens all of the time due to Map serialization woes.
Anyways, if you prefer to not eat Quinoa, then go ahead and convert your Maps to and from JSON the way I suggested above.
I just ran into a problem and I wanted to document it for myself and for anyone else who might have issues. First I describe the problem, then I give the solution. Scroll down if you’re looking for the solution.
The Problem
After posting with JavaScript fetch I did not see the “body” arguments come through on the server. The method of the fetch was set to POST and the body included was an instance of FormData. According to the documentation on MDN, everything should’ve worked. So why wasn’t it working?
The Basic Client Side Code
const body = new FormData(myForm)
// assume myForm.action = "https://example.com/ajax/post"
const response = await fetch(myForm.action, {
method: "post",
body,
})
The Basic Server Side Code
<?php
// file: index.php within the ajax/post directory
// don't bother processing the post if there is none
if(empty($_POST)){
exit;
}
// ... processing code below
I spent some time debugging and without a doubt, every POST request to the index.php file did not have the $_POST array filled out. The POST array was empty as well as the REQUEST array, even the oft-touted file_get_contents('php://input') came up empty.
The Solution
You aren’t going to like it. I don’t like it. The solution to this problem is so annoying that you’ll just facepalm like Picard.
Add a slash to the end of the url you are posting to.
The problem url is: https://example.com/ajax/post The working url is: https://example.com/ajax/post/
Currently, when this url is posted to, the server responds with a 301 Redirect before the index.php file is hit. But why? The problem is that you do not have a trailing slash in your url. That’s it. You are posting to an index.php file within a directory, but your url does not have a trailing slash. So your server helpfully redirects you to a url with a trailing slash, and you lose your posted information along the way.
Yep, that’s it. Add a trailing slash and you’ll see your body come through when debugging.
As you might know, I’ve set up a RocketChat server recently on Digital Ocean. So far it’s been working great. An update every once and a while is all it needs.
However, yesterday, I attempted an update that failed. From then on every attempted update resulted in “RocketChat server not running. Cancelling”. This was very frutrating.
First, a few commands to try that might help:
systemctl restart rocketchat.service – This will start your RocketChat server in case it is stopped.
systemctl status rocketchat.service – Use this command to check the results of the previous command. Typically this will report that the service is “Active” if the previous command was successful.
In my case, the second command resulted in a “failed” state. The command itself gave me some information as to what the failure was, but not a lot of context as to what caused the failure. However, it did show me the process that it attempted to run. It said, ExecStart=/opt/nvm/versions/node/v14.19.3/bin/node /opt/Rocket.Chat/main.js (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE).
Alright! We’re getting somewhere. With that I was able to figure out what command failed and where that command was run. I navigated directly to the /opt/Rocket.Chat directory which was where the failure was occurring. From here I ran node main.js. The results of this command were much more helpful. They told me this, Error: Cannot find module '@meteorjs/reify/lib/runtime'. That looks like an issue with npm dependencies.
So, I poked around the Rocket.Chat directory structure and looked for dependencies for the Rocket.Chat server. I found what I was looking for in the /opt/Rocket.Chat/programs/server directory.
From this directory I ran two commands
npm install
npm ci
Afterwards I attempted to start the RocketChat server again using the systemctl restart rocketchat.service command. I checked it with systemctl status rocketchat.service and found that it was working now! RocketChat was back to running normally. The problem with “RocketChat server not running. Cancelling” was gone!
Note – RocketChat is making moves to severely limit their PAAS offering. They have baked in a bunch of limitations in the codebase and now claim that if you self-host you are using their “free version” ?
RocketChat (https://rocket.chat) is a chatting tool similar to MatterMost and Slack. It offers a self-managed community edition as well as some paid plans and is in active development. I’m just learning how to use it, so I’m planning on documenting my journey here.
I installed and set up RocketChat installed in a matter of minutes. The QuickStart guide, though short, includes most of what you need to get up and running.
To get started with your RocketChat instance on DigitalOcean you need to:
Create an A Record that points to your Digital Ocean Droplet. *
Setup your Let’s Encrypt certificate. rocketchatctl configure --lets-encrypt --root-url=YOUR_DOMAIN --letsencrypt-email=YOUR_EMAIL
Update your RocketChat installation. Run the following commands from your droplet command line interface.
Run sudo rocketchatctl upgrade-rocketchatctl
Run sudo rocketchatctl update
* I use Cloudflare to host my DNS. In this case I had to disable the proxying on the A Record in order to allow RocketChat to work correctly.
Now visit your site (you should not run into any problems) and create your administration account.
One Note
From time to time the Rocket Chat server responds with “Bad Gateway”. I’m not sure exactly why. However, a DigitalOcean droplet can be restarted by using the reboot command from the command line interface.
I had need to get a list of a simple list of all commits for the Current branch. This approach was simple enough and gave me what I wanted. I modified it to just use HEAD so that I can easily run it against the current branch.
The Tab Character Rendering can be changed in Advanced Settings
Original Article
Recently the way the Tab Character is rendered in PHPStorm was changed. The character used to be rendered in a way that allowed you to see the entire tab character. However, after a recent change the tab character now displays as a single >.
The new tab character is likely a welcome change for some. But there are others of us who really appreciated the old rendering. The new rendering does not indicate how much whitespace is taken by the tab character. For this reason I don’t find it helpful and wanted a way to change it back.
Luckily, recently, the JetBrains team threw in a small registry setting to re-enable to old rendering of tab characters. This setting is available in version 2019.3.2. Access this setting by pressing “Shift” + “Shift” while in PHPStorm. Afterwards search for and select the “Registry…” option.
A Comparison of styles – it’s nice to have options.
You’ll find the editor.old.tab.painting option about a quarter of the way down the list. Check it to re-enable the old PHPStorm tab rendering. You can breathe freely now.
The editor.old.tab.painting option is about a quarter of the way down the list
I’ve just run into an issue while trying to start the ssh-agent in PowerShell Core. The problem displayed was: unable to start ssh-agent service, error :1058
For my own personal future reference, the problem was that the OpenSSH Authentication Agent service startup type was set to Disabled. The solution was to set the startup type to Automatic.
In Windows 10 you can find the list of services pretty easily. Bring up the start menu and type Services. You’ll see the Services app listed. Open the Services app and you will see a list of services on your machine.
Finding the OpenSSH Authentication Agent
Once the Services app is open, find the OpenSSH Authentication Agent service and set the startup type to Automatic.
