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Saint Holy Rightous Joachim and Anne the partents of The Virgin Mary Mother of God feast in the Eastern Orthodox Church

Thursday, December 9th, 2021

Saint-Joachim-and-Anna-and-Jesus-Virgin-Mary-the-Mother-of-God

Feast day is cebelrated today in our Mother Church the Holy Eastern Bulgarian Orthodox Church 9th on December 9th December.
The name Joachim as derived from (/ˈdʒoʊəkɪm/; Hebrew: יְהוֹיָקִים‎ Yəhōyāqīm, means "he whom Yahweh has set up"; Greek Ἰωακείμ Iōākeím)..
Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Saint Joachim has been a descendent of the bloodline of Saint King David (the one to whom the Psalms section of the Bible are ascribed) and Anna descends out of the Aaron the brother of Moses (who is the father of priests family line in Judaism).

Saint Joachim and Saint Anne are two less known saints in nowatimes even though in the Middle Ages this feast has been enormously popuplar in Both the Orthodox Christian East and the Roman Catholic West.  

St. Joachim and St. Anne (Anna) has been called Holy Righteous by the Church for a good reason. For they have possessed immerce sanctity that only of the born on earth ever have. They were called Saint Holy and Righteous, for a reason, and perhaps little might know but their is a sanctity hierarchy in the Church and the reason this accent of 3 words of the Church fathers is to emphasize the couple of St. Joachim and St. Anne had exceeding grace.
Saint Joachim and Saint Anne just like the Holy Family of Holy Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph are the Christian model for perfect famly in virtues, which all Christian families should try to follow to their maximum. The celebration of St. Joachim and St. Anne feasts seems to have been on purpose put to be done during the Christmas Fasting period for a reason, as for another preparation for the Great feast of Christ-mass known in the Church as Nativity (which improperly is unknowingly profanized by many with the abbreviation XMAS).

Lets shortly see few details of the Earthly Living of the two saints and why the Holy Fathers who prepared their Living we read today, call them with this grandiose epithets – Saint, Holy and Righteous.


Holy

  • They have lived all their live in servitude for the sick poor the hungry and the weak and dedicated all their God given lifetime in service for all whose begged in need.
  • They have been praying regularly and longly for the goodness of Mankind and families all around
  • They have been strictly following God's Old Testamental Jewish laws


Righteous


The english word Righteous stems from the Word 'Right' for a good reason as in the light of the Holy scriptures the Right side has been always associated with Good and the Salvation for the reason we know from Revelations that when time comes for God to judge the nations and everyone's individual deeds and rights as Christ has told in the Gospel those who have been done right (e.g. they have done good) and persevered to do good things throughout their short lifetime, will be put on the Right side of God – those are the so called Sheeps of Christ, the Unrighteous one will be put at the Left hand on the Judgement and will be cast out of the face of God because of their own undesire to receive and reflect the light of Christ (just like the Moon reflects the Light of the Sun) and transfers it to the earth and gives Light at night, each mans eternal God's predestination is to be like this receivers and reflectors of the Grace of The Holy Spirit.
Saint Joachim and Saint Anne has been such reflectors in such a enormous size that most of the Light they have emitted from God was transferred to rest of their relatives and people to whom they were continuously at help and as we believe in the Orthodox Church this process of re-emission of light is continuing even today. As we believe those who have departed from this life and have been favorable for God are staying in front of the face of God and praying fervently incessantly to God for the good of mankind. 

Saint-Anne-detail-national-from_Faras_National-Museum-Warsaw

Saint Anne fresco from Faras Gallery in Warsaw


True Saints

The saintship is a quality one receives as a Gift from God as we read in the patristic literature and cannot be attended by deeds, however the greatest gifts of God due to the practice were given to those who have persevered to suffer, greatest trials, persecution, shaming, hatred and lack of reception in society for their confession of the faith – this as we know in the New Testamental Church of Christ is mostly seen in the Holy Martyrs who confessed Christ to the degree they preferred to give out their life and bodies to martyrdom than to reject Christ.
Saint Joachim and Saint Anne even not a physical martyrs has the same perseverance even before the age of the Martyrs (that had been at highest degree in the first  centuries 1-st, 2nd, and Third century until Christianity has been legalized in the Roman Empire by Saint Constantine).

They longed for a child but remained childless into their old age (which can be equalled to martyrdom – many couples even today know how uneasy it is to live together for a very long time and not to be able to have inheritance).

Because of their continuous fasting periods they have followed, St. Joachim and St. Anne did not have much of physical intimacy (or sexual life) as we use to call it today, we know today that the lack of intimacy doesn't bring babies, plus the fact that it was obviously Gods desire for them be childless  until their very old age.
However  not realizing this once they have bring their Thanks Giving offerings according to Jewish law they have been ashamed by the Jewish Priest in the Solomon Temple in Jerusalen, even in their old age – (the jewish priests, just like our Christian priests are absolutely forbidden to insult anyone, and insulting an old person was a taboo back then just like it is considered bad today) being blamed for not being able to carry out a Child. 
Being shamed by a Priest at the community of jews was a terrible thing and some would even commit suicide.

Saint_Joakim_Joachim-Orthodox-icon

Others who had children jostled Joachim, thrusting him back as unworthy. In despair, he consulted the geneological records of the tribes of Israel and discovered every righteous man in the nation had been blessed with children, except him. 
This caused the aged saints great grief, and he and his wife left with heavy hearts.

However as the couple was saintly their reaction was to seclude from people and pray secretly to God. 
Saint Joachim went to the desert and fasted and prayed grieving with inhumally for 40 days, and saint Anne stayed and grieved in her garden thrice as first she has never had the chance to become a mother and she was publicly ashamed at their community and did not know where her Husband has been, perhaps thinking he might passed out somewhere because of his exceeding grief.

Sts. Joachim and Anna had been married for fifty years, and were barren. They lived devoutly and quietly, using only a third of their income for themselves and giving a third to the poor and a third to the Temple. Joachim had done this since he was 15-years-old, and God multiplied his flocks, so the couple was well provided for. 


The Miracle of Faith, Hope and Love – The Birth of the God-Mother the Queen of Heaven Virgin Mariam
 

Saint-Joachim-and-Anne-Chanter_Angelos_Akotandos_-_St_Anne_with_the_Virgin

God has seen the great grief of the two and as he is merciful worked a great miracle just like with  Abraham and Sarah, and give them a blessed child to comfort their old age, which will become later the Holy Virgin Mary (Theotokos / Богородица), to become the Mother and Hope and all Humanity from which the Light of the World and Saviour Christ was born. 

Holy-Righteous-Joachim-and-Saint-Anne-Birth-of-Virgin-Mary

God sent the Archangel Gabriel to each of them, who gave them tidings of the birth of "a daughter most blessed, by whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and through whom will come the salvation of the world." Each promised to have their child raised in the Temple as a holy vessel of God. The archangel told St. Joachim to return home, where he would find his wife waiting for him in the city gate. St. Anna he told to wait at the gate. When they saw one another, they embraced, and this image is the traditional icon of their feast.

Saint-Joachim-and-Anne-with-Holy-Virgin-Mary

St. Anna conceived shortly thereafter, and in the ninth month gave birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This Conception of the Most Holy Mother of God is celebrated by the Church on December 9 and the Nativity of the Theotokos is celebrated on September 8.

God sent the Archangel Gabriel to each of them, who gave them tidings of the birth of "a daughter most blessed, by whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed, and through whom will come the salvation of the world." Each promised to have their child raised in the Temple as a holy vessel of God. The archangel told St. Joachim to return home, where he would find his wife waiting for him in the city gate. St. Anna he told to wait at the gate. When they saw one another, they embraced, and this image is the traditional icon of their feast.

Ikona_Kopiya_Sveta_Pravednaya_Anna

St. Anna conceived shortly thereafter, and in the ninth month gave birth to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This Conception of the Most Holy Mother of God is celebrated by the Church on December 9 and the Nativity of the Theotokos is celebrated on September 8.

Sts. Joachim and Anna took Mary, at the age of three, to the temple to be dedicated to the service of the Lord, and presented her to the priest Zechariahs. The parents then, after offering up her sacrifice (according to the custom of the time), left the Virgin with other maidens in the apartments of the temple to be brought up therein. The Church commemorates the Presentation of the Theotokos on November 21.

 Although Anne receives little attention in the Latin Church prior to the late 12th century, dedications to Anne in Eastern Christianity occur as early as the 6th century.

Bistritsa Monastery of Saint Jaochim and Saint Anne (near Sofia, Bulgaria)

The Bistritsa monastery "St. Yoakim and Anna" is located in the Mali dol part of the Vitosha mountain, about 2 km to the south-east of the village of Bistritsa.

Bistrishki-monastery-st-Joachim-and-st-Anna

Short History

According to priest Dragomir Kotev, author of regional studies of Bistritsa, during the time of Tsar Boris I or later during the rule of Simeon, a great temple was built there and was expanded during the Second Bulgarian Kingdom. It was part of the monastery complex called "The Little Mount Athos."

Bistritsa-monastery-st_Ioakim-Anna-Church

During the siege of the Ottomans and after strong resistance, the fortress and monastery were destroyed, and during the Ottoman domination the ruins of the old monastery were buried deep in the ground. The site was marked by a stone cross and people continued to gather at the sacred place. During excavations in the 20 century, the cross was discovered erect placed in what is today's holy throne in the temple. Now the cross can be seen outside the church.

Saint-Joachim-and-Anne-Bistritsa-near-Sofia-monastery-Cross

During the period of the Bulgarian Revival the memory for the monastery continued to exist.
The monastery "St. Peter" which had existed on its present place in the IX—X century, was destroyed by the turks in the XIV century. Its foundations were discovered in 1925 and the present church was sancrified in 1950. After the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule in 1878 the church was rebuilt as a chapel. The construction of the present monastery is connected with the visions of the prophet Bona Velinova. On Orthodox Sunday (the first Sunday of Lent) in 1925 she spent the night in fasting and prayer, and in the morning gave a detailed explanation of how the church destroyed by the Ottomans looked like. Bona ordered people to dig and foundations of the old temple were discovered. She said that it should be rebuilt, and called after the holy family pf Sts. Joachim and Anna. Since then, every year on Orthodox Sunday a solemn service takes place here. The new church was built with funds and volunteer work from local people in the period from 1936 to 1950 and was consecrated on August 6, 1950. Legend has it that the treasures of the last Bulgarian kings are buried somewhere around. Not far from the monastery there is a a spring. Here on Christian holidays, after services in the monastery, pilgrims come to drink water from the holy spring. They believe that this water cures eye diseases. 
During the period 1965-77 residential buildings were built. The complex consists of a parish church, the St. Ivan Rilski chapel and a massive building to its right, a kitchen and rooms. 

At present the monastery functions regularly. It is a complex including a church, one-nef, one-apse, with a cupola and inner and outer narthex, residential and farm buildings. The church was built over a mound necropolis, and under the church nef there is a preserved ancient vault from the end of the IV – the beginning of the V century (3,35 x 2,99 x 2,28 m), to which a stone staircase from the narthex.

Bistritsa-Monastery-saint-Joachim-and_Anne-near-Sofia-Church-view-to-altar

The iconostasis of on the picture is from the palace (chapel) of last Bulgarian King Boris III. It was brought to the monastery after 1944.

Let by the Holy Prayers of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne God grants mercy and Grace to All families everywhere and to everyone that is grieving
God provides his abundant consolation of the Holy Spirit so we can endure the temptations and hardships of life !

Amen

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How to move transfer binary files encoded with base64 on Linux with Copy Paste of text ASCII encoded string

Monday, October 25th, 2021

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If you have to work on servers in a protected environments that are accessed via multiple VPNs, Jump hosts or Web Citrix and you have no mean to copy binary files to your computer or from your computer because you have all kind of FTP / SFTP or whatever Data Copy clients disabled on remote jump host side or CITRIX server and you still are looking for a way to copy files between your PC and the Remote server Side.
Or for example if you have 2 or more servers that are in a special Demilitarized Network Zones ( DMZ ) and the machines does not have SFTP / FTP / WebServer or other kind of copy protocol service that can be used to copy files between the hosts and you still need to copy some files between the 2 or more machines in a slow but still functional way, then you might not know of one old school hackers trick you can employee to complete the copy of files between DMZ-ed Server Host A lets say with IP address (192.168.50.5) -> Server Host B (192.168.30.7). The way to complete the binary file copy is to Encode the binary on Server Host A and then, use cat  command to display the encoded string and copy whole encoded cat command output  to your (local PC buffer from where you access the remote side via SSH via the CITRIX or Jump host.). Then decode the encoded file with an encoding tool such as base64 or uuencode. In this article, I'll show how this is done with base64 and uuencode. Base64 binary is pretty standard in most Linux / Unix OS-es today on most Linux distributions it is part of the coreutils package.
The main use of base64 encoding to encode non-text Attachment files to Electronic Mail, but for our case it fits perfectly.
Keep in mind, that this hack to copy the binary from Machine A to Machine B of course depends on the Copy / Paste buffer being enabled both on remote Jump host or Citrix from where you reach the servers as well as your own PC laptop from where you access the remote side.

base64-character-encoding-string-table

Base64 Encoding and Decoding text strings legend

The file copy process to the highly secured PCI host goes like this:
 

1. On Server Host A encode with md5sum command

[root@serverA ~]:# md5sum -b /tmp/inputbinfile-to-encode
66c4d7b03ed6df9df5305ae535e40b7d *inputbinfile-to-encode

 

As you see one good location to encode the file would be /tmp as this is a temporary home or you can use alternatively your HOME dir

but you have to be quite careful to not run out of space if you produce it anywhere 🙂

 

2. Encode the binary file with base64 encoding

 [root@serverB ~]:# base64 -w0 inputbinfile-to-encode > outputbin-file.base64

The -w0 option is given to disable line wrapping. Line wrapping is perhaps not needed if you will copy paste the data.

base64-encoded-binary-file-text-string-linux-screenshot

Base64 Encoded string chunk with line wrapping

For a complete list of possible accepted arguments check here.

3. Cat the inputbinfile-to-encode just generated to display the text encoded file in your SecureCRT / Putty / SuperPutty etc. remote ssh access client

[root@serverA ~]:# cat /tmp/inputbinfile-to-encode
f0VMRgIBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAMAPgABAAAAMGEAAAAAAABAAAAAAAAAACgXAgAAAAAAAAAAA
EAAOAALAEAAHQAcAAYAAAAEAAA ……………………………………………………………… cTD6lC+ViQfUCPn9bs

 

4. Select the cat-ted string and copy it to your PC Copy / Paste buffer


If the bin file is not few kilobytes, but few megabytes copying the file might be tricky as the string produced from cat command would be really long, so make sure the SSH client you're using is configured to have a large buffer to scroll up enough and be able to select the whole encoded string until the end of the cat command and copy it to Copy / Paste buffer.

 

5. On Server Host B paste the bas64 encoded binary inside a newly created file

Open with a text editor vim / mc or whatever is available

[root@serverB ~]:# vi inputbinfile-to-encode

Some very paranoid Linux / UNIX systems might not have even a normal text editor like 'vi' if you happen to need to copy files on such one a useful thing is to use a simple cat on the remote side to open a new File Descriptor buffer, like this:

[root@server2 ~]:# cat >> inputbinfile-to-encode <<'EOF'
Paste the string here

 

6. Decode the encoded binary with base64 cmd again

[root@serverB ~]:# base64 –decode outputbin-file.base64 > inputbinfile-to-encode

 

7. Set proper file permissions (the same as on Host A)

[root@serverB ~]:#  chmod +x inputbinfile-to-encode

…

 

8. Check again the binary file checksum on Host B is identical as on Host A

[root@serverB ~]:# md5sum -b inputbinfile-to-encode
66c4d7b03ed6df9df5305ae535e40b7d *inputbinfile-to-encode

As you can md5sum match on both sides so file should be OK.

 

9. Encoding and decoding files with uuencode


If you are lucky and you have uuencode installed (sharutils) package is present on remote machine to encode lets say an archived set of binary files in .tar.gz format do:

Prepare the archive of all the files you want to copy with tar on Host A:

[root@Machine1 ~]:#  tar -czvf /bin/whatever /usr/local/bin/htop /usr/local/bin/samhain /etc/hosts archived-binaries-and-configs.tar.gz

[root@Machine1 ~]:# uuencode archived-binaries-and-configs.tar.gz archived-binaries-and-configs.uu

Cat / Copy / paste the encoded content as usual to a file on Host B:

Then on Machine 2 decode:

[root@Machine2 ~]:# uuencode -c < archived-binaries-and-configs.tar.gz.uu

 

Conclusion


In this short method I've shown you a hack that is used often by script kiddies to copy over files between pwn3d machines, a method which however is very precious and useful for sysadmins like me who has to admin a paranoid secured servers that are placed in a very hard to access environments.

With the same method you can encode or decode not only binary file but also any standard input/output file content. base64 encoding is quite useful stuff to use also in bash scripts or perl where you want to have the script copy file in a plain text format . Datas are encoded and decoded to make the data transmission and storing process easier. You have to keep in mind always that Encoding and Decoding are not similar to encryption and decryption as encr. deprytion gives a special security layers to the encoded that. Encoded data can be easily revealed by decoding, so if you need to copy between the servers very sensitive data like SSL certificates Private RSA / DSA key, this command line utility tool better to be not used for sesitive data copying.

 

 

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Posted in Curious Facts, Hacks, Linux, System Administration, Various | No Comments »

19 October Saint John of Rila Тhe Wonderworker – A little known Hermit saint of Great importance and fervent prayer intercessor for humanity

Wednesday, October 20th, 2021

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I've already blogged a number of times articles of Saint John of Rila as he is The Greatest venerated Bulgarian Saint as of today,  his birthplace nearby today's Ruen Monastery as well as my inspiration from the Night Vigil prayer gatherings in the Monastery in his Memoriam in German. But I'm pretty sure this spiritual giant  is under estimated and little known to the public not only the non-bulgarian English speakers but even to Bulgarian and the saint deserves much greater veneration and honour than it has received through the ages for the fact he has been among the greatest prayer intercessors for the world until the beginning of ages.

For his immerse hermit achievements in a similar way as Saint Anthony the Great he has been granted All the innumerous Gifts of The Holy Spirit.
The humble hermit even in his life time he has been defined as "Angel in flesh" and a "Citizen of heaven".
The life of Saint John has been a X-th century continuation of the life of Saint Simeon the Stylites and Saint Simeon Stylites the Younger attempted to be repeated as far as possible by more contemporary saints such as Saint Siluan the Athonite.
 

He has been a teacher (even though he ran away from people) all his life. He has been the major establisher of Monasticism in Bulgaria, 

In 18 of August year 946 Anno Dommini saint John has departed this world. Dying with a painless way called in Church language with the term Dormition or Assumption – (meeling he did not felt any kind of fleshly pain as normally one goes through when he ends his life unsanctified). His Dormition  in a similar way as The Mother of God (Theotokos), an end of life who has been granted throughout human history only to few other saints.

Assumption_Dormition_of_Saint_John_of_Rila_by_Toma_Vishanov

Saint John who spend his hermit lifetime in Mountain of Rila was born circa y. 876 AD and passed away to Christ on August 18, 946 A.D.
Thirthy four years after his dormition, he appeared in a dream to his pupils and has commanded them to dig out his incorruptable body and move it to in Sredetz (today the city of Sofia capital of Bulgaria). In Sredetz the holy relics of the saint has been kept in honour for 200 years.

Saint John has been a contemporary to Saint King Boris I the Baptizer of Bulgaria, King Simeon the Great (Son of King Boris, who raised Bulgaria to Empire reaching to 3 Oceans, who has been one of the largest empires of All times) and King Petar (Peter) the First. His glory as a Wonderworker who has been desired to been seen by many to receive physical healing or spiritual advice has been mostly through the rule of King Petar I (927 – 969). In Medieval times the Glory of Saint John of Rila has been widely known throughout all the Christianized Lands (including Byzantine Empire) and the West in the Catholic Church. The implication of his importance as a medieval healer saint and a model for hermit life and saintship and image for truthful spiritual life is well seen as his Biography (Living) is seen as he has about 15 Known different livings saying varyious details about his lifetime written in different centuries in Old Bulgarian Language and in Middle centuries in the new transformed form of Old Bulgarian writting called Church Slavonic, where saint has been simply adressed by monk name Ioan (John).

According to his biography we found until the age of 25 Saint John has been a simple shepherd. Until the yough age in his heart John had the burning love in his heart and a desire to dedicate himself completely to God. When his parents has passed away, he gave away all his received inheritance to the poor and sick people and entered as a aprentice in the monastery of today Boboshevski Saint Dimitar under the Ruen Monastery in the Mountain of Vlahina.

There in he received a Theological education, studied the liturgical books, received a spiritual dignity and prepared himself for the great spiritual mission of hermitage and life long prayer for the world. Receiving the monks schima, he gave away completely to fasting and prayer, initially establishing himself in Vitosha Mountain (most likely in today Monastery of German Monastery St. John of Rila (convent of Mount Athos Monastery of Zograph) nearby Sofia. 

Saint_Ivan_Rilski_Zemen-ikona

St. John of Rila Wall Painting XIV century from the Church Zemen Monastery Saint John the Theologian

In German Monastery often times the ancient Christian tradition of Night Vigil is followed on hist feast Major Christian feasts even today.
Later he has been for a while in the small Village  "Dobarsko" near The Europe Famous Resort of Bansko.
A short after 20 km of Dobarsko he has established The Most Famous Monastery for the Balkans, the Rila Monastery, a pivotal place whose light has shined upon practically all parts of the land as it become a school for tens of thousands hundred monks throughout the last 20 centuries. Many manuscript works prepared in Rila Monastery has been later on transferred in Today Ukraine, Russia, Serbia, Greece and even the Western Catholic lands.
There is no exact place in history when Saint John was officially canonized as in Medival Times, saints did not go through an official canonization but has been testified by the multitudes of peoples who has been cured by their wonder-working prayers. By the prayers of Saint John many has been able to conceive childs, leppers get cured and could walk, eye diseases were healed, full health has been restored or the gift of faith has been giving, not to mention the multitudes of people who came to Christian faith thanks to the prayers of St. John.

The-Meeting-of-Saint-John-of-Rila-and-King-Peter-First-of-Bulgaria

King Petar I-st meets the Hermit Holy Father John of Rila (Wall Painting)

The story of the powerful medieval Bulgarian ruler Peter the First who travelled 450 Kilometers only to see the saint is well known. Travelling about 450 kilometers from the capital of Bulgaria Veliki Preslav to the Cave of Saint John of Rila only to meet him.

Cave-of-Saint-John-of-Rila-Peshterata-na-sv-Ioan-Rilski

The Cave of Saint John of Rila Cave exit

The monk however refused to meet him due to his immerse humility, where King Peter I-st was able to talk in a long distance via a valley with the saint, offering him gold and fruits. St. John refused to receive the king's gold, as he said he did not left the world and everyhing to it to attain gold or anything but to save his soul. He received the fruits not wanting to insult the king. Many people who deserved to learn a true monasticism and ascetism has quickly reached the saint and asked them to create a monastic brotherhood and wanting to be useful his poor brothers and having revelation of God that it is the will of God to establish the monsatery he accepted and become the first Abbot of Rila Monastery.

He passed to the Savior Christ about in year on 18 of August 946 AD being aged about 70 years old he has been buried in the Church porch in a stone tomb, preserved even today.

The-Testament-of-Saint-John-of-Rila-Given-to-his-pupils-monks
Saint John Giving his Written Testament to his Monks (The Testament is Famous for the quote "I beg you children to mostly fear from the snake of avarice which is the root of all evils".


Until his death he has departed from the brotherhood in complete solitude and wrote his famous "Testament".  The Testament of Saint John of Rila he left for his pupils on 25 of March on the feast of the Annunciation in year 941. The text of the Saint John Testament is preserved in a copy manuscripts dated from the XVIII and XIX century and contains a multitude of quotes from The Scriptures of Old and New Testament. 

Engravement-of-the-Living-of-Saint-John-of_Rila_monastery-icon

The Living of Saint John of Rila


Saint_John_of-Kronstadt-Ioann_Kronshtadtskij

 

A little known fact is that the Russian All Famous Saint Father John of Kronstadt (also a wonderworker) (Ivan Ilyich Sergiyev, born: 31 October [O.S. 19 October] 1829 + Passed to Christ: 2 January 1909 [O.S. 20 December 1908]) has received his Baptizmal name after Saint John of Rila as he has been born on his feast day and his parents following the Russian tradition to name the baby after the Saint honour in the Church Calendar gave the name John of St. John of Kronstadt. St. John of Kronstadt deeply venerated Saint John of Rila and asked his prayer intercession alway until his life time.
​In 1900, Father John established the women's monastery of Ioannovsky Convent, named for his name patron John of Rila, as a branch of the Sura Monastery of St. John the Theologian, where he was later also buried.

Recognition of Saint John of Rila Holiness shortly after his death


After his death in y. 946, st John has been buried nearby the established by him Holy Rila Convent, shortly after King Peter I-st ordered to be transferred to Sredetz (Sofia). Most likely this can be considered for original date of canonization of the saint. About y. 989 – 992 y. his holy relics has been transferred by King Samul and then Patriarch German-Gabvril (German-Gabriel) in Sredetz. This happened on 19 of October and since then on this date is venerated his bright memory.
Initially his holy relics has been kept for venerateion in the Church of "Saint Great Martyr Georgi the Glorybringer" and later on moved to Church of "Saint Apostle and Evangelist Luke". In the XII century in his honour the Church of "Saint Luka (Saint Luke)" was built near which a monastery has been established. The Byzantine writter Ioannis Skylitzes / John Skylitzes testifies that in Sredetz the Holy Relics of Saint John has miraculously cured emperor Manuel I Komnenos.

In 1183 during the consequential Hungarian-Byzantine war, the Hungarian King Bela III of Hungar conquered Sredetz and moved the holy relics of Saint John in his capitzal Estergom today the Komárom-Esztergom County. According to tradition the local Roman Catholic archibishop declared he has not been aware for the existence of a saint John of Rila and because of his words the saint has punished him with immediate numbness. Once he venerated the holy relics of the reliquary and begged for forgiveness, his speech was recovered. Amazed and worried about this miracle, in year 1187 hungarians transferred back the holy relics of the saint to Tarnovo? Bulgaria.

The-Return-of-Holy-Relics-of-Saint-John-of-Rila

The Return of the Holy Relics of St. John to Trnovo Bulgaria

On 1st of June the Church celebrates the return of the holy relics of saint John of Rila from Tarnovo to Rila monastery. In 1195 Bulgarian king Ivan Asen the First solemnly transferred the Holy relics once again to Tarnovo in the church still being built St. 40 Martyrs (dedicated to 40 Martyrs of Nikomidia). Until the church was completed the holy relics has been kept on Krastec Peak, now the place has a small chapel in honour of St. John of Rila The Wonderworker".

In 1469 year Bulgaria is already invaded by the Ottoman Turks, thus  after a permission from the Sultan, the monks of Rila convent brought the holy relics of the saint from Veliko Tarnovo to his established Rila Monastery, where holy relics are kept to this date and where anyone who needs a spiritual fortification, restorement of health, or suffering from unclean spirits (devils) could ask with faith and hope for healing for the saint and wait for the miracle.
I myself have had the chance to meet a man who has being to a Night Vigil to Rila monastery and testified that he and his life both being in his old age of fifties after not being able to have kids and trying out everything has asked the saint during a night vigil to pray for them to able to conceive a child and the saint heard their prayers and granted them a kid and she conceived right after that and brought to the earth after 9 months a very healthy and lively baby 🙂

Another modern miracle I'm personally aware of made by Saint John is the Gift of Faith in God which was granted to a Greek architect, I've personally met while being on a pilgrimage visit to Holy Mount Athos. The Greek shared that he had never been a believed in God and was a grown atheist, until he had a work duty to do some reconstruction restoration works in Bulgarian Rila monastery. Spending a few months as part of his business-trip duties, he has received the gift of faith. I've met the Greek (unfortunately no longer remember his name), nearby the monastery of Xenophontos.

 

The troparion of our rev. father John of Rila, tone 1

A foundation of the repentance, an example of the tenderness,
a model of the consolation and of the spiritual perfection,
oh Reverend Father, was your equal to the Angels life therefore
staying in prayers and fasts and in tears
pray to the Christ God for our souls.


Today the holy relics are miraculously still incorruptable and emit a specific nice odor  which is typical for many of other saints, a testify to the unbelievers for their saintship. The saints relics in a special reliquarium in the right corner behind the iconostasis icons. The right hand of the saint is kept in nun convent in Island of Tinos Greece and the story how it ended there is a worthy for a small pamphlet and I'll try to say few words on that in some of the next posts.

Let by the Holy Prayers of Saint John of Rila our Home Land Bulgaria and all Countries are granted more Peace, Love, Faith and Kindness and relief from the terrible diseases that are plaguing the world today !

Holy Father John of Rila Pray the mercyful Lord Jesus with All the Saints and The Most Holy Theotokos to save our Souls and grant mercies to us the sinners !

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The names of the Twelve apostles of Christ – Feast of the Twelve Glorious and Primal Apostles in Eastern Orthodox Church (30th of June)

Wednesday, June 30th, 2021

Roman_Domitilla-Katakomben_Fresko__Christus_und_die_12_Apostel__und_Christussymbol__Chi_Rho__1
Jesus and his Twelve Apostles, fresco with the Chi-Rho symbol ☧, Catacombs of Domitilla, Rome

One day after the June 29 the Feast of The Glorious and First among Apostles Peter and Paul  on 30th of June according to so called new calendar in the Eastern Orthodox Church comes, the remembrace of Feast of the gathering of 12 Glorious apostles (Σύναξη των Αγίων Δώδεκα Αποστόλων).

Simon_ushakov_last_supper_1685

The Secret Supper (Christ and the 12 Apostles iconographer Simon Ushakov y. 1685 (Jude the Iscariot the traitor without a halo)

"The names of the 12 Holy Apostles are: Simon (called Peter), Andrew his brother, Jacob the Zabedee and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Mathew (tax collectors), James, son of Alphaeus and Levi called (Thadeus), Simon The Canonite and Jude the Iscariot who has betrayed Christ"

(Gospel of Mathew 10:2-4)

 

13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

(Luke 6:13-16)

15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)

16 Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.

17 For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.

18 Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.

19 And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood.

20 For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.

21 Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, (Acts 1:15-26)

Synaxis_of_the_Twelve_Apostles_by_Constantinople_master_early_14th_circa_Pushkin_museum

The Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles. Russian, 14th century, Moscow Museum.

"Jesus had other desciples as well that were seventeen and other circles of desciples around each of the pupils, however they have alwasys been considered less venerable as they did not been so close to Christ and did not understand so well the mysterios of Christ's teaching and did not persevere as mcuh as the twelve and the seventeen of desciples. Those had been been distinguished among the King, those who have been the closest people to the Teacher" (Saint John Chrysostomos)

In Constantinople Saint King Constantine ( y. 274 – 337 ), has built a famous Church dedicated to the 12 Apostles. In historian documents there is data for a first time the feast is celebrated in the V-th century.

While the memory of each apostle has a separate day in the Church calendar yearly circle, they 12 apostles are sharing the same honor, because the Holy Scriptures and the Tradition glorifious their high efforts for building the Church on top of the corner stone that is Jesus Christ himsef and for their perseverance to accept martyrdom for Christ, thus to accent this they're is this special feast the Gathering of the 12 Glorious Apostles on 30th of June. As the Holy Scriptures says they're a friends of God (John 15:14), and when the Son of Man (Jesus) sits on the glory of his power, they all are to sit on 12 thrones, to judge the 12 Hebrew tribes (Mathew 19:28). 

In first centuries the Church has been feasting all the apostles together, Later she has included saint Apostle Paul, again the full list of names of the apostles are as follows:

1. Saint Apostle Peter the First Called (commemorated 29 June and 16 of January)

2. Saint apostle Andrew the First Called – as has been called by Christ together with Peter (30 November)

3.  Saint Jacob the Zebedee (30 April)

4. Saint Apostle John the Zebedee – the evangelist (26 September and 8 May)

5. Saint Apostle Philip (14 November)

6. Saint apostle Bartholomew or Nathanael (11 June and 25 August)

7. Saint apostle Thomas (6 October)

8. Saint apostle Mathew – evangelist (16 November)

9. Saint Apostle Jacob – son of Alpheus 9 October)

10. Saint Apostle Jude – fleshly brother of Christ (son of Joseph), called also Thadeus and Levi (19 June)

11. Saint Apostle Mathew (Mathias) (9 August)

12. Saint Apostle Paul  (Paul of Tarsus) (29 June)

The Church books define the feast day as the "Gathering of the Twelve", because this number of 12 apostles is initial and depics Christ essence of Completeness (as he is All in everything) Mathew (10:1-5)

 

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ASCII Art studio – A powerful ASCII art editor for Windows / Playscii a cool looking text editor for Linux

Monday, June 28th, 2021

This post is just informative for Text Geeks who are in love with ASCII Art, it is a bit of rant as I will say nothing new, but I thought it might be of interest to some console maniac out there 🙂

ascii art studio aas program windows xp professional drawing program screenshot

While checking stuff on Internet I've stumbled on interesting ASCII arts freak software – >ASCII Art Studio. ASCII Art Studio is unfortunately needs licensing is not Free Software. But anyways, for anyone willing to draw pro ASCII art pictures it is a must see. Check it out;

Isn't it like a Plain Text pro Photoshop ? 🙂 Its a pity we don't have a Linux / BSD Release of this wonderful piece of software. I've tried with WINE (Windows Emulator) on Linux to make the Ascii Art Studio work but that was a fail. It seems only way to make it work is have Windows as a worst case install a Virtual Machine with VirtualBox / Vmware and run it inside if you don't have a Windows PC at hand.

Of course there are stuff on Linux to ascii art edit you can use if you want to have a native software to edit ASCIIs such as Playscii. Unfortunately Playscii is not an easy one to install and the software doesn't have a prepared rpm or deb binary you can easily roll on the OS and you have to manually build all required python modules and have a working version of python3 to be able to make it work.

I did not have much time to test to install it and since I faced issues with plascii install I just abandoned it. If some geek has some more time anyways I guess it is worse to give it a try below is 2 screenshots from PLAYSCII official download page. 

playscii_shot1-official.

As you see authors of the open source playscii whose source is available via github choose to have an amazing looking ascii art text menus, though for daily ASCII art editing it is perhaps much more complicated to use than the simlistic ASCII Art Studio

playscii_shot2-official

There is other stuff for Linux to do ASCII Art files text edit like:
JaVE (this one I don't personally like because it is Java Based),  Ascii Art Maker or Pablow Draw Linux (unfortunately this 2 ones are proprietary).

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Pentecost the Birthday of the Church and the receival of the Gifts of Holy Spirit of Faith, Hope, Love for the Mankind

Saturday, June 19th, 2021

For one more year it is Pentecost 50 days after the celebrated Easter (Resurrection of Christ), we celebrate the feast that marked the birth of the Church as a Body of Christ that is binding all its members us the ordinary people who are baptized in the Name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.

Pentecost is a day of mystery that turned human history, as the same Spirit who was in Christ and has been in the Father in the Holy Trinity has descended from Heaven sent as a helper to each and every believer in Christ to strenghten and guide him in his narrow path to the Kingdom of Heaven and the Eternal salvation promised by the Savior Christ.

There is many books written about Pentecost but no book or intellectual thought is capable to transpond one's experience of receiving the Holy Spirit in the Soul and Heat of man. This glorious event is experienced by every Christian during baptism and the following Mystery of Chrismation when the Priest baptizes a new member in the name of God and is experienced, by us in the mystery of repentence when crying for our bad deeds and transgressions of the law of God, we cry in sorrow to God asking for forgiveness and renewal. The descent of the Holy Spirit over us is supernatural event that put the beginning of the contemporary understanding in our contemporary civillization of supernaturality and the realm of spirits as we understand them today where the Spirit of God is over all things.

On Pentecost it is the Holy Spirit who descended towards the Holy Apostles giving them the Super natural powers to Heal The Sick, Prophecise, speak in all human tongues, chase away evil spirits and do multitude of unseen wonderworks in human history that are continuing even to this day in the Church. The Holy Spirit has gifted all Church members with the gifts of the Spirit of Faith, Hope and Love, Endurance, Manhood, and all the virtues of man that were in Christ not because of a human effort but for the Love of God for man.
The abiding of the Holy Spirit in man is a never ending Heaven and a bliss granted for man for free. Saint Seraphim of Sarov has well described in his Conversation with Motovilov what is the experience to have the God the Holy Spirit in One's self.

The_Descent-of-the_Holy_Spirit-Soshestvie-Svetago-Duha

A bit more on the facts around the Descent of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles is in my prior article here , though this is just a very basic attempt to transfer the meaning of the feast as definitely all the books on the earth and all the human knowledge put together is like a drop in the universe compared to Holy Spirit itself.

The Spirit of Truth which the world could not comprehend was sent by Jesus Christ first to the apostles and the desciples and then to each and every Christian member of the One Holy Eastern Orthodox Church throughout human history until the end of ages.

Pentecost_Rabula_Gospels-6th-century
One of the most ancient icons of the Pentecost Syriac Rabbula Gospels 6th century

Happy Feast to All Christians ! Happy Birthday Church !

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Saint Georgi of Sofia “the Newest” Bulgarian Confessor Christian saint martyred 1534 AD during reign of Turkish Sultan Selim in Medieval Serdika (Sofia)

Tuesday, June 1st, 2021

Saint-Martyr-George-of-Sofia-Georgi-Sofijski-in-traditional-wear-kalpak

Troparion, voice 4
With a soul wounded by the love of your God, the wise George the Glorious, he preached to the ungodly, Christ God, trampled with his feeth, the Turkish heresy; and when he adorned himself with the crown of martyrdom, you ascended to the heavenly multitudes: ask Christ God to preserve your homeland, this city (Sofia) and the people who always worship your deeds.

On 26-th of May the Bulgarian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of one of the great Bulgarian Martyr saints Saint Georgi the Newest.
С~тый Геԝ̀ргїй Софїѝскїй Новѣ̀йшїй) St. Georgi (The Bulgarian equivalent name of George) is one of the 3 saints holding the name Georgi which has confessed Christianity refused to accept islam and accepted Martyrdom for Christ in period of 1396 till year 1530 and one of the 9 famous Sofia city saints. Saint Georgi of Sofia the Newest was named after the highly venerated in Bulgarian just like in whole Christian world saint George.

saint-Georgi-Sofijski-saint-great-martyr-George-and-The-Mother-of-God-iconostasis

St. Georgi was born in the city of Medieval Sofia (Sredetz), fortress of Serdika today’s Sofia in a family of Ivan and Maria – a wealthy and society recognized family of that time. He has born after a fervent and lengthly prayers of his parents who couldn’t have children for a long time and has been given a kid by the prayers of Saint Great Martyr George
It is important to say Georgi (the newest) celebrated on 26-th of May is a different saint from St. Georgi called “the new” whose memory in the Church is commemorated on 11-th of February.

saint-Georgi-Sofijski-noveishij-icon

Miracle making icon of saint Georgi Sofiyski (currently in the Church in yard of Alexandrovska Hospital Sofia)

The young Georgi quickly learned to write and read, a skills that only the most educated people usually coming from noble families could do. His favourite activity
in his free time when he was not in help of his parents was reading the Holy Scriptures.
He was grown by his parents in Christian goodness and fervency for the Christian faith.

Sveti_Georgi_Novi-Sofijski-wall-painting-icon-st-George-Sofia
Aged 25 he orphaned as his beloved father passed away to Christ. Georgi posessesed an extraordinary beauty, sharp mind and virtues, seeing the young man in his grief the local Turkish authorities tried as they usually do to attract the youngster to the islamic faith to make their way to interact with Georgi and do their business easier and most importantly have Georgi in their auhotirities congregation consisting only of people belonging to the islam as it was up to the Ottoman Turkish consistution law of the day.

To attract Georgi, turks first tried with hypocritical kindness and a care for the young to help him raise in the power of authorities of the city, not succeeding with that they have, they have forcefully wrapper the Muslim turban on his head and proclaimed him officially Muslim. Feeling offended by the ungodly deed of this enemies of Christ, immediately the saint throw the imposed turban on the ground and trampled on it.
The enraged muslim crowd seing his public offence for the prophet Muhammed handed him over to the Qadi in the court.

Neither the seductive promises of high office nor the cruel tortures could break the unshakable firmness of his Christian faith. The judge ordered that his body be cut into strips from head to toe and that the wounds received be scorched with dirty candles, which made the martyr’s body so hot that his face could not be seen. But all efforts were in vain.

The final verdict of the judge followed – Georgi to be hanged on the main barn in the city of Sofia, where there was a furnace for melting iron and copper ore. The execution command also stated that his body should remain on the gallows for three days in order to begin to decay, so that the faith of the Christians in the incorruptible relics of the saints and in the resurrection of the dead to be refuted and hence disgrace christianity. However, exhausted from his suffering mrtr. Georgi died at the hands of the executioners before they managed to hang him. To fulfill the command turks, anyhow hung him on a rope to show the sentence has been successfully carried out.

For three days the body hung on the gallows without any sign of decomposition, and on the contrary, an unusual fragrance of the holy relics of the martyr wafted through the barn. His mother sat under the gallows and grieving his beloved son hugged her son’s legs, staying next three three days to her son. The hanging took place on May 26, 1530 (according to other document sources in 1534). Thus on 26th of may the Church set a service in memoriam.

Ancient-Church-ROtonda-St-George-Sofia-Bulgaria

5-th Century Church of Rotonda St. George Centre of Sofia

The-Grave-of-Saint-Georgi-Sofiyski-Grobat-na-sv-Georgi-nai-novi

Saint Georgi Sofiyski / Saint George of Sofia the Newest grave near Rotonda Church Saint George in City Center of Sofia, Bulgari

After the expiration of the sentence, the kadi handed over the body of the martyr to be buried in a Christian way, and the burial was solemnly performed by the then Metropolitan of Sofia Jeremiah in the church “St. the great martyr George the Victorious ”. Now these relics are in obscurity. The mother of the martyr died on the 40th day of George’s death and was buried at her son’s feet.

These events took place during the reign of Sultan Suleiman I Kanuni (the Legislator) also known as Suleiman the Magnificent. This “Golden Age” for the Ottoman Empire was a time of unheard of atrocities against Christians in the territory of the empire and very difficult times for the Bulgarian people. The reign of Suleiman I and his father Selim I was a time of obscurantism and severe persecution of the Christian population, a time during which many Christian new martyrs on Balkans had the courage to defend their faith.

saint-Georgi-Sofijski-newest-icon-painting

The capture, trial and torture of St. George of Sofia The latest took place near the then Sofia. Today the place is located in the yard of the famous Alexandrovska Hospital which was a King’s hospital during the times of Kingdom of Bulgaria after liberation took place from the Turks in 1878 y.. The exact location where martyrdom occured is between street St. Georgi Sofiyski ”and“ Pencho Slaveykov ”Blvd.

There was a large stone cross with an inscription on the site, which a few years after 1944, due to the risk of being destroyed, was collected by Sofia priests and is still preserved in the altar of the church “St. Georgi Pobedonosets ”on Blvd. Partriarch Euthymius”. Until the 1940s, a liturgical procession was held from the place of death of the saint to the Rotunda on May 26.
Nowadays happily, the old Lithia tradition is being renewed and a small Lithia is conducted by Bulgarian Orthodox Christian clergy and layman.

In the garden next to the building of the Second Surgical Clinic there was a stone cross, which indicated the place and history of the martyrdom of the saint, and today a temple was built in honor of the saint.

Church-of-saint-Georgi-Sofijski-in-Alexandrovska-hospital-Sofia-Bulgaria-the-place-of-martyrdom-of-saint-Georgi-Sofijski
source: Lives of the Saints. Synodal Publishing House, Sofia, 1991, edited by Parthenius, Bishop of Lefkada and Archimandrite Dr. Athanasius (Bonchev).

Saint_Georgi-naj-novi_Sofijski

HOLY MARTYR GEORGE OF SOFIA THE NEWEST, PRAY GOD FOR US!

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How to check Linux server power supply state is Okay / How to find out a Linux Power Supply is broken

Wednesday, January 6th, 2021

2U-power-supplies-get-status-if-Power-supply-broken-information-linux-ipmitool

If you're a sysadmin and managing remotely Linux servers, every now and then if a machine is hanging without a reason it useful to check the server Power Supply state. I say that because often if the machine is mysteriously hanging and a standard Root Cause Analysis (RCA) on /var/log/messages /var/log/dmesg /var/log/boot etc. did not bring you to any different conclusion. The next step after you send a technician to reboot the machine is to check on Linux OS level whether Power Supply Unit (PSU) hardware on the machine does not have some issues.
As blogged earlier on how to use ipmitool to manage remote ILO remote boards etc. the ipmitool can also be used to check status of Server PSUs.

Below is example output of 2 PSU server whose Power Supplies are functioning normally.
 

[root@linux-server ~]# ipmitool sdr type "Power Supply"

PS Heavy Load    | 2Bh | ok  | 19.1 | State Deasserted
Power Supply 1   | 70h | ok  | 10.1 | Presence detected
Power Supply 2   | 71h | ok  | 10.2 | Presence detected
PS Configuration | 72h | ok  | 19.1 |
PS 1 Therm Fault | 75h | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS 2 Therm Fault | 76h | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
PS1 12V OV Fault | 77h | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS2 12V OV Fault | 78h | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
PS1 12V UV Fault | 79h | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS2 12V UV Fault | 7Ah | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
PS1 12V OC Fault | 7Bh | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS2 12V OC Fault | 7Ch | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
PS1 12Vaux Fault | 7Dh | ok  | 10.1 | Transition to OK
PS2 12Vaux Fault | 7Eh | ok  | 10.2 | Transition to OK
Power Unit       | 7Fh | ok  | 19.1 | Fully Redundant

Now if you have a server lets say on an old ProLiant DL360e Gen8 whose Power Supply is damaged, you will get an from ipmitool similar to:

[root@linux-server  systemd]# ipmitool sdr type "Power Supply"
Power Supply 1   | 30h | ok  | 10.1 | 100 Watts, Presence detected
Power Supply 2   | 31h | ok  | 10.2 | 0 Watts, Presence detected, Failure detected, Power Supply AC lost
Power Supplies   | 33h | ok  | 10.3 | Redundancy Lost


If you don't have ipmitool installed due to security or whatever but you have the hardware detection software dmidecode you can use it too to get the Power Supply state

[root@linux-server  systemd]# dmidecode -t chassis
# dmidecode 3.2
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.8 present.

 

Handle 0x0300, DMI type 3, 21 bytes
Chassis Information
        Manufacturer: HP
        Type: Rack Mount Chassis
        Lock: Not Present
        Version: Not Specified
        Serial Number: CZJ38201ZH
        Asset Tag:
        Boot-up State: Critical
        Power Supply State: Critical
        Thermal State: Safe
        Security Status: Unknown
        OEM Information: 0x00000000
        Height: 1 U
        Number Of Power Cords: 2
        Contained Elements: 0

To find only Power Supply info status on a server with dmideode.

# dmidecode –type 39

monitoring-power-supply-hardware-information-linux-ipmitool

Plug between the power supply and the mainboard voltage / coms ATX specification

This can also be used on a normal Linux desktop PCs which usually have only 1U (one power supply) on many of Ubuntus and Linux desktops where lshw (list hardaware information) is installed to get the machine PSUs status with lshw 

 root@ubuntu:~# lshw -c power
  *-battery               
       product: 45N1111
       vendor: SONY
       physical id: 1
       slot: Front
       capacity: 23200mWh
       configuration: voltage=11.1V
        Thermal State: Safe
        Security Status: Unknown
        OEM Information: 0x00000000
        Height: 1 U
        Number Of Power Cords: 2
        Contained Elements: 0


Finally to get an extensive information on the voltages of the Power Supply you can use the good old lm_sensors.

# apt-get install lm-sensors
# sensors-detect 
# service kmod start
# sensors
# watch sensors


As manually monitoring Power Supplies and other various data is dubious, finally you might want to use some centralized monitoring. For one example on that you might want to check my prior Zabbix to Monitor Hardware Hard Drive / Temperature and Disk with lm_sensors / smartd on Linux with Zabbix.

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Hack: Using ssh / curl or wget to test TCP port connection state to remote SSH, DNS, SMTP, MySQL or any other listening service in PCI environment servers

Wednesday, December 30th, 2020

using-curl-ssh-wget-to-test-tcp-port-opened-or-closed-for-web-mysql-smtp-or-any-other-linstener-in-pci-linux-logo

If you work on PCI high security environment servers in isolated local networks where each package installed on the Linux / Unix system is of importance it is pretty common that some basic stuff are not there in most cases it is considered a security hole to even have a simple telnet installed on the system. I do have experience with such environments myself and thus it is pretty daunting stuff so in best case you can use something like a simple ssh client if you're lucky and the CentOS / Redhat / Suse Linux whatever distro has openssh-client package installed.
If you're lucky to have the ssh onboard you can use telnet in same manner as netcat or the swiss army knife (nmap) network mapper tool to test whether remote service TCP / port is opened or not. As often this is useful, if you don't have access to the CISCO / Juniper or other (networ) / firewall equipment which is setting the boundaries and security port restrictions between networks and servers.

Below is example on how to use ssh client to test port connectivity to lets say the Internet, i.e.  Google / Yahoo search engines.
 

[root@pciserver: /home ]# ssh -oConnectTimeout=3 -v google.com -p 23
OpenSSH_7.9p1 Debian-10+deb10u2, OpenSSL 1.1.1g  21 Apr 2020
debug1: Connecting to google.com [172.217.169.206] port 23.
debug1: connect to address 172.217.169.206 port 23: Connection timed out
debug1: Connecting to google.com [2a00:1450:4017:80b::200e] port 23.
debug1: connect to address 2a00:1450:4017:80b::200e port 23: Cannot assign requested address
ssh: connect to host google.com port 23: Cannot assign requested address
root@pcfreak:/var/www/images# ssh -oConnectTimeout=3 -v google.com -p 80
OpenSSH_7.9p1 Debian-10+deb10u2, OpenSSL 1.1.1g  21 Apr 2020
debug1: Connecting to google.com [172.217.169.206] port 80.
debug1: connect to address 172.217.169.206 port 80: Connection timed out
debug1: Connecting to google.com [2a00:1450:4017:807::200e] port 80.
debug1: connect to address 2a00:1450:4017:807::200e port 80: Cannot assign requested address
ssh: connect to host google.com port 80: Cannot assign requested address
root@pcfreak:/var/www/images# ssh google.com -p 80
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host
root@pcfreak:/var/www/images# ssh google.com -p 80 -v -oConnectTimeout=3
OpenSSH_7.9p1 Debian-10+deb10u2, OpenSSL 1.1.1g  21 Apr 2020
debug1: Connecting to google.com [172.217.169.206] port 80.
debug1: connect to address 172.217.169.206 port 80: Connection timed out
debug1: Connecting to google.com [2a00:1450:4017:80b::200e] port 80.
debug1: connect to address 2a00:1450:4017:80b::200e port 80: Cannot assign requested address
ssh: connect to host google.com port 80: Cannot assign requested address
root@pcfreak:/var/www/images# ssh google.com -p 80 -v -oConnectTimeout=5
OpenSSH_7.9p1 Debian-10+deb10u2, OpenSSL 1.1.1g  21 Apr 2020
debug1: Connecting to google.com [142.250.184.142] port 80.
debug1: connect to address 142.250.184.142 port 80: Connection timed out
debug1: Connecting to google.com [2a00:1450:4017:80c::200e] port 80.
debug1: connect to address 2a00:1450:4017:80c::200e port 80: Cannot assign requested address
ssh: connect to host google.com port 80: Cannot assign requested address
root@pcfreak:/var/www/images# ssh google.com -p 80 -v
OpenSSH_7.9p1 Debian-10+deb10u2, OpenSSL 1.1.1g  21 Apr 2020
debug1: Connecting to google.com [172.217.169.206] port 80.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_rsa type 0
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_ecdsa type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_ed25519 type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_ed25519-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_xmss type -1
debug1: identity file /root/.ssh/id_xmss-cert type -1
debug1: Local version string SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_7.9p1 Debian-10+deb10u2
debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request

 


debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8


debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: Referrer-Policy: no-referrer


debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: Content-Length: 1555


debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2020 14:13:25 GMT


debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:


debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: <!DOCTYPE html>

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: <html lang=en>

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:   <meta charset=utf-8>

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:   <meta name=viewport content="initial-scale=1, minimum-scale=1, width=device-width">

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:   <title>Error 400 (Bad Request)!!1</title>

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:   <style>

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:     *{margin:0;padding:0}html,code{font:15px/22px arial,sans-serif}html{background:#fff;color:#222;padding:15px}body{margin:7% auto 0;max-width:390px;min-height:180px;padding:30px 0 15px}* > body{background:url(//www.google.com/images/errors/robot.png) 10
debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: 0% 5px no-repeat;padding-right:205px}p{margin:11px 0 22px;overflow:hidden}ins{color:#777;text-decoration:none}a img{border:0}@media screen and (max-width:772px){body{background:none;margin-top:0;max-width:none;padding-right:0}}#logo{background:url(//www.g
debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: oogle.com/images/branding/googlelogo/1x/googlelogo_color_150x54dp.png) no-repeat;margin-left:-5px}@media only screen and (min-resolution:192dpi){#logo{background:url(//www.google.com/images/branding/googlelogo/2x/googlelogo_color_150x54dp.png) no-repeat 0
debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: % 0%/100% 100%;-moz-border-image:url(//www.google.com/images/branding/googlelogo/2x/googlelogo_color_150x54dp.png) 0}}@media only screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:2){#logo{background:url(//www.google.com/images/branding/googlelogo/2x/googlelogo_
debug1: ssh_exchange_identification: color_150x54dp.png) no-repeat;-webkit-background-size:100% 100%}}#logo{display:inline-block;height:54px;width:150px}

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:   </style>

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:   <a href=//www.google.com/><span id=logo aria-label=Google></span></a>

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:   <p><b>400.</b> <ins>That\342\200\231s an error.</ins>

debug1: ssh_exchange_identification:   <p>Your client has issued a malformed or illegal request.  <ins>That\342\200\231s all we know.</ins>

ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

 

Here is another example on how to test remote host whether a certain service such as DNS (bind) or telnetd is enabled and listening on remote local network  IP with ssh

[root@pciserver: /home ]# ssh 192.168.1.200 -p 53 -v -oConnectTimeout=5
OpenSSH_7.9p1 Debian-10+deb10u2, OpenSSL 1.1.1g  21 Apr 2020
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.1.200 [192.168.1.200] port 53.
debug1: connect to address 192.168.1.200 port 53: Connection timed out
ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.200 port 53: Connection timed out

[root@server: /home ]# ssh 192.168.1.200 -p 23 -v -oConnectTimeout=5
OpenSSH_7.9p1 Debian-10+deb10u2, OpenSSL 1.1.1g  21 Apr 2020
debug1: Connecting to 192.168.1.200 [192.168.1.200] port 23.
debug1: connect to address 192.168.1.200 port 23: Connection timed out
ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.200 port 23: Connection timed out


But what if Linux server you have tow work on is so paranoid that you even the ssh client is absent? Well you can use anything else that is capable of doing a connectivity to remote port such as wget or curl. Some web servers or application servers usually have wget or curl as it is integral part for some local shell scripts doing various operation needed for proper services functioning or simply to test locally a local or remote listener services, if that's the case we can use curl to connect and get output of a remote service simulating a normal telnet connection like this:

host:~# curl -vv 'telnet://remote-server-host5:22'
* About to connect() to remote-server-host5 port 22 (#0)
*   Trying 10.52.67.21… connected
* Connected to aflpvz625 (10.52.67.21) port 22 (#0)
SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_5.3

Now lets test whether we can connect remotely to a local net remote IP's Qmail mail server with curls telnet simulation mode:

host:~#  curl -vv 'telnet://192.168.0.200:25'
* Expire in 0 ms for 6 (transfer 0x56066e5ab900)
*   Trying 192.168.0.200…
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Expire in 200 ms for 4 (transfer 0x56066e5ab900)
* Connected to 192.168.0.200 (192.168.0.200) port 25 (#0)
220 This is Mail Pc-Freak.NET ESMTP

Fine it works, lets now test whether a remote server who has MySQL listener service on standard MySQL port TCP 3306 is reachable with curl

host:~#  curl -vv 'telnet://192.168.0.200:3306'
* Expire in 0 ms for 6 (transfer 0x5601fafae900)
*   Trying 192.168.0.200…
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Expire in 200 ms for 4 (transfer 0x5601fafae900)
* Connected to 192.168.0.200 (192.168.0.200) port 3306 (#0)
Warning: Binary output can mess up your terminal. Use "–output -" to tell
Warning: curl to output it to your terminal anyway, or consider "–output
Warning: <FILE>" to save to a file.
* Failed writing body (0 != 107)
* Closing connection 0
root@pcfreak:/var/www/images#  curl -vv 'telnet://192.168.0.200:3306'
* Expire in 0 ms for 6 (transfer 0x5598ad008900)
*   Trying 192.168.0.200…
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Expire in 200 ms for 4 (transfer 0x5598ad008900)
* Connected to 192.168.0.200 (192.168.0.200) port 3306 (#0)
Warning: Binary output can mess up your terminal. Use "–output -" to tell
Warning: curl to output it to your terminal anyway, or consider "–output
Warning: <FILE>" to save to a file.
* Failed writing body (0 != 107)
* Closing connection 0

As you can see the remote connection is returning binary data which is unknown to a standard telnet terminal thus to get the output received we need to pass curl suggested arguments.

host:~#  curl -vv 'telnet://192.168.0.200:3306' –output –
* Expire in 0 ms for 6 (transfer 0x55b205c02900)
*   Trying 192.168.0.200…
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Expire in 200 ms for 4 (transfer 0x55b205c02900)
* Connected to 192.168.0.200 (192.168.0.200) port 3306 (#0)
g


The curl trick used to troubleshoot remote port to remote host from a Windows OS host which does not have telnet installed by default but have curl instead.

Also When troubleshooting vSphere Replication, it is often necessary to troubleshoot port connectivity as common Windows utilities are not available.
As Curl is available in the VMware vCenter Server Appliance command line interface.

On servers where curl is not there but you have wget is installed you can use it also to test a remote port

 

# wget -vv -O /dev/null http://google.com:554 –timeout=5
–2020-12-30 16:54:22–  http://google.com:554/
Resolving google.com (google.com)… 172.217.169.206, 2a00:1450:4017:80b::200e
Connecting to google.com (google.com)|172.217.169.206|:554… failed: Connection timed out.
Connecting to google.com (google.com)|2a00:1450:4017:80b::200e|:554… failed: Cannot assign requested address.
Retrying.

–2020-12-30 16:54:28–  (try: 2)  http://google.com:554/
Connecting to google.com (google.com)|172.217.169.206|:554… ^C

As evident from output the port 554 is filtered in google which is pretty normal.

If curl or wget is not there either as a final alternative you can either install some perl, ruby, python or bash script etc. that can opens a remote socket to the remote IP.

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