Archive for the ‘Everyday Life’ Category

How to log multiple haproxy server instance processes on single server in seperate files with rsyslog filters

Monday, February 3rd, 2025

haproxy-log-frontend-backend-and-transferred-connections-in-separate-log-files-on-linux-server-logo

Lets say you want to have 2 separates instances of haproxy and log the output to separate files, how this can be achived?

In this article, i'll tell in few easy steps how to enable multiple haproxy server instances created on the same Linux server / VPS or docker container to run and log its served content in separate log files without using separate file logging handlers "local"s.
The task might be helpful for people who are involved with DevOps and has to route separate proxy traffic on same linux machine.
 

Lets say you have the following haproxy process instances running with separate haproxy configs:
 

1. haproxy
2. haproxy_worker2
3. haproxy_worker3

 

List of processes on the Linux host would looks like that.

[root@linux-server rsyslog.d]# ps -ef|grep -i hap
root     1151275 1147138  0 11:58 pts/2    00:00:00 grep –color=auto -i hap
root     1835200       1  0 Jan30 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/haproxy -Ws -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg -p /run/haproxy.pid
haproxy  1835203 1835200  0 Jan30 ?        00:10:41 /usr/sbin/haproxy -Ws -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg -p /run/haproxy.pid
root     1835216       1  0 Jan30 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/haproxy_worker2 -Ws -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy_worker2.cfg -p /run/haproxy_worker2.pid
haproxy  1835219 1835216  0 Jan30 ?        00:02:46 /usr/sbin/haproxy_worker2 -Ws -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy_worker2.cfg -p /run/haproxy_worker2.pid
root     1835216       1  0 Jan30 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/haproxy_worker3 -Ws -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy_worker3.cfg -p /run/haproxy_worker3.pid
haproxy  1835219 1835216  0 Jan30 ?        00:02:46 /usr/sbin/haproxy_worker3 -Ws -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy_worker3.cfg -p /run/haproxy_worker3.pid

Question is how to log the 3 haproxies passed through configured connection IP and frontend / backend outputs to separate files

 /var/log/haproxy.log , /var/log/haproxy_worker2.log and /var/log/haproxy_worker3.log


To achieve the task, you will need to set-up 3 rsyslog config files name it according to your preferences and make sure no other rsyslog
file with haproxy related configuration does not mess up with the configs (e.g. is not having a config start number NUMBER_file.conf prior to the below created files.

Then create lets say 49_haproxy.conf and 50_haproxy_worker2.conf and 51_haproxy_worker3.conf

[root@linux-server rsyslog.d]# cat 48_haproxy.conf
#$ModLoad imudp
$UDPServerAddress 127.0.0.1
$UDPServerRun 514
#2022/02/02: HAProxy logs to local6, save the messages
# Template to include only the timestamp in HAProxy logs
template(name="HaproxyTimestampOnly" type="string" string="%timegenerated% %msg:::drop-last-lf%\n")
local6.*                /var/log/haproxy.log;HaproxyTimestampOnly
# Apply the template to HAProxy prod port mapping logs
#if $programname startswith 'haproxy[' then /var/log/haproxy.log;HaproxyTimestampOnly
& stop

[root@linux-server rsyslog.d]# cat 50_haproxy_worker2.conf
$ModLoad imudp
$UDPServerAddress 127.0.0.1
$UDPServerRun 514
# Template to include only the timestamp in HAProxy logs
template(name="HaproxyTimestampOnly" type="string" string="%timegenerated% %msg:::drop-last-lf%\n")

# Apply the template to HAProxy prod port mapping logs
if $programname startswith 'haproxy_worker2' then /var/log/haproxy_worker2.log;HaproxyTimestampOnly

 

[root@linux-server rsyslog.d]# cat 51_haproxy_worker3.conf
$ModLoad imudp
$UDPServerAddress 127.0.0.1
$UDPServerRun 514
# Template to include only the timestamp in HAProxy logs
template(name="HaproxyTimestampOnly" type="string" string="%timegenerated% %msg:::drop-last-lf%\n")

# Apply the template to HAProxy prod port mapping logs
if $programname startswith 'haproxy_worker3' then /var/log/haproxy_worker3.log;HaproxyTimestampOnly

Those rsyslog configs permissions has to be as follows:

[root@linux-server home]# ls -al /etc/rsyslog.d/48_haproxy.conf
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 488 Jan 30 12:44 /etc/rsyslog.d/48_haproxy.conf
[root@linux-server home]# ls -al /etc/rsyslog.d/50_haproxy_worker2.conf
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 379 Jan 30 12:45 /etc/rsyslog.d/50_haproxy_worker2.conf
[root@linux-server home]# ls -al /etc/rsyslog.d/51_haproxy_worker2.conf
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 379 Jan 30 12:45 /etc/rsyslog.d/51_haproxy_worker2.conf

 

The permissions for files to log the haproxy has to be as so:

[root@linux-server home]# ls -al /var/log/haproxy.log
-rw-r—– 1 haproxy haproxy 5014349 Feb  3 12:11 /var/log/haproxy.log
[root@linux-server home]# ls -al /var/log/haproxy_worker2.log
-rw-r—– 1 root root 728139 Feb  3 12:11 /var/log/haproxy_worker2.log
[root@linux-server home]# ls -al /var/log/haproxy_worker3.log
-rw-r—– 1 root root 728139 Feb  3 12:11 /var/log/haproxy_worker3.log

To make the changes take affect restart consequentially rsyslog first and then the 3 haproxy instances:

[root@linux-server home]# systemctl restart rsyslog
[root@linux-server home]# systemctl restart haproxy
[root@linux-server home]# systemctl restart haproxy2
[root@linux-server home]# systemctl restart haproxy3

Go on and check the logs that everything comes in from the haproxys running the same server into the separate files:

[root@linux-server home]# tail -f /var/log/haproxy.log /var/log/haproxy_worker2.log /var/log/haproxy_worker3.log

Hope this has helped someone out there looking to solve on how to log multiple haproxy instances on the same servers into separate files.

That's all folks. Enjoy!

Saint Barbara of Bulgarian Origin, Spring that came by her prayer situated in a Bulgarian village Eleshnica

Wednesday, December 4th, 2024

A sensational legend, prooved by modern Theologist to be a fact is the famous Great Martyr Barbara (Varvara as known in Slavonic realm) is of Bulgarian origin and her martyrdom has occured in country territory of contemporary Bulgaria.

Saint_Barbara-tower-orthodox-christian-icon

Saint Barbara and her famous Tower where her father kept her imprisoned

From very ancient times Saint Barbara is highly venerated in both Eastern Church and Western Church. The Barbara is a common baby name till this very date, there are countless hospis and hospitals, and institutions all arount the world in her name. Her Living has been an inspiration for the civillized world for many centuries, she is
After the Church Schism in 1054, when Roman-Catholics seperated from the Church and the Pope started to claim rulership over the whole church heresy and many other erronous, believe slowly the great veneration for Saint Barbara, started to deteriorate especially in the early 20th century in Pan-Roman Calendar in the 1969 revision after the Second Vatican assembly although she remains on the list of saints of the Catholic Church, her veneration in Catholicism fade away with claims, there is not enough historical data to proove the living of the saint is not just a pious legend.

Saint Baraba is well known for being the protector of young Children and all people who are in danger of sudden and unexpected death.
Saint Barbara feast day is always celebrated on 4th of December.


For that reason, the representatives of the most risky professions like:
miners, gunners, firefighters, sappers, pyrotechnicians – celebrate December 4, when it is the feast of the Great Martyr, all over the world.

The personality of the saint is shrouded in mystery. Her appearance on the historical scene came too late, nearly five centuries after her martyrdom.
That is why it is not surprising that in our country a village keeps an ancient early Christian legend about the saint.

вяра - ВЯРА: Извор на Св. Варвара лекува край Елешница

The old chapel place of St. Barbara and the rebuild chapel built on the site

Those legend tells us, she wandered the lands near Razlog, where she lived and where she was martyrdom.
There on those martyrdom place is built a chapel in honor of the saint and a miraculous spring called by local citizens for ages "the Myrrh".
It is believed that whoever washes with the medicinal water in it can be cured of any disease.

According to a fascinating study by famous Bulgarian Theologian researcher Doctor. Vencislav Karavalchev, St. Varvara was not born in Nicomedia (Bythinia) in the 3rd century, as her life dictates, but the actual location for that historical place is in the village of Eleshnitsa (near Blagoevgrad), which in ancient times was called Iliopolis (Ilioupoli). Her father Dioscorus was a high-ranking administrator. Because she was of fabulous beauty, out of jealousy he locked her in a tower. When he was away on state affairs,
Barbara (Varvara) converted to Christianity.

The martyr was sentenced to death by beheading by her father and the governor of the city. They cut off her head in front of the baths, and her blood turned into healing mineral water. Locals say that the water started gushing out where her blood soaked into the ground.

Today, the gushing spring has a temperature of 57-58 degrees. The Myrrh is lined with stones, and people come from all over the country and abroad for healing baths.

Prayer-in-from-of-Saint-Barbara-Chapel-entry-in-Eleshnica-Village-near-Blagoevgrad-Bulgaria-martyrdom-place
Church Akathist Service in honor of saint Barbara in her Chapen , who is honored in Eleshnica on the fourth day after Easter.

It is assumed that there was a pagan sanctuary near the healing spring, which later grew into a Christian shrine. It can be seen near the built chapel. The entire area has long been known by the name of St. Barbara. Large stones can be seen above, piled up like a herd.
It is assumed that these are the remains of the tower in which the saint stood, who paid with her head for the acceptance of the Christian faith.

It is believed that the legend that Varvara was born here started from a Russian monk from Mount Athos, who was treated in the spring near the village of Eleshnitsa. In 1856 in Moscow, the memories and notes of monk Parthenius were published in several volumes, who, as he himself wrote, did so at the request and with the blessing of Bishop Athanasius. In four voluminous volumes, Parthenius set forth what he saw and heard during his travels and residence on the Holy Mountain, as well as in Russia, Moldavia, Turkey, Jerusalem, and the Holy Land. The fourth volume of these memories contains the information that confirms the legend of St. Barbara living in Eleshnica.

Here is what the Russian Monk Parthenius writes back then:

"I will announce something else, which for us, Russians, is very important, but its credibility has not yet been proven, it has not been investigated, and therefore causes confusion in me. And this thing is the following: the Bulgarians affirm that the great martyr Varvara was more Bulgarian by birth, Slavic by language, from the Macedonian side. That's what Bulgarian monks told me in our Russian monastery on Mount Athos, not one and not two, but more than twenty people.And they received this tradition from ancient times and from their forefathers.

They say thus: In Macedonia there is a city of Nevrokop, six days' journey from the Athonian woods; and from the city of Nevrokop there is a village one day's journey, in Bulgarian called Leshnitsa (Eleshnitsa – b.r.), and in Greek – the former Iliopolis. In this village there is a bathhouse, next to the bathhouse flows a strong source of hot water, which has healing powers, and when it cools, it becomes sweet and delicious like milk. This bath is called Dioskorova, after the father of St. Barbara; and it would be better to say – banya sv. Varvara. On the day in which the memory of the saint is celebrated, a large number of people, Bulgarians, gather here, and a prayer is performed and a great celebration takes place, and they drink from the water and bathe there in the font. There is also a ruined tower in the same village; they say that St. lived there. Barbara and that the tower was built by her father'.

According to the official biography, these events took place in Nicomedia.
The belief says that God's retribution overtakes Varvara's father and the governor of the city – they are both struck by lightning.
The young woman was buried by the Christian Valentine, and her tomb became a source of miracles of faith. In the 6th century, the relics of Saint Barbara were transferred to Constantinople. In the 12th century they were moved to the Mikhailovsky Zlatoverkh Monastery by Svyatopolk II, and from 1930 rest in the Patriarchal Cathedral "St. Vladimir" in Kyiv. Fragments of the miraculous relics of the saint can be found in the Transfiguration Church in Sofia. In the Troyan monastery "Assumption", along with the miraculous icon "The Virgin of Troeruchitsa", relics of St. Varvara.

Saint-Barbara-depicted-on-United-States-Artillerymen-coins

The saint is of the Order of the United States State Artillerymen.

Protectors for Artillery man and Gunners

Every year on December 4, artillerymen in the armies of a number of Christian countries honor their patron – the holy great martyr Barbara. In the French Army, this day has been celebrated since 1671. during the reign of Louis XIV with the creation of the Regiment of Royal Fusiliers, the first commander of which was the King himself. In the West, the saint is called Barbara. In the US Army, this day is usually accompanied by an official military dinner with the solemn presentation of orders established in the name of St. Varvara. Orders can be awarded not only to military personnel, but also to civilians for services to the artillery corps. The saint was called upon to assist in accidents resulting from the explosion of the first samples of artillery guns. That is why, at the dawn of artillery, the ancient gunners, addressing their prayers to St. Varvara, they accepted her as their patron. The history of the cult of the saint goes back to the time when China invented gunpowder. As expected, the first cannons began to be produced soon. They made their way from Asia to Europe, and the fear of the new weapon proved just as sinister as the fear of the wrath of St. Varvara. The cannon killed suddenly and from a distance like the lightning that pierced the murderers of the Christian martyr. But there was something else. In the initial period of its development, fire artillery was very far from perfection. The first guns were made of iron. When fired, it was distorted in the body, and some of the elements of the projectiles were soldered to the channel of the cannon. A frequent phenomenon under these conditions was instead of firing the projectile, its spraying, which struck not the enemy, but its own soldiers. In such cases, the artillerymen looked for hope, protection and protection in such misfortunes from St. Barbara, patroness of lightning and thunder. Over time, the artillerymen had the feeling that they were always under the protection of the saint. Miners in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany celebrate the saint's day. Even in faraway Australia, miners honor her with an annual parade.
 

old-picture-of-traditional-Eleshnica-village-Assembly-on-saint-Barbara--martyrdom-place-near-Razlog-in-Eleshnica-village

Since ancient times, a feast assembly is held in the area of ​​St. Varvara, near Razlog (Razlozhko).

Cities and early Medicine tranquility Pills bear name in her honour

Barbiturates, one of the oldest sedatives group of medicines used in medical practice, are named after the saint known in the West as Barbara.
The story goes that in the distant 1864 the chemist Adolf von Bayer entered a tavern. He had just discovered a group of substances acting on the central nervous system in a wide range from sedative to anesthetic.
An artilleryman celebrated his holiday there. In his honor (knowing saint Barbara is protector of artillerists), for providence reason the chemist decided to named his discovery after the saint.

Many cities and temples all over the world bear her name. Today, part of the California coast, now occupied by the city of Santa Barbara, is named after the saint. It was named in 1602 after the sea explorer Sebastian Vizcaino survived a storm at sea just before her feast day. Other Spanish and Portuguese settlements named Santa Barbara were established in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Venezuela, and the Philippines.

Source of Research prooving Saint Barbara of (Bulgarian origin):

St. Barbara of Iliopol – following the trail of a legend (Research in Bulgarian by Ventzislav Karavylchev)

How to split large files in Windows via split command line and File Archive GUI tool easily

Tuesday, October 22nd, 2024

Moving around a very large files especially Virtualbox Virtual Machines or other VM formats between Windows host and OneDrive might be a problem due to either Azure Cloud configured limitations, or other reasons that your company Domain Administrator has configured, thus if you have to migrate your old Hardware Laptop PC Windows 10 to a newer faster better Harware / Better Performance Notebook Computer with Windows 11 and you still want to keep and move your old large files in this short and trivial article, will explain how.

The topic is easily and most of novice sysadmins should have already be faced to bump into something like this but anyways i found useful to mention about Git for Windows, as it is really useful too thus wrote this small article.

The moved huge files, in my case an experimental Virtual Machines Images which I needed to somehow migrate on the new Freshly installed Windows laptop, the Large files were 40 / 80 etc. Gigabytes or whatever large amount of files from your PC to the Cloud Onedrive and of course the most straight forward thing i tried was to simply add the file for inclusion into the Onedrive storage (via OneDrive tool setup interface), however this file, failed due to OneDrive Cloud file format security limitations or Antivirus solutions configured to filter out the large file copying or even a prohibition to be able to include any kind of Virtual Machines ISOs straight into the cloud.

With this big files comes the question:

How to copy the Virtual Machines from your Old Hardware Laptop to the Cloud (without being able to use an external SSD Hard Drive or a USB SSD Flash drive, due to Domain policy configured for your windows to be unable to copy to externally connected Drive but only to read from such.) ?
 

Here are few sample approaches to do it both from command line (useful if you have to repeat the process or script it and deploy to multiple hosts) or for single hosts via an Archiver tool:

 

1. Using split command Git for Windows (Bash) MINGW64 shell 

Download Git for Windows – https://git-scm.com/download install it and you will get the MINGW64 bash for Windows executable.

Run it either invoke bash command from command line or trigger Windows Run command prompt (Windows button + R) and type full path to executable
 

C:\Program Files\Git\git-bash.exe


Git-for-Windows-bash-for-windows-MINGW64-windows-11-screenshot

Use the integrated program split and to cut it into pieces use:

 

# split MyVeryLargeFileVM.vdi -b 800m


To split the .VDI virtualbox file to lets say 5 Gigabite pieces:

# split MyVeryLargeFile.vdi -b 5g

The output files will be named pieces will be named as in a normal UNIX / GNU split command in the format and each piece of 5GB will be named like:

xaa
xab
xac
xad

If you want to get a more meaningful name for the spilitted files you can set a generated split file prefix with suffixes to be 5 digits long:

# split MyVeryLargeFile.vdi MyVeryLargeFileVM-parts_ -b 5g -d -a 5

  • the -d flag for using numerical suffixes (instead of default aa, ab, ac, etc…),
  • and the option -a 5 to tell it I want the suffixes to be 5 digits long:

2. Split large files by Archiving them with Winrar (ShareWare) tool

If you have already Winrar installed and you don't want to bother with too much typing from the command line, You can use good old WinRAR as a file splitter/joiner as well.

To split a file into smaller files, select "Store" as the compression method and enter the desired value (bytes) into "Split to volumes" box.
This way you can have split files named as filename.part1.rar, filename.part2.rar, etc.

WinRAR_cut-split-large-files-into-pieces-screenshot-Windows

3. Split files with 7-Zip (FreeWare)

Assuming you have the 7-Zip installed on the PC, you can do the archiving of the Big file to a smaller pieces one, you can create the splitted file from 7Zip interfaces menus:

7zip-file-split-files-into-multiple-pieces-windows-screenshot

Or directly cut the single file into multiple volumes, directly from Windows Explorer by Selecting the file and using fall down menus :
7zip-creation-of-multiple-parts-file-from-single-one-screenshot-Windows

7-zip-split-huge-files-to-lower-parts-set-volume-size

Sum it up what learned ? 

What we learned is how to cut large files into multiple single consequential ones for easy copy between Network sides, via both Git 4 Windows and manual copy paste of parted multiple files to OneDrive / DropBox / pCloud or Google Drive.
There is a plenty of other approaches to take as there is also file GUI tools, besides using GNU Win / Gnu Tools for Windows or Cygwin / Gsplit GUI tool  or some kind of the many Archiver toolsavailable for Windows, another option to split the large files is to use a bunch of PowerShell and Batch scripts written that can help you do the file split for both binaries files or Text files. but i'll stop here as I believe that is pretty much enough for most basic needs.

 

Console Video edit Rotate, Merge, Scale, Trim add background music to Video files on Linux and UNIX with ffmpeg

Tuesday, June 18th, 2024

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/linux-video-edit-few-basic-tricks-edit-cut-combine-put-background-music-to-video-on-like-os-unix.png

GNU / Linux and other Free as in Beer OS-es such FreeBSD and OpenBSD as well as other UNIX variants are definitely not the best platform to do Video edit, as the best one is obviosuly MAC OS-es for being a veteran in the field of graphic edit for a long time but over the time its capabilities are slowly but surely evolving. 
However Linux users can also do the basic video edit stuff quite easily with ffmpeg and few other tools.
 The general things one faces when snapshotting videos is the video might be turned around or in the wrong angle and you want it to rorate, or you have two three or more video files and you would like to merge the ones in one or you would like to Trim a period in the beginning of a Video or Trim some time you don't need out of the video at the end end, merge multiple MP3 files into single recording or including a background music to a video.

Doing such a things has a lot of possibilities with tools such as ffmpeg, imagemagick and mencoder and it is mostly useful if you're a console guy or you need to write a program that does video rorate or video merge in PHP / Perl / Python etc.
 

1. Rotating Videos in Linux

Rotate a Video in 90 degrees

Rotating a video assuming that you have the ffmpeg tool installed is as easy as:

# ffmpeg -i in-video-file.mov -vf "transpose=1" out-video-file.mov

Supported value arguments for ffmpeg ranspose option
0 = 90CounterCLockwise and Vertical Flip (default)
1 = 90Clockwise
2 = 90CounterClockwise
3 = 90Clockwise and Vertical Flip


2. Flip the video clip Vertically

# ffmpeg -i out.mov -vf "vflip" out2.avi


If you don't have ffmpeg, just install it with apt or yum:

On Debian 

# apt install –yes fmpeg


On Redhat based distros

# yum install -y ffmpeg

ffmpeg is easily installed by bsd ports with the package manager for example on FreeBSD it is up to :

# pkg install ffmpeg


3. Merge (Concatenating) Videos with ffmpeg / mencoder / avimerge on Linux

Go to the directory containing all the videos you would like to merge and merge them with belowsimple one liner:

# ffmpeg -f concat -i \
<(for f in $PWD/*.avi;do echo "file '$f'";done) \
-c copy output.avi


To merge multiple set of lets say ( sequential ) Video files on Linux with mencoder and produce a single video file:

# mencoder -oac copy -ovc copy 1.AVI 2.AVI 3.AVI 4.AVI -o Single-common-out-video.avi

mencoder is available also by default on most distros if not install it with:

On Deb based Linuz:

# apt install mencoder –yes

On Fedora / CentOS … rpm based:

# yum install -y mencoder

The old and now obsolete transcode audio / video converter could also be used:

 # avimerge -i file-input1.avi file-input2.avi -o output-file.avi


4. Scaling a video to a concrete resolution

It might happen to you that some video files could not be concatenated with other video file because its resolution is smaller (or different) than the recorded material,
to come around this you need to scale it.

# Scale video resolution to 1920×1080 pixels

# ffmpeg -i input-video.mp4 -vf scale=1920:1080 output-video.mp4


5. Trimming the beginning of a Video with ffmpeg

A recording will often contain parts in the beginning that you don't need and have to beto be removed from the video stream:

# Remove the first three seconds (Common scenario)

# ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 3 -c copy output.mp4


6. Trimming the end of MP4 video with ffmpeg

The same is true for the end of a video materials often:

# Remove everything after 5 minutes and 32 seconds

#ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -t 00:05:32 -c copy output.mp4

Both, -ss and -t, can also be combined into one command.


7. Adding Background Music to a Video with ffmpeg

To add a concrete background music to a video stream, track the volume had to be lowered first:


7.1 Reduce the volume MP3 music file by 50% with ffmpeg

# ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -filter:a "volume=0.5" output.mp3


7.2 Combine multiple audio tracks into one single recording stream

# Concatenate multiple mp3 voice files into one
# ffmpeg -i "concat:input-song1.mp3|input-song2.mp3|input-song3.mp3" -c copy output-concatenated-single-song.mp3

One thing to consider is that once you want to add a background music stream to a video stream, both the video and the song has to be of the same length, otherwise attempts to merge the background audio track with fail
 due to the length of the audio track not matching the length of the video.
This can be resolved by generating a silent audio track and concatenating it to the end of the audio track to make the video and music match:

# Generate 33 seconds of silence
# ffmpeg -f lavfi -i anullsrc=channel_layout=5.1:sample_rate=48000 -t 33 output.mp3


Finally, to merge the audio track into the video track:

# Merge video with existing audio track and another audio track

# ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i input.mp3 -filter_complex "[0:a][1:a]amerge=inputs=2[a]" -map 0:v


Sum it up what learned

In this article was shown how to convert multiple Videos into a single one, scaling a video to a graphics resolution, trip a video at the beginning and at the end, add background movie tracks as a sound on Linux.
As you can imagine this stuff is quite useful and used by many, many websites online to do a different Video and sound editing included in a millions of Frontend / Backend webscritt Scripts around silently doing its stuff.
There is much more to be done with this tools, but for a starter of a video edit newbies it should on Linux and enthusiasts to manage own managed small private clouds, hope this stuff will be useful for a introductionary.

Cheers ! 🙂 

Our baby Ekaterina becomes 6 months on 17 of May, 5 days after our boy Dimitar become 4 years. Sum it up my year 2023 experience, lessons learned.

Friday, May 17th, 2024

Our baby Ekaterina becomes 6 months on 17 of May, 5 days after our boy Dimitar become 4 years. Sum it up my year 2023 lessons learned.

This article is a bit late in time but I started writing it quite a long time ago in the beginning of 2024.
But as my various duties as a husband, employee, a volunteer in the Church and computer hobbyist as well as the attempts to still keep up some normality with all the stressful kind of wife that is in the large cities as Sofia.
I could post it just today and what has reminded me is simply our daughter Ekaterina has a half birthday today.
Below I'll pinpoint some important things that happened through the year, starting with a harsh and gloomy Intro 

A bit of Overview, things globally seem to be worsening

Life is ticking fast. Life is more boring than thought. Finding a cell people to hang on around is a difficult and almost impossible task. Real People are becoming less and less. Consumerism is already the only thing that matters for most people.

Love between people (unconditional love) is almost gone. Money are the ones dictating what people should do. No real communities anymore exists (COVID-19) has messed up the heads of people.
Christianity is severily partitioned as schisms are seen to plague even the True Christian faith of Eastern Orthodoxy, a hidden persecution against the true pastors is ongoing in many orthodox Churches. War in Ukraine a total disaster for everyone. Politicians as usual using Church to force their own agenda lead by territory and monetary interests. There is a brutal onging economic crisis turmouling the world noone speaks seriosly about. The usual work duties requirements are increasing but sallary payments decreasins.Life expenses are gradually raising as the World Economic Crisis is firing.

People who has suffered COVID numerous times has certainly bad effects on health, many people who have survived COVID and the rest of numerous viruses that has hit us over the past had worsened vision and hearing.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) starts to kicks and puts even more mess in the already messy world especially as it is some kind of another marketing baloon similar to the WWW Domains business baloon. The AI such as ChatGPT, WormGPT, Google Bard said to outsmart our professions (though the facts are still not encouraging enough as the Hype is great, plus the results with collaboration with AI seems to not be fact proof enough yet). The Rapid evolution of technologies has put many moral dilemas and life is becoming harder to bear as the stress of using techonlogies and the higher expectations by humans and their constant requirement to collaborate with technologies (Smart Phone, Tablets Computers, ATMs, Terminals, Cars, Banks, Cards, Virtual currencies and complex systems which claim to simplify life of man makes the human body more fragile sick.

The lack of good and ecologically brew food is also a great factor, as most people who live in large cities eats mostly industrial quality food (and there is no real way to find out whether a food is really ecological even if it is sold as such). In Todays more and more tech inter connected world between People noone can live a normal private life (as often our datas shared on line are leaked to hacker groups after a resource or system is hacked), that poses a number of other challenages and dangers.
Privacy has also become almost impossible task, as we don't have a real or full knowledge on how much of our data seen or processed on our phones is staying at our side and how much shared with Security agencies such as CIA, Musad and KGB etc.

Everything is steering us Camares, Phones, Photos, Social Networks and loneliness is often felt so real. 
Most people living in economic slavery, even though doesn't really even recognize the cell they live in due to the smartphones and many virtual false options given. Complexity of life is increasing as one should have too much skills to manage even simple tasks. Lack of people to fill in open gaps about professions and work, same time generally not too much work capacity or willingness to do people is also a great of issue.

The world is more and more starting to look like it is described in anti-utopias books like Brave new World, 1984, Animal Farm.

Even though this hardships and birth pains, that are typically described by Saint Evangelist John in the Book of Reveleation,


The Birth of Ekaterina on 17th November 2023 another hope for the World


With every new kid coming to this earth it is a God blessing for everyone and another oportunity for individuals to grow and raise another meaningful person, that might make the world a little bit of a better place. Even though today is scary to have a kid because of the harsh situation, it is better to stay helpful for the best and share the joy to have second kid born.

i'm happy for God blessed me with second child a baby Ekaterina born on 17 of November 2023.

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/Snimka_izpisvane_Ekaterina-S_Vasko-Kolev-i-Mitko-Ivanov.jpg
Day of Discharge of the Sheinovo Child Birth Hospital, Sofia with Little Baby Ekaterina

During birth Baby Ekaterina was born around 3300 gr of weight, thanksfully the birth of wife was a natural birth. But sadly I had to in parallel take care about the other kid Dimitar, (since he did not attend the Kindergarden for some time), Clean up the house and prepare everything for the acceptance at home of new baby, and buy threats to treat multitude of people who are close and nearby. I'm thankful to Vasil Kolev and Mitko for attending the Official hospital Discharge.

Sheinovo-s-Vasko-Ekaterina-Dimi-i-Svetlana

Dimi-s-Ekaterina

Below is another picture of the now grown baby Ekaterina 4 months later for a one day trip to Balchik (sea resort) near my home city Dobrich

Ekaterina-na-4-Meseca
 

Exactly today on 17th of May 2024 on the feast day of Saint Nicolas (New Martyr of Sofia)  and the feast of Gathering of Bataks New Martyrs (we have been in the Batak basilica of the martyrdom, during Svetlana was pregnant with the baby).  Ekaterina becomes exactly 6 months she is a very lively baby in the moment she had some temporature and on a baby antibiotics but her overall look and development looks very good thankfully !

During this year personally review the 2023, Helped as Alter server (ipodeacon) in the Holy Liturgies in Saint George (Dyrvenica) https://www.svgeorgi.com as a ipodeacon, on many services, together with Archimandrite Father Flavian.
Summery time i was able to Visited many monasteries nearby

Sofia with Father Flavian. Just to name a few of the multitude of monasteries visited, The 7 Thrones, Praveshki Monastery Saint Teodor Tiron, Seslavski Monastery near Sofia, Saint Petka (near Bankia), Etropolski Monastery, Rilski Monastery, Troyan Monastery, German Monastery, Kremikovski monastery, Glozhenski monastery, Tetevensky monastery Saint Ilija Travelled to Teteven and many others.
Just for reference the monasteries and holy places one could visit in Bulgaria are thousands and this makes the country quite interesting to travel around. The high spirituality which the nation had in the past has left a lot of spiritual inheritance for us. Which however nowadays, we do not value and protect …

Has visited multiple times, monastery of Saint Marina situated near village of Krumovo in between Dobrich and Varna. Also visited Ahtopol (i won't say i'm too impressed – maybe i was in the wrong season and with a pregnant woman) and Tsarevo, Pomorie and Nessebar (for the Feast of Dormition of Holy Theotokos).

To speak the truth has been a heavy and hard year a lot of spiritual sorrow, sicknesses and lack of direction, internal family problems between me wife, my nerves totally strained and I have no clear direction as eyes sems to be deteriorating and I often though about leaving it all behind and going to a monastery. Quite disappointed from the realities I've seen. Bulgaria is very beautiful country but everything seemed too messed … 

Also i've had too many temptations, drived a lot our old minivan KIA Carens 2006, which helped me to significantly increase my car driving habits, and hopefully now I become a better driver .
Middle of May had to pay car taxes and expenses in SDI, paid for standard Vignette starting from June as prior year.

Tried to read my prayers daily Morning and Evening prayers + (rule), that turned to be much harder than thought as it takes up to 30 minutes morning and 1 hour evening times (with some of the additional prayers I try to keep).
Also had been blessed to be able to receive the Holy Communion many, many, many times.

Tried to bring the Kid Dimitar regularly on a Church services in Holy Trinity Church (the Slatina (an ex-village) and Sofia district main temple), situated 10 minutes from Svetlostruy where we live currently, as well as bring him to Dyrvenica regulary, and thanksfully he also took part in Christ misteries for many, many times throughout the year.

Spend and I have to say perhaps lost a lot of time hanging with Alexander (The singer), drinking beers – that was a bad idea but as this helped me a bit to get away my focus from sad stuff and cheer me up, it had a positive effect as well. Health, seems to be critical, especially with the high stresses I experienced before and near birth of our daughter Ekaterina. I was also heavily involved in taking care for our kid who is now 3.8 years next year 12 of May to become 4 years. 

Also I sung a lot on services as a main singer mainly Evening services as often due to the lack of people to sing the service there is necessity to sing services, sing also a few times a Holy Liturgy and as usual sung every Monday and Friday for the Sanctification of Waters and on a Akathist prayer to the Holy Theotokos (Mother of God). Lately don't have enough time to read too much books.
My Work computer notebook (failed to apply) Windows Updates shipped by WL and I've been sent a new laptop which came early 2024. Exchanging work computer due to failing update is funny and absurd but I survived this one too …
In the begining of 2024, our beloved colleague Dimitar Paskalev has left our team in Worldline and that also one of the hardships, we have to bear an extra amount of things to do when he is gone as he is an excellent system administrator, programmer and business consultant consultant.

People's knowledge thought increasing makes things hard to be fixed more and more. As finding a solution becomes more expensive or sometimes impossible to resolve software issues on a hardware that cannot be tracked it is way easier to simply exchange the hardware. Same is true nowadays for both computers, cars and pretty much everything. If it breaks don't fix it but exchange it with a new, that seems to be valid more and more.

This is product of hardcore consumerism society, we humanity turned out and this is going to destroy the planet obsiously but seems noone really cares, even with the International Summits for reduce of Emitions etc., i'm pretty convinced from what I see is done that is just a pure marketing for countries as well as simple populism.
 Ecology is something people has to seriously think about though, because the life style with driving cars everything as we did and hyper consumption is destructional for both people, environment (nature), animals, this is pretty clear observing how the natural environments gets destroed more and more due to conustruction works and industrial waste etc.

The news read about Ukraine and Israel has been mostly troubling and together with the techonlogization and degradation of Society has convinced me the hope for this world is almost gone. Doesn't look like there is any "Road Ahead" as some "visionaries" are foreseeing (i'm talking about the insane book of Bill Gates, called the "Road Ahead", which is picturing a great future with a lot of developments due to technology (what a blatant non-sense). It seems what we observe is starting to become quite opposite to Bill Gates, Ilon Musk and the rest of "visionaire" idols of the world visions as all is falling apart more and more and unresolvable issues are much more.


The technological enslavement of people has been continuing, though it has been presenting as this is making people much more free and happy, it is exactly the opposite, prople become more and more dependent on technology and on the road to become a subordinates of technology than controillers.
 Most young people are suffering completely of addictions to technology, has very low literacy and I'm noticing most of teenagers couldn't properly express themselves, quite sadding. A lot of young people seeing the sad reality are turning to sub-culture, just like it was in the end of 1990s but the difference is now, people are separated each one hanging in his tech device and community across the common problem of isolation of the individual, that was sharing and communing with others is not really too much possible in the 21 century.

Many good peoples in the Church has passed away, I've suffered a lot during the summer from the heat, hardly beated. After the COVID seems to have passed through a long COVID and some depressions, which I don''t know whether managed to deal with even now, the Church has helped a lot to keep on track as feelings were overwhelming, most likely due to the nightmare war between orthodox Russia and Ukraine (remember The Gospel says it God''s punishment becomes from his own people). We Bulgarians are at mind wars, as some people take Russia's' positions and others Ukraine (Pro and Anti-Russian attitudes) prevail, everywhere. The same is I guess among all ex-USSR countries The Patriarch Neofit become quite sick. In terms of Work the first part of Year up to end of Summer has been more heavy, but mainly stress at work is not from work complexity but the messiness in the Company Worldline.
In end of Autumn passed all required company trainings. Tried also to blog as regularly as I could but blogging is becoming harder and harder task, as my eyes degrades. Tried to play some Arcades as that has been funny for me but nowadays don't have too much of a free time to play on the handheld consoles. Life in Sofia is quite heavy as distances are putting its toll ((though there is pretty much everyhing) the amount of stress is destructionary for the personality.

I did not have much of achievements this year at work but I guess with years, the energy of person is reducing (just like the motivation due to the messy stuff that is unvailing in the world). With age seems one can do less and less except if he is not some kind of mania mode.
Also the lack of recognition for what is done at work and the type of Corporate stuff that is mostly like a (Social) Socialist company, makes one to be not much motivated to complete much, the other issue is it seems times ticks too fast (just as Christ says in the Gospel because of lawfulness of people, time will be shortened this prophecy seems to be fulfilling and for those who can see it they can see how time reduces and one can do much less than he could some years ago).  Days are flying quickly. There are too many experienes all the time and due to information overburn, the mind becomes very unfocused.
Having any even simple kind of focus becomes a luxury nowadays, as we''re bombarded from everywhere with false preaches of advertisement and people's idea and stereotypes of the world.

I remeber about my youth and how simple we lived with my grand parents, and how much happiness was in that and compare to noaways over-stressed and complex world and often, miss that old times (that even though) physically harsh has been much more graceful than today.

In terms of technology I have the desire to go out of the Technological slavery but for that you need to have a co-minded person ( wife), which agrees to live a more simple wife, which i don't have in the moment.

Why I saw technological slavery, well it is what it is, in the past technology was really making the life of one easier and even today, many technologies are doing so. However being online 10 to 12 hours a day is no longer a conforting, especially if about 6 to 8 hours of your midful time is to be hired at work and stay on a chair in front of the computer and to do complex mind stuff, that after 10-15 to 20 years, destroys the psyche and the body .

Being intelligent is also a big problem in the 21 century as you see much more of the usual people and you see most interactions between people are simply manipulative and dictated by the desire to attain something.
The communication between most people is based on "receive" as much as you could and give out as little as possible and on the principle of always do gain in everything.  People do things to receive and not to give including me … that is totally the opposite of the teaching of Christ who says "It is more blessed to give, than to take".

About entertainment for the year was mostly traveling and going for a Night dinners in Emilian with Angel, Alexander and gathering together with Vasil Kolev (A researcher in the Bulgarian Academy of Science BAN, specalist in the field of Frequencies and Signals) and a very good Christian and man who helped a lot together with Emilian and Angel.
Perhaps part of the entertainment was our after-work stuff we did with Dimitar Paskalev and Georgi Stoyanov which was more happening in beginning of 2023 and has deteoriated as I had a lot of personal issues and did not have enough time to do computer stuff together after work.

Silvia also helped me a lot with the kid, as I needed help, and suffered with informational and physical overload, perhaps that is common for those with kids.

As said we got born our second baby who my wife decided to name Ekatherina after Saint Ekatherina (St. Catherine of Alexandria), a good selection for name as saint Ekatherina is a great woman martyr saint I love much and that helped me in hardships many times.

Have to say, i am very sad that I don't see people to love each massively, this has to be endured but it is hard. Also I feel sad I can't do much my to change the world for better both by work and action and my weak prayers. 
Near end of year I had severe pain and left leg inflamation, after having a multtiude of health disturbances in parallel with the pregnancy of Svetlana. Also often i feel very disconnected from everything, perhaps I'm seeing much harsh reality than expected and being raised more or less in the spirit of idealism  it is really hard to accept the reality as it is. Also with the aging it is a common and well known fact that we become much less flexible as in the youth age past.
Thanks God the year has passed and in the new year 2024, I hope for the best as everyone but as the monks say Spiritual life is based on  the two columns of "Ora" and "Labora" = Work and Prayer, so the coming year depends heavily on my perseverance to do this two and of course follow God's main commandments love God with all my heart and all my being and love my neighbor as myself !

One very notable event to say is early in 2024 Metropolitan JOANIKIJ (Joanichius) of Sliven has passed to Christ aged 82 on 9 of January (The day on which passed my beloved grandather Marin passed away),  This year it turned 20 years since my beloved grandfather Marin has passed. He used to be a man of honor and goodness that was rare for the 20th century and he is among main persons for example to follow the good path of helping everyone and love everyone.

Let God have mercy on his soul and receive him in Heaven.The brother of Patriarch of Bulgaria Neofitos (The Proto-Psalt and director of the Cathedral Choire of Saint Alexander Nevsky Proto-Psalt Dimitar passed) as well as a lady called Violeta who was helping in Holy Trinity Church and suffering multiple diseases passed to Christ.

Patriarch-Neofit-of-Bulgaria-mourning-the-good-patriarch-of-the-Bulgarian-Church

Soon after our beloved Metropolitan of Sofia and Patriarch Neofit passed away to Christ as well followed by a very sad period of 40 days of moruning ,after his passing as he was the head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and has been a true monk, everyone in Bulgaria loved too much – see a biography short article about this great person and perhaps saint of new times here.

To close this article as it could be much, much more lenghtly I can only say.

Thanks God for the 2023 and Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us the Sinners for the upcoming 2024 !

Second Sunday of Great Lent Saint Gregory Palamas – Hesychasm as a mean of Theosis (Union of of God and Man through Deification) and the Orthodox Christian Teaching of God’s Energies

Monday, April 1st, 2024

Saint-Agios-Grigorios-Palamas-christian-orthodox-icon-Teacher-of-Hesechasm-and-Theosis-Lord-Jesus-Christ-have-mercy-on-me-the-sinner.

These week passed the Second Sunday of Lent, for one more year prat of Church Lent Calendar. This Pre-Easter Great Lent holiday marks one of the spiritually important stops along the way and our participation in the Calvary sufferings of our Divine Master, and above all in His glorious Resurrection, that is repeated throughout the 40 days of Great Lent.
In the Western Church in the Roman Catholic Christiandome
, Saint Gregory of Palama is little known as he is one of those typical Eastern Orthodox Saints that did not make fame in the West as the western christian, has departed from its ancient Christian teachings and put more importance on didactical thinking of the world (didactism) and scholastism and left away the importance of heart as part of the restoration of soul and unification with God in the completenes of work of attaining salvation and attendance of God's energy in the Eternal Soul, here and now throughout this temporary life. God's energies are not the same as God itself and Saint Gregory Palamas give a very in depth and complete hierarchical structure of different kind of energies that God used to built the world and the createres starting from creation of the Lights and Energies of the World, the Space, The Stars, Galaxies, The Sun, The Moon the Earth and the rest of the multitude of Pleiades that comtemporary astronomy knows to the tiniest plant and creater animal towards the crown of his creation the Man and Woman (Adam and Eve)..
The topic of teaching of Hesychasm is enormous and in this article, I'll be unable to give even a very brief of overview of it as Hesychasm. Hesychasm was a practice that perhaps started even in the Old Testament and practiced by the Ancient Prophets and continued first in the Holy Apostles, later by the Archibishops, Bishops, priest, deacons, monks, martyrs towards the last layman in the church. 
In short it is rooted in the Simple repeation of The Lord's Prayer "Lord Jesus Christ Son of the Blessed God have Mercy on me the Sinner!", again and again combined with a very specific breathing in and breathing out. The first part of the Prayer "Lord Jesus Christ Son of the Blessed God" is said during breathing in while the second one "have mercy on me the sinner" is said during breathing out, the inhailed air within trachea. This is continued as practice by the Prayer practicioner all and on throughout day and night with the blessing of an Spiritual Elder or a practicioner who has received the prayer from his teacher and the practice is to be done, only with a blessing of a experienced spiritual elder (staretz) and not to be done on by own will. Usually the prayer is being transferred from Elder to a Apprentice pupil, just like the (Son / Daughter) Kid receives his DNA from the parent, thus practicing it without the proper blessing too much might be dangerous and lead the practicioner in a very dangerous realm of proudness for thinking one being more enlightened than the rest (more superior) more knowledable (or more proud – that is a deadly sin we fight against), throughout our whole life as christians. 

Theosis is also a Topic that multitude of Books cannot describe as to be attained is a hard path through a combination of a practical knowledge about God and his laws and the Theoria (the intellectual attaindance of God's energies throgh prayer). The topic of Theosis is being exposed and discussed of tens of hundred thousand of various books and thus the simple path to attain it throgh constant repetition of Prayer by illuminating the Soul, instead of doing intellectual exercises as was thought in the west would be perhaps revolutionary for roman catholics and protestant western people.

But enought talk lets see shortly the biography of Saint Gregory Palamaes and why he is so important for Eastern Orthodox Christians, that the Church decided to have a special Sunday every year during the period of great Lent.

Second-Sunday-of-Great-Lent-Saint-Gregory-Palamas

When did the saint Saint Greagory of Palames lived?
 

Saint Gregory lived in the 14th century. This is also the time of the teaching of hesychasm, which we mainly associate with the personality of Sаint Gregory, but the truth is the tradition of hesychasm was an ancient tradition practiced even by apostles and every christian since the time of Christ through the centuries, traditioan that was often neglected by many through the centuries, just to be retold and shown again in the early mid centuries in 14 century.

St. Gregory was born in 1296 in a family of refugees from Asia Minor. The surname Palama indicates a noble ancestry, since at that time ordinary people had only names and nicknames. Having completed his education in Constantinople, Gregory Palamas had the reputation of a brilliant connoisseur (well knowing the phylosophy) of Aristotle.

Around 1315, he and his brother became monks on Athos. On Mount Athos, Gregory lived in various monasteries, until he finally settled in the hermitage of Saint Sava, which was attached to the Great Lavra of Saint Athanasius of Athos. Living for most of his time in this hermitage, Gregory attended the Lavra to participate in the common services and sacraments.[1]
 

Short Movie about the Cave of Saint Gregory Palama in (Beroea) Veria in Russian

Gregory later became Archbishop of Thessalonica. He died in 1359, and his memory is celebrated two times in the year in the Church calendar (as many of the saints) on November 14, as well as on today's second Sunday of Great Lent, that in 2024 falls on 30th of March.

Saint Gregory Palamas defends the position that, although unknowable in His essence, God is knowable through His external appearances, energies.

God's energies are the grace poured out by God upon His creation. Although not God in His essence, the divine energies are not something created either, "they flow eternally from the one essence of the Holy Trinity.".

The times in which Saint Gregory lived were very unrestful, the Byzantine empire has been attacked and big parts of it already conquered by the Ottoman Turks and before he before he became archibishopship of Thessaloniki has been captured by the invading turks and has lived as a captive.
He went through many hardships, lived as a hermit and wanted to live a life in total seclusion and isolation of the world, just like the ancient hermit saints, a life of continuous prayer through which he wanted to help the world and reunite himself and the world through himself with God the creator of all things.

Opponents of Saint Gregory and his teaching of Theosis were the Calabrian monk Barlaam and Gregory Akindin. According to them, the divine essence exists, its created consequences also exist, but there are no divine actions. They accused St. Gregory of distorting religious truths. The fight against saint Gregory by those two monks with heretical partly pro-scholastic ideas were also perhaps related to the partial distancing of people from true Orthodoxy because of the Unia (religios union with the Roman Catholics) and acceptence of some heretical ideas that wre already taking part in the Roman Catholic Church after the Great Schism in year 1054 in which the Eastern Church distanced from the Western Church because of both dogmatical, historical and theological reasons and most importanly the false pretencies of the Pope to be the head of the whole Wordly Church as well as the inclusion of the heretical and unknown in the ancient Church "filioque", claiming the false and unknown dogma prior to 8th century that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and The Son, something that is not in the Niceo-Constantinople Creed of Faith, decided by the Holy Fathers in the Ecumenical Councils to be the official confession of the whole church about the Dogmatical definitions of faith.

Saint-Gregory-Palama-orthodox-christian-icon-greek-wall-painting

Saint Gregory Palama

Saint Gregory's Triads

In response to Barlaam's attacks, Palamas wrote nine treatises entitled "Triads For The Defense of Those Who Practice Sacred Quietude". The treatises are called "triads" because they were organized as three sets of three treatises.

The Triads were written in three stages. The first triad was written in the second half of the 1330s AD and are based on personal discussions between Palamas and Barlaam although Barlaam is never mentioned by name.

Gregory's teaching was affirmed by the superiors and principal monks of Mount Athos, who met in synod during 1340–1. In early 1341, the monastic communities of Mount Athos wrote the Hagioritic Tome under the supervision and inspiration of Palamas. Although the tome does not mention Barlaam by name, the work clearly takes aim at Barlaam's views. The tome provides a systematic presentation of Palamas' teaching and became the fundamental textbook for Byzantine mysticism.

In response, Barlaam drafted "Against the Messalians", which attacked Gregory by name for the first time. Barlaam derisively called the hesychasts omphalopsychoi (men with their souls in their navels) and accused them of the heresy of Messalianism, also known as Bogomilism in the East. According to Meyendorff, Barlaam viewed "any claim of real and conscious experience of God as Messalianism".

saint-Theodosious-of-Tarnovo-icon
Saint Thedosious of Tarnovo a Bulgarian saint one of the Pupils of Saint Gregory Palama and one of the main Hesychasm teacher and disperser of ancient Christian Tradition of Hesychasm within Bulgaria,
Many of his Pupils later spread the Tradition to the rest of Orhodox Newer Local Churches

Barlaam also took exception to the doctrine held by the hesychasts as to the uncreated nature of the light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of hesychast practice, regarding it as heretical and blasphemous. It was maintained by the hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to the light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. Barlaam viewed this doctrine of "uncreated light" to be polytheistic because as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God. Barlaam accuses the use of the Jesus Prayer as being a practice of Bogomilism (a heretical movement that was plaguing the Church of 14th century and who has been publicly refused in Local Church council in Medieval Bulgaria organized by the Bulgarian Patriarch of that time was Theodosious, a council who was requested by the insistance Saint Theodosius of Tarnovo", due to the many heretical teachings plaguing the Bulgarian Church of that time)

The second triad quotes some of Barlaam's writings directly. In response to this second triad, Barlaam composed the treatise "Against the Messalians" linking the hesychasts to the Messalians and thereby accusing them of heresy.

In the third Triad, Palamas refuted Barlaam's charge of Messalianism by demonstrating that the hesychasts did not share the antisacramentalism of the Messalians nor did they claim to physically see the essence of God with their eyes. According to Fr. John Meyendorff "Gregory Palamas orients his entire polemic against Barlaam the Calabrian on the issue of the Hellenic wisdom which he considers to be the main source of Barlaam's errors."

As we have said, we associate the personality of St. Gregory with the teachings of Hesychasm. Hesychasm is based on man's ability to attain godlikeness (theosis).

"Worship is supernatural participation in the essential energy of God and union with Him" [3]. This assimilation to God is achieved through the incessant silent prayer (Greek's word hesychia) of the practitioner of hesychasm and the gift of divine grace, in which "man becomes all that God is, except for the essence".

To achieve hesychia, hermit-monks constantly practiced the so-called Jesus prayer ("Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner!"). According to many fathers, this prayer contains the whole gospel in an abbreviated form. We must note that even today the Jesus Prayer is important in the lives of both monks and lay people. Pay attention to the fact that sometimes its use must be done with spiritual-pastoral guidance.

The vision of the Taborian light of grace, which the apostles saw at the time of the Transfiguration of their Master, is a key moment in the whole teaching of hesychasm. Most of the Fathers who speak of the Transfiguration, such as Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint John Chrysostom, etc., assert that the nature of the light which the apostles saw on the mountain was divine and uncreated. This is exactly what Saint Gregory Palamas defended in the 14th century. This is also the proof that his teaching was not new, but the ancient teaching of the Church.

According to St. Gregory, the Light of Tabor is divine. Through it, man communicates with God, who gives him His grace. We know that the grace of God is given most fully in the sacraments of the Church. And above all, in the Holy Eucharist – communion with the body and blood of our Savior. As noted by Professor Georgi Kapriev: "Palama explains that not just nature or just the soul, but the entire hypostasis of the faithful partakes of the worshiping bread and chalice"[5].

In the end, the side of the hesychasmists wins. A council of 1341 condemned Barlaam, but nevertheless some Byzantine theologians continued to protest against Palamas' positions. However, his theology received final conciliar approval successively in 1347 and 1351, as well as posthumously in 1368, when he was canonized as a saint.[6]

In the 14th century, hesychasm was widespread not only among hermits, but also among monks from communal monasteries, and even among many lay people. It is becoming a strong international movement. From Athos, hesychasm spread to Byzantium, and from there to Bulgaria. From Bulgaria, through the so-called "second South Slavic influence", the hesychastic teaching reached Serbia, Wallachia-Moldavia and Russia.[7]

Hesychasm has an influence on the entire "worldview" of the Christian East and its artifacts. This is the time of the so-called Palaeologous Renaissance, which got its name from the ruling dynasty at the time and had its achievements in literature, visual arts and music.

Today, we Christian believers of the 21st century live in a time separated from the life and work of St. Gregory Palamas by more than six centuries. However, our respect for him and his teachings is actually a testimony to our devotion to the teachings of holy Orthodoxy.

The truths that St. Gregory expressed and maintained are valid even now. Many Monks still follow the teachings of Hesychasm and try to constantly repeat in their mind the Lord Prayer "Lord Jesus Christ Son of the Blessed God, Have Mercy on me the Sinner".


The Life of Saint Gregory Palamas and his Teaching on Hesychasm and Theosis 

Today we also need the grace of God, our Creator. Without it, we would become barren trees that would be of no use (cf. Luke 3:9).
Let us more often proceed to prayer and observance of the evangelical commandments for active love for our neighbor. May our communion in the Church of Christ by means of the holy sacraments not cease.
And above all, let us proceed to the holy Eucharist, which is given to us by God "for the good and sanctification of our souls and bodies"[8].

Sources
https://dveri.bg
(Article Source Text in Bulgarian by Priest Ivaylo Borisov)

[1] Cf. Meyendorff, John. Introduction to patristic theology (lecture course for seminaries).

[2] Loski, V. An Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church., S., 2005, p. 71.

[3] Kapriev, Greek Byzantine philosophy. Four centers of synthesis. S., 2001, p. 289.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., p. 294.

[6] Cf. Mayendorf, J. Byzantine Theology. S., 1996, p. 102.

[7] Cf. Kuyumdzhieva, S. Old Bulgarian music. S., 2011, pp. 90-91.

[8] From the first thanksgiving prayer after Holy Communion.

Enormous Church Scandal in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church on the selection of new Metropolitan for one of Biggest Church Eparchies the Eparchy of Sliven

Wednesday, February 28th, 2024

Priests-layman-monks-protest-against-Cassation-of-vote-for-New-Sliven-Metropolitan-Ierotey

Currently an enormous scandal has been ongoing in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The Church Mafia is fighting the People's will for choice of a Metropolitan in an attempt to 'install' a new Metropolitan, that is part of the clique clerics that has a connection to the Underground Criminal World in Bulgaria.

Sliven_Metropolitan-Ioanikij-Ikoanikius-Slivenski_mitropolit_Joanikij

Holy Liturgy Blessing of Metropolitan Ioanikij Nedelchev (Joanichius) in the Dormition of Mother of God Church in Nessebar 15 August 2008 
(Photo source Wikipedia)

The reason for the Scandal is the choice of a New Metropolitan of Sliven after the blessed passing of his Holiness Joanichius the Metropolitan of Sliven (2nd March 1939 – 9 January 2024 ), who has wisefully governed the Eparchy for almost a decate a 44 years in which he has seen the times and lived through when communist try to infiltrate the Churches completely as well as the new time after the fall of communist (socialist) regime in Bulgaria, where big part of ex-communist party has given money to different people to work and grow business for them leading to the dark years in which thje ex-communist reordered the country in a way to make each other a super rich and act only for their interests and against the interests of people, leaving a lot of people without any normal social benefits and normal standard of living for one to feel himself a person but pushing him all the time to live on the edge and just making money out of the people's tragedies for few and leaving on the border of poorness many.

Those dark years, where the country was bankrupt and people lost their money and belongings in favour of some people who become mega rich, stealing from the country's belongings selling them for pennys and destroying everything built till this moment however seems to have not ended.

The democracy and democractic choice for governors in Both the Country Stages of Power in Bulgaria (The National Assembly, President and local  city Mayers and all the other people assigned with functions to govern over the citizens) is still suppressed and people are installed on country government positions in the old communist 'scheme' of dictatorship not regarding at all the choice and will of people on who should govern the country.

So far so good everyone in Bulgaria now knows, that even though the European Union inclusion of the country and the attempt from the European Union messangers to change some realms of power distance and over-dominance of governors of Bulgaria and unwalfulness for the better, still the situation is critical and again following the old communist scheme before 1995 is again practiced fully not only in the Country but also in the Church.

Bulgarian Orthodox Church has done a lot of improvement and development at first after the great Scheme that was organized by Secret services of Bulgaria called (DS Darzhavna Sigurnost or Country Security / CS). After those terrible time of dictatorship only few of the new seclected Church highest authorities (Mitrpolitans) like Metropolitan Daniil of Vidin and Seraphim of Nevrokop as well as the old selected (during communism) but very much pious and truth loving Gavriil of Lavchanska eparchy has been legally selected venerating both the will of people and the will of the Highest Church governing Authorities, that is the Holy Synod.

Those metropolitans until today over the years, since their official election as Metropolitans after the pass of the old Metropolitans has shown their high spirituality and perseverence for God and the Church and  every normal orthodox christian in Bulgaria highly values, their good deeds for the Church, the preach and the charisma and their sincere desire and acts to help the Bulgarian Church institution rise up its position in the eyes of todays degradated youth to push back Church moral in society and educate the long time kept illiterate of faith nominal Christians in Bulgaria, just like they have done a lot to share the Gospel and help people in spiritual and material need and has truly dedicated themselves to follow the Gospel as it is preached and shown on a deed by Jesus Christ himself.

Unfortunately the old government installed Metropolitans (agents) in the Synod even though as publicly showing as a perfect and good are known by people in the country that most of them have some at least points of dark past (connection with Secret Services and compromising materials with sexual and immoral acts) that helped them to rise over the ladder of Church power to become the Metropolitans they are today.

This is not a secret to anyone in the country even though noone really speaks about it too frequent.

This is also at least partially the reason if not fully, why many people in Bulgaria even though baptized in the Church, choose to be a nominal Christians and not frequently visit Church services. I myself was one those people while my faith was missing (or partial and shaking) and took me very difficult and hard road to return back to my ancestors Orthodox faith. Many of people in Bulgaria that are about 40 – 50 has walked similar path and we all have interacted or seen some of the abnormalities in the Church and the unwalfullness in times. Don't get me wrong unlawfulness actually is normal as we're human and such we do sin all the time, but still there are some limitations on when unwalfulness that is created by our own passions ends and unwalfulness from a mania for power and money and even megalomania comes. 

The Church as everyone knows has a set of Financial activities that are interesting for people willing to live a relatively confort live and less, or people who want to become a succesful businessman in cassocs, without having too high education but having a high perseverence to follow orders without thinking of superior.
For that reason over the past years of 'pseudo' democracy, where the country shows the face of a fully free to the world even though such a democracy and law is followed only for simple things and for the big and important government questions 'its all about money' and law is not venerated.

For that reason many people that are in the High Stages in the Church, for the lack of proper spiritual elders in the Church and the activities of Bulgarian Secret Services SS (DS) operations, as well as Mafia sponsorship  has installed even from communism times till now, the pseudo spiritual pastors, who are ex or even current informers to SS / Mafia as well as because of lack of normal high church authorities, many of whom were governed by the communist party has been filled with many people unworthy due to their sinful life and thinking and unfollowing the Christ Highest standard of Love God and the Neighbor but only considering their own corrupted interests and interests of their masters to whom they seem to be simple a puppets who receive benefits for following the orders of the masters …

You would say everywhere is the same and that would be true in more a or less for each country Local / Public / Government institution.
But when the unwafulness becomes a standard and public unwalfulness is tolerated that is a indicator for either a lack of country or dictatorship in it.
If such unwafullness as unfollowing the norms of Public Law are happening in the Country every now and then that is normal, but what becomes abnormal if such anomalities has become a standard also for not only how things happen in Government Parliaments but how things happen in the Church, then this is a tragedy.
The Church has always been the Highest standard and example for people and even today for many it is still a barrometer for whereto things are going.

For those who don't know the Church's governence Authorities The Metropolitans (a High Powered Monks Bishops who give a vows for unaffection to money posetions and worldy goods that promised God to work only and mainly for the Good of the Church members the people assembly Ecclasia) has the holy duty to not only persevere for their own salvation but has taken the responsibility to lead the people following the Highest Standards of The Christ Gospel in their way to salvation. Those people in the Bulgarian Church who govern it are callet the Holy Synod (or Assembly of Metropolitans) and as of today's article writting are 28.02.2024 are numbered of 13 'elders / starci (as called in Bulgarian) who should take the important decisions for the Church, those 13 are being exchanged with others that should be selected once one passes over using a special procedure for choice that is written in the so-called 'Church institution' the Church statuses regulations, that are written and approved together with Priests ,Monks, and Laymen and has been selected to be followed as a legal internal way on how the Church takes decision of the seclection of new Metropolitans once one passes away. To this date this law has been followed and this kind of selection procedure, where the Church members the people choose on the new Metropolitan together with Priests in a special selection day that is set by the Holy Synod elders and with one Elder (A Metropolitan from the Holy Synod) who will be observer on how the people and clergy vote for their new Hierarch and as currently we had this Eparchy of Sliven His Holiness Joanichius metropolitan of Slived – Died  passing to Christ just 49 days ago and a decision was taken by the Holy Synod to organize the selection procedure for new Metropolitan. 

The procedures of selection of new Metropolitan has been followed closely up to the smallest details, and two candidates has been selected just like the Church accepted rules prescribes those was

On the first circle of selections (which by the way  were publicly translated in Facebook !!!) 3 bishops were selected

1. Ierotey of Agathopolski (received most votes)
2. Arsenij Znepolsky (second in votes)
3. Mihail Konstantijski (third in votes)

A second circle up to the official selection rules was done on which Arsenij has been put out of the list as he received only 17 votes for the people will.

 

1. Bishop Ierotey of Agatopolos spiritual district (received 26 votes by Sliven's Monks, Priests and Laymen that are part of Eparchal assembly as to the Church rules)
2. Bishop Mihail of Konstant  spiritual district (received 22 votes by Sliven's Monks, Priests and Laymen that are part of Eparchal assembly as to the Church rules)

 

His-Holiness-Bisohop-Ierotey-Kosakov-the-peoples-choice-for-new-Metropolitan-of-Sliven-Eparchy

Bishop Ierotey

 

(note both spiritual districts are no longer existing in Bulgarian Orthodox Church due to territorial change of the country and this titles are given usually to non metropolitan Bihops in the Bulgarian Church).

Possible-choice-Bishops-for-new-Metropolitan-of-Sliven-eparchy-Bulgarian-Orthodox-Church-bishops-as-of-28-02-2024

The selection process was leaded by Metropolitan Ioan (John) of eparchy Varna and Veliko Preslav. 
After the selection his Holiness John of Varna and Velikopreslav has been very happy and told publicly to the news the first part of selection of new Metropolitan for Sliven has been sucessfully finished and no any irregularities on the votes process has been seen.

The official process and practice in that case in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church so far has always been to ratify the Choice of People and select one of the two that seems for the 14 Metropolitan Eldersas the most suitable for the Eparchy to lead and teach the people on the Gospel and Christs Words and lead them in their path to Salvation and to protect the flock against heresies etc. etc.

The practice up to this date was to ratify one of the two chosen Bishops as favourites and Entrone him as the Official Governor and local Church Spiritual Leader of the Eparchy of the Holy Orthodox Church and the person who will take the important decisions for the Eparchy and by the Public head official representative of the Priests, Monks and Layman of those eparchy.

A date was set on which the Synod should come up with an information on his selection of the new Bishop of Sliven between the pre-selected ones Ierotey or Mihail.
Everyone was expecting the choice and the clirics and people of Sliven Bulgas and the many black sea Black Sea tourist famous destinations cities such as  Ahtopol, Chernomoretz, Pomorie, Rezovo as well as people from villages and everyone was waiting to celebrate and congrat their new Metropolitan and accept him in the Synodal Palace in Sliven. 

But guess what happens, the official set process of selection is cancelled in a very unwalful way out of the Sudden the Sinodal elders makes a paradoxal decision without any official explanation to cancel the prior vote selection of Metropolitan Ierotey or Mihail !!! 

During that strange behaviors there even more oddities, the Patriarch is in Hospital and unconscios and not part of the decision of the Synod, which makes the important decision out of Quorum of 14 + 1 (patriarch), moreover the strange unlogical and unargumented decision however is not approved by 3 of of the Synodal Elders


+ Gavriil
+ Seraphim 
+ Danijl

Who has the fame of the few only truthful uncorrupted or unkept by compromats or sex or other public scandals and who are serving Holy Liturgies, serving, working steadily for the goodness of church temples, the people and the interest of the Bulgarian nation.
Besides that the Patriarch did not take any decision as his health situation is unclear (some people in the Church even doubt whether he is still alive?? as no laymen or clergy man is allowed to enter the Hospital where officially he is said to be health with a severe deadly disease a cancer on the white lungs). 
Besides that the Metropolitan of America His Beautitude Yosif Metropolitan of America did not took part of the discussions in the Synodal Palace.
Meaning out of 12 present Sinodal Elders during the decision assembly in Synodal palace  only 8 do vote for and 5 vote against. Strange enough the observer of the whole voting process that took place 2 weeks ago in Sliven Sinodal Palace Joan of Veliko Preslav has also voted for the cassation of the choice??

Now Suddenly John starts suddenly talking the vote was not really done in a proper way even though he himself has been part of the vote and has confirmed after the vote that everything was flawless actual and honest and there was no corruption during the vote and again (The vote has been shown on facebook LIVE !!!).
That of course leads to the fact that someone has pushed him to make those strange choice of cassation from somewhere and to publicly claim the voting process has been compromised controrary to what he claimed earlier. 

But the strangeness here in Metropolitan voting does not end. On those same day where the Synod has chosen to cassase (cancel) the voting by sliven's eparchy people and priests, there is an offer made that the Official way of how a selection of new metropolitan is made is changed immediately !!!
The Church is immediately voted by those same 8 of Elders that has voted for the cassation and those "Elders". What a coincidence HUH


OR IS IT A CONSPIRACY ? 


And this offer to cancel the current Rules that are provided by officially Church legal binding document on the process of Choice of Metropolitan that has been used until today and whose latest revision was from 2009 and has been accepted on a Church National Assembly ratified by Layman, Deacons, Priests, Monks, Ipodeacons, Layman to be the official guide for how the voting of new metropolitan should be made as well as how to solve different complex situations that could emerge in the Church realms.

For over 150 years of the existing of new Bulgarian history, after liberation (The Church Statues state rules has been the leading guide for the Highest authorities like a help manual so things in the Church are done in lawful way and everything as transparent as possible, now without the allowness of people and clergy except the synod they want to cancel those Church Statuses not caring about the people opinion.

Sorry guys but this is the 21 century and in realms of 21 century this kind of behavior is called Dictatorship !!! Every normal member of the Bulgarian Church recognized those and now a great set of discussions in facebook and on many Bulgarian websites and informational websites are explaining a lot of hidden details on the real reasons for those scandal which in short are:
 

1. The Patriarch of the Church Neofit is near his deadbed or has passed away and this is kept in secret until new Metropolitan is installed
according to the Plans and in that way the group of Nikolay even prankly called Nikolayts (for their dedication to Nicolay) will be complete
enough in order for him to succeed to be Enthroned as next Patriarch ?


2. There is Metropolitan Nikolay who is well known by at least 10+ years that has appetite to become patriarch or to command over the whole Church Synod and Bishops and those same person has forced his protegees to make that unlogical choice as he has helped him somewhere in their career development, by installing his new protegee Arsenij or someone else under his dominance power group who he is dictating pretty much like Hitler his Gestopo (just to name one scandal person who is a famous part of his group this is Sionij who by some proven sources has been claimed to have been involved with things that does not fit to his high position in society such as pedophilia sex, alcoholism and other criminal deeds that has connection to the Secret Servies and the Mafia of Bulgaria.


3. Sliven Metropoly (Eparchy) has a lot of Public Business interest for businessman involved as the Eparchy is a common tourist destinations and a lot of investors wants to buy a cheap Church land and such a dead could be easily helped with installing the right new Metropolitan on the Eparchy Ship steering wheel. Rumors are ongoing that this two priests are receiving money to act as they did for quite some time within different circuits of the Church.


4. Both pepople and Clergy preselected Bishops Ierotey and Mihail does not have compromats and are not easily blackmailed as a consequence as many others have, and are known in the public and common people in the Church to have a good Spiritual life in Christ and are famous for their good deeds and has already helped a lot of people in need both materially and spiritually and continue to do so as their faith for Christ is real and not nominal dictated only by public and material interests and that does not fit the overall agenda.

Ierotey has been part of Sliven's eparchy for 21 years and has been next to Metropolitan Joanikij (Yoanikius) for the last 10 years and has been his Vicar Bishop and has taken care about the Graceful elder Metropolitan Joanikij while he was on a deadbed, was his spiritual Childrean of him and knows pretty well the things in the Eparchy.

While Mihail who is also serious monk and has lived a secluded life in Greek monastery and a notorious Greek Elder near Athens and has been proven to also a Quality good and Highly spiritual person and monk. 

Even though it is logical and expected by people for Ierotey to be the selected candidate as he is already known with the people for 21 years and people know them and love him.
Mihail is also a good suit because he has a good spiritual base, even though being ordered as bishop much later than Ierotey and having much less experience as such.

After the cassation the Elders did not come with an official explanation on why really the cassation was made. Secondly they had come up with a later news on bg-patriarshia.bg which is the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, with a very cloudy message that the voting is cancelled with no explanations.

Just recently after 3 of the other Metropolitans who has been against the cassation came with a very thoroughful and clearly explained position, on why changing the rules for a Metropolitan selection while the selection is ongoing is anti-Church deed which is not accepted and they throughfully explained why chaing the Church statue rules, to be legal should be made on an official Church National Assembly gathering as it was used to accept the Church statue rules after all.
In the same Church statue rules, it has been pointed that the Church rules are most important Church Organ after, Holy Bible, Holy Tradition and Canons. Church canonists of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church specialist on the topic has been already explained why a dead of changing the Church statue rules without taking in consideration the members of the church the layman and the low clergy priests, monks is totally unchurch and evil.

Intesrestingly enough two brother priests (or better say fake priests as their deeds are not worthy for priesthood) Silvestar and Evgeni ( Yanakievi ) of the Sliven Eparchy who created a lot of scandals historically in the Bulgarian Church and has pressed and harmed many normal people, has preached a lot of ultras ideas and neven stick to their right hierarchical place (presenting themselves as saints and truthful lovers of Bulgarian faiths and traditions, often rioting the people are the main people who have been 'sceaming' and attacking about venerating the legal choice of Sliven's eparchy people and priest.

In a very unscrupulous way they spread lies about people in facebook and everywhere and are presenting themselves as the protectors of truth and Christianity and people who care about the 'clearness of faith' etc. Those scandal personalities continue to put more and more disturbance in facebook and the media preaching open lies that are against the Authority and personal dignity of Bishop Ierotey who.

They publicly claim Bishop Ierotey has been making money, by selling Church lands belonging to Pomorie Monastery who he has been a bishop of, those false claims that Ierotey has stole and sold land of monastery has been publicly shown as false by official documents and are available to be seen here.

Many Church important figures such as Profesor Ivan Zhelev (who has for 25 years has been official translator of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church) and many other has given already his opinion that the situation within the Church is absurd some, can see behind the strange coincident and indeaquate reactions of most of Synodal Elders a conspiracy with some specific aims such as creating a planned Schism within the Church or complete take over of the Church highest government bodies by the Mafia in Bulgaria Underground world or / and the Secret Services (DS) who after communist are well known to have a very good connections.

Nomatter what is the reason behind the Synod activies, one thing is clear people in the Bulgarian Church are not so stupid as they thought and such an unwalfulness is not going to be tolarated by people in the mask of humility as they want to convince her!
Protests in front of Slivent's synodal palace has taken place already, and such protests are about to continue as a follow up in front of Synod especially as people want their voice to be heard and not be commanded as a dumb flock as some people seems to want, breaking all democratic norms !!!

Unfortunately the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Synod with those last indeaquate and inadequate decisions puts another spot on the reputation of the Church which anyways is not so high as of today, because of certain Metropolitans indeate talks, decisions and acts, pretty much like it happened in official govenment.
That is sad and anti-people as obviously now the recent unwalfulness was tried to be shown as absolutely canonical and good and for the good of people that decisions on who should be governing an eparchy of Bulgarian Church has to be only taken by the so called 'Elders', many of whom as today in difference with the past their ancestors has neven been a serious monks not succeeded in any spiritual deeds and has been made bihops and monks with breaking church canons or rules.

The best one could do in that terrible situation to help resolve is to sign up a petition against the unwalful decision of the Synod to cancel the vote decision made for new Sliven Metropolitan.

Lord have mercy over the Bulgarian Holy Church and keep her out of those wolves in sheeps cloting, who try to destroy your Church and flock !!!

Create Haproxy Loadbalancer Access Control Lists and forward incoming frontend traffics based on simple logic

Friday, February 16th, 2024

Create-haproxy-loadbalancer-access-control-list-and-forward-frontend-traffic-based-on-simple-logic-acls-logo

Haproxy Load Balancers could do pretty much to load balance traffic between application servers. The most straight forward way to use is to balance traffic for incoming Frontends towards a Backend configuration with predefined Application machines and ports to send the traffic, where one can be the leading one and others be set as backup or we can alternatively send the traffic towards a number of machines incoming to a Frontend port bind IP listener and number of backend machine.

Besides this the more interesting capabilities of Haproxy comes with using Access Control Lists (ACLs) to forward Incoming Frontend (FT) traffic towards specific backends and ports based on logic, power ACLs gives to Haproxy to do a sophisticated load balancing are enormous. 
In this post I'll give you a very simple example on how you can save some time, if you have already a present Frontend listening to a Range of TCP Ports and it happens you want to redirect some of the traffic towards a spefic predefined Backend.

This is not the best way to it as Access Control Lists will put some extra efforts on the server CPU, but as today machines are quite powerful, it doesn't really matter. By using a simple ACLs as given in below example, one can save much of a time of writting multiple frontends for a complete sequential port range, if lets say only two of the ports in the port range and distinguish and redirect traffic incoming to Haproxy frontend listener in the port range of 61000-61230 towards a certain Ports that are supposed to go to a Common Backends to a separate ones, lets say ports 61115 and 61215.

Here is a short description on the overall screnarios. We have an haproxy with 3 VIP (Virtual Private IPs) with a Single Frontend with 3 binded IPs and 3 Backends, there is a configured ACL rule to redirect traffic for certain ports, the overall Load Balancing config is like so:

Frontend (ft):

ft_PROD:
listen IPs:

192.168.0.77
192.168.0.83
192.168.0.78

On TCP port range: 61000-61299

Backends (bk): 

bk_PROD_ROUNDROBIN
bk_APP1
bk_APP2


Config Access Control Liststo seperate incoming haproxy traffic for CUSTOM_APP1 and CUSTOM_APP2


By default send all incoming FT traffic to: bk_PROD_ROUNDROBIN

With exception for frontend configured ports on:
APP1 port 61115 
APP2 port 61215

If custom APP1 send to bk:
RULE1
If custom APP2 send to bk:
RULE2

Config on frontends traffic send operation: 

bk_PROD_ROUNDROBIN (roundrobin) traffic send to App machines all in parallel
traffic routing mode (roundrobin)
Appl1
Appl2
Appl3
Appl4

bk_APP1 and bk_APP2

traffic routing mode: (balance source)
Appl1 default serving host

If configured check port 61888, 61887 is down, traffic will be resend to configured pre-configured backup hosts: 

Appl2
Appl3
Appl4


/etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg that does what is described with ACL LB capabilities looks like so:

#———————————————————————
# Global settings
#———————————————————————
global
    log         127.0.0.1 local2

    chroot      /var/lib/haproxy
    pidfile     /var/run/haproxy.pid
    maxconn     4000
    user        haproxy
    group       haproxy
    daemon

    # turn on stats unix socket
    stats socket /var/lib/haproxy/stats

#———————————————————————
# common defaults that all the 'listen' and 'backend' sections will
# use if not designated in their block
#———————————————————————
defaults
    mode                    tcp
    log                     global
    option                  tcplog
    #option                  dontlognull
    #option http-server-close
    #option forwardfor       except 127.0.0.0/8
    option                  redispatch
    retries                 7
    #timeout http-request    10s
    timeout queue           10m
    timeout connect         30s
    timeout client          20m
    timeout server          10m
    #timeout http-keep-alive 10s
    timeout check           30s
    maxconn                 3000


#———————————————————————
# Synchronize server entries in sticky tables
#———————————————————————

peers hapeers
    peer haproxy1-fqdn.com 192.168.0.58:8388
    peer haproxy2-fqdn.com 192.168.0.79:8388


#———————————————————————
# HAProxy Monitoring Config
#———————————————————————
listen stats 192.168.0.77:8080                #Haproxy Monitoring run on port 8080
    mode http
    option httplog
    option http-server-close
    stats enable
    stats show-legends
    stats refresh 5s
    stats uri /stats                            #URL for HAProxy monitoring
    stats realm Haproxy\ Statistics
    stats auth hauser:secretpass4321         #User and Password for login to the monitoring dashboard
    stats admin if TRUE
    #default_backend bk_Prod1         #This is optionally for monitoring backend
#———————————————————————
# HAProxy Monitoring Config
#———————————————————————
#listen stats 192.168.0.83:8080                #Haproxy Monitoring run on port 8080
#    mode http
#    option httplog
#    option http-server-close
#    stats enable
#    stats show-legends
#    stats refresh 5s
#    stats uri /stats                            #URL for HAProxy monitoring
#    stats realm Haproxy\ Statistics
#    stats auth hauser:secretpass321          #User and Password for login to the monitoring dashboard
#    stats admin if TRUE
#    #default_backend bk_Prod1           #This is optionally for monitoring backend

#———————————————————————
# HAProxy Monitoring Config
#———————————————————————
# listen stats 192.168.0.78:8080                #Haproxy Monitoring run on port 8080
#    mode http
#    option httplog
#    option http-server-close
#    stats enable
#    stats show-legends
#    stats refresh 5s
#    stats uri /stats                            #URL for HAProxy monitoring
#    stats realm Haproxy\ Statistics
#    stats auth hauser:secretpass123          #User and Password for login to the monitoring dashboard
#    stats admin if TRUE
#    #default_backend bk_DKV_PROD_WLPFO          #This is optionally for monitoring backend


#———————————————————————
# frontend which proxys to the backends
#———————————————————————
frontend ft_PROD
    mode tcp
    bind 192.168.0.77:61000-61299
        bind 192.168.0.83:51000-51300
        bind 192.168.0.78:51000-62300
    option tcplog
        # (4) Peer Sync: a sticky session is a session maintained by persistence
        stick-table type ip size 1m peers hapeers expire 60m
# Commented for change CHG0292890
#   stick on src
    log-format %ci:%cp\ [%t]\ %ft\ %b/%s\ %Tw/%Tc/%Tt\ %B\ %ts\ %ac/%fc/%bc/%sc/%rc\ %sq/%bq
        acl RULE1 dst_port 61115
        acl RULE2 dst_port 61215
        use_backend APP1 if app1
        use_backend APP2 if app2
    default_backend bk_PROD_ROUNDROBIN


#———————————————————————
# round robin balancing between the various backends
#———————————————————————
backend bk_PROD_ROUNDROBIN
    mode tcp
    # (0) Load Balancing Method.
    balance roundrobin
    # (4) Peer Sync: a sticky session is a session maintained by persistence
    stick-table type ip size 1m peers hapeers expire 60m
    # (5) Server List
    # (5.1) Backend
    server appl1 10.33.0.50 check port 31232
    server appl2 10.33.0.51 check port 31232 
    server appl2 10.45.0.78 check port 31232 
    server appl3 10.45.0.79 check port 31232 

#———————————————————————
# source balancing for the GUI
#———————————————————————
backend bk_APP2
    mode tcp
    # (0) Load Balancing Method.
    balance source
    # (4) Peer Sync: a sticky session is a session maintained by persistence
    stick-table type ip size 1m peers hapeers expire 60m
        stick on src
    # (5) Server List
    # (5.1) Backend
    server appl1 10.33.0.50 check port 55232
    server appl2 10.32.0.51 check port 55232 backup
    server appl3 10.45.0.78 check port 55232 backup
    server appl4 10.45.0.79 check port 55232 backup

#———————————————————————
# source balancing for the OLW
#———————————————————————
backend bk_APP1
    mode tcp
    # (0) Load Balancing Method.
    balance source
    # (4) Peer Sync: a sticky session is a session maintained by persistence
    stick-table type ip size 1m peers hapeers expire 60m
        stick on src
    # (5) Server List
    # (5.1) Backend
    server appl1 10.33.0.50 check port 53119
    server appl2 10.32.0.51 check port 53119 backup
    server appl3 10.45.0.78 check port 53119 backup
    server appl4 10.45.0.79 check port 53119 backup

 

You can also check and download the haproxy.cfg here.
Enjjoy !

Must have software on freshly installed windows – Essential Software after fresh Windows install

Friday, March 18th, 2016

Install-update-multiple-programs-applications-at-once-using-ninite

If you're into IT industry even if you don't like installing frequently Windows or you're completely Linux / BSD user, you will certainly have a lot of friends which will want help from you to re-install or fix their Windows 7 / 8 / 10 OS. At least this is the case with me every year, I'm kinda of obliged to install fresh windowses on new bought friends or relatives notebooks / desktop PCs.

Of course according to for whom the new Windows OS installed the preferrences of necessery software varies, however more or less there is sort of standard list of Windows Software which is used daily by most of Avarage Computer user, such as:
 

Not to forget a good candidate from the list to install on new fresh windows Installation candidates are:

  • Winrar
  • PeaZIP
  • WinZip
  • GreenShot (to be able to easily screenshot stuff and save pictures locally and to the cloud)
  • AnyDesk (non free but very functional alternative to TeamViewer) to be able to remotely access remote PC
  • TightVNC
  • ITunes / Spotify (for people who have also iPhone smart phone)
  • DropBox or pCloud (to have some extra cloud free space)
  • FBReader (for those reading a lot of books in different formats)
  • Rufus – Rufus is an efficient and lightweight tool to create bootable USB drives. It helps you to create BIOS or UEFI bootable devices. It helps you to create Windows TO Go drives. It provides support for various disk, format, and partition.
  • Recuva is a data recovery software for Windows 10 (non free)
  • EaseUS (for specific backup / restore data purposes but unfortunately (non free)
  • For designers
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • f.lux –  to control brightness of screen and potentially Save your eyes
  • ImDisk virtual Disk Driver
  • KeePass / PasswordSafe – to Securely store your passwords
  • Putty / MobaXterm / SecureCRT / mPutty (for system administrators and programmers that has to deal with Linux / UNIX)

I tend to install on New Windows installs and thus I have more or less systematized the process.

I try to usually stick to free software where possible for each of the above categories as a Free Software enthusiast and luckily nowadays there is a lot of non-priprietary or at least free as in beer software available out there.

For Windows sysadmins or College and other public institutions networks including multiple of Windows Computers which are not inside a domain and also for people in computer repair shops where daily dozens of windows pre-installs or a set of software Automatic updates are  necessery make sure to take a look at Ninite

ninite-automate-windows-program-deploy-and-update-on-new-windows-os-openoffice-screenshot

As official website introduces Ninite:

Ninite – Install and Update All Your Programs at Once

Of course as Ninite is used by organizations as NASA, Harvard Medical School etc. it is likely the tool might reports your installed list of Windows software and various other Win PC statistical data to Ninite developers and most likely NSA, but this probably doesn't much matter as this is probably by the moment you choose to have installed a Windows OS on your PC.

ninite-choises-to-build-an-install-package-with-useful-essential-windows-software-screenshot
 

For Windows System Administrators managing small and middle sized network PCs that are not inside a Domain Controller, Ninite could definitely save hours and at cases even days of boring install and maintainance work. HP Enterprise or HP Inc. Employees or ex-employees would definitely love Ninite, because what Ninite does is pretty much like the well known HP Internal Tool PC COE.

Ninite could also prepare an installer containing multiple applications based on the choice on Ninite's website, so that's also a great thing especially if you need to deploy a different type of Users PCs (Scientific / Gamers / Working etc.)

Perhaps there are also other useful things to install on a new fresh Windows installations, if you're using something I'm missing let me know in comments.

IPFilter firewall basics use for Adding / Removing and Cloning firewall rules

Thursday, June 1st, 2023

ipfilter-bsd-solaris-unix-firewall-short-review-ofLinux_firewalls-BSD_Firewall_logo

Linux users have most definitely used Netfilter (the older from us might remember and have used ipchains) and rest
should know well or at least partially tried iptables or if you have digged into Linux firewalls more professionally, might have tried nftables
and the newer firewalld (firewall-cmd) that is the standard nowadays in CentOS / Fedora and RHEL (again an abstraction over iptables.).
On Debian firewall is organized around custom shell scripts that deal with iptables chains, or if on Ubuntu perhaps you have tried UFW (The Uncomplicated Firewall)
frontend program for managing firewalls again with iptables. For the lazy ones UFW even has another GUI frontend called Gufw (intended to be easy, intuitive,
graphical user interface for managing Uncomlicated firewall.

Different Linux distributions do use a different set of firewall mechanisms preconfigure but there are other firewall solutions on other Unixes such as ipfilter.
That historically were heavily used that is worthy mentioning and if you happen to pop-up working as a network guy inside some large corporations you might face it.

IPFilter (commonly referred to as ipf) is an open-source software package that provides firewall services and network address translation (NAT) for many Unix-like operating systems.
The author and software maintainer is Darren Reed. IPFilter supports both IPv4 and IPv6 protocols, and is a stateful firewall.
IPFilter is delivered with FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris 10 & 11, illumos, OpenIndiana and HP-UX.
It used to be a part of OpenBSD, but it was removed by Theo de Raadt in May 2001 due to problems with its license.
It was subsequently replaced in OpenBSD by PF, which was developed by OpenBSD's own developers.
DragonFly BSD removed its support for IPFilter in May 2011.

IPFilter can be installed as a runtime-loadable kernel module or directly incorporated into the operating system kernel, depending on the specifics of each kernel and user preferences.
The software's documentation recommends the module approach, if possible.

Here are some commands for displaying, changing and distributing IP filters with ipfilter.
It will be mostly useful, if you happen to have some obsolete OS infrastructure or OpenBSD.

The commands given below are to add / remove and activate rules on machine with ipfilter:

# ipfilter –clone
# ipfilter –save
# ipfilter –activate
# ipfilter -addrule
# ipfilter -delrule
# help ipfilter

1. Check ipfilter current config

# ipfilter –show
Name: default_ipv4, Type: ipv4, State: active
Rule    Source IP                               Protocol   Dest Port   Action
1     any                                            tcp       22     permit
2     any                                            tcp       23     permit
3     any                                            tcp       80     permit
4     any                                            tcp      443     permit
5     any                                            udp      161     permit
6     any                                            udp      123     permit
7     any                                            tcp      600 – 1023     permit
8     any                                            udp      600 – 1023     permit
Name: default_ipv6, Type: ipv6, State: active
Rule    Source IP                               Protocol   Dest Port   Action
1     any                                            tcp       22     permit
2     any                                            tcp       23     permit
3     any                                            tcp       80     permit
4     any                                            tcp      443     permit
5     any                                            udp      161     permit
6     any                                            udp      123     permit
7     any                                            tcp      600 – 1023     permit
8     any                                            udp      600 – 1023     permit
Name: default_ipv4_new, Type: ipv4, State: defined
Rule    Source IP                               Protocol   Dest Port   Action
1     any                                            tcp       22     permit
2     any                                            tcp       23     permit
3     any                                            tcp       80     permit
4     any                                            tcp      443     permit
5     any                                            udp      161     permit
6     any                                            udp      123     permit
7     any                                            tcp      600 – 1023     permit
8     any                                            udp      600 – 1023     permit

2. Clone and activate ipfilter configuration

# ipfilter –clone default_ipv4_new -from default_ipv4
# ipfilter –activate default_ipv4_new
# ipfilter –show
Name: default_ipv4, Type: ipv4, State: defined
Rule    Source IP                               Protocol   Dest Port   Action
1     any                                            tcp       22     permit
2     any                                            tcp       23     permit
3     any                                            tcp       80     permit
4     any                                            tcp      443     permit
5     any                                            udp      161     permit
6     any                                            udp      123     permit
7     any                                            tcp      600 – 1023     permit
8     any                                            udp      600 – 1023     permit
Name: default_ipv6, Type: ipv6, State: active
Rule    Source IP                               Protocol   Dest Port   Action
1     any                                            tcp       22     permit
2     any                                            tcp       23     permit
3     any                                            tcp       80     permit
4     any                                            tcp      443     permit
5     any                                            udp      161     permit
6     any                                            udp      123     permit
7     any                                            tcp      600 – 1023     permit
8     any                                            udp      600 – 1023     permit
Name: default_ipv4_neu, Type: ipv4, State: active
Rule    Source IP                               Protocol   Dest Port   Action
1     any                                            tcp       22     permit
2     any                                            tcp       23     permit
3     any                                            tcp       80     permit
4     any                                            tcp      443     permit
5     any                                            udp      161     permit
6     any                                            udp      123     permit
7     any                                            tcp      600 – 1023     permit
8     any                                            udp      600 – 1023     permit

3. Modify cloned configuration

Lets say we would like to delete the telnet port accept traffic rule  (port 23)

# ipfilter –delrule default_ipv4_new -rule 2

To permit the rule agian

# ipfilter –addrule default_ipv4_new -rule 2 -sip any -dp 23 -proto tcp -act permit

To save the rule

# ipfilter –save default_ipv4_new