Improve haproxy logging with custom log-format for better readiability


April 12th, 2024

Haproxy logging is a very big topic, worthy of many articles, but unfortunately not enough is written on the topic, perhaps for the reason haproxy is free software and most people who use it doesn't follow the philosophy of free software sharing but want to keep, the acquired knowledge on the topic for their own and if possible in the capitalist world most of us live to use it for a Load Balancer haproxy consultancy, consultancy fee or in their daily job as system administrators (web and middleware) or cloud specialist etc. 🙂

Having a good haproxy logging is very important as you need to debug issues with backend machines or some other devices throwing traffic to the HA Proxy.
Thus it is important to build a haproxy logging in a way that it provides most important information and the information is as simple as possible, so everyone can understand what is in without much effort and same time it contains enough debug information, to help you if you want to use the output logs with Graylog filters or process data with some monitoring advanced tool as Prometheus etc.

In our effort to optimize the way haproxy logs via a configured handler that sends the haproxy output to logging handler configured to log through rsyslog, we have done some experiments with logging arguments and came up with few variants, that we liked. In that article the idea is I share this set of logging  parameters with hope to help some other guy that starts with haproxy to build a good logging readable and easy to process with scripts log output from haproxy.

The criterias for a decent haproxy logging used are:

1. Log should be simple but not dumb
2. Should be concrete (and not too much complicated)
3. Should be easy to read for the novice and advanced sysadmin

Before starting, have to say that building the logging format seems tedious task but to make it fit your preference could take a lot of time, especially as logging parameters naming is hard to remember, thus the haproxy logging documentation log-format description table comes really handy:

Haproxy log-format paremeters ASCII table
 

 Please refer to the table for log-format defined variables :
 

+---+------+-----------------------------------------------+-------------+
| R | var  | field name (8.2.2 and 8.2.3 for description)  | type        |
+---+------+-----------------------------------------------+-------------+
|   | %o   | special variable, apply flags on all next var |             |
+---+------+-----------------------------------------------+-------------+
|   | %B   | bytes_read           (from server to client)  | numeric     |
| H | %CC  | captured_request_cookie                       | string      |
| H | %CS  | captured_response_cookie                      | string      |
|   | %H   | hostname                                      | string      |
| H | %HM  | HTTP method (ex: POST)                        | string      |
| H | %HP  | HTTP request URI without query string (path)  | string      |
| H | %HQ  | HTTP request URI query string (ex: ?bar=baz)  | string      |
| H | %HU  | HTTP request URI (ex: /foo?bar=baz)           | string      |
| H | %HV  | HTTP version (ex: HTTP/1.0)                   | string      |
|   | %ID  | unique-id                                     | string      |
|   | %ST  | status_code                                   | numeric     |
|   | %T   | gmt_date_time                                 | date        |
|   | %Ta  | Active time of the request (from TR to end)   | numeric     |
|   | %Tc  | Tc                                            | numeric     |
|   | %Td  | Td = Tt - (Tq + Tw + Tc + Tr)                 | numeric     |
|   | %Tl  | local_date_time                               | date        |
|   | %Th  | connection handshake time (SSL, PROXY proto)  | numeric     |
| H | %Ti  | idle time before the HTTP request             | numeric     |
| H | %Tq  | Th + Ti + TR                                  | numeric     |
| H | %TR  | time to receive the full request from 1st byte| numeric     |
| H | %Tr  | Tr (response time)                            | numeric     |
|   | %Ts  | timestamp                                     | numeric     |
|   | %Tt  | Tt                                            | numeric     |
|   | %Tw  | Tw                                            | numeric     |
|   | %U   | bytes_uploaded       (from client to server)  | numeric     |
|   | %ac  | actconn                                       | numeric     |
|   | %b   | backend_name                                  | string      |
|   | %bc  | beconn      (backend concurrent connections)  | numeric     |
|   | %bi  | backend_source_ip       (connecting address)  | IP          |
|   | %bp  | backend_source_port     (connecting address)  | numeric     |
|   | %bq  | backend_queue                                 | numeric     |
|   | %ci  | client_ip                 (accepted address)  | IP          |
|   | %cp  | client_port               (accepted address)  | numeric     |
|   | %f   | frontend_name                                 | string      |
|   | %fc  | feconn     (frontend concurrent connections)  | numeric     |
|   | %fi  | frontend_ip              (accepting address)  | IP          |
|   | %fp  | frontend_port            (accepting address)  | numeric     |
|   | %ft  | frontend_name_transport ('~' suffix for SSL)  | string      |
|   | %lc  | frontend_log_counter                          | numeric     |
|   | %hr  | captured_request_headers default style        | string      |
|   | %hrl | captured_request_headers CLF style            | string list |
|   | %hs  | captured_response_headers default style       | string      |
|   | %hsl | captured_response_headers CLF style           | string list |
|   | %ms  | accept date milliseconds (left-padded with 0) | numeric     |
|   | %pid | PID                                           | numeric     |
| H | %r   | http_request                                  | string      |
|   | %rc  | retries                                       | numeric     |
|   | %rt  | request_counter (HTTP req or TCP session)     | numeric     |
|   | %s   | server_name                                   | string      |
|   | %sc  | srv_conn     (server concurrent connections)  | numeric     |
|   | %si  | server_IP                   (target address)  | IP          |
|   | %sp  | server_port                 (target address)  | numeric     |
|   | %sq  | srv_queue                                     | numeric     |
| S | %sslc| ssl_ciphers (ex: AES-SHA)                     | string      |
| S | %sslv| ssl_version (ex: TLSv1)                       | string      |
|   | %t   | date_time      (with millisecond resolution)  | date        |
| H | %tr  | date_time of HTTP request                     | date        |
| H | %trg | gmt_date_time of start of HTTP request        | date        |
| H | %trl | local_date_time of start of HTTP request      | date        |
|   | %ts  | termination_state                             | string      |
| H | %tsc | termination_state with cookie status          | string      |
+---+------+-----------------------------------------------+-------------+
R = Restrictions : H = mode http only ; S = SSL only


Our custom log-format built in order to fulfill our needs is as this:

log-format %ci:%cp\ %H\ [%t]\ [%f\ %fi:%fp]\ [%b/%s\ %si:%sp]\ %Tw/%Tc/%Tt\ %B\ %ts\ %ac/%fc/%bc/%sc/%sq/%bq


Once you place the log-format as a default for all haproxy frontend / backends or for a custom defined ones, the output you will get when tailing the log is:

# tail -f /var/log/haproxy.log

Apr  5 21:47:19  10.42.73.83:23262 haproxy-fqdn-hostname.com [05/Apr/2024:21:46:23.879] [ft_FRONTEND_NAME 10.46.108.6:61310] [bk_BACKEND_NAME/bk_appserv3 10.75.226.88:61310] 1/0/55250 55 sD 4/2/1/0/0/0
Apr  5 21:48:14  10.42.73.83:57506 haproxy-fqdn-hostname.com [05/Apr/2024:21:47:18.925] [ft_FRONTEND_NAME 10.46.108.6:61310] [bk_BACKEND_NAME//bk_appserv1 10.35.242.134:61310] 1/0/55236 55 sD 4/2/1/0/0/0
Apr  5 21:49:09  10.42.73.83:46520 haproxy-fqdn-hostname.com [05/Apr/2024:21:48:13.956] [ft_FRONTEND_NAME 10.46.108.6:61310] [bk_BACKEND_NAME//bk_appserv2 10.75.226.89:61310] 1/0/55209 55 sD 4/2/1/0/0/0


If you don't care about extra space and logs being filled with more naming, another variant of above log-format, that makes it even more readable even for most novice sys admin or programmer would look like this:

log-format [%t]\ %H\ [IN_IP]\ %ci:%cp\ [FT_NAME]\ %f:%fp\ [FT_IP]\ %fi:%fp\ [BK_NAME]\ [%b/%s:%sp]\ [BK_IP]\ %si:%sp\ [TIME_WAIT]\ {%Tw/%Tc/%Tt}\ [CONN_STATE]\ {%B\ %ts}\ [STATUS]\ [%ac/%fc/%bc/%sc/%sq/%bq]

Once you apply the config test the haproxy.cfg to make sure no syntax errors during copy / paste from this page

haproxy-serv:~# haproxy -c -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg
Configuration file is valid


Next restart graceously haproxy 

haproxy-serv:~# /usr/sbin/haproxy -D -f /etc/haproxy/haproxy.cfg -p /var/run/haproxy.pid -sf $(cat /var/run/haproxy.pid)


Once you reload haproxy graceously without loosing the established connections in stead of restarting it completely via systemd sysctl restart haproxy:

 

2024-04-05T21:46:03+02:00 localhost haproxy[1897731]: 193.200.198.195:50714 haproxy-fqdn-hostname.com [05/Apr/2024:21:46:03.012] [FrotnendProd 10.55.0.20:27800] [BackendProd/<NOSRV> -:-] -1/-1/0 0 — 4/1/0/0/0/0
2024-04-05T21:46:03+02:00 localhost haproxy[1897731]: 193.100.193.189:54290 haproxy-fqdn-hostname.com
[05/Apr/2024:21:46:03.056] [FrotnendProd 10.55.0.20:27900] [BackendProd/<NOSRV> -:-] -1/-1/0 0 — 4/4/3/0/0/0
2024-04-05T21:46:03+02:00 localhost haproxy[1897731]: 193.100.193.190:26778 haproxy-fqdn-hostname.com
[05/Apr/2024:21:46:03.134] [FrotnendProd 10.55.0.20:27900] [BackendProd/tsefas02s 10.35.242.134:27900] 1/-1/0 0 CC 4/4/3/0/0/0

Note that in that log localhost haproxy[pid] is written by rsyslog, you can filter it out by modifying rsyslogd configurations

The only problem with this log-format is not everyone wants to have to much repeating information pointer on which field is what, but I personally liked this one as well because using it even though occuping much more space, makes the log much easier to process with perl or python scripting for data visualize and very for programs that does data or even "big data" analysis.

How to RIP audio CD and convert to MP3 format on Linux


April 11th, 2024

I've been given a very tedious task to Copy music from Audio CD Drive to MP3 / MP4 file format and then copy the content to external Flash drive.
Doing so is pretty trivial, you just need to have a CD / DVD rom on your computer something that becomes rare nowadays and then you need to have installed a bunch of software, if you don't already have it as i've pointed in my previous article Howto craete Music Audio CD from MP3 files, create playable WAV format audio CD Albums from MP3s.

Creating a Audio CD from an MP3 collection is exactly the opposite to what is aim't now (to copy the content of a CD to a computer and prepare it for A Car MP3 player).

1. RIPing audio CDs to WAV and Conver to MP3 from terminal
 

On Linux there is  many ways to do it and many tools that can do it for your both graphical and command line.
But as I prefer command line to do stuff, in this article I'll mention the quickest and most elementary one which is done in 2 steps.

1. Use a tool to dump the CD Audio music to Tracks in WAV format
2. Convert the WAV to MP3 format

We'll need cdparanoia tool installed as well as ffmpeg.

If you don't have them installed do:

# apt-get install –yes cdparanoia dvd+rw-tools cdw cdrdao audiotools cdlabelgen dvd+rw-tools wodim ffmpeg lame normalize-audio libavcodec58

Next create the directory where you want to dump the .wav files.

# mkdir /home/hipo/audiorip/cd1
# cd /home/hipo/audiorip/cd1

Next assumng the Audio CD is plugged in the CD reader, dump its full content into track*.WAV files with cmd:

# paranoia -B

This will produce you the dumped songs into .wav files.

hipo@noah:~/audiorip/cd1$ ls -al *.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  10278284 мар 25 22:49 track01.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  21666668 мар 25 22:50 track02.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  88334108 мар 25 22:53 track03.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  53453948 мар 25 22:55 track04.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 100846748 мар 25 22:58 track05.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  41058908 мар 25 22:59 track06.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 105952940 мар 25 23:02 track07.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  50074124 мар 25 23:03 track08.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  92555948 мар 25 23:06 track09.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  61939964 мар 25 23:07 track10.cdda.wav
-rw-r–r– 1 root root   8521340 мар 25 23:07 track11.cdda.wav

Then you can use a simple for loop with ffmpeg command to conver the .wav files to .mp3s.

hipo@noah:~/audiorip/cd1$  for i in $( ls -1 *); do ffmpeg -i $i $i.wav.mp3; done
 

ffmpeg version 1.2.12 Copyright (c) 2000-2015 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Feb 12 2015 18:03:16 with gcc 4.7 (Debian 4.7.2-5)
  configuration: –prefix=/usr –extra-cflags='-g -O2 -fstack-protector –param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Werror=format-security ' –extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro' –cc='ccache cc' –enable-shared –enable-libmp3lame –enable-gpl –enable-nonfree –enable-libvorbis –enable-pthreads –enable-libfaac –enable-libxvid –enable-postproc –enable-x11grab –enable-libgsm –enable-libtheora –enable-libopencore-amrnb –enable-libopencore-amrwb –enable-libx264 –enable-libspeex –enable-nonfree –disable-stripping –enable-libvpx –enable-libschroedinger –disable-encoder=libschroedinger –enable-version3 –enable-libopenjpeg –enable-librtmp –enable-avfilter –enable-libfreetype –enable-libvo-aacenc –disable-decoder=amrnb –enable-libvo-amrwbenc –enable-libaacplus –libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu –disable-vda –enable-libbluray –enable-libcdio –enable-gnutls –enable-frei0r –enable-openssl –enable-libass –enable-libopus –enable-fontconfig –enable-libpulse –disable-mips32r2 –disable-mipsdspr1 –dis  libavutil      52. 18.100 / 52. 18.100
  libavcodec     54. 92.100 / 54. 92.100
  libavformat    54. 63.104 / 54. 63.104
  libavdevice    54.  3.103 / 54.  3.103
  libavfilter     3. 42.103 /  3. 42.103
  libswscale      2.  2.100 /  2.  2.100
  libswresample   0. 17.102 /  0. 17.102
  libpostproc    52.  2.100 / 52.  2.100
[wav @ 0x66c900] max_analyze_duration 5000000 reached at 5015510 microseconds
Guessed Channel Layout for  Input Stream #0.0 : stereo
Input #0, wav, from 'track01.cdda.wav':
  Duration: 00:00:23.19, bitrate: 1411 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Audio: pcm_s16le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 1411 kb/s
Output #0, mp3, to 'track01.cdda.wav.wav.mp3':
  Metadata:
    TSSE            : Lavf54.63.104
    Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16p
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (pcm_s16le -> libmp3lame)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
size=     363kB time=00:00:23.19 bitrate= 128.2kbits/s    
video:0kB audio:363kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.058402%
ffmpeg version 1.2.12 Copyright (c) 2000-2015 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Feb 12 2015 18:03:16 with gcc 4.7 (Debian 4.7.2-5)
  configuration: –prefix=/usr –extra-cflags='-g -O2 -fstack-protector –param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Werror=format-security ' –extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro' –cc='ccache cc' –enable-shared –enable-libmp3lame –enable-gpl –enable-nonfree –enable-libvorbis –enable-pthreads –enable-libfaac –enable-libxvid –enable-postproc –enable-x11grab –enable-libgsm –enable-libtheora –enable-libopencore-amrnb –enable-libopencore-amrwb –enable-libx264 –enable-libspeex –enable-nonfree –disable-stripping –enable-libvpx –enable-libschroedinger –disable-encoder=libschroedinger –enable-version3 –enable-libopenjpeg –enable-librtmp –enable-avfilter –enable-libfreetype –enable-libvo-aacenc –disable-decoder=amrnb –enable-libvo-amrwbenc –enable-libaacplus –libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu –disable-vda –enable-libbluray –enable-libcdio –enable-gnutls –enable-frei0r –enable-openssl –enable-libass –enable-libopus –enable-fontconfig –enable-libpulse –disable-mips32r2 –disable-mipsdspr1 –dis  libavutil      52. 18.100 / 52. 18.100
  libavcodec     54. 92.100 / 54. 92.100
  libavformat    54. 63.104 / 54. 63.104
  libavdevice    54.  3.103 / 54.  3.103
  libavfilter     3. 42.103 /  3. 42.103
  libswscale      2.  2.100 /  2.  2.100
  libswresample   0. 17.102 /  0. 17.102
  libpostproc    52.  2.100 / 52.  2.100
[mp3 @ 0x66c900] max_analyze_duration 5000000 reached at 5015510 microseconds
Input #0, mp3, from 'track01.cdda.wav.mp3':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf54.63.104
  Duration: 00:00:23.22, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 128 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16p, 128 kb/s
File 'track01.cdda.wav.mp3.wav.mp3' already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y
Output #0, mp3, to 'track01.cdda.wav.mp3.wav.mp3':
  Metadata:
    TSSE            : Lavf54.63.104
    Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16p
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (mp3 -> libmp3lame)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
Trying to remove 1152 samples, but the queue is emptys    
size=     363kB time=00:00:23.24 bitrate= 128.1kbits/s    
video:0kB audio:363kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.058336%
ffmpeg version 1.2.12 Copyright (c) 2000-2015 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Feb 12 2015 18:03:16 with gcc 4.7 (Debian 4.7.2-5)
  configuration: –prefix=/usr –extra-cflags='-g -O2 -fstack-protector –param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Werror=format-security ' –extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro' –cc='ccache cc' –enable-shared –enable-libmp3lame –enable-gpl –enable-nonfree –enable-libvorbis –enable-pthreads –enable-libfaac –enable-libxvid –enable-postproc –enable-x11grab –enable-libgsm –enable-libtheora –enable-libopencore-amrnb –enable-libopencore-amrwb –enable-libx264 –enable-libspeex –enable-nonfree –disable-stripping –enable-libvpx –enable-libschroedinger –disable-encoder=libschroedinger –enable-version3 –enable-libopenjpeg –enable-librtmp –enable-avfilter –enable-libfreetype –enable-libvo-aacenc –disable-decoder=amrnb –enable-libvo-amrwbenc –enable-libaacplus –libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu –disable-vda –enable-libbluray –enable-libcdio –enable-gnutls –enable-frei0r –enable-openssl –enable-libass –enable-libopus –enable-fontconfig –enable-libpulse –disable-mips32r2 –disable-mipsdspr1 –dis  libavutil      52. 18.100 / 52. 18.100
  libavcodec     54. 92.100 / 54. 92.100
  libavformat    54. 63.104 / 54. 63.104
  libavdevice    54.  3.103 / 54.  3.103
  libavfilter     3. 42.103 /  3. 42.103
  libswscale      2.  2.100 /  2.  2.100
  libswresample   0. 17.102 /  0. 17.102
  libpostproc    52.  2.100 / 52.  2.100
[mp3 @ 0x66c900] max_analyze_duration 5000000 reached at 5015510 microseconds
Input #0, mp3, from 'track01.cdda.wav.mp3.wav.mp3':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf54.63.104
  Duration: 00:00:23.25, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 128 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16p, 128 kb/s
Output #0, mp3, to 'track01.cdda.wav.mp3.wav.mp3.wav.mp3':
  Metadata:
    TSSE            : Lavf54.63.104
    Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16p
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (mp3 -> libmp3lame)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
Trying to remove 1152 samples, but the queue is emptys    
size=     364kB time=00:00:23.27 bitrate= 128.1kbits/s    
video:0kB audio:364kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.058271%
ffmpeg version 1.2.12 Copyright (c) 2000-2015 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Feb 12 2015 18:03:16 with gcc 4.7 (Debian 4.7.2-5)
  configuration: –prefix=/usr –extra-cflags='-g -O2 -fstack-protector –param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Werror=format-security ' –extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro' –cc='ccache cc' –enable-shared –enable-libmp3lame –enable-gpl –enable-nonfree –enable-libvorbis –enable-pthreads –enable-libfaac –enable-libxvid –enable-postproc –enable-x11grab –enable-libgsm –enable-libtheora –enable-libopencore-amrnb –enable-libopencore-amrwb –enable-libx264 –enable-libspeex –enable-nonfree –disable-stripping –enable-libvpx –enable-libschroedinger –disable-encoder=libschroedinger –enable-version3 –enable-libopenjpeg –enable-librtmp –enable-avfilter –enable-libfreetype –enable-libvo-aacenc –disable-decoder=amrnb –enable-libvo-amrwbenc –enable-libaacplus –libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu –disable-vda –enable-libbluray –enable-libcdio –enable-gnutls –enable-frei0r –enable-openssl –enable-libass –enable-libopus –enable-fontconfig –enable-libpulse –disable-mips32r2 –disable-mipsdspr1 –dis  libavutil      52. 18.100 / 52. 18.100
  libavcodec     54. 92.100 / 54. 92.100
  libavformat    54. 63.104 / 54. 63.104
  libavdevice    54.  3.103 / 54.  3.103
  libavfilter     3. 42.103 /  3. 42.103
  libswscale      2.  2.100 /  2.  2.100
  libswresample   0. 17.102 /  0. 17.102
  libpostproc    52.  2.100 / 52.  2.100
[wav @ 0x66c900] max_analyze_duration 5000000 reached at 5015510 microseconds
Guessed Channel Layout for  Input Stream #0.0 : stereo
Input #0, wav, from 'track02.cdda.wav':
  Duration: 00:02:21.28, bitrate: 1411 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Audio: pcm_s16le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 1411 kb/s
Output #0, mp3, to 'track02.cdda.wav.wav.mp3':
  Metadata:
    TSSE            : Lavf54.63.104
    Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16p
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (pcm_s16le -> libmp3lame)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help


Finally remove the old unneded .wav files and enjoy the mp3s with vlc / mplayer / mpg123 or whatever player you like.

hipo@noah:~/audiorip/cd1$  rm -f *.wav


Now mount the flash drive and copy th files into it.

# mkdir /media/usb-drive
# mount /dev/sdc1 /media/usb-drive/
# mkdir -p /media/usb-drive/cd1
# fdisk -l |grep -i sdc1

/dev/sdc1 on /media/usb-drive type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=utf8,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro

# cp -rpf ~/audiorip/cd1*.mp3 /mnt/usb-drive/cd1
# umount /dev/sdc1


2. RIPping audio CD on Linux with rip-audio-cds-linux.sh  script
 

#!/bin/bash
# A simple shell script to rip audio cd and create mp3 using lame
# and cdparanoia utilities.
# —————————————————————————-
# Written by Vivek Gite <http://www.cyberciti.biz/>
# (c) 2006 nixCraft under GNU GPL v2.0+
# —————————————————————————-
read -p "Starting in 5 seconds ( to abort press CTRL + C ) " -t 5
cdparanoia -B
for i in *.wav
do
    lame –vbr-new -b 360 "$i" "${i%%.cdda.wav}.mp3"
    rm -f "$i"
done


If you need to automate the task of dumping the audio CDs to WAV and convert them to MP3s you can do it via a small shell script like the one provided by cyberciti.biz that uses paranoia and lame commands in a shell script loop. Script rip-audio-cds-linux.sh is here

3. Dump Audio CD to MP3 with Graphical program ( ripperx ) 

By default most modern Linux distributions including the Debian GNU / Linux based ones has the ripperx in the default repositories, as well as the tool is downloadable and compilable from source from sourceforge.net 

ripping-audio-cds-linux-graphical-program-ripperx-tool

# apt-cache show ripperx|grep -i descript -A3 -B3
Architecture: amd64
Depends: cdparanoia, vorbis-tools (>= 1.0beta3), libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libc6 (>= 2.14), libcairo2 (>= 1.2.4), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.12.6), libfreetype6 (>= 2.2.1), libgcc1 (>= 1:3.0), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.16.0), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.8.0), libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libpangocairo-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libpangoft2-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libstdc++6 (>= 5.2), libtag1v5 (>= 1.9.1-2.2~)
Suggests: sox, cdtool, mpg321, flac, toolame
Description-en: GTK-based audio CD ripper/encoder
 ripperX is a graphical interface for ripping CD audio tracks (using
 cdparanoia) and then encoding them into the Ogg, FLAC, or MP2/3
 formats using the vorbis tools, FLAC, toolame or other available
 MP3 encoders.
 .
 It includes support for CDDB lookups and ID3v2 tags.
Description-md5: cdeabf4ef72c33d57aecc4b4e2fd5952
Homepage: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ripperx/
Tag: hardware::storage, hardware::storage:cd, interface::graphical,
 interface::x11, role::program, scope::application, uitoolkit::gtk,

# apt install –yes ripperx


https://www.pc-freak.net/images/ripperx-linux-gui-rip-audio-cds-tool

That's all folks.
Enjoy !

Dormition of Saint Methodius excerpt from the Biography letter on Saint Methodius from Saint Clement of Ohrid


April 7th, 2024

Saint-Methodius-Dormition-enlightener-of-the-Bulgarian-Slavs-author-of-alphabet

..Both on his father's and on his mother's side, he came not from a simple, but from a very good and honorable family, known first of all to God, and then to the king and to the whole Thessalonica (Solun) region, which was also evident from his appearance. That is why the princes, who loved him since his childhood, held dignified conversations with him.

Finally, the king, learning of his abilities, gave him the rule of a Slavic principality – as if he foresaw, I would say, that he would send him as a teacher and first archbishop of the Slavs, so that he could learn all their customs and gradually come to love them .

Having spent many years in this principality, and seen many tumults and crimes in this life, he exchanged his aspirations for gloomy earthly affairs for heavenly thoughts; for he would not trouble his noble soul with things that do not abide forever.

Having found a suitable occasion, he released himself from the princeship, and going to Olympus, where the holy fathers lived, he cut his hair, put on a black garment, and obeyed obediently, fully fulfilling all the monastic rule and diligently occupying himself with books.

When some occasion arose, the king sent his brother [Constantine] to the Khazars, and he took him with him to help. Because there were Jews there who blasphemed the Christian faith very much.
And he said, "I am ready to die for the Christian faith," and he did not disobey, but went and helped his younger brother as a servant, obeying him.
And so he by prayer, and the Philosopher by word, overthrew the Jews and put them to shame.

...And then God revealed the Slavonic writings to the Philosopher, and he, arranging the letters and composing the [Gospel] discourse, took the road to Moravia, taking Methodius with him. And he again began to obediently obey and serve the Philosopher and teach with him.

… After many days, when the Philosopher was about to appear before [God’s] judgment, he said to his brother Methodius: "Here, brother, we were a pair harnessed to draw a furrow, and I, having finished my day, fall into the fields .
You, on the other hand, love the mountain too much; but do not forsake your teaching for the sake of the mountain, for by it you can better be saved.”

…On all the roads, he fell from the devil into many calamities: in desolate places – among robbers, on the sea – in violent disturbances, on the rivers – in sudden sandy shoals, so that the apostolic words were fulfilled with him: "Misery from robbers, miseries by sea, troubles by rivers, troubles by false brothers; in labors and pains, often in vigils, often in hunger and thirst," as well as other afflictions that the apostle mentions.

Then, putting aside all [life’s] noise, and entrusting all his cares to God, he first appointed from among his disciples two priests, good scribes, and quickly translated from the Greek language into Slavonic all the [Bible] books in their entirety, with except the Maccabees, for six months, beginning in the month of March until the twenty-sixth day of the month of October.

When he had finished, he gave worthy praise and glory to God, who gives such grace and such quick success. And by serving together with his clergy the holy mysterios elevation, he celebrated the memory of Saint Demetrius.
Because before that he had translated together with the Philosopher (Kiril) only the Psalter, the Gospel with the Apostle and selected church services. And now he also translated the Nomocanon, that is, the church rules, and the books of the Fathers…

He took, therefore, that the time was approaching for him to receive rest from his sufferings and a reward for his many labors. … On Palm Sunday, when all the people had gathered, he entered the church and, although weak, pronounced blessings for the king, for the prince, for the clergy and for all the people and said: "Keep me, children, until the third day." So it happened.

On the third day at dawn he said: "Into your hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit," and he died in the hands of the priests on the sixth day of the month of April, indict three, in the year six thousand three hundred and ninety-three (6393) from the creation of the whole world, ( 885 A .D.).

His disciples placed him in a coffin, gave him due honors by performing a funeral service in Latin, Greek, and Slavonic, and laid him in the cathedral church. And he joined his fathers and the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, and the martyrs. An innumerable people gathered, people who saw him off with candles, weeping for the good teacher and shepherd: men and women, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, widows and orphans, foreigners and natives, infirm and healthy – all [lamented] him who was all things to all, that he might win all.

Excerpt from writtings of
Saint Clement of Ohrid:(St. Kliment Ohridski)
From "Extensive Life of Archbishop Methodius"

Translation of Hristo Kodov based on the text of the Assumption Collection from the 12th-13th centuries.
Old Bulgarian literature. Volume IV. Biographical works. Ed. "Bulgarian Writer", Sofia. 1986
(See the full text in Bulgarian – HERE

 

Troparion of St. Equal to the Apostles Methodius

Through Your Saint Methodius, O Christ, grant mercy to us who perform the bright celebration of his Assumption, open the doors of the Kingdom to us, free us from the chains of our many sins, and through his intercession, Lord, have mercy on us.

Kontaktion

Let us praise the divine and faithful Methodius, people, and praise him with love as a great shepherd of the Slavs, an honest servant of the Trinity and a banisher of heresies: he prays unceasingly for us all.

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


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.

A Biography of one big Heart + His Holiness Patriarch Neophyte (Neofit) head of Bulgarian Orthodox Church


March 22nd, 2024


His-Holiness-Patriarch-Neofitos-with-Dikiri-and-Thrikiri-blessing-the-people

Patriarch Neophyte (Simeon Nikolov Dimitrov) was born on October 15, 1945 in Sofia from a highly pious family. His father was a simple railway man and his mother a maid (cleaner). His Mother was a famous in the Church as a good christian who was singing on the Church choire in some churches and had a great perseverance and love for the Christian faith, she was the one to push further his two boys Simeon and Dimitar to take the spiritual path within the Orthodox Church. One of them the older brother Dimitar Nikolov Dimitrov to later become A Proto-Psalt and Director and Head of Sofia's Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral Church choire for many years (the most prestigious place for people who graduated Church music) and the other to become our 7th Patriarch in order from the times of Physical Liberation of Bulgaria From Turkish Slavery and Spiritual liberation from the dictatorship of the Greek Orthodox Church with the restoration of the Bulgarian Church with the Bulgarian Exarchate.

 At the age of twenty in 1965, he graduated from the Sofia Theological Seminary "St. Ioan Rilski / Saint John of Rila"  (then the seminary moved due to communist party decision) at the Cherepish station nearby the Cherepish monastery, Vrachansko. He served two years of military mandatory service, and in 1971 he graduated from the Theological Academy "St. Kliment Ohridski".

After his specialization at the Moscow Theological Academy in Russia, where he received the title of "Candidate of Theology (COT)" in Church Music (COT equal to our Bulgarian "Phd / doctor") , in 1973 he was appointed a teacher of Choral Church Singing and became the conductor of the student choir at the Theological Academy.

Archimandrite-Gelasij-of-new-York-later-picture-as-metropolitan-of-New-York-America

He began his monastic journey under the Spiritual eldership of Archimandrite Gelasius then abbot of the Troyan Monastery.

His monastic ordination in monkship was performed on August 3, 1975 by the previous Bulgarian Patriarch Maxim on the feast of Assumption of the Virgin Mary, August 15, 1975 , he was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon immediately, on March 25, 1976, Annunciation, he was raised in the Church hierarchy to hieromonk, and on November 21, 1977 ., Presentation of the Theotokos (The Entry of Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple), was raised to the Archimandrite dignity.

He then was assigned the obedience to be Protosyncellus (Protosingel) of the Sofia Metropolia in years 1981 to 1985.

His-All-Holiness-Patriarch-Neophytos-picture-as-young-Bishop-Levkijski-of-Bulgarian-Orthodox-Church

On December 18, 1985, he was ordained as the Bishop of Lefkias (Levkijski) a title earlier held by the all famous Levkijski Bishop Partenius (Partenij)  in the Patriarchal Cathedral "Saint Alexander Nevsky" and was appointed as vicar  bishop of the Metropolia of Sofia.

In 1989, he became rector of Sofia Theological Academy part of (Sofia University at that time), and in July 1991, when the Theological Academy returned to be the pre-revolutinary Faculty of Theology of the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", was elected the first dean of the restored Faculty of Theology.

His-Holiness-Neophytos-picture-as-Metropolitan-of-Ruse

Since January 27, 1992, he has been the chief Secretary of Holy Synod (A prestioug position) until March 27, 1994, when Bishop  Neophyte was elected Metropolitan of Dorostolo-Cherven.eparchy (which is now separated in two separate aparchies (The Eparchy of Ruse and Eparchy of Dorostol – the ancient Roman area Dorostorum)  

By decision of the Fifth Church-People's Council in 2001, with the consent and approval of the Holy Synod Assembly of metropolitans, the diocese was divided into two (the Dorostol diocese was separated with the city of Silistra -the Ancient Istrum (Histria ancient city) and he began to be titled Metropolitan of Ruse.
In the function of metropolitan he has won the respect of both church and authorities.and he was given the respectful medal "Respected citizen of Ruse".

In 2008 metropolitan Neophyte received the very prestigious academic title "doctor honoris causa" of the Sofia University "Saint Kliment Ohridski". More about it here.

His-All-Holiness-Patriarch-Neophytos-Patriarch-of-Bulgaria-and-Metropolitan-of-Sofia

On 22 June 2010 he was given a medal "St. St. Cyril and Methodius" as a respectful act for his big contribution to development of Bulgarian Music and Culture.

On February 24, 2013, a Patriarchal Electoral Church Council was convened in Sofia and the people and all people were mostly troubled on who will be the next Patriarch in this muddy times.

Soon after his arise to patriarchical throne in 2013 he was given another medal he received "Glory and Honour" in 2013 by Russian Orthodox Church.
Every Church member of that time was troubled about the future of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, and everyone felt a big relief as The Synodal Elders elected Metropolitan Neophyte of Ruse to become the 7th Patriarch of Bulgaria after the restoration of the BPC-BP Bulgarian Church (Bulgarian Patriarchate) after so many years of being under the yoke of Byzantine Church and after liberation of Bulgaria, due to politics delicions and the harsh and anti-bulgarian activities of the Greeks in attempt to own the Church the church suffered its schism and returned its full communion to the family of national members of Holy Eastern Orthodox Church.
After his election His Holiness Patriarch Neofit is titled  Metropolitan of Sofia.and Patriarch of Bulgaria.

Patriarch-Neophyte_signature-podpis

His-Holiness-Patriarch-Neophytos-head-of-Bulgarian-Orthodox-Church

Patriarch Neophyte has the fame of being one of the best church singers in Bulgaria and one of the best and most famous Church Hymns has been circulating throughout the public space the Internet / TV and Radio for the last 10+ years as they are invaluable due to the unique voice qualities of the Patriarch. I guess there is no person in Bulgaria and outside of it who did not heard his Paschal (Katavasia and Stychorions) Hymns.

Resurrection of Christ Katavasios and Stychorion Playlist with Patriarch Neophytos (Sung) Famous Eastern Orthodox Hymns Patriarch Neofit passed away on 13 of March 2024 after a months of sickness after being hospitalized on 29 November 2023 in VMA (Army Medical Academy) due to pulmonary disease (later to understand it is a cancer in its latests stages). In his last days in hospital, the Holy Synod summoned all the Churches and people to pray fervently for the quick recovery of the patriarch through a miracle.
Patriarch Neofit passed away silently his clean holy Soul to Christ on 13 of March 2024
His brother Proto-Psalt (associated professor) Dimitar also passed on on 11 January 2024.

Protopsalt-Dimitar-associated-professor-in-Music-Director-of-st-Alexander-Nevsky-Choire
Patriarch Neophytos and his brothre Proto-Psalt Dimitar

Protopsalt Dimitar Dimitrov a brother of the Patriarch passed just 2 days after a famous Metropolitan of Joanichius has passed away to Christ on 9 January 2024 in 82 years of old.

His-Holiness-Mitropolit-Ioanikij-JoanichiusSlivenski
His Holiness Metropolitan Joanichius


Patriarch Neofit and Metropolitan Joanichius

The personality of Patriarch Neophytos was non-conflict, a lover of peace and compromises, anti-war (i would say pacifist in modern terms) and was among the few patriarchs not being in fear or influenced by the overall Church politics of the Russian Church and he publicly condemned the war as a great evil in his Theophany preach.

"The Lord God and the Holy Church bless only that army that does not show aggression, and whose sole purpose is to protect and defend its people and country within its internationally recognized territorial borders," said the patriarch for the feast of Epiphany water sanctification and sprinkling of battle flags.

The patriarch position was to try to reconcile the clergy and try to heal the misunderstandings and human conflicts between his God given flock of Priest, Monks, Bishops and Clergy with true fatherhood love, prayer and a lot of patience that we the people of 21 century miss so badly.
With a lot of sadness we send our beloved Patriarch Neophytos (Neofit) of Bulgaria to the All Mighty God and Pray if he has received a Grace from God to Pray fervently and Always for us his poor pupils and childs!

his-Holiness-Patriarh-Neofit-treti-mart-pic

God Have Mercy on the Soul of Patriarch Neophytos ! Blessed and Eternal to be his Memory ! Amen !

DNS Monitoring: Check and Alert if DNS nameserver resolver of Linux machine is not properly resolving shell script. Monitor if /etc/resolv.conf DNS runs Okay


March 14th, 2024

linux-monitor-check-dns-is-resolving-fine

If you happen to have issues occasionally with DNS resolvers and you want to keep up an eye on it and alert if DNS is not properly resolving Domains, because sometimes you seem to have issues due to network disconnects, disturbances (modifications), whatever and you want to have another mean to see whether a DNS was reachable or unreachable for a time, here is a little bash shell script that does the "trick".

Script work mechacnism is pretty straight forward as you can see we check what are the configured nameservers if they properly resolve and if they're properly resolving we write to log everything is okay, otherwise we write to the log DNS is not properly resolvable and send an ALERT email to preconfigured Email address.

Below is the check_dns_resolver.sh script:

 

#!/bin/bash
# Simple script to Monitor DNS set resolvers hosts for availability and trigger alarm  via preset email if any of the nameservers on the host cannot resolve
# Use a configured RESOLVE_HOST to try to resolve it via available configured nameservers in /etc/resolv.conf
# if machines are not reachable send notification email to a preconfigured email
# script returns OK 1 if working correctly or 0 if there is issue with resolving $RESOLVE_HOST on $SELF_HOSTNAME and mail on $ALERT_EMAIL
# output of script is to be kept inside DNS_status.log

ALERT_EMAIL='your.email.address@email-fqdn.com';
log=/var/log/dns_status.log;
TIMEOUT=3; DNS=($(grep -R nameserver /etc/resolv.conf | cut -d ' ' -f2));  

SELF_HOSTNAME=$(hostname –fqdn);
RESOLVE_HOST=$(hostname –fqdn);

for i in ${DNS[@]}; do dns_status=$(timeout $TIMEOUT nslookup $RESOLVE_HOST  $i); 

if [[ “$?” == ‘0’ ]]; then echo "$(date "+%y.%m.%d %T") $RESOLVE_HOST $i on host $SELF_HOST OK 1" | tee -a $log; 
else 
echo "$(date "+%y.%m.%d %T")$RESOLVE_HOST $i on host $SELF_HOST NOT_OK 0" | tee -a $log; 

echo "$(date "+%y.%m.%d %T") $RESOLVE_HOST $i DNS on host $SELF_HOST resolve ERROR" | mail -s "$RESOLVE_HOST /etc/resolv.conf $i DNS on host $SELF_HOST resolve ERROR";

fi

 done

Download check_dns_resolver.sh here set the script to run via a cron job every lets say 5 minutes, for example you can set a cronjob like this:
 

# crontab -u root -e
*/5 * * * *  check_dns_resolver.sh 2>&1 >/dev/null

 

Then Voila, check the log /var/log/dns_status.log if you happen to run inside a service downtime and check its output with the rest of infrastructure componets, network switch equipment, other connected services etc, that should keep you in-line to proof during eventual RCA (Root Cause Analysis) if complete high availability system gets down to proof your managed Linux servers was not the reason for the occuring service unavailability.

A simplified variant of the check_dns_resolver.sh can be easily integrated to do Monitoring with Zabbix userparameter script and DNS Check Template containing few Triggers, Items and Action if I have time some time in the future perhaps, I'll blog a short article on how to configure such DNS zabbix monitoring, the script zabbix variant of the DNS monitor script is like this:

[root@linux-server bin]# cat check_dns_resolver.sh 
#!/bin/bash
TIMEOUT=3; DNS=($(grep -R nameserver /etc/resolv.conf | cut -d ' ' -f2));  for i in ${DNS[@]}; do dns_status=$(timeout $TIMEOUT nslookup $(hostname –fqdn) $i); if [[ “$?” == ‘0’ ]]; then echo "$i OK 1"; else echo "$i NOT OK 0"; fi; done

[root@linux-server bin]#


Hope this article, will help someone to improve his Unix server Infrastucture monitoring.

Enjoy and Cheers !

How to count number of ESTABLISHED state TCP connections to a Windows server


March 13th, 2024

count-netstat-established-connections-on-windows-server-howto-windows-logo-debug-network-issues-windows

Even if you have the background of a Linux system administrator, sooner or later you will have have to deal with some Windows hosts, thus i'll blog in this article shortly on how the established TCP if it happens you will have to administarte a Windows hosts or help a windows sysadmin noobie 🙂

In Linux it is pretty easy to check the number of established conenctions, because of the wonderful command wc (word count). with a simple command like:
 

$ netstat -etna |wc -l


Then you will get the number of active TCP connections to the machine and based on that you can get an idea on how busy the server is.

But what if you have to deal with lets say a Microsoft Windows 2012 /2019 / 2020 or 2022 Server, assuming you logged in as Administrator and you see the machine is quite loaded and runs multiple Native Windows Administrator common services such as IIS / Active directory Failover Clustering, Proxy server etc.
How can you identify the established number of connections via a simple command in cmd.exe?

1.Count ESTABLISHED TCP connections from Windows Command Line

Here is the answer, simply use netstat native windows command and combine it with find, like that and use the /i (ignores the case of characters when searching the string) /c (count lines containing the string) options

C:\Windows\system32>netstat -p TCP -n|  find /i "ESTABLISHED" /c
1268

Voila, here are number of established connections, only 1268 that is relatively low.
However if you manage Windows servers, and you get some kind of hang ups as part of the monitoring, it is a good idea to setup a script based on this simple command for at least Windows Task Scheduler (the equivallent of Linux's crond service) to log for Peaks in Established connections to see whether Server crashes are not related to High Rise in established connections.
Even better if company uses Zabbix / Nagios, OpenNMS or other  old legacy monitoring stuff like Joschyd even as of today 2024 used in some big of the TOP IT companies such as SAP (they were still using it about 4 years ago for their SAP HANA Cloud), you can set the script to run and do a Monitoring template or Alerting rules to draw you graphs and Trigger Alerts if your connections hits a peak, then you at least might know your Windows server is under a "Hackers" Denial of Service attack or there is something happening on the network, like Cisco Network Infrastructure Switch flappings or whatever.

Perhaps an example script you can use if you decide to implement the little nestat established connection checks Monitoring in Zabbix is the one i've writen about in the previous article "Calculate established connection from IP address with shell script and log to zabbix graphic".

2. Few Useful netstat options for the Windows system admin
 

C:\Windows\System32> netstat -bona


netstat-useful-arguments-for-the-windows-system-administrator

Cmd.exe will lists executable files, local and external IP addresses and ports, and the state in list form. You immediately see which programs have created connections or are listening so that you can find offenders quickly.

b – displays the executable involved in  creating the connection.
o – displays the owning process ID.
n – displays address and port numbers.
a – displays all connections and listening ports.

As you can see in the screenshot, by using netstat -bona you get which process has binded to which local address and the Process ID PID of it, that is pretty useful in debugging stuff.

3. Use a Third Party GUI tool to debug more interactively connection issues

If you need to keep an eye in interactive mode, sometimes if there are issues CurrPorts tool can be of a great help

currports-windows-network-connections-diagnosis-cports

CurrPorts Tool own Description

CurrPorts is network monitoring software that displays the list of all currently opened TCP/IP and UDP ports on your local computer. For each port in the list, information about the process that opened the port is also displayed, including the process name, full path of the process, version information of the process (product name, file description, and so on), the time that the process was created, and the user that created it.
In addition, CurrPorts allows you to close unwanted TCP connections, kill the process that opened the ports, and save the TCP/UDP ports information to HTML file , XML file, or to tab-delimited text file.
CurrPorts also automatically mark with pink color suspicious TCP/UDP ports owned by unidentified applications (Applications without version information and icons).

Sum it up

What we learned is how to calculate number of established TCP connections from command line, useful for scripting, how you can use netstat to display the process ID and Process name that relates to a used Local / Remote TCP connections, and how eventually you can use this to connect it to some monitoring tool to periodically report High Peaks with TCP established connections (usually an indicator of servere system issues).
 

Big Church Scandal in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church the developments on how the Church basic law Establishment document is illegally broken and hope and action for truth to be restored


March 12th, 2024

His-Holiness-Patriarch-Neofit-of-Bulgarian-Orthodox-Church-and-Metropolitan-of-Sofia-Blessing

Christians Wake Up !


23-september-Saint-Alexander-Nevsky-and-his-holy-relics-parts-of-which-kept-in--Cathedral-Saint-Alexander-Nevsky-Sofia
Saint Alexander Nevsky and his Holy Relics parts of which kept in Saint Alexander Nevski
(2nd Largest Orthodox Christian Cathedral on the Balkans)

"God is not in the power but in the righteousness", that are the words of Saint Alexander Nevsky recalled also by the Bulgarian Patriarch Neofit (Neofitos) on 23 of November 2019 on the feast of the Saint Warrior Alexander.
Now as the His Holyiness is in Hospital in very critical health situation, where he cannot even speak, and thus unable to take up a position on the illegal activities of some of the Synodal Elders of the l Holy Bulgarian Orthodox Church has "spit over" the Establishment documents of the Church (the so called Church "Cyrkoven Ustav" or Establishment of the Bulgarian Church, which is the next in importance after the Holy writtings (The Bible), The Church tradition and the Canons with their unwalful decision about a "New Synodal order", which takes over the rights of Priests and Layman in their God given right to choose their own eparchy spiritual head  representative the eparchy's metropolitan.

Synodal-elders-Gavriil-Seraphim-Danijl

Three of the Synodal Elders – Lovchanski Metropolitan Gavriil, Nevrokop's metropolitan Serafim (Seraphim) and Vidin's Metropoitan Danijl (Deniel), during standard Synodal session to approve the choice of the people for new Metropolitan after the the passing of our oldest and perhaps most holy Metropolitan His Holiness Joanicius of Sliven. asked the rest of Synodal Member Metropolitans to stop overriding the Bulgarian Church Establishment legislation,  and choose between the two righteous selected candidates approved by people's choice opened and legal voting, those were:

1. Ierotey (with 26 votes for) 
and
2. Michael (with 22).

It is important to say until his death bed Ierotey has been a vicar bishop of Joanicius always following, his spiritual guidance and his recommendations without breaking even the smallest, being faithful to the holy elder Joanicius.

His-Holiness-Metropolitan-Joanichius-Joanikij-of-Sliven-of-the-Bulgarian-Orthodox-Church

His All Holiness Patriarch Neofit and His Holiness Joanicius 

The metropolitans warned this "Creates a very dangerous situation, which leads in question the legal (law) establishments of the whole Church.The legitimacy of the organs and powers of rule of whole Bulgarian Orthodox Church (Bulgarian Patriarchy) BPC-BP in the face of the bulgarian country is in danger."

Metropolitan-Joseph-Amerikanski-Joseph-metropolitan-of-America-and-Canada-of-the-Bulgarian-Orthodox-Church

Bulgarian Metropolit Joseph of America, Canada and Australia came up with official statement from America since, he was unable to join the discussions of the Synod, that the taken decision is improper and he sees a ""communist shadows" in the decision for that new "synodal order" and summons every member of the Snoyd to "return the rights of everyone by following the Church Establishment legislation of BPC-BP". He came with his opinion in the matter late, and came up with his open letter to support continuing the opened procedure selection for new Sliven Metropolitan in stead of its cancellation (cassation), as the choice was made due to both country and law's norms in a very transparent way and even has been publicly shown Live on facebook.

His-Holiness-Metropolitan-Ierotey-of_Agathopol

His Holiness Ierotey

His-Holiness-Bishop-Mihail-Konstantijski

His Hoiliness Mihail

After that, unexpectedly after a personal meeting between the Metropolitan Ioan of Varna and Veliko Preslav with the Sliven's eparchy layman and priests representative and the eparchical order (where 30 out of the 90 Sliven's priests) were present who has asked Iaon (who temporary rules) over the Sliven eparchy to restore order and do venerate their choose for Metropolitan between the canonically selected according to the Bulgarian Church establishment documents following the votings strictly and choosing the 2 bishops Ierotey (Ierotheus) and (Mihail) Michael as the possible choices as well as after a high pressure of his own priests in Varna and Velikopreslov, many of whom knows well what the situation is, he takes the decision to not support the new legislation that is breaking the establishment church laws. He is soon followed by Vraca''s Metropolitan Grigorij who also decides to not support a new legislation for cancellation of the procedure for choice of new Sliven metropolitan.

Metropolitan Nikolay offers, that in their assembly of 12.03.2024 all the decisions to be cancelled, and to follow the procedure as it was choosen in their assembly on 24.02.2024.

So far so good, until now you will think, okay the new orders of the synod is against the establishment orders, but the multitude of bishops is on their way to change it again.

The_Synodal-Palace-of-the-Bulgarian-Orthodox-Church-from-where-the-Bulgarian-Church-is-governed

Whether the new orders will be accepted or not will be known on 12 of March, when these decision that Important decision affecting the future of the Bulgarian church wll be taken.
"Because the Church integrity and independence of the national liberation movements, that led to the restoration of Bulgaria in year 1878 … and is one of the main factors for the stability and secrity of our dear motherland Bulgaria" / as Metropolitans Gavriil, Seraphim and Danijl writes".
 

One of the arguments for the in hurry made decision for "new synodal order" in said to be in the "name of church unity"??. But wait with unwalfulness you cannot achieve church unity, and here is not important the majority, but the truth, that is protected by the minority, which strictly follows the Establishment document laws of the Bulgarian Church, which was accepted with a whole nation approval in which members with the choice and selection of Layman, Priest, Bishops and Metropolitans together and accepted with a consent between those.

The Church establishment document (Cyrkoven Ustav) says that any new rules out of the already set in rules, should be only introduced with the aceptance of the Church national consent in the future, and such rules should be only introduced in situations of high emergency (a situation, which we don't have in the moment).

Introducing such an unwalful things, is shameful and makes our hearts sad, as we're all part of the one holy church and this could lead to even a schism of those who decide to follow the Establishment laws and those who would follow a way of the closed up form of secret organizations, whose decision are taken only by a small group of people without venerating the people's opinion. Unfortunately now such a schism will not be created by a DS (BG Government Security Agencies) like it was in the distant year 1992, by an anti church government decision of the "director of the confessions", when he decided to "fire-up" the Patriarch of the Church Patriarch Maxim and the Holy Synod and tried to appoint a new "Alternative Synod", now from the inside some of the members of the Holy Synod, self-authorizing / self-roganizing to set on the position for new Metropolitans without taking in consideration the preference of the ordinary layman, priests, monks and even bishops and others in the Church, following some of their own financial interests.

Whether there was a phenomenal push from the outside for introducing the "new emergency orders" from the inside by Metropolitan Nikolay as people speak now publicly or another paid "force" is uknown but the internal Church coup (of exchanging the facts) is a fact.

If the new synodal order is being approved tomorrow on 12 of March, that would be also turn against the people who suggested it "the metropolitans", they could be then fired up by, those with higher positions among the metropolitans "due to emergency" and "new orders", but that would be the least of trouble, because suddenly out of a Church with a common faith and common equal decision makers, the church would turn to anti-church governed by a clique of elites who would always impose their will on the people (an anti-church), against the church being a congregartion of each of its members.


What can be done against those phenomenal corporative pressure to advantage from the Bulgarian Church (poor people donated) lands and properties ?


Postings on blogs and social networks such as facebook unfortunately is not enough, and "plus as an information leaked out" out of priest in Plovdiv's eparchy there are organized buses paid by rich Plovdiv businessmena and other People who have financial interests for Metropolitan Nikolay to achieve more power over the Church (a tendency that is seen for years now) in his attempt to took over one of the richest Eparchys and to install his pawn, that would sell church lands for cheap to the businesses and allow even more construction nearby the sea to happen in Sliven, Burgas, Pomorie, Ahtopol, Sozopol and across the Huge bulgarian Sea-Coast lands … 

Those paid people will come in front of the Synodal Palace to support the Synodal "new emergency decisions" and scandalize the ordinary Church truely beliving people and servents of Christ. Those fake and often diluded people (some of which would be even true believers), will be blinded, but most of them will be simply forced to go their by their head Metropolitan Nikolay.
Of course if this scenario would happen to a Polital movement or party that would be okay, but when these things happen in the True Church of Christ, then situation becomes absurd.
The announcements for organized buses from Plovdiv are being already hanged on many of the Churches in Plovdiv and this whole things is being made unscrupulous in the 21 century not venerating any freedom or truthfulness, blatantly. The announcement says" 


"A free of charge trip is organised for those who will to stand behind the New Synodal emergency order on 12.03.2024. To sign up go to the Church go the person selling candles. A Departure in 07:00, return in 12:00 h",
this is announced in Plovdiv's Churches.

announcement-sticked-on-Churches-in-Plovdvid-for-support-of-Synodal-new-unwalful-church-order

"Supporting the Holy Synod" is very sly formulation, which does misleads and is being presented as "the people's" support for the "Synodal orders", like it is about the exchange of the decisions of the Synod on 24 of February.

In order to protect the righteousness and holiness of the Church and its Establishment, we  should be next to the Bishops and Metropolitans, who guardian the Church as Jesus Christ ordered Saint Apostle Peter, by telling him "If you love me graze my flock", we should be next to those who venerate the decisions of the Church National Assembly accepted Church Establishment, and which should help to not accept any unwalful decisions on 12 of March (if such are being made by the Synod).

If Third of March 1878, put the stablishment of the Third Bulgarian Country, 4th of March 870 put the stablishment of the Bulgarian Church, when the Constinople's assembly accepted its autonomy.

On 12 March 2024, we still can with a peaceful presence be in front of the Synodal Building, when will be taken а crucial decision about whole Church,
Because if we have the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, we have the Bulgarian country !

Those who read that, Please pray, fervently for us  tomorrow in 9 o'clock CET for everyone that will stand up to protect the freedoms of People to continue be part of taking the important decisions in the Church !
Who can let him come, also to state his support, that Country's and God's legal law and orders should be followed !

Lets hope if Metropolitan Joanicius has the perseverance from Heaven, he can pray and put things in order shortly and all pray !

Lord Jesus Christ son of the Blessed God Have mercy on Us the Sinners ! Oh Most Holy Mother of God pray for us !

 

 

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


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 !!!

How to do a port redirect to localhost service with socat or ncat commands to open temporary access to service not seen on the network


February 23rd, 2024

socat-simple-redirect-tcp-port-on-linux-bsd-logo

You know sometimes it is necessery to easily and temporary redirect network TCP ports to be able to be accessible from Internal DMZ-ed Network via some Local Network IP connection or if the computer system is Internet based and has an external "'real" Internet Class A / B address to be reachable directly from the internet via lets say a modern Internet browser such as Mozilla Firefox / Google Chrome Browser etc.

Such things are easy to be done with iptables if you need to do the IP redirect permanent with Firewall rule changes on Linux router with iptables.
One way to create a TCP port redirect using firewall would include few iptable rules  like for example:

1. Redirect port traffic from external TCP port source to internal one

# iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p tcp –dport 10000 -j REDIRECT –to-ports 80
# iptables -t nat -I OUTPUT -p tcp -o lo –dport 10000 -j REDIRECT –to-ports 80
# iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT -o lo -d 127.0.0.1 -p tcp –dport 80 -j DNAT  –to-destination 192.168.0.50:10000
# iptables -t nat -I OUTPUT –source 0/0 –destination 0/0 -p tcp –dport 80 -j REDIRECT –to-ports 10000


Then you will have 192.168.00.50:10000 listener (assuming that the IP is already configured on some of the host network interface, plugged in to the network).

 But as messing up with the firewall is not the best thing to do especially, if you need to just temporary redirect external listener port to a service configured on the server to only run on TCP port on loopback address 127.0.0.1, you can do it instead with another script or command for simplicy.

One simple way to do a port redirect on the fly on GNU / Linux or FreeBSD / OpenBSD is with socat command.

Lets say you have a running statistics of a web server Apache / Nginx / Haproxy frontend / backend statistics or whatever kind of web TCP service on port 80 on your server and this interface is on purpose configured to be reachable only on localhost interface port 80, so you can either access it by creating an ssh tunnel towards the service on 127.0.0.1 or by accessing it by redirecting the traffic towards another external TCP port, lets say 10000.

Here is how you can achieve

2. Redirect Local network accessible IP on all configured Server network interfaces port 10000 to 127.0.0.1 TCP 80 with socat

# socat tcp-l:10000,fork,reuseaddr tcp:127.0.0.1:80

If you need to access later the redirected port in a Browser, pick up the machine first configured IP and open it in a browser (assuming there is no firewall filter prohibiting access to redirected port).

root@pcfreak:~# ifconfig eth0
eth0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 109.104.212.130  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 109.104.212.255
        ether 91:f8:51:03:75:e5  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 652945510  bytes 598369753019 (557.2 GiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 10541  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 619726615  bytes 630209829226 (586.9 GiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

Then in a browser open http://102.104.212.130 or https://102.104.212.130 (depending on if remote service has SSL encryption enabled or not) and you're done, the configured listener Server service should pop-up on the screen.

3. Redirect IP Traffic from External IP to Localhost loopback interface with netcat ( ncat ) swiss army knife hackers and sysadmins tool

If you need to redirect lets say TCP / IP port 8000 to Port a server local binded service on TCP 80 with ncat, instead of socat (if lets say socat is not pre-installed on the machine), you can do it by simply running those two commands:

[root@server ~]# mkfifo svr1_to_svr2
[root@server ~]# ncat -vk -l 8000 < svr1_to_svr2 | ncat 127.0.0.1 80 > svr1_to_svr2
Ncat: Version 7.92 ( https://nmap.org/ncat )
Ncat: Listening on 0.0.0.0:10000
Ncat: Connection from 10.10.258.39.
Ncat: Connection from 10.10.258.39:51813.
Ncat: Connection from 10.10.258.39.
Ncat: Connection from 10.10.258.39:23179.

 

I you don't care to log what is going on the background of connection and you simply want to background the process with a one liner command you can achive that with:


[root@server /tmp]# cd tmp; mkfifo svr1_to_svr2; (ncat -vk -l 8000 < svr1_to_svr2 | ncat 127.0.0.1 80 > svr1_to_svr2 &)
 

Then you can open the Internal Machine Port 80 TCP service on 8000 in a browser as usual.

For those who want a bit of more sophisticated proxy like script I would suggest you take a look at using netcat and a few lines of shell script loop, that can simulate a raw and very primitive proxy with netcat this is exampled in my previous article Create simple proxy server with netcat ( nc ) based utility.

Hope this article is helpful to anyone, there is plenty of other ways to do a port redirect with lets say perl, python and perhaps other micro tools. If you know of one liners or small scripts, that do it please share in comments, so we can learn from each other ! 

Enjoy ! 🙂