YR's Blog

Fedora Resurection

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

How to rescue Fedora Workstation from kernel panic with chroot

My Notes from FOSDEM & CfgMgmt Camp 2025

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

You can also read this article on Substack.

For many years now I spent the beginning of February in Belgium, first at FOSDEM in Brussels and later at CfgMgmt Camp in Ghent. Two years ago I shared some notes from the conferences, and I want to do so again.

But first, let me tell you why I love each of these conferences. Frankly, I’ve heard many concerns about the two: rooms being too crowded, logistics too chaotic, and many topics too outdated. Yet, partially this is why I love them. Both FOSDEM and CfgMgmt Camp are community-driven conferences that truly feel like events organized for enthusiasts by enthusiasts. Just to put it into perspective: both rooms on Nix and retro computing were full.

Testing Helm Charts Part II

Sat, 13 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article is also available on Substack.

This is a very basic example of using Helm Unittestas well as an example of the “test pyramid” discussed in the previous article. The code is available on GitHub.

Structure

We have two charts:

fw-demo - a chart with our demo application
monitoring - a library chart that applies some DataDog monitoring rules for the main chart.

monitoring chart is a dependency. The main Chart.yaml looks like:

Testing Helm Charts Part I

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article is also available on Substack.

Before answering this question, we should decide why to test Helm chart? and if you even need to bother with that. Following an example from this xkcd comic, the real answer is: it depends.

So, I want to share with you my story of Helm chart testing. How and, more importantly, why it started, and how it played out in the end.

Trigger a GitHub Action Pipeline with a Comment

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

How to Trigger a GitHub Actions Pipeline with a Comment

UPD 2023-09-07: Clarified some caveats around checking out the code when triggering a pipeline with a comment. Look for the UPD 2023-09-07 text on this page.

Building comment-based workflows is a pretty neat thing from the UX perspective. You can work on the code in your IDE, create a pull request, and then leverage PR comments to run some automation.

How to add, use, and update `.terraform.lock.hcl` without pain

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first guest article in this blog. This is one is by Maksym Vlasov - my co-author of the CatOps channel.

Pre-history

As you may know, Terraform 1.4.0 has introduced changes, which break the previous unintentional behavior. Previously, you could ignore the lockfile and use cached providers as long as the version constraints in the code were okay with your local cache. Starting from 1.4.0, Terraform always checks the lockfile before going into your cache directory. In practice, it means that if you ignore the lockfile or remove it completely, Terraform will run full init, no matter what is in your TF_CACHE_DIR or the .terraform directory.

Kubernetes Operations Survey 2023

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Annual Kubernetes Survey by CatOps

It is the second time I run this survey. You can find the previous year’s results here. You can find the raw data in the Google Sheets. You can also read this article on Substack.

Introduction

This year, I ran this survey for two months: from the 14th of March to the 18th of May, and gathered 122 responses in total. Yet, I must admit that I only promoted this survey for a month. There are more responses than the last year (122 vs. 102). Some of the channels to share this survey were different this time. Also, I started later than the previous year (spring vs winter). Although, this difference should not impact the results.

Types of Technical Interviews

Sat, 08 Apr 2023 13:44:22 +0200

Initially, I wrote this article in Ukrainian, but I decided to translate it to English and share it with a broader audience. I also added some suggestions from the comments and removed some regional-specific references, but overall the text is mostly unchanged compared to the original.

Why am I even writing this? I participate in the hiring process for my company. Also, I’ve gone through quite a few interviews in my life. Many folks are looking for a job, and the market is not particularly welcoming. Thus, I want to share some insights on the hiring process that could help you to prepare for the interviewing process and know what to expect at each stage. A couple of disclaimers first:

My Notes from Fosdem & Config Management Camp 2023

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My Notes from Fosdem & Config Management Camp

Read on Substack.

Sup! It’s been a while.

So, both Fosdem and Config Management Camp conferences are back offline. Thus, I’ve spent a long weekend at my usual Belgian conferences.

Here I want to share some notes with you from the talks I attended. I’m lazy, so I didn’t take notes in real-time. On one hand, this may be a reason these notes be not super accurate. On another hand, I had some time to digest the content and only share things that resonate with me.

Yurii Rochniak

Sat, 03 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Download the PDF

Contacts

yrochnyak@gmail.com
LinkedIn: yrochnyak
GitHub: https://github.com/grem11n
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Bio

An engineer, who’s doing a little bit of everything, when it comes to building platforms with epmhasis on reliability and scalability. My strengths lay in AWS, Kubernetes, and building CI/CD flows.

When it comes to code, I prefer Go, but I can live with Python, if necessary - at the end of the day, it’s almost always comes down to Bash.

Building a CLI application in Go: Part 0

Fri, 02 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Building a CLI application in Go: Part 0

Intro

I have written a tiny CLI app that can update the storage class of objects in an AWS S3 Bucket. To be completely honest, this tool is rather useless in the wild. You can achieve the same results natively with AWS S3 Lifecycle policies.

However, this app is my opportunity to talk about writing CLI applications in Go as well as speculate about pet projects in general.

A Letter to Tech Community

Sat, 26 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Dear tech community, there is a lot of information about Russian invasion in Ukraine right now. This is truly important to spread only the information that came from trustworthy sources!

Also, NEVER SHARE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT UKRAINIAN FORCES!

There are ongoing fishing attacks on Ukraine right now. I bet as tech people you know pretty well, how to deal with that. However, you can share information about how protect themselves to your less experienced friends and family members. Here Vlad Styran put together some advises on that. You can also find it on GitHub in Ukrainian.

The Results of My Kubernetes Survey

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Kubernetes Survey Results

Not so long ago, I created a survey to understand how people manage their Kubernetes clusters. I got more than a hundred responses from Telegram, Reddit, Twitter, and DOU, 102 to be precise. Now, I am ready to share it with you!

You can find all the raw data via this link.

This text is also available in Ukrainian.

A backstory (skippable content)

After, I wrote the article about Kubernetes backups - Why backup Kubernetes?, I got a few questions about the cluster topology we use. Especially on the “cluster as cattle” concept and technical struggles associated with it. I started writing a follow-up article on that topic, but then I realized that my view is limited by the experience at just a few companies. Thus, I decided to ask people about how they manage their clusters. So, here we are.

Рік 2021

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Ось і минув рік 2019 і 3/4. За цей час ми побачили, що пандемії так просто не зникають, а час на розробку вакцини не є основною перешкодою імунізації.

Традиційно почну з того, що набажав собі на цей рік:

Вакцинуватись від COVD - DONE. Також записався на бустер у січні. Якщо ви вакцинувались близько півроку назад, пошукайте, як можна отримати бустерну вакцину. Якщо ж ви досі не щепилися, то що з вами не так?!
Читати книжки - я зарахую в done. Цього року я прочитав всього близько 5 книжок, але якщо додати сюди всі сатті, що я передивлявся для CatOps, вистачить на кілька епосів.
Розмовляти німецькою - скорше ні, чим так. Тобто мені здається, я маю тут неабиякий прогрес. Я вже без проблем вмію замовляти страви в ресторанах, питати, де в магазині ті чи інші продукти і таке інше. Іноді я навіть розумію, що мені відповідають. Проте назвати свій рівень володіння німецькою мовою повноцінно розмовним я не наважусь. Мабуть, потрібно буде наступного року спробувати здати екзамен. Сподіваюсь, В1 я зможу витягнути.
Сходити в клуб - тут дивись пункт про “пандемії так просто не зникають”. Якщо бути до кінця чесним, якись час клуби були відкриті, тому нарікати тут я можу тільки на себе. Ба більше, вони і зараз відкриті, але tanzen ist verboten (танцювати заборонено - пер.), що вже стало локальним мемом.

Подія Року

Цього року сніг в Берліні випадав двічі, причому перший раз він тримався більше однієї доби.

Why backup Kubernetes?

Mon, 27 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is the second part of a series of articles regarding Kubernetes backups. You can find the first part about Velero tool here.

Why Backup Kubernetes?

In the previous part I provided a brief overview of the backup & restore tool for Kubernetes called Velero. Now, I would like to talk, why backup your cluster at all?

What makes a cluster?

A typical production cluster has a three-layer structure. There are Kubernetes components themselves. There are plugins that ease your operations e.g. ingress controllers, admission webhooks, etc. I will refer to them as “core plugins” from now on. At the end of the day, there are applications - actual workloads that make your company’s money.

Blog Redesign

Tue, 14 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As you may see, I've changed the apperance of this blog. Here's why...

Velero

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Brief overview of Velero (former Heptio Ark) - a backup solution for Kuberentes. Part I of Kubernetes clusters backup story

On orchestrators, schedulers, and platforms

Mon, 12 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I briefly mentioned this issue in a podcast recently. So, if you understand Russian, you’re welcome to listen to it. However, after I heard the news that Apache Mesos is going to be moved to Attic, I decided to write this post. Here I want to wrap up my thoughts and opinions on what’s going on on the infrastructure management scene recently and how we ended up like this. And also why I believe that things like Nomad and ECS are not quite a competition to Kubernetes nowadays.

How did I choose a microphone (a very beginners guide)

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

If you have a lot of Zoom calls, which is something very common these days, you need to have a good sound. Believe me

Talks

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I do talks on DevOps-ish topics about both technologies and processes. I can make it in English, Ukrainian, or Russian.

If you are interested in having me speak at an internal or external event, you can get in touch via yrochnyak@gmail.com

Previous Talks

“Ten Pitfalls of a Platform Team” - talk at FWDays DevOps 2025 Conference (eng)

“Testing of Helm Charts” - talk at FWDays DevOps 2024 Conference (ukr)

Guest at “GeekOps” podcast (ukr)

Guest speaker at “Потестим в проде” (rus)

Casually speaking about the common problems in devops-ish terminology, differences between IT market in Kyiv and Berlin, and if you need Kubernetes to run your personal blog

Crossplane

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I briefly went through the installation and configuration process and also shared my thoughts about Crossplane

NeoVim GUI configuration

Sun, 17 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Creating a NeoVim setup with neovim-qt on macOS

Год 2020

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

2019 – год, который я встретил в Лондоне и провожаю в Берлине. В этом году произошло очень много всего, но фактически всё крутилось вокруг одного события.

Two days with Pulumi

Fri, 31 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The first IaC tool in DevOps, which came from the Dev side

Год 2019

Tue, 31 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A year with Kubernetes: Recap

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 13:15:47 +0200

I’ve been using Kubernetes for almost a year and want to share some takeaways and things I’ve learned about it so far

Украинский комикс. Обзор: “Хроники Аптауна”

Thu, 20 Jun 2019 00:31:28 +0300

Обзор Хроник Аптауна: недохранители на улицах Вышгорода. И да, спойлеры!

Украинский комикс. Обзор: “Воля”

Thu, 20 Jun 2019 00:21:57 +0300

Воля: треш, угар и ура-патриотизм (обошлось без содомии) Небольшой обзорчик от меня по просьбам трудящихся. Осторожно спойлеры!

Украинский комикс. Обзор: “Среди Овец”

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 14:49:52 +0300

Комикс про CCCР — “Среди овец” — хороший. И поэтому я сейчас начну его разваливать. Осторожно, спойлеры!

➜ ~ whoami

Sat, 05 Nov 2016 21:05:33 +0530

Sup! My name is Yura. I am SRE at Preply.

Previously, I was leading a team taking care of the Kubernetes-related infrastructure at N26 and even before that worked for Adobe Advertising Cloud.

Originally from Kyiv. For more than 5 years live in Berlin.

Creator and admin of the @CatOps Telegram channel
CatOps Newsletter on Substack
Brought HashiCorp User Group to Kyiv
Brought Kubernetes to Preply
Do some little help for DevOps Days Kyiv

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to contact me on: