Categories
Azure

Why Azure Added Random Chars to My Slot

I started seeing a new issue on June 10th, 2025 that my Azure App Service staging slot was created with the name “staging”, but it became “stagingd5a1” in the domain name.

So four seemingly random characters were added to my slot name. This became a problem as my pipeline is running health checks on the deployment. These checks, however, are not run on the assigned name but on the expected name which suddenly was no longer correct. It would be possible to obtain the name and use it, but there are also other issues that can emerge from it. The website might not know what portal to return on a random hostname, CORS errors could occur on an unexpected domain.

Microsoft is generally pushing for more secure, randomly generated hostnames.

However, this is not the feature I ran into in this case.

Categories
AI

What i learned about Ollama and Models

While I’m aware those models aren’t limited or bound to Ollama, is Ollama still the way I interface and use them? Here I try to keep notes on how I use certain models and what I like or dislike about them.

Categories
Sitecore

Resolving Sitecore “Body exceeded 2mb limit”

When working with Sitecore Experience Editor in Next.js applications, you may encounter a “Body exceeded 2mb limit error” error that prevents content authors from accessing the editing interface. This article explains how to identify and resolve this common issue.

Understanding the Problem

The error typically manifests as:

Connection to your rendering host failed with a Body exceeded 2mb limit error. 
Ensure the POST endpoint at URL https://web-performance-ch-node.azurewebsites.net/api/editing/render has been enabled
Categories
Web

Connect-CIServer: Invalid API version requested

Recently my script stopped working to connect to vCloudDirector. I consume vCloudDirector from a managed service company and sometimes the version changes without me knowing or having a simple way to check it. Just now this happened to me again, usually this then means my PowerCLI script starts failing.

Connect-CIServer : 30.04.2025 10:17:40	Connect-CIServer		NOT_ACCEPTABLE: The request has invalid accept header: Invalid API version requested. Supported API versions are: [38.0.0-alpha, 37.3, 37.2, 37.1, 37.0, 36.3, 
36.2, 36.1, 36.0, 35.2 [D], 35.0 [D], 34.0 [D], 33.0 [D]] ([D] indicates deprecated versions)	
At line:25 char:1
+ Connect-CIServer -Server ("https://{0}" -f $vcd) -SessionId Bearer $ ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Connect-CIServer], CIServerException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Cloud_ConnectivityServiceImpl_ConnectCloudServer_BySessionId_ConnectError,VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud.Commands.Cmdlets.ConnectCIServer
Categories
Web

Fresh Browser User Agents

I regularly need to consume the latest user agents. I was looking for an API but couldn’t find anything dependable. I came across a self-updating list of the latest and most common user agents seen on the web across all device types, operating systems, and browsers. The data is mostly fresh, theoretically updating weekly.

Categories
Security

Tailscale mesh VPN

I’m a big fan of Tailscale ever since I heard about it. I connect my devices, but I always had an issue with not being able to route traffic for specific domains through the exit node. Something like split tunneling via the exit node. The main problem was that I just couldn’t find this feature, and LLMs sent me on a wild goose chase trying to achieve this with network hacks. None of them worked.

What I didn’t know is that this feature has existed for a while and is called App Connectors.

Categories
News

DDoS risk Eurovision Song Contest 2025

This year, from Tuesday, May 13th to Saturday, May 17th, 2025, the Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Basel. This is also an event that has the potential to attract DDoS actors. I will be keeping a close eye on Noname057(16) activity as this is something that is possible. Additionally, follow the news to see if we can see signs of activity.

News articles from past years indicate that DDoS attacks around the Eurovision Song Contest were a more or less common occurrence.

Categories
Sitecore

Troubleshooting Sitecore 9 Login

When working with Sitecore 9, you might encounter a frustrating login error with the message “String or binary data would be truncated.” This issue occurs when Sitecore generates a login ticket that exceeds the database column size limitations.

An Error Occurred, String or binary data would be truncated
Categories
Security

Shorter TLS Certificate Lifespans

It’s official: the CA/Browser Forum has voted to approve Ballot SC-081v3, which will significantly reduce TLS certificate lifespans over the next few years. This is a major shift in the web security landscape that will affect millions of website operators.

Categories
AI

Ollama on macOS

This is also a show-and-tell of options on how to use and play with Ollama. I tend to use my Ollama as a headless system sending requests via VPN for remote processing on my Ollama macOS.

I’ll help you create a persistent configuration for OLLAMA_HOST on macOS. The most reliable way to do this is to create a LaunchAgent plist file.