Typed like a Manatee

TNS-12679: Native services disabled by other process but required

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 15:35:44 +0100

TNS-12679: Native services disabled by other process but required

Interesting error today on a Oracle 19c database server, which had been running just fine for months.

After a listener restart last night and some config file confusion for said listener, I got alerted this morning that the listener was spawning TNS-12679: Native services disabled by other process but required errors.

As usual, the Oracle help center was useful: https://docs.oracle.com/en/error-help/db/tns-12679/?r=19c :

Action
Enable native services on the remote process or disable them locally.

What “native services”?

As I wrote before, there was some config file confusion. This is mainly because we inherited these Oracle DB servers and are in the process of moving files and folders into our standard layout. This means that in the interim some files are double and then it depends on the environment you use which is config files are actually used.

In this specific case, the one used is the new one we want to introduce which has strict encryption settings:

SQLNET.ENCRYPTION_SERVER=REQUIRED

Not all clients seem to connect encrypted, hence the error that a native service was missing. So to get things working, I changed the setting to:

SQLNET.ENCRYPTION_SERVER=ACCEPTED

Agreed, not the best long-term solution, but now the systems work and I need to talk with some system owners about how they connect to the database (Oracle Client? ODP? dotNET?) and see if we can get them to an encrypted state.

Automating Hugo

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 13:36:37 +0100

Created GH workflow to publish my hugo site

After the decision was made to start using hugo for my blog notes, I wanted it to publish as automated as possible.

Github Actions to the rescue.

I have opted for two environments: dev & prod. Where all branches not called main will be deployed in the dev environment. I also opted for installation of the hugo and Dart from source directly; it turned out to give the quickest workflow executions.

The full workflow is in the Github repo, of course.

Things I want to look at in the future:

more caching
create website URLs based on the branch name
combine the two workflows, as they are very similar

But now first, learn more about hugo and how to use it.

Default Editor Ubuntu

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:50:01 +0100

Default Editor Ubuntu

For some reason Ubuntu comes with the Nano editor as default. Fine for some, just not for me.

I want VI(M)! So we run, as root:

update-alternatives --config editor

This will show you a list of possible editors on your system:

-> # update-alternatives --config editor
There are 4 choices for the alternative editor (providing /usr/bin/editor).
Selection Path Priority Status
------------------------------------------------------------
0 /bin/nano 40 auto mode
1 /bin/ed -100 manual mode
2 /bin/nano 40 manual mode
* 3 /usr/bin/vim.basic 30 manual mode
4 /usr/bin/vim.tiny 15 manual mode
Press >enter< to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:

Choose your favourite!