“vagrant” will damage your computer

I tried to run a simple “vagrant up” command today, and got this overly-scary error message:

“vagrant” will damage your computer. This file was downloaded on an unknown date.”

This is not my first time using vagrant on this machine. In fact, I use it all the time, so what happened? Did something get corrupted? Was I infected with malware?

Luckily, all my doomsday thinking was unnecessary. What happened was relatively innocuous and easy to fix. Hashicorp revoked the vagrant certificate (https://support.hashicorp.com/hc/en-us/articles/13177506317203) because of a CircleCI Security issue first announced on January 4th, 2023 (https://circleci.com/blog/january-4-2023-security-alert/).

To fix this, you just need to remove and reinstall vagrant. I used the following commands to do this on my Mac. This removes vagrant only and none of my user data.

Remove vagrant:

sudo rm -rf /opt/vagrant /usr/local/bin/vagrant
sudo pkgutil --forget com.vagrant.vagrant

Reinstall vagrant:

brew install hashicorp/tap/hashicorp-vagrant

If you are using something other than Mac, you can get instructions for your specific setup as well on the vagrant site:

Uninstalling vagrant: https://developer.hashicorp.com/vagrant/docs/installation/uninstallation

Reinstalling vagrant: https://developer.hashicorp.com/vagrant/downloads

finally{}: Survival of the Fiendish

In ages past, the claim has been that the “fittest” survive. Nowadays, the fittest appear to fall by the wayside, crowded out by those fiendishly over-promising, under-delivering, and making it unbearably difficult to escape.

I spent the greater part of yesterday and today in annoying agony. What had I done to deserve this fate? Well, I tried to pay a company money for a service they sell. I know, I know…how dare I commit such a heinous crime.

Continue reading “finally{}: Survival of the Fiendish”

Thunderbird Icon Missing After Upgrade

I use Thunderbird on MacOS, and after a recent upgrade, the icon in my dock changed to the default piece of paper with the Application “A” symbol on it. This made it surprisingly difficult for me to find the icon when I needed it. It’s amazing how ingrained things become or maybe I just don’t like change. Needless to say, I needed to find a way to get it back. Continue reading “Thunderbird Icon Missing After Upgrade”