Wed, 12 Sep 2007layman-1.1.1: Fixing --sync-all
The unicode support in layman broke the —sync-all option which I failed to test for the last release. Hence layman-1.1.1 has been released. One bug has been fixed:
Thanks to Mike Auty for providing the patch! Posted at: 08:00 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Tue, 11 Sep 2007layman-1.1: Layman went to SourceForge
layman found a new home on SourceForge and I released version 1.1. This is mainly a bug fix release. The new version adds unicode support, provides the —info action to receive details on a specific overlay and also adds a —nocolor option to remove color codes from the output. In addition the default for listing the overlays has been changed and layman will now show all overlays without using the -k option. The detailed listing of issues that have been fixed:
Thanks to all the people providing patches or sending suggestions for improving layman! Posted at: 16:50 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Mon, 25 Jun 2007gallery2flickr: A bug fix release (version 0.9.0)
The next version (0.9.0) of gallery2flickr upgrades the embedded phpFlickr library to 2.1.0 which fixes an import bug for newer images on flickr. Some other, minor bugs have also been fixed. You can download version 0.9.0 here. I will update the documentation page and you should be able to get all further information there. Posted at: 11:29 | Permalink | category: /english/technical Sat, 28 Apr 2007AutoPrime now resides on SourceForge.netJust a short note to our AutoPrime users: We finally moved the source code over to SourceForge.net. You can browse both the code for the main application as well as the part for the website of the service. So far we just moved the files over to the cvs system and it will still need some minor cleanup to get development going over the new project site. At some point there will also be release packages available so that you can easily download and install the tool. Primer_(molecular_biology) pcr rt-pcr science Posted at: 19:59 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/projects Fri, 13 Apr 2007Keyboard article updated
Somehow I am still fascinated by the way Linux handles keyboards. I still fail to understand a lot of it but from time to time I update my little article on keystroke mangling in the Linux Kernel. Since I tackled this topic in the book recently it saw some updates and significantly improved in quality. Though that does not change the fact that there is still a lot missing and I still have no clue how this all works in X. Maybe next year. Keyboard Console i8042 linux Unicode UTF-8 Posted at: 18:39 | Permalink | category: /english/technical Mon, 09 Apr 2007layman-1.0.99: Supporting authenticated proxies
Another layman version with additional fixes went into the portage tree:
The new version adds support for authenticated proxies which was the last feature on my list concerning layman. If there are no bugs being reported during the next weeks I'll mark this as layman-1.1 which I'll then consider feature complete. The package will be maintained until its functionality will be provided by portage or a potential portage successor. Thanks to all the people providing patches or sending suggestions for improving layman! Posted at: 21:44 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Thu, 05 Apr 2007Kolab on Gentoo: Horde progress IV
Since I am now being paid by the Kolab Konsortium to advance the Horde groupware web client integration with the Kolab groupware server Horde is really going to end up as a fully compatible Kolab client. Initially I only planned fixing the most urgent structural problems but now the target is to enable Horde to even work with thousands of groupware objects (events, tasks etc.) at once so that the larger companies can actually use it without killing their Kolab server. Luckily intra2net already implemented an IMAP caching system for the Horde::Kolab module that only needed to be restructured for the current Horde CVS version. This has been completed and now the Horde applications are being ported to the newer framework. So far I did convert Mnemo (note management), Nag (tasks) and Thomas Jarosch from intra2net did Turba (addresses). So only Kronolith (events) remains to be converted. There are still a number of fixes needed but when I use my Horde installation now I am already rather happy. The system reacts much quicker and I can have thousands of elements without problems. Beyond that it is really, really nice being paid for open source development. I really hope that more and more applications will gain enough relevance in the business world so that this model becomes more and more common. And finally a big thanks to all the users testing Horde at the moment. I know I am breaking a lot of stuff and half of the time it is not working at all but every little bit of input I get back from you helps improving the software. And I am really grateful for that. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server php horde webmail Posted at: 08:46 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sat, 24 Feb 2007Kolab on Gentoo: Overlay restructured
Kolab is finally approaching version 2.1. I guess it is about time, since it is nearly one and a half year after the release date that had been targeted initially. In preparation for the next Kolab version the Gentoo overlay got updated and was restructured to support a clearer separation of different development states. Now there is a "stable", an "unstable" and a "development" version available. Stable and unstable versions are marked as such using the standard keyword notation and developmental packages will be masked. The procedure for selecting these different branches has been described in the Kolab wiki. p@rdus will now run corresponding machines that will always get monitored for potential conflicts between the overlay and the main portage tree. Thus you should able to select the stability you expect from your Kolab server installation. Right now all branches are still rather experimental but this should change once 2.1 has been release upstream and the corresponding overlay packages should get masked "stable" about a month later. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server Posted at: 22:46 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Fri, 23 Feb 2007webapp-config has a new home
webapp-config has now been transferred to a new location at SourceForge. It will hopefully reside there for the next few years. Besides that I still did not find much time to work on the new version of webapp-config but Renat Lumpau is currently adding Paludis support to the current version. gentoo php apache web_application lamp webapp-config python Posted at: 13:33 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Mon, 22 Jan 2007Kolab on Gentoo: Converting from Gentoo to OpenPKG
Oh my dear. I really left the Gentoo portage system and started building rpms for OpenPKG. And no, it is no fun ride. Not at all. But once it is finished the wider Kolab community will be able to test the latest Horde patches and I guess that makes this effort worthwhile. As long as I don't have to like it... I'll probably publish the rpms by tomorrow or Wednesday. So to anyone hooked Kolab on OpenPKG: Stay tuned, you'll be served soon. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server php openpkg rpm horde webmail Posted at: 23:58 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sun, 21 Jan 2007Gallery2Flickr: Version 0.2.9 extends the possibilites to import images
The next version (0.2.9) mainly features improved import possibilities. Now it is possible to import a set from any flickr user into your Gallery2 albums. You can also import the results from a flickr search now. You can download version 0.2.9 here. This is only a development release and there are still a few bugs in the code. I will update the documentation page and you should be able to get all further information there. Posted at: 23:45 | Permalink | category: /english/technical Tue, 09 Jan 2007layman-1.0.10: Priorities
Another layman version with additional fixes went into the portage tree:
In addition I will now remove all overlays that are still missing a contact attribute from the global list of overlays. Please contact overlays@gentoo.org and provide a valid email address for your overlay if it should be added again. Posted at: 18:58 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sun, 31 Dec 2006webapp-config: Bug fix release 1.50.16
Looks like my time in Swedish isolation is beneficial for my Gentoo projects. I finally managed to get a minor webapp-config release together. It is currently only available from my overlay and will be pushed into Portage once I return from the north. The changes in the new version:
gentoo php apache web_application lamp webapp-config python Posted at: 10:36 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sat, 30 Dec 2006layman-1.0.9: Shut up
layman has always been a little bit verbose and version 1.0.9 will allow you to change that. These are the modifications for the new version:
The new version has currently only been added to my overlay. I'll move it to portage once I returned from the north and have a better Internet connection. Posted at: 17:27 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Kolab on Gentoo: Horde progress III
A long outstanding problem in bridging Horde and Kolab has been solved by the acceptance of a larger patch for the Horde Share driver. This should now allow the OpenPKG-Kolab users to test the same kind of functionality as provided by Kolab on Gentoo. I am going to post instructions on installing and configuring the Horde web mail front end on Kolab OpenPKG installation once I return from Sweden. This important piece of progress reduces further development work to some bug fixing and I believe it will be possible to use Horde as a good and reliable groupware front end for smaller Kolab installations soon. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server php horde webmail Posted at: 09:37 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Mon, 25 Dec 2006Kolab on Gentoo: Horde Free/Busy
Horde has the same capabilities to display free/busy information as provided by Outlook or Kontact. But there have been some minor bugs within the Horde iCalendar module that prevented this from working. The last updates of the Kolab on Gentoo project fixed these problems and should allow you to use the free/busy view within your webmail. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server php horde webmail Posted at: 14:37 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Fri, 22 Dec 2006Gentoo Book: Step up reality
It makes a difference: Looking at some bytes in a subversion repository or having a cover image in front of you. I received the OpenSourcePress summer catalog today and it was a nice little surprise. Posted at: 09:25 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sun, 10 Dec 2006Gentoo book: Still having fun
pdflatex gentoo.tex ... Output written on gentoo.pdf (80 pages, 215280 bytes). Transcript written on gentoo.log. Nice, a third of the Gentoo book is done. When I initially agreed to that project I was not certain whether it would still be as much fun as it was in the beginning. But I am still making good progress and I still enjoy writing it. It is amazing to see how much of the knowledge that one uses every day and somehow takes for granted is actually worth describing once you consider the perspective of somebody not used to Gentoo. It helps to structure the bits of pieces of information one has acquired over the years and puts some loose ends into context. And then there are some blank spots that I always wanted to fill but never actually reserved time for. Now I am forced to fill these areas and so I am improving how I handle my favourite Linux distribution while writing. Somehow I am really satisfied with this project. Nice. Posted at: 15:24 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sat, 09 Dec 2006Gallery2Flickr: Version 0.2.0 allows exporting images
The next version of the module allows to export images to flickr. There are still some problems with adding these uploaded images to a set so currently it will only upload to your photo stream. The last bit of functionaltiy planned for the little tool is importing images from a flickr search into gallery. Though this may still take a while until it happens. Posted at: 13:34 | Permalink | category: /english/technical Tue, 05 Dec 2006webapp-config coming out of hibernationWhile the development on webapp-config did not entirely stop during the last eight months it has been very slow. And I did only work on the newer version which has not yet been released. In the meantime the older version accumulated a nice set of bugs that have been sitting and waiting for a while now. These will get fixed in a first step and I hope I will be able to finally get a release of the new version out after that. gentoo python Web_server webapp-config webapps Posted at: 18:08 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sat, 02 Dec 2006Gallery2Flickr: Version 0.1.1 allows full set import
I released a new version that now allows full flickr set import. But the export functionality is still missing from Gallery2Flickr. So at the moment I still stick to uploading images to flickr and importing them to gallery as a second step. Which is already a significant improvement to the way I manage my images. In addition to the set import the new version improves the metadata transfer and also includes the tag data that gets written into gallery2 keywords. Posted at: 01:59 | Permalink | category: /english/technical Mon, 27 Nov 2006Kolab on Gentoo: Horde Progress II
The efforts on bringing Horde and Kolab closer together have been progressing well on the Horde side of things. By now three different patches were accepted upstream by the horde project. This leaves one core patch and after that it will be only minor fixes and updates. On the Kolab side of things the patches have been improved but so far work on converting the fbview package to Horde CVS has not yet begun. Only if this is ported it makes sense to start moving the patches into Kolab CVS. Work on this project should begin soon. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server php horde webmail Posted at: 14:37 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Gallery2Flickr: A gallery2 module to import images from flickr
Flickr is great for all its community features and I really like it a lot. Gallery2 on the other hand is great for managing your images locally. And I know that I am going to use both to manage my images for the near future. But there is no communication between the two systems and manually transferring images from one gallery to the other is just painful. So I have been watching this thread on the gallery forums for more than half a year now and nothing happened. And finally it was enough and I hacked some PHP even though I don't like that language. Somehow happened a lot recently with all my coding for Horde. Anyhow... now there is a very early, very crude version of a Gallery to Flickr communication module. It currently only allows importing single images from Flickr into Gallery2. So this does not really help a lot. But it is a start since one of the more complicated tasks was to get the authentication between the two tools right. Though the phpFlickr API is actually really nice and once I understood the basic concepts behind the Flickr authentication it was nice to work with it. The remaining problem: I did not have the time to code this nor do I have any time to continue coding it. So this time I really hope people from the Gallery2 community pick this up and improve it. Posted at: 02:01 | Permalink | category: /english/technical Sun, 26 Nov 2006Kolab on Gentoo: Kontact performance patch
A customer with a larger Kolab on Gentoo installation started
deploying Gentoo desktop machines to the users and ran into
performance problems with handling large amounts of events over
Kontact. While these problems had been solved in the Kolab branch of
Kontact the necessary patches were not yet available in the mainstream
3.5.5 release of Kontact. So the customer decided to contract
the kolab consortium with porting the necessary changes - and voila:
There is a patch available. It will hopefully be integrated into KDE
3.5.6. For the anyone that does not want to wait that long: There is
now a kde-base section in the Kolab on Gentoo overlay that holds
patched ebuilds of either And a big Thank you to the customer that paid for the Open Source development. The fact that Kolab is being deployed on Gentoo and the users are working with Gentoo desktop machines also reminded me of Stuarts search for Gentoo success stories. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server kontact kde Posted at: 13:53 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sat, 18 Nov 2006Ledger: A command line accounting tool
Sebastian provided an updated ebuild for ledger and so I finally took the opportunity to move this tool from my overlay to portage. I guess it will only be useful to the command line freaks among us - me included. I actually do all the accounting work for my company with the tool since nearly two years now and would recommend it to anyone that feels GNU-Cash might be a little bit bloated. The capabilities of ledger are actually pretty amazing and I did not find any double-accounting entry I could not fit in its framework. Which I find surprising since the tax system in Germany is far from anything one might call "logical". gentoo ledger accounting overlay Posted at: 13:02 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Thu, 16 Nov 2006Kolab on Gentoo: Horde progress
So far Kolab is still lacking a decent groupware webmail client. While Horde has been halfway supported for quite a while there has been some blocker problems that were never cleared away. I have been patching Horde here and there during the last half year but some of the patches were somewhat ... brutal. Now I took the time to clean up the mess and consolidate the past work to walk towards a fully functional webmail client for Kolab. So it is time for a short update on the Horde situation. I did update the Kolab wiki page on horde and tried to summarize the current problems. For most of the problems described there are already solutions available. Some of the patches have also found their way into Horde CVS already. I am going to continue to work through the list of open problems until the necessary patches have been integrated into either horde or kolab CVS. The only problem I am currently not going to tackle is the cached IMAP access. Feel free to add any comments or suggestions to the wiki page. The easiest way to test the modifications is certainly on a Gentoo system since all patches are being applied when installing the development version of the Kolab on Gentoo project. But I know that most people rely on OpenPKG and so I'll try to prepare experimental Horde install instructions for OpenPKG some time next week. To me it currently looks like there is a good chance of having a reliable web client for small kolab installations some time spring next year. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server php horde webmail Posted at: 17:24 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Fri, 03 Nov 2006glibc-2.4 on virtual servers with an old kernel
Since I got this request several times now I thought it would be useful to blog it once: If you run Gentoo on a virtual server with an older Kernel (this is the case for systems rent at 1 and 1 or Strato in Germany) you won't be able to upgrade to the newer glibc-2.4 since it only supports nptl systems. Instead you will need to relink your rm /etc/make.profile ln -s /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/x86/vserver/no-nptl/ /etc/make.profile Make sure you have both gentoo Virtual_server howto glibc nptl linux Posted at: 16:36 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Wed, 01 Nov 2006Kolab on Gentoo starts to merge into Kolab CVS
Another round of kolab-core ebuilds (perl-kolab, kolabd, kolab-resource-handler, kolab-webadmin; version 20061101) has been added to the Kolab on Gentoo overlay today. The older experimental packages (version 20061009) have been unmasked now and should provide you with a fixed kolab free/busy system. The 20061101 ebuilds are all about getting a better integration of horde into the Kolab system. The new ebuilds have been switched to horde cvs which should now allow to improve the horde patches to a state where they can be sent upstream. For people that feel adventurous: Please remove the profile/package.mask file from the kolab2 overlay after syncing and update all kolab related packages. This should install a large set of PEAR-Horde* packages and give you a much cleaner (but probably non-functional) Horde installation than you had before. In case of trouble feel free to open bugs, post to the mailing list or harass the forum. In addition I started merging some patches from Kolab on Gentoo into the main Kolab CVS. Eventually I hope to get the Gentoo version patch free but this will certainly be a longer process. Most of the patches still need some love before they are acceptable for the main Kolab source repository. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server horde Posted at: 16:11 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Tue, 31 Oct 2006A German book about Gentoo
I don't remember when I searched for a book about Gentoo the first time. I do remember though that it is about half a year ago that I checked the book shelves the last time. Still, there was nothing to be found and though I already had sufficient knowledge about Gentoo I was slightly disappointed to find no book about my favourite Linux Distribution. If somebody would have told me that I would actually attempt to fill that empty spot in the shelves... well, I guess, I would have laughed. But just one article in the Linux mag and a few e-mails later I do type the first few words of a book with the draft title "Gentoo". Now, with the first few pages under my belt I did sign the contract last week. So there is no way out any more. Next year the lonely, dark gap that has been longing to be completed with compressed knowledge about Gentoo will be filled. Wish me luck and stay tuned... Posted at: 12:39 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Fri, 20 Oct 2006Kolab on Gentoo - Reduced memory requirements and next steps
The newest version of the Kolab on Gentoo project supports running the apache server in a memory efficient mode that does not preload the PHP compiler. All scripts will be run in CGI mode. This way it will be far easier for administrators to install the server on systems with reduced memory or on virtual servers with limited resources. In a next step I will improve the webmail installation procedures for the server. This will also include some bug fixes and corrections in order to finally provide a reliable and efficient webmail frontend. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server horde Posted at: 10:28 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Mon, 09 Oct 2006New supporting systems for Kolab on Gentoo and updates
Finally all subsystems that will be used for the Kolab on Gentoo Groupware project are in place: All systems are now clearly under the colors of my company which will provide a solid long-term background for this open source project. If you wish to follow the progress of the project you should subscribe to one of the mailing lists. "Kolab-gentoo-feeds" bundles the information from all other subsystems and will be a high volume list. "Kolab-gentoo" is the general discussion lists while "Kolab-gentoo-announce" will be used for important announcements. As you might guess: The presence of mailing lists also means that there is now a new "mailman-kolab" ebuild in the overlay that neatly integrates into the whole kolab environment. It is still experimental but if you wish to use it, you may enable the "mailman" use flag for kolabd and emerge "mailman-kolab". Follow the post-install instructions afterwards. If you dislike mailing lists feel free to use the forum for questions. Any new topics in the forum will also be mapped into the "Kolab-gentoo-feeds" mailing list. In case you have questions concerning undocumented features you may post them into the documentation wiki and in case you identified a bug please submit it in the bug tracker. The development process has been modified to provide a higher protection for users of the overlay. Experimental packages will now get masked and the different ebuild versions have a clearer separation now. It was also necessary to remove older packages that were marked "stable". It will take a while until the current packages will be marked stable though they are being run in production. Hopefully no major bugs will be discovered. One remaining problem is the horde webmail: The initial fixes worked only partially and there are still a number of open bugs. These will hopefully be fixed soon. It will be necessary to switch to horde cvs to make the patch management feasible and less time consuming than it is now. So there is still hope for a fully functional webmail for Kolab on Gentoo. And as a final note: I received Kolab CVS access which means that patches resulting from the Gentoo project will have a faster route into Kolab CVS. There are currently a number of fixes that I plan on integrating upstream once there is enough time. gentoo kolab groupware Email_server Posted at: 10:07 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sat, 30 Sep 2006German Linux Magazine publishes article on overlays.gentoo.org and layman
The editors of the German Linux mag considered the concept of a distributed distribution development interesting and accepted my article on both the overlays project and the layman tool. It has been published in the current issue (06/11). The article features some of the basic concepts behind Gentoo and portage, describes the recruiting process and highlights the benefits of the new overlays project to this process as well as the distribution development in general. If there are any errors or information is missing I'd be happy about feedback. gentoo overlays layman python Linux_Magazin Posted at: 12:26 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Fri, 29 Sep 2006AutoPrime gets a forum
AutoPrime now has a support forum. This is currently not advertised on the main page since we still need to update the software. But feel free to use it if you prefer a forum over our support email address. Primer_(molecular_biology) forum pcr rt-pcr science Posted at: 08:44 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/projects Sat, 23 Sep 2006Doing more with layman (... and layman-1.0.8)
Since dju just asked: Yes, you can use layman as a general repository
manager. I've been doing something like that for a while now. I have a
second directory in dju specifically wanted to manage the Gentoo tree using layman. To do
that you will need to use a separate layman configuration file so that
you can define a new storage directory within that config file. If you
would add the new checkouts to the regular overlay repositories in
So let's create the config file: mkdir /etc/gentoo echo "[MAIN] config_dir : /etc/gentoo storage: /usr/portage/local/gentoo cache: %(storage)s/cache.xml local_list: %(storage)s/overlays.xml make_conf: %(storage)s/make.conf overlays: file:///etc/gentoo/layman-gentoo.xml" > /etc/gentoo/layman.cfg Okay, now we need the "overlay" definitions:
echo '<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<layman>
<overlay
type = "cvs"
src = "wrobel@cvs.gentoo.org:/var/cvsroot"
subpath = "gentoo"
contact = "wrobel@gentoo.org"
status = "official"
name = "gentoo-web">
<description>
The Gentoo web repository.
</description>
</overlay>
<overlay
type = "cvs"
src = "wrobel@cvs.gentoo.org:/var/cvsroot"
subpath = "gentoo-x86"
contact = "wrobel@gentoo.org"
status = "official"
name = "gentoo-portage">
<description>
The Gentoo portage tree.
</description>
</overlay>
</layman>' > /etc/gentoo/layman-gentoo.xml
You need your own list here since you cannot use my account for accessing the cvs server. But the principle should be clear. I reached a weird point when I suddenly realized that layman does not have cvs support. Took five minutes to add it but I would have sworn it was in there. Looks like cvs is far more dead than I imagined since nobody complained about it missing so far. So this means you need to use layman-1.0.8 in order to do the following. Now it should be possible to get and update the two repositories: layman -c /etc/gentoo/layman.cfg -a gentoo-web layman -c /etc/gentoo/layman.cfg -a gentoo-portage You can then sync them at a later point using I do not want to judge if it makes sense to use the overlay manager for handling non-overlay repositories but I leave that to you to decide. I just wanted to point out that it is possible. Posted at: 10:02 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Fri, 22 Sep 2006AutoPrime is back online
Just a short note to our AutoPrime users: The service is back online. It looks stable now and we hope that it will run without errors on the current server for the next few weeks. This is nevertheless a temporary solution and we are currently searching for a long term server solution. I am myself not responsible for the service itself anymore and maintenance has been taken over by Felix. In case of problems with the primer design, please contact him directly or use the support@autoprime.de address. Primer_(molecular_biology) pcr rt-pcr science Posted at: 12:05 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/projects Wed, 20 Sep 2006"layman is missing a contact attribute"
Since the warning or phrase "layman is missing a contact attribute" has been googled a few times now I thought I might just clarify the meaning of this warning here: Stuart requested that overlays should always have a contact email address as well as a useful description of the overlay contents. Since I believe both requirements are quite helpful from the users point of view I made these attributes mandatory for all overlays in layman-1.0.7. Layman will now simply reject overlay definitions without the required information. The new version is still marked unstable and will remain that way until the overlays team managed to complete all necessary information in the global list of overlays. What can you do if you find that behaviour annoying? Simply run layman
using the new And yes, I'm going to keep the green leaves for news about layman :) Posted at: 16:25 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Tue, 19 Sep 2006German Gentoo Server Providers
So far I did test FirstDedicated and Internet24. Both provide servers pre-installed with Gentoo. FirstDedicated was definitely the worst experience I ever had concerning security. I did receive the password for the management web front end by standard e-mail and there was no option to change it anywhere. The login page was only offered over an unsecured line though that is something that they probably changed by now. Once logged in on the server it was easy to observe network traffic that did not belong to my machine and from time to time my arpwatch detected massive amounts of activity that did not look quite normal. The server itself was okay though the installed Gentoo release was not the recent one which forced me to upgrade a good deal of packages. On the plus side the server had an automatic rescue mode so that I was able to upgrade the kernel and reboot the machine without any manual intervention. Last but not least they unnerved me when I requested electronically signed invoices. Or printed ones as an alternative. Both versions are accepted for getting your taxes reimbursed in Germany. Simple electronic invoices are not. They outright rejected this even though the law is not too hard to understand. In the end I simply stopped arguing and moved my server to a different provider. Internet24 did actually make a good impression concerning security. The Gentoo release was up-to-date and they also provided signed invoices by default. So the initial impression was definitely far better. The only significant problem was the lack of a rescue system. A serial console. Or some other possibility of managing the machine once you have to upgrade your kernel. You have to call their technicians which might cost you money depending on the amount of work they have to do. While you certainly don't have to pay for a simple reboot this might change once you realize that you fucked up your kernel configuration and need a rescue system. So I did not upgrade the kernel. For eleven months. During which the machine never failed or developed any kind of problems. It's Gentoo Linux after all. But finally some process destabilized the machine and I suddenly had no SSH access anymore. That was the moment the machine went down the drain. I had to pay a technician that was unable to fix the thing and then I got a rescue CD that at least allowed me to rescue my data. I immediately cancelled my contract which was about to get eleven months old in two days. With an automatic extension period of three months and 30 days of advance notice for cancellation I figured this would be just in time. I did overlook that they actually predate a contract that was closed in the middle of a month to the first day of the month. So I was actually a few days late and I have to pay another three month for a broken server. So if you ask me, Internet24 sucks too. Finally I came back to http://1und1.de which provides a really good service and a smoothly running network. Sadly no Gentoo. So far I converted five of their servers to my preferred distribution. But I wonder if there are any Gentoo Server providers out there in Germany that combine the service and technical features that I am used to get from 1&1? gentoo server provider germany Posted at: 17:38 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Wed, 06 Sep 2006layman-1.0.7 - Gentoo mit Frische-Garantie
With layman-1.0.6 being stable on x86 it is time to add the next version into the tree. These are the changes:
The most notable change is the check for contact address and
description for each overlay. While it makes sense to require this
type of information layman cannot do much more than issue a warning
and ignore the overlay in case this is missing in the global list (or
any of your local additions for that matter). Layman will issue many
such warnings and also present you a very short list of overlays since
the global list has only been partially updated so far. This is even
further reduced since layman now filters all overlays that are not
hosted on overlays.gentoo.org if you do not use the
If you consider that behaviour annoying you may either use the
Please post any bugs layman-1.0.7 might have to our bugzilla database. And last but not least both overlays.gentoo.org and layman will be featured in the next issue of the german linux magazine. The announcement is in the preview of the current mag: "Gentoo mit Frische-Garantie". gentoo layman python Linux_Magazin Posted at: 10:31 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Sun, 03 Sep 2006Virtual servers get converted to Gentoo
It looks like a number of people are not too happy about running SuSE on their virtual servers. I got a good deal of feedback on my HowTo that describes the conversion of a virtual server preinstalled with SuSE. I integrated all fixes and improvements that I received from various contributors. Thanks a lot to all of them! While the instructions were initially targeted at the servers provided by 1 and 1 it definitely also works for the servers of Strato. Anyone with a success story on the servers of other companies? gentoo Virtual_server howto linux Posted at: 23:33 | Permalink | category: /english/technical/gentoo Fri, 01 Sep 2006Configuring apache for multiple SSL domains
A year ago my conclusion from googling around was that it is impossible to run multiple SSL vhosts on a single Apache server. At least if you do not resort to methods like assigning vhosts to specific ports. What I wanted was name based virtual hosting combined with the security provided by a SSL certificate. So when I got certified by CAcert a while back I was more than happy to find instructions in their wiki concerning name based SSL hosts. The method that works for many applications that can communicate via SSL is to store one common name and several alternative names in one certificate. The mentioned wiki page discusses the alternative options in detail but I just want to highlight the procedures you need to follow in order to get a usable certificate for your SSL vhosts. mkdir vhost_ssl cd vhost_ssl wget http://guillaume.romagny.free.fr/evaldo/csr.sh chmod u+x csr.sh ./csr.sh First enter an identifier for the certificate. This is not related to the server names and you can choose whatever you wish here: Short Hostname (ie. imap big_srv www2): vhosts Now follows the name of your primary host as common name: FQDN/CommonName (ie. www.example.com) : gunnarwrobel.de Subsequently you need to enter all alternative host names of the other vhosts that you wish to handle with this one certificate. Do not forget to provide the common name once again as the first alternative name: SubjectAltName: DNS: gunnarwrobel.de SubjectAltName: DNS: torp4.de ... Finish with one line of empty input. The script will place the certificate request and the private key into your home directory. Move them over to the current directory:
mv ~/vhosts_{csr,privatekey}.pem .
Now all you need to do in order to get the final certificate is to either process the certificate signing request using standard openssl procedures to get a self signed certificate. Or you submit the signing request to your certificate authority of choice, preferably CAcert. Apache_HTTP_Server howto linux vhosts CAcert SSL Posted at: 07:59 | Permalink | category: /english/technical |
