Hannes Schmidt's blog

"No DBD Authn configured!" with Apache, Digest Auth and DBD

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:10:26 -0800

I use mod_authn_dbd to check HTTP authentication credentials against a MySQL database. After switching from Basic to Digest authentication I got 500 errors and No DBD Authn configured! in the server's error log. It took me a while to realize that it wasn't enough to change

Sending DNS notify messages (update notifications) using Ruby

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:49:12 -0800

… is actually easy thanks to Dnsruby. The following code illustrates that:

Quickly enable/disable default gateway for VPN on Windows

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:53:46 -0800

Whether a VPN connection has the "Use default gateway on remote network" option enabled has big impact on how network traffic from your machine is routed.

Windows Vista's DNS server priority issues in VPNs

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 17:27:31 -0800

Today I ran into a subtle issue regarding the order in which Windows Vista queries connection-specific DNS servers. I tested a setup with a PPTP VPN server that also provides DNS name resolution services to its VPN clients. For that purpose I ran both a BIND 9 name server and a Poptop PPPD daemon on the same box. It is dual-homed, i.e. one interface is the private interface of the VPN tunnel endpoint and the other one is the public Ethernet interface through which the server is linked to the internet. I configured BIND to listen on both interfaces.

Ubuntu 6.01.1 "Dapper Drake" DVD Torrents

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 00:57:27 -0700

It took me sometime to find Ubuntu torrents that work. I noticed that the .torrent files on the official Ubuntu server and its mirrors point to dead torrents. After some digging, I found this tracker to be most up to date. In case you're stumbling over this problem too, give it a try. It seems to be the official Ubuntu tracker.

Why the iPod sucks ...

Wed, 17 May 2006 15:15:40 -0700

Being what's usually referred to as an early adopter, I was one of the first people to buy an 1st generation iPod. And I didn't even have a Mac. So I relied on a software called ephPod to upload and manage songs from my PC. That software still exists but is bug ridden and not as versatile as iTunes, which is what I use now with with my 40G 3rd generation iPod.

Relaunch of Diary Products

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 10:34:08 -0800

[02/28/2005: Update - More Changes]
[03/02/2005: Update - Still Bugs in IE]

After this site has been using the old, boring, standard Drupal theme for two years, I am now proud to present my own creation: the new Diary Products theme. It uses the phptemplate engine and is a hybrid between table-based and CSS-based layouts as I am not a follower of the pure "Look Ma, No Tables" approach. There are still a few glitches here and there but overall I am quite happy with it.

Filtered: NMAP Port Scanner Sees Through IPtables Firewall

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 14:02:44 -0800

Ever wondered why port scanners like nmap are able to tell that some of the ports on your server are protected by a firewall? Have a peek at this nmap transcript:

Starting nmap 3.75 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2006-02-23 22:54 CET
Interesting ports on doodah.com (12.34.56.78):
(The 1658 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
PORT     STATE    SERVICE
21/tcp   open     ftp
22/tcp   open     ssh
53/tcp   open     domain
80/tcp   open     http
3306/tcp filtered mysql

I'm quite sure my firewall blocks access to the mysql port. Yet it bugs me that it is possible to tell that I have MySQL installed on my system simply by performing a port scan.

Tab Mix Plus: Tabbed Firefox Browsing the Way It Should Be

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 09:37:32 -0800

I stumbled upon the Tab Mix Plus extension for Firefox yesterday and I fell in love with it on the spot. Finally there's someone who understands tabbed browsing and realizes what's missing in Firefox' default implementation. I urge the devs to incorporate this extension into head. This is not an extension, it's crucial! If you use tabs, go get it! If you understand the difference between Ctrl-Tab Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Tab-Tab, run and get it!

Some of the features:

Session saver (When starting Firefox, it restores all tabs that were open when you quit Firefox)
Undo closing a tab
Open new tabs next to existing ones instead of at the end of the list.
Ctrl-Tab moves to the previously active one instead of the next one in the tab list.
Organizes tabs in multiple rows if you have many tabs open.
Ctrl-W'ing the last tab doesn't close Firefox anymore.
Customize mouse and keyboard events, tab font and color.

All of these are optional. If you don't like one, you can switch it off.

Visual SourceSafe 2005 Internet and IIS Setup

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 17:28:42 -0800

One might think that it wouldn't be so difficult to setup Visual SourceSafe 2005 on Windows Server 2003 with IIS such that users can access the SourceSafe database using the Visual SourceSafe 2005 Internet plugin. But dude, I was so wrong! I managed to get it working in the end but it took me an etire day. Anyway, this isn't a complete HowTo. I would just like to point out a few not so obvious caveats.

Gentoo Linux on a Dell Latitude X300

Thu, 20 Jan 2005 13:42:03 -0800

I'm currently struggling to get Gentoo to install from a Live CD on a new Dell Lattitude X300. It boots the kernel just fine but the init script can't mount the live CD because it doesn't find the cdrom drive. The X300 comes with a docking station which holds the CD drive which is connected internally via USB.

Microsoft RTF Specification Nightmare

Tue, 08 Jun 2004 13:55:26 -0700

Have you ever seen a word processor other than Microsoft's own office suite member Word that can import an RTF (Rich Text Format) file properly? I have not. The reason for this lies in RTF's inherent complexity and its strong dependency on Microsoft's internal Word document implementation. The RTF format is basically a 7-bit-safe, serialized version of a Word document's in-memory representation plus some tweaks that ensure backward compatibility with older programs that read RTF files.

CorelDraw 11 vs. Illustrator CS

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 13:29:41 -0700

For my web comps I usually use Adobe Illustrator CS and I am quite pleased with it. Recently, I had the chance to review CorelDraw 11. The first time I ever used CorelDraw was more than 10 years ago and it must have been ancient version 2. The most recent version is 12. I reviewed version 11. For a client, I had to update a document created in CorelDraw 7, import it into version 11, apply a few modifications to it and do some streamlining. I was able to do the job, but it wasn't a very pleasant experience. Here's a list of nuisances.