Diary Products - Hannes Schmidt -

"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:

Convert JSP pages to JSP documents (JSPX) with Jsp2x

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:01:08 -0800

Jsp2X is a command line utility for batch conversion of JSP pages to JSP documents, i.e. JSPs in well-formed XML syntax (aka JSPX, see chapter 5 of the JavaServer Pages^TM 1.2 Specification and chapter 6 of the JavaServer Pages^TM 2.0 Specification). It is written in Java and incorporates a parser derived from a combined JSP+XHTML grammar using the ANTLR parser generator. It tries very hard to create JSPX output that portable across engines. Jsp2X was designed to be used in an iterative fashion in which it alerts the user of potential problems in the input.

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.

Installing VMware Server on Gentoo Linux (Version 3)

Sun, 09 Jul 2006 21:49:52 -0700

[This article is now somewhat obsolete because vmware-server have been included the official portage tree. There is no need for a separate overlay. The bug reports still apply. This is an updated version of a two previous article on the subject.]

The new VMware Server is going to replace VMware's GSX Server product. And it's more than just a new name: VMware will supposedly release it free of charge. Being still in beta testing, there are currently no stable ebuilds available for it on Gentoo Linux. Fortunately, Mike Auty and others are working on one and they are doing a fine job. They also seem to be streamlining and consolidating other related VMware ebuilds. You can keep track of their progress on these Bugzilla bugs:

Problems regarding the vmware-module ebuild: 137422.
Problems regarding the vmware-player ebuild: 137423.
Problems regarding the vmware-server ebuild: 137424.
Problems regarding the vmware-server-console ebuild: 137425.
Problems regarding the vmware-workstation ebuild: 137426.
Problems regarding the vmware-workstation-tools ebuild: 137428.
Problems regarding the vmware overlay in general: 122500.

The VMware Server ebuilds are not part of the official stable Gentoo portage tree so if you want to install them on your system you will have to jump through a few extra hoops. Fortunately this process has become very convenient and straight-forward thanks to Gunnar Wrobel's layman.

Download Ruby Plugin 0.7.6 for jEdit

Sat, 08 Apr 2006 12:32:58 -0700

I had difficulties downloading the Ruby Plugin for jEdit today. The main site of the plugin seams to be down and the instructions don't mention certain dependencies. Until Rob fixes those problems, all necessary files will be available for download at Diary Products.

Installing VMware Server on Gentoo Linux (Version 2)

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:17:49 -0800

[This is an updated version of a previous article on the subject.]

VMWare is going to replace its GSX Server product with the new VMware Server. And it's going to be more than just a new name: the best thing about it is that VMware releases it free of charge. Being still in beta testing, there are currently no stable ebuilds available for it on Gentoo Linux. Fortunately, Mike Auty is working on one and he is doing a fine job. You should keep track of his progress on Gentoo Bugzilla bug #122500. For people with little Portage experience (author included) it can be a bit complicated to throw together an ebuild from bugzilla attachments.

Per-directory configuration (.htaccess) in LightTPD

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 09:56:59 -0800

The frequent visitor of Diary Products knows that it runs on the LightTPD aka Lighty web server. The machine that hosts Diary Products is serving other sites as well so it needs to have some kind of virtual hosting mechanism in place. I use LightTPD's very straight-forward and easy to use mod_simple_vhost module. The only draw-back with LightTPD is that it doesn't support directory specific configuration files similar to Apache's .htaccess files. But this is not such a big deal for me because as much as I liked the convenience of .htaccess, I always considered it a waste of cycles and a security issue. The ideal solution in my opinion would be one which

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.

Installing VMware Server on Gentoo Linux (Version 1)

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 10:39:06 -0800

[This is and outdated version of the article. Read the new version!]

VMware Server is going to replace GSX server. The best thing about it is that VMware releases it free of charge. Being still in beta testing, there are currently no stable ebuilds available for it on Gentoo Linux. Fortunately, Mike Auty is working on one and he is doing a fine job. You should keep track of his progress on Gentoo Bugzilla bug #122500. For people with little Portage experience (author included) it can be a bit complicated to throw together an ebuild from bugzilla attachments.

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.

True Geo-IP country geolocation for Google Urchin 5 statistics

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 07:58:01 -0800

If you are a user of Urchin 4 or 5 you might have noticed that Urchin’s “Countries” report does not match the standards that Urchin has set for professional website statistics. It seems to be Urchin’s weak spot. It might be ok for you but I was certainly disappointed when I discovered that Urchin determines (or should I rather say: attempts to determine) a visitor’s location from a database that is derived from reverse DNS lookups. This type of location reporting can hardly be considered state-of-the-art, even less so for a commercial website log file analytics application. This article is about how Urchin 5 can be fooled into using true Geo IP mappings for its Countries report.