FreeBSD

The majority of this weekend was spent tending a portupgrade. I managed to break the portsdb. I am positive this was related to running out of diskspace during the process. However FreeBSD makes it easy to solve this by removing the INDEX-#.db file in /usr/ports and using the pkgdb and portsdb commands to rebuild the database and handling the dependancies. However the process did take some time...

This message has been present for awhile but it hasn't impacted performace (that I can tell) and it doesn't appear to be critical.

smbd/server.c:open_sockets_smbd(443)
open_sockets_smbd: accept: Software caused connection abort

It looks like Samba3 added support for FAM. "FAM = NO" can be added to the /usr/local/etc/smb.conf file to disable FAM functionality. FAM stands for File Alteration Monitor project information can be found here and here. FAM API enables programs to be nofified when specific files or directories are modified outside the calling programs use.

#dhclient rl0

After the recent issues I had been having with Windows XP I decided to give SUSE another whirl. I've had pretty good success getting everything working in the past (with the exception of the SATA sil driver). The initial install went well enough however I appear to have burned a corrupt medium. I didn't look into this deeply to see if perhaps it was due to a problem on the site where I downloaded the ISO from or if it lost integreity during the download. A nifty feature that comes on the openSUSE disk is an integrity check. Although it's too late at that point - but at least you know if something is fucked up. A good heads up would be to use a checksum on the iso after you download it so you don't waste time burning a bunk copy to disk.

The install went quick enough - able to repartition NTFS drives. NTFS read worked out of the box. NTFS write was working easily enough with NTFS-3g driver. Only real PITA problem is when installing RPMs the zypp installer hangs. So I suggest installing RPMs from the command line - or better yet stick to using repositories.

3D Acceleration works for the most part but Cedega fails a test. I decided to take the easy way out since WINE was having some issues (meh only $5/mo for Cedega and their interface makes setting stuff up a snap). I need to fiddle with the driver a bit more. I'll maintain updates here.

Overall I'm stoaked with this install. Everything is snappy.

OpenSUSE ISOs
OpenSUSE NTFS-3g Install Guide
OpenSUSE Repositories

This, in short, is a thorny problem with no perfect solution. (Welcome to the deficient real world!)

I love stuff like this.

searchbar.cpp: In member function `void SearchBarPlugin::setIcon()':
searchbar.cpp:300: error: 'class KLineEdit' has no member named 'setClickMessage'
gmake[4]: *** [searchbar.lo] Error 1
gmake[4]: Leaving directory `/usr/ports/misc/konq-plugins/work/kdeaddons-3.5.4/konq-plugins/searchbar'
gmake[3]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
gmake[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/ports/misc/konq-plugins/work/kdeaddons-3.5.4/konq-plugins/searchbar'
gmake[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
gmake[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/ports/misc/konq-plugins/work/kdeaddons-3.5.4/konq-plugins'
gmake[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
gmake[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/ports/misc/konq-plugins/work/kdeaddons-3.5.4'
gmake: *** [all] Error 2
*** Error code 2

Problem:

Receive with Qmail has been intermittent with messages not able to be received properly.

Solution:

Softlimit increase required.

Actions:

Supervise startup scripts modified to increase softlimit to 5 megs.

#ee /var/supervise/pop3d/run
#ee /var/supervise/qmail/run

I am not sure if the pop3d required a softlimit increase however I set it to 2 megs.
I commended out the previous softlimit line in qmail run file and replaced it with a fixed 5meg.

Problem:
Scripts making use of session data not functioning correctly (referred to httpd error log for confirmation).

Log displayed:

[error] PHP Warning: Unknown: open(/tmp/o/c/5/1/3/blahblahb, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in Unknown on line 0

Solution:
Edit php.ini file from:
session.save_path = "5;/tmp" to
session.save_path = "/tmp".

While this didn't work gloriously fast it was usable however a bit clunky.

Initial How-To article. I did not include:

Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "1"

Turn off additional KDE settings such as Transparent Menus and Dropshadows.

Related Links:
Good post about the different device options found in xorg.conf

2.4. Ensure man(1) can find the qmail man pages

Make the following change to the file /etc/manpath.config:

# echo "OPTIONAL_MANPATH /var/qmail/man" >> /etc/manpath.config

I want to configure Chanserv to remain in a registered channel (+r) similar to EnterTheGame. However it doesn't look like this is possible.

I found a thread covering this topic at UnrealIRCD.com.

Resources:
http://forums.unrealircd.com
http://www.servicescommunity.za.net/

While troubleshooting IRC Services I came across this IRC Log of a person requesting help with modified code.

Problem:
Past portupgrade of UnrealIRCD required a review of the config.

When starting UnrealIRCD it would die stating:

(ERROR :Link denied (No matching link configuration) [@127.0.0.1.41228]

Solution:
Link section of the unrealircd.conf needed to be changed to reflect services.coalitionstate.com and correct link passwords needed to be set.

I also had to modify the server numeric.

Links:
http://www.vulnscan.org/UnrealIRCd/faq/#51
http://irc-mania.de/
http://forums.unrealircd.com

Help fixing a broken mail queue. Mail is able to be sent and received correctly, I think. Tests emails are sent and received correctly. I believe the issues might be with how bounces are handled.

Qmail queue structure. A general setup guide for qmail can be found here however I used the guide at bsdforums.org.

From /var/log/messages

sm-mta[3889]: k5GA6Z27003885: SYSERR(root): mail.coalitionstate.com. config error: mail loops back to me (MX problem?)
sm-mta[3890]: k5GA6ZFZ003886: SYSERR(root): mail.coalitionstate.com. config error: mail loops back to me (MX problem?)
sm-mta[3889]: k5GA6a27003889: Losing ./qfk5GA6a27003889: savemail panic
sm-mta[3890]: k5GA6aFZ003890: Losing ./qfk5GA6aFZ003890: savemail panic
sm-mta[3890]: k5GA6aFZ003890: SYSERR(root): savemail: cannot save rejected email anywhere
sm-mta[3889]: k5GA6a27003889: SYSERR(root): savemail: cannot save rejected email anywhere

I had created an Alias in bind for tamasaburo.coalitionstate.com which is the machines hostname. I think this was the error. I removed the modification I had made to bind and restarted the daemon (no issues there). Using vpopmail I had created a virtualdomain of tamasaburo.coalitionstate.com as an alias for coalitionstate.com.

qmail-qstat reports an empty mail queue and 23 messages preprocessed. I am not sure how to clear the preprocessed messages (they've been in there for nearly a day). qfixq script does not detect anything that needs to be fixed. qmHandle also reports empty local and remote queues.

I think it could be a bottleneck with how I have configured Spam Assassin and/or ClamAV.

I figured I would try qmail-scanner to employ ClamAV and Spam Assassin. While building it did not find the QMAILQUEUE fix/patch applied to Qmail. After bumbling around and downloading the patch and patching qmail by hand I found out you can make WITH_QMAILQUEUE_PATCH=yes.

I used the C Wrapper in /mail/qmail-scanner/work/qmail-scanner*/contrib/ since Perl does not have SETUID abilities enabled.

A few errors in /var/log/maillog which were resolved by running qmail-scanner-queue.pl -z to initialize the system. I needed to chown qmaild:qscand /var/local/qmailscan/* to eliminate the permission errors.
Finally ran qmail-scanner-queue.pl -g. I still get permission errors. RUAR.

====

Q:What does "daemon" mean?
A:Daemon is a Greek word meaning "secondary deity ". My extrapolation of the UNIX meaning then, is that the kernel is the main "deity", providing the most important application services (mem and process mgmt, file access, network access, etc). And the system daemons are the secondary "deities" providing nonessential, but very useful application services.

My project (Operation Spam Block) has spurred my interest in automating the process of denying access to my website. The .htaccess file allows you to create rules that either allow or deny access to a directory. I had no idea how useful this file could be. You can even filter out by user agent. Nifty!

http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess5.shtml

We are not your customers. YOU ARE OUR CUSTOMER. Our driver sells your chips.

I know that our hifn driver has some problems. But because I cannot
get data sheets without giving you private information, I will not
spend even one moment more of my time to improve support for your
products. Jason and I spent a lot of time writing that code in the
past, but because your policies are privacy invasive towards us, and
thus completely thankless for the sales that we have given you in the
past -- we will not spend any more time on your crummy products.

Very awesome.

Problem:

Not receiving email. After creating email accounts with qmailadmin and vpopmail and using Roundcube webmail only sent messages would be retained. Further investigation shows that the sent messages existed but not where roundcube looks for them. Using vpopmail to add users works fine for pop accounts. However the IMAPdir/INBOX is not symlinked to the ../Maildir (where the messages currently reside.

Research:

After Googling I found linkwrapper script. Which creates the symlink at runtime. Alternatively there is a patch which modifies vpopmail to create an IMAPdir directory as well as symlink.

However this seems most promising. Note. It allows qmailctl to handle more than just pop.

Solution:

By running /usr/local/vpopmail/domains/imapdir.sh after user creation the problem is solved. The imapdir.sh script creates the spamassassin directories as well as the symlink. More information can be found on the BSDGuide article.

Now to tie this into vpopmail vadduser. Maybe a cron job...

For the longest time I have been unable to join password protected channels. After several attempts Google led me to the xchat forum where another user had a similar problem. As it turns out it was due to a plugin that I had loaded. xlack seems to alter how join works and make additional arguments (normally the channel key) be interpreted as another channel name. Hurray for frustraiting.

Always make sure that your aliases are spelled correctly.

/etc/mail/aliases

root: user@example.com

After updating type:

# newaliases

/dev/ad2s3 /mnt/disk2c msdosfs rw,users,umask=000 0 0

http://comp.eonworks.com/scripts/scripts.html

Shell Commands

http://www.hostpc.com/techblog/?page_id=79

Problem:
KDE fails to load correctly when loading dbus with session.

.xinitrc
dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session startkde

I have since commend out the line until I can figure out what to do. Only a few ports require dbus...

Determine large files and directories.

du -kx ./ | sort -n

To see something coming into ls output: lss
alias lss='ls -lrt | grep $1'

To check a process is running in a box with a heavy load: pss
alias pss='ps -ef | grep $1'

To check the existence of an environment variable: envv
alias envv='env | grep $1'

^a and ^e (beginning of line and end of line) and ^w (delete word) are incredibly useful too.

^a Beginning of the line.
^r Search through history, backwards.
^k Kill to the end of the line.
^u Kill to the beginning of the line.
(META = Alt)
Meta-f Forward one word
Meta-b Backward one word
Meta-d Delete forward one word

Ctrl-a -> go to the start of command line
Ctrl-e -> go to the end of command line
Ctrl-p -> previous command in history
Ctrl-n -> next command in history
Ctrl-f -> next character in command line
Ctrl-b -> previous character in command line
Ctrl-r -> reverse search in history file
Ctrl-d -> delete current character
Ctrl-k -> delete from the prompt to the end of command line
Ctrl-_ -> undo (yes, but limited)
Meta-Left Arrow -> go to beginning of history file
Meta-Right Arrow -> go to end of history file
Meta-f -> go to next word in command line
Meta-b -> go to previous word in command line
Meta-d -> delete next word in command line (from the actual position of the prompt)

$_ retreives variable from the previous command.

ls -1 */*.c | tail

#
# Connect to the local database server as user root
# You will be prompted for a password.
#
mysql -h localhost -u root -p

#
# Now we see the 'mysql>' prompt and we can run
# the following to create a new database for Paul.
#
mysql> create database pauldb;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

#
# Now we create the user paul and give him full
# permissions on the new database
mysql> grant CREATE,INSERT,DELETE,UPDATE,SELECT on pauldb.* to paul@localhost identified by 'secretpassword';

#mysql> grant CREATE,INSERT,DELETE,UPDATE,SELECT on pauldb.* to #paul@localhost;
#Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

#
# Next we set a password for this new user
#
mysql> set password for paul = password('mysecretpassword');
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

#
# Cleanup and ext
mysql> flush privileges;
mysql> exit;

http://beaglewiki.org/Beagle_Newsletter_Issue_9

The www/mod_php5 port gives you just the Apache loadable module, no
standalone php executable.

The lang/php5 port gives you both the Apache loadable module and the
standalone php executable.

The lang/php5-cli port gives you just the standalone php executable.

Finally, the www/php5-cgi port gives you a version of PHP *without*
fastcgi support -- ie. it's tied to using the traditional CGI interface.
(The php5-cgi port exists principally to be used with the www/suphp port)

Note: mod_php5 has been merged into php5. Review /usr/ports/MOVED