Wednesday, September 27, 2006

GPL software for hosting multiple domains & websites

GPLHost:>_ Web hosting open source (GPL) control panel

DTC has some Xen VPS abilities, however, it looks pretty new and I'm not sure how many features it has.

I came across the software when reading this howto for Ubuntu.  I'm definitely not ready for installing it but I wanted to keep it in the back of my mind.

On a recent JAKattack episode, Jon mentioned some type of domain control panel and I'm not sure if this is what he meant.

After reading through some show notes, he was talking about cPanel and WHM.  I'll link to them here and hopefully spend some time reading the articles.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Linux in the Workplace?

Can Linux Desktops Live in an Active Directory World? « Open Source Advocacy with Reverend Ted



I've been trying to work with Linux as my desktop in an all Windows IT department. I still prefer Ubuntu to Windows and just recently I installed VMware on both a Windows 2003 server Dell Poweredge with 2 Xeons and also on my Ubuntu workstation with a single P4 processor (with hyperthreading for what that's worth). I dedicated a 40G physical drive for Windows XP professional on Ubuntu and get better performance on Ubuntu than Windows 2003, however, I have never dedicated a physical drive to a virtual environment before.

I do need to report a bug report with VMware because my entire system freezes when I try allowing the Windows environment bridged network access. Luckily, I believe that VMware Server (free product) is fully supported and will work with me in my Ubuntu environment which will be a first time I will get support on a Linux product.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

RTFM Education » Ultimate-P2V

RTFM Education » Ultimate-P2V

After getting comfortable on VMware Server, I wanted to reinstall Ubuntu on my work PC and make a copy of my Windows workstation and run it in a virtual environment. I really have missed running Linux for my day-to-day Windows administration job. Previously, I had used RDP whenever needing a Windows only application (like SMS, or an IT Helpline exchange mailbox) but it always got in the way. It was hard to justify 2 machines for 1 user.

Bart's Boot Disk Now with this guide, I can use Bart's boot disk to make a clone of my working Windows workstation and throw it into a virtual environment. I wouldn't mind paying for P2V but I usually have a difficult time justifying what I'm trying to do and how it will help with our Windows servers. VMwareI have so far failed convincing the Vice President of IT how we can use virtual technologies to offer 2 compatible servers on the same hardware and save $6k. So far, I have only convinced him to allow virtuallization in a lab setting.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

O'Reilly Radar > State of the Computer Book Market, Part 2

O'Reilly Radar > State of the Computer Book Market, Part 2

What interests me the most is Ruby as a programming language is making huge and fast jumps, MySQL is steady with MS sql rising on the database front and Postgres is making some movement.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Home Value Balloon

This doesn't quite fit on my blog but it interests me and I think the information is important because I own a house.





27leon_graph2.large.gif (GIF Image, 862x700 pixels)



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Friday, September 15, 2006

Ubuntu Laptops!

How cool is this!  I can't wait to get one.  I don't know how I am going to convince my boss (wife).

Power your next computer with the open source and easy to use Ubuntu Linux operating system. It works with your existing file types including Microsoft Word and Excel.Your operating system and applications are and will always be free and up to date.

:: system76 :: Linux Laptops, Linux Desktops, Linux Servers ::






Linux Laptops Serval
Linux Laptops Pangolin
Linux Laptops Gazelle



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Mongrel and Capistrano

So ever since I noticed that I’ve been wanting to use Mongrel to run my Rails apps. For those not familiar with mongrel, it’s a Tomcat-style application host for rails apps that avoids (huzzah) the FCGI palaver that we ordinarily have to deal with.

Sketchpad » Blog Archive » Capistrano, Mongrel, and Mongrel_cluster



My notes to follow.

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Thursday, September 14, 2006

How I setup Subversion, Apache, and Capistrono


sudo vi/etc/apache2/mods-enabled/dav_svn.conf
--
#Comment out the following 2 lines with your repo path
#DAV svn <-Comment out this
DAV svn

#SVNPath /var/lib/svn <-Comment out this
SVNPath /var/local/svn

<LimitExcept GET PROPFIND OPTIONS REPORT>
#Require valid-user <-Comment this if you don't need basic authentication
Options Indexes
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</LimitExcept>


HOWTO : Subversion & Eclipse development environment - Ubuntu Forums


You should deviate from the above configuration if you are using this for rails development because otherwise you will allow for anyone to see your database password from the database.yml file. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Yahoo or Google crawls the web repository and make the password searchable.

From here, I followed these instructions to get Capistrano started.


On the client, check out the app

svn checkout svn://svnserver.com/app1 (enter user and pass as needed)
cd app1

capistranize the app:

cap --apply-to app1

Now, to set up the app for capistrano deployment, configure deploy.rb(see example below) appropriately with the correct paths, servers,restart method to restart apache, etc.


On the client,

rake remote:exec ACTION=setup

This will setup the base structure ${deploy_to}/releases /current /shared

current is a symlink to the most recent release/YYYYMMDDHHMMSS/ directory. shared contains shared logfiles etc.

That should do it!

example deploy.rb used for app1 (comments removed):

##########

 




  1. set :application, "app1"

  2. set :repository, "svn://svnserver.com/"

  3. role :web, "yourserver.com"

  4. role :app, "yourserver.com"

  5. role :db, "yourserver.com", :primary => true

  6. set :deploy_to, "/home/rails/application_path/"


  7. desc "Restart the web server"

  8. task :restart, :roles => :app do

  9. sudo "/usr/local/etc/rc.d/apache2.sh restart"

  10. end



#########

PS: apache has to point to /home/rails/application_path/current/public for this to function properly.

Quick guide to setting up svn, capistrano, apache and radrails - Rails Weenie



And here is how I set up my svnserve script for /etc/init.d/svnserve. I didn't like trying to get inetd or xnetd to work. This is based off of the default one found in the same directory.



 



#! /bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO

# Provides: svnserve

# Required-Start: $local_fs $remote_fs

# Required-Stop: $local_fs $remote_fs

# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5

# Default-Stop: S 0 1 6

# Short-Description: Subversion server

# Description: This start svnserve on a particular port. Others can

# access it using svn://servernam/.

### END INIT INFO

#

# Author: Jeff Rasmussen <jeff.rasmussen at gmail.com>.

#

# Version: @(#)svnserve 0.0.1 11-Sept-2006 jeff.rasmussen at gmail.com

#set -e

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin

DESC="Subversion Server"

NAME=svnserve

DAEMON=/usr/bin/$NAME

PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid

SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME

PORT=3690

REPOSITORY=/var/local/svn/

DAEMON_OPTS="-d --listen-port=$PORT -r $REPOSITORY"

# Gracefully exit if the package has been removed.

test -x $DAEMON || exit 0

# Read config file if it is present.

#if [ -r /etc/default/$NAME ]

#then

# . /etc/default/$NAME

#fi

#

# Function that starts the daemon/service.

#

d_start() {

start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE

--exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS

|| echo -n " already running"

}

#

# Function that stops the daemon/service.

#

d_stop() {

start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE

--name $NAME

|| echo -n " not running"

}

#

# Function that sends a SIGHUP to the daemon/service.

#

d_reload() {

start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE

--name $NAME --signal 1

}

case "$1" in

start)

echo -n "Starting $DESC: $NAME"

d_start

echo "."

;;

stop)

echo -n "Stopping $DESC: $NAME"

d_stop

echo "."

;;

#reload)

#

# If the daemon can reload its configuration without

# restarting (for example, when it is sent a SIGHUP),

# then implement that here.

#

# If the daemon responds to changes in its config file

# directly anyway, make this an "exit 0".

#

# echo -n "Reloading $DESC configuration..."

# d_reload

# echo "done."

#;;

restart|force-reload)

#

# If the "reload" option is implemented, move the "force-reload"

# option to the "reload" entry above. If not, "force-reload" is

# just the same as "restart".

#

echo -n "Restarting $DESC: $NAME"

d_stop

# One second might not be time enough for a daemon to stop,

# if this happens, d_start will fail (and dpkg will break if

# the package is being upgraded). Change the timeout if needed

# be, or change d_stop to have start-stop-daemon use --retry.

# Notice that using --retry slows down the shutdown process somewhat.

sleep 1

d_start

echo "."

;;

*)

echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2

exit 3

;;

esac

exit 0



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Wednesday, September 13, 2006

RIS Install Notes

JSI Tip 3060. What rights are needed for a RIS server to create machine accounts?
Users can create their own machine accounts (Low security) - For this option, modify the security on the container that will hold the new MAOs to include an Access Control Entry (ACE) for the user (or group) allowing the Create All Child Objects permission. The creator of this object becomes the owner, giving the creator full control of this object only. This option allows the user to reinstall, if required, without administrator assistance.

I forgot a couple items. First, I need to install RIS with Enterprise Admin rights. Since we have 2 domains (root and primary) I needed to give administrative rights on the RIS server to the correct root\account.

My second issue is documented above. Instead of requiring "Domain Admin" rights, we decided to create a domain group of "RIS Operators" which had permissions to perform a RIS installation. To do that, I needed to run ADSI edit from a domain controller, go to properties of the RIS computer and then the security tab. Give the Self object "create all child objects" and "delete all child objects" permissions.

I almost remember reading about this permission but had forgotten it and couldn't find it again on Microsoft's website.
RIS server wont authorise


What OS and SP?  Are you getting other binl event IDs, like 7000, 1047 and 
1007?
Did you successfully complete risetup?
It could be permissions-related. The computer account of Self has to be
granted
the Create All Child object access on the computer object of the Ris Server
in AD.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Links Are Dead Post

This is my Steve Gillmor experiment. He doesn't know me from anyone and I expect that he will find this post and read it. It may not be instant but if Steve and I are right, then linking is irrelevant, searching is king. And because searching is king, that means context is everything or rather attention is everything.

Steve, I couldn't find an email address or comment area to comment on your show. I wanted to suggest that you could sell more GoDaddy domains with Gillmor1 if you mentioned that Google is allowing beta users to sign up for gmail accounts with up to 25 accounts mapped to domains purchased not through Google but through GoDaddy or other establishments.

I set up a domain that I already purchased through Yahoo for 2x's what GoDaddy charges with the Gillmor discount. But I am very tempted to find another domain and map it onto a 2GB gmail account. Maybe jeff@rasmussen.com is available.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win? — HBS Working Knowledge

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Who Will Win? — HBS Working Knowledge
Our paper introduces a dynamic mixed duopoly model in which a profit-maximizing competitor (Microsoft) interacts with a competitor that prices at zero (Linux), with the installed base affecting their relative values over time. We use a formal model to ask what conditions are needed for Linux to take over Windows. The questions that we address are: Is Linux's superior demand-side learning sufficient to win out? What is the effect of forced procurement by governments and some large corporations on the long-run equilibrium? How do cost asymmetries play out? Can Microsoft use piracy strategically to improve its market position?

Harvard analysis of market forces between OSS and Microsoft. It seems that they believe that Linux and other OSS cannot be pushed out of the market but they do have some strategies that Microsoft can use against Linux.

Lot's of editorial liberty, but a quick summary of effective strategies that Microsoft can (and has) used against Linux:

  • Act more like open source projects:  Increase customer feedback loops and be quicker to market these changes.

  • Use network effects to Microsoft's advantage.

    • Give OS and software away to schools and universities so that people build file libraries on Microsoft Word not Open Office



  • Allow governments access to source code and give away binaries to people who would otherwise use Linux, but keep the price for people not easily swayed.

    • Find the right mixture of piracy to purchases.  Piracy may actually help sell more Microsoft products in the future.



  • Reduce costs.  Always helpful but not really practical when competing with volunteers.

  • Make it more difficult for people to contribute/ participate in open source development (Trusted Computing)

  • Make sure that Windows applications are not able to be run on Linux platforms

  • FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) campaigns Create new metrics to evaluate software (Total Cost of Ownership - TCO)

The MythTV Convergence | Tom's Hardware

The MythTV Convergence | Tom's Hardware
Enter MythTV, a grand unification of personal digital video recording and home theater technology, and a magnum opus of modular design, freedom of expression and personal entertainment. At its core, MythTV is a digital video recording solution composed of several modular components that facilitate time-stretched manipulation of live television feeds, but it's really much more than that. In this multi-part article, we examine the depth and scope of MythTV's capabilities. We start here from the standard MythTV base, then address the wide-open capabilities that make MythTV more than just a video recording suite - the capabilities that make it into a quintessential home theater PC (HTPC) system.

I've installed MythTV through the mythknoppix live/cd.  It worked with my TV card and was really nice but it won't replace my tivo until I need HDTV and get a TV card with a remote control.

Don't kid yourself, you will not save money with MythTV.  To make a machine that can go into your living room, you will have to spend some decent pennies to buy the right kind of quiet hard drive, the right video card with remote control, the right looking case that at least looks like it belongs in the living room.

Qtopia Greenphone — Trolltech

Qtopia Greenphone — Trolltech

I would like to take a look at this phone.  I assume it will be buggy at first but since my biggest peeve with Blackberry is that I can't install much, this phone may be just what I am looking for.