Tech & Toys

  • FreeBSD ports WITHOUT_X11

    I never remember the syntax for this, should you need to build a port without X11 support do this:

    # make WITHOUT_X11=yes

    Jun 28, 2005
    in update usefulthings

  • Apache Directory permissions

    I just got caught out with apache directory permissions while installing gallery for a virtual host. I previously had all the virtual hosts using the same strict directory permissions shown below:

    <Directory /sites/<domain>/www/htdocs>
                AllowOverride AuthConfig
        </Directory>

    This will generate 2 errors in the virtual host error log, the first of which is a php error:

    [alert]  /sites/<domain>/www/htdocs/gallery/setup/.htaccess: php_value not allowed here

    This can be fixed by adding the Options option to the AllowOverride statement, the second error:

    [alert]  /sites/<domain>/www/htdocs/gallery/setup/.htaccess: RewriteEngine not allowed here

    can be fixed by adding the FileInfo option. So the final directory block should look like this:

    <Directory /sites/<domain>/www/htdocs>
                AllowOverride AuthConfig Options FileInfo
        </Directory>

    Jun 28, 2005
    in update usefulthings

  • New OS category

    Will mainly be a parent for the other OS categories beneath it…

    Mar 14, 2005
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  • SuSE sudo weirdness

    On SuSE 9.2 we have noticed that sudo didnt seem to work out of the box. Have tracked this to SuSE changing a default from the way it is shipped in the sudo package, from the man sudoers(5) man page:

    targetpw    If set, sudo will prompt for the password the user specified
            by the -u flag (defaults to root) instead of the password of
            the invoking user.  This flag is off by default.

    If you comment out the following line sudo will ask for the password of the current user NOT the user they are trying to run the command as:

    Defaults targetpw

    Mar 10, 2005
    in update usefulthings

  • SuSE 9.1 ifconfig weirdness

    Have just found out that ifconfig on SuSE 9.2 doesnt seem to show virtual intefaces:

    message2:~ # ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:80:3F:2B:7B:60
          inet addr:192.168.0.200  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::280:3fff:fe2b:7b60/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:40203054 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4386872 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:2879540080 (2746.1 Mb)  TX bytes:321973799 (307.0 Mb)
          Base address:0x2000 Memory:dd200000-dd220000

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:80:3F:2B:7B:61
          inet addr:XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX  Bcast:XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX  Mask:255.255.255.224
          inet6 addr: fe80::280:3fff:fe2b:7b61/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:66946630 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:43575297 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:4317777 (4.1 Mb)  TX bytes:4011082191 (3825.2 Mb)
          Base address:0x2040 Memory:dd220000-dd240000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1692 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1692 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:113193 (110.5 Kb)  TX bytes:113193 (110.5 Kb)

message2:~ #

    However if you use the ip command from the iproute2 package it shows that in fact eth1 does have some aliases:

    message2:~ # ip addr
1: lo:  mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 brd 127.255.255.255 scope host lo
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: sit0:  mtu 1480 qdisc noqueue
    link/sit 0.0.0.0 brd 0.0.0.0
3: eth0:  mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:80:3f:2b:7b:60 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.0.200/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global eth0
    inet6 fe80::280:3fff:fe2b:7b60/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
4: eth1:  mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:80:3f:2b:7b:61 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX/YY brd XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX scope global eth1
    inet XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX/YY brd XXX.XXX.XXx.XXX scope global secondary eth1
    inet6 fe80::280:3fff:fe2b:7b61/64 scope link
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
message2:~ #

    How weird is that. Versions shown below:

    message2:~ # cat /etc/SuSE-release
SuSE Linux 9.1 (i586)
VERSION = 9.1
message2:~ # ifconfig -V
net-tools 1.60
ifconfig 1.42 (2001-04-13)
message2:~ #

    **NB:**IP addresses changed to protect the innocent…

    Mar 10, 2005
    in update usefulthings

  • backspace not working in xterms

    Add the following to /etc/X11/Xresources and restart X / [gkx]dm

    xterm*VT100.Translations: #override
BackSpace: string(0x7F)n
Delete:    string("
Home:      string("
End:       string("
*ttyModes: erase ^?

    Tested on RHEL3.

    Thanks to Justin for this

    Mar 2, 2005
    in update usefulthings

  • Moving the /Users directory

    Recently I needed to move the /Users tree onto another partition on a OS X machine at work, I found this great howto.

    Dec 9, 2004
    in update usefulthings

  • Mapping Between Logical and Physical Device Names on a Sun E450

    If you need to find the slot that a disk is in from a given logical name (c3t3d0) you can follow this (Broken link http://sunsolve.sun.com/search/document.do?assetkey=1-9-16735-1&searchclause=16735) document from sun. I’ve mirrored the important bits below incase it disapears

    1. Determine the UNIX physical device name from the SCSI error message.
    SCSI error messages are typically displayed in the system console
       
and logged in the /usr/adm/messages file. 

```

    WARNING: /pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3,0 (sd228) Error for Command: read(10) Error level: Retryable Requested Block: 3991014 Error Block: 3991269 Vendor: FUJITSU Serial Number: 9606005441 Sense Key: Media Error ASC: 0x11 (unrecovered read error), ASCQ: 0x0, FRU: 0x0

        
    In the example SCSI error message above, the UNIX physical device name is `/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3`.
    
      * Determine the UNIX logical device name by listing the contents of
          
        the `/dev/rdsk` directory.
        
        Use the grep command to filter the output for any occurrence of
          
        the UNIX physical device name determined in Step 1:
        
        ```
% ls -l /dev/rdsk | grep /pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3
        lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root        45 Jan 30 09:07 c12t3d0s0 ->
        ../../devices/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3,0:a,raw
        lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root        45 Jan 30 09:07 c12t3d0s1 ->
        ../../devices/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3,0:b,raw
        lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root        45 Jan 30 09:07 c12t3d0s2 ->
        ../../devices/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3,0:c,raw
        lrwxrwxrwx1 root     root        45 Jan 30 09:07 c12t3d0s3 ->
        ../../devices/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3,0:d,raw
        lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root        45 Jan 30 09:07 c12t3d0s4 ->
        ../../devices/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3,0:e,raw
        lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root        45 Jan 30 09:07 c12t3d0s5 ->
        ../../devices/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3,0:f,raw
        lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root        45 Jan 30 09:07 c12t3d0s6 ->
        ../../devices/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3,0:g,raw
        lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root        45 Jan 30 09:07 c12t3d0s7 ->
        ../../devices/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/sd@3,0:h,raw

        The resulting output indicates the associated UNIX logical device name.
   
    In this example, the logical device name is `c12t3d0`
    
      * Determine the disk slot number using the `prtconf` command.
        
        Substitute the string disk@ for sd@ in the physical device name determined in Step 1. The result in this example is
      
        `/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/disk@3`.
        
        Use the grep command to find this name in the output of the
      
        prtconf command:
        
        ```

    % prtconf -vp | grep /pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/disk@3 slot#11: ‘/pci@6,4000/scsi@4,1/disk@3’

    Dec 2, 2004
    in update usefulthings

  • Daemontools run scripts collection

    Found this nice collection of daemontools run scripts. Will find that useful someday

    Nov 17, 2004
    in update usefulthings

  • Partitioning >1Tb volumes

    If you need to create partitions on a disk (or raid volume) which is larger than 1Tb you will need to use parted and set the disk label to GPT. This is an example session creating 2 1Tb partitions on a 2Tb raid5 volume:

    [root@sn-b03 parted]# parted /dev/sdb
GNU Parted 1.6.9
Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation,
Inc.

This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public
License for more details.

Using /dev/sdb
Information: The operating system thinks the geometry on /dev/sdb is 291775/255/63.
Therefore, cylinder 1024 ends at 8032.499M.
(parted) mklabel gpt
(parted) mkpart primary 0 1048576
(parted) mkpart primary 1048577 2097152
(parted) p
Disk geometry for /dev/sdb: 0.000-2288754.000 megabytes
Disk label type: gpt
Minor    Start       End     Filesystem  Name                  Flags
1          0.017 -1048576.000  ext3
2     -1048575.000      0.000
(parted) quit
Information: Don't forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary.

[root@sn-b03 parted]#

    Nov 17, 2004
    in update usefulthings