Category: numlock.ch

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Aug 29, 2008: BlogCamp Switzerland 3.0 in Zurich

Note that this year’s Swiss BlogCamp, the BlogCamp Switzerland 3.0, will take place on the same date (August 29, 2008) as the Tag der Informatik (informatica08) and the tweakGrill, and at the same location (Technopark in Zurich), too! Of course, this is no coincidence :) No matter whether you’re a blogger or not (or plan to be, have been, are interested in the Swiss blogging scene, the web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, whatever etc. ;): Be there, I’m sure it will be an interesting event, again! (And attending the “Tag der Informatik” is a point of honor anyway :)

(Bloggy Friday will start at 8 PM, guess where ;)

BlogCamp Switzerland 3.0

[UPDATE 20080802: I probably can’t be there due to military service :( At rather short notice as they managed to send the march order to an address that doesn’t exist. No comment.]

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Gentoo: Pebble 2.3.1 on Tomcat 5.5 and Tomcat 6 (using JDK 1.5)

In Gentoo, a couple of manual configuration steps are required in order to make Pebble run on Tomcat 5.5, using JDK 1.5. So, apart from the obvious (like emerging Tomcat, a JDK, fetching pebble-2.3.1.zip etc.), I had to do the following:

  • In /usr/share/tomcat-5.5/lib, add the following two jar libraries from the pebble-2.3.1.zip archive (they’re located in the lib subdirectory):
    activation.jar
    mail.jar
    Further create symlinks to these two jars in /usr/share/tomcat-5.5/server/lib:
    o2 # cd /usr/share/tomcat-5.5/server/lib
    o2 lib # ln -s ../../lib/activation.jar .
    o2 lib # ln -s ../../lib/mail.jar .
  • Make sure these two jar files are in Tomcat’s CLASSPATH. Astonishingly, placing them in the above directories is not sufficient in Gentoo, one needs to explicitly add them to the CLASSPATH too. Thus, in /etc/conf.d/tomcat-5.5, edit the CLASSPATH to make it look as follows:
    CLASSPATH=${CATALINA_LIBDIR}:${CATALINA_LIBDIR}mail.jar:${CATALINA_LIBDIR}activation.jar
  • In /usr/share/tomcat-5.5/common/endorsed, add symlinks to xalan.jar and serializer.jar (in order to get rid of the “javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactoryConfigurationError: Provider org.apache.xalan.processor.TransformerFactoryImpl not found” error message):
    o2 # cd /usr/share/tomcat-5.5/common/endorsed
    o2 endorsed # ln -s /usr/share/xalan/lib/xalan.jar .
    o2 endorsed # ln -s /usr/share/xalan/lib/serializer.jar .
    These two files are part of Xalan (’emerge xalan’, if necessary)
  • On my Gentoo server, I had to explicitly set the dataDirectory property Pebble uses, as by default, the variable ${user.home} seemed to point to /dev/null in a secured Tomcat environment. So, make sure the property file ./WEB-INF/pebble.properties in the pebble.war file defines
    dataDirectory=/var/pebbledata
    (or whatever directory you want pebble to store the actual blog data in) instead of
    dataDirectory=${user.home}/pebble
    Important: Make sure this directory (here: /var/pebbledata) exists (create it, if necessary) and is writable by Tomcat (i.e. user tomcat or group tomcat)
  • I’d suggest you rename pebble.war (from the pebble-2.3.1.zip archive) to something more generic, e.g. blog.war or news.war before deploying it to Tomcat. Like this, the relative URL for accessing the blog will automatically start with /blog or /news accordingly (instead of /pebble). The naming is a matter of taste though. To deploy the war file, simply copy it to /var/lib/tomcat-5.5/webapps and restart Tomcat (which might not even be necessary, actually):
    o2 # /etc/init.d/tomcat-5.5 restart
  • If you want to use the Tomcat Manager web application in order to monitor, start and stop webapps like pebble (you probably want to do this), make sure you define a user with the role ”manager” in /var/lib/tomcat-5.5/conf/tomcat-users.xml (this file is empty by default). E.g. add the following user:
    <tomcat-users>
    <role rolename=”manager”/>
    <user username=”tomcatmanager” password=”t0tallySecretPassw0rd” roles=”manager”/>
    </tomcat-users>

For Tomcat 6, the required changes are analogous. ASAP, I’ll verify these steps with Pebble-2.3.1 on Tomcat 6 using Sun JDK 1.6. Stay tuned..

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Setting up postfix for virtual mail hosts

After setting up name-based virtual web hosting for Apache, I’ve just set up virtual mail hosting for my new company, Printscreen GmbH, using postfix – and it was amazingly simple! :) For some basic virtual mail hosting using normal UNIX/Linux user accounts, all you need is a plain-text file (‘/etc/postfix/virtual’) that maps virtual mail addresses to the actual user accounts and two additional lines in main.cf:

/etc/postfix/virtual:
postmaster@example.com postmaster
# Uncomment entry below to implement a catch-all address
# @example.com jim

/etc/postfix/main.cf:
virtual_alias_domains = example.com
virtual_alias_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual

Then just execute

# postmap /etc/postfix/virtual && /etc/init.d/postfix reload

Voilà!

The nice postfix readme file for this and some more complicated virtual mail hosting configurations:

http://www.postfix.org/VIRTUAL_README.html

Another, possibly helpful howto (search):

http://www.freebsddiary.org/postfix.php

For setups using a MySQL database as a backend for storing the mappings, see Google. I currently don’t need this and hence don’t like to introduce any unnecessary MySQL dependency to my postfix server – remember the KISS principle ;)

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Gentoo: “Silent” upgrade from Apache 2.0.x to 2.2.x

Finally, Apache 2.2 is running fine on this server! :) Upgrading, i.e. manually merging all the changed configuration files, recompiling old Apache modules (unfortunately, Gentoo doesn’t care about this automatically) was quite an effort though. The “silent” upgrade was thus not silent at all but rather just silently ended with a no longer working Apache and the according web server downtime. Conclusion: I should really rethink whether I want to stick with Gentoo for this server or rather switch to something more administrator-friendly like Debian, SUSE or Fedora.

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My mobile/cell phone currently out of service

Unfortunately, my mobile phone broke during my (nice :) vacations and therefore, I can’t be reached by mobile phone currently. Please use e-mail (mettlerd “AT” numlock “DOT” ch), skype (‘mettlerd’) or instant messaging (see below) instead:

Skype: mettlerd (most likely reachable, preferred)

ICQ: 196122009

MSN: h2o_ch@msn.com (don’t use this account for sending mail)

AIM/Groupwise: dmettler (business account)

Google: daniel.mettler@gmail.com (don’t use this account for sending mail)

Jabber: mettlerd@swissjabber.ch (don’t use this account for sending mail)
I intend to buy a new mobile phone the upcoming weekend (If the Apple iPhone was available in Switzerland I’d buy one. Unfortunately it isn’t.. too bad for Apple and myself. Any suggestion for another decent mobile phone to buy?)

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MODx Content Management System, Magnolia CMS, Alfresco

I’ve just discovered the new ajaxified, PHP-based MODx Content Management System. It looks and feels great (test it here!). If there wasn’t any need for a dedicated admin interface (i.e. instead, content editable in-place for privileged users), it would be even more userfriendly. Maybe that’s the next step to take?

Another not-yet-ajaxified but nonetheless cool CMS (JEE based, supports JSR-170) I already mentioned before: Magnolia CMS (live demo, currently out of duty).
Further, a nice JEE based Open Source DMS/CMS/ECM supporting JSR-170: Alfresco.

For this site, I might switch to MODx instead of keep using WP (which basically still fights with the same problems it always did). The more as I’ve been dealing with AJAX professionally for a while now (but focussed on JEE as the enterprise server platform). As a DMS, Alfresco would come in handy. Now all I need is enough spare time to realize my plans ;)

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QR-Code for this blog’s RSS feed

The QR Code of this blog’s RSS feed, provided by Feed2Mobile:

Posting JavaScript code doesn’t seem to work in WP and as I lack the time to properly include it in the template, here’s the link to the JS:
http://feed2mobile.kaywa.com/202181538.js



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