Matt Rude

Letter’s, a phone number does not make

Matt Rude — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:17:12 +0000

So the girl and I were going to order from Buca’s today, but were unable to since their paper menu only has the phone number 651-SPA-GETT. If you look at your BlackBerry, THERE ARE NO LETTERS ON THE NUMBERS!!! (Well there are, but they don’t correspond to the correct numbers) So since I (or work rather) didn’t want to pay 411 for the call, Buca lost out of the sale, and we just ordered from the Green Mill, who dose allow modern phones to call them.

Maybe Buca should move to the modern age and update their menu’s.

The Joy of Owning an iPhone

Video’s of Odin

Matt Rude — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:51:01 +0000

Here are a few video’s of my parents dog Odin.

Odin playing in the snow

Odin playing in the snow, part 2

Odin in the sun room

Odin playing in the snow, taken on a BlackBerry Tour

Welcome Odin

Run a Secure git Repository on FreeNAS

Matt Rude — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:31:38 +0000

Running a secure git repository on FreeNAS is pretty straight forward, once you understand what your trying to do. If you have looked over my previous post “Creating a secure Git repository server” you understand that all you really need to do is connect to the git repository via ssh/ssl and copy back what you need. The hardest part of using FreeNAS is creating the keys.

To start out, you need to create a user account on the FreeNAS system. This will be a generic account that everyone who has write access will use. You may also create a account for each person, and grant each of them access to the central repository.

After you have your account, follow my post on “Enable SSH Key Authorization on FreeNAS” to copy over the SSL key and setup the account. Once you are able to log in as your FreeNAS git user, you may follow my previous post “Creating a secure Git repository server” to setup the git repository.

Converting a MediaWiki database from MySQL to SQLite

Matt Rude — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:15:23 +0000

So the plane here is to convert a fully working MediaWiki install running on MySQL to run on SQLite instead. To do this you will need to install a 2nd MediaWIKI install on a test or development system. Once you are done you can move your new MediaWiki install to where every you would like.

Backup up your Old MediaWiki Installation

To start, from within your working MediaWiki install, first back up your data.

php maintenance/dumpBackup.php --full --uploads > wiki-backup.xml

This will create a file named wiki-backup.xml in your MediaWiki’s root directory, copy that file to a safe place. We aren’t going to touch the MySQL database until were done, but it’s always a good idea to have backups safe and sound in case you need them.

The backup script run above dose not backup your MediaWiki’s uploaded images and other files. These files are stored in your ‘images’ folder in the root of MediaWiki’s directory. You need to back those up also.

tar -czf wiki-images.tgz images/

You should now have everything you need from your old MediaWiki install. Next you will need to install MediaWiki in a new location on your sever (or a development server).

Installing your new SQLite MediaWiki site

You should download and install the newest version of MediaWiki. I always you the development trunk since this is what’s used on Wikipedia.

During the install process you will be asked what database you would like to use, you much choose ‘SQLite’ since this is the point of reinstalling MediaWiki. Bring your new install all the way so you have a new install running on your server. MediaWiki will create a default home page for you and you should be able to modify that page. If you are unable to get MediaWiki installed or if you have a problem modifying the Main Page after the install, please see the MediaWiki mailing lists or the FAQ for assistance.

Restoring your Data on your new SQLite site

After you have your new SQLite version of MediaWiki installed and working, you need to restore your data. The database part of this is pretty strate forward.

Start by copying the xml file you created in the first step to your new MediaWiki install. Then run the following:

php maintenance/importDump.php wiki-backup.xml

Depending on the amount of pages you have, this may take quite some time to process. Once this is done all your pages should be on your new install (expect the Main Page, you will need to copy that manually).
To restore you images and other uploaded files, first you need to extract the tarball you made earlier to temporary location.

mkdir temporary
cp wiki-images.tgz
tar -xzf wiki-images.tgz

This will create a bunch of folders in the temporary directory, you need to copy everything in those folders into a single folder. The name of the folder doesn’t matter, I’m using tempimages, but you may use what you would like.

mkdir tempimages
cp images/*/*/* tempimags

Now that you have everything in a single folder, import the content of that folder into your new MediaWiki install.

php maintenance/importImages.php tempimages/

And that should do it, you should now have a fully working MediaWiki install using SQLite.

One day of Snow, Destroyed my Road

Matt Rude — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:49:17 +0000

Alone with most of the upper Midwest, Christmas this year in Saint Paul, Minnesota was very snowy. It was a nice white Christmas, assuming you got to where you needed to go. Thankfully everyone I know and care about made it through the day without any major problems even with the 10″ to 12″ of snow.

I live on a sort of larger road named Ford Parkway. The road gets its name from the Ford Plant down the road. This is all fine and good since I live in a nice, quite neighbourhood, but they do drive a far number of semi trucks directly past my place.

Well on Christmas day, the plows were out, but were not out in the number the amount of snow and the rate of snow fall required. Christmas day was also just warm enough that the salt they dumped on the road melted the snow, but it was still cold enough that slush re-froze once the cars, and semi trucks drove over it. This ice then stayed on the road for about a week before the City of Saint Paul decided to finely plowed them off. The problem was the ice was patchy in its placement on the road.

So now my road has hundreds of dents in it, not pot-holes, but dents! It’s like driving down a really bad dirt road.

What just pisses me off about the whole thing isn’t the harm it’s doing to my car every time I go home, but that now they will need to redo the entire road just to make it drivable again. As time goes on, the road will only get worse, until it is un-drivable.

Enable SSH Key Authorization on FreeNAS

Matt Rude — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 23:06:36 +0000

FreeNAS is a powerful tools for archive data and other long-term storage requirements. Recently I have started backing up this and other off-site servers to one of my local FreeNAS boxes. Since these systems are only connected via the insecure internet (no VPN), I decided to transmit the backup files via SSH using SCP. In order to do this without having to enter my password in for each and every backup (most of which happen while I’m hopeful sleeping), I needed to implement SSH Key Authorization on the receiving FreeNAS box.

To do this first I needed to create a DSA key pair on a different system. On my Fedora 12 laptop I ran

ssh-keygen -t dsa

The trick here is to not create your new key pair in the default directory of “~/.ssh/” but in a temporary directory instead. So when it asks you.

Generating public/private dsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_dsa):

Enter a different file in witch to save the key in. Note this is asking for the name of a file, not the name of the directory, it will also create a .pub file, this is the public key for the above private key.

Now that you have a public/private key for the FreeNAS box, if you don’t already you need to create one for the user that you plan on sending the file from. Just follow the above command, but this time, you may just hit enter all the way threw leaving all options as default.

Next, go to your FreeNAS web-page control panel, If you don’t already have one, you will need to create a user on your FreeNAS box for you to connect to. You may do this via “Access -> User and Groups” from the black bar on the top of the page.

Now from the top (black) bar go to “Services -> SSH”

On your Services|SSH page, first make sure the service is enabled (top right hand corner). Once it is you will be able to change the below options.

TCP Port: The default (port 22) is fine in most cases, but note if you change it, you must use the new port for all connections.
Permit root login: My option is that the root account should never be allowed to log in via a remote process. You should set your system up correctly where this is not needed.
Password authentication: For now this must be enabled (checked), once you have set “Key Authorization” up, you may disable this option.
TCP forwarding: Disabled (unchecked)
Compression: Enabled (checked)
Private Key: This will be were we put the private key created above. All you need to do is copy and paste.
Extra options: Blank

After you have made your changes, “Save and Restart” the service.

On your local system, you need to copy the content of the local users public (~/.ssh/username.pub) key file to a new file named “authorized_keys” (Note: this is not the file we created for FreeNAS but the file we created for your local account). This is the file that will need to be copied to your FreeNAS box.

Now that you have all the needed bits, we need to log into your FreeNAS server and create a “.ssh” directory to store the “authorized_keys” file. To log in to the FreeNAS box interactively run a command similar too.

ssh freenasuser@freenasaddress

Or if you changed the “TCP Port” above, your command will look like this:

ssh -P freenasport freenasuser@freenasaddress

Once your logged in, you need to create the directory, by doing.

mkdir ~/.ssh

After you have successfully created your directory, you may exit out of your FreeNAS box for the next step.
Back on your local system you need to copy the “authorized_keys” file created before to the FreeNAS box. Using SCP you can do this by running a command like:

scp -P freenasport authorized_keys freenasuser@freenasaddress:~/.ssh/

This will copy the file to the FreeNAS box. Next, reconnect to the FreeNAS box as you did before and run.

cd ~/.ssh/
chmod 600 authorized_keys

Once your done, you should be able to connect to your FreeNAS box using the private key in the authorized_keys with out a password.

Christmas 2009

Matt Rude — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:25:32 +0000

This was a very snowy Christmas as you all know. When I got to my parents house on Christmas morning, we didn’t know if we would be going to my aunt and uncle’s house for dinner. As the day went on and it warmed up outside, we all made it there for dinner and had a great Christmas.

Installing Dovecot with SQLite Support

Matt Rude — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:31:31 +0000

Following in line with my previous post on Installing Postfix with SQL Support. This post will describe installing Dovecot from source with full SQLite support.

Installing from Source

First start out by downloading the lastest version from Dovecot’s website (the current version as of the writing of the how-to is 1.2.8).

yum -y install sqlite sqlite-devel gcc make patch db4-devel cyrus-sasl-devel

Next download and untar the source code.

wget http://dovecot.org/releases/1.2/dovecot-1.2.8.tar.gz
tar -xzf dovecot-1.2.8.tar.gz
cd dovecot-1.2.8/

Next, you will need to configure the code before compiling.

./configure --with-sqlite
echo $?

Assuming the configure command finishes with out error (the last line should be a “0″). Compile and install Dovecot.

make && make install

Configuring Dovecot for SQLite

First we need to create or modify the dovecot config file for SQLite access. If you are currenly using MySQL with Dovecot, switching to SQLite is pretty easy and strate forward. Or you may just use the below dovecot config file.

### Dovecot configuration file ###
### /etc/dovecot.conf ###
protocols = pop3 imap
login_user = postfix
auth_cache_size = 128
auth_cache_ttl = 600
mail_debug = yes

mail_location = maildir:%h/

protocol imap {
 listen = *:143
}

protocol lda {
  postmaster_address = postmaster@mattrude.com
  hostname = odin.mattrude.com
  mail_plugin_dir = /usr/local/lib/dovecot/lda
  auth_socket_path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
}

auth default {
  mechanisms = plain login
  userdb sql {
    args = /etc/dovecot-sqlite.conf
  }
  passdb sql {
    args = /etc/dovecot-sqlite.conf
  }
  socket listen {
    master {
      path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
      user = virtualmail
      group = virtualmail
    }
    client {
      path = /var/spool/postfix/private/auth
      mode = 0660
      user = postfix
      group = postfix
    }
  }
}

After you have created the main Dovecot config file, you will need to add the SQLite config file (below).

### /etc/dovecot-sqlite.conf ###
driver = sqlite
connect = /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite
password_query = SELECT password, username AS user \
  FROM mailbox WHERE username = '%u' AND domain = '%d'
user_query = SELECT maildir, 1000 AS uid, 1000 AS gid FROM mailbox WHERE \
  username = '%u' AND domain = '%d' AND active = '1'

After the config files have been created, we need to create the database file, here is where you will need SQLite installed on the system.

Building the SQLite Database

In order to use the SQLite function, you need a SQLite database. First using SQLite3 run

sqlite3 /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite

To create the database, then you can copy and past the following scheme into the new database.

CREATE TABLE alias (
  address varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  goto text NOT NULL,
  domain varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  created datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  modified datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  active tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '1');

CREATE TABLE domain (
  domain varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  description varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  aliases int(10) NOT NULL default '0',
  mailboxes int(10) NOT NULL default '0',
  maxquota bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0',
  quota bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0',
  transport varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  backupmx tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0',
  created datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  modified datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  active tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '1' );

CREATE TABLE mailbox (
  username varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  password varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  name varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  maildir varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  quota bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0',
  domain varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  created datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  modified datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  active tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '1',
  local_part varchar(255) NOT NULL );

Then close the database

.quit

Or you may download mine from below and use the same scheme work.

postfix.sqlite

mkdir /var/run/dovecot

Dovecot INIT file

#!/bin/bash
#
#	/etc/rc.d/init.d/dovecot
#
# Starts the dovecot daemon
#
# chkconfig: - 65 35
# description: Dovecot Imap Server
# processname: dovecot
# Source function library.
. /etc/init.d/functions

test -x /usr/local/sbin/dovecot || exit 0

RETVAL=0
prog="Dovecot Imap"

start() {
       echo -n $"Starting $prog: "
	daemon /usr/local/sbin/dovecot
	RETVAL=$?
	[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && touch /var/lock/subsys/dovecot
	echo
}

stop() {
	echo -n $"Stopping $prog: "
	killproc /usr/local/sbin/dovecot
	RETVAL=$?
	[ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/dovecot
	echo
}

case "$1" in
  start)
	start
	;;
  stop)
	stop
	;;
  reload|restart)
	stop
	start
	RETVAL=$?
	;;
  condrestart)
	if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/dovecot ]; then
	    stop
	    start
	fi
	;;
  status)
	status /usr/local/sbin/dovecot
	RETVAL=$?
	;;
  *)
	echo $"Usage: $0 {condrestart|start|stop|restart|reload|status}"
	exit 1
esac

exit $RETVAL

View From the Deck of the Cabin

Matt Rude — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:07:12 +0000

How-To Disable tool-tips in Fedora 12 (while using GNOME)

Matt Rude — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:47:01 +0000

As the user you login as (ie: not root) edit or create the file named gtkrc-2.0. vim ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and add the line gtk-enable-tooltips = 0 if the file dosen’t exict yet, don’t worry about it. Last, reboot your system and the tool tips should be gone. Related Posts Setting the Time Zone on Fedora from the shell Enable SSH Key Authorization on FreeNAS Run a Secure git Repository on FreeNAS

Thanksgiving 2009

Matt Rude — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 06:05:09 +0000

Thanksgiving at the family cabin. It’s always fun to have the whole family up at the cabin, all squeezed in to a single room.

Auto Update Script for MiniMyth

Matt Rude — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:13:09 +0000

This script will download the newest version of MiniMyth and update your tftp directory.

It first downloads the version file and compares that version number to the current install version of MiniMyth install. If it determines that the version dose not match it will then download the current release, untar it and move the files to their current locations. It dose not delete any older versions on your server.

The TFTPDIR variable is the location on your tftp server where the MiniMyth files are stored.
The URL variable is the MiniMyth directory that the install of MiniMyth you wish to use lives.

You may also download the full directory structure with this script from my github repository or from my server.

# /bin/bash
# Matt Rude  11-Nov-2009
#
TFTPDIR=/tftpboot/PXEClient
URL="http://minimyth.org/download/stable/latest/"
##############################################################################
if [ -e $TFTPDIR/version ]; then
 mv $TFTPDIR/version $TFTPDIR/version.last
 rm -rf $TFTPDIR/verstion.md5
else
 touch $TFTPDIR/version.log
 touch $TFTPDIR/version.last
fi

cd $TFTPDIR
wget -nc $URL/version > /dev/null 2>&1
VER=`cat $TFTPDIR/version`
OLDVER=`cat $TFTPDIR/version.last`

if [ "$VER" = "$OLDVER" ]; then
 chown -R apache:apache $TFTPDIR/*
 exit 0
else
 echo "`date` Upgraded to version: $VER" >> version.log

 rm -rf $TFTPDIR/ram-minimyth-*.tar.bz2.md5
 wget -nc $URL/ram-minimyth-$VER.tar.bz2 > /dev/null 2>&1
 wget -nc $URL/ram-minimyth-$VER.tar.bz2.md5 > /dev/null 2>&1
 MD5STAT=`md5sum -c ram-minimyth-$VER.tar.bz2.md5 |awk ' {print $2 }'`
 if [ "$MD5STAT" = "OK" ]; then
  rm -f $TFTPDIR/kerne*
  rm -f $TFTPDIR/rootf*
  rm -fr $TFTPDIR/conf/default/theme*
  tar -xjf ram-minimyth-$VER.tar.bz2
  rm -rf ram-minimyth-$VER.*
 else
  echo "`date` Minimyth Version $VER Failed the MD5 check" >> version.log
  echo "" > $TFTPDIR/version
  exit 1
 fi

 RAMDIR=$TFTPDIR/ram-minimyth-$VER

 mkdir -p $TFTPDIR/conf/default
 cp $RAMDIR/kernel $TFTPDIR/kernel-$VER
 cp $RAMDIR/rootfs $TFTPDIR/rootfs-$VER
 cp -r $RAMDIR/themes $TFTPDIR/conf/default/themes-$VER

 ln -s kernel-$VER kernel
 ln -s rootfs-$VER rootfs
 cd $TFTPDIR/conf/default
 ln -s themes-$VER themes
 #mythtvosd --template=scroller --scroll_text="minimyth upgraded to: $VER" > /dev/null
fi

cd $TFTPDIR
mv version.log version.tmp
tail -2 version.tmp > version.log
rm -rf version.tmp
chown -R apache:apache $TFTPDIR/*
exit 0

Next Gallery Image Link in Image Posts

Matt Rude — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:51:32 +0000

If you were to view one of the images in my WordPress gallery, such as my Minnesota State Fair – 2009 gallery, and view one of the images. You will see a previous and next image on the bottom of the image page. As you may of already of guessed, the next and previous images are all part of the way my theme handles image pages.

In order to do this, I needed to add the below snippet to my image.php file. You should already have a “navigation” section, find it, and replace it with the below code (MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP YOUR IMAGE.PHP FILE FIRST).


	 $post->post_parent, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => 'ASC', 'orderby' => 'menu_order ID') ));
	foreach ( $attachments as $k => $attachment )
		if ( $attachment->ID == $post->ID )
			break;
	$attachments = array_values(get_children( array('post_parent' => $post->post_parent, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => 'ASC', 'orderby' => 'menu_order ID') ));
       $next_url =  isset($attachments[$k+1]) ? get_permalink($attachments[$k+1]->ID) : get_permalink($attachments[0]->ID);
       $previous_url =  isset($attachments[$k-1]) ? get_permalink($attachments[$k-1]->ID) : get_permalink($attachments[0]->ID);
	if ( wp_get_attachment_image( $post->ID+1 ) != null ) { ?>
		
			Next Image

			ID+1, 'thumbnail' ); ?>
		
    ID-1 ) != null ) { ?>
        
            Previous Image

            ID-1, 'thumbnail' ); ?>

WordPress 2.9 Post Thumbnail Function

Matt Rude — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:26:24 +0000

WordPress 2.9 brings a new function for users of gallery’s the add_theme_support(‘post-thumbnails’) function. with this you will get a new item on your new post window named Post Thumbnail (see right). After you have added a post Thumbnail to a post, you need to display it. By using a “gallery” category, creating the below two files (or adding the code to files) and editing your category.php file, you may display a custom gallery page.

See a example here

To start, create a new file named gallery-function.php and add the following code to it, this file should live in the root of your current theme’s directory.

gallery-function.php



    
	
		
	
	
		
		
		Posted by  on 
		
			
		
	
    
    
	
		ID, 'people', 'Who: ', ', ', '
' ); ?>
		ID, 'events', 'What: ', ', ', '
' ); ?>
             	ID, 'places', 'Where: ', ', ', '' ); ?>
	
	">
		This Album contains get_var( "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE post_parent = '$post->ID' AND post_type = 'attachment'" ); ?> items.

Next create a file named gallery-function.css and also add it to our current theme’s root directory.
gallery-function.css

.gallerypost {
        background-color:#fff;
        display: block;
        hNeight: 300px;
        margin: 0px 0px 10px 0px;
        padding: 20px 10px 10px 10px;
        overflow: hidden;
        border-bottom: 1px solid #D2C4A2;
        }
.gallerypost_body {
        float: right;
        width: 430px;
        margin: 0 20px 0 0;
        }
.gallerypost_body p {
        margin: 50px 0px 0px 0px;
        }
.gallerypost_body .entry p {
        margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
        }
.gallerypost_body .entry {
        margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
        }
.gallerypost_main {
        width: 690px;
        }
.gallerypost_sub {
        display: block;
        padding: 210px 0px 0px 10px;
        }
.gallerypost_sub {
        display: block;
        padding: 210px 0px 0px 10px;
        }
.gallerypost_sub p {
        vertical-align: bottom;
        margin: 0;
        }
.gallerypost_sub_left {
        width: 220px;
        display: block;
        float: left;
        }
.gallerypost_sub_right {
        width: 220px;
        display: block;
        float: right;
        }
.gallerypost_thumbnail {
        float: left;
        }
.gallerypost_thumbnail img {
        margin: 0 0 0 10px;
        color: #000;
        }

And lastly you will need to add the following to your functions.php file in your current theme’s root directory (you may add it anywhere in functions.php).

add_theme_support('post-thumbnails');
set_post_thumbnail_size(200, 200);

Now that we have our functions built, we need to add some code to your category.php file.

Right after:

Add the following code. This will display the gallery-function.php code when a post is in the “gallery” category.

Next Before:

Add the following to close the if statement.

And that should do it, you should now see the post image on the gallery category page similar to below.

Postfix: remap from addresses with a generic map

Matt Rude — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:27:30 +0000

Depending on the software you are using, you may need to change the outbound (from) address of outbound email. In this How-To, we will change the outbound email address from “apache@example.com” to “webmaster@example.com”.

To start out, go to your postfix directory and modify/create your generic file. Your generic file will map the two addresses to each other. At the end of your generic file add a space or tab seperated file simmiler to this.

apache@example.com         webmaster@example.com

Once you have added the entries to your generic file, you need to hash the file so postfix may quickly access it.

postmap /etc/postfix/generic

After you map has been created, you will need to add the entry to your main.cf file to tell Postfix to use your generic map.

smtp_generic_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/generic

Once you have updated your main.cf file, you need to reload postfix

postfix reload

The Joy of Owning an iPhone

Matt Rude — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:09:43 +0000

Last night I installed the update to iTunes (9.0.1). Everything seemed to go fine. After the install iTunes asked me to reboot my computer. I was way to lazy to actually do that, so I just told it would reboot it later, and opened iTunes. Ya that was a mistake.

When I opened iTunes, it informed me there was a problem with the database and it would rebuild it for me. After about 2 hours of working on it, iTunes finished. But it had lost all my music history, all my music was there, but it lost all my play lists and what not. Not that big a deal I can always recreate those.

So I spent the next few minuets recreating a few play lists from what my iPhone had on it, when it dawned on me. “I should just sync my phone and it would copy everything back” right? But that is not what happened.

I synced my phone, and it took nearly no time at all (maybe a full minute). When I looked at my phone after the sync, ya everything was gone.

So today I start the lovely task of rebuilding my phone.

Thank you Apple!!!

Letter’s, a phone number does not make

wp reCAPTCHA form version 0.1 released

Matt Rude — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:54:37 +0000

I have released wp-reCAPTCHA version 0.1. This plugin will allows you to also add subjects to your contact form. Please check it out on it page at http://mattrude.com/projects/wp-recaptcha-form/.

wp-Gallery2 Image Block post

The FDA should run the banks

Matt Rude — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:58:38 +0000

OK so maybe not the FDA but they should be run by someone like them. Just think about it, the FDA owns labs to test drugs before they are sold to us the customers. The drug industry would love to sell us everything they think up of, but they can’t. Since we have a check to make sure the drug will not kill us or make our skin turn blue. Currently there are no tests be made before a financial product is being sold to us. So here we are as a country relaying on our banks to sell us products that are good for us, but clearly they are only selling us products that are good for them. With an outside entity running check on our banks and what they do, by testing a product with models to see how it performs over a year or 5 years or even 25 years would give confidence to all of us who are use these products. If we have confidence in the banks again, we will all do better.

Installing Postfix with SQLite Support

Matt Rude — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:12:05 +0000

This How-to will show you how to set up Postfix with SQLite support on a Fedora 11 system. This will require us to compile Postfix from scratch.

Installing the dependences

yum -y install sqlite sqlite-devel gcc make patch db4-devel cyrus-sasl-devel
echo "postfix:x:89:89::/var/spool/postfix:/sbin/nologin" >> /etc/passwd
echo "postdrop:x:90:90::/var/spool/postfix:/sbin/nologin" >> /etc/passwd
echo "postfix:x:89:" >> /etc/group
echo "postdrop:x:90:" >> /etc/group
ln -s /usr/lib/sasl2/ /usr/local/lib/sasl2

Download and Patch Postfix

Download and unpack the current Postfix Version.

wget http://postfix.energybeam.com/source/official/postfix-2.6.5.tar.gz
tar -xzf postfix-2.6.5.tar.gz
cd postfix-2.6.5

Download and Patch Postfix with the SQLite Postfix patch

wget http://www.treibsand.com/postfix-sqlite/postfix-2.6-20080216_sqlite.patch
patch -ul -d . -p1 < postfix-2.6-20080216_sqlite.patch
echo $?

Building Postfix

To Build with SQLite Support

make -f Makefile.init makefiles 'CCARGS=-DHAS_SQLITE -I/usr/local/include' \
'AUXLIBS=-L/usr/local/lib -lsqlite3'
echo $?

Or to Build with SQLite & TLS Support
Requires:

yum -y install openssl-devel
make -f Makefile.init makefiles 'CCARGS=-DHAS_SQLITE -I/usr/local/include -DUSE_TLS' \
'AUXLIBS=-L/usr/local/lib -lsqlite3 -lz -lm -lssl -lcrypto'
echo $?

To Build with SQLite, Dovecot, & TLS Support

yum -y install openssl-devel dovecot-devel
make makefiles 'CCARGS=-DHAS_SQLITE -I/usr/include/sasl/ -DUSE_SASL_AUTH -DUSE_CYRUS_SASL  -DDEF_SERVER_SASL_TYPE=\"dovecot\" -DUSE_TLS' -I/usr/local/include \
   'AUXLIBS=-L/usr/local/lib -lsqlite3 -lz -lm -lssl -lcrypto -lsasl2'
echo $?

Compiling Postfix

Now Compile Postfix

make
echo $?

And Install it

make install

Building the SQLite Database

In order to use the SQLite function, you need a SQLite database. First using SQLite3 run

sqlite3 /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite

To create the database, then you can copy and past the following scheme into the new database.

CREATE TABLE alias (
  address varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  goto text NOT NULL,
  domain varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  created datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  modified datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  active tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '1');

CREATE TABLE domain (
  domain varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  description varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  aliases int(10) NOT NULL default '0',
  mailboxes int(10) NOT NULL default '0',
  maxquota bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0',
  quota bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0',
  transport varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  backupmx tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0',
  created datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  modified datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  active tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '1' );

CREATE TABLE mailbox (
  username varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  password varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  name varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  maildir varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  quota bigint(20) NOT NULL default '0',
  domain varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  created datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  modified datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  active tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '1',
  local_part varchar(255) NOT NULL );

Then close the database

.quit

Or you may download mine from below and use the same scheme work.

postfix.sqlite

Once you have your database file place it in /etc/postfix/ as something like /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite then run

chown root:root /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite
chmod 600 /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite

Configuring Postfix

Now add the maps to you config.

/etc/postfix/main.cf

relay_domains = sqlite:/etc/postfix/sqlite_relay_domains_maps.cf
relay_recipient_maps = sqlite:/etc/postfix/sqlite_relay_recipient_maps.cf
virtual_alias_maps = sqlite:/etc/postfix/sqlite_virtual_alias_maps.cf
virtual_mailbox_domains = sqlite:/etc/postfix/sqlite_virtual_domains_maps.cf
virtual_mailbox_maps = sqlite:/etc/postfix/sqlite_virtual_mailbox_maps.cf

virtual_mailbox_base = /var/spool/virtualmailboxes
virtual_minimum_uid= 1000
virtual_uid_maps = static:1000
virtual_gid_maps = static:1000

sqlite_relay_domains_maps.cf

dbpath = /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite
query = SELECT domain FROM domain WHERE domain='%s' AND backupmx = '1' AND active = '1'

sqlite_relay_recipient_maps.cf

dbpath = /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite
query = SELECT goto FROM alias WHERE address='%s' AND active = 1

sqlite_virtual_alias_maps.cf

dbpath = /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite
query = SELECT goto FROM alias WHERE address='%s' AND active = '1'

sqlite_virtual_domains_maps.cf

dbpath = /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite
query = SELECT domain FROM domain WHERE domain='%s' AND backupmx = '0' AND active = '1'

sqlite_virtual_mailbox_maps.cf

dbpath = /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite
query = SELECT maildir FROM mailbox WHERE username='%s' AND active = '1'

Setting up a fresh install of Postfix

mkdir /var/spool/virtualmailboxes/
echo "virtualmail:x:1000:1000::/var/spool/virtualmailboxes:/sbin/nologin" >> /etc/passwd
echo "virtualmail:x:1000:" >> /etc/group
chmod 700 /var/spool/virtualmailboxes/
chown -R virtualmail:virtualmail /var/spool/virtualmailboxes/
rm -f /usr/lib/sendmail
ln -s /usr/sbin/sendmail /usr/lib/sendmail

Adding SQLite entry’s

First add a Domain

echo "INSERT INTO domain ( domain, description, transport )
VALUES ( 'laptop.mattrude.com', 'laptops domain', 'virtual' );" |sqlite3 /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite

Then add a user

echo "INSERT INTO mailbox ( username, password, name, maildir, domain, local_part )
VALUES ( 'matt@laptop.mattrude.com', 'password', 'Matt', 'laptop.mattrude.com/matt@laptop.mattrude.com/', 'laptop.mattrude.com', 'matt' );" |sqlite3 /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite

Last we need to add the mailboxes alias

echo "INSERT INTO alias ( address, goto, domain )
VALUES ( 'matt@laptop.mattrude.com', 'matt@laptop.mattrude.com', 'laptop.mattrude.com' );" |sqlite3 /etc/postfix/postfix.sqlite

Next, contue on to my Dovecot SQLite how-to to finish your email server.

Minnesota State Fair – 2009

Matt Rude — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:04:47 +0000

Over the weekend my old friend Kelsey and I went to the Great Minnesota Get Together. While we were there, we met up with Kelsey’s friend Mike to see the Brother Ali show at the MPR booth. We didn’t get to see much of the show, but we meet up with Mark Wheat after, to chat.

RoundCube Regression Testing

Matt Rude — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 04:09:20 +0000

With the release of RoundCube 0.3-stable and all the upgrades that will happen, It feels like a good time to talk about regression testing. Regression testing is when you test the functions of a peace of software to make sure that your updates didn’t break any functions. In RoundCube it takes me about 10 minuets to fully test a site. Here’s my check list, yours my vary depending on the plugins your using.

Main Screen

Read a HTML message from the preview panel
- Confirm the “View Header” drop down window works with HTML messages
Read a Plain Text message from the preview panel
- Confirm the “View Header” drop down window works with Plain Text messages
Read a HTML message full screen
- Confirm the “View Header” drop down window works with HTML messages
- Confirm the “Read Source” button works with HTML messages
Read a Plain Text message full screen
- Confirm the “View Header” drop down window works with Plain Text messages
- Confirm the “Read Source” button works with Plain Text messages
Change Message pages
Select All, Unread, None from the bottom center
Is the quota meter displaying
Flag (star) a message
Search for a known message value
Move a message from Inbox to a folder
Move a message from a folder to the Inbox
Send a message to an internal account
Send a message to an external account
Add a message via the plus symbol when viewing a message
- Dose it show up in Personal Settings / Spam / Address Rules

Address Book

Add an Address Book entry
- Dose it show up in Personal Settings / Spam / Address Rules
Change an existing entry
“Compose Mail To” button, top center
“Export Contacts in vCard format” button, top center
“Import Contacts” button, top center
Delete a contact
- Dose it delete from Personal Settings / Spam / Address Rules

Personal Settings / Folders

Subscribe to a folder
Unsubscribe from a folder
Add a folder
Delete a folder

Personal Settings / Identities

Add a new “Identity”
- Send a message with this identity
Modify an existing “Identity”
- Send a message with this identity
Delete an Identity
Change default Identity’s

Personal Settings / Spam

Add a new white list entry
Add a new black list entry
Delete a white list entry
Delete a black list entry

Allow Logwatch to collect data from OpenVPN’s logs

Matt Rude — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:46:12 +0000

To allow Logwatch to check OpenVPN’s logs running on a Fedora or other Linux system you need to install this script & conf file.

In order for this script & config file to work you must disable both log & log-append in the OpenVPN Server Config File.

;log          openvpn.log
;log-append   openvpn.log

The Files are:

/etc/logwatch/scripts/openvpn      - Logwatch perl module
/etc/logwatch/conf/openvpn.conf    - Configuration file

/etc/logwatch/scripts/openvpn

#!/usr/bin/perl
##########################################################################
# $Log: openvpn,v $
# Revision 1.0  2005/07/27 17:19:34  hyppo
# Filippo Grassilli http://hyppo.com/email.php
#
# Written and maintained by:
#    Filippo Grassilli http://hyppo.com/email.php
##########################################################################

use Logwatch ':ip';

$Debug = $ENV{'LOGWATCH_DEBUG'};
$Detail = $ENV{'LOGWATCH_DETAIL_LEVEL'} || 0;
$DoLookup = $ENV{'openvpn_ip_lookup'};
$Detail = $ENV{'openvpn_detail_level'} || $Detail;

if ( $Debug >= 5 ) {
   print STDERR "\n\nDEBUG: Inside OpenVPN Filter \n\n";
}

while (defined($ThisLine = )) {
   if (  # Ignore...
      ($ThisLine =~ /Control Channel/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Data Channel (Decrypt|Encrypt|MTU)/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /TLS: soft reset/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /reading client specific options/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Expected Remote/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /LZO compression/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /killed expiring key/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Diffie-Hellman initialized/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Local Options hash/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Replay\-window backtrack/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /TLS: Initial packet/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /ip (addr add|link set) dev/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Re\-using SSL/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /MULTI: Learn/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Received control message/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /(Restart pause|process restarting)/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Inactivity timeout/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /CRL CHECK OK/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /VERIFY OK: nsCertType/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /\d+:\d+ SIGUSR1\[.*restart/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /^TCP\/UDP: Closing socket/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /^UDPv4 link /) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /^TUN\/TAP device /) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Closing TUN\/TAP interface/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /Interrupted system call/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /^TLS-Auth MTU parms/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /^MULTI:/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /^ succeeded$/) or
      ($ThisLine =~ /^IFCONFIG POOL/)
   ) {
      # Don't care about these...
   } elsif ( ($ThisLine =~ /^OpenVPN .* built on .*/) ) {
      # OpenVPN version
      chomp($ThisLine);
      $OpenVPNVersion=$ThisLine;
   } elsif ( ($ThisLine =~ /^Initialization Sequence Completed/) ) {
      $StartOpenVPN++;
   } elsif ( ($ThisLine =~ /^SIGTERM.* process exiting/) ) {
      $ShutdownOpenVPN++;
   } elsif ( ($Host,$Cert) = ( $ThisLine =~ /^([^:]*):\d+ VERIFY OK: depth=\d+, (.*)$/ ) ) {
      ## Successful cert exchange
      $FullHost = LookupIP ($Host);
      $CertVerified{$Cert}{$FullHost}++;
   } elsif ( ($Host,$User) = ( $ThisLine =~ /^([^:]*):\d+ \[([^\]]+)\] Peer Connection Init/ ) ) {
      ## x.x.x.x:y [user] Peer Connection Initiated with x.x.x.x:y
      $FullHost = LookupIP ($Host);
      $ClientConnection{$User}{$FullHost}++;
   } elsif ( ($HostUser,$Param) = ( $ThisLine =~ /^([^:]*):\d+ SENT CONTROL \[.*\]: (.*)/ ) ) {
      ## user/x.x.x.x:y SENT CONTROL [user]: xxxx....
      chomp($Param);
      $ClientParam{$HostUser}{$Param}++;
   } else {
      # Report any unmatched entries...
      chomp($ThisLine);
      $OtherList{$ThisLine}++;
   }
}

#######################################

if ( ( $Detail >= 5 ) and ($StartOpenVPN) ) {
   if ($OpenVPNVersion) { print "$OpenVPNVersion\n"; }
   print "OpenVPN started/reloaded: $StartOpenVPN Time(s)\n";
}
if ( ( $Detail >= 5 ) and ($ShutdownOpenVPN) ) {
   print "OpenVPN shutdown: $ShutdownOpenVPN Time(s)\n";
}

if ( ( $Detail >= 5 ) and (keys %ClientConnection) ) {
   print "\nOpenVPN Client Connections:\n";
   foreach $ThisOne (sort {$a cmp $b} keys %ClientConnection) {
      print "   $ThisOne:\n";
      foreach $Message (sort {$a cmp $b} keys %{$ClientConnection{$ThisOne}}) {
         print "       $Message: $ClientConnection{$ThisOne}{$Message} Time(s)\n";
      }
   }
}
if ( ( $Detail >= 5 ) and (keys %ClientParam) ) {
   print "\nOpenVPN Client Connection Parameters:\n";
   foreach $ThisOne (sort {$a cmp $b} keys %ClientParam) {
      print "   $ThisOne:\n";
      foreach $Message (sort {$a cmp $b} keys %{$ClientParam{$ThisOne}}) {
         print "       $Message: $ClientParam{$ThisOne}{$Message} Time(s)\n";
      }
   }
}
if ( ( $Detail >= 5 ) and (keys %CertVerified) ) {
   print "\nCertificates verified:\n";
   foreach $ThisOne (sort {$a cmp $b} keys %CertVerified) {
      ($Crt1,$Crt2) = ( $ThisOne =~ /^\/(.*)\/OU=(.*)$/ );
      # print " $ThisOne:\n";
      print " $Crt1\n OU=$Crt2:\n";
      foreach $Client (sort {$a cmp $b} keys %{$CertVerified{$ThisOne}}) {
         print "       $Client: $CertVerified{$ThisOne}{$Client} Time(s)\n";
      }
   }
}

if (keys %OtherList) {
   print "\n**Unmatched Entries**\n";
   foreach $line (sort {$a cmp $b} keys %OtherList) {
      print "   $line: $OtherList{$line} Time(s)\n";
   }
}

exit(0);

/etc/logwatch/conf/openvpn.conf

###########################################################################
# $Id: openvpn.conf,v 1.0 2005/07/27 17:08:09 hyppo Exp $
# Written and maintained by:
#    Filippo Grassilli 
###########################################################################

Title = "OpenVPN"

# Which logfile group...
LogFile = messages

# Whether or not to lookup the IPs into hostnames...
# Setting this to Yes will significantly increase runtime
$openvpn_ip_lookup = Yes
$openvpn_detail_level = 5

# Only give lines pertaining to the named service...
*OnlyService = openvpn
*RemoveHeaders

Setting the Time Zone on Fedora from the shell

Matt Rude — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:13:15 +0000

By default Fedora set’s the timezone to UTC, during the install you may change this. But, if you move a server or forget to set the timezone during install. You may change it after the fact.

Lately I moved a system from the EST to CST (From Virginia to Minneapolis). Since this was a webserver, there is no GUI installed (wasting memory). So I connected to the system via SSH and ran the following command:

cp /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtime

All your really doing is copy the timezone info for Chicago, into the local systems clock.

To get a list of your time zone, on Fedora, go to your “/usr/share/zoneinfo” directory and list the contents.

cd /usr/share/zoneinfo/
ls

This will give you a list of all the top level regions, find yours and go into it.

cd America

Now find the city that’s closest to you and in your same timezone.

So if your in the Central time zone, copy the Chicago file into your “/etc/localtime” file

cp Chicago /etc/localtime

now check to make sure it all worked.

$ date
Sun Aug 23 15:10:03 CDT 2009

Since this system is in Minneapolis, and Minneapolis is in the CST/CDT I’m good to go.

Microsoft’s EC Settlement Proposal

Matt Rude — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:59:33 +0000

Thing’s looked promising, but that may have been a bit misleading. Check out Mitchell’s post on Microsoft’s dealings with the EC, also see Dotzler’s taken for deep look at the topic.

What are your takes?

Adding a native Wordpress gallery

Matt Rude — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:16:32 +0000

I have heard a lot of talk lately of people complaining that they are unable to have image gallery’s in Wordpress 2.8 without adding a plugin. I assume this assumption comes from the how hard it is to see what you can do when it comes to the gallery functions built into Wordpress. If you look at my gallery page, you will see a simple native Wordpress gallery. This gallery was built threw the theme but uses Wordpress as it’s backend.

So How do I build a native Wordpress gallery?

Well there’s two parts to accomplishing this successfully, but I’m only going to show you the first part in this post. First you need to create a Category for all your gallery posts to be filed under. This Category may be named anything you would like it to be named. I’m going to stick with the simple name of ‘Gallery’. You will need some posts to be filed under it. Create a new post as you normally would. It is best to put some text to tell you reader what this gallery is all about, but that’s not needed.

Once you are ready to create your gallery, switch your write from ‘Visual’ mode to ‘HTML’ mode. Once in ‘HTML’ mode, enter:

[ gallery ]

note: there should be no space between the brackets and the word ‘gallery’, if I were to enter this line on my page, I would create a gallery.

Now switch back to the ‘Visual’ mode and you should see a new yellow box in your post box with an image of a camera with a photograph behind it. If you move your mouse over this new yellow box, two new icons will appear. From this point, just upload photos to your site and save it.

Displaying one category on your Wordpress main page

Matt Rude — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:33:20 +0000

If you would like to only display a single category on your WordPress main page, here’s how you do it. You will need to start out by getting ID of the category you wish to display. In WordPress 2.7+, start out by going to your categories tab under posts(1), then hover over the category you would like to display in your post(2), don’t click on it, just hover over it. On the bottom of your screen, you will be shown then URL of the category your hover over(3), remember the ID number that being displayed. In the below example the number we need to remember is “23″.

After you have gotten your categories ID number, you will next need to change your index.php file. In your index.php file look for the line with “have_post” and add the below code after.

; \\Look for this line and add below
;
;

Last, change “cat” to the category id from above. “showposts” is the number of posts to display on the page.

I think the Smurfs moved in last night

Matt Rude — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:43:32 +0000

So this morning I woke up and there were 3 large mushrooms growing next to my car outside my parents house (I’m dog sitting since their out of town). Just look at these big guys, I think the Smurfs may have moved in.

Playing with oEmbed

Matt Rude — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 20:53:23 +0000

As some of you know, WordPress 2.9 will have oEmbed as one of it’s core features. With oEmbed, you are able to add any oEmbed link to a WordPress post by just adding the URL on it’s own line in your post. So the below example was added by adding:

http://vimeo.com/7058755

When the above link is on it’s own line you will not see the URL, but you will see the movie. (Note: the above link was added by adding the

tags around the link.)

And there you have it, a nicely embedded movie directly in your post.

Importing and Syncing a Subversion Repository with Git

Matt Rude — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:20:19 +0000

Importing a Subversion repository is such a way that you may still sync the changes back in forth, is really just to simple. This how-to assumes you existing repository is running is SVN and you wish to switch it over to git.

Similar to how you may create a new SVN directory from a remote repo with svn, by running a command similar too:

svn checkout https://svn.example.com/svn/project_name

You may run the following to command to download the same remote repository, but then create an git repository and import the data from the svn repo.

git svn clone https://svn.example.com/svn/project_name

This will create a new directory named project_name with all your svn history.

Git is vary fast, but when it’s slow, it’s slow. The above process can take quite a bit of time (wordpress.org’s current trunk will take hours) to complete on an older (more comments not slower) repository since it checks in each comment at a time. If you don’t need the all the history of the project but just need a way to keep your self up to date as you code, you may just download the current revision tag. So to download SVN version 1234 and clone it into git, run:

git svn clone -r 1234 https://svn.example.com/svn/project_name

If you would like some of the history you can get that also, so if you would like say the last 234 commits run:

git svn clone -r 1000:1234 https://svn.example.com/svn/project_name

Then, to update your git repo once the SVN repository has been committed to, run

git svn fetch

That should ouput something like:

r1235 = 340621340d856d805714e9bd86fdb11777f710fe (git-svn)
 M    includes/deprecated.php
 M    includes/functions.php

You may now follow the Creating a secure git repository how-to and create a remote server.

SSH with no password

Matt Rude — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:04:15 +0000

When working with different Linux/Unix servers, or when working with a Secure GIT repo, life is much easier after you have setup an SSH public & private keys. Setting up a public & private key is really pretty simple.

Start out by create a public & private key.

ssh-keygen -t dsa

You will now be prompted for a location and a few other options, the best anwser is the default, so just enter threw these. You will also be asked to create a password, creating a password at this step will require you to enter the password every time you wish to use the key, so best bet is to just enter threw those questions also. After you have created your new key, go into your “.ssh” folder (note the . before ssh) and copy your public key to remote servers.

cd .ssh

Next we want to rename the public key so we wont confuse it after sending it to the world.

cp id_dsa.pub matt_dsa.pub

Wonderful, now all we need to do is copy the public key to a remote server

scp matt_dsa.pub remote_server.example.com:~/.ssh

Note, the above example copies the public into the remote server’s .ssh folder, if the server dose not have a .ssh folder, you may need to create it. After the public key has been copied, we need to put it into the “authorized_keys” file.

cat matt_dsa.pub &gt;&gt; authorized_keys

and that’s it, just exit out of your remote server, and try to connect again, it should not ask you for a password, but just now connect. If you are using this your git account, just copy this key into the git’s users authorized_keys file.

Creating a secure Git repository server

Matt Rude — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:40:32 +0000

Creating a secure git repository server is a pretty simple process. Basically we will be using SSH to transmit the data over an encrypted channel. SSH will handle all the authentication and data encryption. So the first set is creating a user for git to use and creating the git users ssh key.

On your server, from a privileged account, create a user (were going to use git).

adduser git
passwd git

The configuration we will be setting up will store the actual repositories in the git users home directory. If you don’t like it’s current location, you may modify the /etc/passwd file for your user.

Once we have the user setup, in it’s home directory we need to create our first repository. Start out by creating the folder, then well go into it and create the git repository files.

mkdir new-project.git
cd new-project.git
git init --bare

With the repository now setup go back to your desktop/laptop system (linux/unix).

From your desktop system, create a empty repository or go to an existing git repo. If you are going to be adding an existing repo, it may not be connected to any other remote repository. if you clone it from a remote source (a directory on the same system counts as a remote source) you will need to modify the repository’s config file and remove those entry’s, look in the config file under the .git (note the ‘dot’) directory.

To create an empty repository, create a directory for the repository, go into it and init the repo.

mkdir new-project.git
cd new-project.git
git init

Since you need something in your repo, and git likes having a readme file (or gitweb dose) let’s create a readme file and commit it.

touch README
git add README
git commit -m 'Added README file, first commit'

Now that we have a commit in our repo, we can add the newly created git repo server and push our new repo to it.

We will start by adding the server to the repo’s configuration.

git remote add origin git@new-git-server.example.com:new-project.git

The above example assumes you’re server’s name is “new-git-server.example.com” and your using a project named “new-project.git” for the user “git”. But it also assumes that your repo is directly in the user git’s home directory. If you store your repo’s in a different directory, you will need to add the list folders after the colon.

After you have successfully added the server, push your new repository to the server.

git push origin master

You may now be asked for the git user’s password, enter it, and your repository should be transferred.

Also check out how to setup a ssh public/private key where no password is required, only the private key on your client system.

The above may look like a lot, but it’s really pretty simple to setup. If you have any problems or questions abut this How-To, please leave a comment or contact me.

wp-Gallery2 Image Block post

Matt Rude — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:13:07 +0000

The wp-Gallery2 Image Block plugin will allow you to put one of the many Gallery2 Image Blocks on your Wordpress site. You are required to have a running Gallery2 install to use this plugin.

This is a complete rewrite of Chris Schierer (aka Lentil) Gallery2 Image Block Plugin 0.1.4. This rewrite uses the new Wordpress 2.8 Widget API, so is only compatible with Wordpress 2.8+.

All options described in the Gallery 2 Image Block documentation are included.

User configuration of Image Block options is available through the Widget configuration panel. Blank (empty) options use the Gallery2 defaults.

Note: The widget is written using lib_curl() to avoid url_fopen issues.

Download

wp-gallery2-image-block - Version 0.4 (2009-July-16)
wp-gallery2-image-block - Version 0.3 (2009-July-15)
wp-gallery2-image-block - Version 0.1 (2009-July-12)

Screen Shots

Installation

Extract the zip file and copy the folder wp=gallery2-image-block into your wp-content/plugins/ directory of your WordPress installation and then activate the Plugin from Plugins page.

RoundCube Fail2Ban Plugin post

RoundCube Fail2Ban Plugin post

Matt Rude — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:20:48 +0000

RoundCube Fail2Ban Plugin is a small plugin that will display a failed login attempts to your syslog or userlogins log file. Using this information Fail2Ban be able to block a user for a set amount of time. The best part, the block is happing at the IP level and blocks the IP address, not the user they are try to log in as.

Download

tgz | zip | git – Version: 1.0 (2009-Jul-09)

Install

Place this plugin folder into the RoundCube plugins directory (roundcube/plugins/)
Add fail2ban to $rcmail_config['plugins'] in your RoundCube config

Note: When downloading this plugin from http://github.com/mattrude/rc-plugin-fail2ban you will need to create a directory called fail2ban and place fail2ban.php in there, ignoring the root directory in the downloaded archive. You may also run ‘git clone git://github.com/mattrude/rc-plugin-fail2ban.git fail2ban’ from the plugins directory.

Fail2Ban Setup

fail2ban/jail.conf:

[roundcube]
enabled  = true
port     = http,https
filter   = roundcube
action   = iptables-multiport[name=roundcube, port=&amp;quot;http,https&amp;quot;]
logpath  = /var/www/html/roundcube/logs/userlogins

fail2ban/filter.d/roundcube.conf:

[Definition]
failregex = FAILED login for .*. from 
ignoreregex =

Fail2Ban Setup with RoundCube

Wordpress Themes – Random Image Header

Matt Rude — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:05:21 +0000

While working on a theme for Wordpress lately.I ran across the problem of wanting a random header image on the top of the page, but how to do it? After looking around for a simple, fast script, I ran across, who else, but Matt Mullenweg’s page.

Matt wrote a small, fast script that will look at the content of a directory, then randomly returns the a image’s URI.

In Matt’s own words:

This is your standard random image script that takes a slightly different approach than most, namely using standard HTTP headers instead of reading the file through the script.

So to integrate this script into your page, all you need to do is change the images name to random.php, see below.

 Random Header Image" src="/header1.jpg" alt=""/>

Change too:

 Random Header Image" src="/rotate.php" alt="">

Matt Mullenweg’s script may be found at: http://ma.tt/scripts/randomimage

This is your standard random image script that takes a slightly different approach than most, namely using standard HTTP headers instead of reading the file through the script.

Creating Self-signed SSL Certificates for Dovecot & Postfix

Matt Rude — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:42:39 +0000

Self-signed SSL certificates are the easiest way to get your SSL server working. However unless you take some action to prevent it, this is at the cost of security:

The first time the client connects to the server, it sees the certificate and asks the user whether to trust it. The user of course doesn’t really bother verifying the certificate’s fingerprint, so a man-in-the-middle attack can easily bypass all the SSL security, steal the user’s password and so on.
If the client was lucky enough not to get attacked the first time it connected, the following connections will be secure as long as the client had permanently saved the certificate. Some clients do this, while others have to be manually configured to accept the certificate.

The only way to be fully secure is to import the SSL certificate to client’s (or operating system’s) list of trusted CA certificates prior to first connection. See SSL/CertificateClientImporting how to do it for different clients.

Building Dovcot’s Self-Signed Certificates

Dovecot includes a script to build self-signed SSL certificates using OpenSSL. First you need to find the dovecot-openssl.cnf file.

Configuring the Certificate Config File

The best way on Fedora to do this is via the locate command.

locate dovecot-openssl.cnf

Mine was located at /etc/pki/dovecot/dovecot-openssl.cnf. Now that you have found the file you need to add your server information to it, like this:

[ req ]
default_bits = 1024
encrypt_key = yes
distinguished_name = req_dn
x509_extensions = cert_type
prompt = no

[ req_dn ]
# country (2 letter code)
C=US

# State or Province Name (full name)
ST=MN

# Locality Name (eg. city)
L=SaintPaul

# Organization (eg. company)
O=example.com

# Organizational Unit Name (eg. section)
OU=IMAP server

# Common Name (*.example.com is also possible)
CN=*.example.com

# E-mail contact
emailAddress=postmaster@example.com

[ cert_type ]
nsCertType = server

Build the Certificates

/usr/libexec/dovecot/mkcert.sh

Modifying Dovecot

You will need to add the following to your /etc/dovecot.conf file:

ssl_listen = 993
ssl_disable = no
ssl_cert_file = /etc/postfix/smtpd.pem
ssl_key_file = /etc/postfix/smtpd.pem
auth_cache_size = 128

Then restart Dovecot

/sbin/service dovecot restart

gutter='0'

Tuning the number of processes on MacOS X

Matt Rude — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:57:52 +0000

MacOS X will run out of process slots when you increase Postfix process limits. The following works with OSX 10.4 and OSX 10.5. MacOS X kernel parameters can be specified in /etc/sysctl.conf.

/etc/sysctl.conf:

kern.maxproc=2048kern.maxprocperuid=2048

Unfortunately these can’t simply be set on the fly with sysctl -w. You also have to set the following in /etc/launchd.conf so that the root user after boot will have the right process limit (2048). Otherwise you have to always run ulimit -u 2048 as root, then start a user shell, and then start processes for things to take effect.

/etc/launchd.conf:

limit maxproc 2048

Once these are in place, reboot the system. After that, the
limits will stay in place.

Postfix: Archiving Mail when sent from or to the outside world

Matt Rude — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:56:10 +0000

The goal here is to send an BCC message for every email send to or from the outside world, for a group of internal addresses.

Use sender_bcc_maps or recipient_bcc_maps. Configure them so that the archive copy is made when the sender is remote OR the receiver is remote.

/etc/postfix/main.cf:

sender_bcc_maps = pcre:/etc/postfix/archive-check
recipient_bcc_maps = pcre:/etc/postfix/archive-check

/etc/postfix/archive-check:

!/@example\.com$/        archive@example.com

This is a predicate transformation, from (NOT (local AND local)), what you asked for, into ((NOT local) OR (NOT local)), shown above.

Postfix: reject an address before queue

Matt Rude — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:58:28 +0000

First start out by creating a file named /etc/postfix/rejected_addresses then add the following to it

bad_sender@example.com    REJECT

This will be an hashed map table, so we need to create the hash

postmap /etc/postfix/rejected_addresses

Next we need to add the map to our /etc/postfix/main.cffile. We will be adding this to the smtpd_recipient_restrictions section.

smtpd_recipient_restrictions =
  ...
  check_sender_access hash:/etc/postfix/rejected_addresses,
  ...
  reject_unauth_destination

Once complete reload postfix

postfix reload

Restoring a Windows 2000 Profile

Matt Rude — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:57:57 +0000

If a user logs into a Windows 2000 system, and there profile is missing, the following will help you restore it. In the below how to, you will need to copy the bad profile to a new location, then tell Windows to look there via the registry.

Log on to the computer with the user profile that you want to restore.

Click Start, and then click Run.

Type regedit, and then click OK.

In Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Locate your user profile folder.NOTE: When you open the ProfileList folder, you see several folders, each of which belongs to a different user. These folders are named according to the user security IDs (SIDs) and not according to the user names.To locate your user profile folder, use one of the following options:

•	For each folder, click the folder, and then look for the ProfileImagePath value that contains the path to your user profile (such as %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\username).-or-
•	In Registry Editor, press CTRL+F to start the Find tool. Type your user name in the Find what box, click to select the Data check box under Look at, and then click Find.

After you locate the subkey folder for your user profile, double-click the ProfileImagePath value.

In the Value data box, change the path so that it points to the profile folder that you are restoring, and then and click OK.

Quit Registry Editor.

The next time that you log on to the computer, Windows will use your restored user profile.

Postfix: allow select users permission to send to a cretin address

Matt Rude — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:56:06 +0000

So the idea here is to have an email address that you would only like a select few to have access to email to, for example, a everyone or all address. In this example we will be locking down the email address all@example.com and only allow the address abc@example.com to send to it.

In /etc/postfix/main.cf add the following:

smtpd_restrictions_classes =  restricted_recipient

note: This is in smtpd_SENDER_restrictions to avoid becoming an open relay because of the “OK” below.

smtpd_sender_restrictions =
  check_recipient_access hash:/etc/postfix/restricted_recipient

restricted_recipient =
  check_sender_access hash:/etc/postfix/privileged_sender
  reject

restricted_recipient:

all@example.com         restricted_recipient

privileged_sender:

abc@example.com         OK

Fail2Ban Setup with RoundCube

Matt Rude — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:55:10 +0000

In order for Fail2Ban to be able to ban IP addresses from computers trying to break into RoundCube. RoundCube needs to write the IP address of the offending system in it’s logs. To accomplish this, run the following patch from the root of your RoundCube directory, or modify the program/lib/imap.inc file directly.

program/lib/imap.inc

Index: program/lib/imap.inc
============================================================
--- program/lib/imap.inc        (revision 2446)
+++ program/lib/imap.inc        (working copy)
@@ -428,7 +428,7 @@
&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt;
if ($result == -3) fclose($conn-&amp;gt;fp); // BYE response
&amp;lt;br /&amp;gt;
-    $conn-&amp;gt;error    .= 'Authentication for ' . $user . ' failed (AUTH): &amp;quot;';
+    $conn-&amp;gt;error    .= 'Authentication for ' . $user . ' (' . getenv(&amp;quot;REMOTE_ADDR&amp;quot;) . ') failed (AUTH): &amp;quot;';
$conn-&amp;gt;error    .= htmlspecialchars($line) . '&amp;quot;';
$conn-&amp;gt;errorNum  = $result;

Once you have RoundCube patched, you may use the below config and filter in Fail2Ban to block the IP address from RoundCube’s logs.

/etc/fail2ban/jail.conf:

[roundcube]
enabled  = true
port     = http,https
filter   = roundcube
action   = iptables-multiport[name=roundcube, port=&amp;quot;http,https&amp;quot;]
logpath  = /var/logs/httpd/errors

/etc/fail2ban/filter.d/roundcube.conf:

[Definition]
failregex = IMAP Error: Authentication for .* \(&amp;lt;HOST&amp;amp;lg;\) failed \((?:LOGIN|AUTH)\):
ignoreregex =

Welcome Odin

Matt Rude — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:46:17 +0000

On Thursday, May 14th my parents got a new puppy, Odin. Odin is a Newfoundland, Lab mix, about a year old. He weighs about 65lb now, but I think he will fill out quit a bit and be a bit boy, maybe not tall, but big.

So far he seems like a nice pup, he’s sweet and always needs to be by you, but he is a runner.

You will also find more pictures of him in his Gallery Album.

Video’s of Odin

Milly, we will miss you!

Matt Rude — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:36:13 +0000

On February 15th, Milly was put to sleep, she was 15. Milly was a wonderful dog, she will be missed.

Christmas 2008

Matt Rude — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:11:49 +0000

Thanksgiving 2008

Matt Rude — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:56:43 +0000

Thanksgiving at the cabin, what a wonderful thing.