Jared's techno blog

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

My new Technoblog over at typepad

Now that I've completed my migration to a new blogging service which I believe better suits my needs and taste, I will be no longer posting to my technoblog at blogger.com. You will need to update your bookmarks or RSS aggregator program.

My new blog is now at:
http://jarednevans.typepad.com/technoblog/

or you can subscribe to the RSS feed of my new blog at:
http://jarednevans.typepad.com/technoblog/index.rdf

Using Blogger for one year was a good learning experience for a new blogger like myself but now I'm ready to move on to a more professional blogging service. With the features on my new blog I really like being able to categorize my posts and I should be adding a search engine link soon.

I won't remove the blogger blog anytime soon and leave it up for future reference.

Be seeing you all over at typepad.com!

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Techworld.com - Pervasive posts rival to MySQL

Techworld.com - Pervasive posts rival to MySQL: "Pervasive Software, best known for embedded databases aimed at
medium-sized businesses, is making the leap into the enterprise with a
customised version of the open-source PostgreSQL database."

Twiki Authentication working on FreeBSD

Install Apache13 (Apache13-modssl could work but not tested)
get it up and running

install twiki from /usr/ports
get basic configuration up and running (be sure to set the mail options in TWikiPreferences)
register yourself on the twiki

Follow authentication setup instructions very carefully.

Finally, Inside /usr/local/etc/apache/access.conf, add:

< d i r e c t o r y /usr/local/www/twiki/bin >
AllowOverride All
< d i r e c t o r y >

Holbrook: Flash: FreeBSD beats Debian for getting newer software

This has been my experience too:

--------------------
Flash: FreeBSD beats Debian for getting newer software

I've been playing with FreeBSD recently, and it brought home a point Paul Beard has made to me a number of times. Debian packages make it trivial to install new software, but there's a good chance that that software will be an older version that what you want. If you want a newer version, expect pain. FreeBSD ports will more than likely have the version you want, but it will take longer to install it, because you'll have to compile it from scratch. But if you want that newer version, you'll get there faster with FreeBSD than with Debian. See my essay on the subject for more details.

Monday, January 10, 2005

Installing SSL and Apache13-modssl

To Install Apache with modssl:

After the UpdatePorts, install apache as follows:

cd /usr/ports/security/openssl
make
make install
cd /usr/ports/www/apache13-modssl
make
make install

Create a self signed certificate initially:

openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -out /usr/local/etc/apache/ssl.crt/server.crt -keyout /usr/local/etc/apache/ssl.key/server.key -days 3650

Edit /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf and set ServerName to the correct hostname.

To obtain a UW/IST signed certificate, visit The UW/IST Certificate Authority, then...

Edit /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf and change:

SSLCertificateFile /usr/local/etc/apache/ssl.crt/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /usr/local/etc/apache/ssl.key/server.key

to:

SSLCertificateFile /usr/local/etc/apache/ssl.crt/uwserver.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /usr/local/etc/apache/ssl.key/uwserver.key

Save the public certificate to /usr/local/etc/apache/ssl.crt/uwserver.crt

Save the private key to /usr/local/etc/apache/ssl.key/uwserver.key

Add the following to /etc/rc.conf...

apache_enable="YES"
apache_flags="-DSSL"
apache_pidfile="/var/run/httpd.pid"

Restart apache to start using the new certificate...

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/apache.sh stop
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/apache.sh start

To allow cgi scripts, edit /usr/local/etc/apache/httpd.conf as follows

Add the ExecCGI options

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews ExecCGI

uncomment

AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

Sunday, January 09, 2005

portupgrade on FreeBSD

These are good commands to try to resolve any compiling errors that are dependencies-related:

update your ports and make new index then do a portupgrade

portsnap fetch
portsnap update (do a portsnap extract instead only for the very first time)
cd /usr/ports
make fetchindex
portsdb -u
portversion -v -l "<" to see which apps are out of date
check /usr/ports/UPDATING for information you need to do before portupgrading
portupgrade -varR

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

using /usr/bin/manpath in bash login

export MANPATH=$(/usr/bin/manpath)