James Emmrich » Linux

Installing Brother HL-2170W Laser Printer on Ubuntu

James — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 03:15:20 +0000

The reason I love Brother laser printers & multi-function laser printers is Brothers support for Linux operating systems.

If you have a multi-function laser printer, you can enjoy scanning and printing from Linux over the network or by USB just like our Windows friends.

The Brother HL-2170W is just a simple laser printer, with built in wireless and a wired network port as backup. Here is how to install it.

First thing you need is to download the drivers to your desktop:

brhl2170wlpr-2.0.2-1.i386.deb
cupswrapperHL2170W-2.0.2-1.i386.deb

Since I am pretty much only going to use the wireless connectivity, I configured it directly over wireless, I have a spare windows laptop which I used. I installed the drivers on it as I use this laptop for my windows development and graphics editing. To do the configuring, I had to connect to the Ad-hoc network SETUP which I assume is the printers default SSID. Once the printer is configured this connection disappears. I had to hold the GO button on the printer for 10 seconds to get a printout of the current configuration. Don’t get me wrong, Brother does not require you to use a Windows computer to set this device up!

Anyways, with the printer setup for networking, time to set up Ubuntu from command line:

cd ~/Desktop
sudo aa-complain cupsd
sudo mkdir /usr/share/cups/model
sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/cups /etc/init.d/lpd
sudo mkdir /var/spool/lpd
sudo dpkg  -i  --force-all brhl2170wlpr-2.0.2-1.i386.deb
sudo dpkg  -i  --force-all cupswrapperHL2170W-2.0.2-1.i386.deb

Make sure that it is installed:

dpkg  -l  |  grep  Brother
ii  brhl2170wlpr  ....  2.0.2-1  ....  Brother HL-2170W LPR driver
ii  cupswrapperhl2170w  ....  2.0.2-1  ....  Brother HL2170W CUPS wrapper driver

Depending on the current state of your computer you might have to reboot.

Now add and configure the printer
http://localhost:631/

I have two printers connections installed for this printer, one for over networking, and one setup as USB. I wasn’t paying attention when I set this up ha, I think it did it auto-magically.

Once the printers are setup, go into System > Administration > Printing

Right click on the networking printer and click Properties.

Make sure that the Device URI is correct. For me, since I use static IP’s on my network I had to remove the device name and put in the IP address like so:

lpd://192.168.1.29/BINARY_P1

That’s it. I hit Print Test Page and it worked, as expected!

I recommend Brother printers to anyone, this printer was pretty cheap and they all use virtually the same cartridges and drums so you can swap with your other Brother devices when in a pinch.

Linux and the Mercury EZ View TV Tuner Card

James — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:16:57 +0000

I am not one to watch much TV, but when I do, I prefer to do so by PVR with commercials cut, and live pausing. I also like to set recording schedules in advance and do it from my cellphone if need be.

I bought this little card originally for my parents PVR that I built them, unfortunately I could not get it to work. I believe I paid a little less than $100.00 for it. After a lot of messing with it, I put it back in the box and left it.

Four years later, I attempted again ha.

This is how to get your Mercury EZ View PCI Card to work in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

The Mercury EZ View PCI Card

Product Image

FM Radio Reception

Auto Scan FM channels

TV / Video Display

Full motion display @ 30fps
Resizable video window from free size to full screen
Full screen display: Max resolution up to 720 x 576
Supports overlay mode to get the best quality

TV / Video Capture

Full motion video capture up to 30 fps
Video capture format: AVI, MPEG-1/2/4, DVD, VCD, MP3
Still image snapshot format BMP
Video capture size up to 352 x 288 (AVI), 325 x 240 (VCD NTSC) and 322 x 288 (VCD PAL)

Digital Video Capture

Capture and display video from Digital Video (DV) camcorder
Record DV video into MPEG-I or MPEG-II and AVI files
Camera control via GUI

System Requirements

Outdoor antenna or cable TV connection
Pentium III 700MHz or higher processor
128MB of system memory recommended
Microsoft Windows 98 SE/ME/2000/XP with DirectX 8.1 installed
DirectX 8.1 compatible VGA card

Hardware

Conexant CX 23881 chipset, 10bits high quality ADC
Multiple tuner receptions (NTSC, PAL system)
PCI 2.1 compatible Interface
4 layer PCB
Remote power on
Full IR remote control function

Installing the Card

Jumper cables provided

Duh, just like any card. But on the serious side, it came with a bunch of jumper cables as shown on the left. The back of the card has a cable coaxial input, a IR input port for the remote, and an “S-Video” like connector. The jumper cables provided, allow you to split this into the following connections:

Splitter cable:
- Audio Out – 3.5mm female
- Audio In – 3.5mm female
- Video Composite Out – male
- S-Video Out – female
3.5mm headphone cable jumper – male/male

It seems to be a funky way of doing things, but in any case…

Upon system reboot, the card is not detected, the syslog shows the following:

May 24 19:38:20 lonewolf kernel: [ 13.296313] Linux video capture interface: v2.00
May 24 19:38:20 lonewolf kernel: [ 13.766829] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 80×30
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010115] cx88/0: cx2388x v4l2 driver version 0.0.7 loaded
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010171] cx8800 0000:02:0a.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 22 (level, low) -> IRQ 22
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010469] cx88[0]: Your board has no valid PCI Subsystem ID and thus can’t
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010471] cx88[0]: be autodetected. Please pass card= insmod option to
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010473] cx88[0]: workaround that. Redirect complaints to the vendor of
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010474] cx88[0]: the TV card. Best regards,
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.010475] cx88[0]: — tux
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.012313] cx88[0]: Here is a list of valid choices for the card= insmod option:
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.012815] cx88[0]: card=0 -> UNKNOWN/GENERIC
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.013152] cx88[0]: card=1 -> Hauppauge WinTV 34xxx models
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.013521] cx88[0]: card=2 -> GDI Black Gold
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.013841] cx88[0]: card=3 -> PixelView
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.014143] cx88[0]: card=4 -> ATI TV Wonder Pro
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.014468] cx88[0]: card=5 -> Leadtek Winfast 2000XP Expert
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.014832] cx88[0]: card=6 -> AverTV Studio 303 (M126)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.015178] cx88[0]: card=7 -> MSI TV-@nywhere Master
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.015518] cx88[0]: card=8 -> Leadtek Winfast DV2000
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.015858] cx88[0]: card=9 -> Leadtek PVR 2000
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.016214] cx88[0]: card=10 -> IODATA GV-VCP3/PCI
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.016554] cx88[0]: card=11 -> Prolink PlayTV PVR
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.016893] cx88[0]: card=12 -> ASUS PVR-416
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.017208] cx88[0]: card=13 -> MSI TV-@nywhere
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.017532] cx88[0]: card=14 -> KWorld/VStream XPert DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.017900] cx88[0]: card=15 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T1
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.018252] cx88[0]: card=16 -> KWorld LTV883RF
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.018570] cx88[0]: card=17 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 3 Gold-Q
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.018925] cx88[0]: card=18 -> Hauppauge Nova-T DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.019270] cx88[0]: card=19 -> Conexant DVB-T reference design
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.019644] cx88[0]: card=20 -> Provideo PV259
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.019960] cx88[0]: card=21 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Plus
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.020356] cx88[0]: card=22 -> pcHDTV HD3000 HDTV
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.030618] cx88[0]: card=23 -> digitalnow DNTV Live! DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.040737] cx88[0]: card=24 -> Hauppauge WinTV 28xxx (Roslyn) models
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.051028] cx88[0]: card=25 -> Digital-Logic MICROSPACE Entertainment Center (MEC)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.071494] cx88[0]: card=26 -> IODATA GV/BCTV7E
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.081762] cx88[0]: card=27 -> PixelView PlayTV Ultra Pro (Stereo)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.091783] cx88[0]: card=28 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 3 Gold-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.101925] cx88[0]: card=29 -> ADS Tech Instant TV DVB-T PCI
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.111947] cx88[0]: card=30 -> TerraTec Cinergy 1400 DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.122069] cx88[0]: card=31 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 5 Gold
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.132337] cx88[0]: card=32 -> AverMedia UltraTV Media Center PCI 550
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.142650] cx88[0]: card=33 -> Kworld V-Stream Xpert DVD
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.152954] cx88[0]: card=34 -> ATI HDTV Wonder
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.163478] cx88[0]: card=35 -> WinFast DTV1000-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.174010] cx88[0]: card=36 -> AVerTV 303 (M126)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.184401] cx88[0]: card=37 -> Hauppauge Nova-S-Plus DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.194992] cx88[0]: card=38 -> Hauppauge Nova-SE2 DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.205465] cx88[0]: card=39 -> KWorld DVB-S 100
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.215970] cx88[0]: card=40 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1100 DVB-T/Hybrid
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.226649] cx88[0]: card=41 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1100 DVB-T/Hybrid (Low Profile)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.247883] cx88[0]: card=42 -> digitalnow DNTV Live! DVB-T Pro
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.259172] cx88[0]: card=43 -> KWorld/VStream XPert DVB-T with cx22702
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.270560] cx88[0]: card=44 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Dual Digital
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.282025] cx88[0]: card=45 -> KWorld HardwareMpegTV XPert
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.293396] cx88[0]: card=46 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T Hybrid
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.304702] cx88[0]: card=47 -> pcHDTV HD5500 HDTV
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.315830] cx88[0]: card=48 -> Kworld MCE 200 Deluxe
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.327030] cx88[0]: card=49 -> PixelView PlayTV P7000
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.338171] cx88[0]: card=50 -> NPG Tech Real TV FM Top 10
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.349322] cx88[0]: card=51 -> WinFast DTV2000 H
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.360277] cx88[0]: card=52 -> Geniatech DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.371133] cx88[0]: card=53 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR3000 TriMode Analog/DVB-S/DVB-T
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.392302] cx88[0]: card=54 -> Norwood Micro TV Tuner
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.403119] cx88[0]: card=55 -> Shenzhen Tungsten Ages Tech TE-DTV-250 / Swann OEM
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.425351] cx88[0]: card=56 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR1300 DVB-T/Hybrid MPEG Encoder
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.448397] cx88[0]: card=57 -> ADS Tech Instant Video PCI
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.460250] cx88[0]: card=58 -> Pinnacle PCTV HD 800i
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.472088] cx88[0]: card=59 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 5 PCI nano
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.483859] cx88[0]: card=60 -> Pinnacle Hybrid PCTV
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.495621] cx88[0]: card=61 -> Leadtek TV2000 XP Global
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.507511] cx88[0]: card=62 -> PowerColor RA330
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.519250] cx88[0]: card=63 -> Geniatech X8000-MT DVBT
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.531312] cx88[0]: card=64 -> DViCO FusionHDTV DVB-T PRO
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.543210] cx88[0]: card=65 -> DViCO FusionHDTV 7 Gold
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.554938] cx88[0]: card=66 -> Prolink Pixelview MPEG 8000GT
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.566832] cx88[0]: card=67 -> Kworld PlusTV HD PCI 120 (ATSC 120)
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.578525] cx88[0]: card=68 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR4000 DVB-S/S2/T/Hybrid
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.589973] cx88[0]: card=69 -> Hauppauge WinTV-HVR4000(Lite) DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.601279] cx88[0]: card=70 -> TeVii S460 DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.612676] cx88[0]: card=71 -> Omicom SS4 DVB-S/S2 PCI
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.624058] cx88[0]: card=72 -> TBS 8920 DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.635450] cx88[0]: card=73 -> TeVii S420 DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.646784] cx88[0]: card=74 -> Prolink Pixelview Global Extreme
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.658301] cx88[0]: card=75 -> PROF 7300 DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.669770] cx88[0]: card=76 -> SATTRADE ST4200 DVB-S/S2
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.681486] cx88[0]: card=77 -> TBS 8910 DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.692933] cx88[0]: card=78 -> Prof 6200 DVB-S
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.704146] cx88[0]: card=79 -> Terratec Cinergy HT PCI MKII
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.715313] cx88[0]: card=80 -> Hauppauge WinTV-IR Only
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.726179] cx88[0]: card=81 -> Leadtek WinFast DTV1800 Hybrid
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.736853] cx88[0]: card=82 -> WinFast DTV2000 H rev. J
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.736865] cx88[0]: subsystem: 0000:0000, board: UNKNOWN/GENERIC [card=0,autodetected], frontend(s): 0
May 24 19:38:21 lonewolf kernel: [ 14.736872] cx88[0]: TV tuner type -1, Radio tuner type -1

Never had to deal with this before. Annoying, as my Hauppauge 250 PVR card works amazing and out of the box. As you can see there is no EZ View or Mercury in there.

Debugging

I needed to find out more information:

sudo lspci -v

02:0a.0 Multimedia video controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. CX23880/1/2/3 PCI Video and Audio Decoder (rev 03)
 Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 22
 Memory at f9000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
 Capabilities: [44] Vital Product Data 
 Capabilities: [4c] Power Management version 2
 Kernel modules: cx8800

I installed my usual software:

tvtime
xawtv

sudo apt-get install tvtime xawtv

I tried all, obviously, got nothing.

After posting numerous posts around the web, reading, my last resort was to figure out how to set the card types. To do so I needed to learn the modprobe command.

One thing to note here is that it seems the cx8800 driver creates the device /dev/video0 and the cx88xx provides new functionality, therefore they work together. You need to unload and reload them both. My initial problems was that the cx8800 driver does not support the modprobe command “card” as that was moved to the cx88xx driver.

Another thing was you can’t unload the cx88xx module from the kernel unless you first remove the cx8800 module. These little things caused a lot of initial confusion for me.

I wrote a little script to test each card type, surprisingly, this card seems to work on a couple different types. It was working and I didn’t even know it a couple times. Here’s a simple shell script I wrote:

rmmod cx8800
rmmod cx88xx

modprobe cx88xx card=$1 tuner=$2
modprobe cx8800

tvtime

When tvtime opens, you can then set the input for the card, in my case it was Television, but for some it might be composite, s-video, dvb whatever your case may be. It took a few seconds before my video started producing color video.

Freenode help

A friendly fellow from Iceland, kizi, from Freenode’s IRC ##linux channel, provided some expertise here and helped me on the rest of the journey. He found me this interesting site:

http://translate.google.is/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsugo.ubuntu.hu%2Fcommunity-doc%2Fhardy%2Funiverse%2Fhardware%2Fmercury_ezview_cx88xx.html&sl=hu&tl=en

Honestly cannot thank him enough!

Interestingly this link had the card and tuner number I needed! card=27 tuner=69

So I ran the script again with the following:

./mercury 27 69

Viola! seemed to work even better!

To make this work after rebooting the computer, I made a config file: /etc/modprobe.conf/mercury.conf

options cx88 card=27 tuner=69

So I rebooted and to make sure it worked still. Yay!

As for setting it up in MythTV, well, that is a whole different post. Due to the way my audio is configured, it’s like a puzzle of jumper cables and only just figured it out 24 hours later with lots of frustration. Boy, do I hate the way Ubuntu 10.04 LTS handles the audio card configurations!!

Hope this will help anyone else getting their card to work.

Mercury EZ view tv tuner card (Conexant CX 23881 chipset) – http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=512551

Tethering with the iPhone 3Gs on Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10

James — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:53:15 +0000

Ok, this seemed to be a headache for a good hour. Under Windows it was easy easy easy. It seems to be an issue with pairing and Internet Tethering being off and turned on without the iPhone being restarted and how Ubuntu handles the pairing over this transition.

Most notable issue is that Network Manager will just fail to connect to the bluetooth access point immediately. If you install blueman, a great bluetooth manager, you will get the message “Connection refused (111)” or something similar which is a little more helpful, but not quite. To fix this, follow these steps.

Turn on tethering, on your iPhone click Settings > General > Network and turn on Internet Tethering. Tethering seems to be turned off by default on the iPhone.
Make sure that you delete all pairing with your iPhone in the bluetooth-manager (right click and go to preferences)
In your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Bluetooth, slide the computer paired connection, to the left and “Forget this Device”
Hold down the power button and restart your iPhone
In Ubuntu, right click bluetooth-manager and go to Preferences
Set your friendly name and then click Set up new Device…
On your iPhone enter the passcode on your laptop
Success on pairing!
On the computer make sure to check the option to use this as a network connection.
Test: Turn off your Wifi on the computer, and click the Network Manager icon, you should see 23:AF:45:BE:12:FA PANU or something similar. Click to connect.

Important notes:

Wifi Issues

Bluetooth does not seem to work well with Wii connections that are active. I tend to get my bluetooth connections dropping out or just plain will not connect. So make sure if you are having problems at all, turn Wifi to remove one more variable from problem.

Cellular Provider

I am with Telus Mobility and they offer the ability to tether on all their smartphone/data plans.

Using Git to manage online website projects

James — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:25:33 +0000

I have recently been getting into using Git for my more complicated projects. After a bit of google foo, I came across some references to using Git to push and pull website updates. This post is my way of remembering how I set up new git repositories. I did not “figure” this out myself, but I have linked to the originator. But I did modify it slightly.

Related material:

This is one of the websites that I used as a reference, quite a bit is the same, even the borrowed graphic:
http://dmiessler.com/blog/using-git-to-maintain-your-website
Some basic information on Git usage
http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git-core/docs/v1.2.6/tutorial.html

First how it works
The server has the htdocs of the live website as well as a htdocs.git as the central main repository. Everything will be pushed there, and once completed, automatically pulled into the live website. The structure is as so:

Install Git on all systems, I use Debian.

sudo apt-get install git-core

On the server enter your websites htdocs:

git init
git add .
git commit -a -m “Initial import of project.”

Now we want to clone this repository.

cd ..
git clone –bare htdocs htdocs.git

On the local system now:

git clone ssh://root@lwp.ca/full/path/to/htdocs.git

On the server:

mv htdocs htdocs.backup
git clone htdocs.git

Note: htdocs.backup can be removed once the system is setup and working.

Final updates to the server
Due to the clone process, file permissions and ownership are now all root. So use the htdocs.backup to figure out what the file ownership/permissions were. Make sure that your new htdocs and all its sub files are back to normal.

chown -R vu2000:vu2000 htdocs

Prevent the versioning of useless files
In the server repository edit htdocs/.gitignore, and make sure we do not back up cache directories and backup files *~ and config files. Do not add trailing slashes as this will prevent the exclude from working. Prep-ending slashes means the root of the git repo. By placing the .gitignore here, it will be part of the repository so anyone else working on the project will be using the same ignore rules.

*~
/wp-content/uploads
/cache
/users/uploads
/configuration.php

Now because we issued a “git add .” we should untrack files we don’t want to send back and forth.

git rm –cache configuration.php

Now when we do pushes and pulls we don’t have to keep updating our config file every time. We should make a backup however so we always have a copy.

cp configuration.php configuration.php.live

Protecting the source
Also, place a file in all .git folders called .htaccess containing:

Deny from all

This will prevent visitors with crafty google foo to download and view source code files.

Auto updating Live site
Now to enable auto updates when updates are pushed from offline dev machine to server.

On the server in our htdocs.git/hooks/post-update, make sure it contains only the following:

cd ../htdocs
env -i git pull

Then make it executable

chmod +x post-update

Done, now test
Now on the development machine make some changes and test.

touch “new file”
git add .
git commit -a -m “Testing first update”
git push

Yay! Everything should be working!

Notes on usage.

Updates on dev machine can be pushed to server like so:

git add .
git commit -a -m “This is an update”
git push

If changes were done on the server from some reason, navigate to the htdocs folder and run:

git add .
git commit -a -m “Changes made online”
git push

Then on your dev machine pull the updates.

git pull

If you need to check what has happened since the last update:

git status

Merge one branch into another:

git checkout master
git merge myBugFixes

Delete your old branch:

git branch -D myBugFixes

Automatic database backup via script

James — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 19:13:16 +0000

As mentioned before somewhere in my blog, here is the script I have written to back up my databases. This is actually my local backup script, I have a much different one on the server which uses a passwordless ssh connection to backup the databases offsite.

#!/bin/sh
# Database backup 2008 
# Nightly Usage:
# 0 0 * * * /home/james/Dropbox/Home/mobilewolf/scripts/backup.sh &> /dev/null

LOGFILE="/home/james/Dropbox/Home/mobilewolf/databases/databases.log"
BACKUPDIR="/home/james/Dropbox/Home/mobilewolf/databases"
STARTTIME="$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%r)"

# MySQL Login
SQLUSER="sqluser"
SQLPASS="sqlpass"

# Dump databases
echo "*** Database Backup Started: $STARTTIME" >> $LOGFILE

# Keep yesterdays databases
rm -f $BACKUPDIR/yesterday/*
mv $BACKUPDIR/*.gz $BACKUPDIR/yesterday/

for i in `echo "show databases" | mysql -u $SQLUSER -p$SQLPASS | grep -v Database`;
do
 mysqldump -u $SQLUSER -p$SQLPASS $i > /tmp/$i.sql
 echo $i >> $LOGFILE
 gzip /tmp/$i.sql

 # Send Databases
 cp /tmp/*.sql.gz $BACKUPDIR/

 # Remove our dumps to keep us clean
 rm -f /tmp/*.sql.gz
done

echo "*** Database Backup Ended: $(date +%Y-%m-%d-%r)" >> $LOGFILE
echo "\n" >> $LOGFILE

Setup

Change the user and password to a user that has ability to access all databases for dump
Download and set executable permissions chmod +x backup_databases.sh
edit cron to execute every night: crontab -e
add: 0 0 * * * /home/james/Dropbox/Home/mobilewolf/scripts/backup_databases.sh &> /dev/null

Ideas for your setup

The line following “Send databases” replace cp, with scp to send the databases to remote server. You will need to have passwordless ssh connections setup.
Have the log file emailed to you once completed

My Future Improvements

Enable backup archiving for the past week rotated daily so I can go back to a database from 2 or 3 days or even a week ago

How I use Dropbox on Ubuntu

James — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:45:00 +0000

Dropbox.com has become a huge time saver for me, and most likely a life saver as well.

I have a folder in my Dropbox called Home. Here I have sub folders for each machine that I have. My two laptops, a desktop which hold computer specific files that are different for each computer I have.

Files such as:

/etc/hosts
/etc/fstab
/databases/

Rather than copying these manually, I have simply moved the files to the dropbox and then symbolically linked them. That way when the system updates these files, Dropbox does it’s sync.

The databases folder is a folder which contains database dumps. My crontab is setup to nightly dump databases in tar form and place them here, for Dropbox to store.

I also have a folder called Resources. This contains files that are shared between computers. I have symbolically linked my .fonts folder here. Now whenever I install a new font for a design project, all my other computers are updated too.

For chat software like Pidgin and XChat, I have symbolically linked their folders .purple and xchat2 respectively, to my Dropbox home folder. Because these will be shared between computers I don’t have them in their respect computer sub folder. Now no matter what computer I chat on, my chat logs and software settings are up to date.

Projects that I work on are placed in my Dropbox under a folder called Projects, with each project as its own sub folder.

During my work, or daily routine I tend to shuffle, download, delete, and create new files. While I don’t always place these files to my Dropbox, I am very careful to not hold them on my laptops for long periods of time.

For files that I want to hold, I either move them to my Dropbox or to my NAS server depending solely on their importance and need of accessibility.

The results

I can now format my hard drive at any time, provided that Dropbox has had time to sync any changes. I also have the feeling of security knowing that my hard drive crashes will not take me out of commission.

Fighting with Postgrey

James — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:39:38 +0000

Today I discovered why our server was bouncing back all emails. We were able to send email successfully but hadn’t received any email for 2-3 days. It was when we found a bounce message from one of our other email accounts that alerted us of the problem.

An example of the bounce message:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

THIS IS A WARNING MESSAGE ONLY.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO RESEND YOUR MESSAGE.

Delivery to the following recipient has been delayed:

user@ourserver.com

Message will be retried for 2 more day(s)

Technical details of temporary failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 451 451 4.3.5 Server configuration problem (state 14).

At first I thought we had a blacklist issue, which happens from time to time as we send large amounts of email in the form of newsletters etc.

Going through /var/log/syslog I found some interesting entries related to Postfix and Postgrey:

Jun 23 06:25:43 server postfix/smtpd[14721]: NOQUEUE: reject: RCPT from connet1.connect.uwaterloo.ca[129.97.128.124]: 451 4.3.5 Server configuration problem; from=<xxx@uwaterloo.ca> to= proto=ESMTP helo=
Jun 23 06:26:48 server postfix/smtpd[16600]: warning: connect to 127.0.0.1:60000: Connection refused

My next thought was maybe Postfix was confused some how and decided to restart the whole server.

Server came up and found that now MySQL wasn’t running and all database driven websites were down. Yikes. Looking through the syslog I discovered the second issue, not enough hard drive space. A simple df -h confirmed it. 100% use on the /var partition.

I quickly removed some old log files, and crap and manually started MySQL. Everything runs, but still have the email issue.

I looked through the /etc/postfix/main.cf to look for clues and found:

smtpd_recipient_restrictions = reject_non_fqdn_recipient,
reject_unknown_recipient_domain,
permit_mynetworks,
permit_sasl_authenticated,
reject_unauth_destination,
reject_unlisted_recipient,
check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:12525,
check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:60000,
permit

Looking up info on postgrey, lead me to its config file /etc/default/postgrey which contained:

POSTGREY_OPTS=”–inet=127.0.0.1:60000″

So now we know from syslog that the connection issue is because of postgrey. I tried to restart postgrey, and discovered it wasn’t running, and failed to start. So I ran it manually in verbose:

/usr/sbin/postgrey -v –pidfile=/var/run/postgrey.pid –inet=127.0.0.1:60000

Turns out Postgrey failed to find its database. I checked /var/lib/postgrey and found it did infact have files there. Seems Postfix tells you it can’t find its database when the database is there, but unable to be opened due to being corrupt!

To test this, I moved all files within /var/lib/postgrey to a temporary location and started postgrey manually again. Started up like a charm and postgrey recreated a new database.

To make sure everything is running like new, I restarted the server. Loaded up a few websites, and sent some test emails from an external source (gmail).

Voila! I called up my clients and updated them on the issue and let them know they did not lose any email and that they would still receive email that was sent during the down time. A few minutes later, emails from the weekend started to arrive.

How to Remove The Annoying Update manager Pop-up in Ubuntu Jaunty

James — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:33:05 +0000

I have found this handy article. One of my pet peeves is intrusive software. And with Ubuntu’s new release, Jaunty, which pops up the upgrade program in the mix of all your open documents and workspace, can be quite annoying. I will bloody upgrade when I’m good and ready thank you very much!

Useful excerpts:

Alternative method (via the terminal)

If you are just plain lazy, here’s a much easier step.

In your terminal, type the following command:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

To recover:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch true

Original article here:

http://maketecheasier.com/remove-the-annoying-update-manager-pop-up-in-ubuntu-jaunty/2009/06/18

Tethering the HTC Titan (Telus P4000) in Ubuntu

James — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:33:51 +0000

With my recent move leaving me without Internet for a few days, I have been picking up free Wifi signals from the surrounding area with little or no success requiring me to travel to the parents house. This means that until my Internet is installed, my new place will never be unpacked or lived in. So I set out to find a solution.

Tethering with the HTC Titan is surprisingly easy–who knew?

Windows Mobile

In Windows Mobile, go to Start > Programs > Internet Sharing

Select USB from the PC Connection drop down

Select your Cellular Provider from the Network Connection drop down.

Then press the Connect button. The phone should start connecting to your data plan. Obviously you need to have your phone plugged into a USB port on the computer.

Ubuntu

Once your cellphone has connected to your data plan, Network Manager should popup a message saying you are connected to a “wired network”. Make sure your wired network preferences specify DHCP as the method for getting an IP address.

I have not tested this on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, but it works fantastic on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.

Now I can use my Cellphones data plan for Internet access on my laptop.

First things I do on a clean Linux install

James — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:27:50 +0000

Doing a clean install of Linux is not that bad of a task–if you know what you need and you have your files properly organized.

I just completed a new clean install and figured I would write it all down in one place, great for me, and might be helpful for you.

I can be pretty picky when it comes to setting up my linux workstations so the process is a long one (a couple hours), but in the end I have what I need and isn’t that the point?

Most of the applications I use are for server management and web development, however the things the average user may want to read about is file sharing with NFS drives and dropbox, FireFox extensions and media codecs.

Here is a direct link to the new page: http://www.lwp.ca/james/?page_id=282