Adding XFS Support to RHEL5
Submitted by Vlad on Tue, 06/24/2008 - 18:55.RedHat's enterprise operating system doesn't provide support for XFS out of the box, due to support limitations. XFS is a mature and stable file system however, and has benefits in a number of areas, including file streaming, snapshotting, growing, and online defragmentation. In this brief article, I'll walk you through the process of adding XFS support to your RHEL5 (or CentOS) boxes.
XFS comes in two parts: userland tools (xfsprogs) for creating/checking/etc XFS partitions and xfs-kmod, the kernel module required to support XFS.
FreeBSD on the Intel Atom
Submitted by Vlad on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 00:43.Yesterday, my Intel BOXD945GCLF Atom mini-itx motherboard arrived. This silent, low power motherboard combo is perfect for a variety of applications, ranging from network firewalls to car PCs. There is a lot of excitement surrounding this motherboard and the future of small form factor computing in general. Since I wish to exploit this in a variety of areas, I turned to FreeBSD 7.0-RELEASE. Read more to find out more information about the new Intel Atom processor, the D945GCLF motherboard that it comes with, and it's initial reaction to FreeBSD.
Day 1: A Windows and Linux User's First Mac Pro
Submitted by Vlad on Fri, 06/06/2008 - 17:19.I'm a long time Linux user, but a much longer Windows user. While I've used a Mac before, I've never used as my primary desktop. Yesterday, my Mac Pro arrived, and I've been getting used to the 'Apple way' of doing things. Read more to see some of my notes and road bumps as I discover more about Apple's UNIX certified operating system on Day 1!
Get RSS updates to your Instant Messenger
Submitted by achillean on Sun, 06/01/2008 - 08:41.
As a technology and politics addict, I like staying informed about the latest news. Eventually, I got tired of refreshing pages to find out when new content was available (or having to check my RSS reader) so I decided to write a small service that delivers RSS/ Atom updates to my instant messenger. And since I'm sure I'm not the only person craving such a thing, I figure I'd make it publicly available:
Sending mail in python
Submitted by achillean on Fri, 05/09/2008 - 08:47.A quick Python function that shows how to send an email.
def send_mail(destination, source, subject, text, smtp_addr='localhost'):
"""Simple function to send an email.
destination
The email address that the message should be sent to.
source
The 'From' address that will be used for the email.
subject
The subject/ title of the email.
text
The actual message/ content of the email.
smtp_addr
The hostname or IP address of the SMTP server that will deliver the
email.
Example usage:
send_mail('my_friend@test.com', 'bgates@microsoft.com',
'Hi!', 'Just checking in.')
"""
import email.Message
import smtplib
mail = email.Message.Message()
mail['To'] = destination
mail['From'] = source
mail['Subject'] = subject
mail.set_payload(text)
server = smtplib.SMTP(smtp_addr)
server.sendmail(source, destination, mail.as_string())
server.quit()
"""Simple function to send an email.
destination
The email address that the message should be sent to.
source
The 'From' address that will be used for the email.
subject
The subject/ title of the email.
text
The actual message/ content of the email.
smtp_addr
The hostname or IP address of the SMTP server that will deliver the
email.
Example usage:
send_mail('my_friend@test.com', 'bgates@microsoft.com',
'Hi!', 'Just checking in.')
"""
import email.Message
import smtplib
mail = email.Message.Message()
mail['To'] = destination
mail['From'] = source
mail['Subject'] = subject
mail.set_payload(text)
server = smtplib.SMTP(smtp_addr)
server.sendmail(source, destination, mail.as_string())
server.quit()
Installing Finch on OpenBSD without X11
Submitted by achillean on Sun, 05/04/2008 - 03:59.Since my OpenBSD install doesn't use X11 I couldn't use the official Pidgin package and had to install by source instead. To start out, I used the following configure command:
./configure --enable-consoleui --disable-gtkui --without-x --with-python
Which resulted in the following error:
...
checking for initscr in -lncursesw... no
checking for update_panels in -lpanelw... no
checking for initscr in -lncurses... yes
checking for update_panels in -lpanel... no
configure: error:
Finch will not be built. You need to install ncursesw (or ncurses) and its development headers.
checking for initscr in -lncursesw... no
checking for update_panels in -lpanelw... no
checking for initscr in -lncurses... yes
checking for update_panels in -lpanel... no
configure: error:
Finch will not be built. You need to install ncursesw (or ncurses) and its development headers.
Accessing ext2/ext3 Volumes from Windows
Submitted by Vlad on Wed, 04/30/2008 - 03:46.A useful utility called Ext2 IFS allows you to mount ext2 and ext3 filesystems from inside Microsoft Windows. It allows you to mount your Linux partitions as drive letters in Windows Explorer, giving you full (journaled!) read/write support. If you dual boot Windows and Linux or work in a mixed Windows/Linux environment, Ext2 IFS can be a godsend.
Dear RedHat...
Submitted by Vlad on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 03:03.RedHat is one of the most widely used Linux distribution, at least in the corporate and academic sectors. It's been around for years and after all the shit they've gotten from users trapped in RPM "dependency hell," you'd think they'd have learned SOMETHING by now, right?...Right?
A Brief History of FTP: The Protocol That Wouldn't Die
Submitted by Vlad on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 09:17.Most Internet users have probably used the file transfer protocol, or FTP, at one time or another whether or not they realize it. Largely transparent in this day and age to most web surfers, it was at one time the de facto standard for moving files across early networks (and eventually, the Internet). But has FTP run it's course? This system administrator thinks so. Read on for a brief history of FTP and why it just needs to fscking die already.
Repairing Windows Vista's MBR
Submitted by Vlad on Thu, 02/21/2008 - 10:24.Quite some time ago I installed Gentoo on my workstation for dual booting. As part of this process, I replaced the MBR installed by Windows Vista with GRUB. After getting another workstation for Gentoo, I decided to delete the dual-booting Linux partitions and recover the space for Vista to use. Sadly, I didn't stop to think before deleting my GRUB (/boot) partition and resizing my NTFS partition - rendering my system completely unbootable. I had to make the system bootable without rebooting, but how...?
