This post is basically intended to collect some information currently hard to find on Google. I wrote with the hope it might help someone else running into same or similar trouble as I did. It took several hours distributed over several days of investigation to finally fix a problem with my setup of Gentoo-based servers commonly authenticating against LDAP tree over PAM, Linux’ Pluggable Authentication Modules. Continue reading »
Apr 11
Virtualization of Gentoo using OpenVZ #2
Maintenance, Software
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In my previous post I told you about some guides for installing vanilla Gentoo containers in a OpenVZ virtualization system. This time I’ll try to collect those things missing in template. Continue reading »
Apr 11
Hosters offer high-performance dedicated root servers for eligible monthly rates – at least some major Germany based hosters do so. Quad-core Intel i7 systems with 8 GB RAM for 50 EUR per month serve as a perfect start into server virtualization. And so it’s time to start your own virtual server farm. Continue reading »
Jul 21
( IMAP + LDAP ) + pam_access = not working
General, Maintenance
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Having a setup of Postfix/Cyrus IMAP using LDAP-based user account/mailbox management I tried to extend this by pam_access today for disabling some of the mailboxes without deleting them. pam_access is a plugin for PAM, the Pluggable Authentication Modules, used to reject or grant access depending on a user’s name or origin of request. In a setup as described before this seems to be useful for disabling selected mailboxes e.g. to temporarily lock out tardy payers.
Jul 13
Today I’m providing information on my efforts to get a running installation of Zimbra Collaborative Suite using its Open Source Edition. It’s being installed onto a server running an up-to-date 2008.0 installation of Gentoo Linux. It’s a vServer and I tried to install from source first. But then I found a very useful tutorial putting a binary distribution of Zimbra CS into a Debian-like context running in chroot.
Jun 23
So the excerpt is already indicating it: it’s possible to have a Gentoo distribution running on a Strato VServer. I was cycling through trying to install Gentoo, failing due to server not coming up properly after rebooting (not providing any logfile or similar), considering switch to Debian on this single server for the sake of simplicity, then falling back to praising benefits of a homogeneous set of servers sharing one Linux distro for several days now. After tweaking some things I finally got a server responding to pings, responding to SSH login requests.
May 02
Vista’s “Superfetch”, a background service used to increase overall performance on starting frequently used applications and loading files, seems to get hilarious if you tend to work with large files. Did you ever encounter much hard drive activity e.g. on a system startup after burning a 4 GB DVD, converting videos, managing virtual machines or doing something similar with large files in a previous session? It might be useful or even required to stop the Superfetch service for a moment then. This will keep it from trying to superfetch any previously used file, which might be something temporarily used … on burning a DVD you probably don’t want to keep the files on your hard disc afterwards but missed to drop them.
Dec 23
Installing Darwin Streaming Server 6.0.3 under Linux
General, Maintenance, Online, Software
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Darwin Streaming Server (DSS) is Apple’s Open Source variant of commercially available Quicktime Streaming Server. In currently available version 6.0.3 there is a lot broken when trying to build that server from source under Linux (e.g. Gentoo Linux in our case). Continue reading »
