Steven Eppler’s Blog

About a week ago I installed Dropbox, and I have to recommend it to anybody who needs to sync their files between machines. I have a group of Macs that I use to sync data between, and I used to use iDisk, but Dropbox is so much quicker that I can’t see myself using iDisk anymore. Also, the syncing between Linux and Mac OS X works great – I haven’t got a chance to test the Windows client yet, but I’m sure it works just as good.

If you sign up with this link, you’ll get an extra 256MB, and so will I.

written by eppler

When you are trying to view a QuickTime movies from a streaming server, sometimes you will get back a 400 Bad Request error.  At my network at work, we intercept all port 80 traffic and forward to our squid proxy server, which is why we get this error.  In order to fix this, just open up System Preferences, open the QuickTime pane, click the Advanced tab, and choose Custom… under the Transport Setup dropdown.  Choose HTTP as your protocol, and type in 7070 where is says Other.  Since making this modifications, we can view the QuickTime streams with no problems.

written by eppler

I recently had an issue where my server was not recording the last login time and IP address when you logged in via SSH. I believe I ran into this bug.

To fix, I added a single line to my /etc/ssh/sshd_config file:

UseLogin yes

Now the server properly records the last login date, time, and IP address, and the lastlog command is now working properly.

written by eppler

One of my friends, Jeremy Bergen, is running a TeamSpeak server on one of my servers, and was running into a resource temporarily unavailable while ssh’d into the box. The TeamSpeak server was also randomly shutting down, and this may have been caused by the same error. TeamSpeak uses around between 10-16 processes itself, so after a logging in a few times or doing other things, this default limit of 20 it reached.

To fix this, first I turned off cPanel’s built in ‘Prevent Shell Fork Bomb Protection’. Then, I edited the /etc/security/limits.conf. I still wanted users to be limited to 20 processes, except for the TeamSpeak user which I wanted to have 40, and root which I wanted unlimited. Here are the lines that I had:

*             soft     nproc     20
jeremy        soft     nproc     40
root          soft     nproc     unlimited

Of course, you can customize the file however you like. The key is turning off cPanel’s internal protection so your box will use this file. Also, I happen to use CentOS 4.3.

written by eppler

When using tsclient, a remote desktop/terminal services/vnc client, if you connect in full screen mode to a server it can be difficult to disconnect or switch to another application because there is no ‘control bar’ at the top.

To toggle full screen mode, use the key combination Ctrl+Alt+Enter.

written by eppler

OpenSourceCMS

This site allows you to try out a large selection of php and mysql based software, without having to install them all on your own server.

The site is refreshed every 2 hours, so you don’t have to worry about passwords getting changed and other problems with having multiple people having administrator access.

Check it out.

written by eppler

I’ve been playing around with the latest version of SuSE Linux and so far I’m loving it. Since I’m waiting for my new computer parts to arrive, I went ahead and installed it to my current machine (it’s an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ overclocked to 1.8GHz with half a gig of Corsair RAM, running on an Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard). The install went smooth after I got a drive to read the burned dual layer DVD. It some ways it was easier than a Windows install, and supported all of my hardware.

Now I’m just waiting for my new parts to arrive so I can install and run SuSE in 64-bit mode. For those that are interested, my new computer is going to consist of an AMD Athlon64 3000+ Venice (probably going to overclock to 2.4 – 2.7GHz) with a gig of OCZ RAM, running on a DFI LanParty UT nF4 Ultra-D motherboard. I’ll post pictures of the build when everything comes in…

written by eppler

I’ve been using Advanced Policy Firewall (APF) and Brute Force Detection (BFD) on my dedicated servers for a while now for increased security. I just installed them at work for our Linux-based mail servers. The APF install guide is here, and the BFD install guide is here.

written by eppler

For a few weeks now, I have been unable to access digg.com through my work’s internet connection. I have been unable to determine where the problem lies, so I decided to access it via an SSH tunnel. Here is the command I used:

sudo ssh -l *_username_* -L:*_localport_*:*_remotehost_*:*_remoteport_* *_tunnelhost_*

With all the blanks filled in, here is my final command:

sudo ssh -l seppler -L:80:digg.com:80 epplersoft.com

Then, I modifyed my /etc/hosts file to and added the following line:

127.0.0.1 digg.com

Now, I can access digg.com from work and home via my SSH tunnel.

…And that’s how I got my digg back.

written by eppler