Category: Linux

  • How to create debian init.d startup script

    How to create debian init.d startup script

    From time to time I need to create an init.d startup script for a program that is not part of the default debian distribution. I’ve always found it unnecessarily fiddly to create a new script. The other day I came across naholyr’s gist, a script to make init.d scripts. There were a few problems with…

  • Set group permissions for whole subdirectory with ACLs

    Set group permissions for whole subdirectory with ACLs

    Sometimes you want to preserve file permissions under subdirectories in linux with ACLs but that’s not the whole story. If you want multiple users to be able to read and write to these files, and the group permissions to stay correct, you need to set ACLs and also group +s on the subdirectories. This is…

  • Pull a backup from a remote host with ssh and tar

    Sometimes you might need to copy a whole directory from a remote host, but the remote host does not have enough space to tar the whole thing up and then sftp it off. The solution is to tar/bzip the directory and stream it directly to your local host: ssh root@remotehost ‘tar cjf – /path/to/somedirectory’ |…

  • HP MediaSmart IR Remote for MythTV

    HP MediaSmart IR Remote for MythTV

    I’ve been on a quest to find a good remote for MythTV. My first try was with a Logitech Harmony. Those things are nasty horrible pieces of crap. I’d never touch one again. Programming it is a nightmare. It does not have a generic PVR option so you have to fake it to make it…

  • Tips on installing FreeSWITCH and FusionPBX in debian

    I’ve been testing out FreeSWITCH and FusionPBX. I found it non trivial to install in debian. Here are my tips for installing. Don’t bother with the install script. I found it to be broken. And when it breaks during install, it leaves you in a state that’s very hard to understand and fix. In the…

  • Proxy Dashing Dashboard behind Apache with SSL

    I needed to allow access to my Dashing dashboard over ssl from the Internet.  I decided to proxy it behind Apache and get Apache to do all the SSL heavy lifting, mainly because I couldn’t work out if and how you could enable SSL within Dashing itself. It turned out to be quite simple to…

  • Preserve file permissions 664 under subdirectories in linux with ACLs

    Have you ever wanted to give several users permission to work on files within a directory, but then struggled with what permissions and user:group ownership to set them to so users can always edit the files? You might think the solution is to make the parent directory owned by a common group, lets say dev,…

  • Anacron run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/amavisd-new exited with return code 1

    Anacron run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/amavisd-new exited with return code 1

  • How to make a bootable usb stick in Windows 7 of a debian iso

    Every so often I need to make a bootable USB stick in Windows 7 (64 bit) of a debian installer iso. For some reason my googling usually does not reveal a simple solution for this. I asked on #debian on the OFTC network and got various suggestions. The first suggestions were to use win32 compiled…

  • Project Euler No. 1 in Emacs elisp

    My first Project Euler solution, and my first emacs elisp program. Multiples of 3 and 5. If we list all the natural numbers below 10 that are multiples of 3 or 5, we get 3, 5, 6 and 9. The sum of these multiples is 23. Find the sum of all the multiples of 3…