Advogato blog for stan

15 Feb 2012

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:30:21 GMT

python pip non root install

Ahhh finally found the right options,



pip install ipdb --install-option="--user"

9 Jan 2012

Mon, 9 Jan 2012 13:24:50 GMT

Quick export of code to testing server

For bzr and git:



bzr export --format=tar - | ssh -C server tar x -C /path/to/overwrite/files/in



git archive --format=tar HEAD | ssh -C server tar x -C /path/to/overwrite/files/in

Not perfect, as deleted files aren't removed, but good enough most of the time

2 Jan 2012

Mon, 2 Jan 2012 20:21:24 GMT

File server encryption setup

I've been in the process of setting up encryption on my server for a while. At work we use lvm encryption - which works well. The lvm server is running debian and has the dropbear package installed. If it is rebooted, we just ssh in and supply the password.

My server also provides dhcp service, so unless you manually configure the client's networking the ssh part doesn't work. So instead I've been setting up ecryptfs, since I use it all my client machines. The configuration on my server is slightly more manual - I'm using mount -t ecryptfs directly.

I'm using a custom cgi script to allow the partition to be mounted. Seems to be working ok.

After thinking about it while writing this I'm preferring making dhcp work somehow (move it somewhere etc) and using lvm in the long run - slight it makes it easier to make sure everything is encrypted. Also the client part would be slightly harder as you need to use a ssh client rather than a web client.

24 Sep 2010

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:34:30 GMT

Got annoying


`menu_proxy_module_load': gedit: undefined symbol: menu_proxy_module_load

errors? do

dpkg --purge appmenu-gtk

to get rid of

/etc/X11/Xsession.d/80appmenu

that causes this

27 Jun 2009

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 16:06:30 GMT

Here's my python implementation of Rob Pike's minimal regex (only supports ^.*$ special characters) algorithm:

def match(regexp, text): if regexp.startswith("^"): return matchhere(regexp[1:], text) for i in range(len(text) or 1): if matchhere(regexp, text[i:]): return True return False def matchhere(regexp, text): if len(regexp) == 0: return True if regexp[1:].startswith("*"): return matchstar(regexp[0], regexp[2:], text) if regexp == "$": return len(text) == 0 if len(text) > 0 and (regexp[0] == "." or regexp[0] == text[0]): return matchhere(regexp[1:], text[1:]) return False def matchstar(c, regexp, text): for i in range(len(text) or 1): if matchhere(regexp, text[i:]): return True if len(text) < 0 or c not in (text[i], "."): return False import unittest class Test(unittest.TestCase): def test(self): self.assert_ (match("a", "a")) self.assert_ (not match("a", "b")) self.assert_ (match("^a$", "a")) self.assert_ (match("^a*b$", "aaaab")) self.assert_ (not match("^a*b$", "aaacb")) self.assert_ (match("a*a", "aa"))

Here's hoping there's no other major bugs.

9 May 2009

Sat, 9 May 2009 13:21:32 GMT

What did I do yesterday?

I rigged up a small script to record the title of the active window when it changes (using libwnck). Generates a log like:

2009-05-09 14:16:42,282 gnome-terminal fish ~/lpth 2009-05-09 14:16:53,517 gnome-terminal less ~/lpth 2009-05-09 14:16:55,063 firefox Advogato - Blog: stan - Mozilla Firefox 2009-05-09 14:16:55,694 gnome-terminal less ~/lpth 2009-05-09 14:16:55,922 gnome-terminal fish ~/lpth 2009-05-09 14:16:57,861 gnome-terminal less ~/lpth

Available here.

17 Mar 2009

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:03:27 GMT

dbus at_console and /var/run/console

The dbus at_console code checks for presence of /var/run/console/$USERNAME to see whether the user is "at console".

In previous releases (don't know when it changed exactly) this appears to have been populated by libpam-foreground. Now there is a compatibility script /usr/lib/ConsoleKit/run-session.d/pam-foreground-compat.ck. This doesn't seem to get run with just a local console login. Running ck-launch-session explicitly seems to do the job.

16 Mar 2009

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:01:16 GMT

dbus-monitor and system bus

To try and troubleshoot some network manager problems I wanted to use dbus-monitor with the system bus. This bus is a lot more locked down than a user's session bus so doesn't work out of the box (at least on jaunty). Experimentation wasn't helped by the fact that the daemon seems to need a full restart to properly pick up the configuration changes.

I have been able to get dbus-monitor working by making the <policy user="root"> section in /etc/dbus-1/system.d/NetworkManager.conf contain the following:

<allow eavesdrop="true" receive_requested_reply="false"/> <allow eavesdrop="true" send_requested_reply="false"/>

and in the <policy at_console="true"> section

<allow send_destination="org.freedesktop.NetworkManager" eavesdrop="true"/> <allow eavesdrop="true" send_requested_reply="false"/>

This allows dbus-monitor to pick up method calls and replies when run as root with an "at_console" user sending the method calls (e.g. with the network manager applet).