January 27, 2007
by dhoytt
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Out of Shape!

Well I knew I had been lagging in my work outs, ok not working out, so I knew I was out of shape but wow today it really hit home.
Everyone has a barometer to go by that tells them the shape they are in, my barometer is running distance & pace.
Well today my pace for one mile was as bad as I thought it would be but the second mile was horrible.
In fact I’m embarrassed to say that I ran one mile walked a lap on the quarter mile track and then ran my second ragged mile.
Well this is only a start with the running as I have been doing cardio indoors on my elliptical trainer but that’s just for convenience when I cannot get out to run. For me only a run can tell my true physical shape and I have a ways to go before I’m where I like to be.
Even though my strength is not so far out of whack my criteria for being in shape is the formula of high flexibility, strength, cardio mixed in with the mental mind and body are one philosophy.
As I have done since junior high it’s I’m really ramping up to that all encompassing Darryl Hoytt all around shape and the work has begun!
Feel that burn baby burn!

January 23, 2007
by dhoytt
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Once Again Fixed Sendmail Hang on Linux Web Server, Plus Mysql Login Issue

Yes I had been living with a sendmail hang on my web server since I removed my second NIC (network interface card). I do not reboot much but I had some time and thought it would be nice to insure that my web server boots up quickly and with the sendmail hang of several minutes it was not a very fast process.
The first thing I had noticed was that the second NIC eth1 was still being called upon during the boot up process. I had removed the entry from /etc/hosts, /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices, /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/default but it was still being referenced somewhere.
After looking in /dev & /proc for references of eth1 I finally saw a directory in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ and found a reference to eth1 with all of the settings of the removed NIC.
I removed the eth1 script text file from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ and rebooted the box and no longer had eth1 referenced only eth0 the only physical NIC on the system.
Now even though I no longer had eth1 showing up during boot I still experienced a hang on boot when the system started the sendmail server and client daemons.
Well obviously there was another reason and I found that reason in /etc/hosts. It seems that /etc/hosts did not have my local loopback defined any longer I corrected my local loopback, using one of my other Linux systems as reference to look like the following:
localhost.localdomain localhost
I did the reboot on my system and it came up so fast starting the sendmail daemons along the way I was barely able to see them referenced on the screen during the boot process.
Now that the sendmail issue was fixed there had to be other issues associated with the system resolving correctly and I soon found the issue. Now I could not log into my mysql database instance for my blogs.
Trying to login to my blog I got the infamous Bad ObjectDriver config: Connection error: Access denied for user ‘NNNN’@’ip.adress’ (using password: YES).
I wanted to write this post and could not login initially. This became an issue because I used to have the two NICs and pointed separate databases to be accessed off of the two different NICs but I used the same username but different passwords for that username depending on the NIC you were accessing the database from.
So for this Mysql login issue I went and deleted the Mysql user pointed to the now removed NIC and changed the user to access from the NIC now on the system and changed the file on Movabletype to the password of the username on my current NIC eth0.
Now I can login ok to my blogs as you can see and sendmail no longer hangs on boot! Now its time for me to check my other database instances to insure they work ok as well

December 31, 2006
by dhoytt
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Gumbo for the New Year

I’m currently doing prep for Gumbo I’m cooking tomorrow it will be at least two large pots and maybe more. Now when I say large pots one pot is 34 quarts and the smaller pot is 20 quarts. .
I am making my gumbo with large Alaskan King, Crabs, Chicken, sausage, scallops, oysters, clams, and all of the other fixings!
We will also have some collard & Mustard greens, black eyed peas and I think Turkey.

December 25, 2006
by dhoytt
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Fantasy Football Finals 2006

Out of four Fantasy football leagues I’m in the championship game in two of the leagues. The other two leagues I was one position out of the last playoff spot. Coming into Monday night I have the lead in both championship games I am participating in.
The custom private league that I’m the commissioner of I have a commanding lead of about 130 + points that is insurmountable unless the players my opponent has for Monday have legendary games.
The public league is competitive level, where the point system is different and not as flexible I’m up by 3 points and have a very good running back that is the hub of the offense going Monday night and he has the number two or three wide-out on a not so potent passing team. You can never tell though but I like my position.
I haven’t won the custom league we call the BDFL (Big Dogs Fantasy League) I am the commissioner of in a couple of years. In fact my opponent who I’m beating had won the last two years and was going for a 3 peat. He’s not a Lakers fan so I had to squash that!
Anyhow just having fun here about the Fantasy sports I love to play its just nice fun and something to do on the internet that combines sports as well, I try to win but don’t go crazy over it.

December 10, 2006
by dhoytt
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Power Outage On UPS Power

Well my power just went out so now to see how long my UPS’ will keep my systems for my sites up and running.
I hope they stay up long enough for the power to come back on. Time for me to log off and shut a few things down to conserve power.

December 8, 2006
by dhoytt
0 comments

Web Site is Now Up on New System

Thats right I finally have my web site on
my new system with the idea of having two systems available with similar
architecture in case I need upgrades I can perform them on the system that’s not
live while still staying up on my main system.

 

Here is the state of my site currently:

This all
started just as something to keep a few skills up and expand into other IT type
skills and is really fun and has just continued to expand.

 

Changes
made:

–         
Moved
Mainblog
to my root web site so I can easily change web content on my main page.

www.dhoytt.com

–         
My Mainblog has recent
post titles from the rest of my Blogs and Photo Galleries.

–         
I dropped Photo Blog
because it was redundant and I have 2 Photo Galleries already with

Gallery2 being my main Photo Gallery since I can upload larger files
without using other software to limit the size since it creates optimized
thumbnails.

 

–         


Radio Blog
now has the following capabilities:

o       
View Currently playing
song

o       
View upcoming song

o       
Show last 5 songs that
played with Album covers where available.

o       
Listen with Windows Media
Player or Winamp over broadband or dial-up.

o       
Browse through list of
songs and make requests that will play shortly after requested and the
request will be listed on the site (these are not the music files which are
stored on another server just the list)

o       
Make Dedications
when you make requests. (Playlist & Requests -> Request -> Fill out Dedication -> Request.

o       
View the 5 most recent
Dedications

o       
Click on info link to
find out more about the artists and in some cases go to the artists web site.

o       
Backed by Mysql database
just like my Blogs for more flexibility and easier manipulation of music play
lists.

o       
The ability to
pre-program with scripts and other methods to have specific music at specific
times for instance when I wish to do a nice Quiet Storm late night set,
Classic Hip-hop set etc… or even a lunch time or holiday set.

o       
I can also inject special
sound affects over the air interactively whenever the mood strikes or its
appropriate.

o       
I can now do talkovers
easily if I choose to for whatever reason.

 

Home =
Darryl’s Main blog
–

http://www.dhoytt.com

           
This is my entry page that’s now a Blog.

 


Snakeice’s Radio Blog –

http://www.dhoytt.com/snake-ice-radio-blog/

           
Where I play music and you can listen, make request, dedications, find out about
artists etc…

 

Darryl’s
Sales Items –

http://www.dhoytt.com/forsale/

           
Items I have for sale until I get my Mysql Commerce site up and running.

 

Photo
Gallery –

http://www.dhoytt.com/gallery/

           
Experimental Photo Gallery (I may use this for pictures I manipulate with
imaging software).

 

Gallery2
Photos –

http://www.dhoytt.com/gallery2/

           
My main listing of Photos I post for different events.

 

Future
Changes in progress:

 

–         
Will have fully
functional automated web store backed by Mysql with secure payment structure and
the ability for customers to register and check their account details (this is
mostly ready already but since I built and switched to another system and need
to add more products its I’m not sharing that now)..

–         
Yes Local artists
finally!

–         
Game server of some type
I just haven’t decided on the game yet.

–         
A forum bulletin board
for discussions and integrated with the Internet Radio and possibly the Blog and
of course backed by Mysql (already ready to go but I want to play with it a bit
more still). I will also integrate a discussion group of course for whichever
game/s I decide to place on the site.

–         
Continuous changes to
tighten up and improve.

 

Darryl
Hoytt

AKA Snakeice

November 5, 2006
by dhoytt
0 comments

MT 3.33 PlugIns Disappearing Fixed Moving on…

Looks like I found the culprit that caused my PlugIns to disappear on my MT 3.33 installation. Turns out it was my old friend SELinux!
This had crossed my mind before but the fact that it was working at one point and then just ceased working caused me to dismiss SELinux as an issue. Maybe something was updated in the upgrade process that Fedora uses and altered the SELinux policy after the upgrades were installed. I’m using Fedora 6 on this new system which I’m still configuring Movabletype and other applications on before making this system my new web host.
I’m very surprised I have not ran into this issue on my current MT 3.2 installation.
I cannot take credit for the fix though seems that Sixapart advised the fix a while ago to a user who ran into this with Fedora 4 MT 3.2.
I found the following fix via a Google search on the user’s Sixapart blog they recommended the fix to who was giving details of his upgrade from MT 2.66 to MT 3.2.
Here are the contents of what I found and it worked for me:
####################################################################################
Do you have SELinux enabled on this server? You can run “system-config-authentication” as root to verify that this is enabled. The settings of SELinux are what caused the PlugIns to not be seen by Movable Type.
In this file: /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/files/file_contexts
there is this rule:
/var/www/cgi-bin(/.*)? system_u:object_r:httpd_sys_script_exec_t
That rule basically means that the /var/www/cgi-bin directory (and all subdirectories) have a “httpd_sys_script_exec_t” context. Meaning that CGI scripts can execute from this location.
In the case of the /var/www/cgi-bin/mt/PlugIns directory, each Plugin directory (and the /var/www/cgi-bin/mt/PlugIns folder itself) should have a context type of httpd_sys_script_ro_t. This allows read-only file access to the directory and files and also execute permission.
To adjust the context for the PlugIns folder, use this command:
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_script_ro_t /path/to/mt/PlugIns
####################################################################################
Now I’m continuing to go ahead configuring this new web server for testing and then roll-out!
I also posted this to Sixapart forums: http://forums.sixapart.com/index.php?showtopic=59878
I also just completed pointing this system to my other WAN static ip.adress on my other router, pointing my Apache web server to the second NIC I just installed a couple of days ago and I’m ready to resume configuring Movabletype to move the content over to this system. I also had to rebuild my blog pages and edit my styles CSS file to point to the proper ip.address I’m using for testing purposes.
Why do things like this get fixed late at night give you some energy to start configuring more until you hit a new issue and then you end up with very little sleep?
Well this time I’m going to go to bed like I should…….. but let me do a few more things first…..

November 3, 2006
by dhoytt
0 comments

Adding Second NIC on Linux System points out Wiring Snafu

Wow!! Tonight really emphasized why I need to take some time and just straighten out my wiring situation in my computer room. I have had so much other real life drama I cannot even discuss I have taken a patch and get to it later mentality since the other issues are far more serious but I need to get this straight soon! I have also been on vacation so I relaxed and indulged in some other hobbies as well such as sight seeing and Scuba diving.
Okay what happened? Here’s the long and long of the story!
I have been testing out my new web server installing the base OS packages and performing updates. Until now I have been letting this new system I built running Fedora 6 run into whatever issues it can before I started installing and configuring my web applications.
Well last night before going to bed I decided to start with my web applications and installed Movabletype 3.33 on this FC6 system. I got everything up and configured up until I needed to configure my first blog and went to bed.
Today I explored the Sixapart Movabletype forums, manuals notes to see if I wanted to go to dynamic pages or PHP since a few of my other applications are PHP and I decide to stick with static pages for a few reasons.
I then started the process after watching some basketball and football games to start configuring my first blog and importing the data from my existing blogs over but first I wanted to test some functions. I ran into the typical permissions issues on plugins and directories. I then tried testing Stylecatcher and after running into more permission issues determined it couldn’t get out of my router on port 80.
I decided to fix this by opening up port 80 briefly on my router that is on the same network as my current web server briefly knowing the potential issues with two systems pointing to port 80 on the same router. Well Stylecatcher worked nicely and of course my current web server stated toggling with my web server I’m testing and this made my Web pages act little nuts for about 5 minutes until I discontinued pointing to the new web server with the router.
I guess I could have made Apache look for this system on another port other than 80 but I had a better idea that I wanted to do for other reasons. My other idea was to put another NIC in this system so it would connect to both my networks for data transfer and redundancy reasons. This way it would point to my other static ip.address and I could test at will and have minimal changes to make it my main web server when switching back to my other network.
I put in the additional NIC which wasn’t an issue. I took the system out of the rack put the card in plugged everything back in plus I also plugged in the new NIC to my other network and this is where the weirdness started!
I had it pick up an ip.address via DHCP just to prove it was working and connecting to the correct network. This seemed to work ok but I should have noticed the ip.address it picked up. I then set the ip.adress statically and then rebooted and walked away for a minute.
When I came back after the reboot I checked in /etc/sysconfig/devices/ and there was a device called “ifcfg-eth0.bak. I looked in “system-config-network” and it was listed there as well as “eth0.bak” along with “eth0” & “peth0”. “peth0” turned out to have the settings of my original NIC along with “eth0.bak” with “eth0” having the DHCP settings of the new NIC.
Well I tried to change “eth0” back to the original settings and that didn’t work. Then a new interface named “peth0.bak” appeared. I cannot remember all of the various different combinations of generated NIC names that I tried and were automatically generated but there were quite a few!
I then decide to look at my other multi-homed Linux system that is running Fedora5 and search in Google and other search engines for what some of the variables were in the/etc/sysconfig/devices/ files. I found I had to switch “PEERDNS=yes” to “PEERDNS=no” and fix my “resolv.conf” to the proper DNS nameservers for my ISP.
I switched the new NIC back to DHCP after all of this to prove it was connecting to the correct network. I checked the systems and they resolved the other systems in my network off both interfaces properly. I then checked the DHCP ip.adress assigned to my new NIC and it had a WAN ip.adress!!
The only way this could happen is if it was connecting straight to my WAN which I found out it did! I have my WAN come into a switch and then I have two routers connected to that switch and give both routers my static WAN ip.addresses and then each router has its own set of LAN addresses.
What happened during one of my testing periods when I was switching my LANs’ over to Gigabit was somehow both routers went to a Gigabit switch on the respective networks shared with multi-homed systems. All my systems have static ip.addresses so this issue never showed before!
I had to go through my spaghetti of LAN cables and make sure that from my ISP’s modem it comes to my 10/100mb switch, to my 4 port routers and then they uplink to the 1gb hubs and then to the correct systems!
This just shows what could happen when you test and don’t put things back. This has had to been like this for a few months. Now my network speed should be better for the WAN & LAN. Plus it heightens the awareness that I need to put into action my game plan with my patch panels and wire harnesses that I have already purchased to get things in order!

October 25, 2006
by dhoytt
0 comments

Fedora 6 Just Released as I’m Building & Configuring New Web Server

Well what do you know? I just started building my web server last week and finished the hardware looked on the Redhat site to see if they had gone to Fedora 6 yet and last week they had not released it yet. I was looking just to make sure I had the link correct Redhat website link a few moments ago before emailing it so someone (late night and my eyes sometimes play tricks) wink.gif and wouldn’t you know they have Fedora 6.
There appeared to be some issue with the Redhat site so I couldn’t download it there so I went to my one of the mirror sites that usually gives me a nice fast download and with the issues I have typing and the nice fast 20mb up and down unregulated I have the DVD ISO will probably just about be finished downloading by the time I publish this.
I had so many other projects and urgent matters to attend to last week I really hardly got time much time to work on getting the new server up to speed on Fedora 5 so placing Fedora 6 on there shouldn’t be too big of a deal unless its too buggy right now but hey I love working those things out.
I had just configured Apache and my ftp Monday after watching Monday Night football. I started downloading the latest flavors of my Blog software “Movabletype 3.3” and had just completed the mt-check.cgi before going to bed. I had just gotten ImageMagick on my system and was trying to figure out why mt-check.cgi said it didn’t see it even though it was loaded with ImageMagickPerl
O h well I will ftp what I downloaded over to another one of my systems and then install Fedora6 clean on my new Web Server system. My current Web server system I built earlier this year with Fedora 5 will be the backup. This way I can make sure everything is working when I move to the new system. biggrin.gif
I will then update my backup Web server system and add anything new and it will become my running Web server while I upgrade my other system later on and back and forth until I need to move to a newer larger HW platform in a couple of years depending on technology. My last two systems I alternated like that lasted for at least two years.
Well looks like the normal download mirror sites I use don’t have Fedora6 there yet so I went to one of the slower sites so my download isn’t quite ready and the “torrent” wasn’t up when I last checked on the Redhat site. So since I have the rest of this week off I’m going to ftp my files over to another system, pop some popcorn and watch some movie I Tivo’d and maybe fall asleep in front of the TV! cool.gif