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<soap-box>Firefox mistakenly opened a mailto: link in Evolution, which is forgivable since I never configured it to use Mutt, Eudora, or Sylpheed. However, the following is pretty unforgivable.. I closed the process; I don't use GNOME (or KDE); I don't use Evolution, and I certainly shouldn't have to sacrifice 3.1% of my memory to a program that I already closed. The sad thing is, it's standard practice to leave pointless background daemons running as remnants from GNOME applications these days. If you want to use Windows so badly then do it, but if you're a POSIX developer, then CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF and don't leave processes around 2 days after they were initiated and successfully closed.</soap-box>

# ps auxww | grep evol
inittab  10662  0.0  0.0   1832   524 pts/0    S+   20:57   0:00 grep evol
inittab  15850  0.0  2.1  93784 28004 pts/0    Sl   Jan15   0:05 evolution
    mailto:?body=http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fx%2Fh%2Fscript.cgi%3Fm%3D131294_70336%26field_id%3D1244&subject= 
inittab  26914  0.0  0.4  65576  5952 ?        Sl   Jan14   0:00 /usr/lib/evolution/evolution-data-server-2.22
    --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_DataServer_InterfaceCheck --oaf-ior-fd=17
inittab  26939  0.0  0.6  37092  8252 ?        Sl   Jan14   0:00 /usr/lib/evolution/2.22/evolution-exchange-storage
    --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_Exchange_Component_Factory:2.22 --oaf-ior-fd=18

I am in the process of restructuring my services across multiple dedicated servers for greater security. I have used Sun Java System Directory Server to satisfy my LDAP needs for several years, but I decided to give OpenDS a shot. Here is a summary of my experiences.

1. JEERS: ds-cfg-allow-pre-encoded-passwords is set to false by default, presumably because of #2. In other words, unless you use plaintext passwords in your LDIF or change this to true and use the proper OpenDS encryption, you will not be able to migrate your existing directory.
2. JEERS: OpenDS is unable to authenticate existing '{crypt}' and '{SSHA}' user passwords.
3. CHEERS: SSL and TLS certificates are stored in config/keystore on the server in JKS format. You can use keytool -export to get a copy of the public key for a self-generated certificate (during install). On openldap clients, you can also just set TLS_REQCERT to "allow" or "never".
4. JEERS: posixGroup is broken and must allow cn. You will be unable to import existing group definitions. I was able to export the schema from a JS/DS and replace this entry in the OpenDS to make it work.
5. JEERS: Several common objectClasses that are included with OpenLDAP and JS/DS are not included by default. Like #4, you can export these from a JS/DS via ldapsearch -b 'cn=schema' and migrate it over.
6. CHEERS: Schema additions on OpenDS are quite easy and identical to JS/DS; just make your LDIF and add it to cn=schema. Not to mention, the command-line interface to the server is very similar (though certainly not identical). After all, Sun donated alot of the source code to the OpenDS community.

In conclusion, I really like OpenDS. It serves a necessary niche of the UNIX LDAP community. We needed an open source alternative to OpenLDAP. However, I will stick with Sun for now.

Purchasing wine is like throwing a dart to pick a stock.

This section of my website has been in disarray for several months. I recently lost a few years of articles, but may be able to recover them soon. Check back later.

This site is completely new. It only looks the same! This section just added. The whole site has been ported from PHP to Java/JSP. Existing articles have been imported below.

The following information was taken from a Sun whitepaper for Solaris 8, but it works in Solaris 10, so one can safely assume that it works in at least versions 8-10.

• First, if you are running Solaris 8 or 9, then you may be limited to OHCI PCI cards on UltraSPARC systems. If you are running Solaris 10, then I believe any USB card available at Wal-Mart should work fine.
• Run `ls -l /dev/usb`. If nothing shows up, then your devices haven't been probed. Do `touch /reconfigure; reboot` and try again.
• Note the hid* entries. The one ending in ":mouse" is your new mouse.
• Take the portion after "/devices" up to ":mouse" and insert it into /etc/system in a fashion similiar to: `set consconfig:usb_ms_path="/pci@1f,4000/usb@4/mouse@1"`
• Reboot again. It works! Even the wheel works on 10.

The SVC Facility: Via programs like svcs and svcadm, Solaris 10 allows you to centralize management of running daemons. Initially, I did not like this. However, eventually it starts to make more sense. Check out "svcs -a" to see what is running, not running, or in need of maintenance. Now try to enable services you wish to use (with `svcadm enable svc:/network/dns/server:bind9`, for example) or disable unnecessary services.

Sun Java Desktop System: The Sun Java Desktop System (GNOME) now comes standard as of Solaris 10, as does Mozilla. Netscape is gone, Mozilla has been renamed to "Web Browser" (in the title bar, menus, etc). It almost seems like they dont want to give credit where it is due. Nevertheless, it runs as expected, even if a little slow on older Suns.

Dtlogin has a new face: The default dtlogin view has been completely changed. No longer a mid-screen login window; they skinned it full screen with a couple of gradients and logos. Looks good. GDM (GNOME Display Manager) is also available.

Development: Some crucial header files appear to have been changed. I have tried to compile emacs, fetchmail, maildrop, spamprobe, and usbsm with gcc-3.3, gcc-3.4 and Sun Studio 9 cc. None of the combinations work. I am always getting random errors about the system header files.

UPDATE: # cd /usr/local/lib/gcc-lib/sparc-sun-solaris2.10/3.3.2/install-tools # cat > mkheaders.conf SHELL=/bin/sh SYSTEM_HEADER_DIR="/usr/include" OTHER_FIXINCLUDES_DIRS="" FIXPROTO_DEFINES="-D_XOPEN_SOURCE" STMP_FIXPROTO="stmp-fixproto" STMP_FIXINC="stmp-fixinc" ^D # ./mkheaders worked for me.

Meta RAID Recovery: I was initially unable to restore my Raid5 with `metainit d5 -r ... -k` after upgrade. Had to recreate array and restore from backup tape. Always backup!

UPDATE: After upgradrading the hardware, I reinstalled Solaris 10 and was able to recover RAID without re-initializing it and restoring backup. Just reference one of your db replicas instead of all of them with metadb before you run the metainit command above.

Mouse Driver: Wheel mouse support is now available by default. The third-party usbsm is no longer needed. See below for legacy system setup instructions.

LDAP: Solaris 10 native LDAP client is now working with OpenLDAP server without further modification! I was unable to get this to work on Solaris 9 or my previous installation of Solaris 10.

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with Michael Lucas, the author of "Absolute BSD: The Ultimate Guide to FreeBSD". The main point was why he changed the subtitle from "Build The Industrial Internet With Free Unix". Well, he says that the book focuses more on FreeBSD. So that's fine, but I love the old subtitle, so I am using it here. There are always alternatives to Microsoft software. The modern open source unix implementations are some of the best operating systems in existence. OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Linux (Debian, Slackware, RedHat, UnitedLinux) & NetBSD are all valid alternatives for any other operating system in any setting. Unix is run on the majority of servers in the world, and the BSDs are about as efficient a server that you can get (better than Linux, far better than NT). Not to mention the sheer robustness of the software set in FreeBSD and Debian allows for far more than an idle server. You can run any Workstation, any Desktop, any Server on them. All it takes is getting used to it. And with things like GNOME, KDE, E17 and CDE you no longer have to be a command-line guru to run UNIX (although it is still a good idea if you have the time). The FreeBSD Ports tree sports an amazing 7001 pieces of software at the time of this writing. The Debian APT Archives have nearly a mind-boggling 10,000 packages for the "Woody" distribution.

• Open Source:
  • NetBSD
  • OpenBSD
  • Debian GNU/Linux
  • Slackware Linux
  • Gentoo Linux
  • FreeBSD
  • Conectiva Linux
  • UnitedLinux
  • RedHat Linux
• Commercial:
  • Sun Solaris (SunOS)
  • IBM AIX
  • Compaq Tru64 UNIX
  • BSDi
  • HP-UX
  • Caldera OpenUnix
• Links:
  • www.fuckmicrosoft.com
  • www.osdata.com
  • Unix VS. NT