For an unrelated project, I learned how to make WordPress permalinks. I made that change on the blog this morning. My testing shows that they work, and that incoming links are redirected correctly.
If you should see a problem, please drop me a note.
New FreeBSD Installer test and walkthrough
For those who missed the announcement, FreeBSD 9 has replaced sysinstall with a new installer. It’s based on the PC-BSD installer’s back end and a text-based front end by Nathan Whitehorn. So, what is this new installer we’ve waited sixteen years for? I decided to find out.
As an official snapshot with the BSD installer isn’t yet available, I grabbed one of nwhitehorn’s recent snapshots. The back end is not integrated, but let’s see what the front end looks like. I assume there will be changes between this February snapshot and the next official snapshot. For my testing, I used a VM running Microsoft Virtual PC (for ease of screenshots) with ACPI disabled (so the install would finish).
Booting the image, I saw:
A recovery shell and a live CD are great, but I want to install.
The next screen tells me to select a keyboard. By virtue of alphabetical order, the default is Armenian. When I arrow down to find the US keyboard, there’s several different options. I know exactly what kind of keyboard I have, it’s an Endurapro with the mouse pointer between the G and the H. But that’s not an option. Fortunately, I use a Dvorak layout, and that is an option.
I’m now asked for a hostname, and then allowed to choose optional components.
Of course I want source code!
I will miss the ability to choose “the smallest distribution possible,” but in reality, upgrading added the entire base system anyway.
Now we partition the disk.
Ooooh, a “guided” method. That sounds newbie-friendly. Let’s try that.
We want to use the whole disk.
Wait a minute… where are /var, /tmp, /usr, and all the other partitions? Don’t tell me that one of the last survivors of proper partitioning is stumbling into the one large root filesystem trap? Ick. (I assume that the other partitioning methods will let you create proper partitions.)
Note that these are GPT partitions, not MBR partitions (slices).
Highlighting a partition and pressing ENTER shows details.
We can set a label in the installer, which is a nice feature. And it appears that two ESC takes you out of this submenu into the main menu. That seems odd, but perhaps it’s related to this being in Virtual PC. Arrow over to EXIT and hit ENTER to get the final confirmation screen.
“Are you sure?” Save and Abort aren’t exactly answers to that question – actually “save” is kind of ambiguous in this context. Save your existing data? Yes, we’re sure, choose Save. The filesystem is initialized:
The installer verifies the files on disk and begins installing.
We must watch for a panic in the background, versus a simple lock order reversal. This is -current, either one can happen and both are displayed by default.
While watching this, I wanted to hit ALT-F2 and see just how well the ports were extracting. That’s apparently no longer an option.
After extracting everything, I was prompted for the root password, then for a network interface.
I took the default.
Why yes, I would like DHCP with my host, thank you.
Now I’m asked for the services I want enabled at boot.
Compared to sysinstall there aren’t many choices, but I’m all right with being offered only the lowest common denominators. Far more vexing is how the network configuration gracelessly handled the unplugged network interface. While CTRL-L redrew the screen, a new link down message reappeared every second or so. I’d never tried Virtual PC before, and apparently I need to decipher the network configuration.
Once I choose the essential services, I’m asked if I want to add users. When I say yes, it drops me to text mode for the usual adduser(8) dialog.
All right, the network message is getting pretty annoying now.
After adding my user, I get the final screen.
You can change many of your optional settings, plus set the time zone. You get the usual warnings about removing the CD-ROM from the drive, and then reboot into the new install.
Overall, I like many of the changes. It doesn’t have many of the libdialog annoyances that plague sysinstall. I dislike the guided partitioning system, or more exactly the lack of actual partitioning therein. I do not want /tmp files filling my hard disk!
The good news is, with the separation between the front end and the back end, changing the installer will be much simpler than it ever was with sysinstall. For all the petty annoyances in this installer, it’s a big step in the right direction. I want to commend the creators for actually pushing Sysinstall Replacement Attempt #82,319 to completion.
[emerg] (13)Permission denied: couldn’t grab the accept mutex
I installed Apache on a diskless FreeBSD-9/amd64 server. Once I added SSL, the web server wouldn’t start. It died with:
[Mon Mar 21 15:37:16 2011] [emerg] (13)Permission denied: couldn't grab the accept mutex
[Mon Mar 21 15:37:16 2011] [emerg] (13)Permission denied: couldn't grab the accept mutex
[Mon Mar 21 15:37:16 2011] [emerg] (13)Permission denied: couldn't grab the accept mutex
[Mon Mar 21 15:37:16 2011] [emerg] (13)Permission denied: couldn't grab the accept mutex
[Mon Mar 21 15:37:16 2011] [emerg] (13)Permission denied: couldn't grab the accept mutex
[Mon Mar 21 15:37:17 2011] [alert] Child 1733 returned a Fatal error... Apache is exiting!
Google says that the fix for this is to define AcceptMutex flock somewhere in httpd.conf. Google shows dozens of mailing list discussions that give this advice, but without explanation. Every so often, someone whinges about it not working, and doesn’t get a response.
This is an example of what I call “Occult IT.” There are certain recipes that people just follow, without understanding why. We stumble around, grasping for invocations and incantations that will fix our problem. I don’t just want the ritual that will solve the problem; I want to know why the problem happened and deepen my understanding of the issue.
Besides, adding AcceptMutex flock didn’t work.
To identify the problem, I set LogLevel to debug in httpd.conf and tried starting httpd again.
[Mon Mar 21 16:03:18 2011] [debug] prefork.c(1018): AcceptMutex: flock (default: flock)
I didn’t have that configuration setting in my httpd.conf, but it’s the Apache default anyway. So, what are my other choices?
Apache documentation says that the AcceptMutex setting determines how Apache serializes incoming requests. The flock setting dictates how Apache locks the LockFile.
My configuration doesn’t have a defined LockFile, so choosing how we lock it isn’t going to help.
I don’t like lock files. Bad stuff happens to them. Let’s try a locking method without a lockfile. The documentation lists two different classes of locking mechanisms. flock and fcntl work on lock files. posixsem, pthread, and sysvsem use the in-memory mechanisms of semaphores and/or mutexes to provide locking.
As I don’t like lock files, I’ll try one of the in-memory mechanisms.
AcceptMutex posixsem
And Apache starts and runs perfectly.
I can’t find any details on the differences between these in-memory mechanisms, from a system administrator’s point of view. I imagine that the System V mechanism wouldn’t work if you’d removed that support from your kernel. But the point is:
Do not rely on occult IT. Read The Fine Manual.
Confession
Yes, The Great Committer was an April Fools’ gag. I didn’t expect anyone to actually believe it, but it gathered a few laughs, so I’m content.
Far more successful was the FreeBSD and NetBSD to merge gag that Dan Langille and I pulled back in 2003. The United Nations Fretbsd.org site has long since expired, but Dan archived it. (Eight years later, and I still giggle madly about the moose in that one.) That one actually sucked in a reporter from an reputable tech site, who pestered Dan and I for details all day.
John Baldwin really did surpass PHK’s commit total, however, and deserves credit for working so hard on FreeBSD. I heard from John on Friday, and while I’m not going to be so gauche as to copy his email here, I can honestly say that I am relieved that I did not displease The Great Committer.
FreeBSD Project Reorganization
I’m pleased to be the first to announce that the FreeBSD Project is reorganizing. This will appear on the FreeBSD home page next week, but journalistic ethics decree that I must act when I get a scoop.
FreeBSD has always been something of a meritocracy, where the respect given to committers is directly proportional to the amount and quality of code they commit. This is tracked in the commit statistics. For many years, Poul-Henning Kamp (phk@) was the undisputed leader, but in 2010 his total was exceeded by relative newcomer John Baldwin (jhb@). Baldwin’s commits show no sign of slowing, and if he continues at this pace, he will soon overtake the combined totals of Foundation President Robert Watson and embedded emeritus Warner Losh.
The FreeBSD Project has a variety of leadership roles and teams, such as the Core Team, the Ports Management team portmgr, and so on. These teams have helped FreeBSD’s broad developer base coordinate their efforts, work together, and streamline FreeBSD’s internal processes.
Effective immediately, all such teams are disbanded.
John Baldwin is to be henceforth known as The Great Committer. He alone will dictate the FreeBSD Project’s direction and where its resources will be allocated. All commits will be credited to The Great Committer, as all commits will touch his work in some way and hence would not be possible without His knowledge, experience, and all-around wisdom.
“It’s clear that our current model just doesn’t work,” said Robert Watson. “In the sixteen years the FreeBSD Project has existed, and the decades BSD had before it, we’ve had at least four distinct generations of leadership. We’ve developed processes for mentoring and grooming our own leaders, letting people move on when they wanted. Frankly, it’s a lot of work, and I don’t know how many more decades we could keep that up. The Great Committer won’t put up with that sort of churn, I’m sure. Once you’re a FreeBSD committer, you’re in for life. However long that is.”
“I’m really glad that The Great Committer has taken this step,” said Wilko Bulte, FreeBSD core team member. “People think that the FreeBSD Core Team made all these high-level decisions, when really we broke up fights and inducted new members. All that email and discussion took a lot of time. Now that The Great Committer has condescended to claim his rightful place, we can get back to doing what’s important — namely, doing everything we can to increase the already bounteous glory of The Great Committer.”
Security Officer Colin Percival said, “We’ve worked tirelessly to ensure FreeBSD’s security. I don’t even know how many man-months I’ve spent auditing code and investigating reports, let alone other members of the FreeBSD Security Team. But now, The Great Committer has decreed that FreeBSD is secure. All praise to The Great Committer!”
The Public FreeBSD Developer Track at BSDCan 2011 will now alternate between technical talks and praising The Great Committer. In addition to learning about exciting features such as Capcisum, attendees will practice making index-finger-and-pinky “Beastie Horns” to salute The Great Committer. Attendees will also witness the unveiling of the official The Great Committer banners, forty feet tall and hand-painted on silk.
No active OpenBSD developers could be bothered to comment, but Jason Dixon, OpenBSD slacker, stated “It’s about time the FreeBSD bums realized that they needed a benevolent despot. Maybe they’ll do something useful now.” A phone call to the NetBSD Foundation got a recording that the Board of Directors could be reached at the pub.
The FreeBSD Foundation is raising funds for a 200-foot golden statue of The Great Committer, to be erected near the University of California Berkeley campus. Its stern visage will remind the university denizens of their second-greatest three-letter claim to fame. The Great Committer has declared that there are no rumors that the statue’s eyes will be lasers that will automatically target users of lesser operating systems.
Meanwhile, The Great Committer has ordered that someone bring him a sandwich. And a beer. And Bill Gates’ lunch money.
You can contribute to the Foundation through DonateNow or in person at BSDCan. There’s no guarantee that the Foundation will use your particular donation to fund the statue, but they will assuredly use it for FreeBSD.
NOON UPDATE: It seems that The Great Committer has declared that HAMMER will be the new default filesystem.
New review of Absolute FreeBSD
There’s a new review of Absolute FreeBSD at the Java Users Group Lugano Web site. I can’t find a way to link to this particular review, so this link goes to the review page. I expect it will eventually scroll off the bottom.
I do try to batch reviews, but four years after the book hit the shelves, I think I’d have to wait quite a while for the next one.
While I’ve said that only silence or thanks is appropriate for a negative review, thanks are also appropriate for a positive review. Thank you, Celestino Bellone, for taking the time to write up your impressions.
Dealing with Negative Reviews
Pop quiz: what do you do when someone releases an excoriating online review about something you’ve sweated blood over?
a) Leave a vitriolic comment questioning the reviewer’s integrity and decency.
b) Leave a bitter comment calling the reviewer an idiot.
c) Leave a vengeful comment declaring war.
d) A, B, and C, with lots and lots and lots and lots of comments
e) Give up. Never do anything again.
f) Close your browser and get on with your life.
I thought most authors understood the best answer, but then I came across a review where the author not only responded, she melted down. Spectacularly. So I thought it might be worthwhile to say something about dealing with negative reviews of your work.
Remember, reviews are not for the author. They are for prospective readers. The reviewer is not claiming you are a bad person. He is stating that your work did not meet his needs, expectations, or standards. Most negative reviews of my work amount to “I don’t like the tone and attitude of this book.” That’s OK. I deliberately use that tone and attitude, in the belief that the number of people who will appreciate it exceeds the number of people it will annoy.
Sometimes, negative criticism is actually constructive. If I don’t learn from my mistakes, who will?
The correct response to a negative review is: silence.
An even better response would be to send the reviewer a two-sentence note: Thank you for taking the time to review my book. Sorry you didn’t like it, but I appreciate your effort. Sincerely, Your-Name-Here. But I’m not that good of a human being.
Nonfiction Tuckerization Auctions?
For centuries, authors have traded mentions in a book for cold hard cash. Today, this is most often done for charity, as a Tuckerization auction. As a BSD author, though, I think that there’s a way to put this to use to raise development money for various BSD projects. BSD always needs money.
When Absolute FreeBSD came out, the FreeBSD Foundation auctioned off the first copy off the press. It raised $600. I suspect that getting your name in the book, or being able to name something in the book, might raise more.
I’m considering hold an auction to, say, let a reader name something in a tech book: a server, a sample user, whatever. I’d mention their winner by name in the acknowledgments. The money would go to the project covered in the book, and I would ask someone from the project to run the auction. (I don’t want to go near that money, as I’d probably spend it foolishly, for food or shelter or soap.)
I’d need some basic rules — the desired name would have to get past my publisher, for example, so obscenities are out. You couldn’t blatantly insult people — while I’m fine with naming my example server LucasDroolz, I’m not comfortable using someone else’s words to abuse other people. When I insult someone, I want to do it personally.
Would this be a publicity stunt? It would be publicity, yes. But the real goal is to extract money from you and give it to a developer.
Of course, setting up such an auction would be time and expense. I’d risk my own time and expense on such an idea, but this would mean asking other people to do so as well. Therefore, my question for readers is:
Would you bid in such an auction? Given the cause, how much would you bid? Do you think it’s a stupid idea? I’m also open to suggestions on where to run such an auction. eBay has a charity option, but they still take a cut. I suspect there’s a better choice.
Please reply in the comments, not email.
Roundcube/pgsql on FreeBSD
My employer’s current webmail solution is pretty tightly tied to the mail server. We need a webmail solution, but I want to be able to move, change, and upgrade webmail independently of the mail server. I’m testing Roundcube, running on FreeBSD-current/amd64 diskless on KVM.
First install Roundcube. Go to /usr/ports/mail/roundcube and run make config-recursive. You can use MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite. Personally, I’m a Postgres bigot, mainly because Postgres has inflicted less pain than MySQL over the years. (Remember, punishing someone less feels like a reward!) I selected postgres, disabled mysql, then chose other environment-specific options such as LDAP. After configuring all of roundcube’s dependencies, run make all install clean.
No matter the database you prefer, in FreeBSD the client is packaged and built separately from the database server. I built /usr/ports/databases/postgresql84-server. Normally I would enable PAM, to enable database authentication via the operating system authentication, but that’s apparently broken as of this writing.
I want to modify httpd.conf as little as possible, so I do most of my configuration via files in /usr/local/etc/apache/Includes. I create the following files:
vhosts.conf
NameVirtualHost *:80
NameVirtualHost *:443
And of course, we need to acces webmail over SSL. Here’s ssl.conf:
Listen 443
AddType application/x-x509-ca-cert .crt
AddType application/x-pkcs7-crl .crl
SSLPassPhraseDialog builtin
SSLSessionCache "shmcb:/var/run/ssl_scache(512000)"
SSLSessionCacheTimeout 300
AcceptMutex posixsem
SSLMutex "file:/var/run/www/ssl_mutex"
I use RCS for minor stuff like this, so I need to block web site visitors from viewing my RCS files. Here’s blockRCS.conf
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
Satisfy All
Finally, here’s the configuration for the webmail virtual server, webmail.conf. The most interesting thing here is that I automatically redirect HTTP connections to HTTPS. (Perhaps interesting is the wrong word. “Least uninteresting?” Yeah, that’s better.)
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
ServerName webmail.domain.com
Redirect permanent / https://webmail.domain.com/
ServerAdmin webmail@domain.com
ErrorLog "|/usr/local/sbin/rotatelogs /var/log/httpd/webmail_error_log.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 86400 -300"
CustomLog "|/usr/local/sbin/rotatelogs /var/log/httpd/webmail_access_log.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 86400 -300" combined
DocumentRoot /usr/local/www/webmail/
Options None
AllowOverride All
Allow from all
ServerAdmin webmail@domain.com
ServerName webmail.domain.com
SSLEngine on
SSLCipherSuite ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT56:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv2:+EXP:+eNULL
SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
BrowserMatch ".*MSIE.*" \
nokeepalive ssl-unclean-shutdown \
downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
SSLCertificateFile etc/apache22/certs/webmail.domain.com.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile etc/apache22/certs/webmail.domain.com.key
ErrorLog "|/usr/local/sbin/rotatelogs /var/log/httpd/webmail_ssl_error_log.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 86400 -300"
CustomLog "|/usr/local/sbin/rotatelogs /var/log/httpd/webmail_ssl_access_log.%Y-%m-%d-%H_%M_%S 86400 -300" combined
DocumentRoot /usr/local/www/roundcube/
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Allow from all
Initialize your postgresql database. I got Postgres help from here.
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/postgresql initdb
Edit your Postgres config file, /usr/local/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf. Be sure that your database is only listening on the loopback address.
listen_addresses = 'localhost'
If you’re a Postgres guru, make any other changes you like. Then configure loggin in /etc/syslog.conf:
!postgres
*.* /var/log/pg.log
The log files must exist before syslogd will write to them.
# touch /var/log/pg.log
# chown pgsql:pgsql /var/log/pg.log
Now run /usr/local/etc/rc.d/postgresql start and check for errors. It should start without trouble, unless you mucked with your configuration too much.
Normally I would edit pg_hba.conf to tie my account password to PAM, and through PAM to LDAP, but as that’s broken right now, I’ll create a local user.
# su pgsql
$ createuser -sdrP mwlucas
Enter password for new role:
Enter it again:
Now create the Roundcube database, as per the instructions.
$ createuser roundcube
Shall the new role be a superuser? (y/n) n
Shall the new role be allowed to create databases? (y/n) n
Shall the new role be allowed to create more new roles? (y/n) n
$ createdb -O roundcube -E UNICODE roundcubemail
$ psql roundcubemail
psql (8.4.7)
Type "help" for help.
roundcubemail=# alter user roundcube with password 'WeHatesWebmail';
ALTER ROLE
roundcubemail=# \c - roundcube
psql (8.4.7)
You are now connected to database "roundcubemail" as user "roundcube".
roundcubemail=> \i SQL/postgres.initial.sql
After a bunch of SQL spammage, we have a database. Log out with:
roundcubemail=> \q
Roundcube needs two configuration files, db.inc.php and main.inc.php. Go to /usr/local/www/roundcube/config and copy the .dist versions of these files.
Tell Roundcube where to find its database by setting a DSN in db.inc.php.
$rcmail_config['db_dsnw'] = 'pgsql://roundcube:WeHatesWebmail@localhost/roundcubemail';
In main.inc.php, set your mail server. (If you don’t set a mail server, Roundcube will let you connect to any mail server you like. This would confuse my users. Confusion leads to phone calls, something I avidly avoid.)
$rcmail_config['default_host'] = 'mail.domain.com';
Verify that pgsql and Apache are running, and browse to your webmail site. You have a webmail server!
Overall, the setup was pretty straightforward. I’m not saying I’ll keep Roundcube, but my test users are basically content, so it’s a strong candidate.
experiments in publishing
Readers who don’t care about my non-technical writing should skip this post.
My friends include authors who are traditionally published, and some who are self-published. Both groups make excellent cases for their choices, and I’m not going to argue against anyone else’s decisions. Whatever works for you, live and let live, and so on.
But both sets make excellent arguments for what I should do with my career. Both sets tell me my non-technical work is good enough to make it. The traditional authors tell me to keep knocking at the doors of the Big Six publishers, and eventually I will get in. The self-publishers tell me that I have more “platform” than many traditionally published novelists, and I should leverage that to bootstrap my non-technical writing career.
It’s an emotional topic. People are very vested in their opinions. I can argue either side, and my opinion tends to vary depending on whoever I’ve spoken to most recently. The way to answer questions is with an experiment. Experiments start with a falsifiable statement. Here’s mine. “I have sufficient platform to profitably self-publish fiction on ereader platforms.”
Now, some conditions. What, exactly, is “profitable”? Here are some rough numbers that would probably make an accountant cry, but they’re adequate for this experiment.
Big Name authors sell short stories for thousands of dollars. Medium Name authors sell short stories for about $500. No-name authors sell short stories for prices from $10 to free. My first sale was for $100, but all others were for $10. I’m a no-name. So, let’s classify my writing labor as a $10 expense.
Ebooks need a cover. My graphic design skills are roughly equivalent to a badger’s. I can get an adequate cover for $25, largely due to the curiosity of my artist friend Brad McDevitt about the results.
Software to transform a document into an eBook is free. I started with Mobipocket Creator to transform a PDF into Amazon’s Kindle format, and then used Calibre to transform it into the Barnes & Noble ereader format. To reach the Apple audience, as well as a whole bunch of smaller retailers, I need to use Smashwords’ .doc file upload. I’ve experimented with each of these, and I believe that once I have a hang of them I’ll be able to upload to all three sites in about an hour. How much is my authorial time worth? Judging by the $10 price of a completed short story: not much. How about the time of a skilled software operator? That’s a little better. I’ll call it $20/hour.
I could add in a share of the computer, office space, and so on, but that’s all stuff I need for my tech writing business. I’m not going to count that. Similarly, I own a Kindle, for my own purposes, but I’ll use it to test my early ebook builds. I won’t count that, either. Should this be successful, all these would become legitimate expenses.
The expenses to publish a short story are, roughly speaking, $55.
The going price for ereader short stories is $0.99. Amazon gives authors a 35% royalty on $0.99 items, or $0.35 per sale. I must sell 157 copies of a story to break even.
One big question is, “is the work good enough to sell?” I’ll control for that by starting with stories I have previously sold, but whose rights have reverted back to me. If I have success with them, I’ll try a couple pieces that have never sold.
Time is another factor — if I sell 157 copies over 10 years, is that a win? No. How about one year? Maybe.
The first story is up on Amazon. I still need to do B&N and Smashwords.
A month or so after I have the first one up on all three sites, I’ll report my initial results.