Penguins-On-Hudson

Linux & F.O.S.S. in the Hudson River Valley.

Penguins-On-Hudson is an advocacy program sponsored by Codefix Consulting to help promote Linux and F.O.S.S. (Free Open Source Software) in the lower Hudson River Valley.

Archive for the 'Case Study' Category

Automount USB drives on Ubuntu servers.

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

In most cases, Ubuntu desktop systems will automatically detect and mount removable media, and this is largely done with software that is part of the X Windows system; for server systems without X Windows however, this sort of thing requires a bit of work.
Now some may ask, “Why automount removable media at all?” It is […]

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Diagnosing Sound Problems in Ubuntu Linux

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Sound problems fall in to three basic categories, and the first thing you want to do is determine which one you’re dealing with. The easiest thing you can do is test your speakers with something else, using the same cable. If your speakers and cable are confirmed to be in good working order, then the […]

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SSH Coolness … even on Windows.

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

prerequisite concepts: prelude, basic config., port fwd, proxy conn.

I don’t often have the opportunity to experiment on computers running Windows, but every once in a long while it simply cannot be avoided. I recently found myself wanting to look up a password in Revelation, a password manager for the Gnome Desktop on Linux; I […]

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OpenSSH: Environmental Override

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

prerequisite concepts: prelude, basic configuration
This post is as much about customizing the root shell as it is about SSH environment variables, but I’m adding this to my OpenSSH collection because it’s applicable to any user.
I occasionally work on servers where, for a variety of reasons, I share an account with one or more other […]

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I have seen the light.

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

Having discovered the advantages of á la carte VoIP pricing, I pondered how to extrapolate my experience for general discussion while avoiding the pitfalls of interpolation and abridgement. The Reference Book of Rates, Price Indices, and Household Expenditures for Telephone Service published by the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau provides a rough estimate of wireline telephone […]

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AppArmor, introduced to Ubuntu with Gutsy, is yet another security tool unleashed upon the infosphere. In part, AppArmor is intended as an alternative to SELinux, which can easily be seen as daunting to configure; unfortunately, many such projects are daunting for those admins forced to walk the plank of unfamiliarity above a sea of expectations. […]

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Three Things to Avoid in a VoIP Provider

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Like many others, when I set up my first Linux PBX I knew little about VoIP providers and with few sources of reliable, current information, I made a decision based on name recognition, perceived value, and minimal research. Like many others, I looked for companies who advertised a BYOD plan under the false assumption that […]

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When in doubt, test.

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Shortly after I last upgraded my mail server, one user reported that his mail client was failing to connect with the message:
“Unable to connect to your IMAP server. You may have exceeded the maximum number of connections to this server…”
He was the only one known to be having this issue, so after a cursory check […]

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Quick and Easy Caller ID on MythTV

Monday, December 31st, 2007

I have resisted the urge to display caller id on my MythTV as somewhat obvious. I’m always looking for ways to demonstrate the freedom which comes from using open source software, but I prefer the zesty freshness of an original idea rather than anything that’s been done, redone, and done again. My wife, however, […]

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I have a strange issue on my Asterisk box. If I call BroadVoice tech support using one of their trunks, I connect normally and hear the initial IVR, I press “1″ and hear “Your call is being transferred.” Then the weirdness starts: I remain connected, but I hear my own hold music. As near as […]

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