I spent way, way too much time troubleshooting a 403 error with Passenger: =============== Phusion Passenger Standalone web server started PID file: /opt/mcjr/passenger.9000.pid Log file: /opt/mcjr/log/development.log Environment: development Accessible via: http://0.0.0.0:9000/ Serving in the background as a daemon. 403 Forbidden nginx/0.8.52 It turns out that even though thee permissions on my rails app were fine, […]
403 Forbidden Error With Passenger
Converting a Rails App to present with GTK
This article shows how to convert a Rails application to a standard Ruby application, and it shows how to present the data via GTK2. The idea is that a web application and a desktop application can have similar needs, and going back and forth via a common framework has some advantages. We are taking this […]
Ruby Regex Substitution – Benefit of Controllers
This site is generated on RoR, but published as static HTML. It goes way, way back, and the images are referenced in many ways. I think there is a decent chance that some images are referenced without quotes. I added a feature for mobile views years ago, so that I could easily browse with my […]
NT Administration from the Command Line
In addition to using the GUI to create accounts and groups, the command line can be used. This is often useful when automating server setup or recovery. net user jsmith tempword /ADD /FULLNAME:”John Smith” /COMMENT:”Accounting Manager” net localgroup “Accounting Local Resource Group” /add /COMMENT:”Payroll and A/R Files” net group “Accounting Members” /ADD /COMMENT:”Members have access […]
Services Subkey Entries
Beware! Make sure you have a backup of the registry and are 100% confident of the syntax of the entries before you change anything. If you mess up, your NT system may never boot again, and you will have to reinstall NT. Try to tweak the registry indirectly whenever you can through control panel/services, system […]
Using the CACLS command
The cacls command is used to edit and display file permissions on NTFS partitions. Here is a list of the options: D:\>cacls Displays or modifies access control lists (ACLs) of files CACLS filename [/T] [/E] [/C] [/G user:perm] [/R user […]] [/P user:perm […]] [/D user […]] filename Displays ACLs. /T Changes ACLs of specified […]
Our Favorite NT Registry Entries
Beware! Make sure you have a backup of the registry and are 100% confident of the syntax of the entries before you change anything. If you mess up, your NT system may never boot again, and you will have to reinstall NT. Try to tweak the registry indirectly whenever you can through control panel/services, system […]
Pstools freeware from Sysinternals
One problem with upgrading software remotely is that you often need to stop the software you are upgrading first. Often, there is no service that can be stopped. The process must be killed. This can be a bit nasty with Windows systems because there is no easy way to find all instances of a particular […]
Using Cygwin for Automated File Transfer
Although Windows 2000 can be set up using proprietary (Well… MSified) secure connections via IPSec, there are a variety of problems. Most notable is the difficulty to get secure connections to work across multiple platforms, even between different Windows products. It is quite easy to create keys and pull files securely over the Internet from […]
Using VB to Create an Administration Console
There are many tasks that you may want to automate using a custom console. This could be for your Jr. Systems Administrators, for users, or for yourself. One tool that we like to use for this is Visual Tcl, but sometime it is nice to use plain old Visual Basic. If you do use Visual […]
Using rasdial to automate RAS connections
If you have servers or workstations that use RAS to connect to your servers directly or via the Internet, you can use the rasdial command to automate the connection. This would be particularly useful for nightly file transfers. Enter: rasdial /? to get a list of the options for rasdial. For more info on rasdial […]
The Arusha Project
The folks at the Arusha Project are *extremely* caffeinated. The best way to describe this project is that it is a language that defines systems objects. The catch is that it can be specific and useful. You can actually do package management with it. If you are running Open Source software of any ilk for, […]
Creating PDF Network Diagrams on Windows with Free Software
If you have tons of money, buy Visio. Visio is very easy to use, has tons of symbols… well, you know. This article, though, will introduce you to a number of tools that will allow you to create PDF network diagrams with free, open source software on a Windows workstation. The first tool you will […]
Free Books
Check out the collection of free books at O’Reilly’s Open Books Project. Much of the reason for the books being free is O’Reilly’s and the author’s involvment in Open Source. Don’t miss out on the unofficial biography of Richard Stallman, “Join us now and share the software, you’ll be free…”. There are also some good […]
Word Abbreviation With Vi
You can use word abbreviation with vi to insert common chunks of code, commands, or text into your documents. Simply type esc: (to go into command mode) and enter ab abbr phrase. For instance, say you were editing html, and you wanted sztt to enter standard table tags of BORDER=”0″ BGCOLOR=”#E0E0E0″ WIDTH=”99%”, you could enter: […]
Disabling Shutdown Reasoning on Windows Server 2003
When you shut down or restart Windows Server 2003, you are required to explain yourself: The only way to shut down is to enter something in the lower box: Whatever. Makes us want to punch the screen in defiance, like when XP gently asks if you have forgotten your password. Now, you might think this […]
Creating a One Way External Trust Between Windows 2003 and NT (MMC)
To allow users in an NT domain to use resources on a Windows 2003 domain, you need to set up a one way external trust. In NT-style language, this means that the Windows 2003 domain (trusting) trusts the NT domain (trusted). In User Manager for the NT domain, select policies->trust relationships, and add a trusting […]
Pstree
Use the pstree command to list processes in a tree format. It will show the process owners. Default is to start the root of the tree at init: u-1@srv-1 u-1 $ pstree init-+-3*[agetty] |-ahc_dv_0 |-bdflush |-crond—2*[sh—perl—sh-+-grep] | `-iget-quote] |-cupsd |-devfsd |-keventd |-khubd |-kjournald |-kscand |-ksoftirqd_CPU0 |-kswapd |-kupdated |-lockd |-login—bash—startx—xinit-+-X | `-sh-+-icewm-+-Eterm—bash—ssh | | |-Eterm—bash—pstree | […]
Setting Time Synchronization With Windows 2000
We have some Windows 2000 servers we administer that are authenticating against some NT domain controllers. You can set up your Windows 2000 servers to synchronize time with an outside source: C:\>net time /querysntp This computer is not currently configured to use a specific SNTP server. The command completed successfully. For a list of NTP […]
Don’t Wrap in the Middle of a Word, and Display Partial Paragraphs in Vim
A couple things that really annoy me are the default vim settings where words get chopped in the middle and paragraphs don’t display correctly. I’m sure there is a reason for the defaults, but here is how you change this while in vim: :set linebreak :set display+=lastline If you put this in .vimrc in your […]
