edin.no-ip.com

Not every one need a complete solution of virtual hosting email system: you may only hope to have a simple email system within your personal server, and let you check your system log remotely. For this, you may hope you email system come with:

1. Support both SMTP, SSMTP with authentication
2. Support both POP3, POP3S, IMAP2, IMAPS

And that's all! This simple HOWTO will guide you though the detail steps.

Webmin and Usermin are handy administration interface for system administrator, which cover a lot of daily duty for system administration, e.g. apache, bind9, dhcpd, webalizer, cron jobs, logrotate, etc. Some people don't suggest to use Webmin or Usermin due to security concern, but I seems it as a short cut for a newbie become professional.

BTW, Debian etch no longer coming with official support of webmin/usermin package according to many reason (http://wiki.debian.org/Webmin?highlight=%28webmin%29), but the most important point is lack of package maintainer (http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=343897). So you will not find webmin and usermin under both stable, testing and even unstable.

Is the story end? Not yet! Official webmin/usermin website also provide debian package, which are most up-to-date! This mini-HOWTO will cover the required step for installing such 3rd party package into Debian etch.

When will you need an automatically HTTPS redirection for your web service? Which means whenever client try to access the HTTP version, Apache will handle its redirection and forward them to HTTPS version. This technical is well known for most public web service which related to sensitives personal information, e.g. webmail, ebussiness, and epayment.

This simple mini-HOWTO will guide you though this useful skill with Apache 2.2 and Debian etch.

A quick look about KVM (http://kvm.qumranet.com/kvmwiki/KVM-Wiki):

KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware. It consists of a loadable kernel module (kvm.ko) and a userspace component.

Using KVM, one can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc.

The kernel component of KVM is included in mainline Linux, and will appear in Linux 2.6.20.

KVM is open source software.

So how to set it up under Debian? Since KVM is still under active development, using Debian sid (unstable) would be a good idea; on the other hand, a VT supported CPU is also required; finally, you should have X11 installed. You may handle the setup of KVM client in many different way: manual command line parameter, custom pre-defined start/stop/config shell scripting, or by using libvirt + virt-manager. For this simple mini-HOWTO, I will guide you though the 1st solution with the least dependence.

What if you hope to have ClamAV and SpamAssassin with your Debian Exim4, but don't really hope for a complete virtual hosting email system with vexim? You may follow this simple guideline and set them up within 15min :)

This is just a very fast and rough simple guideline for setting up Mailman + Exim4 based on Debian etch. For sure that we will also configure Apache2 for Mailman web interface. Not much detail will be mentioned, please refer to corresponding document if you hope to understand more. Debian also come with a handy guideline from /usr/share/doc/mailman/README.Exim4.Debian, so you should have a look with it before follow this guideline :)

If you hope to host a static domain name, the process is quite straight forward: find a DNS provider, pay and register, provide 2 DNS server that will contain your domain information, and that's all. This shouldn't be a problem if you have 3+ static IP, so at least 2 for DNS server plus other for normal mapping. Well, as a normal Linux system administrator, this should be part of your daily jobs.

But what will happen if you don't have static IP? The case will be more complicated since you can't provide the required 2 static DNS server for redirect, and so the domain registration can't complete.

At this moment, you may think about free DDNS service, e.g. No-IP, DynDNS and so on. BTW, usually they only provide some free domain with not friendly DNS suffix (e.g. no-ip.info, no-ip.net, etc), which usually not your cup of tea...

So how to overcome these difficulties? Just combine both DDNS (take No-IP service as example), bind9 and nsupdate together. So finally, you will have a system with:

1. Real DNS hostname. You will need this from anyone of DNS service provider; and for sure, you will able to register any name as you like if available.
2. DDNS hostname for request redirect. This is just a fake name, in order to fake DNS service provider, and point the DNS NS request to our DDNS server.
3. A Debian server that running bind9, noip2 and nsupdate. We will use the nsupdate toolkit to update our own bind9, about our current public IP. So this is a loop-back hack for bind9.

Sounds so tricky? Just take it easy, and I will guide you step-by-step :)

The default installation of PostgreSQL in Debian etch is not yet well configured, and so not suitable to work with phppgadmin, too. This simple mini-HOWTO will guide you though those critical but minor procedures, which will let all of your PostgreSQL functioning within 5 min :)

Install JDK and Tomcat in Debian etch is really simple, most packages are pre-configure for you.

Before install, check your /etc/apt/sources.list if already come with contrib and non-free APT source. Here is my example:

Then you will need to install JDK (you may also use aptitude and search for java5):

Moreover, tell Debian to use this newly installed JDK as default (you may use update-alternatives --all and check all linkage status):

Check your Java version if it is setup correctly:

It's time for Tomcat. Just simply run this command:

Go to http://example.com:8180/ and check if you can see the default tomcat homepage. That is!!

foobar2000 is a powerful and clean music player under windows platform. it support for many useful functions, including MP3 conversion.

although some people love lossless format of music, e.g. APE or BIN with CUE playlist, but i still prefer MP3 format for many reasons:

1. it is one of the most common lossy music format now a day, compare with WMA or even OGG
2. unicode is now supported with ID3V2 (it is very useful as i collect JPOP music mainly)
3. it can combine with many other solutions, e.g. musicindex, icecast (i am now studying about this), or even my SonyEricsson Z550i ;-)
4. it save my storage space, and the quality is really acceptable when it is in 320kbps CBR format (i think that is meaningless to play a lossless format music when i am traveling in MTR, or in my office)

by default, foobar2000 only provide 190kbps VBR encoding preset, which is far not enough for today requirement. here is a simple HOWTO, about how to configure foobar2000 as such useful music converter.

you will first need to setup the following correctly:

1. forbar2000: just get it from official site. i am now using v0.9.4.2. get it from here:
   http://www.foobar2000.org/foobar2000_0.9.4.2.exe
2. lame binary for Win32: foobar2000 don't come with lame. i am now using v3.97. get it from here, and place both lame.exe and lame_enc.dll under the root directory of foobar2000:
   http://www.rarewares.org/mp3.html

or here:
http://edin.no-ip.com/~hswong3i/recycle_bin/programs/foobar2000/lame3.97...

any other 3rd party components for foobar2000

if you are as lazy as me, after install foobar2000, get this package and override your foobar2000 installation:
http://edin.no-ip.com/~hswong3i/recycle_bin/programs/foobar2000/foobar20...

the next is the configuration of encoding preset for foobar2000:

1. go to File -> Preference (or simply press CTRL + P)
2. go to Tools -> Converter. you will see all encoding preset that you currently have
3. press Add New, and configure as like as following:
   
   001.png

that is! you will now have the new encoding preset for 320kbps MP3 conversion!