Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 68

On asking me to write for you

[posted for later reference]

In the first eleven days of December 2013, I have received eight requests for me to write for a periodical such as a web site or a magazine. This is nice. I struggled for many years to get published. To have publishers knock on my door and ask for my work gives me a certain warm fuzzy feeling. They’re trying to fill in their 2014 editorial calendars, and want me to be part of it? That’s kind of cool.

There’s only one problem: they want to pay me with a subscription....

FreeBSD authentication against Samba 4 LDAP

After years of only needing central auth for Unix-like systems, I need to integrate Windows clients into my auth mix. Rather than munging my current OpenLDAP directory to contain Windows information, I elected to migrate to Samba 4. Samba 4 can act as a Windows domain controller and also exposes an LDAP interface for Unix clients.

I assume that you’ve read the FreeBSD and Samba documentation on LDAP auth. This article is meant as a bridge between the two information sets.

Most of the tutorials...

FreeBSD-update seems to hang on 10.0-BETA2

I’m setting up a new FreeBSD web server. As 10.0 is just around the corner, I installed 10.0-BETA2. BETA4 is out, so it’s time to upgrade.

# freebsd-update -r 10.0-BETA4 upgrade

Looking up update.FreeBSD.org mirrors... 5 mirrors found.

...

That all looks good. Then I installed the update

# freebsd-update install

...

And the install hung. Overnight. Why?

Turns out that there are multiple errata on freebsd-update. While you can upgrade to BETA2-p2, you can’t jump directly to the next version.

So you nee...

Wanted: BSDCan Volunteers

Gossip, rumor, innuendo, and Twitter say that the BSDCan 2014 Call for Papers should be out in the next few days. (I trust the first three sources more than the last, but what the heck, let’s go for completeness.)

For the last ten years, Dan Langille has single-handedly coordinated BSDCan. In that time, BSDCan has become one of the critical events of the BSD community. It’s the largest, most consistently held gathering of BSD folks on this side of the planet.

Last year, Dan asked for additional...

Moving mailboxes from Courier/Maildir to DirectAdmin/dovecot/Maildir

I have an old mail server running Postfix and courier-imap. We want to split our customers off onto their old server, preferably something with a pretty pointy-clicky interface so that they can manage their own accounts. (Yes, people do still buy email service these days.)

The old server runs FreeBSD, postfix, and courier-imap. The new server runs FreeBSD 9.2 with DirectAdmin. DirectAdmin is a canned package that puts a customer-friendly front end on a whole bunch of standard Unix software. (W...

mug.org OpenBSD talk on-line

Last night’s talk on OpenBSD is now live in the mug.org channel.

Part 1

Part 2

UPDATE: All in one.

Among other things, I compare OpenBSD to Richard Stallman and physically assault an audience member. (Brian was a very good spots, and learned an important lesson about volunteering, e.g.: don’t.) We also talk long long time, memory randomization, PF, BSD license versus GPL, Microsoft, and other OpenBSD stuff.

And, of course, the importance of the VAX.

Tonight, at mug.org

I’m planning on doing a Google hangout of my talk tonight at mug.org.

Don’t know what time I’ll be going on, however. My guess is some time a little before 7PM. Come by my Google Plus page if you want to see it live.

With luck, it’ll record as well, so you can watch it later.

Sudo Mastery print now at Amazon

You can now get a print Sudo Mastery from Amazon.

I have signed all of the Mastery books up for the Matchbook program. People who buy the print book from Amazon will soon be able to get the Kindle version for $2.99. It’s not an ideal print/ebook combo, but I’m not nearly well enough organized to ship out physical books directly.

BSDNow interview now live

My BSDNow interview is now live. We talk sudo, BSD, tech books, and more.

OpenBSD talk at Farmington Community Library 12 November 2013

I’ll be presenting about OpenBSD at !Michigan/usr/group, a Linux and UNIX user group, on Tuesday, 12 November 2013. The tentative title “OpenBSD for a Linux User Group,” covering the features and culture that make OpenBSD what it is. (Hint: it’s not security.)

These talks are always more fun when readers show up to heckle, throw rotten tomatoes, and question my morals and parentage.

If I have sufficient connectivity and nobody objects, I’ll try to do a Google Hangout for it. But you can’t throw...