Not FreeBSD related at all of course, but oh well.. let's have it in my knowledge base. :)
An user called me with a problem - he couldn't delete a message from his Outlook Express, because it was too big, and his computer would simply crash when trying to open it. The solution was
1) turn off preview pane - View->Layout...->uncheck "Show preview pane"
2) better safe than sorry, perform a correct "Compact folders" procedure.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
SMART disk monitoring
Oh, the drama. When it comes to HDD going down, it's gloves off.
So, to spot bad HDD in a timely manner, I came across the following advice.
Install /usr/ports/systutils/smartmon
and configure it like this (example)
/dev/ad6 -d ata -a -m your@mail.com -M once -s L/../../1/13
this will test device /dev/ad6, -d = device type, -a = all the parameters I need, -m - mail to send report to, M = once - send mail only once -s = perform test on mondays, 13 o'clock.
Basically that's it.
So, to spot bad HDD in a timely manner, I came across the following advice.
Install /usr/ports/systutils/smartmon
and configure it like this (example)
/dev/ad6 -d ata -a -m your@mail.com -M once -s L/../../1/13
this will test device /dev/ad6, -d = device type, -a = all the parameters I need, -m - mail to send report to, M = once - send mail only once -s = perform test on mondays, 13 o'clock.
Basically that's it.
Sendmail SMTP authorization & secure connection
Today, I had to set up SMTP authorization on my FreeBSD 5.4 box. And, of course, since system username & password gets transfered, secure connection, in my opinion (yea, even in my opinion), is a must. Mail users, however, are set to nologin, but better be on the safe side, I guess.
Here's an excellent guide I found with google's help.
http://www.puresimplicity.net/~hemi/freebsd/sendmail.html
Of course, I opted for copy/paste first (as probably all of us do, some just don't admit it)
It was pretty fine, till the time come to restart sendmail. It failed with a message that port is already in use (courtesy of /var/log/maillog). Long story short, I had to comment out
Here's an excellent guide I found with google's help.
http://www.puresimplicity.net/~hemi/freebsd/sendmail.html
Of course, I opted for copy/paste first (as probably all of us do, some just don't admit it)
It was pretty fine, till the time come to restart sendmail. It failed with a message that port is already in use (courtesy of /var/log/maillog). Long story short, I had to comment out
DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=smtp, Name=MTA')dnl
from configuration file (probably because it was defined elsewhere but I didn't bother to look) and it started working.
A note - For reasons beyond a mere mortals understanding, Thunderbird 1.5.x.x (OF COURSE I didn't wrote down the exact number) doesn't work with this configuration. However, 2.0 works perfectly. As does Outlook Express. I don't know about other clients, haven't tried. So far so good. There are no angry calls from users, so I'm calling it a day.
A note - For reasons beyond a mere mortals understanding, Thunderbird 1.5.x.x (OF COURSE I didn't wrote down the exact number) doesn't work with this configuration. However, 2.0 works perfectly. As does Outlook Express. I don't know about other clients, haven't tried. So far so good. There are no angry calls from users, so I'm calling it a day.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
PACKAGESITE for pkg_add -r
As always, this hint is for those who like to take shortcuts, not investigate properly yadayada :D
Problem: FreeBSD installed a while ago, and now a need arouses to pkg_add some package. Of course, the original release doesn't have that nice pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6.0-release/Latest/ directory anymore.
Notes: Of course, this can only be done (I think, since I'm the lame admin) for close releases, and most certainly for one release - 4, 5, or 6..
/bin/sh
export PACKAGESITE="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6.2-release/Latest/"
(of course, replace 6.2 with whatever is needed)
pkg_add -r happily.
Problem: FreeBSD installed a while ago, and now a need arouses to pkg_add some package. Of course, the original release doesn't have that nice pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6.0-release/Latest/ directory anymore.
Notes: Of course, this can only be done (I think, since I'm the lame admin) for close releases, and most certainly for one release - 4, 5, or 6..
/bin/sh
export PACKAGESITE="ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ports/i386/packages-6.2-release/Latest/"
(of course, replace 6.2 with whatever is needed)
pkg_add -r happily.
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