The first issue is that vpopmail authentication in dovecot is not compiled in by default on the Debian packages so every time I upgrade I have to recompile the packages to support the vpopmail driver.

This post explains how to use the lua authentication with the vpopmail vpasswd files so we continue to use the same users and passwords without relying on the special dovecot vpopmail driver. If assumes your vpopmail installation is in /home/vpopmail , if it's somewhere else just change the location in the auth.lua file.

Disable the vpopmail authentication module in conf.d/10-auth.conf

Add /etc/dovecot/conf.d/auth-lua.conf.ext with this content:

passdb {
 driver = lua
 args = file=/etc/dovecot/auth.lua blocking=yes # default is yes
}
userdb {
 driver = lua
 args = file=/etc/dovecot/auth.lua blocking=yes # default is yes
}

Create /etc/dovecot/auth.lua with the following content:

local function isempty(s)
  return s == nil or s == ''
end

function auth_password_verify(req, pass)
 local str=req.user
 local lastAt = str:find("[^%@]+$")
 local localPart = str:sub(1, (lastAt - 2)) 
 local domainPart = str:sub(lastAt, #str)
 local file = "/home/vpopmail/domains/"..domainPart.."/vpasswd"

 for line in io.lines(file) do
  local u,epass=string.match(line,"([^%:]+):([^%:]+)");
  if not isempty(epass) and localPart==u and req:password_verify("{MD5-CRYPT}"..epass,pass)>0 then
   return dovecot.auth.PASSDB_RESULT_OK, {}
  end
 end
end

function auth_userdb_lookup(req)
 local str=req.user
 local lastAt = str:find("[^%@]+$")
 local localPart = str:sub(1, (lastAt - 2)) 
 local domainPart = str:sub(lastAt, #str)
 local file = "/home/vpopmail/domains/"..domainPart.."/vpasswd"
 for line in io.lines(file) do
  local u,epass=string.match(line,"([^%:]+):([^%:]*):");
  if localPart==u then
   return dovecot.auth.USERDB_RESULT_OK, "uid=vpopmail gid=vchkpw"
  end
 end
 return dovecot.auth.USERDB_RESULT_USER_UNKNOWN, "no such user"
end

There is a solution using unetbootin , one with bootcamp assistant and one using mounting and manually copying files but none of them worked for me.

This solution worked for me in macOS High Sierra and Mojave and it will probably work on other versions.

First you have to convert the windows iso file to an img:

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o windows.img windows.iso

The result of this would most likely be a file named widows.img.dmg. The next step is to unmount the usb disk ( diskutil list to see which one it is , in my case this was /dev/disk2 )

sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2

Now just use dd to copy the image to the usb device:

sudo dd if=windows10.img.dmg of=/dev/disk2 bs=1m

This article will show you how you can create a free letsencrypt certificate for these dynamic domains without running a http server on them. ( in case you want to use them for something like a smtp service or a http server that's not supported by the certbot plugins ).

When setting up SFTdyn you configured bind to accept local updates. We'll use the same key for the certbot dns plugin so it can do dns challenges for creating and renewing certificates.

The certbot dns plugin needs a configuration file ( ~/.secrets/certbot/rfc2136.ini ) that looks like this:

# Target DNS server ( always use an ip address here )
dns_rfc2136_server = 12.34.56.78
# Target DNS port
dns_rfc2136_port = 53
# TSIG key name ( this has to be set to local-ddns ) 
dns_rfc2136_name = local-ddns
# TSIG key secret ( get this from the ddns server's /var/run/bind/session.key  ) 
dns_rfc2136_secret = splfUqpteoHQ43DDzGKvMS6L3oCjzv20WpKfhxhgWo0=
# TSIG key algorithm
dns_rfc2136_algorithm = HMAC-SHA256

The secret will probably change when you restart bind, so make sure to update the rfc2136.ini file after you do it. Or you can add the contents of the /var/run/bind/session.key file to the named.conf.local file and then change the key's name to something like "remote-key" and then also change the ~/.secrets/certbot/rfc2136.ini file to reflect the name of the new key so you don't have to bother to copy the key every time you restart bind.

When all this is set up just run :

certbot certonly --dns-rfc2136 --dns-rfc2136-credentials ~/.secrets/certbot/rfc2136.ini -d <my-domain-name>

It seems the problem was I was trying to install it from an app folder that contained a folder named cordova and although I was running "sudo npm install -g cordova" which is supposed to install it globally it didn't work. All it did was to link my app folder to /usr/local/lib/node_modules . After I removed the link and ran "npm install -g cordova" it installed correctly.

Note to self: next time you install cordova on a new computer make sure you don't do it from a place where there's already a "cordova" folder.

The bigger the grid size, the more points it will test and the longer will take.

Heat the printbed to the temperature you normally print with.

Do the grid calibration:

; home
G28

;bltouch alarm release
M280 PS10.6

; probe pin down
M280 S3

; set bed temp to 80C
M190 S80

; do delta calibration
G32

; save trim to sdcard
M500

; probe the grid and enable grid compensation
G31

; save the grid to sd card
M374

;To set the zero for the print head
;Make sure there is no left over material on the nozzle ( maybe heat and wipe it )
;go home
G28

;go close to Z=0
G0 Z1

; put a sheet of thin paper under the nozzle
; Then move the head ( using the printer controls ) until it presses on the paper sheet, until ; you feel the friction when you pull on the paper. This is the Z=0 point
; Use this point as the homing offest
M306 Z0

;save to SD card
M500

But even after all this it seems the prints are still not all right, so another option is to do some manual calibration of the hotbed using some springs. 

Now I'm using the following script every time I update and I get a new version of the dovecot packages.

The last line also installs all the dovecot packages except for the debug one. You might want to change it if you don't want all.

Set GRUB_DEFAULT=saved in /etc/default/grub if you want to start with the last good boot.

update-grub - detects kernels automatically and writes boot lines to /boot/grub/grub.conf

grub-set-default - set the default entry ( First boot entry is number 0 )

grub-reboot - set the boot entry for the next reboot only ( for testing new kernels or other boot stuff especially when you're working remotely )

Some options

Use with replication

pt-table-checksum can be used to compare any two databases/tables but if you want to compare everything on master and it's slaves you can use the
--replicate option to connect only on the master and compute checksums. The checksums will then be computed on slaves too by replicating the checksum statements.

Detecting slaves

If you have slave hosts running on non standard ports use option --recursion-method=hosts to tell pt-table-checksum how to detect the slaves. Tell the slaves to report their hostname and and port with report-host and report-port in my.cnf . This will make them show in "show slave hosts" issued on the master.

If the "hosts" method doesn't work, try with --recursion-method=dsn=t=dbname.dsns_table . Create a table with the name "dsns_table" and the following structure in the "dbname" database:

CREATE TABLE `dsns` (
 `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
 `dsn` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
)

And put the dsns for accessing the slaves in the dsn field.
Example:

insert into dsns values ('','h=1.1.1.2,u=root,P=3306,p=slavepassword');

For non innodb plugin

--lock-wait-time is required if using a version of mysql without innodb plugin.

Database for storing checksums

pt-table-checksum stores the checksums in mysql so you have to create a database where to store the checksums table. I named mine "mk" since the tool was called mk-table-checksum before it became part of percona toolkit.

Use the --create-replicate-table option to create the checksums table if it doesn't already exist.

Example usage

pt-table-checksum --recursion-method=hosts --lock-wait-time=50 --defaults-file=/home/mihai/mysql.pass -u root --create-replicate-table --replicate-check --replicate mk.checksums 127.0.0.1

Example output

            TS ERRORS  DIFFS     ROWS  CHUNKS SKIPPED    TIME TABLE
09-13T18:25:13      0      0      361       1       0   0.019 mydb.accounts
09-13T18:25:13      0      0       91       1       0   0.079 mydb.announcements

I had to patch it a bit to make it compile and run. So here's the patch if you want to give it a try:

[download id="33"]

I wanted to use it to have a synchroneous replicated filesystem over a WAN but in the end I gave up this idea and switched to unison.

Btw. I also tried to get gluster fs to work on MacOSX lion and partially succeeded. You can see my changes on github

One problem with thunderbird is it became unusable when I added an old account which was accumulating mail up to over 170k messages. I know 170k messages is not realistic and no one should have so many messages in inbox but still this made me look for something better.

First let's see what I'm looking for in an email client:

1. Easy global search like thunderbird
2. Archive folders and 1 key hit like thudnerbird
3. Easy to mark messages as Spam/Junk with a single key hit, would be great to be able to mark multiple messages with a single key ( thunderbird doesn't have this )
4. Message threads
5. And last but not least, be able to handle a lot of messages in a folder, don't have to be super fast but at least it shouldn't lock

Here's what I tested so far:

Evolution

This was a nice surprise.
Pro: Evolution downloaded 87k message headers in just a few seconds and had no problems with selecting all and moving around.
Cons:

I could accept all the cons except for the lack of archiving.
Anyone knows of a plugin that does archiving like thunderbird ? Please let me know!

Kmail

Becomes almost unusable with a big inbox ( 87k), hard to select all messages

Pro: message list groups messages by year ( but this still doesn't beat yearly archives )
Cons:

• very slow with a lot of messages, takes a lot of time to fetch message headers
• adding an account doesn't show it immediately in the accounts list, unless you restart kmail
• no archives
• no keyboard shortcut for junk/spam marking ( seriously ???)
• global search harder to access

sylpheed

Pro: It's fast an lightweight but that also means it lacks what I want
Cons:

• No archiving
• No keybboard shortcut for marking junk mail
• No global search

Conclusion: there's no client that meets all my needs so I'm going to have to stay with Thunderbird and just use evolution when I want to open a big folder.

What email client are you using ?

In linux when you want to know which ports are opened and what applications listen on those ports you use netstat -lnp
In MacOSX you get the listening ports with this:

Want to see what system call am application is making use strace, for MacOSX thats:

Here's how to install an application that comes packaged in a .dmg:

uninstall a package

pidof required by some mysql scripts

remount with noatime

More to come ...

So now you can use the Touchpad tab in the "Mouse and touchpad settings" (gnome) to control the "click to tap", scrolling and other features and you don't have to use the patched syndaemon from my previous post.

To install this fix on ubuntu just download this deb package, install and reboot. ( tested on Ubuntu 11.10 x86_64 ).

If you want to know all the details go through the comments on this bug report #545307

The problem with most touchpads on laptops is that you'll often touch them accidentally while typing, this gets recorded as a tap/click and the typing cursor might move to another location and thus you might and up tying to a whole different place.

With synaptics touchpads or ALPS touchpads ( this is what N7110 has - ALPS Glidepoint) you can use syndaemon, a program that would run in background, monitor the keyboard and disable the touchpad while you type. But this program only works for touchpads which are being recognized as synaptics or ALPS touchpads. The touchpad on N7110 was recognized as a simple mouse, Xorg loaded the evdev driver instead of synaptics.

So I thought that maybe I can modify syndaemon to make it work with mice too. And I did. I noticed a lot of other people have the same problem so this could be useful even if you have a different touchpad that's also recognized as a mouse.
Download the patch for syndaemon here:
[download id="32"]

To apply the patch:

The patch adds a new option to syndaemon to tell it to disable the mouse instead of a touchpad, without this the program will just exit when it can't find the touchpad.

Don't forget to start it every time you start X.

Of course this is more like a quick hack then a real fix. A real fix would make Xorg or the kernel ( not sure exactly where the problem really is ) recognize this touchpad as a touchpad not as a mouse.

The sql thread shows you an error, what do you do to fix it and resume replication?

Here are 3 ways to fix it, each has advantages and disadvantages, pick the one that fits best to your problem.

1. Skip over the problem

You can try to just skip over the statement that broke the replication by changing the position in log file.

There are two ways to do this:

a) you can skip gradually

slave stop;
SET GLOBAL SQL_SLAVE_SKIP_COUNTER = 1;
slave start;
show slave status \G

That would skip the next 1 statement but you can set the counter higher to skip more the one.
Do it until the slave status shows the SQL thead is running.

b) skip to the current position

Use this is the first method keeps showing other statements that break replication and you don't have time to gradually skip statements.

First go on the master and type: show master status to find which is the current bin log file and the current position within the file.

Then go on the slave, stop it with "slave stop" and change the file name and position. Something like:

slave stop; 
CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_LOG_FILE='mysql-bin.001958', MASTER_LOG_POS=52562937;
slave start;

But do that with your own file name and position taken from the master.

Check the replication status with "show slave status".
If the results are good ( both Slave_IO_Running and Slave_SQL_Running are Yes ) then you can go to the next step otherwise skip to next methods.

At this point you have a working replication but probably the data on the slave is not the same as on master since you skipped a few sql statements.

To fix it you can use maakit ( mk-table-checksum and mk-table-sync )

2. Full Dump and Restore

Connect to master, dump everything in a sql file, copy to replication slave and load it in mysql.

Use --master-data so the replication position is set in the dump file and the slave will know where to start.

Use --disable-keys so the slave will not try to build indexes after each insert and only built them at the end of the import.

Use --add-locks to surround each table dump with lock table/unlock table - this makes the inserts faster in the slave.

Problem:
--master-data will put a read lock on tables so operations on your master will lock waiting for the dump to finish. On large databases this can take a long time and it's unacceptable.

Possible fix:
If you have innodb tables add --single-transaction so a single global lock will be used only for a short time at the beginning of the transaction.

The problem is not so big if you can have filesystem snapshots on the master like the ones created by lvm.

3. Inconsistent Full Dump

This is just another fix for the problem at #1. Dump the data just like before but without using --master-data. This means no locks so the master can still work normally.
But because you don't use --master-data you will have to set the position in the slave yourself.
on the master type:

show master status \G

Take the file name and position and use them in the CHANGE MASTER statement on the slave ( after you load the dump file ) . Something like:

CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_LOG_FILE='mysql-bin.001958', MASTER_LOG_POS=52562937;

Of course all of this will create an inconsistent slave but you can fix this easily with maakit.

If you know other methods I'd love to hear about them. Let me know in the comments.

The problem with the original script was that wammu ( version 0.35 anyway ) seems to generate backup files encoded in UTF-16 and the regular expressions in that script will not work unless the content is first converted from UTF-16.

Another benefit of the modified script is that now you don't have to convert the backup file from DOS to UNIX anymore.

To use this script:

1. Connect to your phone using wammu
2. Retrieve contacts from phone and save them in a file using the backup function
3. download [download id="31"] and run:

   ./wammu2csv.pl <your-backup-file> > <your-csv-file>

   This will generate a CSV file that you can import in Gmail