Well I setup a VM of Ubuntu 9.04 and guess what: the Parallels Tools don’t work. People have been asking for them since April, and now it turns out, Parallels 5 is in beta, where, naturally, the Tools will install. How much do you want to be that you’ll have to plunk down another $50 for that?

Guess what Parallels: forget you. I’m done. I wanted to support the underdog, and even if the performance of the VM is good, this business of not updating your products isn’t worth it.

Anyone out there trying to decide whether to go with Parallels or VMWare Fusion: go with Fusion!

Boo Parallels.

Update: A few days after I wrote this (Aug. 29, 2009) Parallels released an update (4.0.3846) where Parallels Tools can be installed on Jaunty. Sorry guys, rolling that out more than four months after Jaunty was released is too little too late.

“It was just another day at the office, until suddenly…” I wanted to run Warehouse. It turns out that things get (just) slightly hairy when you need to use the native bindings for a library, in this case Subversion/SWIG.

I ran rake warehouse:bootstrap without incident, but as soon as I submitted the ‘install’ form, it died. This is what I found in the log:

ActionView::TemplateError (/opt/ruby-enterprise/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-2.0.2/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:478:in `const_missing': uninitialized constant Repository::Svn) on line #23 of repositories/index.html.erb:
20:

21:     <%= link_to h(repo.name), hosted_url(repo, :admin) %>
22:     <%= repo.path %>
23:   <% if repo.sync? %>
24:   <% unless repo.sync_progress == 100 %>
25:
26:


    /srv/rails/entp-warehouse-78376218f92e6bdf8b72993d9caa384e5d4a5c66/vendor/plugins/expiring_attr_reader/lib/expiring_attr_reader.rb:32:in `silo'
    /srv/rails/entp-warehouse-78376218f92e6bdf8b72993d9caa384e5d4a5c66/app/models/repository.rb:137:in `retrieve_silo'
    (eval):1:in `silo'
    /srv/rails/entp-warehouse-78376218f92e6bdf8b72993d9caa384e5d4a5c66/app/models/repository.rb:100:in `eval'
    /srv/rails/entp-warehouse-78376218f92e6bdf8b72993d9caa384e5d4a5c66/vendor/plugins/expiring_attr_reader/lib/expiring_attr_reader.rb:32:in `silo'
    /srv/rails/entp-warehouse-78376218f92e6bdf8b72993d9caa384e5d4a5c66/app/models/repository.rb:100:in `sync?'
    /srv/rails/entp-warehouse-78376218f92e6bdf8b72993d9caa384e5d4a5c66/app/views/repositories/index.html.erb:23:in `_run_erb_47app47views47repositories47index46html46erb'
    /srv/rails/entp-warehouse-78376218f92e6bdf8b72993d9caa384e5d4a5c66/app/views/repositories/index.html.erb:19:in `each'
    /srv/rails/entp-warehouse-78376218f92e6bdf8b72993d9caa384e5d4a5c66/app/views/repositories/index.html.erb:19:in `_run_erb_47app47views47repositories47index46html46erb'
...

Naturally I had installed the bindings using sudo apt-get install libsvn-ruby1.8 so they were available to the default Ruby (located in /usr/lib/ruby), but not Ruby Enterprise Edition (located in /opt/ruby-enterprise), which the application runs on.

My solution was to simply symlink the Subversion bindings into Ruby Enterprise Edition. A quick look in the libsvn-ruby package (sudo dpkg -L libsvn-ruby1.8) shows us what we’re dealing with:

...
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn/ext
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn/ext/core.so
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn/ext/client.so
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn/ext/delta.so
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn/ext/fs.so
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn/ext/ra.so
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn/ext/repos.so
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn/ext/wc.so
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/client.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/core.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/delta.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/error.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/fs.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/info.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/ra.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/repos.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/util.rb
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn/wc.rb
...

The key directories are: /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn and /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn. So we’ll make them available to /opt/ruby-enterprise like so:

cd /opt/ruby-enterprise/lib/ruby/1.8
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/svn
cd /opt/ruby-enterprise/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/i686-linux
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i486-linux/svn

After that, just restart Apache (apache2ctl restart), and it should be working. Note, a simple touch tmp/restart.txt won’t work, because that doesn’t reload the libraries. You actually need the /opt/ruby-enterprise/ruby process to restart.

Theoretically this same approach should work for any native bindings you need to be available to Ruby Enterprise Edition.

 * Starting web server (apache2)...
Syntax error on line 141 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf:
Invalid command 'Order', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration

After a bit of Googling, I found this bug in Ubuntu. The lame part is it’s not been fixed, and probably won’t be since the focus is on Gutsy…

Anywho, it suggested loading mod_authz_host, like so:

sudo a2enmod authz_host

But when I tried to start Apache again, I got this:

 * Starting web server (apache2)...
Syntax error on line 145 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf:
Invalid command 'TypesConfig', perhaps misspelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration

Grrr… Another Google search led me to this useful page, which told me the missing module here is mod_mime. Load that like so:

sudo a2enmod mime

And you should see:

 * Starting web server (apache2)...        [ OK ]

Last week there was a discussion about hosting on the URUG mailing list, and a post from Dave Stevenson caught my eye. He said he provided affordable, no frills VPS hosting. So I checked out his site and was impressed. A few emails later I was convinced that it was the right move for me. I don’t know if Dave wants me sharing this, but he hooked me up with an install of Ubuntu 6.06, so I’m happy as a pig in crap.

I also took the opportunity to pickup a spiffy new domain! It’s almost like I have a real live website!

jedwards@dapper:~/temp$ wsdl2ruby.rb --wsdl https://mysite.com/service?wsdl
F, [2006-11-06T09:45:27.310849 #21715] FATAL -- app: Detected an exception. Stopping ...

Cannot connect to https://mysite.com/service?wsdl (OpenSSL is not installed.) (RuntimeError)

On Ubuntu, to fix this run sudo apt-get install libopenssl-ruby.

A Google search turned up pretty much zip. There’s only one message (on three different sites…): [Banshee-List] Segment fault importing only mp3 files, and debug not cooperating

Well I guess I’m not playing that MP3… During this debugging process, I noticed Banshee would go out and query musicbrainz.org on start up. WTF? Off to musicbrainz.org where I find out that MusicBrainz is a music metadatabase. On the front page this caught my eye:”Download Picard (0.7.0) [Windows/Linux] (now with fingerprinting!)” Qu’est-ce que c’est?!? Now fingerprinting is a handy deal. I’ve got a *ton* of MP3s that don’t have, or worse, have incorrect, ID3 tags.

An apt-get update && apt-get install picard later, ‘picard’ was fixing my ID3 tags. After playing with that for a minute, I went back to Banshee, and wouldn’t you know, I had one more song in my library…

Moral of the Story: If Banshee can’t import an MP3 because of a System.OverflowException, check your ID3 tags!


root@machine:~# iptables -N BLACKLIST
root@machine:~# iptables -A BLACKLIST -s 0/0 -j LOG \
--log-prefix "Traffic from blacklisted IP: "
root@machine:~# iptables -A BLACKLIST -s 0/0 -j DROP


The change is the BLACKLIST chain simply logs and drops *all* traffic sent to it. Now we modify the blacklist_ip.sh like so:


#!/bin/bash

IP="$1"
echo "Blacklisting $IP."
iptables -A INPUT --src $IP -j BLACKLIST
echo "`date`: $IP" >> /var/log/blacklisted_ips


I believe this to be a simpler, cleaner, and more managable way of blacklisting IPs.

Update: make sure you remove the -A INPUT -J BLACKLIST rule!!!

root@machine:~# iptables -N BLACKLIST


and run all traffic through the BLACKLIST chain:

root@machine:~# iptables -A INPUT -j BLACKLIST

Obviously that rule needs to be pretty close to the beginning (read the first rule) of the INPUT chain, otherwise, you won’t really be blacklisting traffic, will you? If there are existing rules on the INPUT chain use this command:

root@machine:~# iptables -I INPUT 1 -j BLACKLIST

To ease the blacklisting of IP addresses, I adapted (and fixed bugs in) a shell script found on the web:

#!/bin/bash

IP="$1"
echo "Blacklisting $IP."
iptables -A BLACKLIST --src $IP -j LOG --log-prefix \
"Traffic from blacklisted IP: "
iptables -A BLACKLIST --src $IP -j DROP
echo "`date`: $IP" >> /var/log/blacklisted_ips

Put that script in your path, and name it something meaningful, e.g. blacklist_ip.sh and blacklist away:

root@machine:~# blacklist_ip.sh 457.612.991.843

For more on iptables in Ubuntu, visit this page https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IptablesHowTo

Instead, I switched for several other reasons:

#1. The performance of OS X is absolutely horrid. My not-really-that-powerful 1.73 GHz Pentium M *wipes the floor* with my Dual 1.8 GHz G5 — it’s no contest, and actually pretty sad.
#2. I’m more productive on Linux. Admittedly, this is subjective, but important to me.
#3. I’m an Open Source software fanatic, and OSS is easier to manage/use on Linux. Even Apple recommends you reinstall Ruby and not use the one bundled with OS X. Why do they have to jack with everything?
#4. PC’s have higher screen resolution. My Inspiron’s resolution is 1920×1200; to get that resolution you have to go with a 23″ Cinema Display.
#5. Java — the whole thing just works better for me on Linux. Since Apple releases the JVM/JDK, it’s just a pain, and just doesn’t quite work *exactly* like it does on everything else.
#6. I’m not forced to go to my mouse. On OS X (in Firefox) you can’t ‘tab’ to drop downs and radio buttons. There are other goofy nuances to the way
Everything is not perfect with Dell/Ubuntu. I miss:

- the aluminum case of the PowerBook, in terms of size, weight, and looks
- how OS X will automatically connect to a wireless network
- how much easier it is to watch videos, specifically WMV’s
- the prettiness of OS X
- how keyboard shortcuts are ‘proper’ meaning the control key is used for, here’s a novel idea, control characters

That said, being able to look at pretty icons as I watch the spinning beach ball while being treated like a criminal is not what I’m looking for in a computing experience.