I am using Ubuntu “Daily builds” for some time inside Suns VirtualBox. Unfortunately the daily builds are not longer booting inside VirtualBox for more then 2 weeks now. Christian told me about a new feature of Grub2. You can boot ISO images directly from your hard disk without burning them on CD or USB. Awesome feature and I had to try it today. Here is the description on how to do it with Ubuntu 9.10.

First I am using this tiny script to update all daily builds with the zsync tool. It transfers only the changed parts of the ISO so you and the Ubuntu teams save a lot of traffic.

zsync http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/lucid-desktop-i386.iso.zsync
cd kubuntu
zsync http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily-live/current/lucid-desktop-i386.iso.zsync
cd ../netbook
zsync http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook/daily-live/current/lucid-netbook-i386.iso.zsync
cd ../xubunutu
zsync http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/daily-live/current/lucid-desktop-i386.iso.zsync
cd ..
rm `find ./ -name "*.zs-old" `

This script keeps all my daily builds up to date.

Next Step is to enable the grub menu. In Ubuntu it can be done in “/etc/default/grub“. Change the following lines

GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=false

With this change you will see a 10 seconds count down when booting up. With the shift-key you get access to the grub boot menu. Next is to add the ISO images to the grub menu. Change to the “/etc/grub.d” dir.

Here you can find the grub menu entries and configuration files. Add your ISO images starting with 50 here. For example my entry for the normal Ubuntu ISO image (50_ubuntu) looks like this:

echo "Adding $(egrep menu[e]ntry $0 | cut -d'"' -f2)" >&2
 cat << EOF
menuentry "Ubuntu 10.04 Daily Build" {
       loopback loop (hd0,3)/ansi/software_and_config/ISOs/ubuntu/lucid-desktop-i386.iso
       linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ansi/software_and_config/ISOs/ubuntu/lucid-desktop-i386.iso file=(loop)/preseed/ubuntu.seed quiet splash bootkbd=sg --
       initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

My ISO files are stored on sda3 under /ansi/software_and_config/ISOs/ubuntu/. In order to change it for your needs there are 3 elements to change. The loopback line contains your hard disk in grub style (hdx,y  x=0->sda x=1->sdb aso) and the path. The third element to change is in the linux line. Store this file as “50_ubuntu” in “/etc/grub.d“, make it executable with “chmod a+x 50_ubuntu” and activate the changes with “ubdate-grub“. After a reboot you should be able to activate the grub menu with the shift-key and select the new entry. Have fun.

I found some pages on this topic but the description there was not working for me so I changed it. But take a look on your own:

• http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/lucid-lynx-ohne-cd-brennen-auf-realem-system-/#post-2326751
• http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/GRUB_2/Konfiguration

I just run through several Chrome Extensions and here is my list of extensions I can recommend. Please write some comments if you have additional  recommendations.

• Read It Later, very usefull to store webpages for later reading: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/bkikpncfbjndhfkipijhdoddiadaipaa
• Gmail Notification: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/mihcahmgecmbnbcchbopgniflfhgnkff
• Use Gmail as default mailer: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/pgphcomnlaojlmmcjmiddhdapjpbgeoc
• Forecastfox: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ihffmkcfkejomlfnilnmkokcpgclhfeg
• Delicious: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/anlkjppofaicbdanhhpbbogknfodfhfm
• Last.fm: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/nbjfhhdfhoccglhllgdfcknjgjbifcjk
• TwitterBar: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/pbadgdglepgngpoeijdgicjccomadekm
• Page reload: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/njoipeaphfnaplplihpbgndfojhdhmjo
• Google Latitude: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/bhencimpdjidjlgopdgofmkeojbiacie
• Remember the milk: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/chieodlkhimccchlojdmiondhiggkhmf
• Youtube with HTML5 instead of flash: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/kchoimdlcbapmcdnheaahjcdpdjdpfco
• Beautify Facebook: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/ipnenhkngeiigfbhacdhadcnjjklhblm
• Facebook Extention: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/hfdhelbngglkahnmlggcbjlkbddhkffm
• RapidShare Download Remover: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/iciefpkfldmhehakpkphbclofdhiojih

I just played a little bit with APRS igate on Linux. There are some igate software available on Linux but the most supported package (javAPRESSrvr) is not available today because of an error on Yahoogroups where the files are hosted.

Therefore I installed xastir from Sourceforge and connected the the local running instance with the APRS-IS network. Now DM1AS is visible on FINDU.

Nice side effect on this, the server generates an Google Maps page every 5 minutes with APRS stations around my home. Maybe tomorrow I connect my radio to the igate and there will be more local stations available.

So far you can see the map here:http://tinyurl.com/nacc5k

View Larger Map

My blog will be offline on sunday for some time because I will reinstall the server with new HD and Ubuntu 9.04.

Sipgate has a very nice API to access the phonebook or write click2call applications. You can also check your voicemail (or as it is called in the API Unified Message). Unfortunately you can only get information on the amount of messages and if they are read or not. With a small wget script you can also download the WAV files and send them for example to your Nabaztag. Its cool to come home and your Nabaztag tells you about absent calls end presents you the message without picking up the phone or starting the laptop.

You need one wget call to get your PHPsession key:

 wget --no-check-certificate \

--save-cookies /home/ansi/.cookies/sipgate \

--keep-session-cookies \

--post-data "uname=Username&passw=Passwd&lasturi=%2Fuser%2Findex.php&jsh=1&okey.x=0&okey.y=0" \
"https://secure.sipgate.de/user/index.php"

Important to set your Username and Passwd in the script. Wget will then store your PHPsession key to your .cookies folder.

With

 wget "https://secure.sipgate.de/user/voicemail.php?\
       file=0001&status=new" \
       --load-cookies /home/ansi/.cookies/sipgate \
       --no-check-certificate
       -O 1.wav

you can download your voice messages as wav files. Then a little “lame” and an Nabaztag API call and your Voicemail will be presented to you as soon as you come home. Have fun.

Thanks to Oli (@EOLUS) I am now Beta Tester of Pachube. Cool Web 2.0 Service for Real Time Data exchange. People are streaming their measurement data with geographical informations in CSV or EEML XML format and can exchange their data.

I am now streaming my server temperature just for testing. Check out

http://www.pachube.com/api/1287.xml

Hope more will follow soon.

Its very easy to send your data from linux. For example with curl and csv:

/usr/bin/curl -X PUT -H “X-PachubeApiKey: abc123″ -d “`/bin/cat  /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | /usr/bin/cut -c 26-27`,” http://www.pachube.com/api/1287.csv

Important is your Pachube key in the header of the PUT request. And your feed ID. With this example I am catching the acpi CPU temp and send them to Pachube.

And here is the counter:

1. ssh -X server #as normal user
2. xterm #for testing if export display as normal user works
3. echo $DISPLAY #write it down
4. xauth #enters the shell of xauth
   1. list # find the line with the display number from step 3 for me it was “wpsvm054/unix:12 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 071df2e12cfff0ed75fd0af5869665f7″ remember the first part of it
   2. quit #to leave the shell
5. xauth extract filename system/unix:12 # the line from step 4.1
6. sudo su – # to become root
7. xauth merge filename # filename from step 5
8. export DISPLAY=:nummer.0 #Displaynumber from step 3 resp. 4.1
9. xterm #for testing

Hope it works on other systems too.

apt-get install postfix

or choose dpkg-reconfigure postfix when you allready installed postfix before.

The configuration working for me is “satelite”.

1. System Mail Name: your maildomain name (interblc.com) not the dns name of your server.
2. SMTP relay host:smtp.1und1.de
3. Root and Postmaster mail recipient: your user account or external email address
4. Other destinations to accept mail for: your servername, localhost.localdomain,localhost
5. Force synchronous updates on mail queue: If you have ext3 oder reiser NO otherwise better YES
6. Local Networks: 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128
7. Procmail for local delivery: Yes
8. Mailbox size limit: 0
9. Local address extension character: +
10. Internet Protocol:All

Edit /etc/postfix/main.cf and add these lines at the end:

smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_password

Create /etc/postfox/sasl_password with one line:

smtp.1und1.de MAILACCOUNT_at_1und1:PASSWD

Create and db file from this passwd file with

postmap /etc/postfix/sasl_password

Restart postfix with:

/etc/init.d/postfix restart
Now it should work. Give it a try with

date | mail -s “testing” regen@wetter.de

and watch the logfile with

tail -f /var/log/mail.log

Additionally a changed something so here are the description for the latest greatest version. I do not repeat his description only point out the changes.

There is a new version of the xmpPHP library available at least a new release candidate.

http://xmpphp.googlecode.com/files/xmpphp-0.1beta-r50.tar.gz

Beside

 cp xmpphp/*.php ../extlib/

also

cp -R xmpphp/XMPPHP ../extlib/

to copy the necessary libraries.
In order to convince apache2 to accept the rewrite it is neccessary to activate the rewrite module with

a2enmod rewrite

/etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

The XMPP Part is still not running but I try this tomorrow.

Sodale, after a long time my colleagues convinced me to start a blog. WordPress is now up and running. Lets see what I will write here.