I have been working a lot with Linux lately, special with the RedHat derivatives (CentOS, Fedora) , since this is almost mandatory at my work.

This last week, I spent all the time in this new workstation, with a Fedora 14 fresh install, and like all fresh installs, the system does not quite meet all my customizations and needs.

Java from Sun (or Oracle or something like that, I don’t keep track anymore) it’s the best choice when it comes to using Java, but like all things not fully OpenSource, it’s not 100% integrated into the system… (to be fair, even OSS tend not to integrate itself)! To had to the confusion of open VS closed software I use in my workstation, I am using Chrome (and not Chromium), because I like it better (better video support, among other stuff).

Long story, short, this quick tutorial is what I did to have Java running inside Chrome. I am going to skip the part where you install Chrome, Java and of course, Fedora 14, and go straight to solution!

Here it is:

#mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins
#cd /opt/google/chrome/plugins
# ln -s /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_22/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so .

And that’s it! Restart Chrome and you are up and running! Oh, by the way I am using a 64 bits distro, so if you are stuck in 32 bit retro, go ahead and adapt the path of libnpjp2.so.

Now you can make nice worldes of your log files! Have fun!

Here is how you do it:

• First, with you device (iPhone or iPod) go to bit.ly/eduroam_ualg (my UAlg’s student homepage). You have got to do this with your 3G connection, or other WiFi network.
• Download the eduroam_UAlg.mobileconfig file to your device
• A dialog will appear, asking to install a new profile. Click Install and after that,  Install Now (it will say that this procedure will change setting on your device)
• Once the new profile is installed and verified, a new dialog asking for your username, will appear. Input your UAlg’s credentials (normally it is your e-mail, in the form of aXXXXX@ualg.pt), and then click Next
• The next dialog will say in green Verified, you just have to click Done
• Once you are inside the campus, go to your WiFi Networks in system preferences, and click on the eduroam access point, that now shows up.
• Your e-mail should now show up, and you should insert your password.
• When joining for the first time, you have to accept the certificate, by clicking the Accept button.
• After this, you can start surfing! No need to configure proxy settings!

I hope this helps everyone to stay connected without problems. If you are having difficulty with some of the steps, leave a comment, and I will be happy to help you sorting this out. Also, if it keeps asking for the password, tell me. I think I solved this problem, but you never know….

Here are the steps necessary, this time, with some screenshots:

[Show as slideshow]

1. Download Putty to you desktop
2. Change the name of the file, from putty.exe to ssh.exe
3. Move this file to your Windows directory (should be on you drive C:\)
4. Press Windows Key + R (shortcut for run command)
5. Type ssh user@remote.example.com (use your own user and server)

If you got everything right, you now will be asked for your user password.. You can do it even smarter, and use public key authentication, which I love so much, and no more typing would be necessary.

Very cool right? No more fiddling for Putty.exe, no more clicks, no more hassle.. Just “RUN+ssh+options” and this will get you there! Like I said, SSH on Windows… The smart way!

Enjoy!

I came up with a name for this project, and the cool thing, is that I can use my domain as an acronym. So DBUGS stands for Digital Backup Using Gmail Storage.

So, what do I have in mind? Well, I came across some weeks ago, with Richard Jone s’s project, the GmailFS. This project, and using his words, provides a mountable Linux filesystem which uses your Gmail account as its storage medium. I read the entire site, and several other sites on the web, only to find out, that although this already can be achieved, some problems still need to be fixed, but since my project for now, exists only on paper, I hope that in the future, a more robust GmailFS, can be used.

What I propose here, is, to combine some cool open source technologies, to obtain a big, expandable online backup, but things like cost and reliability also come to my mind. Now it’s possible to create your own Gmail account for free, and all the tools I suggest using are open-source, so the cost factor, it’s only regarding your Internet connection, which by all means, must be broadband!

So, since it’s possible to mount GMail accounts locally, I started imagining the possibility, to use 2 accounts in a RAID1 setup (mirror), where Gmail_account1 would be the mirror of Gmail_account2. This way, data would be backed up twice, in two different locations. If one dies, the other remains alive, while we add a new one to the array. When I say 2 accounts (arrays), I mean n arrays, since, for RAID1 you can use 2+n arrays, this way, data is mirrored against several locations.

The next step in my theory would be size. Google already offers almost 3GB of storage, and rumors are that they will increase this for 9GB+, but what about if you want more? My thoughts went straight to a LVM setup, for the extra layer of complexity! Now we would have 2+n arrays, each made by LVM volumes, which
would be created using several (1 + N) accounts. Confused? I am! This way, each of the RAID1 array would be stripped across different accounts, and in the future, if we wanted to expand the size of our online backup disk, it was just a matter of creating new accounts, and adding those to each of the LVMs, so our RAID1 array would get bigger.

I also thought of security, and the best to do this, is using disk encryption. Another layer is added to the already tricky setup, but this is not important in the beginning, since for testing, I would not use sensitive data.

To perform the backups, I really think it’s a good idea to use some sort of rsync+cp+mv solution that performs incremental backups, without taking too much space. You can find many options for this online, but one my favorites is RSnapshot. A good source of information for this type of backup is Mike Rubel’s site on the subject.

And that’s it! Several problems must be addressed, and that’s why I started this post. I don’t know if it is either a very stupid idea, or if it can be accomplished and become a cool project. I’m working on some solutions, and I really hope I can post something on the subject anytime soon. Why should I even try this? Because I really think this is a cool idea, and perhaps I will not achieve what I intend, but in the process of failing, lies a path of learning… get it? =)

Please feel free to drop comments on this subject, with suggestions, critics or your help for the project. I’m more than happy to welcome you aboard. Let’s get this one off the paper, and make it work!

First I drew with a pencil, the outline for the disk adapter, which I had at home, then I started cutting, one by one, the sheets of thick paper (they were 60 of them). When I reached the end, I had to make a few adjustments so the blue LED and the USB plug could fit OK, and started to glue each page to each other… unfortunately, my glue was really bad, so I decided to do this later, I just wanted to see the end!

Things went well, and now I have a really cool external hard drive. I even have the Moleskine icon when the disk is connected to my Mac, so I couldn’t be more happy! To finish the “spy” disk, I created a encrypted 40GB image in Apple’s Disk Utility, and put this inside my hard drive. Now I have a really safe place to store sensible information (which I know its not safe, since this can burn at any moment, but I make backups, don’t worry).

There you have it… (time+moleskine+hard drive+nothing better to do = moleskine external drive)
Hope you like it, give me your opinion!