testing

February 3, 2009 on 9:36 am | In ramblings | No Comments

php-5.2.6-4

installing eprints 3.1 on fedora core 9

July 7, 2008 on 2:26 pm | In ramblings | No Comments

this morning i started playing with eprints to evaluate how well it could get along in our shared environment, behind our load balancer.  eprints tries to take over whatever hostname you give it in the apache settings, to it will require at least its own virtual host per install, and i’m not sure how its required indexing service will fare behind our load balancer.

in setting up eprints-3.1.0-rc2 on my rather vanilla fedora 9 box, i found a few steps missing from the fedora 7 documentation at wiki.eprints.org.  i know, i should update the wiki page for FC9, but i don’t know them like that, and to make things worse, i’m lazy.  so, here are my augmented instructions.

commands are assumed to be run as root as are the instructions on eprints’ wiki, though i did everything with sudo.  the below instructions also assume that you have a mysql server installed somewhere, that you know its root password, and that said mysql-server will allow root connections from the host used for the eprints installation – if you’re doing this on a stand-alone box, localhost will do nicely.  commands that didn’t need to be run on my stock fedora box are in green to denote them as optional.  well, i hope they’re in green; i’m colorblind.  finally, i’m installing beneath /var/www/html/eprints3 instead of the default /opt/eprints3.

  1. yum install gdome2 gdome2-devel (not on FC9 by default)
  2. yum install tetex-latex ImageMagick (already on FC9 by default)
  3. yum install antiword (not on FC9 by default)
  4. yum install xpdf (not on FC9 by default)
  5. yum install perl-Unicode-String perl-MIME-Lite perl-XML-LibXML perl-XML-Parser (not on FC9 by default)
  6. yum install perl-CPAN (not on FC9 by default!?!?!?!?)
  7. cpan Term::ReadKey
  8. Install XML::GDOME from source (not on FC9 by default)
  9. useradd -M -d /var/www/html/eprints3 -s /sbin/nologin eprints
  10. usermod -a -G eprints apache
  11. download and untar eprints source
  12. ./configure –with-smtp-server=localhost
  13. ./install.pl (i edited this to install in /var/www/html/eprints3 instead of /opt/eprints3)
  14. /var/www/html/bin/generate_apacheconf (missing from instructions)
  15. echo “Include /var/www/html/eprints3/cfg/apache.conf > /etc/httpd/conf.d/eprints3.conf”
  16. ln -s /var/www/html/eprints3/bin/epindexer /etc/init.d/epindexer
  17. /sbin/chkconfig –add epindexer (missing from instructions)
  18. /sbin/chkconfig –level 345 epindexer on (missing from instructions)
  19. /etc/init.d/epindexer start
  20. su -s /bin/sh eprints
  21. cd /var/www/html/eprints3
  22. bin/epadmin create
  23. /etc/init.d/httpd configtest (’cause I’m like that)
  24. /etc/init.d/httpd restart (if configtest returns OK)
  25. browse to your installation’s URL(hostname) and have fun!

php-5.2.6 on rhel4

June 26, 2008 on 8:36 pm | In ramblings | No Comments

building php-5.2.6 to our specifications on rhel4 gave me a little trouble, so i thought i’d write up the process here.

build environment: vanilla rhel 4.4/i386 install. httpd-2.0.52, apr- and apr-util-0.9.4.

prerequisites: most of the install- and build requirements are included in rhel, except for pcre and pcre-devel. i grabbed the pcre-7.3 src.rpm from our fedora mirror, compiled and installed.

the mysql AB client gave us some surprises. it installs its own, bundled version of zlib among other things, and i found that php-5.2.6 won’t (for me, anyway) install against the mysql-5.0.51a client or the mysql-5.0.45 client.  i had planned on updating the mysql client installs on our web nodes, but i wound up dropping my build box back to mysql-5.0.27.  voila, function ‘adler32′ not supported’ errors all gone!

build: i grabbed the php-5.2.6 src rpm from our fedora mirror and installed it.

here is a link to the .spec file i used.  i basically commented out the packages not offered under rhel4 (libmcrypt, mhash, libtidy) and the packages we won’t need (mssql, freetds).

i had been working as an unprivileged user privileged with sudo, but php-5.2.6 won’t compile for gcc3, so i was lazy, su’ed, exported CC=gcc4, and continued on as root:

$ rpmbuild -bp /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/php.spec

(satisfy dependencies here)

$ rpmbuild -ba –target=i686 /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/php.spec

i recommend comparing the stock 5.2.6 php.ini against your current php.ini, as there are some new stanzas, some removed, etc. of note is the new allow_url_include directive, which is not in the php.ini file, and defaults to off.  this means that any include() statements that attempt to load a url will instead throw an error.  we researched this for a bit and discussed the pros and cons of leaving allow_url_include’s set to its default of off versus the disruption it would cause in our contributors’ sites.  we decided to leave it off globally, but allow it, per-directory, by request.

in discovering allow_url_include we viewed many of our contributors’ sites today under 5.2.6, and generally found that wordpress, mediawiki, and other software packages that adhere to ‘best practices’ were fine, while older, home-rolled php scripts threw some errors.

work for UNC? here’s how to view your paystub.

June 6, 2008 on 7:47 am | In ramblings, tech stoof | 1 Comment

UNC recently stopped sending out paper paystubs, a move which my inner environmentally conscious earth child wholly supports. however, the paystub notification e-mails from finance decline to include a link to the electronic paystubs for security reasons. my co-worker became quite grouchy whilst trying to find his paystub this morning. so, as a service to the UNC community, i am posting instructions for viewing one’s paystub should one work for UNC.

  1. browse to http://my.unc.edu and login with your OnYEN
  2. staff: click on the ’staff’ tab. others: i hope you have a tab!
  3. click ‘See your paystub’, then allow pop-ups and click it again.
  4. log in with your OnYEN again. welcome to the Payroll Services Pay Stub Application.
  5. choose a pay period, and click ‘Display Pay Stub’
  6. allow pop-ups and click ‘Display Pay Stub’ again. whistles will toot and gears will whir, and if you’re running Windows, your browser will present your paystub. if you’re not running Windows, your browser will present a file called ‘displayPayStub.do’ and ask what to do with it.
  7. save ‘displayPayStub.do’ and rename it to something like paystub-yyyymmdd, changing the extension to ‘.pdf’ so that your computer will know how to open it. my co-worker did a Google search for ‘.do extension’ but Google tried to sell him weave. honest.

best of luck!

garfield minus garfield

March 6, 2008 on 9:35 am | In ramblings | No Comments

a favorite link from this week’s popbitch:

“Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness in a quiet American suburb.”

enjoy at http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

i love getting my hair cut

December 5, 2007 on 3:31 pm | In ramblings | No Comments

so, i stopped in my favorite barbershop for a haircut after lunch.  today the barber was very animated – he had brought his registered, legal gun with him today, because he was going to find the gentleman who bought his old car from him and wasn’t making the payments.  he stopped cutting my hair at one point to call a friend of a friend to find out where this guy’s wife’s condominium complex was located.  he said as soon as he finished cutting my hair, he was going to go to the condo and get his car back.

i’ll definitely be checking the police reports tomorrow :)

the basement of phillips hall

September 14, 2007 on 12:45 pm | In ramblings | No Comments

so, during the renovations of the steele building, the advising department had to move somewhere.  poor, poor academic advising.  they got moved temporarily into the basement of phillips hall!  the old machine room, still with raised floor, is now silent save the clacking of computer keys.  the secretaries, lacking any natural light, provide their own sunshine as they welcome new students, along with old OIT employees who pop their head in the door for old times’ sake.

the dumbwaiter is still in the office in the back hallway, as is the water-filled pit beneath the sub-basement.  trey harris used to throw rocks in there to listen to them sploosh.  anyone who worked in the basement of phillips should walk through – surreal to have plush chairs lining the walls and undergrads wandering around looking for their advisor.

franks, fireworks and war protests

July 10, 2007 on 8:36 am | In ramblings | No Comments

took archie to my friend lily’s cookout on july 4th, then off to kenan stadium for fireworks.  nice for him to walk around campus as the UNC school of nursing is his first choice in the area.  i tried to snap firework fotos on my new camera but they didn’t come out well – the next day i discovered it had a pretty well-hidden fireworks mode.

you know you’re in chapel hill when you’re sitting in a football stadium with thousands of other people watching a july 4th fireworks display, and what do you hear over the p.a. system?  war!  huh!  good gawd y’all!   followed by peace train.  the show opened and closed with distinctly patriotic selections, but the combination of july 4th fireworks and war protest music has been burned indelibly in my mind, for all the right reasons.

the woburn hilton

July 5, 2007 on 8:28 am | In ramblings | No Comments

we stayed for two nights at the hilton boston/woburn at the
intersection of i-95 and i-93.  an attractive building with beautifully
decorated rooms, a huge glassed in lobby and heated indoor pool.  well,
they try to heat it, but the cold boston earth makes sure that doesn’t
happen.  the hotel boasts a raucuous bar in the lobby, nice conference
and ballrooms on the third floor, and an unlocked grand piano in the
lobby beneath our balcony.

to make sure you knew you were in boston, the elevator directional
lights didn’t work – a slight pain as only one elevator descended all
the way to the underground parking.

the pool closes at 10 p.m. but the employees don’t enforce it, so
children splash and scream well into the night.  a young girl knew how
to play fur elise and a few other classical learning pieces, and her
proud papa videotaped her as she smiled and banged them out.  too bad it
was nearly midnight.

the hotel employees were beyond accomodating; as pleasant as the
service industry workers in montreal – which is saying something.  if
you would like to enjoy a drink at the beautiful lobby bar or take a dip
in the (slightly) heated indoor pool, definitely consider the hilton
boston/woburn.  but be aware that guests apparently don’t come to the
hilton to sleep – and neither will you.

fun with cymatics

May 2, 2007 on 7:29 am | In ramblings | No Comments

cute video on youtube.  don’t forget to buy the book and the CD.

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