March 7th, 2010
One of the keys I carry around on my keyring is a YubiKey. This post really isn’t about the YubiKey itself, but more about me sharing a few insights I’ve gained on using the key.
- If you already run a Wordpress blog you can easily turn it into an OpenID provider to be used with your YubiKey. What you need is the OpenID plugin and the YubiKey plugin.
- If you decide to personalize your YubiKey I can very much recommend the DuckCorp YubikeyHelp, in addition to the official documentation.
- The new 2.x version of yubikey-val-server-php seems to prefer being part of a group of validation servers, being kept in sync with each other. Failing to figure out how to configure my standalone installation to disregard that synchronization I modified ykval-verify.php (see patch) not to perform those checks.
- The YubiKey Wordpress plugin mentioned earlier is hardcoded into using the official Yubico validation server. Apart from the validation URL, set in the function yubikey_verify_otp(), there is also the length of the key id. Just look for the numeric value 12 and you will find where the key id is being used.
No, this post is not meant to make sense on its own. You probably need to be at least somewhat familiar with the YubiKey as well as the services provided by Yubico.
Tags: authentication, OpenID, OTP, Wordpress, YubiKey
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March 6th, 2010
Seems like there has been quite a few visitors coming to this blog after having done a google search on xkcd system administrator. To spare future visitors the disappointment I might just as well post the content I believe they were looking for.
(See xkcd #705 for the full size original.)
Tags: Sysadmin, xkcd
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March 6th, 2010
Yet again things are happening in regards to the FUSE version of ZFS. That is something you very well might have missed if you, like me, had satisfied yourself with subscribing to the zfs-on-fuse.blogspot.com RSS feed.
Apparently zfs-fuse.net is where all the action takes place nowdays.
Yes I know that Btrfs most likely is the future of Linux filesystems. Yet I can’t completely shake my crush on ZFS.
Tags: FUSE, ZFS, ZFS-FUSE
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March 4th, 2010
As part of the gandi.net 10th birthday I received three promo codes, each worth a free domain name. As I have no real use for them myself I’m giving the promo codes away.
- 10YRS-8206-D3B6-2E0A (taken)
- 10YRS-9225-B0BF-E19C (taken)
- 10YRS-0418-6875-90E7 (taken)
Do note that the promo codes are only valid up until the 31th of Mars, and only for the following top-level domains: .fr, .tel, .com, .net, .info, .me, .mobi, .uk, .be and .eu. Also note that the domain name will only be free for the first year, and that you will have to start paying for the name the second year, if you decide to keep it.
Tags: domain names, Gandi
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March 1st, 2010
In a default Ubuntu, and probably any other modern Gnome based Linux desktop, the Gnome keyring takes the role of the ssh-agent. If this is not desirable you can tell the keyring not to do that by setting the gconf variable /apps/gnome-keyring/daemon-components/ssh to false.
$ gconftool -s –type bool /apps/gnome-keyring/daemon-components/ssh false
At the next login you should see your environment variable SSH_AUTH_SOCK pointing towards a more proper socket. Note that the real ssh-agent is still started, assuming Ubuntu, thanks to /etc/X11/Xsession.d/90×11-common_ssh-agent.
Tags: GNOME, gnome-keyring, ssh, ssh-agent, Ubuntu
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February 27th, 2010
Just installed the third alfa release of Ubuntu 10.04 (aka Lucid Lynx) on my Netbook, an Inspiron Mini 10v. So far nothing seems terrible broken. Of course, at this point so far merely consists of booting the system, connecting to the wireless, firing up the web browser, etc.
When trying out the new alfa release, please consider reporting bugs you discover. The earlier bugs are found, the greater the chance for them to actually get fixed in time for the final release.
Tags: Lucid, netbook, Ubuntu
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February 24th, 2010
Little more than a month ago I bought myself a Das Keyboard (ultimate edition) from getDigital.de. Well, actually I ordered it over three month ago, but last month was when I actually received it. Anyway, figured I would share a few thoughts about it.
- The keyboard is a real full size, rather heavy, solid keyboard. It almost literary screams quality.
- You get a very snappy feedback from all the keys. That really makes the typing much more comfortable.
- By design the keyboard makes the classic “clicky” sound when you type at it. Whatever this is a good or a bad thing probably depends both on your personal preferences as well as your surrounding. Myself I would most likely have preferred a more quiet keyboard.
- I really think it is a shame that there is a red and white “daskeyboard” logo up in the right corner. Would have been much slicker with a completely black keyboard; kind of like the stunt ship in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
- Having an internal USB 2.0 hub in the keyboard is something which has turned out to be a lot more convenient than I imagined. It definitely feels more accessible than using a hub in the monitor.
In short, yes I’m very happy with my new keyboard.
Tags: Das Keyboard, HHGTTG, typing, USB
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February 21st, 2010
As hopefully apparent by now, my blog has returned. In addition to giving the blog something of a redesign, I have also been doing some thinking on how to keep it updated.
One reason I tend not to write overly much is that it takes quite a bit for me to accept a post as sufficiently well written, interesting and/or relevant. Of course, no blog posts are no fun either. Twitter (@andol) on the hand comes very natural. Hence I will actively try to allow myself writing shorter blog post, with a simpler language. For now, my blog won’t be pushed to any blog planets.
The new layout is basically a modified, and striped down, version of the default Wordpress theme. In short, I’ve primarily made three changes to the design.
- Removed all image elements from the theme, saving me the hassle of having to using anything else than Emacs to modify the layout.
- Changed the theme color to something else than the default blue. The new color just happened to end up being green.
- Made sure the right-sidebar-layout is also used when viewing a single blog post.
If anything looks broken, please let me know.
Tags: blog, theme, Wordpress
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October 6th, 2009
As of now you can visit this web site using IPv6. This thanks to a tunnel provided to me by SixXS. Please report any problems you might experience.
Well, at least you can kind of visit this site using IPv6. You still need an IPv4 connection to look up the domain name. Providing IPv6 DNS response will probably have to wait until I get native IPv6, which according to the post IPv6 for Gandi (coming soon!) might not be that far into the future.
UPDATE: Now using a Gandi (beta) IPv6 address.
Tags: Gandi, IPv6, SixXS
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September 30th, 2009
One of the projects the Swedish Ubuntu LoCo has been working on this summer is a Swedish equivalent of the web site help.ubuntu.com. Being able to give someone a direct url to the (translated) documentation can sometimes help a lot. Hence I’m now very glad to be able to announce our very own…
At this point there are a few people I would like to thank. Obviously the most import contributors are our translation team, under the lead of Daniel Nylander. Without them there wouldn’t really be much to put on the site in the first place. Secondly I would also like to mention our server administrator Lars Ljung, who gave us a framework to work on by providing the initial modifications to the original XSLT templates.
If any other LoCo would like to embark on a similar project, feel free to contact us to get some pointers. While all our work are available in the Launchpad project ubuntu-se-help I’m not sure how much good it will do others in its current stage. Creating a cleaner, and better documented, structure is definitely on the todo list. Of course it would also be very interesting to hear from others who already do similar things, and from whom we perhaps could get some pointers ourself.
On a completly different note, don’t forget the Ubuntu Bug Jam in Linköping now on saturday.
Tags: documentation, LoCo, translation, Ubuntu
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