Setup Amavisd-new

Posted by BadReligion Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:39:00 GMT

I finally configured amavisd-new with my Postfix configuration. It is a simple setup using only ClamAV and Spamassassin. However I do want to implement DKIM through amavisd-new of course that requires a newer version of amavisd-new than is in the packaging system of the release of Ubuntu I am running.

Further I would like to switch my Linode to Debian over Ubuntu.

It is safe to expect some downtime soon likely tonight as a result of upgrading through two releases.

I will post a part 2 once the upgrade is complete and I implement DKIM with the details of what I did.

Posted in , , ,  | Tags , , , , , , , ,  | no comments

Rocky Migration

Posted by BadReligion Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:02:00 GMT

So the move to Typo has not gone as smooth as I'd hoped. Not to any fault of the Typo software, I feel that the issues are mostly related to typical migration from a custom built application to a prebuilt solution. Furthermore I am not turning back by any means. I know that once I get some of the details ironed out the site will get more attention and I will be much happier with it.

I need to tweak my Capistrano deployment scripts to be Typo friendly. Some confusion seems to exist when Capistrano tries to restart Typo, I have concluded that when Typo tries to stop the current running daemon it cannot find the pid.txt because it exists in the previous release which has already been unlinked. Some simple Capistrano magic will fix that.

I am also having some issues with themes. They worked fine at first but now it seems that only the default Typo theme actually installs its images and stylesheets into public. Each theme when active installs its custom images and stylesheets into public/images/theme and public/stylesheets/theme. The proper URL's are not generated either.

Lastly I have only migrated in the old blogs, I have migrated categories but none are linked up yet. I will probably migrate the comments, but since so few exist I have prioritized getting the site functioning the way I want it.

Posted in , , ,  | Tags , , , , ,  | no comments

Considering Moving To Typo

Posted by BadReligion Thu, 03 Sep 2009 10:00:00 GMT

I am considering moving the site to Typo to replace the blog and using Flickr to manage the photo album. I am not sure what I will do about the Utilities. I need to see if I can easily extend Typo or not.

The main reason for this is simply that I end up spending more time managing code and adding new features than I do managing the content of the site. I have yet to dive into Typo and see what capabilities are there. Hopefully if I decide to make this migration, the change will cause me to upload more photos, write more blogs about stuff nobody cares about, and just improve the content of the site in general.

Sean

Posted in , , ,  | no comments

All Apologies

Posted by BadReligion Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:40:00 GMT

Sorry for all the 503 errors lately. It seems to be a bug in Haproxy 1.3.12 which is the latest package available to the Ubuntu distribution running on my VPS (running this site). I don’t feel like compiling the latest version which sounds to have a fix. Instead I will be dropping Apache2 → Haproxy entirely, in favor of Nginx. This suits my VPS much better, the current setup is total overkill anyway.

I’m really excited about this, and it should greatly increase the response time of the site. I hope to have this going before the weekend so I can spend some time adding features and fixing code for the site.

Posted in , , ,  | no comments

Website moved

Posted by BadReligion Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:12:00 GMT

Well as far as the website goes, the move has been made. It wasn’t a total success but I’m just glad I now have full control to configure everything the way I want it. I unfortunately answered wrong when I told the BlueHost representative that I didn’t need any files off the server. I had a backup of my files but not the database. Which really sucks because two days earlier I had written a database backup script and put it in cron. I did take the content out of Google’s page caches and recreated some of the blogs from it. Anyway things will be much better now and I can’t wait to test my capabilities. It may not look different but the site will have a much faster response time now. FastCGI was just bogging it down especially on shared hosting. I will also be able to set up better caching. I have yet to setup a mail server but I have other things to focus on at the moment, perhaps I will get that done either later today or more likely tomorrow.

I am using “Capistrano” to deploy now so I have been heavily customizing its tasks as well. You can do some interesting things with “Capistrano” many of which are even beyond my skill and creativity. For instance the default deploy:restart task wasn’t working with my application. I could have investigated the issue but instead I figured why not just write a new one since its a simple command to restart my Mongrel clusters. I took this code snippet I found here and modified it to just replace the default tasks as shown below.

namespace :deploy do
  [ :start, :restart, :stop ].each do |t|
    desc "#{t.to_s.capitalize} mongrel using mongrel_cluster_ctl"
    task t, :roles => :app do
      sudo "mongrel_cluster_ctl #{t.to_s} -c #{mongrel_conf}"
    end
  end
end

Since we are using the same namespace:task scheme these will get called in place of the default tasks. If you want to keep the defaults in place just change the namespace to suit your needs and add in the proper hooks.

I’m out of here for now

Sean

Posted in , , ,  | no comments

Cause for MIA

Posted by BadReligion Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:23:00 GMT

I see its been almost a full week since I wrote anything, not that anyone is really reading yet. Anyway there is very good reason for this. Nobody died, I'm not sick or anything. I did however buy Fallout 3, and have been playing as if it is earning me money or something. The game is really amazing, it isn't too harsh on hardware requirements either. So I have been playing that a lot and haven't really touched anything on this site or the code for it. I did add RSS feeds before buying the game though :).

I am taking a break tonight however, I am going to work on some code for another half hour or so. I have just added RedCloth to the mix. I did use FCKEditor before, but all it did was piss me off. Its not really meant for people who know HTML well.

I am also hoping to squeeze in time after finishing this blog to do some SEO for the site which I haven't done any of yet. Also on the task list is some controller caching, that way at least some of that is done once my SEO earns me some traffic!

As far as whats going on in my personal life, nothing has changed much lately. Since winter is arriving I have been lifting in my room more, and trying to pack on a few pounds, while still keeping my hands fast and muscles toned. Trying to sell junk to make some cash and open up space. Thats about it!

Back to the code!
Sean

Posted in , , ,  | no comments

Feel like death!

Posted by BadReligion Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:10:00 GMT

The title says it all! Please excuse any typos and neglect of: proper english, formatting or anything you would expect in a decent writing. It is 6:27AM and I feel like I am about to keel over. On a lighter note I have made a bit of overhaul for the better on the site. Please do comment and let me know your thoughts. Don’t hold back I’m a programmer not a designer and I’m known for having thick skin so you won’t hurt my feelings.

Aside from hanging out and watching the free UFC with my friends, tonight sort of sucked. I was anticipating the Pavlik vs. Hopkins fight for weeks now and was no less than unprepared. None of the usual spots around town were ordering the event! Neither myself or anyone I know were going to order the event. Then Pavlik lost to polish off the night. Not that I’m dissatisfied to see Hopkins win, I am also a huge fan of Hopkins…he’s just not from Ohio!!! I still look forward to watching the fight for FREE next week! I think it will be re-aired on HBO but I could be wrong about the HBO part.

I did have a good workout today. I don’t know how far I ran but I’d estimate a good 3 miles. I expect my shins to be throbbing tomorrow. The inner side of my left ankle has also been giving me problems and I haven’t been able to shake that yet either. Hopefully I’ll get some shoe inserts and my running form straightened out so I can run further and more often soon.

I’m just going to go to bed now, as I forsee a very short day tomorrow as far as being awake and competent. Then Monday morning MORE PROGRAMMING wooooooohoooo!

Going to go pass out

Sean

Posted in , , ,  | no comments