agagag.goto10.org

Recently there was a need for full imap email accounts without having shell access to the mail server as we usually do at GOTO10.

There are quite a few docs out there but non of them doing exactly what I wanted to do or they did with partially different software so i had to mix and match from a few of them :

The exim setup from here, and the courier-imap setup here

First we need to configure courier imap.

Edit /etc/courier/authdaemonrc and make sure that authmodulelist contains "authuserdb"

------
authmodulelist="authpam authuserdb"
-----

Lets add a user called debby:

#userdb debby set uid=mail gid=mail home=/var/mail/virtual/goto10.org/debby/ mail=/var/mail/virtual/goto10.org/debby/Maildir
and set a password for her:
#userdbpw -md5 | userdb debby set systempw
and recreate the userdb with
#makeuserdb

We will keep all our virtual users under /var/mail/virtual/example.com so lets do :
#mkdir -p /var/mail/virtual/example.com/debby
#maildirmake /var/mail/virtual/example.com/debby/Maildir

We make sure that the user dir has the right permissions so the mail server can read and write. All the virtual users have the uid/gid of the mail server (8 in debian).
# chown -R mail:mail /var/mail/virtual/example.com/debby

and restart courier-authdaemon:
#/etc/init.d/courier-authdaemon restart

For exim4 I had to add this snippet in exim4.conf at the end of the router section after all mail for real users, mailing lists and system accounts has been dealt with.

----------
virtual_user:
debug_print = "R: virtual_user for $local_part@$domain"
driver = redirect
allow_defer
allow_fail
domains = +local_domains
local_parts = dsearch;/var/mail/virtual/$domain
data = /var/mail/virtual/$domain/$local_part/Maildir/
directory_transport = address_directory
pipe_transport = address_pipe
file_transport = address_file
user = mail
group = mail
-----------

If we edit the exim config file we have to restart exim4
#/etc/init.d/exim4 restart

Spent 2 days of frustration trying to figure out why offlineimap doesn't work over the vpn from my house while it does work in different locations over the same vpn. I found the solution which i am going to note here for reference.

There were quite a few variables in the problem which made it a bit more complicated:

* The VPN server side is relatively new in its latest dual server setup incarnation.

* orange adsl is also installed at the same time old thinkpad died

* I have a new thinkpad!

Initially I thought something was wrong with my new laptop setup so i spent a bit of time trying to see what was different on the new lappy. However yesterday at a different location offlineimap worked as expected so I realised that it must be my ISP causing it.

I googled a bit and found some references of people complaining about crippled vpn's on orange. Next thing to suspect is some throttling or QoS from them. Maybe a side effect of p2p limiting?
Some isp's also throttle all encrypted traffic that is not on mail or https ports I read.
This couldn't be either because I can scp fine from the same host but not though the vpn. I did the following test:

scp test.mov me@vpn.remote.host <-- works fine
scp me@vpn.remote.host . <--- hungs
scp me@remote.host . <-- works fine

This made me google for 'SCP stalling over VPN' and i found this through this thread

Next step was reading the man page for openvpn and adding

tun-mtu 1500
fragment 1300
mssfix

on both the vpn server config file and my client. The MTU of the adsl router/modem is 1492 so I change 'fragment' to 1492 in the above. This also seems to work.

Unfortunately adding the fragment settings on the server will break other clients that don't have them on their client.conf. Will look at this now.

These young starlings hanging around outside my house ready for trouble. You can tell they are young from their color (i think). The picture was taken from really far so you can not see much but I can because I took many more pictures. Its a bit like hunting but for pacifists (sometimes I do the shotgun sound when i press the shutter too).

starlings

What I also couldn't see at the time is that there are thousands of them around these days. I thought it was a rare bird that I've never seen. Starlings as I found out they are very common in Europe at least.They must decided to not migrate this year, after all its still super warm here.

Τριτη μερα του αγαπημενου μου φεστιβαλ 'μεικαρτ' στο ειδυλιακο Πουατιε, μια μικρη, ησυχη πολη καπου στη μεση της Γαλλιας. Κανα δυο φωτογραφιες :

nethack: le nethack ala makeart

Εκανα διαφορες δουλειες εδω, μια απο αυτες ηταν το στησιμο (μαζι με τον καρστεν) τριων πισι με nethack, rogue και sidequest για την εκθεση.

video-streaming-recording

Η αλλη μου δουλεια ειναι στην ομαδα εργασιας για το streaming του φεστιβαλ στο ιντερνετ, εγγραφη βιντεο και ηχο για το αρχειο. Παρα πολλη πλακα!

I found the java ide for arduino not very nice to work with. Last night with some research on the internet found this script : arduino_make.sh
Saved it somewhere in my $PATH, made it executable and edited .ardmake.sh so it knows what board i am using, port, and path to arduino files. The defaults for the last two were ok for me here so I only had to do add the board.

The script is self explainatory and it will tell you if it needs something. Its a wrapper to the makefile that comes with arduino which can be found in /opt/arduino/hardware/cores/arduino/Makefile

If we want to compile our new project called snail_porn we need to be in a directory called snail_porn and the file with the code should be called snail_porn.pde

then we run arduino_make.sh in our project directory and if all goes welll we got a subdir called 'applet' with more files in it.

to upload we run : arduino_make.sh upload

For emacs there is an emacs arduino mode too.

With arduino-017 the file /opt/arduino/hardware/cores/arduino/wiring_serial.c is missing and the build fails. I was told by the script to make an empty file in its place and all will be good so I did :
sudo touch /opt/arduino/hardware/cores/arduino/wiring_serial.c

and life was back to normal speed.

ps: I used the ubuntu arduino packaged for puredyne

Tomorrow I travel to Milan, attending ahacktitude, a festival with its theme revolving around Activism Hacking and Artivism as the name implies. It starts on the 27 until Sunday the 29th of November. On Saturday I will present, shortly - cause I tend to talk faster and faster in public - GOTO10 and makeart which starts the week after in Poitier, France and happens to be my next destination.

ahack