Linux – devPlant

“Unknown job” errors when installing vmware tools in Ubuntu

Recently I’ve tried to install new vmware tools in Ubuntu 14.04.1 after upgrading VMware Workstation to version 10, and the build process crashed with errors like Unknown job: vmware-tools or Unknown job: vmware-tools-thinprint

After some debugging, I’ve found out that the problem was due to the fact that I was running the build process using sudo -s -E command, which gave me administrator rights, but kept some environment variables that messed initscripts-related commands (service, status and other from upstart package), on which build process relies. The solution is to build vmware-tools under clean environment for root user. To do that, gain superuser rights with sudo su - command, and then build vmware-tools as usual.

The tip above applies to general “unknown job” problem with starting/restarting services, not only to the vmware-tools build process.

[redmine] “Email delivery is not configured” error

If you get this error on Redmine‘s email notification configuration page:

Email delivery is not configured, and notifications are disabled. Configure your SMTP server in config/email.yml and restart the application to enable them.

you did configure config/email.yml file, and you did restart the application, and this message is still showing in the administration panel, you can try placing the email.yml file in other directory. For me, it helped when I placed it in /etc/redmine/default/, where Debian keeps YAML configuration files for Redmine installation instances. If you run multiple instances on one host, you may have to change default subdirectory name to the instance name.
I’m writing this post because while the solution is trivial, I’ve noticed that many questions about this error on Redmine’s forum remains unanswered.

[Linux] PHP not working in userdir (public_html)

Today I wanted to give my users possibility to test their PHP scripts, but without all the fuss with creating virtual hosts for each one of them. My first and obvious choice was userdir – user creates public_html directory in his home dir, puts there files, and those files are accessible via http://servername/~username/ URL. To enable this behavior you only have to enable userdir module (a2enmod userdir), and remember to set correct permissions to the userdir (chmod +x $HOME) and public_html (chmod 755 $HOME/public_html). I did this, and everything was working fine, except PHP scripts – browser wanted to download them instead of displaying proper processed content. It appeared that apache in Debian has by default PHP disabled for userdirs. To enable scripting in this dirctory, open file /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/php5.conf, find that piece of code:

    <IfModule mod_userdir.c>
        <Directory /home/*/public_html>
            php_admin_value engine Off
        </Directory>
    </IfModule>

and disable it, either by deleting or by commenting it out (precede each line with # sign). You can also change php_admin_value engine setting to On, but if you do that, you will be unable to turn off PHP engine in .htaccess files.

Operating system on a memory card

Windows XP on a netbook works fine with me, but as a person with Linux background it seemed natural to try some distribution on my Wind. As I wanted to try it first, I’ve decided to user some live distribution first. I don’t have an external CD device, but on a previous occasion I’ve managed to cope with bootable USB drives, so it was a natural (and only) choice. I was just about to re-format pendrive I’ve used to boot Linux from, but then I remembered that I have couple of loose 2GB microSD cards I’ve bought just because they were cheap, and an USB card reader. Idea of having an operating system on a so tiny memory card was very appealing!
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SVN problems in Debian Squeeze/testing

If you get error messages like “svn: OPTIONS of ‘http://svn.example.com/svn/module’: could not connect to server (http://svn.example.com)” in Debian Squeeze/testing, you probably have the same problem as I. It appears that recently a broken neon library was transferred to debian/testing repository, what broke subversion client functionality. There are few options.
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