$ sudo crontab -e

Or link a cron file to /etc/cron.d:

$ sudo ln -sv /home/klenwell/crons/my.cron /etc/cron.d/mycron

I like option two because it provides a more modular and organized way to enable cron tasks for various projects. The only problem with this method is that, when things go wrong, it’s been a huge headache trying to figure out what the problem is and how to get the tasks in the linked cron file running again. The cron documentation and Google are frustratingly tight-lipped on the subject of /etc/cron.d. But I think I have figured out a reliable way to configure and trouble /etc/cron.d.

Some rules that will help in using /etc/cron.d:

1. You must specify a user in your cron file.
2. The script being linked must be owned by root (giving root permission alone doesn’t seem enough)
3. To force /etc/cron.d to reload, touch the /etc/cron.d dir: sudo touch /etc/cron.d/

I was able to confirm these rules by linking a cron file to /etc/cron.d, then changing the owner to myself (klenwell), then checking the /var/log/syslog file.

Cron checks /etc/cron.d minutely, so you have to give it at least 60 seconds to register any changes. I set up my test cron file (/home/klenwell/crons/my.cron) to touch a file in /tmp (/tmp/crontest) every minute.

When the cron file is owned by my user (klenwell), I see this message in the log:

Nov 26 02:55:01 myserver cron[1924]: (*system*mycron) WRONG FILE OWNER (/etc/cron.d/mycron)

The linked cron file will not run again until the owner is corrected and the directory touched:

$ sudo chown -v root /home/klenwell/crons/my.cron
$ sudo touch /etc/cron.d/

After this, I see this in /var/log/syslog:

Nov 26 02:57:01 myserver CRON[21170]: (klenwell) CMD (   touch /tmp/crontest)

Took me a lot of trial and error to figure this out. Hope it saves your an extra headache or two.

Next, this plugin should come standard issue with WordPress. I know the keys are a bit of a hassle. But WordPress should offer something out or the box, because the amount of spam I get through the comment forms on this site is demoralizing.

Anyway, easy to install and well worth the effort, I hope. Find reCAPTCHA installation notes here:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-recaptcha/installation/

Now, let’s see if this thing works.

For more information on usage, I recommend the unit and acceptance tests that come packaged with the source code.

There are probably better PHP libraries for Google’s Data APIs (e.g. the Zend Framework.) PHPMailer, upon which my Gmail library was built, now supports Gmail natively. Google Analytics now has an export API. And PHP 4, of course, has reached the end of its life.

But Greqo 4 runs on PHP 5. And if you need a PHP 4 implementation of these Google APIs, well then here you are:

Download: Greqo 4 Release for Google Mail, Blogger, and Analytics

Going forward, the Greqo library will abandon complete PHP 4 compatibility and focus on PHP 5 and, eventually, PHP 6.

This guide explains how to configure Ubuntu so that you can send email from the command line using mailx with your Gmail account for delivery. This updates a guide I originally posted on the ubuntu forums for mailx, which is part of the current Ubuntu repositories (versions 7 and 8). To use nail, for which this guide was originally drawn up, see this post.

In 5 Fairly Easy Steps

1. Install the needed programs

2. Install Thawte certificates for Gmail

EDIT: verisign.com apparently no longer issues certs at the address below. So the ‘wget’ step will not work. adkein, in a comment below (click here), links to another page when you can apparently get the needed cert. I cannot vouch for this as my cert still works. But you might try downloading that and putting it your ~/etc/.certs directory if you’re having issues finding the cert.

This is necessary for Gmail. (Thanks to laurentbois.com.)

3. Configure msmtp
This will open up a new msmtp configuration file

Copy the following lines. Replace UPPERCASE text with your personal settings:

# config options: http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/doc/msmtp.html#A-user-configuration-file
defaults
logfile /tmp/msmtp.log

# gmail account
#account gmail
auth on
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
user YOURNAME@gmail.com
password YOURPASSWORD
from YOURNAME@gmail.com
tls on
tls_trust_file /home/USER/etc/.certs/ThawtePremiumServerCA.crt

# set default account to use (not necessary with single account)
#account default : gmail

Change permission on this file or msmtp will complain:

4. Configure mailx

Copy the following lines and replace UPPERCASE text with your personal settings:

# set smtp for nail
# ref: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4531994&postcount=6

# gmail account (default)
# $ mailx -s "subject line" -a /path/file recipient@email.com < /path/body.txt
set from="YOURNAME@gmail.com (YOURNAME)"
set sendmail="/usr/bin/msmtp"
set message-sendmail-extra-arguments="-a gmail"

5. Run a test
Send a test message to your gmail account:

Check your gmail account and you should have a message from yourself. You can also check your log:

I personally prefer nail because it more easily accommodates multiple accounts. But if you don’t have a deliberate need to use multiple accounts and are using a later version of Ubuntu, use this.

This will be the first of two posts showing you how to configure the more recent versions of Ubuntu to send email from the command line as simply as humanly possible using your Gmail account for delivery. These instructions were originally posted on my old blog and on the Ubuntu forums site.

This guide covers using the nail program, which is my client of choice but is no longer in the main repositories. Find a guide for using mailx, which is part of the current Ubuntu repositories, here.

In 6 Fairly Easy Steps

1. Add the breezy repositories containing nail to your source file
Edit your sources list

Add the following lines at bottom. These will enable you to apt-get nail

# breezy repositories (added to install nail)
# see http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/ for more info
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ breezy universe

Don’t forget to update

2. Install the needed programs

3. Install Thawte certificates for Gmail

EDIT: verisign.com apparently no longer issues certs at the address below. So the ‘wget’ step will not work. According to this comment, you can downloaded the needed cert from http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~suriya/UT-wireless/ThawtePremiumServerCA_b64.txt. I cannot vouch for this as my cert still works. But you might try downloading that and putting it your ~/etc/.certs directory if you’re having issues finding the cert.

This is necessary for Gmail. (Thanks to laurentbois.com.)

4. Configure msmtp
This will open up a new msmtp configuration file

Copy the following lines. Replace UPPERCASE text with your personal settings:

# config options: http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/doc/msmtp.html#A-user-configuration-file
defaults
logfile /tmp/msmtp.log

# isp account
account isp
auth login
host SMTP.YOURISP.COM
port 25
user YOURNAME@ISP.COM
from YOURNAME@ISP.COM
password YOURPASSWORD

# gmail account
account gmail
auth on
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
user YOURNAME@gmail.com
password YOURPASSWORD
from YOURNAME@gmail.com
tls on
tls_trust_file /home/USER/etc/.certs/ThawtePremiumServerCA.crt

# set default account to use (from above)
account default : gmail

Change permission on this file or msmtp will complain:

5. Configure nail

Copy the following lines and replace UPPERCASE text with your personal settings:

# set smtp for nail
# ref: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=4531994&postcount=6

# gmail account (default)
# $ nail -s "subject line" -a /path/file recipient@email.com < /path/body.txt
set from="YOURNAME@gmail.com (YOURNAME)"
set sendmail="/usr/bin/msmtp"
set message-sendmail-extra-arguments="-a gmail"

# isp account (add -A option to command line)
# $ nail -A isp -s "subject line" -a /path/file recipient@email.com < /path/body.txt
account isp {
set from="YOURNAME@ISP.COM"
set sendmail="/usr/bin/msmtp"
set message-sendmail-extra-arguments="-a isp"
}

6. Run a test
Send a test message to your gmail account:

Check your gmail account and you should have a message from yourself. You can also check your log:

That’s it. You should now be ready to incorporate email into your bash scripts, which is great for making backups. I did successfully test this on an old laptop had installed Ubuntu 8.04 this weekend.

If you have any problems or questions, I’d recommend posting to the ubuntu forums thread as you’ll probably get a quicker response there.

The goal here is to create two domains:
http://php5/ — running PHP5 via an Apache module
http://php4/ — running PHP4 through CGI

The steps below are adapted from the guide found here:
http://www.howtoforge.com/apache2_with_php5_and_php4

Step 1: Install LAMP Server Including Apache2 and PHP5

If you haven’t already done this, you can just follow the normal steps using apt-get as outlined here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ApacheMySQLPHP

Step 2: Update Sources List to Install php4-cgi

php4 is no longer included in the Ubuntu repositories as it is no longer supported. But it can be found in the breezy repositories. This was the step that took me the longest to figure out as there were no explicit instructions regarding this.

Add the following lines to the bottom of the file:

Step 3: Install php4-cgi

Run the following commands from the command line:

Step 4: Create Your Document Roots

You can put the document roots for your http://php5/ and http://php4/ sites anywhere. For lack of a better general location, I am going to put them under the standard /var/www/ directory. The directory tree will look like so:

Commands:

Step 5: Configure Apache Sites

First, for the php4 site, add to the /var/www/php4/apache directory the file found here:
http://klenwell.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/templates/apache/php4.conf

Then enable this site, by linking the config file to apache’s sites-enabled directory:

Do the same thing with the php5 file (found here) in the /var/www/php5/apache directory.

Step 6: Create Local Domain php4 and php5 in /etc/hosts

Open up your hosts file in the editor:

Add this line to your file:

Step 7: Create Test Files

Open a new file in an editor:

Add this line:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Copy the file to /var/www/php5/www/:

Step 8: Restart the Apache Server

Using apache2ctl:

Finally, test the results by opening the following two urls in your browser:
http://php5/
http://php4/

You should see the PHP Info page for each site displaying the appropriate PHP version. For the php4 site, it should look something like this:

phpinfo() for php4 site

If that all works, you are ready to adapt as suits you. You can link any php4 projects you are working on to the php4/www directory.

The same principles should apply to other systems and circumstances, though you’ll have to work out the details for yourself.

This guide generalizes details of my own successful installation. If you try this and have any issues, please leave a comment here.

You’d think this is one of those things Google (by way of the ubuntuforums) would have covered six ways to Sunday. But useful information is surprisingly sparse. See for yourself:

http://www.google.com/search?q=ubuntu+syslog+rotation

Anyway, after an hour of frustration looking in vain for someone to spell out the answer for me, I figured it out.

If you want to manually rotate the files, run this command as root (if not root, sudo it):

That rotates the files. Then I just added it to a cron file:

That seems to have licked it. If you can’t find the sysklogd file, you’ve got greater problems than I had, as that gets installed with ubuntu. I’d imagine you could find a copy on the web.

A weaker man might be moved to re-examine his faith, if in nothing else, at least in the law of probability.

— Rosencrantz from Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

A colleague at work emailed this to me today:

Check out how well VB.Net’s Random Number Generator works:

each digit in the phone number is a new random number, each phone number is generated independently

I am relieved to say that I have no way to independently verify his results. But he knows what he’s doing so I trust their accuracy.

The most frustrating thing is the lack of subdirectory support when using the file option. It doesn’t seem like it would be that hard for the parser to support them. If it did, it would make things tolerable. What is worse, you can’t set an ignore prop on a directory until it’s been added to the repository, effectively rendering useless one of the main conveniences of the feature in the first place.

You can whip up your own clever workarounds, like the one documented here: Managing svn:ignore with impunity. Never having used Ruby, I opted for something lazier and less efficient. But it’s simple and it works. Here’s what I do:

First, I add new directories using the --non-recursive option :

This adds only the directory, none of the files, which now gives us the opportunity to set the ignore property. I usually just ignore (and add) files one by one. Here’s the format I use (it took me a bit of trial and error to figure this out):

For example:

All together now, from your repository root directory:

For more global exclusions, like backup files or compiled python files, there’s the global-ignores setting. And there’s the subversion manual, but I didn’t find it all that helpful really. Probably because it wasn’t giving me that answer I was looking for.