Archive for the 'Sys Admin' Category

How To Tar A Directory

February 23rd, 2008

I constantly forget how to tar a directory. I think the ln command and the tar command have their parameters in different orders and I can never seem to remember which parameter is the dir you are archiving and which one is the name for the archive. So here it is:
tar -czf archive.tgz dirName

Ruby on Rails + SSL + ISPConfig + Apache 2.0 + Mongrel

June 13th, 2007

If you are using ISPConfig to manage the virtual hosts on your web server, you will notice that there is no way to separate SSL vs non-SSL Apache directives using the standard web interface. This is a problem if you are writing Ruby on Rails applications and proxying requests through Apache to a Mongrel cluster […]

FTP Login Delay With Proftpd - Ubuntu Perfect Setup

June 11th, 2007

I manage serveral servers and - for the most part - they are all set up using the Perfect Setup for Ubuntu. Overall the setup is great, but I have been noticing a very annoying delay when trying to log in via FTP. Everything works, but when I initially connect, 5 - 10 seconds pass […]

Long Delay Before SSH Authentication

May 18th, 2007

If you are experiencing a long, annoying delay when attempting to connect to a remote server via SSH – especially if you have recently noticed this problem after installing/upgrading Ubuntu Feisty – try commenting out the “GSSAPIAuthentication yes” line in your /etc/ssh/ssh_config file:

Mail Not Delivered To Hotmail/MSN Accounts

May 8th, 2007

If you have a VPS or your own dedicated server and you can’t send mail to Hotmail or MSN email accounts, the good news is that the solution is easy. I manage a few Postfix mail servers and I was getting lines like this in my /var/log/mail.log file.