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If you have just installed Postfix or Sendmail it can be helpful to test if everything is configured correctly. Often you want to do this from the commandline without having to install an entire email client. You can do this by installing a few simple command line mail utilities.

apt-get update
apt-get install mailutils

Then pipe a message to the command:

echo testing | mail -s test_subject myemail@example.com

If the mail doesn’t arrive then you can reconfigure postfix and try again.

dpkg-reconfigure postfix

I hope this helps someone.

I just tried to use the Ansible htpasswd and it said:

msg: This module requires the passlib Python library

You just need to check that python-passlib is installed like so:

action: apt pkg=python-passlib state=latest install_recommends=yes

It’s a real pain to change the bitrate of Sound Juicer to actually make the MP3 or Ogg files good quality. For some reason the default quality is terrible and the developers have removed the menu which allows you to change the bitrate. Frankly, this makes Sound Juicer useless as a ripping tool and I believe that it should be removed from the Ubuntu repositories.

Basically, my advice is to uninstall Sound Juicer and install Asunder.

sudo apt-get remove sound-juicer

and

sudo apt-get install asunder

This will save you a world of pain and give you an easy to use piece of software.

I’m interested to see how well it works.

You need to set the permissions on the wp-content so that your webserver can write:

chown -R www-data:www-data wp-content
chmod -R 755 wp-content

Then set the following configuration the your wp-config.php

define('FS_METHOD', 'direct');

sudo apt-get install update-manager-core

sudo do-release-upgrade -d

I’m a fan of Ubuntu Unity, however like all desktops there a few little niggles. I wanted to change the behavior of the Ubuntu Unity application switcher. The problem is that I have multiple terminals open and I want to be able to switch between them. However the alt-tab behaviour only allows you to switch between complete difference application. I.e. going between a terminal and Firefox is fine but you can’t switch between two terminals. Anyhow, here is the recipe that I found worked to change the alt-tab behaviour of Ubuntu.

1 – Install Compiz Config Settings Manager and the compiz-plugins-extra (which includes the old application switcher).

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager compiz-plugins-extra

2 – Start Compiz Config Settings Manager and disable the Ubuntu Unity Switcher like so:

You can search for the Ubuntu Unity plugin in the top left hand corner.

Select the switcher tab and this disable everything. If you don’t disable all the features then you can have a key binding conflict.

3 – Enable the old Compiz Switcher like so:

Search for the application switcher in the top left hand corner.

Uncheck the “icon” select box because otherwise you end up with a rather ugly icons which are massive.

Finally Enable the Applcation Switcher.

You should now have a happy switcher. Hurray! Let me know if you have any improvements to this recipe.

To make changes to a HP raid array while the server is running you need to first install the HP PSP pack. Instructions for installing this are : located here. You then need to use the “HP Array Configuration Utility CLI” called hpacucli.

hpacucli

To show all raid array’s setup

==> ctrl slot=0 pd all show

I have a HP server with two raid arrays.  To explain what is shown below: array A has two disks plus a spare and array B has four disks and no spare. Here is how it looks before I add the new disk.

Smart Array P410i in Slot 0 (Embedded)

   array A

      physicaldrive 1I:1:1 (port 1I:box 1:bay 1, SAS, 72 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:2 (port 1I:box 1:bay 2, SAS, 72 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:3 (port 1I:box 1:bay 3, SAS, 146 GB, OK, spare)

   array B

      physicaldrive 2I:1:5 (port 2I:box 1:bay 5, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:6 (port 2I:box 1:bay 6, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:7 (port 2I:box 1:bay 7, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:8 (port 2I:box 1:bay 8, SATA, 1 TB, OK)

I then pop the drive in bay 4 and it looks like this – notice the unassigned disk:

Smart Array P410i in Slot 0 (Embedded)

   array A

      physicaldrive 1I:1:1 (port 1I:box 1:bay 1, SAS, 72 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:2 (port 1I:box 1:bay 2, SAS, 72 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:3 (port 1I:box 1:bay 3, SAS, 146 GB, OK, spare)

   array B

      physicaldrive 2I:1:5 (port 2I:box 1:bay 5, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:6 (port 2I:box 1:bay 6, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:7 (port 2I:box 1:bay 7, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:8 (port 2I:box 1:bay 8, SATA, 1 TB, OK)

   unassigned

      physicaldrive 1I:1:4 (port 1I:box 1:bay 4, SATA, 1 TB, OK)

I want to add the unassigned disk to Array B as a spare. (Note: you can’t mix SAS and SATA disks in HP arrays). So enter the following command:

==> ctrl slot=0 array A add spares=allunassigned

And finally, I get this:

Smart Array P410i in Slot 0 (Embedded)

   array A

      physicaldrive 1I:1:1 (port 1I:box 1:bay 1, SAS, 72 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:2 (port 1I:box 1:bay 2, SAS, 72 GB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:3 (port 1I:box 1:bay 3, SAS, 146 GB, OK, spare)

   array B

      physicaldrive 2I:1:5 (port 2I:box 1:bay 5, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:6 (port 2I:box 1:bay 6, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:7 (port 2I:box 1:bay 7, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 2I:1:8 (port 2I:box 1:bay 8, SATA, 1 TB, OK)
      physicaldrive 1I:1:4 (port 1I:box 1:bay 4, SATA, 1 TB, OK, spare)

I hope this help. I also found this really good cheat sheet for doing this here:

http://www.datadisk.co.uk/html_docs/redhat/hpacucli.htm