How To : Setting up few productivity tools

I just made my hands dirty on these tiny but useful productivity tools and made them working on Ubuntu Server.

Environment : LAMP

Tools

• OpenFire – Chat Server based on XMPP (Jabber)
• PHPBB3 – Php based forum software
• Trac – Web based Project management Software  and Issue Tracker
• SVN – Subversion repository system
• OpenGrok – Source Searching utility

Openfire

• Download the tar.gz from igniterealtime ,untar and put the directory into /usr/bin
• Give Execute permissions to the openfire script file in bin using chmod
• Start the server using /usr/bin/openfire/bin/openfire start
• Run http://localhost:9090/ from browser
• Select EmbeddedDB & Give LDAP auth info.Create groups and add all users in one LDAP Group as mutual friends

      Troubleshooting

• /usr/bin/openfire/bin/openfire start | stop | status for checking the status/starting/stoping the server
• Check the permissions of the openfire.xml file
• view the stack trace in nohup.out

PHPBB3

• Download PHPBB3 tar.gz from web.
• Extract into /var/www folder and give write permissions for others so installer can write the config file
• Create database in mysql
• Give MySql settings while installing,login to ACP and create the forum.
• Use LDAP settings for making it LDAP and chose auth type as LDAP
• For migration give the old database name and table prefix name and migrate

Trac

• Use Easy_install and install from the latest svn source.
• Create environment using tracadmin command.
• On a standalone trac system user the createUser Python script to generate the user.passwd file.

  $python trac-digest.py -u username -p password >> /path/to/users.passwd

• And edit the trac.ini file with path info and Source control locations

SVN

• Do an apt-get installation of SVN
• edit the apache.conf and make a alias for svn and give auth info
•  Create the password file using htpasswd

  $htpasswd /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd -n username

• Give write permissions for the SVN Parent Dir

OpenGrok

• Download the tar from here
• Untar, Host on tomcat
• Edit the SRC_ROOT attribute in the web.xml
• Run the indexer periodically.

Things i learnt from this excercise :

• Brushed back my mysql basics
• Learnt CronTab and wrote few shell scripts  to do daily backup.
• Learnt little bit of Python.(Still learning!)And am finding it more and more interesting.
• Shell access is way to heaven. cPanel,Webmin is for kids

And a great news is my system is up and gotto install Ubuntu Gutsy today after having installed Windoz yesterday(for my TV Tuner) and try learning some python daily.Got to have some form of internet(Have relaxed this from Broadband) as its getting difficult to have a system without net and feeling the pain.

Testing Moblogging Clients

First Excuses to my feed subscribers. They may have got spammed by this time. Im analyzing different moblogging clients.

JWordpress doesnt seem to work and development is not active (and no developer doc in english).

Testing a Photo Moblogging client by blogplanet. Its posting but without Titles for the posts. Seeing all this, im seriously thinking of writing a moblogging client in J2ME (Though i dont know J2ME, development shouldnt take more than a couple of weeks.) XMLRPC rocks!!

And I found twibble for mobile, and guess i will start twittering often.

Using the full power of my Nokia 6021 bought 2 years back with GPRS,J2ME support for 7k that time.Now that GPRS is cheap(15p for 10KB is cheap and with no rentals) ,i browse occasionally on Opera Mini,using MoneyManager to track expenses, and started exploring on Mo(micro)blogging. Have to look into lot of other interesting apps. I gotto get one dictionary too. 😛

Once again apologies to feed subscribers.You may recieve some more in the days to come.

Tech off late

I have been learning quite a lot of things. Started some 3 weeks back on installing a wiki over Xampp.

XamppLite is a cool “double click run xampp server”.The first choice of wiki was Moinmoin and learnt how to setup one after spending lot of time(thanks to my 0 knowledge of python). Then tried WUBI – Windows based Ubuntu Installer. Pretty straight forward and neat installation(very much needed for novices but further improvements can be done).Tried installing and configuring phpBB, mantis.

Reading about LDAP / MSMQ / openGrok / lucene. Have to read mono, python and lots more to do.

best site seen off late —  www.YourBillBuddy.com — Analyse your mobile bills.

JDBC, AJAX & Acronyms

For those who think that JDBC is an acronym for Java Database Connectivity, get the facts right.JDBC is actually a trademark and is not an acronym.

Sun says, “…. JDBC is the trademarked name and is not an acronym; nevertheless, JDBC is often thought of as standing for “Java Database Connectivity.”  ….”

I knew the above fact a long back but couple of days back when i googled about the same for getting a link which states this fact , i got this link through which i also came to know about AJAX.

AJAX != Async JavaScript And XML. Its a lot more than that.I knew that to, but was surprised to see the list of other acronyms for ajax with similar pronunciation with better sense from Bye Bye “AJAX,” The Age of “Ajax” Is Nigh which says

If AJAX is indeed an acronym (which it’s not) then a comment on the article points out some others as:
AJACX: Asynchronous JavaScript, CSS and XMLHttpRequest
ADJACS: Asynchronous DOM, JavaScript and CSS
ADHJACS: Asynchronous DOM, HTML, JavaScript and CSS
AJACHS: Asynchronous JavaScript, HTML and CSS
AJACS: Asynchronous JavaScript, HTML and CSS

Any networking guys who are clear about TCP/IP. I vaguely remember someone saying TCP/IP is not an acronym by itself(i couldn’t get a link while googling) , where as TCP & IP are seperate acronym. Any other acronyms(?) like these which people often use unknowingly??(Both tech and non tech welcome 🙂 )

BarCamp Bangalore – 4

For the first time i plan to attend a barcamp, I intended to go for wikicamp, Blogcamp which were held sometime back at chennai , but couldnt make it finally on the day.

Barcamp Bangalore 4 (BCB4) ,is an Unconference which provides a platform for like minded people on various interests to meet up and network.BCB4 is slated to be held @ IIM Bangalore on 28th,29th July. Just check out the various collectives and edit the wiki to register(Registration is Free). I have registered for Internet Collective & Blogging Collective. Waiting to meet few old friends and make new ones. Sad part is I would be able to attend only on sunday as i have office on saturday too 😦

Update ::

I have registered for BOJUG Collective too and may go on Saturday also. Yippee !!

Reason behind Name ‘Bar’Camp :: (Nothing do with drinks 🙂 )

“Foobar” is a common placeholder name used in computer programming or computer related documentation. When US-based tech publisher O’Reilly invited some friends to a “Foo Camp”, for “Friends of O’Reilly”, it was but natural that others responded with their own version, dubbed the “Bar Camp”, the twist being that anyone who wanted to come could feel invited. Barcamps have since grown into a worldwide movement of such ad hoc, participant driven events. Anyone can organise a Barcamp. In Bangalore, the first and second events were organised by completely different teams, while the third is the result of their combined efforts.

Hope to see you there.