Ok, so Fire Fox 3.5 came out yesterday and it now fully supports embedded video objects via the HTML 5 video tag.

Excitedly, I went to test the functionality of this new feature.  However, when testing again this URL: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/video/ I found that the browser began to load the video but it appeared to just hang.   Now, I am using this browser on a network that sends all http traffic through a proxy server which runs Squid, HAVP and SquidGuard.

After further investigation I determined that there was a default setting in the HAVP configuration file (/usr/local/etc/havp/havp.config) that was causing this issue.

Look for this section in the config file:

# Allowing Range is a security risk, because partial
# HTTP requests may not be properly scanned.
#
# Whitelisted sites are allowed to use Range in any case.
#
# Default:
# RANGE false

Change RANGE to:

RANGE true

Remember to restart your HAVP processes.

Now, the browser will be able to play videos since it needs to request files via ranges.

Let me know if this helped you out.

I wanted to just drop a quick link to a nifty Fedora 10 Cheat Sheet that I found.

http://digitizor.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/fedora-10-reference-cheatsheet/

Enjoy…

Here’s a quick tip for how to turn on line numbering in VIM.

To turn it on:
set number
-or-
set nu

To turn it off:
set nonumber

Remember, you can always add this to your ~/.vimrc for this setting to always be on by default when ever you open VIM.

I like using the open source fax server software Hylafax for deploying fax services to a network.

One of the great things about using Hylafax for fax services, is the great flexibility you get.  Lately, one of my users requested that I create a report that could be automatically sent to her group daily.  This report was to show all faxes that were sent to their inbound fax number during the previous day.  In particular they wanted to be able to look for any faxes that someone had tried to send to them that failed for some reason.

I decied to use GAWK in order to parse the transfer log and create the resulting report.  Then, I wrapped this gawk script in a little bash script to add a little functionality.  Finally, this bash script was added to cron.daily, so as to produce the report and email it on a daily basis.

Simply change YOURFAXNUMBERHERE to be what receiving fax number you want to report on.  Finally you’ll want to pipe the output to mail if you want it to get emailed automatically.  I’m sure there are numerous better ways to make the format better, etc.  However, this is my quick script and it works perfectly for my needs.  Let me know if you find it useful.

#!/bin/bash

#####################################
# faxrecreport.sh
#
# Written by: Jason Fenner
#
# V 1.0
#
# 01/21/2009
#
# This report will print out all
# recv’d faxes for a certain inbound
# fax number that was received
# in the last 24 hour period.
#
####################################

DATEPERIOD=`date –date=yesterday +%D`
FAXNUMBER=”YOURFAXNUMBERHERE”

echo “Fax Receive Report”
echo
echo “——————”
echo “Fax Number: $FAXNUMBER”
echo “24 Hour Period for: $DATEPERIOD”
echo “——————”
echo
echo

awk -F’\t’ ‘BEGIN{ “date –date=yesterday +%D ” | \
getline dateVal; printf(“%15s%30s%15s%7s %8s%50s %12s\n”,”Date”,”Name”,”CallerID”,”Pages”,”Duration”,”Error”,”Ref”); \
for (x=1; x<=140; ++x) {printf( “%s” , “-” ) } \
print “” }
($2 ~ /RECV/ && $16 ~ /YOURFAXNUMBERHERE/ && $1 ~ dateVal) \
{gsub(/\”/,”"); if ($14 == “”) $14 = “None”; \
if ($15 == “”) $15 = “Not Received”; \
printf(“%15s%30s%15s%7s %8s%50s %12s\n”, $1,$9,$15,$11,$13,$14,$3)
}

END{ for (x=1; x<=140; ++x) {printf( “%s” , “-” ) } \
print “” }’ /var/spool/hylafax/etc/xferfaxlog

In my line of work, I often need to generate random passwords for new accounts.  I always find it kind of annoying to have to think these things up.  Every now and then I even need to created many at once.

Here is a quick way to generate as many random passwords as you want just using BASH:


for ((i=0; i<10; i=i+1)); do head -c 8 /dev/urandom | uuencode -m - | head -n 2 | tail -n 1 | sed s/\=//; done

Simply adjust the ‘i’ variable in the for loop to change how many passwords you want.  The ‘-c’ on the first head statment can be changed to adjust the size of each password that is created.  The real nice thing about this little snipet, is that it outputs to stdout…this makes it a cinch to send to output on to something else.

For an added twist, you can use this line to have the generated passwords contain more punctuation marks:

for ((i=0; i<10; i=i+1)); do head -c 8 /dev/urandom | uuencode - | head -n 2 | tail -n 1 | sed s/\`// | sed s/\(//; done

With this one, make sure you filter out any special characters that aren’t allowed in your new passwords.

Enjoy.

Recently there were problems with a new version of xulrunner being sent as an update to Fedora 9. Several packages that are built against xulrunner were not rebuilt to the new version and submitted to the repositories before xulrunner was. This issue would cause a dependency issue resolving error that might look like this:

Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * livna: mirrors.tummy.com
 * fedora: mirror.anl.gov
 * updates: mirror.anl.gov
Setting up Update Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: gecko-libs = 1.9 for package: Miro
--> Processing Dependency: gecko-libs = 1.9 for package: gnome-python2-gtkmozembed
---> Package pilot-link.i386 2:0.12.3-14.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package rsync.i386 0:3.0.3-0.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package totem-mozplugin.i386 0:2.23.2-5.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package xulrunner.i386 0:1.9.0.1-1.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package system-config-language.noarch 0:1.3.1-2.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package selinux-policy.noarch 0:3.3.1-78.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package nfs-utils-lib.i386 0:1.1.1-5.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package xen-libs.i386 0:3.2.0-14.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package binutils.i386 0:2.18.50.0.6-4.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package totem-gstreamer.i386 0:2.23.2-5.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package qemu-img.i386 0:0.9.1-6.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package selinux-policy-targeted.noarch 0:3.3.1-78.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package libvirt.i386 0:0.4.4-2.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package qemu.i386 0:0.9.1-6.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package cpio.i386 0:2.9-8.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package yelp.i386 0:2.22.1-4.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package nspluginwrapper.i386 0:1.1.0-3.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package libvirt-python.i386 0:0.4.4-2.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package device-mapper-multipath.i386 0:0.4.7-16.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package firefox.i386 0:3.0.1-1.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package dmraid.i386 0:1.0.0.rc14-8.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package totem.i386 0:2.23.2-5.fc9 set to be updated
---> Package kpartx.i386 0:0.4.7-16.fc9 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
gnome-python2-gtkmozembed-2.19.1-16.fc9.i386 from installed has depsolving problems
  --> Missing Dependency: gecko-libs = 1.9 is needed by package gnome-python2-gtkmozembed-2.19.1-16.fc9.i386 (installed)
Miro-1.2.4-1.fc9.i386 from installed has depsolving problems
  --> Missing Dependency: gecko-libs = 1.9 is needed by package Miro-1.2.4-1.fc9.i386 (installed)
Error: Missing Dependency: gecko-libs = 1.9 is needed by package gnome-python2-gtkmozembed-2.19.1-16.fc9.i386 (installed)
Error: Missing Dependency: gecko-libs = 1.9 is needed by package Miro-1.2.4-1.fc9.i386 (installed)

There is an update in Bodhi to correct this dependency issue. However, this update needs people to download, install, and test it. Then report on Bodhi what the results were. Usually either that it worked great or that there was issues.

Here are the steps to do the test and report to Bodhi the results:

1. Run

   yum update

2. From the output determine what packages are missing for you, you are looking for dependencies that could not be resolved. For this issue they should all be related to Miro and gnome-python2
3. In a web browser go to the Bodhi page for this update: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F9/pending/Miro-1.2.4-2.fc9,gnome-python2-extras-2.19.1-17.fc9
4. Towards the top of the page you will see a section called Builds:. Open a new browser tab/window for each build listed. This will take you to the test build for each package in Koji.
5. On the Koji page, look for the section called RPMs. Look for each package of the right architecture that you need.
6. Create a temporary directory to download each of these files to. In my case I created a directory called testingUpdates:

   [jfenner@localhost Download]$ mkdir testingUpdates
   [jfenner@localhost Download]$ cd testingUpdates/

7. Download all of the RPMs that you need from Koji into the temporary directory. I used wget to do this because I think it’s the easiest way. However, use whatever method works best for you.
8. Once you’ve done that, then localinstall all of the packages in the temporary directory.

   [jfenner@localhost testingUpdates]$ sudo yum --nogpgcheck localinstall *

9. Note: You have to turn off the gpg signing check above, because at this stage the packages have not been signed yet. This will happen once they’ve been pushed to stable.
10. Assuming that you were able to install all packages with no errors, now run a normal yum update. This should also run with no more dependency errors.

    [jfenner@localhost testingUpdates]$ yum update

11. Excellent! Now do a test run of Firefox and Miro, if you have them installed and make sure that they appear to be working right.
12. Now you have concluded testing this pending update. The last step is to submit your findings to Bodhi to help get this update sent to the world. Go back to this update’s page on Bodhi. At the bottom of the page, enter your name and click on the appropriate radio button for your findings. If everything worked fine click on Works for Me. Enter a brief comment if you’d like. Fill out the captcha and click Add comment.

That’s all there is to it. You just helped improve QA for the Fedora community. The test you conducted and feedback you provided will help this update go out to all the Fedora repositories fast and of higher quality. I encourage you to check back often at Bodhi and test other packages that appy to your system and provide your feedback. The more of the community that does this, the higher the quality of the updates we receive will be.

I just went and voted in the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee election.  This is the first FESCo election where the number of seats have been changed from 13 to 9.  This decrease is meant to create greater competition for seats on this committee.

Numbers have been reported as being low in past Fedora elections.  That is why I encourage to take a few minutes out of your day and read over the nominations.  Jot down the names of people who interest you with a score next to each.  Remember, that Fedora uses range voting; this means that you will vote for each candidate using a numerical score.  In the end all scores are summed up and the candidates with the highest scores are the winners.  This is really cool, because it means that you can vote for all the candidates if you want to.

Once you have written down the names with the scores, simply head over to the voting booth and place your votes.  It’s both fun and educational to do.  Not to mention, voting on FESCo is a quick and simple way for you to get involved with the future of Fedora in a very real way.

So join me, and cast your vote today!

I ran across this great review of Fedora 9 Beta.

The author does a good job describing many of the new things in Fedora 9 Beta.  I especially like this paragraph:

The Fedora Project attracts a lot of interest from the Linux faithful. While there are perhaps more newbie-friendly, corporate-friendly, or special-interest-focused distributions, Fedora continues to wear the innovation hat.

The word play of Fedora wearing the innovation hat is pretty clever.  However, the article makes it clear that not only is that statement clever…it is also literally true.

The review certainly makes KDE 4 sound interesting to this GNOME user.  I just may need to give it a try when I upgrade to Fedora 9.  The new NetworkManager sounds exciting.  However, the two new features that are most exciting to me are:

1. Option to have encrypted disks upon install.
2. USB Live Image persistence.
   

Speaking of USB Live images that feature persistence, have you seen how easy it is to create these sticks?

# ./livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb  1200 /path/to/iso /path/to/stick

Where the ‘overlay-size’ is the size of space on the USB that you would like to use as persistence drive space on the USB key.  For a more thorough explanation of this feature please see this great interview with Jeremy Katz.

USB persistence is such a cool feature!  It’s literally like having a tiny computer in your pocket.  I would like to know if in the future, we will be able to create a persistent USB live image with disk encryption.  In other words, where the live image on the USB key can store it’s persistent data in an encrypted file system.  Now THAT would be really cool!