Hello all. There are some great things coming up for unixdev.net in the coming months. The ldapuseradd project has taken over the source code for our old acctmgmt project. It is now a drop-in replacement for useradd/del/mod with support for custom group profiles, dynamically loadable management modules (sql, home dir, webspace, etc...). Other activities include: new websites, CVS to SVN transition, better account pages. However, this work takes alot of time and money that we do not have right now. If you like the site and want to see a whole lot more, then please consider making a donation below. Contact me via inittabATunixdevDOTnet regarding hardware donations. Thank You.

• HP AE313A (StorageWorks 1U 72x10 Tape Autoloader)
• HP AlphaServer DS20L
• Cash:

The 4.5BSD project is coming along smoothly. For those of you who don't know, I am leading the creation of a BSD operating system. It is primarily composed of source code from 4.4BSD and NetBSD with tidbits from OpenBSD (inetd, sshd), FreeBSD (libc), 4.3BSD, OpenSolaris, Debian, and myself. The project aims to modularize BSD code into Debian-style packages.

This project aims to do several things. First and foremost, it aims to continue development of Berkeley System Distribution code, while preserving all features and minimizing bugs. This means working closely with developers from other BSD systems (such as NetBSD) and sharing code whenever necessary. Second, this project intends to keep an all-inclusive package repository with Debian build compatibility and security updates. This will allow server administrators to keep constant OS security updates without resources being wasted on recompiling the entire system every time, followed by downtime due to reboot. Third, this project will have a clean and stable BSD kernel.. Considering that from BSD/OS if Wind River can be convinced. Finally, this project aims to preserve the intention of efforts like pkgsrc (www.pkgsrc.org) and other BSD ports trees by allowing dpkg-buildpackage to have customizable dependencies at build-time (such as PKG_DEFAULT_OPTIONS on NetBSD or USE on Gentoo).

Accomplishing these goals will not be easy, but it will allow us to create a class of servers with stable kernels, 0 downtime, no wasted system resources due to compiling security updates, compatibility with the most advanced packaging and build system on earth, customizable package builds at system admin's discretion, and most importantly: an always up-to-date system with minimal security holes.

I have just released something I've been working on called Iris. It is a front-end to mencoder that can run in command-line or graphical modes. It is written in C++ and attempts to ease conversion issues to various popular formats. Supports mpeg telecining, DVD and VCD style MPEGs, and DivX.

I have ported the NetBSD-current usr.bin/progress utility to Linux. The program allows progress to be monitored of file I/O. It includes support for gzip-compressed files, so "progress -z -f file.tar.gz tar xf -" would show progress of extracting file.tar.gz. Debian packages for i386 and sparc are available on debian.unixdev.net.

UPDATE: Website added at progress.unixdev.net.

Due to differences in opinion, licensing, and the suck factor of lesstif, the maintainer of emacs-snapshot has rejected my patch to add a motif package to emacs. Never fear, the OpenMotif version has a home here on debian.unixdev.net. Packages for Intel have been posted, and packages for SPARC will soon follow.

UPDATE: SPARC packages added.

NOTE: From now on, install emacs-snapshot-motif for emacs w/Motif instead of emacs21. This avoid conflicts with upstream Debian and prevents potential modification of /etc/apt/preferences. When emacs22 is officially released, I will create a patch for it similar to the one I've done for current/snapshot.

A new article on how to set up LDAP authentication on BSD hosts with PAM and NIS. The article focuses on NetBSD 3.0_BETA and FreeBSD 4.x.

For those of you wondering, I am planning on getting back to work on vhost, mod_jsp, mailserv (Iridium), bbicon, and this site. However, I am spending most of my time right now looking for work. bbicon has synchronization issues and needs work on icon handling. mod_jsp segfaults Apache. mailserv needs a bit of polishing, and vhost has a few issues with CGI and still needs an adequate JSP handler. Check back soon.

For sanity's sake, I have switched the central NetizenWeb.com application server from Sun Java-System/Application-Server 8.1 to JBoss 4.0.2. I am hoping that this switch will result in higher stability for the various websites it controls.

A new APT Repository has been added for Debian. sources.list entries and the always current package list is available at debian.unixdev.net. Contains some of the software you see here as well as OpenMotif for SPARC and patched kernels.

Version 1.1 of spamprobe_update_all has been released. The new Makefile automates pretty much everything. You'll just have to set up cron to run it or use it on the command line. You will also need do some minimal per-user configuration, which can be automated by adduser and /etc/skel. The Makefile may be used to update existing users as well.

Three new projects to report. gtkdict is a very simple GTK Dictionary script for Debian. vhostlib is a general website library with support for LDAP Authentication, config file parsing, various JSP tags including: this news system, link databasing, etc.. vhostadmin is a virtual webhosting management system, used on www.netizenweb.com.

News may now be submitted for review on your account page. The request will be approved on the same time schedule as new accounts. Your news item will most likely be approved, unless it is incoherent or completely irrelevant. HTML is acceptable. Requests may be edited for content or brevity.

The news section has now been re-built in a manner similar to my blog. Also, the New Account page should work as expected now. I will be notified of your request and respond back as soon as possible. Thank You.

Help would be appreciated on Apache 2 mod_jsp. The latest release is available here. It compiles and installs, but apache will segfault. I can confirm that the last statement in the config function is being executed, but a quick Dtrace reveals that the last function entered in apache is ap_single_module_configure. Please contact me at inittab@netizenweb.com with any ideas or desire to help.

  0  44337              ap_add_module:entry
  0  44336          ap_register_hooks:entry
  0  44316            ap_hook_handler:entry
  0  44307        ap_hook_post_config:entry
  0  44376 ap_single_module_configure:entry

A new pkgsrc binary repository for Solaris 10 (sparc) is being hosted here. Most packages that can support LDAP, do. Please visit the solaris10pkgsrc PROJECT SITE.

Domain name has been purchased, public DNS servers updated. Unfortunately, I am in an interim period right now. As such, we are on a cable modem, and sending mail is impolite to other mail servers. As soon as I move, the servers will be back on SpeakEasy and everything will be in place by then.

Vast site improvements, design changes. Most everything should work as expected now.

Welcome to unixdev.net, a new website devoted to furthering open source projects, developers, and causes.