Gloudemans.info News

The world has changed

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200

The world has changed and I'm not referring to the slightly changed design and naming of the website. I have become a dad!

On September 5th at 6 in the morning the water broke. Six and a half hour later our son Tim was born. It was a very exciting half day. Tim was to be born around September 27, so he was 3 weeks and one day early. In the Netherlands that classifies as premature birth. So we had to go to the hospital right away. Normally you have to wait till 5 cm of dilatation. This was a good thing, since the contractions came every 2 minutes right from the start.

I would have been nervous on a normal delivery, but since a premature birth involves extra risks I was very nervous. Luckily, labor didn't take long and he was born on 12:23, just after lunch time. All my worrying was for nothing. Tim is a very healthy boy. Aside from initial weight and length (the smallest size was to big for him), nothing indicates that he was 22 days early. So far, we had relatively few problems with him, he doesn't cry often (only when he's hungry) and drinks very well. The last 2 weeks, he almost gained 40 grams of weight per day. Currently he weighs 3070 grams, and the smallest size of baby clothing finally fits.

He wants to be fed every four hours, so we even get a decent night of sleep. The first week was very chaotic, but since this is our first child, that was to be expected. I've never been so busy in my life. This is one of the reasons why I put his pictures on the site 18 days after he was born.

The other reason was that I was in the middle of a redesign of the website. The layout has only changed slightly, but underneath it was a full rewrite. The site also has a more inspiring name now: "Quantum Fluctuations". The name is explained on the homepage. The idea came from my masters thesis. With the name, 2 new URLS have been created all pointing to the same site: http://www.quantumfluctuations.nl and http://www.quantumfluctuations.eu

Changes on the Mailserver

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Normal mail servers handle mail as specified in the various standards defined for mailservers. Spammers are often not compliant with those standards. This is the basis for the Greylisting of mail. Each mail is identified by a unique triplet, sending mail server, sender and recipient. This first time a triplet is seen (in 30 days), mail is rejected with a try again later message. A mailserver properly implementing the mail standards will try again later. Many spammers never do. The second time a triplet is detected, mail is let through without any hindrance. The result is a substantial reduction in the volume of spam mails accepted by the mailserver.

This mechanism was implemented on the gloudemans.info mailserver today. This means, that mail sent to any gloudemans.info recipient might be delayed from a few minutes, up to one or several hours (depending on the settings of the sending server). A local whitelist is applied, so mail from some servers is let through unhampered.

Mail from senders present on one of the various blacklists on the Internet was sent to the final recipient, with the tag {Spam?} added to the subject of the mail. From now on, mail from senders on the blacklist is rejected. If the mail was sent by a legitemate user, he or she will get a message from his/her own mailserver, stating why the mail was rejected and how to get in contact.

These two measures together should reduce the number of spam mails getting through the filters, while reducing the load on and traffic to this mailserver.

And that makes 3

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0200

This site was briefly offline today (about 30mins) due to the fact that I had to replace our Fritzbox modem for the 3rd time. This time however I managed to find the causality leading to the event.

We are expecting our first kid at the end of September. In preparation to this event, I'm making the house kid-safe. This includes replacing all the wall power outlets (the new ones have a kind of shutter preventing a kid from inserting a tool). To do this I have to switch off the main power. When I do that, the server, network and modem continue on UPS provider power.

About 2.5 weeks ago, I was replacing a wall outlet, when I noticed that the modem lost the Internet connection. After main power came back on, the modem reconnected, but that night the modem lost connection again. When I manual rebooted the modem, it went into a reboot cycle. I only managed to get it online after plugging it directly into a wall outlet instead of the UPS. It then rebooted for about 5 times and connected. I then disconnected the phone wire and reconnected and sure enough the modem started rebooting again. This time it came online after 10 reboots.

I called my provider immediately reporting the malfunction (I had to wait for 1.5 hours on the phone; so much for that famous xs4all service; then they forgot to post the modem, so I had to call again. At the moment I'm really regretting the switch to this provider) and a new modem was sent (eventually). In the meantime I stopped replacing the wall outlets in fear of not being able to get back online.

I received the new modem today. This time I connected it directly to a wall outlet and the phone cable directly to the phone connection, instead of the surge protector on the UPS. This required some rearranging as the surge protector is now on the network cable coming from the modem. Instead of one big safe-zone I now have 2 different zones. I took care not to have network and power cable from the unsafe zone and safe zone in one duct. While I was offline, I also too the opportunity to replace the remaining wall outlets. So instead of the 5 minutes needed to replace the modem, we were offline a little bit longer. But luckily, I'm all set now.

As to the reason why the modems broke... I can only guess. Probably some phase mismatch between the switched power supply of the modem and the inverter of the UPS. I find unlikely that it is caused by noise coming from one of the other pieces of equipment connected to the UPS, since each socket has its own filter. But then again, I'm not an electronics expert.

Modem dead (updated)

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Last night after 12 O'clock our modem (Fritzbox 7170 WLAN) passed away. The Internet connection came down and did not recover. Multiple reboots didn't help, sometimes the modem even got stuck in a reboot loop. Anyways, delivery time of a new modem is 3 to 5 working days, so with a bit of luck we will have it by the end of this week.

Meantime we're running on a lower speed with an older modem I had lying around somewhere. So be patient if the site seems slow.

Since the modem was also the prime telephony server, phone line will be out until the modem is replaced.

Update 11-06-2008

The new modem came in today (earlier than expected). By uploading the old config in the new modem, I had the new one running within minutes. We are reachable by phone again.

New Site Certificates

Fri, 30 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Gloudemans.info has always used self signed certificates, for secure mail and browsing. Starting today this has changed. I initially wanted to get a certificate from one of the major certificate vendors. But this proved to be impossible. This site uses various names, and the mailserver uses yet another name. All in all I would need at least 5 separate certificates or a corporate certificate. The first costs more than 100 euros per year, the second more than 1000. But since I am no company I cannot even get the certificate the second.

Therefor I have decided to get a certificate from CAcert.org. Costs me nothing, and hopefully this certificate will be recognized by default in the future.

For users getting certificate warnings, import the CAcert root certificate and the warning messages will disappear.

ISP Migration Complete

Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

May 12 our ADSL line was moved from KPN to XS4ALL. Down time due to the migration was limited for about one and a half hour. The new modem went online without problems, minus the VOIP phone account. Due to some fluke in the systems of the providers (don't know which), you can onyl migrate a phone number if you have a working DSL account. I requested the move of the phone number immediately after the DSL came online. The planned date to move the phone line over was May 21. Yesterday, the phone line was indeed migrated, so we are fully connected again now.

Because XS4ALL allows you to have a mailserver connected directly to the internet (and not via a gateway), I was now able to implement "Sender Policy Framework" (SPF; http://www.openspf.org), for in and outgoing mail. It works great, a part of the SPAM is now blocked even before it enters the spam scanner. The new provider even allows you to configure a reverse lookup addres for your own domain!

The day after we were migrated The Netherlands was hit by "the big ADSL malfunction of 2008". Hundreds of thousands of homes went offline. The reason, a software problem in the ATM equipment of KPN (Alcatel Lucent stuff I think). This mafunction has proven to be very hard to resolve. We were not hit very hard at that day; the ADSL went offline 5 or six times for about a few minutes each. In the days after, KPN and XS4ALL worked very hard to resolve the problem (still not fixed completely yet), resulting in several interruptoins of the ADSL line per day. Yesterday was the first day without interruprions, but I got three today already. I really hope this is fixed soon. So if you had problems with this site, you now know the cause.

As a sideline, RedHat Linux 5.2 came out yesterday (this server is running RedHat). I decided to be brave and upgrade directly. I'm happy to report the the upgrade went over without a hitch (downtime of only a few minutes; half an hour for webmail users)!

ISP Migration Imminent

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Within the next 4 weeks gloudemans.info will switch to a new ISP (xs4all). If everything goes OK, we will be offline for 1 day at most. However, due to the fact that it is still not easy to keep your phone number when switching providers, our phone will be offline for about 2 weeks. So if you need to call us; use our mobile number.

The good news is, that the connection will be twice as fast, allowing for faster website and webmail. Also the new provider does not put any barriers between our server and the Internet, so the way is finally open to implement some additional spam prevention measures like SPF.

Holiday to Madeira

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0200

The site and especially the blog has been silent for a few weeks. This was partly caused by lots of work to be done, the tender for the LOFAR wide area network (http://www.lofar.org) not in the last place, but also by our holiday to Madeira.

We stayed there for the last 2 weeks of March. One week on the south side of the Island near Canico and one week in the Norts side in Arco Sao Jorge. To be honest, the holiday was not fully what we expected of it. Especially the south side is very densely populated. Lots of building construction going on (even a few metres from our appartment) and lots of old smelly trucks.

We likes the north side of the island much better and strangely enough, in our case even the weather was better, though it is the rainy side of the island.

Nevertheless, we got a good rest, and some pictures can be seen on the gallery pages. Most of these picturs show the interiour part of the island, which is almost uninhabitable, but very impressive.

Other news:

gloudemans.info and all connected services are now running on a new server. The new server has more CPU power, memory and most important; virtualization extensions. All local services are now spread over three virtual machines for added security and to overcome incompatibilities between the running services. The Horde framework for mail has been fully replaced by Zimbra. Horde had a much richer functionality, but the user interface of Zimbra is so much better, that I deciced to switch.
The next blog articles will be appearing soon. It will features a series of blogs with tips for companies starting to deploy virtual infrastructures

Blog

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Well, I have become one of those persons who spew their thoughts onto the Internet. A few days ago, our company marketing manager encouraged me to start an IT related blog (hence the title).

Purpose? Pure self promotion. (Is there any other purpose for a blog?)

Anyway, I have set up a blog on this site. Tha latest blog items can be found in the left hand pane, or go directly to the suppary page by clicking on BlogIT in the top bar. I will be airing my views on IT there weekly. The topics will mostly concern virtualization and high performance computing, as I spend most of my time in those areas. Some other stray thoughts may appear as well.

New version of authentication module for SilverStripe

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0100

A new version of the SilverStripe external authentication module has been released (0.2). Release highlights:

This module allows you to configure multiple external authentication sources. Upon login the user can select a source and his credentials. You can also configure the module to check all sources for a given set op credentials.
Added SilverStripe driver. This driver uses the built in authentication methods with a twist. Normally SilverStripe uses E-mail/Password for logon. This driver allows the user to configure a user-ID and use that to log-on (very handy if you have a long mail address)
HTTP authentication driver. The module can use a remote webserver with private pages to authenticate forSilverStripe. The remote server may even be behind a proxy server.
Previously, auto added accounts (accounts that do not exists in SilverStripe before login) often had illegal mail addresses. No a default domain can be configured to be used in the construction of a mail address
Extra selection criteria to search for accounts in the LDAPdriver
The LDAP driver can now work with multiple base DNs
Bugfixes

See also the previous news item about this driver. You can download the module here

New paper about virtualisation in the Whitepaper section

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Together with Quinten Laureijs (RedHat), Roland Ivens (Foundry Networks), Pieter-Jan Visser and Theresa Hatch (both from i-to-i), I have written a whitepaper giving an end-to-end overview of (server) virtualisation. It not only handles the technology side, but also the business case and the organisational and service management impact. Contrary to the rest of the IT related whitepapers on this site, this one is in english.

Details can be found here

CMS updated again

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Another update on the CMS. Just migrated to the newly released version 2.2.0.

For this website itself, it doesn't make a lot of difference. It still looks the same. However for myself, things got a lot better. Additionally, this is the version the authentication module from the previous news item works with. So finally I can logon with my normal user-id and password.

If you a lookin for a simple to use CMS, I can advise you to take a look at http://www.silverstripe.com and try the demo.

Authentication Module for SilverStripe 2.2

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Yesterday I finished version 0.1.0 of the External Authentication module for SilverStripe CMS. This module allows you to utelize external authentication sources for CMS administrators/users. It is not the same as single sign-on, but it allows you to have at least the same password and user ID everywhere.

If the authentication source is under your control, you can even enable automatic account creation, making user administration tasks even easier.

At the moment the module supports IMAP, POP3, FTP and LDAP for authentication, the LDAP driver being most feature rich. Accounts auto created with the LDAP driver contain the proper user names and emails. Furthermore, if you use your LDAP also for Unix account administration and you use password expiry, the expiration mechanism can also be used by SilverStripe. All drivers support either SSL, TLS or both.

You can find documentation for this module at the SilverStripe wiki. The source is also in their SVN system, but you can download a tar ball here. Just unpack the module in your main SilverStripe directory, set the proper file permissions and the rest is in the README file.

New painting in the garden

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Yesterday we got a custom made painting to put up on a wall in the garden. We got the idea of a painting in a gardening centre. They also sold paintings, but those could not be put outside. Since then we've been looking for a nice painting which could handle the Dutch weather. But alas, nothing could be found in the shops.

Then my mother announced she had took up painting as a hobby. Her work looked quite good, so we asked her for a solution. She discussed it with some people from art class and came with the idea to paint it on a board of multiplex and put some transparent finish on it (the kind you use for your boat). Along with some aluminium profiles and some transparent (sealing) kit it should now be able to handle all our seasons.

The painting was made using a picture I made on our holiday this year in New Zealand. The picture was taken in a meadow at the foot of Mount Aspiring. The backdrop is a view on the Southern Alps. That makes it a true family production.

CMS updated

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Today I updated Silverstripe from version 2.0.2 to 2.1.0. Migration of Silverstripe went without a hitch after I prepared it on my desktop. Quite some reorganizing in the themes. But it works now. From the viewers perspective nothing much changed. Except that the news page is now paginated.

More importantly, I also updated the gallery module to 0.2.1. The improvements here are far more obvious. The popup window for the pictures has changed a lot and there are now "next" and "prev" buttons to navigate in the gallery. The one downside is that the "show original picture" link is gone. Migration of the galleries was not painless. The pages had to be recreated, but that was expected (I tested it), but unlike the test, all photo titles got lost! I had to add the titles to about 200 pictures again by hand; an hour's worth of work.

But that is behind me now. I look forward now to version 2.2.0 which has hopefully some code written by me (LDAP authenticayion). Due to the gallery setback I did no work on it today, but I hope to have soem first workings later this week.

Photo Galleries migrated

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Though the SilverStripe gallery has a lot less functionality, I migrated most of the pictures to it. The site looks so much better this way.

It may not be wise to exchange functionality for looks, but hey, winter is approaching, so I need to set myself up for some work indoors. Maybe I'll get around to add some slide show functionality, or even just a button to go from one picture to the next.

Don't know yet what I will to. Today, I hacked LDAP authentication into the SilverStripe source. The source looks well set-up en easy to understand, so who knows...

New Website

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0200

After just one and a half week of tinkering, our new website is ready.

The main reason for making a new one being that the Content Management System that was in use is being discontinued. This is a bit of a shame, it was part of the Horde framework also used for webmail. The main advantage of the system being integration and simplicity. But since I don't have the time to maintain the software myself, I decided to switch.

There are many good CMS'es out there, but all are rather complex. I just want a system for a simple site with a proper interface. After some googling, I decided to try the SilverStripe CMS. The management interface is superb. Creating the site was really easy. Silverstripe only lacks in the availability of modules, like a proper photo gallery. We still use the photo gallery from the Horde framework. It isn't very pretty (the combination that is...), but it works. Another module is a good authentication module that allows for usage of external authentication sources like LDAP. Maybe I'll code that one myself when I have more time.

The other advantage Silverstripe has, is that is is from Wellington New-Zealand, our favourite holiday country. Kiwi's might recognize the backdrop in the header as being Mount Aspiring on the South Island. Lord of the Rings fans might recognize this mountain as Caradhras. Shot brilliantly by Peter Jackson at the start of the "Two Towers".

I shot this image myself whilst doing a Lord of the Rings tour named "Gwahir's Patrol", which consists of flying half a day by chopper over the Southern Alps and a half day driving around Queenstown.

NZ Holiday Images

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0200

We just had a 3 week stay in New Zealand. Pictures from our visit are to be found here.

There are three new galleries: South Island, LOTR (Lord of the Rings) tour Wanaka and LOTR Tour Twizel. The other galleries are from last year's holiday.

We had a great time. We started in Wellington to visit the "Return of the King" in the cinema in which it had its premiere night. From there we went to the Queen Charlotte Sound for a three day hike. Then on to the west coast for some whale watching. We did see some seals and dolphins to. A long drive brought us to Fransz Jozef glacier (we had a stopover at the pancake rocks). Annemieke made a heliflight to the Glacier and did some ice walking. I took a longer heli flight over several other glaciers.

In Wanaka we did a day long "Lord of the Rings" tour. Half a day by chopper over the Southern Alps and half a day by four-wheel-drive. Even if you're not a fan, it is certainly worthwile. In Queenstown we did some frisbee golf and saw our first Kiwi.

The area around Twizel is also worth a visit, especially if you are a Lord of the Rings fan. Not many tourists there, but nevertheless some worthwile landscapes.

We ended in ChristChurch. We found that city a bit of an anti-climax at the end of the holiday. Traffic lights, a lot of people and an European looking town. We would advise starting you visit of the South Island here. It gets only better from there on. It certainly is a city worthwile visiting, but the rest is so much better...

Website Downtime

Sat, 19 May 2007 00:00:00 +0200

Today, Sunday May 19, the website and mailserver where unavailable from around 08:00 till 10:30 in the morning (CEST) and about 15 minutes around 12 o'clock.

The underlying reason for this was the imminent release of the Fedora Core 7 linux distribution. The server was running version 5 of this Linux distribution and according to the Fedora support policy, version 5 would be out of support when FC7 is released later this month.

Instead of upgrading to FC6 or FC7, I opted to migrate to version 5 of the Centos distribution. Centos 5 is based on the earlier this year released version 5 of RedHat Linux. Centos 5 has a predicted support cycle of 5 years, against Fedora's 1 year. This was the most important reason for the switch. For the last one and a half year I've been working as a Linux Engineer. While this is a great job, it takes the fun out of running a server at home. So I opted for an Enterprise grade OS. If you encounter any new issues on the site, or with the mail, drop me a message.