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This is a quick HowTo for installing the eAccelerator PHP cache/optimizer on a Debian system (should be applicable to other Linux distros as well).

  1. Download the latest release from SourceForge.net to your server and extract the sources.
  2. Change to the sources directory and type in the following.
    export PHP_PREFIX="/usr"
    $PHP_PREFIX/bin/phpize
    ./configure --enable-eaccelerator=shared --with-php-config=$PHP_PREFIX/bin/php-config

    This should set up the environment and compile configuration correctly.
  3. Now compile with make and install with make install (as root) afterwards.
  4. To configure eAccelerator you have to edit your PHP config which resides in /etc/php4/apache2/php.ini on my system.
    Add the following lines at the end: extension="eaccelerator.so"
    eaccelerator.shm_size="16"
    eaccelerator.cache_dir="/tmp/eaccelerator"
    eaccelerator.enable="1"
    eaccelerator.optimizer="1"
    eaccelerator.check_mtime="1"
    eaccelerator.debug="0"
    eaccelerator.filter=""
    eaccelerator.shm_max="0"
    eaccelerator.shm_ttl="0"
    eaccelerator.shm_prune_period="0"
    eaccelerator.shm_only="0"
    eaccelerator.compress="1"
    eaccelerator.compress_level="9"
    The file README in the sources directory gives a pretty good explanation of all those parameters. The only one you should probably alter is the shm.size because 16MB of shared memory might be a little bit too conservative.
  5. Last step is to create the directory where eAccelerator stores the cached scripts which don’t fit into the shared memory. mkdir /tmp/eaccelerator
    chmod 0777 /tmp/eaccelerator

Now you’re done. Further tweaking can be accomplished by altering all the parameters in the php.ini file.

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This article shows how to run a file-, print-, HTTP proxy- DHCP-, and time server for small and medium enterprises (SME) on one single Debian Sarge system. It is very easy to set up, and management is done with an easy-to-use web interface called eBox so once the system is set up, you can forget about the command line.

…not that I would “forget about the commandline” but this could actually come in handy sometimes.

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After reading a tip (and the comments) at macosxhints.com about how to mount a server via the finders sidebar using automator I came up with a very easy way to access my server via SSH in the Terminal.

This method lets you open the Terminal, automatically ssh’ed into your server, via Spotlight, the Finders Sidebar, the Dock, your Desktop or anywhere else you can think of.
The following is a step by step tutorial on how to achieve this.

  1. First you make sure your server is accessible without a password (via ssh public key authentication) for your own convenience. This step can be left out as well but it is much better this way 😉
    Read about how to set this up here. The entry is in german but the steps you have to take are in english, so it should be easy to follow.
  2. Open up TextEdit with a new document and fill in the address to the server in the following form:
    ssh://user@yourserver.comDraganddrop
    Select the text, click and hold until the cursor turns into your normal mouse pointer. Now drag and drop the text to your desktop as shown in the picture to the right (click on it for a bigger view). This creates a shortcut file on your Desktop that you can rename to whatever you want. You can even change the icon on it!
    Now close TextEdit.
  3. Next choose a location for the file in your filesystem. I made a folder called “connections” in my home folder where I plan to keep all my server connection shortcuts. But we’re not stopping here. The shortcut is a normal file as any other in OS X, so you can drag it to your sidebar, keep it in your Dock, search for it with Spotlight or click on it in the Finder.

Findit-1

If you happen to use and love Launchbar like me, there is an even quicker way to open your server connection: Open the Launchbar Configuration ([CMD]+Y in Launchbar) and right click / [CRTL]+click in the left pane where all the different rules are listed. Click on New Rule -> Folder… and in the resulting dialog choose the folder where you keep your connection shortcuts.
Now you can open each of them by just typing the name of the shortcut in Launchbar and hitting enter.

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Tunnelblick

A few month ago I started to look at OpenVPN which has a very good GUI for the Mac called “Tunnelblick“. After I managed to set it up on my server I thought why not share my home directory via the VPN tunnel and mount it on my Desktop. It should be fairly usable, providet I’ve got sufficient net connection on my end, since my server has a 100MBit internet line. So I set up Samba and let it listen only on the VPN interface.
The following is a quick step-by-step how-to on setting up such a setup 🙂

Install OpenVPN on your server
Donwload the latest source from http://openvpn.net/download.html
Unpack it and run the usual commands:
./configure
make
make install
Then do some testing:
make check
If it all works fine, you’re good to go.
The other possibility is of course to install it from a package your distribution provides you, in my case this is handled by apt (aptitude install openvpn) which has the advantage of setting up init scripts so the VPN is startet at system boot and taking care that the whole environment on the server is suitable.

Configure OpenVPN on your server
We’re gonna work with a pre shared static key here because it is easier to set up and provides enough security for home use.
My config file on the server side looks as simple as following (/etc/openvpn/home.conf):
dev tun
ifconfig 10.8.0.1 10.8.0.2
secret static.key
comp-lzo
keepalive 10 60
ping-timer-rem
persist-tun
persist-key
This tells OpenVPN to start a new VPN on the “tun” device with the IP of 10.8.0.1 using the key named “static.key”. The rest are some tweaking commands which should be pretty self explanatory.

Now we only need the static key.
We can construct one by putting in the following command:
openvpn --genkey --secret static.key
The static key file is formated in ASCII and should be kept very private. Send one copy to the computer you would like to connect to your server and keep the other copy besides your config file on your server.

Install and set-up Samba
Next you need to install Samba. I again took the Debian way via “aptitude install samba”. Then I tweaked the standard setup to export the user’s home directories and listen only on the VPN interface and not the normal one.
interfaces = lo, 10.0.0.0/8
bind interfaces only = Yes

[homes]
comment = Home Directories
browseable = yes
writable = yes
create mask = 0775
directory mask = 0775

The rest of the smb.conf file can be pretty much left alone.

Start openvpn and samba
Provided you installed it via your packaging system or set up the init scripts yourself you can now start the two programs by typing in “/etc/init.d/openvpn start” and “/etc/init.d/samba start” (or wherever your distri keeps it’s init scripts).
If the two started up ok, you’re done on the server side.
Time to move on to the client.

Install Tunnelblick
Download it from www.tunnelblick.net, mount the Disk Image and double click on “Tunnelblick-Complete.mpkg” which installs all the necessary drivers and software packages. Now you should have a Tunnelblick icon in your Applications folder.
When starting the program for the first time, it will well you that there is no configuration file present and will offer you a sample configuration.
Simply replace the sample configuration with the following:
remote IP_OR_DOMAIN_OF_YOUR_SERVER
dev tun
ifconfig 10.8.0.2 10.8.0.1
secret static.key
comp-lzo
keepalive 10 60
ping-timer-rem
persist-tun
persist-key
As the last step you have to put the file “static.key” that you obtained from your server earlier in ~/Library/openvpn (this is where your config resides as well).
This should be it. Click on the Tunnel entrance symbol to the left of your Spotlight icon and choose your config, after a short moment the connection will be present.

The last thing to do is to mount your home directory.
Press CMD+K in the Finder (or go to “Go -> Connect to Server” in the Menu) and type in the following:
smb://user@10.8.0.1/user
substituting “user” with your username on the server. After that a new icon should appear on your desktop containing all the files you have in your home directory on your server 🙂