Home ›

Tech Tips

Issue 155

From Issue #155
March 2007

Mar 01, 2007  By Staff
 in
Make KPilot work with Ubuntu, watch processes, lock files and create passwords in PHP.
Making KPilot Work with Ubuntu

The version of KPilot that comes with Ubuntu/Kubuntu Edgy Eft does not work with many Palm devices, such as the Palm TX, many Treo phones and others. Although many people are complaining about the difficulty of setting up the USB port, this tip doesn't address that particular issue. Even if you get the USB port working (I use a network sync, so it doesn't matter to me), you'll encounter other problems. For example, in many cases, KPilot copies the records from your Palm but erases the records from your Palm in the process.

At the time of this writing, the good folks at Ubuntu have not yet seen fit to update KPilot. There's no need to wait though. You can download the latest KPilot, compile and install it yourself. The version I downloaded works fine with my Palm devices.

You must have the KDE and Qt development libraries to compile KPilot, so you will need to install kde-devel at the very least. You also need cmake, which isn't installed by default in Ubuntu. You need to install the latest version of pilot-link separately as well, and compile it, first. In this example, I installed pilot-link in /usr/local/src/pilot-link-0.12.1. I also set the following environment variables for my platform (this is optional and may not apply to your platform):

export CFLAGS="-march=athlon64 -O2 -pipe"
export CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
export CPPFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
export CXX="g++"

Here are the commands to download, make and install KPilot:

cd /usr/local/src
svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/branches/KDE/
↪3.5/kdepim/kpilot/
cd kpilot
./configure --prefix=/usr --with-pilot-link=/usr/
↪local/src/pilot-link-0.12.1
make -f Makefile.cmake
make -f Makefile.cmake install

If you already have KPilot running, you need to exit, and you may even have to kill the dæmon with the command:

killall kpilotDaemon

Restart KPilot, and now you should be able to sync without problems. If you want to keep up to date with the latest changes, you can update the source code with the following command (obviously, you need to configure and install again afterward):

svn update kpilot

—Nicholas Petreley

Linux watch Command

Much open-source software for Linux has good monitoring commands for observing process activity. Some of the commands do not have graphical user interfaces, and in other cases, administrators prefer to use the command line. Monitoring the progress of an activity is a continuous task.

The Linux watch(1) command ( linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl1_watch.htm) is a useful tool for monitoring progress. It allows users to run a command and watch the output in a terminal window. It can execute the monitoring command at regular intervals and show differences (option -d) between successive updates.

Many Amanda ( amanda.zmanda.com) users, myself included, use the watch command to observe the Amanda backup progress. The Amanda status command amstatus ( wiki.zmanda.com/index.php/amstatuscommand) can be run with the watch command every minute to monitor the progress for each filesystem being backed up:

watch --differences=cumulative
 ↪--interval=60 amstatus backupconfigg

The above command watches the backup progress for the Amanda configuration backconfig.

Another use for watch is to watch memory usage in a system:

watch cat /proc/meminfo

—Paddy Sreenivasan

PHP Create Password Script

The following tip comes courtesy of Foundations of PEAR: Rapid PHP Development by Nathan A. Good and Allan Kent, published by Apress ( www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=10181).

This tip shows how to generate strong passwords using a PEAR package called Text_Password. To use the code shown in this tip, you need to have PEAR installed along with PHP, and you need to install the Text_Password package. To install the Text_Password package, type:

pear install text_password

The Code:

The PHP script that creates the password looks like this:

      
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Password Example</title>
<style>
    li {
        font-style: italic;
    }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<?php
// require the Text_Password package
// to be included in the page
require_once "Text/Password.php";
?>
<p>
<strong>Here is a pronounceable password, defaulting
        to 10 characters:</strong>
<br />
<em><?php echo Text_Password::create(); ?></em>
</p>
<p>
<strong>Here are 5 unpronounceable passwords, with
        a length of 15 characters each:</strong>
<br />
<ul>
<?php
    $passwords = Text_Password::createMultiple(5,
    15, 'unpronounceable');
    foreach ($passwords as $password) {
    ?>
    <li><?php echo $password; ?></li>
    <?php
    }
?>
</ul>
</p>
</body>
</html>

The Results:

When the script is executed, it generates output very similar to that shown here. Of course, because the passwords are generated randomly, your actual results will differ slightly:

      
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Password Example</title>
<style>
    li {
        font-style: italic;
    }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>
<strong>Here is a pronounceable password, defaulting
  to 10 characters:</strong>
<br />
<em>vumaechoud</em>
</p>
<p>
<strong>Here are 5 unpronounceable passwords, with a
  length of 15 characters each:</strong>
<br />
<ul>
    <li>E_3uYlRxYY2n%pd</li>
        <li>Ghn0Q@XZr%DBvDe</li>
        <li>0tAUoGoJR7C1zo2</li>
        <li>f#EA5jHIZmjaW8O</li>
        <li>1cbc7fhL@d#RHWM</li>
    </ul>
</p>
</body>
</html>

How It Works:

The Text_Password::create() method can be called statically. It returns a pronounceable password with a default length of ten characters, as shown in the output.

The Text_Password::createMultiple() method, also called statically, can accept parameters that allow you to specify how many passwords you want returned, the number of characters in each password and that they be either pronounceable or unpronounceable, depending on the desired complexity for the password. Passwords that are unpronounceable have numbers and punctuation marks in them.

Using the Text_Password package, you quickly can write PHP scripts that allow your application or Web site to have the capacity to generate passwords.

—Nathan A. Good and Allan Kent

______________________

Webcast
More Resources
How to Build an Optimal Hadoop Cluster to Store and Maintain Unlimited Amounts of Data Using Microservers

Realizing the promise of Apache® Hadoop® requires the effective deployment of compute, memory, storage and networking to achieve optimal results. With its flexibility and multitude of options, it is easy to over or under provision the server infrastructure, resulting in poor performance and high TCO. Join us for an in depth, technical discussion with industry experts from leading Hadoop and server companies who will provide insights into the key considerations for designing and deploying an optimal Hadoop cluster.

Learn More

Sponsored by AMD

White Paper
More Resources
Red Hat White Paper: Using an Open Source Framework to Catch the Bad Guy

Built-in forensics, incident response, and security with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

Every security policy provides guidance and requirements for ensuring adequate protection of information and data, as well as high-level technical and administrative security requirements for a system in a given environment. Traditionally, providing security for a system focuses on the confidentiality of the information on it. However, protecting the data integrity and system and data availability is just as important. For example, when processing United States intelligence information, there are three attributes that require protection: confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Learn more about catching the bad guy in this free white paper.

Learn More

Sponsored by DLT Solutions