2009 is going to be an interesting year…

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9117322

Create the user with the home directory as the root of what they can access
Give the user a password
Make their primary group psacln
Add them to the psaserv group as well
# useradd username -d /var/www/html/website/slideshow/
# passwd username
Enter new password for username
# usermod -g psacln username
# usermod -G psaserv username
You also need to chmod the directory in question to 775

 That’s it.

 The old virtual site’s apache config file had the site bound to *:443, so when I added the new site I changed the old one to [Old IP Address]:443, so it wouldn’t conflict with the new one which was bound to [New IP Address]:443. While logically it seemed like that should have worked, it didn’t, and was serving up the old cert for the new site.

I fixed the issue by changing the binding for the old virtual site back to *:443, while leaving the new one on [new IP address]:443. To me, it seems like this shouldn’t work, and that the *:443 would catch all the requests, but apparently that’s how it is supposed to be, and the binding with the IP address overrides the wildcard binding. Who knew?

Getting it all setup wasn’t difficult. The Django installation is very easy. I started to get errors when I was trying to get my models working when I ran manage.py syncdb. Come to find out that I needed the MySQL-Python library installed to work correctly on my OSX Leopard machine. Most everything that I illustrate below is to be executed from the command-line. So if you are not familiar with working in the Terminal app, this post is gonna suck for you. So here is what I did to get it working:

First, download MySQL for Python
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mysql-python
for me it was MySQL-python-1.2.2.tar

Unpack it:
tar -xzf MySQL-python-1.2.2.tar

Change to the directory that is created:
cd MySQL-python-1.2.2

Next, locate your “mysql_conf” file.
locate mysql_conf

Copy the location of this file so you can use it in the next few steps.

Next, you need to edit the “site.cfg” file and add the path to your “mysql_conf” file.
mysql_config = "YOUR_PATH_GOES_HERE"
Also, (very important), change the line that reads:
threadsafe = True
TO
threadsafe = False

Save and exit the file.

Now, compile and install the library:
python setup.py build
sudo python setup.py install

NOTE: You may need to run “python setup.py clean” if you previously tried to build and install the library.

Next is the *really* important part. After I kept getting errors trying to run the Python server I found the missing piece on the ProjectMouse.org site.

The key is, you need to create a symbolic link in the location that Python is expecting to find MySQL. This should be a link to the MySQL library that your computer is setup to use.
See here:
sudo mkdir /usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql/
sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql-5.0.41-osx10.4-i686/lib/libmysqlclient_r.15.dylib /usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient_r.15.dylib

NOTE: “mysql-5.0.41-osx10.4-i686″ is where MySQL is installed on my machine. Change this to the location specific to your computer.

Finally, import MySQLdb into Python and test your configuration:
python
import MySQLdb

NOTE: You should not see any errors or warnings. Hit “Ctrl+d” to exit the interepter.

Now go back and run manage.py syncdb again and you should not get any errors.

The best indicator of successful usability is a clear understanding of the web site’s target audience. For example, the audience of our rock musician clients want multimedia. They want to download audio tracks, play videos, see large photos, and actively participate in the web experience on a fan level. A fan will most likely have multimedia plugins on his or her computer, and if not, will eagerly download them to be able to access enhanced content.

The audience of our real estate clients, however, want to find information, and find it quickly. They aren’t interested in lingering through a Flash animation that stands as a hurdle to the information they’re after. And while photos of properties are necessary, waiting for them to load, having to navigate a sea of thumbnails, or having too-small images will turn a potential homebuyer into a frustrated web user. The real estate agent or company won’t get that user’s phone call.

The tough part is finding the balance between easily giving base-line visitors what they want, and not boring (therefore, alienating) more sophisticated web users. Luckily, that just happens to be our specialty. With design that’s focused on both visual impact and usability, WebSight Design creates a custom-tailored user experience, based on your target audience.

How to solve this? It is really easy actually. There are 2 possible solutions, the first is the easiest, but really shouldn’t be considered and that is to make the folders that PHP needs to write to 0777, which opens a possible security hole and that is why you shouldn’t really consider it.

The second is to simply add the user apache uses, which under Plesk is usually “apache” to the group “psacln”. You can edit the /etc/group and /etc/group- files if you know what you are doing, or use usermod.

If you want to edit the files directly, locate the line that looks like this:

psacln:x:2524:

and just tack on “apache” to the end of it like so…

psacln:x:2524:apache

Do this for both files and restart apache and you are done.

Or, simpler

/usr/sbin/usermod -a -G psacln apache

Then simply make the folders and/or files that php needs access to 0775, which makes it more secure.

You can do similar with any server enviroment, we just happen to use Plesk here.

Rob

So, I am assuming that you are trying to access a Subversion repository via an https url and you are getting the message “ssl not supported” or something similar to this. I know, it sucks and it’s pretty frustrating. I promise you however, if you do *exactly* what I spell out below, in the sequence I list… you will be up and working in about 15-20mins. The only other assumption here is that you are using Ubuntu or some other Debian-based Linux distro that supports the APT package manager.

It’s important to know that Subversion uses a module called Neon to provide ssl connectivity. The key here is to use the version of Neon for your specific release of Subversion. This is key to everything else that follows. Don’t just grab the latest versions of Subversion and Neon and assume they will work correctly together. So with that… let’s get to work.

First, make sure the following packages are installed on your server:
GCC
sudo apt-get install build-essential

Expat
sudo apt-get install expat

Libxml-dev
sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev

Next, download latest Subversion files:
wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.4.X.tar.bz2
wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-deps-1.4.X.tar.bz2
NOTE: “X” above is a placeholder for your version no.

Untar em’ in this order:
tar xjvf subversion-1.4.X.tar.bz2
tar xjvf subversion-deps-1.4.X.tar.bz2

Once you have extracted the files, open the file “subversion-1.4.X/INSTALL“. Locate the section on Neon. It will state which version you need to download and compile with this version of Subversion.

Make sure you are *not* in the Subversion directory you just created. Then go ahead and download Neon:
wget http://www.webdav.org/neon/neon-0.2X.0.tar.gz

NOTE: The “X” above is placeholder for the version of Neon you need.

Next, extract the archive:
tar zxvf neon-1.X.X.tar.gz
cd neon-1.X.X

Now is where the fun begins. You need to compile and install Neon. Do the following from *within* the Neon directory you created:
./configure --with-ssl
make
sudo make install

It’s important to note that Neon gets installed to /usr/local by default. You need to note that as you will now need it when compiling and installing Subversion.

Change back to the Subversion folder:
cd ../subversion-1.4.X

Compile and install Subversion:
./configure --enable-ssl --with-neon=/usr/local/
make
sudo make install

Now, realize that the Subversion compilation and installation process takes a long time to complete. So just be patient. You can ignore any warning messages that scroll by. You only need to be concerned with error messages or if the installation stops for any reason.

Once compilation and installation are complete you need to confirm that you are running the version of Subversion you just tried to install:
svn --version --quiet

If you get *anything* other than the version number you thought you installed, something went horribly wrong. Go back to the very beginning of this and try again. Most time folks get errors it is because that don’t have the prerequisite tools and utilities installed. If you see the version you wanted… you’re all good!