chattr +a -V 2006-06-14T14:54:29-05:00 chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog Odd behavior accessing imap folders (authentication failed: courier-imap, sylpheed, kmail, balsa, evolution) chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-06-14T14_41_22.html 2006-06-14T14:41:22-05:00 2006-06-14T14:41:22-05:00 2006-06-14T14:41:22-05:00 I admin the box (well, it's relly a linode.com account running a user-mode Linux kernel) on which this blog runs, and about two years ago, when devmike.com went live on the 'net, I installed and configured the Debian sarge courier-imap package. I tried out a number of MUAs (mail user agents) to access the imap folders, and settled on sylpheed (sylpheed's home page is here).

So, I created an account in sylpheed and set the 'basic' options to protocol IMAP4 and the 'receive' options to 'automatic'. I was able to connect to the courier-imap server and authenticate / login, and read, compose and send mail.

About two days ago, I started getting an 'authentication failed' message in sylpheed's logs, and was unable to read mail. I can ssh to devmike.com, and checked some configuration settings in the courier-imap server on devmike.com. I also tried changing sylpheed's options for my mail accout to 'CRAM-MD5' and to 'LOGIN'.

The courier-imap configuration I had set up had this line in /etc/courier/authdaemonrc:
authmodulelist="authpam"
which means logins will be authenticated via pam, effectively meaning that I use my user account password to access my email via imap. /etc/pam.d/imap contains
auth required pam_unix.so nullok
account required pam_unix.so
password required pam_unix.so
session required pam_unix.so
One thing I tried was to change my user account password and then set the imap password to the new user account password, by doing
# userdbpw | userdb "john@example.com" set imappw
where I substituted my username and domain for john@example.com, and then running
# makeuserdb
I did not restart courier-imap, and I probably should have, because after doing those things (changing user account password, resetting the imap password and rebuliding the database), I was still unable to access my email via courier-imap.

It's now working. I can use sylpheed to access my email, using the 'receive' options 'LOGIN' or 'automatic'. ]]> Search by entering the search terms in the address bar and pressing enter chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-06-05T07_21_14.html 2006-06-05T07:21:14-05:00 2006-06-05T07:21:14-05:00 2006-06-05T07:21:14-05:00 ubuntonista at Change Firefox's Default Search Method gives a great tip on making google searches easier in Firefox. Using the tip, you can search with google merely by opening a new tab, typing in the search terms in the address bar (where you normally enter urls), and tapping the 'enter' key. Never visit the google home page again! ]]> Mars rovers: new software to search images for clouds and dust devils chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-05-28T15_00_20.html 2006-05-28T15:00:20-05:00 2006-05-28T15:00:20-05:00 2006-05-28T15:00:20-05:00 In Mars robots to get smart upgrade, the BBC's Jonathan Amos writes that new algorithms in Spirit's and Opportunity's software will search images for clouds and dust devils, and give priority in uploading those images.
Currently, the rovers are allocated time to look for clouds and dust devils, which may or may not appear - they are naturally transient events. And getting humans to sift the images is time consuming. ...

"If we could look for a much more extended time and select only those images with clouds then we could increase our understanding of how and when these phenomena form. Similarly with the dust devils [said JPL's Rebecca Castano]."
The Earth Observing-1 satellite has used such algorithms since 2003.
A classic example was an eruption on Antarctica's Mt Erebus volcano in 2004. Typically, it could take several weeks to learn such a remote volcano had gone into an active phase; but as soon as EO-1 detected heat from the lava lake at the mountain's summit, it reprogrammed its camera to take more pictures.

The spacecraft also sent a rapid alert to volcanologists on the mission's science team.

So successful has EO-1's Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment software been that it is now running the satellite's main science operations.
The Exploring Mars page at the BBC is updated regularly, and it has an RSS feed. ]]> North Carolina lottery ticket machine running Monta Vista Linux chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-05-02T06_45_52.html 2006-05-02T06:45:52-05:00 2006-05-02T06:45:52-05:00 2006-05-02T06:45:52-05:00 At a Kangaroo convenience store in Raleigh yesterday, the lottery ticket machine (the one which checks scratch off tickets for winners) rebooted. When it started coming back up, I saw dmesg echoing to the console with a Monta Vista Linux Tux logo. GTECH supplies the hardware at that location, and, I believe, all four or five thousand scratch off ticket validation locations for the lottery. The machine was running a 2.14 kernel, 2.14.17, IIRC. ]]> When someone complains about the cold ... chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-03-27T20_40_40.html 2006-03-27T20:40:40-05:00 2006-03-27T20:40:40-05:00 2006-03-27T20:40:40-05:00 Years ago, I was in Alaska for a few months, and before that, in Wisconsin back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Here's an image from radio station KNOM's Nome Static March, 2006 newsletter.

colder than 30°, a cup of hot water tossed in the air will instantly freeze

KNOM volunteer Eric Gauthier tosses hot water in the air.

It freezes instantly into vapor and pellets
when the air temperature is 30 below, Fahrenheit.
If it's 50 below or colder, it explodes
with a 'poof' entirely into frozen vapor.
]]> 'What a country!' Drunk in a bar? Get arrested in Texas chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-03-22T20_45_02.html 2006-03-22T20:45:02-05:00 2006-03-22T20:45:02-05:00 2006-03-22T20:45:02-05:00 In Texas, comments write themselves: Texas arresting people in bars for being drunk.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday. ...

"There are a lot of dangerous and stupid things people do when they're intoxicated, other than get behind the wheel of a car," [Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission's Carolyn] Beck said. "People walk out into traffic and get run over, people jump off of balconies trying to reach a swimming pool and miss."
]]> NASA podcast on Cassini and possible liquid water on Enceladus chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-03-09T19_49_13.html 2006-03-09T19:49:13-05:00 2006-03-09T19:49:13-05:00 2006-03-09T19:49:13-05:00 The Science@NASA podcast today (susbscription xml file location here) is on the possible discovery of liquid water geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Links to stream or download the podcast are at the news article site Radical! Liquid Water on Enceladus. Enceladus' diameter is about 310 miles. ]]> /usr/lib/libXft.so.2: undefined symbol: FT_GlyphSlot_Embolden chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-02-26T08_33_59.html 2006-02-26T08:33:59-05:00 2006-02-26T08:33:59-05:00 2006-02-26T08:33:59-05:00 I closed my RSS reader liferea, and couldn't restart it through my toolbox (see White Magic Desktop for fvwm2). Trying from the command line, I got the message
$: A stale lockfile has been found, and was deleted.
No browser module configured!

** ERROR **: Sorry, I was not able to load any installed browser modules! Try the --debug-all option to get debug information!
aborting...

[x 2]+ Aborted liferea
So, I did `liferea --debug-all` and got
A stale lockfile has been found, and was deleted.
CONF: using GNOME configured proxy: "127.0.0.1" port "3128"
CONF: Proxy settings are now 127.0.0.1:3128 NULL:NULL
GUI: Available browser modules (/usr/lib/liferea):

GUI: Failed to open HTML widget module (/usr/lib/liferea/liblihtmlg.so) specified in configuration!
/usr/lib/libXft.so.2: undefined symbol: FT_GlyphSlot_Embolden

No browser module configured!

** ERROR **: Sorry, I was not able to load any installed browser modules! Try the --debug-all option to get debug information!
aborting...
Aborted
OK, something wrong with libXft.so, which is supplied by libxft2 (`dpkg -S libXft.so.2` gives the name of the package supplying that file), and my libxft version was at 2.1.8.2-3 as shown by doing `dpkg --list libxft2`).

googling the phrase which is the title of this post lead me to Re: Watch out! In Etch, apt-get upgrade breaks KDE on every machine I upgraded... on one of the Debian mailing lists, which provided this solution:
# dpkg --force-depends -r libxft2
# wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xft/libxft2_2.1.7-1_i386.deb
# dpkg -i libxft2_2.1.7-1_i386.deb
# echo libxft2 hold | dpkg --set-selections
When I ran `dpkg --force-depends -r libxft2`, I got
dpkg: libxft2: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you request:
krita depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
inkscape depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
mrxvt depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
klipper depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
konqueror depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
libksieve0 depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
kicker depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
libvte4 depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
networkstatus depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
mozilla-firefox depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
koffice-libs depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
kdepim-kio-plugins depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
kwin depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
lesstif2 depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
lesstif1 depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
libkpimidentities1 depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
ksysguard depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
kdesktop depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
korganizer depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
ksplash depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
kcontrol depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
kmail depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
ark depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
kalarm depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
kdelibs-bin depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
abiword-plugins depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
quanta depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
ksmserver depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
libxft-dev depends on libxft2 (= 2.1.8.2-3).
libpango1.0-0 depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
fvwm depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
konserve depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
gnome-control-center depends on libxft2 (>> 2.1.1).
[many other packages snipped]
(Reading database ... 173146 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing libxft2 ...
A very bad bug (see the bugs.debian.org bug report at libxft2: "FT_GlyphSlot_Embolden" disappeared since version 2.1.7-1, apps depends on this!).

The forced removal and install of a previous version of libxft2 worked, at least to the extent of liferea working. ]]> shell-init: error retrieving current directory: getcwd: cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-01-31T06_17_30.html 2006-01-31T06:17:30-05:00 2006-01-31T06:17:30-05:00 2006-01-31T06:17:30-05:00 Laughing at myself: switching between tabs in multi-gnome-terminal, I ran `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade` from within a directory I had removed, and got that error message. The clue to the solution and what caused the problem was 'cannot access parent directories: No such file or directory'. A simple `cd ..` did the trick. ]]> 'The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available ...' chattr http://www.devmike.com/blog/archives/2006-01-12T14_14_42.html 2006-01-12T14:14:42-05:00 2006-01-12T14:14:42-05:00 2006-01-12T14:14:42-05:00 The latest Debian Weekly News has links to solving the GPG problem `apt-get update` displayed after the first of the year ('The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available', etc.): Re: GPG error on apt-get update.
wget http://ftp-master.debian.org/ziyi_key_2005.asc -O - | sudo apt-key add -
wget http://ftp-master.debian.org/ziyi_key_2006.asc -O - | sudo apt-key add -
]]>