LDAP hell (2)

So I managed to find a guide on setting up webclient for my LDAP server:
http://www.nomis52.net/?section=docs&page=samldap

LDAP hell

I decided to put all authentication/authorization into one place. There are few choices. I opted for LDAP for various reasons. I should mention that I just understand some concepts of LDAP and don't understand details of implementation. The main goal was to put authentication information for all the systems we use (shell, samba, subversion, email) into one place. Second in importance is to have an LDAP installation for test purposes. We want to implement authorisation library which could be easily extended to use different backends one of them being LDAP.

Here is a list of guides I found useful for the task:
http://times.usefulinc.com/2005/09/25-ldap
http://www.rrcomputerconsulting.com/view.php?article_id=3
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=640760

To configure subversion I used these:
http://www.idimmu.net/2008/01/15/Apache2-ldap-auth-on-Ubuntu-Dapper-and-Feisty
http://blogs.open.collab.net/svn/2007/03/subversion_ldap.html

Now to create a user:
smbldap-useradd -a -m -M ricky -c "Richard M" ricky
-a allows Windows as well as Linux login
-m makes a home directory, leave this off if you do not need local access. PAM will be configured to automatically create a home directory.
-M sets up the username part of their email address
-c specifies their full name
smbldap-passwd ricky

Groups can be added:
smbldap-groupadd -a groupname

Membership are easily managed through Eclipse and LDAP browser.

I wish there is a web based UI to manage users, groups and memberships. Will have to research something....

Linux kiosk

Yesterday I met a person who did some kiosk apps. I was quite intrigued and when returning home I started to investigate a kiosk solution based on Linux for a web application. Here is a link for the most interesting solution: http://jadoba.net/kiosks/firefox/

XBMC - Installation (part 1)

I bought EEE Box these days to setup a media center at home. I used XBMC Live to install it from USB key to HDD. It was a bit of pain as EEE Box won't boot up from USB key by its own. The USB key must be present at the boot. In the bios must be set that USB key should act as fictianl HDD, then in the boot menu it is possible to set the USB key as HDD to boot from.

On the next system restart the machine booted properly from USB key. On initial XBMC screen I opted for installation to HDD and all went smoothly. Afterward I changed bios settings again to boot from SATA drive and all went smoothly.

I continued with some installation maintenance as I wanted to use BlueTooth keyboard, etc...

XBMC - Automagic library update (part3)

I was wondering if there is a way to somehow automagically update a library from cron on through some other means. I keep my files on a file server in basement. It is accessible through SMB (or SAMBA). I add things to the storage many times to watch, but they don't appear in the XBMC as it needs to update library.

There is a way to initialize library update through built-in web server. It just needs to be run through curl or wget to use it in scripts:
curl 'http://xbmc:8080/xbmcCmds/xbmcHttp?command=ExecBuiltIn&parameter=XBMC.updatelibrary(video)'
or
curl 'http://xbmc:8080/xbmcCmds/xbmcHttp?command=ExecBuiltIn&parameter=XBMC.updatelibrary(music)'

There is much more commands which can be used:
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=WebServe...ction_commands
http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=List_of_Built_In_Functions

XBMC - Blue Tooth Keyboard (part 2)

The next thing for my XBMC setup was to control it from the Blue Tooth keyboard I bought for a purpose a looong time ago. The keyboard is Logitech MediaBoard Pro (intended for PS3, but who cares).

My EEE Box does not have a Blue Tooth built in. I had a USB Blue Tooth dongle (BlueTake BT00009X) I used a long time ago and thought I give it a shot. On my great surprise the dongle worked on inserting it into USB slot. No any configuration necessary.

I had to ssh into XBMC machine to do next steps. The great way to find an IP address to ssh into is to look into your routers connected device - the XBMC is there as XBMCLive, or to go to the XBMC and through an USB keybord dig the IP address in an XBMC interface.

Following steps are best described in this article: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothSetup