I'm a system and network administrator and programmer in my day job. And it's also a hobby of mine. Over time I have tried a lot of software, encountered a lot of problems and found a lot of solutions. To save my findings for others I have created a number of articles here on workaround.org. Please be nice and do not copy/paste the documents you find here to another web server. Having outdated copies flying around on the internet is confusing for the reader and unfair for me - the author. If you are interested in using one of the non-trivial articles then please ask and we will find a way. The famous Postfix tutorial has been put under the GPL for example. If you are interested in discussing this web site in general and the Postfix tutorial in special then consider joining the on the workaround chitchat mailing list - you are invited. Have fun browsing through the articles. If you like to support me please consider donating. Also thanks to vpslink.com for sponsoring the mentors.debian.net hardware and bandwidth in exchange for a little advertisement. :) And if you are completely bored you may waste some more time reading my blog. You can see the most recent postings listed in the right column, too.
Christoph Haas
The famous "ISP-style" tutorials live here. Learn how to integrate your email services using Postfix, Dovecot/Courier IMAP/POP3 and MySQL backend on a Debian server just like your favorite mail/web hosting provider. The latest tutorial is for Debian Etch.
As a Debian developer I contributed a few services to the Debian project:
OpenVPN is an open-source SSL VPN software. It allows you to connect different (private) networks securely over the internet. It's the perfect alternative to all the crappy SSL VPN appliances that the salesmen desperately try to sell. See my OpenVPN FAQ for additional questions and answers.
Jabber is an open, secure, ad-free alternative to consumer IM services driven by less trustworthy companies like AOL or Microsoft. The terms of use read that AOL claims rights on everything you write through ICQ. I assume that's not what you want. (The only reason for AOL still having users is that those poor subjects never read the terms of service.) A good start point to learn about it is http://jabber.org. You can even run your own Jabber server since the protocol is open and user identifications are not saved centrally. User identifications are not numbers like 1234567 but rather look like email addresses. If you like to try Jabber feel free to use my Jabber server at jabber.workaround.org. Recommended Jabber client programs on Linux are kopete (ships with KDE), gaim, Psi or Pidgin. You can register yourself without any admin interaction. So choose your name and get an address like bob@jabber.workaround.org now.
If you need an SSL certificate and do not want to spend big bucks to the certification mafia then you are invited to read my article on operating your own certificate authority to create SSL certificates.
You probably have a computer connected to the internet. How else would you be getting this. As the internet is no friendly place any more you should make sure your computer is protected appropriately. For a while I used the Firewall Builder (fwbuilder) but then decided that managing my firewall rules with iptables in a shell script is much easier (and above all does not require to have a computer with X11 in my vicinity). You may be interested in my iptables script that contains a shell script you can use freely.
DocBook is a source format for authors who write documentation. You define the different parts, use a certain markup and let XSLT processors create different kinds of output. It's a bit like LaTeX. Since I wrote documentation for workaround.org and Ubuntu's documentation team in DocBook/XML I had to learn a few things. You are invited to read my general introduction/tutorial to DocBook. I have even written a short incomplete reference on the DocBook format.
I'm maintaining a few Debian packages. And in the past I used svn-buildpackage for that purpose. I can tell you how to quickly set up a Subversion repository that is accessible through WebDAV on an Apache server. Some developers use the pbuilder tool to build packages in a controlled seperate environment. Building Debian packages with pbuilder and svn-buildpackage is a bit tricky though.
Like every well-behaved Debian developer I offer sponsorship of Debian packages maintained by non-Debian-developers. Feel free to ask me about sponsorship. But please take a moment to read my Debian package sponsorship guidelines to make both your and my life easier.
If you maintain a GUI application I suggest you not only provide a menu file for your Debian package but also a desktop file.
Although I'm still not a big fan of Git for revision control. I partly use it because hg-buildpackage has been abandoned and git-buildpackage is actively maintained. But honestly Git is still unnecessarily complex. But if you co-maintain a Debian package with Git and git-buildpackage I have a few notes for you.
Some further links lead you to the incoming directory (where new Debian package uploads end up), a list of Debian packages waiting for approval, a list of developer machines, my sponsorship statistics (I already made it to rank 3 there), the Debian packages that I maintain, their lintian reports, bug reports against my packages, the buildd status (automatic package builder) and my packages and bugs page.
And if you should consider becoming a Debian developer then please read my article before asking me to advocate you.
Bacula is a nifty backup software that is network-capable and stores data in the database for faster retrieval in case you need a certain file back. As a big fan of cheat sheets I created a quick overview of common Bacula tasks.
Now that I watch TV via digital satellite (DVB-S) I have searched for and found a great easy way to turn DVB-S streams into video DVDs on Debian.