Welcome to workaround.org

Welcome to my personal wiki. While my office job deals with network and system administration 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. Since a wiki allows me to add pages quickly I decided to use the Moin Moin Wiki software. This wiki is not publicly writeable to prevent abuse (I'm sick of removing automatically generated spam).

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 Having outdated copies flying around on the internet is confusing for the reader and unfair for the author.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.

If you are interested in discussing this web site in general and the Postfix tutorial in special then please join the WorkaroundChitchatMailinglist - you are invited. Have fun browsing through the articles. If you like to support me please consider donating:

And if you are completely bored you may waste some more time reading my blog :)

Kindly, ChristophHaas

Email / Postfix

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.

mentors.debian.net

mentors.debian.net is a Debian-related web site that helps getting new or updated software packages into Debian. If you like to contribute ideas or just see what's coming up read the MentorsTodoList.

Video

Squid Proxy Server

OpenVPN

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 the OpenVpnFaq for additional questions and answers.

Jabber

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. 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 our Jabber server at jabber.workaround.org. Recommended Jabber client programs on Linux are kopete (ships with KDE), gaim or Psi. You can register yourself without any admin interaction. So choose your name and get an address like bob@jabber.workaround.org

Encryption / Security

If you need an SSL certificate and do not want to spend big bucks on it you may be interested in my article about a CertificateAuthoritySetup.

IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

Firewalling / iptables

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 long time I used the Firewall Builder (fwbuilder) but then decided that managing my firewall rules with iptables in a bash script is much simpler (and above all does not require to have a computer with X11 in my vicinity). You may be interested in my IptablesScript that contains a shell script you can use freely.

DocBook/XML

DocBook is a format for authors. You define the different parts and mark the text and XSLT processors create different kinds of output. (A bit like LaTeX.) Since I author tutorials in DocBook/XML I had to learn a few things. May they help you, too:

Debian

If you want to build package and both use svn-buildpackage (to maintain your work under Subversion control) and use pbuilder (a chroot environment to test the package) you may want to take a look at my tips:

A while ago we had trouble using pbuilder/debootstrap. Read HowToUsePbuilder for a workaround.

You may also be interested in a collection of DebianLinks that point to a few useful services operated by the Debian project.

And I wrote an evil article about BecomingADebianDeveloper in case you consider spending some time in the New Maintainer's process.

Misc system administration

Programming

Some outdated and incomplete stuff I'm not quite proud of:

Pylons (my favorite Python web framework)

Fun

Imprints / Impressum

The holy German law requires me to reveal my personal information on the page. Please see the ChristophHaas page for more information.

SIP (sipgate)

http://onlinestatus.sipgate.net:8585/15/1556824b311f4bf4c6633ab57a8ed72e?.png


00:25 < ChrisH> There is no such thing as "nice" in Debian. :)
00:26 < kaol> sure is, it's in coreutils

WorkaroundOrg: Welcome (last edited 2008-04-05 13:56:15 by ChristophHaas)