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Good to have you here. Look around and feel free to comment on any page. I'm always interested in feedback.
If you are looking for my blog about the Motorrad-Führerschein please check out my personal site: christoph-haas.de.
ISPmail tutorials
The famous ISP-style mail server tutorials live here. Learn how to set up your own fully-functional mail server using Postfix, Dovecot IMAP/POP3 and MySQL backend on a Debian server just like your favorite mail or website hosting provider.
- ISPmail tutorial using Postfix 3.1.4 (Debian Stretch) – this guide is currently in the making and is expected to be published in 01/2018. I know I promised an earlier release but a project at work has gone seriously wrong and currently I do not have any spare time. I just get home for sleeping.
- ISPmail tutorial using Postfix 2.11 (Debian Jessie)
- ISPmail tutorial using Postfix 2.9 (Debian Wheezy)
I have been maintaining the ISPmail tutorial since Debian Woody. However those older Debian versions are no longer supported. If you still like to read the old versions I have provided PDF versions of the tutorials for Squeeze, Lenny, Etch, Sarge and Woody.
Thoughts blog
My daily work leads to various discoveries and insights. Some were petty but others really brightened my day.
- Limiting your childrens’ internet access effectively using OpenDNS
- Reverse social engineering
- Why is Markdown so popular?
- Moving contacts and calendar entries from Google to OwnCloud
- Your privacy checklist for the post-cloud era
- Moving servers without downtime
- Displaying SVG images in websites with Internet Explorer 10
- Why my next graphics card will not be from nVidia
- A Linux nerd’s first Mac contact
- Desktop despair – Gnome 3 risked too much
- There are even more articles...
My projects
I am a system administrator and programmer. In my nerdy spare time I work on web applications, Python and Ruby programs, write articles or explore new software technologies. On workaround.org you can find news, solutions and hints on my findings and get help. Of course your feedback is welcome.
These are some projects I am currently working on:
IRC – Internet relay chat
- IRC is a great medium for getting instant help (at least on the freenode IRC network). I have collected some tips about Getting help on IRC to help you get help instead of getting barbecued.
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knoba's factoids
I run a bot called knoba (short for knowledge base) on the freenode IRC network. Two channels I visit frequently are #postfix and #squid. So I have fed the bot with lots of factoids that you can query using !foobar in the channel. These are the factoids understood in #squid and #postfix. Please don't play with the bot publicly. Send it a "/msg knoba help" and learn how it works.
Linux tips
My daily work leads to various discoveries and insights. Some were petty but others really brightened my day.
- Whitelisting complements blacklisting
- Updating the BIOS on Lenovo laptops from Linux using a USB flash stick
- Moving contacts and calendar entries from Google to OwnCloud
- Ctrl-P file finding magic with Vim
- Docking and undocking Linux laptops with nVidia GPUs using disper
- 50€, 30 minutes and rsnapshot to set up a carefree backup
- Backups with rsnaphot to external USB drives
- Renaming multiple files
- Pipes and redirection
- NFS: sec=sys or ruin your day
- There are even more articles...
Regarding the Squid web proxy
Squid is a powerful open-source web proxy. I was responsible for a large Squid installation at a former employer. Maybe the following articles help you save time in your daily work.
Padrino web framework
Padrino is an lean Ruby web framework. It is an interesting alternative to the heavier Ruby-on-Rails. I spent quite some time with it and created a couple of articles about it:
- Using FactoryGirl to test Padrino web applications using Padrino and Sequel
- Using Zurb Foundation with Padrino and Compass
- How to use user authentication in your Padrino apps with padrino-warden
- Padrino cheat sheet
- Clearing RSpec test databases with Padrino and Sequel
- Sequel model pagination with Padrino
Zabbix monitoring
Zabbix is a mighty open-source monitoring software. If you need a serious system for your organisation and manage to condone its creepy web interface it is hands down the the most superior software I have ever seen. And I have been dealing with monitoring software since Nagios was called Netsaint.
These articles should help you in your daily work maintaining a monitoring system:
