• Category Archives software
  • Debian 8.0 Jessie – server upgrade notes

    General

    So the blog and my email address have been unavailable a few hours as I was thinking I could just run the upgrade in the background on a Sunday afternoon. My fault. 😉

    See the Debian Jessie announcement and Debian Jessie release notes for general information.

    On my system there’s only a web- and a mailserver with some antivirus and firewall stuff. So I had to adjust some Apache settings and fiddle with dovecot and some other start scripts. I was happy the udev maintainer included some checks against the kernel version, as I run a xen-based virtual root server by Vollmar.net and thus don’t install the kernel by myself (and stick to udev 175 or it wouldn’t boot any more 😉 ).

    Apache 2.4 httpd

    For the Apache webserver there are upgrade notes available in the documentation, I had to get rid of the NameVirtualHosts directive (if untouched the /etc/apache2/ports.conf file from Debian does the trick but I modified mine) and change
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all

    into
    Require all granted
    everywhere in order to allow access to the web-roots again. Also the sites-available files now require a .conf suffix.

    postgreSQL

    Take care, it’s confusing, there will be the daemons for 9.1 and 9.4 running in parallel, the client will be the one of 9.4 but uses the 9.1 cluster. So only remove 9.1 after you migrated successfully from 9.1 to 9.4 (most probably by removing the existing 9.4 cluster created during package installation and running pg_upgradecluster 9.1 main).

    phpMyAdmin

    If you get errors like "PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required '/usr/share/php/php-gettext/gettext.inc' (include_path='.') in /usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries/select_lang.lib.php on line 463" you need to upgrade your /etc/phpmyadmin/apache2.conf – most probably there’s a /etc/phpmyadmin/apache2.conf.dpkg-dist already sitting next to it, also see #709302 (it’s not a bug 😉 ).

    postfix/dovecot mailserver

    dovecot

    So it seems that I did nearly make no changes in /etc/dovecot/conf but this lead to my IMAPs/POP3s daemons not starting any more. In the end I guess the ssl configuration was the culprit, I uncommented the lines pointing to my SSL-key files in 10-ssl.conf, no idea whether this was the 100% correct approach, it’s usually better to create local configuration.

    clamav-daemon

    For some reason I was hit by Debian #778507 – a letter was missing in /var/lib/dpkg/info/clamav-daemon.postinst, so line 626 has to be
    [ -n "$PidFile" ] && echo "PidFile $PidFile" >> $DEBCONFFILE

    bley

    I use bley by Evgeni Golov for greylisting, here I modified the init script by myself before to include the postgresql dependency and now had to accept upstream changes. But they also include a dbconfig-based database configuration now.

    fail2ban

    The fail2ban package seems to be more verbose now, so I could fix some typos in the rule files (one time the name of a local file was misspelt, one file lacked the ignoreregex= stanza).


  • WhatsApp Web, Jan 22, 2015

    So, for everyone except Apple iPhone/iOS users, WhatsApp has announced WhatsApp Web which enables you to chat with your WhatsApp contacts on the PC. This is included at least in WhatsApp version 2.11.498 on Android. Also it requires Google Chrome on the desktop.

    It’s basically a web-based extension to the app running on the smartphone. The smartphone still has to be on-line, messages/chats are just mirrored. To activate, open WhatsApp Web in Google Chrome, then open WhatsApp on your phone and select “WhatsApp Web” from the menu (globe symbol) to scan the generated QR-code and thus connect your phone account to the web application.

    WhatsApp Web Screenshot
    WhatsApp Web Screenshot

    I couldn’t try it yet, on my mobile there’s the “OK, got it” missing, my screen is too small:

    WhatsApp QR Code Screen shot
    WhatsApp QR Code Screen shot

    Switching to languages with shorter words (for example Mandarin) didn’t help, although it was an interesting experience. 😉

    UPDATE: In Version 2.11.505 (Android) this was fixed:

    WhatsApp Web fixed QR Code help
    WhatsApp Web fixed QR Code help

    So this is what it looks like:

    WhatsApp Web
    WhatsApp Web


    WhatsApp hat für alle möglichen Smartphone-Plattformen außer Apple iPhone/iOs WhatsApp Web angekündigt. Damit kann man dann am PC mit seinen WhatsApp Kontakten chatten. Zumindest ab Version 2.11.498 auf Android ist die Funktion enthalten. Auf dem Desktop wird Google Chrome benötigt.

    Letztendlich ist es eine web-basierte Erweiterung zur Smartphone-App. Das Smartphone muß immer noch online sein, die Nachrichten und Chats werden nur gespiegelt. Um es zu aktivieren muß WhatsApp Web in Google Chrome geöffnet werden, dann WhatsApp auf dem Handy öffnen und “WhatsApp Web” (Globus-Symbol) auswählen. Dort den angezeigten QR-Code scannen, um das Telefon mit der Web-Anwendung zu verbinden.

    Ich konnte es noch nicht ausprobieren, auf meinem Handy kann ich die Animation zum Scannen des QR-Codes nicht wegdrücken, der Bildschirm ist zu klein. Auch der Wechsel zu einer Sprache mit kürzeren Wörtern (Mandarin z.B.) hat nichts gebracht, war aber eine interessante Erfahrung ;).

    UPDATE: In Version 2.11.505 (Android) wurde der Fehler behoben (Bilder s.o.)

    /via Ruhr Nachrichten


  • Lesebestätigung (blaue Häkchen) in WhatsApp loswerden / getting rid of reading confirmation (blue ticks) in WhatsApp / eliminar la confirmación de lectura en WhatsApp, Dec 16, 2014

    Wenn Du vermeiden willst, daß andere WhatsApp Nutzer die blauen Häkchen angezeigt bekommen, wenn Du ihre Nachricht gelesen hast (das Chat-Fenster angezeigt hast), kannst Du jetzt (ich habe Version 2.11.476 auf Android 2.3, es mag schon früher funktioniert haben) die Lesebestätigung deaktivieren. Du findest ganz unten auf der Seite “Einstellungen – Account – Datenschutz” eine Checkbox “Lesebestätigung“. Wie im Screenshot beschrieben, bekommst Du im Gegenzug dann auch keine Lesebestätigungen mehr.

    WhatsApp Lesebestätigung deaktivieren
    WhatsApp Lesebestätigung deaktivieren

    If you want to prevent other WhatsApp users from receiving the blue ticks once you read their message (display the chat window), now (as of version 2.11.476 on Android, it might have been there earlier) you can deactivate the reading confirmation. In the page “Settings – Account – Privacy” there’s a checkbox “Read receipts“. As said in the screenshot this means you also won’t receive any further reading confirmations as well.

    WhatsApp: Read receipts
    WhatsApp: Read receipts

    Si quieres evitar que los otros usarios de Whatsapp reciben los ganchillos azules cuando has leido su mensage (has abrido el ventana de caht), ahora (tengo la versión 2.11.476 en Android, tal vez hubia mas temprano tambíen) lo puedes desactivar. En la pagina “Ajustes – Info de cuenta – Privacidad” hay un checkbox “Confirmación de lectura“. Como dice la captura de pantalla, si desactivaslo, ya no vas a recibir confirmaciónes de lectura tampoco.

    WhatsApp - Confirmación de lectura
    WhatsApp – Confirmación de lectura

  • WhatsApp about to pull back ‘blue ticks’ / Bald eine Option für ‘Blaue Häkchen’ in WhatsApp, Nov 11, 2014

    According to multiple sources WhatsApp will add an option for the recently appeared blue ticks to show at the sender’s chat window once the message has been read (the respective chat window been opened).

    Laut mehrerer Quellen wird WhatsApp demnächst eine Option für die neuen blauen Häkchen einbauen. Die blauen Haken zeigen dem Absender, daß die Nachricht gelesen wurde, weil das entsprechende Chat-Fenster auf der Gegenseite geöffnet wurde.


  • New Whatsapp privacy settings make it possible to hide “last seen”, and more

    The latest update to WhatsApp on Android sports new privacy settings in “Settings » Account » Privacy”. I guess some people will be very happy to finally hide “last seen” 🙂 Also you can give away a one-year voucher to a friend. More info at http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/03/10/whatsapp-2-11-186-update-offers-new-privacy-settings-pay-for-a-friend-and-more/.

    Mit dem neusten WhatsApp Update für Android gibt es unter “Einstellungen » Account » Datenschutz” neue Einstellungen zur Privatsphäre. Ich denke, manche Leute werden sich über die Möglichkeit, “Zuletzt online” zu verstecken, sehr freuen 🙂 Man kann jetzt auch die Jahresgebühr verschenken. Weitere Informationen unter http://rn.de/2301816.

    Con la actualización de WhatsApp para Android ahora hay en “Ajustes » Info de cuenta » Privacidad” nuevas ajustes para la privacidad. Creo que una gente van a alegrarse sobre la posibilidad que ocultar “Última vez” 🙂 Ahora puedes regalar la tarifa del año también. Mas informaciones en http://www.poderpda.com/plataformas/android/whatsapp-para-android-se-actualiza-y-permite-pagar-las-suscripciones-de-tus-amigos/.