Hacker for Hire

Recently at HTG, we had the need to have anonymous access to create Trac tickets. This is all well and good if you are using Trac with it’s own built in authentication; however, it gets a little more hairy when you are trying to use PAM for authentication. The big gain from PAM is that our developers only need 1 password for login to the box, login to SVN, and login to Trac. I could have figured this out a lot sooner if I’d read the documentation better; however, that’s not a typical engineer/hacker attitude. Also, this wasn’t able to be found by Google because so many people have “provided by ‘Trac’” in their pages that sifting just took forever. Anyway, here’s our setup for PAM authentication (this goes in your location /projects tag):

Pretty simple, just sets up our generic stuff. This is what I had to add to change it to get anonymous authentication AND HTTP basic auth when you click the little login button (our Trac is setup so anonymous can read the how-to’s in the wiki, but nothing else).

There is probably some repeat stuff in there; but it doesn’t seem to break things. Hope this helps someone else out there looking to do the same thing. As a side note, this is not generally a good idea since your are sending basic auth (i.e. plain text) login info over unencrypted connections.

Update:Stupid Wordpress wasn’t auto-escaping the code correctly, if you view it now, you should be able to see the location tags used in the apache configuration.

Popularity: 32% [?]

That’s right, Casa-de-Neal has a new look to its kitchen. Thanks to the assistance from Micah, Will, Joe, Sara, and my dad … we have new refrigerator and a new convection oven! Oh, and the matching under the counter microwave. My dad and step-mom moved into their new house that was already furnished and rather than hassle with changing everything, they opted to give it to me. All three are decked out in glorious stainless and black which looks great against the paint in our kitchen (kudos for the pick on that Sara). We still have to get the mounting bracket and a new cupboard for above the stove since the old one is too big … but that’s child’s play for professionals like me.

There are also two leather chairs and a sofa that came along for the ride. They are positioned comfortably down stairs whilst the older stuff has been moved up to the upstairs living area and the other futon into the spare bedroom. It actually makes the place look much nicer … that and the couches are great movie-watching/Wii-playing/Halo-smashing accessories. I’ll drop some pictures up when I get a chance.

Popularity: 41% [?]

Google has added a feature I’ve been crying for since the advent of Google Maps … way points. In Google terms, they call them Multipoints, but it doesn’t matter, the functionality is still there. No only can you specify multiple places you want to go, but it’s only a drag-and-drop movement to change your route and have it automatically updated. Check it out for yourself by going to Google Maps and firing up the directions.

read more | digg story

Popularity: 43% [?]

Wow … 2007 already and here I am with less stuff on my blog than I hoped. Things have been really busy lately so I’m just going to give you the drive by blogging version.

First up, congratulations to HTG and their purchase of a shinny new Sun Server. The thing fricken smokes! I swear I was about to be sucked into it when we booted it the first time. You can read more about that here … well, maybe. It is a short post.

In other news, we are now on release 0.3 of Project REM. There was a small spat between the group; however, that can pretty well be chalked up to stress from the holidays, server move, and taking on an ungodly number of points to complete for a delivery that happened to be a day to “early” (HTG, was on time … the client was not). Needless to say, trumpets sounded, people hugged, and life went back to normal after everyone got to say their piece (at least I hope so).

Going along with HTG, it’s now coming to tax season and unfortunately, this is one tax form I’m not ready to attack. I’m cool with doing my own 1040 and 1099 forms, but I’d prefer to make HTG’s first pseudo-fiscal year not be the first year we received an audit letter from the IRS. I have to say, I’m very impressed with the work that’s been accomplish and by the looks of it, we’re only going to have more fun as it goes along.

Lastly, I’ve got four resolutions that I’m trying to work on for the new year. First one is to eat more healthy foods like fruits and whole grain oats. Secondly, it’s to stop eating out so much at work since I know it’s not good for me and it’s just costing me more money. Thirdly, I’m going to attempt to get a more regular exercise schedule because it makes my head clearer to think and work. Lastly, I’m going to try and blog at least 3 times a week. And to help me keep track of how well I’m doing, there’s a sweet little app called Joe’s Goals. Basically, you set up some plus minus habits and it keeps track of them for you. It’s free, simple, and quick, go check it out.

That’s all for now, I’ll be back next week with the tale of my new fridge and oven.

Popularity: 43% [?]