FreeBSD - How to use Meta Ports to install group of ports

Often, after a fresh new installation of FreeBSD, we have a set of programs we want to install. The conventional method would be installing it one by one in /usr/ports. Today, we will use meta ports to install the set of applications by just one "make install clean" rather then "cd" into individual directories and do "make install clean" for every ports.

Meta ports are, as the name implies, ports file that describe about the program we are installing. The ports file describe where & what to install for this ports to work. A sample of "where" would be "where to download the source", "where to install it" and so on. As for "what", it would be "what to install to fulfill the dependencies". In this post, we will take advantage of this "what". We will define the dependencies as the list of programs we want to install so that the ports will install it.

This is an example of how to do it :

Apache - [warn] _default_ VirtualHost overlap on port 80, the first has precedence

Virtual Host. A feature that enables Apache to configure multiple domain into one web (http) server. This feature saves the need to run multiple instances of web server and thus saves resources.

After configuring the <VirtualHost> directives, some may encounter an error message :

Error : [warn] _default_ VirtualHost overlap on port 80, the first has precedence

This is due to the missing of a parameter, before any <VirtualHost> directives:

NameVirtualHost

MySQL - Passwordless login within bash script

As like the previous post about passwordless login within Bash script, this post is about how to connect to MySQL database server using Bash script without MySQL client prompting for login.

Here it is :

ssh - How to encrypt/tunnel internet traffic through ssh

When using an insecure internet connection (e.g. wireless), it is a good practice to tunnel internet traffic through ssh. Tunneling through ssh provide encryption of the traffic starting from local computer to the point ends where ssh server is. It is especially important to encrypt the traffic out of the local PC when using un-secure connection as other malicious intent users might be able to sniff packet off the current connection.

How does ssh tunneling works?

SmokePing - How setup logging (or debuging)

SmokePing is an utility to keep track of the network latency from your network to various site. Its output are recorded in graph, for analysis purpose. Its configuration are simple and easy to setup. But some times, logging are needed to debug some probes failed to output to graph. The logging setup will need to edit some files to make sure it rotate itself and syslog needs to be notified.

Here is how you get your hands dirty :

WordPress - wp-cache plugin not working

WordPress plugin wp-cache is a plugin that caches the WordPress post the first time when someone visits it then it uses the cache next time when the same post needs to load again. This saves processing power and also improves user experience as WordPress posts are loaded faster.

For some reason, wp-cache stop working. The "Cache contents" in WP-Cache Manager (accessible from Settings --> WP-Cache) shows both "cached pages" and "expired pages" are "0" (zero) all the time.

The fix is :

FreeBSD - Quick install guide (aka How to install FreeBSD)

Much great have been said on FreeBSD;

• the license has all the freedom you need
• server apps setup are mostly manual. no wizard of oz, no gui. Which makes the administrator have control over everything.
• it boots faster
• its stability is like rock, hard to crash :)
• default installation are lean and mean. Is meant to be built from scratch. Ain't no rubbish you want on the system to trade for vulnerabilities.

Even though some of the above might scare off a normal user, no doubt it is still a great OS that no others can beat. Don't believe me? Try it yourself with the below few pictures (to guide) :