Ubuntu SABnzbd+ protected by an apache2 proxy and htpasswd

Posted on February 7, 2009 by diginc

Basic SABnzbd+ Setup – SAB for short.

There are plenty of tutorials out there which cover configuring a normal SAB installation so I won’t cover that here. What I am going to do is make my SAB available through a web accessible passworded page, this can be accomplished with default SAB features by putting a web username/password in the general configuration section. However I find it annoying to have to enter the password when I’m on my internal 192.168 home network just to make it protected from the outside, and I don’t like the way it presents the username/password prompt in a website form rather than an generic apache pop-up. I’m sure open accessibility could be fixed in the SABnzbd+ code but I’m not a pro python hacker yet so I’ll just stick to what I know.

Basically I want a generic pop-up password that is only for people outside my network so I’m not bothered with SAB passwords while at home (And I can’t get nzbdStatus to work with a pass enabled). The htpasswd also acts as a bit of camouflage and additional security. There are some concepts which aren’t covered here which are required, you need to know how to configure your own SAB servers, Portforwarding or Firewall/iptables.

If you’re using a router, you’re going to want to make sure you’re not port forwarding the default SAB port of 8080 (which would make it wide open) and only are forwarding the apache2 port you setup for the SAB proxy. If you’re not on an internal IP subnet and have a static IP assigned directly to the linux machine you’re doing this on then I expect you have enough knowledge of IPTables to block the SAB port and allow the proxy port.

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MRTG Indexmaker Interface + Description

Posted on February 5, 2009 by diginc

I like to have interfaces and description, not one or the other. So I do this. Use your favorite editor to open indexmaker: vi /usr/bin/indexmaker

Find this part:

for ($$opt{section}) {
#    ...Skip ahead to descr...
            /^descr(iption)?$/ &&
              do{
                  $section = "No Description for $item";
                  $$rcfg{setenv}{$item} =~ /MRTG_INT_DESCR="(.+?)"/  #"
                        and $section = $1;
                  $$rcfg{pagetop}{$item} =~
                          m,&lt;td>Description:&lt;/td&gt;\s*&lt;td&gt;\Q$section\E\s*([^&lt; ][^&gt;]+?)</td>,i
                        and $section = $1;
                  last;
              };

The first `and $section = $1;` is a catch all to assign the interface name if there’s no description. The second one overwrites it, replacing the int name if it does find a description. So all you need to do is modify the second instance of `and $section = $1;` to:

and $section = $section . " - " . $1;

And your MRTG index is infinitely improved!

Outlook 2007: None of the Authentication Methods Supported By This Client Are Supported By Your Server

Posted on February 5, 2009 by diginc

Can’t send from certain locations and keep having to turn on/off outgoing server SMTP Authentication in outlook 2007? You might see this error too: “None of the Authentication Methods Supported By This Client Are Supported By Your Server”

My Answer: Goto Email Accounts, Change the problem account, More Settings, Outgoing Server tab, and check outgoing server require authentication and choose “Log on to incoming mail server before sending mail” instead of “Use same settings as incoming” – Outlook 2007 is the first and only mail program to require any of our mail servers to use this setting. So far I’ve only confirmed the problem to be on older sendmail servers. There can be other solutions to this error message but this is one I find most often resolves it.

The Question: As a systems administrator I take calls for our tech support queue and one user called with a really odd problem. Basically it’s detailed here:

http://thepursuitofalife.com/outlook-2007-error-none-of-the-authentication-methods-supported-by-this-client-are-supported-by-your-server/

Like the above link describes the user would have to disable SMTP auth in certain locations (That’s a workaround, not the solution), even though all our servers require SMTP authentication. The above link eventually shares the true solution but it’s buried under many comments thanking the poster for the work around. So I decided to help fellow googlers by making this post.

Update: Comments about other people’s experience with this error made me want to add my further experience with it. I’ve seen this error a lot more often since I first made this post and am convinced it’s really some sort of bug with Outlook 2007. Some people cannot get rid of the error and have to continually switch between “Log on to incoming mail server before sending mail” and “Use same settings as incoming” to keep outlook sending correctly. Whereas if they switch to Windows Mail (The Vista and Windows 7 equivalent of outlook express) they never need to do anything but set ‘use same settings as incoming’ and never have any problem sending. If it’s not a ‘2007 Bug’ then it’s definitely a Outlook 2007 incompatibility with certain MTAs – specifically (maybe just older) sendmail – our postfix servers don’t seem to have this bug, but like I just said only 2007 has this incompatibility so you can’t entirely blame sendmail.

Windows 7 – What I do after installing

Posted on January 22, 2009 by diginc

I thought I’d make a list of applications I usually need after a fresh windows install and what order I install them in. Since this time I’m using Windows 7 (W7) Beta I’ll be commenting about major differences I take notice of about W7 along the way too – I’ve had tastes of Vista before so I know my way around their new control panel and other menu changes. Note I’m running the 64-bit version so some of my links are to 64-bit apps/drivers.

Windows 7 bugged me about anti virus right away so I grabbed that first…
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Setting up my HDTV HTPC with xUbuntu 8.10

Posted on January 17, 2009 by diginc

Here my chronicle of fixes and tasks I had to go through while setting up my HDTV HTPC / home server.

I upgraded from an older xUbuntu to xUbuntu 8.10 64-bit and the first thing I had to do is restore the windows file share where I backed up configurations, samba shares, and my Adaptec SATA Raid 1210SA. Then I had to conquer ATI’s proprietary drivers and restore my previous install’s server functionality. Next time I’ll be finishing up the HTPC portion by configuring my TV Tuner with mythTV and installing Boxee as well – and maybe integrating the two together if possible.
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