Category: Ubuntu

I’ve only used Mosh: the mobile shell for a  couple of weeks, but I am definitely a convert! However, I couldn’t get mosh to connect to one of my servers (an OpenVZ instance).

The error manifested itself as the client trying to connect to the server but not getting any response:

mosh: Connecting... [To quit: Ctrl-^ .]

Today I decided to debug the issue. As the client actually was trying to connect, I tried to simply start the server:

$ mosh-server new

MOSH CONNECT 60001 rSbp4ENDdzd/TKBOrrEeVg

mosh-server (mosh 1.2.2)
Copyright 2012 Keith Winstein
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later .
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

[mosh-server detached, pid = 32582]

But when I checked the process list, it wasn’t running anymore:

$ pgrep mosh-server
$

Time to add some verbose output:

$ mosh-server new -v 

MOSH CONNECT 60001 hQ5ab1JjgUytXRZmy5ti6A

mosh-server (mosh 1.2.2)
Copyright 2012 Keith Winstein
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later .
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

[mosh-server detached, pid = 14208]
forkpty: No such file or directory

This must be important: forkpty: No such file or directory, but what does it mean?

Some googling showed that it meant that /dev/pts was not mounted on my system, and it was indeed not mounted:

$ mount
 /dev/simfs on / type reiserfs (rw,usrquota,grpquota)

(Yes, I’ve also wondered why my host is running ReiserFS.)

So I checked my /etc/fsab:

$ cat /etc/fstab
proc  /proc       proc    defaults    0    0
none  /dev/pts    devpts  rw          0    0

It’s there, but still not mounted? Oh well, easy fix:

sudo mount /dev/pts

After that fix, I could successfully connect to my server with mosh!

1. Download from //virtualboxes.org/images/ubuntu-server/
2. VBoxManage register “/storage2/virtualboxes/Ubuntu server 11.10/Ubuntu server 11.10.vbox”
3. VBoxManage list vms
   “Ubuntu server 11.10” {231c28f0-19bb-48d7-9db4-ba29de37e5fd}
4. VBoxManage modifyvm “Ubuntu server 11.10” –usbehci off
5. VBoxManage modifyvm “Ubuntu server 11.10” –pae on
6. VBoxManage modifyvm “Ubuntu server 11.10” –nic1 bridged –bridgeadapter1 em0
7. VBoxManage sharedfolder add “Ubuntu server 11.10” –name backup –hostpath /backup
8. nohup VBoxHeadless –startvm “Ubuntu server 11.10” -n 2>&1 &
9. Connect from desktop via VNC to configure and install guest additions (sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-dkms)

I have customized my DokuWiki installation to allow multiple wikis, similar to running multiple WordPress blogs on different domains. My /etc/dokuwiki/local.php looks like this:

This means that I have multiple DokuWiki sites in my /var/lib/dokuwiki/ directory. To copy only one of them:

1. Copy the /etc/dokuwiki/hostname directory and symbolic links
2. Copy the /var/lib/dokuwiki/hostname directory and symbolic links
3. Copy the template(s) from /var/lib/dokuwiki/tpl/templatename or /var/lib/dokuwiki/lib/tpl/templatename

1. cd /var/tmp/
2. curl -O //www.tarsnap.com/download/tarsnap-autoconf-1.0.31.tgz  (or actually the latest version from //www.tarsnap.com/download.html)
3. sudo apt-get install gcc e2fslibs-dev zlib1g-dev libssl-dev make
4. cd tarsnap-autoconf-1.0.31 (directory name corresponding to the downloaded tarball)
5. ./configure && make && sudo make install
6. sudo tarsnap-keygen –keyfile /root/tarsnap.key –user username –machine machinename (note that my blog converts two dashes to a single long dash so you need to edit this line after cut & paste)
7. sudo cp /usr/local/etc/tarsnap.conf.sample /usr/local/etc/tarsnap.conf
8. sudo vim /usr/local/etc/tarsnap.conf (if you need to edit any options)

Simply install GNOME Gmail in your Linux distro and change the Mail Reader in System -> Preferences -> Preferred Applications:

If you use Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat (10.10) or earlier you need to download the GNOME Gmail .deb but in Natty Narwhal (11.04) you can install it directly from the unsupported universe repository.

In retrospect, I really don’t understand why I didn’t upgrade my primary laptop (Thinpad T60p with ATI graphics) earlier, as the Spotify issue was resolved a long time ago.

Maverick feels a bit faster than Lucid, so I’m really happy.

Ubuntu 10.10, with codename Maverick Meerkat, was released on 10 October 2010. So far it has only made me disappointed.

First of all, when I have the USB cable for my LG L1510SF touch screen, X crashes in xf86findOption. I have submitted bug reports via Apport, see Launchpad bug #657895.

Second, Spotify crashes on certain mouse events with the newer Qt version. More information:

• Spotify for Linux segfaults under Ubuntu Maverick beta (upcoming 10.10)
• Seg fault after upgrading to qt 4.7 and kde 4.5.1

Don’t upgrade if you want any of the above to work!