Rob's Homepage

So I own a VPS (if you can ever really own a VPS) which does a number of things for me. It's backed up by the hosting company, something which requires root access. Now I always worry when giving someone root access, no matter how much I trust them, so the back ups are performed through a simple script which only allows certain commands to be ran, as well as logging all attempts.

The otherday I watched episode 303 of Security Now and Steve has a very interesting take on passwords. Essentially assuming we don't have a dictonary word then it's all about using as many different types of characters as possible. Yes length still matters but entropy (randomness) doesn't.

Another post containg stuff I usually have to look for.

umask valuefile chmod valuedirectory chmod value
000666 rw-rw-rw-777 rwxrwxrwx
002664 rw-rw-r--775 rwxrwxr-x
022644 rw-r--r--755 rwxr-xr-x
027640 rw-r-----750 rwxr-x---
077600 rw-------700 rwx------
277400 r--------500 r-x------

So I was investigating how to run a rails app on my VPS. I needed to use several sources to get little bit's working, so here's the combined instructions. Note that I assume you're starting with a working apache installation.

So thanks to Windows going screwy again I had to fix grub on my machine. So I can find these instructions again here they are:

1. sudo mount /dev/sda4 /mnt
2. sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/dev
3. sudo mount -o bind /proc /mnt/proc
4. sudo chroot /dev /bin/bash
5. grub-install /dev/sda
6. exit
7. reboot

These instructions allow you to run grub-install in a chrooted environment.

Taken from http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org/2010/10/27/s03e19-if-we-only-knew/

1. install the "most" pager utility. sudo apt-get install most
2. put export PAGER="most" in your ~/.bashrc
3. Logout, Login

I've been playing around with git for a short while now and now I think I've finally got it, or rather the point of it. Ignore those places that discuss it as you commit to your local repository and then commit that the the main repository etc. No it's about letting everyone have a complete copy - in fact you don't even need a central repository to get the benefit of version control - it sits there in a folder on your own PC.
Anyway so here's some sourcves which may help:

So the site I've been working on has laucnched - Aberdeen Scout Active Support.

The steam railway down where I grew up is after some help, such that they can finish a project before the cost quadruples in a years time. The Bluebell Railway runs between Sheffield Park and Kingscote in Sussex and has been planning for a while to extend the line to the mainline station at East Grinstead.

From the looks of it the London Ambulance Service are trying the screw themselves. Here's the story from a blog I frequent:
http://www.briankellett.net/brian-kellett-dot-net/2011/4/13/death-rate-in-london-to-increase-1.html