I finally got around to upgrading this site to WordPress 2.5. Since it coincided with the release of WordPress 2.5.1 I went straight to this version even though all my testing was with the earlier 2.5.0 version. The upgrade itself was extremely straight-forward. Earlier in the week I made sure all my plugins were at the latest version so I wouldn’t have to worry about them during the actual upgrade. Except for the Popularity Contest plugin they all worked under WordPress 2.3.x and WordPress 2.5. The one plugin that I [...] Read the rest »
Ubuntu 7.10 Server to Ubuntu 8.04 Server (Hardy Heron) Under Parallels
Even though I’m still in the middle of building my Ubuntu test server I decided to go ahead and upgrade it to Ubuntu Server 8.04 (Hardy Heron). Sure, I’m still learning all this stuff and this will make it harder to troubleshoot problems. Upgrade issue? My configuration error? Oh well, it’s all for fun anyway. My environment is Ubuntu Server 7.10 under Parallels Desktop 3 Build 5584 running on OS X 10.5.2. For complete details you can see earlier articles in the Ubuntu Server series. First off I make sure [...] Read the rest »
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) Released
Canonical has released Ubuntu 8.04 LTS in both desktop and server editions. LTS means “Long term Support” and the desktop version will be supported through 2011 and the server through 2013. Canonical has instruction for upgrading from earlier versions via the GUI . Read the rest »
Safari 3.1.1 Released
Apple has released Safari 3.1.1 for both OS X and Windows. I installed it on my two Leopard Macs without a problem through Apple’s Software Update and a reboot was required. It’s also available as a standalone download. The update includes four security fixes (two are Windows only). One of the patches plugs the vulnerability that won the PWN to OWN contest at CanSecWest. There’s also the standard …improvements to stability, compatibility… The reboot displayed a blank blue screen for a nerve-racking length of time but was otherwise uneventful. [Updated [...] Read the rest »
Ubuntu Server Project #9: SFTP, Fake DNS, and Apache SSL
Things are moving along with the Ubuntu Server Project but there’s a bunch of small tasks and configuration changes that will make life easier going forward. This article will cover installing vsftpd, setting up a self-signed SSL certificate in Apache, and configuring my local Mac to access the Ubuntu server virtual machine by name. Even though the server is a VM sitting on my Mac and not accessible from the Internet I’ll still be treating it as if it was on the Internet and needs to be secure. vsftpd The [...] Read the rest »
No Trail Log for April 13th
There’s no OS Quest Trail Log this week. The day job and other activities have kept me away from the computer so not much happened. Hopefully that will change this coming week. Enjoy the week and happy tax day to those of you in the U.S. Read the rest »
Microsoft Security Bulletins for April 2008
Another "Super Tuesday" patched this week but I just got around to firing up my Windows VM’s today (actually it’s been about 12 days since I’ve been in Windows). There were ten updates waiting for me on Windows Vista and eight on Windows XP Home, although not all were security related. This month’s updates included: KB945553 (MS08-020) – Vulnerability in DNS client could allow spoofing. This is rated as "Important" for all supported desktop OS’s except Windows Vista SP1, which doesn’t need the update. KB948590 (MS08-021) – Vulnerability in GDI [...] Read the rest »
Windows Home Server Security Updates
I don’t have my Windows Home Server set to automatically install updates from Microsoft. today was the day I went into the console and told it to pull down the updates. Even though I tell it not to automatically install the updates the process is unstoppable once I click the update now button. I don’t get a preview of the updates that will be installed. Today’s updates included: KB941693 (MS08-025) – Vulnerability in Windows Kernel could allow elevation of privilege. KB945553 (MS08-020) – Vulnerability in DNS client could allow spoofing. [...] Read the rest »
The OS Quest #31 Trail Log: Host Blues Edition
Things began to go bad Monday night, although I didn’t know how bad until Tuesday. On Monday I got an email from SiteUpTime saying my site was inaccessible and sure enough it was – for about 45 minutes. Bluehost said the server was experiencing performance issues and was looking into it. When the site came back online I checked it through my stats package URL instead of a WordPress URL, so while I got a response from the site I didn’t realize that the WordPress DB was corrupt. Now since [...] Read the rest »
Site Outage
The OS Quest went down yesterday and stayed down for over 12 hours. It appears I had some database corruption that began with a hosting problem. Seems like everything is almost back to normal now although there may be some problems lurking in the shadows. One problem is that the menu bar to the pages is missing, still working on that although any page links in the articles will still work. Seems like there was some corruption in the WP database that began around when Bluehost reported a problem with [...] Read the rest »
