Almost a year has passed since my talk at pgconf.eu 2011 in Amsterdam on Connecting the Debian and PostgreSQL worlds, and unfortunately little has happened on that front, mostly due to my limited spare time between family and job. pgapt.debian.net is up and running, but got few updates and is lagging behind on PostgreSQL releases.

This tutorial explains how to use the GeoIP module with nginx to block visitors by country. This is made possible by the GeoIP database which maps users’ IP addresses to countries. nginx must be compiled with the HttpGeoipModule to use the GeoIP database.

squidGuard is flexible and ultra fast filter, redirector and access controller plugin for squid proxy server (it works with both squid version 2.x and 3.x). It lets you define multiple access rules with different restrictions for different user groups on a squid cache. squidGuard uses squid’s standard redirector interface.

You need to use hostapd server as access point and authentication servers. It implements IEEE 802.11 access point management, IEEE 802.1X/WPA/WPA2/EAP Authenticators, RADIUS client, EAP server, and RADIUS authentication server. The current version supports Linux:

My first alpha release of a Wheezy netinst CD for amd64 EFI worked OK for me and a few others, with reasonable feedback. But it was far from complete, with (at least) three outstanding issues…

For me, Bruce Byfield, Debian and free software are hopelessly intertwined. While I had played about with Linux before, I only went hardcore when I started work on 5 July, 1999 at Stormix Technologies, an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to commercialize Debian. From there, I jumped ship to work at Progeny Linux System, which was founded [...]

This guide explains how you can create advanced virtual hosts on a lighttpd web server on Debian Squeeze that are stored in a MySQL database. The method described here does not use the lighttpd mod_mysql_vhost module, and unlike mod_mysql_vhost (which allows you to store only the hostname and document root of a vhost in a [...]

Akhil Vij has called on the Debian developers list to help test his software, “systemd-to-sysvinit-converter”, which can take a systemd configuration file and create sysvinit scripts based on it. It does this by analysing the service units within the systemd file and emulating the required functionality in the generated scripts.

I know how to setup a firewall under RHEL / Fedora and CentOS Linux quickly. How do I setup a host-based firewall under Debian or Ubuntu Linux server or desktop system? How do I install Shoreline firewall (Shorewall) utility to build firewall based on the Netfilter under Debian or Ubuntu Linux?

This guide explains how you can use mod_mysql_vhost to create simple virtual hosts on a lighttpd web server on Debian Squeeze. With mod_mysql_vhost, lighttpd can read the vhost configuration from a MySQL database. Currently, you can store the domain and the document root in the MySQL database which results in very simple virtual hosts. If [...]

Debian, one of the oldest actively maintained GNU/Linux distributions, turns 19 today. Project founder Ian Murdock originally announced the project on 16 August 1993 when he released the first version of the distribution. Looking back at that email, a surprising number of Murdock’s initial goals for the project are still reflected in Debian today, despite [...]

Welcome to this year’s sixteenth issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community. Topics covered in this issue include:

In this issue: + Report from DSA Team Sprint + Using RAM for temporary files ? + Control Commands at submit@bugs.debian.org time + Debian Maintainer Dashboard + Declaring media (MIME) types with FreeDesktop menu entry files

With Debian’s 19th anniversary approaching, I thought it would be nice to look back at dpkg’s history. After all, it’s one of the key components of any Debian system.

The Debian Installer team announced the first beta release of the installer for Debian 7.0 Wheezy. This new release includes various improvements in different areas, like booting, Linux kernel, APT, low memory installs, and networking. It also uses the new official theme Joy. The installer supports 73 languages, of which 56 are fully translated. All [...]

On August 16, the Debian community will celebrate its 19th birthday since Ian Murdock’s original founding announcement [1]. As is tradition, the Debian communities all around the world will gather to celebrate it with Debian Birthday parties.

Most Debian source packages are using the “3.0 (quilt)” format. This means that Debian changes to upstream files are managed in a quilt patch series. Knowledge of quilt is thus a must if you want to get involved in some serious packaging work. Don’t worry, this tutorial will teach you how to use quilt in [...]

Debian developers are planning to switch the default desktop environment of Debian 7 codenamed Wheezy from Gnome to XFCE. The move comes mainly to make the distro lightweight and also reduce the size of the installation image.

Avant Window Navigator (AWN or Awn) is a fully customisable dock-like bar for the GNOME desktop environment.This quick blog post explains how to install and use Avant Window Navigator (AWN) under Debian Linux 6.x+.

Tip to feel good about the release #476: *before* reading this, grab and fix one of the [RC bugs affecting Wheezy][1]. Done? Now you’re ready for a slightly less exciting report of DPL activities.

The Debian Installer team is pleased to announce the first beta release of the installer for Debian 7.0 “Wheezy”.

If you’ve ever stumbled upon http://www.debian.org/trademark , you might be aware that, as a project, we’ve been working on a proper trademark policy since quite a while.