29-oct-2008

One version of WordPress
i downloaded the latest version (2.6.3) and moved all blogs to this version.
There are a few nasty things with this version: the password of the Trips, Tracks and Travels blog could not be changed; that is: the server returned “Non-CGI-compliant result”m on password change, but it WAS changed. I found out that I needed to log off where it would – probably – be activated, but as it turned out: just once; after logout, the password was, again, gone. No error message, it just didn’t show anything. In the end I copied the SYSBLOG password, hoping that that didn’t blow either. Now the password for that blog is all right.
The bootcamp2008 blog converted without a problem (came from 2.5, and 2.6 is a direct descendant from that version) and so did the Bootcamp2007 report (upgraded from 2.2.3). Login wasn’t a problem in either of them; why it did fail in TTT, remains a mystery. though it is found in the server log – and I remember to have seen it before:

%HTTPD-W-NOTICED, 29-OCT-2008 22:08:48, CGI:1928, not a strict CGI response
-NOTICED-I-SERVICE, http://www.grootersnet.nl:80
-NOTICED-I-CLIENT, 84.81.214.10
-NOTICED-I-URI, POST (28 bytes) /tracks/wp-admin/profile.php
-NOTICED-I-SCRIPT, /tracks/wp-admin/profile.php tracks:[wp-admin]profile.php (cgi_exe:phpwasd.exe) TRACKS:[WP-ADMIN]profile.php
-NOTICED-I-CGI, 5374617475733A203330320D0A582D506F77657265642D42 (2048 bytes) Status: 302..X-Powered-B
-NOTICED-I-RXTX, err:0/0 raw:1501/0 net:1148/0

So that is still to be solved.

There is a little problem with the admin page of the SYSBLOG blog: It shows an error in one of the panes:

Warning: Compilation failed: this version of PCRE is not compiled with PCRE_UTF8 support at offset 0 in /sysblog/wp-includes/compat.php on line 94

Warning: array_slice(): The first argument should be an array in /sysblog/wp-includes/compat.php on line 95

Warning: implode(): Bad arguments. in /sysblog/wp-includes/compat.php on line 96

In this blog, it is caused by one incoming link, from the old SYSMGR blog on blogspot.com
Not a big issue; it’s a known limitation of this PHP engine….
What’s more: the problem with the dotted filename seems gone. In this version, I kept these filenames include the dot, and it simply works…

Now all blogs are on 2.6.3, so the older versions can be removed.

27-Oct-2008

New versions
Tonight I tried to enable new versions of Python and what’s related, including a new moinmoin version. It failed before but that was because things weren’t setup the right way. That is, I forgot to execute a commandfile. Today, I executed all lines that I already updated in the startup, and the VMS wiki now runs on MoinMojn 1.7.1 – without a problem.
Running the blogs on Wordpess 2.6.2 however failed. Even the basic version doesn’t work anymore:

Warning: main(/wp262/000000/wp-includes/class.wp-dependencies.php): failed to open stream: no such file or directory in /wp262/wp-includes/script-loader.php on line 3

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required '/wp262/000000/wp-includes/class.wp-dependencies.php' (include_path='.:/php_root/000000') in /wp262/wp-includes/script-loader.php on line 3

However, the file ([wp-includes]class.wp-dependencies.php) does exist; even the file protection seems Ok: the directory and files have a mask of W:RE – like the 2.2.3 version. And it has worked before, so what’s the difference?
renaming the files to contain just one dot – replacing the first dot by underscore – and adapting the script-loader.php file accordingly solved the problem, but as stated: it did work before so why doesn’t it work no more? Appearently, something has been set – system wide – to disable this feature. Or parse-style is set to traditional for some reason…The server itself seems to have parse-style traditonal but both helper processes have it “extended’.
With this setting, I was able to move the blogs to 2.6.2, but it shouldn’t be needed in the first place. Asked the WASD mainling list…

After changing the version and executing the upgrade script, it turned out that 2.6.3 is available as well. and one of the admin panels fails; Something we need anyway; it might be the cause that the admin panel shows up very, very slowly…. Weird, again, since there wasn’t a problem before.

MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

and PMAS happily handles it:

X-PMAS-External: ey-out-1920.google.com [74.125.78.150] (EHLO ey-out-1920.google.com)
X-PMAS-Software: PreciseMail V3.1 [081020a] (diana.intra.grootersnet.nl)
X-PMAS-VMF-OK: Envelope FROM: check: Source accepts mail for address (0.000)
X-PMAS-Not-Spam: 0.000

However, I get the message time after time after time. One PMAS worker process is executing like hell, consuming lots of CPU and doing a lot of IO’s, and spits out the same message every 20-30 minutes.
Not just this one, but every message I got from “homer”.

Is it a glitch at Google? or is it PMAS?

I had debugging enabled so I got a lot of logfiles today, and each that handles messages like this is over 2.5 Mb in size. I backed them up, and zipped the result – it’s stil;l a massive 24 Mb in size. Process has been informed on the issue, and I could zend over one (zipped) logfile to examine. If they need more, I’ll have to take some action to have them download the file.
If it is a PMAS issue, reproducing it won’t do, since I disabled debugging, to prevent exhausting diskspace. And I restarted the filter, just in case. It seems to have settled the matter – for now.

05-Oct-2008

New versions
Jean-François Piéronne has released new versions of his library and Python software – the nice thing is these are diskcontainers, making installation and de-installation as easy as can be: unzip the files, connect them to a LD device (if you’re on older VMS versions, you’ll need to install the LD driver first) and mount them. You may need to modify a few logicals but that’s just about all it takes to make it work.
Or, at least, that would be nice. However, after installing the latest MoinMoin version (1.7.1) the VMS wiki didn’t work at all – the main page couild not be opened (404-error), and reversing to the previous version – being a piece of cake, just redefine two logicals) didn’t work either; It had to do with Python and Moinmoin logicals, and the RTE staying alive. I left it, I’ll have a look later on.
(Update)
The wiki is running fine, once the Python RTE had restarted. I’m just unsure what version of moinmoin it relies on…

03-Oct-2008

Customizing Windows XP
I’m just a user of Windows and don’t know much about it’s internals, but I learned that changing the boot- and login screens is not as straightforward as changing the desktop background: The boot-screen is more or less hardcoded in the boot image, as well as the login image. For the latter, it seems the image is “logonui.exe” and some fine examples dwell on the Internet, and you would just replace the original with the downloaded one – with all risks involved.
I few weeks ago I leaned about an application that not just holds a facilities to change the boot and logon images but also the looks of windows – in more detail than the standard Windows facility allows you to: for instance, the small buttons on top of each window get another look: down-error to minimize, a double up arrow to maximaize and double down arrow to “normal” size.
Not just that: you can download images for boot- and logon screens, installe them AND restore to the original with one click of a button. It’s just part of it’s functionality; there are far more system management tasks you can do with it. But it’s a nice add-on.

So Diana is now “customized”, and the others will follow 🙂

The pacakage isn’t free – you’ll have to pay a fee. But it’s safe for downloading themes.