El Demonio Negro

As I wrote some time ago for spanish readers, I was having HTML 404 errors in my logs (see awstats statistics before January 2008) which I wanted to solve.

My awstats collects web statistics from eldemonionegro.{com,org,es}/wordpress and eldemonionegro.{com,org,es}/gallery2. The problem should be solved in two different ways, as wordpress and gallery2 has two different approaches when rewriting URL request.
Problems in URL coming from wordpress were due to changes I did in the way that categories and some other URL staff were generated, so everything was rightly delimited.
In the other hand, problems with gallery2 arise from who knows where. With gallery2, HTLM 404 errors come from bad formed URLs, they are errors properly generated, but, those errors, wherever they come, needed to be transformed in proper URLs and as I don’t want to lose visitors, I wanted to move those, let’s say, “false URL” to good ones, so visitors are not loosed because of an external stupid engine. The point is that I solved those errors, but now others has appeared. “Stupids” are bringing me loads of fun ;).

How wordpress works is that it uses an internal rewriting system, with an external simple .htaccess in the root wordpress directory (at least in Debian with Apache2). If you want, you can see those internal rules using a plugin called internal rewrite viewer, it’s interesting.
Over this period you could also need some web server debug output activated (Apache2 in my case). Needed rules will be showed next, but use them carefully. As you should know, debuging is a terribly-horrible-madness performance killer.

# My own custom rules
<ifmodule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /wordpress/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /wordpress/archivos/tag/(.+?)/?$
RewriteRule . /wordpress/etiquetas/%1 [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /wordpress/archivos/category/(.+?)/?$
RewriteRule . /wordpress/tema/%1 [R=301,L]
</ifmodule>
# End Custom Rules
# Rules automatically generated by wordpress
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /wordpress/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /wordpress/index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Be careful of %{REQUEST_URI} instead of %{THE_REQUEST}

# In Debian my wordpress conf is saved into
# /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/wordpress.conf
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteLog “/var/log/apache2/rewrite.log”
# RewriteLogLevel 5
</IfModule>
…

If anyone’s interested in gallery2, I could show my suboptimal rules

Etiquetas: apache2, debian, eldemonionegro, gallery2, HTML, mod_rewrite, permalinks, RewriteBase, RewriteCond, RewriteEngine, wordpress

Here you can find how to prepare a subversion repository and its integration with Apache 2.

You need apache with webDAV to access repository content using HTTP or HTTPS protocol. If you prefer not to use apache, then you should use svnserve (prefered in daemon mode). This will mean using svn protocol.
Be careful with firewalls (see ahead).
And, of course, always better with Debian.

Subversion for repository administrators (using Apache 2)

In order to create a repository you need to follow these steps (do it in a root shell).

Install the needed packages:

• apache2
• subversion
• libapache2-svn

Add next rules to your host in Apache 2. In Debian a mostly equal config (that you should modify) exists under /etc/apache2/mods-available/dav_svn.conf
Configuration sniplet:

< Location /svn>
# Uncomment this to enable the repository,
DAV svn
# Set this to the path to your repository
# SVNPath /var/lib/svn
# SVNParentPath /var/lib/svn/repository
SVNPath /var/lib/svn/repository
# The following allows for basic HTTP authentication. Basic authentication
# should not be considered secure for any particularly rigorous definition of
# secure.
# to create a passwd file
# # rm -f /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd
# # htpasswd2 -c /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd dwhedon
# New password:
# Re-type new password:
# Adding password for user dwhedon
# #
# http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.serverconfig.httpd.html
# configuration for mixed authenticated/anonymous access
Satisfy Any
Require valid-user
# Uncomment the following 3 lines to enable Basic Authentication
AuthType Basic
AuthName “Subversion Repository”
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.passwd
# Uncomment the following line to enable Authz Authentication
# AuthzSVNAccessFile /etc/apache2/dav_svn.authz
# The following three lines allow anonymous read, but make
# committers authenticate themselves.
< LimitExcept GET PROPFIND OPTIONS REPORT>
Require valid-user
< /LimitExcept>

(Important: Don’t use a DocumentRoot setting for this virtual host!”)

Restart apache with or reload apache configuration without finishing open connections with (prefered)

root@maquine:~ $ /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
or
root@maquine:~ $ apache2ctl graceful (prefered)

Create the repository and create a password file:

root@maquine:~ $ svnadmin create /var/lib/svn/repository
root@maquine:~ $ htpasswd2 -c /etc/subversion/passwd [username]
root@maquine:~ $ chown -R www-data:www-data /home/svn

Don’t forget to make the repository accessible for your web server:

To test it, try accessing it with a browser or try to check out the file:

user@maquine:~ $ lynx http://localhost/svn
user@maquine:~ $ svn co http://server/svn

(You will not be prompted for credentials. That’s normal.)

Worked?
Voila. The repository is set up.
You can check a ready setup in http://www.eldemonionegro.com/svn/.

Subversion for repository administrators (using subversion protocol)

You just need to put on work svn server.

user@maquine:~ $ ls -la /var/lib/svn/
total 1
drwxr-xr-x 4 root www-data 96 2005-06-06 00:45 .
drwxr-xr-x 56 root root 1480 2005-06-03 17:00 ..
drwxr-x— 7 root www-data 224 2003-02-20 00:37 project1
drwxr-x— 7 root www-data 224 2004-11-15 21:23 project2
user@maquine:~ $ svnserve -d -T -r REPOSITORY_DIR (Example 1: /var/lib/svn/project1/ - Example 2: /var/lib/svn/)

(-d: daemon, -T: spawn a thread instead of a process for each connection, -r root: root repository)

Try to check out the file:

user@maquine:~ $ svn co REPOSITORY_URL (Example 1: svn://server/ - Example 2: svn://server/project1/)

Worked?
Voila. The repository is set up.

Subversion for repository users

To checkout (=download) the files in the repository for the very first time run this command::

user@maquine:~ $ svn co http://server/svn

Don’t worry about other people working on the same files. Just do your changes to the files and when you seem to have a stable state (make sure everything works well enough so not everything will break for others) you should check in(=upload) your work:

user@maquine:~ $ svn ci

(Only when committing your changes you will be prompted for your username and password.)

Run the following command regularly to get the changes from other contributors::

user@maquine:~ $ svn update

If you want to add new files to the repository::

user@maquine:~ $ svn add [filename]

To get a status of which files have changed::

user@maquine:~ $ svn stat

Subversion for local repositories

This type of installation is used when you want subversion to track your local files but don’t want/need to put it on a host. You can create a local repository and access it directly. This repository is not password protected and it’s permissions depend on the filesystem’s permissions.

Install the needed packages (as root or with sudo) and create the repository (with your user):

root@maquine:~ $ apt-get install subversion
root@maquine:~ $ svnadmin create /home/joe/repositorie

The URL to your repository is it’s path preceeded with file://. For example to checkout you would do the following:

user@maquine:~ $ svn co file:///home/joe/repositorie

Subversion firewall rules

In order to acces your subversion repository using svn protocol you should reconfigure your firewall or update daemon config.
If you need to access subversion remotely, by default it runs on port 3690 using TCP.

Resources and comments

• Subversion’s Official Homepage
• Online free book: Version Control with Subversion
• http://workaround.org/moin/SubVersion
• subversion quick reference
• Any comments will be welcome.

Original Authors: Christoph Haas, Tiago Cogumbreiro
Modified by: Enrique Garcia

Etiquetas: apache2, debian, glkm, gnu, guia rapida, howto, linux, quick reference, subversion

Right now viewcvs is the old version which is available under Debian. I recomend to install the latest viewvc from official website until package gets updated.
For more about it’s history, look up in http://www.viewvc.org/who.html
Instalation is really simple, it’s only complexity resides in the apache 2 configuration. Which is not really well documented and can cause some headache.

Installation

Download here latest stable version from viewvc

I will install everything under /opt because it’s my favourite place (and because it’s standar (LSB rules I think) to put extrange things there).

user@machine:~$ cd /opt
user@machine:~$ wget http://viewvc.tigris.org/files/documents/3330/34803/viewvc-1.0.3.tar.gz
user@machine:~$ tar -xvzf viewvc-1.0.3.tar.gz
user@machine:~$ cd viewvc-1.0.3
user@machine:~$ ./viewvc-install

[will be prompted some easy questions] Answer first /opt and then leave it as it is.

Take a look at INSTALL and README. It’s always good to read this stuff, and doesn’t hurt.

user@machine:~$ emacs /opt/viewvc/viewvc.conf
[main changes I made]
user@machine:~$ diff viewvc.conf ../viewvc-1.0.3/viewvc.conf.dist
72c72
< #cvs_roots = cvs: /home/cvsroot
---
> cvs_roots = cvs: /home/cvsroot
80c80
< svn_roots = svn: /var/lib/svn/repository
---
> #svn_roots = svn: /home/svnrepos
105c105
< default_root = svn
---
> default_root = CVS
138c138
< mime_types_file = /etc/mime.types
---
> #mime_types_file = /usr/local/apache/conf/mime.types
142c142
< address = < a href="mailto:svn-admin@XXX.XXX">Administrador del repositorio Subversion< / a>
—
> address = < a href="mailto:cvs-admin@insert.your.domain.here">No admin address has been configured< / a>
248c248
< languages = es-es, en-us
---
> languages = en-us
391c391
< docroot = /viewvc-doc
--- (LOOK APACHE 2 CONFIG TO EXPLAIN THIS CHANGE)
> #docroot = /docroot
435c435
< use_enscript = 1
---
> use_enscript = 0
445c445
< use_highlight = 1
---
> use_highlight = 0
459c459
< use_php = 1
---
> use_php = 0
473c473
< allow_tar = 1
---
> allow_tar = 0

For coloured syntax I installed next packages. But I am not really sure they are needed.

user@machine:~$ apt-get install highlight enscript

Apache 2 configuration

Here I put my apache 2 configuration for viewvc. I’ve two versions, both of them work. Again I recomend take a take a look at INSTALL and README for answers. One is the version for CGI and the other for mod_python. I’m using mod_python because it’s known to be faster.

CGI

< IfModule !mod_python.c>
< IfModule cgi.c>
# para la instalacion local
ScriptAlias /viewvc /opt/viewvc/bin/cgi/viewvc.cgi
# para el paquete debian
# ScriptAlias /viewsvn /usr/lib/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi
< /IfModule>
< /IfModule>

mod_python

< IfModule mod_python.c>
Alias /viewvc-doc “/opt/viewvc/templates/docroot”
ScriptAlias /viewvc /opt/viewvc/bin/mod_python/viewvc.py
< Location /viewvc>
AddHandler python-program .py
# This appends “our path” to python path
PythonPath “['/opt/viewvc/bin/mod_python'] + sys.path”
PythonHandler handler
PythonDebug On
< /Location>
< /IfModule>

Look the result at http://www.eldemonionegro.com/viewvc/

Resources and comments

• viewvc official homepage
• Any comments will be welcome.

Etiquetas: apache2, cgi, debian, glkm, gnu, guia rapida, howto, linux, mod python, subversion, viewcvs, viewvc