Development, Network, Security, Ideas & Opinions
To force SSL on a given directory using .htaccess, use the following code. It requires mod_rewrite enabled in Apache. Adjust the path in the RewriteRule to match the full qualified URL of the HTTPS-domain.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !443
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]
As you might have guessed from previous posts, I’m currently in the process of implementing a single-sign-on scenario within our network. Or, at least, I’m trying to have at least one single username/password combo for all internal services. Authentication is therefore realized against an Active Directory, based on a Microsoft Windows 2003 Server.
For integration of Bugzilla into the Active Directory, see this link (Update: Link is broken, for an archived version, use this link, thanks to the commenter!).
A nice project, everyone coming from Java and migrating to C#:
IKVM.NET Home Page
It is a JVM implemented in .NET, contains a .NET implementation of a lot classes from the Java class libraries (JDK), compliance of 1.4 almost complete and contains tools for interop between Java and .NET.
If you want to authenticate TikiWiki agaist Microsoft Active Directory, have a look at this article.
The most interesting part in this posting is that if you are using a Windows 2003 Server, you need to patch the LDAP.php in the PEAR authentication module, as Win2k3 by default does not allow any anonymous queries against the directory.
In <tikiroot>/lib/pear/Auth/Container/LDAP.php search for the following line in function _connect():
if ((@ldap_bind($this->conn_id)) == false) {
and replace it with
if ((@ldap_bind($this->conn_id,"someuser","somepassword")) == false) {
Note, that someuser is in the form of user@domain.tld.
I also recommend to choose to authenticate your admin user against the internal database and not the LDAP (AD) container, otherwise you will lock yourself out easily.
For fans of “Babylon 5” I came around a nice game: Babylon 5: I’ve Found Her. They got the flight physics quite good. For a fan project it has excellent graphics and sounds. I especially like the flight physics. Unfortunately I’ve only had time to play the tutorial yet.
If you are using Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000) you are supposed to decide if you are going to use “integrated windows authentification” only or if you are using “mixed mode authetication”. Latter is sometimes considered less secure but if you are developing ASP.NET applications it can be easier to use a non-NT user for the connection.
If you ever tried that you are surly familiar with the “login is not associated with a trusted connection” exception when trying to access the database. Today I had to install an ASP.NET application on a server with MSDE where mixed mode authentication was not available. A quick research on the net revieled a blog entry indicating how to change the authentication scheme of MSDE after the installation.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSSqlserver\MSSqlServer
(for unnamed instances) or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\Instance Name\MSSQLServer\
(for named instances)
LoginMode to value 2.Unlike a comment on the page, value 0 will not work (at least it didn’t in my case).
Opera is now available for free, ads and registration have been removed.
Just gave it a quick try, and I have to say, I like it 😉 I think, Firefox is going to have to co-exist with Opera on my HDD.
Update: According to Heise.de (German), Opera has been downloaded over 1 million times within only two days, more than any previous (ad-enabled) version.
I currently work on several computers quite simultaniously and I am also browsing the net using these different machines. In past times this often caused that I had some bookmarks on computer A and others on computer B. According to Murphy’s Law, I always needed a link of a computer which was currently not available.
The solution to this problem is obvious: using a server based bookmark management. On my search for free solutions I found SiteBar which seems to be quite popular. It can be set up in different modes for shared bookmarks of many users and for individuals. I used the latter mode for my installation as it is to be used by me exclusively. Still, the installation features a public and private area for links so not all links can be seen by every visitor.
SiteBar integrates well with all browsers. I had no problems importing my bookmarks files from Firefox and I’ve now set up special shortcut links in my links list on all browser instances I use across the different computers to add the currently viewed site to my SiteBar. The “integrator page” lists several useful plugins for various browsers which allow (for some browsers) to sync local bookmarks and server bookmarks. This particularely solves the problem of bookmarks being only available if the server is online. The corresponding plugin for Firefox is in beta statdium at the moment and only supports syncing server to local bookmarks up to now.
At the moment, we are also evaluating to use SiteBar for the development team at our company to share important links to various resources.
Quite some time ago I stumbled upon an interesting article about the “version number problem” at NewsForge. I recommend reading the article to everyone publishing software.
COM and ActiveX components are still important technologies for interoperation on Microsoft Windows. One of the powers of the .NET platform is easy integration with existing code in the mentioned form. For Java-developers, the idea of COM and ActiveX seems strange at a frist glance as it obviously kills platfrom independence, one of the key benefits and the USP of Java most often cited. Still, when focusing on the Windows desktop, integration of existing technologies, especially Micosoft Office, is often an important requirenment. A commercial library promissing easy integration of COM and ActiveX components in Java Swing applications can be found here.