edmann.com 2.0.1 alpha

Trying out Firefox 3.0b1, and i have to say that i can see the difference between this version and FF 2.0.0.9. The speed improvements are there, but i am not sure if that's just me thinking that it's faster. The forms look like they are picking up the Gnome theme settings. The fonts look better. This may because i am using Fedora 7 and FF2 just did not pick them up correct. I checked some of my websites and they all still work, and don't look like they need any modifications. This was not the case when IE7 came out. Heck i still have some sites that need major work because IE7 does not render them correct. I still need to check some of the new applications that i am working on to insure that they are still working. But so far this looks very nice. I think i will keep it as my default for a while just to get a better feel for it. In other news the DlzSync tool for bind that i have been working on is almost complete enough for me to use full time. I still need to edit the code and use cursors, but i don't think this will take long. "Famous last words". Also we have a new domain for dlzSync, it will be online in a few more weeks. Documentation should be coming soon as well. This is for the people that want to role there own. Just use our java version as a reference. I can do one in php, perl, and maybe python. I won't have time for it anytime soon, but it can be done.

Saturday i did my first install of Bacula backup software. I have to say that the install was easy, and i was able to get a backup going in a relatively short amount of time. Granted i played around allot with it to see what it would do. I did this work for Riverside Community Church in Peoria, Illinois. Using a Dell Powervault 124T. The only problem i have is i cannot get the mtx tool to export the tape to the import/export slot. I am going to open a case with Dell on it, supposedly that unit does not adhere to the eepos command sets. So that stinks. I cannot automate the ejection of tapes at the moment, however everything else with the unit worked great.
As i said the install of Bacula was very easy. I had to build the rpms myself, but since i do that allot with other software i utilize it was not that hard. I should post the links. I am using CentOs 4 on that machine, but on my own hardware i have CentOs 5 so builds will come for that as well.
I am thinking about writing a gui setup tool. I have been doing more Java lately, but Bacula has Python extensions, so i think Python will be what i will use. I have to pace myself, PHPEclipse is about to release the new 1.2.0. This has been on the agenda for some time now. And i want to do more development on that application for the next release.
It is my goal to get some tape hardware in for my own business and move away from disk based storage. Currently i am using Amanda but have started to dislike it more and more. At my day job i use Tivoli Backup Storage and like the ability to run a backup when i need to from a specific host. I have not found a way to do that with Amanda, but i have not looked that much either. Well i need to go move some servers. So i am gone.

Well i am looking at expanding my junk-email filter system, and this guy has developed some techniques to combat spam. junkemailfilter.com is a solution provider. I have been thinking about doing something like this with my e-mail system, but have been working to much on the dlzSync tool. The link does not work just yet, but it should be up in a week or so. Still working on porting over the blog system. Don't know how much longer before i get the first demo up. Also i have some other personal news that i want to share. I need to get that post up as well.

So i have been working on a Bind Dlz sync software solution. It has been going very well, and i have learned allot. I plan on having the documentation done this week in beta form. I am going to post it here and a link on the Bind Dlz mailing list.
For those of you who don't know what Bind Dlz(Bind Dynamic Loaded Zone). Bind Dlz is simply Bind with a database to hold it's zone files. So when you update the database your DNS server has the changes right away. So there is now no need to edit zone config files and restart bind.
Granted the setup with Bind and Postgresql was easy. Since we have a custom front-end that handles making the experience more user friendly we needed to create a view that bind could select from that would give it all the data it needed. This was fine for our first go at it, but the performance of using Postgresql or MySql as the backed database was not terrible but also not the best. And knowing i like a good challenge i opted to build a tool that would sync from our Postgresql database and the Berkeley Database that i wanted to use with bind.
So now what we have is a very alpha stage version of BindDlzSync. It's a java app that runs on a port that you specify waiting for a connection. You can connect to it send it some formated XML it will parse the xml and update the database as needed. But it gets better. Since i have a public view and a private view i needed to be able to update these two different views, but do it in a way that was easy and expandable.
So what you can do with BindDlzSync is in the config file for the app you can specify different view databases to load. So right now i have public and private. In the Web Managment UI when you add a host you can pick which view that host belongs to. Also the editor allows you to add many hosts before a commit. That way if you have a host that needs to be in both private and public, but you need to change the ip address you can add it once, change the ip and view then add it again before having to click save. Or you can just add and clear and add in a different host. I will post a video of how the whole thing works. It's very nice, but needs some refinement.
Some things left to do is ip checking for a view. What this will do is insure that someone does not try to add a ip address to a view that should not have it.
There are some other features that i want to add, i will list them later.