The command line utility dseditgroup is the way to go:

dseditgroup -o create -i 1000 newgroup

will create a new group called newgroup with gid 1000

dseditgroup -o edit -a someuser newgroup

Will add an (existing) user someuser to newgroup

dsedtigroup -o read newgroup

will display the properties of the group newgroup

dseditgroup -o delete newgroup

will delete the group newgroup.

Another possibility is creating CNAMES for the different subsites but
that also has its set of issues (updating dns, getting certificates…)

The solution was to create a special configuration file (in
/etc/httpd/conf.d), as follows:


<Directory /var/www/html/drupal>
   Options FollowSymLinks
   RewriteEngine on
 
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
   RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /subsite1/
   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /drupal6/subsite1/?q=$1  [L]
 
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
   RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /subsite2/
   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /drupal6/subsite2/?q=$1  [L]
 
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
   RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
   RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} /
   RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /drupal/?q=$1  [L]
</Directory>
 
Alias /drupal/subsite1 "/var/www/html/drupal"
Alias /drupal/subsite2 "/var/www/html/drupal"
 


The idea is that in each of the 4 line blocks take a url which does not
correspond to a physical file or directory, and if it matches a
particular string (say ’subsite1′) it rewrites the url in a way which is
understandable by drupal (all of this happens in a block
which refers to /var/www/html/drupal so everything is relative to
/drupal )

The Alias lines at the end of the file are needed to point urls which
start with /drupal to the correct directory.

So any new site necessitates the addition of a new 4 line block and a
new Alias line, and then restarting apache. Definitely easier than the
other solutions.

1. cd /etc/stunnel
2. Create a certificate:
   openssl req   -x509 -nodes -days 365   -newkey rsa:1024 \
           -keyout stunnel.pem -out stunnel.pem
3. The stunnel.conf file contains the following lines:

   cert = /etc/stunnel/stunnel.pem
setuid = nobody
setgid = nobody
pid = /tmp/stunnel.pid
debug = 7
output = stunnel.log
[mysqls]
accept  = 3309
connect = 3306


4. stunnelis started

The steps taken on client.example.com were:

1. Create a certificate as above (not strictly necessary but otherwise the connection is open to a man in the middle attack)
2. stunnel.conf contains the following lines:

   
cert =/etc/stunnel/stunnel.pem
pid = /tmp/stunnel.pid
setuid = nobody
setgid = nobody
debug=7
output=stunnel.log
client = yes
[3309]
accept  = 3309
connect = mysql.example.com:3309


3. stunnel is started
4. The mysql client is invoked with the following:
   mysql -h mysql.example.com -u mysqluser -p -P 3309
   The hostname must be specified so that mysql will not attempt to bind with a local mysqld via a local socket.
   mysqluser needs to be granted rights on the appropriate databases with the host being localhost.localdomain. Something like
   grant all on db.* to mysqluser@'localhost.localdomain' identified by 'SecretPw';
   (this is done on a mysql client running on mysql.example.com by an administrator).

We had another requirement: we had to establish tunneled mysql connections from mysql.example.com to topmysql.example.com. So we created on mysql.example.com the directory /etc/stunnel-client with the client configuration as above. We started a second instance of stunnel, specifying the new config:
stunnel /etc/stunnel-client/stunnel-client.conf

topmysql.example.com was set up as an stunnel server as above, and everything worked as expected.

The only thing left to do is firewall off the unencrypted mysql connections on both servers.

I decided to do the manual install, as recommended. Following all the steps was easy, but to get it to work, I had to make the following changes:

1. The LoadModule directive needs to specify the sapi subdirectory, so if the files are in C:\php, the correct directive in httpd.conf should be
   LoadModule php4_module "c:/php/sapi/php4apache2.dll"
2. I needed the gd extension, so I uncommented the extension=php_gd2.dll in php.in (a copy of php.ini-recommended), but that was not good enough. I had to modify the extension_dir setting in php.ini to point at the extensions subdirectory, e.g. extension_dir = "c:/php/extensions". After restarting apache everything worked as expected.
   ]]> http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/22/installing-apache-and-php-on-windows/feed/ 0 http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/14/multiple-keyboards-for-accented-characters/ http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/14/multiple-keyboards-for-accented-characters/#comments Tue, 14 Mar 2006 15:39:45 +0000 ednawig http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/14/multiple-keyboards-for-accented-characters/ Entering accented or other “unusual” characters in a web-form is a recurring problem, which is usually solved by placing a virtual keyboard on the page. I find these annoying as they take up real estate on the page and are not used most of the time. Moreover, I needed more than 1 keyboard (e.g. for entering last name and first name). I came up with a form with the following characteristics:
   • At most one visible keyboard
   • Keyboard disappears when any textbox is clicked
   • As long as keyboard is visible, clicking on it will enter characters into the calling field

   The HTML for the form

   
<form  method="post" action="enter.php">
<table summary="new person">
    <tr>
        <td class="label">Last Name:</td>
        <td class="element"><input id="inpa" onclick="hideallkbs()" name="lastname" type="text" value="" /><br />
<INPUT TYPE=button onclick="hideallkbs();vis('aTable')" VALUE="Keyboard" />
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td class="label">First Name:</td>
        <td class="element"><input id="inpb" onclick="hideallkbs()" name="firstname" type="text" value="" /><br />
<INPUT TYPE=button onclick="hideallkbs();vis('bTable')" VALUE="Keyboard" /></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
 
        <td></td>
        <td><input name="submit" value="Enter Personal Data" type="submit" />&nbsp;<input name="reset" value="Reset" type="reset" /></td>
</table>
</form>


   The functions used in this html are hideblks(), which hides the keyboards and vis(), which makes a particular one visible:

   
<script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">
 
function kb(ID,sText) {
  bar = document.getElementById(ID);
  if(bar) {
    bar.value += sText;
  }
}
 
function vis(ID) {
  bar = document.getElementById(ID);
  if(bar) {
    bar.style.display  ='block';
  }
}
 
function hideallkbs() {
  var tables = document.getElementsByTagName("TABLE") ;
  for(var i=0; i<tables.length; i++) {
    if("kbdisplay" == tables[i].className) tables[i].style.display = 'none';
  }
}
</script>


   The kb() function will be used below, in defining the action of each clicked key in the keyboard. Before that, we define some CSS:
   
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
<!--
.kbdisplay {
  font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
  font-size: 10px;
  width: 600px;
  font-weight: normal;
  text-transform: none;
}  
td.kbkey {
  border-top:      1px solid #000000;
  border-bottom:    1px solid #000000;
  border-left:    0px solid #000000;
  border-right:    0px solid #000000;
}
 
.abc { width: 30; }
-->
</STYLE>

   which should of course be defined in the document’s HEAD (or in a separate linked file).

   Finally – here are the keyboards:
   
<TABLE class="kbdisplay" ID=aTable STYLE="border-collapse:collapse; display:none">
<tr>
<td class="kbkey"><input type="button" class="abc" value="&#192;" onclick="kb('inpa', '\xc0')" /></td>
<td class="kbkey"><input type="button" class="abc" value="&#224;" onclick="kb('inpa', '\xe0')" /></td>
....
<td class="kbkey"><input type="button" class="abc" value="&#253;" onclick="kb('inpa', '\xfd')" /></td>
<td class="kbkey"><input type="button" class="abc" value="&#255;" onclick="kb('inpa', '\xff')" /></td>
</tr>
 
</table>
<TABLE class="kbdisplay" ID=bTable STYLE="border-collapse:collapse; display:none">
<tr>
 
<td class="kbkey"><input type="button" class="abc" value="&#192;" onclick="kb('inpb', '\xc0')" /></td>
<td class="kbkey"><input type="button" class="abc" value="&#224;" onclick="kb('inpb', '\xe0')" /></td>
....
<td class="kbkey"><input type="button" class="abc" value="&#253;" onclick="kb('inpc', '\xfd')" /></td>
<td class="kbkey"><input type="button" class="abc" value="&#255;" onclick="kb('inpc', '\xff')" /></td>
</tr>
 
</table>


   A complete example can be seen here, and the correspoding code is here: code

   ]]> http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/14/multiple-keyboards-for-accented-characters/feed/ 0 http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/09/doubleclick-a-radio-button-to-remove-selection/ http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/09/doubleclick-a-radio-button-to-remove-selection/#comments Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:26:54 +0000 ednawig http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/09/doubleclick-a-radio-button-to-remove-selection/ We needed to set up a group of radio buttons so that when any of them is doubleclicked any selection in the group is removed. . The following javascript snippet sets up the function kp() which removes all selections upon a doubleclick:
   
   
   
   
<script type="text/javascript">
 
function kp() {
    var rb = document.getElementsByName('rb');
    for( var i=0; i < rb.length; i++) {
         rb[i].checked = false;
    }
}
 


   And the corresponding html which calls kp():
   
<input name="rb" value="0" type="radio" ondblclick="kp()"/>No
<input name="rb" value="1" type="radio" ondblclick="kp()"/>Yes
<input name="rb" value="3" type="radio" ondblclick="kp()"/>Maybe
<input name="rb" value="4" type="radio" ondblclick="kp()"/>Rather Not


   ]]> http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/09/doubleclick-a-radio-button-to-remove-selection/feed/ 0 http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/08/spreadsheet_excel_writer/ http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/08/spreadsheet_excel_writer/#comments Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:48:55 +0000 ednawig http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/08/spreadsheet_excel_writer/ The pear package Spreadsheet_Excel_Writer rocks. I include a file similar to excel.inc file in my scripts, and then send data as needed to the spreadshhet.

   Assume the data is organized in an array $data like this:
   $data = array(0=>array("f0"=>"v00", "f1"=>"v01",..."fn"=>"v0n"),
                                     1=>array("f0"=>"v10", "f1"=>"v11",..."fn"=>"v1n"),
                                                       .....
                                      n=>array("f0"=>"vn0", "f1"=>"vn1",..."fn"=>"vnn")
                                     );


   and we are interested in the fields f0, f1, f2 only. The headers for these fields should be “Field One”, “Field Two”, “Field Three”. This is easily achieved by this snippet:
   
   
   
   
   simple_header(array("Field One", "Field Two", "Field Three"));
   $lookat = array("f0","f1","f2");
   for($j=0; $j<count($data); $j++) {
       simple_row($data, $lookat, $j+1);
   }


   And don’t forget a $xls->close(); after all the data has been output!

   ]]> http://www.edna.narrabilis.com/2006/03/08/spreadsheet_excel_writer/feed/ 0