• 1.5.3 - Jan 27 - Wednesday!
• 1.5.4 - Feb 24
• 1.5.5 - Mar 10 - String Freeze
• 1.6.0 - Mar 31

In the old days of openSUSE 10.x I used sudo and its configuration to install updates and new software in GUI without the most-annoying (I know, secure) need to enter password of root. Since version 11, this is no longer possible.

Since I am too lazy to enter root password (I've already logged-in, it's me, right?), I spent quite some time figuring out how to solve it. And I finally did.

In KDE the kupdateapplet is used to check for updates. In default installation kupdate applet uses PackageKit backend. To make things more complicated, PackageKit uses another framework: PolicyKit. (From What's PackageKit?: "The primary design goal is to unify all the software graphical tools used in different distributions, and use some of the latest technology like PolicyKit to make the process suck less." - WTF?! I wanna sudo!).

How does it work? When the update applet issue update command to PackageKit, PackageKit asks PolicyKit for permission. PolicyKit checks it's configuration and either allows it, denies it, or ask for authentication (enter password). If you want to know how it works, read the PolicyKit and PackageKit documentation.

What we need to do is configure PolicyKit in a way that it gives permission to update action of PackageKit.

Default permissions are stored in file /etc/polkit-default-privs.standard (or /etc/polkit-default-privs.restrictive according to value of POLKIT_DEFAULT_PRIVS in /etc/sysconfig/security). The file have following syntax:

action_id permissions

or (one line)

action_id&nbsp perm_any_user:perm_user_not_on_the_active_console:perm_user_on_the_active_console

In first case, same permission are applied. In second case different permission are used for user on active console, etc.

Possible permissions are:

• yes allowed
• no denied
• auth_admin need root password
• auth_admin_keep same as above, but will not require password again for some time
• auth_user need user password
• auth_user_keep same as above, but will not require password again for some time

Action IDs and their descriptions can be found in files located in /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/. The one we're looking for is: org.freedesktop.packagekit.system-update.

In our case, we want that user on active console don't have to enter root password for installation of updates. So we add following rule to /etc/polkit-default-privs.local (do not modify polkit-default-privs.standard and polkit-default-privs.restrictive since they may be overwritten during some update!):

org.freedesktop.packagekit.system-update auth_admin:auth_admin:yes

And we need to install the privileges to the system (without following command, it won't work):

/sbin/set_polkit_default_privs

Yes! Now you should be able to update your system without the need to enter root password.

Same way can be used for package installation, removal, etc. You can also ask user to enter his password instead of root password. The only thing I miss is Vista-like way: make user explicitly click "I know what I'm doing" without the need to enter password. Why? Because this way some script can install a package on your system without you even knowing it (If you have passwordless installation allowed for user on active console and the user runs the script without knowing what it exactly does. But I didn't test it, maybe it doesn't work this way? Maybe there's some check?)

Special thanks to Ludwig Nussel for pointing me to /sbin/set_polkit_default_privs.

I was using SheevaPlug as my Home NAS, with and external usb hdd, until recently when I built my new NAS, based on ION ATOM, FreeBSD and ZFS.

I am thinking to add an usb webcam and to use it as a monitoring system.

I updated Debian "squeeze", which is running on an 8G SDHC card, but I got the error:

*After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.  
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y  
Setting up lighttpd (1.4.25-2) ...  
Starting web server: lighttpd2010-01-22 23:13:31: (network.c.345) can't
bind to port: :: 80 Address already in use  
failed!  
invoke-rc.d: initscript lighttpd, action "start" failed.  
dpkg: error processing lighttpd (--configure):  
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit
status 1  
Errors were encountered while processing:  
lighttpd  
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)  
sheeva:/home/ionut\#*

I didn't have anything running and listening on port 80, so, it seems that it is a known bug, http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=564556 and the solution is here:

Add in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:

*server.use-ipv6 = "enable"*

And add in /etc/sysctl.d/bindv6only.conf:

"*net.ipv6.bindv6only = 0*"

I was looking to build a NAS (Network Attached Storage) to store all my music, photos, files, e-books and important work related files. I also wanted to have a central place for my backups and to be used sometimes as HTPC. So, a "two in one" solution (NAS and HTPC).

Even if there are many ready-to-go NAS solutions I decided to build myself one and having the HTPC on the same machine. Here is mainly what I wanted:

• low powered system (64-bit microprocessor)
• used as a media server (stream movies/music)
• to be used sometimes as a HTPC, so I wanted HDMI (for HD video)
• ZFS file system with all its goodies
• gigabit ethernet interface to take advantage of the network bandwidth
• nice chassis with four hot-swappable 3.5" SATA HDD (I am using just two HDD right now because the motherboard has only 3 SATA)

My NAS/HTPC specs are here:

• Chenbro ES34069 chassis
• Zotac ION-ITX-A Wi-Fi Dual Core 1.6GHz motherboard
• 2 GB Kingston DDR2 800MHz RAM
• 2 x Western Digital Caviar Green 1.0 TB
• 1x Toshiba 2.5" HDD 100 GB (for OS)

I choosed FreeBSD as operating system, because I am more familiar with it than with Solaris. I recompiled mplayer with vdpau support (for HD video).

Here are the steps:

• download the latest mplayer snapshot from their website
• download these two files (ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/vdpau/include/vdpau/) and put them in /usr/include/vdpau (create that directory)
• ./configure --disable-x264-lavc --disable-x264 -–enable-vdpau
• gmake
• gmake install
• check to see if you have vdpau support with: "mplayer -vo help". If you see something like: "vdpau VDPAU with X11" then everything is ok.

Some additional steps/configs:

• add zfs_enable="YES" in /etc/rc.conf
• add  the following in /boot/loader.conf:

vm.kmem_size_max="1024M"
vm.kmem_size="1024M"
vfs.zfs.arc_max="100M"

• zpool create storage mirror ad4 ad10
• zfs create storage/archives
• zfs create storage/backups
• install samba, duplicity, rsnapshots, rsync, unison, ushare, ...

Right now, everything is working very well, I am very happy with the setup, but I still didn't manage to have sound over HDMI, so, a temporary solution will be to connect an additional speaker system to it.

I don't need any fancy remote control, I have a logitech wifi keyboard/mouse, because I like to be able to read the news in the morning (during cofee time) using google reader

The total power consumption is about 35W idle / 45W load which is pretty good, I think.