Google Authenticator, and (all?) other rotating-pin multi-factor authentication systems, rely on the clock on the token device (in this case your smart-phone or tablet) and the authenticating system (in this case the OpenVPN server). If the clocks are different by more than a few seconds or so, it will break your authentication. (more…)

Working on some performance tuning for MySQL today. Here are by far the best resources I have found:

Best General Tuning Guide:
http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2006/09/29/what-to-tune-in-mysql-server-after-installation/

Expanded point from that Guide:
http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2007/11/03/choosing-innodb_buffer_pool_size/

I ran into an issue when I adjusted a log file size (MySQL wouldn’t start), this was the fix:
http://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/1261/how-to-safely-change-mysql-innodb-variable-innodb-log-file-size

In my case MySQL was running on a dedicated VPS with 2 Gb of Ram so I had quite a bit of room to work. If you are on shared hosting or even a VPS sharing space with Apache your numbers are going to look different. This was, of course, an effort to fix performance on a Drupal site that was running really really rough even though it has low traffic. The tuning helped a lot but I still have a ways to go.

Anyhow, thought I would pass the helpful links along as anyone searching for MySQL Performance tuning should be finding this stuff first imho.

Cheers!

String Overrides is a phenomenally versatile module that will make your life MUCH easier if you are administering a Drupal website. The basic premise is this…

There is a “string” of text on my website that I need to replace with something else. I have used it a few places, here is a particular use-case:
(more…)

The company I work for operates an internal drupal websites that I built. Everyone authenticates using their Microsoft Active Directory user accounts. That means that Microsoft Active Directory handles their passwords and email addresses and a host of other things that Drupal would normally handle if we were just authenticating against the database. Therefore one item that I no longer want to display (as it has led to end user confusion…) is the “Request New Password” tab that appears on the user login page.
(more…)

Thought I would post this one quickly…

Having trouble getting OpenVPN to start/work for you and you are seeing this error in your logs?

“TCP/UDP: Socket bind failed on local address”

The resolution is pretty simple. Try changing the port you have assigned to openVPN in your config file and restarting the service. Most likely you have bound it to a port already being used by another service. I ran into this problem because I tried to use port 443. I wasn’t running an SSL/HTTPS website on my server but what I had forgotten that I was running SSH through 443 temporarily.

It is generally good practice to use a port above 1000 for odd services if you aren’t using the default port for said service. I run into this a lot as I don’t like to use common ports as they tend to get targeted more often and hammered by bots/evil people trying to break in…

Anyhow, hope this helps!