aaron's questions

I've got the following Nginx config:

server {
  listen   80;
  server_name  mercury;

  access_log  /var/log/nginx/mercury.access.log;
  error_log   /var/log/nginx/mercury.error.log;

  location /static {
    add_header Cache-Control: max-age=31536000;
  }

  location / {
    root   /opt/the-jam/www/dist/;
    try_files $uri /index.html;
    add_header Cache-Control: max-age=60;
  }
}

And I've got the directory structure:

§ tree /opt/the-jam/www/dist
/opt/the-jam/www/dist
├── index.html
└── static
    ├── 3522b60dabd4468d03f8.css
    └── 3522b60dabd4468d03f8.js

And I'm getting the error:

2015/10/20 14:25:26 [error] 4529#0: *95 rewrite or internal redirection cycle while internally redirecting to "/index.html", client: 0.0.0.0, server: the-jam, request: "GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1", host: "the-jam.example.com", referrer: "http://the-jam.example.com/"

This is a single-page app where any request, i.e. /foo/bar/baz should just load /index.html, unless it's requesting something in /static/[hash].js, so my understanding is that the try_files directive will try load the file at /foo/bar/baz, and then fall back to /index.html, so why am I getting the redirection cycle?

I have an expect script embedded in a bash script:

#! /bin/bash

# this function runs a command like 'ssh' and provides the password
function with_password {
expect << END
spawn $2
expect *assword:*
send -- $1
interact
wait
END
}

# run "long_running_command" on the remote server
with_password my_password "ssh my_user@some-server long_running_command"

# rsync some data to the remote server
with_password my_password "rsync /some/dir my_user@some-server:/remote/dir"

# run some other random command
with_password my_password "ssh my_user@some-server some_other_command"

The problem is that sometimes the script will hang while waiting for a spawned command. If I leave the wait command out of the expect script, the command will continue to run on the remote server, but the bash script will continue, and I have no way of knowing when it finishes.

Why does my expect script seem to be randomly hanging?

I need an open source web application that allows users to view .ics calendars

I am hosting a calendar with DAViCal, and users can view/edit calendars with their own clients (like Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird), but I want a web app that will display the public calendars so people w/o a user account can view the calendar just by visiting a URL. Requirements:

• Open source web app: something I can host right along with DAViCal
• Human-readable calendar: i.e. it has a day/week/month view to visualize calendar events

I have to install Linux kernel version 2.5.25.14 on a RHEL 5.4 server because of drive compatibility issues. I follow the RedHat "Building a Custom Kernel" instructions running the following:

$ make mrproper
$ make xconfig
$ make clean
$ make bzImage
$ make modules
$ make modules_install
$ make install

But I get a bunch of warnings like this:

WARNING: No module ehci-hcd found for kernel 2.6.25.24, continuing anyway

When I try to boot this kernel it is unable to mount the hard drive, and kernel panics on startup. As far as I can tell I'm using a standard configuration (I just accept the defaults and save a .config file). Is there something I'm missing? Thanks.

I have two servers running RHEL 5. Both have nearly identical configurations. I have set up RSA Publickey authetication on both, and one works but the other does not:

[my_user@client] $ ssh my_user@server1

--- server1 MOTD Banner ---

[my_user@server1] $

and on the other server:

[my_user@client] $ ssh my_user@server2
my_user@server2's password:

--- server2 MOTD Banner ---

[my_user@server2] $

server2's /etc/ssh/sshd_config file snippet:

RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
AuthorizedKeysFile        .ssh/authorized_keys

When I run ssh -vvv I get the following snippet:

debug3: authmethod_lookup publickey
debug3: remaining preferred: keyboard-interactive,password
debug3: authmethod_is_enabled publickey
debug3: Next authentication method: publickey
debug1: Offering public key: /home/my_user/.ssh/id_rsa
debug3: send_pubkey_test
debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply
debug1: Authentication that can continue: publickey,gssapi-with-mic,passowrd
debug1: Offering public key: /home/my_user/.ssh/id_dsa
debug3: send_pubkey_test
debug2: we sent a publickey packet, wait for reply
debug1: Authentication that can continue: publickey,gssapi-with-mic,passowrd
debug3: authmethod_lookup password
debug3: remaining preferred: ,password
debug3: authmethod_is_enabled password
debug1: Next authentication method: password
my_user@server2's password:

EDIT: both the servers and the client's .ssh directories have 700 permissions, and all the files within have 644 or 600 permissions

i am developing some software with a significant build time, so i want to execute the build command and play a noise once it is finished. two questions:

1. how do i make some noise from the command line (Redhat Enterprise Linux 5)?
2. i am doing the build on a remote machine, so is there something like X11 forwarding for sound that will play the noise on my machine?

if #2 isn't possible/easy i guess i could just execute the build command on the remote machine and play the noise locally. thanks for the help.

is there a way to set up user aliases in unix such that if you have a user, my_user, they can log in with an alternate username, i.e. my_user_alternate and still be logged in as my_user?

i have a cronjob:

0 9 * * * rsync -a mydir remote_machine:

i installed this with 'crontab -e'. i have an ssh-agent running, and when i execute the rsync command itself it works w/o any user interaction or password entry, but the cronjob fails with the following message:

Date: Wed,  9 Dec 2009 11:11:00 -0600 (CST)
From: Cron Daemon <me@my_machine.my_domain>
To: me@my_machine.my_domain
Subject: Cron <me@my_machine> rsync -a /home/me/mydir remote_machine:

Permission denied, please try again.
Permission denied, please try again.
Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-with-mic,password).
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [sender]
rsync error: unexplained error (code 255) at /SourceCache/rsync/rsync-35.2/rsync/io.c(452)
[sender=2.6.9]

why doesn't this work? i know the cronjobs run w/ me as the user (if i run '* * * * * touch /tmp/a' i own the file) so i assume the rsync is logging in as me using my private key...

I want to write a script that will log into several switches and check the status of several ports. I am running RHEL 4, and I have HP ProCurve 3500yl switches. I want to run something like the following:

ssh myhost -l myuser show interface A3

But when I do so, the ssh command just hangs until I hit ctrl-c. The manual seems to think I want to check the switch status through a web interface, so I can't find much guidance on getting the status remotely. Is there a way to do this over ssh? Is there another way that would be better but still scriptable?

I am trying to check the BIOS version of a server over SSH, a command that requires root privileges:

ssh remote-server su -c dmidecode

but this of course fails with the error:

standard in must be a tty

How do I make this work? I cannot use sudo, and when I try to log in as root@remote-server, it won't accept the password I use for the 'su' command. I am using RedHat Enterprise Linux 4.