Frank V's questions

I'm doing scripting using appcmd. What I'd like to do is check to see if a given site exists and if does perform an action. In this case, delete it.

appcmd list app | find "mySite"

So, if the find "mySite" returns any text, I'd like to execute a delete statement. Now, I understand I could attempt to delete the site and ignore the error but that gives a (potentially) confusing output.

I've tried something like the following, where I assume I'd just use the variable appExists in an if statement, but it just ends up blank. Alayways.

set appExists=appcmd list app | find "mySite"
echo %~n0: %appExists%

How can I achieve this?

I'm attempting to install Apache with SSL on CentOS6 to use as a development server.

I've been following the directions posted here to get SSL working: http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Https (Note: Apache was working fine until I attempted to enable SSL.)

When I got to part about re-starting Apache, the server wouldn't start. I just get an error which follows:

[Mon Feb 13 18:31:36 2012] [error] (13)Permission denied: Init: Can't open 
 server certificate file /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca.crt

I saw that the reported certificate was owned by my user and my group, so I changed it to root:root but it made no difference. I'm not sure what else to try or what to look at. Thanks.

Note: My questions is similar to this but the error is different.

I'm attempting to tweak my server but I don't understand what the definition of "python-program" is in a site configuration file. And by that, I understand it's some sort of reference to python.

What I mean, where is it defined? Which version does that lead too and where is that variable (if that is what it is) introduced? Is it built in to Apache 2?

To ensure I'm clear, I see it in this context...

<Location "/">
    SetHandler python-program
    PythonHandler django.core.handlers.modpython
    SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE mysite.settings
    PythonDebug Off
    PythonPath "['/main-data/www/mysite'] + sys.path
</Location>

Note: I've viewed cron: can’t lock /var/run/crond.pid, otherpid may be 3759 but I believe my question is different (but with the same resulting problem.)

I'm very new to cron. I setup a script to run a python script every minute to test that everything was working. I did use crontab to accomplish this. It worked great, so I wanted to switch it to run every 4 hour.

I changed my * * * * * {...} to * */4 * * * {...} but the job is continues to run every minute. It's been like this for the last hour or so.

When I attempt to run cron restart (thinking that would solve the problem), I receive the following error message:

cron: can't lock /var/run/crond.pid, otherpid may be 2311: Resource temporarily unavailable

Is my cron syntax wrong? And why might I not be able to restart cron?

What is the distinction between a Cloud based host and a VPS? I talked to a Rackspace Cloud sales person for around 45 minutes and never came to a real conclusion on this. So, to elaborate on my question a bit -- what benefits might a "cloud" server provide me versus a VPS provider such as Linode and vice versa -- what benefits would a VPS provide over a cloud provider?

From what I've been able to ascertain, when you host on a cloud (with Rackspace Cloud) you get a instance of Linux in which you install software and such (a LAMP, for instance). From what I can figure, if the instance is running, I am charged and the pricing on Rackspace (according to what I understood from the sales rep) comes out to about $20 a month.... I was thinking a cloud customer pays per processing hours -- so if your app just sits there, no charges are incurred. Does one not pay of the cloud instance is shut down, perhaps?

A similar questions to what I'm asking but not exactly it:

• Understanding: cloud-server, cloud-hosting, cloud-computing, the cloud
• What is the difference between vps and cloud hosting

I've been working to setup a Linux VPS to host a couple of Wordpress sites and eventually a Mercurial server.

I've setup one site and things have gone well. However, before I start moving other things to the VPS, I need to setup a backup solution.

My provider, Linode, suggest RSync (among a couple of other options) to do backups. I've seen a few posts on this site that suggests other backup solutions including going to the Amazon Cloud but that costs money and the VPS is all the money I want to spend on this for the time being.

So, to help solve that I want to have my backup computer be my home desktop computer.

Assuming I'm using RSync, is it possible to use my Vista based home computer to become the destination for the backup? And if it is possible, what type of command or connection would I need to configure on the vista machine?

Any insight would be helpful. It's probably obvious, but I've never used RSync.

Update: While I'm considering (and attempting to implement the previously given suggestions), I'm still interested in other (perhaps) non-rsync solutions. I don't want to restrict myself to that technology if there are others that might work.

I'm planning a software based service. To give it a bit of context (type of traffic), assume it similar to facebook in nature (with a little GitHub thrown in).

I've been trying to understand my different hosting options. I've been using a shared host with GoDaddy for years just fine. I currently host a Wordpress web site there and I've not had any problems. Quite frankly, they've taken good care of me.

However, the nature of a shared hosting environment is limited in nature. For example, I can't do anything but host a web site there. For example, I can not run a Mercurial server.

Last time I attempted to build a web application with the intention of eventually launching it via GoDaddy, I ran in to all sorts of troubles because it was shared-hosted. Assembly issues, etc. At the time, the cost and time sank my project. (The lack of direct access was also frustrating.) (to be fair to godaddy, this was over 3 years ago)

I've been looking at Rackspace or Amazon as a possible cloud solution but it seems to be just processing power and bandwidth (and an OS). From what I understand, I'd need to get Apache and MySQL Working on my own. The way cloud hosting is priced, however, seems appealing.

I figure my final option might be to use a virtual private host. I think this would be more flexible than a shared-host site but less scalable than a cloud based server.

So, I guess my question is what is an appropriate solution for someone who intends to build a web application service? I figure that I need to establish a hosting environment now rather than later so I can plan to effectively use the environment.

I'd prefer to be fairly economical to start out with. I really can't afford to pay $999 (or even $99) while I build up the site and get the core functionality online but at the same time, I'd like to have the selected environment grow as needed.

Thank you.

In practice (and in general) is a transaction log a part of the database server or is it a part of the database itself? I've not been able to locate information in this domain anywhere. I need the information for a model that I'm putting together...

If this is extremely dependent upon implementation, I'm looking at SQL Server 2005/2008, MySQL and SQLite. But I'd prefer to stay as general as possible.

I imagine that if the transaction log is a part of the server, then there would be one (maybe two) transaction log in the entire server. This is opposed to each database having one transaction log which would give us many transaction logs in the single server.

I want to learn about how to run a Ubuntu Linux Server. Nothing too advanced. I simply want to learn about the basic setup and operation of a server to do the following things:

• SVN
• Apache Web Server (w/ PHP)
• FTP Server (for uploading files)
• MySql (maybe)

I want to get something running in VirtualBox. Are there any introductory resources that someone can point me to? I know basic Linux commands but lets assume no other knowledge.

I've ran all of the above items on a Windows box. I'm familiar with each of their setup and administrations. The only thing I really don't understand is how to setup and configure each of the items from a command-line only interface.

Is it possible to to create a shortcut to open a terminal window to a specific directory? I'm using gcc a lot to build small C programs but it is annoying to have to navigate to the directory where my source code is. Is there anyway to configure an short cut (or anything) to terminal to open the window in a given directory?

Update: This problem is still eluding me. The most voted answer is the one I've just tried to implement. But, I'm apparently having trouble putting together what would be the $PROJECTDIR path.

Lets assume that the files are in something like the following location:

 /Documents/SVN Working Copies/School/Term-1/CSC-373/

I can get there when I cd to every thing by itself but I've been using the wild card:

cd doc*
cd svn*
cd *
cd *

What I tried was (things like):

cd /Documents/SVN Working Copies/School/Term-1/CSC-373/  

(again, in place of $PROJECTDIR.) When I open the terminal window, I have access to Documents so I figured I would when creating the new profile...

If you wanted to trace an IP address because that IP Address was the source of attacks and abuse, how would you accomplish this? Is there anything one can do to find who is using a given IP address and furthermore is there anything that can be done to stop it?

Update: The destination (where the server is) is in the USA. The source indicates that it is also USA but like someone suggested, the IP Address is likely spoofed... I'm still open to further input/details...

Thanks,
Frank