/dev/zero

So far this week I’ve:
Finally gotten a working Xen system that will boot a Debian guest.
Successfully installed ispCP on the Debian guest.
Built another Debian guest to be an OpenVPN server.
Successfully built an OpenVPN server and got two clients to connect from outside the network, through the DSL modem/router.
Correctly configured the VPN server to give the client access to the full network via IP masquerading (next trick: get the network to simply route the packets instead of having to use masq).
Got ddclient working on the VPN server to keep dyndns updated so I don’t have to hard code an IP address in my VPN clients and check various server log files to see if it changed.
Fixed ddclient, when it failed to update dyndns with new IP address after my DSL provider mysteriously issued a new one, not 3 hours after setting up ddclient in the first place.

I can now log into my ispcp box from my desk at work, as though it was on the same network. I can now proceed with trying to get Mailman to play nice with ispCP when it’s slow at work.

I get productive when I ignore my games.

While installing Ubuntu Server 8.04 beta on an HP DL-320, I discovered I had some trouble getting HP’s “Proliant value added software” (hpasm) package installed. This package contains their system health check and control software which, among other things, switches the fans from “full-time full speed” (which is quite noisy) to temperature controlled speed (eg: normal (read: quiet) fan speed when system temp is normal).
The problem with installing and runnning this software stems from the fact that Ubuntu, for some reason, links /bin/sh to dash instead of bash. Dash is another bourne shell clone, but doesn’t understand Bash (bourne-again shell) specific syntax.
Re-linking /bin/sh to bash instead of dash solved the problem and the server is now humming (quietly) along.