Loren Bandiera’s weblog

Was doing some work for a client on the weekend with Microsoft Exchange 2003. I ran into this error:

How does something like that even pass QA?

I’m trying to give MonoDevelop another chance so I’m in the process of re-doing the GUI in LAT. It’s going to be a slow process of re-creating the various widgets/dialogs, copying the old code in and then testing it.

You can follow the work in my git repository: git clone git://www.lbtechservices.com/lat.git

I’ve moved my blog to http://www.lbtechservices.com/blog along with the most of the content from dev.mmgsecurity.com. You should update your bookmarks/links. The old sites will be redirected to the new URLs.

If you notice any problems, let me know.

For the last few months I’ve been unable to do much in the way of developing LAT.

The first issue is MonoDevelop. In the 1.3 branch, I started to make more use of MonoDevelop features. I switched from building the interface in Glade to MonoDevelop’s Stetic UI builder.

This made development much easier and I was able to clean up a lot of interface issues. However, I found new MonoDevelop releases wouldn’t compile the project any more. I reported the bug and some things got fixed but overall it stopped development cold.

As of MonoDevelop 0.15 I can’t even open the project anymore. It just crashes try to load the solution file. Even with the stable 1.2 branch, I can open the project but it refuses to compile with some strange errors.

The second issue is Mono, specifically the Novell.Directory.Ldap assembly. It doesn’t support non-Latin characters as far as I can tell. TLS support is broken. There is no support for GSSAPI for Kerberos intergration.

I can’t implement the features I want with the way things currently are. I guess I could try and fix it myself but it took me months to get one SSL bugfix accepted and then I had to wait for the next two Mono releases before I could use it. The TLS bug I reported has been open for over a year now. It doesn’t inspire confidence.

I’m not really interested in re-doing all the UI work in Glade and then switching back to a Gedit/Terminal/Glade workflow. Overall LAT does what I need it for and my itch is basically scratched. So as it stands, I don’t think I will be doing any more releases of LAT past 1.2.3 which I just pushed out today. If someone is interested in taking over the project, let me know.

LDAP Administration Tool 1.2.3 has been released. This is a bugfix release. Changes since 1.2.2:

• BUGFIX [#90] Fix bug with samba SID being stripped during edits
• BUGFIX [#88] Creating new POSIX user causes crash

Downloads: tar.gz

I’ve updated my docs on how to build a mail gateway using Postfix, DSPAM, ClamAV and apache to v0.5. Mostly just added some screenshots and fixed some minor config errors. You can get them from:

• Building a Mail Gateway (ODT)
• Building a Mail Gateway (PDF)

Comments/suggestions are welcome.

I was having some issues with my old Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse so I thought I’d get a new one. I go to a locat store and I picked up a Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 3200 Laser.

When I get home, I remove my old keyboard/mouse and hook up the new one. The mouse worked but the keyboard didn’t respond to any input. I do some searching and discover this is a known issue. To resolve, you are supposed to use the SetPoint software that comes with the keyboard/mouse. However that software is Windows only. From my Linux box there was nothing I could do to get the keyboard working.

Fortunately I had an older box lying around and I was able to install a copy of Windows Vista on it, install the Logitech software and use it to configure the keyboard. After that it works fine and I can hook it up to my Linux desktop.

I can’t believe Logitech is actually selling Windows only keyboards. Would it really be so hard to port their config software to Linux? Maybe I should I have bought a Microsoft wireless keyboard/mouse instead?