fake's blog

after updating the debian testing on a server at work, access to our subversion repositories was beginning to flicker - the log message related to the 500 Internal Server Error is: auth_ldap authenticate: user foo authentication failed; URI /bar [ldap_search_ext_s() for user failed][Can't contact LDAP server] this happens after the server is up for a few hours, and would go away for a few times again eventually (when you hit another preforked apache worker, or spawn a new one). i googled, and found a conversation between Knorrie and Covener in #apache on freenode dating about a month back. I was unable to find the conclusion they came to, though, so i tried to contact them - both were very helpful. Knorrie and I had the problem, so we tested various scenarios. Then, after about a day, the reason for the mishaps became obvious... the LDAP_SERVER_DOWN define changed from version 2.1 (0x51 = 81) to 2.2 (-1) of the library, in the main header ldap.h, which makes the connection failure handling of apache bail out, if compiled with a 2.1 ldap.h and run on a 2.2 or later libldap. there is no build log of the current apache-2.2.8-1 debian package for x86, but the one for amd64 shows this is exactly what happened. i recompiled the debian source package with no change to the source, just the correct headers in place for libldap-2.4, and it runs smoothly now. this problem should be nullified in 6 days when apache2-2.2.8_3 enters debian testing.

while playing around with the iPhone SDK, i quickly lost my motivation digging through the Cocoa Touch API definitions, not being able to run the code on my phone just removes the fun for me... i want to play, not design ;-) I guess i'll have to start writing some Mac Cocoa apps first, anyway, though this Objective-C they keep talking about doesn't look as weird as i initially thought. Meanwhile, in part due to the lack of an Interface Builder for the iPhone, i played with the extensions made to Dashcode, quickly hacking up the micro-app i intended to code for my SO in native Objective C (which i will maybe do later on... when it's fun, heh). The overall time i spent on this is about 2 hours. It's a points calculator using the (european) formula of "an international company that offers various dieting products and services to assist weight loss and maintenance". it's called "PtCalc" because i'm so creative. You can check it out at http://f4k3.net/~fake/PtCalc/ i also uploaded the dashcode source file and the generated output files in case you want to drop it onto your iPhone / iPod touch and use the file://-Support-Hack (there is a patch in Installer for most firmware versions), copy it onto your home server, print it out, or whatever you may want to do with it, i don't care - in other words: Public Domain... the scale on the calories is from 0 - 700 kcal; the fat is from 0 - 70 g. like it or not, i seldom eat something with more than that per 100g. and i can do *5 and alike calculations in my head ;) if you suggest some new features, i might even give it a whirl and put some more energy into this before the iPhone firmware 2.0 ( + jailbreak + unlock) release. (2008-03-13) note: i changed the graphics included in the zip file and in the hosted versions to be of optimal size. they were huge...