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I ran into this one this evening, and at its root, it comes down to some changes made between MySQL 5.0 and 5.1.

Problem is, fixing the issues created by these changes seems to be more involved than the documentation implies. Suggested fixes such as commenting out the skip-bdb option in my.cnf did not work in this case.

After spending hours perusing support sites, and banging my head repeatedly against these tables that were being reported as “corrupt” and unrepairable, I finally hit upon a low-tech solution.

I downloaded the actual database files from /var/lib/mysql, tucked it into the /var/lib/mysql directory of a MySQL 5.0 install, exported the SQL queries and re-imported them into my 5.1 install.

This solution isn’t for everyone, of course, because it requires access to a 5.0 install, but it worked for me.

I’ve decided that the mcagent.exe process installed by McAfee’s Total Protection 2010 would be more aptly named “McHippie.exe”.

Why? Because it just sits around in a daze, doing nothing, while consuming all your resources.

Bah-rum-bump.

(With apologies to actual, honest-to-God, granola-eating hippies.)

I just figured I’d drop a brief note here, for posterity, to assist others who fail to inspect their own .htaccess files to see if, perhaps, they’ve restricted access to only their IP address, and have embarked on a wild goose chase to track down an obscure “client denied by server configuration” error.

I spent an hour researching this issue this evening. The Googles present a wide variety of potential fixes, but it turns out that the real problem was that I’d outsmarted myself by restricting a particular directory to my old IP address via an .htaccess file.

A little tip here: If you’re getting this message when trying to log into Plesk Billing via Plesk:

Warning: fopen(/var/log/sso/sso.log) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in /usr/local/sso/lib/Log.php on line 24 FATAL ERROR: Can not open log file ‘/var/log/sso/sso.log’ (CWD is /usr/local/sso)

This would seem to be being caused by changing the hostname, for which Plesk Billing generates an automatic self-signed SSL certificate for. Attempting to re-register the hostname using the /usr/local/psa/bin/sso utility is useless in this context, as it keeps beating up against the entrenched cert.

To remedy, simply:
1.) Back up your Plesk Billing database
2.) command: yum remove plesk-billing
3.) Re-add Plesk Billing via the Plesk Updater

I’m not blind to the benefits of drones, and I’m not blind to the sobering realities of aerial survivability in the early moments of a conflict with a modern military. But, as this Wired article demonstrates, we can’t let ourselves think that we can rely entirely on joystick-wielding Nintendo jockeys either.

I think this will be revealed as only the tip of the iceberg with regards to the way these drones can be exploited. Security pro-tip, kids: if you can access and control something from remote, so can the other guy, it’s just a matter of how long it takes him to figure out how to do it.

So, it seems to me that maybe drones are like anti-biotics: the more you use them, and the more the enemy gets to learn about them, the less effective and more dangerous they become.

So, I recently got a DVD from Netflix that wouldn’t play. Of course, I immediately flagged it as such on the Netflix website, which as everyone knows is phenomenally well-designed with a very high degree of thought placed into every widget, button, and tab. And Netflix delivered the replacement DVD just a day later. No surprises there.

I decided to hold onto the damaged DVD until the replacement came, because I like to hoard the occasional Netflix envelope as a hedge against ones that come damaged in the mail. I’m always afraid that one of them will get torn out of their little red envelopes by an unscrupulous mail handler or by sheer accident.

When I went to send the replacement and the damaged DVD back in the same red envelope, I put little Post-It notes on them describing which DVD was damaged, and which was not. And then I pretty much forgot about it.

But Netflix didn’t. Continue reading…

I was downloading a series of free add-ons for a particular piece of software, when I was forced into downloading it from one of those “file hosting” services. This got me thinking, because it was mildly annoying to have to use such a service for a file that was only 1.8 megabytes in size, after a sixty-second wait due to my not being a “Premium” member.

Of course, hosts like RapidHost and their kind derive a large amount of their traffic from, shall we say, less than fully legal data. But to see something that was 100% legal, and 100% free, being offered on such a service….well, suffice it to say I spent the 60 seconds thinking, I hope, somewhat productively.

Because this is a market that “old-school” traditional web hosts can handle, as well. The people putting files like these on download services do not need privacy; in my specific case, they actually had it linked from their online profile. And they probably have an account on that service, which means they’re willing to pay for the service. Continue reading…

Oddly enough, this actually is a feature and not a bug. It hinges on the Single Sign-on feature linking Plesk Billing and Plesk itself. Plesk is trying to redirect to the Billing side to take login credentials.

Just open ports 11443/11444 on your firewall, and you’re good to go.

More info here.

I’ve seen a couple articles today where the Republicans are trying to politicize the concept of network neutrality, comparing it in one case to “a Fairness Doctrine for the Internet“.

Well, it’s not that. And I could spend several paragraphs excoriating Republicans for yet-another weak attempt to convince uninformed voters that Obama’s going to [fill-in-the-blank], but I won’t. Instead, I will simply present you with What Net Neutrality Is, and What Net Neutrality Isn’t. Continue reading…