Are you running a multihomed pptpd server?

Be sure you have these modules loaded:

ip_conntrack_ftp
ip_nat_ftp
ip_conntrack_pptp
ip_nat_pptp

Otherwise, you will have weird problems with vpns not coming up right.

If anyone ever figures our how to set the default dns search domain, I would really like to know about it.

Recently having had the chance to use a Macbook to manage debian boxes, I have one problem that I was not able to overcome... yet.

The included terminal.app does not send the F1 etc keys properly to the linux terminals.
I tried different terminal settings like xterm, xterm-color, vt100 and etc.
Each one brings its own problems it seems, none run perfectly like konsole or gnome-terminal.
There is an xterm application that is installed with X11, but who wants X11 running all the time.

Also, I miss the mouse single click paste and highlight to copy.

However, the macbook performs amazingly quick and well other wise.
If you are afraid of trying linux, try a Macbook.

http://www.apple.com/macbook/features.html

Trying to update my xterm settings and realized that .Xdefaults and .Xresources did not make an difference
until I ran

xrdb ~/.Xdefault 
or 
xrdb ~/.Xresources

After this xterm saw the changes.

Hope this saves someone else some grief!

What software have you used or found to work well to create webinars in Debian?

In an interest of redunancy, I like setting up 2 network cables and than using bonding to bond them together.

I add something like this to /etc/network/interfaces

auto bond0
iface bond0 inet static
        address 10.1.1.2
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 10.1.1.0
        gateway 10.1.1.1
        up /sbin/ifenslave bond0 eth0
        up /sbin/ifenslave bond0 eth1
        pre-up modprobe -v bonding -o bond0 mode=4 miimon=50
        post-down rmmod bond0

After creating the first DomU, I could not get it to use my bond0. It wanted to use eth0. I tried adding

('network-bridge netdev=bond0')

to /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp but it would not work.

After doing some research I found this article: http://www.performancemagic.com/Dell1950_MD3000i_Xen_Debian_iSCSI_RDAC/Networking.html which proved to be very helpful.

I added the network-bond to the scripts in /etc/xen/scripts, set it to executable with chmod. I commented out the network-bridge and used this instead.

 (network-script network-bond) 

After a reboot it quit working. After reviewing the above link again, I saw I was missing the netboot in /etc/modules. Adding this and another reboot makes it all work great.

I sent an email with this info to the debian xen package team, but did not hear back from them.

It would be nice to have this script included and a comment added to /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp.

Perhaps this is all fixed in Lenny.
Or maybe there is a better way to do this.

Hopefully this can save someone else similar problems.

With a new install of Xen and Etch, than using the xen tools to install a new copy of Etch, the time seems to stay off.

The system has minimal config changes and creating the xen client looks like this:

xen-create-image --hostname Xrrr.my.flat --ip 10.1.1.1 --dist etch

Installing ntpdate and running ntpdate -b myntpserver does not seem to fix it.
Tzconfig changes the timezone but does not fix it.
It still seems to be about 5 hours off.

Why is a xen client different than regular Etch?

Icewm is a great desktop when you want speed, performance and stability.

Although I like icewm I still use konsole and other kde applications.

With kde4 apps showing up, it is fun to try them out as well.

I notice that although they work fine, icewm shows a black spot where the application icon should be.

Are there any tips for fixing this?

Recently I was inspired by looking at some of Steve's repository files and seeing aliases, and other configs that he wanted available on all boxes.

Since I use svn, I added a hidden folder with some standard aliases, customized vimrc, muttrc and etc to it.

Than I setup svn to store and make it all accessable from other servers.

Some of the issues that I am not sure about:

o I don't like svn user/pass stored on all boxes I access.
  This can be fixed with the --no-auth-cache but than I need to login to it every time I update.

o I still need to remember to manually call my svn update to get the updates in.

o Some boxes don't have all the same access to the svn services.

o And some boxes it would be nice to have the some of the etc stuff sync'd as well.

It would be interesting to hear what you do with your home folder on servers, and how you keep it consistent between a variety of servers/workstations/laptops or whatever.

Sometimes it would be handy to have a place to put personal notes, have access to personal email, and store files for later usage.

And at the same time have some simple content available to the public.

What do folks find as an easy way to accomplish a setup like this or does everyone do everything the manual way?

IE: Install apache, configure it, and then code the html stuff, add a protected personal page, add a public side, add photos tips, ideas and so...
Doing the following:

apt-cache search web tools personal

This does not seem to yield anything real useful.

For years I have used iptables on Debian as a firewalling/network protecting tool.

However, recently I am needing to have better redundancy, ie multiple hardware boxes.

But have the perhaps common problem of how do we handle redundancy.
Ideally of course, there is only one gateway ip on each vlan/realm etc.
When asking my peers what is the best solution, the only solution seems to be to use a bsd* variant with carp tools.

This is likely a very good idea, however, I don't know the bsd lingos.

So, do we need to learn openbsd commands to get real network/firewall redundancy or are there stable working solutions that you find with Debian/linux?

What solutions or routes do you take or suggest for redundant firewalling and ease of use without a complicated mess of addresses and routes?