Here is an example page render without the photographs included.  Still need a UI for selecting photographs and positioning them on the white area of the page.

At the bottom, see an ImageMagick Text Example about the python code used to render multiple text areas and color blocks on one image…

It took me a long time to figure out how to use ImageMagick to place multiple text areas on one image.  Here are some keywords for google:

ImageMagick, ImageMagick multiple text areas, ImageMagick pdf rendering, ImageMagick text.

      PrimerFont = join(App.Path, 'Static', 'Primerb.ttf')
      PrimerFontBold = join(App.Path, 'Static', 'Primer.ttf')
      RenderFile = join(TempDir, 'Render.jpg')

      # Build the full image
      subprocess.check_call((
        '/usr/bin/convert',

        # Setup the background
        '-size', '2550x3300',
        'xc:white',

        # Title Bar
        '-fill', 'grey14', '-draw', 'rectangle 0,0 2550,300',

        # Summary bar
        '-fill', 'RoyalBlue4', '-draw', 'rectangle 0,300 2550,600',

        # Description Bar
        '-fill', 'LightGrey', '-draw', 'rectangle 0,600 2550,1050',

        # Now draw the Name
        '(',
          '-density'    , '300',
          '-fill'       , 'white',
          '-background' , 'grey14',
          '-font'       , PrimerFont,
          '-size'       , '1650x150',
          '-gravity'    , 'West',
          '-pointsize'  , '20',
          'caption:'    + self.Book.Name,
        ')',
        '-gravity', 'NorthWest', '-geometry', '+150+150', '-composite',

        # Now draw the Date
        '(',
          '-density'    , '300',
          '-fill'       , 'white',
          '-background' , 'grey14',
          '-font'       , PrimerFont,
          '-size'       , '600x150',
          '-gravity'    , 'East',
          '-pointsize'  , '20',
          'caption:' + Activity.Date.strftime('%B %d, %Y'),
        ')',
        '-gravity', 'NorthEast', '-geometry', '+150+150', '-composite',

        # Now draw the Summary
        '(',
          '-density'    , '300',
          '-fill'       , 'white',
          '-background' , 'RoyalBlue4',
          '-font'       , PrimerFontBold,
          '-size'       , '2250x300',
          '-gravity'    , 'Center',
          '-pointsize'  , '20',
          'caption:'    + Activity.Summary.replace("\n", " "),
        ')',
        '-gravity', 'North', '-geometry', '+0+300', '-composite',

        # Now draw the Description
        '(',
          '-density'    , '300',
          '-fill'       , 'black',
          '-background' , 'LightGrey',
          '-font'       , PrimerFont,
          '-size'       , '2250x450',
          '-gravity'    , 'Center',
          '-pointsize'  , '14',
          'caption:'    + Activity.Description.replace("\n", "\\n"),
        ')',
        '-gravity', 'North', '-geometry', '+0+600', '-composite',

        # Now draw the Page
        '(',
          '-density'    , '300',
          '-fill'       , 'black',
          '-background' , 'white',
          '-font'       , PrimerFont,
          '-size'       , '2250x150',  #entire right half minus 150pt margin
          '-gravity'    , 'Center',
          '-pointsize'  , '14',
          'caption:'    + 'Page {0}'.format(self.PageNumber),
        ')',
        '-gravity', 'South', '-geometry', '+0+150', '-composite',

#        NameFile, '-geometry', '+0+0', '-composite',
#        DateFile, '-geometry', '+1275+0', '-composite',
#        SummaryFile, '-geometry', '+0+150', '-composite',
#        DescriptionFile, '-geometry', '+0+450', '-composite',

        RenderFile,
        ))

For a long time, I put up with some less than optimal settings.  But over time, I learned what worked best for me.  The purpose of this post is to share that with you.

Enjoy!

Download from: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

Hint: I prefer the windows installer.  However, whatever you do, make sure you get the whole suite (unless you know you don’t need it)

Launch PuTTY and configure “Session” section

user@host is handy for auto-login.  I prefer to place my server name before my username in the saved sessions because the sort order will be maintained as the list grows.

Configure the “Terminal > Bell” section

I have found it preferable not to disable the bell if it is overused.

Configure the “Window” Settings

This is one of the most important settings.  The default of 200 lines of scrollback is just not enough.  I find 20000 to be more useful.  Also, the window size should be set according to your screen size and preferences.

Configure “Window > Appearance” settings

I find that the Luicida Console 14 point font is very easy on the eyes.  Keep in mind I’m usually using a 27″ or 30″ display at 2560 pixels wide, so I can afford the extra size of 14pt.  However, even on smaller screens, I still find it nicer to be able to read effortlessly and see less than the other way around.  Just give it a try :)

Configure the “Window > Translation” settings

As of a few years ago, Linux began to use UTF-8 character encoding by default.  This means that if your terminal is set to latin1 or similar, then each single multi-byte-character is literally interpreted as multiple latin1 characters, mostly drawn as out-of-place accented letters and various symbols.

So in my experience, it is best to use UTF-8 when connecting to Linux.

Configure “Window > Selection” settings

You need to decide here if you want an important safety precaution.  Under the “Compromise” setting above, right-click will paste whatever is on the clipboard… even if you were just blogging about sudo rm -rf /

So, think that over pretty hard.  The first option of “Windows” will bring up a right-click menu with a convenient “Paste” option.  Also, you can simply us SHIFT+INSERT to paste in PuTTY.

Configure “Window > Colours” settings

If you can read dark-blue-on-black, then your vision is in another “spectrum” than mine.  Check out the difference here:

Simply select “ANSI Blue” and change the RGB values to 112, 112, 255.

Configure “Connection” settings

It is helpful to send a null packet every once in a while to keep sessions alive.

Configure “Connection > SSH” settings (Update)

David Aldrich pointed out in a helpful comment that  ”I also think it is probably worth enabling SSH compression if working over a slow connection.”

Configure “Connection > SSH > Auth” settings

If you use SSH Agent forwarding (eg pagent) to allow you to “hop” from one server to another, then PuTTY must be told to enable Agent Forwarding.  There are some security issues with this setting when connecting to an untrusted server, so please understand them first.

Configure “Connection > SSH > Tunnels”

If you want to connect to a MySQL or PostgreSQL service running on the host you are connecting to, but have all communication encrypted and sent via SSH tunnel, here is how to set that up.

Keep in mind that your Windows OS you are on must have the source port free, so if you are ALSO running MySQL locally, then pick a different local port number like 13306.

Once your SSH session is established, then you can connect to localhost port 13306 and it will be tunneled to the remote server on 3306.  Cool!

Finally!!! Don’t forget to save your session.

(hint: press the “Save” button)

And that’s it!  The basic PuTTY settings that I use which work quite nicely.

Hope this helps.

Quite annoying.  If on a production server, and other databases are being used, restarting postgresql is a last resort, because it generates downtime for your site (even if small).

I finally took the time to scratch around and find the answer.

As a super user, to list all of the open connections to a given database:

select * from pg_stat_activity where datname='YourDatabase';

As a superuser, to drop all of the open connections to a given database:

select pg_terminate_backend(procpid) from pg_stat_activity where datname='YourDatabase';

–

Here are some references to the functions:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/functions-admin.html#FUNCTIONS-ADMIN-SIGNAL-TABLE

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/static/monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-STATS-VIEWS-TABLE

I had a remote branch called Task/Round3.3.

I wanted to work on it locally, but have push and pull work right.

So I ran this:

git checkout -b Task/Round3.3 --track origin/Task/Round3.3

To which git said:

Branch Task/Round3.3 set up to track remote branch refs/remotes/origin/Task/Round3.3.
Switched to a new branch "Task/Round3.3"

And in .git/config, these lines were added:

[branch "Task/Round3.3"]
remote = origin
merge = refs/heads/Task/Round3.3

Now, when I checkout Task/Round3.3, I am able to say `git pull` and `git push`, and it will do the “right thing”…

After Installing Ubuntu, basically I do this:

Go to:
System -> Administration -> Software Sources -> Other Sofware, and enable partner repository.

After that, we can this on a Terminal:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

Most of the time I ran:

service nginx restart

I would get this message in the /var/log/nginx/error.log file:

panic: MUTEX_LOCK (22) [op.c:352].

After some hunting around, it appears to be a known bug in nginx (perhaps perl in nginx?)… Anyway, a simple workaround is to do this:

service nginx stop
service nginx start

Or, simply edit /etc/init.d/nginx, and add the sleep 1 line:

51 restart() {
52     configtest || return $?
53     stop
54     sleep 1
55     start
56 }

Nice workround!

Ideally, you should have a daily backup, with some history. It should be bulletproof (--force), it should be logged (>> ...log), it should be compressed (| gzip), it should keep separate copies of each database, and it should automatically pick up any databases that are added.

Consider, rather, a shell script like this:

#!/bin/bash

Host=server.domain.com
BDir=/home/backup/backup/mysql

Dump="/usr/bin/mysqldump --skip-extended-insert --force"
MySQL=/usr/bin/mysql

Today=$(date "+%a")

# Get a list of all databases
Databases=$(echo "SHOW DATABASES" | $MySQL -h $Host)

for db in $Databases; do
        date=`date`
        file="$BDir/$Host-$db-$Today.sql.gz"
        echo "Backing up '$db' from '$Host' on '$date' to: "
        echo "   $file"
        $Dump -h $Host $db | gzip > $file
done

Which is assuming that you have a file ~/.my.cnf (chmod 600), that has:

[client]
user = "BACKUP"
password = "SOMEPASS8342783492"

Make sure that whatever user you are using for BACKUP has this grant statement:

GRANT
  SELECT, SHOW VIEW ON *.*
  TO BACKUP@localhost
  IDENTIFIED BY 'SOMEPASS8342783492';

So simply add this to a nightly cronjob, and you have a daily backup that rotates each 7 days week.

0 3 * * *   backup-mysql >> backup-mysql.log 2>> backup-mysql.log

The backup directory then contains:

-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 2217482184 Sep  3 13:35 base.appcove.net-VOS4_0-20090903.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 backup backup 2505876287 Dec 25 00:48 base.appcove.net-VOS4_0-Fri.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 2500384029 Dec 21 00:48 base.appcove.net-VOS4_0-Mon.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 2506849331 Dec 26 00:48 base.appcove.net-VOS4_0-Sat.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 2499859469 Dec 20 00:48 base.appcove.net-VOS4_0-Sun.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 backup backup 2505046147 Dec 24 00:48 base.appcove.net-VOS4_0-Thu.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 backup backup 2502277743 Dec 22 00:48 base.appcove.net-VOS4_0-Tue.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 2504169910 Dec 23 00:48 base.appcove.net-VOS4_0-Wed.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup   76983829 Dec 25 00:49 base.appcove.net-VOS4_Mail_0-Fri.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup   76983829 Dec 21 00:49 base.appcove.net-VOS4_Mail_0-Mon.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup   76983829 Dec 26 00:49 base.appcove.net-VOS4_Mail_0-Sat.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup   76983829 Dec 20 00:48 base.appcove.net-VOS4_Mail_0-Sun.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 backup backup   76983829 Dec 24 00:49 base.appcove.net-VOS4_Mail_0-Thu.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 backup backup   76983829 Dec 22 00:49 base.appcove.net-VOS4_Mail_0-Tue.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup   76983829 Dec 23 00:49 base.appcove.net-VOS4_Mail_0-Wed.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup  304803726 Dec 25 00:49 base.appcove.net-WeSell_0-Fri.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup  303480087 Dec 21 00:49 base.appcove.net-WeSell_0-Mon.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup  304710121 Dec 26 00:49 base.appcove.net-WeSell_0-Sat.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup  303791294 Dec 20 00:49 base.appcove.net-WeSell_0-Sun.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 backup backup  305315415 Dec 24 00:49 base.appcove.net-WeSell_0-Thu.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 backup backup  302516217 Dec 22 00:49 base.appcove.net-WeSell_0-Tue.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup  303314217 Dec 23 00:49 base.appcove.net-WeSell_0-Wed.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup     135301 Dec 25 00:30 dc40.appcove.net-mysql-Fri.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup     135301 Dec 21 00:30 dc40.appcove.net-mysql-Mon.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup     135301 Dec 26 00:30 dc40.appcove.net-mysql-Sat.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup     135301 Dec 20 00:30 dc40.appcove.net-mysql-Sun.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 backup backup     135301 Dec 24 00:30 dc40.appcove.net-mysql-Thu.sql.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 backup backup     135301 Dec 22 00:30 dc40.appcove.net-mysql-Tue.sql.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup     135301 Dec 23 00:30 dc40.appcove.net-mysql-Wed.sql.gz

x86_64
Python 3.1.1
mod_wsgi 3.0c5
apache 2.2
RHEL 5.3
quad core xenon
8 GB ram

Development system – not in production use.

==================================================================
Application:

1 import time
2
3 def application(environ, start_response):
4     status = ’200 OK’
5
6     output = “hello world!”
7
8     #time.sleep(1)
9
10     response_headers = [
11         ('Content-type', 'text/plain'),
12         ('Content-Length', str(len(output))),
13         ]
14
15     start_response(status, response_headers)
16
17     return [output]

==================================================================
Apache Configuration:

WSGISocketPrefix run/wsgi
<VirtualHost *>
ServerName shankproject.jason.star.ionzoft.net
DocumentRoot /home/jason/Code/ShankProject/Web
WSGIScriptAlias /Admin /home/jason/Code/ShankProject/WSGI/
Admin.wsgi
WSGIDaemonProcess shankproject.jason.star.ionzoft.net threads=15
WSGIProcessGroup shankproject.jason.star.ionzoft.net
</VirtualHost>

==================================================================
Tests:

—————————————————–
# Baseline with one process and 15 threads
# 15 threads total

threads=15
no process definition

WITHOUT time.sleep(1)
concurrency = 1  >> 1800 / second
concurrency = 100 >> 3900 / second

WITH time.sleep(1)
concurrency = 1  >> 1 / second
concurrency = 100  >> 14 / second

—————————————————–
# Get a marginal improvement by doubling the threads to 30
# 30 threads total

threads=30
no process definition

WITHOUT time.sleep(1)
concurrency = 1  >> 1680 / second
concurrency = 100 >> 3500 / second

WITH time.sleep(1)
concurrency = 1  >> 1 / second
concurrency = 100  >> 30 / second

—————————————————–
# Take processes from 1 to 3
# 90 threads total

threads=30
processes=3

WITHOUT time.sleep(1)
concurrency = 1  >> 1770 / second
concurrency = 100 >> 3500 / second

WITH time.sleep(1)
concurrency = 1  >> 1 / second
concurrency = 100  >> 88 / second

—————————————————–
# Take processes from 3 to 6
# Take threads from 30 to 15
# 90 threads total

threads=30
processes=3

WITHOUT time.sleep(1)
concurrency = 1  >> 1550 / second
concurrency = 100 >> 3300 / second

WITH time.sleep(1)
concurrency = 1  >> 1 / second
concurrency = 100  >> 88 / second

==================================================================
Conclusion:

mod_wsgi performance is outstanding.  Even running slower requests, it
can still handle significant concurrency in daemon mode without any
apparent issues.

Questions:
Is there any information on the balance between more processes less
threads and more threads less processes?

Thanks!

This is an automatic notification to let you know that your Cloud Server, city.appcove.com, is showing a considerable amount of consistent swapping activity. Quite often this is an indicator that your application or database are not as efficient as they could be. It also may indicate that you need to upgrade your Cloud Server for more RAM.

4 requests per second, 10 concurrent connections

<IfModule prefork.c>
StartServers       8
MinSpareServers    5
MaxSpareServers   20
ServerLimit      256
MaxClients       256
MaxRequestsPerChild  4000
</IfModule>

<IfModule prefork.c>
StartServers       4
MinSpareServers    2
MaxSpareServers   4
ServerLimit      4
MaxClients       4
MaxRequestsPerChild  4000
</IfModule>

16 requests per second, 50 concurrent connections

http://www.php.net/manual/en/intro.apc.php

The Alternative PHP Cache (APC) is a free and open opcode cache for PHP. Its goal is to provide a free, open, and robust framework for caching and optimizing PHP intermediate code.

# yum install php-pecl-apc

47 requests per second, 50 concurrent connections

As a side note, it’s really powerful, fast, and well, plain nice.  Not having to manage SSL certs on each apache instance is really nice, and all the LAN communication is done over plain old HTTP.

This blog post is a regurgitation of some notes I took internally.  Perhaps someone who finds themselves managing this device will benefit…

The first step is to generate the key, csr, and crt…

All these files should be:

• Named the same as the domain that SSL is being generated for.
• use WILD for a wildcard subdomain
• Use this format “www.domain.com-0810.key”, where 08 is the from year and 10 is the to year
• (the short version is because of name length limits on the CSS)

Start by generating the key and csr

This should be done in the ciscoftp role under the ~/load directory

# openssl genrsa -out WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key 1024
# openssl req -new -key WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key -out WILD.vosecure.com-0810.csr

Then get the certificate issued by (global sign)

Put the certificate into the the ~/load directory.  When done, it should look like:

-rw-rw-r-- 1 ciscoftp ciscoftp  3139 Apr  6 15:59 WILD.vosecure.com-0810.crt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ciscoftp ciscoftp   773 Apr  6 15:49 WILD.vosecure.com-0810.csr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ciscoftp ciscoftp   883 Apr  6 15:47 WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key

Put the crt and key onto the load balancer

To do this, use the “copy command” on the load balancer

20132-201292# copy ssl ftp base import WILD.vosecure.com-0810.crt PEM "rack"
20132-201292# copy ssl ftp base import WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key PEM "rack"

Then make the associations...

20132-201292# config
20132-201292(config)# ssl associate cert WILD.vosecure.com-0810.crt WILD.vosecure.com-0810.crt
20132-201292(config)# ssl associate cert WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key

Now, it’s time to install it.  Requires SSL downtime!

1. Suspend the SSL content rule
2. Suspend the SSL service
3. Suspend the SSL proxy list
4. Run the updates
5. Activate the SSL proxy list
6. Activate the SSL service
7. Activate the SSL content rule

Here are the exact commands:

20132-201292# config
20132-201292(config)# owner vosecure.com
20132-201292(config-owner[vosecure.com])# content 74.205.111.161-ssl
20132-201292(config-owner-content[vosecure.com-74.205.111.161-ssl])# suspend

20132-201292# config
20132-201292(config)# service ssl-service
20132-201292(config-service[ssl-service])# suspend

20132-201292# config
20132-201292(config)# ssl-proxy-list ssl-proxy

In the following commands, we remove the whole ssl-server so that it shows up at the bottom in one concise unit. Otherwise, the startup-config and running-config become fragmented.

20132-201292(config-ssl-proxy-list[ssl-proxy])# suspend
20132-201292(config-ssl-proxy-list[ssl-proxy])# no ssl-server 6
20132-201292(config-ssl-proxy-list[ssl-proxy])# ssl-server 6
20132-201292(config-ssl-proxy-list[ssl-proxy])# ssl-server 6 rsakey WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key
20132-201292(config-ssl-proxy-list[ssl-proxy])# ssl-server 6 rsacert WILD.vosecure.com-0810.crt
20132-201292(config-ssl-proxy-list[ssl-proxy])# ssl-server 6 vip address 192.168.1.161
20132-201292(config-ssl-proxy-list[ssl-proxy])# ssl-server 6 cipher rsa-with-rc4-128-sha 192.168.1.161 81
20132-201292(config-ssl-proxy-list[ssl-proxy])# active

20132-201292# config
20132-201292(config)# service ssl-service
20132-201292(config-service[ssl-service])# active

20132-201292# config
20132-201292(config)# owner vosecure.com
20132-201292(config-owner[vosecure.com])# content 74.205.111.161-ssl
20132-201292(config-owner-content[vosecure.com-74.205.111.161-ssl])# active

Test test test.  Firefox, IE, Chrome...

20132-201292# copy running-config ftp base running-config

Review changes with git diff

20132-201292# write memory

20132-201292# copy startup-config ftp base startup-config

And… Here is the git diff

diff --git a/load/startup-config b/load/startup-config
index 7042490..36fbbaa 100644
--- a/load/startup-config
+++ b/load/startup-config
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-!Generated on 04/06/2009 16:05:48
+!Generated on 04/06/2009 21:51:02
!Active version: sg0810205

@@ -64,6 +64,8 @@ configure
+  ssl associate rsakey WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key
+  ssl associate cert WILD.vosecure.com-0810.crt WILD.vosecure.com-0810.crt

!*********************** SSL PROXY LIST ***********************
ssl-proxy-list ssl-proxy
-  ssl-server 6
-  ssl-server 6 rsakey vosecure.com(080421-04300)-key
-  ssl-server 6 rsacert vosecure.com(080421-04300)-cert
-  ssl-server 6 vip address 192.168.1.161
-  ssl-server 6 cipher rsa-with-rc4-128-sha 192.168.1.161 81
@@ -146,6 +141,11 @@ ssl-proxy-list ssl-proxy
+  ssl-server 6
+  ssl-server 6 rsakey WILD.vosecure.com-0810.key
+  ssl-server 6 rsacert WILD.vosecure.com-0810.crt
+  ssl-server 6 vip address 192.168.1.161
+  ssl-server 6 cipher rsa-with-rc4-128-sha 192.168.1.161 81
active