07 Sep

Configuring MacGDBp for Debugging a Local Debian Virtual Machine

Posted by matt in Debian, drupal, mac, macgdbp, os x, virtualbox, xdebug

In my current Drupal development environment, I run an entire Debian server stack (LAMP + Memcache + Varnish, etc) inside of a VirtualBox virtual machine. On those frustration-laden occasions when I need to fire up the debugger, I use MacGDBp to connect to the virtual machine. Here's how I configure them. (If you just want to configure MacGDBp for debugging with MAMP or OS X's Apache, you may want to read an earlier article, and then check out the updates for Snow Leopard.

18 Aug

Building PHP from Source on Ubuntu

Posted by matt in Debian, phc, php, programming, ubuntu

This article describes how to build PHP from source on Ubuntu. I am doing this because I need to build PHP with the embeded SAPI -- an option not available by default. For my purposes, I don't want this PHP to replace the existing PHP. Instead, I want it to be available alongside my normal PHP. So the goal is to place this version in /usr/local/php-opt.

13 Jan

Nagios: Fixing "error: Could not stat() command file" (on Debian)

Posted by matt in Debian, linux, monitoring, nagios

Nagios is a network monitoring tool. I use it to track web servers, mail servers, and whatever else I have running on the LAN and on the Internet.

One common configuration issue is getting the Service Commands menu to work correctly. By default, it is visible in the UI, but disabled on the server backend. And on Debian, not all of the steps to enable it are particularly evident from the docs. Often, one will recieve the cryptic error Could not stat() command file pointing to /var/lib/nagios3/rw/nagios.cmd. This can be fixed without too much fuss.
Nagios Service Commands