I just tried to change the permalink in wordpress so it looks nicer and the links are more like “http://ansi.23-5.eu/2011/12/29/apache-rewrite-for-wordpress/” instead of “http://ansi.23-5.eu/?id=blubber/”. Normally this is done in 2 steps. But I had some error in my virtual host configuration file. But please let me first explain the 2 normal steps. Just for the sake of completeness.

1. Inside WordPress under /Settings/Permalinks change it to some nice looking.
2. As root execute “a2enmod rewrite” and a nice “/etc/init.d/apache2 restart”

Normally thats all. But it turns out that I had a mistake in my virtual host config file.

It looked like

    <Directory /var/www/ansi.23-5.eu/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride none
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

But with this setting it disables the rewrite for this virtual server. The right config should

look like this:

    <Directory /var/www/ansi.23-5.eu/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
        AllowOverride all
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>

With this change and a "/etc/init.d/apache2 restart" everything works fine and I have the nice permalinks.

1. ssh -X server #as normal user
2. xterm #for testing if export display as normal user works
3. echo $DISPLAY #write it down
4. xauth #enters the shell of xauth
   1. list # find the line with the display number from step 3 for me it was “wpsvm054/unix:12 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 071df2e12cfff0ed75fd0af5869665f7″ remember the first part of it
   2. quit #to leave the shell
5. xauth extract filename system/unix:12 # the line from step 4.1
6. sudo su – # to become root
7. xauth merge filename # filename from step 5
8. export DISPLAY=:nummer.0 #Displaynumber from step 3 resp. 4.1
9. xterm #for testing

Hope it works on other systems too.

I am using Ubuntu “Daily builds” for some time inside Suns VirtualBox. Unfortunately the daily builds are not longer booting inside VirtualBox for more then 2 weeks now. Christian told me about a new feature of Grub2. You can boot ISO images directly from your hard disk without burning them on CD or USB. Awesome feature and I had to try it today. Here is the description on how to do it with Ubuntu 9.10.

First I am using this tiny script to update all daily builds with the zsync tool. It transfers only the changed parts of the ISO so you and the Ubuntu teams save a lot of traffic.

zsync http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/lucid-desktop-i386.iso.zsync
cd kubuntu
zsync http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily-live/current/lucid-desktop-i386.iso.zsync
cd ../netbook
zsync http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook/daily-live/current/lucid-netbook-i386.iso.zsync
cd ../xubunutu
zsync http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/daily-live/current/lucid-desktop-i386.iso.zsync
cd ..
rm `find ./ -name "*.zs-old" `

This script keeps all my daily builds up to date.

Next Step is to enable the grub menu. In Ubuntu it can be done in “/etc/default/grub“. Change the following lines

GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=false

With this change you will see a 10 seconds count down when booting up. With the shift-key you get access to the grub boot menu. Next is to add the ISO images to the grub menu. Change to the “/etc/grub.d” dir.

Here you can find the grub menu entries and configuration files. Add your ISO images starting with 50 here. For example my entry for the normal Ubuntu ISO image (50_ubuntu) looks like this:

echo "Adding $(egrep menu[e]ntry $0 | cut -d'"' -f2)" >&2
 cat << EOF
menuentry "Ubuntu 10.04 Daily Build" {
       loopback loop (hd0,3)/ansi/software_and_config/ISOs/ubuntu/lucid-desktop-i386.iso
       linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ansi/software_and_config/ISOs/ubuntu/lucid-desktop-i386.iso file=(loop)/preseed/ubuntu.seed quiet splash bootkbd=sg --
       initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

My ISO files are stored on sda3 under /ansi/software_and_config/ISOs/ubuntu/. In order to change it for your needs there are 3 elements to change. The loopback line contains your hard disk in grub style (hdx,y x=0->sda x=1->sdb aso) and the path. The third element to change is in the linux line. Store this file as “50_ubuntu” in “/etc/grub.d“, make it executable with “chmod a+x 50_ubuntu” and activate the changes with “ubdate-grub“. After a reboot you should be able to activate the grub menu with the shift-key and select the new entry. Have fun.

I found some pages on this topic but the description there was not working for me so I changed it. But take a look on your own:

• http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/lucid-lynx-ohne-cd-brennen-auf-realem-system-/#post-2326751
• http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/GRUB_2/Konfiguration