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Offer me everything I ask for

29th April 2008

I installed Debian upon a new desktop machine yesterday, via a PXE network boot.

It was painless.

Getting xen up and running, with a 32-bit guest and a 64-bit guest each running XDMCP & VNC was also pretty straightforward.

There is a minor outstanding problem with the 32-bit xen guest though; connecting to it from dom0, via XDMCP, I see only a blank window - no login manager running.

GDM appears painlessly when I connect via VNC.

The relevent configuration file looks like this:

# /etc/gdm/gdm.conf
[security]
AllowRoot=true
AllowRemoteRoot=true

[xdmcp]
Enable=true

The same configuration on the 64-bit guest works OK for both cases.

(I like to use XDMCP for accessing the desktop of Xen guests, since it means that I get it all full-screen, and don't have to worry about shortcuts affecting the host system and not the guest - as is the case if you're connecting via VNC, etc).

Weirdness. Help welcome; I'm not 100% sure where to look

Anyway, once again, a huge thank you to the Debian Developers, bug submitters, and anybody else involved peripherally (such as myself!) with Debian!

I love it when a plan comes together.

SSL

ObRandom: Where is the cheapest place to get an SSL certificate, for two years, which will work with my shiny Apache2 install?

Somebody, rightly, called me for not having SSL available as an option on my mail filtering website.

I've installed a self-signed certificate just now, but I will need to pay the money and buy a "real" one shortly.

So far completessl.com seems to be high in the running:

  • 1 year - £26
  • 2 years - £49

For double-bonus points they accept Paypal which most of my customers pay with ..

ObQuote: The Princess Bride

Tags: debian, gdm, meta, ssl, vnc, xdmcp, xen. | 9 comments.

Comments On This Entry

  1. [gravitar] Anonymous Submitted at 23:52:55 on 29 April 2008
    StartCom will give you an SSL certificate for free, which will work without warning in anything other than Internet Explorer. Depending on your target audience, that might work for you.
  2. [gravitar] acme Submitted at 01:37:15 on 30 April 2008
    Maybe godaddy.com?
  3. [gravitar] Karsten Submitted at 03:21:26 on 30 April 2008
    You get free certificates at startcom.org.
  4. [gravitar] glandium Submitted at 05:18:38 on 30 April 2008
    https://cert.startcom.org/ offers free SSL certificates, and their CA cert is in Firefox
  5. [gravitar] Tony Whitmore Submitted at 05:27:02 on 30 April 2008
    Have you considered CACaert? The root CA is already in some Linux distros including Debian and is in Firefox 3. And the certificates are free!
  6. [gravitar] Ciarán Submitted at 07:17:01 on 30 April 2008
    Hi,
    There is an alternative to the majority of traditional SSL certificate companies, and they are free (beer).
    http://www.CAcert.org
    They are a "community driven" certification authority. Their members, if they have had their identity verified by a certrain number others are able to issue CACert SSL certificates for free.

  7. [gravitar] Floris Bruynooghe Submitted at 08:01:38 on 30 April 2008
    cacert.org?
  8. [gravitar] Niall Sheridan Submitted at 08:19:57 on 30 April 2008
    http://www.rapidsslonline.com/index.php
    What I'd love is cheap wildcard ssl, but people seem to like licenses to print money.
  9. [author] Steve Kemp Submitted at 09:35:37 on 30 April 2008

    If I wanted just a certificate then I'd stick with the self-signed one, so no, I'm afraid it has to be one that is recognised by "everything".

    Much as I believe the certificate sellers are racketeering scum.

    I think it's probably a toss-up between godaddy & instantssl right now.