FreeBSD Log: Setting up a Samba Server

This article was updated on May 23rd, 2007 to follow a stricter set of best practices.

A Samba server is a Windows shared folder server that allows you to share a directory on your FreeBSD server with your networked Windows computers. For this guide I’m only going to show you how to set it up and make a publicly accessible folder because frankly I don’t understand how to do some of the more advanced user creation and management.

FreeBSD Log: Changing Your Shell in FreeBSD (Unix)

Ok, so you’re just logged in and you’re already tired of sh, I would be to. Good thing it’s pretty easy to switch to bash, which we installed during the original FreeBSD installation. To change the shell we’re going to use the built in chsh (Change Shell) program as root.

FreeBSD Log: Logging into FreeBSD over SSH

Ok, so you’ve got FreeBSD installed, you have enabled SSH during the installation¹, you’ve edited your sudoers file and now you’re sitting back at your main computer ready to start remotely administering your server.

FreeBSD Log: Editing the Sudoers File

This article was updated on May 24th, 2007 to correct superficial errors.

Ok, so you’ve got your FreeBSD installed on your computer, you’ve booted up for the first time and you’re looking at the login: prompt. You’ll need to login as root to configure sudo to allow yourself to run commands as root from your normal account though SSH.

FreeBSD Log: Installation

This article was updated on May 23rd, 2007 to follow a stricter set of best practices.

I just successfully installed FreeBSD on the computer. The setup wizard was flawless and configured almost everything automatically.

FreeBSD Log: Introduction

So this is going to be the first of many posts in what will be my FreeBSD server setup and maintenance odyssey. I’ve never administered a FreeBSD Unix based server before let alone solely by the CLI. There will be no GUI involved what-so-ever and only the initial OS install will be done physically at the computer, everything else will be done over SSH.

Only allow specific referrers with .htaccess

Say you have a secret directory full of stuff you don’t want anyone to see and you want to allow certain domains to have access to it directly. All you would need to do is create (or add this to) a .htaccess file in the root of the directory you want to protect.

You would do it thusly:
Add this to a blank or your existing .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?first-domain-to-allow.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?second-domain-to-allow.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.google.com/ [R,L]

Also, if you want people who copy and paste/type in the link to have access, all you would need to do is add this line just after RewriteEngine on so your .htaccess file would look like this…
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?first-domain-to-allow.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?second-domain-to-allow.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.google.com/ [R,L]

vBulletin display thread title once in legacy postbit (postbit_legacy)

Ok, so you’ve got that brand new VB install and you want it to look like the big boys and only show the title in the first (original) post in a thread… Well here’s how you do it.

In postbit_legacy find this…
<if condition="$show['messageicon'] OR $post['title']“>
<!– icon and title –>
<div class=”smallfont”>
<if condition=”$show['messageicon']“><img class=”inlineimg” src=”$post[iconpath]” alt=”$post[icontitle]” border=”0″ /></if>
<if condition=”$post['title']“><strong>$post[title]</strong></if>
</div>
<hr size=”1″ style=”color:$stylevar[tborder_bgcolor]” />
<!– / icon and title –>
</if>

And change it to this…
<if condition="$post['title']“>
<!– icon and title –>
<div class=”smallfont”>
<if condition=”$show['messageicon']“><img class=”inlineimg” src=”$post[iconpath]” alt=”$post[icontitle]” border=”0″ /></if>
<if condition=”$post['title']“><strong>$post[title]</strong></if>
</div>
<hr size=”1″ style=”color:$stylevar[tborder_bgcolor]” />
<!– / icon and title –>
</if>

This along with disabling “Automatically Quote Post / Thread Title” gives me the desired effect.
You can find that option in…
AdminCP > vBulletin Options > vBulletin Options > Message Posting & Editing Options > Automatically Quote Post / Thread Title