LAMPdocs: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP

I’ve noticed a strange thing at one of my DirectAdmin servers. I usually perform my backups once a week. After I start the backup process, I got a message that I will be notified when my backups are ready. One of my servers stopped to send me these notifications and I had to find out why .

First of all I checked my mail server. Everything was OK, messages were sent and received as usual. I took a look at the Directadmin itself – there usually were messages in the top right corner – none were there. Hmm…

I decided to take a look t DirectAdmin system logs, as the problem seemed to be with its own messaging system.  The answer was found in DirectAdmin Task Queue Log – /var/log/directadmin/errortaskq.log . Here is how it looks:

The only thing I had to do was to edit the file /usr/local/directadmin/data/admin/next_ticket.number . I’ve added a number to this file as it was empty and no ticket numbers could be assigned. Why did this number disappear – I really have no Idea.

PHP offers a large variety of arguments that can be passed to the date() function. You are able to almost everything you want having just the current time stamp. I’ve selected the most useful readable formats – I think you might need it for any purpose. I used it to randomize a site’s content to vary posting dates. So, here is the list:

F j, Y
F j, y
F d, Y
F d, y
d-M-Y
d-M-y
j-M-y
j-M-Y
d/n/y
d/m/y
d/n/Y
d/m/Y
j/m/y
j/m/Y
j/n/y
j/n/Y
Y-m-j
Y-n-j
Y-m-d
Y-n-d
n/d/y
m/d/y
n/d/Y
m/d/Y
m/j/y
n/j/y
m/j/Y
n/j/Y
d.m.Y
d.m.y
d.n.Y
d.n.y
j.m.Y
j.n.Y
j.m.y
j.m.y
m-j-Y
n-j-Y
m-d-Y
n-d-Y

Most of these date formats look well and I hope you find it useful

Today I went back from my short trip to the country. First of all I decided to check my mail, and when I did it, I got the following error in my E-mail client: !25.07.2008, 19:20:39: FETCH -ERR [IN-USE] Mailbox in use. That’s not the first time when such an error happens and I already know the solution – I think it’ll be useful for all server administrators (By the way, It’s Sysadmin’s day today).

When you get the message that mailbox is used, you must have some lock files, that prevent using locked mailboxes. It is not so easy to find out the reason why these files appear (If you know, just write about it in comments). The solution is obvious – to find and destroy these files.

Mailbox lock files are usually located at /var/spool/virtual/. You fill find domain name folders there and your e-mail account lock files should be right there. Just check them. I usually use locate to find these files – their number shouldn’t be big.

After you delete these files, your mailboxes will start working as usual.

Do you know Snap.com? If you don’t I’d encourage you to visit it as their tools make web much better. Even if I don’t like Ajax and Javascript tools, that often overload sites, I consider having site screenshots is a very good idea. But… where to take these shots and how to do them? If you try to do this manually, you’ll have to press print screen, then to run paint, then save the image, then rename it… Hard work, isn’t it?

If you want this for one site and want to see what’s shown to user in different browsers, then browsershots.org will be great for you. This service allows to take screenshots with different browser – this is the most comprehensive tool related to page screens I’ve seen on the Web.

There is also a Windows software that allows to do this. It’s Thumbnail Grabber. Thumbnail Grabber is a free utility for creating thumbnail screenshots of web pages in JPEG format. You can choose web page size (width and height) and thumbnail image size (in percent of the web page size). The program can batch process URLs and domains from a text file that makes it extremely useful for sites that have reviews or galleries, etc.

Now the process of Image creation is very simple. All you have to do is to have a list of web pages to crawl and Thumbnail Grabber will do everything for you. Nice that it doesn’t capture any browser elements, so your screenshots are clear and look great