Topic: Throwing money around

[Luke Drumm]

Hi,

Is it possible to purchase "one-off" support from E-smith for help in tracking down a problem? I'm a non-commercial user who loves using the e-smith server product but unfortunately can’t justify the AU$1130 price tag for the rather nice, but never the less, mundane home usage it receives. (Did I mention how much I'm enjoying the current Australian-US exchange rate? )

The problem in question? The following posts hopefully illustrate the issue:

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=1018.msg3480#msg3480
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=1018.msg3480#msg3480
http://www.e-smith.org/bboard/read.php3?num=2&id=614&loc=0&thread=614
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=1018.msg3480#msg3480


Is a ‘one-off’ support agreement possible? (ie. $5-$100 for a tech to investigate this issue during a ‘lull’ in work.) As I replied in one of the posts, there’s nothing stopping me from reinstalling my system but I would prefer to have this problem solved so that:
- It can become a publicly known fix.
- I don’t have to go through the tedium of a reinstall.
- The mounting pressure on my thin guise of sanity is finally lessened.

On the assumption that it is possible, does anybody else want to donate to the "External Web Wackyness Support Fund"?

Regards,
Luke

[Charlie Brady]

Luke Drumm wrote:

> Is it possible to purchase "one-off" support from
> E-smith for help in tracking down a problem?

Every man has his price. Contact me off list

> tech to investigate this issue during a ?lull? in work.)

A "lull in work"?  Watch out for those aviating hogs...

Charlie

[Geoff Bennion]

Luke,
      just an idea.

If you have installed any *non-supported* rpms ? - i.e. Apache updates etc... you could try removing them, and trying again.

Have you tried doing the console-save function (just in case one of the conf. files is corrupt - this will rebuild it from the templates)

[Luke Drumm]

This problem has manafested itself since I first did a clean install of Version 4.
The only installations I've done (since the problem was identified) are the 12-28 patch and the OpenSSH rpms.

No other software has been installed and I've done a console save with no effect.

Doh...

Luke

[Charlie Brady]

Luke Drumm wrote:

> This problem has manafested itself since I first did a clean
> install of Version 4. The only installations I've done (since
> the problem was identified) are the 12-28 patch and the OpenSSH
> rpms.

Do you have a dedicated (e.g. ethernet/cable modem or router) or dialup connection? Have you read the User Manual?  If you have a dialup connection, this would apply:

 "Because your connection to the Internet is not permanent, some of the services on your e-smith server and gateway cannot be provided to the outside world (for example, your e-smith server and gateway cannot host your company web site, although it can host an intranet)."

This could be what is causing your problem. (This applies equally if you have a PPPoE over DSL connection, and are using the contirbuted modules).

If you are adventurous, then you can try a development version of the e-smith base RPM from my contrib directory: ftp://ftp.e-smith.org/pub/e-smith/contrib/charlieb/RPMS/noarch.
This adds dynamic DNS for dialup connections, and configures various services, including Apache, to support external access.

Regards

Charlie

[Luke Drumm]

Ooops... missed that small paragraph in the manual. Doh!

My connection is indeed and Dial-up one (admittedly a 24-7 one but dynamic DNS no the less) with one of the free DNS providers doing the naming work.

I find it a little strange that version 4 could have such problems with external HTTP request considering version 3 seemed to handle the situation with no great complaints. The even more frustrating thing is the fact that it 'almost' works... agghh!!!

I'll give the 12-38 bits I try and see how it all goes.

Regards,
Luke