Marc DiBlasi

Puppet Restarts Apache, Server Crashes

Earlier, one of my servers stopped responding on port 80. It appears puppet had restarted apache because it updated a config file for one of the virtual hosts, and there was a configuration error, so apache didn’t come back up. By default puppet uses restart, even when a daemon supports reload, so when it messes up, it kills apache. Also, I realized it’d be nice to use configtest before even trying to restart.

Making Sure Puppet is Running

Have you ever realized that puppet stopped running on a server a month ago? Or perhaps you stopped it and forgot to restart it? Your server has been ignoring vital security updates because you thought that puppet had it covered. That’s why I use this handy bit of code:

puppet resource

The other day while I was trying to get puppet up and running on a server, I found that you can use “puppet resource” to automatically generate puppet manifest code. If you type: It’ll show you the puppet configuration for all of the user’s on your system. You can also specify a specific user, like this: You can do this for almost any type used in puppet. or You can easily save your system’s package list and deploy it quickly if the server fails, or if you just want to make a clone for staging.

Syncing your Thunderbird Install Using Dropbox

I have definitely found a lot of decent uses for Dropbox, but none better than syncing my Thunderbird settings. The Problem I use a laptop, a work desktop, a home desktop, and occasionally I’ll pull up my email on the HTPC. I found that I had to install Thunderbird on each, which in itself isn’t that bad at all, but when it comes to configuring everything for my three emails and multiple settings that I use, it becomes a nightmare.