TT: Uni-directional file synchronization between different hosts with Unison
When you work with at least two computers on the same project on a daily basis you might have a problem. You need to get changed files from host A to host B and vice versa. The problem getting bigger when you work in addition on different operation systems or use more than two hosts. On UNIX/Linux the preferred tool for such a task is Rsync. Unfortunately Rsync synchronize only in one direction, it doesn't work very well when more than two hosts are involved (and it isn't really comfortable to set up on Windows) and can't use a secure communication channel. Another approach is to check-in changed source files into a version control system, like CVS. On host A you check it in and on host B you check it out afterwards. But this means you always need a more or less stable variant of your code, so that other developer can, at least compile, or much better use it. That is not always the case (especially when you leave the office at 11:00 p.m.) and it also doesn't cover files which aren't handled by a version control system. Luckily there is a solution for all the problems mentioned which is called Unison. So here comes the second post in the ToolTips series, which covers an easy and portable way for file synchronization.
FRITZ!Box tuning part 1: Enable remote access over ssh
Recently I changed my Internet service provider to Kabel Deutschland which offers some really good bandwidth for a reasonable price. You get 32 MBit in the download direction and 2 Mbit in the upload direction. Additionally to this you can order a FRITZ!Box 7270 which allows you to use VoIP for the phone part. As I always try to maximize the usage of new hardware I started to explore what is possible with this combination. In this post I will explain how you get access to your FRITZ!Box using ssh. Following this post, some articles about how you can turn the FRITZ!Box into a OpenVPN server and how you can use the VoIP access point remotely from any computer having a VoIP software installed, will be done. As I said the hardware used is a FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7270 with the firmware 54/74.04.80 from 2009/12/15 which is an official one from AVM. Other firmware versions may work also, but I haven't tested that. The following topics are all for advanced user. So if you aren't in touch with Linux or start asking what the hell is vi and how get I out of it, stop reading now. All the information in this and the following posts are based on several websites I found in the Internet. Mainly this are some forum entries at http://www.ip-phone-forum.de, the series about the FRITZ!Box at http://www.tecchannel.de, the posts on http://www.teamarbyte.de, the blog at http://www.realriot.de and this article at http://www.cswpro.de. So thanks to all the people for sharing this kind of information. Before we start some words of caution: It's easily possible to render the FRITZ!Box unusable. So there is no warranty of any kind if you do some of the things mentioned in this blog. Also I'm not responsible for anything happen to your FRITZ!Box or the Internet connection. After all making a backup of your current configuration might be a good idea.