Dealing with Transip’s Java based Console for VPS VM’s on Ubuntu

This is just a dump of my experience in getting the Transip VPS Console interface to work on Lubuntu 11.04 (64-bit) with Chromium 14.0.835.202 (Developer Build 103287) Ubuntu 11.04.

Transip uses a Java Applet for accessing your newly created VM. At first I could not get the Java applet to work with the packages available on Ubuntu. This is not Transip’s fault, but rather due to the issues surrounding Java on Linux. Oracle decided to change Java ‘s license and thus forcing Ubuntu to change the way they are handling Java. Basically making installing Java unnecessary difficult. Anyways, if you follow these steps you at least should get a working Transip Console, albeit a very buggy and highly annoying to use console.

Since I use a 64-bit version of Ubuntu the following steps might be different for the 32-bit version. Oh, this worked for me, it might not work for you and eat your cat or something evil like that. Use the following information at your own risk! For now I’m ONLY interested in getting Java applets to work with Chrome & Chromium. If you need a different browser or want to use this Java version on the desktop, you’ll have to find out yourself on how to achieve what you need. Leave a comment if you have done so

Anyways, let’s start!

1) Download Oracle Java JRE 7 (Use the link otherwise you might get lost in a forest of corporate speak…). In my case I’ve downloaded only the Java Runtime Environment (JRE 64-bit tar.gz) version and not the Java Development Kit (JDK) since I only wanted to use an Java applet.

2) Unpack the tar.gz. In my case I used the following path: /opt/jre1.7.0_02
I’ve symlinked this from /opt/jre-oracle to make it more accessible and easy to change.

3) In order to make Chromium use the newly installed Java plugin you need to tell it where it can find the plugin. You need to do this by making a symlink:

sudo ln -s /opt/jre-oracle/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins

4) Restart Chromium and check if the plugin is found. Do this by entering chrome://plugins in the url bar. If you see multiple Java plugins, for instance something with IcedTea, disable all except the one you just installed (probably called similar to this: ‘Java(TM) Plug-in 1.7.0_02′

5) Check if you can use or view a Java Applet. I’ve used this example from the excellent Learning Processing site by Daniel Shiffman

Note: In theory nothing should happen to any other installed Java version you might have, since we only changed the Java plugin for Chromium, but keep in mind that Java Applets will now run using the Oracle JRE and not any previous installed Java versions.

After following the above steps I finally managed to ‘use’ the Transip Console.

PS: Transip, if you’re reading this please fix this abomination you call a console. You can do so much better as you have already shown with your awesome employees responding diligently and the spot on price quality ratio in your products. Except for this horrible VPS console! Please check out Linode and learn from them.

Oh, feel free to contact me if you need a beta tester for a new console

Creating a group editable webdirectory on Linux

I’m working on a project in which I need a directory to be editable by a group of users. This directory will contain files and directories to be served by a webserver (in my case Apache). I’m using Linux (Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS) and my users should not be bothered with setting up rights or changing any.
I couldn’t find any detailed instructions on the best way to achieve this, so I’ve decided to write down my own process using bits of hints and tips from various sources to document my thought process. It may contain errors or there might be better ways. If you notice an error or know of better methods, please leave a comment.
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init not found message after updating Ubuntu

This is just a quick note to self in case an update of Ubuntu fails and only show the cryptic message ‘init not found’. I’ve found these instructions on the Ubuntu Forums made by the user with the intriguing nickname DryChilli:

“Some instructions:

List your partitions:

ls /dev/sd*
If you haven’t got an encrypted disk just do (where sda5 is the corrupted
partition):

fsck /dev/sda5
If you are using an encrypted hard-disk (i do) do

sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda5 something
where sda5 is the encrypted partition and someting is the name under which
you will find the partition (/dev/mapper/something).

The install Lvm and look for volumes :

sudo apt-get install lvm2
sudo pvscan
sudo vgscan
The last command should list the at least one volume-group
Enable it or the ones you’re interested in

sudo vgchange -a y groupname
Now list the logical volumens

sudo lvscan
Your drive you’re interested in should now appear under /dev/mapper

do a fsck

sudo fsck /dev/mapper/logical-volume
Lots of errors! Off course you want to have them all fixed. REBOOT!
This worked for me!”