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Subversion server is down

The subversion server is down. There is a problem with mod_gnutls that causes Apache to use 100% CPU and never finish any request. It started around 5 AM this morning (European time) and nothing I do seems to work.

#apache on irc.freenode.net isn'table to help either, so I am forced to take the SSL domains on the server offline while I investigate this issue.

I am getting really, really fed up with mod_gnutls. It is causing way more trouble that it's worth. Unfortunately it's the only way to have multiple SSL virtual hosts with just one IP address. The server that hosts subversion also hosts a few other websites which require SSL to work.

I will try to get the server back online as soon as possible.

Update 12:22h: The Subversion server is back. It turns out that there is a bug in libdb which causes gnutls to lock up when trying to write session cache data in some rare circumstances. I tried replacing libdb with memcached but unfortunately gnutls is built without memcached support on Debian Lenny.

Subversion upgraded to GnuTLS

Our Subversion server has been upgraded to use mod_gnutls instead of mod_ssl for SSL/TLS encryption. GnuTLS supports Server Name Indication (SNI) which means we can run multiple virtual hosts with SSL/TLS enabled on the same IP address and port.

Unfortunately for you this means that you cannot access our Subversion repository anymore if you use a client that does not support SNI. The standard subversion client as well as all major browsers support SNI these days. The only notable exception is Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP. So, if you use IE6 then you can no longer browse our repositories directly. Use the ViewVC interface instead.

FSF and Stephen Fry celebrate the GNU Project 25th anniversary

The GNU operating system is turning 25 this year, and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has kicked off its month-long celebration of the anniversary by releasing “Happy Birthday to GNU,” a short film featuring the English humorist, actor, novelist and filmmaker Stephen Fry.

In the five-minute film, Fry compares the free software operating system to “good science” and contrasts it with the “kind of tyranny” imposed by the proprietary software produced by companies like Microsoft and Apple that it replaces. He encourages people to use free GNU/Linux distributions like gNewSense and free software generally, for freedom's sake.

From: FSF Press Release. See the video.

Day two at T-DOSE

by Sander Marechal

Sunday was the second day of T-DOSE in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, a technical open source event aimed at developers. See our previous article for the coverage of the first day. Today's topics: Search Engine development with AdvaS, A GNU Edu overview, Sebastian Kügler about KDE 4.0 and an overview of Free Software events in Europe. I was also able to talk in person with a few people, such as Olivier Cleynen, who's presentation from yesterday about FOSS marketing is also covered in today's article.

This article was originally posted on LXer Linux News.