Virtualmin's letsencrypt tool error and the fix

Before Virtualmin got direct support for letsencrypt certificates generation I used letsencrypt-auto script from well known letsencrypt git repository.

After virtualmin got tools for generating certificates using letsencrypt, all my attempts to generate certificates using these tools ended up with strange error without any useful error message:

Requesting a certificate for .... from Let's Encrypt .. .. request failed :

If you have the same trouble, just remove all letsencrypt scripts following list of locations where letsencrypt has its components: https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/how-can-i-completely-reinstall-lets-encrypt-delete-all-old-certificates-and-start-fresh/10689/4.

After I removed all mentioned directories, virtualmin's letsencrypt tools started working like a charm!

Thank you guys from virtualmin and letsencrypt for your great job!

Npgsql with Entity Framework 6

I spent some time to find the way, how to use Npgsql with Entity Framwork 6. Here is what I have found. This solution is tested with Npgsql version commited on 13.12.2013.

Assemblies

Entity Framerok install from Nuget repository, Npgsql clone git repository (https://github.com/franciscojunior/Npgsql2.git) and compile as fot .NET 4.5, reference it in your project with assemby Npgsql.EntityFramework.

Configuration

Add these lines to your Web.config

<configSections>
  <section name="entityFramework" type="System.Data.Entity.Internal.ConfigFile.EntityFrameworkSection, EntityFramework, Version=6.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" />
</configSections>
<entityFramework>
  <providers>
    <provider invariantName="Npgsql" type="Npgsql.NpgsqlServices, Npgsql.EntityFramework" />
  </providers>
</entityFramework>
<system.data>
  <DbProviderFactories>
    <add name="Npgsql Data Provider" invariant="Npgsql" description="Data Provider for PostgreSQL" type="Npgsql.NpgsqlFactory, Npgsql" />
  </DbProviderFactories>
</system.data>

Create (and configure) your Dbcontext

public MyDbContext()
    : base("ConnectionStringName")
{
    Database.SetInitializer<MyDbContext>(null);
}

public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }

protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
    modelBuilder.Conventions.Remove<PluralizingTableNameConvention>();
    modelBuilder.HasDefaultSchema("public");

    // user
    var user = modelBuilder.Entity<User>();
    user.ToTable("user")
        .HasKey(t => t.Id)
        .Property(t => t.Id)
            .HasColumnName("id");

    base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
}

Line Database.SetInitializer<MyDbContext>(null); is avoiding all model startup exceptions like:

ERROR: 42P01: relation "dbo.__MigrationHistory" does not exist
ERROR: schema "dbo" does not exist

Because Npgsql doesn't support schema creation, you must create database manually and you can use this line to skip schema migrations and creation/updates.

Sending emails from PHP through Exchange using NTLM authentication

My colleague in Russia had a problem to send emails form PHP. Main reason was, that PHP does not support authentication on SMTP connection. Second problem was, that smtp is Microsoft Exchange, which require NTLM authentication using active directory user. Solution I have found is described in this post.

Get sendmail

Download and extract Fake sendmail (http://glob.com.au/sendmail/).
I have chosen path c:\sendmail

Configure sendmail

Configure sendmail by editing sendmail.ini. Simply add exchange address and user credentials (Don't forget to limit read permissions):

smtp_server=exchange_server_name
auth_username=domain_user (full format: DOMAIN\user)
auth_password=pass

Configure PHP 

Configure PHP by editing php.ini file:

[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/smtp
;SMTP = localhost
; http://php.net/smtp-port
;smtp_port = 25

; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/sendmail-from
;sendmail_from = me@example.com

; For Unix only.  You may supply arguments as well (default: "sendmail -t -i").
; http://php.net/sendmail-path
sendmail_path = "c:\sendmail\sendmail.exe -t"

Test it

Thats all. Now PHP sends emails through local sendmail and exchage server. You can test it using script like:

<?php
mail('recipient@example.com', 'subject', 'message', 'From: sender@example.com');