The building process was relatively painless, there were certainly a few quirks along the way but that was always to be expected where we built – a semi-rural property. The finish of the house is excellent and despite the fact there’s lots of mud around, we’ve now converted our house to a home. Below are some of the shots of the finished house. Having never built a house before this was certainly a learning experience. One that certainly had it’s ups and downs. I’ve got a list of tips for anyone building a house, especially one with Format Homes – though that will be a later article.

Initially I tried get a root shell using:

sudo -s

sadly after repeated password prompts I had no luck. Initially I thought I was just getting my password wrong – something I occasionally do with the amount of passwords I have to remember. However, after repeated attempts I came to the conclusion that something else was wrong.

I looked at the logs to see if they would show anything useful:



Apr 14 11:49:28 leo sudo:   benjsc : 1 incorrect password attempt ; TTY=pts/3 ; PWD=/owners/benjsc/home ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/tcsh
Apr 14 11:51:09 leo sudo:   benjsc : 1 incorrect password attempt ; TTY=pts/4 ; PWD=/owners/benjsc/home ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/tcsh
Apr 14 11:58:03 leo sudo:   benjsc : 1 incorrect password attempt ; TTY=pts/4 ; PWD=/owners/benjsc/home ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/tcsh
Apr 14 11:58:16 leo sudo:   benjsc : 1 incorrect password attempt ; TTY=pts/4 ; PWD=/owners/benjsc/home ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/tcsh

Once again nothing obvious showed up. At this point I started Googling to try and find the answer. There was a lot of articles about people trying the root password rather than the user password, but I wasn’t doing that. There was articles about people stuffing up the syntax of the sudoers file (you should use visudo to edit this). However, nothing had changed but the version of sudo. Eventually I found a post that solved the issue.

It turns out that the latest versions of sudo break pam support. Whilst the article refers to OPIE (One Time Keys), I’ve since confirmed that this issue affects machines without OPIE setup. Hence for anyone who tries to upgrade sudo to a later version and has problems with their password not being accepted, and the password prompt just continuing to reappear. Then you’ll need to patch sudo to work.

How, copy and paste the following on the console:

cd  /usr/ports/security/sudo
make extract
cd work/sudo*
patch << END
--- auth/pam.c.orig     2010-02-04 10:43:28.635212518 -0600
+++ auth/pam.c  2010-02-04 10:43:34.194558424 -0600
@@ -107,13 +107,6 @@
     }

     /*
-     * Set PAM_RUSER to the invoking user (the "from" user).
-     * We set PAM_RHOST to avoid a bug in Solaris 7 and below.
-     */
-    (void) pam_set_item(pamh, PAM_RUSER, user_name);
-    (void) pam_set_item(pamh, PAM_RHOST, user_host);
-
-    /*
      * Some versions of pam_lastlog have a bug that
      * will cause a crash if PAM_TTY is not set so if
      * there is no tty, set PAM_TTY to the empty string.

END
cd ../..
make build
make deinstall
make install

Initially developed under Linux the program was then shifted to it’s permanent location on a FreeBSD server. This is where we first started having problems. Initially we discovered the server didn’t have a native serial port. We fixed this using a USB to serial converter/dongle (FTDI Chipset). This was fine as FreeBSD has the ufdti kernel module. Upon loading the module new devices appears in /dev

crw-rw----  1 uucp  dialer    0, 157 Oct  6 08:39 /dev/cuaU0
crw-rw----  1 uucp  dialer    0, 158 Oct  6 08:39 /dev/cuaU0.init
crw-rw----  1 uucp  dialer    0, 159 Oct  6 08:39 /dev/cuaU0.lock
crw-rw-rw-  1 root  wheel     0, 154 Jan  8 10:50 /dev/ttyU0
crw-------  1 root  wheel     0, 155 Oct  6 08:39 /dev/ttyU0.init
crw-------  1 root  wheel     0, 156 Oct  6 08:39 /dev/ttyU0.lock

We attempted to connect to our device using screen (screen /dev/ttyU0 115200) and everything worked as expected. We could send AT commands to the device all ok.
We then stopped screen and ran our php program. It ended up hanging on a fgets call to the serial port. This is really strange we though.
Next we queried the port to find out what baud rate it was set at:

>stty -f /dev/ttyu0
speed 9600 baud;
lflags: echoe echoke echoctl
oflags: tab0
cflags: cs8 -parenb

Strange we thought as we’d just connected with screen at 115200. Under linux we use screen to set the baud rate, all other programs accessing the port use the port at 115200. So what had set it back to 9600 baud?
We tried to use stty to set the speed:

>stty -f /dev/ttyU0 speed 115200

>stty -f /dev/ttyu0
speed 9600 baud;
lflags: echoe echoke echoctl
oflags: tab0
cflags: cs8 -parenb

What on earth was happening? We set the speed to 115200 but directly quering the port again indicated it was still at 9600 baud? At this point we were perplexed.
Eventually we found the solution. The newer FreeBSD terminal drivers provide the *.init devices, in this case /dev/ttyU0.init . These devices indicate the terminal settings to be applied to the terminal when the device is closed. Whilst Linux leaves the device in the same state the last program put the port into, FreeBSD restores the terminals state to what ever is specified in the init file. So a quick command:

> stty -f /dev/ttyU0.init -icanon -isig -echo echoe echok echoke echoctl -icrnl -ixany -imaxbel ignpar -opost -onlcr -oxtabs cs8 -parenb -hupcl clocal

And then to check:

> stty -f /dev/ttyU0
speed 115200 baud;
lflags: -icanon -isig -echo echoe echok echoke echoctl
iflags: -icrnl -ixany -imaxbel ignpar
oflags: -opost -onlcr -oxtabs
cflags: cs8 -parenb -hupcl clocal

Excellent. The terminal was now configured exactly how we wanted. We ran the program and it worked like a charm!

Format Homes have continued working on the house and each week a little bit more has been done. Since the last update the following has happened:

• Gyprock has been completed
• Doors have been installed
• Cornus has been put up in all rooms except the bathrooms (we’re having ceiling high tiles)
• The Bath has been installed
• The showers have been water proofed
• The screens have been put on the doors & windows
• Tiles have been delivered and begun to be installed
• The bricks have been cleaned
• The kitchen has been installed
• The Bathroom & Ensuite Vanity has been installed
• The linen press has been installed
• Eaves have been put up
• The Gable has been capped

All of this happened over the few weeks since the last update. Sadly it doesn’t look like we’ll be in by Christmas. This seems to be due to the Tiler who, whilst doing a good job, is also quite slow.

On the flip side, Solaris has almost fully installed our 3.3kw Solar system. Including batteries, inverter, regulator and panels. It took the guys a week to install and they did a great job at making it work, look good and were very professional.

Below is some photos of the progress of both the house and the solar system installation.

In building our new house we decided to install a solar hot water system. The reasons for this was simple. We have no mains electricity and only LPG bottled gas. Hence continually heating water would have cost us a lot. Solar hot water on the other hand has an upfront cost but substantially reduces the ongoing cost. Only having rain water and being in a frost region, we quickly decided on evacuated tubes rather than flat panel collectors. Not only is it safer for us (no glycol to leak into our water supply) but there is also an added benefit of better solar performance.

With the decision to use evacuated tubes made, it was now a matter of what brand. This is where the real issues began.
In Australia there is two main contenders for evaculated tube hot water system. These are Apricus and Hills. So began the investigation as to which is better. The Apricus system is significantly cheaper than the Hills. The Hills system is a ‘name brand quality’ company. A little more research finds that both companies are actually Australian (Apricus Australia) and the collectors are all imported anyway.

Not believing in hype about name brands the investigation began into the real differences of each system. It turns out there is quite a few. The below table lists the differences and a comment related to each.

Update: 20091124 – Chris Taylor Director of Apricus Australia has provided updated information to each comment – see below in red

Since the most likly point of failure in an evacuated tube system is the Heat Exchanger/Manifold the Apricus system does sound more promising.  This ironically is the one component that Hills don’t seem to trust as much as Apricus. Clearly indicated by the 5 year difference in warranty.

For instance the bricky really looked out for us. First a little background. We’ve no mains water hence we’ve only had water available for the bricky via a 1000 litre tank. Initially we didn’t even have a pump hence it was all gravity fed. This gave the bricky great fun trying to clean his tools – he had to fill buckets up and use them to make his mix. However, he didn’t complain, just went about his job. He mentioned he would need pressurised water for his saw but that would be later down the track. We are also madly trying to collect rain so that we have water when we move in. Hence once the roof was on we put some temporary down pipes in place. These led into the tank.

One morning I noticed a piece of steel proped between the shed and the tanks. After talking to the bricky about this it turned out the previous day when it had been raining, the downpipe had shifted in the wind, spilling water everywhere. After one attempt to put it back in position – where he got covered by water, he grabbed a spare piece of steel and wedged the pipe back in place.

There was many little things like this that really made having the bricky working on the house great. He also did a fantastic job with the bricks!

The roofing guys (that I never met) took a little longer than expected to get the roof on. They put it up in stages, with the rain being an issue as well as the wind (we’re in category 3 wind zone). Each stage it went up we were trying to collect more and more water.

The sparky’s took 1 day to get the house ready. Very neatly done and all spot on the first time.

The plumber on the other hand really had no idea. We requested a hot water plumbing loop but this was not done.. well not properly. 1 call to the super and he said he would take care of it. Which he did. The plumber came out again and the setup got even worse – certainy not the super’s fault though. Another call to the super and this time he got me to meet the plumber on site. After quite a few attempts of explaining the concept he (and his super) finally caught on and got this done correctly.

To Format Home’s credit, the issues with the plumber were the contracting service that they use. Something that they have indicated they might re-consider in the future. The whole time the super was excellent in dealing with the issue.

So now it’s a new week and everything is happening. Monday the bricky finished – sad to see him go. The gyprock and the insulation was also delivered. Mid Monday, the insulation got put up (Walls anyway). Today (Tuesday) the gyprock started going up and within the day, all the bedrooms are done! Tomorrow the plaster starts.

Check out the progress shots of things happening….