Dradis is a tool used for structured information storage and sharing. Although it is applicable to various environments, it is originally aimed at information security consultants working alone or in a team. One of the great features of the application is that the client side’s functionality can be extended by what is called (quite creatively) - extensions.
In this post I’ll be looking at what an extension is, how it fits into the dradis framework and how to write your own extensions.
You are welcome to jump ahead to the How do I write my own extension? if that is the only part that you are interested in.
Continue reading “dradis extensions: how they work and how to write them”
In this part of the series (see Part 1 and Part 2) we will:
- Make one of the components compulsory to install.
- We will look at a way to write our script in such a way that it can be reused for future releases of MyApplication.
- A few extra tips and tricks.
Continue reading “NSIS installer for a Ruby application - Part 3 - A few script improvements”
In Part 1 of this series we had a look at the general structure of a NSIS script as it was created for us by the HM NIS editor and IDE. We previously defined three components to be installed by our installer:
- Ruby (the target machine that our application is installed on requires Ruby)
- MyGem (our application is dependent on this fictitious gem)
- MyApplication (this is our application to be installed)
In this part we will look at how we will let the installer take care of the Ruby and MyGem components.
Continue reading “NSIS installer for a Ruby application - Part 2 - Install Ruby and a gem”
I am working on an NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) installer for a Ruby application (Dradis - check it out!). In this series I will try to keep log of how I progress with this.
I am using HM NIS editor and IDE for NSIS to make the task a little easier. To get out of the blocks a little quicker I used the HM NIS wizard to create a simple framework from where I will progress.
Continue reading “NSIS installer for a Ruby application - Part 1 - HM NIS wizard output”
So you want to write some tests for your hot new Rails plugin that extends the behaviour of a ActiveRecord model? The thing is - for it to be decent tests it needs to be functional outside of the context of you Rails application, so you need to create a temporary testing environment. I think there is a few ways to this but the following is what I did.
Continue reading “Unit testing your Ruby on Rails plugin”
The new release of dradis is going to use the ExtJS library for the web interface. ExtJS provides lots of JavaScript widgets useful to create complex GUI for web applications.
This is the first of a series of posts with small tips and tricks of ExtJS that will also address its integration with Ruby on Rails.
In this release we are going to create a ComboBox that loads its items from a remote location (potentially a rails REST endpoint).
Continue reading “extjs ComboBox remote XML”
I attended Rails Conf 2008 in Berlin on the 3rd and 4th of September 2008. Following is a quick summary of the talks that I attended. There are loads interesting things going on in the Rails community. My opinion is very biased but I believe the Ruby on Rails community is setting the bar on future web development. And I think this both the case for the techniques and approaches that is practised by these developers and equally the Ruby on Rails framework that is the result of this.
Continue reading “Rails Conf 2008″
Please note that I have written an updated version of this post that can be found here
Intro
On a recent project I was challenged with the task to create a Windows installer for Dradis, an application that I have been contributing to. After a bit of research it seemed like our answer was in using NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) to assist us in this task.
NSIS in an open source platform for creating Windows installers. It has its own scripting language that you program all your installer logic in and then compiles to a Windows installer executable.
In this series of articles I will introduce you to:
- HM NIS IDE and it’s wizard (Part 1)
- Customising the wizard code (Part 2)
- Challenges with installing to user accounts without administrator rights (Part 3)
Continue reading “Ruby installer using NSIS (Part 1)”
Picking it up were we left it on restful_authentication howto, step-by-step (part 1) the second article of this series is a hands on example on how to use the restful_authentication plugin.
Things that will be covered include:
- remove the need of a login
- the use of an activation email, the application will require it’s users to activate their accounts upong sign up.
- howto get rid of the remember me functionality (just in case you don’t need it).
- howto strengthen a bit the default security of the framework.
Continue reading “restful_authentication howto, step-by-step (part 2)”
There are more than a hundred thousand different ways of implementing authentication in ruby on rails. Authentication in the rails world is definetly not for the faint hearted. After some random reading through the rails wiki it seemed quite clear that there is one winner: acts_as_authenticated. However, after including this plugin in one of my secret projects to take over the world, it seems that is lacking some functionality, what I need out of the authentication framework is:
- A no non-sense authentication: just email and password. No bells, no wistles.
- The system should send an activation email after the user signs up.
Let’s explore the alternatives 
Continue reading “restful_authentication howto, step-by-step (part 1)”
