Software
OpenComal
A portable implementation of the Comal programming language, with documentation, articles, screenshots, and a browser playground.
Open the playground
What this is
A curated homepage for an existing archive. The older pages remain intact; this landing page simply makes the good parts easier to find.
What you can expect
UNIX-era pragmatism, side projects that kept going, essays with opinions, and documents that survived multiple generations of tooling.
Start here
If you only open a few things, begin with OpenComal, Living Without Windows, the public library, and the old homepage.
Selected work
Projects and technical pages
Networking
proxytunnel
Software for tunnelling SSH sessions through HTTPS proxies, plus the original notes and release material.
Read the articleSecurity
sslsmurf
A proxy for inspecting HTTPS traffic in clear text by terminating SSL locally, documented in detail on its original project page.
View project pageSystems
HP-UX random
A Linux-compatible /dev/random device module for HP-UX 11.00, complete with article, downloads, and caveats.
Utilities
64-bit unzip for HP-UX
A rebuilt unzip binary for HP-UX that can handle extraction jobs producing files larger than 2 GB.
Download the archiveInfrastructure
Cluster cron
An adapted Vixie cron for HA failover clusters, with package-specific cron state that follows the service.
Read the READMEAuthentication
WU-FTPD with LDAP authentication
An LDAP-enabled extension of WU-FTPD for authenticating users against directory services instead of local password files.
Read the READMEWriting
Essays, notes, and long-form pages
Featured publication
Wednesday Wisdom
Ongoing essays and observations published on Substack. If you want the most current writing on the site, start here.
Series
Living Without Windows
A late-1990s chronicle of trying to run daily life, customer work, and office interoperability from Linux in a Windows-dominated world.
Travel writing
Romanian Diary
A Dutch travel diary from Bucharest, written with the same mix of observation, technical curiosity, and sharp edges found elsewhere on the site.
Witness account
Ground Zero
A personal account and photo essay from New York in November 2001.
Security article
On NT Password Security
An older technical article on NT password security that stayed in circulation long after its original publication.
Photo archive
Aldea Felina
A photo page about volunteering at a cat shelter near Denia, with the original gallery and captions preserved.
Weblog archive
The Jos Visser WebLog
A preserved weblog gateway page pointing at older blog homes and the final entries it linked from 2004.
Essay
How to design and implement unmanageable and insecure systems
A deliberately sharp technical essay on bad systems design, preserved as one of the site's older standout articles.
Archive library
The Jos Visser Public Library
A preserved collection of technical articles, Dutch-language columns, Doctor Unix pieces, and assorted documents from across the site.
Archive
The web should remember things
Not everything here needs to be polished. Some pages are snapshots of older ideas, earlier writing styles, or the way personal websites used to work. That is part of the value.
Contact