In the story relating to release upgrades for Ubuntu, below the end-of-life table for the Ubutu Releases from the Ubuntu Wiki – just to have it all in one place; I’m only including the LTS (long-term support) editions, as these should be the only ones deployed on live production systems. In the meantime, Maverick Meerkat is due in October 2010, supported for 2 years. (more…)
Archive for the ‘linux’ Category
Symbolic links in Windows
2010
06.28
06.28
Windows Vista and 7, if not before, allow symbolic links — mklink is your command-line friend!
Creates a symbolic link. (more...)
Create a Tar file from Directory and all Subdirectories
2010
06.28
06.28
It’s a simple one-liner that one tends to forget (that is, one that I forget as I untar more than I manually tar). So creating a tar file from directory and all subdirectories is as simple as
tar -cvf file.tar directory (more…)
Secure SSH Tunneling – at no extra cost
2010
06.19
06.19
Assuming you have a Windows machine and you interact with Linux boxen at any stage, chances are high that you have used and interacted with PuTTY at one stage or another. That beautiful, less than 2 sec, 444K download of a tool (currently at version 0.60 beta) allows you to SSH, COM-direct, RSH, Telnet etc from the desktop. Both examples below relate to MySQL port tunneling.
SSH Tunnels using the Bash command line
Running on a proper machine (or even a Windows with Cygwin or a Mac Terminal) allows you to quickly tunnel a session to a remote server: (more…)
WordPress 3.0 is out!
2010
06.17
06.17
Just a quick note – remember to upgrade now! But you knew that already! 
218 people helped fixing the 1217 bugs, with a new default theme called Twenty Ten and a whole lot more.
(more…)
Samba cheat sheet – Ubuntu
2010
06.02
06.02
Samba. Whopping goodness. Here are a few notes that help in the setup – from user creation, to directory settings etc
This blog post contains a few lessons learnt and thus by extension a migration plan from a Windows file server to a Samba-based one running on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. I look at users, system vs smbpasswd user creation and linking (set that up in Webmin before you start, as well as for groups), share setups, general permissions and some very basic troubleshooting (as there weren’t many troubles, just headaches.) (more…)
Install Webmin on Ubuntu
2010
05.31
05.31
Just a quick note (as I keep forgetting, and a cut-and-paste solution is a quicker time to market) – but you knew that already. Installing Webmin is quite simple (download directly, or from the mirrors). Currently, 1.510-2 is the latest version – check on www.webmin.com for further details. As an aside, the book Webmin Kompakt – by Holger Reibold – is available for download!
So here’s a simple step-by-step: (more…)
Security Summit 2010 Wrap-Up
2010
05.14
05.14
So the Security Summit 2010 has come to an end. Featuring speakers such as Moxie Marlinspike, Joe Grand and Jeremiah Grossman (again), it’s a pity to say that there wasn’t much new that was presented. With repeated concerns about input- and output-validation, as the OWASP Top 10 for 2010 highlight and were used as a repeated example, and a call for a holistic approach to a company’s security posture, the idea of making the thought (and practice) of security part of the organisation’s culture came through over and over again. (more…)
Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04) LTS is out
2010
04.29
04.29
They’ve passed their RC status and have moved into full Long-Term Release for Ubuntu Lucid Lynx — local mirrors are still showing the RC version, but it’s out!
What’s new?
- F-Spot replaces the GIMP
- PiTiVi video editor added
- GNOME 2.30
- New themes: Ambiance and Radiance
- New wallpaper
- Linux kernel 2.6.32
- New nVidia hardware driver
- Gwibber social media application
- Faster boot time, with a different look and feel on the bootsplash screen
- Ubuntu One adds contacts and bookmark sharing
- Ubuntu One music store integrated into Ryhthmbox
- Ubuntu Software Center 2.0
I’ve only played with the 10.04 Server edition so far, and the faster boot time is definately a big win (though some regressive network driver support still needed to be ironed out – hopefully sorted for the final release…)
Yay!!! Well done, guys!! Thanks for a new, even more sparkly LTS!
Testing POP3 and IMAP servers from the command line in CMD or bash
2010
04.25
04.25
It’s quite simple, really: POP3 (Exchange, dovecot etc) you know, IMAP (Exchange, dovecot, courier etc) you know — so this is just a recap, right? You know how to telnet into the machine — in Vista or Windows 7, you may need to install it separately using “Add/Remove Programs”, or just use Putty in Telnet mode… otherwise, apt-get install telnet if it’s not on your machine (or yum install telnet)
POP3:
telnet SERVER 110 (more...)
co.za and whois.co.za updates on server recovery
2010
04.09
04.09
They’ve been working hard! Well done!!
| Function | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| CAPTCHA whois | Not affected | http://captcha.coza.net.za |
| Port 43 whois | Not affected | whois://whois.coza.net.za |
| Primary Database | Not affected | |
| Name Servers | Not affected | CO.ZA zone integrity unaffected |
| Incoming and Outgoing email | Not affected | Applications queuing on incoming mail server |
| RT Ticket system | Not affected | |
| Network | Partially affected – Fixed | Redundant link restored |
| Main web site | Affected – Fixed | http://www.coza.net.za |
| Web whois | Affected – Fixed | http://www.coza.net.za/whois.shtml |
| Registration Engine (Updates, New, Deletions) | Proceeeding Normally | Backlog processed – transactions being processed in real time Currently processing queued applications Final data sync, Final testing ETA afternoon of 8th New machine commissioned, OS Installed Restoring historic data |
| Payment Processing | processing backlog | Commencing on the 9th – ETA of backlog completion 11th Processing of Suspension/Deletions suspended until complete |
| Online VISA/Mastercard payments | In progress | ETA 9th Processing of Suspension/Deletions suspended until complete |
If you’re itching for those GNU apps from Linux on Windows…
2010
04.09
04.09
You’re stuck on a Windows box. But you don’t want to install MinGW32? Can’t dual-boot to run Ubuntu or Debian on your Windows machine for some for that GNU happiness that sed, groff, wget, whois and all those happy apps bring with it? (more…)
KnowledgeTree 3.7.0.2 reinstallation site startup failure (SOLVED)
2010
03.21
03.21
OpenOffice.org startup failures, indexing issues and other niggles forced me to re-install KnowledgeTree 3.7.0.2 Commercial Edition (the same holds true for the Community Edition) more than once during setup. I was met with this delicious error notification which killed all further activity on the site (and prevented the startup of /setup/wizard/, control.php, browse.php, login.php — well, everything, really):
Warning: include_once(DB/.php) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/share/knowledgetree/thirdparty/pear/DB.php on line 371
Warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening ‘DB/.php’ for inclusion (include_path=’/usr/share/knowledgetree/search2:/usr/share/knowledgetree/ktapi:/usr/share/knowledgetree/thirdparty/xmlrpc-2.2/lib:/usr/share/knowledgetree/thirdparty/simpletest:/usr/share/knowledgetree/thirdparty/Smarty:/usr/share/knowledgetree/thirdparty/pear:/usr/share/knowledgetree/thirdparty/ZendFramework/library:.:/usr/local/zend/share/ZendFramework/library:/usr/local/zend/share/pear:/usr/share/knowledgetree/thirdparty/pear’) in /usr/share/knowledgetree/thirdparty/pear/DB.php on line 371
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /usr/share/knowledgetree/thirdparty/pear/DB.php:371) in /usr/share/knowledgetree/config/dmsDefaults.php on line 299 (more…)
KnowledgeTree 3.7.0.2 – OpenOffice startup script (SOLVED)
2010
03.21
03.21
Having repeatedly received the error that OpenOffice.org is not running on the standard installation of KnowledgeTree 3.7.0.2 Commercial Edition (the same holds true for the Community Edition), further investigation was necessary. The key area of investigation must focus on the dmsctl.sh file, particularly from line 47 onwards, but more of that further down below. This is on Ubuntu (9.10 Server).
First, do a few quick checks:
- Is the process running? Anywhere?
Check whether OpenOffice.org is actually running, using a simplenetstat -pant| grep 8100— as the default installation is running with a headless OpenOffice.org on port 8100. You should see something like:
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:8100 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 9655/soffice.binFor the fix in question, it wasn’t giving any results on this check (sudo the commands where required, but you knew that already), which means that it’s not running properly. Also,
ps -aux | grep soffice
gave no results, indicating non-functioning backend software.
(more…)
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS now in beta
2010
03.20
03.20
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (beta) now out...
Ubuntu 10.04 went beta yesterday afternoon, with downloads at http://releases.ubuntu.com/10.04/, otherwise from the download mirrors. Lucid Lynx, as it’s called, enjoys LTS support (ie 5 years out the box).
This version promises as a better (and faster) boot experience, new themes, version 2.6.32 as the Linux kernel, Firefox as default browser — with default browser page changed to Yahoo! (that’s new!) nVidia hardware support using open source drivers has improved, and a whack of new features for the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud have been included. (more…)
Cracking passwords fast with rainbow tables on SSD
2010
03.15
03.15
A Swiss firm, Objectif Sécurité, makers of Ophcrack_Office (for Word and Excel files) and Ophcrack Open Source (over at sourceforge.net), has tweaked their application to crack XP passwords with up to 14 characters on a Steady State Drive interface (think of large, light, laptop drive using Flashdrive technology) through rainbow tables (pre-calculated hashes) in an average of 5.3s.
Seek times on the SSD seem to be the big tweak here:
Oechslin has fitted an elderly Athlon 64 X2 4400+ with an SSD and the optimised tables. This system can, with only a 75% CPU utilisation, crack a 14 digit password with special characters, in an average of 5.3 seconds. Oechslin says that, worst case, it should be able to search arithmetically through 300 billion passwords per second, a speed that is a factor of 500 faster than an Elcomsoft cracker supported by a modern Tesla GPU from NVIDIA.
nginx on Windows Vista / Windows 7 with php
2009
11.22
11.22
You can get the latest stable version of a Windows compile of nginx (0.7.64) here.
Setup is quite straight forward; you’ll need the php-cgi.exe downloaded (copy the libmysql*.dll to the Windows system directory – quickest but dirtiest solution) and tied in; I assume that you can download and run the mysql application yourself?
You may need to run the startup as a batch file (f: below is the drive installed on, php has been extracted into the php under nginx as you can see). PHP is set to listen on port 9000, which nginx interfaces requests to below. (more…)
Postfix maximum individual mail size and mailbox size
2009
10.14
10.14
If you’re getting the "5.3.4 Messag exceeds fixed limit” error, check on the default vs set values in your /etc/postfix/main.cf using
postconf -d (for the default)
and
postconf -n (for the values you have set manually in the main.cf)
Default for message_size_limit (maximum size per mail) is 10240000 (bytes, ie approx 10MB)
Up this to your desired value, eg 30MB by setting
postconf -e "message_size_limit = 30720000"
specifiying the size in bytes.
You can reset the maximum mailbox size using the same method (below just resets to the default value)
postconf -e "virtual_mailbox_limit = 51200000"
But you knew that already!
RDP redirection via Putty (Linux Server) for Windows Remote Desktop
2009
09.25
09.25
Tunneling via Putty is quite well documented. In Putty (the link points to the lastest version), create a new session.
In the SSH section, make sure compression is enabled (for SSH v2 – you shouldn’t be using anything earlier, anyway).
In the SSH=>Tunnel section , set the Source port to 127.0.0.2:3389, and the target to SERVER:3389 (where SERVER corresponds to your upstream Windows Terminal Server).
Once the connection has been created, and you’ve logged into the Putty session, connect to 127.0.0.2 on the local machine and you should be prompted by the remote machine.
This is all as a result of the “localhost” restriction in RDP sessions – however, there is a patch.
Simple as π
