SOHO Network Management

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Apache: Make Changes In a Config File Take Effect Without Restarting Server

Q. How do I make changes in a Apache server config file to take effect without restarting the Apache server itself w/o interrupting users' current session?
A. You can use httpd service or apachectl to reload configuration without interrupting users' sessions as

follows:
Login as root and type the following command
# /etc/init.d/httpd reload
OR

# apachectl -k graceful
This is also known as gracefully restarting the Apache httpd daemon. If the daemon is not running, it is started. This differs from a normal restart in that currently open connections are not aborted. A side effect is that old log files will not be closed immediately. This means that if used in a log rotation script, a substantial delay may be necessary to ensure that the old log files are closed before processing them.
If running Apache with daemontools you can do this by:
svc -h /service/apache
Source : http://www.cyberciti.biz

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Enable ssh for user

Secure Shell (SSH)

Secure Shell (SSH) access option was removed in 4.0 as a security precaution. Most users do not need SSH access, and yet, many end-users would select all options, not knowing the risks. To enable SSH access for a user, login as root and type:

passwd

 
usermod -s /bin/bash 

Source : http://www.clarkconnect.com/docs/Users

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Howtos - Installing PHP 5 and MySQL 5 on ClarkConnect 4.x

Howtos - Installing PHP 5 and MySQL 5 on ClarkConnect 4.xContents
1 Overview
2 Install
3 Install Modules
4 Links

Overview

Most of the source code for ClarkConnect 4.x comes from the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 product. Since stability (as opposed to leading edge features) is a key policy for the Enterprise Linux product, it ships with PHP 4.3.x and MySQL 4.x. By default, ClarkConnect also ships with these PHP and MySQL versions.

This howto provides instructions on how to upgrade the PHP to 5.1.x and MySQL to 5.0.x.
Install

First, you need to add the optional software repository to your system. From the command line, run:
echo "rpm [pcn] ftp://rhel-4:hiptop@rh.apt.clarkconnect.com System extras" > \
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/extras.list
apt-get update

If you already have PHP/MySQL installed, then run:
apt-get dist-upgrade

If you do not have PHP/MySQL installed, run:
apt-get install cc-php cc-mysql

Install Modules

Depending on your application, additional PHP modules may be required. For example, most webmail applications require PHP's IMAP module. Common PHP modules include:
gd - graphics module
imap - mail module
ldap - LDAP module
mysql - MySQL module
soap - SOAP protocol module
xml - XML parsing module

If your application requires a module, install it using the following as a guide:
apt-get update
apt-get install php-imap

You should restart the web server after installing a module:
/sbin/service httpd restart

short code :
apt-get install cc-php cc-mysql php-imap php-gd php-ldap php-mysql php-soap php-xml
source : http://www.clarkconnect.com/docs/Howtos_-_Installing_PHP_5_and_MySQL_5_on_ClarkConnect_4.x

How to install perl dependencies?

Howtos - Install PERL dependenciesContents
1 Getting Started
2 Upgrading the Base Modules
3 Common Gotchas for LWP
4 Installed Modules
5 Installing Additional Modules

Getting Started

Bring up a console session and perform the following commands:
apt-get update
apt-get clean
apt-get install cc-devel
apt-get install perl-CPAN
apt-get install perl-libwww-perl

Upgrading the Base Modules

Next, perform the following commands. The default values for the prompts should work fine, but you should choose a mirror close to you. Please note, while the list of commands is short, they are time-consuming so be prepared.
perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Bundle::CPAN
reload cpan

install IO::Zlib
reload cpan

install Bundle::LWP
reload cpan
Common Gotchas for LWP

If you run into problems with LWP here are some things to check
robot/ua-get..........FAILED -- ping your hostname, this won't work until ping does. edit /etc/hosts

Failures in these test are most likely caused by proxy inteference
live/activestate.t
live/jigsaw-chunk.t
live/jigsaw-md5-get.t
live/jigsaw-md5.t

If that happens, go ahead and
force install LWP
reload cpan

Installed Modules
If you do not have webmin installed you can use this script to view a list of the installed modules.

#!/usr/bin/perl
use ExtUtils::Installed;

my $instmod = ExtUtils::Installed->new();

foreach my $module ($instmod->modules()) {
my $version = $instmod->version($module) || "???";
print "$module -- $versionn";
}

At this point the following modules should be installed:
Archive::Tar
CPAN
Bundle::LWP
Compress::Zlib
Data::Dumper
Digest
Digest::MD5
File::Spec
HTML::Parser
HTML::Tagset
IO::Zlib
MIME::Base64
Net::Cmd
Net::Telnet
Term::ReadKey
Term::ReadLine::Perl
URI

Installing Additional Modules

To install any additional modules from CPAN use:
perl -MCPAN -e shell
install
source : http://www.clarkconnect.com/docs/Howtos_-_Install_PERL_dependencies

Registration and upgrade

After installing clarkconnect the next thing to do is

Register your installation with clarkconnect : IF the system is not registered you can still use the box of the shelf but you will not get software upgrades, you wll also not be able to install developer tools ( gcc- complier) to install softwares. The community edition is free and serves the home or small office requirement. Do not use the mail server without static ip, emails sent by servers on dynamic dns are considered as spam.

Upgrade the packages : For more secure system it is always recomended to upgrade the pacakages

How to compile packages in clarkconnect?

Overview

Whether you are building software or the Linux kernel from source, you will need several tools installed on your system:
gcc
automake
autoconf
binutils
and many others

We provide a simple way to install a core set of developer tools on your system.
Installing

Bring up a command line session on your ClarkConnect system and run the following commands:
apt-get update
apt-get clean
apt-get install cc-devel

You will be prompted to install numerous packages (see screenshot). Hit Y at the prompt and the Enter key to install the developer environment.

Removing

If your ClarkConnect box is accessible via the Internet (HTTP, FTP, etc), we recommend uninstalling the developer tools once you are done compiling. Run the following commands to remove the developer tools from your system.
/usr/sbin/cc-devel-uninstall.sh
rpm -e cc-devel

In some cases, uninstalling the developer tools may cause the compiled software to fail. In this case, you can either re-install the missing package, or re-install the cc-devel package.
source : http://www.clarkconnect.com/docs/Howtos_-_Installing_and_Removing_the_Developer_Tools

Sunday, January 18, 2009

ClarkConnect as SERVER n GATEWAY

ClarkConnect is a powerful and affordable Internet server and gateway solution. The software solution will give your organization enterprise-level server features at an affordable price.

	Provides core server applications - mail, web, VPN, backup, file and print services...
	Protects network and data - antivirus, antispam, firewall, intrusion prevention...
	Enforces Internet usage policies - content filter, peer-to-peer filter, bandwidth manager...
	Simplifies management and monitoring - system monitoring, software updates, mail backup... More info, download and installation instructions at : http://clarkconnect.com User Guide for installation and configuration : http://www.clarkconnect.com/help/userguide/

Ubuntu Linux NFS Client Configuration to mount nfs share

Ubuntu NFS

After searching net, I discover that you need two packages to mount nfs share under Ubuntu Linux.
So, I did Install necessary support for nfs client side i.e. portmap and nfs-common package. Type following command to install packages:

sudo apt-get install portmap nfs-common
Now mount server.mydomain.com:/network/officedocs to /home/me/myfiles

cd
mkdir myfiles
sudo mount server.mydomain.com:/network/officesdocs /home/me/myfiles

Note you may need to restart above services:

sudo  /etc/init.d/portmap restart
sudo  /etc/init.d/nfs-common restart

How do I access my files using NFS?

Just go to mount point i.e. myfiles with cd command:

cd myfiles
ls

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Installing 64 bit Flash plugin

Download the plugin from here : http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html
Extract the tar file
Open gnome file manager
Navigate to home folder
Display the hidden files (press Ctrl + H )
Get in to folder .mozilla
Create folder plugins
Copy libflashplayer.so extracted from the tar file
Restart mozilla firefox
To check the flash version log on to this site in mozilla : http://www.playerversion.com/

Or you can do this....

copy libflashplayer.so to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
If you are using opera as your alternate browser then flash should work by default

done...!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Command to list all physical / logical Drives

With this command you can list all the physical / logical drives and their file system, this list is helpful in identifying the drive and mounting it to the machine.

" fdisk -l "

Note: You need to be root or super user (sudo su)

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Include mulitverse and universe repositories in the sources list

Synaptic package manager is used to add or remove software packages to the system. The synaptic package manager will search for the packages in the repositories list. This list has the name and source / location of the packages.


Path to sources list: /etc/apt/sources.list

edit this file ( # nano sources.list ) and add the line below and save the file.

deb http://id.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ Hardy main restricted multiverse universe

Update the package manger by running the command: sudo apt-get update

done.....!

Archive type not supported error for rar files

To extract rar files with default Archive manager you need to install rar and unrar-free from synaptic package manager.

Installing Ubuntu Hardy 8.04

I choose Ubuntu 8.04 desktop edition for Desktop / workstations. Its better than windows flavor and its free. The latest edition is ubuntu interpid 8.10, but here we use ubuntu hardy which is LTS (long term support upto 2011)

You can get more information on ubuntu desktop, here

System Requirements: Ubuntu is available for PC, 64-Bit PC and Intel based Mac architectures. At least 256 MB of RAM is required to run the alternate install CD (384MB of RAM is required to use the live CD based installer). Install requires at least 4 GB of disk space.

Installing ubuntu is easy.