AMSN messenger install howto

How to have a MSN clone in fedora?
How to install AMSN messenger?
How to install AMSN messenger plugins?

As you might noticed, I have been up and running for this month's blog, trying to atleast have major install howtos of these mostly used linux X apps.

One main reason I for this is to avoid audience blogshock attacks and linux-scare-away tendencies specially for newbies and noobs. I hope you all enjoy reading these short install howtos. Do not worry, as we go along, we would be covering more and more, having deeper and wider blogging scale of this linux OS - Fedora distro most of the time.

Now, back to AMSN project.

AMSN is simply a free open source MSN Messenger clone, with features such as:

* Display pictures
* Custom emoticons
* Multi-language support (around 40 languages currently supported)
* Webcam support
* Sign in to more than one account at once
* Full-speed File transfers
* Group support
* Normal, and animated emoticons with sounds
* Chat logs
* Timestamping
* Event alarms
* Conferencing support
* Tabbed chat windows

INSTALL HOWTO:

# yum -y install amsn amsn-plugins

Launch: Ctrl+F2, amsn

Setting up AMSN is really easy. At first, it would prompt you for existing MSN account and your current password during the initial startup like so:

Simply enter your hotmail account and current hotmail password.




Works like a charm!





*All trademarks mentioned here are all copyrights and owned by their own respective companies.

Related Posts:


How To See Invisible YM Users
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using Kopete Messenger
How to Install and Setup Google Chat Messenger
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using GAIM Pidgin
How To Block YM Messenger
How To Install GAIM Pidgin Messenger
How To Install KDE Kopete Messenger
How To Setup and Install PSI Chat Messenger

firefox browser - yum update howto

What is firefox?
How to update firefox web browser?
Where to download the latest firefox?

Firefox is another cross-platform opensourced web browser which was derived from Mozilla browser It created and designed for performance, security and portability.

By default RedHat/CentOS/Fedora linux distro installation with X, firefox is installed unless X was installed without a network card or as a stand alone setup.

Here's a quick linux way to update your firefox browser:

# yum -y update firefox

Simple. Yum downloads firefox for you including the needed binary modules and dependencies and installs for you with default configuration setup.

These guys have worked a lot improving and opensourcing firefox. I salute them on improving and creating a web browser alternative like firefox! It takes a lot of brain-smashing tender-drying time and effort to squeezed out logical algorithms and conclusion and finally obtained and achieved a very nice web browser like firefox!

If you wish to download the latest firefox, you may follow the firefox icon located down at the rightmost corner of your screen and check out their site for more browser plugins too!

Works great!



That is all.

kopete messenger install howto

How to install KDE wallet?
How to install Kopete messenger inside Gnome?
What other messenger supports Yahoo, AIM and MSN chat protocols?

Kopete is an instant messenger supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger, and more. It is designed to be a flexible and extensible multi-protocol system suitable for personal and enterprise use.

The goal of Kopete is to provide users with a single easy-to-use way to access all of their instant messaging systems. The interface puts people first, and is integrated with the system address book to let you access your contacts from other KDE applications. IM can be intrusive, but Kopete's notification system can be tuned so that only important contacts interrupt you.

Kopete also features tools to enhance your IM, such as message encryption, archiving, and many other fun and useful effects.

Kopete supports all commonly used instant messaging protocols, and the Kopete team provides templates for developers to base new plugins on. Our API provides developers with many features to ease supporting a new protocol. All protocols are plugins and allow modular installation, configuration, and usage.

Read more here.

HOW TO INSTALL:

You will find the instructions on how to yum install it from Gnome via yum.

# yum -y install kdenetwork

This would download approximately 11MB of module dependencies including KDE wallet system.

APPLICATION LAUNCH: Ctrl+F2, kopete

Since kopete detects a fresh new installation, it would then ask you to create a new account setup prompting you several chat networks like so:



As usual, username and password for identity authentication and network authorization.



Now, before any attempts by kopete for web account connection, a KDE wallet system needs to be configured first. Worry not, this KDE PIM wallet system just presents you a Basic or Advanced configuration setup. All it needs to know basically is for you to decide whether you wish to create and save a password for any software that might access your newly created kopete account for security purposes. This system was installed as part of the KDE network binaries we just installed recently.

Kopete chat messenger is also enriched with several plugins, see them below.



Now, after all these steps, you can now proceed with your login credentials and enjoy!



Preview a multiple online account shown below taken from this site.



Related Posts:


How To See Invisible YM Users
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using Kopete Messenger
How to Install and Setup Google Chat Messenger
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using GAIM Pidgin
How To Block YM Messenger
How To Install GAIM Pidgin Messenger
How To Install AMSN Messenger
How To Setup and Install PSI Chat Messenger

Gaim pidgin messenger install howto

How to install Gaim in Gnome?
What is pidgin? Gaim?

Pidgin is a graphical modular messaging client based on libpurple which is capable of connecting to AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, XMPP, ICQ, IRC, SILC, SIP/SIMPLE, Novell GroupWise, Lotus Sametime, Bonjour, Zephyr, Gadu-Gadu, and QQ all at once. It is written using GTK+.

And Gaim says..

Gaim allows you to talk to anyone using a variety of messaging protocols, including AIM (Oscar and TOC), ICQ, IRC, Yahoo!, MSN Messenger, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, Napster, and Zephyr. These protocols are implemented using a modular, easy to use design. To use a protocol, just add an account using the account editor.

Gaim supports many common features of other clients, as well as many unique features, such as perl scripting and C plugins.

Here's a quick tip on how to install Gaim inside Gnome:

INSTALL:

# yum -y install gaim.i386

This would yum Gaim and automatically install all the needed dependencies seamlessly via yum.

Alternatively, browse the RPMS folder from your DVD ISO image, and gaim binary should be there.

By default, Gaim in included in Fedora ISO images.

Launch it, Ctrl+F2 and gaim




After successful installation, you need to create a new pidgin account. You can choose from serveral messenger network. Simply enter your corresponding username and password with your favorite avatar too.

This pidgin also works with gmail chat, jabber and chikka protocols and messengers.

Goodluck then.

Related Posts:


How To See Invisible YM Users
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using Kopete Messenger
How to Install and Setup Google Chat Messenger
How To Setup Chikka SMS Messenger using GAIM Pidgin
How To Block YM Messenger
How To Install KDE Kopete Messenger
How To Install AMSN Messenger
How To Setup and Install PSI Chat Messenger

xmms - multimedia player install howto

How to play MP3 in fedora?
How to install XMMS?

xmms man:
XMMS is the X Multimedia System. It is used to play audio and other kinds of media files. By default XMMS can play MPEG audio, Ogg, Vorbis, RIFF wav, most module formats, and a few other formats. XMMS can be extended through plugins to play a number of other audio and video formats

Due to patent and licensing concerns, Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS did not include any MP3 support for legal reasons. But OGG Vorbis is widely regarded as a superior format to MP3, which is 100% free.
Listen to it for yourself.

If you wish to have this MP3 support with your XMMS player, you need to install and enable livna repo into one of your yum repos, which was blogged a fews ago, and follow the installation yum procedure.

HOW TO INSTALL:

Here is how to install an alternative multimedia player called XMMS.

# yum -y install xmms*

This will install everything that starts with xmms, including skins, equalizer plugins, visual and audio plugins, since all xmms rpm starts with xmms term, so there's no real issue about that.

If you wish to support XMMS MP3 plugin, simply enable your livna repo, and issue:

# yum -y install xmms-mp3

**It is adviseable to install everything from single repo, livna, although you can get it from fedora too without the xmms-mp3 support.

HOW TO LAUNCH:

Ctrl+F2, xmms



Looks familiar?

UltraDMA - speedup your harddisk howto

How to speed up your harddrive read access?
How to change your harddrive access parameters?
How to measure your harddrive read access?
How to show your hardrive geometry and identification?
How to enable your harddrive UDMA (Ultra DMA) setting?

This document would cover mostly changing IDE/ATA harddrive parameters. If you have Western Digital drives, skip this document and have a further consultation from your hardware provider.

First you need to know which harddrive device you have from your system. As root:

# cat /boot/grub/device.map
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(hd0) /dev/sda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You need to remember the word from the second column which maps to your harddrive device. In the above example, we have /dev/sda .

We need to see what options are already enabled with the harddrive. We are going to make use of linux hdparm command, which is installed by default, as follows:

# hdparm /dev/sda

Now, in order for us to know each harddrive paramater changes, we need to measure and take note of our current harddrive read access and transfer rate for comparisons later on.

Now, let us get more harddrive information.

# hdparm -giI /dev/sda

The above would give you more data like harddrive geometry, read/write modes, IO buffers, timer/DMA values and more.

After getting these values, we can now do our initial harddrive read test and again take note of returned result by issuing:

# hdparm -tT /dev/sda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 888 MB in 2.00 seconds = 443.96 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 120 MB in 3.02 seconds = 39.77 MB/sec
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Executing hdparm without any arguments, would show you available help options.

You can make experiments with different hdparm parameter changes. Just make notes of every read tests like the one shown above for comparison purposes. By referencing to those results, you would definitely arrive to a conclusion on which harddrive parameters makes your harddrive reads and performs fastest!

man hdparm:
hdparm provides a command line interface to various hard disk ioctls supported by the stock linux ATA/IDE device driver subsystem. Some options may work correctly only with the latest kernels. For best results, compile hdparm with the include files from the latest kernel source code



To enable DMA settings (UltraDMA) :

# hdparm -d1 /dev/sda

and to disable DMA would be :

# hdparm -d0 /dev/sda

See the effects immediately:

# hdparm /dev/sda

To make it permanent, besides from /etc/rc.local, you can place these parameter settings directly to a file /etc/sysconfig/harddisks .

Hope it helps

sabayon - user profile manager howto

How to manage Gnome user desktop profiles?
How to yum install sabayon?
How to create and manage desktop user group profiles?
How to edit GConf hassle-free way for each user?

Sabayon is a system administration tool to manage GNOME desktop settings. Sabayon provides a sane way to edit GConf defaults and GConf mandatory keys: the same way you edit your desktop. Sabayon launches profiles in an Xnest window. Any changes you make in the Xnest window are saved back to the profile file, which can then be applied to user's accounts. You can find the website here.

Gnome says:

Sabayon is GNOME's first major design targeted at improving the user experience for people who administer GNOME systems, and hopefully the start of an initiative toward designing for this important group of users. I'm jazzed about Sabayon as the first step toward a historic goal: GNOME as the definitive desktop management experience for sysadmins, which was documented here.

HOW TO INSTALL:

# yum -y install sabayon

HOW TO LAUNCH:

CTRL+F2 , sabayon

When you first launched sabayon, it prompts you to create a new profile identity. Here you can start creating your superuser or root profile, say sysad-profile . Like so



Clicking Edit menu would launch a jailed Gnome X inside the profile manager (sabayon) environment. From there, you can now customize how your desktop, shortcuts, icons, and desktop setup would appear when you use an account under that profile identity. Here is a sample running sabayon manager.



After making your desktop customization inside sabayon, you can click sabayon File Menu > and Save. You will be returned back to this profiler menu after changes has been saved.

Now, click the newly created group profile identity from that window. At this point, you need to assign existing linux users with the newly created group identity. You can do this by clicking the Users button. A new window will appear from here allowing you to choose from which existing linux users would be managed and assigned to just newly created group profile. Just click those users that would belong to the sabayon group. After that just Press OK.

Now, try to log out of X and login back as the particular user assigned to the newly created group. After successful user login, your newly created profile customization would now be active and displayed from your screen.

Fedora can switch to users using User Switcher applet FYI. Incase, you need to customize further of of any existing profile group identities, you can easily make use this User Switcher applet located down at rightmost corner of your screen and switch to root user anytime.

That is all.

50 quick linux command tips part 3

I am writing this document again (part 3) specially for linux newbies audience, even for intermediate users that might think a few of these tricks are useful for them.

Here goes 50 quick linux command tips and tricks part 3.

As root

1. How to have a stop watch scenario from command line terminal?

# time cat

Press Ctrl+C

2. How to measure the time of executing any executable command?

# time firefox

wait 5 seconds and close the application

3. How to CD to a user's home directory?

# cd ~userhome

4. How to CD back to home folder of a currently logged in user?

# cd

5. How to CD back to previous directory?

# cd -

6. How to show all active host IP address?

# ip address

7. How to list out all your iptables rules?

# iptables -L

8. How to save your currently loaded firewall iptable rules?

# iptables-save

9. How to download a file using wget?

# wget -c "http://website.com/file.rpm"

10. How to limit your download rate with wget?

# wget --limit-rate=30k "http://vertito.com/file.rpm"

11. How to download multiple files in one shot?

# wget -c "ftp://vertito.org/file[1-9].iso

12. How to find windows machine with shared folders?

# findsmb

13. How to look for windows netbios name?

# nmblookup -A windows-ip-address

14. How to browse for computers like network neighborhood does?

# smbtree

15. How list folder shared by a particular windows machine?

# smbclient -L windows-machine

16. How to diplay calendar without X?

# cal
# cal -3

17. How to list out all harddisk partition?

# cat /proc/partitions
# fdisk -l

18. How to list out all mounted and labeled harddisk partition?

# mount -l

19. How to show host reboot history?

# last reboot

20. How to get CPU info?

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

21. How to show all interrupts?

# cat /proc/interrupts

22. How to show last successful login users?

# lastlog

23. How to search for a yet unknown package from web repo?

# yum search *packagemaybe*
# yum whatprovides packagemaybe

24. How to setup a shell with yum?

# yum shell

25. How to use yum locally?

# yum localinstall packagename

26. How to find file with 750 file permission?

# find / -type f -perm 750

27. How to find all files not owned by any user?

# find / -nouser

28. How to find all files owned by a user?

# find /home -user vertito

29. How to find files by group name?

# find /home -group vertito

30. How to change timestamp of a file?

# touch -c -t 0707280337 testfile.txt
(YYMMDDhhmm)

31. How to change ownership of a file?

# chown user1:user1 testfile.txt

32. How to set user password details and expiration?

# chage username

33. How to change default home directory of a user?

# usermod -d /new-default-directory username

34. How to change a user finger information?

# chfn username

35. How to change a user shell information?

# chsh username

36. How to change file mode bits?

# chmod testfile.txt

37. How to change and update (multiple) user passwords in batch mode?

# chpasswd

38. How to make an ISO image from contents of a directory?

# mkisofs -V label-name -r directory-name > iso-image.iso

39. How to make an ISO image from contents of a directory and zip it in one shot?

# mkisofs -V label-name -r directory-name | gzip > iso-image.iso.gz

40. Oh, how to eject a DVD/CD disk from a mounted DVD/CD drive?

# eject

41. How to clear or erase all data from a mounted DVDRW / CDRW disk?

# cdrecord -v dev=/dev/cdrom blank=fast

42. How to add an ext3 journal to a filesystem ?

# tune2fs -j /dev/sdb1

43. How to create ext2/ext3 filesystem with bad block checking?

# mkfs.ext3 -c /dev/sdb1
# mkfs.ext2 -c /dev/sdb1

44. How to combine and sort multiple raw files in one shot?

# sort file1 file2 | uniq > newfile

45. How to compare two text files?

# diff file1 file2

46. How to get more memory information?

# cat /proc/meminfo

47. How to get the maximum number of threads of your host?

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/threads-max

48. How to get the file properties of a file or folder?

# stat testfile.txt
# stat foldername

49. How to backup harddisk to another host via ssh?

# dd bs=1M if=/dev/sda | gzip | ssh username@remote-ip-address 'dd of=hda.gz'

50. How to run a command as another user?

# runuser another-user script-name-or-program

That's all.

No negotiations with Microsoft in progress

This a nice document I found from Mark Shuttleworth's blog, founder of Ubuntu Linux distro from South Africa, denying any further talks, ties and negotiations from Microsoft's proposal tie-up and OS collaboration agreement.

Read further...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No negotiations with Microsoft in progress

There’s a rumour circulating that Ubuntu is in discussions with Microsoft aimed at an agreement along the lines they have concluded recently with Linspire, Xandros, Novell etc. Unfortunately, some speculation in the media (thoroughly and elegantly debunked in the blogosphere but not before the damage was done) posited that “Ubuntu might be next”.

For the record, let me state my position, and I think this is also roughly the position of Canonical and the Ubuntu Community Council though I haven’t caucused with the CC on this specifically.

We have declined to discuss any agreement with Microsoft under the threat of unspecified patent infringements.

Allegations of “infringement of unspecified patents” carry no weight whatsoever. We don’t think they have any legal merit, and they are no incentive for us to work with Microsoft on any of the wonderful things we could do together. A promise by Microsoft not to sue for infringement of unspecified patents has no value at all and is not worth paying for. It does not protect users from the real risk of a patent suit from a pure-IP-holder (Microsoft itself is regularly found to violate such patents and regularly settles such suits). People who pay protection money for that promise are likely living in a false sense of security.

I welcome Microsoft’s stated commitment to interoperability between Linux and the Windows world - and believe Ubuntu will benefit fully from any investment made in that regard by Microsoft and its new partners, as that code will no doubt be free software and will no doubt be included in Ubuntu.

With regard to open standards on document formats, I have no confidence in Microsoft’s OpenXML specification to deliver a vibrant, competitive and healthy market of multiple implementations. I don’t believe that the specifications are good enough, nor that Microsoft will hold itself to the specification when it does not suit the company to do so. There is currently one implementation of the specification, and as far as I’m aware, Microsoft hasn’t even certified that their own Office12 completely implements OpenXML, or that OpenXML completely defines Office12’s behavior. The Open Document Format (ODF) specification is a much better, much cleaner and widely implemented specification that is already a global standard. I would invite Microsoft to participate in the OASIS Open Document Format working group, and to ensure that the existing import and export filters for Office12 to Open Document Format are improved and available as a standard option. Microsoft is already, I think, a member of OASIS. This would be a far more constructive open standard approach than OpenXML, which is merely a vague codification of current practice by one vendor.

In the past, we have surprised people with announcements of collaboration with companies like Sun, that have at one time or another been hostile to free software. I do believe that companies change their position, as they get new leadership and new management. And we should engage with companies that are committed to the values we hold dear, and disengage if they change their position again. While Sun has yet to fully deliver on its commitments to free software licensing for Java, I believe that commitment is still in place at the top.

I have no objections to working with Microsoft in ways that further the cause of free software, and I don’t rule out any collaboration with them, in the event that they adopt a position of constructive engagement with the free software community. It’s not useful to characterize any company as “intrinsically evil for all time”. But I don’t believe that the intent of the current round of agreements is supportive of free software, and in fact I don’t think it’s particularly in Microsoft’s interests to pursue this agenda either. In time, perhaps, they will come to see things that way too.

My goal is to carry free software forward as far as I can, and then to help others take the baton to carry it further. At Canonical, we believe that we can be successful and also make a huge contribution to that goal. In the Ubuntu community, we believe that the freedom in free software is what’s powerful, not the openness of the code. Our role is not to be the ideologues -in-chief of the movement, our role is to deliver the benefits of that freedom to the widest possible audience. We recognize the value in “good now to get perfect later” (today we require free apps, tomorrow free drivers too, and someday free firmware to be part of the default Ubuntu configuration) we always act in support of the goals of the free software community as we perceive them. All the deals announced so far strike me as “trinkets in exchange for air kisses”. Mua mua. No thanks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You will find the link here.

All trademarks and company names mentioned here are all managed and owned by their respective owners.

connect SamSung D820 mobile to linux howto

How to browse file with SamSung D820 mobile in Fedora?
How to mount your USB-plugged SamSung D820 mobile?

This document describes the process of connecting and mounting SamSung D820 mobile with Fedora via USB port connection.

MONITORING:

First, login to your fedora box. We will try to monitor system message log before plugging the said mobile phone. As follow

# tail -f /var/log/messages

Now, change the settings of your SamSung D820 mobile settings. Go to Setting, select Storage Device and press OK. Plug it into one of the system USB ports. Watch out for any log changes that would appear from the tailed log file. You are going to see similar message as follow:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Jul 29 22:10:15 ver kernel: usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
Jul 29 22:10:15 ver kernel: usb 1-1: configuration #2 chosen from 1 choice
Jul 29 22:10:16 ver kernel: cdc_acm 1-1:2.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
Jul 29 22:10:16 ver kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
Jul 29 22:10:16 ver kernel: drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c: v0.25:USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters
Jul 29 22:10:31 ver kernel: usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 3
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 4
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: usb 1-1: configuration #3 chosen from 1 choice
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
Jul 29 22:10:32 ver kernel: USB Mass Storage support registered.
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: scsi 4:0:0:0: Direct-Access PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: SCSI device sdc: 121817 512-byte hdwr sectors (62 MB)
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: sdc: Write Protect is off
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: SCSI device sdc: 121817 512-byte hdwr sectors (62 MB)
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: sdc: Write Protect is off
Jul 29 22:10:37 ver kernel: sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
Jul 29 22:10:38 ver kernel: sdc:
Jul 29 22:10:38 ver kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdc
Jul 29 22:10:38 ver kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

The one in bold, would be the mounting point . Let us continue mount it as follow

# mkdir /mnt/samsung
# mount /dev/sdc /mnt/samsung/

VERIFICATION

I have mentioned lsusb as one of the main tools used when troubleshooting USB-enabled devices.
Let us use and confirm if the mobile was detected correctly:

# lsusb
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04e8:665c Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 0000:0000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you can see, fedora read and detected the brand make of the mobile.

USAGE:

Now, you can now continue and browse your favorite music and video files.

# ls -la /mnt/samsung
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
fayrouz hizib Images mobile Music Other files @samsung.ess Sounds Videos
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Click here for SamSung D820 specifications. Company website here

cheers

yum from ISO image or CD install howto

How to install createrepo?
How to install package from DVD installation disk using yum?
How to install package from mounted DVD image using yum?
How to create a new repo file?
How to mount your Fedora DVD ISO image file?
How to install portmap?

These are the questions that would be covered from this document.

Requirement:

You need install createrepo rpm package. It is available both from installation CDs and from yum network repos. And is not installed by default installation method. This package createrepo is a linux binary that creates repomd repositories from set of rpms.

Now, how to install createrepo.

# yum -y install createrepo

Mount your Fedora ISO DVD image back again.

# mount -o loop -t iso9660 /data/ISO/F7/F-7-i386-DVD.iso /mnt/F7

# cd /mnt

Now createrepo based from your mounted ISO image:

# createrepo .

After several minutes, you'll be having similar screen outputs like below:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
('E', 'r', 'r', 'o', 'r', ' ', 'o', 'p', 'e', 'n', 'i', 'n', 'g', ' ', 'p', 'a', 'c', 'k', 'a', 'g', 'e') - usr/share/doc/xsane-0.994/xsane.RPM

Saving Primary metadata
Saving file lists metadata
Saving other metadata
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Launch your favorite file editor and prepare a new repo file

/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-CD.repo

file which contains the following as follows:

[fedora-CD]
baseurl=file:///mnt/F7/
enabled=1


Noticed the filename of the repo file was the same with the repo name.

Done.

Now, what if you only have DVD installation disk. Here's how to do it:

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom
# cd /mnt
# createrepo .

Create the repo file as follows

[fedora-CD]
baseurl=file:///mnt/cdrom
enabled=1


Since portmap is not with standara repo sites, you can now yum it and find it from your DVD repo file! Try it!

# yum search portmap

See mine

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Loading "fastestmirror" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Repository 'fedora-cd' is missing name in configuration, using id
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
fedora-cd 100% |=========================| 1.3 kB 00:00
primary.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 772 kB 00:00
fedora-cd : ################################################## 2242/2242

portmap.i386 4.0-65.2.2.1 fedora-cd
Matched from:
portmap
The portmapper program is a security tool which prevents theft of NIS
(YP), NFS and other sensitive information via the portmapper. A
portmapper manages RPC connections, which are used by protocols like
NFS and NIS.

The portmap package should be installed on any machine which acts as a
server for protocols using RPC.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That is all.

missing portmap reinstall howto

I received an email asking me any hint on how to re install his missing portmap services. He accidentally uninstalled and press Y when he was uninstalling a particular package. Later on realized that portmap is not available and does not comes up from searching yum repos.

Definition:

Portmap is a server that converts RPC program numbers into DARPA protocol port numbers. It must be running in order to make RPC calls.

How to install:

Here is one way to recover and re-install a deleted and/or missing portmap package. In order for the installation to be successful, as a requirement, you need to bring out your Fedora/Centos installation CDs, so we can install and copy the package from it.

From DVD ISO Image:

I do not have the Fedora installation CDs. However, I have Fedora ISO images from my systems. So, in this case, I am going to cover how to re install portmap using the Fedora 7 ISO image from my harddrive. As root,

# locate *.iso
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/data/ISO/FC6DVD/FC-6-i386-DVD.iso
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

# mount -o loop -t iso9660 /data/ISO/FC6DVD/FC-6-i386-DVD.iso /F7/
# cd /F7/Fedora/RPMS/

# ls -la portmap
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-rw-r--r-- 25 root root 38128 2006-10-06 01:17 portmap-4.0-65.2.2.1.i386.rpm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since the package comes from the ISO image, we will make use of rpm instead of yum installation binary.

# rpm -ivh portmap-4.0-65.2.2.1.i386.rpm

To start it:

# service portmap start

VERIFICATION:

# service portmap status

All is done.

Have you tried to do yum from your own computer CD/DVD drive on Fedora?
Are you blogging from your-own-PC-based Wordpress on Fedora?
Did you give Plone - Content Management System a shot on Fedora?

50 quick linux command tips part 2

Created Thursday 26/07/2007

As I go along and remember those linux commands, I'll be adding them here as time goes by. They don't pop out of my tiny-winny braincells easily when I needed them most.

Here goes nothing.

1. How to know which ports are listening from your IP address?

# nmap -sT -O your-ip-address

2. How to grep an exact match?

# grep -w textfile.txt

3. How to reverse grep matches?

# grep -v textfile.txt
#
4. How to know which service name is what port?

Assuming port 443

# cat testfile.txt | grep -w 443

5. How to get the first 10 lines of a file?

# head -10 testfile.txt

6. How to get the last 10 lines of a file?

# tail -10 testfile.txt

7. How to get the first column of a file?

# awk '{print $1}' testfile.txt

8. How to get the first and second columd of a file?

# awk '{print $1 " " $2}' testfile.txt

9. How to get the first column of a file having consistent field separator pattern?

Field separator character patterns is /

# awk -F/ '{print $1}' testfile.txt

10. How to get the second column of a file having consistent field separator pattern?

# awk -F/ '{print $2}' testfile.txt

11. How to show contents of a text file?

# cat testfile.txt

12. How to show contents of text file pausing ever page or one screenful at a time?

# more testfile.txt
# less testfile.txt

13. What is the big difference between more and less?

less linux command has much more extensive enhancements compared with more.
You can also scroll up interactively via control keystrokes using less while the other one does not allow you to do that.
less does not need to read the entire file to buffer when showing a screenful content of a file and furthermorel less is faster than more on accessing big filesize.

14. How do you delete all numbers and digits from contents of a file?

# tr -d [:digit:] < testfile.txt

15. How do you sort contents of a text file in descending order?

# sort -r newfile.txt

16. How do you create a file using touch (without opening it interactively for writing)?

# touch newfile.txt

17. How do you change the date of all files in one folder?

# touch *

18. How do you create a file using tee?

# tee newfile.txt

and start typing, press

19. How do you query currently installed package offline from your system?

# rpm -qa sendmail

20. How do you query packages for something-like package ?

# rpm -qa | grep sendmail
# rpm -qa *sendmail*

21. What files comes with a something package?

# rpm -qa postfix*
# rpm -ql postfix-2.4.3-2.fc7

22. What is this something package?

# rpm -qi postfix-2.4.3-2.fc7

23. Where does rpm stores its rpm database?

# cd /var/lib/rpm
# ls -la __*

24. How to mount CD drive after inserting the disk?

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/CD

25. How to know if fedora detects your Nokia N70 via USB?

# lsusb

26. How to change system date ?

# date -s "December 25 2007 01:01:01"

27. How to know your free base memory and other memory / swap statistics ?

# free

28. How to show disk space usage of your filesystem in human readable form?

# df -ah

29. How to get the top 10 of your mbox mail users?

# cd /var/spool/mail
# ls -lS | head -10

30. How to find process ID of a running service like httpd?

# pidof httpd

31. How to locate a binary file, command source and its man pages?

# whereis ping

32. How to find the location of a executable file that could have been executed when entered from a prompt?

# which ping

33. How to download ISO or any file from web using command line?

# wget -c www.google.com/testfile.txt
# wget -c ftp://google.com/google.ISO

34. How to transfer file via ssh?

# scp -c testfile.txt user@remote-hostname

35. How to transfer files that has been only changed from one host to another without taking comparison?

# rsync -avz remoteserver:/home/remotefolder /home/localfolder

36. How to transfer your identity.pub into a remote machine's authorized_keys?

# ssh-copy-id -i identity-rsa-dsa.pub user@remote-hostname

37. How to know who you are in a shell?

# whoami

38. How to get more real-time view linux process stats and info?

# top

39. How to issue a continuous trace route to a host?

# mtr host-ip-addres

40. How to trace route without resolving IP address?

# mtr --no-dns hostname

41. What is another text-based alternative to chkconfig?

# ntsysv

42. How to list out current cron jobs?

# crontab -l

43. How to get the CPU time?

# clock

44. How to set date and time from NTP server?

# ntpdate 0.fedora.pool.ntp.org

45. How to show current system path?

# set | grep PATH

46. How to list out currently loaded kernel modules?

# lsmod

47. How to know the total days of your system without reboot?

# uptime

48. How to get a system bootstrapped from redhat network?

# /usr/bin/go-rhn.sh

49. How to see current running user jobs?

# jobs

50. How to edit text files from terminal?

# vi textfile.txt
# nano textfile.txt
# joe textfile.txt
# vim textfile.txt
# pico textfile.txt (if pico is installed - Pico is a trademark of the University of Washington)
# tee vv


Hope this helps a bit.

50 quick linux command tips part 1

I have compiled several linux CLI basic tips and quick tricks that solves simple issues of daily routines and objectives. Most probably they are most commonly used by others too, but who knows?

Here are a few old tricks and linux workarounds that still works with Fedora distro and probably works with CentOS and RedHat.

These commands were all done as super user root. I suggest not to try this if you don't know what the command is for, use at your own risk!!!

1. How to create a return email address when using mutt ?

# export REPLYTO=youremail@yourdomain.com

2. How to dump a website into your terminal screen ?

# elinks -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php"
# lynx -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php"
# links -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php"

3. How to dump a website into a file ?

# elinks -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php" > file1
# lynx -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php" > file2
# links -dump "http://www.gmanews.tv/forex.php" > file3

3. How to sort batch of files containing alpha numeric characters in a file with one command ?

# cat filename101*.txt | sort -n

4. How to remove duplicate lines from a file ?

# uniq < filename01.txt

5. How to force rotate of all your defined log files located in /var/log/ ?

# logrotate -f /etc/logrotate.conf

6. How to change the interval time of your daily and weekly system cron jobs ?

# vi /etc/anacrontab

7. How to start X / Gnome from terminal ?

# startx

8. How to do a whole new xorg.conf setup for your nonworking/epileptic X which was caused recent xorg.conf misconfiguration ?

# mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old
# gdmsetup

9. Do you have a very old and nice webtool for newbies or junior system admins?

Click here

10. How to launch and run a program into background ?

# program-name &

10. How to locate and find file(s) in CLI ?

# find /foldername -name name-of-file

Ex.
# find /home -name *vertito*
# locate *vertito*

11. For script kiddies who successfully hacked a box, LOL. How to know your current dropped user, shell id, group id, groups your shell belongs to after successfully hacking into a linux box? :)

# id

12. How to know who is currently active from ssh connection from your server ?

# w

13. How to know all your opened UDP ports and connections ?

# ss -u -a

14. What are the most commonly known world writeable and readable folders?

# cd /tmp
# cd /dev/shm

So watch out for any scripts or file changes there!

15. How to build rpm package from source file (*.src.rpm) ?

# rpmbuild --rebuild *.src.rpm

Most probably, you'll find the sources in /root/rpmbuild/SOURCES and the RPM file in /root/rpmbuild/RPMS . If not, try /usr/src/redhat/SOURCES and /usr/src/redhat/RPMS

16. How to find all files from a particular folder that contains this string and do it recursively ?

# find /home/vertito -exec grep -li myownstring {} \;

17. How to find a specific filename and delete it ?

# find / -name specific-filename.txt -exec rm -rf {} \;

18. How to trim my temporary files and delete the ones that are more than 1 month old?

# find /tmp -mtime +31 -exec rm -rf {} \;

19. How to know the descriptions, functions, and more info a a linux command ?
Ex.

# man elinks
# apropos elinks
# whatis elinks
# info elinks

20. How to know from which rpm package does a particular library belongs to ?

Ex. /lib/libcap.so

# rpm -qf /lib/libcap.so

21. How to find out interesting port of a particular host ?

# nmap host-IP-Address-here

22. How to ping one subnet class of IP address or group of IP address ?

# fping -g 192.168.100.0/27
$ fping -g 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.254

23. How to know if a port is open ?

Example: port 25

# telnet IP-address 25
# nc -dz IP-address 25

24. How to watch for file and file size changes of one folder live and not by email ?

# cd your-folder
# watch ls -la


25. How to divide 9999999999999999 by 3 directly from terminal ?
How to use a terminal based calculator?

# echo '9999999999999999/3' | bc -l




26. How to print line numbers of each output line of a text file ?

# cat -n yourfile.txt

27. How to negate a grep result?

# grep -v "null" yourfilename

28. How to list statistics from your network ?

# netstat -s

29. What is the country code for a particular country ?

# grep -i philippines /usr/share/zoneinfo/iso3166.tab

30. How to find out who owns and manages a particular domain ?

# whois google.com

31. How to get the resolved IP of a domain ?

# nslookup google.com
# host google.com
# dig google.com

32. How to say hello and goodbye to your system log file ?

# logger 'Hello and Goodbye'

33. How to list out all your USB current connections ?

# lsusb
verbose
# lsusb -v

34. How to list out all your PCI card connections ?

# lspci
verbose
# lspci -v

35. How to lock/unlock a bash enabled user shell account ?

# passwd -l useraccount
# passwd -u useraccount
# passwd -S useraccount

36. How to limit and change available shell accounts for user's shell assignment ?

# vi /etc/shells

37. How to change the default values when adding new user accounts ?

# vi /etc/default/useradd

38. How to create default files automatically every time a new user accounts is created ?

# cp /home/vertito/whateverfile.txt /etc/skel
# useradd -d /home/newuser newuser

39. How to go the easy way to home folder of a particular user if you have multinested virtual home folders?

# cd ~hisusername

40. How to browse and download the whole pages of a particular WWW site in one shot ?

# wget -p --progress=dot http://www.google.com

41. How to safely mark badblocks from another ext2/ext3 linux harddisk ?

# umount /dev/other-harddisk2
# e2fsck -c /dev/other-harddisk2

42. How to create a new ext3 filesytem with bad-block checking from your secondary harddisk?

# mkfs.ext3 -c /dev/other-harddisk2

43. How to compare bzip2 compressed files ?

# bzdiff file1 file2

44. How to detect hardware monitoring chips and load modules related to newly detected chips?

# sensors-detect
>45. How to know if your postfix or sendmail is running ?

# ps axuw | grep sendmail
# ps axuw | grep postfix

46. How to change the default port when spamassassin is launched?

# vi /etc/sysconfig/spamassassin

47. How to disable postfix permanently after reboot ?

# chkconfig --levels 345 postfix off

48. How to know the number of children spawned by apache ?

# ps axuw | grep http | wc -l

49. How to avoid a module from being loaded by kernel during startup and blacklist it permanently?

# vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

50. How to quickly count all your queued mail when you box is really hogging due to spam bruteforce attacks and spam mailer?

# mailq | wc -l

How to smile ?

:)

Hope this helps abit.

desktop wiki install howto

Want to do a wiki offline from your own desktop and publish it later when you get online?

This is what I am using offline. Meet Zim.

Zim is a WYSIWYG text editor written in Gtk2-Perl which aims to bring the concept of a wiki to your desktop. Every page is saved as a text file with wiki markup. Pages can contain links to other pages, and are saved automatically. Creating a new page is as easy as linking to a non-existing page. Pages are ordered in a hierarchical structure that gives it the look and feel of an outliner. This tool is intended to keep track of TODO lists or to serve as a personal scratch book.

Zim handles several types of markup, like headings, bullet lists and of course bold, italic and highlighted. This markup is saved as wiki text so you can easily edit it with other editors. Because of the autosave feature you can switch between pages and follow links while editing without worries.

Besides from that, you feel as you don't overkill yourself by launching Office sofwares and using much of your system memory for a small pages of wiki or blogs.


East to install, do the yum

# yum -y install zim

and launch

Ctrl+F2, zim

NASA tests Linux for spacecraft control

NASA tests Linux for spacecraft control

I was reading one of newly met nice sysad too, and read his interesting blog about NASA here.

Linux was selected for a NASA experiment aimed at proving the feasibility of COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) hardware and software for scientific space missions. A key requirement was for application development and runtime environments familiar to scientists, to facilitate porting applications from the lab to the spacecraft.

Read more here

warzone 2100 strategy 3d game install howto

Warzone
Created Wednesday 25/07/2007

Are you looking to try a free different 3D strategy game for Linux?

Here's one.

Warzone 2100 was an innovative 3D real-time strategy game back in 1999, and
most will agree it didn't enjoy the commercial success it should have had. The
game's source code was liberated on December 6th, 2004, under a GPL license
(see COPYING in this directory for details). Soon after that, the Warzone 2100
ReDev project was formed to take care of its future.

You can find more warzone wiki pages here .

Now, a quick way to install warzone using yum under fedora . As root

# yum -y install warzone2100.i386

This would install warzone and all its dependency modules that is around 19MB in size.

Rresolved dependecies:

=============================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
=============================================================================
Installing:
warzone2100 i386 2.0.6-1.fc6 extras 705 k
Installing for dependencies:
openal i386 0.0.9-0.9.20060204cvs.fc6 extras 150 k
physfs i386 1.0.1-5.fc6 extras 58 k
warzone2100-data i386 2.0.6-1.fc6 extras 18 M

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================


Launch:

Ctrl+F2, type warzone2100 and hit ENTER.

See mine

motd - message of the day

MOTD - Message Of The Day file

This file , /etc/motd, is traditionally used to inform and send message to shell enabled user accounts upon logging in instead of informing them by email. It requires much disk space, effortless of just editing the file without launching any mail user agents as well.

By default install, /etc/motd contains nothing.

You can edit this file and try to reflect some interesting stuff or message of the day, like

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Hey you!

Today is the last day of the month again,
as we all know, we would do a scheduled
downtime exactly, this time it would be
exactly 22:00 GMT, so be around, don't
drink! LOL

Thanks!
Your BIG boss
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The others may have like this one:

more with kernel name version howto

How to know your Fedora/Redhat/CentOS release version?

Easy as splash image. Follow these steps as root

# cat /etc/issue

You'll be seeing lines like these
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fedora release 7 (Moonshine)
Kernel \r on an \m
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can actually edit this file and reflect some access restriction wordings like so:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unauthorized Access is PROHIBITED!!!!

Security access restrictions applied.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upon successful logins of any shell enabled user accounts via server consoles (tty*), these lines would be reflected.

Additionally, you may want to try out the following commands too:

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/ostype
# cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease
# cat /proc/sys/kernel/version

which gives you the same combined result from issuing

# uname -a

That's all.

stop and start networking service howto

Enabling and disabling your network card in windows is quite different in linux world. Here in linux world, we are referring them as stopping and starting a daemonized service. Services are known to be one of multithreading feature integrated in linux architecture, and from my own personal view, which begun available with window$ NT during its first flight, perhaps that gave her a term of New Technology (NT) making use of these runnable/stopable concepts.

Here are quick CLI ways, based on redhat-based distro, to stop and start your networking service. The below would stop and your networking service.

Take note that any ONBOOT=no line arguments included fromyour /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth* would not be included from starting/stopping the service.

See

# service network stop
# service network start
# service network restart

Another way of starting/stopping your NIC service

# ifup eth0
# ifdown eth1

For linux newbies and just starting with linux terminal commands. You may want to try

# system-config-network-tui

which would present you a text-based menu for doing the same process.

You are reminded that all receive/transmit (RX/TX) packets would be down from stopping the service

Alternatively using GUI:

# system-config-network



From there, you can choose a particular ethernet interface to stop and start it. Keep in mind that stopping would disconnect all you remote ssh connections as well as all your established WWW connections.

Additionally, when linux OS starts booting, the network daemon service is one of the services usually being started at linux bootup process.

change network proxy preference howto

Here's a gnome way of changing your GNOME network proxy preferences like proxy configuration.

Without launching your favorite browser, simply hit Ctrl+F2 and typ

gnome-network-preferences

or via CLI

# gnome-network-preferences

This is the same "Internet Options" you will find from control panel under the old windows$ X.P.

alexa firefox toolbar plugin install howto

The Alexa Toolbar, an application produced by Alexa Internet, is a Browser Helper Object for Internet Explorer/ Firefoxt hat is used by Alexa to measure website statistics. It includes a popup blocker, a search engine entry box, some external web links information about the current Alexa ranking of the user visited websites and links relevant to the site the user is browsing.

By early 2005 there had been over 10 million downloads of the toolbar, according to Alexa. But Alexa doesn't provide info on how many of them are actually used. According to one estimate made in Mar 2003, Alexa had a sample size of 180,000.

A third-party developer has created a plugin for the Firefox browser that provides the user with the Alexa ranking and Google PageRank of the currently visited site and also requests site information from Alexa, which they use in their website statistics

-Wikipedia

How to install sparky, the alexa firefox toolbar plugin?

Browse the site here. You would be presented with Alexa Internet Privacy, you know terms of use and agreement, that kind of stuff and proceed as you wish.

After successful firefox plugin installation, a firefox restart is needed.

reboot / halt system via CLI howto

Up until now, I rarely reboot my system via any shortcut icon from my X panel or via System > Reboot. This happens once in two full moon events. Since my system required 24/7 operation, these commands are really rare to be seen from my root history commands.

Here are brief alternative and not too bloated ways on doing reboot and shutdown with your linux system.

Make sure you save all your opened documents before executing any of these. It is also suggested to close any opened browsers and ssh connections you might have before doing these command.

1. via Reboot . Reboots the system.

# reboot

2. via halt - actually halts the system

# halt

3. shutdown - shuts down the system

# shutdown -t3 -r now

4. Ctrl+Alt+Del - also works in linux as long as you have unmodified /etc/inittab

5. poweroff - powers your system down

# poweroff

6. init 0 - runlevel 0

# init 0

7. init 6 - runlevel 6

All of them must be executed by superuser root, unless specified by sudoers access levels, which is not really advisable.

gparted partitioning install howto

There are times you need to resize and extend a particular partition to give way to another set of installation programs or data download storage allocation. What about you've mistakenly designated a wrong partition size for particular partition?

Put your partition worries away.

Here comes linux partitioner GParted.

GParted install howto.

# yum -y install gparted

GParted stands for Gnome Partition Editor and is a graphical frontend to libparted. Among other features it supports creating, resizing, moving and copying of partitions. Also several (optional) filesystem tools provide support for filesystems not included in libparted. These optional packages will be detected at runtime and don't require a rebuild of GParted.

On thing I like with GParted is doing it live and online with your partition data using X.



Launch:

Ctrl+F2, gparted, enter.

HTH

google picasa install howto

Find and enjoy the pictures on your computer in seconds!

Picasa is a free software download from Google. Now available for Linux!

Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your computer. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized.

Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips. And Picasa makes it a snap to share your pictures – you can email, print photos home, and even post pictures on your own blog.

--Google picasa overview and definitions.

There are the so called requirements:

System Requirements
* Should work on any Linux system with Intel 386-compatible processor,
glibc 2.3.2 or greater, and a working X11 display system.
* Desktop Integration features require a current version of Gnome or KDE.
* Camera detection and integration requires kernel >= 2.6.13, hal >= 0.56, and
gnome-volume-manager or equivalent.
* Available in English

Be the first few to install this another nice item from google!

Just download the rpm binary file from google itself from this site here.

Then use the almighty rpm

# rpm -ivh picasa-2.2.2820-5.i386.rpm

Launch! Ctrl+F2 , picasa, enter.

pine and pico install howto

The Pine.

Pine was my very first linux email client during the old old days, I loved pine,.. and used it really very well via ssh during my first and worst-than-ever dialup connectivity. This includes my very old good text editor Pico for editing and modifying text based files. Later on, Thunderbird works out right for me until now. Then nano replaced my pico after that.

What is Pine?

Pine (R) -- a Program for Internet News & Email -- is a tool for reading, sending, and managing electronic messages. Pine was developed by Computing & Communications at the University of Washington. Though originally designed for inexperienced email users, Pine has evolved to support many advanced features, and an ever-growing number of configuration and
personal-preference options.

How to install in Fedora?

Simply, make sure you have the livna repo as blogged earlier and yum it so:

# yum -y install pine

This will install pine and pico which is about 2.6 MB in size for F7 including dependencies, so it might take a if you have dialup connection.

See pico in action




**Pine and Pico are trademarks of the University of Washington, check their website here. No commercial use of these trademarks may be made without prior written permission of the University of Washington.

adobe/macromedia flash player test and install howto

Here is a clean and quick way to verify if you have succesfully Adobe (macromedia) flash player plugin in Linux.

Simply browse to this site. If you have successfully installed Adobe flash player, you would be seeing your current version and that Adobe detected your flash plugin running from your browser.

If not, simply download the linux flash plugin version here that is around 2MB in size, and install it using rpm like so:

# rpm -ivh flash-plugin-9.0.48.0-release.i386.rpm

Restart your firefox browser and revisit the link site .

Once in a while, check out Adobe Flash Plugin download center here.

Cheers

realplayer install howto

Here's another alternative on playing multimedia files.

RealPlayer - supports RealAudio, RealVideo 10, MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Theora, H263, AAC and more.
And RealPlayer 10 for Linux is based on the open source Helix player.

How to install it:

Browse and download the latest RealPlayer from this site . They have a version specifically for Linux, which you can easily download here.
This link is for redhat-based distros.

Then install compat-libstdc++-33 library.

# yum install compat-libstdc++-33

And CD back to the downloaded folder of RealPlayer binary file and do install

# rpm -ivh RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm

Lastly, you need to restart your firefox for the RealPlayer plugin to work.

How to launch RealPlayer, just hit, Ctrl+F2 and type realplay, enter.

Microsoft's TrueType core fonts install howto

How to install additional fonts?
How to install Microsoft fonts?
How to list out all recognized and installed fonts?

Microsoft's TrueType core fonts install howto

Well, one good thing of having Microsoft as your base OS, is having their set of fonts.
Linux basically had this terrible font sets - but it has improved over the number of development years compared to the old RedHat 6.0 days. Still, there are more space for improvement. As a result of this, we are going to install Microsoft's TrueType core fonts.

One major requirement is you need to have rpmbuild installed from F7. If not, you can install them by doing so as root:

# yum -y install rpm-build rpmdevtools rpm-libs

Now proceed installing the second font-installation requirement,



# yum -y install cabextract

After successful installation, download the latest msttcorefonts spec file here. Then go to your download location, as root, do the build thing

# rpmbuild -bb msttcorefonts-2.0-1.spec

If you experience any problems like these
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RPM build errors: Bad exit status from /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.60339 (%prep)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Try issuing the command again as root.

This will download about 9 MB (more or less) set of fonts from sourceforge mirror and repackage them for further installation as single rpm installation file. It might take some time depending on your internet download speed. So get a milk or a coffee...

After successful download, install your own newly built rpm file

# rpm -ivh /root/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/msttcorefonts-2.0-1.noarch.rpm

If the rpm file is not there, do

# updatedb
# locate msttcorefonts*.rpm

This would locate the just compiled rpm file for you.

After that, you can reload your XFS server

# service xfs reload

Have read that xfs restart brings out unknown flickering and dirty screen, so watch out for that. I did a reload with my own.

Now, enjoy your new and high quality MS fonts compiled from your own system. Fireup a new document from linux word processor (Office menu). You will be seeing new set of microsoft font names there along with the other default linux fonts.

Alternatively, to display and list out those fonts, try

# xlsfonts | grep 'microsoft\|monotype'

Please note that you need to restart all programs that you want to make aware of the new fonts. Note also that not all fonts have 'microsoft' in their name, some of them will be from 'monotype' instead.

Alternatively, hit Ctrl+Alt+Backspace for immediate none-liner effect.

* This way, we do not distribute Microsoft's fonts in a prohibited way to the best of my knowledge that is) and don't bypass the rpm database like other the font installation scripts does.

WARNING!!! WARNING!!! WARNING!!!

This works out just fine for me and only hereby documented for my own purpose as my own reference, as it is without due warranty it would work for you. You may try this, all howtos and install tips mentioned from these blog pages at your own risk! My current working environment is Fedora 7.

Related Post:

European Font Installation on Fedora

Three Steps to Install Microsoft TrueType Fonts in Fedora

Why Choose Fedora? (Fedora vs. Ubuntu)

During my free time of browsing distrowatch...and due date for a newly compiled Ubuntu version, I make it appoint, during these past years, that I should have an OS test spin of these what's new and have been stuff with Ubuntu latest distro. They have free shipping and delivery mode of spreading their own, wish we could have that on unlimited version with F7 DVDs.

What do I do with it?

Trying to alteast keep up with my know-how with Ubuntu and the OS test spin likenings.

Fedora Cores are old?

Yes.

I was one of them, for the past years, I also wasted a lot, I really mean a lot of boxes burning CDs and DVDs for doing fresh-install repititions of these various tinker distros. To name a few OS that I tried with my gone-with-the-wind dual processor laptop were Fox Desktops, Mandrakes, Slackwares, PCLinuxOS, SuSes, FreeBSD, ArkLinux, not to forget Bayanihans, CentOS, Mempis, Berry, ALinux, AsianLinux, TaoLinux, Xandros (that is all). And in the end, I am happy with my default fallback bleeding-edge razor-sharp OS now called Fedora (without the Core word).

Now, I am sure I am not the only one around the blogsphere. And I must admit, I agree with his standpoint same like my experience with them.

Here, take time reading these comparison thoughts and conclusions based from hyphothetical real-life experience with ubuntu and fedora users too, like I was before and I still am.

Why Choose Fedora? (Fedora vs. Ubuntu)

After reading continually about Ubuntu, and having heard about what a great Linux distribution it is for over a year, I finally broke down two days before Fedora 7 was released to the public and installed Feisty Fawn 7.04 on my /backup partition to give it a spin. For two days I used it exclusively, and tried to hold off any judgments one way or another while testing it. After all, it seems like all I hear about is people jumping ship off of whatever Linux distribution they had used for years in favor of Ubuntu (Stanton Finley and Eric S. Raymond come to mind from the RedHat/Fedora camp, among others, including just about everyone from the Slashdot/Digg crowd); and if Ubuntu truly is a superior Linux distribution, then I at least needed to give it a try to evaluate its performance. And so I did. I installed the DNS and LAMP server, followed by the Ubuntu desktop, knowing that I could always install KDE applications if I needed to via apt-get.

Unfortunately, I was not impressed.

People incessantly claim that Fedora is less user friendly than Ubuntu is, but Ubuntu has become so watered down as a Linux distribution that I can only classify it as having been completely n00bified. Maybe I'm out of touch with the budding Linux enthusiast, who is in desperate need of a hand-holding Linux distribution, but everywhere I turned, I found road blocks preventing me from getting work done quickly. A perfect example of this is the simple task of connecting to my DSL internet connection when at home. Under Fedora, this takes about two minutes to setup (if that): System -> Administration -> Network. Type in the root password, click on New -> xDSL connection, follow the directions, and you are off and running. Under Ubuntu, creating a DSL connection via the Network Panel is not even possible! A Google search on the Windows machine turned up the following:

"Configuring DSL can be a hassle..."
"...How good it would be, if there exists a wizard that will guide you thru all the above steps."

My thoughts exactly! Ok, ok, it is not that big of deal once you know what to do: connect to eth0, run pppoeconf, and use pon dsl-provider/poff to turn the connection on and off. But how is a new Linux user going to figure that one out on his/her own? 95% of the people trying out Linux for the first time are not going to be sitting behind some fat bandwidth pipe using a 100Mbs/1Gbs Ethernet connection. They will be using wireless, or just as likely, have a DSL connection...

At any rate, Feisty Fawn does not seem to be that stable of an operating system. I found that I had to reboot multiple times just to allow it to log me into Gnome properly. Often times, it would just freeze or lock up halfway through the login process. Eventually I figured out that the problem was tied to my not having shut off the DSL connection before logging out, but why should that be a problem? Additional issues included the screen resolution not being set properly (1440 x 900), or allowing me to change it without delving into /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and having to deal with tons of native applications that were not included in the base server/desktop installs. The first mistake that I made along these lines was an attempt to change my shell via /etc/password to /bin/tcsh. Oops! No tcsh. Oops! I can no longer login to a terminal. Oops! I can't log into root either because I choose to only allow sudo when I installed Ubuntu and had not made a point of setting up a root password yet. Guess it is time to mount the partition in Fedora and fix it, or reinstall... And so it went.

Sure apt-get is great, and synaptic (the GUI) is nice, but what real advantages does it have over yum and yumex? It's faster? In my opinion, even that's debatable, simply because there are so many tools that are missing in the basic Ubuntu install that it would have taken me forever to set them all up over an internet connection with apt-get anyway. Sure, Ubuntu gives you a LAMP server (Linux OS, Apache, MySQL, PHP), but what Linux distribution doesn't?

What Fedora does give you natively that Ubuntu does not is the following:

• The option to create your own Fedora spin!
• The option to install all Server Applications, Gnome, and KDE at once
• Simple DSL Setup
• SELinux
• NFS
• Samba
• Compatibility Libraries
• Development Packages
• Compilation Tools
• Programming Tools & Editors
• +1000 other Native Applications

Again, can most of these programs be installed with apt-get and be configured under Ubuntu? Sure, but instead of it taking about 3 days to figure out if I finally have downloaded and installed everything, I can instead burn a single Fedora DVD and install it all once in about an hour. And be completely configured within three to four.






But what about RPM and Dependency Hell?
Ah yes, it always seems to come down to RPM and dependencies. Whenever I hear that argument, I can tell instantly that the person making it has either never used a RedHat/Fedora RPM system before and are quoting a common misconception, or that they used RedHat (and not Fedora) a long time ago before yum came along (Fedora Core 1). Even circular dependencies can be dealt with elegantly using rpm, and if you are missing a library or dependency now, yum whatprovides [missing].[library] is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Frankly, the RPM/Dependency Hell argument is a tired old argument that has not been true for about 5 years. But hey, don't let that get in the way of a good FUD campaign...

But what about Fedora being a Beta test for RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
For four years now I have used Fedora: from Fedora Core 1 all the way up through Fedora 7. Before that, I used RedHat from the 7.0 days on up to 9.0. Aside from the typical hiccups that are always present any Linux distribution, I find Fedora to be no worse than other Linux distributions that I have used. I use it 98% of the time while at the University (the other 2% is with Windows), and have had a Fedora Linux server sitting in my office for three and a half years. Fedora has never felt like a Beta test version to me.
It has always felt solid, and has always performed admirably. And I like the rapid development and inclusion of new software into the distribution — I have been able to watch Fedora mature over the past few years significantly.

But what about...?
Simply stated, most of the arguments that I have heard with respect to Fedora are dealt nicely on the Fedora Myths page. I suggest that you head over there and read it if you are still skeptical.

The point here is not to try and drag Ubuntu through the mud. But having now used it, I believe I can definitively say that that particular Linux distribution is really aimed toward the Linux n00b (no offense intended), or the Linux desktop enthusiast. For server applications, it just doesn't cut it. Fedora provides a much deeper and comprehensive set of tools right out of the box, and I find that after I've finished installing it, I'm off and running. I've seen other people allude to this fact as well — Ubuntu is fine for the average desktop user, but if you are in need of a powerful Linux server, then Fedora is the way to go. And with that, let's get down to business...

Ref:
California State Univ.
ECE Dept.
Assistant Professor Gregory R. Kriehn
URL Reference : here

Microsoft vs Opensource

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith told Fortune that open source software violates 235 Microsoft patents, it sent tremors through the tech industry.

It's ironic that Microsoft is making these statements, considering how they benefited from a ruling by the Supreme Court last week that stated U.S. companies could not sue other U.S. companies in U.S. courts for patents infringed upon in other countries. Is Microsoft really going to seek royalties from every company in the world that is using some version of Linux?

:) brief, but says it all. I like that, so probably must to have it here too!

Reference: Fedoranews

the df command

In linux, one GNU tool that displays information more about partition. It also supports human readable option, which enhance output readability.

The df command only displays information about active non-swap partitions. These can include partitions from other networked systems, mounted devices, and more. Linux version of df cannot show the space available on unmounted filesystems, because on most kinds of systems doing so requires very nonportable intimate knowledge of filesystem structures.


A sample output of df command

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 18G 8.8G 7.6G 54% /
proc 0 0 0 - /proc
sysfs 0 0 0 - /sys
devpts 0 0 0 - /dev/pts
/dev/sda5 9.6G 6.2G 2.9G 69% /dload
/dev/sda1 45G 33G 9.8G 77% /data
/dev/sda2 99M 22M 73M 24% /boot
tmpfs 498M 0 498M 0% /dev/shm
none 0 0 0 - /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
sunrpc 0 0 0 - /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Sample LVM enabled LFS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2 22G 12G 9.2G 56% /
proc 0 0 0 - /proc
sysfs 0 0 0 - /sys
devpts 0 0 0 - /dev/pts
/dev/cciss/c0d0p3 43G 32G 8.5G 80% /backup
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1 99M 20M 75M 21% /boot
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00_home-LogVol00_home
67G 14G 49G 23% /home
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00_var-LogVol00_var
67G 18G 45G 29% /var
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sample that supports human readable output

# df -ah
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 4.9G 261M 4.4G 6% /
none 0 0 0 - /proc
none 0 0 0 - /sys
none 0 0 0 - /dev/pts
/dev/sda1 99M 19M 76M 20% /boot
none 505M 0 505M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda5 20G 7.4G 11G 41% /home
/dev/sda6 4.9G 1.3G 3.4G 27% /usr
/dev/sda7 37G 8.9G 26G 26% /var
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Issuing the command without any parameters will likely give you similar output:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 17958380 9166384 7865048 54% /
/dev/sda5 9974924 6441384 3018660 69% /dload
/dev/sda1 46362180 33767420 10239636 77% /data
/dev/sda2 101105 22133 73751 24% /boot
tmpfs 509412 0 509412 0% /dev/shm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The output is simple but useful. You can incorporate this command from shell. Or you can issue this command from MRTG/Nagios as well for graphical needs without using additional plugins.

linux possessed by monsterz

I am sure everybody have heard viruses leeching and deleting files and folders under their window$ desktop$, but have you ever heard of monsterz roaming and filling you screen up around infront of your linux screen? These serious monsters can never be seen in any 100+ linux distros we have from distrowatch list! Imagine that! Not unless you have the following already.

Come and have fun a bit. See them live! Have a break, Linux is fun too you know.

What is Monsterz?

Monsterz is a little arcade puzzle game, similar to the famous Bejeweled or Zookeeper. The goal of the game is to create rows of similar monsters, either horizontally or vertically. The only allowed move is the swap of two adjacent monsters, on the condition that it creates a row of three or more. When alignments are cleared, pieces fall from the top of the screen to fill the board again. Chain reactions earn you even more points.
Small memory footprints, less keyboard interaction! It also comes with nice audio and challenging levels that keeps you from leaving the game!

It's fun! It's easy! Linux is fun and easy for kids too! It's monsterz!




Here is another yum to have it.

# yum -y install monsterz

and launch it!

Easy as 1-2-3 !

Enjoy the weekend!

change display setting howto

Most newbies find it hard and confusing on how change settings of their display settings using linux. If you are a bit new with the system, and having trouble finding your way on linux control panel. Here's one easy way of changing the following those values under redhat-based OS.

Make use of system-config-display

This is basically installed on Gnome mode installation. If not, simply

# yum -y install system-config-display

And launch

# system-config-display

The below settings are changeable using this simple program.

a. display resolution (VGA resolution based on detected plugged VGA card and xorg.conf changes)
b. display color dept (million or thousand colors)
c. monitor type and configuration (monitor model selection including generic model)
d. video card type and configuration (video model selection)
e. display view mode (single, dual)

NTP clock synchronization howto

Old BIOS CMOS battery? It seems that your system always defaults back to its old hardware clock?

Here is a way to synchorize your clock remotely to a specific time server around the globe.

By default redhat-based distro install with X selected, it includes a graphical interface for changing system date and time named system-config-date. As it says, provides a graphical interface that allows the user to change the system date and time. It also allows the user to configure the system time zone and to setup the NTP daemon to synchronize the time of the system with a NTP time server.

To run the binary:

# system-config-date

Make sure yo click on Network Time Protocol tabbed menu, tick on "Enable Network Time Protocol (NTP) and select any NTP servers currently listed, click OK and you're good to go. This is also equivalent to syncing window$-based desktop to their owd NTP server time.windows.com .



Optionally, you can click "Show advanced options" and tick the first box that says "Synchronize system clock before starting service" . Make sure, under Time Zone tabbed menu, you have the correct chosen timezone

This is also one way on how to adjust your current date and time using Date/Time tabbed menu.

It ain't hard, right.

qtparted partitioning magic install howto

The Linux filesystem is a complex and the first thing that most new users shifting from Windows will find confusing is navigating the Linux filesystem. The second thing is that not too many people are familiar with how the filesystem works or know how to troubleshoot if any problems arise. The good thing is, there are many different types of file system tools and utilities available to make troubleshooting easier but again not too many people are familiar with them.

One tool helps linux filesystem partitioning under X mode is Qtparted

Here's how to install qtparted using yum:

# yum install qtparted

And launch

host name and host aliases explained

Most servers and workstations have their own hostname or computer names. If your company has its own domain.com , and you are not the one managing your company? DNS servers, you can quickly configure and change your hostname using /etc/hosts.

This /etc/hosts file contains the list of IP addresses and their corresponding system host names.
Even servers have their own hostnames besides from their own web-known fully qualified domain names. Basically, for any DNS queries, your linux system check this file first before referencing further DNS queries with your /etc/resolv.conf DNS IPs. If the queried hostname is already found with a corresponding IP address then any further DNS queries is not anymore needed.

Say a sample /etc/hosts file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
127.0.0.1 localhost
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you try to ping localhost

# ping localhost

you get
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
64 bytes from localhost (127.0.0.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.056 ms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adding more host aliases to /etc/hosts

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.50.35 vertito
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

# ping vertito

would give your
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
64 bytes from vertito (192.168.50.35): icmp_seq=1 ttl=127 time=3.26 ms
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adding more host aliases to /etc/hosts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain
192.168.50.35 vertito vertito.yourdomain.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

# ping vertito.yourdomain.com
# ping vertito

Issuing the above commands would give your pretty same results, the same goes

# ping localhost
# ping localhost.localdomain


Now, knowing how hostnames are being traversed is really handy at times. You will see more samples below t get more overview of how hostnames are being traversed and looked up.

Below sample are not advisable:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
192.168.50.35 vertito tito.yahoo.com
192.168.50.35 vertito tito.yourdomain.com
192.168.50.35 vertito vertito.yourdomain.com tito.yourdomain.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You may be able to ping them, but it would not be publicly available outside from web since outside DNS servers would be able to traverse them.

Another host name misuse:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
192.168.50.35 vertito1
192.168.50.35 vertito2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
192.168.50.35 vertito1.yourdomain.com
192.168.50.35 vertito2.yourdomain.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You could ping them locally, but doing reverse lookup from your workstation for that IP or hostname would still fail.


Moreover, setting your hostname via "hostname" linux command would be

# hostname vertito.yourdomain.com # SETS HOST NAME TO vertito.yourdomain.com
# hostname # DISPLAYS CURRENT HOSTNAME

Wrong!
# hostname vertito.yahoo.com

Doing hostname via CLI is not permanent.

Another way to permanently set your hostname is to append them to your /etc/sysconfig/network file :

# echo "HOSTNAME=vertito.yourdomain.com" >> /etc/sysconfig/network

# less /etc/sysconfig/network # should show you something like
HOSTNAME=ver.yourdomain.com

Now, if you eth0 IP address is given dynamically, that is via DHCP, you can set your hostname by having the below line into /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

DHCP_HOSTNAME=ver.yourdomain.com

and restart your network service to renew your IP address from network DHCP server

# service network restart


Pretty nice.

Now, let us say your eth0 public IP address is 213.255.201.254 and vertito.domain.com is its
reverse DNS name delegated by your network DNS servers.

From your own system, adding the below into your /etc/hosts

213.255.201.100 vertito.otherdomain.com


Noticed the change of IP address and hostname which is not equal to your delegated reverse and forward DNS names from your DNS servers. Now

# ping 213.255.201.100
# ping vertito.mydomain.com
would be successful, this is pinging immediately without using /etc/resolv.conf and DNS, but

# nslookup vertito
# nslookup vertito.mydomain.com
# host vertito
would definitely fail using your DNS since your system doesn know its forward/reverse name so it asks your DNS server to do this for you.

Well, you find this long but interesting too!

Have a nice host day!

IP aliasing - virtual IP howto

Do you need to setup IP aliasing or multiple ethernet IP address using your single ethernet card? Here are the steps to do that:

First requirement, you will be needing a working ethernet network interface card. Say your first ethernet is eth0 and has an IP address of 192.168.1.1 . Issuing

# ifconfig eth0

would show you your current IP address and packet statistics with it. You can try this

Now adding 3 aliased IP address for example would similarly be:

# ifconfig eth0:0 192.168.2.1 broadcast 192.168.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
# ifconfig eth0:1 192.168.3.1 broadcast 192.168.3.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 up
# ifconfig eth0:2 192.168.4.1 broadcast 192.168.4.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

Now try to check your ethernet IP address

# ifconfig

would show you multiple aliased IP address with your single ethernet card.

Make sure you make them permanent between reboots, which can be done in many ways. One is to put them inside your /etc/rc.local .

This IP address changes is without consideration to advanced routing and ethernet load balancing.

viruskiller on linux

Your computer has been invaded! Dozens of little viruses are pouring in via security holes in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft MSN Messenger and Microsoft Recycle Bin!! Using your trusty mouse you must shoot the buggers before they can destroy your files! Some will steal them from their home directories and take them back to their security hole. Others will just eat them right there on the spot! See how long you and your computer can survive this onslaught!

VirusKiller - on linux

Here? how to install and enjoy this mouse-controlled frantic shooting game where viruses invade your computer files and folders!

# yum -y install viruskiller

shows
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Loading "fastestmirror" plugin
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
fedora 100% |=========================| 2.1 kB 00:00
livna 100% |=========================| 2.1 kB 00:00
updates 100% |=========================| 1.9 kB 00:00
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package viruskiller.i386 0:1.0-4.fc7 set to be updated

Dependencies Resolved

=============================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
=============================================================================
Installing:
viruskiller i386 1.0-4.fc7 updates 4.2 M

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install 1 Package(s)
Update 0 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)

Total download size: 4.2 M

Downloading Packages:
(1/1): viruskiller-1.0-4. 100% |=========================| 4.2 MB 03:14
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing: viruskiller ######################### [1/1]

Installed: viruskiller.i386 0:1.0-4.fc7
Complete!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Press Ctrl+F2, now launch th program as viruskiller



*** GPLed

change keyboard language setting

Here's a way to change your keyboard type language settings. This changes your keyboard behaviour too based from your keyboard language you want to have:

# system-config-keyboard

And choose the keyboard language you want. Any changes here would reflect into your /etc/X11/xorg.conf under "Input Device" section.

A text-based interface is not available yet as of time..

changing ethernet card settings howto

Here's some scenario wherein your network card seems to fail. At times, it shows you statistics of sending but not receiving packets, or it is physically connected but show you that the linkis not present at all. If you are sure that it is not driver or cable issues related, below are pointers of changing network card settings.

We are going to make use of this linux command ethtool instead of miitool .

Let us say we have a single active NIC card which is properly installed and named eth0. To display your eth0 current settings:

# ethtool eth0

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
Link detected: yes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Since mine is working fine, I should get "Link detected: yes" from the last resulting output above. Here you can see that my speed is set to 100Mb/s and I have Full Duplex and Wake-on-Lan set.

Let us change our NIC eth0 speed

# ethtool -s eth0 speed 10

You'll see changed values from looking at its current state by doing

# ethtool eth0

again. Similar lines like:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Speed: 10Mb/s
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Disabling NIC's autonegogation feature would be like

# ethtool -s eth0 autoneg off

giving you similar lines like
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Auto-negotiation: off
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Changing NIC's duplex type

# ethtool -s eth0 duplex half
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Duplex: Half
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, let us try to disable wake on lan feaure with our eth0 and make it wake on nothing value.

# ethtool -s eth0 wol d

You can alternatively combine these arguments like so:

# ethtool -s eth0 speed 10 duplex half autoneg off

which does the same job. See below:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Advertised auto-negotiation: No
Speed: 10Mb/s
Duplex: Half
Port: MII
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: off
Supports Wake-on: g
Wake-on: d
Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
Link detected: yes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


ethtool is available over the web on here .

TIP:

Get your NIC make or model type

# lspci | grep Ethernet

and make sure the net modules is loaded right

# cat /etc/modprobe.conf | grep eth


Now, if you've messed up with your eth0 settings, you can put them back by

# ifdown eth0
# ifup eth0

HTH

TIP: WiFi with chillispot and linux

Well, blogging back, here's a short and brief hot chillispot tips for smooth ChilliSpot installation.

As we all know, ChilliSpot is an open source captive portal or wireless LAN access point controller. It is used for authenticating users of a wireless LAN (WiFi). It supports web based login page which is today's standard for public hotspots. Authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) is handled by our favorite radius server. It also supports two different access methods for a Wireless LAN HotSpot namely Universal Access Method (UAM) as well as Wireless Protected Access (WPA).

ChilliSpot man now says:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chilli has three major interfaces:
A downlink interface for accepting connections from clients, a radius interface for authenticating clients and an uplink network interface for forwarding traffic to other networks.
Authentication of clients is performed by an external radius server. For UAM the CHAP-Challenge and CHAP-Password as specified by RFC 2865 is used. For WPA the radius EAP-Message attribute as defined in RFC 2869 is used. The message attributes described in RFC 2548 are used for transferring encryption keys from the radius server to chilli. Furthermore the radius interface supports accounting.

The downlink interface accepts DHCP and ARP requests from clients. The client can be in two states: Unauthenticated and authenticated.

In unauthenticated state web requests from the client are redirected to an authentication web server.

In a typical application unauthenticated clients will be forwarded to a web server and prompted for username and password. The web server forwards the user credentials to chilli by means of redirecting the web browser to chilli. A received authentication request is forwarded to a radius server. If authentication is successful the state of the client is changed to authenticated. This authentication method is known as Universal Access Method (UAM).

As an alternative to UAM the access points can be configured to authenticate the clients by using Wireless Protected Access (WPA). In this case authentication credentials are forwarded from the access point to chilli by using the radius protocol. The received radius request is proxied by chilli and forwarded to the radius server.

The uplink interface is implemented by using the TUN/TAP driver. When chilli is started a tun interface is established, and optionally an external configuration script is called.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read ChilliSpot installation basics here first.

Check out the latest version from this download page. Now, do

Download the latest rpm binary here or install directly via:

# rpm -ivh http://www.chillispot.org/download/chillispot-1.1.0.i386.rpm

# updatedb &

Updates.

The old safe way, make a backup copy of chilli.conf file.
# locate chilli.conf
# cp /etc/chilli.conf /etc/chilli.conf.bak

Fire up your favorite browser. And google for "chillispot hotspotlogin.php" keyword.

We are trying to fetch a higher version of hotspotlogin.php or hotspot.php file. Why? I like PHP better than CGI works. :) If you get a version of 0.97 and above, that would be great.

One reason is that this hotspot.php file from google'd page, would actually replace chilli's own CGI login page called hotspotlogin.cgi .

# locate hotspotlogin.cgi

Now, let us assume you already have hotspot.php. We need to copy this file into your root apache directory or whatever suits you as long as the location would be referenced inside /etc/chilli.conf. That basically means, your apache should be up and running as well.

Now, copy the downloaded hotspot.php to your apache root directory like

# cp hotspot.php /var/www/html/

Start your apache
# service httpd start

Note, you can add more IP address restrictions here using apache conf.d files.

Avoid the attitude of hitting copy then paste. Make sure you replace the ones that suits your values. Worry not, you have a backup copy of it, remember? Now, open up your editor and modify /etc/chilli.conf for the below changes.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
pidfile /var/run/chilli.pid
dynip your-radius-server-IP-address-local-NETWORK/subnet
net your-radius-server-IP-address-local-NETWORK/subnet
dns1 your-primary-dns-IP-address
dns2 your-secondary-dns-IP-address
domain your-hostname.yourdomain.com
radiusserver1 your-radius-server-IP-address-live
radiusserver2 127.0.0.1
radiusauthport 1812
radiusacctport 1813
radiussecret your-wifi-secret
radiusnasip your-radius-server-IP-address-local
uamserver https://your-hostname.domain.com/hotspot.php
uamsecret your-uam-secret
uamlisten your-radius-server-IP-address-local
uamport 3990
uamallowed your-company.website.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

# service chilli start


11 TIPS:

ChilliSpot-powered linux box acting as wifi access point gateway (controller) has been successful with noted conditions below:

1. having a redhat-based distro with kernel versions 2.6.x and above
2. with 2 NICs (Gigabit Ethernet preferably) for optimum performance with
one live IP and unassigned eth1
3. an active firewall with MASQ or preferably NAT
4. for server-based WiFi database and code generation/administration - working Apache/MySQL/PHP + FreeRadius is adviseable
5. gateway of WiFi APs = linux tun0 IP address
6. eth1 should not have any IP address
7. existing caching DNS and Squid proxy for added performance.
8. very nice if you can do PHP coding to create your own customized WiFi admin and mgmt page
9. and lastly, you are trying to avoid an erratic and sad experience the way *some and cheap WiFi box handles AAA, NAT, cloaking, code generation/mgmt (atleast for my case) and not to mention a clogged bottlenecked ethernet ports for a typical large volume of WiFi audience.
10. The last wifi box next to your linux box are cross-cabled.

If it doesn't work out right, read chilli.conf, read FAQs , join the forums and try again.

Make it colorful with your MRTG graph usage, NTOP, bandwidth

See my wifi admin and mgmt page:




Goodluck.

play tennis the linux way

Are you tired of hitting the keyboard with your fingers trying to solve a not-so-prioritized server issues remotely?

Are you fond of playing lawn tennis games every other weekends?

If you answer yes to these questions, move on and read.

This is a chance for you to play lawn tennis, a.k.a. freetennis while you're sitting down infront of your screen!

Let us use our handy dandy yum install command.

# yum -y install freetennis

would download a 6MB file and install automatically for you.

Now, come'on down, you're the next opponent with the freetennis linux game!

See my screenshot:



Interesting game, more to develop for ondemand help file, tennis movements and footwork tricks but pretty nice for a good linux game starter!

sudoku game install howto

Here's one of the most still talked game in town, sukodu.

I have heard that sudoku originated somewhere in Japan, and spread throughout Europe and Asia.

Now most newspapers and tabloids today contains these number-puzzle game. I have seen sudoku solver websites too. I remember one site showing these 2 very intelligent approach (actual algorithm pattern) of solving sudoku puzzle, it makes use of advanced multi-nested algorithm that reminds me of my old Statistics college subject. Yea, it's deep statistical formula and can actually be programmed with any programming language - C/C++ would fit that very well. Said so much.,

Let us now install it.

# yum -y install ksudoku

Done! And launch it, which brings you to post install setup:




Now, choose any type of games and options you want. And you're good!



Works in Gnome but designed for KDE.

See the rotating number puzzle in 3D action !




Enjoy!

my linux box talked to me

A talking linux box. Just make sure your box is equipped with soundcard and speaker.

As root:

# saytime

shows your current time from the screen and tells your time in english words and language.

It actually talks!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[root@ver dload]# saytime
The time is now, almost half past 6, in the evening.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CD/DVD burning software install howto

Yes, here we are going to cover the mini howtos of downloading and installing softwares that enables us to burn our data, audio, video and image files.

There are a lot of alternatives of these CD/DVD burning software around opensourced technologies. But I am going to cover only 2 of my favorites, gnomebaker and k3b .

How to install gnomebaker:

# yum -y install gnomebaker

This would search yum repos and find the particular gnomebaker rpm file for you and install it along with the needed dependencies and library modules if needed so. We put -y for answering "yes" for all yum questions,

I could not find the reason why GnomeBaker should appear under Sound/Video main selection menus. However, here are its application screenshot:



To burn DVD ISO image, just launch gnomebaker, go to Tools, and burn your DVD ISO image. Make sure your DVD/CD write is ready and turned on. All you need to locate is your ISO image and hit OK.

Now, installing K3B would have the same process via yum:

# yum -y install k3b

Launch it:



By default, most necessary settings are on default and Auto. You should be able to burn DVD/CD using with their default values.

Nice burning software's we have, besides from CD-Writer.

A SYSAD BLOG - LINUX: list out active host connection howto

A SYSAD BLOG - LINUX: list out active host connection howto

list out active host connection howto

Here's the dirty and quick way how to list out currently active and established host connection.

# netstat -nt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
tcp 0 0 213.255.201.3:55366 216.155.193.182:5050 ESTABLISHED
tcp 0 0 213.255.201.3:59232 207.46.111.16:1863 ESTABLISHED
tcp 0 0 213.255.201.3:53297 213.255.201.9:22 ESTABLISHED
tcp 0 0 213.255.201.3:57768 213.255.201.17:22 ESTABLISHED
tcp 0 0 213.255.201.3:41423 64.233.185.19:80 ESTABLISHED
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Using the first line as example reference:

tcp = protocol used when connection was established
213.255.201.3 = local host IP address that the client is currently connected from
55366 = local port number assigned and used
216.155.193.182 = connected foreign host with his foreign IP address
5050 = foreign port number used by foreign host
last column = connection last seen status


Same goes by issuing alternative command:

# ss

This "ss" linux command translates port numbers to known protocols currently listed out by IANA. And which is mapped out as a /etc/services file in redhat distros. Check that file out.

As long as your box is connected to the net, there should always be an active connection between your host and another remote box.

more with linux command named history

As we go along with our daily linux routines, be on server or with our power desktops, we could think and backtrace a specific command that we just keep on forgetting.

Linux history command reminds us the past linux command done by a specific user. By default, without any parameters, history list out all the commands entered by the currently logged-in user regardless of the command has been successfully executed or not.

Issued as root, this would show you root history commands in numbered format.

# history

Clearing out which is not really a good idea:

# history -c

Try clearing it out and show the history commands again like so
# history -c
# history

This would show you the history line marker and the last linux command issued by the currently logged-in user.


Moreever, these list of history commands refer to /root/.bash_history if you are using root. It follows the format of ~username/.bash_history by default. So vertito user has ~vertito/.bash_history file.

However, be reminded that this history file can be forged, edited, deleted, and most likely be purged. Additionally, the maximum number limit for history lines can also be modified using bash environment when a user logs in with his default bash profile. Not to mention, size of the history file could also be restricted to a certain file size.

Below are the basic variables related to setting history setting from bash profile.

USERNAME
HISTFILESIZE
HISTFILE
HISTSIZE
HISTCONTROL

Example additional contents of .bash_profile with regards to history linux command:

HISTSIZE=2
HISTCONTROL=ignoredups
HISTFILESIZE=4

This means, the maximum number of history lines would be 2 lines, ignoring any duplicate commands with a maximum filesize limit of 4 Kbytes only.

More arguments / option for history command :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-c Clear the history list by deleting all the entries.
-d offset Delete the history entry at position offset.
-a Append the ‘‘new’’ history lines (history lines entered since the beginning of the
current bash session) to the history file.
-n Read the history lines not already read from the history file into the current
history list. These are lines appended to the history file since the beginning
of the current bash session.
-r Read the contents of the history file and use them as the current history.
-w Write the current history to the history file, overwriting the history file’s
contents.
-p Perform history substitution on the following args and display the result on the
standard output. Does not store the results in the history list. Each arg must be
quoted to disable normal history expansion.
-s Store the args in the history list as a single entry. The last command in the
history list is removed before the args are added.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Take note that "history" is not a binary file, not like echo, it's a builtin bash command from bash shell.

GnuPG and enigmail thunderbird add-ons

Here's a Thunderbird add-ons called Enigmail,

Enigmails let's you add OpenPGP message encryption and authentication to your mail user agent that incorporates itself with your email messages. It features automatic encryption, decryption and integrated key management functionality. The current version of enigmail also works with Seamonkey.

Requirement:
You must have GnuPG () for the cryptographic functions.

How to install Enigmail in Thunderbird:

Download enigmail thunderbird add-ons HERE ans save the file to you harddrive. Now return back with your opened Mozilla Thunderbird, open Add-ons from the Tools menu. Then click on Install button from the newly appeared window, and locate/select the file you've just downloaded, press "OK". After successful installation, you may need to restart your Thundebird program.

Just hold on, as a requirement, we also need to install GNUPG using yum

# yum -y install gnupg

There we go, we are now ready to launch Thunderbird with Enigmail add-on.

Now, fire up your Thunderbird, go to Edit menu - Preferences and choose "Account settings". From here, you're going to see a new inserted menu by enigmail named, "OpenPGP Security", which is just under Junk settings tree menu.

Here is a sample account OpenPGP settings I currently have with my separate sample email account:



Now, try sending an email to yourself and test enigmail. Try it with other options checked and unchecked, to learn more of its encryption and security settings. You will noticed a different header color from that email when you finally received it, which identified it was digitally signed, or encrypted, or the email was sent with MUA authentication.

Probably at this point, you'll realized that M$ Outl00k and 0utl00k EXpr3ss doesn't support this feature yet under window$ X.P. This file called something.asc is yet unrecognized for them, therefore truncated and attached only as file attachment using the said MUAs.

However, other alternative MUAs such as Eudoramail and Evolution are happy supporting these features including GnuPG and OpenPGP .

Another milestone from Mozilla.

Good luck then!

PDF file readers install howto

Reading adobe file in linux has never been hard even for n00bs.

We can choose from evince and/or Xpdf PDF file viewer and have a quick comparison installation. To install, as root, just issue

# yum -i install evince xpdf

It works like a charm. So far, I never encounter any errors and had any problems viewing these types of PDF files using these PDF readers.

Atlernatively, you can directly install and download the Adobe PDF reader linux version here , just select the linux version and language then proceed to download page.

If you choose to install a rpm-based binary install from Adobe, after downloading just install it using redhat package manager (rpm):

# rpm -ivh AdobeReader_enu-7.0.9-1.i386.rpm

And you're good to go.

A sample view of using Xpdf:



Adobe (TM) products are all trademarks by Adobe

EDITED:
After installation, edit the /usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/bin/acroread file using your favorite editor. Skip down to line 418 and delete the following:

echo $mfile| sed 's/libgtk-x11-\([0-9]*\).0.so.0.\([0-9]\)00.\([0-9]*\)\|\(.*\)/\1\2\3/g'

Add the following in its place:
echo $mfile| sed 's/libgtk-x11-\([0-9]*\).0.so.0.\([0-9]*\)00.\([0-9]*\)\|\(.*\)/\1\2\3/g'

Make sure that it fits on a single line. Then skip down to line 643. Also delete the following:
MIN_GTK_VERSION="240"

Add the following in its place:
MIN_GTK_VERSION="2040"


Save and exit.

To install the browser plugin, which will cause acroread to automatically launch and display the contents of the file within your current tab, create the following symlink:

# ln -s /usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Browser/intellinux/nppdf.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/.

Finally, you need to source your ~/.tcshrc file:

# source ~/.tcshrc

And relaunch, Ctrl+F2, acroread.

digikam - KDE photo management install howto

Do you know that Fedora is known to be first distro to make use of Linux Directory server, SELinux, mono-based program/tools, with most attention to 2.6.X kernels and more?

What do you know, I intent to have KDE audience too!

Here's a quick way to install KDE-based photo management tool called DigiKam .

A few nice things I also like with DigiKam are

* Tags, rating, date/time, comments, photographers ID, and copyrights are stored in EXIF and/or IPTC metadata tags embedded in pictures. Comments are also stored in JPEG files to JFIF section.

A lote more features are available for viewing here

What do you know, it also detects plugged USB devices too! Also runs under Gnome environment.

Linux world is wonderful, takes you to a variety of application choices.

Here's a quick preview:



I almost forgot, here's the install commands:

# yum -y install digikam
Hope you enjoy it too!

gnome floppy formatter

I am not really sure why Gnome floppy formatter is not shown from one of system menus by default, or was it me being lazy to look deeper from my panels.

Here is another gnome way of having a floppy formatter. This gfloppy linux program can format in different filesystem types including DOS(FAT) with a variety of floppy density types too. And I noticed it is installed by default.

Just make sure you're floppy drive is properly connected and enabled.

Just press Ctrl+F2, enter the command "gfloppy" and you're good to go.

f-spot Gnome photo manager install howto

Do you know that Gnome personal photo manager F-Spot is copyrighted by Novell Inc.?

Yes it is.

F-Spot is a nice application designed to provide personal photo management to your GNOME desktop. Some features include photo tags, import, export, printing and advanced sorting of digital images.

F-spot Photo Manager Installation

How to install it :

# yum -y install f-spot

When installed, my USB devices like digicams, videocams and USBs are automatically detected. Therefoe, f-spot makes use of dbus session bus. This would require you to turn on your message bus service like so

# service messagebus start

Great Gnome photo management alternative.

VLC media player install howto

How to I play CD / DVD?
How to install VLC?
How to play MPEG, MP#, OGG, other video and audio format?
How to play audio streaming in firefox browser?
How to install cross-platform media player?

There are a lot of opensourced alternatives playing media . One of my favorite is VLC .

Most features are:
* It is a free cross-platform media player
* It supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs
* It can also be used as a streaming server, with extended features (video on demand, on the fly transcoding, and more)
* It plays MPEG-1,MPEG-2,MPEG-4,DivX, mp3, ogg, DVD, VCDs, and more video and audio formats!

Here's how to yum install :

# yum -y install vlc

and for firefox plugins

# yum -y install mozilla-vlc.i386

VLC in action from their site:



Goodluck!

VLC - GNU/GPL

ping IP subnet block howto

Here's a quick way on how to send ICMP echo request to a group of host to determine if they are responding or unreachable.

There are only a few advantage of using fping instead of ping linux command. One is you don't need to create a shell script that pings list of IP address from a batch files. With fping, you can try to ping a group of consecutive IP address in just a single command. Another benefit from using fping is it jumps on sending the next ICMP echo request to a host on a round-robin fashion, just like calling ping while feeding it with another IP address.

Like so:

# fping -g 192.168.1.0/24

# fping -g 192.168.1.0 192.168.1.255

which sends ICMP echo requests to the full block of CLASS C IP address from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.254.

You might want to try

# fping -g 192.168.1.0/27

TIP: find and delete files recursively

Quick and dirty way of deleting a file named "vertito" recursively starting from / .

Let's find those files named "vertito" and list them out first:

# find / -name vertito -exec ls -la {} \;

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2007-07-17 22:52 /home/ver/vertito
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2007-07-17 22:52 /home/folder2/vertito
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2007-07-17 22:52 /home/folder1/vertito
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2007-07-17 22:52 /home/folder3/vertito
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

/ = find the file starting from this folder
vertito = the name of the file
-exec = and execute the next command when item is found
ls -la = list more file's info
\; = loops back for a command redo

You can use wildcard but be very careful with it as you might delete critical files using this.

Once confirmed for deletion, delete them recursively:

# find / -name vertito -exec rm -rf {} \;

Cheers

list out opened host ports howto

Opened host ports are usually the most non-physical direct way of forcing entry remotely.

Here you would see several tools and ways how to list out your currently opened ports from your managed linux box.

Let's view our first attempt to list out those opened and used ports.

# netstat -panut | grep LISTEN

We used the linux command grep to filter LISTENing ports only from the resulting output.

or

# netstat -ntl

Take a look of the sample output from issuing the above command :

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 6536/sshd
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:53 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1819/named
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:953 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1819/named
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With reference to the first resulting line, basically explained below:

0.0.0.0:* = basically means that the port is opened from all host's IP address
tcp = would be the protocol used by the daemon service for establishing communication
22 = is the specific port for which the service is currently listening from
sshd = the daemon/application service which is currently listening from that specific port

You can squeezed out more likely the same info when issuing:

# ss -a | grep LISTEN

Let's use a deeper port scanning commands here and use it with our localhost IP address like so:

# nmap -P0 localhost
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Starting Nmap 4.20 ( http://insecure.org ) at 2007-07-17 22:29 WAT
Interesting ports on yourhost.domain.com (127.0.0.1):
Not shown: 1693 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
22/tcp open ssh
53/tcp open domain
778/tcp open unknown
953/tcp open rndc

Nmap finished: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.082 seconds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Linux command nmap is referred to as a handy swiss knife for probing a particular host for possible opened ports, that reminds me of netcat as well, but the blog would not be covering any of that hacking stuff here. :) Going back, check out moer nmap parameters

# man nmap

Try

# nmap -v localhost

So how do you verify further that the port you are referring to is actually open. This is simply done again by one of the most famous tool mostly used with linux and routers

# telnet localhost 22

Telnets you to locahost on port 22 for testing if the actual host's port is really open.

If the port is actually open, you would be dropped inside that port daemon service for further awaiting service commands. Press ctrl+], enter and quit. As you are not inside to do something harmful!

So, basically, you can now list out your opened ports and develop a more likely tools and approach on getting further info with the host and its ports using these linux commands.

Be reminded that most linux commands used have always more and better command line parameters that simply comes with it.

Have a nice day ahead!

TIP: linux process priority scheduling management

One way to alter process priority is by using renice linux command.

RENICE!

Renice says:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Renice alters the scheduling priority of one or more running processes. The following who parameters are interpreted as process ID’s, process group ID’s, or user names. Renice’ing a process group causes all processes in the process group to have their scheduling prior-ity altered. Renice’ing a user causes all processes owned by the user to have their scheduling priority altered. By default, the processes to be affected are specified by their process ID’s.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can basically apply renice linux command to currently running process and linux daemon, in which, you are trying to avoid service or daemon restart/reload, in a nice way. If you wish to make a currently running program or daemon faster, renice could be one of your friends here.

Let us say, your proxy uses squid service and by default, squid service was launched as a daemon by linux with a 0 (zero) nice value.

Let us view it:

# top -b -n 1 | grep squid
shows

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1849 squid 13 0 311m 307m 2172 S 0 30.5 51:16.42 squid
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, let us modify its priority process nice value with -2

# renice -3 1849
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1846: old priority 0, new priority -3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EDITED: (+19 instead of +20)
Remember, the lower the value it becomes, minimum (-20), the higher priority and attention it gets from linux OS. That means +19 is the least priority. Anything negative, the thread process or group of process runs faster.

Now, you proxy users would somehow enjoy more of your squid proxy aside from optimizing your squid.conf values.

Now, let us not forget the nice word here.

NICE!

By default, you could also launch a program with a default priority value using "nice" linux command combined with your scheduled midnight cron jobs like your backup shell scripts. By default, a zero priority (0) value is being used when launching any linux application.

Wonderfully issue:

12 01 * * * nice +5 /root/backup.sh > /dev/null 2>&1

which runs the backup shell script without being noticed during midnight hours, while doing the backup script thing.

Lovely.

TIP: spammer sending email using squid

Have you spotted your squid log files of any spammer attempts trying to send email from squid port?

Well, one dirty way of checking your squid logs of these spammer attempts trying to send emails using tunnelled SMTP via squid port.

# cat /var/log/squid/access.log* | grep '\:25'

Here's a few line samples:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1179265950.734 0 220.137.80.170 TCP_DENIED/403 1342 CONNECT msa-mx4.hinet.net:25 - NONE/- text/html
1178647576.706 1 222.156.67.109 TCP_DENIED/403 1346 CONNECT maila.microsoft.com:25 - NONE/- text/html
1180721897.385 146 220.137.85.214 TCP_DENIED/403 1344 CONNECT msa-mx10.hinet.net:25 - NONE/- text/html
...
truncated
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, they are basically denied by squid.

But some provider and other websites automatically blocked these attemtps from their logs.
Logically, that could be a reason why your proxy IP address is being blocked by those providers and sites.

You could block those harsh IP address by probably script kiddies trying to test your squid and smtp port or atleast alerts you by email.

# route add -host IP-ADDRESS reject

does that.

remount partition as read only howto

Here's a tip on remounting partitions. Usually /boot is mounted as read-write linux filesystem by default installation. If you also feel that your /boot should not be changed, modified or upgraded, you can just remount them as read only partition without booting your linux system.

As root:

Go to /boot partition
# cd /boot

Create a dummy file
# touch newfile
# mount -o remount,ro /boot

Try adding and deleting some files now

# touch newfile2
# rm newfile

Error: Read-only file system

Now, your /boot is mounted as read-only filesystem. Make it permanently using /etc/fstab.

Cheers

additional swap file howto

First, we need to know what is swap memory?
Generally, this is a temporary memory storage for an OS to utilize while the OS is trying to get more busy process managing another separate threads from another running applications.

Assuming you already have an existing swap partition, which is usual by default installation, and we would like to have additional swap memory by adding swap file, say on a different partition or harddrive, here's how to do it while inside your redhat based ditro:

VIEW CURRENT SWAP :

# cat /proc/swaps

Similarly, you'll see

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda6 partition 2104472 3904 -1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Currently, I am using a swap partition located from /dev/sda6. Take note of this.
Alternatively, here are the other ways to get the same swap info further:

# free
# fdisk -l | grep swap
# cat /etc/fstab | grep swap
# top -b -n 1 | head -5 | tail -1

CREATE SWAP FILE ON EXISTING PARTITION:

Since we already have a swap memory using swap partition, let us try to add and create additional swap memory using swap file. But this time, we would create it in an already existing linux (after installation), and into a different partition separate from existing swap partition.

Our current swap partition was /dev/sda6. From here, and for a test, let us try to create additional swap memory using a new swap file and placed it to /home/swap .

# cd /home/swap

Here, create a 2 MB swap file named newswap like so

# dd if=/dev/zero of=newswap bs=1024 count=20000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
20000+0 records in
20000+0 records out
20480000 bytes (20 MB) copied, 0.115077 s, 178 MB/s
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
# ls -la newswap
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20480000 2007-07-17 17:07 newswap
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, set it up and inform linux its a swap file

# mkswap newswap
Result:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 20475 kB
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before we add the new swap file, let's note of our current swap info

# free
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Swap: 2104472 7288 2097184
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

# cat /proc/swaps

shows
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda6 partition 2104472 7288 -1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, activating the new swap file under /home/swap, still as root

# swapon newswap


SWAP VERIFICATION:

# cat /proc/swaps

will now show
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda6 partition 2104472 7288 -1
/home/swap/newswap file 19992 0 -3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The same with
# free


shows your newly created swap file from a different / partition

Basically, this goes the same with a new swap file from a different harddrive. Simply mount the new harddrive and prepare a new folder with it for new swap file

# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/newharddisk
# cd /mnt/newharddisk
# mkdir newswapfolder
# cd newswapfolder
# dd if=/dev/zero of=newotherswap bs=1024 count=20000
# mkswap newotherswap
# swapon newotherswap

# cat /proc/swaps
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/sda6 partition 2104472 7288 -1
/home/swap/newswap file 19992 0 -3
/mnt/newharddisk/newotherswap file 19992 0 -4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now you have 3 swap files working :) which is not adviseable, but taken and hereby shown for the sake of creating and deleting swap files.

DISABLING SWAP

Turning off is as easy as

# swapoff swapfilename
# rm -rf swapfilename

HTH

CrossOver install howto

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CrossOver linux allows you to run many popular office productivity software applications and games, such as Microsoft Office, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Project and Visio, graphics applications like Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, Flash MX, and Adobe Photoshop, games such as World of Warcraft and Half-Life 2, and many more. Not only that, but CrossOver Linux also allows you to use many Windows Web browser plugins, such as QuickTime and Shockwave, directly on your Linux browser. No Windows Operating System license required; CrossOver is a complete replacement for your Windows OS as far as your applications are concerned.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Short word - lets you run windows-based software using linux environment including M$ Office products without critical error executing window$ EXE and DLL files.

Here's a quick way to install CrossOver software by CodeWeavers

Assumming you have already purchased and downloaded your commercial crossover rpm installer file, say crossover-pro-6.0.0-1.i386.rpm. To install, simply as root:

# rpm -ivh crossover/crossover-pro-6.0.0-1.i386.rpm

Your display should be similar to this:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:crossover-pro ########################################### [100%]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Click Applications and choose CrossOver and you are good to go.

To initialize, go Applications - CrossOver - then select Install Windows Software".You might need to choose from 3 different options. Here, I am going to choose Private Multi-User Mode. You can alternatively use the first option offered. This would bring you to this window:



I have managed to skip some window screen installation so as to have a brief screenshots too!



For testing, we need to download and have a windows-based installer. I would choose remote administration software called Remote Admin. The file was in zip file format, so I have to unzip them to temp folder using linux unzip, and made the EXE file executable in linux so I could execute them as binaries in fedora.

# chmod 755 radmin.exe

Quickest way is to fire it up!
# ./radmin.exe

Here goes my screen radmin (tm) installation screen:


CrossOver (TM)website here

I smiled when the installation advised me to reboot my linux system, just like in window$ LOL :)

After successful installation, you can now proceed to launch the window$-based software. Just click Applications from your taskbar, select Windows Applications - Programs - and choose the program you wish to launch, wonderful.


All software mentioned are owned, managed and licensed by their own trademarks. This document is here to serve as my own personal crossover install howto. It works for me. Use at your own risk, you've been warned !

:)

system-config-securitylevel-tui and lokkit howto

Here is a text-based user interface you can use on modifying and changing your system security level settings. This comes very helpful specially to those who are yet newbies with regards to system security and/or firewall basic settings.

Issue

# lokkit

alternatively

# system-config-securitylevel-tui


Launched as root, this would use a text-based user interface which customizes your firewall security settings including basic SELinux . SELinux customization using this approach is basically simple, just letting you choose among Enforcing, Permisive, and Disabled.

Sample of lokkit main menu:



By clicking "Customize", you'll arrive to further firewall setting customization like so:



This gives you the opportunity to add and open more specific ports so they could be public. Have extra care on opening ports. As much as possible, avoid opening ports that you don't usually need to be open on regular and daily basis. These could increase the chance of other host probing and trying to connect with that specific ports for whatever reasons they might have.

After having made additional changes, click OK and exit. Now check out your newly saved firewall settings.

# more /etc/sysconfig/iptables
# less /etc/selinux/config

Launching as root

# system-config-securitylevel

would give you the GUI version captured below:



After doing it over and over again, you can now begin directly editing and customizing the iptables file /etc/sysconfig/iptables

# service iptables restart

would restart and reread your newly edited firewall settings.

Was this helpful?

format a windows partition from linux hadrdisk

Oh, here's the quickest way to make ext2/ext3 filesystem from an existing windows partition of your linux-enabled harddrive.

First step is to make sure your windows partition is not currently mounted.

Let'us use an alternative way like

# df -ah

which shows file system disk space usage. Sample result

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
17G 13G 3.7G 78% /
proc 0 0 0 - /proc
sysfs 0 0 0 - /sys
devpts 0 0 0 - /dev/pts
/dev/sda1 99M 12M 82M 13% /boot
tmpfs 248M 0 248M 0% /dev/shm
none 0 0 0 - /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
/dev/sda4 19G 6.5G 13G 35% /win
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

# mount -l

that shows currently mounted partitions and devices. You'll see similar lines

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 on / type ext3 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/sda1 on /boot type ext3 (rw) [/boot]
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)
/dev/sda4 on /win type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,allow_other,blksize=4096)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

# fdisk -l

now shows us all available and detected storage devices and their corresponding partitions like

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40019582464 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14 2431 19422585 8e Linux LVM
/dev/sda4 * 2432 4864 19543072+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, the windows partitioned needs to be umount before we proceed making it as ext2/ext3 filesystem. As root

# umount /dev/sda4
# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda4

Why /dev/sda4? Check out the result of your fdisk -l and current mounted points. This partition
is also the partition we want to initialize and reformat with linux ext3 filesystem.

More details
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
2443200 inodes, 4885768 blocks
244288 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=0
150 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16288 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000

Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 31 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Simply remount it

# mkdir /mnt/newdisk
# mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/newdisk

And make the newly mounted partition permanently by adding similar lines to /etc/fstab

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/dev/sda4 /mnt/windows ext3 defaults 0 0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/dev/sda4 = your newly formatted partition
/mnt/windows = mount points
ext3 = filesystem type
0 0 = which means fsck does not need to check it


# cd /mnt/windows
# ls -la

That is all.

TIP: monitoring while mounting USB devices

Here are a few basic pointers you can consider when having problems mounting your USB flash disk.

Login with your terminal and be ready as root before you plug your USB disk. Fire up your message monitoring command like so

# tail -f /var/log/messages

Plug your USB into any USB ports, and watch the changes with the monitoring command

You are going to see similar lines like these:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access USB 2.0 Flash Disk 2.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: SCSI device sdc: 2070527 512-byte hdwr sectors (1060 MB)
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: sdc: Write Protect is off
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: SCSI device sdc: 2070527 512-byte hdwr sectors (1060 MB)
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: sdc: Write Protect is off
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: sdc: sdc1
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdc
Jul 16 16:44:03 ver kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the last 3 lines, sdc1 is your working USB without any error:

You can see device and bus details like

# lsusb

and a more verbose

# lsusb -v

Now mount it:

# mkdir /mnt/usb
# mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb

Mounting USB disk as easy as 1, 2, 3.

Try to redo it again using different USB port and carefully watch the messages log. You'll notice the it was detected on different USB ports, take note of that port, say /dev/sdd1, and use it as reference to your mounting command.

You can do this with any USB devices like digicams, webcams, videocams, external USB harddisk and DVD/CD writers etc, it helps.

There you go.

zero-sized a file without permission / ownership changes

Let us assume we have 120GB mail spool file named "bigfile" located somewhere in /var/spool/mail .

The objective here is to initialize the file, so that it would have zero (0) filesize. This should be achieved with the following conditions without changing the file's permission and ownership , or even deleting and re creating the file.

Here is an old one liner trick that does the job:

Just CD to that working directory and view the file first like so

# cd /var/mail
# ls -la

-rw-rw---- 1 vertito mail 120000000000 2007-07-16 16:24 bigfile

Simply as root

# cp /dev/null bigfile

This would copy nothing and just overwrite the file with zero-sized data.

# ls -la

-rw-rw---- 1 vertito mail 0 2007-07-16 16:24 bigfile

See the difference?

:)

TIP: auto create mail spool when adding user

The linux command "useradd" creates a new user or update default new user information from your linux box.

By default behaviour, useradd does many other default things besides from creating the user account.

Man says:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When invoked without the -D option, the useradd command creates a new user account using the values specified on the command line and the default values from the system. Depending on command line options, the useradd command will update system files and may also create the new user’s home directory and copy initial files. The version provided with Red Hat Linux will create a group for each user added to the system by default .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One thing that useradd does not do is create var mail spool during the creation or adding of new user accounts. Changing this behavious is as easy as:

# cd /etc/default

# cat useradd

You will then see similar lines like

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
GROUP=100
HOME=/home
INACTIVE=-1
EXPIRE=
SHELL=/bin/bash
SKEL=/etc/skel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Simply append the below line:

CREATE_MAIL_SPOOL=yes

and save.

TO TEST:

# useradd -d /home/vertito vertito
# cd /var/spool/mail
# ls -la vertito
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-rw-rw---- 1 g mail 0 2007-07-16 16:24 vertito
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You'll now have a zero-sized (0) mail spool file owned by the newly created user.

Hope this helps.


CREATE_MAIL_SPOOL

md5sum checksum howto

What is md5sum?

From Wikipedia:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
md5sum is a computer program which calculates and verifies MD5 hashes, as described in RFC 1321. The MD5 hash (or checksum) functions as a compact digital fingerprint of a file. It is extremely unlikely that any two non-identical files will have the same MD5 hash (although it is certainly possible).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let us try to use it then to verify the file integrity of an image file named F7 DVD ISO, for example.

# md5sum F-7-i386-DVD.iso

Since we are comparing md5 checksums, the result of this command should be exactly the same with the ones we get from the site of where we dloaded the ISO image file.

Now, if we want to do it for multiple files, say 3 or more ISO image files, we can create a check.txt text file and populate the file with the correct values:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
355bdb01b0268a4bb7c757f2737dcf7c F-7-i386-DVD.iso
89d337f5543474532027950b44ecbdd5 FC-6-i386-DVD.iso
b5633ee6ee3b2e10d92672c74e594d75 CentOS-5.0-i386-bin-DVD.iso
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Notice the 2 spaces between the two columns.

First column is the md5 string and second column is the location of the file. To check all of them, do this:

# md5sum -c check.txt

It would give you similar lines like this

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
F-7-i386-DVD.iso: OK
FC-6-i386-DVD.iso: OK
CentOS-5.0-i386-bin-DVD.iso: OK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remember, if the md5sum result doesnt match, it is not adviseable to burn that ISO image.

HTH

IP address to country lookup howto

Using the web, you would find sites that can provide you the country location of a particular IP address. Those site are making use of an IP address to country lookup mechanism incorporated with their site.

Now, how you can do it without going to those IP to country lookup converter sites?

GeoIP is one way to do it.

It is a C library that enables the user to find the country that any IP address or hostname originates from. It uses a file based database that is accurate as of March 2003. This database simply contains IP blocks as keys, and countries as values. This database should be more complete and accurate than using reverse DNS lookups

Here's a way on how install and use it using fedora box. As root:

# yum -y install GeoIP

Let us test the software and lookup the country of this particular IP 198.6.1.2 .

# geoiplookup 198.6.1.2

Output:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GeoIP Country Edition: US, United States
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TIP:
Remember that we have tackled issues that covers calling OS binaries, bash scripts, and/or perl scripts from a web page? You can make use of that to achieve this web-based IP to country lookup.

Have a nice day!

gnome mail notification install howto

Busy with the phone support? And don't have time to login and check your emails remotely?

Here you go, a gnome mail notification that notifies you visually with popup notifications and sounds for your newly arrived emails !

Just make sure you are using X, then simply run as root:

# yum -y install mail-notification

It works like a kling!

MORE : Site for Mail Notification

add new harddisk to existing linux system

This page is intended for everyone who has existing rpm-based linux system from their harddrive and wants to add and install a new harddisk for more storage capacity. I am going to cover the simplest way to add a new harddisk in temrinal mode.

First, you need to confirm that you have physically connected the new harddisk to your system and you are currently inside the existing linux system.

Let us show your current harddisk parameter using fdisk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[root@ver ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80025280000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 5864 47102548+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 * 5865 5877 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 5878 8185 18539010 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 8186 9729 12402180 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 8186 9467 10297633+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 9468 9729 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40019582464 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 2422 19454683+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 2423 4865 19622925 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb5 2423 4865 19622893+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you can see, /dev/sda is my existing harddisk with linux installed from it and
my newly plugged harddisk /dev/sdb with existing 3 window$ partition on it namely
/dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2, /dev/sdb5 .

I am going into more detailed contents of the new harddisk by doing so:


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[root@ver ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 4865.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And press M for menus:


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Command (m for help): m
Command action
a toggle a bootable flag
b edit bsd disklabel
c toggle the dos compatibility flag
d delete a partition
l list known partition types
m print this menu
n add a new partition
o create a new empty DOS partition table
p print the partition table
q quit without saving changes
s create a new empty Sun disklabel
t change a partition's system id
u change display/entry units
v verify the partition table
w write table to disk and exit
x extra functionality (experts only)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Press p to view current partition tables with the new harddisk like so


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40019582464 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 2422 19454683+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 2423 4865 19622925 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb5 2423 4865 19622893+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


which shows 3 window$ partition. Let us erase them by press d for deletion like so:


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Command (m for help): d
Partition number (1-5): 1

(1 stand for first partition)

Command (m for help): d
Partition number (1-5): 2

(2 for second partition and view the partition back again.)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40019582464 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

which shows and confirms that those partitions were deleted from fdisk memory table. We need to write them permanently to disk like so:


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Drops you back to shell.

Since the partition were now deleted, here I am going to create a new linux ext3 partition like so :


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[root@ver ~]# fdisk /dev/sdb

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 4865.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40019582464 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System


p show no partition at all, so we are going to proceed on creating a new table by pressin n .

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-4865, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-4865, default 4865):
Using default value 4865

and using the maximum storage capacity that fdisk found, which is 4865. I just hit ENTER for default values. Let me examine the partition table again:

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40019582464 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 4865 39078081 83 Linux

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


As you can see, /dev/sdb1 is now added with type ext3 (83) as chosen file system .

Back to shell, let us view all the harddisk and their parition again by issuing

# fdisk -l

which would show us similar lines like these

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80025280000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 5864 47102548+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 * 5865 5877 104422+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 5878 8185 18539010 83 Linux
/dev/s


da4 8186 9729 12402180 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 8186 9467 10297633+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 9468 9729 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40019582464 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 4865 39078081 83 Linux

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


which show my first and second hardisk with their corresponding partition tables and numbers.

Basically, we have just prepared the harddisk and allocates the number of partition we need.
For now, we have just created a single partition with the new installed harddisk . The old
window$ parition were totally deleted as well.

We are not done yet, we need to initialize and format the hardisk with journaling system while checking for bad blocks as well, like so:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[root@ver ~]# mkfs.ext3 -c -j /dev/sdb1

mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
4889248 inodes, 9769520 blocks
488476 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=0
299 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16352 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624

Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 39 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are in a hurry, you can just issue :

# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1

Now, the harddisk is ready. You can mount it like

# mkdir /mnt/new

# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/new

Adding them to /etc/fstab would make the mounting permanently.

Now, enjoy your new harddisk.

Hope this helps.

EDITED:
Attached is another redo of adding a new harddisk uploaded to youtube. :)

TIP: block an IP address

Here is a basic way to block a particular IP address using iptables

Say the IP address is 192.168.0.254, just launch your terminal editor and make sure you have these line

# iptables -I INPUT -s 192.168.0.254 -j DROP

To view them and other rules

# iptables -L -n

Alternatively, you might want to use the route command like so:

# route add -host 192.168.0.254 reject

to block the same IP address from conncting to your host.

These comes very hand when used inside shell scripts by batches, let's say you want to block non-consecutive 512 sets of IP address from the server, you can just create file and throw it to the script that process them, like so


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#!/bin/sh
for i in $(< bad-ip.lst) ; do
iptables -I INPUT -i eth1 -s "$i" -j DROP
# OR
route add -host $i reject
done
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

File bad-ip.lst filr contains the list of IP addresses separated by lines like so:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

192.168.0.252
192.168.0.233
192.168.0.212
...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Basically, that's it.

disk space report

Diskspace reporting is as easy as

# df
# df -ah
# df -vh

which would show you something like these

/dev/cciss/c0d0p2 4.8G 419M 4.1G 10% /
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1 97M 16M 76M 18% /boot
/dev/shm 252M 4.0K 252M 1% /dev/shm
/dev/cciss/c0d0p6 59G 26G 30G 47% /home
/dev/cciss/c0d0p7 3.8G 2.6G 1.1G 71% /usr
/dev/cciss/c0d0p5 62G 34G 25G 58% /var

If you are using LVM for spanning disk support, you might be seeing lines like these

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2 22G 12G 9.2G 56% /
/dev/cciss/c0d0p3 43G 32G 8.5G 80% /backup
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1 99M 20M 75M 21% /boot
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00_home-LogVol00_home 67G 14G 49G 22% /home
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00_var-LogVol00_var 67G 16G 47G 26% /var


Sending email via CLI was covered basically, so these data could be helpful to you when combined with shell scripts, that checks for certain harddisk capacity thresholds and alerts your group email via SMS/email if that specific unsafe threshholds were met. It could be accomplished using a combination of string manipulation and parsing linux commands inside a simple bash script.

Here is a basic shell script sample:

#!/bin/bash
umask 077
df -vh | mail -s "My Server 1 Disk Space Report" isp@gmail.com

and add it to your cron like so

01 05 * * * /myscripts/diskspace

which sends email on daily basis.

Furthermore, you could create a script that spits out those numeric values where MRTG can chomp them and reflect them to your MRTG graph.

HTH

more trace route command alternatives

Here are alternatives on tracing a host or IP address. Basically, these linux commands print every hops taken going to a particular host or ip address - routes.

Am going to use 198.6.1.2 as the host we want to trace.

# trace 198.6.1.2

Basically prints the trace hops going to host 198.6.1.2

# traceroute 198.6.1.2

# tracepath 198.6.1.2

does tracing with MTUs discovery, and for IPv6

# tracepath6 198.6.1.2

# mtr 198.6.1.2

mtr uses the combination of traceroute and ping commands and shows more details such as packet loss,average/best/last and more latency stats.

You can make use of other advanced command line parameter these commands support.

changing your hardware / software clock howto

Every system has a hardware clock besides from system clock. Hardware clock is hardware and software clock is software. Software clock stops when you do system poweroff and while hardware clock continues to tick.

View your hardware clock by issuing as root

# hwclock

and your software clock

# date

Should you find any differences between these two, here is how you could change them and make them show the same values together.

# hwclock --systohc

to sync hardware clock from software clock.

And vice versa, syncing software clock from hardware clock would be:

# hwclock --hctosys

HTH

other interesting ping commands

One of the most commonly used linux commands when trying to reach a host is the ping command.

Basically ping commands tries to reach a host by sending out ICMP ECHO_REQUESTT and wait for a particular ECHO reply packets to know if the network host is reachable or not. However, if ICMP command is being blocked, it gives you a "Reply time out".

Here are alternative linux commands for determining a network/internet host.

# yum -y install fping
# fping 198.6.1.2

gives you a human readable status of the host, like the lines below

198.6.1.2 is alive
198.6.1.254 is unreachable

# arping 198.6.1.2

sends out ARP REQUEST and return with MAC address and average latency reply. Mainly used for getting the MAC address if the host is confirmed alive.

# ping6 198.6.1.2

for ping IPV6 network address

# irdaping

sends out irDA test frames. I never tried out this one yet due to limited resources.

# l2ping -i hci1

sends out L2CAP echo request to the bluetooth device #1, the first available bluetooth device


HTH

send email via CLI howto

Here are a few ways on how to send email using terminal - CLI mode.

We are going to use mail command, as root:

# mail -s "test email" isp@google.com -c owner@google.com -b staff@google.com

This would send a blank email with "test email" as its subject. The email would be send to isp@google.com with CC to owner@google.com and blind CC to staff@google.com

# echo "How are you" | mail -s "test email" isp@google.com -c owner@google.com -b staff@google.com

would include "How are you" line as the body message of the email. This could be useful and incorporated from your shell scripts that does a particular function and informs you by email of its function result.

Another way is to

# mutt -s "test email" -a /root/pic.jpg isp@google.com -c owner@google.com -b staff@google.com

would send email with "test emai" as subject name. Email is addressed to isp@google.com, with CC to owner@google.com and BCC to staff@google.com. You will noticed the new parameter. This email would attached /root/pic.jpg picture to this email.

Now, piping it like so

# echo "How are you" | mutt -s "test email" -a /root/pic.jpg isp@google.com -c owner@google.com -b staff@google.com

would include "How are you" as body of the email.

Alternatively, you can install the old text based mail user agent pine

# yum -y install pine
# pine

Interactively, pine gives you text based menus to create, send and even check your current mails via terminal.

adding static route howto

A route is is used by your kernel to determine how to get someplace on a network. Routes are stored in the linux kernel and are accessible for viewing and editing to users.

Working with routes.

To view your current default route

# route -n

The result table would look like this

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
127.0.0.0 127.0.0.1 255.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 lo
0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

To add a route you must first know the network address of the network you wish to add, and the gateway to that network. Let us say we need to add the network of 10.0.0.0 with netmask 255.255.255.0 to be routed to 192.168.1.254 as its default gateway. here is how to do it:

# route add -net 10.0.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 192.168.1.254

This would add the network 10.0.0.0 with a netmask of 255.255.255.0 and a gateway routed to 192.168.1.254.

Basically that's it.

You can also try an anternative route command

# ip route


HTH

send message to all logged in users

here's a quick way of sending messages to all currently logged in users via their terminal.

# wall
I need to reboot this server - sysad #1

press control + d

linux makes things smooth and flexible

# wall "I need to reboot this server - sysad #1"

If you want to appear the message repeatedly until terminated

# yes "I need to reboot - sysad #1"

press control+d to kill it

Sweet combination.

# yes "I need to reboot - sysad #1" | wall

Works out right.

unzip zip untar tar bzip2 bunzip2 gzip gunzip files in linux howto

Well, I receievd an email which fairly ask me about zipping in linux. Here are simple ways to package, compress and uncompressed files in linux. For simplicity, only the basic parameters were used from the sample issued commands.

Let us change folder first and go to /tmp temporary and create 3 zero-sized files.

# cd /tmp
# touch file1 file2 file3

Now, do our thing

# zip zipped.zip *
# ls -la
# unzip zipped.zip
# rm -rf *.zip


# tar zcvf tarred.tgz *
# ls -la
# tar zxvf tarred.tgz
# rm -rf *.tgz

# bzip2 *
# ls -la
# bunzip *
# rm -rf *.bz

# gzip *
# ls -la
# gunzip *
# rm -rf *.bz

Most of them would accept CLI parameters. Appending --recursion or -r or -R would try to traverse the directory structure recursively.

HTH

format of /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow and /etc/group

Under linux, the user and group information are vitally kept with the below files

/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/etc/group

Typically, these files are automatically edited by issuing and adding a user using the useradd linux command like so

# useradd -d /home/username -c "User Name" -s /bin/false username

which creates standard columnar /etc/passwd content separated by semicolon like the below standard /etc/passwd linux format:

username:password:uid:gid:user_info:home_directory:shell_type

Explained:

username - the actual username account the person logs in with
password - showing x to indicate a password is set
uid - system number assigned to a user to indicate which files they own or have access to.
gid - group id number which is the group they belong to.
user_info - Information about user possibly fullname, office address, phone number and other
home_directory - the default directory that the user will own. Typically /home/username
shell_type - default shell setting is /bin/bash.

On the other hand, the /etc/shadow is not typically directly edited. Below is the /etc/shadow content format :

username:encrypted password:11843:0:99999:7:::

username - user account name
encrypted password - typically the encrypted password
#:#:#:#::: - Contains information about the number of days since the password was changed, when it expires or is disabled.

While /etc/group file format is

groupname:x:groupid:members1, members2

groupname - the groupname the username belongs to
password - An x indicates a password is set and if left blank no password has been set.
gid - the group id number which they belong to.
members - current members of the said group separated by a comma

Noticeably, the fields are separated by semicolon

You can view these files using your fave editor or a simple linux cat command will do

# cat /etc/passwd | grep username

Wazobi.

remove user's cron jobs howto

additionally, below are ways to list out and remove user's cron job, as superuser

# crontab -u username -l

to list out the current cron job by the particular username account.

Deleting them is as easy as

# crontab -u username -r

Curious for pending jobs issued by that particular user?

# su username
# jobs

would list to you the jobs currently being processed by the system

HTH

find the user's files howto

There are many ways how to find a user's file. Here's several ways to do it

As root:

# find / -user username

Replace username with the user account name

# find / -uid 1000

Replace 1000 with the user id taken from the 3rd column of /etc/passwd like so

# cat /etc/passwd | grep username

This linux "find" command is really very powerful on searching a particular data from large harddisk capacity.

# man find

would give you find's man page.

passphraseless + passwordless ssh howto

Hi. I am back.

After doing the passwordless ssh howtos, you just need a few steps away to also have a passphraseless + passwordless ssh connection.

Passphraseless and Passwordless SSH Howto

From the same local box mentioned from passwordless ssh, simply create a new rsa pair keys as root

# ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 1024

and overwrite the old rsa key file. Do not skip the passphrase this time. You need to enter your passphrase for 2 consecutive times. The output files are the same old files :

/root/.ssh/id_rsa
/root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

and you need to transfer /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to same remote .ssh folder and save it as authorized_keys. The other way around is

FROM YOUR LOCAL BOX:

# cat /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Using your mouse, right click and copy the last line that starts with ssh-rsa.

FROM REMOTE BOX:
Then from remote box, edit your existing authorized_keys under .ssh folder , and paste the
copied data into the last portion of the file.

BACK TO LOCAL BOX:

As root, issue

# ssh-add

and enter the passphrase you last used when you created the rsa pair keys .

Finally, close all ssh sessions and try out your new passwordless and passphraseless ssh setup.

Take note that, the below should be present with /etc/ssh/sshd_config

RSAAuthentication yes

if not, just enable it by changing

RSAAuthentication no

to

RSAAuthentication yes

and restart your ssh

/sbin/service sshd restart

HTH

passwordless ssh howto

Supposed you feel more convenient and hassle-free to ssh into your server box without being asked for any password. Below is an elaborated roll out of a passwordless ssh connection.

We would require 2 linux boxes here, referred to as remote box and a local box. And our objective here is to have a passwordless ssh connection from your local box into your remote box via ssh.

Let us start from the local box.

First, we need to generate a 1024-bit rsa key. We are going to use rsa key pairs here instead of dsa ones. We won't be using dsa unless rsa is not wokring. Simply issue this command as root

# ssh-keygen -t tsa -b 1024

By default, the output files of this command are

/root/.ssh/id_rsa
/root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

You will be asked interactively when these files does exist. Additionally, we are not going to enter any passphrase for now, that means we are going to hit the enter key 2 times when asked as things would still work out right without the passphrase.

Below is sample CLI screen that you'll be seeing during the creation of the 1024 bit rsa pair keys.

[root@ver .ssh]# ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 1024
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa):
/root/.ssh/id_rsa already exists.
Overwrite (y/n)? y
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
0c:33:54:c4:47:4f:35:db:31:57:63:5b:a4:77:f2:43 root@yourdomain.com

I have not enter any passphrase as you can see.

Now, still from local box, establish ssh connection into your remote box. By default, this ssh connection would drop you automatically into your default path location, normally it would be /home/yourusername, and from there, NOT as root, create .ssh folder like so

yourusername@yourhost ~]$ mkdir .ssh

After that, type exit to close current ssh session with remote box.

Back to your local box, let us transfer the rsa key file /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub into the .ssh folder we've just created from the remote box, like so:

AS ROOT FROM LOCAL BOX:
# cd /root/.ssh
# scp -C id_rsa.pub yourusername@yourremoteboxip:~yourusername/.ssh/authorized_keys

This would transfer the file /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub into the remote box and saved it as authorized_keys done via ssh. The file would be dropped into your home folder owned by your own user account.

The easiest way to do it is by using ssh-copy-id :

# ssh-copy-id -i /root/scripts/id_rsa.pub your-username@yourdomainname.com


AS YOUR NORMAL USER ACCOUNT FROM REMOTE BOX DO:

# cd ~yourusername/.ssh
# chmod 600 authorized_keys
# chown yourusername:yourusername authorized_keys

Finally, close all your ssh connection and now try a password-less ssh with your remote box.

...works like magic!

X11 Forwarding via ssh howto

Get a graphical user interface remotely via ssh?

Here is a quick way on how to enable X11 forwarding with ssh. Make sure you have all the required ssh packages installed from your box. Or you can install it yourself by issuing

#yum install openssh-* -y

After successful installation from the remote box, launch you editor, edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config , look for the lines

X11Forwarding no

and change it to

X11Forwarding yes

then save. Additionally, check your /etc/ssh/ssh_config and confirm if it contains the below line

ForwardX11Trusted yes

Be warned and reminded to backup conf files before modifying them. Do restart your ssh service like so

# service sshd restart

Make sure the firewall settings from the remote box allows ssh connection from your own local box. I would not cover advance ssh restrictions here. However, one quick way of testing your remote ssh server settings is by doing so

# ssh USER@REMOTEIPBOX

Change USER with your username and REMOTEIPBOX with an IP address of your remote linux box. This assumes that your ssh is running at port 22 by default .

If your ssh attempt was successful, it basically means the ssh port is open and you are able to reach the remote box via ssh as a a client

Now, from the local box, test X11 forwarding by issuing

# ssh -X USER@REMOTELOCALIP

You will be logged in from the remote box. From there, issue

# gcalctool

nice! incase, this is the CLI command to launch your GUI calculator obviously, it should appear from your local linux box screen and not from the remote linux box. Take note that by default, sshd binds the forwarding server to the loopback address. You can verify this from /etc/ssh/sshd_config with

X11UseLocalhost yes

X11 SSH CONNECTION:

Incase you need to execute some direct commands, alternatively try the faster one-liner.

# ssh -X USER@REMOTELOCALIP gcalctool

It is highly advisable to restrict your ssh policies then for added security.

This could be an extra help if you wish to connect remotely with X11Forwarding from your local linux box to another out-of-network-broadcast window box behind a linux firewall via X11Forwarding .

PACKAGE VERIFICATION:

For added info, if you wish to know if you have successfully installed openssh package, you can query them by

# rpm -qa openssh*

which lists out installed openssh rpm packages like so

openssh-clients-XXX
openssh-XXX
openssh-server-XXX

Hope this helps.

skype install howto

Skype software allows you to make free calls (audio or video) on any Skype members and users, anywhere in the world. VOIP calling from your box using skype network can be done by simple ways.

Launch your editor, and create a new file named skype.repo under /etc/yum.repod.d and add these lines :

[skype]
name=Skype Repository
baseurl=http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/fedora/updates/i586/
gpgkey=http://www.skype.com/products/skype/linux/rpm-public-key.asc

and save. No need to restart, just issue as root:

# yum -y install skype

-y answer yes for all questions and dependency installation requirements.

or launch skype directly by CLI


# skype &

The shortcut menu is available under Applications > Internet ..

Note: The repo file could be updated and compared here http://fedorasolved.org/multimedia-solutions/skype.repo

Alternatively, you may go to Skype website here and find the linux version of Skype. Download the Fedora version here and install using rpm like so:

# rpm -ivh skype-1.4.0.74.rpm

And launch as usual, Ctrl+F2, skype




Good day ahead.

disable IPv6

a lot of people are asking and complaining that basically they don't really require IPv6 services and trying to find out how can they permanently disable it.

here is a way to disable your IPv6 protocol implementation with redhat-based linux distro.

fire up your fave CLI editor and edit your /etc/sysconfig/network and make sure you have the below line negated like so

NETWORKING_IPV6=no

and save.

secondly, you have to edit /etc/modprobe.conf and append the following 2 lines

alias ipv6 no
alias net-pf-10 off

then save. make sure you also have your ip6tables (the ipv6 iptable version) be stopped and disabled during the next reboot. let us know first if the ip6tables daemon is currently running by doing

# /sbin/service ip6tables status

if its currently running, we need to stopped it from doing the service like so

# /sbin/service ip6tables stop

and disable it permanently like so

# /sbin/chkconfig --levels 345 ip6tables off

a reboot is required after doing all the these.

lsusb - list all USB devices

lsusb is a utility for displaying information about USB buses in the system and the devices connected to them. as we all know, USB-enabled devices make transfer more convenient and dirty-free attaching external devices such as digicams, videocams, mobiles, not like the goold old days of opening your CPU and finding that old sketched colored cable and finally attaching it to our needed external or new computer device.

basically, this commands simply list out all your currently connected USB devices, its corresponding bus and device ID and makes. If there is no USB devices plugged into your computer, it just lists out all your numbered USB ports.

You can get more details if your device was successfully detected using commands such as:

# lsusb -v
# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

man says, lsusb are being supported only by linux kernel 2.3.15 or newer.

this is only only one of linux usb utilities

make yum faster

here is a quick way of making your yum process and download needed files and software dependencies a little bit faster than the default setup. as we all know, yum one CLI way on adding, updating and removing sofwares for your box.

this plugin somehow chooses the nearest repo site based from your current location.

all you need to do is, execute as root:

# yum - y install yum-fastestmirror

works like champ!

this would also affect pup program as pup uses yum to process any software updates and installations.

cheers

lspci - list all PCI devices

troubled over a pci device? worry not, there is a simble but verbose way to see all your pci devices and further check if they are properly detected, incase they are not yet commercially supported by redhat. here are simple commands for it:

#lspci

#lspci -v

in case you were trying to reach and get support from hardware or commercial sites, these could be really useful if they have these info. i had an experience with HP engineers regarding my PCI slot not working and they require me to send these details one time.

it is the same command doing

# cat /proc/bus/pci/devices

but in a more human readable fashion. some linux commands are really simple but comes in handy when you really needed one.

cheers

kill a process

have you seen a defuncting daemon service or linux command just sitting around the user space and wasting your memory resources?

one alternative way to kill a pid process is using linux kill command, this comes in handy specially doing it from a utility test bed server for evaluating a certain open source package or linux applications.

let us say, that you want to kill a defuncting program named dovecot. the PID (pid ID), as blogged before, should be identified. Let us identify the said daemonized service of dovecot by issuing

#pidof dovecot

The above would return you a numeric values unless the program is not running, same goes with

#ps axuw | grep dovecot

If you see more numeric values, it must be children spawned by the daemon service. These values should be killed as well.

#kill -9 NUMERICVALUE

should easily terminate a pid with a value of NUMERICVALUE .

There was an instance during old days that a certain defuncting and unstable program hogs down system resources unnoticeably more likely due to memory leaks or unchecked buffer flows.

beginners CLI guide for static ip address

here are different ways of putting static ip with linux. assuming the system has a properly connected RJ-45 network cable with a working well broadcasting NIC card, using any of the 21 redhat-based linux distro with reference here

if you would like to have an ip address of 192.168.2.221 for eth0 without any default gateway, as root from CLI, simply issue any of the below commands:

# ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.221 up

optionally combined with:

# route add -net 192.168.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 eth0

another sets are:

# ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.221 netmask 255.255.255.0

# ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.221 netmask 255.255.255.0 up

by default, it would put the ip address and make the NIC operational without any issues to kernel drivers.

an alternative way is using static eth0 config file. you could launch your fave CLI editor, edit /etc/sysconfig/network/network-scripts/eth0 and paste the ff:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=none
BROADCAST=192.168.2.0
IPADDR=192.168.2.221
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.2.0
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and remember to restart the NIC service to take effect like so

#/sbin/service network restart

IP ADDRESS VERIFICATION:

to see your current IP address settings from CLI, just issue any of the below commands from root:

#ifconfig
#ifconfig eth0
#ip address

DEFAULT GATEWAY:

supposed that your default gateway is 192.168.2.1, just issue

#route add default gw 192.168.2.1

or the oldest way around - by editing the static config file /etc/sysconfig/network and making sure it contains following line

GATEWAY=192.168.2.1

then restart your NIC (network) service again

/sbin/service network restart

ROUTE VERIFICATION:

#route -n
#netstat -arn
#ip route show


RECEIVING/SENDING VERIFICATION:

you should be able to see your default route IP address from the very last line of your screen. and by doing so

#ping 192.168.2.1

would confirm that your gateway is reachable at this point.

overall, we could just issue altogether like

#ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.221 netmask 255.255.255.0 default 192.168.2.1 up

and ping the router from the host.

***Note that doing the CLI command is not a permanent state after reboot.


DISABLING ETHERNET/NETWORK FUNCTIONS:

these are your alternatives then

#ifup eth0
#ifdown eth0
#/sbin/service network stop

at any time, you may replace eth0 with eth1 or such. that goes the same with ip address and default gateway.

if you are having problems with your NIC for negotiation problems, link status and/or you might want to change your ethernet card settings, try

# ethtool eth0

If your gateway is supposed to forward your packets to the internet, you could check if your box can reach the internet without any further DNS setup, this can be done by pinging an IP address located from WWW like

#ping 198.6.1.2

the pidof command

Pidof finds the process id’s (pids) of the named programs. It prints those id’s on the standard output.

In rpm-based linux distros, executing this combined with a daemonized service would give you a result in numeric form, which is the process id of the named program.

Usefulness?

This could be handy trying to find a specific PID ID of a multihomed full blown production server currently serving a lot of daemonized service besides from doing the grep linux command.

Another way is integrating and calling it from shell script that regularly checks a particular daemon service on regular cron basis say every 5 minutes making sure the service is alive.

I heard stories of daemon service being killed and died due to brute force attack.

One reason is, you might have a newly recruit junior sysad that accidentally for whatever reason killed and tampered that PIDs and suddenly got confused on how to fire it up again. This entry can be an extra linux reminder for that.

And lastly, this keeps you away from midnight phone calls and from standing up late at night just to start a servoce from a newly configured production server for yet an unknown cause. One of my buddies serving almost 2,000 servers had crash issues with a daemons and currently still and *unresolved ticket number from their commercial distro provider.

Here, a basic example of integrating it from a bash script which then checks for dovecot service.

check_dovecot.sh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#! /bin/bash
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin
export PATH
date=`date "+%A %m-%d-%Y %r"`

# script to check dovecot

num=1
ayos=`/sbin/pidof dovecot`
if [ $dovecotid > 0 ]; then
exit 0
fi
if [ $num = 1 ]; then
echo Dead...Starting Dovecot...
/sbin/service dovecot restart
echo "Restarted at $date" | mail -s "MyServer Dovecot RESTARTED" youralertemail@yourdomain.com
else
echo Dovecot is alive!
fi
exit 0
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
combined with cronjob as

5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * YOURPATH/check_dovecot >/dev/null 2>&1

or

/5 * * * * YOURPATH/check_dovecot >/dev/null 2>&1

which does the same cron job of executing the script every 5 minutes.


FYI, expanding more of this script in parallel with another clone server would create you a this known heartbeat opensource program that deals basically with waking up backup service/servers.

hope this helps.

retrieve data from mysql using bash script

Besides from using perl scripts, phpmyadmin and customized php pages, here is a quick way to fetch data from mysql database using shell script.

Just make sure you are currently running mysql from your box with existing database and table inside.

First, launch your favorite linux editor and create a bash script and paste the following bash codes inside and save.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#!/bin/bash
# july 03 2007 - vertito
# this script retrieves data from mysql using bash

dbase=`mysql -uMYSQLUSENAME -pMYSQLPASSWORD -e"use MYDATABASE; select * from MYTABLE where id = 1;"`
for data in $dbase ;
do
echo $data
done

echo Done.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#chmod 700 yourscript.sh
#./yourscript.sh

works like a charm!

Dont forget to change the following wordings:

MYSQLUSERNAME = your mysql username access with your mysql server
MYSQLPASSWORD = your mysql password
MYDATABASE = your running mysql database name
MYTABLE = your selected table name

works like a charm.

VirtualBox install howto

From x86 box, simply issue as root:

# yum install VirtualBox.i586 -y

Make sure you have the latest yum package. and after your successful installation, do issue

# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

no need to reboot. You can find the binary from

Application > System Tools > click innotek VirtualBox

Clicking New would launch a wizard that would enable you to create a virtual machine for your VirtualBox. Enter a virtual machine name that correspond to OS type you have and choose the OS type you want to make use with this virtual machine.

The next step would bring you to memory allocation. The larger base memory you allocate to it, the faster the virtual box host would be. Somehow, your current desktop would be affected if you leave the area of the currently running virtual machine.

The next process would be creating a virtual harddisk. Highly advisable is a fixed virtual harddisk due to limited storage capacity. That's it and you're done.

If you have a flat ISO image from your hard disk and you want to boot from it, simply select your newly created virtual machine, click Settings from one of the VirtualBox button menus, choose CD/DVD and make sure you ticked the Mount option and ISO image file. Finally, point and browse it into your ISO image file. You can optionally remove mounting floppy, audio, USB if you're sure you won't be needing this from this virtual session as you would be able to mount it back the next time around.

Below is a screenshot of my virtual machines in parallel running CentOS 5 OS and Fedora 7 OS under Fedora 7, works like a champ!

call bash script inside php web page

here is a simple way to call a simple bash script inside php script page and have a return value printed to your web page.

below is a simple bash script called

php.sh

#!/bin/bash
echo "Successful call from PHP : "
exit 0

chmod 700 so it would be root executable, and saved it to your apache root folder say /var/www/html/

and here's a simple browseable php script called

test.php

$program = "/var/www/html/php.sh";
$ver1 = system($program, $retval);
if ($retval == 0 ) {
echo "Returned 0";
}
else {
echo "Returned not zero";
}
die;
?>


saved to same root location where your php.sh currently resides.

If you browse the page test.php, it would have a return value spitted out by php.sh bash script into test.php web page.

There are moments from a page that you need to call a server side script and linux tool to determine and know something first (return value) before proceeding to next set of php commands, this would be expanded and could really be helpful if you do php coding as well.

hope this helps

alternative linux browsers

currently, there are several linux-based browser running under most linux distros.
here are few of then:

firefox / mozilla - http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
opera - http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?platform=linux
netscape - ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape7/english/7.1/unix/linux22/sea/
dillo - http://www.dillo.org/


and for fast alternative text-based browsers:

elinks
lynx
links

and non-interactive web browser:

wget
curl

There are may ways how these tools can be beneficial. Say, we need to download
an image from web and send it to our email box on daily basis. Making use of linux crontab for scheduling this kind of daily job would be nice like so:

30 08 * * * cd /root/scripts ; rm -rf pic_pag00.jpg; wget -c "http://images.inq7.net/img/thumbnails/new/hea/pag/img/pic_pag00.jpg" ; echo "INQ7" | mutt -s "INQ7 front page" -a /root/scripts/pic_pag00.jpg

Explained:

30 08 = this cronjob should be executed exactly 8:30AM

cd /root/scripts = cd to this /root/scripts folder when cronjob starts

rm -rf pic_pag00.jpg = deletes this file from current path location regardless if it exists or not

wget -c "http://images.inq7.net/img/thumbnails/new/hea/pag/img/pic_pag00.jpg" = download the same new pix pic_pag00.jpg non-interactively and save it with the same filename to current path location,

then finally

echo "INQ7" | mutt -s "INQ7 front page" -a /root/scripts/pic_pag00.jpg youremail@domain.com = created an email with subject name "INQ7 front page", attaches pic_pag00.jpg as email attachment with email body of "INQ7" and sends it back to your email box - works like a charm.

Alternatively, you can browse and dump a specific site so you can view it on daily basis from your MUAs or mail user agent like outlook, eudora, thunderbird, like so:

01 07 * * * lynx -dump www.google.com > google.txt ; echo "Google dumped" | mutt -s "Google dumped" -a google.txt you@here.com

The above would be executed exactly 7:01AM , browse and dump the URL, save it as google.txt file, attaches the file and sends it right away to your email box.

How about checking for new download files

33 01 30 * * wget -c www.google.com/files.rpm; echo "Google file" | mutt -s "Google dumped" -a files.rpm you@here.com

Exactly 1:30AM exeucted every 30th day of the month, browse and dumps www.google.com/files.rpm file, attaches to email composition and sends it to your email box.

Well, combine it from server side script, like compare it to previous download file, if there is difference, emails you to inform you that there is a new version of that file.

Handy.

last / currently logged in users

here are several ways of knowing the last logged in users from your box. most of them shows similar details like username, date stamp, hostname, ip address and the like:

Individually issuing them as root :

#last -a
#lastb -a
#lastb username
#lastb
#lastb username
#lastlog

So, who is currently logged in?

#who
#who -a
#w

Some dirty roots:

#ps axuw | grep bash
#ps axuw | grep bash | awk '{print $1}'

(since by default the default drop shell is bash)

Sideslide, if you have freeradius currently running, the below will show you the currently authenticated users from freeradius:

#radwho -r
#radwho

Who are you?

#whoami

cheers

google earth install howto

Here's a very simple, quick and easy way for installing google earth under linux.

First, download google earth binary file like so:

# wget -c http://dl.google.com/earth/client/current/GoogleEarthLinux.bin

This would fetch the binary file and save it to your current location. It would take some time specially if you are using a dialup connection, so take a break and come back later.

Be sure to check out their download page here.
...

Welcome back!

Now that you have downloaded the file, make sure to make it it as root executable by doing so:

# chmod 700 GoogleEarthLinux.bin

And execute it:

#./GoogleEarthLinux.bin

as usual, press Forward (Next) to continue and finish installation procedures.

Some CLI outputs:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing Google Earth for GNU/Linux 4.1.7076.4458..........................................................................
Installing mimetypes...
Installing desktop menu entries...
Installing desktop icon...
..
(truncated)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just give it some time to connect...

To relaunch from X, do it from Application > Internet and look for GoogleEarth/




Hope this helps.

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/etc/nologin

This command politely refuses any login or authentication attempt. Could be helpful when you are trying to accomplish something or do stuff from the server while restricting login attempts. And doing this, any message inside this file could be possibly shown to any user with current connection attempts.

If /etc/nologin does exists, any attempts even popping out your emails, ssh connections, or webmail logins are completely denied. Just make sure you don't logout from that server after issuing this command remotely or you have an active multiple ssh connections remotely to your server when you issue this command! If all fails, it would require direct physical access with your next ssh logins or tell someone to reboot the production server for you, which is bad.

Upon reboot, linux deletes this file automatically.

Sample:

#cat /etc/nologin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Any connection and authentication attempts are being
denied for now due to module authentication upgrade.
Please try back later after a few minutes. Thank you
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~