ubuntu administrator

Install and configure firewall on CentOS

2011-04-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

First one have to install

yum install system-config-securitylevel

Now start this little tool

/usr/bin/system-config-securitylevel

and adapt settings as needed.

The configuration is saved in

/etc/sysconfig/iptables-config

and

/etc/sysconfig/iptables-config

To test new rules restart the service

service iptables restart ; sleep 20 ; service iptables stop

Take a look, we wait for 20 seconds and stop the service automatically.

Just in case one of the rule fails and system access is blocked.

PHP xdebug Problem Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Lynx

2010-06-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

Once you've a running php installation on your Ubuntu 10.4 you may want to add xdebug to it.

It's simple as pie with one pitfall in it.

Just type

apt-get install php5-xdebug

After that you have to add these lines to your php.ini

display_error = On
html_errors = On

xdebug.profiler_enable = 1
xdebug.profiler_output_name = cachegrind.out.%R
xdebug.profiler_output_dir = "/tmp/"

to get it work. Restart your HTTP-daemon to make changes take effect.

e.g.

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

And check out

apt-get install kcachegrind

to handle the xdebug logs in /tmp

Did it work for you? Just drop a comment.

Monitor DRBD state with bash shell script

2010-03-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

I do monitor the state of my drbd discs with a simple shell script. If the state is not up to date i'll get informed by email. This is a good idea - the network connection can come down (i'd this issue several times in the last years).

Here is the output of my DRBD kernel module:

root@server:~# cat /proc/drbd
version: 8.2.6 (api:88/proto:86-88)
0: cs:Connected st:Primary/Secondary ds:UpToDate/UpToDate C r---
ns:30607944 nr:0 dw:29555272 dr:16521929 al:29175 bm:274 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0 oos:0
1: cs:Connected st:Secondary/Primary ds:UpToDate/UpToDate C r---
ns:0 nr:60660364 dw:60660364 dr:0 al:0 bm:160 lo:0 pe:0 ua:0 ap:0 oos:0

It's simple to grep out the state of the 2 discs and send a email. Run this as cronjob.

#!/bin/bash

status=$(egrep "(Primary\/Secondary|Secondary\/Primary)" /proc/drbd | egrep -o UpToDate/UpToDate | wc -l)

if [ ! $status -eq 2 ] ; then
mutt -s "DRBD-state wrong - Cluster Node $(hostname)" info@domain.tld </dev/null
fi

SpamAssassin 3.3.0 on Ubuntu Karmic 9.10

2010-01-27T02:55:00.000-08:00

I did an update for my Spamassassin installation to version 3.3.0 here on my Ubuntu Karmic Kaola 9.10 driven mail server.

Spamassassin and spamd were already installed via aptitude. Here is what the version query shows:

spamassassin -V
SpamAssassin version 3.2.5
running on Perl version 5.10.0

spamd -V
SpamAssassin Server version 3.2.5
running on Perl 5.10.0
with zlib support (Compress::Zlib 2.011)

A short check shows the location of both files.

which spamassassin spamd
/usr/bin/spamassassin
/usr/sbin/spamd

So i had to do these steps:

Enable perl to compile the new version of the spamassassin filter

aptitude install build-essential

Now wget the tarball, untar it, change to the extracted directory and do

perl Makefile.PL
make
make install

Remove orginal spamassassin

apt-get remove spamassassin

and link the newly created files

ln /usr/local/bin/spamd /usr/sbin/spamd
ln /usr/local/bin/spamc /usr/bin/spamc
ln /usr/local/bin/spamassassin /usr/bin/spamassassin

Finally fetch the new rule set

sa-update -D

and restart the daemon if enabled in /etc/default/spamassassin

/etc/init.d/spamassassin restart

Final checks:

spamassassin --lint

Ok - no messages. Now call it directly - type some text and finish with "Ctrl-D"

spamassassin

type some text

Ctrl-D

You should see a typical spamassassin log.

And a version check:
spamassassin --version
SpamAssassin version 3.3.0
running on Perl version 5.10.0

spamd --version
SpamAssassin Server version 3.3.0
running on Perl 5.10.0
with zlib support (Compress::Zlib 2.011)

And check for the hard link create above - the "2" in the 2nd colon of the directory listing
indicates a hard link.

ls -la /usr/bin/spamassassin
-r-xr-xr-x 2 root root 29620 2010-01-28 19:27 /usr/bin/spamassassin

ls -la /usr/sbin/spamd
-r-xr-xr-x 2 root root 105334 2010-01-28 19:27 /usr/sbin/spamd

Is spamd up and running?

pgrep spamd
15192
15193
15194

Did it work for you - any comments? Drop them here!

vnstat on OpenBSD self compiled

2010-01-25T08:10:00.001-08:00

To compile vnstat for my OpenBSD i did following simple steps:

Define the server were pkg_add gets it packages from. As the line indicates it is for OpenBSD 4.5.

export PKG_PATH=ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.5/packages/i386/

Install the wget package to be able to download the vnstat sources.

pkg_add wget

Retrieve the source tar ball.

wget http://humdi.net/vnstat/vnstat-1.10.tar.gz

Unpack the tar ball verbosely.

tar xvfz vnstat-1.10.tar.gz

Now change to the extracted directory.

cd vnstat-1.10

Install package gmake to be able to compile the stuff.

pkg_add gmake

Compile the sources - binary is created in subdirectory "src".

gmake -C src vnstat

Copy the generated binary to a place found in $PATH.

cp src/vnstat /usr/bin/.

Create the directory for vnstats collected data

mkdir /var/db/vnstat

Initialize the interface vnstat has to collect for

vnstat -u -i

And add a line to your crontab:

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/vnstat -u

Don't forget restart/SIGHUP the cron daemon.

Wait a few minutes to give vnstat the chance to collect data and try

vnstat -i -h

That's all - did it work for you? Just drop your comments here.

ClassNotFoundException XPrintable - GroupLayout

2010-01-20T06:18:00.000-08:00

A Java software did not start with following error message in the console window

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException:com.sun.star.view.XPrintable

I fixed that with

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org-dev

The next start produced a different error

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.swing.GroupLayout

The way to fix this is

sudo update-alternatives --config java

and to choose the correct java path - for me worked

/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java

That's all. Comments on this? Please drop them here...

Windows 7 "copy to" user profile button disabled

2010-01-13T00:20:00.000-08:00

I had to join Windows 7 clients to a Samba domain. After joining the domain i wanted to copy users old local profile to the roaming profile share on the file server using the "copy button" in the user profile management. But this button was grayed out/disabled for all profiles but the standard profile.

There is a piece of software that will enable this button again.

Simply download "Windows enabler" und start it as system administrator (right click on programs symbol) on the box where you want to copy the local user profile to the roaming profile. Go to the system tray and activate the "windows enabler". Now the "copy to" button gets enabled once you click on it.

Hint: You need to copy the user profile to the corresponding directory on the file server with a ".V2" extension, e.g. "\\server\profiles\username.V2" or where your roaming profiles are configured to point to.

Have fun! Did it work for you? Drop your comment...

eye candy theme for karmic koala 9.10

2009-11-05T06:40:00.000-08:00

I found these lovely eye candy Bisigi gnome ubuntu themes for my brand new karmic koala.

Just add them - i like "wild things" theme most.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bisigi/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo aptitude install wild-shine-theme

Next cool thing i found was this amazing splash screen replacement to make the boot process more eye candy.

Download PackoXsplash HD and extract its files (not the folder) directly to

/usr/share/images/xsplash

You need to be root user to access the folder. To see the effect one need to reboot the box of course.

And finally the cairo application launcher. Take a look at the screen shot.

Do you now other resources like this one. Just drop a comment.

Integrate BBClone in Typo3

2009-11-03T23:22:00.000-08:00

I'd simply modified the index.php auf Typo3.

Append something like this and adopt the variables

// ******************
// include TSFE
// ******************

require (PATH_tslib.'index_ts.php');

//Inserted for BBClone

$page = explode('/',$GLOBALS['TSFE']->siteScript);
$page = $page[count($page)-1];
$page = explode('.',$page);
$page = $page[0];
$page = explode('?',$page);
$page = $page[0];
if ($page =="") $page="yourdomain.tld";

define("_BBC_PAGE_NAME",$page);
define("_BBCLONE_DIR", "bbclone/");
define("COUNTER", _BBCLONE_DIR."mark_page.php");
if (is_readable(COUNTER)) include_once(COUNTER);

If you will update Typo3 you have to insert this modification again!

Creating spamassassin custom rules

2009-09-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

To prevent false positves when checking e-mail for spam with spamassassin it can be useful to provide certain text patterns that will/should never appear in spam mails, such as terms related to your business.

Such terms can be scanned to decrease the score value of spamassassin.

Edit /etc/spamassassin/local.cf and add a section like this

rawbody __BECAUSE_TERM /exampletermregex/i
header __BECAUSE_RECIPIENT ALL =~ /myaccount\@domain.tld/i
meta MYTERM_MAILBODY (__BECAUSE_TERM && __BECAUSE_RECIPIENT)
score MYTERM_MAILBODY -5.0

Here is what happens:

In the first line the body of the mail will be scanned with the regular expression defined by "exampletermregex".

The second lines scan *all* headers of the e-mail for any occurence of e-mail address "myaccount\@domain.tld" - this is a regular expression as well.

The third lines concats the two conditions above. In the forth line the spam score for this e-mail will be decreased by 5 if both conditions are true. That's all!

Another example? Here only the header is scanned. Contains the subject a certain term and is the email address mentioned in the header?

header __BECAUSE_TERM Subject =~ /(term1|term2)/i
header __BECAUSE_RECIPIENT ALL =~ /account\@domain.tld/i
meta MYTERM_MAILHEAD (__BECAUSE_RECIPIENT && __BECAUSE_TERM)
score MYTERM_MAILHEAD -5.0

If you have spamassassin running as a daemon you have to reload it to make the rules work.

Did this worked for you. Just drop a comment.

Ubuntu automatic unattended upgrades

2009-07-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

As seen in Windows with its automatic updates one can perform such action for Ubuntu as well.

Simply install the corresponding package

sudo apt-get install unattended-upgrades

Here we see how it works

dpkg -L unattended-upgrades

/etc/logrotate.d/unattended-upgrades
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

It's done by the cron job an some setting in

/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Here on can configure what updates are safe to become installed automatically.

One can also setup a email address in this config file for informations when updates were driven.

Unattended-Upgrade::Mail "yourname@yourdomain.tld";

Did it work for you. Just drop a comment.

lighttpd set up virtual host - here with cacti

2009-07-27T04:25:00.000-07:00

Here is an example config section setting up a subdomain with cacti monitoring taken from my lighttpd config file:

/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

$HTTP["host"] == "cacti.mydomain.tld" {
server.document-root = "/usr/share/cacti/site"
server.errorlog = "/var/log/lighttpd/error-cacti.log"
accesslog.filename = "/var/log/lighttpd/access-cacti.log"
}

That's all.

lighttpd enable php with fast cgi

2009-07-27T04:16:00.000-07:00

Install the php5 cgi package

apt-get install php5-cgi

I'd to install the php mysql support, too.

apt-get install php5-mysq

Configure the Lighttpd by editing to config file

/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

At first we need to enable the mod_fastcgi

server.modules = (
"mod_access",
"mod_alias",
"mod_accesslog",
"mod_compress",
"mod_fastcgi",

then we configure fastcgi to handle php file extensions

fastcgi.server = ( ".php" => ((
"bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php-cgi",
"socket" => "/tmp/php.socket"
)))

Restart the daemon for changes to take effekt.

/etc/init.d/lighttpd force-reload

Done. Did it work for you? Drop a comment.

mod_auth for nagios3 and lighttpd

2009-07-25T06:09:00.000-07:00

One has to enable mod_auth in

/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

like this

server.modules = (
"mod_access",
"mod_alias",
"mod_cgi",
"mod_accesslog",
"mod_auth",
"mod_env",

Then simply append this block - adopt the url and the backend and the user to your needs.

$HTTP["url"] =~ "/nagios3" {

auth.backend = "htpasswd"
auth.backend.htpasswd.userfile = "/etc/nagios3/htpasswd.users"

auth.require = ( "" =>
(
"method" => "basic",
"realm" => "restricted area",
"require" => "user=yourusername"
)
)
setenv.add-environment = ( "REMOTE_USER" => "user" )
}

To simulate apache's mod_env we use the user mapping as to see in the last line above.

Don't forget to restart the lighty daemon gracefully.

/etc/init.d/lighttpd force-reload

Did it work for you - drop a comment.

Enable WebDav in Lighttpd - ligthy's mod_webdav

2009-07-24T02:52:00.000-07:00

To enable WebDav in Lighttpd, e.g. to serve ics-style calendars for Mozilla Thunderbird simply edit

/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

and append following lines - adopt them to your needs

$HTTP["host"] == "mydomain.tld" {
alias.url = ( "/mypath" => "/were/the/files/are/" )
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/mypath($|/)" {
webdav.activate = "enable"
webdav.is-readonly = "disable"
webdav.sqlite-db-name = "/var/run/lighttpd/lighttpd.webdav_lock.db"
}
}

then go to the top of this very file and enable the module

server.modules = (
"mod_access",
"mod_alias",
"mod_webdav",

Gracefully restart the daemon and you are done

/etc/init.d/lighttpd force-reload

Did it work for you - drop a comment.

New calendar entry grayed in lightning-thunderbird

2009-07-13T00:18:00.000-07:00

Lightning is a Thunderbird extension to provide a calendar and a task list like Microsoft Outlook does.

When using Lightning with new Ubuntu versions the new calendar entry in the pull down menu might be grayed out and one will not be able to create new calendars and dates.

Thunderbird relies itself on the shared library libstdc++5. This packages is no more installed by default in new Ubuntu versions. To fix it simply type:

apt-get install libstdc++5

Restart Thunderbird and reinstall Lightning to make it run.

Did it work for you? Drop a comment!

Ubuntu javascript benchmark

2009-06-19T01:12:00.000-07:00

Today i stumbled upon Sun's SunSpider JavaScript benchmark. One can measure the performance of the browser JavaScript engine here. I checked my box and found it to be pretty fine. It took 3427.0ms, ergo 3 and half seconds to run. Sounds good to me. The browser was firefox-3.5 on Ubuntu Jaunty.

dpkg -l firefox-3.5

firefox-3.5 3.5~b4~hg20090330r24021

I installed sysinfo to show you my system metrics:

apt-get install sysinfo

Running Ubuntu Linux, the 5.0 release.
GNOME: 2.26.1 (Ubuntu 2009-05-06)
Kernel version: 2.6.28-11-generic (#42-Ubuntu SMP)

AuthenticAMD, AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5000+
CPU clock currently at 2600.074 MHz with 512 KB cache

Total memory: 1987 MB
Total swap: 0 MB

nVidia Corporation GeForce 7100 GS (rev a1)

Feel free to post your results here as a comment.

Edit: On the same machine i ran this test in a virtual box 2.02 machine with W2K and Firefox 3.07 in 4467.0ms - not too bad. But wait - with Firefox 3.5rc4 in the same virtual machine it took only 1634.4ms. That even outperforms more then 2 times the native Firefox-3.5 on Jaunty - that is bad!

Edit: Chrome did it - Version Number 3.0.191.3. Nativly on Ubuntu Jaunty Jackelope 9.04

============================================

RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)
--------------------------------------------
Total:                  652.6ms +/- 2.4%
--------------------------------------------

Can you beat this with system metrics comparable to that mentioned above?

Ubuntu automatic password creator (apg)

2009-06-04T00:32:00.000-07:00

To create secure passwords on command line linux/ubuntu provides the automatic password generator. On Debian based distributions such as Ubuntu and its derivates just type

apt-get install apg

The standard mode wants to get some user input (your old password) and then suggests pronounceable passwords.

user@ubuntu:~# apg

Please enter some random data (only first 16 are significant)
(eg. your old password):>
KonEatKeic3 (Kon-Eat-Keic-THREE)
UdkiWon5 (Ud-ki-Won-FIVE)
TySeegId8 (Ty-Seeg-Id-EIGHT)
froivRib8 (froiv-Rib-EIGHT)
rykVitOv5 (ryk-Vit-Ov-FIVE)
Ovmidvojboj2 (Ov-mid-voj-boj-TWO)

The second mode uses random character generation - here one can choose the character sets.

To create a strong password with a length of 12 characters type

user@ubuntu:~# apg -x 12 -M SNLC
weup8Tweg'
;ovSyokhyef2
(ObyodAuk3
+Ovjog0OgDeo
Apdeds=Druf1
Bocs:Coowp5

where the options are

S - generator must use special symbol set for every generated password.
N - generator must use numeral symbol set for every generated password.
C - generator must use capital symbol set for every generated password.
L - generator must use small letters symbol set for every generated password

Learn more on apg on its man page

man apg

Was this useful for you? Do you know other tools like this one? Just drop a comment on it.

Disable Cups automatic remote printer detection

2009-05-27T02:46:00.001-07:00

Some box here in my network automatically shows remote printers provided by a cups server in this very network. Since there are no printer driver informations for this shares are provided (raw printer queues) , i don't want this behavior.

To disable it i'd to type simply

sudo cupsctl --no-remote-printers

or to edit the

/etc/cups/cupsd.conf

and set

Browsing Off

Did you search for this solution? Drop a comment rigth here.

Ubuntu rdesktop caps lock key won't work

2009-05-27T01:31:00.000-07:00

With my Ubuntu Intrepid the rdesktop remote access tool fails. The caps lock key won't work.

To fix it just edit the file

/usr/share/rdesktop/keymaps/common

and change the line

Caps_Lock 0x0 inhibit

to

Caps_Lock 0x3a capslock

Did it work for you. Just drop a comment on it.

DRBD LVM - Lower device is already claimed

2009-04-09T02:35:00.000-07:00

Update:

On Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narval i had to edit

/etc/lvm/lvm.conf

in the section "devices" and to set a filter like this

filter = [ "a|/dev/drbd[0-9]|" "r/.*/" ]

to prevent the detection of underlying native block devices by lvm.

Then i'd to command this:

update-initramfs -u

reboot

When you use a DRBD device as an underlying block device for lvm as described in the drbd manual you may face the following error after reboot and start DRBD. Lower device is already claimed The reason is the lack of the lvm.conf in the initramfs. To add this file to the initramfs simply follow these steps: edit the file

/usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/lvm2

and add

[ -r /etc/lvm/lvm.conf ] && mkdir $DESTDIR/etc/lvm && cp /etc/lvm/lvm.conf $DESTDIR/etc/lvm

after the lines contains

cp -p /etc/udev/rules.d/85-lvm2.rules ${DESTDIR}/etc/udev/rules.d

so that it looks like

cp -p /etc/udev/rules.d/85-lvm2.rules ${DESTDIR}/etc/udev/rules.d
[ -r /etc/lvm/lvm.conf ] && mkdir $DESTDIR/etc/lvm && cp /etc/lvm/lvm.conf $DESTDIR/etc/lvm

then you have to rebuild the initramfs using

update-initramfs -u

and to restart the system in order to modifications can take effect

reboot

Now DRBD should start as wanted, assuming you had modified the lvm.conf as mentioned in the link.

Did it work for you - just drop your comments on it.

DRBD resolve split brain scenario

2009-04-07T05:50:00.000-07:00

On the node, which is the younger primary were you want to discard the changes type

node1 ~ # drbdadm secondary all
node1 ~ # drbdadm disconnect all
node1 ~ # drbdadm -- --discard-my-data connect all

Then go to the node with the correct primary data and connect it, too.

node2 ~ # drbdadm connect all

The orignal howto fom DRBD wont work for me, since there is no disconnect
mentioned.

Be careful! If you're are in doubt backup data or try a rsync with both filesystems mounted offline w/o DRBD. This will prevent impacts when syncing in the wrong direction.

Did it worked for you? Just drop a comment on it here.

Ubuntu mount partition of raw harddrive images via loopback

2009-03-20T03:33:00.000-07:00

First we need the device mapper kernel Module.

modprobe dm_mod

Then you have to install kpartx. It creates device maps from partition tables

apt-get install kpartx

Next we setup the image file - here harddrive.img - for use with /dev/loop0

losetup /dev/loop0 harddrive.img

Here is where we use kpartx - look at the example output.

kpartx -a -v /dev/loop0

gpt: 0 slices
dos: 6 slices
add map loop0p1 (254:0): 0 1333332 linear /dev/loop0 63
add map loop0p2 (254:1): 0 11309760 linear /dev/loop0 1333395
add map loop0p5 (254:2): 0 11309697 254:1 63

Finally we can mount the single partitions of the whole drive image file.

mount /dev/mapper/loop0p1 /mountpoint/

Did it work for you. Just drop a comment on it.

Firefox extension personas - skins for more eye candy

2009-02-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

Today i stumbled upon personas, a Firefox extension that provides background images for the symbol and status bars. So you can use skins to have some more eye candy. Here's a little screenshot to get an impression of the look of it.

Once you've installed it - there are 3 steps left to do.

1. Type "about:config" in the address bar und assure that you'll be careful to Firefox
2. Type "personas" in the filter field beneath the address bar
3. Set theese 3 Options as follows

extensions.personas.authorizedHosts : sm-personas01.mozilla.org
extensions.personas.siteURL : http://sm-personas01.mozilla.org/store/
extensions.personas.url : http://sm-personas01.mozilla.org/store/

Now you can click on the little fox symbol in your status bar the choose a skin.

Update: New versions of will work properly and don't need the steps mentioned above.

Set network interface speed on Linux system

2009-02-27T04:57:00.001-08:00

The newer way to make the job is to use ethtool

ethtool -s ifname speed 100 duplex full autoneg off

Obsolete, but sometimes still working is mii-tool

mii-tool -F 100baseTx-FD ifname

Where ifname is the name of your network interface, such as eth0.

In both examples the network interface speed is set to 100 Mbit with full duplex and disabled autonegation to keep this settings.

Download dynamic content from AJAX driven sites.

2009-01-29T06:54:00.000-08:00

The task was to download the page content from a website that was driven by AJAX. So it was necessary to have a browser with JavaScript enabled and to wait a moment after download to give JavaScript/AJAX a chance to modify page content.

The SWT of Eclipse owns such a browser implementation. I used it in NetBeans - worked fine.

So here we go:

1st we've to import the swt libraries

import org.eclipse.swt.SWT;
import org.eclipse.swt.browser.Browser;
import org.eclipse.swt.browser.ProgressEvent;
import org.eclipse.swt.browser.ProgressListener;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Shell;

Next we implement a progress listener. The time offset mentioned above is here in the completed method. Adapt it!

private class MyProgressListener implements ProgressListener {

private String content;
private Boolean done;

public MyProgressListener() {
this.done = false;
}

public String getContent() {
return content;
}

public void setDone(Boolean done) {
this.done = done;
}

public Boolean getDone() {
return done;
}

public void changed(ProgressEvent event) {
this.done = false;
}

private void completed(ProgressEvent event) {
Browser browser = (Browser) event.widget;
try {
//Here is where wait to let Javascript/Ajax stuff take place and modify the content
Thread.sleep(2000);
} catch (Exception ignored) {
}
content = browser.getText();
done = true;
}
}

Then we declare our myBrowser class. Adapt path in method initBrowser!

private class MyBrowser {

private Display display;
private Shell shell;
private Browser browser;
private MyProgressListener myProgressListener;

private void initBrowser() {
System.setProperty("swt.library.path", "/usr/lib/jni");

this.display = new Display();
this.shell = new Shell(display);
this.browser = new Browser(shell, SWT.NONE);
}

private String getURLContentByBrowser(String loadURL) {

this.browser.setUrl(loadURL);

this.myProgressListener = new MyProgressListener();
this.browser.addProgressListener(myProgressListener);

while (!myProgressListener.getDone() == true) {
if (!this.display.readAndDispatch()) {
this.display.sleep();
}
}
return this.myProgressListener.getContent();
}

private void disposeBrowser() {
this.shell.dispose();
this.display.dispose();
this.browser.dispose();
}
}

And finally wi'll download the stuff

private String getURLContentByStream(String loadURL) {
String content = "";
try {
URL url = new URL(loadURL);
InputStream inputStream = url.openStream();
DataInputStream dataInputStream = new DataInputStream(new BufferedInputStream(inputStream));

String line = "";

while ((line = dataInputStream.readLine()) != null) {
content += line;
}

inputStream.close();

} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return content;
}

Have phun

Samba 3.0 to 3.2 upgrade Windows 98 clients

2009-01-28T02:14:00.000-08:00

In the 3.2. branch the Samba team changed the default values for lanman auth and client lanman auth to no, so Windows 98 clients using lanman protocol for authorization/authentification can not longer log on.

Set in the main section of smb.conf

lanman auth = yes
client lanman auth = yes

run

testparm

to check your samba configuration for errors. Then reload config with

smbcontrol smbd reload-config
smbcontrol nmbd reload-config

Log on for Windows 98 clients will work fine again.

Ubuntu Intrepid "Too many failed attempts" printing error

2009-01-26T02:34:00.000-08:00

There is a known bug in GTK used by Ubuntu Intrepid's 8.10 desktop environment Gnome that causes trouble when printing from a GTK application, such as evince or gedit. The applications do not print and an error occurs: Too many failed attempts. OpenOffice against it, and even the test page tool in cups administration won't show that behavior.

Check your error log:

tail -f /var/log/cups/error_log

E [26/Jan/2009:10:45:13 +0100] Print-Job: Unauthorized

The message "Print-Job: Unauthorized" indicates the problem. Here is how to fix it:

1. Stop the cups daemon to prevent cups from reseting your modifications

sudo /etc/init.d/cups stop

2. Edit your cups configuration with the editor of your choice and comment out these lines

sudo vi /etc/cups/printers.conf

#AuthInfoRequired username,password

EDIT:

To prevent cups to place thoose lines again in your config file you may want to make it immutable with

sudo chattr +i /etc/cups/printers.conf

3. Start cups again

sudo /etc/init.d/cups start

4. Try to print with gedit - it should work now.

Did it work for you? Drop a comment...

Lock down Ubuntu's Gnome Desktop (Kiosk Mode)

2009-01-23T10:07:00.000-08:00

Today i had to restrict an user's configuration and access abilities on an Ubuntu 8.10 System.

Beside the settings one can apply in Gnome's user account configuration there are several tools to customize more aspects of system access:

pessulus
sabayon
alacarte

and

ubuntu-tweak

These four are coming via apt-get. One'll be able to lock down the system to a kiosk mode with this tools.

Another fine approach is to set the shell for an user to screen command or disable shell access.

More on this here...

Do you've futher proposals? Just drop a comment here.

Simple Squid redirector perl script

2009-01-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

Since jesred won't work on OpenBSD>4.0 i managed to solve my redirect problem with a simple Perl script

/usr/local/libexec/squid-redirector.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
$|=1;
while (<>) {
s@http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/cgi-bin/viesquer@http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/vieshome.do@;
print;
}

check perl binary location

which perl

chmod 750 /usr/local/libexec/squid-redirector.pl
chown root._squid /usr/local/libexec/squid-redirector.pl

adapt squid.conf

url_rewrite_program /usr/local/libexec/squid-redirector.pl

Squid URL redirector on OpenBSD <4.1 with jesred

2009-01-23T05:16:00.000-08:00

jesred won't work with OpenBSD > 4.0. Reason: squid >2.5 sends an urlgroup parameter to the redirector. Since jesred is rather old (1998) it does not support such input lines.

But - there is a patch out there.

export PKG_PATH=ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.3/packages/i386/

pkg_add jesred

check the permission of the redirector binary

# ls -la /usr/local/libexec/jesred
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root bin 15620 Mar 14 2008 /usr/local/libexec/jesred

adapt /etc/jesred/redirect.acl and /etc/jesred/redirect.rules to your needs

go to /etc/squid/squid.conf and set the url_rewrite_program directive to

url_rewrite_program=/usr/local/libexec/jesred

squid and jesred communicates via lo0, check your pf.conf for conflicts

restart the squid daemon gracefully

squid -k reconfigure

dstat - online linux system statistics

2009-01-19T03:55:00.000-08:00

Today i stumpled upon dstat[1], a command line interface to monitor linux system parameters online. Dstat integrates the functionality of tools like vmstat, iostat, netstat, nfsstat and ifstat and one can monitor additionally system metrics such as cpu frequency, battery status using plugins.

Here comes some output generated by dstat

root@ubuntu:/# dstat -C 0,1
-------cpu0-usage--------------cpu1-usage------ -dsk/total- -net/total- ---paging-- ---system--
usr sys idl wai hiq siq:usr sys idl wai hiq siq| read writ| recv send| in out | int csw
4 2 93 0 0 0: 6 2 90 1 0 1| 211k 56k| 0 0 | 0 0 |1010 1419
8 2 90 0 0 0: 2 2 96 0 0 0| 0 0 | 0 70B| 0 0 |1011 1401
7 1 92 0 0 0: 0 1 98 1 0 0| 0 424k| 0 0 | 0 0 |1016 1396
5 1 94 0 0 0: 1 2 96 0 1 0| 0 0 | 0 0 | 0 0 | 994 1314
3 0 97 0 0 0: 6 2 92 0 0 0| 0 0 | 920B 892B| 0 0 |1071 1474

dstat can write output to csv-files to analyze system metrics with external programm such as rddtool or OpenOffice-Calc.

[1] http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/dstat/

Cups error in Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

2008-09-24T02:42:00.000-07:00

On my newly updated Ubuntu i've an issue while printing.

When i print following error occurs:
Print Error: There was a problem processing document.

I short look at /var/log/cups/error_log gave this message several times

cupsdAuthorize: Local authentication certificate not found!

In that case the AppArmor protection did prevent the CUPS printing system to work properly.

I stopped it
sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor stop

and printing worked instantly.

A restart stated in this manner

sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor start

Loading AppArmor profiles Skipping profile /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.cupsd.dpkg-old : Warning.

Obviously there is a new apparmor profile for CUPS's daemon cupsd

I changed the line

/usr/sbin/cupsd

to

/usr/sbin/cupsd flags=(complain) {

in file /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.cupsd

and resolved the complains.

Compiling VMware-Server on Ubuntu 7.10

2008-09-08T01:55:00.000-07:00

After applying the vmware-any-any-update patch following error occurs when using vmware-config.pl to update the virtualizer software.

gcc: error trying to exec 'cc1plus': execvp: No such file or directory
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/common/task.o] Fehler 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only] Fehler 2
make[1]: Verlasse Verzeichnis '/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.24-19-generic'
make: *** [vmmon.ko] Fehler 2
make: Verlasse Verzeichnis '/tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only'
Unable to build the vmmon module.

The C++ compiler is needed to compile VMWare server kernel modules, which is not included in the build-essential package. Simply use

sudo apt-get install g++

and start vmware-config.pl as root again.

VirtualBox 2.0 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 - USB issue

2008-09-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

Today i decided to give the new VirtualBox Version 2.0 a try.

First pitfall: There's no icon in the Gnome application menu.

Circumvent: run /usr/bin/VirtualBox to start the virtualizer,

Second pitfall: If i add devices to a virtual machine following error occurs

Could not load the Host USB Proxy Service (VERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND). The service might be not installed on the host computer.

Circumvent: Execute this line as root

echo none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=$(grep vboxusers /etc/group | cut -f 3 -d \:),devmode=664 0 0 >> /etc/fstab

Additionally uncomment these 4 lines in /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh

mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
domount usbfs "" /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
mount --rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

then restart this subsystem

sudo /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh stop && sudo /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh start

Using parallel port (parport0) with VMware on ubuntu

2008-08-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

If you add a virtual parallel port device to a virtual machine you'll get this message when you start up the guest operating system.

Cannot open /dev/parport0: Permission denied
Virtual device parallel0 will start disconnected.

So let's a look at the correspoding device entry

ls -la /dev/parport0
crw-rw---- 1 lp scanner 99, 0 2008-08-28 13:27 /dev/parport0

It shows that you need to be a member of group "scanner" to use the device.

So you've simply to add yourself to this very group.

sudo usermod -a -G scanner

Once you'd fixed this another error message will come up.

Parallel port "/dev/parport0" is used by another program (such as another instance of VMware Server) or driver (such as lp). Virtual device parallel0 will start disconnected.

The "lp" kernel module, loaded by cups - the printing system - causes this trouble. Simply remove it.

sudo rmmod lp

Now the virtual machine can use the parport0 device. Be aware that e.g. cups won't work until you'll reload the kernel module "lp".

sudo modprobe lp

Did it work for you? Drop a comment and share this bookmark!

Ubuntu/X11/Xorg caps lock unlock/cancel with shift key

2008-08-19T03:19:00.000-07:00

To get your Xorg desktop to behave like a typewriter regarding the caps lock key simply place this line

Option "XkbOptions" "caps:shiftlock"

into your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and restart your Xorg server, e.g. with CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE.

Here is where to place the line in the file mentioned above:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbOptions" "caps:shiftlock"
EndSection

If you use Ubuntu you've additionally to go to

System->Preferences->Keyboard->Layout->Layout-Settings

and change "CapsLock key behavior" to "Capslocks toogles Shift so all key are affected".

Create a MySQL database manually and set permissions

2008-08-07T01:58:00.000-07:00

Because i believe in the power of the command line i usally create new MySQL databases, e.g. for my favorite CMS (content management system) Typo3, manually. Here is how it works:

Connect yourself to the MySSQL daemon with its command line interface as root user.

mysql -p root

Create the new database

create database <database-name>;

Switch over to the MySQL system database

use mysql;

Set the permissions for the database - this is one long line.

grant all privileges on <database-name>

.* to

<database-user>

@localhost identified by "

<database-password>

Force MySQL to reload user permission settings

flush privileges;

Leave the MySQL command line interface by just typing

quit

That's all...

Shutdown a frozen Linux box cleanly

2008-08-06T03:39:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that i ran my first Linux in the middle of the 90th it took me more then 10 years to get to know how to shutdown a frozen Linux system gently. Use this when CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE for X server restart or CTRL+ALT+F1 to get a console won't work anymore.

Simply press down the "Alt" and the "SysRq" (Print Screen) keys together. Hold'em and type the six letters

REISUB

Your Linux operating system will shutdown in six steps - one for each keystroke. Here is what the letters stand for:

(R) Set Keyboard mode to system default
(E) Terminate all tasks
(I) Kill all tasks
(S) Emergency sync the file systems
(U) Remount all filesystems read only
(B) Reboot the system

Hopefully you'll never need it - but if, it can help to prevent a lot of trouble since the filesystems comes down cleanly.

Reset MySql Superuser-Administrator-Root Password

2008-08-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

Since i dislike to save important passwords on computers - nor in plaintext neither encrypted - i 'd several time to reset MySql's superuser password.

Here is how it works on my Linux boxes

Stop the My-SQL daemon

/etc/init.d/mysql stop

Start MySql daemon w/o access control and network support to prevent remote access while reseting

mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking &

Reset the password

mysqladmin -u root flush-privileges password "newpassword"

and restart the My-SQL daemon

/etc/init.d/mysql restart

thats's all.