DoIT - Denny on IT

cygwin/x to x-win32

2012-06-07T15:36:00.001+07:00

there're some x-win32 apps out there...
some are freeware and some donationware

introducing...
the free and opensource cygwin/x stripped down to under 20meg.
no install. just unzip and run.

get it here, while still hot...
http://wiki.dennyhalim.com/xwin

-- tips & tricks on computers and gadgets denny on IT ; let's doIT documenting the brain

Samba Full Audit with Super Fast Logging

2012-06-07T12:43:00.000+07:00

usually, if/when you enable samba audit module, you will feel significant drop in performance, especially when your share folder simultaneously accessed by many users.

to have full audit logging without performance degradation, you will need a very fast write to log folder/partition. and what is faster than RAM?

so, we mount RAM to be used as our samba logging, put this line into /etc/fstab

tmpfs  /sambalog  tmpfs  defaults,noexec,nosuid,nodev  1 0

now, we tell samba and syslog to write their log to /sambalog:

# this line into /etc/syslog.conf
user.*;user.!warn /sambalog/fullaudit.log

#and this line into /etc/samba/smb.conf
log file = /sambalog/smbd.log

then, restart samba & syslog:

service smb restart
service syslog restart

now, watch /sambalog grows and feel the performance boost.

wait...
what the heck we do logging for if everything's gone on next boot!

ok, let's get back those logs from RAM:

# cat /etc/cron.d/logbak
*/5 * * * *  root zip -ru "/var/log/bak-$(date +%d).zip" /sambalog

all logs will be zipped back to hdd for safe keep.

-- tips & tricks on computers and gadgets denny on IT ; let's doIT documenting the brain

Sharing Scanner over Network from Centos

2012-06-07T08:45:00.000+07:00

first, install xsane and all dependencies to use scanner

yum install xsane

check to see if your scanner detected

scanimage -L

for epson, you might need to install latest driver from here:
http://download.ebz.epson.net/dsc/search/01/search/?OSC=LX

test scan

scanimage --format tiff > gambar.tiff

if everything works, install xinetd and set it to start saned

# yum install xinetd

# cat /etc/xinetd.d/saned
service sane-port
{
   port = 6566
   socket_type = stream
   server = /usr/sbin/saned
   user = root
   group = root
   wait = no
}

# cat /etc/sane.d/saned.conf
localhost
192.168.0.0/24

change saned.conf to match you network subnet.
for security, you might want to change which user and group saned run as.

start it up:

chkconfig xinetd on
service xinetd restart

scan from windows, over network:
first download: http://sanetwain.ozuzo.net/#download
extract to new folder and run ScanImage.exe
enter you linux ip address into the hostname and click OK.

now you can use your scanner over network.

-- tips & tricks on computers and gadgets denny on IT ; let's doIT documenting the brain

Super Easy Accepting Liberty Reserve Payment

2010-09-15T13:19:00.001+07:00

Liberty Reserve have made few tools and API so that merchants can sell their product or accept payments easily.

i take one of those tools and make it even easier!

with my Liberty Reserve Merchant widget, you can start selling or accepting payments in few seconds.

you can add the widgets to any website/blog that allow javascript or widgetbox widgets. including blogger/blogspot, yola / synthasite, spruz, jimdo, webstarts, etc.

-- tips & tricks on computers and gadgets denny on IT ; let's doIT documenting the brain

wicd + dnsmasq + opendns - opendns (ads) guides = faster browsing

2010-03-19T21:09:00.000+07:00

there are many many ways to speed up your browsing experiences.

one of many ways is optimizing your DNS server list.
each and every file on the internet is located on a certain (sub)domain.
so, each and every request of any file from your browser will need to query DNS servers first, before it can be fetch to your browser.

as you can see, DNS play significan roles in your browsing experience. if you're using firefox and see a lot of 'looking up someslowdomainname.com' then your DNS is slow.

here's how i speed up DNS lookup a little bit. first, install dnsmasq to do dns queries and cache all the results. thus repetitive lookup will perform much faster because the result is already in cache.

then, tell dnsmasq to do the queries to opendns to let it filtered out phising and malware sites. but, opt-out the opendns guides and block my local ISP ads.
edit /etc/dnsmasq.conf and add this lines:

#http://winware.org/bogus-domains.txt
bogus-nxdomain=92.242.132.11 #telkom speedy indonesia ads
bogus-nxdomain=67.215.65.132 #opendns guides
#bogus-nxdomain=208.67.219.135 #opendns blocked pages
#bogus-nxdomain=64.94.110.11 #verisign

last, must not pass this one, tell the clients (i use wicd to manage my linux networks), including browsers, messengers, etc.. to query local dnsmasq instead of the far away opendns servers.
edit /etc/resolv.conf.head and add these lines:

nameserver 127.0.0.1 #query local dnsmasq
#dnsmasq will query these. also, in case dnsmasq fail, all apps will query these too:
nameserver 208.67.222.222 
nameserver 208.67.220.220

if you need more redundancy, in case all your dns fail, add this to /etc/resolv.conf.tail

#google's 
nameserver 8.8.8.8 
nameserver 8.8.4.4

wicd will automatically merge dns from your router/isp between resolv.conf.head and resolv.conf.tail

now... our dns is much faster... what else can we do to speed up browsing? what do you do?

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

Vote Komodo for the New7Wonders of Nature

2010-02-09T17:38:00.000+07:00

vote for komodo and put this widget in your web/blogs to show your support

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

Archlinux faster boot

2010-02-07T00:28:00.000+07:00

one great thing about archlinux is the rc.conf which simplify services configuration a lot.

instead of messing with lots lots of rc.X files, you only need to configure one single file for all bootup process.

also, this way, you have full control which services should startup first and which services can start later.

i move kdm service to start earlier so that i can have X starts while other services starts in background.
this is how i arrange the services/daemons:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng @network hal wicd kdm netfs crond laptop-mode compcache)

or, you could also put a lot of @ in front of each service so it starts in background, as more Arch user use like this:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng @network hal wicd @netfs @crond @laptop-mode @compcache kdm)

how is yours arranged?

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

minimal KDE / KDEmod on Archlinux

2010-02-05T17:57:00.000+07:00

if you follow the instruction on kdemod installation, we're told to do 'pacman -S kdemod-minimal' to install minimal KDE.

but that need to download over 400Megs packages and that does not seems minimal for me. coz the Archlinux KDE minimal install, only need much much smaller packages:

pacman -S kdebase-workspace kdebase-konsole

so i guess, i can do the same thing with kdemod. which i did:

pacman -S kdemod-kdebase-workspace kdemod-kdebase-konsole

now, that's what i called a minimal install.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

offloading wpmu themes and plugins to cdn, fast & easy, without plugins

2010-02-04T08:08:00.000+07:00

one of many ways to speed up your wpmu is by offloading your themes and plugins url to CDN.

there are many plugins to let you do this. you can also use htaccess to rewrite all your /wp-content url to cd.

but i just found out, you can do it very easily without any plugins or htaccess rewrite. just edit your wp-config.php like this:

define( 'WP_CONTENT_URL', 'http://your.cdn.host/wp-content');
define( 'WPMU_PLUGIN_URL', 'http://your.cdn.host/wp-content/plugins');

that's all it.
now all your wp-content and plugins url will be change to your.cdn.host and no cost for htaccess rewrite or plugins processing.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

install my widgets on yola synthasite

2010-01-25T17:28:00.000+07:00

this is how you can install one of my great free widgets on widgetbox in your yola / synthasite:

login to your yola / synthasite
drag Widgetbox Gallery and drop to your page
search for dennyhalim to see my widgets
choose any widgets, customize it as you like
klik on 'Get Widget'
klik on 'Save' button
klik on 'Update My Site'
done.

that's all it. now you can see my widgets on your yola / synthasite.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

netinstall urls for virt-manager

2010-01-07T04:29:00.001+07:00

i dont know if it's documented coz i cant find this anywhere.

here's a list of url i used to netinstall linux (xen/kvm) using virt-manager:

debian: http://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/debian/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-amd64/current/
centos: http://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/centos/5/os/x86_64/
opensuse: http://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/opensuse/distribution/openSUSE-current/repo/oss/
mandriva: http://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/MandrivaLinux/official/current/x86_64/
fedora: http://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/fedora/releases/12/Fedora/x86_64/os/

adjust it with your local mirror and the version you want to install.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

upgrade fedora kernel without compiling

2010-01-05T09:10:00.000+07:00

i hate compiling. even that gentoo, archlinux and freebsd makes it really very easy.
however easy it gets, i still hate compiling...

i got very recent laptop which have intermittent lan and wifi connection with default kernel.

this one-line is all it takes to upgrade fedora kernel without compiling:

su -c 'yum --enablerepo=rawhide update kernel*'

that's all it.
your kernel will be upgrade to the latest kernel from rawhide (fedora testing)

that fix my intermittent network connection.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

light simple compiz alternative composite window manager

2010-01-02T08:31:00.001+07:00

happy new year! wish you all blessed and peace!

introducing xcompmgr - sample X compositing manager.

xcompmgr is a sample compositing manager for X servers supporting XFIXES, DAMAGE, and COMPOSITE extensions. It enables basic eye-effects.

imho, this is very hidden 'treasure' of linux freedesktop xapps.

it's not much know or used. but once i try it, i like it a lot!

well, maybe it's not comparable to compiz (fusion). it's not that feature full. and most important (for me) it's not that heavy weight compositing champion.
i can just run compiz, gnome/kde and all the glory on my Turion II laptop. but i rather let all resources goes to kvm to use/run/test other linux/win/solaris/firewall/servers/etc.
so, i try to keep bare minimal fancy X stuffs on my system. i use fedora lxde spins in this lappy.

i like compiz. but as i said, it's overkill for me. and i need all the resource i can get for kvm. so looks around to find the alternatives. xfce is the well known lightest desktop with compositing.

not anymore...
now with xcompmgr, you can use whatever your favourite lightweight window manager and still can have cool compositing desktop.
tested with fluxbox, awesome2, fvm2, and openbox (with lxde). all works good. it's very light, fast and use very low ram and cpu.

to test it, just install xcompmgr and run it inside X. if you like it, you can put it into autostart so that it start everytime X starts.

xcompmgr -c -f -F &
man xcompmgr

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

yum remove all dependencies

2009-12-26T05:51:00.001+07:00

playing with fedora these few days.

yum is great with it's delta package system. which only download changed file instead of the whole package.

one thing i dont like is that yum do not know what dependencies have been installed and should be removed.

debian aptitude works out of the box.
and we can add --auto-orphans to mandriva urpme

some people suggest 'package-cleanup --leaves' to list leaf node (package that no other package depends on).

i try that, and it list libvirt which is needed by virt-manager. so i cant fully trust that.

more googling i found yum plugin remove with leaves package.

su -c 'yum install yum-plugin-remove-with-leaves'
yum remove --remove-leaves package-tobe-removed

still need to test this

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

the making of opensuse lxde livecd

2009-12-08T18:57:00.000+07:00

by request of users and FameWolf that tiredlessly gives positive feedbacks, here i present the making of my opensuse lxde livecd.

well... actually i dont see much to show...
anyway, here goes...

Create new appliance...
Choose ´Minimal X´
gives it cool name.
add repos. the only one required is lxde repo.
add packages. (see screenshot)
tune configurations
paste this into scripts

chkconfig --add boot.compcache
chkconfig boot.compcache on

yast2 sysconfig set DEFAULT_WM="startlxde"
yast2 sysconfig set DEFAULT_GUI="GTK"
yast2 sysconfig set DISPLAYMANAGER="slim"
yast2 sysconfig set DEFAULT_WM="startlxde"

echo 'default_user  polaris' >> /etc/slim.conf
#echo 'auto_login    yes' >> /etc/slim.conf
echo 'sessions startlxde,icewm' >> /etc/slim.conf
echo 'exec startlxde' >> /home/polaris/.xinitrc

usermod -G audio,video,floppy,cdrom,disk,dialout,modem,games,lp,pmount polaris

echo 'text/x-suse-ymu;/sbin/OneClickInstallUI' >> /etc/mailcap
echo 'text/x-suse-ymp;/sbin/OneClickInstallUI' >> /etc/mailcap

the scripts used to works on ´Run script at the end of the build´ section. now it wont works. so i duplicate it to first boot section.

that´s all it!

you can make your own distro or just download the ready to boot opensuse lxde livecd.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

park and monetize idle domains

2009-11-22T04:00:00.001+07:00

so you just registered a great domain name and have not (yet) any plan what to do with it.
what you do?

most people just do nothing and let their registrar make money by showing ads on their unused properties.

now you can take control of your own idle domain names. setup your own parked pages or redirect to parking services that can make yourself few buck even it's unused. you can even set it up for sales if you like...

i'll recommend one parking service if you have not got one yet: park or sell your domain names
yes that have my affiliate code.

well, if you only have a dozen domain or less, that's not too hard to maintain. just add your domain to your parking service and it's done.
but if you have more... it will takes a lot of time to add each and every domain you have to the parking service.

now, this is how i make it easy to add hundreds or even thousands of your domain name into parking service without you have to manually input them...

first, register to park or sell your domain names because they have great api that we need.

second, setup nsd name servers on your vps. why nsd? it slimmer, lighter, faster than bind and wont slow down your vps. here's i set it on debian:

aptitude install nsd3

third, configure nsd and setup php redirect script

replace the 'lid=' with your own code.

fourth, setup all your idle domains to use your new dns server. or, you can just point it to your php script.

that's it. now all your idle domains will be redirected to the parking service which will give you (not your registrar) few buck per month per domain without you need to set it up manually.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

gigya toolbar, a wibiya toolbar alternative

2009-10-29T17:17:00.000+07:00

just add this into your web/blog html, optionally get your own partner id and you got yourself a gigya toolbar:

or if you're using blogspot, just click on 'Add to blogger' icon:

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

the perfect mysql backup

2009-10-10T09:58:00.005+07:00

this is the perfect mysql backup tool for me.

how to use it:

create LocalUserWithMinimalReadOnlyRight on mysql with your favourite tool. i only give it SELECT, RELOAD, LOCK TABLES privileges.
download backup-mysql.logrotate, edit the file, change the username and password
put the files in /etc/logrotate.d/
run this for the very first time:

for i in `mysql --batch -e 'show databases' | tail -n +2`; do
if [ ! -e /bak/mysql/$i ]; then mkdir -m 700 /bak/mysql/$i; fi
mysqldump --opt -u LocalUserWithMinimalReadOnlyRight $i | gzip -c > /bak/mysql/$i/$i.sql.gz
done

that's it. i will creates 5 daily backup, 4 weekly backup and 3 monthly backup.
for best result, make sure you put your backup on separate drive or even on a separate network/country/planet...

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

Google Chrome native builds for mac and linux

2009-10-09T04:13:00.001+07:00

so you've been trying all possible ways to get google chrome installed in your mac and linux?

now you can get the native builds from google early access release. it's unreleased, beta and developer channel.

google chrome for mac
debian package for linux

and if you install the debian package on debian/ubuntu, it will also install google chrome repo to make sure you always get updated version of google chrome.

and if you want better privacy and using ubuntu, you can use chromium daily builds.
add this to your /etc/apt/source.list

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu hardy main
# replace hardy with jaunty or whatever your ubuntu version is

personally, i hate 'daily' stuffs that i feel the need to update everyday...

after you get google chrome installed, check out some cool and hot themes to dress-up your browser.
--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

srware iron for linux is here

2009-09-23T05:08:00.001+07:00

srware iron is a browser built from chromium source. some people might consider google chrome as spyware. so if you want a clean browser with chrome power, then use chromium or iron.

download for linux is here. and for mac is here.
--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

Embed Addictives Flash Games on Your Web / Blogs, easily.

2009-09-01T19:47:00.002+07:00

how would you like your visitors stays on your web/blogs for hours and keep coming back...
free addictive online games is a great way to attract more traffic to your website and make your visitors stays for hours and hours playing their favorite games on your web/blogs.

this is one of my free widgets to do just that. just click on the 'get widget' button and with few clicks it would be on your web/blogs.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

search any words. in any languages. introducing the ultimate word search!

2009-07-30T16:02:00.001+07:00

Search dozens of dictionaries, thesaurus, idioms, encyclopedia and more! Search any words in any languages with ease!
Add the Ultimate Word Search Engine to your web/blog!

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

ubuntu restricted shell with lshell

2009-07-30T14:34:00.000+07:00

lshell is a restricted shell, similar to rssh or ironbars, which you can use to restrict users shell. but rssh only allow scp/sftp and does not allow login to shell. lshell allow login, but restrict user to only few commands.
i tested this with my ubuntu perfect webserver setup. but i believe it's same steps to install on any linux.

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/lshell/lshell/0.9.5/lshell-0.9.5.tar.gz
tar xvfz lshell-0.9.5.tar.gz
sudo python setup.py install
chsh -s /usr/bin/lshell RESTRICTEDUSERNAME

o, btw. it python script. so make sure python is installed.
that's it.
simple, fast, easy.

after that, edit /etc/lshell.conf to configure lshell to suite your need.
the most important (for me) is the allowed and forbidden list of commands.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

openSuse + Koffice2 + OOo3 + Kontact PIM = Office Konnect Linux

2009-07-23T09:25:00.001+07:00

looking for the perfect linux desktop for office use?
so did i.

lucky me, i have access to susestudio. that allow me easily customize openSuse as i like it.

so far, i built openSuse lxde livecd, which is the linux minimal desktop that only have lxde and firefox. this one i use for most every computer i can put it on. then, add up apps that i need.
then from this, i made up kidSuse. the linux for kids. this is the one my kids (from 2yrs to 6yrs) are playing and learning with, everyday.

but i still missing something...
for office use, i can start with minimal desktop. but there's too much to add and when the internet slowing down, it could takes hours downloading all the packages...

so here's the Office Konnect distro for my own use. or if it suite you, it's free to take.

what's inside? the latest (preferred, stable) version of these apps:

OpenOffice.org
Koffice
Kontact (KDE PIM) and all its components
konqueror, kopete, okular, k3b, kde-utils, etc
wine

well, because there're so many kde apps, i just use the kde desktop instead of other lightweight options.

that's all i can think of for my office use.
anything missing? critics, comments, suggestions are all welcome.
--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain

chromium on linux, mac and xp

2009-07-12T18:34:00.000+07:00

this might be a late news.
but because people still gets here for this install google chrome on linux guide, so this short note only to tell you that you can now have chromium (which is the base for google chrome builds) on linux, mac and xp:

just download the latest snapshot, unzip and run.
simple as that.

--
tips & tricks on computers and gadgets
denny on IT ; let's doIT
documenting the brain