News Junkie

Linux kernel 3 Offical Released ..!

2011-07-25T14:13:00.002+05:30

Getting Xen "into" the Linux kernel has been a long-running saga. But good things come to all those who wait — and work hard to coordinate with kernel maintainers. That's the long way of saying that Linux 3.0 now has Xen dom0 support. Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk notes that there's still work to be done in a few areas but "the majority of needs will be satisfied by the 3.0 kernel."

What does dom0 support mean? Basically it means that Linux will be usable as a host kernel for Xen. Now, that's been the case for years and years — but it required patching the kernel, rather than having stock support in the kernel. With 3.0 and dom0 support fully integrated, that means that the days of having to run a patched kernel or vendors having to add (and maintain) patches for Xen are drawing to a close.

The Xen wiki has a longer and more detailed discussion of dom0 for folks who really want to dig in.

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier

Police investigating second suspect in shooting spree

2011-07-23T23:57:00.000+05:30

Man arrested in vicinity of Norway PM with knife

Norwegian police arrested a young man carrying a knife Saturday at a hotel where Prime Minister Stoltenberg was visiting survivors of a shooting rampage that left 85 dead, broadcaster NRK said.

The suspect said he was a member of the Labour party's youth wing and that he had a knife in his pocket "because he did not feel safe," an NRK reporter said. The shooting's victims were all killed by a gunman while attending a summer camp run by the Labour party's youth wing on an island near Oslo.

Stoltenberg was inside a building when the young man was arrested outside the hotel, an AFP reporter witnessed. The young man was taken to a police car which left the scene. According to another NRK reporter, the young man, wearing shorts, did not appear threatening and "was smiling when he was put in the police car." Police could not be reached for an immediate comment on the incident.

Mpeg

2011-01-14T20:29:00.000+05:30

# rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedoraPublish Post/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
# rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Now, Install all other plug ins..

# yum -y install gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly xine-lib-extras-nonfree gstreamer-ffmpeg

After successful installation, open Amarok or any other multimedia player and try to play the mp3 file and see if all goes fine and you are able to hear the music.

XMMS
To install xmms and make it MP3-capable, start by doing this:

# yum install xmms xmms-mp3

MPEG, QuickTime, AVI, and DVDs
MPEG (the format used on DVDs) represents itself as an open standard, but most Linux distributions won't ship software that read it because of blocking patents held by MPEGLA. AVI and Apple QuickTime have proprietary codecs covered by patents, so most Linux distributions won't ship software that decodes them, either.

Unfortunately, the alternate front end xine is even more broken. It can be installed this way:

# yum install xine xine-lib libdvdcss

Doing this will also install a number of support libraries, including the libdvdcss plugin

VLC Player:
# rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
# yum -y install vlc

Touch pad is Not working Fedoro 14 XFCe! How to override?

2011-01-14T19:58:00.003+05:30

Hello

My Box is lenovo sl510 .. When i install fedora XFCe 14 , I notice touch pad is not

working .. Search internet got good tips from linuxquestions.org

so i share my experience in my blog ..

file is ====> su -c ' vi /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf'

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad catchall"
Driver "synaptics"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
#add new line --
Option "TapButton1" "1"
EndSection

# Quirks for special touchpads

# Some devices have the buttons as part of the lower edge of the
# touchpad. Pressing a button moves the cursor, causing cursor jumps and
# erroneous clicks.
# Use the synaptics area property to work around this, udev labels these
# devices for us as touchpad_button_overlap.
# Affected: Dell Mini
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "touchpad button overlap"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchTag "touchpad_button_overlap"
Option "AreaBottomEdge" "4000"
EndSection

Thanking You ...

Installion Ubuntu 9.10 on Lenovo SL510

2010-07-23T21:27:00.004+05:30

How to install Ubuntu 9.10 on Lenovo Sl510?

Lenovo SL510 is widescreen [-15.4-] laptop ..,on installion time, Resolution is 1366*768,Intel Graphic Card,Installion time Screen goes Blank ,
Steps are Below

1. Insert Ubuntu cd on cdrive

2. After cd loaded , u can find live cd , Install etc .. Press f6 get option

3. Pass entry splash ro quiet", enter i915.modeset=0 Live CD or Install ...
Nb(press f4 enable '''save graphic'''')

4. So u will be on install setup..

5. Install Ubuntu in ur box

6 .Put entry i915.modeset=0 on ur grub loader file ..

7. File is /boot/grub/grub.cfg

8 Set root passwd .. command is $ sudo root passwd

9. Than change permission to rw .. command $ chmod u+rw
/boot/grub/grub.cfg

10. Edit using gedit /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Enjoy Ubuntu on ur Box ...

Coming soon

2010-03-19T02:24:00.002+05:30

It has been long while in my blogger page

Linux compatibility layer in the FreeBSD kernel

2008-02-15T16:15:00.001+05:30

Very easy to set up: install linux_dist-gentoo-stage3, download the tarball into a directory below /usr/local/gentoo-stage3/, mkdir dev and sys in the gentoo-stage3 directory, mount devfs, linprocfs and linsysfs and then do a "chroot /usr/local/gentoo-stage3 bash". To prepare the LTP extract the tarball, cd into the directory, type "make && make install" and then you can run the first tests with "./runltp -v -p -l mylogfilename 2>&1 | tee verboselog.txt".

If you don't have at least revision 1.187 of /sys/compat/linux/linux/misc.c you need to comment out "reboot02" in runtest/syscalls or your system will reboot. "send01" (and some test immediatly after that test) will cause a kernel panic if you don't have at least revision 1.282 of uipc_socket.c (mutex so_snd held when returning to userland).

There are some tests which hang around and do not finish if you use a -current prior to ~20061222, you need to kill those tests there.

Keep an eye on /usr/local/gentoo-stage3/tmp between tests and clean it up. You should also run "ipcs" and remove some leftover (compare before and after each run).

A little funny note: we are even more compatible than a real linux distribution (don't take this literally). LTP 20061222 does not even compile on Ubuntu 6.10. The error message is ../../generate.sh: 60: arith: syntax error: "cnt--" and the line in question is while [ $((cnt--)) -gt 0 ] ; do. If you do a loop unrolling by hand it fails later when you try to run the LTP tests even before it tries the first test. We did not try to proceed further, we want to fix problems on FreeBSD, not on Linux.

Linux compatibility layer in the FreeBSD kernel

2008-02-15T16:15:00.000+05:30

X-Max

2007-12-22T21:21:00.000+05:30

How to set Lamp in Linux

2007-08-06T17:32:00.000+05:30

How to set LAMP?
in ur Box

Lamp means linux apache and mysql .. First u need to check above all packages are installed in ur box . if ur using rpm packages use the commands in u terminal
Type:
1.rpm -qa | grep -i apache
2.rpm -qa | grep -i httpd
3.rpm -qa | grep -i php
4.rpm -qa | grep -i mysql

To remove the rpm generator package
rpm -e

go to /usr/local/src
download all package using wget,yum,yast

wget http://www.php.net/distributions/php-4.4.6.tar.gz
wget http://apache.oregonstate.edu/httpd/apache_1.3.37.tar.gz
Unpack all the packages
tar zxf php-4.4.6.tar.gz
tar zxf apache_1.3.37.tar.gz
tar zxf mysql-4.1.22.tar.gz
So nest ur director in /usr/local/src
/usr/local/src/php-4.4.6
/usr/local/src/apache_1.3.37
/usr/local/src/mysql-4.1.22
Nest step we need to create group and owner
groupadd mysql
useradd -g mysql -c "MySQL Server" mysql --->./configure --help | less
To install mysql with apache and php
cd /usr/local/src/mysql-4.1.22

chown -R root.root *

make clean

./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
--localstatedir=/usr/local/mysql/data \
--disable-maintainer-mode \
--with-mysqld-user=mysql \
--with-unix-socket-path=/tmp/mysql.sock \
--without-comment \
--without-debug \
--without-bench

Use make && make install to install the package in ur box
Create a ownership in mysql
chown -R root:mysql /usr/local/mysql
chown -R mysql:mysql /usr/local/mysql/data

Copy the default configuration file for the expected size of the database (small, medium, large, huge)
cp support-files/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
chown root:sys /etc/my.cnf
chmod 644 /etc/my.cnf

echo "/usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql" >> /etc/ld.so.conf
ldconfig

Now create a startup script, which enables MySQL auto-start each time your server is restarted.
cp ./support-files/mysql.server /etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql
chmod +x /etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql
/sbin/chkconfig --level 3 mysql on

Start the mysql
/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql start
Create new password for root
mysqladmin -u root password new-password
Build apache
cd /usr/local/src/apache_1.3.37

make clean

./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local/apache \
--enable-shared=max \
--enable-module=rewrite \
--enable-module=so

make && make install

To install php
cd /usr/local/src/php-4.4.6

./configure \
--with-apxs=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs \
--disable-debug \
--enable-ftp \
--enable-inline-optimization \
--enable-magic-quotes \
--enable-mbstring \
--enable-mm=shared \
--enable-safe-mode \
--enable-track-vars \
--enable-trans-sid \
--enable-wddx=shared \
--enable-xml \
--with-dom \
--with-gd \
--with-gettext \
--with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \
--with-regex=system \
--with-xml \
--with-zlib-dir=/usr/lib

make && make install

cp php.ini-dist /usr/local/lib/php.ini

I like to keep my config files all together in /etc. I set up a symbolic link like this:

ln -s /usr/local/lib/php.ini /etc/php.ini

Link the configuartion files
ln -s /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd.conf
add in httpd.conf
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .foo
AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps .phtmls
start apache /etc/init.d/apache start or apachectl start

eyeOS

2007-07-30T13:20:00.000+05:30

Welcome to eyeOS 1.0 !
You're about to discover a new concept of Open Source web Operating System, where you can customize your system to fit exactly your needs. Discover today the new eyeOS 1.0 with new base applications, desktop, kernel, libraries and services!

XMP toolkit as open source

2007-06-14T14:52:00.000+05:30

Graphics Tools
Adobe relicenses XMP toolkit as open source
Tuesday May 29, 2007 (05:01 PM GMT)
By: Nathan Willis

Adobe has released a new version of its Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) toolkit, and for the first time it is under an open source license that allows the code to be incorporated into free software. XMP is Adobe's XML-based specification for metadata geared toward digital images and multimedia. Read more at Linux.com »

SSH with out password

2007-06-14T14:42:00.000+05:30

How to set SSH with out password?

Type in Ur console ?

ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/a/.ssh/id_rsa):
Created directory '/home/brijesh/.ssh'.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/brijesh/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/brijesh/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
3e:4f:05:79:3a:9f:96:7c:3b:ad:e9:58:37:bc:37:e4 a@A

ssh brijesh1@localhost mkdir -p .ssh

Create directory
cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh brijesh1@brijesh 'cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys'
brijesh1@brijesh's password:

From now on you can log into Bijesh1 as brijesh1 from brijesh as a without password:

Svn Basic commands

2007-06-08T17:40:00.000+05:30

svn add
svn add. When you are creating a new file or directory, you need to tell the SVN server about it. This command does that. Note that the file won't appear in the repository until you do an svn commit (see below).

svn propset
svn propset. When you are creating a new file or directory, you generally need to tell the SVN to apply properties to the file in places that have keywords in a special format such as $Date: 2007-04-03 14:28:17 -0500 (Tue, 03 Apr 2007) $. Note that the keyword value won't appear in the file until you do an svn commit (see below).

svn delete
svn delete. This does what it says! When you do an svn commit the file will be deleted from your local sand box immediately as well as from the repository after committing.

svn status
svn status. This command prints the status of working directories and files. If you have made local changes, it'll show your locally modified items. If you use the --verbose switch, it will show revision information on every item. With the --show-updates (-u) switch, it will show any server out-of-date information.

You should always do a manual svn status --show-updates before trying to commit changes in order to check that everything is OK and ready to go.

svn update/up
svn update or svn up. This command syncs your local sand box with the server. If you have made local changes, it will try and merge any changes on the server with your changes on your machine.

svn commit/ci
svn commit or svn ci. This command recursively sends your changes to the SVN server. It will commit changed files, added files, and deleted files. Note that you can commit a change to an individual file or changes to files in a specific directory path by adding the name of the file/directory to the end of the command. The -m option should always be used to pass a log message to the command. Please don't use empty log messages (see later in this document the policy which governs the log messages).

svn diff
svn diff. This is useful for two different purposes. First, those without write access to the BLFS SVN server can use it to generate patches to send to the BLFS-Dev mailing list. To do this, simply edit the files in your local sand box then run svn diff > FILE.patch from the root of your BLFS directory. You can then attach this file to a message to the BLFS-Dev mailing list where someone with editing rights can pick it up and apply it to the book. The second use is to find out what has changed between two revisions using: svn diff -r revision1:revision2 FILENAME. For example: svn diff -r 168:169 index.xml will output a diff showing the changes between revisions 168 and 169 of index.xml.

svn move
svn move SRC DEST or svn mv SRC DEST or svn rename SRC DEST or svn ren SRC DEST. This command moves a file from one directory to another or renames a file. The file will be moved on your local sand box immediately as well as on the repository after committing.

gNewSense

2007-04-23T14:57:00.000+05:30

Download It And Try It Before You Install.

* http://cdimage.gnewsense.org/ (now with BitTorrent)

Chess Engine For Linux

2007-03-26T18:04:00.000+05:30

Chess engines for Linux are comparable in strength to commercial chess engines available for other platforms. Here's a look at the features of half a dozen of the most well-known chess engines for Linux.
A chess engine is the actual program against which you play the game. A chess engine can take a move as an input, and after analysis, generate a move of its own as an output.
To play against such an engine, you need a user interface. Most chess engines provide a command-line user interface, but that can be quite awkward. To make things easier, you can use a complete graphical user interface to communicate with the engine. XBoard and UCI (Universal Chess Interface) are two of the most popular and widely used free, open source communication protocols that enable a chess engine to communicate with a graphical user interface. Isolating the chess engine from its GUI gives you the choice of using any interface of your preference. You can easily make two chess engines, each of which supports these protocols, play against each other by making them communicate through an XBoard or UCI interface.
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/03/15/1722207

Open Mosix ,, Linux cluster

2007-03-19T10:36:00.000+05:30

What is openMosix?
openMosix is a Linux kernel extension for single-system image clustering. This kernel extension turns a network of ordinary computers into a supercomputer for Linux applications.
Once you have installed openMosix, the nodes in the cluster start talking to one another and the cluster adapts itself to the workload. Processes originating from any one node, if that node is too busy compared to others, can migrate to any other node. openMosix continuously attempts to optimize the resource allocation.
We achieve this with a kernel patch for Linux, creating a reliable, fast and cost-efficient SSI clustering platform that is linearly scalable and adaptive. With openMosix' Auto Discovery, a new node can be added while the cluster is running and the cluster will automatically begin to use the new resources.
There is no need to program applications specifically for openMosix. Since all openMosix extensions are inside the kernel, every Linux application automatically and transparently benefits from the distributed computing concept of openMosix. The cluster behaves much as does a Symmetric Multi-Processor, but this solution scales to well over a thousand nodes which can themselves be SMPs.
The openMosix Community is very active, contributing add-on applications and sharing helpful information with all users. The openMosix Add-Ons and Community page lists these shared applications. And, it is all GPL'd.

Resource :http://openmosix.sourceforge.net/
OpenMosix

Dynamic DNS !!!

2007-03-01T18:21:00.000+05:30

Dynamic DNS Preparation

Unlike DSL, most cable modem providers may not allow you to host sites at home by blocking inbound HTTP (TCP port 80) and SMTP mail (TCP port 25) while allowing most other TCP traffic through. Many DDNS providers are aware of this and provide a redirect service to bypass the problem. Under the system, Web queries first hit their servers on the regular TCP ports and then these servers automatically redirect the Web clients to use the IP address of your server on a different TCP port. Although this works well, it has disadvantages. The cost of the service can make hosting with a $10 /month virtual hosting service look very attractive, and many search engines do not index redirected pages.
Testing ISP Connectivity For Your Website

The very first thing you need to do is to determine whether your ISP allows inbound connections on your DSL or cable modem line. The easiest way to do this is to phone them and ask, but in some cases they'll say no when in fact the answer is yes. Here is how you can test it out for yourself.
Setup

You need to do some basic setup tests before testing can begin.

1. Configure and start Apache on your Linux web server as described in Chapter 20, "The Apache Web Server."
2. Connect your Linux server directly to your cable or DSL modem, and configure the Ethernet NIC for DHCP as described in Chapter 3, "Linux Networking.".
3. Make sure you can ping your default gateway.
4. Use the ipconfig command to determine the new IP address of your Web server. (This command is explained Chapter 3 also.).
5. From the Linux Web server itself, try to TELNET to this IP address on port 80 as explained in Chapter 4, "Simple Network Troubleshooting."

If you can, then you most likely have Apache configured correctly
Testing From The Internet

You may be able to see web pages from the web server itself. Ask a friend somewhere else on the Internet to try to telnet to this IP address on port 80.

If port 80 works, then ask the friend to point a Web browser to the IP address and see whether a valid Web page appears. If your Linux server will eventually be placed behind a firewall, then adjust your network topology accordingly and test port 80 port forwarding to your Web server.

If the TELNET to port 80 fails, your ISP probably doesn't allow HTTP access to its networks. Configure your Web server to run on a different TCP port, preferably above 1024. The Apache httpd.conf file uses the listen directive to do this. Change it to your new value and restart httpd.

# httpd.conf listen directive, change "80" to some other value.

Listen 80

Test again with telnet on this new port. If it works, try the web browser test too. If the test port is 1234, then use the following URL:

http://server-ip-address:1234

Note: If you are running iptables, remember to adjust the rules to match this new port, or stop iptables temporarily while doing this testing.

If you can get a connection with correctly displayed pages on a non standard port then you can additionally sign up for a redirect service with your DDNS provider as explained earlier.
Test Port Forwarding

If your Linux server will eventually be placed behind a firewall, then adjust your network topology accordingly. Let Apache run on port 80, and test port forwarding from the nonstandard port to port 80 on your Web server from the Internet.

One of the features of the curl troubleshooting utility is that it allows you download a Web page's HTML code to your screen without interpreting it. You can determine the external IP address of your router or firewall by logging onto your Linux Web server and issuing the curl command to query the DynDNS.org IP information server. In this case, you are interested in only the line that tells you what the server thinks your IP address is; use the grep command to extract just that part. In this example, the IP address is 24.4.97.110.

[root@bigboy tmp]# curl -s http://checkip.dyndns.org/ | grep -i address
Current IP CheckCurrent IP Address: 24.4.97.110
[root@bigboy tmp]#

Registering DDNS

Once you have decided to go ahead with DDNS you'll need to choose between the broad categories of Dynamic DNS service.

* Free Dynamic DNS: Your website name will be a sub domain of the DDNS provider's domain. For example if the DDNS provider's domain is isp.net, then your site will become my-site.my-isp.net. You can perform all the necessary steps on your DDNS service provider's Web site. Remember that this type of service may be undesirable for a company that wants to establish its own corporate identity. Another disadvantage is that you must rely on your DDNS provider staying in business or else you may lose your domain. When you own your own domain this worry largely goes away as you are fully in control of the DNS registration and renewal process.

Another disadvantage is that you must rely on your DDNS provider staying in business or else you may lose your domain. When you own your own domain this worry largely goes away as you are fully in control of the DNS registration and renewal process.

* Paid Customized DNS: You can register the domain name of your choice and still host your website on a DHCP line.

If you choose to create your own domain and use a paid DDNS service then you'll need to follow these steps:

1. Register your domains (such as my-site.com) with such companies as Verisign and RegisterFree.
2. Create an account with the DDNS provider and register your websites (sometimes called hosts) as part of your domain (as in www.my-site.com and mail.my-site.com) with them. Your DDNS registration process will provide you with a username and password which you'll need to use when configuring your DDNS client.
3. Update your domain information with your main DNS registrar (Verisign and RegisterFree) to tell them to direct queries to *.my-site.com to the DNS name servers of the DDNS provider.
4. Install a DDNS client on your web servers that continuously runs, only updating the DDNS provider's DNS servers with the most current DHCP IP address of the site whenever it detects a change.

Note: You should also be prepared for slower response times for your home-based site than if you were using a static IP and a regular DNS service.
Install a DDNS Client On Your Server

All DDNS service providers require that you use a DDNS client on your web server that will periodically update the IP address information in your provider's DDNS record. The very popular one DDclient, for example, now comes in a RPM format.
Dynamic DNS And NAT Router/Firewalls

As discussed in Chapter 2, "Introduction to Networking," to conserve the limited number of IP addresses available for Internet purposes, most home router/firewalls use network address translation (NAT) to map a single, public, DHCP-obtained IP address to the many private IP addresses within your network.

NAT can fool the operation of some DDNS client software. In these cases, the software can report only the true IP address of the Linux box's NIC interface. If the Linux box is being protected behind a NAT router/firewall, then the NIC reports in its data stream to the DDNS provider a private IP address that no one can reach directly via the Internet. The reported value is therefore invalid.

Some DDNS providers use more intelligent clients, such as DDclient, that can be configured to let the DDNS provider record the public IP address from which the data stream is originating. Once this is done, you'll have to also configure your router/firewall to do port forwarding to make all HTTP traffic destined for the IP address of the router/firewall to be exclusively address translated using NAT and forwarded to a single server on your home network. If your firewall is Linux based, then the examples in Chapter 14, "Linux Firewalls Using iptables," will be helpful. Many Web-based small office/home office (SOHO) firewalls have easy interfaces to configure port forwarding, please refer to your manufacturer's manual on how to do this
DDNS Client Software - SOHO Router / Firewalls

Most new SOHO router/firewalls have built in dynamic DNS clients for one or more of the major DDNS service providers. There is usually a Dynamic DNS web menu which will prompt for the name of the service provider and your DDNS username and password. With this support, there is no need to install software on your web server.
DDNS Client Software - Linux DDclient

One of the most commonly used clients is DDclient, which can overcome the NAT limitations of DDNS by actually logging into your SOHO firewall to determine the latest IP address information. Like most RedHat and Fedora Linux software products, DDclient is available in the RPM format. (If you need a refresher on RPMs, consult Chapter 6, "Installing Linux Software.") You can usually download the software from your DDNS provider, or you can find it at rpmfind.net. The RPM name usually starts with ddclient followed by a version number, as in ddclient-3.6.3-1.noarch.rpm.
The /etc/ddclient.conf file

The ddclient.conf file is usually installed completely commented out, but provides many configuration examples for the most popular DDNS providers.

The most important general parameters to configure are:

* Username: Your DDNS account's login name
* Password: Your DDNS account's password
* Use: The method used to determine the IP address to advertise to the DDNS server

Some important DDNS provider parameters are

* Server: The name of the DDNS provider's main DNS server
* Protocol: The methodology the DDNS client should use to communicate with the DDNS server
* Your domain: The domain to which your web server will belong

You can use the ddclient command to determine the best use parameter to use in the ddclient.conf file. In this example, only the use=web option gives a valid Internet IP address and should be considered as a first option:

[root@bigboy tmp]# ddclient -daemon=0 -query
use=if, if=lo address is 127.0.0.1
use=if, if=wlan0 address is 192.168.1.100
use=web, web=dyndns address is 97.158.253.26
[root@bigboy tmp]#

Take a look at a sample configuration. This example specifies a username of my-account-login-name and a password of my-account-password using the dyndns DDNS service provider's settings to track the Web site named mysite-example.dnsalias.com.

# General Parameter Section

login=my-account-login-name
password=my-account-password

# DDNS Provider Parameters Section

server=members.dyndns.org, \
protocol=dyndns2 \
mysite-example.dnsalias.com

You can add one of the following use lines to the General Parameter Section near the top of the file to define the method that will be used to determine the correct IP address:

* Query A Well Known Internet Server: The web method queries two well known servers run by DynDNS.org and DNSpark to determine the public Internet IP address of the web server running the DDclient software. This method is the simplest as it requires no further information and handles NAT correctly.

use=web

* Use The IP Address Of A Specific Server NIC : You can also use this option which will query the IP address of the DDclient web server's NIC interface of your choice. This is probably most valuable for servers connected directly to the Internet, and not via NAT

use=if, if=eth0

* Login To Your SOHO Firewall For Information: The ddclient.conf file has a list of use statements for various vendor's firewalls. If your model isn't listed, you can create your own parameters as outlined in the ddclient README file. This option is good for NAT environments where the "use=web" option isn't considered a good alternative.

After editing your configuration file you'll have to start ddclient as shown in the next section.
How to Get DDclient Started

You can configure DDclient to start at boot time using the chkconfig command:

[root@bigboy tmp]# chkconfig ddclient on

You can start, stop, and restart DDclient after boot time using the DDclient initialization script as in:

[root@bigboy tmp]# service ddclient start
[root@bigboy tmp]# service ddclient stop
[root@bigboy tmp]# service ddclient restart

Remember to restart the ddclient process every time you make a change to the ddclient.conf file for the changes to take effect on the running process.

You can test whether the ddclient process is running with the pgrep command, you should get a response of plain old process ID numbers:

[root@bigboy tmp]# pgrep ddclient

Finding DDclient Help

The DDclient read-me and ddclient.conf files are good sources of information for doing custom configurations and troubleshooting. You can find the read-me file by using DDclient RPMs or the locate command.

Use the rpm command to get a list of installed DDclient files, one of which is the read-me file

[root@bigboy tmp]# rpm -ql ddclient
...
/usr/doc/ddclient-3.6.3/README
...
[root@bigboy tmp]#

Alternately, you can use the locate command to find all the DDclient files:

[root@bigboy tmp]# locate ddclient | grep READ
/usr/doc/ddclient-3.6.3/README
/usr/doc/ddclient-3.6.3/README.cisco
[root@bigboy tmp]#

If the command doesn't work, try updating your locate database with the locate -u command followed by the locate ddclient command once more:

[root@bigboy tmp]# locate -u

Testing Your Dynamic DNS

You can test your dynamic DNS by:

* Looking at the status page of your DNS provider and making sure the IP address that matches your www site is the same as your router/firewall's public IP address.
* Using the "host www.my-site.com" command from your Linux command prompt to determine whether you are getting a valid response. If you failed to add your host record, you will get an error message like:

[root@bigboy tmp]# host www.my-site.com

Server: 127.0.0.1
Address: 127.0.0.1#53

** server can't find www.my-site.com: NXDOMAIN

This error could be because your domain hasn't propagated fully throughout the Internet. You can test to make sure everything is okay by forcing NS lookup to query the name servers directly. The example below queries the miniDNS name server ns1.minidns.net:

[root@bigboy tmp]# host www.my-site.com ns1.minidns.net
www.my-site.com has address 97.158.253.26
[root@bigboy tmp]#

2007-03-01T18:18:00.000+05:30

Directory /home/www/*
AllowOverride AuthConfig
/Directory

6) Make sure that you have a directive that defines access to /home/www or another directory higher up in the tree.

VirtualHost
ServerName 97.158.253.26
DocumentRoot /home/www
VirtualHost

Protect Web Page Directories With Passwords,Multiple Ip Virtual Host

2007-03-01T18:11:00.000+05:30

Step 1: Configure Virtual Hosting on Multiple IPs

You can configure Apache to serve the correct content when accessing www.mysite.com or www.another-site.com from the outside, and also when accessing the specific IP address 192.168.1.100 from the inside. Fortunately Apache allows you to specify multiple IP addresses in the statements to help you overcome this problem.

Here is an example:

NameVirtualHost 192.168.1.100
NameVirtualHost 97.158.253.26

DocumentRoot /www/server1
ServerName www.my-site.com
ServerAlias bigboy, www.my-site-192-168-1-100.com

Step 2: Configure DNS "Views"

You now need to fix the DNS problem that NAT creates. Users on the Internet need to access IP address 97.158.253.26 when visiting www.my-site.com and users on your home network need to access IP address 192.168.1.100 when visiting the same site.

You can configure your DNS server to use views which makes your DNS server give different results depending on the source IP address of the Web surfer's PC doing the query. Chapter 18, "Configuring DNS", explains how to do this in detail.

Note: If you have to rely on someone else to do the DNS change, then you can edit your PC's hosts file as a quick and dirty temporary solution to the problem. Remember that this will fix the problem on your PC alone.
How To Protect Web Page Directories With Passwords

You can password protect content in both the main and subdirectories of your DocumentRoot fairly easily. I know people who allow normal access to their regular Web pages, but require passwords for directories or pages that show MRTG or Webalizer data. This example shows how to password protect the /home/www directory.

1) Use Apache's htpasswd password utility to create username/password combinations independent of your system login password for Web page access. You have to specify the location of the password file, and if it doesn't yet exist, you have to include a -c, or create, switch on the command line. I recommend placing the file in your /etc/httpd/conf directory, away from the DocumentRoot tree where Web users could possibly view it. Here is an example for a first user named peter and a second named paul:

[root@bigboy tmp]# htpasswd -c /etc/httpd/conf/.htpasswd peter
New password:
Re-type new password:
Adding password for user peter
[root@bigboy tmp]#

[root@bigboy tmp]# htpasswd /etc/httpd/conf/.htpasswd paul
New password:
Re-type new password:
Adding password for user paul
[root@bigboy tmp]#

2) Make the .htpasswd file readable by all users.

[root@bigboy tmp]# chmod 644 /etc/httpd/conf/.htpasswd

3) Create a .htaccess file in the directory to which you want password control with these entries.

AuthUserFile /etc/httpd/conf/.htpasswd
AuthGroupFile /dev/null
AuthName EnterPassword
AuthType Basic
require user peter

Remember this password protects the directory and all its subdirectories. The AuthUserFile tells Apache to use the .htpasswd file. The require user statement tells Apache that only user peter in the .htpasswd file should have access. If you want all .htpasswd users to have access, replace this line with require valid-user. AuthType Basic instructs Apache to accept basic unencrypted passwords from the remote users' Web browser.

4) Set the correct file protections on your new .htaccess file in the directory /home/www.

[root@bigboy tmp]# chmod 644 /home/www/.htaccess

5) Make sure your /etc/httpd/conf/http.conf file has an AllowOverride statement in a directive for any directory in the tree above /home/www. In this example below, all directories below /var/www/ require password authorization.

AllowOverride AuthConfig

6) Make sure that you have a directive that defines access to /home/www or another directory higher up in the tree.

ServerName 97.158.253.26
DocumentRoot /home/www

7) Restart Apache.

Try accessing the web site and you'll be prompted for a password.
The conf.d Directory

Files in the /etc/httpd/conf.d (Redhat / Fedora) or the /etc/apache*/conf.d (Debian / Ubuntu) directory are read and automatically appended to the configuration in the httpd.conf file every time Apache is restarted. In complicated configurations, in which a Web server has to host many Web sites, you can create one configuration file per Web site each with its own set of and containers. This can make Web site management much simpler. To do this correctly:

1. Backup your httpd.conf file, in case you make a mistake.
2. Create the files located in this directory that contain the Apache required and containers and directives.
3. If each site has a dedicated IP address, then place the NameVirtualHost statements in the corresponding conf.d directory file. If it is shared, it'll need to remain in the main httpd.conf file.
4. Remove the corresponding directives from the httpd.conf file.
5. Restart Apache, and test.

The files located in the conf.d directory don't have to have any special names, and you don't have to refer to them in the httpd.conf file.
Troubleshooting Apache

Troubleshooting a basic Apache configuration is fairly straightforward; you'll find errors in the /var/log/httpd/error_log file during normal operation or displayed on the screen when Apache starts up. Most of the errors you'll encounter will probably be related to incompatible syntax in the statement caused by typing errors.
Testing Basic HTTP Connectivity

The very first step is to determine whether your web server is accessible on TCP port 80 (HTTP).

Lack of connectivity could be caused by a firewall with incorrect permit, NAT, or port forwarding rules to your Web server. Other sources of failure include Apache not being started at all, the server being down, or network-related failures.

If you can connect on port 80 but no pages are being served, then the problem is usually due to a bad Web application, not the Web server software itself.

It is best to test this from both inside your network and from the Internet. Troubleshooting with TELNET is covered in Chapter 4, "Simple Network Troubleshooting".
Browser 403 Forbidden Messages

Browser 403 Forbidden messages are usually caused by file permissions and security context issues. Please refer to the "General Configuration Steps" section for further details.

A sure sign of problems related to security context are "avc: denied" messages in your /var/log/messages log file.

Nov 21 20:41:23 bigboy kernel: audit(1101098483.897:0): avc: denied { getattr } for pid=1377 exe=/usr/sbin/httpd path=/home/www/index.html dev=hda5 ino=12 scontext=root:system_r:httpd_t tcontext=root:object_r:home_root_t tclass=file

Only The Default Apache Page Appears

When only the default Apache page appears, there are two main causes. The first is the lack of an index.html file in your Web site's DocumentRoot directory. The second cause is usually related to an incorrect security context for the Web page's file. Please refer to the "General Configuration Steps" section for further details.
Incompatible httpd.conf Files When Upgrading

Your old configuration files will be incompatible when upgrading from Apache version 1.3 to Apache 2.X. In Redhat / Fedora, the new version 2.X default configuration file is stored in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.rpmnew. For the simple virtual hosting example above, it would be easiest to:

1. Save the old httpd.conf file with another name, httpd.conf-version-1.x for example. Copy the ServerName, NameVirtualHost, and VirtualHost containers from the old file and place them in the and place them in the new httpd.conf.rpmnew file.
2. Copy the httpd.conf.rpmnew file an name it httpd.conf
3. Restart Apache

With other distributions, the procedure is similar; just place your containers in the new default configuration file and restart Apache.
Server Name Errors

All ServerName directives must list a domain that is resolvable in DNS, or else you'll get an error similar to these when starting httpd.

Starting httpd: httpd: Could not determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using 127.0.0.1 for ServerName

Starting httpd: [Wed Feb 04 21:18:16 2004] [error] (EAI 2)Name or service not known: Failed to resolve server name for 192.16.1.100 (check DNS) -- or specify an explicit ServerName

You can avoid this by adding a default generic ServerName directive at the top of the httpd.conf file that references localhost instead of the default new.host.name:80.

#ServerName new.host.name:80
ServerName localhost

The Apache Status Log Files

The /var/log/httpd/access_log file is updated after every HTTP query and is a good source of general purpose information about your website. There is a fixed formatting style with each entry being separated by spaces or quotation marks. Table 20-3 lists the layout.
Table 20-3 Apache Log File Format
Field Number Description Separator
1 IP Address of the remote web surfer Spaces
2 Time Stamp Square Brackets []
3 HTTP query including the web page served Quotes ""
4 HTTP result code Spaces
5 The amount of data in bytes sent to the remote web browser Spaces
6 The web page that contained the link to the page served. Quotes ""
7 The version of the web browser used to get the page Quotes ""

Upon examining the entry, you can determine that someone at IP address 67.119.25.115 on February 15, looked at the web page /dns-static.htm returning a successful 200 status code. The amount of data sent was 15190 bytes and the surfer got to the site by clicking on the link http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/sendmail.htm using Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.5.

67.119.25.115 - - [15/Feb/2003:23:06:51 -0800] "GET /dns-static.htm HTTP/1.1" 200 15190
"http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/sendmail.htm"
"Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 4.0; AT&T CSM6.0; YComp 5.0.2.6)"

The HTTP status code can provide some insight into the types of operations surfers are trying to attempt and may help to isolate problems with your pages, not the operation of the Apache. For example 404 errors are generated when someone tries to access a web page that doesn't exist anymore. This could be caused by incorrect URL links in other pages on you site. Table 20-4 has some of the more common examples.
Table 20-4 HTTP Status Codes
HTTP Code Description
200 Successful request
304 Successful request, but the web page requested hasn't been modified since the current version in the remote web browser's cache. This means the web page will not be sent to the remote browser, it will just use its cached version instead. Frequently occurs when a surfer is browsing back and forth on a site.
401 Unauthorized access. Someone entered an incorrect username / password on a password protected page.
403 Forbidden. File permissions or contexts prevents Apache from reading the file. Often occurs when the web page file is owned by user "root" even though it has universal read access.
404 Not found. Page requested doesn't exist.
500 Internal server error. Frequently generated by CGI scripts that fail due to bad syntax. Check your error_log file for further details on the script's error message.
The Apache Error Log Files

The /var/log/httpd/error_log file is a good source for error information. Unlike the /var/log/httpd/access_log file, there is no standardized formatting.

Typical errors that you'll find here are HTTP queries for files that don't exist or forbidden requests for directory listings. The file will also include Apache startup errors which can be very useful.

The /var/log/httpd/error_log file also is the location where CGI script errors are written. Many times CGI scripts fail with a blank screen on your browser; the /var/log/httpd/error_log file most likely lists the cause of the problem.

eBook Resource

2007-02-28T00:53:00.000+05:30

eBook Resource for Programming Languages & Softwarare

eBook Resource for Programming Languages & Softwares
Ebook

Linux: 100 flavours and counting

2007-02-27T11:52:00.000+05:30

Using Linus Torvalds's latest stable kernel release as a base, there are over 100 recognised flavours of the operating system in development, and possibly many more 'home brew' efforts in the hands of hobbyists and enthusiasts.

Out of these so-called 'distros', perhaps a dozen or so are recognised as mainstream commercial/enterprise offerings.

Although adhering to the nature of open source and being available for free download, these distributions can be bought off the shelf accompanied by a multitude of service options and additional programs.

These distributions are leading the foray into the enterprise space and, while competing against Windows, they are also competing against each other.

As is evident from the following analysis, each current mainstream flavour of Linux has its own unique characteristics, but all come bundled with hundreds or even thousands of packages ranging from office suites to graphical desktops.

MANDRAKE LINUX 8.2
Mandrake Linux was created in 1998 with the goal of making Linux easier to use for everyone. Although at the time Linux was well-known as a powerful and stable operating system, it demanded strong technical knowledge and extensive use of the command line.

MandrakeSoft seized this opportunity to integrate a user-friendly graphical desktop environment as well as to contribute its own graphical configuration utilities.

As a result Mandrake quickly became famous for setting the standard in ease-of-use and functionality and proved that Linux as a server or workstation has no reason to be jealous of any other more established operating systems.

RED HAT
Founded in 1994, Red Hat is widely recognised as the leader in the enterprise Linux space; the 330lb gorilla holding the biggest market share. It's also pegged as the top distro in terms of the development, deployment and management of Linux for an internet infrastructure.

The Red Hat distributions for Intel, Alpha and Sparc are built from the exact same source packages. This is to ensure maximum portability between platforms regardless of the underlying hardware architecture.

Red Hat is also famous for a very easy installation system known as Red Hat Package Management, which effectively allows download and installation of packages with a single command.

DEBIAN 3.0
The Debian Project claims to be "an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system". But it has a reputation for being the 'elite' users choice in Linux, infamous for its uber techie 'holier than thou' user base.

Although, like many Linux variants, Debian is updated and maintained through the work of many users who volunteer their efforts, extensive pre-release testing is done to ensure the highest degree of reliability possible, and a publicly accessible bug tracking system provides an easy way to monitor user feedback.

Debian comes with over 8,000 packages and is well known for its advanced package management tools that allow for easy installation and maintenance on individual systems and workstation clusters.

GENTOO LINUX 1.2
Gentoo Linux is a versatile and fast distribution geared towards developers and network professionals. Again, a benefit of Gentoo is its advanced package management system called Portage.

This is a true ports system in the tradition of BSD ports, but is Python-based and sports a number of advanced features including dependencies, fine-grained package management, 'fake' installs, sand-boxing, safe un-merging, system profiles, virtual packages, config file management and more. It's smooth and sleek, but definitely a Linux for power users.

SUSE 8.0
SuSE is the leading Linux distro in Europe and the biggest competitor to Red Hat. Known for its easy to use interface, SuSE is also renowned for good customer service, making it a strong player in the enterprise space.

Like Red Hat, SuSE is one of the oldest flavours of Linux. SuSE is also involved in the UnitedLinux project (see below).

SLACKWARE 8.1
Slackware is an advanced Linux operating system, designed with the twin goals of ease-of-use and stability but, again, one for the power users.

Slackware is equipped to serve in any capacity from desktop workstation to machine-room server with web, FTP, and email servers ready to go out of the box. But for the developers, a full range of tools, editors and current libraries are included for users who wish to develop or compile additional software.

LYCORIS AMETHYST 2 DESKTOP
Formerly known as Redmond Linux, Lycoris is located in Redmond, Washington, home of Microsoft. Lycoris is a relative newcomer to the market, started in 2000 with a vision of making Linux easy enough for anyone to use.

Lycoris has managed to bag positive reviews and has become renowned as a simplified Linux desktop for those unfamiliar with the operating system.

CALDERA 3.1.1
OpenLinux product line is a multi-tasking, multi-user Linux-based operating system surrounded with utilities, graphical interfaces, installation procedures, third-party applications, etc.

But, like Turbolinux (below), the SCO Group - which was recently acquired by Caldera - will now focus on the UnitedLinux project.

TURBOLINUX 8.0
Although TurboLinux was recently acquired by Japanese firm Software Research Associates it is still one of the more prominent Linux flavours.

Turbolinux distributions are designed from the ground-up specifically for enterprise computing, a claim evident in the server version which supports the Large File Support standard for working with applications that manage or handle up to four terabytes of data. TurboLinux is now one of the key players in the new UnitedLinux distribution.

UNITEDLINUX
A new contender to the throne, but worth a mention because it is being backed by some of the biggest players in the Linux arena. Red Hat is not involved and it is thought that UnitedLinux will seek to usurp that particular distro from its current throne.

Due for preview this month, with release 1.0 out in November, UnitedLinux is the combined effort of SCO, Conectiva, SuSE and Turbolinux to bring a standards-based Linux to the market.

It is primarily targeted at business users who are baffled by the minor differences in all the other flavours of Linux and is again set up as a main competitor to claim market share from current behemoth Red Hat.

Opting for standards rather than unique tweaks also means that UnitedLinux could even be the contender to the Microsoft throne that the open source movement has been waiting for but, even so, it demonstrates the next evolution of Linux as a more businesslike and focused contender.

Ref:http://www.computing.co.uk/vnunet/analysis/2132081/linux-100-flavours-counting

Free Software

2007-02-27T11:17:00.000+05:30

Linux is “open source” software meaning, simply, that anyone can get copies of its source code files.
Make use of open-source software (OSS). OSS is software for which the source code is freely and publicly available, though the specific licensing agreements vary as to what one is allowed to do with that code.

Linux Pronunciation

2007-02-27T11:06:00.001+05:30

Linux Prodigy -- IBM

2007-02-27T11:03:00.001+05:30