As posted on LinuxMint Official website:

The team is proud to announce the release of Linux Mint 9 “Isadora”. Linux Mint 9 “Isadora” New features at a glance: New Software Manager 30,000 packages Review applications straight from the Software Manager APT daemon Visual improvements New Backup Tool Incremental backups, compression, integrity checks Backup/Restoration of the software selection Menu improvements Editable items Transparent menu Always start with favorites “Add to”…

http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=1403

personal comment:

I had the chance to try Linux Mint 9 on my virtualbox yesterday after almost more than an hour of downloading (since I need to limit my download transfer to prioritize some of my movie downloads =) Anyway, after installing, I just felt that I’m just using a combination of Ubuntu and Opensuse. I like the ease of installation and it’s network backup tool, other than that,I find it very Ubuntuish , but still worth a try.

Snort® is an open source network intrusion prevention and detection system (IDS/IPS) developed by Sourcefire.

Other definitions:
- Barnyard is an output system for Snort. Snort creates a special binary output format called unified. Barnyard reads this file, and then resends the data to a database backend. Unlike the database output plug-in, Barnyard manages the sending of events to the database and stores them when the database temporarily cannot accept connections.

-BASE is the Basic Analysis and Security Engine. It is based on the code from the Analysis Console for Intrusion Databases (ACID) project. This application provides a web front-end to query and analyze the alerts coming from a SNORT IDS system.

-Oinkmaster is a script that will help you update and manage your Snort rules.

Pre-requisites Softwares:

Mysql
mysql-bench
mysql-server
mysql-devel
mysqlclient10
php-mysql
httpd
gcc
pcre-devel
php-gd
gd
mod_ssl
glib2-devel
gcc-c++
libpcap-devel
php
php-pear
yum-utils

Assuming you already installed your latest 64-bit CentOS, configured important services like Apache,PHP and your mysql server, make sure your server packages are updated as well by issuing
#yum update

I. Installation of Snort

1. Download the lateset Snort source file on Snort’s official Site @ snort.org. As of this moment, the latest version is 2.8.6. You can find it at http://www.snort.org/downloads
   #wget  http://dl.snort.org/snort-current/snort-2.8.6.tar.gz
2. Go to your favorite root install directory (mine is /usr/local/src) and extract the file
   #tar zxvf snort-2.8.6.tar.gz
3. Compile. If you are using the 32-bit OS, it’s very rare that you encounter errors. For 64-bit, it’s quite pain In the ass, errors like libmysqlclient cannot be found since it will look for /lib/mysql instead of lib64/mysql. In order to solve that issue, you need to add extra parameters to your configure .

#cd snort-2.8.6
#./configure –with-mysql –enable-dynamicplugin –with-mysql-libraries=/usr/lib64/mysql
#make
#make install

1. Create snort user and group
   #groupadd snort
   #useradd –g snort snort –s /sbin/nologin
2. Create snort directory files
   #mkdir –p /etc/snort
   #mkdir –p /etc/snort/rules
   #mkdir /var/log/snort
3. Copy files on the root installation folder of snort to /etc/snort
   #cd etc/
   #cp * /etc/snort
4. Modify your snort.conf and make these changes, assuming your network is 192.168.1.0/24

var RULE_PATH /etc/snort/rules
var HOME_NET 192.168.1.0/24
var EXTERNAL_NET !$HOME_NET

Uncomment the lines (create if none):

output alert_unified: filename snort.alert, limit 128
output log_unified: filename snort.log, limit 128

1. Download the snort init file for easy management of snort service
   #cd /etc/init.d
   #wget http://www.freelinuxtutorials.com/freefiles/snort
   #chmod 755 snort
   #chkconfig snort on

II. Installation and Configuration of OinkMaster

Downloading the snort rules on the snort.org website is a little bit tricky. Even if you can sign up an account, you cannot directly download those rules and you’ll receive a  403 Forbidden error. There are ways to get it, you either get it by paying a subscription or get the registered user  release.

1. Download the OinkMaster source file in SourceForge @ oinkmaster.sourceforge.net
   #cd /usr/local/src
   # wget http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/project/oinkmaster/oinkmaster/2.0/oinkmaster-2.0.tar.gz
2. Extract the file and read the INSTALL file for details
   # tar zxvf oinkmaster-2.0.tar.gz
   #cd oinkmaster-2.0
   #less INSTALL
3. Copy oinkmaster.pl,oinkmaster.conf and oinkmaster.1  on your suitable directory
   #cp oinkmaster.pl /usr/local/bin
   #cp oinkmaster.conf /etc
   #cp oinkmaster.1 /usr/local/man/man1
4. Edit oinkmaster configuration, change the settings on the line “ url = <url> “. Download the snort rule same with your snort version.  Use snort –V to check.[root@FLT oinkmaster-2.0]# snort -V

,,_     -*> Snort! <*-
o”  )~   Version 2.8.6 (Build 38)
””    By Martin Roesch & The Snort Team: http://www.snort.org/snort/snort-team           Copyright (C) 1998-2010 Sourcefire, Inc., et al.
Using PCRE version: 6.6 06-Feb-2006

You will see line similar to:

url = http://www.snort.org/pub-bin/oinkmaster.cgi/<oinkcode>/filename

e.g.

url = http://www.snort.org/pub-bin/oinkmaster.cgi/f8ff7c46785aac436c9f596059863b145d285abc/snortrules-snapshot-CURRENT.tar.gz

Save and exit

1. Assuming your rules directory is /etc/snort/rules. Update the rules by executing:
   # oinkmaster.pl –o /etc/snort/rules
2. Create a non-root user for schedule run of oinkmaster daily
   #group add oink
   #useradd –g oink oink –s /sbin/nologin
3. Create the crontab
   #su – oink
   $crontab –e

01 4 * * * /usr/local/bin/oinkmaster.pl -C /etc/oinkmaster.conf -C /etc/autodisable.conf -o /etc/snort/rules 2>&1 | mail -s “oinkmaster” darwin@freelinuxtutorials.com

This will run the oinkmaster daily @ 4:01AM and send email

You will see an email like this:

Loading /etc/oinkmaster.conf

Loading /etc/autodisable.conf

Downloading file from http://www.snort.org/pub-bin/oinkmaster.cgi/*oinkcode*/snortrules-snapshot-CURRENT.tar.gz… done.

Archive successfully downloaded, unpacking… done.

Setting up rules structures… done.

Processing downloaded rules… disabled 0, enabled 0, modified 0, total=8464

Setting up rules structures… done.

Comparing new files to the old ones… done.

[***] Results from Oinkmaster started 20100518 05:33:38 [***]

[*] Rules modifications: [*]

None.

[*] Non-rule line modifications: [*]

None.

[*] Added files: [*]

None.

III. Set-up database in MySQL

1. This will serve as database for snort to make it easy to look up on events and it is a requirement of the BASE monitoring tool

#mysql –u root –p

Mysql> create database snort;
mysql> GRANT CREATE,INSERT,SELECT,DELETE,UPDATE on snort.* to snort@localhost IDENTIFIED by ‘snortpass’;
mysql>exit

1. Execute the command below to create tables
   #mysql –u root –p snort < /usr/local/src/snort-2.8.6/schemas/create_mysql

IV. Install Barnyard

1. Download and extract barnyard#cd /usr/local/src
   # wget http://snort.org/dl/barnyard/barnyard-0.2.0.tar.gz
   #tar zxvf barnyard-0.2.0
2. Patch and configure for 64-bit. This is another pain in the ass, coz if you don’t patch the barnyard, you will get an error something like “ERROR: Invalid packet length:”#cd barnyard-0.2.0
   #wget http://www.snort.org/users/jbrvenik/Site/Code_files/barnyard.64bit.diff
   #patch –p1 < barnyard.64bit.diff
   You will something like this:

[root@FLT barnyard-0.2.0]# patch -p1 < barnyard.64bit.diff

patching file src/barnyard.h
patching file src/event.h

patching file src/input-plugins/dp_alert.h
patching file src/util.c
patching file src/util.h

1. Edit op_acid_db.c  and the line “mysql->reconnect = 1; “ below
   #cd /usr/local/src/barnyard-0.2.0/src/output-plugins
   #vi  op_acid_db.c
   From:
   LogMessage(”Lost connection to MySQL server.  Reconnecting\n”);
   while(mysql_ping(mysql) != 0)

To:
LogMessage(”Lost connection to MySQL server.  Reconnecting\n”);
mysql->reconnect = 1;
while(mysql_ping(mysql) != 0)

1. Compile# ./configure –enable-mysql  –with-mysql-libraries=/usr/lib64/mysql
   #make
   #make install
2. Copy barnyard.conf on /etc/snort
   #cp etc/barnyard.conf /etc/snort
3. Configure barnyard.conf. Change the ffg:
   from:
   config interface: fxp0
   to:
   config interface: eth0

   Add these lines if not existing, the database details should be same on the one you configure on your database.

output alert_acid_db: mysql, sensor_id 1, database snort, server localhost, user snort, password snortpass
output log_acid_db: mysql, database snort, server localhost, user snort, password snortpass, detail full

1. Create a waldo file for barnyard.a. Execute on the CLI and let it go until on the message “Not Using PCAP_FRAMES”, run it for few seconds and stop it by pressing Ctrl-c
   #snort –c /etc/snort/snort.conf

   b. Open another CLI and check your /var/log/snort, you will see files like :

   -rw-r–r– 1 root root    400 May 20 15:04 snort.alert.1274330319
   -rw-r–r– 1 root root   7484 May 20 15:04 snort.log.1274330319

c. Create a file barnyard.waldo and put this line
/var/log/snort snort.log 1274330319 0
Save and exit
We used 1274330319 as the 10 digit suffix on snort.log

8.  Copy the barnyard init file same as we did on snort.
#wget http://www.freelinuxtutorials.com/freefiles/barnyard
#chmod 755 barnyard
#chkconfig barnyard on

9. Start barnyard service
[root@FLT snort]# service barnyard startStarting Barnyard: Barnyard Version 0.2.0 (Build 32)
31165
[  OK  ]

V.  Install BASE

1. Install first the following packages used for graphing of BASE
   #pear install Image_Graph-alpha Image_Canvas-alpha Image_Color Numbers_Roman
2. Download and install ADODB
   #wget http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/adodb/adodb480.tgz
   #cd /var/www/
   # tar zxvf /usr/local/src/adodb480.tgz
3. Download and configure BASE
   #wget http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/secureideas/base-1.3.5.tar.gz
   #cd /var/www/html
   #tar –zxvf /usr/local/src/base-1.3.5.tar.gz
   # mv base-1.3.5/ base/
4. Copy base_conf.php.dist to base_conf.php
   #cp base_conf.php.dist base_conf.php
5. Edit base_conf.php and insert/edit the  parameters below:
   $BASE_urlpath = “/base”;
   $DBlib_path = “/var/www/adodb/ “;
   $DBtype = “mysql”;
   $alert_dbname = “snort”;
   $alert_host = “localhost”;
   $alert_port = “”;
   $alert_user = “snort”;
   $alert_password = “password on your snort DB”;
6. Access the sensor on your browser
   http://192.168.1.x/base
7. You should now see the BASE startup banner, click the “setup page” link and follow the instructions.
8. You can create an htaccess to secure the base directory if you want

V1.  Testing Snort

1. Create a simple rule under the /etc/snort/rules and named it as local.rules. Make sure the line below is  uncommented on snort.conf to make it work
   include $RULE_PATH/local.rules
2. Create local.rules and insert this line:
   alert tcp any any <> any 80 (msg: “Test web activity”;sid:1000001;)
3. Save and exit. Now restart your Snort and open a web browser,and go to any websites
4. You should see number of events with SID 1000001 indicating the your snort is working.  Just check the alert links and categories to verify your testing. You will see something like this: http://www.freelinuxtutorials.com/freefiles/base1.PNG
   http://www.freelinuxtutorials.com/freefiles/base2.PNG

Relaying to Gmail via smtp.gmail.com can be accomplished by configuring your Postfix with SASL authentication and TLS encryption.

The common errors you will encounter if sending from your postfix mail server failing to gmail.com domain but works in other domains are:

@/var/log/maillog
-Must issue a STARTTLS command first
-certificate verification failed for gmail.com:unable to get local issuer certificate
-Authentication Required. Learn more at 530 5.5.1 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?

How to fix?

Assuming you already installed Postfix and everything works fine except sending to gmail smtps, here are the steps to follow:

1. Configure Postfix main configuration

a.vi /etc/postfix/main.cf

b. Add these lines:

smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
relayhost = [smtp.gmail.com]:587
smtp_use_tls = yes
smtp_tls_CAfile = /etc/postfix/cacert.pem
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl/passwd

c. Save and exit

2. Create /etc/postfix/sasl/passwd

a. Create a directory sasl under /etc/postfix and create a file passwd with contents below:

[smtp.gmail.com]:587 username@gmail.com:password

Save and exit

b. Change permission
#chmod 600 /etc/postfix/sasl/passwd

c. Create lookup table via postmap
#postmap /etc/postfix/sasl/passwd

Issuing that command will create passwd.db

3. Generate your own CA certificate

a. Change directory to /etc/pki/tls/certs

#cd /etc/pki/tls/certs

b.Create a key and test certificate in one file

#make hostname.pem

You will something like

[root@FLT certs]# make hostname.pem
umask 77 ; \
PEM1=`/bin/mktemp /tmp/openssl.XXXXXX` ; \
PEM2=`/bin/mktemp /tmp/openssl.XXXXXX` ; \
/usr/bin/openssl req -utf8 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout $PEM1 -nodes -x509 -days 365 -out $PEM2 -set_serial 0 ; \
cat $PEM1 >  hostname.pem ; \
echo “”    >> hostname.pem ; \
cat $PEM2 >> hostname.pem ; \
rm -f $PEM1 $PEM2
Generating a 1024 bit RSA private key
……………………….++++++
…..++++++
writing new private key to ‘/tmp/openssl.z12084′
—–
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter ‘.’, the field will be left blank.
—–
Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:
State or Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:
Locality Name (eg, city) [Newbury]:
Organization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]:
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
Common Name (eg, your name or your server’s hostname) []:
Email Address []:

c. Fill-up the necessary information and copy the file on /etc/postfix as cacert.pem

#cp /etc/pki/tls/certs/hostname.pem /etc/postfix/cacert.pem

4. Restart the postfix service

#service postfix restart
5. Inspect now your postfix logs to see if it can send out mails now to gmail servers

A successful message states something like
May  3 17:35:00 FLT postfix/smtp[28244]: 0ABB61CE32A: to=<freelinuxtutorials@gmail.com>, relay=smtp.gmail.com[74.125.93.109]:587, delay=5, delays=0.41/0.02/2.7/1.8, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 OK 1272879300 8sm8902550qwj.38)

The next big version of Ubuntu Linux OS has now arrived and if offers new exciting features for users like quicker boot speed on almost any machine, along with a social networking-oriented ” Me Menu”,Ubuntu Software Centre 2.0 for easier access to new software, and a slew of new cloud-based services courtesy of Ubuntu One — not to mention the Ubuntu One music store.
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I.Configure Master

1. edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf. We have to enable networking for MySQL,

I.Configure Master

1. edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf. We have to enable networking for MySQL,

#skip-networking

2. Add the following line to the my.cnf

server-id = 1
log-bin=/storage/lun0/db/mysql/FLTVM01-bin

3. restart mysql
#service mysqld restart

4.     log into the MySQL database as root and create a user with replication privileges:

#mysql -u root -p
mysql> GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON *.* TO ’slaveuser’@'%’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘<some_password>’; (Replace <some_password> with a real password!)
mysql>FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

5. To accomplish identical data on both master and slave  server, prevent all writes on the master via Lock Tables & Show Log Position
mysql> FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK;
mysql> SHOW MASTER STATUS;

NOTE: Keep this prompt running  in order for lock to be ACTIVE

e.g.

mysql> SHOW MASTER STATUS;
+——————–+———–+————–+——————+
| File               | Position  | Binlog_Do_DB | Binlog_Ignore_DB |
+——————–+———–+————–+——————+
| FLTVM01-bin.000051 | 444132144 |              |                  |
+——————–+———–+————–+——————+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> exit

6. Dump Database

#mysqldump -u root -p<password> –lock-all-tables –all-databases > alldb.sql

7. Unlock Tables on the master after dumping

mysql> UNLOCK TABLES;

II. Configure Slave

1.Create Database

mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
CREATE DATABASE exampledb;
quit;

2. Restore Database

mysql -u root -p <password> exampledb < /path/to/alldb.sql

3. Configure Slave configuration, assuming master is 192.168.1.2,

server-id=2
master-host=192.168.1.2
master-user=slave_user
master-password=secret
master-connect-retry=60

4. Restart MySQL service
#service mysql restart

5. Issue command Slave Stop and Change master

#mysql -u root -p
Enter password:
mysql> SLAVE STOP;
mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_HOST=’192.168.1.2′, MASTER_USER=’slaveuser’, MASTER_PASSWORD=’slavepass!’, MASTER_LOG_FILE=’FLTVM01-bin.000051′, MASTER_LOG_POS=444132144;

6. Start Slave

mysql> START SLAVE;
mysql>quit

7. Check for errors
#tail -f /var/log/mysqld.log

III. CHECKING & TESTING

status of the master can be known from mysql prompt:

mysql> SHOW MASTER STATUS;

and slave can be known by:

mysql> SHOW SLAVE STATUS;

To test:

1. On sample database on master, create table

Example:

mysql>use testdb;
mysql>CREATE TABLE example (
id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
data VARCHAR(100)       );

–> insert data on table

mysql> INSERT INTO example (data)  VALUES (’Hello world’);

2. Check the Slave database and see if the following changes are replicated.
mysql>use testdb;
mysql> select * from example;

If you have multiple virtual hosts in your server and you specified different log files for each, it is more organized and easy to locate, but the downside is Linux has so called file descriptors or the number of files that it can be handle. Basically , it can be increased but I think it’s not really recommended just for the sake of it.
Making your apache logs more organized can be done by many ways, one way is via piped logging and use rotatelogs. And based on my tips before named Automatic unlimited subdomains via Apache mod_rewrite, one issue is the log files. But there’s one method to solve this, and this is by splitting up your log files.

1. Make sure your multiple virtual hosts log to the same log file.
example:
@ your config file

ErrorLog “|/usr/sbin/rotatelogs -l /var/log/httpd/linuxtutorials/error_log.%Y%m%d 86400″
CustomLog logs/linuxtutorials//access_log combinedio
CustomLog “|/usr/sbin/rotatelogs -l /var/log/httpd/linuxtutorials//access_log.%Y%m%d 86400″ combinedio

2. Change your Apache LogFormat
from let say:
#LogFormat “%h %l %u %t \”%r\” %>s %b \”%{Referer}i\” \”%{User-Agent}i\”" combined

to:
LogFormat “%V %h %l %u %t \”%r\” %>s %b \”%{Referer}i\” \”%{User-Agent}i\” \”%{HTTP_X_UP_CALLING_LINE_ID}e\” \”%{HTTP_X_WSB_IDENTITY}e\ %I %O” combinedio

where: (use %V or %v based on your httpd.conf setting)
%V =the server name according to the UseCanonicalName setting
%v=the canonical ServerName  of the server serving the request.

3. Split your log files into its component parts and use the perl script “split-logfile. This program can be found in the support folder of your Apache distro.

split-logfile < /logs/access_log

You can create script to automate this, e.g.

[root@dc1 log]# cat split.sh
#!/bin/bash

#define
TODAY=`date “+%Y%m%d”`
YEST=`date “+%Y%m%d” -d”1 day ago”`
LOGPATH=”/var/log/httpd/linuxtutorials”
ACCESSFILE=”$LOGPATH/access_log.$YEST”
CURFOLDER=”/root/log”

#split
cd $CURFOLDER
/darwin/log/split-logfile < $ACCESSFILE
echo $ACCESSFILE
#rename
/usr/bin/rename log log.$YEST *log

-> This script basically reads the rotated access log from the log path, and split the log files according to the server name

Sample Results

@original access logs

[root@flt log]# ls -la /var/log/httpd/linuxtutorials/
total 544
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   4096 Apr 20 16:07 .
drwx—— 3 root root   4096 Apr 18 04:02 ..

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 103090 Apr 20 16:08 access_log
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  53770 Apr 13 18:11 access_log.20100420
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  48660 Apr 13 18:11 access_log.20100421
-rw-r–r– 1 root root    710 Apr 15 16:33 error_log.20100420
-rw-r–r– 1 root root    50 Apr 15 16:33 error_log.20100421

@splitted log files after executing the script

[root@dc1 log]# ls -la /root/log
total 292
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Apr 21 01:01 .
drwxr-x— 8 root root  4096 Apr 13 15:56 ..
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  9278 Apr 15 01:01 admin.freelinuxtutorials.com.log.20100420
-rw-r–r– 1 root root   436 Apr 15 01:01 www.freelinuxtutorials.com.log.20100420
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  1296 Apr 20 01:01 m.freelinuxtutorials.com.log.20100420
-rw-r–r– 1 root root  6104 Apr 14 01:01 secure.freelinuxtutorials.com.log.20100420

INTRODUCTION

Data backup is the process of making copies of data in order to protect and restore original files whenever data loss happens. Aside from automated routine data backup, this method does not protect against failure and natural disasters. This is where off-site data backup comes in.

OBJECTIVE

To establish an off-site backup of important data such as website and configuration files, and database, by copying and burning it to a removable media via DVD.

Sample Scenario:

We need to backup the webserver files and database, and burn it on DVD disc.

PRE-BACKUP PROCEDURES:

1.    Website Files
important directories:
/var/www
/etc/httpd

Assuming you have weekly backup @ FLTWWW01, we can just copy that file in format:
FLTWWW01.freelinuxtutorials.com-var-www-html.yyyymmdd.tar.gz
FLTWWW01.freelinuxtutorials.com-etc-httpd.yyyymmdd.tar.gz

2.    Database

For a consistent copy of database backup, read lock should be implemented on the database. Fortunately, we can do it on the slave database server without interrupting the MySQL service.

Write a script sqlbackup.sh that will be run on FLTVMM1-DBSERVER to stop the slave,read lock and dump the database to a certain location.
—————————————————-
#!/bin/sh
date=`/bin/date +%Y%m%d-%H`

/usr/bin/mysqladmin –user=root –password=password stop-slave
/usr/bin/mysqldump –user=root –password=password –lock-all-tables –all-databases > /storage/temp/backup-${date}.sql
/usr/bin/mysqladmin –user=root –password=password start-slave
/bin/tar zcvf backup-${date}.sql.tar.gz backup-${date}.sql

—————————————————–

BACKUP PROCESS:

Backup Data on DVD

1. First install the package dvd+rw-tools
#yum install dvd+rw-tools

2. check if dvd drive is present by displaying the information about disk drive
dvd+rw-mediainfo /dev/dvd

3. Create the ISO image
e.g.
# mkisofs -r -o /tmp/var-www-disk1.iso /var/www

Website Files: (1st DVD)
@FLTVMM1   → /storage/lun1/BACKUP/www/application

#cd /storage/lun1/BACKUP/www/temp
#mkisofs -r -o wwwprod.iso /storage/lun1/BACKUP/www/application/FLTWWW01.freelinuxtutorials.com-var-www-html.yyyymmdd.tar.gz
/storage/lun1/BACKUP/www/applicaiton/FLTWWW01.freelinuxtutorials.com-etc-httpd.yyyymmdd.tar.gz

Database: (2nd DVD)
@FLTVMM1-DBSERVER

#cd /storage/temp
#./sqlbackup.sh (can be scheduled automatically, hours before offsite backup)
#mkisofs -r -o database.iso /storage/temp/backup-yyyymmdd-hh.tar.gz

4. Write the ISO onto the DVD
Website Files:
# growisofs -Z /dev/dvd=/storage/lun1/BACKUP/www/temp/wwwprod.iso

Database:
# growisofs -Z /dev/dvd=/storage/temp/database.iso

5. To append more data for same DVD [Optional]
# growisofs -M /dev/dvd /tmp/file1

VERIFICATION:

1. To verify if data was burned successfully, insert the DVD on the drive and mount it

#mkdir /mnt/dvd
#mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd

2. List the files and archive
#ls -lah /mnt/dvd
#tar -tf  file.tar.gz

RESTORATION PROCEDURE:

Website Files:
1.    Create the mount directory if not exists
#mkdir /mnt/dvd
2.    Mount the DVD
#mount -t auto /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd
3.    Decompress the files in a particular directory
#cd /tmp
#tar zxvf FLTWWW01.freelinuxtutorials.com-var-www-html.yyyymmdd.tar.gz
#tar zxvf FLTWWW01.freelinuxtutorials.com-etc-httpd.yyyymmdd.tar.gz
4. Select the files/folder that you need and copy to a specific directory

Database:
1. Create the mount directory if not exists
#mkdir /mnt/dvd
2. Mount the DVD
#mount -t auto /dev/dvd /mnt/dvd
3.    Decompress the  sql file in a particular directory
#cd /tmp
#tar zxvf backup-yyyymmdd-hh.tar.gz
4.    A .sql file will be decompress
5.    Restore a specific database using the mysql command
#mysql -u root -p databasename < backup-yyyymmdd-hh.sql

Wondering how blogger website gives you a subdomain from the blogspot.com domain based on  your username of your choice? Well, the concept for this tutorial is somewhat related with it on setting up unlimited subdomains. I’m not sure how do they do it because it could be done by any script, hardcoded or not, thru static or dynamic way via database, many possibilities, and one possible way is thru URL rewriting via Apache’s mod_rewrite.

Requirements of this setup:

a. Apache 2.x or later
mod_rewrite module should be enable.  To check if it’s enabled you should see this line on your httpd.conf

LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

b. BIND 9.x or later
-Setting up the DNS Server is not part of this tutorial, it will be discussed on another topic.

Anyway to create automatic subdomains, these are the steps.

1. Configure your DNS server to use the wildcard (*) and points to your IP address.
Assuming you already setup the zone of your domain on named.conf , something like:

—@named.conf—

zone “freelinuxtutorials.com” {
type master;
file “/var/named/freelinuxtutorials.com.db”;
};

—@/var/named/freelinuxtutorials.com.db—

$TTL 86400
@   IN  SOA freelinuxtutorials.com. root.freelinuxtutorials.com. (
; dmn [flt.com] timestamp entry BEGIN.
2008092901
; dmn [flt.com] timestamp entry END.
8H
2H
4W
1D )
IN      NS      ns.freelinuxtutorials.com.
IN      NS      ns2.freelinuxtutorials.com.

freelinuxtutorials.com. A   192.168.1.100
ns      IN  A   192.168.1.80
ns2      IN  A   192.168.2.80
*               IN      A       192.168.1.100
; sub [{SUB_NAME}] entry BEGIN.
; sub [{SUB_NAME}] entry END.

As you can see above, 192.168.1.100 is pointed to *. Meaning if you ping any subdomains (existing or non-existing) of freelinuxtutorials.com, it will all points to the same IP address

2. Configure your Apache
-To not really messed up your existing httpd config, is it better to create a new config and include it. Something like

@httpd.conf

Include conf.d/flt/*.conf

Create your virtualhost for your domain and add this rewrite rules on it.

#vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/flt/flt.conf

<VirtualHost 192.168.1.100:80>
DocumentRoot “/var/www/html/flt/subdomains”
ServerName freelinuxtutorials.com
ServerAlias *.freelinuxtutorials.com
<Directory /var/www/html/flt/subdomains>
Options  Includes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

#Rewrite Starts*
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(www|m|secure|admin).* [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^([^\.]+)\.freelinuxtutorials\.com
RewriteCond /var/www/html/flt/subdomains/%1 -d
RewriteRule ^(.*) /%1/$1 [L]

</VirtualHost>

*Explanation (I’ll try to explain it as easy as I can)

1.RewriteEngine on = tells to enable Rewrite, off to disable it
2. It means only matches URLs that don’t start with www,m,secure or admin subdomains. This is important so it will not redirect to a particular directory e.g. m.freelinuxtutorials.com to /var/www/html/flt/subdomains/m/
3. ^([^\.]+)\. ==> these are combination of regular expression syntax of mod_rewrite, meaning
^ – start of syntax
. any single character
(…) group section
+ is added to make sure there is at least one char that matches
To sum up, it denotes anything that does not have a period, example is “subdomain”
4.the -d is added to checked if that directory does not actually exist
5.  ^(.*) /%1/$1 ==> it will take the requested path and put into a backreference, rewrite it to point to that  directory

%1 = subdomain
$1 = path backreference, based on the Rewrite condition above
L = Last Rule

3. Restart or Reload Apache service (depends on your distro)
something like
#service httpd restart
or #/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

4. Testing
Create a subdirectory named “darwin” under /var/www/html/flt/subdomains

#mkdir -p /var/www/html/flt/subdomains/darwin
#cd /var/www/html/flt/subdomains/darwin

Create a sample php file
#vi index.php

<?php
echo $_SERVER['SCRIPT_FILENAME'];
?>

Save and Exit

Access on your browser http://darwin.freelinuxtutorials.com, this should appear:

/var/www/html/flt/subdomains/darwin/index.php

That’s it. The subfolder name created on that directory will be your subdomain and will point it to that directory path.

http://www.freelinuxtutorials.com/?mobile or

for Iphone users –> http://www.freelinuxtutorials.com/?iphone

enjoy mobile browsing!

mysql-zrm is short for Zmanda Recovery Manager for MySQL. It lets you create full logical or raw backups of your databases , generate reports about the backups, verify the integrity of the backups, and recover your databases. It can also send email notifcations about the backup status, and you can implement multiple backup policies.

This procedure was successfully tested and implemented on CentOS 5.X and RHEL 5.X servers.
Pre-requisites:
1.mysql client, MySQL server 4.1 and above
2.perl-DBI and perl-XML-Parser
yum install perl-DBI perl-XML-Parser

Installation:

1.Download mysql-zrm on http://www.zmanda.com/download-zrm.php
2.Get the RPM
wget http://www.zmanda.com/downloads/community/ZRM-MySQL/2.1.1/RPM/MySQL-zrm-2.1.1-1.noarch.rpm
3.Install
rpm -ivh MySQL-zrm-2.1.1-1.noarch.rpm

-The executable files have been moved to /usr/bin, the configuration files are in /etc/mysql-zrm
Important executable files are:

mysql-zrm
mysql-zrm-reporter
mysql-zrm-scheduler

4.Create a backup user in MySQL
mysql>GRANT ALL ON *.* TO ‘backup_user’@localhost IDENTIFIED BY ‘backup_pass’;
mysql> flush privileges;

Configuration:

Main configuration file is /etc/mysql-zrm/mysql-zrm.conf.

Fill important configuration:
vi /etc/mysql-zrm/mysql-zrm.conf

1.Backup level, use 0 for full, 1 is incremental,default is full backup
backup-level=0
2.Backup method,either “raw” or “logical”.use logical
backup-mode=logical

3.Backup type,use regular
backup-type=regular
4.Destination, directory where backups will be stored, default is /var/lib/mysql-zrm. You can specify the location here
destination=/mysql-backup
5.Retention policy, specify in days (D), week(W),months (M) or years(Y)
retention-policy=6M
6.If mysql zrm is done on replication slave, set replication to 1
replication=1
7.Set compression using gzip
compress=1
8.Set all databases of backup set
all-databases=1
9.Specify list of databases ,multiple database separated by space.
databases=database1 database2 database3
10.Set MySQL user parameter
user=backup_user
11.Set MySQL pass
password=backup_pass
12.Host of MySQL server
host=localhost
13.Set mailto adddress
mailto=email@freelinuxtutorials.com
14.Set backup reports
html-reports=backup-status-info
15.Directory where the reports will be created
html-report-directory=/var/www/html/mysql-zrm/reports/

Here’s what it looks like: (mysql-zrm.conf)

backup-level=0
backup-mode=logical
backup-type=regular
destination=/mysql-backup
retention-policy=6M
compress=1
all-databases=1
user=backup_user
password=backup_pass
host=localhost
mailto=email@freelinuxtutorials.com
html-reports=backup-status-info
html-report-directory=/var/www/html/mysql-zrm/reports/

Testing:

Create first backup in backup set dailyrun. This will immediatley back up all databases to the specified  directory and will also create directory $backupdir/dailyrun.

#mysql-zrm-scheduler –now –backup-set dailyrun –backup-level 0

Email notification will be sent out as well with the status of backup.

Reporting:

To generate a report about the backup status on the command line , execute:

#mysql-zrm-reporter –where backup-set=dailyrun –show backup-status-info

You can also generate few other reports with the following commands:

mysql-zrm-reporter –where backup-set=dailyrun –show backup-method-info
mysql-zrm-reporter –where backup-set=dailyrun –show backup-retention-info
mysql-zrm-reporter –where backup-set=dailyrun –show backup-performance-info
mysql-zrm-reporter –where backup-set=dailyrun –show restore-full-info
mysql-zrm-reporter –where backup-set=dailyrun –show restore-incr-info
mysql-zrm-reporter –where backup-set=dailyrun –show replication-info

Scheduling:

To schedule daily incremental and weekly full backups, set this:

#mysql-zrm-scheduler –add –interval weekly –backup-set weeklyrun –backup-level 0
#mysql-zrm-scheduler –add –interval daily –backup-set dailyrun –backup-level 1

Check:

# mysql-zrm-scheduler –query
schedule:INFO: ZRM for MySQL Community Edition – version 2.1.1
Logging to /var/log/mysql-zrm/mysql-zrm-scheduler.log
0 2 * * 0 /usr/bin/zrm-pre-scheduler –action backup –backup-set weeklyrun –backup-level 0 –interval weekly
0 3 * * * /usr/bin/zrm-pre-scheduler –action backup –backup-set dailyrun –backup-level 1 –interval daily

Or use “crontab -l” to get same information

If you want to start your daily backup at different time, let say at 1:30AM

mysql-zrm-scheduler –add –interval daily –backup-set dailyrun –start 1:30 –backup-level 1

Customized HTML Reports

To create HTML file backup-status-dailyrun.html in /var/www/html/mysql-zrm,execute this:

#mysql-zrm-reporter –show backup-status-info –where backup-set=dailyrun –type html –output /var/www/html/mysql-zrm/backup-status-dailyrun.html

Verifying Backups:

To check integrity of backup set in dailyrun, use:

#mysql-zrm –action verify-backup –backup-set dailyrun

Output something like this:

Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/bin/mysql-zrm line 1305.
INFO: mysql-zrm-version
INFO: Verification successful

Data Recovery

1.To restore data from our MySQL backups, run this command first to find which backups are available.

2. If incremental in daily,

#mysql-zrm-reporter -show restore-info –where backup-set=dailyrun

Sample:

# mysql-zrm-reporter -show restore-info –where backup-set=dailyrun

REPORT TYPE : restore-info

backup_set  backup_date                  backup_level  backup_directory                          backup_status         comment
—————————————————————————————————————————————————–
dailyrun  Thu 14 Jan 2010 03:00:02                1  /mysql-backup/dailyrun/20100114030002     Backup succeeded      —-
AM SGT
dailyrun  Wed 13 Jan 2010 05:35:53                1  /mysql-backup/dailyrun/20100113173553     Backup succeeded      —-
PM SGT
dailyrun  Wed 13 Jan 2010 05:35:24                1  /mysql-backup/dailyrun/20100113173524     Backup succeeded      —-
PM SGT
dailyrun  Wed 13 Jan 2010 05:34:48                0  /mysql-backup/dailyrun/20100113173448     Backup succeeded      —-
PM SGT

Restore:
If we want to restore the incremental backup  20100113173553, then issue the command.

#mysql-zrm –action restore –source-directory /mysql-backup/dailyrun/20100113173553 –backup-set dailyrun

3.If full backup need to restore, first verify the full backup
#mysql-zrm-reporter -show restore-info –where backup-set=weeklyrun

Sample Output:
# mysql-zrm-reporter -show restore-info –where backup-set=weeklyrun

REPORT TYPE : restore-info

backup_set  backup_date                  backup_level  backup_directory                          backup_status         comment
—————————————————————————————————————————————————–
weeklyrun  Wed 13 Jan 2010 05:56:51                0  /mysql-backup/weeklyrun/20100113175651    Backup succeeded      —-                      PM SGT

Restore:

#mysql-zrm –action restore –source-directory /mysql-backup/weeklyrun/20100113175651 –backup-set weeklyrun