It has been a while since I have made any posts as I have been busy with school and other things for the past couple months.

I recently just started to get back into working on my server and some other projects; mainly http://draalin.com which you can see below:

So if you can’t find what you need here check out my new site!

The post New Site draalin.com appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.

The grub boot loader specifically “Grub 2″ is the default boot loader for Ubuntu.

If you have a Distorted splash screen? Or just want to reinstall the boot loader after copying it from another imaged partition? This guide will work for you.

Boot into your operating system normally and follow these steps:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get purge grub grub-pc grub-common

Select “Yes” as you want to remove all grub files.

Ensure when typing this next command you select “/dev/sda” over the “/dev/sda1″ partition.
sudo apt-get install grub-common grub-pc

sudo update-grub

That’s it! now just reboot the system with this command:

sudo shutdown -r now

If for some reason it boots you to the rescue prompt, you may have to use a Ubuntu live CD or something like Parted Magic which you can find here:

Parted Magic

Ubuntu Live CD

Extra

• Additional Grub2 information can be found here

The post Purging and reinstall the Grub boot loader appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.

Using mkfs to create a filesystem for your Ubuntu server is easy!

I assume you have already created a partition on the drive you want to create a filesystem on, if not follow my previous guide on using fdisk to create a partition found here.

First determine the partition you want to create the file system on, the easiest way to figure that out is by using “df -H”

Now lets create the file system on the drive we will be using. We will use “ext4″ since it is the newest journaling file system for Linux as well as the successor to ext3.

The following command will produce a “ext4” filesystem on the “/dev/sdb1″ partition.

Now type:

sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

That’s it now you can mount and use your drive by typing the following:

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/mynewdrive

If you would like it to auto mount on boot please follow my fstab guide found here

Extra

• Additional mkfs information can be found here

The post Using mkfs to create a file system appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.

Using fdisk to create a partition on a hard drive for your Ubuntu server is easy!

First determine the drive you want to format, the easiest way to figure that out is by using “sudo lshw -C disk” to figure out the exact drive name and “sudo fdisk -l” to list drives + any partitions that may already be created

You will get a similar output like this for the first command “sudo lshw -C disk“:

You will get a similar output like this for the second command “sudo fdisk -l“:

We are going to format our drive partition “/dev/sdb” note that this “sdb” corresponds to the sata connection it is plugged into on the motherboard.

Now lets create a fresh partition that uses the whole drive by typing the following; but first read the example of each line we will go through just so you understand which each does:

d = delete a partition
n = add a new partition
w = write table to disk and exit

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

d
n
Primary (Accept Defaults)
1 (Accept Defaults)
First Sector (Accept Defaults)
Last Sector (Accept Defaults)
w

You should now have a new partition called “/dev/sdb1” you can check this by using “df -H” again.

Like this:

If you would like to create a file system for your new partition you can find my guide here.

Also to auto mount on boot please follow my fstab guide found here

Extra

• Additional fdisk information can be found here

The post Using fdisk to create a partition appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.

Sudo Timeout by default remembers your password is 15 minutes. You can change the default time to whatever you want or even allow it to never expire.

Here I will show you how to set it to an expire time of 60 minutes.

Type the following:

sudo visudo or sudo vi /etc/sudoers

You will see a screen similar to this.

Now change “Defaults env_rest” to “Defaults env_reset,timestamp_timeout=60” so it looks like the following screenshot

Now save the file

:wq!

That’s all you are now done!

If you wanted Sudo Timeout to never expire you would of set the “60″ to any negative number so something like “-1″ or “-5″ would work.

Extra

• Check out the the man page for sudoers by typing “man sudoers”
• Detailed information from Ubuntu on “RootSudo” found here

The post Sudo Timeout appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.

Port Configuration

Ever wanted to change how Apache2 listened to incoming ports? Or maybe add a port to a service you run?

Port Configuration is very straight forward!

By default many applications you access like phpmyadmin, monitoring tools like cacti & any other big named service configure this internally without having to touch this type of configuration.

But if you wanted to change how area, service or part of your server listened on ports this is how you would do it.

I’ll use an example here to make it easy. Lets say you run an application called “ACME” on your server. By default you may access it from “http://SERVERIP/ACME” which will listen on port 80 like almost any default web server.

Now you have to change the incoming port to “8484″ and they want the application to be launched from the address “http://SERVERIP:8484″, well you might ask what about the ACME URL?

You can simply forget about the ACME URL by having this new port forward itself to the application and mask the real destination.

So now lets do the actual Port Configuration!

Add following to the ports.conf

sudo vi /etc/apache2/ports.conf

Listen 8484

Or take a look at this screenshot!

Now open up the ACME application’s apache2 directory location and change the port to 8484.

sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/ACME

    <VirtualHost *:8484>
DoucmentRoot /var/www/ACME
<Directory /var/www/ACME>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

Or take a look at this screenshot!

Restart networking to ensure the change has gone through.

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now try browsing to:

http://SERVERIP:8484

You should no longer be able to access this application through:

http://SERVERIP/ACME

Extra

• After changing anything related to the Apache2 service should be followed with a restart of the service!

The post Port Configuration appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.

Serviio WebUI Guide

This Serviio WebUI Guide will allow you to configure your Serviio media center from anywhere without having to install software on every machine you want to edit it on!

First of all you want to download the latest Serviio WebUI from here: http://wiki.serviio.org/doku.php?id=phpwebui

Extract the the Serviio WebUI to the folder name “serviioweb”

sudo unzip WebUI20v1.2a.zip serviioweb

Place it in “/var/www” or wherever you would like to host the site on your server.

sudo mv /home/USERNAME/serviioweb /var/www/

I like to ensure that my user always has full control over what it runs so lets change them with chown.

sudo chown USERNAME:USERNAME -R serviioweb/

The Serviio WebUI requires php5-curl so lets install it.

sudo apt-get install php5-curl

Now lets restart networking!

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

This is nothing more then a WebUI that interacts with the Serviio service itself.

Now open your browser to:

http://YOURIP/SERVIIOWEB

If everything went fine you should have a green light for “Server Status”, now go have fun!

Extra

• If you want to password protect this service I would recommend you checking out my .htaccess configuration
• If you want to configure this service to be access via a port for exmple “http://serverip:8484″ instead of “http://serverip/serviioweb” follow my Port Configuration

The post Serviio WebUI Guide appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.

Serviio Installation

Essentially Serviio is a free media server. You can stream movies, music, images, almost anything you can see! To your TV, xbox/ps3 or even your mobile phone over a network.

First we need to obtain the latest java run time as well as library files!

sudo apt-get install default-jre
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg libavcodec-extra-53 libavformat-extra-53

Now download the latest package linux package from here: http://www.serviio.org/download

Place it in the directory you want to house Serviio. I would use “/home/YOURUSER/”

Extract it with tar.

sudo tar xvf serviio-1..0.1-linux.tar.gz

I prefer to rename the directory with mv.

sudo mv serviio-0.6.0.1-linux .serviio

I have heard of people having permission problems with servvio so I recommend giving the user running it full chown.

sudo chown -R YOURUSER:YOURUSER .serviio/

Create the startup script in init.

 sudo vi /etc/init/serviio.conf

start on started networking
script
/home/YOURUSER/.serviio/bin/serviio.sh
end script

Now lets restart neworking!

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

If for some reason you are not sure if it is running try this:

initctl list

Look to see if Serviio is running.

Also try to start servvio with this:

sudo start serviio

Thats it! Your Serviio installation is complete!

In order to access and change what you want to share over your network you need to follow this guide:

• Serviio’s WebUI Guide

Extra

• The reason I put “.” before servvio in the file location is because I want to keep it hidden from regular “ls” – list directory

The post Serviio Installation appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.

.htaccess Configuration

.htaccess also known as hypertext access! It provides a way to configure access on a per directory basis.

Lets say you want to password your whole site. (I am assuming that you left your site in /var/www – If not you will have to change accordingly)

sudo vi /var/www/.htaccess

AuthUserFile /home/YOURUSER/.htpasswd
AuthName “Authorization Required”
AuthType Basic
require valid-user

sudo htpasswd -c /home/YOURUSER/.htpasswd YOURUSER

use the password you want here

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now only the person with username & password you selected will be able to get in!

Open your browser and browse to the website!

If everything goes well you will go straight to it!

If not you will end up with something like this :[

Have fun!

Extra

• Some issues I have noticed with people using .htaccess files is when they do not have the correct permissions or not owned by the correct user

The post .htaccess Configuration appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.

Apache2 Configuration

Apache2 Configuration is rather straight forward. if you have not yet pointed the DNS record from for example GoDaddy’s DNSMANAGER or some other service paid or free you must do that in order for your site to work with  FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name).

sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/default

This is what the default website configuration file looks like.

Nothing to edit in this screenshot, so go down to the next step!

I recommend copying the “default” file and working on other so you always have a clean template to work with and then the DNS will only resolve the domain name and not the public IP address of the server alone.

sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/default /etc/apache2/sites-available/mywebsite
sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/mywebsite

You want to Edit ServerAdmin, ServerName, ServerAlias & DocumentRoot to match your details.

We will now enable the site with a2ensite

sudo a2ensite mywebsite

Restart the networking ensure the website is functioning properly!

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now try browsing to your website!

Extra

• Many problems I see when people attempt this is when they do not have port forwarding on their router, or their ISP does not allow web hosting! Check for those before troubleshooting anything else.

The post Apache2 Configuration appeared first on Ubuntu Server Help.