I’ve found a couple of scripts (http://patrickgibson.com/utilities/virtualhost/, http://www.tamdenholm.com/portfolio/apache) to do this but they didn’t worked right, I’m using Ubuntu Karmic, maybe thats why. However instead of fixing those scripts I went to my vim editor and started typing this, I’ve spent about 2 hours writing this while I was watching a crappy tv program, but in the end it worked, it surely contains some bugs, or it is unsafe to run it, I just wanted to share this.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use File::Path qw(mkpath rmtree); use Getopt::Long; our $ipAddress = '127.0.0.1'; our $apacheConfigFile = 'apache2.conf'; our $apacheConfigDir = '/etc/apache2'; our $sitesAvailable = 'sites-available'; our $docRootPrefix = '/home/ivan/www'; our $docRoot = 'public_html'; our $logsDir = 'logs'; my $del = ''; my $add = ''; my $domain = ''; unless (GetOptions ('del' => \$del, 'add' => \$add, 'domain=s' => \$domain) or usage()) { usage(); } #print $paramResults; if ($add || $del) { if ($domain) { if ($add) { createVhost($domain); } elsif ($del) { deleteVhost($domain); } } else { usage(); } #print 'add aqui'; } else { usage(); } sub usage { print < <USAGE This program will add or remove apache virtual hosts on ubuntu karmic 9.10 usage: vhost-updater.pl [--add | --del] --domain newhost.tld USAGE } sub returnVhostPaths { my $vhost = shift; my @dir = split(/\//, $docRootPrefix); my %res; push(@dir, $vhost); my $hostDir = join('/', @dir); $res{'docRoot'} = $hostDir . '/' . $docRoot; $res{'logsDir'} = $hostDir . '/' . $logsDir; #todo dir validation @dir = split(/\//, $apacheConfigDir); push(@dir, $sitesAvailable); push(@dir, $vhost); $res{'apacheConfig'} = join('/', @dir); return %res; } sub createVhost { my $vhost = shift; #first create the docRoot my %vhostInfo = returnVhostPaths($vhost); informOut("Creating docroot dir: $vhostInfo{'docRoot'}"); informOut("Creating log dir: $vhostInfo{'logsDir'}"); mkpath($vhostInfo{'docRoot'}, $vhostInfo{'logsDir'}); informOut("Site File: $vhostInfo{'apacheConfig'}"); my $vhostContent = << "EOF"; <VirtualHost *:80> ServerName $vhost DocumentRoot $vhostInfo{'docRoot'} <directory $vhostInfo{'docRoot'}> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </directory> ErrorLog $vhostInfo{'logsDir'}/error_log CustomLog $vhostInfo{'logsDir'}/access_log "%h %l %u %t \\"%r\\" %>s %b \\"%{Referer}i\\" \\"%{User-agent}i\\"" LogLevel debug EOF informOut("Creating Vhost..."); open FILE, ">", $vhostInfo{'apacheConfig'} or die $!; print FILE $vhostContent; close FILE; informOut("Adding host $vhost"); open FILE, ">>", '/etc/hosts' or die $!; print FILE $ipAddress ."\t". $vhost ."\n"; close FILE; my $output = `/usr/sbin/a2ensite $vhost`; print $output; restartApache(); #print $vhostConten t; } sub restartApache { informOut("Restarting apache"); my $output = `/etc/init.d/apache2 restart`; print $output; } sub deleteVhost { my $vhost = shift; my %vhostInfo = returnVhostPaths($vhost); informOut("Removing $vhost from hosts file"); open IN, '< ', '/etc/hosts' or die $!; my @hostsFile = <IN>; close IN; my @contents = grep(!/^127.0.0.1\t$vhost/, @hostsFile); open FILE, ">", '/etc/hosts' or die $!; print FILE @contents; close FILE; my $output = `/usr/sbin/a2dissite $vhost`; print $output; informOut("Removing $vhostInfo{'apacheConfig'} file"); unlink($vhostInfo{'apacheConfig'}); restartApache(); print " manually remove $vhostInfo{'docRoot'}... \n"; } sub informOut { my $message = shift; print "$message \n"; }
Here is a screenshot of the program running
I’ve decided to go for the easy way, using the remi repo, so first I’ve Downloaded the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL)
[root@box php5.3]# wget http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/4/i386/epel-release-4-9.noarch.rpm --13:08:07-- http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/4/i386/epel-release-4-9.noarch.rpm => `epel-release-4-9.noarch.rpm' Resolving download.fedora.redhat.com... 209.132.183.67 Connecting to download.fedora.redhat.com|209.132.183.67|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 13,686 (13K) [application/x-rpm] 100%[=================================================================================>] 13,686 --.--K/s 13:08:08 (405.60 KB/s) - `epel-release-4-9.noarch.rpm' saved [13686/13686]
Then the remi repo:
[root@box php5.3]# wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-4.rpm --13:08:21-- http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-4.rpm => `remi-release-4.rpm' Resolving rpms.famillecollet.com... 88.191.60.189 Connecting to rpms.famillecollet.com|88.191.60.189|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 5,120 (5.0K) [application/x-rpm] 100%[=================================================================================>] 5,120 32.45K/s 13:08:22 (32.41 KB/s) - `remi-release-4.rpm' saved [5120/5120]
Then I’ve upgraded both repos:
[root@box php5.3]# rpm -Uvh remi-release-4*.rpm epel-release-4*.rpm warning: remi-release-4.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 00f97f56 warning: epel-release-4-9.noarch.rpm: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 217521f6 Preparing... ########################################### [100%] 1:epel-release ########################################### [ 50%] 2:remi-release ########################################### [100%]
and after that I downloaded the remi repo file for Yum:
[root@box php5.3]# cd /etc/yum.repos.d/ [root@box yum.repos.d]# wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/remi-enterprise.repo --13:09:28-- http://rpms.famillecollet.com/remi-enterprise.repo => `remi-enterprise.repo' Resolving rpms.famillecollet.com... 88.191.60.189 Connecting to rpms.famillecollet.com|88.191.60.189|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 793 [text/plain] 100%[=================================================================================>] 793 --.--K/s 13:09:28 (50.42 MB/s) - `remi-enterprise.repo' saved [793/793]
After that I just told yum to upgrade php:
[root@box yum.repos.d]# yum --enable remi update php Repository remi is listed more than once in the configuration Repository remi-test is listed more than once in the configuration Setting up Update Process Setting up repositories epel 100% |=========================| 3.4 kB 00:00 remi 100% |=========================| 2.6 kB 00:00 Reading repository metadata in from local files 357f538e0bf37d10983cd3b22 100% |=========================| 732 kB 00:06 epel : ################################################## 2267/2267 e849a85ae6e8f1b8e5e71c08b 100% |=========================| 128 kB 00:03 remi : ################################################## 444/444 Resolving Dependencies --> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait. ---> Downloading header for php to pack into transaction set. php-5.3.2-1.el4.remi.x86_ 100% |=========================| 19 kB 00:00 ---> Package php.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi set to be updated --> Running transaction check --> Processing Dependency: php-common = 5.3.2-1.el4.remi for package: php --> Processing Dependency: php-cli = 5.3.2-1.el4.remi for package: php --> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes. --> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait. ---> Downloading header for php-common to pack into transaction set. php-common-5.3.2-1.el4.re 100% |=========================| 25 kB 00:01 ---> Package php-common.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi set to be updated ---> Downloading header for php-cli to pack into transaction set. php-cli-5.3.2-1.el4.remi. 100% |=========================| 19 kB 00:01 ---> Package php-cli.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi set to be updated --> Running transaction check --> Processing Dependency: php-common = 5.1.6-3.el4s1.10 for package: php-mysql --> Processing Dependency: php-common = 5.1.6-3.el4s1.10 for package: php-xml --> Processing Dependency: php-common = 5.1.6-3.el4s1.10 for package: php-pdo --> Processing Dependency: libedit.so.0()(64bit) for package: php-cli --> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes. --> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait. ---> Downloading header for php-xml to pack into transaction set. php-xml-5.3.2-1.el4.remi. 100% |=========================| 20 kB 00:00 ---> Package php-xml.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi set to be updated ---> Downloading header for libedit to pack into transaction set. libedit-20090923-3.0_1.el 100% |=========================| 5.8 kB 00:00 ---> Package libedit.x86_64 0:20090923-3.0_1.el4.rf set to be updated ---> Downloading header for php-pdo to pack into transaction set. php-pdo-5.3.2-1.el4.remi. 100% |=========================| 19 kB 00:00 ---> Package php-pdo.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi set to be updated ---> Downloading header for php-mysql to pack into transaction set. php-mysql-5.3.2-1.el4.rem 100% |=========================| 19 kB 00:00 ---> Package php-mysql.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi set to be updated --> Running transaction check --> Processing Dependency: libsqlite.so.0()(64bit) for package: php-pdo --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.16(libmysqlclient_16)(64bit) for package: php-mysql --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.16()(64bit) for package: php-mysql --> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes. --> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait. ---> Downloading header for sqlite2 to pack into transaction set. sqlite2-2.8.17-2.el4.remi 100% |=========================| 5.2 kB 00:00 ---> Package sqlite2.x86_64 0:2.8.17-2.el4.remi set to be updated ---> Downloading header for mysql-libs to pack into transaction set. mysql-libs-5.1.45-1.el4.r 100% |=========================| 24 kB 00:00 ---> Package mysql-libs.x86_64 0:5.1.45-1.el4.remi set to be updated --> Running transaction check --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15()(64bit) for package: perl-DBD-MySQL --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15(libmysqlclient_15)(64bit) for package: mysql-server --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient_r.so.15(libmysqlclient_15)(64bit) for package: mysql-server --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15()(64bit) for package: mysql-server --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15(libmysqlclient_15)(64bit) for package: perl-DBD-MySQL --> Processing Dependency: mysql-libs = 5.0.82sp1-1.el4_8 for package: mysql --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15(libmysqlclient_15)(64bit) for package: mysql --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.15()(64bit) for package: mysql --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient_r.so.15()(64bit) for package: mysql-server --> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes. --> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait. ---> Downloading header for mysqlclient15 to pack into transaction set. mysqlclient15-5.0.67-1.el 100% |=========================| 3.9 kB 00:00 ---> Package mysqlclient15.x86_64 0:5.0.67-1.el4.remi set to be updated ---> Package perl-DBD-mysql.x86_64 0:4.013-1.el4.rf set to be updated ---> Downloading header for mysql to pack into transaction set. mysql-5.1.45-1.el4.remi.x 100% |=========================| 19 kB 00:00 ---> Package mysql.x86_64 0:5.1.45-1.el4.remi set to be updated ---> Downloading header for mysql-server to pack into transaction set. mysql-server-5.1.45-1.el4 100% |=========================| 27 kB 00:00 ---> Package mysql-server.x86_64 0:5.1.45-1.el4.remi set to be updated --> Running transaction check --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.14(libmysqlclient_14)(64bit) for package: perl-DBD-mysql --> Processing Dependency: libmysqlclient.so.14()(64bit) for package: perl-DBD-mysql --> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes. --> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait. ---> Downloading header for mysqlclient14 to pack into transaction set. mysqlclient14-4.1.22-1.el 100% |=========================| 5.5 kB 00:00 ---> Package mysqlclient14.x86_64 0:4.1.22-1.el4.remi set to be updated --> Running transaction check Dependencies Resolved ============================================================================= Package Arch Version Repository Size ============================================================================= Installing: perl-DBD-mysql x86_64 4.013-1.el4.rf rpmforge 228 k replacing perl-DBD-MySQL.x86_64 4.008-1.el4s1 Updating: php x86_64 5.3.2-1.el4.remi remi 1.4 M Installing for dependencies: libedit x86_64 20090923-3.0_1.el4.rf rpmforge 265 k mysqlclient14 x86_64 4.1.22-1.el4.remi remi 1.2 M mysqlclient15 x86_64 5.0.67-1.el4.remi remi 1.3 M sqlite2 x86_64 2.8.17-2.el4.remi remi 161 k Updating for dependencies: mysql x86_64 5.1.45-1.el4.remi remi 1.0 M mysql-libs x86_64 5.1.45-1.el4.remi remi 1.7 M mysql-server x86_64 5.1.45-1.el4.remi remi 11 M php-cli x86_64 5.3.2-1.el4.remi remi 2.6 M php-common x86_64 5.3.2-1.el4.remi remi 963 k php-mysql x86_64 5.3.2-1.el4.remi remi 155 k php-pdo x86_64 5.3.2-1.el4.remi remi 177 k php-xml x86_64 5.3.2-1.el4.remi remi 232 k Transaction Summary ============================================================================= Install 5 Package(s) Update 9 Package(s) Remove 0 Package(s) Total download size: 22 M Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages: (1/14): php-xml-5.3.2-1.e 100% |=========================| 232 kB 00:04 (2/14): libedit-20090923- 100% |=========================| 265 kB 00:04 (3/14): php-common-5.3.2- 100% |=========================| 963 kB 00:15 (4/14): mysqlclient15-5.0 100% |=========================| 1.3 MB 00:23 (5/14): php-cli-5.3.2-1.e 100% |=========================| 2.6 MB 00:35 (6/14): perl-DBD-mysql-4. 100% |=========================| 228 kB 00:04 (7/14): php-pdo-5.3.2-1.e 100% |=========================| 177 kB 00:05 (8/14): mysql-5.1.45-1.el 100% |=========================| 1.0 MB 00:15 (9/14): sqlite2-2.8.17-2. 100% |=========================| 161 kB 00:05 (10/14): mysqlclient14-4. 100% |=========================| 1.2 MB 00:15 (11/14): mysql-server-5.1 100% |=========================| 11 MB 01:59 (12/14): php-5.3.2-1.el4. 100% |=========================| 1.4 MB 00:23 (13/14): mysql-libs-5.1.4 100% |=========================| 1.7 MB 00:23 (14/14): php-mysql-5.3.2- 100% |=========================| 155 kB 00:04 warning: rpmts_HdrFromFdno: V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 00f97f56 Public key for php-xml-5.3.2-1.el4.remi.x86_64.rpm is not installed Retrieving GPG key from http://rpms.famillecollet.com/RPM-GPG-KEY-remi Importing GPG key 0x00F97F56 "Remi Collet " Is this ok [y/N]: Key imported successfully warning: only V3 signatures can be verified, skipping V4 signature Running Transaction Test Finished Transaction Test Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction WARNING : This php-* RPM are not official Fedora build and overrides the official ones. Don't file bugs on Fedora Project. Use dedicated forums http://forums.famillecollet.com/ Updating : php-common [ 1/24]warning: /etc/php.ini created as /etc/php.ini.rpmnew Updating : php-common ####################### [ 1/24] Installing: mysqlclient15 ####################### [ 2/24] warning: only V3 signatures can be verified, skipping V4 signature WARNING : This MySQL RPM is not an official Fedora build and it overrides the official one. Don't file bugs on Fedora Project. Use dedicated forums http://forums.famillecollet.com/ Updating : mysql-libs [ 3/24]warning: /etc/my.cnf created as /etc/my.cnf.rpmnew Updating : mysql-libs ####################### [ 3/24] Updating : mysql ####################### [ 4/24] Installing: mysqlclient14 ####################### [ 5/24] Installing: sqlite2 ####################### [ 6/24] Updating : php-pdo ####################### [ 7/24] Installing: libedit ####################### [ 8/24] Updating : php-cli ####################### [ 9/24] Updating : php ####################### [10/24] Updating : php-mysql ####################### [11/24] Updating : php-xml ####################### [12/24] Installing: perl-DBD-mysql ####################### [13/24] Updating : mysql-server ####################### [14/24] Cleanup : php-xml ####################### [15/24] Cleanup : php-common ####################### [16/24] Cleanup : php-cli ####################### [17/24] Removing : perl-DBD-MySQL ####################### [18/24] Cleanup : php-pdo ####################### [19/24] Cleanup : mysql ####################### [20/24] Cleanup : mysql-server ####################### [21/24] Cleanup : php ####################### [22/24] Cleanup : mysql-libs ####################### [23/24] Cleanup : php-mysql ####################### [24/24] Installed: perl-DBD-mysql.x86_64 0:4.013-1.el4.rf Dependency Installed: libedit.x86_64 0:20090923-3.0_1.el4.rf mysqlclient14.x86_64 0:4.1.22-1.el4.remi mysqlclient15.x86_64 0:5.0.67-1.el4.remi sqlite2.x86_64 0:2.8.17-2.el4.remi Updated: php.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi Dependency Updated: mysql.x86_64 0:5.1.45-1.el4.remi mysql-libs.x86_64 0:5.1.45-1.el4.remi mysql-server.x86_64 0:5.1.45-1.el4.remi php-cli.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi php-common.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi php-mysql.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi php-pdo.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi php-xml.x86_64 0:5.3.2-1.el4.remi Replaced: perl-DBD-MySQL.x86_64 0:4.008-1.el4s1 Complete!
When this was done, I just synced /etc/php.ini with the new one /etc/php.ini.rpmnew and /etc/my.cnf with /etc/my.cnf.rpmnew when this was done I just restarted mysql and apache and I php5.3 was now available.
]]>Create a backup
If I want to restore the backup I use:
ivan@mini:~$ bunzip2 < dbName-02-17-2010.sql.bz2 | mysql –h dbHost –u dbUser –pdbPass
I can switch bzip2 compression by changing only the program name for example gzip/gunzip lzma/unlzma
]]>
This servers didn’t came with a control panel (better for me), so the first thing I did was to login:
ivan@mini:~$ ssh root@23.45.12.56
After this I checked the OS, version and architecture
[root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# cat /etc/*release* CentOS release 5.4 (Final) [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# uname -a Linux V100205C4HB9V-1 2.6.18-028stab064.7 #1 SMP Wed Aug 26 13:11:07 MSD 2009 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]#
Ok, now that I know the OS I create a normal user to avoid using the root account.
[root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# useradd –Gwheel ivan
Then I change the server name to mygdon
[root@V100205C4HB9V-1 /]# sed -i 's/V100205C4HB9V-1/mygdon/g' /etc/sysconfig/network [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# sed -i 's/V100205C4HB9V-1/mygdon/g' /etc/hosts [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# echo HOST.DOMAIN.com > /etc/hostname [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# hostname -F /etc/hostname
Unfortunately I was unable to persist the new hostname, because it is a VPS server, there are ways around this, but didn’t have the time to make the changes so I just moved on, and leave this for later
The next thing I did was update the OS, and add the rpmforge repo because I will need some apps from there
[root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# yum update [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# yum upgrade [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# wget http://packages.sw.be/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.5.1-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# rpm -Uhv rpmforge-release-0.5.1-1.$dist.rf.$arch.rpm [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# yum update [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# yum upgrade
Then I installed some packages I often use:
[root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# yum install htop screen vim-enhanced
The VPS already had a web stack installed I just did some configuration:
Configuring Apache Virtual Hosts
[root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# mkdir /var/www/vhosts/{site1, site2} –p [root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
Here I Uncommented the following directive
NameVirtualHost *:80
and Added a default vhost a new vhost
<virtualhost *:80> DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/default ServerName mygdon.site1.net <directory /var/www/vhosts/default> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </directory> ErrorLog logs/mygdon.site1.net-error_log CustomLog logs/mygdon.site1.net-access_log common </virtualhost> <virtualhost *:80> DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/site2 ServerName appname.site2.net <directory /var/www/vhosts/site2> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all </directory> ErrorLog logs/appname.site2.net-error_log CustomLog logs/appname.site2.net-access_log common </virtualhost>
then restarted the apache server:
[root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# service httpd restart Stopping httpd: [ OK ] Starting httpd: [ OK ]
and I wrote a simple php file to test this out:
[root@V100205C4HB9V-1 ~]# echo '<? phpinfo(); ?>' > /var/www/vhosts/site1/index.php
And because I haven’t configured a DNS server I just temporarily added the server to my hosts file (On my local machine):
root@mini:/etc# echo 'subdomain.site1.net 54.65.74.23' > /etc/hosts
and here is the result:
Configuring Mysql
Once I had the virtual hosts configuration in place I added a mysql user and changed the default root password:
[root@V100205C4HB9V-1 vhosts]# mysql Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 5 Server version: 5.0.77 Source distribution Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer. mysql> show databases; +--------------------+ | Database | +--------------------+ | information_schema | | mysql | | test | +--------------------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('pass-here') WHERE user='root'; Query OK, 3 rows affected (0.02 sec) Rows matched: 3 Changed: 3 Warnings: 0 mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec) mysql> CREATE USER 'ivan'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'pass-here'; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec) mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'ivan'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> CREATE USER 'ivan'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'pass-here'; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'ivan'@'%' WITH GRANT OPTION; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql>
Now the server is ready for adding some virtual hosts, I just need to configure a DNS server and the mail server, but because the DNS is on another server and already working I just have to add a new zone, as for mail server, this server will be only used to send emails so I don’t need to dig in postfix configuration files for now.
I’ll write another post regarding the security, but for now this will work.
]]>Anyway, right now I don’t have time to spend getting a new OS on this machine, I just want something that works, I don’t plan using this to work, but I would like to have some of the tools I use into this.
So my options were, trying Ubuntu remix or Windows Xp, after checking that hp had the drivers for XP, I was going to change Windows 7 to Xp, but I was reading how to create a USB boot drive, and it was too much hassle for me. (I’m very lazy for any Microsoft stuff).
My next option was Ubuntu remix, I’m not a big fan of Ubuntu, but I wanted something to just worked out of the box, also this little netbook comes with splashtop, a really nice feature for checking stuff online fast, and I didn’t want to loose this so I really didn’t knew how well this was going to work.
I started downloading Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic yesterday night, just in case, Today after more frustrating things, I decided to give Karmic a try.
I grabbed my usb pendrive, a 1gb kingston traveler, mounted the iso and ran usbinst.exe, it was pretty straightforward, my only advice to you would be to avoid saving space for your documents in the usb, my first try I set this to 30Mb and the boot failed, so I set the do not save feature.
It took about 40 minutes to finish copying the files, after it was done, I restarted the netbook with the pendrive connected, and at the first boot screen I pressed F9 key for booting options, selected the pendrive and that was it.
After testing ubuntu from the pendrive, it ran pretty well and everything but the wifi worked, I did an installation, keeping the windows partition and the hp restore partition, just in case.
The installation was pretty smooth, no issues at all, after the first boot I just installed the broadcom drivers, it was pretty easy with the driver manager in ubuntu, and the wifi was working
Update: My hp mini was stolen by a couple of elderly people, I saw the video 
, so I’m unable to play more with this, but the time I had this I was very happy with it, it performed well.
So what I did to install this on ubuntu 9.10 karmic was the following:
root@mini:/etc/php5/apache2# apt-get install php5-dev libmagic-dev php-pear .... root@mini:/etc/php5/apache2# pear channel-update pear.php.net ... root@mini:/etc/php5/apache2# pecl install Fileinfo .... Build process completed successfully Installing '/usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/fileinfo.so' install ok: channel://pear.php.net/Fileinfo-1.0.4
and finally I added the extension to php.ini
extension=fileinfo.so
I restarted the apache server, and tested with this
<!--DVFMTSC-->$fileInfo = new finfo(FILEINFO_MIME); <!--DVFMTSC--> $mimeType = $fileInfo->buffer(file_get_contents($uploadedFile));
]]>
This works well when I need to make a quick change or test 1 file, but If I have to synchronize several files it is a very time consuming task.
So what I use in this cases is sshfs it is a pretty cool tool, to allow me to mount any filesystem so I can use any rsync on a remote server without dealing with opening ports configure, the server or do other stuff,
Gentoo is my main OS, so it was really easy to have this working, I had to reconfigure the kernel to support fuse
Symbol: FUSE_FS [=m] Location: -> File systems -> Filesystem in Userspace support
and after this was ready I only installed sys-fs/sshfs-fuse
[I] sys-fs/sshfs-fuse Available versions: 1.9 ~2.1 2.2 Installed versions: 2.2(12:33:09 PM 09/08/2009) Homepage: http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html Description: Fuse-filesystem utilizing the sftp service.
when it was ready I did the following to mount the remote filesystem:
ivan@gondor ~ $ sshfs phpfix@prestant.citizenhawk.net: preasent/
After this I’m able to use the remote file system as usual.
]]>First check what is the version of the distro:
cat /etc/*release*
Then make an update:
yum update
After 496 package updates I’ve installed php5
yum --enablerepo=centosplus install php
This were the installed packages:
php-5.1.6-3.el4s1.10 php-cli-5.1.6-3.el4s1.10 php-common-5.1.6-3.el4s1.10
So I’ve created a info.php file, and restarted the apache server:
echo "<?php phpinfo(); ?>" > /var/www/html/info.php && service httpd restart
It was working correctly, so the next thing was to have mysql 5 in it, so I did:
yum --enablerepo=centosplus install mysql-server
I got some problems here, first I got this:
Transaction Check Error: file /etc/my.cnf from install of mysql-libs-5.0.68-1.el4_6 conflicts with file from package mysql-4.1.22-2.el4 file /usr/share/mysql/charsets/Index.xml from install of mysql-libs-5.0.68-1.el4_6 conflicts with file from package mysql-4.1.22-2.el4 file /usr/share/mysql/charsets/README from install of mysql-libs-5.0.68-1.el4_6 conflicts with file from package mysql-4.1.22-2.el4 file /usr/share/mysql/charsets/armscii8.xml from install of mysql-libs-5.0.68-1.el4_6 conflicts with file from package mysql-4.1.22-2.el4 file /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ascii.xml from install of mysql-libs-5.0.68-1.el4_6 conflicts with file from package mysql-4.1.22-2.el4
So what I found was that yum was trying to install mysql.i386 but the architechture is x86_64, to fix this I had to specify the arch
yum --enablerepo=centosplus install mysql.x86_64 mysql-server
After this I was able to install it, but when I tried to start the server I received some errors about error messages not right, I’ve checked the installed packages and it was installed mysqlclient10, so I removed the error messages problem disappeared, however I still couldn’t startup the server, checking at the logs I found this:
\InnoDB: Creating foreign key constraint system tables InnoDB: Foreign key constraint system tables created 091012 11:01:18 InnoDB: Started; log sequence number 0 0 091012 11:01:18 [ERROR] Fatal error: Can't open and lock privilege tables: Table 'mysql.host' doesn't exist 091012 11:01:18 mysqld ended
To fix this I cleared the data dir, that had som files, this was in ‘/var/lib/mysql’ and after that I ran mysql_install_db:
[root@prestant /]# cd /var/lib/mysql [root@prestant mysql]# rm -rf * [root@prestant mysql]# mysql_install_db --user=mysql -ldata=/var/lib/mysql [root@prestant mysql]# service mysqld start
After the server was up, I changed the root password and added a new user:
[root@prestant mysql]# mysqladmin -u root password NEWPASSWORD [root@prestant mysql]# mysql -pNEWPASSWORD
]]>Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 5 Server version: 5.0.82sp1 Source distribution Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement. mysql> CREATE USER 'ivan'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'passhere'; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'ivan'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'passhere' WITH GRANT OPTION MAX_QUERIES_PER_HOUR 0 MAX_CONNECTIONS_PER_HOUR 0 MAX_UPDATES_PER_HOUR 0 MAX_USER_CONNECTIONS 0 ; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> CREATE USER 'ivan'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'passhere'; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'ivan'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> flush privileges; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> exit Bye
About 2 years ago I purchased this 500Gb Acomdata drive that was on sale at Fry’s, it was a good deal back then, cost me about 100 bucks, it had an aluminium case and a power off switch, and I was in the need to expand the storage capacity of my multimedia server, which is linux based.
I didn’t researched this product, I didn’t even knew that acomdata was a brand, anyway I remember seeing the “Hybrid Drive” statement, but didn’t care, I was going to wipe this drive an reformat it as ext3, so I was aware that all the “software features” it had were useless to me, like the PushButton™ Backup and the Nomad Mobile Desktop.
After I arrived home, I plugged this thing on my server, which had ivman and a custom script to mount anything, but after few seconds nothing happened, I look at the kernel messages and I started to worry, It showed as a CD drive instead of a Mass Storage Device, I tried unsuccessfully to mount this manually, so I thought this drive must be bad.
The next day I connected this drive to a Windows XP, and after some drivers install, it was working, I noticed that it created a virtual CD drive on Windows it had some software on it, so I thought that this was some kind of partition that would be erased after I formatted the drive, so I did this, but the partition was still there.
I did some research on the internet but didn’t found anything use full, so I was again trying to make this stupid drive worked on linux, I hate when I have to fight with the stuff I buy just to make it work on linux, I was very annoyed by this, finally after looking the kernel messages I’ve found that the drive was acting as a SCSI device, so I activated “Probe all LUNs on each SCSI device” in the kernel and after a kernel restart both partitions were available on Linux, however this still had a problem, because I was using ivman to detect the drive and mounted, ivman didn’t worked for hard drive partition, just for the virtual CD, I’ve tried unsuccessfully to delete that stupid CD partition on windows and Linux.
I had enough of this and I was going to take this drive back to the store, but in a desperation moment I took my screwdriver and started to tearing apart the drive, I wasn’t even stopped by the warranty void seal, my intention was to take the drive format it and put it back without the cd part, I did this, and the format was successful, the drive was totally empty, but when I put this back to the enclosure the stupid CD partition was there, empty this time, but it was there, so it was a firmware issue and I didn’t found a firmware upgrade to remove this stupid feature.
I did some scripts to detect this unmounted the CD part and mount the hard drive partition, it took me about a week to have this thing working the way I wanted, this was unbelievable, why they don’t put the software to remove this “hybryd feature”.
However this drive has been working fine, with the virtual CD partition still there until Yesterday, I was in the need to transfer some large files from work to home, and this was the drive more reachable from all the drives I have, so I bring it her to the office, and as soon as I plugged in the CD partition appeared on my Desktop, so I thought it has been a while now, lets see if I can finally reflash the firmware to remove this so called feature, and I’ve found a forum with several users trying to remove this, and suddenly I’ve found this post:
You need this software from http://www.mediafire.com/?bgwuwq5xzbm
unzip and click on MP251MFG, click on “configure hdd” and once it says pass just unplug and plug in the device. CD PART gone.
I quickly downloaded the file in question, it was a zip file called “REMOVE CD PART.zip” with about 1.5Mb in size, it has a Readme.pdf that describes the MP251MFG program, I booted up in Windows, installed the fsdriver because this drive was an ext3, plugged the drive and run the MP251MFG.exe application this is what I saw:
I didn’t backed up the drive, I was just exploring the options and I clicked the Configure HDD, a process was started and finished successfully, I was affraid that my data were gone, so I headed to check if the data was there, and it was, I copied the important stuff somewhere else, unplugged the drive and plugged back in, and voilà, the CD partition was gone along with the data in the drive, but that din’t matter the CD partition was really gone 
The drive was reformatted to FAT32, so I reformatted back to ext3, and now it is working pretty well, 2 years later.
I’ve found that this program works for other drives too, here are some links where this program can be found
For Windows:
- xSil251 Switch HDD to CD+HDD_Nomad Mobile Desktop_V1.04_091007
- xSil251 Switch CD+HDD to HDD 3.5_Toshiba_V1.02_041307
For Macintosh:
]]>However I’m constantly in the need to login to some servers just to make a quick check of something, so I have to type in my credentials every time I log in, this really annoys me, because when I’m focused on something I don’t want to loose that focus waiting for the login prompt.
So what I did to fix this annoyance, was to use Key Authentication instead of Password Authentication, I’ve been using this for several years now under several distros without a problem.
So in short this is what I do, whenever I want to use Key Auth.
gondor .ssh # cd ~/.ssh gondor .ssh ~ ssh-keygen Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa): Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa. Your public key has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub. The key fingerprint is: 53:df:bb:74:24:2d:7f:78:1f:85:66:f0:19:b6:9f:71 root@gondor The key's randomart image is: +--[ RSA 2048]----+ | | | | | . . o | | . . = * | | S . @.E| | . o O=| | +o*| | . ++| | . .| +-----------------+
I haven’t set a password for the key, because if I set a password I would have to type the password for the key each time, or setup a program to remember the key password like Gnome Keyring or Putty Pageant in Windows.
After my private and public keys are generated I copy the public key to the server where I want to access without password
gondor .ssh # ssh-copy-id -i id_rsa.pub ivan@odin The authenticity of host 'odin (192.168.1.201)' can't be established. RSA key fingerprint is bb:36:b4:0b:05:13:ce:a2:2e:95:97:59:65:f3:f8:a8. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes Warning: Permanently added 'odin,192.168.1.201' (RSA) to the list of known hosts. Password: Now try logging into the machine, with "ssh 'ivan@odin'", and check in: .ssh/authorized_keys to make sure we haven't added extra keys that you weren't expecting. gondor .ssh # ssh ivan@odin Last login: Fri Sep 25 15:50:03 PDT 2009 from gondor.artedigital on ssh Last login: Fri Sep 25 15:50:07 2009 from gondor.artedigital ivan@odin ~ $]]>