Posts Categorized: Uncategorized

Adding the RPMforge repositories is one of the first things I like to do on a new install. Instructions are on the RPMforge website but it is as straightforward as: wget http://packages.sw.be/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm rpm -Uhv rpmforge*  You will then notice the repo details in /etc/yum.repos.d This allowed me to update Spam Assassin from the 3.1.9 version… Read more »

I wanted to have a cron job that would check if MySQL was still running and if not to start it again. The following got me started with an hourly check: 0 * * * * ps -ef | grep mysqld | grep -v grep >> /dev/null || /etc/init.d/mysql start

I sometimes find on a certain machine that when I change to a bash shell and try to edit the crontab with # crontab -e instead of getting my vi editor I just get a number returned, for example: # crontab -e3839 Obviously something to do with how the default editor is set in the… Read more »

SpamAssassin can be checked by feeding a text file into it and piping the result out to another text file. Amendments can be made to the input file to check for effectiveness. Consider using the 'GTUBE' phrase as a trigger to increase the score and label a message as spam. spamassassin -t < sample-spam.txt >… Read more »

Using CentOS5/RHEL5 I needed to add some perl modules for SpamAssassin. Note sure how important this first step is but I:# cd /root/.cpan/sources# wget ftp://ftp.perl.org/pub/CPAN/MIRRORED.BY # perl -MCPAN -e shell when asked about configuration I said 'no' and allowed the autoconfiguration to take place. I then arrived at the CPAN prompt:  cpan>  install Mail::SPF::Query cpan>  install… Read more »

On a new server install on CentOS 5.1 I was getting very slow logins. Trying ssh with the -v (verbose) option showed that: debug1: Authentications that can continue: publickey,gssapi-with-mic,passworddebug1: Next authentication method: gssapi-with-micdebug1: Unspecified GSS failure.  Minor code may provide more informationNo credentials cache found To skip this and continue with password authentication I amended… Read more »

I had a problem installing a new virtual machine using Xen and virt-manager on CentOS 5.1.I could not choose a network device as the drop-down list/menu was empty. From the bug at the following page:http://bugs.centos.org/view.php?id=2516 I downloaded the connection.py.patch file and copied it to the server at: /usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/ then ran: cd /usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/ patch -p0 <… Read more »

After installing Nagios I created three files to define all the services I wanted to monitor: hosts.cfg hostgroups.cfg services.cfg SquidI used the check_squid code from http://workaround.org/squid/nagios-plugin/adding the relevant details to each of my 3 config files for Nagios.I encountered a problem though as the check_squid perl script makes use of a Perl module LWP::UserAgent which… Read more »

InfraRecorder is a CD burning software application for Windows. It is a free alternative to using the expensive trial-limited Nero software. This software is best used for burning a Ubuntu ISO image to remove Windows from your life and replace it with free software.

PICASA 2.5 web-album Im using Ubuntu Edgy on i386 and this is what I did to get it working: 1. I installed Picasa as usual (v2.2 for linux)2. I started it up and scanned some folder containing photos3. Shut down picasa AND the media detector4. Instlled wine (apt-get install wine)5. Downloaded picasa 2.5 for windows… Read more »