Linux Server Diary

Phasing Out PAL and VPN

2011-05-04T08:18:00.003-04:00

I received an email this morning concerning the Purdue wireless network and vpn services. Specifically, the two services I use to connect my Linux laptop to the university network are being phased out. Looks like I'm going to have to find a new way.

You are receiving this message because ITaP logs show you 1) connect to the Purdue network using the old PAL wireless system, or 2) access vpn.purdue.edu for virtual private network (VPN) service when connecting from off campus. Faculty, staff and students need to change to alternatives to these services before May 13.

ITaP is retiring the original PAL system and vpn.purdue.edu May 13 because they rely on outdated hardware no longer produced and supported by the manufacturer. Both services also are less secure, slower and not as compatible with current equipment as the newer systems available at Purdue for more than four years.

For instructions on how to change to the newer PAL 2.0, and for VPN alternatives:

* Visit the Purdue Gold Answers online knowledge base and sign in using your Purdue Career Account user name and password.

* For PAL help, use the Gold Answers Find Answers box to search for PAL and select the link to the knowledge base article titled "What is PAL 2.0?"

* For VPN help, use the Find Answers box to search for VPN and select the link to the article titled "How do I connect to the Purdue VPN?"

* For further assistance, contact the ITaP Customer Service Center at 44000 or visit them in STEW G65.

For more information see http://www.itap.purdue.edu/newsroom/detail.cfm?NewsId=2319.

Gold Answers online knowledge base http://www.purdue.edu/goldanswers

Thank you,
ITaP Networks & Security

Moving iTunes

2010-05-12T22:02:00.000-04:00

Background:

I've been dual booting my laptop for quite a long time between Vista (for iTunes) and Linux Mint (for everything else). Over time, my Vista install has degraded, and my last attempt to clean it up killed it. Unfortunately, my iTunes library was trapped on that partition.

Sure, I could have backed it up, by I didn't think I needed to. I don't keep music files within the iTunes library, and I knew I could always resubscribe to podcasts if they were lost. However, I learned that I can't sync the iPhone to a new library without basically erasing everything on the phone, including all of the music. It would take hours to reload all of the tunes.

The Solution:

I read many tutorials online that outlined how to transfer the library. What a mess! Each was more confusing and tedious than the one before. Odd that even though Apple does a good job of making things clear and easy, this was not something most people could do. Especially tricky is the proper naming for the media files. Since I am moving from Vista to XP (virtual on the new Linux server), the path to "My Music/iTunes" will be different from one to the other. I did find one little section of a web page that told me that if iTunes couldn't find the media files in the directory listed, it would try in the default location for that install.

Now, it's easy. Using Linux, I copied the entire iTunes directory tree from the ailing Vista partition to the new virtual machine. Took a while to move 5GB+, but iTunes came right up. After a quick once through on the library, it is working fine.

But Can It Sync?

Yes.

(Before I could use USB on the virtual machine, I had to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions.)

I plugged the iPhone into a USB port on the Linux machine, and told VirtualBox to pass it through, and it worked. This was the first sync in a month, so there were many podcasts to load, and I also added some new tunes.

This whole process was much easier than I thought it would be.

(Because of other problems that have to be cleared up, I won't be able to sync again for a while.)

HTPC #5 - Trouble

2010-05-12T21:58:00.001-04:00

This project has gone pretty well. Assembly was easy, software installation was challenging but successful, and setting up the file server functions was a breeze. I was even able to setup iTunes in a virtual machine. This box runs fast and works well.

Well, except for one thing. I've only been able to get HDMI to work one time for about 15 minutes. Every other time I hook it up, either using the HDMI port or using a DVI to HDMI adapter, the resulting picture has been horrible. Very green with shades of pink, and intensely overstaturated. I tried different cables and all three inputs on my television, but no luck. (Using the supplied DVI to VGA adapter, I get a good picture on an old CRT.)

After talking with a friend (who works at Nvidia) and corresponding with the vendor, it has been decided that the motherboard is faulty and should be replaced. I applied to Newegg for an RMA for replacement and it was issued. Tomorrow, I take the whole thing apart and send it back. Then, I wait for the replacement. Wonder how long this will take.

HTPC #4 - Configuring Samba

2010-05-06T20:22:00.001-04:00

This was so easy!

I installed samba:

sudo apt-get install samba

Created the configuration file:

[global]
workgroup = MYGROUP
netbios name = HTPC
server string = HTPC
security = share
encrypt passwords = yes
local master = no
guest ok = yes
#===== Share Definitions =====

[files]
comment = Files
path = /export
public = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
create mask = 0777
directory mask = 0777
force user = nobody
force group = nogroup

And restarted the daemon:

sudo restart smbd

Now I have a share called files that contains the /export directory. Anyone on my network can read or write files without a login.

See? I told you it was easy.

HTPC #3 - Software

2010-05-06T20:22:00.000-04:00

Now that I have the computer assembled, it's time for software. I've been playing with different versions of Ubuntu and Fedora as I wait for Ubuntu 10.04 to be released. It dropped a couple of days ago, so it's time to go!

Downloading the OS way easy. My employer, a major Midwestern research university, keeps a local archive of several open source packages, so the download was fast and trouble free. As usual, the install was quick and without issue.

Next, I installed the restricted extras package to get the various codecs I need for media playback. After a reload of the repositories in Synaptic, the package was in the list, and I started in the install. Since I was competing with a lot of other leading edge Linux geeks, these downloads took a lot longer to download. When the process estimated 4 hours until completion, I went to bed.

The next morning, the install was complete, and I ran the program that sets up DVD playback capabilities. The restricted extras install process is documented in many places, including https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats.

Next, it's time for Boxee. A new beta has just been release that works with 10.04, although not officially. I had trouble with earlier versions on the 10.04 RC not being able to connect, even while running on 9.10 worked OK. Sure enough, after the install, I couldn't login. The error message said "Internet connection not available".

I should mention that I had been seeing some strange behavior with DNS lookups when web browsing. They seemed to take a long time to complete. Could this be the problem with Boxee?

To test my theory, I switched my DNS settings in the computer from the default Comcast settings via my router, to the Google DNS servers. Voila! It worked! Both DNS lookups in general, and the Boxee login in particular are now functional.

Next, I'm going to setup the repository for music, video, and photo files. Stay tuned!

HTPC #2 - Hardware Assembly

2010-04-24T22:19:00.026-04:00

All the parts have arrived, and I'm ready to put this puppy together. Please refer to post #1 for a component list.

This job went quickly, and my biggest problem was identifying the different screws that came with the case. :) This isn't the smallest mini-ITX case out there, so there was a little room to maneuver cables around to get everything in.

The motherboard has everything! There's no way I'll need 14 USB connections, or 7 SATA devices. Nor will I ever use all of the different audio outs. Flexibility is the key here, and I have lots of options.

Note about fans. I wasn't aware that the i3 processor had a fan included in the package, but I'm glad it did. The separate fan I ordered was huge, and it's hard to imagine it fitting in any case, let alone an ITX box. It's going back to Newegg.

I don't think that even this Intel fan would fit in some of the low profile HTPC cases available. An alternate cooling method would be required.

The 2GB hard drive mounted sideways next to the motherboard, leaving room for yet another device under the full sized optical drive.

With everything connected and the case buttoned up, I fired up the Ubuntu 10.04 RC live CD. HDMI video worked fine (no audio yet), and all of the components were functional.

Now I'm waiting for 10.04 to be released in final form before I start the permanent OS install.

HTPC #1 - The Order

2010-04-14T21:32:00.002-04:00

For a couple of months now, I've been researching a home theater PC (HTPC) project. Now that my tax refund is on the way, I finally hit the checkout button on my wish list.

I had a couple of goals for this project. First, I wanted to make this unit small and quiet. A mini-ITX form factor fills that bill nicely. Unfortunately, that also limits motherboard and other component choices.

Second, I wanted a decent processor that would last a few years. An Atom was quickly ruled out.

Next, sufficient onboard graphics. Since I'm using a small case, there isn't much room for extra boards, especially a large and possibly hot video card. Here's where I hit some trouble. The boards with a good system like the Nvidia ION seem to all use the Atom processor. Boards that take a beefier processor don't work with ION. The Intel i3 has graphics processing built in, so I went with that.

Other desired attributes:

HDMI Video Out
Optical Audio Out
Compatibiliy with Linux and Boxee or XBMC
DVD Playback and Burn
WiFi Networking

Why WiFi? It would be difficult and unsightly to run network cable from the media stand downstairs to the router. Using .11n WiFi lets me transfer what I need from the 'Net. Since I'll be storing my media files locally, I won't need the network for normal playback.

Here's the list of components:

Everything will arrive in a few days, and the assembly and software installation begins.

Time to Build Again?

2009-12-08T20:12:00.002-05:00

It was a little over two years ago that built my 2nd server, as documented on this site. That box included an 800MHz Via processor in a micro ITX case with a 250GB drive. It has worked pretty well for me, but is starting to show its age.

The box's main job is file services, but I'm also using it as a music server (via web using Flash), and email backup machine (from GMail), and other things. Before iTunes, I would use it to catch and store podcasts automatically.

The 250GB drive was affordable at the time, but now I have less than 50GB free - and that's only because my son moved his stuff off to another box. Now, I can get a terrabyte drive for about the same price.

The case/power supply doesn't automatically restart after a power failure. These happen about every six weeks at my house, so I'd like something that would always be on. I'm not sure how I would confirm that before ordering.

Despite replacing the battery soon after purchase, the motherboard CMOS doesn't retain its settings after a loss of power. Therefore, I have to keep a keyboard plugged in at all times so boot ups don't hang on a 'no keyboard - press F1' error. I should have asked for a replacement during the 30 day warranty.

I'd love to be able to stash this thing in a closet with the wifi router, but these two power related problems are thwarting this plans.

Another problem is that I used a 2007 version of Ubuntu that is no longer supported or updateable. For the next one, I'll likely use an LTS release for the longer term of support. Ubuntu 10.4 LTS is due in April, so I have a few months for research.

I can't wait to get started.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Linux and Purdue Wireless - An Update

2009-08-29T09:26:00.001-04:00

Ok, so after posting this post back in October, I solved the problem shortly after, but never posted about it. After setting up PAL (Purdue Air Link) on my new Linux Mint install and on my son's machine, I thought I would record the steps while they are fresh in my mind.

Now, Purdue will have you install the specially configured Cisco VPN client that they offer for download, but I had trouble with that. First, I had to install a patch before compiling the client. No mention of this on the Purdue page, but I found the details here on the LANMK site. OK, so that worked, but when I tried to configure the VPN connection, the add button wasn't available. Hmmm. I uninstalled the client and tried option 2.

Which was to use the open source vpnc client. It's available in the Ubuntu repositories, so install was easy:

sudo apt-get install network-manager-vpnc

Now the add button is functional.

To configure the client, I copied the setup from my old Linux install (which I haven't yet deleted). Note the group name and group password. I found those last year on a Purdue Linux Users Page here, along with all the rest of these instructions. I don't know why ITaP doesn't just link to this page, as it has everything one would need to connect.

The only bad part about this method is that the user has to connect both to PAL 1.0 and the VPN for each session - no automatic connection. Here's the steps:

Connect to the hidden wireless network PAL (Not PAL 2.0 or PAL 2.0 Instructions). If you can't find it, you're out of luck.
After the wireless connection is up, start the VPN connection by clicking on the wireless indicator in the status bar, selecting VPN Connections, and clicking on the VPN connection created earlier (mine is called 'Purdue').

Anyway, this worked for me, and hopefully for my son as well.

Updated Linux Mint on the Laptop

2009-08-09T09:02:00.004-04:00

Linux Mint v7 came out a couple of months ago, and I ran the update process on the laptop to upgrade from v6. It worked pretty well, but a few things were off. Specifically, I had troubles with Compiz effects. Now, I know they aren't necessary, take up resources, and I rarely use them, but they're fun to show off - especially the cube.

Another issue that was a little more important was that the entire machine was considerably slower, and programs would often hang (the grayed screen of impatience) while things caught up.

Since I had an extra partition I wasn't using, I decided to throw on a fresh install of Mint. As one would imagine, the install was quick and easy. The only thing I forgot was that, as with every version of Mint or Ubuntu I've installed, since my wireless subsystem uses one of the proprietary drivers, I have to be plugged in to the network during the upgrade until I enable the driver. Once that was done, I was back on the air.

My Linux setup isn't overly customized. This makes it easy to upgrade or re-install, as I don't have to remember or document a bunch of oddball settings and utilities. Instead, I just re-installed my favorite software. And as a hard core web apps user, there isn't that much to put on. Here's the quick list:

Avant Window Manager: I like the Mac-like icon bar
Eclipse: Great of all kinds of devlopment projects. I'm using Django/Python
Firefox Add-ons: The only one I'm using right now lets me comment using icons on Flickr
Tweetdeck: Yes, I'm a Tweeter
Skype: I'm actually not very impressed by the delays that are always present in Skype, but I keep it around in case I need it.
gFTP: Everyone needs to transfer files sometime
Quanta Plus: HTML and CSS editor
jUploader: Flickr uploader
Cheese Webcam: Just for fun!
Inkscape: A vector graphics editor
GMail Notify: Makes an annoying beep sound whenever an email arrives
AcidRip: A DVD ripper
Handbrake: Convert videos and DVD rips to other video formats. Great for prepping things for the iPhone
Audacity: Used to manipulate and convert audio files. Can help record as well
VLC: I almost forgot my favorite video program. I use it mostly for playback, but it can also do capture and conversion. Also, works with almost any format without requiring external codecs.

Not a huge list anyway.

Of course, there are many programs that are included in the Linux Mint default configuration, including Firefox (web), The GIMP (graphics and photo manipulation), and OpenOffice (the occasional WP or spreadsheet task) that I use as well.

After that was done, I set up the connection to my home file server, and I was good to go. I'll wait a couple of more days before I delete the old partition and add the space to this new one.

Custom Admin Templates in Django

2008-12-29T10:36:00.004-05:00

(Those who are experienced Django developers, or even anyone beyond beginner stage, will find the follow points obvious, but I'm documenting here for my future reference.)

I've been experimenting with custom admin templates in Django, in preparation for a project I'm working on. I quickly found some help on the subject, mainly in the Django book. Chapter 6 lays it out pretty well:

As we explained in Chapter 4, the TEMPLATE_DIRS setting specifies a list of directories to check when loading Django templates. To customize Django’s admin templates, simply copy the relevant stock admin template from the Django distribution into your one of the directories pointed-to by TEMPLATE_DIRS.

The admin site finds the “Django administration” header by looking for the template admin/base_site.html. By default, this template lives in the Django admin template directory, django/contrib/admin/templates, which you can find by looking in your Python site-packages directory, or wherever Django was installed. To customize this base_site.html template, copy that template into an admin subdirectory of whichever directory you’re using in TEMPLATE_DIRS. For example, if your TEMPLATE_DIRS includes "/home/mytemplates", then copy django/contrib/admin/templates/admin/base_site.html to /home/mytemplates/admin/base_site.html. Don’t forget that admin subdirectory.

Then, just edit the new admin/base_site.html file to replace the generic Django text with your own site’s name as you see fit.

Note that any of Django’s default admin templates can be overridden. To override a template, just do the same thing you did with base_site.html: copy it from the default directory into your custom directory and make changes to the copy.

Here's where my beginner status gets in the way. I didn't know where in the directory structure to put the custom template. After a little playing around, I figured out that it should be in the directory pointed to by my TEMPLATE_DIRS setting in settings.py. Mine reads:

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'templates').replace ('\\','/'),
)

So, with my project called 'mysite' and application called 'books', the custom change template for the publisher entity lands in /mysite/books/templates/admin/books/publisher/. Kind of long, but keeps the logic encapsulated with the application.

Next, I wanted to try changing the look of the admin screens. These templates have to be located in a templates directory found in the project directory. This is a little frustrating for me, since I'd like to keep these changes with the application. However, that's not how Django works, so I'll just go with it.

(Unrelated note, I tried out my app using lynx as the browser, and found it works pretty well. I think that as long as I strive for full lynx compatibility, I'll have better luck working with different browsers.)

Python on Dreamhost

2008-12-20T09:18:00.002-05:00

A question for all of the Linux heads out there:

I'm hosting with Dreamhost, and I'm working on setting up a Django devlopement site. DH's Python version is 2.3, but I'd like to use 2.5. Following these instructions, compiled a 2.5 version.

Now, I need to set the PATH so that this new version will be used. How should I do that?

UPDATED:

Never mind! I found it:

export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
source ~/.bash_profile

Plus, I added the export line to ./bash_profile so it is executed each time.

Getting Things Done to GTD (Jabber with Google Apps)

2008-11-22T19:39:00.001-05:00

This is a complicated process I followed to try to make things easier. It started with an article discussing how to Make Gmail Your Gateway to the Web. Basically, he is trying to make his GMail account his gateway to everything. I've got my Google Apps account all setup to received email from every account with filters and tags and alternate accounts. The calendars are shared with the rest of the family (if I could only get everyone else to use them).

The only thing he's done that I haven't is what he calls "update and track your social networks via IM". So, I setup the ping.fm and notify.me accounts as he describes, and tried it out. It all worked pretty well except I coulnd't get the notify.me account to validate GTalk.

A little Google research and I found that I have to add 10 SRV entries in my DNS for the domain to property route the jabber messages to Google. This Google article explains it pretty well. Next, I had to figure out how to enter this info into a Dreamhost account. I found that the correct method is to enter "_xmpp-server._tcp" in the name field and "5 0 5269 xmpp-server.l.google.com." in the value field (be sure to include the period at the end). After a little time for the DNS to get settled, I tried the validate process again, and it worked great.

OK, so after all of that, let's try it out.

Ping.fm works exactly as advertised. I setup micro-blog messages to go to Twitter, and status updates to both Twitter and Facebook. It all works via the chat client in GMail.

Notify.me also did what I expected. I couldn't find a way to get my entire Twitter stream to come through, but the messages sent to me came through fine. (Still working on direct messages)

However, there is a problem. In the IM that comes in from notify.me, I can't tell who sent the message. There isn't any setup of the format that I can see, but it wasn't there. I posted a suggestion message to the service.

We'll see how long I keep this setup going.

Development Machine

2008-11-08T11:15:00.003-05:00

I'm in the beginning stages of a new software project, so I've been experimenting with various tools and services.

To start with, I looked into building a development environment. Since I had decided on using the Python/Django platform for the project, I needed something to take me beyond using GEdit to monkey with text files.

I've heard of Eclipse quite a bit, but I was not familiar with the extent of its extensibility and how developers have taken advantage to extend the platform in all directions. It wasn't until I found PyDev, an Eclispe add in for Python, that I considered using the tool.

Installs of both Eclipse and PyDev were quick and easy, and I'm already liking the results. Once I get more comfortable with Python and get more experience with Eclipse, I feel that I will be happy with the environment.

Something else that I needed for the project was a version control system. I've never used a formal tool, but I've used backups and strict procedures to simulate the process. Since my internet hosting company, Dreamhost, offers quick and easy setup of Subversion respositories, I decided to give it a shot.

Before Eclipse came on the scene, I was using the command line SVN tools to communicate with the repository, and I'm pretty comfortable with the process. However, on a whim I decided to search for a Subversion add-in for Eclispe, and I found Subclipse almost right away. After I installed it and tweaked the connectors for a bit, it is working without issue. Very nice.

Since Python comes with the SQLite dbms included, I haven't thought much about database yet. An advantage of SQLite is that it runs on the client with no additional software to install. Very portable. I can setup MySQL on Dreamhost when testing multi-user, but I'm hoping for a connector to SQL Server or Oracle at some point. That's probably 6 months away.

Finally, I've been looking for a way to organize my thoughts. I'm a notebook guy at work, but I don't want to mix notes on my extra-curricular projects with work related things. Dreamhost also offers Mediawiki installs, so I'm trying it out. It's not the best for taking notes, but it's easy to use. We'll see.

At some point, I may involve others in this project, so the version control tool and wiki will help us share notes and source code. I could also setup a Google Apps domain for email and calendaring.

With all of the tools I'm using, all but one are open source, and even Google Apps is no charge. Imagine trying to do this 10 or 15 years ago, when much expensive Microsoft software would be required to even get off the ground. This modern economic model is great for start ups and small projects. My only cost is for the hosting service, and I set that up more for family use.

I'll report back on the progress in a few months.

CrossOver Linux Professional

2008-11-08T11:03:00.002-05:00

I'm finding that I rarely boot up the Windows partition any more on my laptop; Linux Mint 5.0 (based on Ubuntu 8.04) is serving me quite well.

However, there are a few Windows apps I still like to use. Specifically, I like Media Monkey over any of the Linux based music player/organizer programs I've seen. Also, Photoshop Elements has a couple of features I can't seem to emulate in The GIMP.

I've tried running these programs inside Wine, but with no success.

However, the other day I came upon a posting on Lifehacker (one of my daily reads) talking about a one day offer to get a free license for CrossOver. I chose the Linux Professional version.

The key arrived the other day, and the install was uneventful.

First thing I tried was Media Monkey. The install went quickly, but there was immediately an error saying that the player couldn't initialize. I could perform other functions, but couldn't play anything. There is a setting in the CrossOver configuration covering sound drivers, and I'll have to do a little research on that.

Next, I'll try Photoshop Elements. The program offers presets for installing the full strength Photoshop in several versions, so I'm hoping they have this program covered as well.

More later.

UPDATE:

I installed Photoshop Elements and it works, but it is god-awful slow.

Linux on the Purdue Campus

2008-10-19T10:31:00.001-04:00

(BTW, just for fun I'm entering this post using lynx, my favorite browser)

I took my laptop to work today, as I had an early meeting out of the office, and I had hoped to check up on email at the site.

Since I had connected to the University wireless network (PAL - Purdue Air Link) in the past, and I still had the instructions, it should have been easy to connect again. However, things didn't work out quite so well.

I spent 10 minutes trying to connect. All of the steps seemed to work, but each time I tried, I ended up on the open network telling me to use PAL. After 4 tries, I gave up.

Next, I thought I would just use a wired connection, so I wandered around the building until I found an Ethernet cable. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be a live Ethernet jack (AKA PIC - Purdue Information Connection). Five more minutes wasted.

In desparation, I fired up Vista instead of Linux. It came up, but spent the next 10 minutes in a virus scan and Windows update process before the network connected and I could continue. Since I don't boot that operating system very often, it seems to save up the housekeeping tasks and fire them all at once. In Vista's favor, it did connect to PAL quickly, and I was able to check my mail - two minutes before the meeting started and after most of the attendees had arrived.

To avoid being rude, I only read a couple of the most urgent messages and powered down.

Later, I tried the 'new' PAL VPN client for Linux provided by the University, but it wouldn't even install. I left the task of working with the help desk for another day.

UPDATE: here

Power Outage

2008-06-27T21:31:00.000-04:00

A couple of weekends ago, after a day trip with the family, we came home to a dark house after a strong storm. The electricity came back a couple hours later, so I started bringing up the servers. Unfortunately, the file server wasn't cooperating.

I've written before that this server will not hold the BIOS settings through a power off - despite changing the battery. Since it can likely be fixed only by replacing the motherboard, I've decided to live with it. Unfortunately, when I brought the box up, I forgot to reset the clock back to the current, so Linux decided to force a disk check. After about 25%, it froze. I gave it half an hour before giving up and bouncing the box.

After that, when it rebooted, it couldn't find a boot disk. Arrgh!

It was a week before I came back to it.

Since it still wasn't booting, I decided to reinstall grub as I have done several times before on different machines.

sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage1 (this will return the drive name - mine is hd0,1)
root (hd?,?) (use the drive name returned in the previous step)
setup (hd0)
quit

Surprisingly, this worked! I'm back in business.

A side note, during my down week, I found the need to recover several files from the backup server, and I'm happy to report that all were successful. It's nice to know that the restore works not only in a test, but also when it is actually needed.

Now, here's the rub. When I thought the hard drive was toast and I was going to be tasked with recovering the entire thing, I looked through the BackupPC documentation and many Google searches, but I found no examples of someone who has done that. I'm tempted to setup a test box, back it up, and then try to recover it just to see if I can. Should be a fun weekend project.

Using Getmail to Backup GMail

2008-05-04T07:27:00.003-04:00

Web email services like GMail are a great thing. We can access our email from any web client, the interface is slick, and improvements and new features are added frequently. A downside, however, is that we rely on an outside source to backup our messages.

Now, it's not likely that our GMail message stores will disappear one day without a trace, but things could happen. Google could have a hiccup and decide that they won't or can't recover our messages. (It's happened with other vendors) Also, they may decide to discontinue the service. Internet service could be down for an extended period of time. Finally (and least likely), Google could go out of business - stranding our data in a bankruptcy escrow from where it may never return.

OK, enough with doomsday scenarios. It makes sense to backup any important data, and email is no exception. Today, I'm going to experiment with Getmail.

Matt Cutts provides a nice step-by-step outlining the setup of Getmail with GMail. I'll also mention that I'm using Google Apps instead of the standard gmail.com account.

Unlike many of the projects I tackle, this went exactly as expected. The only small problem I hit was when I copied and pasted the configuration file, spaces were inserted at the left side of each line. Apparently, the program expects things to be in column 1. I removed the spaces, and all is well.

Getmail just finished running for the first time on my server, and it grabbed 289 messages in the first batch. The tutorial mentions that Google will limit the number of messages sent in each run, so it will take a few times to get all 1,500+ items in my archive.

Next comes the cron setup. While the example shows how to run every 10 minutes, I'm setting up mine to run much less often - no more than once an hour, and maybe just once a day. I don't get that much mail, and I don't need it backed up in near real time.

Thanks to Matt for the great instruction!

Backup Check

2008-04-25T22:39:00.002-04:00

After a little over a week, a quick check of the backup server shows that it's working just fine.

New Backup Server - Part 7

2008-04-17T22:06:00.004-04:00

In Part 6, the full backup of the file server had started. Observant readers may note that the last post was made two days ago. That's because the backup finished after 44 hours! We backed up 143GB with a compression average of 27%.

I think I'm setup. I'll try a quick recovery, but I don't expect problems with it. Let's call this project done.

New Backup Server - Part 6

2008-04-15T20:58:00.005-04:00

Part 5 saw the localhost backup run successfully. Time to move on to the big prize, the file server.

Before I can backup my file server, I need to setup the public keys required for rsync to login to the server as root without a password. For this part of the task, the new guide is pretty limited and apparently missing some steps, so I'm reverting back to the HowToForge Guide on Page 4. The instructions are clear and complete, and it worked last time.

As I went through these steps, everything went well. The commands made sense, and the responses came back as expected. Except for the path to the home directory on the backup server. The guide said to expect /var/lib/backuppc, but instead I saw /home/backuppc. I wasn't able to change it, so I went with it.

Everything was great, until the last command which tested the connection, as it still asked for the password. I changed one thing: on the file server, I removed what I had added to the authorized_keys2 file - from = "gentry2" - and the ssh command worked.

However, my attempt at a backup still failed. What finally made it work was this: instead of using the IP address in the ssh test, I used the hostname of the server. I was asked to confirm the RSA key fingerprint once again. Then, the backup worked. Yeah!

I hope to better understand this stuff someday, but I'm just happy that it's working. (I wonder how long this full backup will take.)

Read the exciting conclusion in Part 7.

New Backup Server - Part 5

2008-04-14T17:51:00.004-04:00

Part 4 got the BackupPC program running, now let's try a backup of the localhost.

This whole thing with file permissions is a little confusing. I don't know if the installation program is doing something wrong, the Ubuntu installation I'm starting with is setup in an unexpected way, or if I'm messing things up. Here's the latest:

After Part 4, I was ready to try a backup, so I fired off a backup of the local system. The backup never started, and I saw this message in the log:

localhost: mkdir /backup/pc: Permission denied at /usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC_dump line 193

I looked at the /backup folder's settings, and it was set to root as the owner and group. First, I changed the group to backuppc, and then I changed the groups rights to include write.

sudo chgrp -R backuppc /backup
sudo chmod -R g+w /backup

Now, the backup has started.

Unfortunately, it didn't get very far, as the log is filled with hundreds of messages like this:

BackupPC_link got error -4 when calling MakeFileLink(/backup/pc/localhost/0/f%2fetc/fprotocols, ce42ab405aca581a1cff4f0ba04ab6c4, 1)

No backup happened.

It would be nice if I knew how backuppc should be setup, but I haven't found anything yet to help me.

More later...

UPDATE: Well, I found several sites that described a solution to this problem. It seems that while BackupPC allows one to change the $TopDir setting, it isn't recommended. So, I changed it back to the default of /var/lib/backuppc and then changed the mount point in fstab to point to that directory rather than /backup. I then ran the localhost backup without issue.

In part 6, I'll attempt a backup of the file server.

New Backup Server - Part 4

2008-04-13T21:23:00.007-04:00

As I mentioned in Part 3, I found a new guide for the installation and configuration of BackupPC - BackupPC Setup at TakSuyama.com. I'll give it a try.

The first step is to install the pre-requisites:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ssh samba smbfs rsync apache2
sudo apt-get install php5
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

So far, so good. The restart of apache2 completed without incident and I can see a default web page. Just like inPart 2, I'm receiving a hostname error from apache. I'll try to fix it the same way.

That worked well - no problems.

Next, the guide says it is time to install BackupPC.

sudo useradd backuppc
sudo passwd backuppc
sudo apt-get install backuppc

OK, the web interface for BackupPC is up. (I wish I could take a snapshot of this point, so it would be easy to go back in case of problems.)

Next, I'll change the password.

htpasswd /etc/backuppc/htpasswd backuppc

Using the Edit Config tab, I changed the TopDir to /backup, and restart the web server again - just to be sure things are still OK. And they are. I'm feeling pretty good about this.

Unfortunately, as I attempted to restart BackupPC, problems came up. Here's the error:

* Restarting backuppc...
No process in pidfile `/var/run/backuppc/BackupPC.pid' found running; none killed.
grep: /etc/backuppc/config.pl: Permission denied
BackupPC cannot be started because important parameters are missing from config.pl.
If you just upgraded BackupPC, please update /etc/backuppc/config.pl.

Which is a pretty poor error message. Why not tell me what needs to be updated?

After thinking about it a little, I looked at access settings on the file. I changed the security levels on the config.pl file with sudo chmod a+r config.pl, and I was able to get a little further. Now the error on BackupPC restart is start-stop-daemon: Unable to set gid to 1001 (Operation not permitted). Slow progress!

UPDATE: Sometimes I get worked up and miss the easy stuff. The restart of BackupPC should be performed by root, so the correct command is:

sudo /etc/init.d/backuppc restart

New Backup Server - Part 3

2008-04-13T20:58:00.004-04:00

In Part 2, we learned that I'm having trouble with permissions and Apache2.

These problems I'm having rebuilding the backup server have me concerned about my ability to recover in case of another disk failure. With BackupPC my backups are locked in a proprietary format. Sure, the odds of losing both the file server drive and the operating system drive on the backup server are low, but my inability to get BackupPC back up concerns me. While I have my offsite copies of the photos, but those are only burned every few months when I have enough to fill a DVD.

I've got one more thing to try, as I've found another guide that suggest installing the supporting software (apache2, rsync, etc) and confirming their operation before installing BackupPC. This may help with the apache troubles.

In order to receive warnings when backups don't work, such as the disk full error from before, I also need to get the email notifications going.

See Part 4 for the next exciting episode.

New Backup Server - Part 2

2008-04-08T22:33:00.001-04:00

(This is the third time I've tried this)

In Part 1, I installed the base linux software and made a few tweaks. In this exciting episode, I'll install the backuppc software.

Just like last time, I'll follow this tutorial to install the software.

(for this version (3.0.0) at least, be sure to check 'apache 2' as the web server of choice)

During the installation, as apache was starting, I got this error:

apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name

Several sites, including this one recommend that I modify /etc/apache2/httpd.conf to include the line:

ServerName hostname

I used the same name assigned as the hostname during the Ubuntu setup.

As before, I modified the topdir setting, but I used the Edit Config option to do it.

When I attempted to restart apache2, I received some serious looking errors:

* Restarting web server apache2 httpd (pid 13462?) not running
install: cannot change owner and/or group of `/var/lock/apache2': Operation not permitted
(13)Permission denied: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80
no listening sockets available, shutting down
Unable to open logs

I think it has something to do with the apache2 server running as root rather than backuppc.

Enough for tonight. More in Part 3.

Cron Update

2008-03-29T09:51:00.002-04:00

Regular readers may remember that I've been trying to automate the checking of podcasts using Armangil's Podcatcher. Back in November, I wrote this post explaining my frustration. A comment from my riding buddy Steve gave me some good things to try, which helped me get the script going. Unfortunately, no progress was made on the cron front.

Here's what gets me. The command, or a script containing the command, works fine from the command line. The job takes several minutes just to check all of the feeds I watch, plus additional time for any downloads. I can see the ruby interpreter chewing up CPU in the top display. However, when I put either the command or script in cron, ruby runs just for a second.

I'm wondering if there is a file permission or visibility issue. Both seem to run under my user - not as root. Unfortunately, ruby doesn't tell me why it gives up so quickly.

I checked the syslog, but there are no entries from ruby - just the line from cron saying that it's starting the task. Is there another log where I can find more detail, or can I ask ruby to be more open with its issues?

In the meantime, I'll keep running the script from a command line every day or so.

New Backup Server - Part 1

2008-03-27T19:25:00.003-04:00

I'm starting with an eMachines 600MHz box with 256MB of RAM. There is a 10GB harddive, and I just installed the 250GB drive which will hold the backups. The operating system of choice is Ubuntu 7.10 Server.

Right of the bat, I can't seem to use the USB keyboard in the installation program. No worries, as I have a PS/2 model around here somewhere...

I'm up to the partitioning step, and I've formated the entire 250GB drive as 1 ext3 partition which is set to mount as /backup. On the 10GB drive, there was already a swap area, with the rest as ext3. I set that to mount as root, and erased the partition contents. Odd, the drives are showing up as SCSI, while they are actually PATA.

Partitioning done, the base system is installing.

It's been stuck at 83% for at least 10 minutes. Can't be good. The hard drive is blinking occasionally. Patience, Dan ... it finally moved.

At the screen asking if I want to install any server software, I chose only the OpenSSH option.

And it's reboot time.

Next, I'll do the usual stuff. (Plus, I installed lynx - my favorite browser)

Looks like in this version, unlike 6.10, the Universe repositories are already enabled.

No problems. Ready for Part 2

New Backup Server - Preamble

2008-03-27T19:14:00.003-04:00

OK, so it's been about a month since I installed the new drive in the file server, and things have been working great since. The next task is to put the other new 250GB drive in the backup server so that I can backup all of the data on the file server - rather than excluding half of it. My goal is to be able to restore the entire system if needed.

I didn't really mention before that the old Compaq machine that I assigned to the backup role has always given me trouble. At power up, I had about a 50% chance of a successful boot. A couple of weeks ago, I installed the new drive, and it wouldn't boot for anything. It wouldn't even POST. I disconnected the new drive, and it booted once, but never again. After monkeying with it for an evening, I removed the new drive, and chucked the rest of it in the trash! If I can't get it to boot without lots of TLC, I probably shouldn't rely on it for my backups.

So, now it's time to start over. I've got another machine, which was once my daughter's Xubuntu machine, but she's moved on to my old desktop, so that box is now available.

I'll start with Part 1.

Replacing the Hard Drive

2008-02-23T15:34:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned in the last post, I've been having troubles with the hard drive on my server. After receiving a shipment from NewEgg, I'm ready to install a new drive. I found this page from Encodable Industries the other day that outlines a way to transfer the files and boot from the new drive.

I find it disturbing that I'm sometimes ables to access the drive without difficulty. Since the new drives arrived, I haven't seen an error on the old one. I hope that the drive is problem, and not something else that will continue to bother me once the replacement is complete. We'll see.

Anyway, I connected the new drive the same way I've used a CD ROM drive in the past, making the cable connections with the drive resting on top of the opened case. Not the most elegant solution, but it works.

Next, I booted to the old drive, and ran partman to partition the drive. I wish I would have documented what commands I ran, but I can say that I ended up with a large ext3 partition and a small swap partition. Just what I needed.

Interesting note: After a power reset following the partition, the machine wouldn't boot. The reason was that the BIOS was trying the boot from the first drive found, and the new drive is slave on the first IDE interface, while the old drive is primary on the second. A quick BIOS reconfiguration took care of it.

Next, it was time to mount the new drive. As root, I created a mount point

sudo mkdir /mnt/newdrive

And added a line to fstab to make the connection:

/dev/hdb1 /mnt/newdrive ext3 defaults 0 0

Finally, I remounted all connections

sudo mount -a

With both drives connected, operational, and mounted, it's time to copy the contents from old to new. The Encodable page linked above gave me this rsync command that will do the deed:

rsync -av --delete --exclude /mnt/newdisk / /mnt/newdisk

(Several hours later)

All of the files copied to the new drive without incident. Still, I'm worried that the old drive isn't really bad, and that something else is causing the problem. Finally, after a couple more hours of accessing the drive, I finally got a failure. Time to move on.

Next, I removed the ailing drive and replaced it with the new one. To boot to a CD, I connected an old CD ROM drive where the new drive had been hanging. After a little experimentation, I found the steps I needed to get things going.

Boot to a Ubuntu 7.04 Live CD
Open a Terminal Window
Fix GRUB using the method outlined in an earlier post
Mount the new drive: sudo mkdir /mnt/hd0
cd /mnt/hd0
sudo mount -t ext3 -o defaults /dev/hdc1 /media/hd0 (use your own partition name)
Get the UUID for the main partition: CD to /dev/disk/by-uuid and find the entry
Modify menu.lst and fstab to use the correct UUID
Do the same to update the UUID for the swap partition in fstab
Reboot and enjoy the new drive

I've been using it for the past several hours without incident. I'll let things burn in for a few days before calling it done.

Next time, we install the other new drive in the backup server. Stay tuned!

Hard Drive Troubles

2008-02-16T13:03:00.002-05:00

The hard drive in my server (this blog's namesake) seems to be going down for the count. It works for a while, but then gives errors and requires a power off and on to come back to life.

It is times like these where a man learns if his backup procedures are sufficient. My grade on this exercise is maybe a B-. Here's the status:

The directories setup for each member of the family, plus the one containing photos are backed up fine. I was able to grab a second copy of all of this from the ailing disk that I put on some spare desktop space. This is the stuff that would be difficult to replace (although all of the photos - save the past month - are also backed up to DVD and stored offsite).

Our music files, some 15GB, are not included in the nightly backup because of disk space reasons. Most of the files that I've put there are backed up at work. Many others come from CDs in the house. Losing these files would not be horrible, but it would be a pain to reconstruct. Plus, my kids don't backup their music, so that stuff would be lost. (Most of their stuff wouldn't be a big loss, in my opinion) I was able to copy all of this to another location.

I'm also a podcast listener, and I have a big cache of unlistened to files. Since I don't really keep track of what I move to the MP3 player, I'd have to guess a new starting point for each podcast. Once again, I was able to suck these files off the injured soldier.

Amongst these podcasts are downloaded TV shows that I haven't yet watched. I'm trying to copy these now, but I've been through a couple of reboot cycles without getting them all. The fact that they are large files (250MB+) doesn't help.

Here's the tough part, the system files and configuration don't seem to be backed up. Not sure why I left that stuff out of the backup routine. While I have good notes in this blog on my decisions and steps, it will take a lot of time to reproduce once the drive is replaced. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep the old drive working long enough to copy the files over. I've found a website with instructions to help this process (recover disks, grub configuration, and UUID changes are involved). Of course, I may want to upgrade to a newer Ubuntu version. We'll see.

Restore GRUB

2008-01-05T22:29:00.000-05:00

So, I decided to mess around with some bootleg software, and it got me in trouble. My GRUB install was all screwed up, and I had to fix it.

My son had downloaded one of those cracked versions of OSX Leopard that would run on a non-MAC Intel machine. The install seemed to run OK, but it wouldn't boot. After a couple of tries, I gave up.

But there was a problem, it seems that when I reformatted a partion from FAT32 to HFS+, the Mac disk utility renumbered some of the partitions. The linux partition that was on sda7 was now called sda6. I didn't expect that to happen. Vista would boot fine, but not Mint.

I had to do a couple of things to get things back. First, I setup GRUB to look for the /boot folder in the right place. I found a page that walked me through the steps to restore GRUB. Here's a quick summary:

sudo grub
find /boot/grub/stage1 (this will return the drive name - mine is hd0,5)
root (hd?,?) (use the drive name returned in the previous step)
setup (hd0)
quit

But that's not all. Since the partitions were renamed, I had to modify the GRUB menu file to point to the right one. First, I had to boot to the live CD and mount the linux partition.

sudo mkdir /media/sda6
cd /media/sda6
sudo mount -t ext3 -o defaults /dev/sda6 /media/sda6 (use your own partition name)

Next, I edited the file /boot/grub/menu.lst to reflect the correct partition:

sudo nano boot/grub/menu.lst

In this section:

title Linux Mint
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=/dev/sda7 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic
boot

I changed the root to point to (hd0,5) and the kernel root path to dev/sda6. After a reboot, everything was back to normal.

Next time I'm tempted with Mac software, I hope that I'll resist.

User Interface Tricks

2007-12-26T10:55:00.000-05:00

Next for my laptop linux install, I'm playing with compiz-fusion. This page from Lifehacker shows some of the neat effects, and I found a page at the How To Forge that explains what to install (I skipped the video card section).

No problems! I enabled some extra things on the configuration application, and they all seem to be working well except for the Expose effect. I especially like the super task switcher.

Next, I wanted to setup a dock at the bottom of the screen. Avant Window Navigator seems to be the thing, and a thread in Ubuntu Forums explains it all. AWN requires xserver-xgl, which in turn requires a 3D card. Now, I'm sure my built-in Intel video system is not 3D, but I figured I'd try it anyway. The dock worked pretty well, and some of the compiz-fusion effects were a little quicker, but window drawing, moving, and especially scrolling were dog slow. I played around a little, but ended up removing both. Oh well!

Linux Mint Dual Boot Install Started

2007-12-23T08:01:00.000-05:00

I actually started my Linux Mint/Vista dual boot install yesterday, using this page as a basic guide. Unfortunately, the Vista Disk Management Shrink Volume tool wasn't able to give me any space. It declared that no space was available due to the use of a page file.

No matter, I can use something else. I found an old copy of gparted in my pile of Linux CDs, but decided to download a newer version. V 0.3.4-11 is the latest. I burned it and fired it up. However, I could never get it to boot, as it hung trying to install something for RAID disks (of which I have none). I tried to boot on another machine, just to see if the CD was OK, and it got past that point quickly, only to fail to start X. Just for yucks, I tried my older version (0.2.4.3) from last year. It booted fine, but the device scan never finished.

Time to punt. This morning I booted up to the Linux Mint Live CD and attempted to install gparted, and I found it was already there! V 0.3.3-2 is close enough to new for me! It ran fine, and I was able to shave 30GB from the hard drive in about 10 minutes. Suddenly, things are getting easy.

gparted - After Shrink

Before I go any further, I'm going to reboot into Vista to let it scan the disk and make sure things are OK.

...

After a quick scan, all is well (although Vista picked that moment to install some quick security fix that required another reboot - no biggie).

I guess now it's time to hit the Install icon and see what happens.

...

I like this graphical install tool better than the character based one I used with Ubuntu 7.04. I selected language, keyboard, and time zone without incident.

Whenever I get to the disk partition step, I get a little nervous. Sure, I've backed up the important stuff from the Vista partition, but it would still take a lot of time to get that back to the way I like it. Fingers crossed, I forged ahead.

My plan is to have a fat32 partition that I can use in both operating systems. It can be used to store shared configurations for Firefox and Thunderbird, and to store other files I may need from either, such as downloaded files and music. Here's a screen shot of the the partitioner just before I committed the changes:

It didn't like the fat32 partion mounted as /home, so I changed it to /shared while pushing the size down to 10GB. The root partition was increased to 20GB. This config was approved.

Well, it's time to push the final button. Here goes!

...

Success! I booted into Mint without incident. Interestingly, there are two entries for Vista in the GRUB list. I'll have to try them both out to see what they do.

After I logged in, I was notified that there were proprietary drivers available for the wireless - as covered in this earlier post. I'll configure it shortly.

I've got other things to work on: video settings for the two screens (monitor and laptop display), wireless, server access, and other software I've read about and would like to try. Watch for new posts as I try things out.

Wireless on the Laptop with Linux Mint

2007-12-15T13:35:00.000-05:00

My experiments today involve using the laptop's wireless networking facilities with Linux Mint 4.0 (based on Ubuntu 7.10 Gusty). I had written earlier about the same attempts on Ubuntu 7.04, but found that those instructions no longer work (a URL involved in the configuration is no longer working).

Anyway, here's what I did:

(Note that I used a wired network connection during this configuration.)

First, this page outlined the steps to download and activate the restricted driver for the BCM4311 wireless chipset. Not too tough.

Unfortunately, the wireless didn't jump to life when I yanked the wire. The next step was to turn off the roaming mode and configure the network. I opened the Network Settings dialog and selected Properties on the wireless connection. After unchecking the Enable Roaming Mode box, I entered the network name (case sensitive!), password type (mine is WEP Key hexidecimal), and the network password (mine is ... hey!). I also selected Automatic Configuration (DHCP) under Connection Settings. I clicked OK and things were good!

Obviously, your settings will vary.

With roaming mode off, I guess I will have to reconfigure for each network I use. That will be the subject of a later experiment.

UPDATE: I almost forgot, use the iwlist eth1 scan command to search for wireless networks in your area. (Substitute your Ethernet adapter name for 'eth1', or leave it out to try them all.)

ANOTHER UPDATE: I'm having a tough time reproducing this configuration. In six tries, I've connected to the wireless network twice. (I even tried it with the standard issue Ubuntu 7.10 instead of Mint.) I can't really say what made it work, except possible reentering the wireless password. Probably not that.

It's tough to say that I would like to dump Vista for Linux, as I did XP on the old machine, since Vista just seems to work on this laptop. Sure, it's slow and there's the fear of viruses, trojans, worms, etc, but I was happy to come back after playing with the Mint Live CD today. I'll still setup a dual boot soon, just to play, and it may even become my primary operating system at some point, but I'm not taking Vista off quite yet.

Cron?

2007-11-20T18:31:00.000-05:00

OK, I've done some research and tried a few things, but I can't seem to get my podcatcher to run automatically. The command is:

ruby /home/dgentry/podcatcher/bin/podcatcher /home/dgentry/podcast_subs.opml -D /export/podcasts -s 0 -S back_catalog -H 2007.10.01 -p -v -r 4 -d /home/dgentry/podcatcher -v

When I put this command into cron, it only runs the ruby command without any of the parameters. Also, I tried building a script file, but was not successful.

Anyone have any advice?

Clean Desk

2007-11-05T18:59:00.000-05:00

So, I bought this monitor stand with a plan to place my monitor above the desk and be able to slide the laptop underneath. But first, I had to clean the desk.

I didn't get a before picture, but you can imagine that same big monitor in the middle, with a 17" tube monitor on the right, along with my file server in a vertical stand. On the left was an ancient IBM4019 laser printer with about 18" of motherboard and other component boxes on top of it. In front on the left was a pile of CDs both in and out of cases, and the whole middle area was covered in papers, old bill envelopes, pens, cables, change, paper clips, and other miscellany. It took about 45 minutes and an entire kitchen garbage bag to clear it off.

I placed the monitor stand in the middle of the now pristine desktop, and gently lowered the 19" monitor into its place. The stand immediately bent forward until the fronts of the arms were touching the table. Apparently, it is a little heavy!

So instead, I set things up as you see here, with the laptop on the stand with the file server (the one for which this blog is named) resting comfortably underneath.

I thought I would grab a picture before it gets filled with junk again.

BTW, I still have an unused toner cartridge for the IBM4019 in my garage. I'll sell it for $10 plus postage anywhere in the US and Canada. Contact me here.

Armangil's Podcatcher - Part 5

2007-10-07T23:14:00.000-04:00

(See part 4 here)

OK, so I've moved this program to the production server, but not after a little more testing on the play machine.

After looking into file security issues, I've decided to run this under my user, instead of using root. It's better for everyone. This makes all of the settings much easier. Here's the command to run the job:

ruby bin/podcatcher ../podcast_subs.opml -D /export/podcasts -s 0 -S back_catalog -H 2007.10.01 -p -v -r 4

It's running now. We'll see how it goes.

UPDATE: Went pretty well, except the existing directory was called "Podcasts", and I directed the output to "podcasts". In Windows, I could only see the new folder, and I thought that it had deleted all of my saved content. Turns out, Windows (via Samba) handles names that differ only by capitalization by only seeing one of them. I've changed the folder name to all lowercase, so this should be solved.

Armangil's Podcatcher - Part 4

2007-08-18T12:35:00.000-04:00

(See part 3 here).

With everything tested, my next step was to setup a configuration similar to my production server.

I installed the Podcatcher package in the /opt directory. For the application files, I created /var/opt/podcatcher. The OPML file was stored in /etc/opt/podcatcher. And the podcast files were directed to /export/podcasts.

Here is the command used to run the program:

ruby /opt/podcatcher/bin/podcatcher
/etc/opt/podcatcher/podcast_subs.opml
-d /var/opt/podcatcher
-D /export/podcasts
-s 0
-S back_catalog
-H 2007.08.15
-p
-v

Seems to be working OK. The next step is to set it up to run twice a day unattended.

Armangil's Podcatcher - Part 3

2007-08-18T06:28:00.000-04:00

(See part 2 here)

OK, so I think I've figured out why files are being deleted somewhat randomly. The SIZE option determines how much disk space will be used for the content cache, and the default is set to 512MB. With all of the testing I've been doing, I filled up that space pretty quickly. I can set it to zero to indicate no limit, or pick another size.

Juice, my windows based podcatcher, has a handy option that handles the deletion of old content on a per feed basis, where the cutoff is stated in days, not MB. I use this for podcasts I that only listen to occasionally. The latest version is always available, but I don't have to worry about piling up old episodes. Since the SIZE option looks at the entire cache to decide what to delete, I probably won't use if for this purpose.

So I've dropped the --no-empty option, and I'll have to add a SIZE option. Also, I'll probably use 'new' for the strategy rather than 'chron'. The difference seems to be which is downloaded first - old or new, so it doesn't really matter too much if I have enough space allotted.

My next experiments will be to try directing the cache to another folder, and using my actual OPML file in place of the demo.

More later...

UPDATED: I take it all back! The back_catalog strategy works better than new. In fact, I'm not sure of the difference between new and one.

Armangil's Podcatcher - Part 2

2007-08-15T20:33:00.000-04:00

(See part 1 here)

I've been experimenting the past few nights with some options for the podcatcher.

-S chron: The strategy option controls the order of and amount of downloads. I used 'chron' to grab any new content
-H 2007.08.01: Horizon is used to set a cutoff date for the earliest download. I wanted to limit the number of downloads (and the time it would take) when working with long running or prolific podcasts
-p: Creates a subfolder for each feed
--no-empty: I've been having the problem of old content being deleted when new content is downloaded, but this option didn't really seem to help.
-v: The verbose mode let me see what the program was doing as it happened

In this snippet of the output, we can see files being deleted.

Deleting: /home/dgentry/podcatcher/cache/PodTech.net: Technology and Entertainment Video Network/Podtech_sameer_zook.mp3
Deleting: /home/dgentry/podcatcher/cache/Rocketboom RSS 2.0 WINDOWS WMV/rb_07_aug_14.wmv
Deleting: /home/dgentry/podcatcher/cache/Rocketboom RSS 2.0 WINDOWS WMV
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More later...

Armangil's Podcatcher

2007-08-08T20:57:00.000-04:00

I've been looking for a way to have my server download podcasts, rather than my desktop machine. The main reason is that I'm running Juice on Windows, and I don't have Windows running that often. I have to reboot into XP to grab the latest; then I switch back to Linux. Sure, I could run the Linux version of Juice/iPodder, but I hope to get this function off the desktop completely.

I downloaded version 3.0.0 here, and extracted it to a folder in my home folder - just to play. I also had to install Ruby on the machine.

The extract command is: tar zxvf podcatcher-3.0.0.tar.gz

To install Ruby: sudo apt-get install ruby

To give it a try, I ran it using the demo OPML file:

ruby bin/podcatcher demo/subscriptions.opml

The screen displays #EXT3MU, and then nothing else for a long while. Be patient!

(I should point out that I'm running this test on my play LAMP server, which is a 300MHz powerhouse with 196MB of RAM. It should be better on the production file server.)

After some time, the latest file in each feed was downloaded to the cache folder. Not bad.

There are a lot of parameters/switches available to fine tune the behavior. I can have it grab more than just the latest, get all since a date, direct to other folders, and much more. Looks like I have some experimentation ahead.

Ubuntu 7.04 on the New Laptop

2007-06-24T21:05:00.000-04:00

I've been looking into the possibility of using a Vista/Ubuntu dual boot on the new laptop, but I haven't found much on the web yet to help me. Lucky for me I'm in no hurry.

I should mention that the machine is a Gateway MX8711 with 1GB memory and 100GB HD. Before I jump into the dual boot thing, I'm trying out Ubuntu with the 7.04 LiveCD. It seems to be going pretty well. The screen looks nice, although the highest resolution is 1024x768 while the Vista install runs at 1440x900. I imagine that an install of a specific video driver would solve the problem. Also, the touch screen works without a hitch. If I close the computer or if the timeout hits, the screen blanks to save power - and returns to service without incident. The sleep function gives an error. Finally, the FN key combination that toggles the wireless radio seems to work. Unfortunately, wireless networking itself doesn't work.

I did a little research (read: simple Google search) and found this page that has a hint for the Broadcom BCM4311 and Feisty. I first had to modify the sources.list file to include the Universe repository and update the software list before I could install the new driver. Next, it took a few tries to get the WEP key entered, but I finally made it in. The bad part is that since I'm using LiveCD, I'll have to do all of this again each time I boot to Linux.

So, I've got a few things to work on. I'll keep playing with it and report back if I learn anything new.

UPDATE: 12-15-2007 The wireless steps don't work any more!!!!!! Time to move ahead to a newer version, like I did.

Desktop Linux Takes a Hit - an Update

2007-06-20T09:19:00.000-04:00

Long time readers may remember that I installed Xubuntu on my daughter's machine back in April. It went pretty well for a while, but she's been complaining about the lack of Windows the past few weeks. Her first problem was that she couldn't install some dodgey toolbar/icon/background/screensaver type program that she downloaded from a suspect site. (I thought this was a good thing.) Now, she is upset because she can't run the AOL IM client and has to use GAIM instead. (Once again, a good thing from my point of view.) Her friends are using it, and she wants to be the one that tells them how it works. (How can I change my buddy icon? Can I use smileys? Etc.) It's kind of neat that she is becoming the tech support guru of the middle school.

However, her machine is kind of slow for XP, so I may install Win 2000 on it in a dual boot configuration - although she'll never use the Linux side. We'll see. Another option is to find a faster computer for her. I should have watched the classifieds at the end of the semester to grab a college student's throwaway.

While I'm working on her problems, I've setup a profile on my desktop machine in XP for her to use. This means I had to change the default OS to XP in Grub, and I have to leave it in XP (or powered off) when I'm at work so that she can get to it without messing up my stuff.

In other news, I was surprised by my Fathers' Day gift this year - a new laptop. It is a Gateway running Vista. Now, I may setup a dual boot someday, but for now I'll give Vista a try. I'm noticing that it boots slower than I would expect on a new machine such as this.

These two changes mean I'll be using Linux less - at least in the short term.

Force Group

2007-05-23T21:37:00.000-04:00

Still working on the Samba problem.

Tonight I decided to setup a new file share. Since the [homes] section works, I wanted to see if I could setup a share more like the one I was trying to fix. I followed the same steps, and found that the new one wasn't accessible either. This was actually a good thing, because it told me that the problem could be in the share definition. So, I commented the settings one by one until it worked, trying different combinations.

It turns out that it was the force group setting that was causing the trouble. With it commented, I can access the share just fine. It now works on all the client machines.

The goal of that setting was to have all new files be in the 'users' group so that all of us could access each others' files by default. Testing that will be tomorrow's assignment.

Samba - More Playing Around

2007-05-22T20:32:00.000-04:00

So, a couple of days ago, I started working on my Samba problem. In the log file /var/log/samba/log.smbd, I found these error messages repeating about every 30 minues:

[2007/05/22 20:23:14, 0] auth/auth_util.c:create_builtin_administrators(785)
create_builtin_administrators: Failed to create Administrators
[2007/05/22 20:23:14, 0] auth/auth_util.c:create_builtin_users(751)
create_builtin_users: Failed to create Users

Some Google research showed several theories as to why this would happen, although those having trouble didn't seem to be helped much. The most common explanation was that the user database was using the wrong (read: not the best) format. I messed around with the setting a little, to no avail.

Today at work I decided that I didn't have to diagnose and solve this problem. I don't need to file a bug report or try to fix the code. I just want it to work. Therefore, I've decided to uninstall Samba and all of its compainions, delete the configuration files (the entire /etc/samba/ folder), and start over. It only takes about 15 minutes for my entire Samba installation procedure. Why waste time trying to fix it? (Unless of course this doesn't work, and I'm back to the drawing board again.)

Anyway, here goes...

OK, so there's trouble right off the bat. I entered this command to remove the Samba stuff:

sudo apt-get install samba samba-doc libcupsys2 libkrb53 winbind smbclient cupsys-common samba-doc-pdf smbfs

And it also wants to remove the SSH components. I'm guessing it is one of the libraries that has a dependency for SSH. I'll try it without those.

Yup, it was libkrb53. I used this instead with better results:

sudo apt-get remove samba samba-doc libcupsys2 winbind smbclient cupsys-common samba-doc-pdf smbfs samba-common

After that was done, I removed all of the files from /etc/samba/. Is it that easy? Is it gone? I guess I'll try the reinstall.

And ... it still doesn't work.

Something interesting though - I added a [homes] section to smb.conf and restarted Samba. Now, I can see and open my home folder via Samba, but still can't get to the files share. So that means Samba is working and the authentication is working.

Oh, and the 'Failed to create' error mentioned above is still showing up in the log.

I just don't get it.

Samba Problem Caused by 7.04 Upgrade

2007-05-19T20:49:00.000-04:00

OK, so here's the description of the problem. Since I upgraded my server from Ubuntu Server 6.10 to 7.04, I can't connect to the Samba share from my client machines.

This machine only offers two services Samba and SSH, and SSH works fine.

When I try to connect to the Samba share, I'm asked for a password. If I enter the correct password, I get an error saying that the folder contents could not be displayed. A similar error is displayed from a Win XP client.

Now, here's the weird part, if I enter an invalid password, it asks me again. To me, this means that the client is communicating with the Samba service (the service is running, and there's not a firewall issue), and is validating when the correct password is entered, but it is after that validation that I'm being refused.

My Google searches on Samba problems after an upgrade have not yielded anything, but I'll keep looking.

Booting the Server After Upgrade

2007-05-19T09:45:00.000-04:00

You may remember last time that I was unable to boot after upgrade to Ubuntu 7.04. The error was:

Check root=bootarg cat /proc/cmdline
or missing modules, devices: cat /proc/modules ls /dev
ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/7e6ada37-87a7-475b-9a12-53129119ea05 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

I looked around quite a bit to find a solution. Some suggested that the uuid in /boot/grub/menu.lst didn't match the uuid of the drive. Unfortunately, from the initfs prompt, I couldn't get to the /dev/disk/by-uuid directory.

What I could do was mount the drive:

modprobe ide-disk
modprobe ide-generic
mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1 /root

and edit the grub menu:

chroot /root nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

I tried changing that file to point to a drive rather than a uuid (I can't find page anymore, so no example), but that didn't help. It only removed the uuid from the error message.

Finally, after over two weeks of this, I broke down and reconnected the CD-ROM to the server to boot from the install CD in rescue mode. Regular readers will remember that I don't have an optical drive on this machine, since I didn't think I would need it after installation, and that it requires a low profile drive that is a little pricey. (I may get a DVD burner someday for backups, although today I can't find one to link to.) So, I have to crack open the case and hang a full sized drive off the side of the chassis like this.

I was able to boot to the rescue disk and mount the main drive partition. A quick look in /dev/disk/by-uuid showed that the uuid on the drive did match the one entered in menu.lst and in fstab. So, after all of that work, I was still nowhere.

One more thing to try, this page suggested that I build a new initrd image file with this command:

dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-2.6.20-15-386 (substitute the name of your kernal as found in menu.lst)

And, wouldn't you know it, it worked! I can now boot to the server, and connect via ssh.

Still, there is now a new problem; I can't connect to the Samba share. All of the files are still there and the Samba configuration file haven't changed, but we're getting permission errors. The solution for this will be the subject of a later (hopefully not much later) post.

One more thing, the steps to connect the temporary CD drive reminded me that the BIOS settings still are not saved if the power cable is removed - even after I changed the battery. This is a problem only because the POST hangs on two errors: no keyboard connected and no floppy drive found. I don't know what to do about this, but every time the power goes off (around every three months), I have to reconnect a keyboard and monitor to get the server going again. I may have to take it to the local shop.

Upgrading the File Server to 7.04

2007-05-09T21:13:00.000-04:00

After having such great luck upgrading the backup server to 7.04, it's time to do the same to the file server.

At the beginning, things went as smooth as the first time, but when I ran the do-release-command, I was cautioned against using ssh to access the server during the process. The message said that if I continued a 2nd ssh daemon would be started on port 9004. (I have no idea why.) Anyway, since it worked fine the first time, I answered yes to continue. So far, it's still working.

...

I've had to answer a couple of questions about saving config files and such. No worries.

...

Just like last time, the reboot didn't work. I assumed it had something to do with the lack of a keyboard, or maybe the floppy disk setting in BIOS, so I attached a monitor to check. A pretty nasty message said that some long named file wasn't there, and it was dropping to a shell.

Like any well trained IT professional, I decided to power off and on. Now, after the BIOS screen comes and goes, I see "Starting up ... Loading, please wait..." No more disk activity, no change on the screen, nothing. It's hosed.

You don't think it was the ssh thing, do you?

Looks like I have something to work on this weekend.

UPDATE:

If I wait long enough, the error comes up again. Here is is:

Check root=bootarg cat /proc/cmdline
or missing modules, devices: cat /proc/modules ls /dev
ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/7e6ada37-87a7-475b-9a12-53129119ea05 does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

UPDATE 2: The solution for this problem is here.

Enabling User Web Directories

2007-04-28T08:18:00.000-04:00

I wanted to enable user web directories on the LAMP server. This thread in the Ubuntu forums held the answer:

sudo a2enmod userdir

I was then prompted to reload the server config with:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

Now, I can use http://server/~username to access files in the /home/username/public_html directory.

NOTE: I found that the apachectl command referenced in the 2.2 docs is apache2ctl on this system.

LAMP Server

2007-04-26T21:10:00.000-04:00

Just for grins, I'm repurposing an old PC as a LAMP server. Other than using Ubuntu 7.04, I'll be following the same steps outlined here, with one exception. At some point, the server install asks if I want to install LAMP, and I'll answer Yes this time.

(later that night)

No issues to report. The web server is responding. Now I just have to figure out how all of these things work.

UPDATE: Well, there was just one issue, I forgot that this is the PC that needs a keyboard.

Upgrading the Servers to 7.04

2007-04-25T19:16:00.000-04:00

The Ubuntu upgrade page only lists two steps to upgrade a server, so I thought I'd try it over lunch. I'm starting with the Backup server. If that goes well, I'll move on to the File server.

Right off the bat, the first command gave an error:

Couldn't find package update-manager-core

However, this was solved easily by updating the package lists with apt-get update.

Step 2 has now begun, and it seems to be updating my repositories.

Now, it is asking for my confirmation to download and upgrade. Apparently, there is no turning back. Here goes!

I'm going to head back to work, and check back in the evening.

(later that day...)

I've only had to answer three questions. One asking about overwriting my ntpdate config file (no), asking to remove desupported packages (no), and looking for permission to reboot (yes).

And it seems to have come up fine. One down.

Brother Printer

2007-04-24T21:00:00.000-04:00

My wife has a Brother MFC 3360C printer/fax/copier/scanner/bottle opener attached to her desktop machine and shared as our only printer. After a little searching, I found a mention of this site that explains how to install the driver. After following the directions to install the drivers, I modified the printer to point to the SMB shared printer. I didn't need to use the CUPS web interface as suggested.

That link is:

http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/cups_wrapper_install6.html

Next, I'll try this on the Xubuntu machine.

UPDATE: It worked OK on the Xubuntu machine, with one minor issue. I wasn't able to update the path to the Windows share using the browse control. Instead, I entered the URI in the form. Plus, I couldn't find a place to print a test page. Regardless, it works great now.

Ubuntu Desktop 7.04

2007-04-23T20:53:00.001-04:00

I installed Ubuntu 7.04 in a dual boot configuration on my desktop over the weekend. It's going pretty well, as I've been able to install the audio and video codecs using Automatix2, install Picassa, VLC, Amarok, and other programs with the same tool, and connect to my network share. I setup my email with Thunderbird, and I've been using GIMP for image processing.

I need to find a decent bittorrent program (not bittornado), and get Juice installed (maybe).

Unfortunately, I still can't use my USB headphones.

Fun With Desktops - Xubuntu

2007-04-22T07:02:00.000-04:00

I mentioned in the last post that I was planning to install Ubuntu on my desktop. Turns out that I would install Xubuntu first, on a different machine.

Somehow I talked my 12 year old daughter into it. She has the hand-me-down machine of the household: 600MHz processor with 192MB memory. While she has been running XP, it has been dog slow, and errors were beginning to pop up. It was time to reload XP, but I asked her for two weeks to try Linux, and she agreed.

Running from the LiveCD, Xubuntu was even slower than XP. But once the install was done, it ran great! She only runs about five things, so the setup was quick. We've been an open source family for applications for a while now, so she is already used to Firefox, Thunderbird, and GAIM (this is the most important app for her). After running the Automatix2 script, I had music and video working. I haven't shown her yet how to play music and videos, so we haven't picked any tools for that yet.

Her biggest issue was MS Office. Her classes use it at school, and she wants to be able to move documents back and forth. After installing Open Office, I found how to set the default file formats to the MS layout, so I'm hoping that works for her (we haven't tried this either).

The only other software I had to install was smbfs support so that she could access the family file server. apt-get install smbfs did the trick.

We're almost done with the two weeks, and I haven't heard one complaint or request yet.

Linux Desktop Update

2007-04-06T21:30:00.000-04:00

As I threatened back in January, I've been looking at the next version of Ubuntu for my desktop. Version 7.04 is in beta right now, and I downloaded the Live CD for a spin.

One of the first things I hit was that it seems that I can run more than one program that needs audio at the same time, and they both work! I haven't seen any notes about this as a fix, so maybe it was addressed in 6.10. (I used 6.06 on my last desktop experiment.) Also, I've heard that the codec and plug in issues I mentioned have gotten easier to deal with, and my experience with the Live CD can back that up.

Once the final version comes out, I'll setup a double boot and try it out for a while.

BackupPC #7 - Epilogue

2007-04-06T21:20:00.000-04:00

In part 6, I had backups running successfully from each machine - one Linux file server and three Windows clients. Before I call this project finished, there's one more thing I have to do.

I was looking at my Windows desktop, and noticed that I still have the 99GB Backup folder on the local drive. This is a backup of the file server, plus a few older files. But, before I delete this backup, I want to make sure that the new backup is working. So, it's time for a restore.

I had placed a file on the server earlier with the intention of deleting, then restoring it. I tried this tonight, and it worked without a hitch. Still, it will probably take me a little while to build up the nerve to actually delete the old Backup folder.

My only negative issue with BackupPC is that it seems that I have to store clear text passwords on the server, and keep shares open on the clients. It would be nice if the windows machines had an option such as rsync on Linux that would be more secure. (There probably is a better way to do it, but I don't know what it would be. Those with more experience are welcome to leave suggestions and hints.)

BackupPC #6 - Actual Backups Completed

2007-03-09T18:43:00.000-05:00

When we last heard from our hero in part 5, he had finally figured out how to connect 2 Linux hosts together.

Since then, I've backed up the file server (22 hours), and 2 of the 3 desktop PCs. One problem that has not gone away is the fact that I can't connect to the other DHCP hosts. I tried modifying the DHCP Address Range parameter like this:

$Conf{DHCPAddressRanges} = [{ ipAddrBase => '192.168.254',first => 13, last => 253}];

But still no luck.

Just to get things going, I started the backups from the target machines so that the program would know where to look. Now that I've done this, I can start future jobs from the server or from my machine (assuming the DHCP assigned address doesn't change). I'm thinking it might be easier if I just use static IPs for the desktops!

Anyway, the backup of my daughter's machine, as well as my desktop, went great. My wife's is giving me a generic 'backup failed' error. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

The file server backup took 22 hours, but that was only on the 2nd try. The first was interrupted after 6 hours by a power outage here at the LSD Ranch. Apparently it starts from scratch after being interrupted.

Learn the exiting conclusion of this story in part 7.

BackupPC #5 - Unlocking the Keys

2007-03-07T22:03:00.000-05:00

In part 4, I still hadn't resolved the public/private key issue. The problem was that the scp command called for to move the public key from one server to another kept failing. I was typing in the correct password for root, but it wouldn't take it.

Just a couple of minutes ago, I had a 'DUH!' moment. Way back when I was configuring ssh, I disallowed login by root. Yet this was what I was trying to do. After changing that option back to Yes, it worked great.

The keys are merged, and the full backup of the file server has started. I have no idea how long it will take to backup around 50GB, but I'm not going to stay up to find out. Turn to part 6 for the answer.

BackupPC #4 - Configuration Tweaks

2007-03-07T20:21:00.000-05:00

While I wait for the desktop machine backup started in part 3 to finish (it's really taking a lot of processor time on the desktop machine), I was reading through the configuration file and decided to change a few things.

First, to limit when the backups run, I changed the wakeup schedule, which was originally set to once an hour, to only run at 2:00 AM.

$Conf{WakeupSchedule} = [2];

Next, I adjusted the number of simultaneous backups allowed so that I wouldn't overload the backup machine's old, slow processor.

$Conf{MaxBackups} = 2;

Finally, I noticed that files in the initial backup weren't compressed. I found that the compression level was set to 0, which means no compression. I changed it to the recommended value of 3.

$Conf{CompressLevel} = 3;

The docs say that a perl library called Compress::Zlib is required for compression to work. I'll have to see if it is loaded.

UPDATE: Apparently, the compression library is available, because a fresh full backup of the backup server achieved 73% compression. While that was running, I added two more desktops to the list. I'm going to refrain from starting the first backups manually, and instead let the auto job pick them up at 2:00. I'll check the status in the AM.

I found another tutorial on the Debian Help site that doesn't mention using public/private keys for rsync use. I'll give it a read and maybe try another configuration for the file server backup.

I can't wait until part 5!

BackupPC #3 - Backing Up a Windows Machine

2007-03-07T19:25:00.000-05:00

I'm going to take a break from the public/private key issues as described in part 2, and instead focus on backing up my Windows machine.

We keep all of our documents, photos, music, and other important files on the server, so I only need to backup machine specific things. In my case, I'm mainly interested in my Thunderbird address book. After a little digging around, I've decided to grab the Application Data and My Documents folders. I'm not looking at the entire Documents and Settings folder because I don't want to backup all of the temporary Internet files, nor will I include the Desktop folder, since it is where I store downloaded TV shows and other temporary things (that add up to lots of GBs and would fill up the backup server quickly).

As instructed on page 6 of our tutorial, I started by setting up a shared folder on the desktop machine. I added a line to /etc/backuppc/hosts for this machine, and this time I used a '1' in the 2nd column to indicate a DHCP assigned address.

Next, I created a configuration file for the desktop and copied the suggested lines from the tutorial and updated the information for my situation. I don't really like storing my password in text like that. I'll have to secure the file to keep prying eyes out.

I also included the following line to limit the backup to the two desired directories.

$Conf{BackupFilesOnly} = ['/Application Data', '/My Documents'];

I restarted the daemon, and then started the backup from the web page. It's going and seems to be OK.

In part #4, I'll return to the file server problems.

But at Least the Email Works

2007-03-07T19:05:00.000-05:00

This message arrived in my Inbox today:

Dear Dan,

Your PC (hostname) has never been successfully backed up by our
PC backup software. PC backups should occur automatically
when your PC is connected to the network. You should contact
computer support if:

- Your PC has been regularly connected to the network, meaning
there is some configuration or setup problem preventing
backups from occurring.

- You don't want your PC backed up and you want these email
messages to stop.

Otherwise, please make sure your PC is connected to the network
next time you are in the office.

Regards,
BackupPC Genie
http://backuppc.sourceforge.net

BackupPC #2

2007-03-06T20:42:00.000-05:00

In part 1, we left our hero with BackupPC installed but with nothing to back up. Or so he thought....

When I came downstairs this morning, I refreshed the BackupPC Server Status page, and found that the file pool now contained 928 files! From where? It seems that the default setup will backup the localhost machine. Now, this box only has a few hundred MB of files on it - Ubuntu and the BackupPC files. Apparently, a full backup was done during the night, and I was greeted with a successful backup status. That means it works!

Now it's time to setup the main file server for backup. I started tonight by adding the server to the hosts file - /etc/backuppc/hosts. I added the following line:

hostname 0 username

(You can insert your hostname and username instead of my italicized placeholders.)

And I used this command to setup the user in BackupPC:

htpasswd /etc/backuppc/htpasswd username

For this next part, I'm going to deviate a little from the instructions. The config.pl file is setup to backup localhost (as I learned this morning), and I don't want to change that. So instead, I will create a new config file for the file server. It will be called:

/etc/backuppc/hostname.pl

I only need to enter the settings that are different from the main config file. Here's what I came up with (sorry for the extra line breaks):

# BackupPC config file for hostname

# Set the file transfer method
$Conf{XferMethod} = 'rsync';

# Use $hostIP for the client path
$Conf{RsyncClientCmd} = '$sshPath -q -x -l root $hostIP $rsyncPath $argList+';
$Conf{RsyncClientRestoreCmd} = '$sshPath -q -x -l root $hostIP $rsyncPath $argL$

# Name the partition
$Conf{RsyncShareName} = '/';

# Limit backup to the /export directory
$Conf{BackupFilesOnly} = '/export';

# Skip the music files and podcasts
$Conf{BackupFilesExclude} = ['/export/music', '/export/Podcasts'];

We'll see what happens.

After restarting the daemon, it's time to configure SSN and rsync. I followed the instructions on page 4 of the tutorial.

... 30 Minutes Later ...
I'm getting totally hosed on the public/private key stuff. I wonder if it is because I've already generated keys before for openssh access. I'm going to pack it in for the night, so stay tuned for part 3.

BackupPC #1

2007-03-05T20:10:00.000-05:00

I started the BackupPC installation tonight. As a guide, I'm using this tutorial from HowToForge.

Starting with the very first step, my installation is different than documented. The mail program, exim, is asking questions I don't know how to answer. I guessed that I should use a smarthost to send mail with no local delivery. I set the domain and SMTP machine to my domian and my hosting company's mail server respectively. We'll find out later if those choices were correct.

Also, the setup never asked for my workgroup name.

The web interface came up without incident.

I should have noticed earlier that the data is stored in /var/lib/backuppc, so I'm going to have to setup my 80GB drive with that path. I've been looking through the config docs to see if I can alter that path - and I think that I should be able to, since it refers to a variable called $topdir that references the path - but I can't find anything. ...... You know, I'm going to look a little more before using that default. Hold on...

... OK, so I'm glad I checked. I found a note on this page that tells us that the TOPDIR setting is in this file:

/usr/share/backuppc/lib/BackupPC/Lib.pm

I changed the setting to /backup, the path I set when I partitioned the drives.

I restarted the daemon with /etc/init.d/backuppc reload, and now the web interface won't come up.

Error: Unable to connect to BackupPC server
I moved the directories from /var/lib/backuppc to /backup and restarted the daemon, but no luck.

I know this is a newbie move, but sometimes all can be set straight by a quick reboot. (It's my years of Windows training that made me do it!)

That's enough for tonight. More soon in part 2.

The Usual Stuff

2007-03-04T21:15:00.000-05:00

Like the last several times, I'm performing the basic server setup using Ubuntu 6.10 Server Edition. It's a good basis for what I'm doing. Like before, I'm:

Assigning a Static IP
Configuring the Repositories
Setting Up SSH
Performing Software Updates
Making SSH Configuration Changes

And configuring ntpdate as outlined here.

UPDATE: 30 minutes later, and these steps are done. That's all for tonight.

Building the Backup Server

2007-03-04T20:57:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a week since I switched to the new server, and there have been no problems. I had backed up the contents to my desktop hard drive just before the switch, so I'm ready to re-purpose the old server. It's going to become the backup server for everything else.

Long time readers will remember that the server only has an 80GB hard drive (plus a 7GB for the OS). How can I use that to back up 72GB on the file server, plus other files from the desktops, let alone save room for future growth on the 250GB drive? Well, I can't - at least not forever. But, I have a plan to get started, and I'll upgrade when I have to.

First, I'm not going to backup music files or podcasts. I have some of the music on CDs at work, and the rest I don't really care about that much. If I lose that Ted Nugent album, I'll live. The podcast directory is a temp folder at best. I move the files from the server to my MP3 player, and I only listen once. Cutting those two folders saves 20GB off the top!

Second, the software, backuppc, uses a compression algorithm. I don't expect much savings on the JPGs, but there may be a little on the rest of the files (maybe 20GB down to 5GB).

From the desktop PCs, I only plan to backup important configuration files, such as Thunderbird profiles. Anything else should be saved on the server, and the family knows that.

I'm starting by installing Ubuntu 6.10 Server Edition. I'll run through most of the same steps used on the file server, except for the Samba stuff. (We'll see.)

I'll report back after the initial setup is done - before the backuppc work starts.

Made the Switch!

2007-02-27T20:44:00.000-05:00

The other night, I switched over the drive mappings and copied all of the files from the old server to the new. My users (read: family) didn't notice.

Time for the next project: Backup!

Battery Installed

2007-02-24T08:43:00.000-05:00

I was able to get out to Interstate Battery ("Every battery for every need") the other day to get a replacement cell for the motherboard, and I installed it this morning. That's the last thing on my checklist before moving this box into production.

I'm glad to be done messing inside the case. Not because I don't enjoy it, but because I'm worried about breaking something. I'm not the most skilled mechanic or electrician in town, and I tend to have trouble with these kind of things. (I mentioned the CD troubles last month; did I also write about cracking a motherboard once?) It is inevitable that I would lose a screw, strip some threads, short a connection, pull something loose, kill a component with static discharge, etc. I should be done until I decide to add a DVD burner.

Software Installed and Configured

2007-02-14T19:40:00.000-05:00

It took a little less than an hour to do the whole process. I'm getting good at this.

Most importantly, files are copying. Yeah!!

I'm going to mess with the server for a couple of days, and probably put it into service Saturday or Sunday.

Such a Rookie Mistake!!

2007-02-14T18:17:00.000-05:00

I've been fighting this server problem since December, and now, over 3 months later, I've found the problem. I was hoping that the solution would be failing hardware, or maybe a kernel incompatibility, but instead, it is my stupidity.

You may remember from yesterday that Fedora didn't like the IP address I was using. At the time, I just decided to use another and figure out that problem later. During today's experiment with Lormalinux, I didn't receive notice of a conflict and went back to my original choice. And, when I got things setup and began to copy files, the same error that has plagued me from the start cropped up again. After trying a new CAT5 cable with no change, I was looking for an old hub to setup an isolated network, in case it was one of my routers or another workstation causing the problem, but I couldn't find it.

Sitting in my easy chair this afternoon, I remembered the Fedora error, and it hit me. The address I've been using all this time is already in use - on the wireless access point. I changed the address on the Lormalinux server to an unused number, and it's working great. I'm such an idiot!!

Now that I know the problem, I'm going back to Ubuntu 6.10. Lormalinux is working OK, but I put in too much research on Ubuntu to not use that knowledge (plus there are so many more resources available). Since the Purdue/Indiana game was postponed tonight, I should be able to get the whole thing done before bedtime.

Lormalinux

2007-02-14T08:45:00.000-05:00

Lormalinux is touted as a distro tailored for the education field. What brought it to my attention was my Google search "linux distro preconfigured for samba". It was the first link returned.

Based on Slackware, they offer several configurations, including Samba server, Web/MySQL server, and LTSP server (no idea what that means). I downloaded the Samba version (beta 2) and gave it a try.

Right away, I was surprised by the harshness of the Slackware install. I've been spoiled by Mandrake (now Mandriva), Ubuntu, RedHat and Fedora and their handholding installs. I kind of laughed when, after reading on the web site that this distro is easy for newbies, the installation dropped to a login prompt telling me to partition the drives myself, and then start setup. Now, I've partitioned drives before, but I still had to spend a little time in the help files to figure out what they wanted (every distro seems to be different). I can't imagine a well-intentioned high school English teacher trying to setup a server for his classes being able to do this without help.

Anyway, I then was able to finish the install. In my role as the English teaching newbie, I took almost all defaults and installed the full distro as recommended. (Since I am a method actor, my grammar was impeccable throughout.)

A quick reboot, and I was presented with a character-based login (as I had hoped). I fired up the computer search in Windows and found the machine by hostname without incident, and was able to connect to the default share. After I modified smb.conf to update the workgroup, I could see it in the workgroup computers list.

Next, I fired up the WebAdmin interface included with the distro. It is found on port 10000. It has come up, and my next trick is to configure Samba for my use.

Wish me luck.

Snow Day! (or My Adventure with Fedora)

2007-02-13T22:12:00.000-05:00

The Blizzard of 2007 has started, so the family and I are all home today. Since I've been having zero luck with Ubuntu, I'm trying Fedora 6. Not a bad project to relieve cabin fever.

After seeing that this would be a 5 CD download and burn, I decided to try the network install instead. The first step was to find the elusive boot.iso - a less than 8MB CD image that will boot the system and pull the files from a mirror. This is located in the /os/images sub folder. I burned this and booted. I used the command linux text askmethod to force a text based install and to get the chance to enter the mirror info. It took a few tries to get the mirror definition correct (the path name must go all the way out to the /os/ folder). I answered a bunch of questions, including what software to install. I chose Windows File Server, editors, and a few others. No graphical or window manager stuff. It only took about half an hour.

After rebooting, it came up with a system agent. I unchecked sendmail from the startup list, added smb, but left the rest as is (I think I'll have to do a bunch of research to fine tune the box, but this will work for now).

I added myself as a user, and then looked around for instructions to setup a static IP. I found that the information is stored in /etc/sysconfg/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0. I commented the line BOOTPROTO=dhcp and added:

BOOTPROTO= static
BROADCAST=192.168.254.254 (is this the gateway?)
IPADDR=192.168.254.1
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.254.0 (not sure what this is)

These commands stop and start the interface:
/sbin/ifdown eth0
/sbin/ifup eth0

I received an error saying that the IP address was already in use by another host, but I wasn't able to PING it from another machine. I changed it to .2 for now; I'll work on that later.

SSHD is already installed an running, so I was able to log in via PuTTY. The SSHD configuration file is /etc/ssh/sshd_config, and I modified it as outlined earlier.

The Samba configuration file smb.conf is located in /etc/samba/. I pasted in the same config file listed here, except I changed 'Ubuntu' to 'Fedora'. Continuing with the instructions on that page, I created the /export directory, and restarted Samba (using the first restart command listed).

And then, it gets difficult. When I browse the network from my Windows client, I can see the server and attempt to open it. After a long pause, I'm told that I don't have access to it, and the icon disappears from the workgroup devices list. Nothing short of a reboot of the server will bring it back (at least, nothing I know about). Restarting Samba doesn't help.

Well, the day is over, and I'm tired, so I'm putting this little experiment to bed (after about 12 hours of playing around). The most frustrating part has been relearning 'Linux'. I know that most of Linux is actually other software that runs on the kernel, but it can be tough when different distros store files in different places and configure things different ways.

Mounting a Samba Share in Linux

2007-02-12T19:39:00.000-05:00

Just for my own documentation, here's how I configured the Samaba share from the old server on the new server, courtesy of Tero Karvinen:

Edit $HOME/sambapass: nano /home/myusername/sambapass
username = windowsuser
password = windowspassword
domain = workgroupname
Create an empty directory (a mount point): $ mkdir /mnt/files2
As root, edit /etc/fstab, add this line in the end (all on one line): //windowsserver/share /home/tee/mymountpoint
smbfs credentials=/home/tee/sambapass,uid=myusername,gid=users,dmask=700,fmask=700 0 0
Mount everything: # mount -a

Building the New Server - Part 5 - Early Version

2007-02-11T11:56:00.000-05:00

Today, I'm trying the 6.06 version of Ubuntu Server to see if the symptoms continue (see many earlier posts for details).

11:30 am: Let's start
11:58 am: Right off the bat, I see that I'll have to switch the kernel as mentioned in Part 2.
12:12 pm: Time to go through additional software installation and configuration - as outlined in Part 3.
12:33: OK, I didn't even get through those steps before SSH disconnected. I'm running out of options!

I may have to try another distro. Time for a break!

UPDATE:

OK, I decided to come back and finish the configuration, both to build a complete test bed and just for practice. I just want to say that my first server ran on Win95, and it worked great right out of the box!

Sorry, I'm venting a little - I didn't really mean that I would go back to that. Let's just continue.

12:58 pm: I'll finish the Samba and ntpdate steps.
Note that the cupsys-common package is apparently not used in this version
Also note that my syslog is filling up with messages looking for a file called /etc/printcap which doesn't exist. I created an empty file with touch /etc/printcap which stopped the entries.
1:17 pm: Done

Building the New Server - Part 4 - The Problems

2007-02-11T11:20:00.000-05:00

I've kept the tone of Parts 1 , 2, and 3 on the positive side and saved all of the frustrating issues for this post - mainly because they are not central to the building a server discussion. I'm documenting them here just to have a record of the symptoms and solutions (if any).

Problem 1: The Battery

Every time I unplug the power supply (which has been often), all of the BIOS settings go back to factory. It's not a big deal, except for clock reset back to January 2006, and the fact that the default expects a floppy drive. Fixing the time/date isn't a huge deal because of the ntpdate software, but without a floppy attached, I have to press F1 to continue. This will be a problem once I go 'headless', since there won't be a keyboard to use, and there won't be a monitor to even see the error. I guess I'll take the battery out and go to Interstate Battery for a replacement. I haven't yet looked to see how easy that will be.

Problem 2: The CD-ROM

I've been feeling bad about using the term 'ghetto' to describe the temporary CD-ROM setup, and the Political Correctness gods have decided to punish me by making it not work. I tried different cables and different CDs, but always came up with crc errors. But, I'm not ready to order a new drive that will fit in the case. This morning, I was venting to my son about it. He excused himself and returned with three old drives that he had been hoarding in his room. After hooking up the first one, I powered up the box and pressed the eject button. It was then when I remembered why I retired this drive; the drawer doesn't open without a little assistance from a paper clip. I dug one up (my wife seems to bring home dozens a week in her scrub top pockets) and gave it a little encouragement. Sitting in the tray was the Office XP Professional disk I've been missing for a year and a half! Anyway, I'm now back in business. I guess the first drive from last week didn't like being manhandled and gave up the ghost. One problem solved!

Problem 3: Still Doesn't Work!

This is the biggest of all. After spending the money on hardware, spending time on construction and installation, I still have the same problem I couldn't solve before - the network keeps disconnecting Samba and SSH (the only things I'm running on the box). I've tried a lot of things, and all I've proven is that it is an intermittent problem. I've used a Windows PC to connect to Samba, and tried mounting the old server's samba share directly on the new server. In both cases, a long copy job will eventually fail. From more than one machine, I've had SSH sessions drop. I've used different ports on different routers/hubs, and built an entirely new server. The only variable left is the software. My plan next is to try Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Server version. (Stay tuned.)

For those that love details, I captured log entries from my last copy attempt. This was the server-to-server path:

smbd[4198]: [2007/02/10 16:21:01, 0] lib/util_sock.c:write_data(557)
smbd[4198]: write_data: write failure in writing to client 192.168.254.160. Error Connection reset by peer
smbd[4198]: [2007/02/10 16:21:01, 0] lib/util_sock.c:send_smb(765)
smbd[4198]: Error writing 4 bytes to client. -1. (Connection reset by peer)

smbd[4199]: [2007/02/10 16:33:08, 0] lib/util_sock.c:read_data(529)
smbd[4199]: read_data: read failure for 4 bytes to client 192.168.254.160. Error = Connection reset by peer
smbd[4199]: [2007/02/10 16:33:08, 0] lib/util_sock.c:write_data(557)
smbd[4199]: write_data: write failure in writing to client 192.168.254.160. Error Broken pipe
smbd[4199]: [2007/02/10 16:33:08, 0] lib/util_sock.c:send_smb(765)
smbd[4199]: Error writing 75 bytes to client. -1. (Broken pipe)

This was about 3GB into a 15GB directory copy. It's important to note that I can copy the entire 60+GB contents of the file server to my backup partition on my desktop without incident, so I don't think the old server is the problem.

Building the New Server - Part 3 - Configuring Everything

2007-02-09T18:51:00.000-05:00

I reinstalled and configured software as outlined here, although I had to reverse the SSH and repository steps commenting out the CD as a source since I have no CD-ROM (more on that later). Also, I ran through the additional configuration steps here, here, and here.

While I was messing around, I installed ntpdate to automatically set the clock every hour.

Install the software: sudo apt-get install ntpdate
Run the script to set the clock: sudo /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate
Edit /etc/default/ntpdate to use your favorite time servers.: Mine are tick.cerias.purdue.edu and tock.cerias.purdue.edu.
Add the job to the CRON list.: crontab -e
Insert this text and save and close the file: @hourly /etc/network/if-up.d/ntpdate

Building the New Server - Part 2 - Installing the Operating System

2007-02-08T22:49:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I prepared a USB flash drive as bootable with the Ubuntu 6.10 Server install files ready to go. I tried it out on my Dell at work, and it booted. However, I wasn't able to get my son's computer (which has a USB boot option in the BIOS) to work with it, and this new computer had the same problem (and I think a very similar BIOS).

So, I had to go a little ghetto (is this an offensive use of the word?) and wire up an internal CD-ROM drive as an external.

Dog not included
Looks a little cheesy, but it worked.

The install went great. I used pretty much all defaults except for the hostname. Since the BIOS recognized the full disk drive size, I didn't have to do any special partitioning to see all of it.

The install finished, and I booted up the system for the first time. Well, at least I tried to. Soon after GRUB started, the box would reboot. How frustrating! I tried booting the CD-ROM again, and it came up no problem.

As usual, a quick Google search found both the problem and the solution. A guy named Joel posted this quick note that talks about the VIA processor not being fully 686 compatible, and how the Ubuntu server version uses a special kernel that calls the very instruction that the VIA can't handle. His easy instructions walked me through how to boot from the CD in rescue mode and switch the kernel with these two commands:

apt-get install linux-386
apt-get remove linux-server

Now, it boots, and I'm ready to start the configuration, again.

Building the New Server - Part 1 - Hardware Assembly

2007-02-06T22:22:00.000-05:00

Despite the snow storm, the parts for the new server were delivered today. With all extracurricular activities canceled for the evening, I began putting things together after supper.

Now, how hard can it be to put four pieces together? In my defense, I had to spend some time just looking at it. I have to imagine the work before I can do it. Next, I read the limited documentation provided with the motherboard, and scanned the single sheet diagram that came with the case (which told me absolutely nothing).

First, I installed the motherboard. It didn't take too long to attach the screws and connect all of the wires. The mobo doesn't have FireWire support, but everything else found a place. During this step I popped in the memory.

Next, it was time to install the hard drive. It only took me half an hour to realize it should be mounted upside down! Who knew? The minimalist diagram didn't show any parts not included with the case. For some reason, I had laid the drive bottom up on the table and happened to look at it. Look, these holes line up. Hmmmm.

Finally, I buttoned up the case. It was a tight fit to get all of the cables tucked in and out of the way while still reaching where they needed to be. I plugged it in, and the lights came on and the hard drive spun up. I was ready for software.

Pay Day Fun

2007-02-03T19:23:00.000-05:00

Well, as I threatened a copule of weeks ago, I ordered the new server parts the other day. As we speak (I know, we're not actually speaking), I'm watching the packages travel across the country via the tracking pages provided by UPS.

How long until we will be able to see live GPS feeds of our packages as they speed down the interstate, or fly to and from Memphis? "Look Honey, I think the truck is about to turn onto our street! Get my camera!" Wouldn't that be both amazingly cool and frighteningly anal at the same time? Homeland Security would never go for it.

As I passed a FedEx truck driving back from Indy today, I wondered if my memory chip was in that tandem trailer (although I doubt if UPS would use a FedEx truck).

Anyway, the case looks to be about the size of a Mac Mini. Just enough room for the motherboard with the VIA processor, my exising 3½ inch hard drive, and an optical drive in the "slim-optical" footprint. The optical drive will come later, but I plan to get a DVD burner to use for backups. 512MB of RAM is more than enough for a file server used by the four of us to store bootleg music and digital snapshots.

The parts should arrive by Tuesday, and I'll likely assemble the whole thing in about 20 minutes. Next, I'll reintall Linux and setup the software for the third time. I'm getting lots of good practice!

The Latest on the Server

2007-01-22T21:47:00.000-05:00

Even if I'm not transferring files, the SSH session still times out at around 9 or 10 minutes. When I try to reconnect, it takes around 10 seconds for the login prompt to appear (as opposed to around 1 second normally). I'm wondering if there is some other power saver type of setting that is shutting things down.

Why I Don't Run a Linux Desktop

2007-01-21T08:14:00.000-05:00

It's not that I don't want to. I read many tech articles via RSS feeds, and there are articles by users, developers, journalists, etc. that try to convince me that this is the year of the Linux desktop (Vista will tank, and they think people will go from XP to Linux), or a major PC manufacturer will jump on the bandwagon providing a Linux pre-install, or I'll be able to convince my mother to switch.

Also, I am truly intrigued by the idea of using Linux at home. The idea of being part of a community, rather than just a customer, is attractive, and I'd like to join - and possibly contribute.

However, before any of that happens, Linux has to be easier to configure, and it must support any hardware, software, or plug-in thrown at it.

I've tried using a Linux desktop on three different occasions - twice in a dual-boot situation, and once as my only OS for several months. Many things worked well, but a few important things didn't. This is my list:

Audio - This is my biggest complaint, and I've already voiced these problems in this forum, but I'll recap. Windows does audio really well. Any application can find the audio devices and use them, the applications can co-exist and share the audio device, and most any audio device on the market is supported. With Linux, I never could get two applications to operate with sound at the same time. The second one in couldn't get to the device without first closing both apps and then restarting just one. Let's say I'm listening to music with a player, and I want to view a quick YouTube movie. What I would do in XP is pause the player, watch (and listen to) the movie, and then restart the player. Not in Linux. I have to close the player (and hopefully remember where I left off). After bookmarking the movie link, I have to close the browser as well. Then, I reopen the browser, find the bookmark, and finally watch the video. Next, I close the browser again (to let go of the audio), reopen the music player, find my place from before, reopen the browser, and continue browsing. Let's hope another movie link doesn't come up in the feed too soon.
Audio and Video Codecs - When operating legally, I can't listen to or watch most of the media I have, since the codecs required are not publicly available (via GPL). Sure, I can find the off-shore site that offers all I want and more (and I've used them), but there are a couple of reasons why that is bad. Like most people, I don't want to either be convicted and jailed or be sued with a judgment just because I want to watch season 2 of West Wing on my desktop. Also, what would stop the operators of a site with questionable legal views to also include undesirable software along with the codecs? (I'm not saying they are all black-hats, but there is a higher risk.) It seems to me that it would be easy for the major Linux vendors to either include some of these capabilities, or to offer a separate, possibly not-free package that would install them. I know that there are those who think that everything that is installed should be open source, but most desktop users don't care. We just want things to work. And, I know, DRM is bad, and I should have the right of fair use. But I think that breaking a DRM scheme will not lead to the elimination of DRM; it only leads to more complicated schemes. The way to stop DRM is to not buy anything that uses it. Unfortuately, consumers have a different idea. Sales of (mostly DRM free) audio CDs are down, while downloads of locked-down iTunes files are up. Apple and the others are winning! The DRM battle will not be won on less than 1% of US desktops.
Hardware and Drivers - I bought a USB headset last year, and I'm looking at a scanner this year. In both cases there is no way that there will be any Linux drivers provided by the manufacturer, and finding an alternative that works without much tweaking will be next to impossible. With XP, I plug in the new toy, maybe insert a CD the first time, and it works. End of story! Desktop Linux needs support from hardware companies, and that won't happen soon.
Web Plug-Ins - It should be easy, but it isn't. Configuring a java environment, installing Flash or Shockwave, or setting up an embedded audio or video player in a browser on Linux is difficult. I know because I've tried it a number of times. What about WMV files? Quicktime? Actually, I usually just go to the next site if one uses formats I can't read. If they want me to view something, they should make it possible without limiting me to one OS and browser choice. ActiveX? I don't think so!
Specialized Software - I also bought a camera last year, and it came bundled with all kinds of software. Several of these packages were specific to the camera - including a program to move files to and from the camera, and one to process the special formats the camera can create. There are no 3rd party utilities for this, other than treating the camera as a USB drive. Until I can utilize all of the features of the camera, program my universal remote, or perform any other kind of specialized function, I'm going to have to keep XP around. (And if it is a dual-boot situation, I'll eventually just keep it on Windows. Dual boot is a pain!) Also, vertical market apps tend to only exist for Windows. This is where the open source community fails. Unless there is a person that has a specialized need AND is an open source advocate, these programs won't get written. When resources are limited, and the developer is likely working gratis, it makes more sense to write for the dominant platform. (As I write this, I'm thinking that these developers should write for the browser instead of any platform. That won't steer people over to Linux, but it won't drive them away either.) Don't even get me started on video cards, NICs, and other internal hardware.
General Softare - This is one category that Linux is winning. I can find Linux versions or substitutes (usually open source) of any XP program, and I actually use the Windows versions of these programs instead of the MS provided ones. My most used programs are: Firefox, Thunderbird, Google's Picassa, Audacity, Juice, and Open Office. I use Photoshop Elements right now for video editing, but I could easily switch to The Gimp. All I can say here is keep up the good work!

Linux still has a way to go, and I know that I'll likely try again when the next version of Ubuntu comes out. I'm such the optimist.

(Please keep the comments civil and constructive. No vendor or user bashing here.)

You know, the plea above demonstrates another problem with Linux. There are too many zealots and militant anti-Microsoft types that drown out the good message with misplaced anger, superiority, and leet speak. It may be a small percentage of the community, but a vocal one. These guys are killing any momentum for Linux beyond the hobbyist crowd.

Mad Skillz

2007-01-15T17:05:00.000-05:00

What frustrates me most about this problem I'm having is that I'm a fairly technical guy. Although I'm in management now, I have much experience in system admin - not in Linux but instead on Windows desktops and servers, and on Unisys mainframes. Working in a small shop, I was system admin, DBA, and application programmer for 15 years. I hired a self-taught network admin, and the two of us handled a 400 user network with a pile of Windows servers (plus a NetWare box or two). There was even a Unix box in there somewhere. (Also, one generation of the mainframe was built on a couple of EISA cards plugged into a Unix host. The last one ran entirely in emulation on Windows 2000 Server.)

Anyway, although I'm a Linux newbie, I have some skills.

On another note, I've been looking around at new hardware on the web, and I stumbled across these mini-ITX systems. I can see mounting one of these on the wall in my laundry room. (I've been thinking of putting a wiring/server closet setup in there.) I can appreciate the low power usage, and the simplicity of it all. There's just enough room for the hard drive - all I need. However, I'm not ready to spend the $250 for case, motherboard, CPU, and memory. As long as the hard drive space holds out on the old server, I'll keep plugging away.

Some Assistance

2007-01-15T16:51:00.000-05:00

I want to thank Steve for the suggestions on the last post. Unfortunately, I don't quite understand what we're trying to do, and I'm getting an error on the 2nd command.

ls *.ko | sed s/.ko$ | awk {'print "modprobe "$1'} | sh

Gives this error:

sed: -e expression #1, char 6: unterminated `s' command

I'm digging through the sed manual pages, but I haven't got it yet.

In other news, I've been thinking about how this could be a power setting problem - maybe the system was hibernating because of a lack of activity (although the CPU and disk are quite active). I checked the BIOS settings and found that the Power Saver mode was set to 'Advanced'. I changed it to disabled, but the problem is still there. The screen blanks a minute or two before the error appears, and when it does, both the file copy and the PuTTY session disconnect.

I will get some better times to see if there is a consistent problem.

Nope

2007-01-10T21:59:00.000-05:00

It didn't help.

New Network Card

2007-01-10T21:38:00.000-05:00

I'm trying a new network card. After putting in the new card (and having a little trouble getting it to seat correctly), Ubuntu came up with no network.

Entering lspci | grep ontroller showed the card available, but no response to SSH.

A little research showed a file called /etc/iftab that apparently stores the MAC address of the ethernet interfaces. The MAC of the old card was recorded there.

The command ip addr showed the MAC of the new card. I had to modify iftab with the new MAC to get things to work. PuTTY now connects like a charm.

Now, I will test again to see if the server performs better.

Server Trouble

2006-12-04T18:58:00.000-05:00

I've been away from the project for a while, so I decided to switch my files over last weekend. I started by copying the photos (15GB). About 10 minutes into the copy, an error box popped up stating that the server could not be found. The PuTTY session that I had opened failed at the same time. Thinking it was a fluke, I reconnected and tried again. Same thing. The next day (after restarting the server) I tried some different files. Still, it failed.

I'm not sure what to do next. I'm no expert on hardware, but I may see if I have an extra network card to swap with the current one. My daughter used this computer for a couple of years without incident, but she never tried copying gigs of files in one sitting.

We'll see.

Great Web Resource for Samba

2006-11-17T20:38:00.000-05:00

I found this page that outlines how to do what I just did in v.5.10.

http://www.howtoforge.org/samba_setup_ubuntu_5.10

More Samba Setup

2006-11-17T19:26:00.000-05:00

It seems to be working OK. I can create files and directories in my new share, and the groups and permissions look good.

However, my guides are telling me that a little more setup is needed.

Enable WINS host resolution: Edit /etc/nsswitch.conf and change hosts: files dns to hosts: files wins dns
Add the root user to the SAMBA password database: sudo smbpasswd -a root
Setup the Adminstrator alias in /etc/samba/smbusers: sudo echo "root = Administrator" > /etc/samba/smbusers
Setup the default domain groups for windows: sudo net groupmap modify ntgroup="Domain Admins" unixgroup=root
sudo net groupmap modify ntgroup="Domain Users" unixgroup=users
sudo net groupmap modify ntgroup="Domain Guests" unixgroup=nogroup
Restart the ~~service~~ daemon: sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

Unless I want to setup a printer someday, the Samba config should be done.

Setup the Other Users

2006-11-17T19:16:00.000-05:00

For each family member, I created the user in Linux, set the password, and added them to Samba.

sudo useradd username -m -G users
sudo passwd username
sudo smbpasswd -a username

No worries!

Samba Work - It's Easy This Time

2006-11-16T21:40:00.000-05:00

I started with the smb.conf file from the old server without the [homes] section.

[global]
workgroup = GENTRY
server string = Ubuntu-Samba %v on %L

security = user
encrypt passwords = yes

wins support = yes

local master = yes
preferred master = yes
domain master = yes
os level = 95

[files]
comment = Shared Files
path = /export
create mask = 0775
directory mask = 0775
force group = users
read only = no
hide unreadable = yes

Next, I created the /export folder in / and set the file permissions and group.

sudo mkdir export
sudo chmod 0777 export
sudo chgrp users export

Finally, I added my user in Samba

sudo smbpasswd -a username

Now, it's time to restart Samba and try to connect.

sudo /etc/rc.d/init.d/smb restart

Well, the restart command isn't working. How about:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

That worked much better. Let's try to connect.

Worked like a charm! I was able to connect, create a folder, and create a file. Both had the correct permissions and group settings. Sweet!

That's all for tonight.

Do Over

2006-11-12T11:16:00.000-05:00

Now, I get to redo what I did before.

Assign a Static IP
Setup SSH
Repository Updates
Software Updates
SSH Configuration Changes
Install Samba

No problems. I did notice that I had another, simpler editor already installed called nano. It looks to be much easier to use for a person like myself raised on MS-DOS rather than Unix.

Also, with Samba providing a WINS service, I don't need to use a hosts file on the clients to resolve the server name to an IP.

GRUB Error 18

2006-11-12T09:42:00.000-05:00

OK, so I installed on the 250GB drive pretty much choosing all defaults. At reboot, I never got past GRUB, which failed with the dreaded Error 18.

A little research (I love the Internets) told me that the kernel resided in an area that can't be seen by the BIOS. The consensus seems to be that I need to setup a /boot partition at the beginning of the drive. (see here and here)

So, I'm starting over ... again.

(I can't tell you how many times I've tried using the wrong keyboard to answer prompts for the install. Having two of them is confusing!)

DISCLAIMER!! If you don't know much about partitions (like me), don't follow my instructions. This is more of a journal than a tutorial. It is likely that I will screw up something, and I don't want your loss of data on my conscience for the rest of my life. However, if you do know about such things, please critique my attempt in the comments.

I ran the normal install, except for these changes to the partition step:

When the first partitioner screen is displayed, choose Manually Partition Drive: Scary, but I'll try it
Delete the existing partitions: It's probably possible, and even preferable to do this without starting from a clean slate, but since I haven't done anything to the box yet, I'm not losing anything. If you don't know what you are doing and have something to lose, DON'T DO THIS!
Start creating new partitions: I selected the FREE SPACE for (hda)
The /boot partition: I'm using 300MB, Primary, Beginning, Ext3, /boot, and the bootable flag on
The main partition: 245 GB, all defaults
The swap partition: Set 'Use as:' to swap area
Finish Partitioning and Write Changes to Disk: Here goes nothing!

Well, what do you know. It worked! (If I weren't such a refined gentleman, I'd type the expletives that flew out of my mouth when I saw the login prompt.)

Forget what I said earlier about not knowing about partitions. I'm an expert!

Dress Rehearsal

2006-11-12T08:43:00.000-05:00

OK, so I've had a bit of a setback, not a big thing, but I do get to start over.

I spent yesterday doing some hard drive jockeying, and I now have the 250GB drive ready to put in the server. However, the Compaq case (why do I keep working with old Compaqs?) uses a non-standard drive mounting system, so there was no way to install the drive. Executive decision time, I decided to remove the 6.4GB drive already in the computer (the plan was to host the operating system there with the data files on the 250GB), and just use the 250GB for everything.

However, nothing goes easy with a Compaq. The BIOS still reports 6.4GB, while the Ubuntu partitioner is seeing 250GB. I haven't hit the go button yet, but I really have nothing to lose. The worst that could happen is that it doesn't work or it reports much less than 250GB. If so, I'll punt!

Lucky for me that I have documented my steps thus far in this diary. Back to step 1.

Installing Samba

2006-11-05T08:15:00.000-05:00

It just took one command to install everything I need for Samba (at least, what my Ubuntu Hacks book tells me I need).

sudo apt-get install samba samba-doc libcupsys2 libkrb53 winbind smbclient cupsys-common samba-doc-pdf smbfs

Apt-get also threw in the samba-common package. In addition, it suggested smbldap-tools, but I'm going to wait and see if I need it.

The daemons have been started. Now it's time to wade through the configuration file.

Planning for Samba

2006-11-05T07:04:00.000-05:00

I'm going to install Samba today, but I haven't really decided how I will set things up. My first task was to read the old posts from last time.

It was important at the time to allow each user to designate some files as public and others as private, and I also talked about having files viewable to only my wife and I. However, no one else but me knows how to do that, and no one seems to care. I myself haven't used that feature, except for testing. This time, I may setup just one user that we all share.

With that change, I won't need to (or be able to) setup a Home directory for each user mapped to H: on the clients. Once again, no one cares.

This could be easier!

I'm going to review the smb.conf file from the existing server today, and install the software on the new one. We'll see how it goes.

SSH Configuration Changes

2006-11-04T10:33:00.000-05:00

I've been reading that a couple of the default SSH settings in Ubuntu may need to be changed.

First, remote login for root is enabled, so I turned that off. Also, since I won't be running remote graphical applications, I denied X11 forwarding.

The settings are found in /etc/ssh/sshd_config.

Change:

PermitRootLogin yes

To:

PermitRootLogin no

And Change:

X11Forwarding yes

To:

X11Forwarding no

Save the file.

Finally, use the following command to restart SSHD.

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

Software Upgrades

2006-11-04T10:27:00.000-05:00

This command will check for patches and fixes for the operating system and installed software:

sudo apt-get upgrade

Since I just installed yesterday, it found no updates today.

Repository Updates and New Editor

2006-11-04T10:14:00.000-05:00

I modified /etc/apt/sources.list to include the 'Universe' repositories (by uncommenting those two lines), and then ran an update add the packages to the catalog.

sudo apt-get update

No issues.

Next, I installed a different editor called JED so that I could escape VI.

sudo apt-get install jed

I've only tried it once, but it looks to be a little more intuitive for me.

Headless? No Problem - But I Need a Keyboard

2006-11-04T09:23:00.000-05:00

After setting up SSH and testing, I disconnected the monitor and keyboard and did a shutdown/restart. Nothing.

I reconnected the monitor to see the error, and found that the machine wasn't going to boot up without a keyboard. I went through the BIOS setup screens, but couldn't find a setting to stop the test. I guess this Deskpro wasn't designed to be a server. :)

After reconnecting the keyboard, it booted without a monitor just fine.

I think I'll look for some sort of dongle that can look like a keyboard, but for now I'll just keep one plugged in.

UPDATE:

This link offers instructions for a DIY keyboard dongle. I'll give it a try.

http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/openbsd/2003-12/1112.html

Hosts

2006-11-04T09:20:00.000-05:00

For some reason, I am unable to modify, rename, or replace my hosts file in XP. I get the error:

Access to C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts denied

This happens when logged on as a user and as the administrator, so I'm thinking that some program is using the file.

My solution was to boot into safe mode, login as administrator, and edit the file.

Setup SSH

2006-11-04T08:28:00.000-05:00

SSH allows me to open a command window for the server from a remote machine. It only took one command to install the software.

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

The install program asked for the CD.

I connected from my desktop machine using PuTTY, and it came up the first try!

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