Operating Systems

Ubuntu 8.x localhost only after VMWare Converter Migration or moving to different VMWare Server

Just a quick note to the masses, I used VMWare Converter 5.x Stand Alone (It’s not version specific) to migrate an Ubuntu 8.04 Server I have doing SPAM filtering and when I type in “ifconfig” to determine if the IP address came up OK all I saw was localhost (127.0.0.1). I made sure to adjust DHCP to see the new MAC address and I KNEW this was going to be an issue – not with DHCP but with converting Ubunutu like this – it looses eth0’s IP address. Why? Because the MAC address changes from the old VMWare Servers MAC address allocation to the new VMWare Servers MAC address allocation – essentially, the new server issues the new / imported VM a new MAC. This makes the OS install the new MAC as an additional NIC…because it is!

I found the answer to my problems here, I used this post before to fix this same issue in the past but now I’m documenting it on my blog so I can remember :P

Post: Eth0 disapears in VMware and Ubuntu Server

SuperkiKim is the bomb!

Essentially you shut down two services and edit a file, then bring those services up.

Here are the commands thanks for the VMWare Community Forum and SuperkiKim:

Stop services:
/etc/init.d/udev stop
/etc/init.d/networking stop
Edit the file:
nano etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Comment out the first PCI devices in the list, at the end of the line it'll say "eth0" with a "#" symbol
# SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:0c:29:36:xx:xx", ATTR{type}=="1", NAME="eth0"

Then - on the next PCI device (SUBSYSTEM) where it probably says "eth1" change that to "eth0"
Save it by exiting NANO, ctrl + x sometimes it's ctrl + alt + x
Hit "Y" to save

restart your services by typing:
/etc/init.d/udev start
/etc/init.d/networking start

ifconfig command should show you your IP that you expected!

Batch file to find Windows Version (XP or 7)

I had a need to find which version of Windows I’d be running a script against to install a version specific app (Windows Security Essentials). My version ONLY detects XP or 7, I used a few sites that gave me the idea on how to make the batch file.

Here:

http://www.computerhope.com/if.htm

http://www.windows-commandline.com/2009/01/find-windows-os-version-from-command.html

Here’s my batch file: find_winver_xp_or_7_ver.bat

Note that I only needed to know which version XP or 7 so I didn’t care about Vista, 2000, etc and I didn’t care (at least not yet) if it’s 64 bit vs 32 bit since all the stuff I’m currently using this for is 32 bit :p (You’re NOW in luck, I did need architecture stuff and posted my batch file doing so here: Link)

Let me know if this helps you – one person on the second link said he needed to have the same script but I think he neglected to post it anywhere…what’s up with that (Music from Saturday Night Live Song Play Now – “What’s up wit dat, what’s up wit dat…”)?

I can post my longer batch file if anyone’s interested that uninstalls Windows Defender, installs Windows Security Essentials and imports some Windows Security Essentials settings.

OMG! The greatest Sharepoint 3.0 command of all time! Restore from backup!

Kudos to you Mr. Sharepoint migrator man (or person), commands in your pocket and you shoot from the hip. I was working on migrating a Sharpoint Portal Server, version 3.0 to a new server (from a physical box to a VM and I didn’t want to do a full P2V). This was the last piece of the pie to get migrated off the machine and I’ve been putting it off knowing it would probably be a pain. It certainly was a pain but then I bumped into this post on Experts Exchange -> Here <- The final piece of the pie was there, the ‘restore’ piece…I couldn’t be happier!

The processes I had done (By the way, this is a 64 bit server, Server 2003 R2, SP2):

Install IIS (default)
Install ASP.NET 2.0 (use command: C:\WINDOWS\microsoft.net\Framework64\v2.0.50727>aspnet_regiis.exe -i)
Allow ASP.NET 2.0 to ‘run’ in the security profile (IIS Snapin > Your Server > Web Service Extensions > select the ASP.NET 2.x.xwhatever version it is and select ‘Allow’)
Run ‘sharepoint.exe’ <- 64 bit version
Install your ‘application template core’ command (repeat with other apps you’re using, example might be ‘HelpDesk.wsp’, etc:
1. stsadm -o addsolution -filename <file_path>\ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp
2. stsadm -o deploysolution -name ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp -allowgacdeployment
On your OLD sharepoint portal server run this command to ‘back it up’:
1. stsadm -o backup -url http://youroldserver -filename C:\YourFile.bak
2. stsadm -o restore -url http://yournewserver -filename C:\YourFile.bak

Now: Victory happy dance! Thanks to jorge_toriz on Experts Exchange I avoided a TON of headache, anguish, curling up into a ball and crying myself to sleep, etc. I didn’t even have to reboot!

Total life saver. Thanks be to you oh great one jorge_toriz…kudos!

* Note: If you can add to this please post it and I’ll update my post. I didn’t include every detail of the process but if you can manage these general steps without much hand holding you’re golden

** Note: I bumped into that post because I couldn’t use the built in Sharepoint Backup and Restore function because it was continually bombing out on the search portion even after deleting the sites, databases, contents, etc it just wouldn’t work. I was getting this error: “Object WSS_Search_New Servernamehere(previous name: WSS_Search_OldServernamehere) failed in event OnRestore. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory.”

*** Note: One last thing, if stsadm isn’t ‘working’ for you; you need to migrate to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>” via the command line.

Let me know if this helps anyone because it sure saved me, I can’t keep saying it enough. This tip was so great I’d PayPal him a donation for the help!

Rebuilding a Windows 7 Profile like you do in Windows XP

So you go to the c:\users\whateverusername you’re working on and rename the user profile, log in and it loads a temporary profile in Windows 7! What is happening? In Windows XP, 2000, etc you could just do a rename on the user folder and log in, Windows would then log them in, create the profile and you could copy files over but in Windows 7 it seems you can’t do this anymore. I found the answer here on a Windows 7 forum.

What you do is this (thanks to sat450):

Restart your PC to release the locks on your profiles. <- I didn’t have to do this, just logout
Log on with another administrative account.
Delete C:\Users\%username% <- I would recommend doing a rename, username_old or something
Delete C:\Users\TEMP <- That didn’t exist for me once I logged them out
Delete the registry key matching your SID from “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList”. Check the value “ProfileImagePath” to make sure you pick your own profile. <- When you click on the SID’s you’ll see the path thus you’ll be able to identify the user “c:\users\username” Restart once again and then you’re done! <- I didn’t have to do this, just log in

This was certainly useful information and worthy of posting! I had to do this because of an Outlook error I couldn’t overcome, Outlook failed to start…I’ll post that exact error when I think about it. You reconfigure outlook and import your old mail and contacts – done!

Virtualmin – Failed to save scheduled backup – Let me know if this helps with a comment!

I had this problem but failed to find a quick answer so I clicked the little explanation link and that had my answer :p

VirtualMin web hosting server backup error: “Failed to save scheduled backup : Deletion of old backups is only supported when a date-based destination is used, and strftime substitutions are enabled”

You can easily fix this by having your backup path and “file name” correctly formatted like this:

/backup/yourfilenamehere-%d-%m-%Y

It wants a properly formatted file name with variables that it’s looking for, if you click on the text with the explanation link: Do strftime-style time substitutions on file or directory name

You’ll see what it’s looking for:

%d The day of the month as a decimal number (range 01to 31).
%m The month as a decimal number (range 01 to 12).
%Y The year as a decimal number including the century.

ClamAV for Windows Mail Servers

There are any number of antivirus applications that scan email. One of the most prolific email scanners in the world happens to be ClamAV. You probably don’t realize this if you’re a traditional Windows user because you’re used to using something like McAfee, Norton (a.k.a Symantec), Avast, AVG and there are many many more I’m not mentioning. Most of those people recognize because they have a large desktop presence. I’d guess though that ClamAV scans more email than all the others combined. Why? Because it’s native to Linux, it’s primarily used on Linux mail servers and companies like Barracuda use it for their email SPAM filter in addition to just about every Linux web host on the planet. ClamAV mostly lives on web hosting servers and appliances, dedicated hosts on your network (like a Barracuda SPAM Firewall) that primarily does one thing and they do it well (by the way, this is by no means a kudos for the Cuda, I’m merely mentioning them out of convenience) . Additionally, appliances are typically easy to setup. You answer a few simple configuration questions and like any Ronco product you “set it and…FORGET IT“.

You can also run ClamAV on a Windows Mail Server but it’s not as easy as 1-2-3. Because I’m familiar with Linux I might have had an easier time than a newb but who knows. I thought it valuable enough to make my configuration available for download. I had to make a few configuration changes to the default ClamAV download.

For the record:

You can download the base stuff for Windows ClamAV here (Not sure there’s a 64 bit version?): ClamAV Win 32

I had to add some directories, mod some config files and then it worked without a problem, my version here: Configured ClamAV Win 32

You must unzip / unpack / extract (<– Whatever term you like to use) to c:\clam-devel

* You can change that directory if you want, you just need to modify the clamd.conf file I believe

Kerio Connect or other Windows mail servers:

I originally looked into this to run a Kerio Connect mail server’s virus scanning instead of using a “commercial” antivirus package (like any of the afore mentioned). I found the Kerio instructions for ClamAV a bit dated so if you’re running one you should be able to use this package just fine out of the box. Just unzip and double click “start_clamd_service.bat” in the c:\clam-devel directory.

Here is the Kerio Connect KB on running ClamAV Win32 on your server: Link

I didn’t turn clamd.exe into a daemon (Windows Service) because I don’t think I’m rolling this out but if I did roll this out I’d certainly move forward with kicking this off as a service I could start and stop.

As always you comments are appreciated, if for nothing else than to know it helped out and my posts aren’t just useless bits and bytes :)

* If you’re looking for ClamAV for desktops / workstations check that out here: ClamAV for desktops

DHCP Server Callout – how to filter DHCP requests via mac address in Server 2003 / 2008

How can you filter DHCP requests in Windows so only “approved” clients get a network address? This is actually native to Linux after tweaking the dhcpd.conf file but hasn’t been a Windows feature until recently and is now native to Server 2008 R2. My layer 2 switch doesn’t do NAC so I had considered rolling out a Linux DHCP server to meet my needs. I personally think that Linux DHCP servers are much stronger than Windows DHCP however, this is a nice stop gap measure until I can implement a Linux DHCP server or if it works well I might forgo implementing the Linux server.

I ran into this article on a site I’ve used as a resource before, PETRI IT Knowledge base –> Link to article. So to get this going download the “Mac Filter Installer” –> here or from my site –> here (just in case they took the download off the M$ blog site). The PETRI site doesn’t explain how to implement DHCP MAC filtering and the M$ blog doesn’t either although the comments from others do help. I thought I’d fill you in on how to implement Windows DHCP MAC Filtering from start to finish (here’s the link to the M$ blog that also hosts the download –> here)!

Extract the zip file
Double click the installer for your architecture, x32 or x64 (the “manual” gets put into %systemroot%\system32\SetupDHCPMacFilter.rtf but the “config” stuff is put into %systemroot%\system32\dhcp”)
Navigate to: %systemroot%\system32\dhcp (click start > run > copy and past that into the dialog box and click OK to get there or just use explorer to get there)
Edit MACList.txt file, that’s where you want to put your filter of “allowed” addresses but note you can also do a “DENY” in place of the “ALLOW” to “deny” particular addresses but by default it’s set to allow only the MAC addresses in the list and is how I’ve got it configured and running.

My example config:

MAC_ACTION={ALLOW}
00E941007661 # My Cool Comment Here!!!
# You can also just make a comment
# Each one of these –># is “ignored” just like a Linux config file :P

Once you edit your file, and you put all your approved MAC addresses in the MACList.txt restart DHCP: start > run > cmd > OK > type in:

net stop dhcp

net start dhcp

Open: %systemroot%\system32\dhcp\MacFilterCalloutErrorLog.txt <– Check for errors!

If you see no errors (I had errors because I was using a MAC address like 00-00-00-00-00, it doesn’t like the “-“) then you’re golden. Also note that an easy way to get MAC addresses into your MACList.txt file is to export your current list from DHCP. Open the DHCP mmc snap in and navigate: DHCP > Your server.domain > Scope > Address Leases; right click “Address Leases” and then click “Export List”. Drag that text file into an Excel program, sort the list, copy it and past it into your MACList.txt file. Restart DHCP and you’re DONE!

This is an additional layer of security to keep honest people honest. If you can implement switch layer NAC you’re much better off since people could still set a static IP address that matches your IP network and successfully get onto your network however; using this method of DHCP MAC filtering you’re much better off than not having it since most people won’t know you can do that. I’d expect anyone with an ounce of IT in them to try a static IP and find one they can use but again; you’re better off implementing this than not implementing it!

Making an OpenFire Chat Server – Ignite Realtime

I was asked to implement a chat server and I did run into a few snags although overall; it wasn’t too bad of an experience. I’ve noted the issues and their resolution for everyone’s benefit so enjoy! This post is kind of in a “note form”, a list of commands without too much chatter. If you have questions feel free to ask.

Install instrucations: OpenFire Chat Server,Ubuntu with Red5

Reference: http://wp.evolutioncreations.com/2008/05/installing-openfire-on-ubuntu-804

Install Core Components:

Open a terminal, command prompt or whatever you want to call it :)

sudo -i

Type in your password and hopefully you’ll get a prompt with root access

apt-get install apache2

apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

apt-get install mysql-server

apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql phpmyadmin

nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

At the bottom of that file add this line:

extension=mysql.so

Save it, usually I have to do a ctl+alt+x if I’m ssh’d to the machine or if you’re right on the console just ctl+x.

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Install Java

apt-get install sun-java6-bin

That’s pretty much it for installing your core components, Apache, PHP, MySQL and Java.

Preliminary Troubleshooting issues to look out for:

Issue: Apache PhpMyAdmin issue fix – I had some errors with Apache2 and PhpMyAdmin because of missing conf files

Does /etc/apache2/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf exist? If not, does /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf exist?

If the first doesn’t exist and the second does, try this “fix”:

ln -s /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf /etc/apache2/conf.d/phpmyadmin.conf

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Issue: PhpMyAdmin issue

nano /etc/phpmyadmin/htpasswd.setup
* comment out the admin section

# admin:*

Pre-configuration for OpenFire:

Creating the DB’s – this is where I part ways with the reference site

MySQL Commands:

mysql -h localhost -u root -p

create database openfire;

CREATE USER ‘openfire’@’localhost’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘whateverpasswordyouwanthere’;

grant all on *.* to ‘openfire’@’%’ identified by ‘whateverpasswordyouusedhere’; flush privileges;

Now to “quit” your mysql prompt type in: \q

* Note that you can call your database and user anything you want, I use “openfire” out of convenience.

OpenFire Installation:

Download the latest release:

wget http://www.igniterealtime.org/downloadServlet?filename=openfire/openfire_3.6.4_all.deb <– Can be whatever latest is

*Note: it downloads the files as “downloadServlet?filename=openfire%2Fopenfire_3.6.4_all.deb” so you need to do a:
mv downloadServlet?filename=openfire%2Fopenfire_3.6.4_all.deb openfire_3.6.4_all.deb

dpkg -i openfire_3.6.4_all.deb
Browse to: http://yourhost.com:9090 it can also be http://ipaddresshere:9090

*Note: http://yourhost.com:9091 ← Secure Chat Channel

I think you get an “installation” page and you don’t have to logon the first time you hit that URL, it’ll walk you through the configuration upon first use, creating username and password, etc.

*Note: PhpMyAdmin Page URL: http://yourhost.com/phpmyadmin or http://ipaddresshere/phpmyadmin

Username: root

Password: Whatever_you_specified_at_setup_of_MySQL

*Note worthy:

Plugins directory for OpenFire on Ubuntu: /usr/share/openfire

Installing Red5 Plugin:

Site: http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/plugins-beta.jsp

cd /usr/share/openfire/plugins

wget http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/plugins-beta/red5.war

/etc/init.d/openfire restart

That should have downloaded the red5.war file and restarted openfire which THEN creates a “red5” directory in your plugins folder, the “red5” directory in the plugins folder will NOT be there until you do the above steps.

Red5 URL: http://yourhost.com:7070/red5/red5.html or http://ipaddress:7070/red5/red5.html

You can now login to your OpenFire Chat Server and navigate to the plugins directory, there you’ll see red5 in the list!

http://yourhost.com:9090/plugin-admin.jsp

Navigate to & configure your options for the red5 plugin:

http://yourhost.com:9090/plugins/red5/conf?action=display

Here’s the “sparkweb” page WITH Red5:

http://yourhost.com:7070/red5/sparkweb/index.html

Here’s the “sparkweb” page WITHOUT Red5:

http://yourhost.com:9090/login.jsp

Lastly! Here’s where you can find the red5-plugin for the SPARK Chat Client: /usr/share/openfire/plugins/red5/spark/red5-plugin.jar – just drop it in the plugins folder “C:\Program Files\Spark\plugins”, restart SPARK.

One of the ONLY bummers is the “video” on the web chat interface is tiny, I haven’t yet played with it enough to see if there are any options to make the video larger so it’s actually useful. You can use the Red5 server for a lot of things not just OpenFire Chat.

Pidgin IM Settings for OpenFire

Here are my settings for Pidgin that worked over a secure connection.

Basic Tab:

Username: Pretty straight forward one :p

Domain: This must be the name of your chat server (mine was “chat”)

Resource: I left that blank

Password: Again; pretty straight forward :p

* Remember password, warning – it’s saved in an XML file in plain text

Advanced Tab:

Connection Security: Ese encryption if available (note that if you mandate this setting it doesn’t work but if it’s “optional” it will choose to use the secure connection over the non secured one if you have port 5223 open to your chat server). After setting this I then went back and made it mandatory, not sure if setting it mandatory by default will work so let me know! :)

Connection port: 5222 (5223 didn’t work even though I confirmed the port is open)

Connect server: Whatever yours is, maybe an IP (10.0.0.200) or maybe a FQDN like chat.imawesome.net. * I recommend using the FQDN in case you change IP’s you don’t have to mess around.

Proxy Tab:

Proxy type: No Proxy

Once you get all those settings in you’re golden! This is only if you want to use Pidgin IM as a chat client. If you’re going to use the web chat feature with “fastpath” you need to have the spark chat client (which is actually pretty nice!).

Deny Hosts – locking down ssh login attempts or securing ssh

Much of the content for this post comes from a post by “zcat” on fadorasolved.org in 2008.

I’ve only had to do this on CentOS so if you have any pointers for Ubuntu let me know. I don’t happen to have any externally facing Ubuntu SSH servers to lock down at the moment :P

You can run these commands to see interesting data on sshd information:
Top 5 most recently attacked accounts:
lastb | awk ‘{print $1}’ | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -5

Top 5 most attacked accounts:
awk ‘gsub(“.*sshd.*Failed password for (invalid user )?”, “”) {print $1}’ /var/log/secure* | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -5

* Ubuntu’s log is /var/log/auth.log so change “/var/log/secure*” to “/var/log/auth*”

Top 5 attacker IP addresses:
awk ‘gsub(“.*sshd.*Failed password for (invalid user )?”, “”) {print $3}’ /var/log/secure* | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -5

* Ubuntu’s log is /var/log/auth.log so change “/var/log/secure*” to “/var/log/auth*”

Thanks to the above commands you can see how desperately you need DenyHosts! Here’s their homepage (–> link) and the author of DenyHosts is LOOKING FOR A JOB and you’d be NUTS to pass up on that talent! On the SourceForge page they have newer versions, I haven’t installed the newer version yet because the version I installed below works well on CentOS 5.5 Final.

Download denyhosts:
wget http://centos.karan.org/el4/extras/stable/i386/RPMS/denyhosts-2.5-1.el4.kb.noarch.rpm

Install denyhosts:
rpm -i denyhosts-2.5-1.el4.kb.noarch.rpm

Turn denyhosts “on”:
/sbin/chkconfig denyhosts on

Edit your configuration file – modify as per your requirements:
nano /etc/denyhosts.conf

* Issues with some OS’s here’s what you need to do if you get this error: ImportError: No module named DenyHosts.python_version
* You need to find out how many python packages you have but if you DON’T CARE just run the below command
mv /usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/DenyHosts /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/DenyHosts

Now start denyhosts *warning* this can take a while as denyhosts seems to search through your log files and depending on how you configured it; it’ll add all the offenders to the list which is great!

/sbin/service denyhosts start

Done!

* Update here for installing denyhosts on CentOS 6 *

Open a command prompt and add the EPL repository by typing:

su -c ‘rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-5.noarch.rpm’

yum install -y denyhosts

* Reference – I used “For EL6”: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/FAQ#How_can_I_install_the_packages_from_the_EPEL_software_repository.3F

IE 7, IE 8, waiting for http://, slow Internet, intermitant Internet or pages only partially loading

OK! So if you’re having problems of “slow Internet”, Internet Explorer telling you in the bottom left that it’s “waiting for http://…” whatever website you’re viewing then this might be of use for you if you manage a Windows domain.

It’s a DNS problem. Are you on a domain? Are you behind a router or firewall? Do you have your own DNS server on a local domain?

For those of you who are on your own private network using a Windows Server for DNS what you need to do is this:

Open your DNS management console
You’ll see it says DNS > Your_Server, click on your server
Right click “Forwarders” > Properties
Under the “Forwarders” tab make sure the checkbox for “Use root hints if no forwarders available” and make sure you have your ISP’s DNS servers in your list.
You might want to bump the “timeout” setting from 3 seconds to 1 or 2 (shouldn’t be a problem)
Lastly on your servers IP settings (NIC, under IP4 if you have Server 2008), make sure that under your tcp / ip settings you specify ONLY 127.0.0.1 for your DNS server

Do not have any other servers listed because the above “Forwarders” takes care of forwarding any DNS queries your local server doesn’t know anything about. I read lot of stuff on the net when looking into this about the browser being the problem (and maybe it is for you) but for me it wasn’t the browser at all!!!

* By the way, Windows XP machines seemed to be unaffected by this and I’m not entirely sure why OTHER THAN they might be far more forgiving with a DNS misconfiguration, Windows 7 seems to be MUCH MORE sensitive to DNS than Windows XP.