A Technical Guy’s Blog

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

Most recent Dell notebook comes with SATA harddrive and Windows Vista preloaded. For those who wish to install Windows XP over Vista, you might run into problems because your XP CD doesn’t come with SATA driver support.

In other words, you will get an error message of disk can not found when booting your XP installation CD. To fix this,

1. Copy ALL content in your Windows XP CD into your computer
2. Go to Dell Support to download SATA Driver for your notebook model (under Windows XP)
3. Follow this guide to Slipstreaming SATA driver into XP bootable CD using nLite
4. nLite create the new image file burn into a bootable new XP CD with SATA support!

I always believe running a web hosting business is not easy. You can have a Plesk system to manage your web hosting customers, but you can’t easily filter out those customers who are abusing your web server, running malicious script that loop forever in your server…

Yet, price war makes business owner to believe that monthly web hosting fee should not be any expensive than buying a McD meal. You will be surprised that many online business owners are subscribing to cutting-throat web hosting package, while hoping their online business to grow as second Google.

Share with us your hosting experience

One thing I’ve noticed over the months, it seems that keywords relating to ’streamyx’ are relatively popular, especially on network setup, fixed IP, Streamyx DNS, etc. I’ve been using Streamyx when it first launched.

This is definitely not another pay-per-post article, or a replacement of FAQ to Streamyx official website. I wish my little share can help.

Advantage of signing up fixed IP package
Streamyx offers their broadband packages in fixed or dynamic IP package. Fixed one is generally more expensive even with same bandwidth. If you run some file server or VPN and would like to allow outside access, you might need this. One good thing is, my office subscribed to fixed IP package for roughtly more than 5 years and the IP address never changed. If you are looking for how to setup the ADSL Modem for Streamyx Fixed IP Package, check this out.

What is the DNS of Streamyx
Most people search for the DNS of Streamyx. I guess this is because you want to key in into your Router and make resolving faster. Check this out, TM’s primary nameserver (202.188.0.133) and secondary nameserver (202.188.1.5). If you need alternate nameserver of other network provider, or as the third and forth DNS in your router, or for some reason your TM’s DNS servers are down - check this out.

How to check Streamyx Email?
When you sign up with Streamyx, you get an email automatically. Through we don’t suggest you to use it, simply because it is not reliable and has serious Spam problem. If you need a email solution for your business, check this out. If you just need a Free email for your own personal use, sign up one from Gmail. Still, the quickest way to retrieve your Streamyx email is to go to webmail.tm.net.my, enter your username (xxxx@streamyx.com) and password. If you want to setup your email in your email clients, both the incoming and outgoing mail servers are pop.streamyx.com and smtp.streamyx.com respectively. I couldn’t find Lost Password in Streamyx FAQ. If you lost your password, please call Streamyx directly.

I can’t send out my email?
Streamyx is blocking all SMTP server in its network except their own, which is smtp-proxy.tm.net.my. In TM’s press release, it is a measure to fight Spam filter our messages. This has created lot of email problem, check this out.

What can I do when my broadband is down?
Most of the time, you can fix the problem by restarting your router. Ask your neighbour, if the whole area is out of service, chances nothing wrong to your router. You can lodge a report with Streamyx, write down the case number and you can request for a refund/compensation to the downtime. I tried, it works. The rebate some in your next month bill.

How to setup Router?
Nowadays, you get a free Router with build in modem. If you have only one PC and you are fine without wireless, chances that you just need to plug and play and setup should be pretty easy. But, most of the time, this is not the case. Many of you prefer a wireless environment. Remember to buy wireless router with build in modem, so that you don’t have to use the one comes with TM. But, if your router doesn’t come with build in modem, then you will need to connect your router to TM’s modem. In this case, remember to disable the router capability in your TM’s modem, this is crucial to your Streamyx network setup.

ADSL Modem Setup for Streamyx with Fixed IP

List of Commands

Add New User

/usr/sbin/groupadd <groupname>
/usr/sbin/useradd <username> –g <groupname>
chown <username>.<groupname> /path/to/usernamefolder
chmod 755 /path/to/usernamefolder

Set User Password

passwd <yourusername>
<enter new password>
<enter again new password>

Check RPM Status

rpm –q <rpmname>
Eg. rpm –q imap

Extract a .tar File

tar –zxvf <filename>

Manual on a Specific Command

man <command>
Eg. man sendmail

End a Session

Ctrl + Z

./<command>

[root@kuittho /usr]# ./edquota
Specifies that the command edquota is located inside current folder [...]

Configure Virtual Server as Zope Server

Download current version of Python (2.3.5 or later) from http://www.python.org/download/.
wget –P /usr/src/ http://www.python.org/ftp/python/version/Python-version.tgz

Unpack and install current version of Python (2.3.5 or later). Using the instructions in README.txt.
tar –zxvf /usr/src/Python-version.tgz
cd /usr/src/Python-version
./configure
make
make install

Download current version of Zope (2.7.8 or later) from http://www.zope.org/Products.
wget –P /usr/src/ http://www.zope.org/Products/Zope/version/Zope-version-final.tgz

Download current version of Zope (2.7.8 or [...]

Configure Virtual Server as Mailman Server

Check if python is installed
rpm -qa | grep –I python

tar –zxvf mailman-version.tgz

Add Mailman group and user
groupadd mailman
useradd -c “GNU Mailman” -s /sbin/nologin -M -g mailman mailman

Create mailman folder in default prefix /usr/local/mailman
mkdir /usr/local/mailman
cd /usr/local/mailman/
chgrp mailman .
chmod a+rx,g+ws .

Install Mailman from /usr/src/mailman-version
./configure –with-mail-gid=mail –with-cgi-gid=apache
make
make install

Check and fix any permission error
Check file [...]

Configure Virtual Server as File Server

In the terminal, type startx to launch the Gnome interface

Enable run level 2, 3, 4 and 5 for Samba service using chkconfig.
chkconfig –level 2 smb on
chkconfig –level 3 smb on
chkconfig –level 4 smb on
chkconfig –level 5 smb on

Install samba-swat rpm that allows web-based administration of Samba service. Set swat in [...]

Backup

We use scp to transfer backup file in each server to a centralized backup server. We need to setup quick login with ssh Client Keys.

Generate a public/private key pair in the centralized backup server
ssh-keygen –t rsa
Just hit Enter when asked, this leave the passphrase empty.
This created two files, ~/.ssh/id_rsa and ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.

Copy id_rsa.pub to the server [...]

Monitoring

Nmap has the ability to test out open ports and discover what version of software is running.
nmap -O -p 1-65535 <host>

Offline Installation

The following steps need to be done for new network environment after offline installation.

/etc/resolv.conf, to add in more DNS server

/etc/sysconfig/network
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=<hostname>

/etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
<IP> <hostname> <hostname in short>

Eg:
203.115.228.142 it-lodge.ywso.com it-lodge

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

Remove BROADCAST=192.168.0.255 and NETWORK=192.168.0.0

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 (if any)

/etc/sysconfig/iptables

Set correct date on both system clock and hardware clock with the following command:
Set the system [...]

Default Setup

Run crontab –e to add the following setting:
MAILTO=root
0 6 * * 5 /sbin/shutdown -r now
0 2 1 * * /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop; rm -f /etc/httpd/logs/*; /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start

Install info.php in /home/admin/web/php-bin
touch /home/admin/web/php-bin/info.php
vi /home/admin/web/php-bin/info.php
<? phpinfo(); ?>

Install phpMyAdmin in /home/admin/web/php-bin/phpmyadmin
wget –P /home/admin/web/php-bin http://<latest_phpmyadmin>
tar –zxvf /home/admin/web/php-bin/phpMyAdmin-latest.tar.gz
rm /home/admin/web/php-bin/phpMyAdmin-latest.tar.gz
mv phpMyAdmin-latest phpmyadmin
vi phpmyadmin/config.inc.php
$cfg['PmaAbsoluteUri'] = ‘http://<hostname>/php-bin/phpmyadmin/’;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = ‘http’;
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] [...]

LogWatch

Edit Logwatch configuration file at /etc/log.d/logwatch.conf
Detail = High

Webalizer

Webalizer is a web server log file analysis program, which produces usage statistics in HTML format for viewing with a browser. The results are presented in both columnar and graphical format, which facilitates interpretation. Yearly, monthly, daily and hourly usage statistics are presented, along with the ability to display usage by site, URL, referrer, user [...]

CGIWrap

Assume we have main web root directory at /home/admin/web, and we would like to have CGIWrap transparently at the background. The cgi-bin folder is located inside web folder. Please change both the user and group in httpd.conf to apache.

tar -zxvf cgiwrap-version.tar.gz

./configure –with-cgi-dir=web/cgi-bin –with-httpd-user=apache –with-install-dir=/home/<user>/web/cgi-bin

make

make install

Update the httpd.conf file with
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ “/home/admin/web/cgi-bin/”
RewriteEngine On
RewriteMap lowercase int:tolower
RewriteRule ^/cgi-bin/(.*) [...]

PHP

PHP is a server-side, cross platform, HTML embedded scripting language. Learn more of PHP from http://www.php.net

You need php-mysql package to connect to a MySQL database. Download and install php-mysql-version.rpm. It is better to install a version of php-mysql that match with your native php and mysql that shipped together with your current Linux software.

Update [...]

MySQL Database Server

MySQL database server (http://www.mysql.com) is the world’s most popular open source database. With more than five million active installations, MySQL has quickly become the core of many high-volume, business-critical applications. MySQL has the capabilities to handle most corporate database application requirements with an architecture that is extremely fast and easy to use.

rpm -qa [...]

Apache HTTP Server

The Apache HTTP Server Project (http://httpd.apache.org) is an effort to develop and maintain an open-source HTTP server for modern operating systems including UNIX and Windows NT. The goal of this project is to provide a secure, efficient and extensible server that provides HTTP services in sync with the current HTTP standards.
Apache has been [...]

Sendmail

The sendmail program is installed by default. Type rpm -q sendmail to view sendmail version number.

By default, the date for /etc/mail/*.db is not correct and therefore you need to re-make the *.db file before you can start sendmail properly.
makemap hash /etc/mail/access < /etc/mail/access
makemap hash /etc/mail/virtusertable < /etc/mail/virtusertable
makemap hash /etc/mail/domaintable < /etc/mail/domaintable
makemap hash /etc/mail/mailertable < [...]

FTP Server

File Transfer Protocol is a way of transferring files over the Internet from one computer to another. You can connect to a FTP server, browse directories and transfer files. Red Hat Linux comes with different or updated version of FTP daemon with each release. Newer versions of Red Hat no longer support the wu-ftpd, [...]