Exchange 2003 virtual domains

If you have Exchange setup and want to accept email to more than one domain, you can by the following:

Open system manager.
Drill down to recipient policies.
Right click on the default policy choosing properties.
Amend as neccessary.

Should do the job.

Worldwide Recovery Systems

LCRM is proud to present the recently refurbished WWRS website.

Working closely with the team at WWRS has helped produce a satisfying end result.

Worldwide Recovery Systems build and supply many different types of vehicles including:

Service Vans
Multi-car carriers
Accident Units
Transporters
Trailers

The newly refurbished website provides a streamlined view of their vehicles.

WWRS also supply accessories such safetywear, lifting gear, lighting and more.

Take a look at www.worldwiderecovery.co.uk.

Exchange 2003 message size limit

To change the default size of allowed emails on Microsoft Exchange 2003.

Open System Manager, go to Global Config area, expand and right click on Message Sending.

Choose the defaults tab where you will be able to adjust both incoming and outgoing size limits.

IMAP Commands

Found a great website to help with useful IMAP commands:

http://bobpeers.com/technical/telnet_imap.php

Enjoy

Imapsync migration from Zimbra to Kerio

If you are setting up a new Kerio mail server and want to use imapsync to port across your emails, this following command helps to re-locate your email folders from the existing server into a nice way on your tidy new Kerio server.

imapsync –syncinternaldates –subscribe –ssl1 –ssl2 –authuser1 admin –user1 user1 –passfile1 /home/user1/.passwordfile –user2 olduser1 –passfile2 /home/user1/.oldpasswordfile –sep2 / –prefix2 “INBOX/” –nofastio1 –nofastio2

That should nicely transfer all existing emails into their respective folders underneath your new Kerio Inbox folder.

replace admin; user1; user2; /home/user1/{.passwordfile, .oldpasswordfile} with your details.

Enjoy

Costa

Zimbra Imapsync problems

Seems there has been a breakdown in communication between Imapsync developers and main distro developer teams – perhaps even perl – - who knows !!

Anyhow there is a problem at hand between Imapsync and Mail::Client.

Problem

Subroutine Authuser redefined at /usr/bin/imapsync line 2557.

imapsync needs perl lib Mail::IMAPClient release 2.2.9 exactly, future imapsync release may suppoort 3.0.x, but sorry not now. See file BUG_IMAPClient_3.xx

# Looks like your test died before it could output anything.

Solution

rpm --nodeps -e perl-Mail && rpm -ivh ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/dag/redhat/el5/en/i386/dag/RPMS/perl-Mail-IMAPClient-2.2.9-1.2.el5.rf.noarch.rpm

Enjoy

SSH Certificate No Password not working

Hi all,

For Linux administrators ,SSH is as important ,if not more so, than a watch.

Typing in a password every time a remote connection is established is detrimental to both workflow and security.

Using the tried and tested

cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh admin@remote.com 'cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys'

to bypass the password prompt is a great help.

However, it has been found that sometimes this doesnt work, the answer might be the permissions on the ‘authorized_keys’ file.

The solution (on the remote server – after executing the above command)

cd .ssh && chmod 600 authorized_keys

Now logoout and try to re-connect using ssh again

Hope this helps

Windows 2003 can’t find server name for address

This problem is rectified by adding PTR records:

I had this problem and resolved it by ensuring DNS replication of a reverse lookup zone for the subnet.

I also added PTR records for each DNS server to the domain and the reverse lookup zone.

Enjoy

How to re-install a package using YUM

If you use may distros you probably think ‘why hasnt yum got a re-install’..

me too

But i found a work-around

rpm -e --justdb --nodeps %packagename%

yum install %packagename%

Thats a way to ensure you only remove the specified package allowing you to use yum to reinstall it again.

Found the original article and info here

Enjoy

Linux DHCP server bind eth0

So I installed VMWare server and wanted to know how to set my DHCP server to listen on just eth0.

Simple answer on Fedora is to edit

/etc/sysconfig/dhcpd

add

DHCPARGS=eth0

Setting up VNC as a service

Hi all,

Question: Many times I wondered why is there a vnc service and why does it always fail on startup?

Answer: Simple configuration of the /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

Examples:

this sets up a remote desktop service for user ‘john’ with a resolution of 1024×768

edit /etc/sysconfig/vncservers

VNCSERVERS="2:john"

VNCERSVERARGS=[2]="-geometry 1024x768"

If you want more than one user to have access, do the following:

VNCSERVERS="2:john 3:paul 4:harry"

VNCSERVERARGS[3]="-geometry 800x600"

VNCSERVERARGS[4]="-geometry 1600x1200"

That’s it.

Restart your vnc service and add it to the startup line:

/etc/init.d/vncserver restart

chkconfig vncerver on

Enjoy

DogsBoutique Doing Well

Sales are up and we have the pooch of the month competition prize winner in.

Murphy, the ex RAF Spaniel won the competition this month.

Congratulations Murphy – looking forward to seeing you in store soon.

Setting up two printers on a single machines

If you have only one parallel port and need to connect two printers check to see if one has an ethernet port with an RJ45 connector, if so here is what you do:

Connect up your parallel port printer as needed and install as neccesary with drivers and such.

Find yourself a cross-over cable and and extra ethernet card, and manually connect up the second printer to the new network card.

Manually configure the second ‘Local Area Network Connection’.

Most probably the following setting will work on a Windows~ machine.

IP 192.168.2.1

Subnet 255.255.255.0

Gateway 0.0.0.0

DNS: <leave empty>

Follow the instructions to setup your ethernet card connected printer with the following configuration:

IP 192.168.2.2

Subnet 255.255.255.0

Gateway 0.0.0.0

Now add the new printer by Control Panel > Printers and Faxes, choose Local Printer but do not click the attached directly button.

Click next and then create your own port at the bottom by chooing TCP/IP.

Click next and just type 192.168.2.2 in the IP Address box.

Click next and you should instanty be shown the new printer successful install page – click Finish to Finish.

Thats the best way, you can then share those printers on your locally connected network. The serial pors for printers are useless and parallel port switch boxes are just very inconvenient on a network with more than one PC or laptop.

Enjoy

Ifconfig add an IP address

It’s easy, just run as root:

<code>ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.x netmask 255.255.25.0</code>

How to use a KVM 2-Port Switch

So, you just came across a 2-Port KVM switch and have hooked it up to two PC’s.

Now what ?

How on earth do you switch between machines……?

Simple !

Press the “Scroll lock” key twice

Now use the up/Down arrow key to switch between machines.

Simple, there you go.

Enjoy.

computing

Apple Airport Disk Utility

Hello all,

If like me you seem to be missing the Airport Disk Utility and have spent the last few hours searching through Apple’s website for a simple download then are in the right place and at the end of your journey.

Go to www.apple.com/downloads and look for the the most recent Airport Base Station update.

1. Download it and mount it
2. Right click and show package contents
3. Copy Archive.pax.gz to your desktop
4. Double click on the Archive.pax.gz file
5. Go to Archive.pax > Applications > Utilities
6. Copy Airport Disk Utility into /Applications/Utilities

Enjoy

apple

Hard Reset Nokia N95

Having to send my Nokia N95 back for the third time now, all with different problems.

Trying to reset the phone through the Tools menu to factory defaults still did not clear my calendar etc

Then i found out to use the network command:

<code>*#7370#</code>

Enjoy

Reboot, test and reset Apple TV

Hello,

So to access the service menu of the Apple TV to reboot the box just:

Hold down the ‘ Menu’ button and the menu scroll down button ‘ – ‘

Then select ‘Restart’ to reboot Apple TV.

Select diagnostics to run automated self tests.

Select ‘Factory Restore to reset Apple TV to how you first had it – probably deleting all music, photos off of it too.

Enjoy

apple

Creating an SSL certificate for your Apache webserver

This is my interpretation on setting up a self-signed SSL certificate for an Apache web-server.

The instructions are generic and apply to most versions of Apache on almost any Linux platform.

Firstly, I suggest creating a separate directory to store your SSL certificates e.g.

mkdir /var/www/ssl/mydomain

Now lets browse to the directory we just created:

cd /var/www/ssl/mydomain

We are using the ‘openssl‘ utility to generate our SSL certificate.

Firstly, we create a private key** using:

openssl genrsa -out mydomain.key

Now we generate a certificate signing request or CSR for short using:

openssl rsa -in mydomain.key -out mydomain.csr

Fill in the appropriate fields with relative information….

and, finally create the self-signed certificate using:

openssl x509 -req days 365 -in mydomain.csr -signkey mydomain.key -out mydomain.crt

This creates a selfsigned ‘mydomain.crt’ for 365 days.

**For safety only allow root to read the private key using:

chown root mydomain.key && chmod 600 mydomain.key

apache, linux

DogsBoutique Best Pup Competition

http://dogsboutique.co.uk are running a monthly competition to find the most pampered pooch.

The winner will win £25 to spend in-store or on-line.

All you need to do is to email us a picture of your groomed model perfect pooch with his name and a contact email address- that’s it!

The competition is running through January only at present but, if it proves popular – it will be back!

email: info@dogsboutique.co.uk with subject “DogsBoutique pooch of the month competition” and attach your image maximum 5MB in size.

Dogs Boutique

203 Baker Street

Enfield

Middlesex

London

EN1 3JT

E-mail us at info@dogsboutique.co.uk,

or give us a call on 020 8363 3299.

dog collar, dogsboutique

Ubuntu and Leopard – Appletalk

After spending about two days struggling I finally managed to network Ubuntu 7.10 and Mac OS X Leopard using AFP.

The final piece in the puzzle was

nano /etc/defaults/netatalk

I read many tutorials but, and not the 100%, complete one I ended with was here.

So thanks everyone

linux, ubuntu, apple, Leopard, appletalk

Create an m3u playlist

Using Linux BASH environment I needed to find a way to create m3u playlists.

I first trawled the Internet looking a program to automate this for me — none!

So I then decided to find the m3u file syntax to create my own by hand — none!

Reverse engineering an existing m3u (and speaking with an Apple creative genius) I found that m3u files are simply text files which point to mp3 files.

Simple I thought — just use a loop to write file names to an m3u file.

Therefore, current working directory ($CWD) /your/music, within $CWD we have many directories, listed by artist name i.e. /your/music/abba.

Furthermore, within artist directories we have albums i.e. /your/music/abba/album1; /your/music/abba/album2.

This procedure requires entering each album artist i.e. cd /your/music/abba == present working directory.

Now for the script:

for x in */*.mp3; do echo "$x" >> "${PWD##*/}.m3u"; done

Result

We have a file with the name of the artist i.e. abba.m3u which contains a list of all mp3’s within the albums !!

Voila – Amend as necessary

**UPDATED**

I created a new script file below that allows you to pass directories into – not 100% for everyone but its a good start.

1 – Copy the code into the script m3uplaylist.sh

#!/bin/bash
m3u="${1##*/}.m3u"
echo "m3u= $m3u"

for x in "$1"/*/*.mp3; do echo "$x" >> "/your/music/M3u/$m3u"; done


2 – add execute permissions chmod +x m3uplaylist.sh

3 – run sh m3uplaylist.sh /your/music !! do not add trailing ‘/’ !!

4 – [optional] run a for loop to recurse your main music folder for M in /your/music/*; do /bin/sh m3u-playlist.sh $M; done

Done I hope – let me know if you have trouble or can suggest improvements please

Enjoy !

** latest **

finished perfecting the script after many attempts and here is the final code

for i in /your/music/*; do find "$i" -maxdepth 3 -iname "*.mp3" > "$i/${i##'/your/music/'}.m3u";done</code?

BASH SubStrings

I used this command to truncate the beginnings of strings of text from files

for x in *.mp3; do echo "orig: ${x##*'text string'}";done

Another great article is here

and then to move them

for x in *.mp3; do mv "$x" "${x##*'text string'}";done

DogsBoutique

The work on Dogs Boutique has allowed me to use AJAX for the first time.

The Dogs Boutique website has an online store, selling products such as dog collars, dog beds, dog carriers, dog clothing, dog jewelery and more.

Dogs Boutique Online Store – Everything for your pampered pooch

Dogs Boutique also provides an in-house doggy holiday home service.

DogsBoutique now offers an online store for purchases 24 hours a day.

The shop can be found at http://dogsboutique.co.uk/mail-order

Folder and file sizes using Linux

Hi,

I have ben using Linux for ages and always wanted to know the size of folders when using the command line.

I often used ..


df -h


.. to find how much space was left on the system drives – but what if you were in a sub-directory of your device and wanted to know which folders were the culprits for eating your away at your ~500GB drive…


du -hs *


That code will tell you the disk usage (du), using options to display the results in human readable form (-h) summarizing the folders only (s).

The * will recurse the current directory displaying results for all directories within you current directory.

Enjoy

HSPA University Project

Hi,

Just finishing my BSc in I.T. and have chosen to write my 8000 word project report on HSPA technology.

Wikipedia has a great section on the past/present and future surrounding technologies such as W-CDMA.

Here is a brief list of the pages I found useful on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDMA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Data_Rates_for_GSM_Evolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSDPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Speed_Packet_Access
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSUPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QPSK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16QAM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_spectrum

A great book by a couple of Nokia employees also adds some real technical material to the mix:

#15 Tolma Harri; Toskala Antii; (2006) HSDPA/HSUPA for UMTS – High Speed Radio Access for Mobile Communications, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Wiltshire. [Available from Waterstones - priced ~£65.00 ISBN 0-470-01884-4]

I will be writing some more soon.

Gentoo Mac Samba Copy Problems

Hi,

If you have followed some instructions on setting up Gentoo and eventually have trouble with samba, I reckon its because your /etc/samba/smb.conf file is bloated with a hole load of unnecessary code.

It just needs to look like this:


[global]
workgroup = MSHOME
security = user
local master = yes

[homes]
valid users = %S
read only = no
browseable = no


That’s it!

Nice simple and secure. Allowing users to login to their home directories.

Enjoy

Mac OpenOffice Problems

Hi all,

Not wanting to buy Microsoft Office and having to use .doc files – I have OpenOffice 2.3 Aqua on my Mac.

It usually takes a while to load which is annoying – so after some searching I found a way to speed it up.

1) As superuser run the following :


sudo su -

nano /Applications/OpenOffice.org\ 2.3.app/Contents/MacOS/sofficerc

simply change 'Logo=1' to 'Logo=0'


To enhance the usability there are some more instructions at the link below:

http://www.zolved.com/synapse/view_content/28209/How_to_make_OpenOffice_run_faster_in_Ubuntu

(shown on Ubuntu Linux but can be applied to any OS)

apple

Right Click Kills Mac OS X Finder

Okay so you are working away day after day and every now and then when you right click on a folder or file all your Finder windows just up and disappear.

Oh that’s a bother but never-mind it will be back in a minute…… or two.

Basically its the contextual menu folder that has an issue and more specifically the StuffItCM.plugin (from stuffit & co).

Simple solution is to :

Go to “~/Library/Contextual Menu Items” or “/Macintosh_HD/Library/Contextual Menu Items” and delete the file StuffItCM.plugin.

Maybe a reboot or logout/login just to be safe and also empty your trash for good!

et voila

Let me know if this works for you with a quick thanks.

I found this out from the thread here.

N95 Hard Reset Code *#7780#

If like me you have constant issues with your Nokia N95 – and the factory default setting does nothing, you can always try the hard code *#7780#.

Always backup your data first and regularly before messing with any settings !

Linux Setting rsync to use a different port number

So you have tightened security on your main server by changing the default port number.

Once a week to backup your server data by using the rsync application on a local backup server – possibly even running a crontab script.

All of a sudden you get errors such as:


ssh: connect to host port 22: Connection refused
rsync: connection unexpectedly closed (0 bytes received so far) [receiver]
rsync error: error in rsync protocol data stream (code 12) at /SourceCache/rsync/rsync-24.1/rsync/io.c(359)


Why is this ???

The option rsh allows the desired port to be specified through ssh.

In the following example, the -r option specifies ‘recursive’; -z enables compression; –rsh=’ssh -p1234′ tells rsync to use port number 1234 for transfers/connection.

The code would look something like this:


rsync -r -z --rsh='ssh -p1234' /dir1 maybe@me.my.my.domain:/rdir --progress --stats


That’s it enjoy

Mac Desktop Blogging Software

Hi all,

After being pre-occupied for a while I decided to get back into writing on my blog.

I found it quite a hassle, however, as I am sure you also do – to have to keep opening a web browser, logging in, creating a new blog etc….

I thought it would be great to have a piece of software that I could write my blog article in, even when I am not able to login, although hardly ever nowadays.

DogsBoutique

The work on Dogs Boutique has allowed me to use AJAX for the first time.

The Dogs Boutique website has an online store, selling products such as dog collars, dog beds, dog carriers, dog clothing, dog jewelery and more.

Dogs Boutique Online Store – Everything for your pampered pooch

Dogs Boutique also provides an in-house doggy holiday home service.

If you are going on holiday and do not want to leave your precious pooch in kennels – Dogs Boutique is your answer. They provide a home-from-home service in a doggy friendly environment.

Doggy Holidays

Why not give them a call – not only are they highly experienced but there is also a dog grooming service on-site that has been established for over 30 years.

Dog Grooming Services

Zimbra backup Scripting

Hello all,

I have been busy working on some code that helps admins to backup their Zimbra email servers.

The link to the forum thread is here

I have had some good feedback from my posting and also created a Wiki page for Zimbra.

The link to the Wiki page is here

Blogged with Flock

Ubuntu Picard – No MP3’s

If you are using Ubuntu Feisty and cannot access any MP3’s after installing Picard – I found the best way is use the following procedure:

apt-get build-dep picard -y

apt-get install libtunepimp5-mp3 -y

apt-get source picard

cd picard* && python setup.py install

You can check if you now have MP3 support by open Picard and selecting Help >About.

Enjoy

Costa

Blogged with Flock

GIMP Scripting for the beginner

Well, it took me approximately three full days of trying and testing, using the Script-Fu console mainly, but I am happy to report that I now understand the way to use the GIMP command line.

I will try to report on my finding, some solutions and assist with future use of GIMP in the best way I can here in this blog.

A script has also surfaced that presents the results of my hard work. (Covered later)

Some of the problems I encountered when tackling this subject for the first time were:

• understanding the parenthesis syntax
• using and ssigning variables and their values

However for now I will just attach the script, which should be saved into ~/.gimp**/scripts/

Once done open gimp and Xtns/Script-Fu/Refresh Scripts…..hopefully no errors and you can access it by the toolbox menu Xtns > Script-Fu/Misc/Levels.

Please bear with me as i am writing this in a hurry and will amend it when i get a minute.

BloGTK

Using BloGTK on Linux is easy to write and upload blog entries on WordPress.

Thanks to the article here it was easy to setup as well.

Using Ubuntu (you may need to add multiverse and universe repositories), simply run:

apt-get install blogtk

Now open Applications > Internet > BloGTK.

In the Account and Prefernces window, use the following info:

Server URL: http://your.wordpress.com/xmlrpc.php
Username: Username
Password: Password
Bloggin System: MetaWeblog API

Now click SAVE and then OK.

In the main BloGTK window, select File Connect to get a list of your blogs.

Type away till your heart is content and then publish.

Custom Tags

To make full use of the tags available on WordPress.com, such as , open Edit > Custom Tags …

Tag Name: Code Tags
Start Tag:
End Tag:

NOW CLICK +ADD.

When back in the main window you can simply insert the code tags by selecting your code tag and clickling the big green tick arrow.

Have fun

Print Directory Listing to a csv file

If you have a whole load of music albums on your hard drive and want to print a listing of those you have:
dir -C -1 -N -R /music/ > music-listing.csv


This effectively uses the dir command with the options:

-C <- this allows the results to be formatted into columns, useful for our csv (comma seperated values) file

-1 <- this ensures only one entry per line

-N <- this removes any ‘\ ‘ characters, linux users know what I mean

-R <- this recursively lists the contents of each folder

/musc/ <- this is your folder location

> music.csv <- this is the output file, which the results are stored in

This will give a nice csv file, ready to be opened in OpenOffice or Micro$oft Excel.

It nicely lists the folders at the top and then the music tracks in the relevant recursive section below.

Something like this:

/mnt/western/Music Library/Various Artists/R&B Classics (disc 3):
01 Nelly – Dilemma (feat. Kelly Rowland).mp3
02 Blackstreet – No Diggity (feat. Dr. Dre).mp3
03 R. Kelly – Bump ‘N’ Grind.mp3
04 Aaliyah – Back & Forth.mp3
05 Fugees – Fu-Gee-La.mp3
06 Eve – Let Me Blow Ya Mind (feat. Gwen Stefani).mp3
07 Foxy Brown – Get Me Home (feat. Blackstreet).mp3
08 Next – Too Close.mp3
09 Mary Mary – Shackles (Praise You).mp3
10 Boyz II Men – I’ll Make love To You.mp3
11 India.Arie – Brown Skin.mp3
12 702 – Where My Girls At.mp3
13 Horace Brown – Things We Do for Love (feat. Jay-Z) (Eddie F’s Paradise mix).mp3
14 Erykah Badu – On & On.mp3
15 Solange – Feelin’ You, Part 1 (feat. Slim Thug).mp3
16 Dru Hill – In My Bed (So So Def remix).mp3
17 Jodeci – Freek ‘N You.mp3
18 Toni Braxton – You’re Makin’ Me High.mp3
19 Ginuwine – Pony.mp3
20 Alicia Keys – You Don’t Know My Name.mp3
cover.jpg

Ubuntu 7.04 – VMWare-Server Network Problem Solved

Hi,

Running the very cool Ubuntu and trying to setup VMWare-Server to host Vista.

If you cannot for the life of you get the networking to connect to your LAN – simply add the following to your vm’s .vmx file – using these steps:

1. locate your vmx file e.g vista.vmx (within the folder that you store your virtual machines in)
2.  scroll down to just under the line Ethernet0.present = “TRUE”
3. add, on a new line, ethernet0.virtualDev = “e1000″
4. restart /etc/init.d/vmware

et voila !!

worked a treat for me – from the original thread

Linux – Mount an iso image

This one is easy.

mount -o loop -t iso9660 variable.iso /mnt/isomount/

thats it !!

Enjoy

Nokia N95 + Mac PowerBook

So you just got your new Nokia N95 and not even the techies at the ISP know how to use it.

What do you do?

Hit the Google Hut!!

So in my case i needed to get the modem script for my Macintosh laptop. I found this a great resource

http://felipe-alfaro.org/blog/2007/02/11/mac-os-x-bluetooth-and-nokia-umts-phones/

You must basically complete the following steps, with a little tweaking along the way to get things right for you.

1 – download and install the modem scripts into /Library/Modem Scripts/
2 – pair the phone and laptop
3 – configure the new phone bluetooth device through System Preferences/Bluetooth/Devices/Configure
4 – these settings worked for me on t-mobile (more accurate instructions at the link above), GPRS ->> user == user, password == pass, GPRS CID String == general.t-mobile.uk, Modem Script == Nokia 3G CID1

if you need further instructions check out that link, also attached a document from a helpful chap at T-Mobile

Apple Mac Bluetooth Modem Guide for Nokia

Just got my new phone hooked up to my laptop.

Check out my first speedtest results on my mobile in my pocket, whilst sitting on a bench inconspicuously surfing at 100 miles an hour !!!!

And check out another….

Creating and working with ISO files

Found some great ways to create and convert .iso files using Linux.

There is a free PowerIso CLI for those who have used Windows before.

PowerISO for Linux – to convert .daa and others to .iso

http://www.poweriso.com/download.htm

Creating an iso image – simply

dd if=/dev/cdrom (or whatever) of=/somewhere/file.iso

thats it!!

enjoy

PXE Network Installations using Linux Servers

Hi again,

I’ve been busy testing out the way you can install an operating system, mainly Linux at this stage, directly from booting up your computer/server.

Server

• You need a server operating system, in this case I am using Fedora Core 6 – but I have also applied the principles to Ubuntu, capable of running DHCP and TFTP services.
• Enough hard drive space for the server operating system and also enough space to store the contents of the downloaded discs.

Client

• The minimum requirement is a network card, NIC, with a network boot ROM on and a hard drive with enough space for an operting sytstem of cours.

General Connections

• A network switch or hub is recommended, although a cross-over cable would suffice (and proably be fairly quick).

So, now onto the specific server requirements…

1. Download Fedora Core 6 here.
2. Burn the discs and install a minimum setup – this should help.
3. create a folder /Fedora and copy the dics 1 contents into this folder.
4. copy the contents of the directories Fedora/RPMS from each additional disc into the newly created folder /Fedora/RPMS/ (no need to overwrite anything).
5. make sure you have system-config-netboot/httpd/dhcp/tftp-server installed on the server system. use the command.

yum install -y system-config-netboot httpd dhcp tftp-server

DHCP.conf configuration/setup

• Supply information so that the connecting machines know the network details as to whewre to find the operating system installlation files. Soedit the config file using:

nano /etc/dhcp.conf

A basic configuration follows:

ddns-update-style none;
option domain-name-servers 192.168.0.1;
default-lease-time 86400;
max-lease-time 604800;
authoritative;
subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.0.200 192.168.0.229;
option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0;
option broadcast-address 192.168.0.255;
option routers 192.168.0.1;
filename “pxelinux.0″;
next-server 192.168.0.100;
}

An explanation,taken from the source of this dhcp tutorial found here, follows:
I explain the configuration options here:
* ddns-update-style: You can tell the DHCP server to update a DNS server if the IP address of a server in your LAN has changed (because it has been assigned a different IP by DHCP). As we do not run servers in our LAN or always give them static IP addresses (which is a good idea for servers...) we don't want to update DNS records so we set this to none.
* option domain-name-servers: This tells the DHCP server which DNS servers it should assign to a client. You can specify more than one DNS server here, seperated by commas.
* default-lease-time, max-lease-time: A client can tell the DHCP server for how long it would like to get an IP address. If it doesn't do this, the server assigns an IP address for default-lease-time seconds; if it does, the server grants the requested time, but only up to max-lease-time seconds.
* authoritative: If this is not set this means that if a client requests an address that the server knows nothing about and the address is incorrect for that network segment, the server will _not_ send a DHCPNAK (which tells the client it should stop using the address.) We don't want this so we set authoritative.
* subnet: The subnet to use.
* netmask: The netmask to use.
* range: Tells the DHCP server from which range it can assign IP addresses to clients. In our example it's from 192.168.0.200 to 192.168.0.229 (30 IP addresses).
* option broadcast-address: The broadcast address to use.
* option routers: Tells the DHCP server the gateway address it should assign to requesting clients. In our case the gateway is 192.168.0.1.

The last two lines I have added myself,
filename "pxelinux.0";
next-server 192.168.0.100;
this tells the network installation machine to load the “pxelinux.0″ image from the server 192.168.0.100.

Start the DHCP server using:

/etc/init.d/dhcpd start

Hopefully, no errors. now to ensure the dhcp server always starts after rebooting run:

chkconfig dhcpd on

Configure WebSite Alias

The install requires a running web-server from which the files are transferred to the new installation machine.

Therefore, we add an alias to the web-server, which we will call /fedora. The alias will point to the physical directory /Fedora. Open the web-server configuration file using:

nano /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

and add the directory with its alias to the end of the file:

Allow from 192.168.0.0/24
AllowOverride None

alias /fedora /Fedora

Network Boot Configuration/Setup

To install our initial netboot install run:

system-config-netboot

and choose “Network Install”.

Now add the name of your install – say “Fedora Core 6″.

Add the location of the install files, using 192.168.0.100/24 we add the line:

192.168.0.100/fedora

The location of our kickstart file will be at 192.168.0.100/fedora/ks.cfg

——————————————————————-

Hopefully, that should just about get you going with a great PXE nertwork install.

Please let me know if I can improve this tutorial or adapt it to suit your needs.

Costa

Easy Linux Encoding (FFMPEG)

Hi,

After much trying and testing I have found a viable solution to encoding movies using ffmpeg.

Simply put:


ffmpeg -i /movies/film.mp4 -b 800k -vcodec xvid -acodec mp3 -ab 192 -ar 48000 -vol 1500 /movies/film.avi -y


Breaking it down:

-i /movies/film.mp4: this specifies the input file
-b 800k: this sets the film bit rate (basically the quality of the output)
-vcodec xvid: uses the xvid codec to encode the video file (Linux users install xvidcore)
-acodec mp3: uses the popular mp3 codec to encode audio
-ab 192: sets a good scope for audio quality (sometimes depends on input bit rate)
-ar 48000: sets the highest quality sample rate (ensures quality audio)
-vol 1500: sets the volume (in case the sound is bad)
/movies/film.avi: the output file
-y: necessary if you want to overwrite without existing files without prompts (useful when testing)

Optional

-t 30: this allows only 30 seconds (variable in seconds) of encoding (so you don't have to wait for the whole film to encode before testing it works as expected)

Bash Script for multiple file encoding

If you want to encode multiple files using a for loop the code below will help:

N.B. assuming you are i the directory where your video files are stored.


for N in *
do
ffmpeg -i $N -b 800k -vcodec xvid -acodec mp3 -ab 44100 -ar 128 /videos/$N
done


there it is!

leave a comment if you need help

cheers

Free Anti-virus/anti-spyware

Hello,

Sooner or later your free trial of the Google Pack Norton Anti-viurs 2005 will be running out.

In anticipation of this, I can recommend you switch to an Open Source solution.

The application is call AVG-Free edition, which provides a real-time scanning utility with updates for Windows and Linux users.

In addition to this AVG-Free provide an anit-spyware application. This provides free updates, the free version provides real-time scanning for 30days and then defaults to free updates and manual scans there after.

more will follow….

Forums

Hello,

After many years of thinking that PHPBB2 was the only high quality forum. A need to research other options has come to light due to the ever present spammers allowed to roam free on our lovely Internet.

So during my research I decided to Google “forum matrix”. Low and behold someone has covered this topic down to the last tee.

The place to go if you want to set-up a forum/bulletin board for your website is http://www.forummatrix.org.

I am in no way saying that phpBB is not good, in fact it did me proud for a long-time and version 3 is due for release very soon. (after previewing the beta it looks as though it is maturing well).

The latest offer I have started to test is SMF (Simple Machines Forum) – and without doubt blows the socks off of any rivals. Coming soon to lcrm.co.uk.

SMF has a brilliant flash integration chat room, anti-spam plug-in, and all this works seamlessly. Its not only the most well presented, easy-to-use and administer, well documented and fun to setup – but it costs……… nothing at all !! You can’t beat that.

But if you want to compare just about every forum then go to the link above to view the forum matrix.

All the best

Cisco Security Basics

Hi,

Here are the basics for setting up a Cisco router:

Thanks to Neuromancer & Data Plumber for pointing out the initial commands and helping me with this blog. So, to prepare for entering configuration commands. The initial commands to enter into the system:

Router>enable
Router#configure terminal
Router(config)#

You are now ready to start entering commands to configure the system. The following are probably the most common and those neccessary to configure a working router.
Enable password-encryption (to ensure passwords are stored in a way that is unreadable to any chancer):

Router(config)#service password-encryption

Enable secret – higher encrypted authorisation.

Router(config)#enable secret password

Enable login using password authentication:

Router(config)#enable password password

Enable console password authentication:

Router(config)#line console 0
Router(config-line)#password password
Router(config-line)#login
Router(config-line)#exit

Enable virtual terminal password authentication (for the five available logins):

Router(config)#line vty 0 4
Router(config-line)#password password
Router(config-line)#login
Router(config-line)#exit

Set the hostname of your Router:

Router(config)#hostname Cisco1
Cisco1(config)#

Set the banner displayed when greeted by the router:

Cisco1(config)#banner motd # Authorised access only #

If, like me your router is too small to hold a newer ISO image. You can do one of two things – a) like I now have, buy memory upgrades (from ebay) or b) store your newly purchased IOS image on a tftp server and load it at boot time.

Cisco1(config)#boot system tftp 2500-io-l.122-5.bin 192.168.0.100

Breaking the last down, the first tells the router to read this boot line first, it then reads that we are booting a system file, the third part says that we are retrieving an image from a remote tftp server (this tftp server must be on a network connected to one of the configured interfaces) — this is not a configuration file, which is separate and stored in nvram, which is loaded into ram during the bootstrap,next is the IOS image, this will vary entirely on you, lastly is the address of the tftp server — there thats it, just saved £30 on a memory upgrade

So now you have your system quite nice and customised to your liking – you better save it!

Cisco1(config)#end //you can also hit CTRL-Z
Cisco#copy running-config startup-config


Hmm, I wonder which version of software I am running and how much memory I have.

Cisco1#show version
Cisco1#show flash

Configuring RIP routing protocol, so that a router can act as an intermediary between two networks. In this example we are traversing networks 192.168.0.0 and 172.16.0.0.


Cisco1#conf t
Cisco1(config)#router rip
Cisco1(config-router)#network 192.168.0.0
Cisco1(config-router)#network 172.16.0.0
Cisco1(config-router)#end
Cisco1#copy run start


Zimbra

Keep your eyes on the Zimbra project at zimbra.com as they are soon due to release version 4.5 of the groupware application.

It provides administrators with a great deal ofr features within the web front administration section. The previous versions required you to input them all by hand, which is a real nightmare.

I can report that, during the Christmas period, spammers were hitting my clients hard with phishing scams. I am confident that Zimbra is holding up well and will see my through without many problems.

This alone is a distinct advantage over competitors such as Scalix – who seem to resent the idea of including anti-virus into there package. They provide scarce details on how it can be done and say that their application is fully compatible — well why not just do it and earn those valuable extra marks !!!

Back soon

Barnfield College

I recently attended a day school at Barnfield College, in Luton. I have for a long time wanted to train to be an MCP for unknown reasons.

Barnfield on the surface may not look like much – but after spending one day there ,on my Cisco Day School, I found out that it is a wealth of resources.

The tutor there, Bill Reed, was qualified to the 9’s with Microsoft and Cisco credits. He runs private classes and also works for both Barnfield and The Open University.

I will definitely be taken a course there after I finish my Honours degree. The prices he quoted me were very affordable, around £200-£250 for MCP and Cisco courses.

At present I can say that it would be worth the money and you will be taught by not only a good tutor but by someone who is passionate about his trade.

The link above is to the college but more on Cisco Academy courses are provided through the Open University.

Well-worth a look

&

In addition to the Packet Tracer simulation software, they have a netlabs environment set-up so you can login and practice your CCNA commands.

Either that or, like me, spend a few weeks (before the start of your course) searching ebay for Cisco equipment.

For those starting CCNA – I would recommend the 2514 routers (n.b. the model is the exact model), which provides ethernet connections through the old AUI connectors. Again, just search ebay for AUI to RJ45 Transceivers. The routers vary but I would.nt recommend paying more then £50 each. The transceivers are available from www.anthonypanda.com.

In addition, the Catalyst switches are a great buy, the 1924 provides 10MB connections – but don’t forget that network traffic will run faster if using a switch as opposed to a hub – therefore effectively making the network feel as if it is running well. The 2924 switches provide 100MB connections but are in great demand. This means that its pretty much up to the seller to charge what they want. However, around £50 should get one of the two, the latter if you are lucky.

Also, keep on the look-out for the CCNA books, the course material is online from Cisco Net-Academy so if you are away from an Internet connection – the books will be worth the money. Don’t forget that if you have the books you can still read-up on stuff after the course finishes.

All the best, that’s it for now.

Unlocking Nokia 6630 (from Vodafone)

Hello all,

This is for those of us with the excellent Nokia 6630 mobile phone, who want to change Networks to find a better offer – but keep the benefits of the great Symbian handset.

If like me you sign up for an amazing deal with Virgin or T-Mobile and try to insert your new card into your existing 6630 handset – you are no doubt greeted with a “Sim Restricted” message.

No doubt, and like me, most users with a 3G Nokia 6630 will be on the Vodafone network. You may have also scoured the many unlocking website, only to be told that “these phones cannot be unlocked”……

It is in my personal opinion, and first hand experience, that the people who tell you this do not actually own a Nokia 6630 of their own!!

I can 100% guarantee that it is possible to unlock these DCT5 phones for use with any network.

I lay out the instructions for you, and advise that the overall process took me just less than a week and cost me £0.00p yes – it is free!!!:

1. Make a note of you IMEI number (press *#06#).
2. From your mobile handset call 191.
3. Inform the operator that you have had your phone for approximately 18 months (very important as phones under a year old incur an unlocking fee).
4. Place a request for unlocking the phone with the operator.
5. Wait a few days (or call each day) and check the unlock status for your phone.
6. Make a note of the unlock code (when available) – it will be something like #pw+xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx+x#
   1. + is found by pressing * twice.
   2. p is found by pressing * three times.
   3. w is found by pressing * four times.
7. Make a note of your PIN number.
8. Enter the unlock code (#pw+xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx+1x#) where x represents a number.
9. Your phone should now say Restriction Off or something similar.
10. That’s it!! You can freely use your new sim card.

I am now very happily using my free minutes with a great deal from Virgin/T-Mobile and Telewest.

All the best