AntiSystem :: No Good System

This application is installed by default under Menu > Network

When opening application it automatically connects to #linuxmint channel.

To change your nickname go to xChat > Network List

I have to connect to UnderNet network. For this I select it, press Edit and add more servers (servers that are near you. Anyway the ideea is more servers to try to connect to, more chances to connect quicker when the network is busy !)

Add also some

Here you can also add the channels that you want to connect to automatically.

Why I need this to be always ready to connect to is that there are many situations where other means of communications are down. Remember September the 11th 2001 ? IRC channels where the only one that managed to stay up when everybody was trying to connect by phone or messengers with other peoples.

Some months ago there was a little earthquake (4-5′). Tried to contact my family by phone … not a chance. All mobile networks were down in the area. That time it was eassy to get news about family via Yahoo Messenger. But that was a small event. Imagine on more important events … is always good to have all communication means ready to be used !

I have installed an Ubuntu 8.04 TLS server for some testing.

By default the server version does not install any desktop. I am used to KDE and I was interested in testing also this on the server. I will have to install such a server to a client and you never know what the client will want in details.

To install the KDE I have performed following command lines:

# sudo apt-get install xinit
# sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

# sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop // for installing Gnome desktop

After these the server will start by default using the KDE logging manager. This is not a good thing because it will consume unnecessary resources. You may need the desktop some day but this will be an exception.

After searching the net for a way to have the X server start only at command startx I found that the runlevels in Ubuntu are somehow different than the same runlevels in other distributions.

In the end I have found the way of disabling the auto start of the KDE log in manager.

# sudo update-rc.d -f kdm remove

If you have installed Gnome than you have to run

# sudo update-rc.d -f gdm remove

The result of this command will be the deletion of all entries related to KDE from the /etc/rcX.d where X is the runlevel (1-6, S).

After reboot of the system you will have to login first then enter the command startx to launch the KDE desktop.

Testing and installing  all kind of Linux distributions and several applications, I needed many times to delete folders in the ssh console.

If the folder is empty is no problem:

root$: rmdir /srv/www/web1

If [web1] folder is empty the folder will be deleted with no error.

If web1 folder contains files somewhere bellow, then an error will be display pointing out that the folder is not empty and the folder will not be deleted.

Directory not empty

To delete all sub folders and file bellow a folder you will have to use:

root$: rm -rf /srv/www/web1

Webmin is a web based control panel that integrates with many unix operating system. It gives you the ability to control and see most of the processes and applications running on the machine, gives you the possibility of updating application installed on the server, creating clusters with other servers in the network and many other features.

It can be downloaded form www.webmin.com under a few forms depending on the distribution type on witch the application will be installed !

For RPM based application after you download the rpm file, open the console and write following:

rpm -U webmin-1.450-1.noarch.rpm       // we have in this moment version 1.450-1

The installation goes with no user intervention or configuration from the users part. The installation of webmin on openSUSE 11.1 goes with no problem on a fresh installed server.

For non RPM distribution you have to download the tar file. After having the file on the server machine following commands must be triggered in the console:

[root@ /tmp]# gunzip webmin-1.450.tar.gz
[root@ /tmp]# tar xf webmin-1.450.tar
[root@ /tmp]# cd webmin-1.450
[root@ /tmp/webmin-1.450]# ./setup.sh /usr/local/webmin

• The Webmin configuration directory
  The directory in which all Webmin configuration information is stored. This is now separate from the Webmin install directory, so that configurations are saved when you upgrade.
  If you have previously installed Webmin and use the same config directory, this will be the only question asked.
• The Webmin log directory
  The location for pid and webserver log files.
• The full path to perl on your system
  This is usually /usr/bin/perl or /usr/local/bin/perl
• Your Operating system type
  In Webmin versions 0.990 and above, this question is only asked if your operating system cannot be automatically determined.
  The setup script will display a list of supported systems. If your OS is not on the list, you can try choosing the closest match. However this may not work properly, and may even cause serious problems!
• Web server port
  The TCP port that the Webmin web server will listen on.
• Web server login and password
  The login name and password used to access the Webmin web server.
• Web server hostname
  The hostname of the machine on which Webmin will run.
• Use SSL
  This question will only be asked if your system has the Perl SSL libraries installed. See below for more..
• Start Webmin at boot time
  If your OS is supported, Webmin will ask if you want to have it automatically started at boot time.

After that the application is ready to be used being accessible from a web browser at the address: https://localhost:10000

To be accessible from outside the network, port 1000 must be forwarded to the proper server (where webmin was nstalled) and also the firewall on the server must be configured so that is accepts connections on this port.

The simplest way to open up port 10000 is to use one of the Webmin firewall management modules, such as Linux Firewall, BSD Firewall or IPFilter Firewall. However, to access this you’ll need to run a brower on the same system as Webmin, and access it via the URL http://localhost:10000/.

The alternative is to login as root via SSH, and manually edit the firewall configuration file. On Redhat and derived systems, this is /etc/sysconfig/iptables, while on Debian it is /var/lib/iptables. The line you need to add is :

-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 10000 -j ACCEPT

It should be added in the file just after similar lines which grant access to ports 80, 22 and so on.

Once this line has been added, you will need to apply the firewall configuration. This is typically done with the command /etc/init.d/iptables restart .

Personally I like to install Webmin from source, because you have more freedom in choosing the port, installation paths https vs http access, defining a separat user for accessing Webmin, user that do not need to be unix user also!