6/08 Outage

Posted by packetmad as Databases, Drupal, Linux, MySQL, OS, Website, Wordpress

Apparently we had a power failure today that my UPS wasn’t quick enough to take over for.

Everything is back up and running.

One database was corrupted but we were able restore it from this morning’s backup.
Backups will be more frequent during storm season.

Reduce / LV (ex. /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00)

Posted by packetmad as Linux, OS

1. Boot to systemrescue cd
2. vgscan
3. vgdisplay
4. vgchange -ay VolGroup00
5. e2fsck -f /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
6. resize2fs /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 xxG
Note: “xxG” is the size in Gigabyte the FS is being reduced to.

7. Repeat step #5
8. lvreduce -LxxG /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
Note: “-LxxG” is the same value as xxG in step #6 in this case.

9. Repeat step #5
10. Remove CD and reboot
11. vgdisplay -v | less
12. vgs
13. lvs
14. Create new LV’s to re-use space

Drupal Issue

Posted by packetmad as Daemons, Databases, Drupal, Linux, MySQL, OS, Scripting, Website, http, php

We are currently experiencing an issue with editing account information.
The problem is being researched and status will be provided when information is available.

The following sites are affected:

http://tech.kulish.com
http://family.kulish.com
http://www.iowajeep.net
http://www.racebus.org

D4rk Theme Issues

Posted by packetmad as Databases, Drupal, Linux, MySQL, OS, Scripting, Website, php

New Drupal theme issues:

(FIXED)1. Text – Links Too dark. The gray is a couple shades too dark for it’s background color.

(FIXED)2. Text – Black text, in text entry areas, is too dark. (search box)

(FIXED)3. Spacing – Spacing on articles and blocks.
There needs to be a CR between the controls of an article teaser and the title of the next.
In blocks, there needs to be a CR at the end.

(MOSTLY)4. Preview – white text on white background. Mostly fixed. You can now see the body but some fields, like author, still have some white text on white background. Comment preview works fine however.

Building a MySQL Capable Postfix RPM

Posted by packetmad as Daemons, Databases, Linux, MySQL, OS, smtp

Build Environment:
CentOS 5 x86_64
Postfix 2.3.3 Sources
gcc version 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-44)

2.6.18-164.el5 #1 SMP Thu Sep 3 03:28:30 EDT 2009 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# Get the src
1) wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.3/centosplus/SRPMS/postfix-2.3.3-2.1.centos.mysql_pgsql.src.rpm

# Install the src RPM
2) rpm -i postfix-2.3.3-2.1.centos.mysql_pgsql.src.rpm

# Install some dependencies I didn’t have
3.1) yum install pcre-devel
3.2) yum install rpm-build
3.3) yum install mysql-devel.x86_64 openldap-devel.x86_64 db4-devel.x86_64
3.4) yum install gcc.x86_64

# Edit SPECS; remove postgres support
4.1) cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS
4.2) vi postfix.spec and change “%%define PGSQL 1″ to “%define PGSQL 0″
# I didn’t want Postgres support
4.3) “%define MYSQL 1″ was already defined for me

50+ Hard Drives

Posted by packetmad as Linux, OS

I’ve used more than 50 hard drives in my home IT projects over the years and I’ve never had one start to fail. Keep in mind, these are commodity, off-the-shelf, drives. Meant for laptops, not the continual usage they see here.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had them get loud. Loud to the point I have replaced them to maintain sanity but I’ve never had one report bad sectors… Until now.

I guess I’ve been lucky.

I’ve been having some reliability issues with my firewall and I think I’ve finally traced it down to the hard drive heading south for the winter.

Google Maps and your Garmin on Ubuntu and Windows

Posted by packetmad as Linux, OS

Or, “Where the hell are we?!” Part 2:

I recently bought a Nuvi 255W for some business travel coming up. I didn’t want to install Map Source since I don’t plan on buying any map packs any time soon. What I found was Garmin Communicator.

Windows:
Straight forward download and install.

Linux (Ubuntu):
apt-get install wine-gecko
Download Garmin Communicator
Download Firefox for Windows
Use wine to install Firefox and the Communicator plugin

Raw FTP Commands

Posted by packetmad as Daemons, FreeBSD, Linux, OS, Unix, ftp

I retrieved it from here: http://www.nsftools.com/tips/RawFTP.htm

List of raw FTP commands
(Warning: this is a technical document, not necessary for most FTP use.)

Note that commands marked with a * are not implemented in a number of FTP servers.

Common commands

RHEL 5 Failed Login Locks

Posted by packetmad as Daemons, Linux, OS, ssh

In /etc/pam.d/system-auth:

auth required pam_env.so
auth required pam_tally.so onerr=fail deny=3 <-- Need tally to record failures
auth sufficient pam_unix.so nullok try_first_pass
auth requisite pam_succeed_if.so uid >= 500 quiet
auth required pam_deny.so

account required pam_tally.so reset <-- Same as above
account required pam_unix.so
account sufficient pam_succeed_if.so uid < 500 quiet
account required pam_permit.so

Then you need to run a couple commands to active everything.

Set lock out at 3 failed login attempts:
faillog -m 3

Exclude root from this lockout mechanism:
faillog -u root -m 0

To enforce failed login lockout after adding a user:
faillog -u {username} -m 3

If a user should fail to login 3 times, you must reset their tally before they will be able to login again:
faillog -u {username} -r

xen-libs Dependency Issue w/ RHEL5

Posted by packetmad as Linux, OS

I was receiving the following error when performing a yum update on a RHEL5 server running a XEN kernel with virtual machines installed:

Error: Missing Dependency: xen-libs = 3.0.3-64.el5 is needed by package xen

The problem is that the server was not subscribed to the virtualization channel on the RHNS server.
The entitlements section on RHN can be misleading here. It will say something similar to “Management, Virtualization” but this does not mean it is subscribed to the proper channels, only that the server is entitled to use those channels if you so choose.