Tag Archives: server

Building a Business Network Using Ubuntu – Introduction

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This post begins the first (an introduction) in a series of several posts, discussing the benefits that Ubuntu Linux provides to business owners. Naturally, by default, I’ll be touching on several open source applications and server packages throughout the series. Hopefully I can also dispel some of the myth and uncertainty, for business owners who have never used Ubuntu before.

The idea for this series was borne out of the excessive questions from clients in my work life. Some have made the switch to Ubuntu, many are interested and some don’t know enough, because they’ve never tried working with a Linux based operating system like Ubuntu.

The two Ubuntu versions I used (in my own business as well as suggest to clients) are:

Ubuntu Server Edition.
The server edition is where various business related packages are installed. Such as print servers, web servers, billing systems, firewalls, and so on.

Ubuntu Desktop Edition.
The desktop edition (also used on laptops) is where various applications are installed and used to access the resources on the server.

Note: The newest Ubuntu version “Lucid” 10.04 is scheduled for release in April of 2010 and will be an LTS (“Long Term Support”) version. At which time, I’d suggest this as the version to use.

For business owners not familiar with Ubuntu, please check Continue reading →

Faster Internet With an Old Laptop – Revisited

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One of my earlier posts, Faster Internet With an Old Laptop – Ubuntu and Squid, discussed how to install Squid and Webmin on an old laptop. The premise being that having a proxy server on the network helped speed up web browsing (because of the caching capabilities), reduced external bandwidth usage, etc.

In that post, I was careful to install Squid3 first, so that Webmin would use it (in the management interface) instead of the older Squid 2.x; and that the installation would be smoother. One thing I noticed was that webmin was using an older version of squid:

“…I noticed that webmin (for some strange reason) thought squid 2.6 was installed…”

One of our readers (atass) provided a useful comment in that post:

“The reason is that you have also installed squid3 AND 2.6. 2.6 was installed via webmin because it is not configured by default to find squid3

I think you should correct this procedure so that you correctly configure webmin to use squid3 by going to module configuration and changing to squid3 paths. Avoid installing Squid via webmin cause it will install Squid 2.6 regardless if you have squid 3 installed”

So this needed fixing, here are the settings (below) I changed to get Squid3 going. Above all, remember to back up data or settings before changing anything. Continue reading →

Installing a Web Server on Your Old Laptop

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In an earlier post to this series, I talked about converting an old ancient IBM Thinkpad T22 Laptop into a proxy server (using Squid). While this did substantially improve my web surfing speed, it occurred to me that the laptop could be put to more use. One example is to install MediaWiki on it (to replace the Tomboy Notes application I use). In reality, I was surprised at the performance given the lack of hardware resources on this laptop, as such, I knew it could be put to more use.

One thing you’ll notice in this post is that the command line does not use “sudo”. This is because the last post configured the server to permit root logins via SSH. In fact, there is a lot of information in the last post that directly relates to (or effects) what we’ll do in this one, again, please read it: Faster Internet With an Old Laptop – Ubuntu and Squid. Otherwise some of us might get a bit lost trying to complete the hands-on activities in this post. Also a reminder that this is an Ubuntu server 8.04 LTS, if using other versions of Ubuntu (or other Debian based distributions, you’ll probably need to make a few adjustments).

In order to make this old laptop even more useful, in addition to the previously installed Squid proxy server, we’re going to add an Apache webserver with PHP, MySQL database server and Mail server (SMTP/POP3). The mailserver is just for the future in the event it’s needed or any PHP based package requires it (so you can skip that if you don’t need it). More importantly, Apache and MySQL are needed so I can successfully install and use MediaWiki.

First SSH into your server. The command for me is:

ssh [email protected] (You’ll need to substitute the hostname you chose for your server).

Let’s get some packages for  compiling, zip, perl, ssl, certificates and so on. Remember, because you logged in as root, you don’t have to Continue reading →

Using Built-in Policy Installer in Firewall Builder

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This article continues the series of articles on Firewall Builder, a graphical firewall configuration and management tool that supports many Open Source firewall platforms as well as Cisco IOS access lists and Cisco ASA (PIX). Firewall Builder was introduced on this site earlier with articles Getting Started With Firewall Builder and Using Built-in Policy Importer in Firewall Builder.

More information on Firewall Builder, pre-built binary packages and source code, documentation and Firewall Builder Cookbook can be found on the project web site at www.fwbuilder.org. Watch Project Blog for announcements and articles on all aspects of using Firewall Builder.

After firewall configuration has been generated by one of the policy compilers and saved in a file on disk in the format required by the target firewall, it needs to be transferred to the firewall machine and activated. This function is performed by the component we call “Policy Installer” which is part of the Firewall Builder GUI.

Starting with version 2.0, Firewall Builder comes with built-in installer that uses SSH to communicate with the firewall. Installer works on all OS where Firewall Builder is available: Linux, FreeBSD, Windows and Mac OS X. On Linux, *BSD and Mac OS X it uses standard ssh client that comes with the system; on Windows it uses putty.

Installer needs to be able to copy generated firewall script to the firewall and then run it there. In order to do so, it uses secure shell. The program does not include ssh code, it uses external ssh client. On Linux, BSD and Mac OS X it uses standard ssh client ssh and secure shell file copy program scp that come with the system; Continue reading →

Faster Internet With an Old Laptop – Ubuntu and Squid

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I’ve posted more than once about tips we can complete to improve our web surfing. This morning I was cleaning out some old hardware (to take to the recycling centre) when I happened upon one of the last old laptops I had.

It’s an older IBM Thinkpad T22, Type 2647 with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive. A couple years ago, I had 2o of these units, bought from a recycling depot. I sold them all on eBay, and only have a couple left now.

IBM Thinkpad T22

Whilst packing up the stuff to cart off, it occurred to me that I could put this old laptop to work by installing a proxy / caching server on it, and have my we browsers, pull much of the regularly requested web content off a locally cached network server. This means installing Squid. Not sure what Squid is: Squid (software), from their site:

“…Squid is a proxy server and web cache daemon. It has a wide variety of uses, from speeding up a web server by caching repeated requests, to caching web, DNS and other computer network lookups for a group of people sharing network resources, to aiding security by filtering traffic. Although primarily used for HTTP and FTP, Squid includes limited support for several other protocols including TLS, SSL, Internet Gopher and HTTPS. The development version of Squid (3.1) includes IPv6 and ICAP support…”

Needless, as I currently enjoy using Ubuntu, that’s what I used as the OS for this project. Installing a Squid server on the network, provided me with a few important benefits:

  • Less bandwidth usage.
  • Faster web surfing.
  • Network cached copies of pages I regularly visit (if the original server is down).

Firstly, make sure you’ve Continue reading →

Full Circle Magazine – Issue #14 is Out

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I received an email this morning from Full Circle Magazine (they are a “…FREE Independent Magazine (and podcast) for the Ubuntu Linux Community…”) saying that the latest publication is out; and was happy to see that one of my posts, Make Your Own Plug ‘N Play Zone Using Ubuntu Linux!, was featured in the latest Issue #14! :)

Full Circle Magazine - Issue #14

You can download and read the latest publication (which includes the “Make Your Own Plug ‘N Play Zone Using Ubuntu Linux!” post) here: Issue 14 is out!

For those not aware, I posted a follow-up to the original about a month later, where I finalized some extra issues and information. You can find that post here: Ubuntu Linux Plug ‘N Play Zone Revisited

As always… Have fun :)

Installing an Ubuntu Linux Hardy 8.04 LAMP and FFMpeg Server With a GUI – Hardware Installation.

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As mentioned in the introduction (where I listed the hardware and software I used for this hands-on project), we need to ensure that our hardware is set-up and working before moving on.

To recap, here is the list of hardware used:

Shuttle SN68SG2 Socket AM2 Barebone – NVIDIA 7025, Audio, Video, PCI Express, Gigabit LAN, USB 2.0, Firewire, Serial ATA, 250 Watt Power Supply.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Processor ADA4200CUBOX – 2.20GHz, 1MB Cache, 1000MHz (2000 MT/s) FSB, Windsor, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket AM2, Processor with Fan.

Kingston 1024MB PC5400 DDR2 667MHz Memory (2 of these for 2GB).

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Hard Drive – 7200, Browser Problems – Creating a Linux Based Virtual Box – Part 1 of 2 16MB, SATA-300, OEM.

DVD burner: LG GSA H55N Super-Multi Disk Drive 20×20×12

Putting the actual pieces together was very straight forward (use the guide that comes with the Shuttle package). However, I did make one mistake in ordering the hardware…

The Shuttle SN68SG2 comes with it’s own heat sink and cooling system. The metal fins are inserted right behind the fan of the power supply, so that the outbound air blows over the fins and draws heat away from the CPU. (I thought that was an innovative design idea when building such a small-footprint unit). As such, I did not need to order the retail version of the CPU (there’s no use or place, for the fan). Instead, I should have ordered the OEM version of the CPU (without the fan).

Also, after following the instructions that come with the shuttle unit, you may wish to flash the BIOS. I found that I was able to reboot the system with no problem, but whenever I powered it down and then back up (cold start), the PC always tries to boot off the network (until I use the ctrl-alt-del combo to restart it), the shuttle site indicated the fix was BIOS related. It’s probably better to flash the BIOS prior to moving forward (if you’re even interested in fixing this issue). You can fix it with Shuttle’s Flash Utility (awdflash) and the new BIOS (bin file) here: http://global.shuttle.com/download03.jsp?PI=647. Flashing the BIOS is not in the scope of this post, but one guide that gives you the basics of flashing is here: http://howflow.com/tricks/flash_your_award_bios_with_linux. Please remember that Continue reading →

Browser Problems – Creating a Linux Based Virtual Box – Part 2 of 2

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Earlier this month, I posted Part 1 of “Browser Problems – Creating a Linux Based Virtual Box” where the issue of being able to load different environments to test web site development was discussed. In this post (Part 2), I’ve received all the hardware (Shuttle SN68SG2) and am happy to note that the unit is Linux compatible. I’ve installed Ubuntu Linux 8.04 x64 (Hardy) on it.

I did have two issues to fix after the initial install.

1) The integrated network card did not seem to work.
2) The integrated video was showing poor graphics.

The fix to get ethernet working was easy. Here’s how I got it functioning: Continue reading →

Automate Your Web Site Backup!

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During the weekend (Saturday), UbuntuLinuxHelp was down for almost 12 hours. Fortunately the hosting provider had data backups and there was no data loss. In any event, I also keep backups, so the added redundancy helps to protect the content. Up to now, the server has been configured to create a daily backup of databases and certain directories; and those (.gz files) are downloaded manually to another location later.

But, what if there were no backups? What if your hosting provider cannot restore data at their end? To be blunt, you’d be back to square one! Developing a whole new site or blog from the beginning! That’s a chilling thought, to lose everything and start again.

For peace of mind and data (intellectual property) , today’s post will highlight some of the steps we’ve taken to fully automate the backup process. Hopefully this will help many of you who may encounter the same issues, or are simply looking for a proactive, automated backup system for your web sites, blogs, ecommerce sites, etc.

We’ll need 5 things to ensure this system works: Continue reading →

Create a Linux Antivirus Server to Protect eMail – A Brief How to

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Last month we posted “Does Ubuntu Linux Really Need Antivirus Software?” Where there was a bit of discussion as to whether Linux needed antivirus software installed.
There were some very informative comments from readers, which showed that in reality it would be very difficult to develop Linux based viruses, and that the real use would be to protect Windows users. After some thought and a bit of playing, I was introduced to ClamAV. For those not familiar, their site description says:

“…Clam AntiVirus is an open source (GPL) anti-virus toolkit for UNIX, designed especially for email scanning on mail gateways. It provides a number of utilities including a flexible and scalable multi-threaded daemon, a command line scanner and advanced tool for automatic database updates. The core of the package is an anti-virus engine available in a form of shared library…“

For me at least, this was a clear challenge to roll up my sleeves and create a small antivirus server (used to scan email). This would be useful to the small business owner, school, club or hobbyists in general. I’m not going to Continue reading →