The Redneck Geek Blog

Please read, even if you are an Obama fan.  It is legitimate, written by respected, Lou Prichett, formerly of Proctor and Gamble.   Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America ’s true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world’s highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way  America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as “partnering.” Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.
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Unbelievable!! You will find the following excerpt on page 203, lines 14 - 18 of House Resoution 3200:

“The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax imposed by this chapter for purposes of determining the amount of any credit under this chapter or for purposes of section 55.’’

If I understand this correctly, this bill would inflict a new tax upon the citizens, but they want to conceal the fact the this bill created the tax!

Talk about a blatant “Bait and Switch” !!!

Download your copy of HR3200 here: hr3200.pdf

Totally remove ProFTPd and all configuration files:

• apt-get remove –purge proftpd

Create proftpd user and directories for the install:

• groupadd -g 46 proftpd  (Note: If gid 46 is already used, just pick another one)
  
• useradd -c proftpd -d /srv/ftp -g proftpd -s /usr/bin/proftpdshell -u 46 proftpd
• install -v -d -m775 -o proftpd -g proftpd /srv/ftp
• ln -v -s /bin/false /usr/bin/proftpdshell
• echo /usr/bin/proftpdshell >> /etc/shells

As an unpriveledged user, download the proftpd version 1.3.2 and configure it for install:

• cd /tmp
• wget ftp://ftp.proftpd.org/distrib/source/proftpd-1.3.2.tar.gz
• tar -zxvf proftpd-1.3.2.tar.gz
• cd /tmp/proftpd-1.3.2
• ./configure –prefix=/usr –sysconfdir=/etc –localstatedir=/var/run  –with-modules=mod_tls
  
• make

As a priveledged user, install proftpd:

• make install

Configure proftpd:

• mkdir /etc/proftpd
• mv /etc/proftpd.conf /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf
• add the following lines to /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf
  DefaultRoot ~
  IdentLookups off
  ServerIdent on “FTP Server ready.”

• cd /etc/init.d
• rm -f ./proftpd
  
• wget http://www.redneck-geek.net/blog/wp-content/proftpd.txt –output-document=proftpd
• chmod 755 proftpd
• update-rc.d proftpd defaults

Start proftp:

• /etc/init.d/proftpd start

Zimbra’s Wiki on adding additional SMTP port

Installing Webmin in Ubuntu 8.04 - Hardy Heron

1. Login as root
   • If you have not set a root password, you can do this with the command: sudo su
2. Install the following packages
   • apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl
3. Download the latest webmin using the following command
   • wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.420_all.deb
4. Install this package using the following command
   • dpkg -i webmin_1.420_all.deb
5. Login into Webmin with this URL: https://your-server-ip:10000
6. Done!

Note:  You will not be able to login as root in WebAdmin unless you have set a root password!!  However Webmin will allow any user who has this sudo capability to login with full root privileges.

Enable TLS/SSL encryption (FTPS) on Ubuntu

Here goes: Short, sweet, and to the point.

1. Login as root (otherwise you have to use “sudo” with all commands)
2. Paste these commands in a terminal :
   • apt-get install build-essential
   • apt-get install libssl-dev
   • mkdir /etc/ftpcert
   • cd /etc/ftpcert
   • openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024
   • openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
   • openssl genrsa -des3 -out ca.key 1024
   • openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -key ca.key -out ca.crt
   • wget http://frodubuntu.free.fr/ubuntu/sign.sh
   • chmod +x sign.sh
   • ./sign.sh server.csr
3. Then add this section to yout proftpd.conf file :<IfModule mod_tls.c>
   TLSEngine on
   TLSLog /var/ftpd/tls.log
   TLSProtocol TLSv1# Are clients required to use FTP over TLS when talking to this server?
   TLSRequired off

   # Server’s certificate
   TLSRSACertificateFile /etc/ftpcert/server.crt
   TLSRSACertificateKeyFile /etc/ftpcert/server.key

   # CA the server trusts
   TLSCACertificateFile /etc/ftpcert/ca.crt

   # Authenticate clients that want to use FTP over TLS?
   TLSVerifyClient off
   </IfModule>

Note - Use TLSRequired ON to force the use of TLS. OFF means that the use of TLS is optional.

Optional step:

• You will notice that you will be asked for the password you set for the server.key file each time you start/stop/restart the server, it is because the RSA private key is encrypted in the server.key file.
• The solution is to remove the encryption of the RSA private key but it makes the key readable in the server.key file which is obviously less secure, anyway if you do that make sure that the server.key is readable only by root.
• Once you know that it’s less secure here are the command lines to remove the encryption of the RSA private key :
  • cd /etc/ftpcert
  • cp server.key server.key.org
  • openssl rsa -in server.key.org -out server.key

Here are some links to read in case of problems or just to get more informations :
http://www.modssl.org/docs/2.7/ssl_faq.html#cert-ownca
http://www.castaglia.org/proftpd/doc/contrib/ProFTPD-mini-HOWTO-TLS.html

Here is a link to a very good “howto” on installing VMware Workstation 6.0 on OpenSuse 10.2:

http://mrnovell.wordpress.com/2007/04/24/opensuse-102-installing-and-running-vmware-workstation-60/

It also worked well for openSUSE 11.1

Do the following while logged in as root!!

1. Download VMware Server: http://www.vmware.com/download/server/
2. Install some necessary packages:
   • apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential xinetd
3. From the directory where you downloaded VMware Server:
   • Extract and execute the VMware Install script:
   • tar xvfz VMware-server-*.tar.gz
   • cd vmware-server-distrib
   • ./vmware-install.pl
   • Accept all defaults
4. Access the VMware Management Interface:
   • https://servername:8333

That’s it, short and sweet!!

On the server:
(Note: this howto assumes you are logged in as “root”, and that you have a working knowledge of modifying linux from the terminal window or console)

Make sure you have the NFS Server software installed:

apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap

Edit /etc/exports to add shares:

Open the file: nano /etc/exports

Add a line for each directory you wish to share:

Example #1: /files 192.168.1.1/24(rw,no_root_squash,async)

This will allow full access to the “/files” directory from any computer on the 192.168.1.0 subnet

Example #2: /files 192.168.1.2 (ro,async)

This will allow read only access to the “/files” directory from the computer at 192.168.1.2 only.

Restart NFS Server process and export new shares:

/etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart

exportfs -a

On the Client:

Make sure that the NFS Client software is installed:

apt-get install portmap nfs-common

Mount a NFS Share manually:

Make sure that the target directory exists on client:

mkdir /files

Mount the share:

mount server.mydomain.com:/files /files

(Note you may need to restart above services:
/etc/init.d/portmap restart
/etc/init.d/nfs-common restart)

Mount the share permanently:

Open /etc/fstab:

nano /etc/fstab

Add a line describing the share you wish to mount:

Example: server.mydomain.com:/files /files nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr

(Note: It is a good idea to test this before a reboot in case a mistake was made.
type:
mount /files
in a terminal, and the mount point /files will be mounted from the server. )

Note: This information was derived from the following sources:
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/ubuntu…nfs-share.html (for client configuration)
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l…nfs-mount.html (for mounting using fstab)
http://czarism.com/easy-peasy-ubuntu…s-file-sharing (for server configuration)
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO…twork-nfs.html (contains more info about NFS)