David's Dairy

spam from your server ?

2010-09-17T15:41:00.003+05:30

If you are worried about spam originating from your box there are few cool
steps from that you can manage to get the abuser.

1. Be sure that you have disabled the phpmail() and enabled the smtp authentication.

2. Check the headers of the spam report if you see that the xmailer is the bat or
the origination is missing or some hex values then you are going to do some R&D with logs

3.when you see that the mailer is bat or hex values you have to scan the resent
FTP logs not the mail logs since the mails don't have any specific sender.

4. Now start searching your FTP logs for cgi and pl files that has been uploaded
for past 5 - 10 days.

5. Some of the common names would be dark.pl etc..

6. If you have luck say when the spamming is going on and you login to the box
on seeing huge mail load on your box its easy just an ps command will let you
know who is the user abusing the server.

I use nagios to monitor the mail queue of the server, so if the mail queue hits
the limit I give a check. I am still finding some other ways to track down these spammers.........

Jboss +Tomcat on openvz (centos)

2010-06-09T15:55:00.008+05:30

After a few days of research I found that tomcat can be deployed successfully
on openvz env, But this includes jboss as application server.

Due to swap space issues tomcat normally fails on openvz.

How to install jboss:
pre-requirements.
1. java (install via yum)

2.jdk package [avoid confusion with openjdk]
here is the link to download jdk rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/sourceforge/o/project/op/opennms/OldFiles/jdk/jdk-1_5_0_13-linux.common.amd64.rpm

3.Jboss can be downloaded form the following location.
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/jboss/JBoss/JBoss-4.0.2/jboss-4.0.2.tar.gz

Installation:

1.rpm -ivh jdk-1_5_0_13-linux.common.amd64.rpm
2.gunzip jboss-4.0.2.tar.gz
3.tar -xvf jboss-4.0.2.tar
4.mv jboss-4.0.2 /usr/local/
5.export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.5.0_13
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

jboss and tomcat has been installed, By default jboss and tomcat works on port 8080.

To start and stop the jboss we require an init script

#!/bin/sh

case $1 in
'start' )
echo JBOSS STARTING
/usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/bin/run.sh >/dev/null 2>&1 &
;;
'stop' )
echo JBOSS STOPPING
/usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/bin/shutdown.sh -S >/dev/null 2>&1 &
;;
*)
echo "usage: `basename $0` {start|stop}"
esac

Avoid starting the binaries directly ctrl+z will kill the jvm as well as jboss, So use your
own script or use the script provided above.

TOMCAT configs can be found on
/usr/local/jboss-4.0.2/server/default/deploy/jbossweb-tomcat55.sar directory
server.xml contains the core configuration of tomcat, You can alter that as per requirements.

Mailman binaries missing ../scripts/fixmailman: line 13: /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/bin/mailmanctl: No such file or directory

2009-10-08T03:36:00.006+05:30

If you are getting similar errors:

/scripts/fixmailman: line 13: /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/bin/mailmanctl: No such file or directory

Why the mailman binaries went missing?

/scripts/reinstallmailman first removes the binaries

*****************this is the part of cpanel script reinstallmailman**********

killall -9 mailmanctl
killall -9 qrunner

rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/Mailman
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/bin
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/logs
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/locks
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/cron
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/data
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/cgi-bin
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/spam
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/qfiles
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/templates
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/mail
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/icons
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/tests
rm -rf /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/messages

The second process is it calls the mailman-install script

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/mailman-install
*******************************************************************
and that fails to install new mailman because of old python and missing of devl

How to fix this error ?

/scripts/fixmailman: line 13: /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/bin/mailmanctl: No such file or directory

Simple option is to update your python

To be on the safer side use yum

yum update python
and
yum install python-devel

I personally feel safe to install packages via yum coz it is easy to remove when
any conflict arises.

Try /scripts/reinstallmailman now

Strange bandwidth usge in Cpanel servers ?

2009-08-20T07:06:00.007+05:30

Hi,

Few days back one of the server's I work was consuming strange amount of bandwidth
While checking the total number of users used bandwidth it was very low compared
to used bandwidth.

Reason:

Many of the wordpress users never use the domain name /directory/file.php format
instead to save their monthly bandwidth they use hostname/~username/file.php

The biggest thing I found was few sites main page loads loads from one
server and the sites inner contents like images are loaded from another server
as hostname/~username/filename.jpg ..etc

The other thing i found was few domains never resolve but you can see huge
hits in Apache access logs they are also doing the same hostname/~username
is access from some server.

This saves a huge bandwidth for the user but normally your server start to consume
huge bandwidth as well huge Apache hits.

Solution:

Go to the security center on WHM and enable mod userdir protection for the whole server.
If you have some of the genuine users are having issues on site development or domain resolving time is taking a bit and want them to give an access Just manually edit the httpd.conf and add the user in httpd.conf

Please use the default virtual host entry which is on top of the
virtual host entries
and add the following line
UserDir enabled username

FYI use the following example

WHM errors while adding packages (linux cpanel server 64 bit os)

2009-06-11T12:42:00.006+05:30

Error: While adding packages in WHM it may show errors like

Add Package
[an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive][an error occurred while processing this directive]

Check the Cpanel logs if it shows:
(internal warning while parsing [stdin])....

It is sure that the cpanel process is out of memory.

FIX:

Go to tweak settings >
Search for the option :
The maximum memory a cPanel process can use before it is killed:
Check the memory allocated. Its not advisable to make it to O disable the limit
increase the memory if you had 256M make it to 350M that will fix the issue.

Error: No Cpanel server easy apache error method to auto repair package system Suggestion

2009-03-04T18:35:00.003+05:30

Cpanel RHEL 5 loaded box gave error on easyapache
Error: No method to auto repair package system

Cpanel suggestion

Suggestion : This means that Cpanel::SysPkgs's config check returned a failed status and does not have a way to try to fix what it detected. You will need to manually troubleshoot your OS's update system at this point

Since cpanel uses RPM just checked yum that returned error
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - (-30977)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in ?
yummain.main(sys.argv[1:])
TypeError: rpmdb open failed
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm

FIX
root@host [/var/lib/rpm]# rm /var/lib/rpm/__db*
rm: remove regular empty file `/var/lib/rpm/__db.000'? y
rm: remove regular file `/var/lib/rpm/__db.001'? y
rm: remove regular file `/var/lib/rpm/__db.002'? y
rm: remove regular file `/var/lib/rpm/__db.003'? y

root@host [/var/lib/rpm]# rpm --rebuilddb

Then try the easyapache will work ...

open vz kernal installation and management

2009-01-31T19:26:00.004+05:30

This article deals with how to compile an an open Vz kernal on a centos5.2 platform.

Hardware and os requirement's

Pentium4, AMD64 for good performance

1gb Ram for 1to4 container running on the sever 20 Gb HDD

centos 5.0 or 5.2

Steps:

1. First set up the yum repositary by downloading the reopsitay from openvz website.

[root@vm ~]#wget http://download.openvz.org/openvz.repo

just plece it in the yum.repos.d directory

2. Installing the kernal via yum

[root@vm ~]#yum install ovzkernel

3. setup the sysctl.conf file such that the ip is forwared and other kernal parametres are set

net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1

kernel.sysrq = 1

Add the strings in the sysctl

net.ipv4.conf.default.proxy_arp = 0

net.ipv4.conf.default.send_redirects = 1

net.ipv4.conf.all.send_redirects = 0

4. Setting up the grub

check the grub that the new kernal is placed correctly.

#boot=/dev/hda

default=0

timeout=5

splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

hiddenmenu

title CentOS (2.6.18-92.1.13.el5.028stab059.6)

root (hd0,0)

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.13.el5.028stab059.6 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet

initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.1.13.el5.028stab059.6.img

title CentOS (2.6.18-92.el5)

root (hd0,0)

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.el5 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet

initrd /initrd-2.6.18-92.el5.img

5. Disable Selinux

[root@vm ~]#vi /etc/sysconfig/selinux SELINUX=disabled

6. Reboot the box

7. check the kernal which is booted

[root@vm ~]#uname -a

Linux vm.davidserver.com 2.6.18-92.1.13.el5.028stab059.6 #1 SMP Fri Nov 14 20:22:51 MSK 2008 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

8.start the open vz service

[root@vm ~]#service vz start

9. installing the utilities via yum

yum install vz*

it will install all the utilities and commands for vz.

10.Restart the vz once

[root@vm ~]#service vz restart

11.installing the template via yum

yum install vztmpl-centos-4-2.0-2

alernatively it can be downloaded too

http://wiki.openvz.org/Download/template/precreated

12.preparing the cache for the template

[root@vm ~]#vzpkgcache

13.list the packages installed

[root@vm ~]#vzpkgls

14.create the container

[root@vm ~]#vzctl create 102 --ostemplate centos-4-i386-minimal

14. Adding hostname for container

[root@vm ~]#vzctl set 102 --hostname www.davidanands.co.cc –save

15. Adding ip for container

[root@vm ~]#vzctl set 102 --ipadd 192.168.1.51 –save

16. Adding nameserver to container

[root@vm ~]#vzctl set 102 --nameserver 192.168.1.1 –save

17.To start container while server reboot

[root@vm ~]#vzctl set 102 --onboot yes --save

18. starting the container

[root@vm ~]#vzctl set 102 --userpasswd root:bigjoe

19.listing the container

[root@vm ~]# vzlist -a

CTID NPROC STATUS IP_ADDR HOSTNAME

102 3 running 192.168.1.51 www.davidanands.co.cc

20. entering into the container that has been created

[root@vm ~]# vzctl enter 102

entered into CT 102

[root@www /]#

21. installing yum and other essential services to container

[root@vm ~]# vzyum 102 install httpd

[root@vm ~]# vzyum 102 install yum

starting the httpd

[root@vm ~]# vzctl exec 102 service httpd start

22. Few commands

To destroy a container

1^st stop the container

[root@vm ~]#vzctl stop 102

[root@vm ~]#vzctl destroy 102

To check cpu utilization

[root@vm ~]# vzcpucheck

Current CPU utilization: 3000 Power of the node: 100697

To set cpu limits such that cpu canot cross 10% usage 

[root@vm ~]# vzctl set 101 --cpulimit 10 –save

Setting CPU limit: 10 Saved parameters for CT 101



Resource calculation

[root@vm /]# vzcalc -v 101

Resource Current(%) Promised(%) Max(%)
Low Mem 0.12 9.08 9.08
Total RAM 0.35 n/a n/a
Mem + Swap 0.12 7.86 n/a
Alloc. Mem 0.16 9.82 18.97
Num. Proc 0.04 n/a 2.93
--------------------------------------------
Memory 0.35 9.82 18.97

Diskspace checking of the container

[root@vm ~]# vzctl exec 101 df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on

simfs 1.0G 104M 921M 11% /

Taking backup of the containers

download the utility form

http://download.openvz.org/contrib/utils/vzdump/vzdump-1.0-2.noarch.rpm

[root@vm ~]# vzdump 101

INFO: starting backup for VPS 101 (/vz/private/101)

WARN: online backup without suspend/snapshot

WARN: this can lead to inconsistent data

INFO: Creating archive '/vz/dump/vzdump-101.tar' (/vz/private/101)

Total bytes written: 95262720 (91MiB, 68MiB/s)

INFO: backup for VPS 101 finished successful (0.02 minutes)

the dump loacation is

[root@vm dump]# cd /vz/dump/

[root@vm dump]# ls

vzdump-101.log vzdump-101.tar

Restoring the containers

(dont try to restore on the same Ctid )

[root@vm dump]# vzdump --restore /vz/dump/vzdump-101.tar 103

INFO: extracting archive '/vz/dump/vzdump-101.tar'

INFO: extracting configuration to '/etc/vz/conf/103.conf'

INFO: restore successful

[root@vm dump]# vzlist

CTID NPROC STATUS IP_ADDR HOSTNAME

102 3 running 192.168.1.51 www.davidanands.co.cc

[root@vm dump]# vzlist -a

CTID NPROC STATUS IP_ADDR HOSTNAME

101 - stopped 192.168.1.52 david.server.com

102 3 running 192.168.1.51 www.davidanands.co.cc

103 - stopped 192.168.1.52 david.server.com

Creating plans and managing allocation of resources via customized scripts

This can be achieved by modifying the following scripts

[root@vm ~]#cd /etc/sysconfig/vz-scripts

[root@vm ~]#cp ve-vps.basic.conf-sample vps.basic.conf

[root@vm ~]#cp ve-vps.light.conf-sample vps.light.conf

After editing the file vps.basic.conf you can start creating containers

[root@vm ~]#vzctl create 101 --ostemplate centos-4-i386-minimal --config vps.basic
[root@vm ~]#vzctl set 101 --onboot yes --save

The open vz documentation can be downloaded from the following location

http://download.openvz.org/doc/OpenVZ-Users-Guide.pdf

Recover data from a crashed cPanel server HDD

2009-01-18T04:52:00.001+05:30

Recover data from a crashed cPanel server HDD:
-------------------------------------------------
1) Get the partitions from both the drives with:
fdisk -l /lists the partitions even its unmounted

2) First check to see if there are any drives mounted, with:
df -h

3) Let us mount the CRASHED HDD if not already mounted, with:
mount /dev/hdb3 /oldHD
ls /oldHD/home

4) Run these rsync commands to move everything over:
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/usr/local/apache/conf /usr/local/apache
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/var/named /var
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/home/* /home
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/usr/local/cpanel /usr/local
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/var/lib/mysql /var/lib
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/var/cpanel /var
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/usr/share/ssl /usr/share
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/var/ssl /var
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/var/log/bandwidth /var/log
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/usr/local/frontpage /usr/local
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/var/spool/cron /var/spool
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/root/.my.cnf /root
rsync -vrplogDtH /oldHD/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd/conf

5) cd to the old etc directory:
cd /oldHD/etc
And copy some files from here:
rsync -vrplogDtH secondarymx domainalias valiases vfilters exim* proftpd* pure-ftpd* passwd* group* *domain* *named* wwwacct.conf cpupdate.conf quota.conf shadow* *rndc* ips* ipaddrpool* ssl hosts /etc

6) run cpanel fix scripts i.e
Updating software and restarting services :
/scripts/upcp
/scripts/updatenow
/scripts/sysup
/scripts/exim4
/scripts/easyapache
/scripts/securetmp
/scripts/fixeverything

7) IMPORTANT :: This is needed to update cpanel information. Please note, sshd might fail and not start after running fixeverything. You have to login to whm, and go to the rpm installer and “FORCE” install opensshd-server, opensshd, opensshd-client and then restart sshd from whm.

Restarting services as :
/scripts/restartsrv httpd
/scripts/restartsrv cpanel
/scripts/restartsrv mysql
/scripts/restartsrv named
/scripts/restartsrv exim

How to create users in sendmail

2009-01-18T04:42:00.002+05:30

Let say you need to setup an email ID "newuser@domain.com", so for that you need to do the following steps logged in as root user to the server:

1. Create the user with shell as false, since we don't want them to hv SSH/FTP access too:
#useradd -s /bin/false newuser
#passwd newuser

2. Now to setup these email IDs in Sendmail:
#cd /etc/mail
#vi virtusertable

==> Add the entry into the file as following and save:
newuser@domain.com newuser

#make
#make (it should now say "nothing to do")

3. Finally now restart the sendmail:
#service sendmail restart

Thats it, the email ID has been created successfully. Now the access details become as following:

Email ID : newuser@domain.com
Username : newuser
Password : (newpass)

How to add users at tomcat manager in a cpanel server

2009-01-18T04:30:00.005+05:30

Follow the steps

nano /usr/local/apache/conf/userdata/std/1/username/domainname.com/cp_jkmount.conf

JkMount /*.jsp ajp13
JkMount /servlet/* ajp13
JkMount /servlets/* ajp13
JkMount /*.do ajp13

Add one more line "JkMount /manager/* ajp13"

JkMount /*.jsp ajp13
JkMount /servlet/* ajp13
JkMount /servlets/* ajp13
JkMount /manager/* ajp13
JkMount /*.do ajp13

Do same as above for the following:

nano /usr/local/apache/conf/userdata/std/2/username/domainname.com/cp_jkmount.conf

JkMount /*.jsp ajp13
JkMount /servlet/* ajp13
JkMount /servlets/* ajp13
JkMount /*.do ajp13

Add one more line "JkMount /manager/* ajp13"

JkMount /*.jsp ajp13
JkMount /servlet/* ajp13
JkMount /servlets/* ajp13
JkMount /manager/* ajp13
JkMount /*.do ajp13

Once done restart tomcat and httpd service and check and if you need to reset for client tomcat manager then edit the following file:

nano /usr/local/jakarta/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/conf/tomcat-users.xml

change password for the perticular user from there and then again reset apache and tomcat service and check.

================================================

Under WHM/cpanel server you can enable JSP_tomcat from WHM -->>Account Functions-->>Install Servlets-->> Select the user for which you need to enable JSP-tomcat.

Alternately you can add the servlet in command line
scripts/addserverlets2 --domain= --domain=

Once JSP_tomcat is installed from WHM then login to SSH and under httpd.conf user virtual entry you will see the following:

JkMount /*.jsp ajp13
JkMount /servlet/* ajp13
JkMount /servlets/* ajp13
JkMount /manager/* ajp13
JkMount /*.do ajp13

And then edit "/usr/local/jakarta/jakarta-tomcat-5.5.9/conf]# nano tomcat-users.xml" change password for the perticular user from there and then again reset apache and tomcat service and check.
user username="XXXX" password="xxxxx" roles="manager"/

ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

2009-01-13T04:28:00.003+05:30

ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host
even if the key is correct

Login via console or try login multiple times

Then check the permission of /var/log/btmp
it must be 600
chmod 600 /var/log/btmp

now
ll /var/log/btmp
-rw------- 1 root utmp 73026817 Jan 11 11:13 btmp

Try login now issue fixed

Plesk backup and restoring the domain or whole server

2009-01-06T02:23:00.005+05:30

How to backup and restore in plesk linux based servers..

BACKUP

/usr/local/psa/bin/pleskbackup -v domains domainname.com backupfilename

RESTORE

CREATING MAPFILE

/usr/local/psa/bin/pleskrestore --create-map backupfilename -map yourmapfilename

yourmapfilename = any name

To restore an domain edit the map

vi yourmapfilename
the map file would be like this

yourdomainname.com 11.22.33.44 # IP address
mysql::@localhost:3306

comment the unwanted domain and save the file

Restoring the domain form mapfile

/usr/local/psa/bin/pleskrestore --restore backupfilename -level domains -map yourmapfilename

This will restore the complete domain

Listing email address and password in plesk

2008-12-21T15:53:00.003+05:30

FYI: This article is only for cutting down the resolving time of email issue in plesk.

to get the email address and password list login to shell via root

1. [root@shark03 ~]# cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow
Thepass
2.[root@shark03 ~]# mysql -u admin -p
Enter password:
3. mysql> use psa;
4. SELECT accounts.id, mail.mail_name, accounts.password, domains.name FROM domains LEFT JOIN mail ON domains.id = mail.dom_id LEFT JOIN accounts ON mail.account_id = accounts.id;

Run the above query all the email account with their respective password and
domain names will be displayed .

Reset mysql root password when lost

2008-12-21T15:44:00.003+05:30

How to Reset Mysql root password without old password ..

Follow the steps .........
1) Log in to the server as root

2) Stop the MySql server by typing:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld stop

3) Restart safe_mysqld with the skip-grant-tables option by typing:

/usr/bin/safe_mysqld -Sg &

4) Start MySql as root by typing:

mysql -u root -p mysql (When prompted for a password, just hit enter)

5) Set a new password for root by typing:

update user set password=password("new_pass") where user='root'; (Replace new_pass with you new desired password)

flush privileges;

quit

/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld restart

Cpanel error on accounts(can't use an undefined value as a HASH reference)

2008-10-20T23:22:00.005+05:30

Scenario

In few domains under reseller account or whole cpanel box might show errors in
control panel as bellow
ANSWER

Use the script

for i in $(cat /etc/passwd | awk '{ print $1 }' FS=":"); do
SHDW=`grep $i /etc/shadow`; if [ -z "$SHDW" ]; then echo "$i is
missing from /etc/shadow"; fi; done

If any output comes as user names ensure that the account is not properly
created passwd and shadow files miss the list of users.

If the script didn't give any kind of user names in the server.Login to whm
and reset the owner of the account has problem that will fix the issue.

Cannot start session without errors PHP myadmin in Cpanel

2008-09-29T23:52:00.006+05:30

Scenario

PHPmyadmin throws error as follows
"Cannot start session without errors, please check errors given in your PHP and/or webserver log file and configure your PHP installation properly"

ANSWER

Go to the file /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/etc/phpmyadmin/php.ini
check where the sessions are saved
session.save_path = /tmp

then check the /tmp permission
Check the /tmp permission it must not be 777 it must be 1777

now try accessing the phpmyadmin the error wont be there... it must be fixed

Cpanel /etc/hosts alert issues (Ip Migration issues)

2008-09-10T04:13:00.011+05:30

scenario

After changing the primary ip of the Cpanel server following mail comes to the Admin from cpanel@server.xxxx.com

IMPORTANT: Do not ignore this email.
The hostname (server.xxxxx.com) resolves to . It should resolve to
xxx.xxx.xx.x. Please be sure to correct /etc/hosts as well as the 'A'
entry in zone file for the domain.

You may be able to
automaticly correct this problem by using the ' Add an A
entry for your
hostname ' under ' Dns Functions ' in your Web Host Manager

But the host name resolves to the server properly.

ANSWER

The problem was not with the /etc/hosts ...etc
Check the /etc/ipaddrpool is the new ip listed. I got a old ip listed there.
check /etc/ips .

The problem was some one saved the old eth configuration in
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/fcfg-eth0.back - when the network is restarted
the old ip gets loaded and created an conflict.

After removing the old ip's config and restarting the network the old Ip is
gone but the secondary ips are also missing ....!!

Go to WHM and remove the secondary ips once and added the secondary
ip's again issue fixed.....!

The story continuous !!!
"Story teller"

Welcome to David 's Blog's

2008-08-29T20:13:00.006+05:30

Hello reader,

This blog consists of Linux based web servers day to day issues and their solutions, which I keep it for my own reference and as well as tech's who can find some solution for their issues which they encounter in their day to day work. I post the issues which i work it out on my own....

Hey reader, if you feel that you got an answer from my site or willing to add any valuable points to my blog please do post your valuable comment .

REGARDS
David.S

Today sailing on Vbulletin 3.7.2 patch

2008-08-26T08:42:00.016+05:30

Vbulletin 3.7.2 upgradation and issues

1. Unable to create users after upgradation 3.7.2 patch.
2. error while creating new posts.
3. Manual patch 3.7.2 security patch throws error check the image below.

scenario

1.After upgrading from the old version of vbulletin new user authentication fails new user creation fails
2.After manual upgrade 3 files started showing miss match and tried restoring the forum database connection error popped up
3. New posts where also not able to create.

ANSWER

Installation best procedure

1.Be sure you take the mysql backup and the forums backup.
2.Download the latest version of vbulletion rename the upload directory as forums and
overwrite the files in the directory forums.
3. Go to http://www.example.com/forum/install/upgrade.php and start upgrading the latest
forum . 1 st it prompts for the customer identification number.
4.After 4 step an security alert comes to delete the installation file just move to some top level directory and change the permission or take it as a backup in your local machine.
5.Check weather any file has conflicts path is
Admin CP -> Maintenance -> Diagnostics -> Suspect File Versions
The panel must no show any error or conflict

Errors and Fix

1.If the user authentication fails such us while typing the characters from the image shown the user authentication fails even though you type the correct text.

Fix=> check the Suspect File Versions tab shows any error functions_regimage.php

just remove the file because it is the file of the older version, images are generated by this file
the new version file is already updated.

2. vb3_readme.txt shows error replace the file from the new version which you have downloaded

3.Patch error comes after upgrading 3.7.2 patch on 3 files
adminlog.php,adminfunctions.php,functions.php.... there is no other way rather than installing the latest version of 3.7.2 patch. If you try replacing the install files and config.php.new database connection will fail...
I just restored the old forum and downloaded the latest forum and installed the patched version of vbulletion ... at last my Vbulletion istallation was like .. the image below (success)

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"Story teller"

Todays sailing on Oracale 10g tnsping fails

2008-07-29T00:13:00.013+05:30

Orcale database is not connecting remotely

[root@David] tnsping **.**.**.**
fails to connect

in the server
[root@dbserver] tnsping localhost
tnsping: command not found

scenario

While pinging the server it is reachable but the oracle database fails to connect as well as localhost

[root@dbserver] tnsping localhost
tnsping: command not found

Checked in firewall the port is open ..icmp is active

ANSWER

Oracle database was down that is the reason server is reachable but fails to connect the database

steps to start oracle database
1. su - oracle
2. lsnrctl start
3. dbstart

[root@dbserver] tnsping localhost

TNS Ping Utility for Linux: Version 10.2.0.2.0 - Production on 28-JUL-2008 12:26:13

Copyright (c) 1997, 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Used parameter files:
/home/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/network/admin/sqlnet.ora

Used EZCONNECT adapter to resolve the alias
Attempting to contact (DESCRIPTION=(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=localhost.xxx.com))(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=127.0.0.1)(PORT=1521)))
OK (0 msec)

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"Story teller"

Todays sailing on named service EL4 + Plesk 7.5

2008-07-10T17:13:00.004+05:30

Accidentally restarted named (version 9.2.4-2 ) trowed an error

scenario

restarted named (version 9.2.4-2 ) trowed an error

"Error in named configuration:
none:0: open: /etc/named.conf: file not found"

tail -f /var/log/messages shows
kernel: 0: @f66e7200 length 8000059a status 0c01059a
kernel: 2: @f66e7340 length 80000036 status 00010036
kernel: eth0: Transmit error, Tx status register 82.
kernel: Probably a duplex mismatch. See Documentation/networking/vortex.txt
kernel: Flags; bus-master 1, dirty 1997587141(5) current 1997587141(5)

But the named .conf exists ... checked the permission that is also ok !

tried using yum installing bind
Downloading Packages:
(1/1): bind-devel-9.2.4-2 100% |=========================| 2.2 MB 00:18
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing: bind-devel ##########
[root@cobalt171 etc]# service named start
Starting named:
Error in named configuration:
none:0: open: /etc/named.conf: file not found
[FAILED]
..still no luck .

ANSWER

I found that the server is been updates to chroot environment that is not default in EL4
So the mess is chroot .
Did the following steps
rpm -e bind-chroot
ln -sf /var/named/run-root/etc/named.conf /etc/named.conf ( making the link for named.conf)
/etc/init.d/named restart
Stopping named: [FAILED]
Starting named: [ok]
Issue fixed

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"Story teller"

Todays Sailing At Queue mail + Plesk

2008-06-20T01:03:00.003+05:30

Emails more than 2 Mb are getting to the server outlook says time out
and webmail didnt show up the mail.

scenario

Gmail returns error.
The error that the other server returned was: 552 552 sorry, that message size exceeds my databytes limit (#5.3.4) (state 18).
Even there is nothing in the logs..
checked databytes files .. no use

ANSWER

then tried this logged into plesk panel and
->server->mail->prefernences ->Maximum letter size ........
just changed the vale and saved ..miracle mails showed up
issue fixed...

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"Story teller"

Todays Sailing At Exim

2008-06-12T08:23:00.004+05:30

./convert2maildir running for more than 48 hours for 16 domains and 50 + email accounts

scenario

WHM update couldn't continue because of no disk space
ha that space was recovered by deleting few old files
Fedora core 4 server with 16 domains and 50 + email account runs
./convert2maildir for more than 48 hours...is it crazy !!

Yes it was funny the server tries to convert to maildir and the process gets
dead while changing the ownership the/var/spool/exim/input & /msglog.

ANSWER

1. Tried renicing the process to -20 still the process is dead.

2.Then killed the /convert2maildir without mercy.

3.Then found that /input and msglog had many GB of data so
just moved the dir's and tried ./eximop -force.

4./convert2maildir great success finished in 30mins converting
to dirs.

5.While restarting exim spamd is throwing cpna@..error with lot
of perl ...lines simple ./fixspamassassinfailedupdate fixed

6.Just tried restarting exim. .ah worked spamd.

7.checked maillog the mails started to work back to normal

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"Story teller"

Todays Sailing At Exim

2008-06-10T02:48:00.016+05:30

EXIM mail server & CPanel

"19d 1K30Yy-0000nQ-Oh var/spool/input/output error"

Struggled for three days for solution.

Scenario

I saw the exim mail queue is more than 50000 and tried to remove frozen mails.
got an error while running the command

exiqgrep -z -i | xargs exim -Mrm

19d 1K30Yy-0000nQ-Oh error
I tried
exim -Mrm 1K30Yy-0000nQ-Oh
got the message as
"19d 1K30Yy-0000nQ-Oh input/output error"

But I was able to run other commands like
exim -bpru|grep frozen|awk {'print $3'}|xargs exim -Mrm
to remove frozen mails...

/scripts/eximup --force made a mess the server hung up
/scripts/exim4 --force success but same error.
Answer

It was simple but it didn't strike for 3 days ...
1.locate 1K30Yy-0000nQ-Oh
2.cd /var/spool/exim/input/y
3.rm -rf 1K30Yy-0000nQ-Oh

Then tried the same command
exiqgrep -z -i | xargs exim -Mrm
as well as
exiqgrep -o 432000 -i | xargs exim -Mrm
Wow it is working again...

For exim commands visit http://bradthemad.org/tech/notes/exim_cheatsheet.php

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"Story teller"

Todays Sailing At Exim

2008-06-08T20:44:00.011+05:30

EXIM mail server & CPanel

"Server replied: 421 Unexpected failure, please try later"

Gone crazy seeing that error

Scenario

The server stopped sending and receiving emails.. squirrel mail throws error
"Server replied: 421 Unexpected failure, please try later"

checked via sending mail from root to user wow works ..but no donuts

The mails which I sent got bounced back with error
Technical details of permanent failure:
"PERM_FAILURE: Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 530 530 5.7.1 Client was not authenticated (state 13)."
Checked the logs it said it is unable to locate user permission error

Google & Cpanel forum helped me again .....

Answer

The problem was /etc/localdomains file permission problem it must be "644 "
changed and restarted exim ...
The mails started working again.

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"Story teller"

"Story teller"

2008-06-08T15:51:00.015+05:30

Lot of tales and mystery in every one's life..... I am not an exception !!!

I still have things to say hell, I still have quite a few opinions and heck... past was really worse future must be good.I always remember this quote

" success is the list of failures"

when I fail on some thing ...!

Funky and funny things .
Great change after getting into work .. enjoying each and every moment .
"Hey DJ make some noise .. play the rock" happy to be party's

Passion
That credit goes to Linux .....Linux not any thing any more ..

The story continuous !!!

"Story teller"