Ubuntu tutorials

How to control all the actions of transmission client

2011-09-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

A uTorrent like cross platform remote control for the Transmission BitTorrent client (transmission-daemon) transmission-remote-java is a cross platform open source remote client to the RPC interface of transmission-daemon, which is part of the Transmission BitTorrent client.

The application is cross-platform and can be downloaded here.

In windows, you can make a shortcut to point to the .jar file. The path should be something like:

"C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe" -jar "C:\Program Files\transmission-remote-java-0.12.16-1034-bin.jar"

where:
- C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe is the path to your java sdk installation directory
- C:\Program Files\transmission-remote-java-0.12.16-1034-bin.jar is the path to .jar file

Download error on torrent start - transmission webui

2011-09-27T02:54:00.000-07:00

If you get a nasty error about "Download error" in your download folder, is because you need to setup proper username/group permission. By default, transmission uses the group and the user called "debian-transmission".

Let's say download directory is /home/username/downloads.

sudo usermod -a -G debian-transmission username

where username is your username. with this command you are being added to debian-transmission group.

sudo chmod 0770 /home/username/downloads -R

this will set the owner and the group users to read/write/execute on this folder.

sudo chgrp debian-transmission /home/username/downloads -R

chgrp will change recursively the content of download folder to group "debian-transmission"

How to find out what version of ubuntu i'm running?

2011-07-31T02:28:00.000-07:00

If you don't have a GUI interface and you wanna find out what version of Ubuntu server you have, just run the followig command:

cat /etc/issue

It should tell you something like this:

Ubuntu 10.10 \n \l

What libraries do i need to install webmin on Ubuntu 10.10?

2011-07-31T02:24:00.000-07:00

To install Webmin on your Ubuntu machine, you are going to need some libraries pre-installed. These libraries are:

sudo apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl apt-show-versions python python-minimal libapt-pkg-perl perl-base perl-modules

You can also read the rest of the process of installing Webmin on Ubuntu.

How to see HDD temperatures under Ubuntu server

2011-06-05T00:54:00.000-07:00

There is a small apllication called hddtemp, which shows you the temperature of your HDD by reading data from S.M.A.R.T. on drives that support this feature. Most modern x86 computer hard disk comes with S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology). It is a monitoring system for computer hard disks to detect and report on various indicators of reliability, in the hope of anticipating failures.

sudo apt-get install hddtemp

then run it for your /dev/sda hard drive:

sudo hddtemp /dev/sda

it should print something like this:

/dev/sda: WDC WD10EARS-003BB1: 36Â°C

Resources: cyberciti.biz

CPU information under Ubuntu server

2011-06-05T00:44:00.000-07:00

If you want to see all the CPU info (specs) of your server, run this:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

it will show you something like this:

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model  : 4
model name : Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 3.06GHz
stepping : 1
cpu MHz  : 3058.933
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug  : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu  : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 5
wp  : yes
flags  : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc up pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl tm2 cid cx16 xtpr
bogomips : 6117.86
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 128
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

How to see system specs in CLI under Ubuntu server

2011-06-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Under command line interface in ubuntu server you are not so limited. For example you can see your system's specs by running:

sudo lshw

You can get specific details by using the -C flag to list all you hard disks:

sudo lshw -C disk

It can create an html page with your hardware details:

sudo lshw -html > your-file-name.html

then open it with firefox:

firefox your-file-name.html

Reference: embraceubuntu.com

Email alerts when someone connects to your network

2011-05-07T02:25:00.000-07:00

If someone connects to your network, and you want to be notified by email, you can use a little application called arpwatch.

sudo apt-get install arpwatch

edit it's config:

sudo nano /etc/default/arpwatch

use the following line:

ARGS="-N -p -i eth0 -m email_adress@email_server.tld"

- eth0 is your internal network interface
- email_adress@email_server.tld is the email adress where you want to be notified. you have to be able to send emails from your server. you can send emails without email server.

you can restart, start and stop the application by using:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/arpwatch restart

for more info read the manual:

man arpwatch

reference: emil.cheriches.ro

Record with microphone in command line on Ubuntu server

2011-05-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

If you have a mic, and you want to record the sounds near your mic, you will need two programs: arecord and lame.

sudo arecord -f S16_LE -c1 -r44100 -t raw -d 600 | lame -r -s 44.10 -m m -b 128 - test.mp3

Short explanation:
the arecord software records in signed 16bit little endian at 44100 hz and outputs in raw format, then lame transforms it to a mp3 file at 128kpbs and 44.1 khz. the -d parameter represents 600 seconds (10 minutes) recording time until it stops. for more info read the manual on both programs:

man arecord

man lame

You can playback the test.mp3 file with mpg123 like this:

sudo mpg123 test.mp3

if this doesn't work on first test, try adjusting your alsamixer.

MySql ERROR 2002

2011-05-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my server refused to run the mysql process, giving this error:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)

The error was solved. The problem was the free space left on root partition. I was having only 300mb left. The system was running very slow, also.

Installing Java on Ubuntu server 10.10

2011-04-30T07:15:00.000-07:00

Make sure to check if you have Java already installed by running:

sudo java -version

On Ubuntu server 10.10 they have moved the program into partner repositories, and disabled it. You need to enable partner repositories in sources.list:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

remove the comment (the # sign) from the beginning of line on both deb servers, and save the file.

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner
deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu maverick partner

update repositories list:

sudo apt-get update

install java:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-bin

Now check again if everything is ok by running:

sudo java -version

You should get something like:

java version "1.6.0_24"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_24-b07)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 19.1-b02, mixed mode, sharing)

Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Linux

2011-04-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

Celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Linux with us. Watch the Story of Linux to remember - or learn for the first time - how Linux disrupted a market and has begun to change the world. Do you see yourself in its story?

How to test port forwarding

2011-04-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

If you have setup a port forward on your linux box, you can test it by running port forwarding tests on websites specialized in this job. One of these is http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/. It automatically detects your ip and you have to enter only your port you are about to test, and hit Check.

FLAC to MP3 script

2011-04-24T05:22:00.000-07:00

The following script will decode the flac files in wav and then encode them in mp3.

1. First we install flac and lame library:

sudo apt-get install flac lame

2. Open a file:

sudo nano /bin/flac2mp3

3. You'll now need to make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /bin/flac2mp3

4. Paste the following script:

# Encode
# v0.1 17.08.08 - First created
# Darren O'Connor 

# This script, when run in a folder full of FLAC files, will create high quality VBR mp3's for use in mp3 players.
# This version uses lame 3.98. If you use version 3.97 and below you'll need to change a few options

#!/bin/bash
mkdir wav/
flac -d *.flac
mv *.wav wav/
cd wav/
for f in *.wav; do mv "$f" "${f%.wav}";done
mkdir ../mp3/
find -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '*' -exec lame -V0 -q0 '{}' -o '../mp3/{}' \;
cd ../mp3/
for FILE in *; do mv "$FILE" "$FILE.mp3"; done
cd ../
rm -r wav/

5. How to use:

we navigate to out directory containing .flac files and run

sudo flac2mp3

after everything was encoded, you will see a subdirectory called mp3. those are the files you need.

Resources: ubuntuforums

How to install PureFTPd And MySQL on Ubuntu server

2011-04-24T03:43:00.000-07:00

This document describes how to install a PureFTPd server that uses virtual users from a MySQL database instead of real system users. This is much more performant and allows to have thousands of ftp users on a single machine. In addition to that I will show the use of quota and upload/download bandwidth limits with this setup. Passwords will be stored encrypted as MD5 strings in the database.

For the administration of the MySQL database you can use web based tools like phpMyAdmin which will also be installed in this howto. phpMyAdmin is a comfortable graphical interface which means you do not have to mess around with the command line.

1. Install Mysql and phpmyadmin

a. how to install mysql server
b. how to install phpmyadmin

2. Install PureFTPd With MySQL Support

apt-get install pure-ftpd-mysql

Then we create an ftp group (ftpgroup) and user (ftpuser) that all our virtual users will be mapped to. Replace the group- and userid 2001 with a number that is free on your system:

groupadd -g 2001 ftpgroup

useradd -u 2001 -s /bin/false -d /bin/null -c "pureftpd user" -g ftpgroup ftpuser

3. Create The MySQL Database For PureFTPd

Now we create a database called pureftpd and a MySQL user named pureftpd which the PureFTPd daemon will use later on to connect to the pureftpd database. run the following in phpmyadmin:

CREATE DATABASE pureftpd;

GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP ON pureftpd.* TO 'pureftpd'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'ftpdpass';

GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP ON pureftpd.* TO 'pureftpd'@'localhost.localdomain' IDENTIFIED BY 'ftpdpass';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

CREATE TABLE ftpd (
User varchar(16) NOT NULL default '',
status enum('0','1') NOT NULL default '0',
Password varchar(64) NOT NULL default '',
Uid varchar(11) NOT NULL default '-1',
Gid varchar(11) NOT NULL default '-1',
Dir varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
ULBandwidth smallint(5) NOT NULL default '0',
DLBandwidth smallint(5) NOT NULL default '0',
comment tinytext NOT NULL,
ipaccess varchar(15) NOT NULL default '*',
QuotaSize smallint(5) NOT NULL default '0',
QuotaFiles int(11) NOT NULL default 0,
PRIMARY KEY (User),
UNIQUE KEY User (User)
) TYPE=MyISAM;

4. Configure PureFTPd

Edit /etc/pure-ftpd/db/mysql.conf

cp /etc/pure-ftpd/db/mysql.conf /etc/pure-ftpd/db/mysql.conf_orig

cat /dev/null > /etc/pure-ftpd/db/mysql.conf

sudo nano /etc/pure-ftpd/db/mysql.conf

It should look like this:

MYSQLSocket      /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
#MYSQLServer     localhost
#MYSQLPort       3306
MYSQLUser       pureftpd
MYSQLPassword   ftpdpass
MYSQLDatabase   pureftpd
#MYSQLCrypt md5, cleartext, crypt() or password() - md5 is VERY RECOMMENDABLE uppon cleartext
MYSQLCrypt      md5
MYSQLGetPW      SELECT Password FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L" AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MYSQLGetUID     SELECT Uid FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L" AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MYSQLGetGID     SELECT Gid FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MYSQLGetDir     SELECT Dir FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MySQLGetBandwidthUL SELECT ULBandwidth FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MySQLGetBandwidthDL SELECT DLBandwidth FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MySQLGetQTASZ   SELECT QuotaSize FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")
MySQLGetQTAFS   SELECT QuotaFiles FROM ftpd WHERE User="\L"AND status="1" AND (ipaccess = "*" OR ipaccess LIKE "\R")

Make sure that you replace the string ftpdpass with the real password for the MySQL user pureftpd in the line MYSQLPassword! Please note that we use md5 as MYSQLCrypt method, which means we will store the users' passwords as an MD5 string in the database which is far more secure than using plain text passwords!

Then create the file /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/ChrootEveryone which simply contains the string yes:

echo "yes" > /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/ChrootEveryone

This will make PureFTPd chroot every virtual user in his home directory so he will not be able to browse directories and files outside his home directory.

Also create the file /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/CreateHomeDir which again simply contains the string yes:

echo "yes" > /etc/pure-ftpd/conf/CreateHomeDir

This will make PureFTPd create a user's home directory when the user logs in and the home directory does not exist yet.

Afterwards, we restart PureFTPd:

sudo /etc/init.d/pure-ftpd-mysql restart

5. Populate The Database And Test

By using phpMyadmin, we create the user exampleuser with the status 1 (which means his ftp account is active), the password secret (which will be stored encrypted using MySQL's MD5 function), the UID and GID 2001 (use the userid and groupid of the user/group you created at the end of step two!), the home directory /home/www.example.com, an upload and download bandwidth of 100 KB/sec. (kilobytes per second), and a quota of 50 MB:

INSERT INTO `ftpd` (`User`, `status`, `Password`, `Uid`, `Gid`, `Dir`, `ULBandwidth`, `DLBandwidth`, `comment`, `ipaccess`, `QuotaSize`, `QuotaFiles`) VALUES ('exampleuser', '1', MD5('secret'), '2001', '2001', '/home/www.example.com', '100', '100', '', '*', '50', '0');

Now open your FTP client program on your work station and try to connect. You shuld be able to connect.

Now, if you run:

ls -l /home

you should see that the directory /home/www.example.com (exampleuser's home directory) has been automatically created, and it is owned by ftpuser and ftpgroup (the user/group we created at the end of step two):

user@ubuntu:~# ls -l /home
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 administrator administrator 4096 2010-10-18 11:35 administrator
drwxr-xr-x 2 ftpuser       ftpgroup      4096 2010-10-29 14:29 www.example.com

Insert users with phpMyadmin:

For most people it is easier if they have a graphical front-end to MySQL; therefore you can also use phpMyAdmin to administrate the pureftpd database.

Whenever you want to create a new user, you have to create an entry in the table ftpd so I will explain the columns of this table here:

a. User: The name of the virtual PureFTPd user (e.g. exampleuser).
b. status: 0 or 1. 0 means the account is disabled, the user cannot login.
c. Password: The password of the virtual user. Make sure you use MySQL's MD5 function to save the password encrypted as an MD5 string:

d. UID: The userid of the ftp user you created at the end of step two (e.g. 2001).
e. GID: The groupid of the ftp group you created at the end of step two (e.g. 2001).
f. Dir: The home directory of the virtual PureFTPd user (e.g. /home/www.example.com). If it does not exist, it will be created when the new user logs in the first time via FTP. The virtual user will be jailed into this home directory, i.e., he cannot access other directories outside his home directory.
g. ULBandwidth: Upload bandwidth of the virtual user in KB/sec. (kilobytes per second). 0 means unlimited.
h. DLBandwidth: Download bandwidth of the virtual user in KB/sec. (kilobytes per second). 0 means unlimited.
i. comment: You can enter any comment here (e.g. for your internal administration) here. Normally you leave this field empty.
j. ipaccess: Enter IP addresses here that are allowed to connect to this FTP account. * means any IP address is allowed to connect.
k. QuotaSize: Storage space in MB (not KB, as in ULBandwidth and DLBandwidth!) the virtual user is allowed to use on the FTP server. 0 means unlimited.
l. QuotaFiles: amount of files the virtual user is allowed to save on the FTP server. 0 means unlimited.

Resources: howtoforge, pureftpd readme

List Groups A User Belongs To In Ubuntu

2011-04-24T03:03:00.000-07:00

Still seeing this request quite frequently in my website logs, I thought I'd expand the topic a bit more, given the fact that I've somehow left out the most obvious way to confirm the group membership for a Ubuntu user.

Group membership in Ubuntu

Every Unix-like OS is bound to have a group command, which is aimed to help you confirm Unix group membership for any user known to your system.

The easiest it to run it and specify a username in command line. The result is a list of Ubuntu groups:

groups greys

greys : admin www-data

If you're looking at confirming the membership for a few users, you can specify usernames in the same command line:

groups greys root

greys : admin www-data
root : root

Resources: unixtutorial

Short command line tutorial in Ubuntu server

2011-04-24T01:03:00.000-07:00

When you're just starting to work in command line (CLI), you will find yourself frustrated, because all the command you need to input to actually do something. But there are a some commands in terminal which will improve your experience.

1. To see the last commands for your username:

history

history introduce words from the history list into the input stream, making it easy to repeat commands, insert the arguments to a previous command into the current input line, or fix errors in previous commands quickly.
it saves the last x commands in a file called .bash_history (it's hidden, so you need to ls -al to see it) and is located in your home directory.

2. To move through the last commands:

you can move through the last input commands, by using:
a. up/down arrow keys - up is for previous and down is for next
b. ^p (CTRL+P) and ^n (CTRL+N) stands for previous and next

3. autocomplete:

yes, there is an input autocomplete in CLI. the magic key is TAB. you can use it by typing the first letters of a command or a file, then press TAB and it will complete your command or file.

to move to /var/www/ directory:
a. type cd /v and press TAB. you will have now cd /var/
b. type b and press TAB. you will have now cd /var/www/

4. sudo bang-bang:

as described in one of the previous tutorial, you can use the sudo !! command to have permission over a command, which you wrote without the sudo in front.

let's say your command was nano /var/www/index.php and your not the owner. you will receive a text, telling you that you don't have permissions to access that file. now you can enter sudo !! command.

5. CTRL+R:

this command is very usefull when you wanna find a past command. Just press ^r (CTRL+R) and start typing part of a command and you will see the suggestions.

Change files only permissions recursively

2011-04-24T00:39:00.000-07:00

Q. How do I recursively change files with 777 permissions to 755 in /home/user/demo directory? I have a number of files in this directory and I need to change from 777 to only if that file has 777 permissions.

Is there an easy way out to achieve this?

A. To change file access permissions you use chmod command. It has -R or -recursive option that change files and directories recursively. For example

chmod -R 0755 directory

However, if you need to apply conditional file permissions recursively use combination of find and chmod command.

Find all files in /home/user/demo directory

find /home/user/demo -print

Now find all files in /home/user/demo directory with permission 777

find /home/user/demo -perm 777 -print

Next you need to apply chmod on all these files using -exec option:

find /home/user/demo -perm 777 -print -exec chmod 755 {} \;

Read man page of find for more information.

Resources: cyberciti

Correct file permissions for /var/www/ folder

2011-04-24T00:12:00.000-07:00

The default group and user for /var/www/ folder is root:root. We need to change that, so we are able to set more restricteve permissions on all files under /var/www/.

Install a Local Web Server on Ubuntu

2011-04-23T23:17:00.000-07:00

This video will show you how to set up a local web server on the Ubuntu desktop version. It walks through most of the process using a GUI and uses just a little bit of command line to set some things up. I did it this way to make it the most accessible to even new users of Ubuntu. It walks you through installing the needed packages, setting it up for clean URLs and getting Drupal started.

Resources: lullabot

File manager in terminal

2011-04-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

The most simple solution to a file manager available in terminal under Ubuntu OS, is mc (midnight commander).

sudo apt-get install mc

It contains many features

1.Master renaming files,editing and copying
2.To view the rpm, deb files
3.Arrow keys control the selection
4.Function keys performs operations
5.It is mouse support

Simple calculator script in command line

2011-04-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

Please open a text file namely 'calcu' in terminal and copy & paste the following lines.

sudo nano calcu

#!/bin/bash
# Shell Program to simulate a simple calculator
# --------------------------------------------------------------------
# This is a free shell script under GNU GPL version 2.0 or above
# Copyright (C) 2005 nixCraft project.
# -------------------------------------------------------------------------

a=$1
op="$2"
b=$3

if [ $# -lt 3 ]
then
echo "$0 num1 opr num2"
echo "opr can be +, -, / , x"
exit 1
fi

case "$op" in
+) echo $(( $a + $b ));;
-) echo $(( $a - $b ));;
/) echo $(( $a / $b ));;
x) echo $(( $a * $b ));;
*) echo "Error ";;
esac

save and exit.

Type the following line in terminal

sudo chmod +x calcu

*/the calcu is script file name,

how to use it:

1. plus
./calcu 23 + 23 =46

2.multiply
./calcu 100 x 2 = 200

3.divide
./calcu 100 / 2 = 50

4.minus
./calcu 100 - 2 = 98

Resources: ubuntuexplore.blogspot.com

How to see who's logged in?

2011-04-23T13:30:00.001-07:00

Sometimes you may wanna see who's logged in, if multiple administrators or users are using the same machine.

1. The simpliest command to see who's logged in:

who

2. If you want more detailed output install finger:

sudo apt-get install finger

finger -ls

this command will output the users login username, real name, home directory, shell access, the last login time, idle time, the ip from which he logged on.

more info:

man finger

3. to see the last logins and logout history on current machine:

last

4. to see the last login of all users on current machine:

lastlog

How to add new mysql user

2011-03-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

When you want a user to be able to acces only one database, you need to create one database and one user with certain privileges.

To create a database, first we login to mysql server:

mysql -u root -p password

where root is the master username and password is the password of the master

we create a database:

CREATE DATABASE newdatabase;

1. first method to create and grant access to a new user:

we grant some privileges:

GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP ON newdatabase.* TO 'newusername'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'newpassword';

where newusername is our new username and newpassword is our new password.

to grant all privileges to our new database, use this:

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON newdatabase.* TO 'newusername'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'newpassword' WITH GRANT OPTION;

other privileges are:
data options: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, FILE;
structure options: CREATE, ALTER, INDEX, DROP, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, SHOW VIEW, CREATE ROUTINE, ALTER ROUTINE, EXECUTE, CREATE VIEW, EVENT, TRIGGER;
administration options: GRANT, SUPER, PROCESS, RELOAD, SHUTDOWN, SHOW DATABASES, LOCK TABLES, REFERENCES, REPLICATION CLIENT, REPLICATION SLAVE, CREATE USER;

2. second method to create and grant access to a new user:

create the new user:

CREATE USER 'newusername'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'newpassword';

grant limited access to all databases:

GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ON *.* TO 'newusername'@'localhost';

grant full access to all databases:

GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'newusername'@'localhost';

before exiting mysql console, we should flush the privileges to be able to have instant access to our new user:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Resources: www.databasef1.com

Remove annoying verlihub startup messages

2011-03-11T08:20:00.000-08:00

When you first install Verlihub server, you will be welcomed as an operator (administrator) with 4 messages like this:

Private message from Reminder:  
 Congratulations you successfully installed Verlihub0.9.8e-r2
 
 Please visit the Web sites for imformation about the Verlihub project. It can be found here http://www.verlihub-project.org
 
 Verlihub Admin Zone DC Hub: dchub://hub.verlihub-project.org:7777
 
 Verlihub discussion forum: http://forums.verlihub-project.org

Private message from Donation:  
 If you are interested in making a donation to the author or developers of the verlihub
 project please visit our website for more information. http://www.verlihub-project.org/donations.php

 To diable this message, type the command !modtrigger +vh_donation -c11 in mainchat.

Private message from Updates:  
 Many things have been fixed since 0.9.8d-RC2 and this is considered to be our most functional
 and stable release to date. While the functionality of the software is richer then ever,
 its resource usage is at an all time low. It is now an extremely scaleable server.
 All known exploits have now been permanently closed to help protect both you AND other
 hubs in the DC community.
 
 Get Rid of this message by typing the command !modtrigger +updates -c11 in mainchat.

Private message from News:  
 This will be the final release candidate of the Verlihub 0.9.8 tree. Work has now begun
 on the next major version of verlihub with planned support for new protocol extensions as
 well as some significant new features.
 Thanks to everyone who contributes their free time and effort for all aspects of the verlihub project.
 
 Get Rid of this message by typing the command !modtrigger +news -c11 in mainchat.

This messages are triggers and they can be shut down.

!modtrigger +admin_reminder -c11

!modtrigger +vh_donation -c11

!modtrigger +updates -c11

!modtrigger +news -c11

All the commands above are modified to trigger for users with class 11 or higher, which means that they are disabled.

Useful Commands For VerliHub

2011-03-10T12:23:00.001-08:00

HUB SETTINGS:

!set hub_name NAME - Setting up the Name of the Hub
!modtrigger +motd -d "text_of_motd" -c 0 -C 10 -f 20 - Setting up the Motd
!set opchat_name NICK - Setting up the Opchat name
!set hub_security NICK - Setting up the Security hub Name
!set disable_me_cmd 1 - Disable +me ( 0 to enable)
!set disable_regme_cmd 1 - Disable +regme ( 0 to enable)
!set send_user_info 0 - Disable User Info ( 1 to enable )
!set send_user_ip 1 - To show Users IP in MainChat ( 0 to disable )
!set min_share 1024 - Setiing up Min Share on the Hub ( 0 to remove share )
!modconntype default -s 1 -S 100 - Setting Up Min/Max slots required on the Hub.
!set max_chat_msg 0 - Blocking MC , Users cannot send messages on MC anymore
!set max_chat_msg 200 - Open MC ( 200 - means how many characters a user can write)

CHATROOM:

!addroom -=REG-Chat=- -CCEU -ac1 -AC10 -c1 -tChat-Room-For-REGs - Adding Reg Chat.
!addroom -=VIP-Chat=- -CCEU -ac2 -AC10 -c2 -tChat-Room-For-VIPs - Adding Vip Chat

County Code:
If you leave in Germany and you accept users only from germany:

!set cc_zone1 :RO:
!set max_users1 1750 <== There type you max_users from the hub where "1750" is.
!set max_users0 0

If you don't wanna accept users from one county, For example Italy :

cc_zone1 :IT:
!set max_users1 0

PLUGINS:

!pluglist all - Shows you all Plugins
!lstplug - Shows you which Plugins are Registered

TRIGGERS:

!lstrigger - Shows you a List of Trigger.
!addtrigger +vot -d "your_text" -c 3 -C 10 -f 80 - To set up +vot Trigger ( Op Command )
!addtrigger +rules -d "text" -c 0 -C 10 -f 20 - This appears only to the user which are typing this command on MC
!addtrigger +rules -d "text" -c 0 -C 10 -f 50 - This appears only to the user which are typing this command on PM
!addtrigger +login -d "text" -c 0 -C 10 -f 22 - This appears When users Log In into the Hub ( In PM ).

FORBIDS:

!lstforbid - Shows You a List of Forbiden Words
!addforbid http:// -f 7 -C 1 -r "Don't Spam in here _BAN_1h" - adding a forbiden word

ADD/CHANGE/REMOVE AN ACCOUNT:

!regnew Nick Class - Adding Acounts
!regclass Nick Class - Changing a LVL for an Acount
!regdelete nick - Deleting an Acount
!regpasswd Nick - Seetting uo password for one Acount
!lsreg all - shows you all Acounts ( Ezechille Bot is Required for this command )
+passwd your_pw - Setting up password

ENFORCING HUB RULES:

!drop Nick - To drop a nick ( not kicking , just Disconnect the User)
!kick Nick "reason" - Kicking one User for some reason
!Bannick Nick "reason" - To Ban a nick
!Banip Nick "reason" - To ban an IP
!flood Nick - Flooding A User

USER INFO - SETTINGS:

!lsban 100 - shows you Last 100 Bans.
!getip Nick - Shows you The IP from Selected User
!getinfo Nick - Shows you some info about a Nick
!whoip IP - Shows you which User are using Specified IP

!regset Nick hide_keys 1 - hidding an Nick form other users ( 0 to show him back )
!regset Nick hide_share 1 - Hide Share to an Nick ( 0 - to make it back visible )

Original post: freeforumit.com

What is "sudo bang bang”?

2011-03-09T00:44:00.000-08:00

"sudo bang bang" is a very usefull command when working in CLI.
Some Linux distros have you login as a user instead of an administrator.
So, to do something admin-wise, you have to proceed the command with “sudo” (Super-User DO), which tells the system “you will do this, because I’m God and I said so.” The !! / bang-bang (! = bang) is basically a shortcut you can use to repeat the previous command. So, typical scenario is that you try a command, and it kicks back a message saying you have to be an admin to do that. So, you can either type “sudo ” to run that command as super-user/admin, or you can type “sudo !!” where !! tells the system to use the previous command that was attempted.

Related posts: http://justinsomnia.org/, Original comic from xkcd by Randall Munroe

How to find files from the command line in Ubuntu server

2011-02-17T11:24:00.000-08:00

The find command searches files within a directory and its subdirectories according to several criteria such as name, size and time of last read/write. By default find prints the name of the located files but it can also perform commands on these files.

1. Find a file by knowing it's name:

find $HOME -name 'mysong.ogg'

where $HOME is your home directory; mysong.ogg is the file we are looking for;

2. Find a file by knowing a small part of it's name:

find /path/to/your/home -name '*cat*'

where /path/to/your/home is the path where you're searching; -name finds a file by a part of it's name, in this case "cat";

3. Find a file of a specific filetype:

find $HOME -iname '*.ogg'

find all ogg files in your home directory. '-iname' performs a case-insensitive search while the wildcard character '*' matches any character, or number of characters, or zero characters

4. Locating a file by it's size:

find $HOME -iname '*.ogg' -size +100M

here we are searching for all ogg files that are 100 megabytes or larger;

5. Locating files by acces time:

find $HOME -atime +30

here we are searching for all files that have an access time of greater than 30 days;

6. Performing actions on files:

sudo find / -name '*cat*' -exec rm {} \;

here we are searching for all files in the root, that contains the cat string and deletes them. use this command very cautiously.

For more info and all the options:

man find

Resources: ubuntu help documentation, ubuntu forums

Adding torrent to transmissioncli on Ubuntu server using transmission-remote

2010-12-31T10:07:00.000-08:00

transmission-remote is the application for remote control a torrent server using transmissioncli. You can add, edit, delete, start, stop torrents and edit their options.

1. To list all torrents on the current server:

sudo transmission-remote -l

2. To list all torrents on a remote server:

sudo transmission-remote homeserver:1234 -l

3. To list all torrents on a remote server with authentification:

sudo transmission-remote homeserver:1234 --auth=username:password -l

where homeserver is the domain and 1234 is the port of transmissioncli. the username and the password are self explanatory.

will display the following details (as columns): ID, Done, Have, ETA, Up, Down, Ratio, Status and Name.

4. Get a list of files for a torrent:

sudo transmission-remote -t1 -f

where -t1 is the ID of torrent, in this case 1

5. To stop a torrent:

sudo transmission-remote -t1 --stop

6. To start a torrent:

sudo transmission-remote -t1 --start

7. To start only the first 2 files:

sudo transmission-remote -t1 -Gall -g1,2

8. To add a torrent:

sudo transmission-remote -a file.torrent

where file.torrent it's our torrent file. can be local or remote.

9. To remove a torrent:

sudo transmission-remote -t1 -r

will remove the torrent with the ID equal to 1. will not remove the actual files, only the torrent from the list. to remove downloaded data, use the --remove-and-delete option instead of -r.

10. To list the connected peers to a torrent:

sudo transmission-remote -t1 -pi

to see it live (every second):

while true;do clear;sudo transmission-remote -t12 -pi;sleep 1;done

11. To see the upload and download speed of a torrent:

sudo transmission-remote -t12 -i | grep Speed

to see it live (every second):

while true;do clear;sudo transmission-remote -t12 -i | grep Speed;sleep 1;done

More option of transmission-remote by running:

man transmission-remote

or by this page

Resources: manpages.ubuntu.com

Find out the installation folder of an application

2010-12-30T07:35:00.000-08:00

You may need to find out the installation folder (pathname) of an application for some reason. The command that will help us is which:

which gcc

will output /usr/bin/gcc, where gcc is the program we are looking for.

for more info about this command:

man which

will display this:

NAME
       which - locate a command

SYNOPSIS
       which [-a] filename ...

DESCRIPTION
       which returns the pathnames of the files (or links) which would be exeâ
       cuted in the current environment, had its arguments been given as  comâ
       mands  in a strictly POSIX-conformant shell.  It does this by searching
       the PATH for executable files matching the names of the  arguments.  It
       does not follow symbolic links.

OPTIONS
       -a     print all matching pathnames of each argument

EXIT STATUS
       0      if all specified commands are found and executable

       1      if  one  or  more  specified commands is nonexistent or not exeâ
              cutable

       2      if an invalid option is specified

How to ban a user by nickname or ip on Verlihub

2010-12-26T04:42:00.000-08:00

If some users don't behave nicely, verlihub offers some solutions. One of them is banning a client by it's username (nickname) or ip. All the following commands must be written in a dc client as administrator.

1. Banning a user by ip:

!banip 1.1.1.1 reason

where 1.1.1.1 it's the client ip and reason is the message it will see after the ban. this ban is permanent.
to find out someones ip adress:

!getinfo nickname

2. Banning a user by nickname:

!banip nickname reason

where nickname it's the client nickname and reason is the message it will see after the ban. this ban is permanent.

3. Banning a user by share:

!banshare share reason

where share it's the client share and reason is the message it will see after the ban. this ban is permanent.

4. Banning a user temporarly:

!ban_2w username message

where username is the nickname of the user and 2w is the time a user is banned, 2w represents 2 weeks. other measures are: s seconds, m minutes, h hours, d days, w weeks, m months, y years

Resources: verlihub project

How to disable iptables temporarily on ubuntu

2010-12-12T03:00:00.000-08:00

With iptables you can create your own set of rules for your network, just like a firewall.
If you need to disable all the iptables rules temporarily, you can flush all the rules using:

sudo iptables -F

note: to enable the rules, just restart ubuntu.

or you can make a script:

sudo nano -w /root/fw.stop

enter the following:

echo "Stopping iptables rules and allow everyone..."
iptables -F
iptables -X
iptables -t nat -F
iptables -t nat -X
iptables -t mangle -F
iptables -t mangle -X
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT

save it and make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /root/fw.stop

to run your new script:

sudo /root/fw.stop

Resources: help.ubuntu.com

How to port forward utorrent client through ubuntu box

2010-12-12T01:41:00.000-08:00

At home i have a ubuntu box which is having some services and it's doing internet connection sharing.
Uubuntu does not forward ports by default. utorrent is a small torrent client for windows and it needs a tcp port opened for you to have an active connection.
The difference between active and pasive connection is simple: if you are using a pasive connection (usually behind a firewall like a home router or a linux box) you can't connect to pasive peers. that means you are very limited.
To correct this, port forwarding is the solution. if you don't have a firewall installed on ubuntu box, this is the command:

sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp -i ppp0 --dport 17090 -j DNAT --to 192.168.0.2:17090

where:
- ppp0 is the internet interface, mine is a broadband connection. your's should be like eth0 or eth1.
- 17090 is the port you are forwarding
- 192.168.0.2:17090 is the ip and the port where your utorrent application resides.

Remember that this is not a permanent solution, after you restart your linux box, you will have to do this again. If you don't want to lose your settings you need to save iptables into a file and restore it after each startup.
to do this save iptables:

sudo iptables-save > iptables.rules

then edit /etc/network/interfaces:

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

and paste the following line after your internet network card:

post-up iptables-restore < /home/username/iptables.rules

where username is your username.

because i have a broadband connection, my file looks like this:

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto dsl-provider
iface dsl-provider inet ppp
pre-up /sbin/ifconfig eth0 up # line maintained by pppoeconf
post-up iptables-restore < /home/username/iptables.rules #this file must exist
provider dsl-provider

You can test your port forwarding configuration.

Resources: cyberciti.biz, help.ubuntu.com

How to create new torrents with transmissioncli on Ubuntu server

2010-11-25T08:42:00.000-08:00

If you want to create some torrents for seeding, you will find transmissioncli a very good pogram. It has a WEBui interface and can be controlled over internet to add new torrents, pause torrents, delete torrents. Each torrent has detailed information about it. you will need to install transmissioncli from repositories first.

to create a torrent from a file:

transmissioncli -n myfile -c "Some comment" -a http://tracker.url/announce myfile.torrent

where -n myfile argument is the path to the file;
-a http://tracker.url/announce is the tracker you will need to use in order to properly transfer files;
myfile.torrent is the file the program will create. you can specify a path or it will put it in current directory;

to create a torrent from a directory:

transmissioncli -n mydir/ -c "Some comment" -a http://tracker.url/announce mydir.torrent

the arguments are the same as the command for files above.

After you have the .torrent file made by transmissioncli, you will need to add it for seeding.

sudo transmission-remote -a mydir.torrent -t daemon -f /home/your_username/download

where mydir.torrent is the torrent file for the torrent we just made; /home/your_username/download is the folder where it will download/seed, the files must be in the same folder in order to seed the files.

Resources: ubuntu manpages, ubuntu forums

How to install a torrent client on Ubuntu server

2010-11-24T11:04:00.000-08:00

transmission-cli is a perfect torrent client for command line interface servers. it uses fewer resources then other clients, it has daemon process, can be controlled remotely by webui interface, it has local peer discovery support, full encryption transfer, speed limits, downlolad rate, scheduled downloads, magnet links, DHT, UPnP and NAT-PMP port forwarding, etc.

To install transmission-cli torrent client:

sudo apt-get install transmission-cli transmission-common transmission-daemon

To stop, start or restart the daemon:

sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start

sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon stop

sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon restart

To edit it's settings, stop the daemon and to open the file /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json.

sudo nano /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

you will have all kind of settings which are self explanatory. you will need to configure settings for transmission such as download directory and the rpc-whitelist. The rpc-whitelist is a list that allows certain IPs to access the web interface to download files. Add your local IP (likely 192.168.*.*).

"rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1, 192.168.*.*",
"rpc-whitelist-enabled": true,

While your here it's probably a good idea to set the speed limits so you don't max out your home connection since this will probably be running in the background all the time.

"speed-limit-down": 60,
"speed-limit-down-enabled": true,
"speed-limit-up": 10,
"speed-limit-up-enabled": true,

Then restart the server by doing sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start

Your web service should be started by now and you should be able to access it from the specified IPs in the whitelist.

Access the webpage at the following address:

http://servers_ip_adress:9091/transmission/web/

the port can be changed in the settings, and also the username and password, if you want a login system.

The transmission has support for addons.

Resources: Official transmission client website, edit configuration file, transmissioncli commands, transmission-daemon commands, transmission-remote commands, ubuntu manual, notes.benlaw.net

How to kill a process in Ubuntu server

2010-11-24T09:56:00.000-08:00

Not having a graphical user interface, ubuntu server is kind of hard to work with if your new. Many of us start some processes and they don't know how to stop them. A little help is to work with htop, but i prefer the old cli. it's much faster and cleaner.
To see all the current processes you need to use the ps command. ps displays information about a selection of the active processes.

to see all the processes:

ps -A

it will display it's PID (it's process id), TTY (with console has started this process), TIME (cumulative CPU time) and CMD (the command). for all the information about it:

man ps

to search for a specific process and a detailed view:

ps aux | grep transmission

where transmission is the process we are searching for. the second column will display the PID for our process.

to kill it (send a signal to a process):

sudo kill -9 8785

where 8785 is the PID we searched for.
for more information about kill command:

man kill

How to reset administrator password in Ubuntu 10.04

2010-11-10T07:25:00.000-08:00

This method might work for older versions of Ubuntu. This method uses the recovery mode. You need to select it from grub console menu. If you don't see grub console on computer boot, hold hown SHIFT while booting in Ubuntu newer then 9.04 and ESC key for Ubuntu older then 9.10. The console should appear.

From the boot menu, select recovery mode, which is usually the second boot option.

After you select recovery mode and wait for all the boot-up processes to finish, you'll be presented with a few options. In this case, you want the Drop to root shell prompt option so press the Down arrow to get to that option, and then press Enter to select it.

The root account is the ultimate administrator and can do anything to the Ubuntu installation (including erase it), so please be careful with what commands you enter in the root terminal.

To reset the password, type

passwd username

where username is the username which you want to reset. You'll then be prompted for a new password. When you type the password you will get no visual response acknowledging your typing. Your password is still being accepted. Just type the password and hit Enter when you're done. You'll be prompted to retype the password. Do so and hit Enter again.

Now the password should be reset. Type

exit

to return to the recovery menu.

After you get back to the recovery menu, select resume normal boot, and use Ubuntu as you normally would—only this time, you actually know the password!

If you are in a weird situation in which your Grub boot menu timeout is 0 seconds, so you cannot select recovery mode or edit any kernel lines, you can use a live CD to reset your user password:

Resources: psychocats.net

How to show Grub console menu

2010-11-06T03:13:00.000-07:00

If you install Ubuntu server 10.04, in default mode on boot does not show the Grub console menu.
To show Grub console menu in Ubuntu newer then 9.04 you need to hold SHIFT key while booting and for Ubuntu older then 9.10 you need to hold ESC key.

The boot menu should appear as follows:

Why choose Ubuntu

2010-10-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

Remove Login sound on Ubuntu desktop 10.04

2010-07-22T08:17:00.000-07:00

If you find the login (start-up) sound very annoying or you want to get rid of it, follow this tutorial which shows how to turn off gnome login sound when Ubuntu startup.
In Ubuntu 10.04 we need to go to System->Administration->Login Screen.
There is an options says “Play login sound”, uncheck it and there you go...

If you want to disable all system sound effects, go to System->Preferences->Sounds and on the select called "Sound theme" select No Sound option.

How to unrar files under Ubuntu 10.04

2010-06-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

If you want to open up a .rar archive file, File Roller, which is the default archive manager, won't be able to open the rar archive. The usual types that can be opened are: tar, gzip, bzip, bzip2, lzma, zip, jar, iso (read-only). We need to install unrar-free to be able to use the same archive manager with some other archive types, like: rar and 7zip.

sudo apt-get install unrar

That's it! Now you can unrar files with File Roller.

How to install a working flash player on Ubuntu x64

2010-06-28T05:31:00.000-07:00

As Adobe Flash Player will not be released official very soon, and alternate flash players are not working properly on Ubuntu x64 systems. The problem with adobe flash player x32 is that is not clickable under x64. So it might work, but it won't receive any mouse clicks. And there is a method which is working under x64 version.

Before you installing it, make sure that previous versions of Flash and nspluginwrapper are uninstalled and any instance of Firefox is closed.

1.First method:

To remove all flash plugins:

sudo apt-get remove -y --purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla libflashsupport nspluginwrapper
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -rfd /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper

Now we download flash player, untar, copy and link libflashplayer.so to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins by doing the following in the terminal:

wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
tar zxvf libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins/

You are done!

2.Second method:

Alternatively you can run the following script in terminal:

We make a file:

sudo nano flash10_x64_en.sh

We paste the following:

#!/bin/bash
# Script  created by
# Alejandro Cuervo 3[at]cuervo[dot]net
# Released under GPL

echo "Closing Firefox"
sudo killall -9 firefox
sudo killall -9 firefox-3.5

echo "Removing previous installs of flash:"
sudo apt-get remove -y --purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla libflashsupport nspluginwrapper
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -f /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/*flash*
sudo rm -rfd /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper

echo "Installing Flash Player 10 64 Bit ver 10.0.42.34"
cd ~
wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
tar zxvf libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

echo "Linking libraries "
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins/

echo "cleaning up"
sudo rm -rf libflashplayer.so 
sudo rm -rf libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
sudo rm -rf flash10_x64_en.sh

echo "Done :-)"
echo "You may re-start Firefox now and enjoy native 64 bit Flash!"

We save it, and make it executable:

sudo chmod +x flash10_x64_en.sh

We run it:

sudo sh ./flash10_x64_en.sh

Resources: quelleimporta

How to install miro on Ubuntu 9.10+

2010-06-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

If you don't know, Miro is a free HD video player. It can play almost any video file (Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, XVID, and more) and offers over 6,000 free internet TV shows and video podcasts.

Miro has a simple, gorgeous interface designed for fullscreen HD video. Since Miro downloads most videos, you can take your shows with you, even on an airplane. Quite simply, Miro is a better way to watch all the video you care about.

Best of all, Miro is 100% free and open source, developed by a non-profit organization and volunteers around the world.

How to install it:

First we need to add PPA on our system:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pcf/miro-releases

It will result in something like this:

Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv DB6F4249F501C2D31923CF8CE38FDEE72D75E850
gpg: requesting key 2D75E850 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com
gpg: key 2D75E850: public key "Launchpad Miro releases" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1  (RSA: 1)

Then we update repositories list:

sudo apt-get update

Install the video player:

sudo apt-get install miro

After everything has finished, you can find the application on Applications -> Sound & Video -> Miro Internet TV

Resources: Miro for Ubuntu

How to install software from PPA source

2010-06-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

PPA comes from Personal Package Archive, which is available from Ubuntu 9.10. Now you don't need to add repositories servers and .gpg key (GNU Privacy Guard), because they are done automatically by adding a string as like this: ppa:gwibber-daily/pp
You still need to remember that the contents of Personal Package Archives are not checked or monitored. You install software from them at your own risk.

So, if you're using the most recent version of Ubuntu (or any version from Ubuntu 9.10 onwards), you can add a PPA to your system with a single line in your terminal.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:user/ppa-name

Replace ppa:user/ppa-name with the PPA's location that you noted above.
Your system will now fetch the PPA's key. This enables your Ubuntu system to verify that the packages in the PPA have not been interfered with since they were built.

Now, as a one-off, you should tell your system to pull down the latest list of software from each archive it knows about, including the PPA you just added:

sudo apt-get update

Now you're ready to start installing software from the PPA like this:

sudo apt-get install software

where software is the program that you want to install.

Resources: launchpad, GPG/PGP Basics

How to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu 10.04

2010-06-14T13:34:00.000-07:00

As the new Ubuntu 10.04 came up, it has many virtual packages bundled with it. I this example will install google chrome in just one command line.

sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

That's it. You will now find google chrome under Applications -> Internet -> Chromium Web Browser

Ubuntu keyboard shortcut key for show desktop

2010-06-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

The same thing as Lock Ubuntu 10.04 screen while away, the shorcut key to show desktop which i've been use to (WIN+D) is gone in ubuntu.

The default keyboard shortcut is CTRL+ALT+D.

Resources: davidtan

Enable NumLock on system start-up Ubuntu

2010-06-05T05:14:00.000-07:00

To enable numlock at each system start-up, we need to install an aplication called numlockx:

sudo apt-get install numlockx

Now we need to make a script to run at each system start-up. Run this in terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/numlockon

Enter the followings:

#!/bin/bash
numlockx on

Save it and make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/numlockon

Add the script to system start-up:

sudo update-rc.d /etc/init.d/numlockon defaults

Short new Ubuntu 10.04 description

2010-05-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

As we have been expected, Ubuntu has been released on April 29th, 2010 for long support, also known as Lucid Lynx. This is the twelfth release of the Ubuntu Operating System.

What's under the hood:
· GNOME 2.30.0 desktop environment;
· Linux kernel 2.6.32.11;
· Nouveau video driver;
· X.Org 7.5;
· X.Org server 1.7.6;
· Compiz Fusion 0.8.4;
· Plymouth graphical boot manager;
· New artwork.

What applications are included:

· Calculator 5.28.2 (an arithmetic, scientific or financial calculator);
· CD/DVD Creator 2.30.0 (the built-in CD/DVD burning utility);
· Character Map 2.30.0 (permits to insert special characters into documents);
· Baobab 2.30.0 (disk usage analyzer);
· Gedit 2.30.0 (a small and lightweight text editor with intuitive spell-checker);
· Seahorse 2.30.0 (passwords and encryption keys manager);
· Search for Files (default system search application);
· Gnome Screenshot 2.30.0 (saves images of your desktop or individual windows);
· Gnome Terminal 2.29.6 (allows you to use the command-line);
· Tomboy 1.2.0 (desktop note-taking application).

Graphics:

· F-Spot 0.6.1.5 (photo manager, RAW importer and editor);
· OpenOffice.org Drawing 3.2.0 (drawings, logos, flow charts creator and editor);
· Simple Scan 1.0.2 (scan, copy and fax images).

Internet tools:

· Empathy 2.30.0.1 (multi-protocol instant messenger);
· Firefox 3.6.3 (the ever-popular web browser);
· Gwibber 2.30.0.1 (a microblogging client);
· Vinagre 2.30.0 (remote desktop viewer);
· Terminal Server Client 0.150 (rdesktop, vncviewer, wfica, xnest frontend);
· Transmission 1.92 (lightweight BitTorrent client).

Office tools:

· Dictionary 2.30.0 (a tool to search word definitions and spelling in an online dictionary);
· Evolution 2.28.3 (powerful e-mail client);
· OpenOffice.org Suite 3.2.0 (spreadsheet, presentation and word processor).

Sound and Video:

· Brasero 2.30.0 (CD/DVD burning application);
· Totem 2.30.0 (DVD-Video, DivX, XviD, WMV, MOV player);
· PiTiVi 0.13.4 (movie creator and editor);
· Rhythmbox 0.12.8 (Last.fm, radio and music player/organizer);
· Sound Recorder 2.30.0 (audio recording tool).

System Administration Utilities:

· Computer Janitor 1.13.3 (a tool that removes obsolete files and cleans your system);
· Palimpsest Disk Utility 2.30.1 (disk drive management and configuration utility);
· Ubuntu Software Center 2.0.2 (software installer/updater tool).

Resources: softpedia news

Make executable php script in terminal

2010-05-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

In terminal is a good ideea to make some script files that will ease your job and run some applications by calling their name. These scripts have to be executable.

Usually a bash file will look something like this:

#!/bin/sh
sudo /usr/local/bin/your_program

And after making it executable, we can run it by calling it's name:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/our_script

With php scripts it's the same, but instead of +x option for the chmod command, you will need to use chmod 755:

sudo chmod 755 hello.php

Example of php script that will run in terminal:

#!/usr/local/bin/php
<?php

echo "Hello world!\n";

?>

Save it as hello.php. Run it by:

hello.php

Lock Ubuntu 10.04 screen while away

2010-05-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

In windows i was used to this shortcut which locked my screen while i was away, by pressing WIN+L. In this way i was asurred that having a password, nobody would work on my computer.
In ubuntu i found out that this shortcut does not exist, but there are others keyboard combination keys to lock the screen.

CTRL+ALT+L

Press them all at once.
By default this will enable your screensaver which is blankscreen if you didn't configured the screensaver. To configure it, go to: SYSTEM -> PREFERENCES -> SCREENSAVER.

Change windows butons back to the right in Ubuntu 10.04

2010-05-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

One of the changes in Ubuntu 10.04 is to have the windows buttons to the left-side, MacOS like. As I didn't liked this change, I've searched the internet and came out with this simple solution: we change the configuration of the gnome settings file by using gconf-editor graphical application.

1.Press Alt+F2 to bring up the Run Application dialog box, enter “gconf-editor” in the text field, and click on Run.

2.The Configuration Editor should pop up. The key that we want to edit is in apps/metacity/general. So we double click each folder, until we reach the destination folder named general. On the right side of the windows we have listed something called "button_layout". Double click on the name and on the window that pops-up we enter the following:

menu:maximize,minimize,close

and then we hit OK. The buttons should be back on the right side.

References: howtogeek.com

How to install Vuze (Azureus) on Ubuntu 9.10 by terminal

2010-04-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

Vuze, also known as Azureus, is a BitTorrent client used to transfer files via the BitTorrent protocol. Vuze is written in Java, and uses the old Azureus Engine.

Before you start you might uninstall your previous version of Azureus.

1. Make sure you have sun Java 1.5 or 1.6 installed and working. To see if what your Java version is set by default type: java -version in the terminal. To install java follow this tutorial.

2.Download Azureus here or by wget in your home directory:

wget http://hwcdn01.vuze.com/files/Vuze_Installer.tar.bz2

3.Untar it:

sudo tar jxvf Vuze_Installer.tar.bz2 -C /opt/

4.Change permissions:

sudo chown -R <username>:<username> /opt/azureus/

where <username> is your ubuntu username

5.Create a shortcut on Applications->Internet:

sudo nano /usr/share/applications/Azureus.desktop

Type in the followings:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Azureus (Vuze)
Comment=P2P Client
Exec=/opt/vuze/azureus
Icon=/opt/vuze/vuze.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Network;

To uninstall Vuze type in terminal:

sudo rm -r /opt/vuze

sudo rm /usr/share/applications/Azureus.desktop

This method works only if you installed Vuze as described above.

Resources: ubuntuforums.org

Sending emails from Ubuntu without having a mail server

2010-04-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

Let's assume that you want to send emails from your server, but you don't have installed an email server. You can use an external server, like Google mail, which is free. Any other smtp mail server is good. The application which does this magical trick is called ssmtp

Let's install our program:

sudo apt-get install ssmtp

Then we need to edit it's configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

1. The configuration to use Gmail's smtp server is:

hostname=ubuntu
AuthUser=email@gmail.com
AuthPass=password
FromLineOverride=YES
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com:587
UseSTARTTLS=YES

Explanation:

AuthUser= is the username which authenticates
AuthPass= is the password for the user above
FromLineOverride= is needed to allow the user to specify their own From: address (Gmail does not allow the user to specify their own From: address)
mailhub= is the smtp server through which we are going to send the emails. the port is optionally needed.
UseSTARTTLS= is to make a secure connection. Gmail needs it.
Others settings:
rewriteDomain= where will the mail seem to come from
hostname= the full hostname of the machine

2. To send email by function mail() in php using this external server

Usually the setings above may already work for the function mail() in php, but if it doesn't you need to set sendmail_path in php.ini:

The php.ini file usually is located in php's folder

sudo nano /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Press CTRL+W and enter sendmail_path. This is the find function in nano editor.

Delete the line where is sendmail_path (CTRL+K) and paste the following:

sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/ssmtp

Observation:

a. To verify if the server is sending emails, send a test email:

ssmtp recipient_email@example.com

The prompt will expect to enter something.

To: recipient_email@example.com
From: myemailaddress@gmail.com
Subject: test email

hello world!

b. You can check if the email are sent by running the following in a second terminal (ALT+F2):

tail -f /var/log/mail.log

This will "catch" live the emails that are sent. Another method to see the emails that were already been sent:

sudo nano /var/log/mail.log

Resources: tombuntu.com, tuxnetworks.blogspot.com,

How to disable/enable email alerts by crontab command from Ubuntu

2010-04-05T13:09:00.000-07:00

Each time a job is succesfully executed by crontab, it sends an email. You might receive e-mails from root account from cron.

To disable crontabs email alerts:

Edit crontab:

sudo crontab -e

And at the end of each cronjob you need to append >/dev/null 2>&1 like this:

0 1 * * * /path/to/script.sh >/dev/null 2>&1

To enable crontab email alerts and setup email for it:

Edit crontab:

sudo crontab -e

At the begining of the file insert MAILTO=admin (admin will be the email where the alerts will be sent). You will need to have a mail server configured or to configure an external email server to be used. Example:

MAILTO=email@domain.com

0 1 * * * /path/to/script.sh

Resources: cyberciti.biz

How to verify the integrity of your Ubuntu CD with md5sum

2010-04-03T23:52:00.001-07:00

Every Ubuntu CD has a file called md5sum.txt on it's root. We can check for the integrity of Ubuntu CD (already burned) or we can check for it's integrity from the .ISO file we downloaded.

1.Check the Ubuntu CD already burned:

We can check it's integrity by mounting the CD and check the md5sum.txt file:

a.To mount CD:

sudo mount /dev/hda /cdrom

cd /cdrom
md5sum -c md5sum.txt

2.Check the Ubuntu CD .ISO file:

we make an iso folder to mount to

sudo mkdir /media/iso

mount the iso file

sudo mount -o loop ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso /media/iso/

check the md5sum

cd /media/iso/

md5sum -c md5sum.txt

Result:

Both methods require some time to be processed and at the end of each file it will tell us that is OK, something like this:

./casper/initrd.lz: OK
./casper/filesystem.manifest: OK
./casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop: OK
./casper/filesystem.squashfs: OK
./casper/vmlinuz: OK
./dists/karmic/Release: OK
./dists/karmic/restricted/binary-i386/Packages.gz: OK
./dists/karmic/restricted/binary-i386/Release: OK
./dists/karmic/Release.gpg: OK
./dists/karmic/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz: OK
./dists/karmic/main/binary-i386/Release: OK
./pics/blue-upperright.png: OK
./pics/blue-lowerleft.png: OK
./pics/blue-upperleft.png: OK
./pics/logo-50.jpg: OK
./pics/red-upperright.png: OK
./pics/red-upperleft.png: OK
./pics/red-lowerright.png: OK
./pics/red-lowerleft.png: OK
./pics/debian.jpg: OK
./pics/blue-lowerright.png: OK
./.disk/casper-uuid-generic: OK
./.disk/release_notes_url: OK
./.disk/cd_type: OK
./.disk/base_installable: OK
./.disk/info: OK
./autorun.inf: OK
./install/README.sbm: OK
./install/sbm.bin: OK
./install/mt86plus: OK
./preseed/ubuntu.seed: OK
./preseed/ltsp.seed: OK
./preseed/cli.seed: OK
./pool/restricted/b/bcmwl/bcmwl-kernel-source_5.10.91.9+bdcom-0ubuntu4_i386.de OK
./pool/restricted/s/sl-modem/sl-modem-daemon_2.9.11~20080817-3ubuntu3_i386.debOK
./pool/main/n/ndisgtk/ndisgtk_0.8.4-1_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/n/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-utils-1.9_1.54-2ubuntu1_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/n/ndiswrapper/ndiswrapper-common_1.54-2ubuntu1_all.deb: OK
./pool/main/b/build-essential/build-essential_11.4_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/b/b43-fwcutter/b43-fwcutter_012-1_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/d/dpkg/dpkg-dev_1.15.4ubuntu2_all.deb: OK
./pool/main/d/dkms/dkms_2.1.0.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb: OK
./pool/main/g/gcc-4.4/g++-4.4_4.4.1-4ubuntu8_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/g/gcc-4.4/libstdc++6-4.4-dev_4.4.1-4ubuntu8_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/g/gcc-defaults/g++_4.4.1-1ubuntu2_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/u/ubiquity/oem-config_2.0.8_all.deb: OK
./pool/main/u/ubiquity/oem-config-gtk_2.0.8_all.deb: OK
./pool/main/m/mouseemu/mouseemu_0.16-0ubuntu4_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/f/fakeroot/fakeroot_1.12.4ubuntu1_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/p/pptp-linux/pptp-linux_1.7.2-3_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/p/patch/patch_2.5.9-5_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/l/linux-wlan-ng/linux-wlan-ng-doc_0.2.9+dfsg-2ubuntu2_all.deb: OK
./pool/main/l/linux-wlan-ng/linux-wlan-ng_0.2.9+dfsg-2ubuntu2_i386.deb: OK
./pool/main/l/lupin/lupin-support_0.27_all.deb: OK
./pool/main/s/setserial/setserial_2.17-45_i386.deb: OK
./wubi.exe: OK
./README.diskdefines: OK

Resources: Ubuntu help

How to connect to the internet from Ubuntu 9.10 desktop using a router

2010-04-03T01:13:00.001-07:00

First of all you need to configure correctly your router (dhcp, broadband, adsl, etc) before proceeding to this tutorial.
I would recommend using terminal to setup the internet connection.
If you have one network card in your Ubuntu computer, when you list available network cards by running:

ifconfig -a

you should see something like this:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0e:e8:e6:4d:69
          inet addr:192.168.0.2  Bcast:192.168.0.254  Mask:255.255.252.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::20e:e8ff:fee6:4d69/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:3933726 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:7177941 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:500046836 (5.0 MB)  TX bytes:1680685163 (1.6 MB)
          Interrupt:19 Base address:0xef00

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:480 (480.0 B)  TX bytes:480 (480.0 B)

In this case your network card is eth0.

Now you need to edit /etc/network/interfaces file to manually configure your network card:

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

The new file will look something like this:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0

iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.2.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.2.1

Explication:

The code auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto eth0 is your loopback adapter. You don't need to care about it.
Next iface eth0 inet static tells that this network card will use a static ip adress.
address 192.168.2.100 will be your ip adress on local network which will need to be in the same class as router's (your router will need to have 192.168.2.1). Usually, router's ip adress is 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.2.1.
netmask 255.255.255.0 leave it like this.
gateway 192.168.2.1 is the gateway through which your computer is exiting to the internet and is the same as your router ip adress.

Now you'll need to configure dns's:

sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf

If you don't have nameserver on this file, you should prepend to it (don't delete the lines that are already there), and if you have nameserver you should edit it.

nameserver 192.168.2.1

which is your router's ip adress.

or

nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

which are opendns dns's servers. They are usually faster the you provider's.

Now we restart network:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

How to see what's my ip adress on Ubuntu machine

2010-04-03T00:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you might need to see what's your Ubuntu machine IP adress, to be able to connect from the internet or form your local network.

1. If you want to find out what your ip adress which is connect to the internet:

type the following adress in your browser: http://www.ipchicken.com

or type this in your terminal

wget -qO - http://www.ipchicken.com/ | egrep -m1 -o '[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}'

ifconfig -a

which should list all your network cards and their ip adresses. Usually is eth0 if you have a single network card.
Notice: If you have connected to the internet using pppoeconf (broadband internet connection), the ip adress will be listed at ppp0.

2. If you want to find out what your ip adress which is connect to the internet:

ifconfig -a

which should list all your network cards and their ip adresses. If you can't see an Ip adress, then you should setup your network card.

How to connect to a website that is blocked by a firewall or by your ISP

2010-03-28T03:05:00.000-07:00

If you are a employ, a student or someone who is is not being able to connect to a website because some network restrictions, you can use webproxies to connect to those websites.

We are going to use a webproxy which is an opensource php web proxy. We need to put it somewhere on a webserver and by accesing it we should be able to connect to any website that is restricted. The requirements are simple: php server. With a simple search on Google you can find some free subdomain and hosting to host this php proxy. If our network administrator hasn't blocked the use of webproxies, we can use Google to search this usefull php web proxy called Poxy. Example: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=WOV&q=intext%3A%22PHProxy+0.5b2%22+-html+-htm+-php&btnG=Search
Be carefull, because this connection is not encrypted in any way, so anybody might be able to see what websites your browsing.

Resources: hak5, php web proxy

How to map an application to use a secure tunneling using an ssh server linuxbox port

2010-03-28T02:34:00.000-07:00

In the previous tutorial I was talking about using a linuxbox as SOCKS5 proxy to tunnel all our traffic from our applications that supports SOCKS5 configuration.
In this tutorial we are going to use an application which does not support SOCKS5 configuration, to use our secure tunneling ssh server. The only problem is that we can map only one IP adress. But this should be enough to use a secure connection to connect to IRC, NFS (network file system), etc.

To find out the ip adress which we need to route through our secure tunneling, we ping that adress and we should see it's adress:

ping domain.com

That we route this ip through our tunnel:

sudo ssh root@123.123.123.123 -D 8080 -L 8081 111.111.111.111:6666

- root should be your remote linuxbox user
- 123.123.123.123 should be your remote linuxbox ip. you can put a domain name if it has one.
- -D 8080 makes a secure tunneling to your linuxbox ssh server by local port 8080
- -L 8081 makes port forwarding to the ip adress 111.111.111.111 on port 6666, which is the ip adress and port of the server we are going to connect to.

Example:

Using IRC client:

/server 127.0.0.1:8081

- 127.0.0.1 is equivalent to localhost
- 8081 is the port we just routed through our tunnel

In conclusion: to use our tunneling to connect secure to a server by an apllication which does not support SOCKS5 proxy, we need to connect to 127.0.0.1 to port 8081, NOT it's real ip adress.

Resources: hak5

How to make a secure tunnel conection to a linuxbox from a linux client through ssh

2010-03-28T01:55:00.000-07:00

Let's say that you are on a coffe in down-town where you have wi-fi and your laptop with you, and you want to browse secure. You should know that a wireless connection is always unsecure, because anybody can sniff your packets and find out what you're doing on your laptop.

The linuxbox that we are going to use, has a ssh server up and running and connected to internet. So the tunneling that we are going to make can route any applications that supports SOCKS5 proxy.

So let's connect to our ssh server by using terminal:

sudo ssh root@123.123.123.123 -D 8080

- root should be your remote linuxbox user
- 123.123.123.123 should be your remote linuxbox ip. you can put a domain name if it has one.
- -D 8080 makes a secure tunneling to your linuxbox ssh server by local port 8080

Now we can setup any applications that supports SOCKS5 proxy to use this secure ssh tunneling.

Example:

Setting up Firefox browser to use our SOCKS5 proxy connection.

We open up firefox and go to preferences: edit->preferences or tools->options, which is different by your version of Firefox. We go to Advanced tab and then Network and we click Settings.

We click manual proxy configuration like in this image, then on socks input we enter localhost and on the port input we enter 8080 that we used to setup our SOCKS5 proxy tunneling. Then we click OK.

We can check now that we are using ssh tunneling by running a website that shows our ip adress, like http://www.ip-adress.com and we should see the linuxbox ip adress.

The video that inspired me to make this tutorial:

Resources: ssh man page, 101 uses of openssh, hak5

How to setup the audio mixer in terminal (CLI) on Ubuntu 9.10

2010-03-24T11:46:00.000-07:00

If you don't have GUI (graphical user interface) like Gnome or KDE, you can adjust audio volume by alsamixer, which offers some kind of graphical interface in terminal.

You can run alsamixer by entering the following in terminal:

sudo alsamixer

To setup the volume of those inputs/outputs, you can navigate by arrow keys left/right.
Setting the volume up/down is done by arrow keys up/down.
And you can navigate through output (playback), recording (capture) and all the mixers by pressing the tab key. You can see the status of which is conected in the left-upper corner.

If it says that you don't have this application, you need to install it. It is found in alsa-utils package.

sudo apt-get install alsa-utils

Don't forget to read alsamixer's manual. I haven't read the manual and I had a problem: everything was working fine, but there was no sound in headphones. It turned out it was the mute switch (m key).

Set timezone on Ubuntu server 9.10

2010-03-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

If your Ubuntu clock keep setting up wrong, you need to configure your clock's timezone, you can do it by running the following:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

It will ask you the continent, then the country and everything will be setup.

You can then set your clock by one of ubuntu ntp servers:

sudo ntpdate ntp.ubuntu.com

How to play mp3's from terminal on Ubuntu server 9.10

2010-03-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

If you have only terminal and you want to play some mp3 files, you can do it with a little application called mpg123 which is probably the most resource-efficient MP3 player. It has a built in equalizer, can be controled with terminal control keys, run playlists and much more.

You can install it from repositories by running:

sudo apt-get install mpg123

Examples:

1.To run a single file:

sudo mpg123 file.mp3

2.Run a playlist:

First we make a playlist for /home/user/music/ :

sudo find /home/user/music/ -name "*.mp3"|sed 's/\.\///;'|sort>List.lst

Now we play it and enable control keys (-C) :

sudo mpg123 --list List.lst -C

3.Shuffle-play a directory of MP3s:

sudo mpg123 -CZ /path/to/mp3/folder/*

-Z option is for shuffle, -C is for control

Control options:

By default use ’s’ to stop, ’p’ to pause, ’f’ to jump forward to the next song, ’b’ to jump back to the beginning of the song, ’,’ to rewind, ’.’ to fast forward, and ’q’ to quit.

4.Running with equalizer:

mpg123 comes with 32-band equalizer, but there's no graphical UI for that, you need to create the plain-text file.

sudo mpg123 -CZ -E party.txt mp3_file

Example of an .txt equalizer file:

# mpg123 equalizer file
# party theme
#
1 1
1 1
1 1
1 1
1 1
1 1
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
0.5 0.5
1 1
1 1
1 1
1 1
1 1
1 1

All command lines options:

usage: mpg123 [option(s)] [file(s) | URL(s) | -]
supported options [defaults in brackets]:
   -v    increase verbosity level       -q    quiet (don't print title)
   -t    testmode (no output)           -s    write to stdout
   -w  write Output as WAV file
   -k n  skip first n frames [0]        -n n  decode only n frames [all]
   -c    check range violations         -y    DISABLE resync on errors
   -b n  output buffer: n Kbytes [0]    -f n  change scalefactor [32768]
   -r n  set/force samplerate [auto]    -g n  set audio hardware output gain
   -os,-ol,-oh  output to built-in speaker,line-out connector,headphones
                                        -a d  set audio device
   -2    downsample 1:2 (22 kHz)        -4    downsample 1:4 (11 kHz)
   -d n  play every n'th frame only     -h n  play every frame n times
   -0    decode channel 0 (left) only   -1    decode channel 1 (right) only
   -m    mix both channels (mono)       -p p  use HTTP proxy p [$HTTP_PROXY]
   -@ f  read filenames/URLs from f     -T get realtime priority
   -z    shuffle play (with wildcards)  -Z    random play
   -u a  HTTP authentication string     -E f  Equalizer, data from file
   -C    enable control keys            --no-gapless  not skip junk/padding in mp3s
   -?    this help                      --version  print name + version
See the manpage mpg123(1) or call mpg123 with --longhelp for more parameters and information.

Resources: mpg123.de, facebook notes

How to remove ubuntu desktop from server 9.10

2010-02-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

If you have installed Ubuntu desktop over Ubuntu server 9.10 with the command:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

you may find yourself in trouble uninstalling it with the command:

sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop

because ubuntu-desktop is a virtual package. So you need to follow the instructions below:

These removal commands were created based on what Ubuntu packages were added to a default Ubuntu installation. It's possible that the commands might remove some other packages, that you have added since the installation and you may want to keep them. If that's the case, keep track of which packages are those and reinstall them. Your settings should still remain intact.

sudo apt-get remove aisleriot alacarte app-install-data-partner apport-gtk aptdaemon at-spi binfmt-support brasero brltty-x11 capplets-data checkbox checkbox-gtk cli-common compiz compiz-core compiz-fusion-plugins-extra compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-gnome compiz-plugins compiz-wrapper compizconfig-backend-gconf computer-janitor computer-janitor-gtk couchdb-bin dcraw desktop-file-utils desktopcouch devicekit-power dmz-cursor-theme doc-base docbook-xml empathy empathy-doc eog erlang-base erlang-crypto erlang-inets erlang-mnesia erlang-public-key erlang-runtime-tools erlang-ssl erlang-syntax-tools erlang-xmerl esound-clients esound-common espeak espeak-data evince evolution evolution-common evolution-couchdb evolution-data-server evolution-data-server-common evolution-documentation-en evolution-exchange evolution-indicator evolution-plugins evolution-webcal example-content f-spot file-roller firefox firefox-3.5 firefox-3.5-branding firefox-3.5-gnome-support firefox-gnome-support gamin gcalctool gconf-defaults-service gconf-editor gconf2 gconf2-common gdebi gdm gdm-guest-session gedit gedit-common ggzcore-bin gimp gimp-data gksu glchess glines gnect gnibbles gnobots2 gnome-about gnome-accessibility-themes gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-blackjack gnome-bluetooth gnome-codec-install gnome-control-center gnome-desktop-data gnome-disk-utility gnome-doc-utils gnome-games gnome-games-common gnome-icon-theme gnome-keyring gnome-mag gnome-mahjongg gnome-media gnome-media-common gnome-menus gnome-mime-data gnome-nettool gnome-orca gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-pilot gnome-pilot-conduits gnome-power-manager gnome-screensaver gnome-session gnome-session-bin gnome-session-canberra gnome-settings-daemon gnome-sudoku gnome-system-monitor gnome-system-tools gnome-terminal gnome-terminal-data gnome-themes-selected gnome-themes-ubuntu gnome-user-guide gnome-utils gnometris gnomine gnotravex gnotski gstreamer0.10-alsa gstreamer0.10-nice gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-apps gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio gstreamer0.10-tools gstreamer0.10-x gtali gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-murrine gtk2-engines-pixbuf gucharmap guile-1.8-libs gvfs gvfs-backends gvfs-bin gvfs-fuse human-theme humanity-icon-theme iagno ibus ibus-gtk ibus-m17n ibus-table indicator-applet indicator-applet-session indicator-messages indicator-session jockey-gtk language-selector launchpad-integration libanthy0 libart-2.0-2 libart2.0-cil libasound2-plugins libatspi1.0-0 libaudiofile0 libavahi-glib1 libavahi-gobject0 libavahi-ui0 libavc1394-0 libbabl-0.0-0 libbeagle1 libbonobo2-0 libbonobo2-common libbonoboui2-0 libbonoboui2-common libbrasero-media0 libcairo-perl libcairomm-1.0-1 libcamel1.2-14 libcanberra-gtk-module libcanberra-gtk0 libcanberra-pulse libcanberra0 libcdio-cdda0 libcdio-paranoia0 libcdio7 libclutter-1.0-0 libclutter-gtk-0.10-0 libcompizconfig0 libcouchdb-glib-1.0-1 libcroco3 libcryptui0 libcurl3 libdbusmenu-glib0 libdbusmenu-gtk0 libdecoration0 libdevkit-power-gobject1 libdotconf1.0 libdv4 libebackend1.2-0 libebook1.2-9 libecal1.2-7 libedata-book1.2-2 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserver1.2-11 libedataserverui1.2-8 libegroupwise1.2-13 libempathy-common libempathy-gtk-common libempathy-gtk28 libempathy30 libesd-alsa0 libespeak1 libevdocument1 libevent-1.4-2 libevview1 libexchange-storage1.2-3 libexempi3 libflickrnet2.2-cil libfreezethaw-perl libgail-common libgail-gnome-module libgail18 libgamin0 libgconf2-4 libgconf2.0-cil libgcr0 libgd2-xpm libgdata-common libgdata-google1.2-1 libgdata1.2-1 libgdata5 libgdict-1.0-6 libgdiplus libgdu-gtk0 libgdu0 libgegl-0.0-0 libggz2 libggzcore9 libggzmod4 libgimp2.0 libgksu2-0 libglade2-0 libglade2.0-cil libglib-perl libglib2.0-cil libglibmm-2.4-1c2a libglitz-glx1 libglitz1 libgmime-2.0-2a libgmime-2.4-2 libgmime2.2a-cil libgnome-bluetooth7 libgnome-desktop-2-11 libgnome-keyring0 libgnome-keyring1.0-cil libgnome-mag2 libgnome-media0 libgnome-menu2 libgnome-pilot2 libgnome-vfs2.0-cil libgnome-window-settings1 libgnome2-0 libgnome2-canvas-perl libgnome2-common libgnome2-perl libgnome2-vfs-perl libgnome2.24-cil libgnomecanvas2-0 libgnomecanvas2-common libgnomekbd-common libgnomekbd4 libgnomekbdui4 libgnomepanel2.24-cil libgnomeui-0 libgnomeui-common libgnomevfs2-0 libgnomevfs2-common libgnomevfs2-extra libgp11-0 libgsf-1-114 libgsf-1-common libgssdp-1.0-1 libgstfarsight0.10-0 libgtk-vnc-1.0-0 libgtk2-perl libgtk2.0-cil libgtkhtml-editor-common libgtkhtml-editor0 libgtkhtml3.14-19 libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a libgtksourceview2.0-0 libgtksourceview2.0-common libgtkspell0 libgtop2-7 libgtop2-common libgucharmap7 libgupnp-1.0-2 libgupnp-igd-1.0-2 libgvfscommon0 libgweather-common libgweather1 libibus1 libidl0 libiec61883-0 libindicate-gtk1 libjson-glib-1.0-0 libkpathsea4 liblaunchpad-integration1 liblircclient0 liblouis-data liblouis0 liblpint-bonobo0 libm17n-0 libmetacity0 libmldbm-perl libmono-addins-gui0.2-cil libmono-addins0.2-cil libmono-cairo2.0-cil libmono-corlib2.0-cil libmono-data-tds2.0-cil libmono-i18n-west2.0-cil libmono-posix2.0-cil libmono-security2.0-cil libmono-sharpzip2.84-cil libmono-sqlite2.0-cil libmono-system-data2.0-cil libmono-system-web2.0-cil libmono-system2.0-cil libmono2.0-cil libnautilus-extension1 libndesk-dbus-glib1.0-cil libndesk-dbus1.0-cil libnet-dbus-perl libnice0 libnotify1 liboil0.3 liboobs-1-4 liborbit2 libotf0 libpam-gnome-keyring libpanel-applet2-0 libpango-perl libpangomm-1.4-1 libpisock9 libpisync1 libpolkit-agent-1-0 libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libpoppler-glib4 libportaudio2 libprotobuf3 libproxy0 libpst4 libpulse-browse0 libpulse-mainloop-glib0 libpurple-bin libpurple0 librarian0 libraw1394-11 librsvg2-2 librsvg2-common libsctp1 libsexy2 libshout3 libsilc-1.1-2 libsilcclient-1.1-3 libsoup-gnome2.4-1 libsoup2.4-1 libspeechd2 libspeexdsp1 libsqlite0 libstartup-notification0 libtdb1 libtelepathy-farsight0 libtelepathy-glib0 libtie-ixhash-perl libtotem-plparser12 libtrackerclient0 libunique-1.0-0 libuuid-perl libvisual-0.4-0 libvisual-0.4-plugins libvte-common libvte9 libwebkit-1.0-2 libwebkit-1.0-common libwmf0.2-7-gtk libwnck-common libwnck22 libxcb-atom1 libxcb-aux0 libxcb-event1 libxml-twig-perl libxml-xpath-perl libxres1 libzephyr4 lksctp-tools m17n-contrib m17n-db media-player-info mesa-utils metacity metacity-common mobile-broadband-provider-info mono-2.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime mousetweaks nautilus nautilus-data nautilus-sendto nautilus-share network-manager-gnome notification-daemon notify-osd notify-osd-icons obexd-client onboard openoffice.org-gnome openoffice.org-gtk openoffice.org-help-en-us openoffice.org-style-human pkg-config policykit-1-gnome protobuf-compiler pulseaudio pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-udev pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils python-aptdaemon python-aptdaemon-gtk python-avahi python-brlapi python-cairo python-configglue python-couchdb python-crypto python-desktopcouch python-desktopcouch-records python-fstab python-gconf python-glade2 python-gmenu python-gnome2 python-gnomeapplet python-gnomecanvas python-gnomekeyring python-gst0.10 python-gtk2 python-gtksourceview2 python-ibus python-launchpad-integration python-libxml2 python-louis python-notify python-openssl python-pam python-papyon python-protobuf python-pyatspi python-pyinotify python-pyorbit python-rdflib python-rsvg python-serial python-sexy python-speechd python-telepathy python-twisted-bin python-twisted-core python-twisted-names python-twisted-web python-ubuntuone-client python-ubuntuone-storageprotocol python-virtkey python-vte python-webkit rarian-compat rhythmbox same-gnome screen-resolution-extra screensaver-default-images seahorse sgml-data software-center software-properties-gtk speech-dispatcher ssh-askpass-gnome synaptic system-config-printer-gnome system-tools-backends telepathy-butterfly telepathy-gabble telepathy-haze telepathy-idle telepathy-mission-control-5 telepathy-salut tomboy totem totem-common totem-mozilla totem-plugins transmission-common transmission-gtk tsclient ubufox ubuntu-artwork ubuntu-desktop ubuntu-docs ubuntu-sounds ubuntu-system-service ubuntu-wallpapers ubuntu-xsplash-artwork ubuntuone-client ubuntuone-client-gnome update-manager update-notifier usb-creator-gtk vinagre vino whois xdg-user-dirs-gtk xsane xsane-common xscreensaver xscreensaver-data xscreensaver-gl xsltproc xsplash xulrunner-1.9.1 xulrunner-1.9.1-gnome-support yelp zenity

Resources: psychocats.net

Ubuntu source.list generator (official and 3rd parties servers)

2010-02-23T06:52:00.000-08:00

The other day I was talking about the default sources.list file after a clean install on Ubuntu 9.10.
You can also generate an sources.list file from :

http://repogen.simplylinux.ch

You can choose from default main, restricted, universe and multiverse, and also from ubuntu security updates servers: security, updates, proposed and backports, and some 3rd parties repositories.

3rd party repositories: Abiword, Ailurus, AWN (Avant Window Navigator), Banshee, BaShare, Blueman, Breathe Icon Set, Cairo Dock, Chromium Project, Conky, Deluge BitTorrent, Dropbox, Emesene, Esmska, Exaile, FreeNX, GetDeb, GNOME-Colors PPA, Gnome-Do, Google Linux Software Repositories, Google Linux Software Repositories (testing), HandBrake, Kadu, KDE 3.5, KMess, Kubuntu Backports, Kubuntu Beta, Kubuntu Experimental, Kubuntu Updates, LMMS - Linux MultiMedia Studio, MediaInfo, Medibuntu, Mendeley Desktop, Miro HD Video Player, Mozilla Daily Build Team, OpenShot, Opera, Oracle Database 10g Express Edition, origami, Pidgin, Playdeb, PlayOnLinux, PPA for Kiwi Linux Members, qutIM (SVN), Skype, SMPlayer, Terminator, Themes for GNOME and Ubuntu, Tor: anonymity online, Ubuntu Tweak, VirtualBox, VLC Media Player, Vuze, Wicd, Wine, X Updates and XBMC Media Center.

Resources: Ubuntugeek

Install no-ip client from source on Ubuntu 9.10

2010-02-19T08:09:00.000-08:00

Go to your home directory:

sudo cd ~

Download no-ip client:

wget http://www.no-ip.com/client/linux/noip-duc-linux.tar.gz

Untar it:

tar xzf no-ip-duc-linux.tar.gz

Change directory to directory in which it was untared (my version is 2.1.9, so your folder may differ):

cd no-ip-2.1.9

Make:

sudo make

If the command above gives you some errors as you might not have GCC installed, you can install it by running first:

sudo apt-get install gcc

Make install:

sudo make install

It will ask you some question about the configuration of the client:

To start the program:

sudo /usr/local/bin/noip2

If we want to make it run every system start-up, we need to make a script:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/noip2

We enter the following:

#! /bin/sh
sudo /usr/local/bin/noip2

We exit the editor and make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/noip2

Now we add it to system start-up:

sudo update-rc.d noip2 defaults

Useful command lines for no-ip client:

/usr/local/bin/noip2 -C                 configure a client
/usr/local/bin/noip2                    run a client
/usr/local/bin/noip2 -S                 display info about running clients
/usr/local/bin/noip2 -D pid             toggle the debug state for client pid
/usr/local/bin/noip2 -K pid             terminate client pid

All the commands available for noip client:

USAGE: noip2 [ -C [ -F][ -Y][ -U #min]][ -c file]
        [ -d][ -D pid][ -i addr][ -S][ -M][ -h]

Version Linux-2.x.x
Options: -C               create configuration data
         -F               force NAT off
         -Y               select all hosts/groups
         -U minutes       set update interval
         -c config_file   use alternate data path
         -d               increase debug verbosity
         -D processID     toggle debug flag for PID
         -i IPaddress     use supplied address
         -I interface     use supplied interface
         -S               show configuration data
         -M               permit multiple instances
         -K processID     terminate instance PID
         -h               help (this text)

If you want to see if no-ip client is actually working, enter this in terminal:

sudo /usr/local/bin/noip2 -S

It should say 1 noip2 process active like this:

1 noip2 process active.

Process 1257, started as noip2, (version 2.1.9)
Using configuration from /usr/local/etc/no-ip2.conf
Last IP Address set 123.123.123.123
Account email@gmail.com
configured for:
        host  domain.myftp.org
Updating every 30 minutes via /dev/eth0 with NAT enabled.

and the Last IP Address set should be your Ip adress, Account should be your email which you used when you have set up no-ip client, configured for: should be your no-ip.com subdomain you've choosen.
If some data is wrong, you should follow this tutorial to reconfigure your no-ip client

Default repositories list in Ubuntu 9.10 (sources.list)

2010-02-19T07:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was having problem installing programs from repositories, because the Ubuntu installation left me with only a few servers. Here I list the default Ubuntu 9.10 repositories (sources.list) file.

# 
# deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 9.10 _Karmic Koala_ - Release i386 (20091027.2)]/ karmic main restricted

#deb cdrom:[Ubuntu-Server 9.10 _Karmic Koala_ - Release i386 (20091027.2)]/ karmic main restricted
# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates main restricted

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any
## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates universe

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu 
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to 
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in 
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
# deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-backports main restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-backports main restricted universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository.
## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the
## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users.
# deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu karmic partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu karmic partner

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security multiverse

Another method is to rebuild your sources.list file by running Ubuntu Sourcelist Generator

How to load Verlihub Plugins automatically

2010-02-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

Verlihub plugins need to be activated manually each computer restart. Here are some commands to load this plugins automatically.

Loading Plugin ChatRoom automatically

!delplug chat
!addplug chat -p /usr/local/lib/libchatroom_pi.so -d "Multiple chatrooms to separate chat topics" -a 1

Loading Plugin FloodProt automatically

!delplug flood
!addplug flood -p /usr/local/lib/libfloodprot_pi.so -d "Advanced flood protection" -a 1

Loading Plugin Forbid automatically

!delplug forbid
!addplug forbid -p /usr/local/lib/libforbid_pi.so -d "Filter chat from forbidden words" -a 1

Loading Plugin IpLog automatically

!delplug log
!addplug log -p /usr/local/lib/libiplog_pi.so -d "Log ip's, nicks; history commands" -a 1

Loading Plugin ISP automatically

!delplug isp
!addplug isp -p /usr/local/lib/libisp_pi.so -d "Internet Service Provider settings, country codes, nick prefix, desc tag, ..." -a 1

Loading Plugin Lua automatically

!delplug lua
!addplug lua -p /usr/local/lib/liblua_pi.so -d "Support for lua scripts" -a 1

Loading Plugin Messanger automatically

!delplug msg
!addplug msg -p /usr/local/lib/libmessanger_pi.so -d "Offline messages system" -a 1

Loading Plugin Replacer automatically

!delplug replace
!addplug replace -p /usr/local/lib/libreplace_pi.so -d "Replace some words by other" -a 1

Loading Plugin Stats automatically

!delplug stats
!addplug stats -p /usr/local/lib/libstats_pi.so -d "Statistics plugin, trace diverse value sin the database" -a 1

Resources: freeforumit.com

Install Verlihub Forbid plugin from source on Ubuntu 9.10

2010-02-09T08:26:00.000-08:00

The Forbid Plugin for Verlihub help you ban some users who spams in both mainchat and private chat. It is very good to get rid off those http:// and dchub:// spams.

After you have installed Verlihub from source, you can install Forbid Plugin from source. This tutorial does not apply for the verlihub installed from repositories (in which case you should reinstall verlihub from source, because the version from repositories is no longer supported).

Download the file:

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/verlihub/forbid-1.3.tar.gz

Untar it:

tar zxvf forbid-1.3.tar.gz

Change current directory to forbid plugin directory:

cd forbid

sudo ./configure

sudo make

sudo make install

After everything was successful, we enter the hub with our favorite DC client as administrator and we type (it will start the plugin):

!onplug forbid

It should say OK.

To list all the plugins that are started:

!pluglist alll

You should see Forbid Plugin listed there.

The command options for the Forbid Plugin:

command	description
!lstforbid	Lists forbidden patterns.
!addforbid <"pattern"> [-C ] [-f ] [-r <"kick_reason">]	Adds a forbidden pattern. Using the -C option, you can specify the classes to ignore filtering. Set to 1 to ignore registered users and up. Using the -r option, you can specify a kick reason. Using the -f option, you can specify which chats are screened and whether or not a message is sent to OpChat when a rule is broken. Using the table below, to screen main chat and private messages, use -f 3.

Flags:

value	explanation
1	Screen public chat
2	Screen private messages
4	Notify OpChat when a rule is broken
7	Will notify OpChat when a rule is broken and screen public and private chat

command	description
!modforbid <"pattern">	Modifies forbidden pattern. See parameters for adding.
!delforbid <"pattern">	Deletes forbidden pattern.

Some examples:

!lstforbid

It will list all the rules for the Forbid Plugin.

!addforbid dchub:// -f 4 -C 2 -r "forbidden"

It will add a rule for the dchub:// and notify an chat operator. This rule applies to those user with a class smaller than 2, and the message wil be "forbidden".

!delforbid dchub:// -f 4 -C 2 -r "forbidden"

It will delete that rule above.

Resources: Velihub Docu

Install verlihub from source on Ubuntu 9.10

2010-02-08T11:04:00.001-08:00

As Debian packages are old and not supported from http://www.verlihub-project.org, you need to install Velihub from source. We will install VerliHub 0.9.8e-r2.

Update repositories list:

sudo apt-get update

Install the libraries needed by verlihub, which includes mysql server. Don't worry if you already have them:

sudo apt-get install build-essential mysql-server libmysqlclient15-dev libpcre3-dev geoip-bin libgeoip-dev g++-4.3

If it installed mysql server, it will ask you for a root password, write it down or remember it. We will need it later.

Download verlihub (source):

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/verlihub/files/Verlihub/0.9.8e-r2/verlihub-0.9.8e-r2.tar.gz/download

Download LUA 5.1.4:

wget http://www.lua.org/ftp/lua-5.1.4.tar.gz

Download Lua plugin 1.8.1:

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/verlihub/files/VH_Lua/1.8.1/lua-1.8.1.tar.gz/download

Now we untar those 3 files downloaded:

tar zxvf verlihub-0.9.8e-r2.tar.gz

tar zxvf lua-5.1.4.tar.gz

tar zxvf lua-1.8.1.tar.gz

Change directory to compile verlihub:

cd verlihub-0.9.8e-r2

sudo ./configure

sudo make

sudo make install

sudo make clean

Change directory to compile Lua-5.1.4:

go up one directory (out of the verlihub directory):

cd ..

cd lua-5.1.4

sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev libreadline5-dev

sudo make linux

sudo make install

Change directory to compile Lua Plugin:

cd ..

cd lua-1.8.1

sudo ./configure

sudo make

sudo make install

Now it's time to compile verlihub. We need to do su (this will authenticate as root). if you don't have a password for the root account, you can set it up:

sudo passwd root

After this we go su:

It will ask us the root password we just setup or the one we already had. After this you will have in terminal root@user-desktop.

cd /root

ldconfig

vh_install

You will be asked some questions:

1. Your name ? (root) ==>>>> ( hit enter )
2. mysql database for verlihub will be called? (verlihub) ==>>>> ( hit enter )
3. password to access verlihub be? (1236571269) ==>>>> ( hit enter after setting up some password )
4. mysql server will run where? (localhost) ==>>>> ( hit enter )
5. is this info correct ? (Y/N ) ==>>>> hit Y
6. do you want to create database (Y/N) ==>>>> (hit Y if you're setting it up for the first time or you made a clean install)
7. mysql administrator username ? (root ) ==>>>> ( hit enter if the user for your mysql server is root, otherwise enter it (the password entered when we have installed mysql server). )
8. what is will be the configuration folder ? (etc/verlihub) ==>>>> ( hit enter )
9. Do you want to continue eith these settings .. (Y/N) ==>>>> ( hit Y )
10. Give me your DC hub master nick name....([SU]root) ==>>>> (we write the account of hub admin, eg. Master)
11. Choose your password.. (1246571269) ==>>>> (password of our hub admin)
12. Which will be default ONE hub port number ? (411) ==>>>> ( hit enter if you don't need to change it, otherwise enter a port number, eg. 6969)
13. what will be your hub hostname? ==>>>> ( here you need to run your hostname adress (domain name where verlihub server is installed), eg. internet.myftp.org )
14. Give me the name of your hub (hub of root) ==>>>> ( eg. The coolest hub ever )
15. is this info corect ? Y/N ==>>>> (hit Y and then enter )

Now the verlihub installation from source on Ubuntu 9.10 is complete.

exit as root:

exit

You can run verlihub by typing:

sudo vh_runhub

You might also check how to enable starting verlihub as a service.

Resources: Ubuntu forum

Install some of the free Ubuntu games

2010-02-03T11:33:00.001-08:00

The website www.playdeb.net offers different types of games as emulator, fps (first person shooter), educational, puzzle, action, strategy, simulation, MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing games), dungeon, music, space, editor, capture, RPG (role-playing games), logic and util for both Ubuntu 9.10 and Ubuntu 9.04 and some other old releases as well.

Some of the games, if not all, can be install using djl - Game Manager, which is a game manager written in Python 2.5 for the GNU/Linux Operating Systems. It's says that it is inspired by Valve's Steam software for Windows.
It can also execute .desktop shortcuts located in another directory (this way, it's possible to launch games which were installed before djl).
Several games (see "List of games on repository" page) are available in the repository. Anyone can submit new games to developers via a web page. The list of games is regularly updated from the internet, so it's not static.

It can be install by adding the following server in the repositories (from terminal by editing the repositories list or by Software Sources from Ubuntu desktop: Go to System-Administration-Software Sources, Third-Party Software tab and add:):

deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu karmic-getdeb games

After that add the repository GPG key:

wget -q -O- http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

After this you can go to http://www.playdeb.net/updates/Ubuntu/all#how_to_install to see a complete list of the games or http://www.jeuxlinux.fr (this site being in french you can use google translater to translate it in english: link).
You can install these games by clicking install this now underneath each game.

Some screenshots:

Useful copy commands for ssh server

2010-01-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

As you know SSH is a secure, encrypted way to make connections to remote hosts or servers. A SSH server accepts connections from SSH aware clients and allows them to log into the system as if they are sitting right in front of it. You can run shell and X based programs remotely using SSH.

1. How to connect into remote ubuntu ssh server:

sudo ssh username@192.168.0.1

- username is the remote user you access
- 192.168.0.1 is the ip of the remote ubuntu machine. If you have a domain name on your ubuntu remote machine, you can replace 192.168.0.1 with the respective domain name (ex. domain.com).

2. How to copy files and folders from a remote ubuntu ssh server into local machine:

sudo scp -r username@192.168.0.1:/home/username/remotefile.txt .

- username is the remote user you access
- 192.168.0.1 is the ip of the remote ubuntu machine
- /home/username/remotefile.txt is the location of the remote file
- . is your current directory. It can be also something like: /home/username/
- -r switch is to copy recursive

3. How to copy files and folders from local machine to remote ubuntu ssh server:

sudo scp -r localfile.txt username@192.168.0.1:/home/username/

- short explanation: copies localfile.txt from local machine into /home/username/ remote ssh server

Resources: Ubuntu.com

How to use aptitude in Ubuntu

2010-01-10T11:22:00.001-08:00

Aptitude is a menu-driven, text-based application to install and uninstall applications (packages). Many of the common package management functions, such as installation, removal, and upgrade, are performed in Aptitude with single-key commands (they are typically lowercase letters).

aptitude vs. apt-get: in many ways, they're the same in that they both draw from the repositories in your /etc/apt/sources.list to retrieve and install software. When you uninstall an application, only aptitude will remove the dependencies when the application is removed as of early Ubuntu 6.10. The apt-get command will remove dependencies as shown at command below. And you cannot install with apt-get or Synaptic and then expect to have dependencies removed by uninstalling with aptitude.
To remove unused dependencies when removing an application with apt-get:

sudo apt-get autoremove applicationname

Aptitude is best suited for use in a non-graphical terminal environment to ensure proper functioning of the command keys. To start Aptitude, type the following command at a terminal prompt:

sudo aptitude

When Aptitude starts, you will see a menu bar at the top of the screen and two panes below the menu bar. The top pane contains package categories, such as New Packages and Not Installed Packages. The bottom pane contains information related to the packages and package categories.

HowTo's:

- Install Packages: To install a package, locate the package via the Not Installed Packages package category, for example, by using the keyboard arrow keys and the ENTER key, and highlight the package you wish to install. After highlighting the package you wish to install, press the + key, and the package entry should turn green, indicating it has been marked for installation. Now press g to be presented with a summary of package actions. Press g again, and you will be prompted to become root to complete the installation. Press ENTER which will result in a Password: prompt. Enter your user password to become root. Finally, press g once more and you'll be prompted to download the package. Press ENTER on the Continue prompt, and downloading and installation of the package will commence

- Remove Packages: To remove a package, locate the package via the Installed Packages package category, for example, by using the keyboard arrow keys and the ENTER key, and highlight the package you wish to remove. After highlighting the package you wish to install, press the - key, and the package entry should turn pink, indicating it has been marked for removal. Now press g to be presented with a summary of package actions. Press g again, and you will be prompted to become root to complete the installation. Press ENTER which will result in a Password: prompt. Enter your user password to become root. Finally, press g once more, and you'll be prompted to download the package. Press ENTER on the Continue prompt, and removal of the package will commence

- Update Package Index: To update the package index, simply press the u key and you will be prompted to become root to complete the update. Press ENTER which will result in a Password: prompt. Enter your user password to become root. Updating of the package index will commence. Press ENTER on the OK prompt when the download dialog is presented to complete the process.

- Upgrade Packages: To upgrade packages, perform the update of the package index as detailed above, and then press the U key to mark all packages with updates. Now press g whereby you'll be presented with a summary of package actions. Press g again, and you will be prompted to become root to complete the installation. Press ENTER which will result in a Password: prompt. Enter your user password to become root. Finally, press g once more, and you'll be prompted to download the packages. Press ENTER on the Continue prompt, and upgrade of the packages will commence.

The first column of information displayed in the package list in the top pane, when actually viewing packages lists the current state of the package, and uses the following key to describe the state of the package:

- i: Installed package
- c: Package not installed, but package configuration remains on system
- p: Purged from system
- v: Virtual package
- B: Broken package
- u: Unpacked files, but package not yet configured
- C: Half-configured - Configuration failed and requires fix
- H: Half-installed - Removal failed and requires fix

To exit Aptitude, simply press the q key and confirm you wish to exit.

Aptitude can also be used with terminal parameters. All the list:

Usage: aptitude [-S fname] [-u|-i]
       aptitude [options]  ...
  Actions (if none is specified, aptitude will enter interactive mode):

 install      - Install/upgrade packages
 remove       - Remove packages
 purge        - Remove packages and their configuration files
 hold         - Place packages on hold
 unhold       - Cancel a hold command for a package
 markauto     - Mark packages as having been automatically installed
 unmarkauto   - Mark packages as having been manually installed
 forbid-version - Forbid aptitude from upgrading to a specific package version.
 update       - Download lists of new/upgradable packages
 safe-upgrade - Perform a safe upgrade
 full-upgrade - Perform an upgrade, possibly installing and removing packages
 forget-new   - Forget what packages are "new"
 search       - Search for a package by name and/or expression
 show         - Display detailed information about a package
 clean        - Erase downloaded package files
 autoclean    - Erase old downloaded package files
 changelog    - View a package's changelog
 download     - Download the .deb file for a package
 reinstall    - Download and (possibly) reinstall a currently installed package
 why          - Show the manually installed packages that require a package, or
                why one or more packages would require the given package
 why-not      - Show the manually installed packages that lead to a conflict
                with the given package, or why one or more packages would
                lead to a conflict with the given package if installed

  Options:
 -h             This help text
 -s             Simulate actions, but do not actually perform them.
 -d             Only download packages, do not install or remove anything.
 -P             Always prompt for confirmation or actions
 -y             Assume that the answer to simple yes/no questions is 'yes'
 -F format      Specify a format for displaying search results; see the manual
 -O order       Specify how search results should be sorted; see the manual
 -w width       Specify the display width for formatting search results
 -f             Aggressively try to fix broken packages.
 -V             Show which versions of packages are to be installed.
 -D             Show the dependencies of automatically changed packages.
 -Z             Show the change in installed size of each package.
 -v             Display extra information. (may be supplied multiple times)
 -t [release]   Set the release from which packages should be installed
 -q             In command-line mode, suppress the incremental progress
                indicators.
 -o key=val     Directly set the configuration option named 'key'
 --with(out)-recommends Specify whether or not to treat recommends as
                strong dependencies
 -S fname       Read the aptitude extended status info from fname.
 -u             Download new package lists on startup.
 -i             Perform an install run on startup.

Examples:

1.To search for a package with aptitude:

sudo aptitude search package_name

it should provide you with a list of all packages that where found.

2.To show a detailed information about a package:

sudo aptitude show package_name

3.To install a package with aptitude:

sudo aptitude install package_name

4.To remove a package with aptitude:

sudo aptitude remove package_name

5.To remove a package and their configuration files with aptitude:

sudo aptitude purge package_name

6.To update the list of repositories packages with aptitude:

sudo aptitude update

Resources: Ubuntu.com and psychocats.net.

Using apt-get terminal command in Ubuntu

2009-12-30T08:35:00.001-08:00

By using apt-get terminal command in Ubuntu, you will be able to serach, install, update and remove Ubuntu applications from repositories.

To resynchronize the package index files from their sources via Internet, also known as repositories. You need to do this after each edit of your repositories file /etc/apt/sources.list:

sudo apt-get update

To install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system:

sudo apt-get upgrade

Install is followed by one or more packages (programs) desired for installation. If package is already installed it will try to update to latest version.

sudo apt-get install package-name

To uninstall a package:

sudo apt-get remove package-name

To uninstall a package and remove all of it's settings:

sudo apt-get remove --purge package-name

If you have terminated an installation, you can clean it with:

sudo apt-get clean

All the terminal options for apt-get can be found running:

sudo apt-get --help

It will output the followings:

Usage: apt-get [options] command
       apt-get [options] install|remove pkg1 [pkg2 ...]
       apt-get [options] source pkg1 [pkg2 ...]

apt-get is a simple command line interface for downloading and
installing packages. The most frequently used commands are update
and install.

Commands:
   update - Retrieve new lists of packages
   upgrade - Perform an upgrade
   install - Install new packages (pkg is libc6 not libc6.deb)
   remove - Remove packages
   autoremove - Remove automatically all unused packages
   purge - Remove packages and config files
   source - Download source archives
   build-dep - Configure build-dependencies for source packages
   dist-upgrade - Distribution upgrade, see apt-get(8)
   dselect-upgrade - Follow dselect selections
   clean - Erase downloaded archive files
   autoclean - Erase old downloaded archive files
   check - Verify that there are no broken dependencies

Options:
  -h  This help text.
  -q  Loggable output - no progress indicator
  -qq No output except for errors
  -d  Download only - do NOT install or unpack archives
  -s  No-act. Perform ordering simulation
  -y  Assume Yes to all queries and do not prompt
  -f  Attempt to correct a system with broken dependencies in place
  -m  Attempt to continue if archives are unlocatable
  -u  Show a list of upgraded packages as well
  -b  Build the source package after fetching it
  -V  Show verbose version numbers
  -c=? Read this configuration file
  -o=? Set an arbitrary configuration option, eg -o dir::cache=/tmp
See the apt-get(8), sources.list(5) and apt.conf(5) manual
pages for more information and options.
                       This APT has Super Cow Powers.

Resources: cyberciti.biz

Edit no-ip settings in Ubuntu

2009-12-26T23:06:00.000-08:00

As you know, no-ip is a dynamic dns provider (ddns). You can register free subdomains at http://www.no-ip.com as: 3utilities.com, bounceme.net, hopto.org, myftp.biz, myftp.org, myvnc.com, no-ip.biz, no-ip.info, no-ip.org, redirectme.net, servebeer.com, serveblog.net, servecounterstrike.com, serveftp.com, servegame.com, servehalflife.com, servehttp.com, serveirc.com, servemp3.com, servepics.com, servequake.com, sytes.net, zapto.org.

To reconfigure no-ip setting:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure noip2

It will ask you the same questions as when you installed it: your login (email adress), password, updating interval (refresh the record of your ip adress), hosts (also known as subdomains. you can insert multiple hosts, comma or space separated.), network device name (if you have broadband connection (configured by pppoeconf), enter the adress of that connection, usually ppp0), NAT (network adress translation).

After this it should say something similar to this:

Auto configuration for Linux client of no-ip.com.

4 hosts are registered to this account.
Host myhost.myftp.org selected.

New configuration file '/var/lib/noip2/noip2.conf' created.

 * Starting No-IP.com dynamic address update noip2                       [ OK ]

Display amount of free and used memory in the system In Ubuntu

2009-12-23T23:57:00.000-08:00

By using free you can display amount of free and used memory in the system.
Free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel. The shared memory
column should be ignored; it is obsolete.

Example:

free -m

Will display something like this:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           244        240          3          0         15         82
-/+ buffers/cache:        143        101
Swap:          715        107        608

Usage:

free [-b | -k | -m | -g] [-o] [-s delay ] [-t] [-V]

Options:

The -b switch displays the amount of memory in bytes; the -k switch
(set by default)
displays it in kilobytes; the -m switch displays it in megabytes;
the -g switch displays it in gigabytes.

The -t switch displays a line containing the totals.

The -o switch disables the display of a "buffer adjusted" line. If the
-o option is not
specified, free subtracts buffer memory from the used memory and
adds it to the free memory reported.

The -s switch activates continuous polling delay seconds apart. You may
actually specify
any floating point number for delay, usleep(3) is used for
microsecond resolution delay times.

The -V displays version information.

How to use top and htop commands to monitor cpu and memory usage in Ubuntu

2009-12-23T23:25:00.000-08:00

1.top command

The top command displays information on your Ubuntu system, running processes and system resources, including CPU, RAM & swap usage and total number of tasks being run.

Once launched, top stays running, displaying statistics in real time. Processes are listed by their process ID number, along the name of the command that started the process. The statistics are sorted via these categories.

Example of code:

top

The column are:

PID: A process’s process ID number.

USER: The process’s owner.

PR: The process’s priority. The lower the number, the higher the priority.

NI: The nice value of the process, which affects its priority.

VIRT: How much virtual memory the process is using.

RES: How much physical RAM the process is using, measured in kilobytes.

SHR: How much shared memory the process is using.

S: The current status of the process (zombied, sleeping, running, uninterruptedly sleeping, or traced).

%CPU: The percentage of the processor time used by the process.

%MEM: The percentage of physical RAM used by the process.

TIME+: How much processor time the process has used.

COMMAND: The name of the command that started the process.

To exit top, press "q".

1.htop command

Htop is an ncursed-based process viewer similar to top, but it allows to scroll the list vertically and horizontally to see all processes and their full command lines.
Tasks related to proccesses (killing, renicing) can be done without entering their PIDs.

htop is much easier than top. For example: to kill a process you need to scroll down with arrow keys to select a process and press F9.

Command line for htop is:

htop

You may need to install this one if it doesn't launch:

sudo apt-get install htop

Resources: Official Website, jonathanmoeller, howtogeek

Script to flush iptables in Ubuntu

2009-12-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

If you messed up something in iptables, you should reset iptables with the following script. This is also good for removing internet connection sharing (ICS).
To have 100% success with the following script, you should delete any custom start-up iptables scripts.

Let's make the flush script:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/flush_script

Paste in the followings:

#!/bin/sh
# 
# rc.flush-iptables - Resets iptables to default values. 
# 
# Copyright (C) 2001 Oskar Andreasson 
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program or from the site that you downloaded it
# from; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple
# Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
#
# Configurations
#
IPTABLES="/usr/sbin/iptables"
#
# reset the default policies in the filter table.
#
$IPTABLES -P INPUT ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -P FORWARD ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
#
# reset the default policies in the nat table.
#
$IPTABLES -t nat -P PREROUTING ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -t nat -P POSTROUTING ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -t nat -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
#
# reset the default policies in the mangle table.
#
$IPTABLES -t mangle -P PREROUTING ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -t mangle -P POSTROUTING ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -t mangle -P INPUT ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -t mangle -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -t mangle -P FORWARD ACCEPT
#
# flush all the rules in the filter and nat tables.
#
$IPTABLES -F
$IPTABLES -t nat -F
$IPTABLES -t mangle -F
#
# erase all chains that's not default in filter and nat table.
#
$IPTABLES -X
$IPTABLES -t nat -X
$IPTABLES -t mangle -X

Make the file executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/flush_script

Run it:

sudo /etc/init.d/flush_script

Resources: maruhn.com

Dump and analyze network traffic with tshark in Ubuntu

2009-12-19T09:58:00.000-08:00

TShark is a network protocol analyzer. It lets you capture packet data from a live network, or read packets from a previously saved capture file, either printing a decoded form of those packets to the standard output or writing the packets to a file. TShark’s native capture file format is libpcap format, which is also the format used by tcpdump and various other tools.

Without any options set, TShark will work much like tcpdump. TShark is able to detect, read and write the same capture files that are supported by Wireshark.

Some examples:

Display all the traffic in CLI:

sudo tshark -i eth1

To write all the traffic to a file in txt format from a network interface:

sudo tshark -i eth1 > /home/ftp/speedy/tshark.txt

The following example displays only IP packets that are issued by or in destination to the IP address 192.168.0.1

sudo tshark -i eth1 -R "ip.addr == 192.168.0.1" > /home/ftp/speedy/tshark.txt

In the following example, only IP packets that are coming from or going to UDP port 1812 are captured.

sudo tshark -i eth1 -f "udp port 1812" > /home/ftp/speedy/tshark.txt

All the available command lines are found here.

Resources: Ubuntu.com

Add users/admin to Verlihub in Ubuntu

2009-12-18T08:52:00.000-08:00

This is also the best way to change a user's forgotten password. But first you need to add a new master user and after that to change the lost password.

1.By using terminal:

sudo vh_regnick -f -n new_username -p new_password -c 10

new_username - your new username
new_password - the password for the new user
-c 10 - the class for your new user. 10 is admin master

2.By using commands in DC client (DC++, Strong DC++):

!regnewuser your_username 10

your_username - your new username
10 - your new username's class

aftre that, change it's password:

!regpass your_username new_password

new_password - the password for the user you just registered

To delete an registered user:

!regdelete username_to_delete

Resources: Verlihub Project

Install Ubuntu Desktop 9.10 on Ubuntu Server 9.10

2009-12-17T09:49:00.001-08:00

Today i wanted to install Ubuntu desktop over the server edition.

You can install other versions of desktop environments. To see all available desktops packages:

sudo apt-cache search ubuntu-desktop

Your list should look something like this:

edubuntu-desktop - educational desktop for Ubuntu
edubuntu-desktop-kde - educational desktop for Kubuntu
kubuntu-desktop - Kubuntu desktop system
ubuntu-desktop - The Ubuntu desktop system
xubuntu-desktop - Xubuntu desktop system
lubuntu-desktop - Lubuntu Desktop environment

So, you can install edubuntu (GNOME desktop), kubuntu (KDE desktop), ubuntu (GNOME desktop), xubuntu (XFCE desktop).

We are going to install Ubuntu Desktop, but all the installations should be the same:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

All packages should be around 400Mb and the installation should take 2000Mb, so everything is around 2400Mb. So we hit "yes" when asked...

After everything was downloaded, it should unpack and install all packages (i had 911 packages) and should let you with your terminal prompt. Now let's start our new ubuntu desktop environment:

sudo startx

You should take care, because with sudo you will enter as root. After you restart Ubuntu desktop, you may login with your username and password.

To end gnome session and return to terminal (CLI):

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

But next time you reboot Ubuntu machine, you will end up in Gnome desktop.

This post was written from our new Ubuntu Desktop 9.10 installation.

If you want to uninstall Ubuntu desktop 9.10, follow this tutorial

Terminal files and directory commands in Ubuntu

2009-12-12T23:52:00.001-08:00

1. ls
will show you the files in your current directory. Used with certain options, you can see sizes of files, when files were made, and permissions of files. Example: "ls ~" will show you the files that are in your home directory.

Examples:

sudo ls -l /etc/fstab

will show

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 846 2009-12-08 15:46 /etc/fstab

-rw-r--r-- are the file rights for the owner/group/others
root and root are the owner/group for this file
846 is the size of that file in bytes
2009-12-08 15:46 is the created/modified date

All the command options for this command are:

Usage: ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...
List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default).
Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
  -a, --all                  do not ignore entries starting with .
  -A, --almost-all           do not list implied . and ..
      --author               with -l, print the author of each file
  -b, --escape               print octal escapes for nongraphic characters
      --block-size=SIZE      use SIZE-byte blocks
  -B, --ignore-backups       do not list implied entries ending with ~
  -c                         with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last
                               modification of file status information)
                               with -l: show ctime and sort by name
                               otherwise: sort by ctime
  -C                         list entries by columns
      --color[=WHEN]         control whether color is used to distinguish file
                               types.  WHEN may be `never', `always', or `auto'
  -d, --directory            list directory entries instead of contents,
                               and do not dereference symbolic links
  -D, --dired                generate output designed for Emacs' dired mode
  -f                         do not sort, enable -aU, disable -ls --color
  -F, --classify             append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries
      --file-type            likewise, except do not append `*'
      --format=WORD          across -x, commas -m, horizontal -x, long -l,
                               single-column -1, verbose -l, vertical -C
      --full-time            like -l --time-style=full-iso
  -g                         like -l, but do not list owner
      --group-directories-first
                             group directories before files.
                               augment with a --sort option, but any
                               use of --sort=none (-U) disables grouping
  -G, --no-group             in a long listing, don't print group names
  -h, --human-readable       with -l, print sizes in human readable format
                               (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)
      --si                   likewise, but use powers of 1000 not 1024
  -H, --dereference-command-line
                             follow symbolic links listed on the command line
      --dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir
                             follow each command line symbolic link
                             that points to a directory
      --hide=PATTERN         do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN
                               (overridden by -a or -A)
      --indicator-style=WORD  append indicator with style WORD to entry names:
                               none (default), slash (-p),
                               file-type (--file-type), classify (-F)
  -i, --inode                print the index number of each file
  -I, --ignore=PATTERN       do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN
  -k                         like --block-size=1K
  -l                         use a long listing format
  -L, --dereference          when showing file information for a symbolic
                               link, show information for the file the link
                               references rather than for the link itself
  -m                         fill width with a comma separated list of entries
  -n, --numeric-uid-gid      like -l, but list numeric user and group IDs
  -N, --literal              print raw entry names (don't treat e.g. control
                               characters specially)
  -o                         like -l, but do not list group information
  -p, --indicator-style=slash
                             append / indicator to directories
  -q, --hide-control-chars   print ? instead of non graphic characters
      --show-control-chars   show non graphic characters as-is (default
                             unless program is `ls' and output is a terminal)
  -Q, --quote-name           enclose entry names in double quotes
      --quoting-style=WORD   use quoting style WORD for entry names:
                               literal, locale, shell, shell-always, c, escape
  -r, --reverse              reverse order while sorting
  -R, --recursive            list subdirectories recursively
  -s, --size                 print the allocated size of each file, in blocks
  -S                         sort by file size
      --sort=WORD            sort by WORD instead of name: none -U,
                             extension -X, size -S, time -t, version -v
      --time=WORD            with -l, show time as WORD instead of modification
                             time: atime -u, access -u, use -u, ctime -c,
                             or status -c; use specified time as sort key
                             if --sort=time
      --time-style=STYLE     with -l, show times using style STYLE:
                             full-iso, long-iso, iso, locale, +FORMAT.
                             FORMAT is interpreted like `date'; if FORMAT is
                             FORMAT1FORMAT2, FORMAT1 applies to
                             non-recent files and FORMAT2 to recent files;
                             if STYLE is prefixed with `posix-', STYLE
                             takes effect only outside the POSIX locale
  -t                         sort by modification time
  -T, --tabsize=COLS         assume tab stops at each COLS instead of 8
  -u                         with -lt: sort by, and show, access time
                               with -l: show access time and sort by name
                               otherwise: sort by access time
  -U                         do not sort; list entries in directory order
  -v                         natural sort of (version) numbers within text
  -w, --width=COLS           assume screen width instead of current value
  -x                         list entries by lines instead of by columns
  -X                         sort alphabetically by entry extension
  -Z, --context              print any SELinux security context of each file
  -1                         list one file per line
      --help     display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit

SIZE may be (or may be an integer optionally followed by) one of following:
kB 1000, K 1024, MB 1000*1000, M 1024*1024, and so on for G, T, P, E, Z, Y.

By default, color is not used to distinguish types of files.  That is
equivalent to using --color=none.  Using the --color option without the
optional WHEN argument is equivalent to using --color=always.  With
--color=auto, color codes are output only if standard output is connected
to a terminal (tty).  The environment variable LS_COLORS can influence the
colors, and can be set easily by the dircolors command.

2. cd
will allow you to change directories. When you open a terminal you will be in your home directory. To move around the file system you will use cd.

Examples:

cd/

navigates into the root directory

cd~

navigates into your home directory

cd ..

navigates up one directory level

cd -

navigates to the previous directory (or back)

cd /var/www

navigates through multiple levels of directory at once. This one goes directly to the /www subdirectory of /var/

3. cp
will make a copy of a file for you

Examples:

cp file foo

will make a exact copy of "file" and name it "foo", but the file "file" will still be there

cp -r directory foo

this is for copying a directory (copy recursively)

4. mv
will move a file to a different location or will rename a file

Examples:

mv file foo

will rename the file "file" to "foo"

mv foo /var/www

will move the file "foo" to your "/var/www" directory but will not rename it

5. rm
remove or delete a file in your directory or a directory

Examples:

rm foo

will delete foo

rm -r /var/www

will delete "/var/www" directory recursively

6. rmdir
will delete an empty directory

Examples:

rmdir /var/www

7. mkdir
allows you to create directories

Examples:

mkdir music

will create a directory called "music"

8. man
shows you the manual of other commands

Examples:

man man

will get the man page for man itself

Resources: Ubuntu.com

How to see hard disc space in Ubuntu

2009-12-12T23:31:00.000-08:00

1. Using df command

df -h

As my hard drive is 2Gb, it will look like this:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/ubuntu-root
                     1.6G  802M  746M  52% /
udev                  249M  196K  249M   1% /dev
none                  249M     0  249M   0% /dev/shm
none                  249M  244K  249M   1% /var/run
none                  249M     0  249M   0% /var/lock
none                  249M     0  249M   0% /lib/init/rw
/dev/sda5             228M   14M  202M   7% /boot

2. Using Discus

Discus is a GPL text-mode disk space usage program. Discus aims to make df prettier. Features include color, bar graphs, and smart formatting of numbers (automatically choosing the most suitable size from kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, or terabytes). Or choose your own size, along with specifying the number of decimal places.

If you don't have discus:

sudo apt-get install discus

And we run it:

sudo discus

Output:

Mount           Total         Used         Avail      Prcnt      Graph
/                1.59 GB     801.8 MB     828.1 MB    49.2%   [*****-----]
/sys                0 KB         0 KB         0 KB     0.0%   [----------]
+onnections         0 KB         0 KB         0 KB     0.0%   [----------]
+rnel/debug         0 KB         0 KB         0 KB     0.0%   [----------]
+l/security         0 KB         0 KB         0 KB     0.0%   [----------]
/dev            248.7 MB       196 KB     248.5 MB     0.1%   [----------]
/dev/shm        248.7 MB         0 KB     248.7 MB     0.0%   [----------]
/var/run        248.7 MB       272 KB     248.4 MB     0.1%   [----------]
/var/lock       248.7 MB         0 KB     248.7 MB     0.0%   [----------]
+ib/init/rw     248.7 MB         0 KB     248.7 MB     0.0%   [----------]
/boot           227.9 MB      13.9 MB     213.9 MB     6.1%   [*---------]

Discus command lines:

-h, --help Show summary of options.

-c Disable color.

-d Display device names instead of graphs.

-p Number of digits to right of decimal place.

-s Do not use smart formatting.

-t, -g, -m, -k Display sizes in terabytes, gigabytes, megabytes, or kilobytes, respectively. Assumes -s.

-v, --version Show version of program.

Resources: DebianAdmin.com

How to change MySQL root password in Ubuntu

2009-12-11T23:26:00.000-08:00

Using terminal, type in the following:

sudo mysql -u root -p

After you login:

UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('MyNewPass') WHERE User='root';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

You may quit mysql:

quit

Explanation:

MyNewPass id the new password for MySQL and root is your current MySQL user.

The UPDATE statement resets the password for all existing root accounts, and the FLUSH statement tells the server to reload the grant tables into memory.

Resources MySQL.com

Recover your username and password for Torrentflux in Ubuntu

2009-12-11T22:57:00.000-08:00

How to recover your admin lost password on torrentflux:

1.Using phpMyAdmin:

-browse the torrentflux database. My table is named "torrentflux"
-browse the users table. Usually named "tf_users"
-on user_id column you can see admin username. If you want to change it, just type in your new admin user. Edit that row and at password field (varchar(34)) on first column (named function) choose MD5. On the third column (named value) write down your new password. After that, press "Go".
You should be able to login now.

2.Using terminal:

Assuming that root is your mysql username:

sudo mysql -u root -p

After the successful login:

UPDATE torrentflux.tf_users SET password=MD5('MyNewPass') WHERE user_id='root';

Explanation:
torrentflux is your Torrentflux database. tf_users is your Torrentflux table where all users are kept. MyNewPass should be your new password. and root is your current Torrentflux admin user.

You should be able to login now.

Monitor for system resources and process activity with atop in Ubuntu

2009-12-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

Atop is an ASCII full-screen terminal performance monitor, similar to the top command, but atop only shows the active system-resources and processes, and only shows the deviations since the previous interval.
At regular intervals, it shows system-level activity related to the CPU, memory, swap, disks and network layers, and it shows for every active process the CPU utilization in system and user mode, the virtual and resident memory growth, priority, username, state, and exit code.
The process level activity is also shown for processes which finished during the last interval, to get a complete overview about the consumers of things such as CPU time.

The main things it can do:

*Resource consumption by all processes
*Utilization of all relevant resources
*Permanent logging of resource utilization
*Highlight critical resources
*Watch activity only
*Watch deviations only
*Accumulated process activity per user
*Accumulated process activity per program
*Disk and network activity per process

To install atop:

sudo apt-get install atop

After Atop has started you can press some keys (as shown below) to see different configuration status and command lines:


Figures shown for active processes:
        'g' - generic info (default)
        'm' - memory details
        'd' - disk details
        'n' - network details
        's' - scheduling and thread-group info
        'v' - various info (ppid, user/group, date/time, status, exitcode)
        'c' - full command-line per process

Accumulated figures:
        'u' - total resource consumption per user
        'p' - total resource consumption per program (i.e. same process name)

Sort list of active processes in order of:
        'C' - cpu activity
        'M' - memory consumption
        'D' - disk activity
        'N' - network activity
        'A' - most active system resource (auto mode)

Screen-handling:
        ^F  - show next     page in the process-list (forward)
        ^B  - show previous page in the process-list (backward)

Miscellaneous commands:
        'i' - change interval-timer (0 = only manual trigger)
        't' - manual trigger to finish interval
        'T' - show previous interval again (raw file viewing)
        'r' - reset counters to zero (or rewind for raw file viewing)

        'U' - focus on specific user name    (regular expression)
        'P' - focus on specific process name (regular expression)

        'a' - active processes only (default) or all processes (toggle)
        'z' - pause-button to freeze current sample            (toggle)
        'f' - fixate on static range of header-lines           (toggle)
        'x' - use colors to indicate high occupation           (toggle)
        '1' - show average-per-second i.s.o. total values      (toggle)
        'l' - limited lines for per-cpu, disk and interface resources
        'k' - kill a process (i.e. send a signal)

        'V' - version-information

Some examples:

sudo atopsar -c 5 5

With the flag -c in the following example a report is generated about current CPU utilization of the system during 5 minutes (five times with an interval of five seconds):

ubuntu  2.6.31-14-generic-pae  #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 15:22:42 UTC 2009  i686  2009/12/10

-------------------------- analysis date: 2009/12/10 --------------------------

21:20:18  cpu   %usr  %nice   %sys  %irq %softirq   %steal  %wait  %idle  _cpu_
21:20:23  all      1      0      2     0        0        0      0     97
21:20:28  all      0      0      0     0        0        0      0    100
21:20:33  all      1      0      2     0        0        0      0     97
21:20:38  all      0      0      0     0        0        0      0     99
21:20:43  all      0      0      2     0        0        0      0     98

With the flag -A in the following example all available reports are generated, starting from 13:00 (optional flag -b) till 13:35 (optional flag -e) reading today's raw file as written by the atop command (default):

sudo atopsar -A -b 13:00 -e 13:35

This output will not be listed here as is very large, but you can try it yourself.

Resources: Official Homepage, Canonical.com

Protect your Ubuntu SSH server with Denyhosts

2009-12-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

As you know, SSH is a great way to remotely administer a server. However, there are some security issues to consider. For example brute force attacks to take control of the Ubuntu server machine.

But first we need to take in consideration the SSH config file sshd_config.

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

An easy trick is by moving the listen port from 22 to some other randomly assigned port. Something above 20000 is perfect. This reduces the chance to show up that ssh server is running to port scanning.

The denyhosts package is a great python script used to prevent brute force hacking of your SSH server. Full details are available at http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net.

Denyhosts acts as a ideal dynamic blocker for SSH, and also for other services. It relies on the /etc/hosts.deny and hosts.allow. It dynamically builds a list of hosts that repeatedly connect to your server. By default the service will block connections from IP sources that are repeated attempting to connect and access your host. The denyhosts process is configured in /etc/denyhosts.conf.

Before we install DenyHosts, make sure we have pythone installed:

sudo python -V

It should say something like this:

Python 2.6.4rc2

If we do not have it, we install it by running:

sudo apt-get install python2.6

Then:

sudo apt-get install denyhosts

If you are installing it remotely, you will loose conectivity when the service is trying to start. You need to relogin to your ssh server.

Edit the denyhosts configuration file to suit your needs. You should keep in mind that this is a preconfigured file:

sudo nano /etc/denyhosts.conf

It should look something like this. These are default denyhosts config file settings:

############ THESE SETTINGS ARE REQUIRED ############

########################################################################
#
# SECURE_LOG: the log file that contains sshd logging info
# if you are not sure, grep "sshd:" /var/log/*
#
# The file to process can be overridden with the --file command line
# argument
#
# Redhat or Fedora Core:
#SECURE_LOG = /var/log/secure
#
# Mandrake, FreeBSD or OpenBSD:
#SECURE_LOG = /var/log/auth.log
#
# SuSE:
#SECURE_LOG = /var/log/messages
#
# Mac OS X (v10.4 or greater -
# also refer to: http://www.denyhosts.net/faq.html#macos
#SECURE_LOG = /private/var/log/asl.log
#
# Mac OS X (v10.3 or earlier):
#SECURE_LOG=/private/var/log/system.log
#
# Debian:
SECURE_LOG = /var/log/auth.log
########################################################################

########################################################################
#
# HOSTS_DENY: the file which contains restricted host access information
#
# Most operating systems:
HOSTS_DENY = /etc/hosts.deny
#
# Some BSD (FreeBSD) Unixes:
#HOSTS_DENY = /etc/hosts.allow
#
# Another possibility (also see the next option):
#HOSTS_DENY = /etc/hosts.evil
#######################################################################

########################################################################
#
# PURGE_DENY: removed HOSTS_DENY entries that are older than this time
# when DenyHosts is invoked with the --purge flag
#
# format is: i[dhwmy]
# Where 'i' is an integer (eg. 7)
# 'm' = minutes
# 'h' = hours
# 'd' = days
# 'w' = weeks
# 'y' = years
#
# never purge:
PURGE_DENY =
#
# purge entries older than 1 week
#PURGE_DENY = 1w
#
# purge entries older than 5 days
#PURGE_DENY = 5d
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# PURGE_THRESHOLD: defines the maximum times a host will be purged.
# Once this value has been exceeded then this host will not be purged.
# Setting this parameter to 0 (the default) disables this feature.
#
# default: a denied host can be purged/re-added indefinitely
#PURGE_THRESHOLD = 0
#
# a denied host will be purged at most 2 times.
#PURGE_THRESHOLD = 2
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# BLOCK_SERVICE: the service name that should be blocked in HOSTS_DENY
#
# man 5 hosts_access for details
#
# eg. sshd: 127.0.0.1 # will block sshd logins from 127.0.0.1
#
# To block all services for the offending host:
#BLOCK_SERVICE = ALL
# To block only sshd:
BLOCK_SERVICE = sshd
# To only record the offending host and nothing else (if using
# an auxilary file to list the hosts). Refer to:
# http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net/faq.html#aux
#BLOCK_SERVICE =
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# DENY_THRESHOLD_INVALID: block each host after the number of failed login
# attempts has exceeded this value. This value applies to invalid
# user login attempts (eg. non-existent user accounts)
#
DENY_THRESHOLD_INVALID = 5
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# DENY_THRESHOLD_VALID: block each host after the number of failed
# login attempts has exceeded this value. This value applies to valid
# user login attempts (eg. user accounts that exist in /etc/passwd) except
# for the "root" user
#
DENY_THRESHOLD_VALID = 10
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# DENY_THRESHOLD_ROOT: block each host after the number of failed
# login attempts has exceeded this value. This value applies to
# "root" user login attempts only.
#
DENY_THRESHOLD_ROOT = 1
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# DENY_THRESHOLD_RESTRICTED: block each host after the number of failed
# login attempts has exceeded this value. This value applies to
# usernames that appear in the WORK_DIR/restricted-usernames file only.
#
DENY_THRESHOLD_RESTRICTED = 1
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# WORK_DIR: the path that DenyHosts will use for writing data to
# (it will be created if it does not already exist).
#
# Note: it is recommended that you use an absolute pathname
# for this value (eg. /home/foo/denyhosts/data)
#
WORK_DIR = /var/lib/denyhosts
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SUSPICIOUS_LOGIN_REPORT_ALLOWED_HOSTS
#
# SUSPICIOUS_LOGIN_REPORT_ALLOWED_HOSTS=YES|NO
# If set to YES, if a suspicious login attempt results from an allowed-host
# then it is considered suspicious. If this is NO, then suspicious logins
# from allowed-hosts will not be reported. All suspicious logins from
# ip addresses that are not in allowed-hosts will always be reported.
#
SUSPICIOUS_LOGIN_REPORT_ALLOWED_HOSTS=YES
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# HOSTNAME_LOOKUP
#
# HOSTNAME_LOOKUP=YES|NO
# If set to YES, for each IP address that is reported by Denyhosts,
# the corresponding hostname will be looked up and reported as well
# (if available).
#
HOSTNAME_LOOKUP=YES
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# LOCK_FILE
#
# LOCK_FILE=/path/denyhosts
# If this file exists when DenyHosts is run, then DenyHosts will exit
# immediately. Otherwise, this file will be created upon invocation
# and deleted upon exit. This ensures that only one instance is
# running at a time.
#
# Redhat/Fedora:
#LOCK_FILE = /var/lock/subsys/denyhosts
#
# Debian
LOCK_FILE = /var/run/denyhosts.pid
#
# Misc
#LOCK_FILE = /tmp/denyhosts.lock
#
######################################################################

############ THESE SETTINGS ARE OPTIONAL ############

#######################################################################
#
# ADMIN_EMAIL: if you would like to receive emails regarding newly
# restricted hosts and suspicious logins, set this address to
# match your email address. If you do not want to receive these reports
# leave this field blank (or run with the --noemail option)
#
# Multiple email addresses can be delimited by a comma, eg:
# ADMIN_EMAIL = foo@bar.com, bar@foo.com, etc@foobar.com
#
ADMIN_EMAIL = root@localhost
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SMTP_HOST and SMTP_PORT: if DenyHosts is configured to email
# reports (see ADMIN_EMAIL) then these settings specify the
# email server address (SMTP_HOST) and the server port (SMTP_PORT)
#
#
SMTP_HOST = localhost
SMTP_PORT = 25
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SMTP_USERNAME and SMTP_PASSWORD: set these parameters if your
# smtp email server requires authentication
#
#SMTP_USERNAME=foo
#SMTP_PASSWORD=bar
#
######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SMTP_FROM: you can specify the "From:" address in messages sent
# from DenyHosts when it reports thwarted abuse attempts
#
SMTP_FROM = DenyHosts
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SMTP_SUBJECT: you can specify the "Subject:" of messages sent
# by DenyHosts when it reports thwarted abuse attempts
SMTP_SUBJECT = DenyHosts Report
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# SMTP_DATE_FORMAT: specifies the format used for the "Date:" header
# when sending email messages.
#
# for possible values for this parameter refer to: man strftime
#
# the default:
#
#SMTP_DATE_FORMAT = %a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# SYSLOG_REPORT
#
# SYSLOG_REPORT=YES|NO
# If set to yes, when denied hosts are recorded the report data
# will be sent to syslog (syslog must be present on your system).
# The default is: NO
#
#SYSLOG_REPORT=NO
#
#SYSLOG_REPORT=YES
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# ALLOWED_HOSTS_HOSTNAME_LOOKUP
#
# ALLOWED_HOSTS_HOSTNAME_LOOKUP=YES|NO
# If set to YES, for each entry in the WORK_DIR/allowed-hosts file,
# the hostname will be looked up. If your versions of tcp_wrappers
# and sshd sometimes log hostnames in addition to ip addresses
# then you may wish to specify this option.
#
#ALLOWED_HOSTS_HOSTNAME_LOOKUP=NO
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# AGE_RESET_VALID: Specifies the period of time between failed login
# attempts that, when exceeded will result in the failed count for
# this host to be reset to 0. This value applies to login attempts
# to all valid users (those within /etc/passwd) with the
# exception of root. If not defined, this count will never
# be reset.
#
# See the comments in the PURGE_DENY section (above)
# for details on specifying this value or for complete details
# refer to: http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net/faq.html#timespec
#
AGE_RESET_VALID=5d
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# AGE_RESET_ROOT: Specifies the period of time between failed login
# attempts that, when exceeded will result in the failed count for
# this host to be reset to 0. This value applies to all login
# attempts to the "root" user account. If not defined,
# this count will never be reset.
#
# See the comments in the PURGE_DENY section (above)
# for details on specifying this value or for complete details
# refer to: http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net/faq.html#timespec
#
AGE_RESET_ROOT=25d
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# AGE_RESET_RESTRICTED: Specifies the period of time between failed login
# attempts that, when exceeded will result in the failed count for
# this host to be reset to 0. This value applies to all login
# attempts to entries found in the WORK_DIR/restricted-usernames file.
# If not defined, the count will never be reset.
#
# See the comments in the PURGE_DENY section (above)
# for details on specifying this value or for complete details
# refer to: http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net/faq.html#timespec
#
AGE_RESET_RESTRICTED=25d
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# AGE_RESET_INVALID: Specifies the period of time between failed login
# attempts that, when exceeded will result in the failed count for
# this host to be reset to 0. This value applies to login attempts
# made to any invalid username (those that do not appear
# in /etc/passwd). If not defined, count will never be reset.
#
# See the comments in the PURGE_DENY section (above)
# for details on specifying this value or for complete details
# refer to: http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net/faq.html#timespec
#
AGE_RESET_INVALID=10d
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# RESET_ON_SUCCESS: If this parameter is set to "yes" then the
# failed count for the respective ip address will be reset to 0
# if the login is successful.
#
# The default is RESET_ON_SUCCESS = no
#
#RESET_ON_SUCCESS = yes
#
#####################################################################

######################################################################
#
# PLUGIN_DENY: If set, this value should point to an executable
# program that will be invoked when a host is added to the
# HOSTS_DENY file. This executable will be passed the host
# that will be added as its only argument.
#
#PLUGIN_DENY=/usr/bin/true
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# PLUGIN_PURGE: If set, this value should point to an executable
# program that will be invoked when a host is removed from the
# HOSTS_DENY file. This executable will be passed the host
# that is to be purged as its only argument.
#
#PLUGIN_PURGE=/usr/bin/true
#
######################################################################

######################################################################
#
# USERDEF_FAILED_ENTRY_REGEX: if set, this value should contain
# a regular expression that can be used to identify additional
# hackers for your particular ssh configuration. This functionality
# extends the built-in regular expressions that DenyHosts uses.
# This parameter can be specified multiple times.
# See this faq entry for more details:
# http://denyhosts.sf.net/faq.html#userdef_regex
#
#USERDEF_FAILED_ENTRY_REGEX=
#
#
######################################################################

######### THESE SETTINGS ARE SPECIFIC TO DAEMON MODE ##########

#######################################################################
#
# DAEMON_LOG: when DenyHosts is run in daemon mode (--daemon flag)
# this is the logfile that DenyHosts uses to report its status.
# To disable logging, leave blank. (default is: /var/log/denyhosts)
#
DAEMON_LOG = /var/log/denyhosts
#
# disable logging:
#DAEMON_LOG =
#
######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# DAEMON_LOG_TIME_FORMAT: when DenyHosts is run in daemon mode
# (--daemon flag) this specifies the timestamp format of
# the DAEMON_LOG messages (default is the ISO8061 format:
# ie. 2005-07-22 10:38:01,745)
#
# for possible values for this parameter refer to: man strftime
#
# Jan 1 13:05:59
#DAEMON_LOG_TIME_FORMAT = %b %d %H:%M:%S
#
# Jan 1 01:05:59
#DAEMON_LOG_TIME_FORMAT = %b %d %I:%M:%S
#
######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# DAEMON_LOG_MESSAGE_FORMAT: when DenyHosts is run in daemon mode
# (--daemon flag) this specifies the message format of each logged
# entry. By default the following format is used:
#
# %(asctime)s - %(name)-12s: %(levelname)-8s %(message)s
#
# Where the "%(asctime)s" portion is expanded to the format
# defined by DAEMON_LOG_TIME_FORMAT
#
# This string is passed to python's logging.Formatter contstuctor.
# For details on the possible format types please refer to:
# http://docs.python.org/lib/node357.html
#
# This is the default:
#DAEMON_LOG_MESSAGE_FORMAT = %(asctime)s - %(name)-12s: %(levelname)-8s %(message)s
#
#
######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# DAEMON_SLEEP: when DenyHosts is run in daemon mode (--daemon flag)
# this is the amount of time DenyHosts will sleep between polling
# the SECURE_LOG. See the comments in the PURGE_DENY section (above)
# for details on specifying this value or for complete details
# refer to: http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net/faq.html#timespec
#
#
DAEMON_SLEEP = 30s
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# DAEMON_PURGE: How often should DenyHosts, when run in daemon mode,
# run the purge mechanism to expire old entries in HOSTS_DENY
# This has no effect if PURGE_DENY is blank.
#
DAEMON_PURGE = 1h
#
#######################################################################

######### THESE SETTINGS ARE SPECIFIC TO ##########
######### DAEMON SYNCHRONIZATION ##########

#######################################################################
#
# Synchronization mode allows the DenyHosts daemon the ability
# to periodically send and receive denied host data such that
# DenyHosts daemons worldwide can automatically inform one
# another regarding banned hosts. This mode is disabled by
# default, you must uncomment SYNC_SERVER to enable this mode.
#
# for more information, please refer to:
# http:/denyhosts.sourceforge.net/faq.html#sync
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SYNC_SERVER: The central server that communicates with DenyHost
# daemons. Currently, denyhosts.net is the only available server
# however, in the future, it may be possible for organizations to
# install their own server for internal network synchronization
#
# To disable synchronization (the default), do nothing.
#
# To enable synchronization, you must uncomment the following line:
#SYNC_SERVER = http://xmlrpc.denyhosts.net:9911
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SYNC_INTERVAL: the interval of time to perform synchronizations if
# SYNC_SERVER has been uncommented. The default is 1 hour.
#
#SYNC_INTERVAL = 1h
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SYNC_UPLOAD: allow your DenyHosts daemon to transmit hosts that have
# been denied? This option only applies if SYNC_SERVER has
# been uncommented.
# The default is SYNC_UPLOAD = yes
#
#SYNC_UPLOAD = no
#SYNC_UPLOAD = yes
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SYNC_DOWNLOAD: allow your DenyHosts daemon to receive hosts that have
# been denied by others? This option only applies if SYNC_SERVER has
# been uncommented.
# The default is SYNC_DOWNLOAD = yes
#
#SYNC_DOWNLOAD = no
#SYNC_DOWNLOAD = yes
#
#
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SYNC_DOWNLOAD_THRESHOLD: If SYNC_DOWNLOAD is enabled this parameter
# filters the returned hosts to those that have been blocked this many
# times by others. That is, if set to 1, then if a single DenyHosts
# server has denied an ip address then you will receive the denied host.
#
# See also SYNC_DOWNLOAD_RESILIENCY
#
#SYNC_DOWNLOAD_THRESHOLD = 10
#
# The default is SYNC_DOWNLOAD_THRESHOLD = 3
#
#SYNC_DOWNLOAD_THRESHOLD = 3
#
#######################################################################

#######################################################################
#
# SYNC_DOWNLOAD_RESILIENCY: If SYNC_DOWNLOAD is enabled then the
# value specified for this option limits the downloaded data
# to this resiliency period or greater.
#
# Resiliency is defined as the timespan between a hackers first known
# attack and its most recent attack. Example:
#
# If the centralized denyhosts.net server records an attack at 2 PM
# and then again at 5 PM, specifying a SYNC_DOWNLOAD_RESILIENCY = 4h
# will not download this ip address.
#
# However, if the attacker is recorded again at 6:15 PM then the
# ip address will be downloaded by your DenyHosts instance.
#
# This value is used in conjunction with the SYNC_DOWNLOAD_THRESHOLD
# and only hosts that satisfy both values will be downloaded.
# This value has no effect if SYNC_DOWNLOAD_THRESHOLD = 1
#
# The default is SYNC_DOWNLOAD_RESILIENCY = 5h (5 hours)
#
# Only obtain hackers that have been at it for 2 days or more:
#SYNC_DOWNLOAD_RESILIENCY = 2d
#
# Only obtain hackers that have been at it for 5 hours or more:
#SYNC_DOWNLOAD_RESILIENCY = 5h
#
#######################################################################

I recommend to restart Denyhosts after making any changes:

sudo /etc/init.d/denyhosts restart

After i have installed it, i already saw some ips which where trying to access ssh with root user (and other) in my "/var/log/auth.log" file.

You should take a look at this file, it easy to configure as every step is well documented.

The files to see the results are these:

The log for all authentifications:

sudo nano /var/log/auth.log

The log with all deny ips:

sudo nano /etc/hosts.deny

List of hosts that are allowed to access the system:

sudo nano /etc/hosts.allow

Resources: Ubuntugeek, Ubuntu forums 1, Ubuntu Forums 2, HowToForge.

Using Crontab in Ubuntu

2009-12-06T07:59:00.000-08:00

Crontab can run scripts at regular intervals and perform various tasks. Those intervals can be from 1 minute to 1 year, repeatedly.

To list current crontabs:

sudo crontab -l

You can create a crontab file by entering the following terminal command:

sudo crontab -e

A crontab file has six fields for specifying minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week and the command to be run at that interval:

*     *     *     *     *  command to be executed
-     -     -     -     -
|     |     |     |     |
|     |     |     |     +----- day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday=0)
|     |     |     +------- month (1 - 12)
|     |     +--------- day of month (1 - 31)
|     +----------- hour (0 - 23)
+------------- min (0 - 59)

Some examples:

* * * * * #Runs every minute
*/5 * * * * #Runs at every 5 minutes
30 * * * * #Runs at 30 minutes past the hour
45 6 * * * #Runs at 6:45 am every day
45 18 * * * #Runs at 6:45 pm every day
00 1 * * 0 #Runs at 1:00 am every Sunday
00 1 * * 7 #Runs at 1:00 am every Sunday
00 1 * * Sun #Runs at 1:00 am every Sunday
30 8 1 * * #Runs at 8:30 am on the first day of every month
00 0-23/2 02 07 * #Runs every other hour on the 2nd of July

You can also use some special strings:

@reboot #Runs at boot
@yearly #Runs once a year [0 0 1 1 *]
@annually #Runs once a year [0 0 1 1 *]
@monthly #Runs once a month [0 0 1 * *]
@weekly #Runs once a week [0 0 * * 0]
@daily #Runs once a day [0 0 * * *]
@midnight #Runs once a day [0 0 * * *]
@hourly #Runs once an hour [0 * * * *]

You can use multiple commands for the same crontab:

@daily <command_01> && <command_02>

Specifying a crontab file to use

sudo crontab -u

Example:

sudo crontab -u tux ~/crontab

-would set Tux's crontab file to that of the file named "crontab" residing in Tux's home directory.

To remove a crontab file for current user:

sudo crontab -r

Resources: Ubuntu.com, Crunchbang, PHP cronfile Sitepoint

Configure start-up script to configure network (ICS, setting up NIC, etc)

2009-11-29T00:44:00.000-08:00

Setting up a network interface and ICS are easy tasks. But as an alternative you can do it without modifying those config files, by running some start-up scripts.

1.Let's say we want to set up a network interface, we would have:

Make a start-up script:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/startup

We paste this:

#!/bin/sh
sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1

We make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/startup

Now we add it to system start-up:

sudo update-rc.d startup defaults

Now, every time your system boots Ubuntu, you would have your network interface configured automatically.

2.It's quite the same with ICS (Internet connection sharing):

Assuming that your eth0 nic is the local area network and eth1 is the wide area network (internet), we add this lines in our "/etc/init.d/startup" file made above:

sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i eth1 -o eth0 -s 192.168.0.0/24 -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -A FORWARD -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
sudo iptables -A POSTROUTING -t nat -j MASQUERADE

All parameters options for users and groups managing commands in Ubuntu

2009-11-28T06:38:00.002-08:00

Ubuntu is a multi-user operating system. This means that more than one user can be actively logged and using the system at any one time. Obviously, it makes sense for each user to have their own user account and home directory, and for different users to have different privileges.

The commands used here are: "useradd, usermod, userdel, groupadd, groupmod, groupdel".

Useradd

Usage: useradd [options] LOGIN

Options:

-b, --base-dir BASE_DIR	base directory for the new user account home directory
-c, --comment COMMENT	set the GECOS field for the new user account
-D, --defaults	print or save modified default useradd configuration
-e, --expiredate EXPIRE_DATE	set account expiration date to EXPIRE_DATE
-f, --inactive INACTIVE	set password inactive after expiration to INACTIVE
-g, --gid GROUP	force use GROUP for the new user account
-G, --groups GROUPS	list of supplementary groups for the new user account
-h, --help	display this help message and exit
-k, --skel SKEL_DIR	specify an alternative skel directory
-K, --key KEY=VALUE	overrides /etc/login.defs defaults
-l, --no-log-init	do not add the user to the lastlog and faillog databases
-m, --create-home	create home directory for the new user account
-M, --no-create-home	do not create user's home directory (overrides /etc/login.defs)
-N, --no-user-group	do not create a group with the same name as the user
-o, --non-unique	allow create user with duplicate (non-unique) UID
-p, --password PASSWORD	use encrypted password for the new user account
-r, --system	create a system account
-s, --shell SHELL	the login shell for the new user account
-u, --uid UID	force use the UID for the new user account
-U, --user-group	create a group with the same name as the user
-Z, --selinux-user SEUSER	use a specific SEUSER for the SELinux user mapping

Usermod

Usage: usermod [options] LOGIN

Options:

-c, --comment COMMENT	new value of the GECOS field
-d, --home HOME_DIR	new home directory for the user account
-e, --expiredate EXPIRE_DATE	set account expiration date to EXPIRE_DATE
-f, --inactive INACTIVE	set password inactive after expiration to INACTIVE
-g, --gid GROUP	force use GROUP as new primary group
-G, --groups GROUPS	new list of supplementary GROUPS
-a, --append	append the user to the supplemental GROUPS mentioned by the -G option without removing him/her from other groups
-h, --help	display this help message and exit
-l, --login NEW_LOGIN	new value of the login name
-L, --lock	lock the user account
-m, --move-home	move contents of the home directory to the new location (use only with -d)
-o, --non-unique	allow using duplicate (non-unique) UID
-p, --password PASSWORD	use encrypted password for the new password
-s, --shell SHELL	new login shell for the user account
-u, --uid UID	new UID for the user account
-U, --unlock	unlock the user account
-Z, --selinux-user	new SELinux user mapping for the user account

Userdel

Usage: userdel [options] LOGIN

Options:

-f, --force	force removal of files, even if not owned by user
-h, --help	display this help message and exit
-r, --remove	remove home directory and mail spool

groupadd

Usage: groupadd [options] GROUP

Options:

-f, --force	force exit with success status if the specified group already exists
-g, --gid GID	use GID for the new group
-h, --help	display this help message and exit
-K, --key KEY=VALUE	overrides /etc/login.defs defaults
-o, --non-unique	allow create group with duplicate (non-unique) GID
-p, --password PASSWORD	use encrypted password for the new group
-r, --system	create a system account

groupmod

Usage: groupmod [options] GROUP

Options:

-g, --gid GID	force use new GID by GROUP
-h, --help	display this help message and exit
-n, --new-name NEW_GROUP	force use NEW_GROUP name by GROUP
-o, --non-unique	allow using duplicate (non-unique) GID by GROUP
-p, --password PASSWORD	use encrypted password for the new password

groupdel

Usage: groupdel group

Resources: techotopia.com

Uninstall OpenFire from Ubuntu system

2009-11-26T13:13:00.000-08:00

This tutorial is usefull if you have installed OpenFire as described here. I've not tested other methods.

Terminate the running application:

sudo /etc/init.d/openfire stop

Remove it from services:

sudo update-rc.d -f openfire remove

Remove the start-up file:

sudo rm /etc/init.d/openfire

Delete all the files located at /opt/openfire :

sudo rm -rf /opt/openfire

And finally, if you have used a mysql database for the application, you can remove the table used.

Install Webmin on Ubuntu server

2009-11-26T07:42:00.001-08:00

Webmin is a web interface for configuring your linux box. Using any modern web browser, you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and much more, and all can be done remotely.

You need to install first some perl-related libraries required by webmin:

sudo apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl libmd5-perl

Now we can download the latest webmin archive (this might change in time). We choose debian package .deb.

wget http://www.webmin.com/download/deb/webmin-current.deb

We install it by typing:

sudo dpkg -i webmin_1.490_all.deb

Note: your downloaded version may differ. Just use the deb package you’ve just downloaded. You can see the files of your current location by typing:

dir

Now you can access webmin by putting this adress into your browser:

https://[serverIP]:10000

Screenshots:

Resources: Webxpert

Terminal clock in Ubuntu

2009-11-25T11:52:00.000-08:00

Live clock:

watch -n 1 echo ""

while true; do date; echo -ne "\033[1F"; sleep 1; done

or make an executable

make a file

sudo nano /etc/init.d/liveclock

enter this:

#!/bin/bash
# clock - A bash clock that can run in your terminal window.
while true;do clear;date +"%r";sleep 1;done

make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/liveclock

Configure internet connection sharing in Ubuntu

2009-11-25T11:36:00.001-08:00

Before we continue the following tutorial, you have to make sure that you have configured network interfaces and that you are having a working internet connection. In our example we are going to use eth0 as local area network (ip 192.168.0.1) and eth1 as wide are network.

sudo iptables -A FORWARD -i eth1 -o eth0 -s 192.168.0.0/24 -m conntrack --ctstate NEW -j ACCEPT

sudo iptables -A FORWARD -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT

Finally we made NAT:

sudo iptables -A POSTROUTING -t nat -j MASQUERADE

Configure the gateway for routing between two interfaces by enabling IP forwarding:

sudo sh -c "echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward"

Edit /etc/sysctl.conf and add these lines or uncomment by removing # or ; in front of them if they are commented:

net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding=1
net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding=1

To be able to have this configuration at every start-up, you should do something like this example. Please note that this is just an example. There are many ways to configure ics to run at boot. I found this easier.

Resources: Ubuntu.com

Start, stop and remove AppArmor in Ubuntu

2009-11-25T11:33:00.001-08:00

AppArmor is a security extension (similar to SELinux) that should provide extended security, which usually causes more problems than advantages.
AppArmor was first made available to Ubuntu in Ubuntu 7.04 in Universe. AppArmor is usually installed and loaded by default.

Stop AppArmor:

sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor stop

Start AppArmor:

sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor start

Reloading AppArmor profiles:

sudo /etc/init.d/apparmor reload

Remove from services (it doesn't load anymore at system start-up). First you need to stop it as shown above:

sudo update-rc.d -f apparmor remove

Install the AppArmor service:

sudo update-rc.d apparmor defaults

To see the status of service:

sudo apparmor_status

After reboot i have noticed that apparmor is still running even after being removed from system start-up. So, i have uninstalled it:

sudo apt-get remove apparmor

Resources: Ubuntu.com

Configure the network interfaces in Ubuntu

2009-11-25T11:13:00.001-08:00

Short explanation for the following: The eth0 is your first network adapter, eth1 is the second, and so on. The lo is the loopback adapter that has the local adress 127.0.0.1, and you should not chance it.

See the status of your network cards:

sudo ifconfig

To see the status of a particular NIC:

sudo ifconfig eth0

To set a static ip adress to eth0:

sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0

Shutting down eth0:

sudo ifconfig eth0 down

Bring up eth0:

sudo ifconfig eth0 up

Edit Network configuration file /etc/network/interfaces and adjust it to your needs:

But first make a backup of it:

sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network/interfaces.bak

and then

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

The file should look something like this:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.101
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.0.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255
gateway 192.168.0.1

The configuration above has the eth0 adapter as static adress with ip 192.168.0.101, netmask 255.255.255.0, gateway 192.168.0.1, etc.

Examples of static and automatic ip adress configuration:

1.Configure automatic ip adress for eth0 (if exists a DHCP server):

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

2.Configure eth0 static ip adress:

iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.2
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1

After you have made any changes, restart networking:

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Testing the connectivity:

ping -c 3 -W 10 ubuntu.com

You should see something like this:

PING ubuntu.com (82.211.81.166) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from signey.ubuntu.com (82.211.81.166): icmp_seq=1 ttl=43 time=99.9 ms
64 bytes from signey.ubuntu.com (82.211.81.166): icmp_seq=2 ttl=43 time=109 ms
64 bytes from signey.ubuntu.com (82.211.81.166): icmp_seq=3 ttl=43 time=100 ms

--- ubuntu.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 99.982/103.450/109.419/4.254 ms

Resources: Ubuntu.com 1 and Ubuntu.com 2

Installing and using terminal editor Nano in Ubuntu

2009-11-21T02:19:00.000-08:00

To install the Nano editor:

sudo apt-get install nano

Editing or making a new file has the same command from terminal, because if it doesn't find a file, is creating it:

sudo nano the_file_we_want

Using keyboard:

CTRL+R - opens a file with the read file command. The Read File command inserts a file from disk at the current cursor location.
CTRL+O - Save and Save As are both accomplished with the Write Out command. When prompted, press enter to accept the existing file name. To save as another file name, type in the new name and press Enter, or use the Ctrl-T key combination to use nano's built-in file browser.
CTRL+X - Closes the file and exits the editor. Type y to save the file, or n to exit nano without saving the file.
CTRL+K - If no text is marked, it cuts the entire line of text in the "cut buffer".
CTRL+U - pastes the text in the "cut buffer" into the file.
ALT+A - is to select a text. Move your cursor at the start of the text you want to select, press the Alt-A and move cursor to the end of the section you want to select.

Resources: Nano Editor

Starting Verlihub on system start-up Ubuntu

2009-11-21T02:05:00.000-08:00

A little explanation about how to add/remove a program at/from system start-up can be found here.

We need to make a script which will run at every system start-up. Let's make our script:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/verlihub

We add these lines in our new file:

#!/bin/sh
sudo vh_runhub

Exit the editor and make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/verlihub

Now we add it to system start-up:

sudo update-rc.d verlihub defaults

Resources: Ubuntu Forums 1, Ubuntu Forums 2

Adding and removing service at system start-up Ubuntu

2009-11-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

Adding and removing a script at system start-up is quite easy.

1. Adding a script at system start-up:
You need first to have a script. We make one by adding a file at /etc/init.d/

sudo nano /etc/init.d/our_script

Now add this lines:

#!/bin/sh
sudo /usr/local/bin/your_program

Exit editor and make it executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/our_script

Now we adding it to system services:

sudo update-rc.d our_script defaults

2.Removing the script from system start-up:

We make our script non-executable:

sudo chmod -x /etc/init.d/our_script

Now we can delete the file if we don't plan of using it anymore:

sudo rm /etc/init.d/our_script

And remove it from system start-up:

sudo update-rc.d -f our_script remove

Resources: UbuntuBootupHowto

Install FTP server on Ubuntu (proftpd)

2009-11-20T12:34:00.000-08:00

The first step is to install ProFTP on the server

sudo apt-get install proftpd

It is preferable to continue the installation in standalone, this way the FTP server will always be receptive. If you choose inetd, the FTP server will only be launched when a connexion is initialized.

Parameters:

sudo nano /etc/shells

And add a line "/bin/false" at the end of the file.

Now let's create ftp folders and the upload and download, with 'read only' rights on download and 'read/write' for upload, so that users can upload files.

Create both folders:

cd /home/ftp/
sudo mkdir download upload

Make "download" read-only and "upload" read/write:

cd /home
sudo chmod 755 ftp
cd ftp
sudo chmod 755 download
sudo chmod 777 upload

Now it time to create an account, which will have access to the FTP

sudo useradd user_of_your_choise -p password_of_your_choise -d /home/ftp -s /bin/false
sudo passwd user_of_your_choise

Now all that's left is to edit the configuration file to modify your server configuration (port address, server name, number of people who can connect)

sudo nano /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf

ServerName "Ubuntu"

- is used when users logon

ServerType standalone

- is the type of server we want. "standalone" for a few users, if we want more, we use "inetd" (no quotes)

DefaultRoot ~

- this is the important part, when users are jailed to their root folder, not being able to walk around your files on the server.

Port 21

- the port where users will connect to this server. Usually this is 21.

MaxInstances 30

- this is maxium of concurrent connections to your computer.

SystemLog /var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log

- this is the log file

After that we need to restart proftpd to make changes available:

sudo /etc/init.d/proftpd restart

Resources: Gandi.Net, Howtoforge.org