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Showing posts from 2007

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I'm listed here !

Need a rocket? (Mentos + diet Coke will do!)

Really Awesome !

vzdump --snapshot revisited

[root@svr~]# vzdump --snapshot 101 /dev/cdrom: open failed: No medium found starting backup for VPS 101 (/vz/private/101) Thu Jul 12 06:53:52 2007 creating backup for VPS 101 failed (0.00 minutes): unable to dump into snapshot (use option --dumpdir) at /usr/bin/vzdump line 450. What is going on? Here is the answer

Prepare a stock centos HN to do vzdumps using LVM snapshots

Situation: - Stock Centos 4 system with OpenVZ kernel + utilities installed. One big /vz partition, using LVM. Trying to make a backup using: vzdump --dumpdir /var/ --snapshot 101 Error message received: Insufficient free extents (1) in volume group VolGroup00: 16 required What does that mean? It means that you don't have enough free space in the VG (Volume Group) to create an LVM snapshot. What is the solution? Reduce the size of one partition, then resize one LV (logical volume). This is easily done if you don't have only one big / partition. I usually always make a separate partition for /var and for /vz. To determine what logical volume needs to be resized, you can use the df -h command. Mine showed: /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol05 119G 16G 99G 14% /vz To resize it: Make backups of your VM to be sure Stop the vz service (service vz stop) umount /vz e2fsck -f /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol05 Use resize2fs /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol05 110G Use lvresize to r

A little mail server admin joke

I was trying to debug someone by e-mail and I think he was a little "slow". Then I thought, silently: His brain returned "452 4.3.1 Insufficient system resources"

BarricadeMX: The ultimate spam-fighting app, server-side

Hi, I have tried FSL 's BarricadeMX software at two of my client's site. This piece of software is a giant step in the battle against spam. What is it? It is an SMTP proxy, which does many, many tests during the SMTP transaction in a very efficient way. If one test fails, it rejects the message with a 5xx SMTP reply, so the sender should be notified. Il also implements Greylisting in a more intelligent manner than most current Greylisting implementations. I installed and configured it for 2 clients which are in a different situation: One is a high-volume, multiple servers setup, and the other is a smaller setup with only 1 scanning server. On the big setup, it allowed this client to stop the delays they were experiencing and the spam-catching rate is a lot higher. It also simplfied management. On the smaller setup, I enabled BarricadeMX's clamd and spamd support. This way, viruses are blocked at the MTA level, and any spam that scores over a defined parameter. In t

Sysadmin joke...

I just thought I should create a new command. Every linux/unix sysadmin knows chmod , to change the permissions on a file, so I thought having a chmood . So for days like today I'd like to use my new command to be slightly more enthusiastic... Yeah, I thought of that by doing a typo when I was trying to do a chmod ...

SSH tunnel tutorial

Hi, I created a tutorial with Wink that shows how to create an SSH tunnel. In this example, I'll be connecting, using ssh, to a host called server.mydomain.com. Through the tunnel, I'll connect to "destinationhost" on port 8080. This can be usefull if destinationhost only allows connection on port 8080 from the server I'm connecting to using SSH. To setup the tunnel, I simply open the SSH connection. When I want to access the web site located at destinationserver.other.com:8080, I simply enter "localhost:8081" in my browser. Here is the wink tutorial . An SSH tunnel can be used for many reasons: Send or read your e-mails using an insecure protocol (POP3/IMAP/SMTP), through an encrypted tunnel Encrypt your HTTP traffic while in an internet cafe, using a tunnel and a proxy (like squid) Access a host that is behind a firewall (as long as you have access via SSH to another host behind this firewall BTW, this may be against the policy of the organization
Virtualization makes another thing easier: complete, bare-metal backups. With this contributed package ( vzdump ), it is very easy to make backups of complete VE, sometimes with only little distruption. Features: Can send an e-mail when finished Can compress the resulting tarball Can selectively back up individual VE, or just all of them Can use different method to make sure the snapshot is consistent (stop the VE, suspend the VE, LVM snapshot) Restoring is very easy and the VEID can be different than the original Can do differential backup using xdelta (not tested myself)

Steps to setup my asterisk server in an OpenVZ VE

Set the VE up Install asterisk wget ftp://ftp.digium.com/pub/asterisk/asterisk-1.2-current.tar.gz tar -xzf asterisk-1.2-current.tar.gz cd asterisk-1.2.18/ yum install glibc-devel ncurses-devel gcc openssl-devel zlib-devel make make mpg123 make install make config Edit /usr/sbin/safe_asterisk to comment out the line about TTY 9 Start asterisk Copy asterisk config files (/etc/asterisk/*) Copy moh mp3's (/var/lib/asterisk/mohmp3/) Copy custom sounds (IVR) Copy voicemail directory Get french sounds : wget ftp://ftp.digium.com/pub/telephony/sounds/asterisk-core-sounds-fr-wav-current.tar.gz tar -xzf asterisk-core-sounds-fr-wav-current.tar.gz Use the script "install_french.sh" (must be run in /var/lib/asterisk/sounds/fr) (see below for script) Change DNS records Test! Create backups (with vzdump) install_french script: #!/bin/bash # Script creant des liens symboliques permetannt l'utilisation des fichiers audios plus rapidement # # Clod Patry (removed e-mail address) # Vers

Free Pub for LastSpam

I strongly recommend this good anti-spam service for anyone who has its own domain: www.lastspam.com

Asterisk works under OpenVZ (no zaptel)

Hi, Just to let you know that I did a basic test with asterisk on an OpenVZ VE and it works. We only tested SIP connectivity (it would probably be complex to have Zaptel support and I don't really need it). We were able to connect to a VoIP provider using SIP ( unlimitel ) and music on hold works. The only thing I had to change to make it work is to comment out this line in /usr/sbin/safe_asterisk: #TTY=9 # TTY (if you want one) for Asterisk to run on (I guess there is no TTY9 (console # 9) on openVZ since it is a virtual machine and TTY9 is usually a physical console (monitor)). I'll soon put my asterisk server in a VE, I'll let you know how it goes. I also use Unlimitel and ATAs to link my PSTN line and cordless phones.

Installing milter-greylist on centos4

Download and unpack the tarball, then cd into it Install (from this site ) libspf2-1.2.5-3.i386.rpm libspf2-1.2.5-3-devel.i386.rpm libspf2-1.2.5-3-progs ./configure --with-libspf2=/usr/lib --enable-dnsrbl make do a 'make install' or use 'checkinstall' Copy the init script Test

Can't resist...

What one would do to avoid an impossible physics question...? Here.

MySQL 4.1 on CentOS3

Hi, This is more of a reminder for me, but may be usefull for anyone who needs MySQL 4.1 on RHEL 3 or one of its clone. The trick is to download mysql-client, mysql-server, and mysql-shared-compat. The latter is the most important as it makes the mysql rpm that comes with the distribution unnecessary. If you don't install it, or if you install the mysql-shared-standard package, you will be forced to re-install mysql (the 3.23.x client) if you are using php-mysql. By installing the mysql-shared-compat, you provide the prerequesites for php-mysql, so you can just download all the new MySQL packages in a directory and do a rpm -Uvhf MySQL*.

Mountain Bike pics!

Image
I finally found time to upload thes pics of me mountain biking that I like...

A new reptile?

Yeah... I finally went out and got a Ball Python... 3 months old. Calm, eats once a week (and eventually once a month!), I like it. I don't know if it is a female or a male though... Yes, pictures will come eventually...

My favoroite songs...

Just a list of the songs I like most... - Sting: A thousand years, Shape of my heart, I miss you kate - Ariane Moffat: Seul dans sa categorie, Se perdre (J'aime bien le "Se perdre dans ses propre mots, entre un un et un zero), Retourne chez elle - Dave Matthews: Big eyed fish, Crush (funny, a lot of people seem to like Dave's 'Crash', oh, what can a single letter do !), The stone, Captain - Red Hot Chili Peppers: Death of a martian, Sir Psycho Sexy, Breaking the girl - Daniel Belanger: Primate electrique, Respirer dans l'eau, Imprafait - Rush: Animate (Rocks!), Leave that thing alone, Limbo - Beau Dommage: J'aimais l'hiver, Picbois - Ben Harper: Alone - Blind Melon: Paper scratcher, Mouthfull of cavities - George Michael: Careless Whisper - Chicane: Calvaire, Tu peux partir - Claude Dubois: Pas question d'aventure - Coldplay: White shadows - David Usher: Joy in small places - Delirium: Fallen, eternal odyssey - Eagles: Hotel California - Evanescence

How come Pod is dead?

Yeah... Sorry to let you know that my water dragon died... I'm not sure of what happened but he drowned in the aquarium that is in its vivarium... Can't exactly what is the cause, either he died of some disease, or he got into the water and was unable to get out... However, there was some plastic plants that were accessible in the water (as always), so I think it should have been able to get out. Anyway, I can't do anything about it now, it's gone. It happened a couple of days ago so I had some time to think about whether I'll get another reptile or not. I'm tempted about a snake. Less agitated, eats once a month... I'll see later on.