Ugo's Blog

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...

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 ...

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)

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...

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

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.

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

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

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*.

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

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...

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...

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.

Hmmm, winter, snow, mountain, ice... Went hiking yesterday. I really love hiking during winter. I didn't know what kind of weather to expect, so I brought my snowshoes and crampons... I came back after the sunset, using my Petzl lamp. I felt good, alone, with the snow and the nature. In fact, I had the feeling that I wasn't really alone out there. Maybe it's because I was getting closer to myself, or maybe it was something else. Or maybe both. Once I got down, I saw 2 persons, looking for their 17-year-old kid and his girlfriend. I offered my help... I hiked another 2 hours. It wasn't easy because I was becoming tired and it is a bit scary, in the dark, alone, in the woods... but at least I knew I had extra food, water and clothes... and when I got back to my car again, I had a note on my wiper, saying that the kid was back and safe, with thanks and their phone #. So I called them to thank them for letting me know and to let them know that I'm also back an...

Well, I know 64-bit computing isn't new, but it is new for me. Even though I had 64-bit hardware available, I've always installed 32-bit version of the OS (linux on x86_64). I had to deal with an x86_64 CentOS 3 server and I liked it. It just took some time to figure out how to install 32-bits packages. yum install package.arch (package.i386). Pretty neat! I just can't say anything about the performance as of now.

Hi, A few words on milter-greylist , especially because the new version (3) is now RC6 and looks pretty stable. What are the features of milter-greylist? Per-domain and per-user settings. Friendly networks whitelisting Multi-MX sync (database is replicated many mail servers if needed) SMTP-AUTH support SPF records: can be configured not to impose GreyListing to messages that are SPF-compliant Access lists with DNSbls This last option is new in version 3. It is very nice: it allows one to configure milter-greylist to impose GreyListing if the source IP is on (configurable) DNS black lists (DNSbls). I've installed it and it decreased the number of messages/day by about 60%. I only had to whitelist one server.

Hi, Just a little reminder to help open-source project by donating. Almost every project needs funding and it is easy to donate. My latest donations? Mondorescue , CentOS , PfSense , UltraVNC .

Hi, Lasts week, I installed PfSense RELEASE 1.0, and it has been running very smoothly since the install. No more crashes! It's been running for 7 days straight now and I had absolutely no problem with it, except for my VoIP config for static port (see my other PfSense posts). Thanks a lot to the PfSense team! I just upgraded to 1.0.1 now...

Hi, I've been using UltraVNC for a while and while commenting on an article on UnixTutorials , I thought it would be a good idea to share my knowledge. First, I must say that UltraVNC is a free version of VNC that has more features than the free version of RealVNC (thanks for sharing the code, though...). It supports encryption and Active Directory authentication, and a few other nice features. But what I want to talk about today is the Single-Click feature (SC). Very useful... Example situation: One of your client went to a foreign country and he wants to configure the e-mail client of a laptop he borrowed there. VNC is not installed. You can spend an hour telling him over the phone how to configure Outlook or Thunderbird, or just tell him to go to your website, download a single executable, and take control of the PC and configure it. How to proceed: Make sure the VNC (or UltraVNC, for the rest of the text) viewer is loaded on your computer, in listen mode. You can access...