Posts Tagged Linux

10 Free Linux Ebooks For Beginners

Posted by on Monday, 11 May, 2009

Thanks to the great guys at http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2009/05/10/10-free-linux-ebooks-for-beginners/ for this fantastic list! and Peter Reutemann from WLUG

1) Introduction to Linux – A Hands on Guide

Author: Machtelt Garrels
Format: HTML

2) Bash Guide for Beginners

Author: Machtelt Garrels
Format: HTML

3) Rute User’s Tutorial and Exposition

Author: Paul Sheer
Format: HTML

4) The Linux Starter Pack

Author: Paul Hudson
Format: PDF

5) FLOSS Manuals

Author: FSF
Format: HTML & PDF

6) The Easiest Linux Guide You’ll Ever Read

Author: Scott Morris
Format: PDF

7) Linux Knowledge Base and Tutorial

Author: James Mohr
Format: PDF

8) Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference

Author: Keir Thomas
Format: PDF

9) Linux Newbie Administrator Guide

Author: Peter and Stan Klimas
Format: HTML

10) Slackware Linux Basics

Author: Daniël de Kok
Format: HTML


Migrating Cpanel to Virtualmin

Posted by on Monday, 11 May, 2009

For those who do not know what either are, CPanel and Virtualmin are very similar to Plesk. They are a way of managing all your virtual hosting needs if you have a server. You log into a web interface, add a domain and it automagicly reconfigures your server to accept email DNS and websites for it. You can then add email addresses easily and let users manage their own stuff. They make life very easy for those less knowledgeable about Linux and servers in general. Virtualmin is often migrated to as you can download the GPL version entirely free, and it works great. Alternatively you can pay and get a slightly better more featured version.

A nice tip from Jamie of Virtualmin for migration here.

As for migration, once you have the backups from cPanel you can more easily mass-migrate them into Virtualmin from the command line.
You could use a script like :

for file /cpanel/*.gz; do
virtualmin migrate-domain –type cpanel –source $file –pass foo
done

This will migrate all backups in the /cpanel , and give them the password ‘foo’ in Virtualmin. Sadly there is no way to extract the original password from a cPanel backup 🙁


Postgrey HOWTO for Centos and Debian based Linux – Postfix Greylisting

Posted by on Wednesday, 6 May, 2009

Greylisting is a great invention to minimize a huge pile of spam. Any SMTP server thats incorrectly configured or mail sent from infected desktop machines just tries the first time, gets bounced, and never tries again.

Legitimate email comes through fine, however the downside is it can take a few minutes more than the usual. Considering how much Spam greylisting prevents its worth it for a lot of people.

The quick and dirty of the install is.

For debian based distros (Ubuntu etc included)

apt-get install postgrey

For Redhat/Centos based distros you will need to add the DAG/rpmforge repos into your lists and then

yum install postgrey

Next you need to enable it to listen on a port. In debian edit the file /etc/defaults/postgrey and add-in/edit the line

POSTGREY_OPTS="--inet=127.0.0.1:60000 --delay=60"

For Redhat based releases you need to CREATE /etc/sysconfig/postgrey and add in the following line

OPTIONS="--inet=127.0.0.1:60000 --delay=60"

Now restart the postgrey daemon with

/etc/init.d/postgrey restart

If you do a netstat you can see its now listening on localhost port 60000 (unless you buggered something up of course)

Now you need to edit the /etc/postfix/main.cf
search for the line that has smtpd_recipient_restrictions and add to it

check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:60000

And average config will look something like this

smtpd_recipient_restrictions =
reject_unknown_recipient_domain,
permit_mynetworks,
check_policy_service inet:127.0.0.1:60000
permit

Now reload the postfix with /etc/init.d/postfix reload
Now all you need to do is check the logs with tail -f /var/log/maillog and hope you got it all going right.