UBUNTU: Blue for April fools

As I was a litle bit bored in the office, so I decided to change my theme as it is April now. March theme based on green theme + black and white. So for April I wonder what is the best color to suit my mood for the whole month.

Here is my screenshot for this month. I choose blue as the theme color. Hehe.. yeah I know you can find this theme at freshmeat website. :) the best thing I got is, the magic mushroom :lol:

I'm still using fluxbox and had no plans to load any other wm for this moment. I just love this fluxbox. Yeah, fluxbox roxx!

LINUX: Auto check the Zone Edit every 60 sec

Erm, one of my friend ask me how can he make an auto check to the zone edit for every 60 secs by using cron. My answer is simple.. I dont know how to use cron. haha.. so I'm thinking sumthing else, I come out with a script which I do write a simple one just to make it check to zone edit for every 60 seconds.

Here is my script looks like:

#!/bin/bash
#
#
#
#

while :;do echo "=========================================================" ;
wget -q -O - --http-user=username --http-passwd=password \
'http://dynamic.zoneedit.com/auth/dynamic.html?host=www.mydomain.com';
sleep 60;
done

#hehe.. mungkin saja berjaya.

How to apply this script to run every time you load your linux? Simple, here is the steps I would make:

• mkdir ~/.script ; cd ~/.script
  
• wget http://portalpsis.net/upload/files/zoneedit
• ln -s ~/.script/zoneedit /usr/bin
• Now we need to edit our rc.local so that the script will load on startup.
• sudo gedit /etc/rc.local
• and add this line before "exit 0" ---> /usr/bin/zoneedit &
  

So now you will have this script load on every session you make. To check if it's succesfully loaded, please reboot you machine and login back.. Once login successful, open up terminal and run "ps aux | grep zonedit" and you will see an output with pid of the script running.

This one made for my friend Sinzmanual. :)

ps:- the bold part in the script need changes to be able to check to zone edit. use your own usernames,password and domain.

LINUX: Coloring your zsh shell in ubuntu

Some people will be bored looking at colorless terminal as i usually look. I do 50% of my laptop by using my terminal(CLI) on my Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. I used to use bash shell a few weeks ago and bash do have some coloring on the shell, but still a lil bit boring.

But recently I change myself to zsh shell to do more shell programming. It's not the best shell for script/programming, but I get/read a lot of feedback from other linux user that this shell is suitable for shell scripting/programming.

So I this is simple tutorial on how to color your terminal to your need and make it a litle bit interesting to look at, so maybe you can spend more time to do you programming :P

First of all, you need to know the color code for shell, here is the list:

• Choices : red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white. The color codes for this are 30 (black), 31(red), 32 (green), 33 (yellow), 34 (blue), 35 ( magenta), 36 (cyan), 37 (white).
  

So now for coloring the zsh shell, you need to make a file name ".zshrc" on user's home folder. you can create the file by this command:

• touch ~/.zshrc

After that, you need to do a litle coding to make your shell prompt. Open up your .zshrc that you just created by using any text editor of your choices. As for me, I prefer to use nano. So here is my command:

• nano ~/.bashrc

This will open the .zshrc file inside your terminal, it is plain file without any text inside. So all you have to do is write the code. Here is some tips:

• for prompt option you just need to add "PROMPT=" command inside .zshrc but if you would like to make some differences, you can try to do it on the right side by using this "RPROMPT="
• here is some variable which will be recognized by shell: (%n)Username , (%B , %b)Bold text, (%~)Current Directory, (%U , %u)Underline, (%m)Machine name, (%h)Number of shell's history, (%t)Time and etc.
• For coloring you have to use this %{\e[0;31m%} , and by changing number "31" you can change the color by the code given earlier.

• So here is a simple example to create your prompt: paste this inside your .zshrc
• PROMPT=$'%{\e[0;32m%}%UTell zsh what to do!%u %{\e[0m%}'
• Save and exit.
• Restart your terminal and you will see your prompt changing to :
• Tell zsh what to do!
• So you can try yourself to color up your terminal shell by writing your own .zshrc ~!
  

here is my screenshots:After applying the .zshrc in home folder

LINUX: Sguil 0.7.0 is out :)

For those who doesnt know what sguil is, actually sguil is a network monitoring system which capture packet and give alert base on the signature. What is the differences between snort and sguil? well, there is a GUI on sguil, which can easily be handle by Network Admin in daily basis to check the network traffic, alerts and etc.

So Sguil 0.7.0 is out, what is the differences between 0.6.1? well there is a bit of changes in the architecture. As far as I know, in version 0.6.1 there is no PADS in sensoring architecture which is being added in version 0.7.0 for detecting service running on the network.

The workflow is quite same with version 0.6.1 I hope. Still havent got time to try this one out. but as from what I read on the Sguil website, there is a lot of interesting feature added. Really need to give this a try.

Well, for those who would like to give it a try but dont know what is SGUIL, then please refer to the sguil website before proceeding with the installation. Read carefully the requirement and user guide.

LINUX : SSH Tunneling from Windows SSH Server

I've successfully setup Openssh server on my Office Windows XP for tunneling reason. hehe. I need a tunneling box so that I could gain full access to the internet without any block ports when I get back to my schools.

Here is how to setup Openssh on Windows Box:

• Download CGYwin from here. Make a new directory on C:\cgywin and paste the setup.exe which you just download from cgywin.
• Run the setup and choose mirror. When the setup ask for either make cgywin available to all user or just you, then you have to choose "Available to all user". and follow the steps.
• When it ask for a local package directory, point it to C:\cgywin
• On the packages selection, please make sure you select Openssh package to be installed, if not then there is no point setting up everything but openssh isnt installed.

• After finished installing the openssh, we need to set up several things before we can use the console and ssh:
• setup password for current user(make sure user has admin privilege).

• Open My Computer properties, go to Advanced tabs and click on the Environment Variables icon.
• on System Variables, click Edit and insert the value as given:
  
• Variable = CGYWIN | Value = ntsec tty
• Variable = path | Value = (add to the end of line) ";C:\cgywin\bin" without quote.
• And done.. Now logout and login again to the user, make sure the password is active. If it's not active, then maybe you need to restart the Windows.
• Now we need to link user from windows to cgywin so that user can login through ssh.
• open up cgywin console by double click the icon on windows desktop.

• once open, we need to install the sshd.
  we can install the ssh by using this command "ssh-host-config -y"
• and when prompt for "environment variable CGYWIN"= you should answer "ntsec tty"
• now start the ssh by typing "net start sshd" or "cygrunsrv --start sshd"
• still on the cgywin console, type:
• mkpasswd -cl > /etc/passwd
• mkgroup --local > /etc/group

And now we are finished. Now you Open terminal on your linux laptop/pc adn type the command:

• ssh -D 9999 -C @ and enter password you set for the user. walla.. set your internet browser to use the ssh tunneling as proxy then you are good to go.
  

LIFE: What a joke I did ...

To be honest, this is the silly mistake I've ever made since becoming an active webmaster for several site. The mistake is unforgivable cause as a webmaster you have to be aware of bandwidth usage of your site.

Lesson learn, dont host image on a free site such as Fileden, Photobucket and etc cause once the bandwidth exceed, your site will get kantoi like one of site under my management.

Here is the screenshot taken early this morning.

More over, i'm not the first person to notice that there is image cant be displayed due to bandwidth problem, it's the visitors complain. :( maybe i just not good enough to manage such big site.

UBUNTU: Network Interface Down On Start Up

I wonder if my fluxbox do cause me with this problem, but as far as I know, this problem occur after a few weeks of using fluxbox as my default wm. At first I wasnt sure if the problem will keep on going everytime I start my laptop, but after a while I notice that this problem will always happen.

So this is the scenario, when I start my laptop> login to fluxbox>my eth0(LAN wired card) will be ilde and cannot do auto IP by itself which other laptop using ubuntu will do.. I wonder what is the problem..

Solution that I found right now is:

• If you are using DHCP for IP then,
• open up terminal, and type "sudo dhclient "
  
• in my case, my eth0 isnt functioning, so my command is "sudo dhclient eth0"
• it will try to fetch IP from the DHCP server on your router or else.
• If you are using Stactic IP then:
• You need to restart your network by using this command "sudo /etc/init.d/network restart".
• hope that it will set your IP to static with out any problem.
• but somehow if this didnt work, so you really need to reconfigure your network-manager. You can reconfigure you network manager by using this command: "sudo dpkg-reconfigure network-manager"
  

I will try to find out why this problem happens as I didnt notice when did this problem starting to cause me trouble. I rarely use my wired cause I'm stuck with wireless connection. My wireless doesnt seem to have this problem. :P

LIFE: My unfinished work~!(setting up linux home server)

Actually, some people wondering why someone need a home server. As for me, but sometime when we caught on situation where the homeserver is the solution.. then you'll notice that Home Server is quite important nowadays. The digital era has hit Malaysia for about 2 years now where everyone is connected to the internet, and sharing a lot of stuffs.

why do we need a homeserver? have you ever confront with the situation below?

• You have 2 or more computers at home with files fragmented between them and multiple copies of multiple files (music/movies/docs) spread all over the place?
• You are a compulsive downloader and have accounts to multiple private trackers. Your primary beast machine runs 24X7 guzzling power and dissipating heat only to use like 0.1% of its processing capabilities while downloading
• You have often felt the need to gain access to some of the files at your home while visiting friends/colleagues. Like, ” Oh, I wish I could show you the pics I took in the last office party…If only I had remembered to carry them in my pen-drive”
• You are at office and someone is raving about a new album and you wish you could hear it the moment you hit home
• you are stuck in a traffic jam and realize you forgot to start that all important DivX to mp4 conversion for a bunch of videos

If you have confront with the situation, then a home server is a possible solution. You dont have to spend RM1000++ to build a good server at your house. Not with linux Operating system I think. So I'm doing an individual project to setup a server at my house which will serve me as a file server, webserver and ftp server(or maybe sftp/ssh).

So there is a lot of work I must plan and carefully observe as this is my first server which I made from scratch. And for the 1st step- I already bought some of the stuff:

• A pentium 4 processor 3.0Ghz
• SATA Hardisk 160GB
• DDR1 RAM 2 GB ( 1pc of 1GB and 2 pcs of 512MB) <-- currently planning to sell this things and buy DDR2 RAM.
• NIC (3 COM)
• Casing+power supply
• DVD-Writer (which is not needed on a server)

And all this stuff i bought for RM380/= which I made a deal to pay it two times. Thanks to Slamdunk for the cheap hardware. HAHA.. So all i need to do is find a motherboard which can support my proccessor and if possible support DDR1 as well, so that i wont have to buy a new DDR2(cause nowadays, board with DDR1 support is hard to find in the selling market)

So I'll update the progress as soon as I make some progress with the hardware.

I wonder what OS should I use for the server. I've been thinking some operating system which I have tried and learn. I need opinion on the OS to use:

• Ubuntu Linux
• Debian
  
• Crux
• OpenBSD
• FreeBSD
• and sorry no space for windows.
  

Which one is the most suitable? erm.. i wonder..

And this is the current progress and cost I have spend for the home server:

1. Item bought :

• Processor 3.0Ghz P4
• Sata Hardisk 160gb
• 2gb DDR1 RAM
• DVD writer
• Casing + PSU

2. Cost Spent:

• RM 200 + RM 180(on the next month)
  

3. OS to be used on server:

• Still thinking
  

LINUX: Installing minimal debian with Fluxbox

Here is a simple step to install a minimal debian setup and equip it with a lightweight wm like fluxbox. In this tutorial i used Fluxbox because I'm familiar with the structure of fluxbox.
First, maybe you should download the Debian iso from here.

Burn burn burn the iso and boot using the cd and install a minimal package of debian package(without X) and dont use any mirror. We need to keep it as simple as possible to make it lightweight. For those who didnt know how to install a minimal debian package, please refer to the debian site. My keyword is simple, dont used the "mirror"

After finished setup the debian, boot to your new fresh installed debian and make some changes to your "sources.list" to make fluxbox, and some other stuff available to install by using apt-get.

• Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list by using your fav editor, i'm using nano (:P)
• nano /etc/apt/sources.list
• and add this two other line:
• deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
• deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
• save and exit ( ctrl+x)
• now run update to get the latest version of update. "apt-get update"
• install xserver-xorg-core, xorg:
• apt-get install xserver-xorg-core xorg
• Now you have to choose either to use gdm or xdm:
• apt-get install xdm/gdm
• and the last step is to install fluxbox:
• apt-get install fluxbox
• after that, you can reboot your machine and it will load the xdm/gdm on default and just login to your user account to start the fluxbox.
  

Fluxbox need customization to look a lil bit useful and smart. But it's not a hardwork to make it work smooth. try to look for tutorial on the net, or just wait for my next post on customizing fluxbox.

LIFE: Changes need to be done

Yesterday, one of my friend came by to gave me his pc which I bought yesterday. He came and hang out with me for a while at Setiawangsa. We chat and talk a little bit about Linux and BSD things.

Suddenly he willing to gave advise about linux/bsd on how to master the OS structure, and the critical part where i should learn and master in order to gain full advantage of linux/bsd. The magic word is "CLI(Command Line Interface)".

All this while, I kept on doing something more on desktop decoration, cause it's viewable. I like my desktop to be beautiful but the truth is, it's not that important compared to the actual used of linux/bsd operating system CLI. Yeah, I have to admit that I know nothing about the CLI/Shell scripting/programming. All this while, I just know how to use command such as "ls, mkdir, chmod, mv, rm and etc" which is not the critical part of shell command.

But my friend show me how powerful the command line can be with a simple scripting. We can do all things from the shell if we know how to script the shell command properly. There are several command such as while, for , xargs which i not master yet. So this is the time.

I need to start learning about shell programming from now. So I need to stop/decrease playing with my desktop deco right now and start googling on shell scripting.

Anyway thanks to Slamdunk for the precious advise.

Ubuntu: XGL-xserver used most of your memory

Actually i discovered this problem when recently. My laptop use Intel Celeron(Which no one will buy on the first hand), and have about 883MB of RAM. I used to be a gnome user which is easy to used and have a lot of nice features too.. But i notice that my laptop cant handle the memory usage and there are some program used a lot of memory and cpu.

So I wonder what application lead to this huge of memory usage. I run "top" on the terminal and found out there is a program which usually be on top of everything in using memory and cpu. And it's xserver-xgl which i used to get 3d desktop environment in compiz.

As now i'm using fluxbox which has no 3d features, so i decided to turun off the xgl and use normal engine to run 2d desktop. i turn the xgl off with two step:

• mkdir ~/.config/xserver-xgl
• touch ~/.config/xserver-xgl/disable

The you can restart your X and the XGL wont load on login anymore.. So, how to do turn the XGL back on? Easy, just rename the "~/.config/xserver-xgl/disable" to "disable~" and restart your X..