The Perfect Desktop - Ubuntu Studio 8.10

This tutorial shows how you can set up an Ubuntu Studio 8.10 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge.

Anonymous Proxy Using SQUID 3 On CentOS 5.x

This howto describes step by step a method to install a SQUID 3 server as an Anonymous Proxy. An anonymous proxy is a tool that attempts to make activity on the Internet untraceable. It accesses the Internet on the user's behalf, protecting personal information by hiding the source computer's identifying information. Simply say to hide your IP.

Installing Wordpress On A Server Running ISPconfig 2.x

This tutorial describes how I install Wordpress which I have done this way on numerous different servers, including Windows and Linux setups. I absolutely agree that there are other ways to do this, but this is a tutorial on my way of doing it.

Setting Up Master-Master Replication On Four Nodes With MySQL 5 On Debian Etch

This tutorial explains how you can set up MySQL master-master replication on four MySQL nodes (running on Debian Etch). The difference to a two node master-master replication is that if you have more than two nodes, the replication goes in a circle, i.e., with four nodes, the replication goes from node1 to node2, from node2 to node3, from node3 to node4, and from node4 to node1.

NIC Bonding On Slackware 12.1

I was standing in front of a problem while I built a NFS Storage Server. It is necessary for me to have redundancy in every point of view. I solved all redundancy issues I had by using server hardware with redundant power supplies, a Raid 1+ 0 Raid array and two UPS’s one for each power supply. The only thing left in my mind was what about a network failure? Well just use the two Gig NIC’s and hook each of them up to its own switch. Great idea but how do I get them acting as one unit speak one single IP? NIC Bonding was my solution. After a couple of hours researching on the Internet stumbled upon the build in solution by using ifenslave.

Hardening The Linux Kernel With Grsecurity (Debian)

Security is based on three characteristics: prevention, protection and detection. Grsecurity is a patch for Linux kernel that allows you to increase each of these points. This howto was performed on a Debian Lenny system. Thus some tools are Debian specific. However, tasks can be performed with other distro specific tools or even with universal tools (make).

Setting Up ProFTPd + TLS On Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

FTP is a very insecure protocol because all passwords and all data are transferred in clear text. By using TLS, the whole communication can be encrypted, thus making FTP much more secure. This article explains how to set up ProFTPd with TLS on an Ubuntu 8.10 server.

How To Install VMware Server 2 On A Mandriva 2009.0 Desktop

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions on how to install VMware Server 2 on a Mandriva 2009.0 desktop system. With VMware Server you can create and run guest operating systems ("virtual machines") such as Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, etc. under a host operating system. This has the benefit that you can run multiple operating systems on the same hardware which saves a lot of money, and you can move virtual machines from one VMware Server to the next one (or to a system that has the VMware Player which is also free).

Virtual Users And Domains With Postfix, Courier, MySQL And SquirrelMail (Ubuntu 8.10)

This document describes how to install a mail server based on Postfix that is based on virtual users and domains, i.e. users and domains that are in a MySQL database. I'll also demonstrate the installation and configuration of Courier (Courier-POP3, Courier-IMAP), so that Courier can authenticate against the same MySQL database Postfix uses. The resulting Postfix server is capable of SMTP-AUTH and TLS and quota (quota is not built into Postfix by default, I'll show how to patch your Postfix appropriately). Passwords are stored in encrypted form in the database (most documents I found were dealing with plain text passwords which is a security risk). In addition to that, this tutorial covers the installation of Amavisd, SpamAssassin and ClamAV so that emails will be scanned for spam and viruses. I will also show how to install SquirrelMail as a webmail interface so that users can read and send emails and change their passwords.

The Umlaut Problem - How To Successfully Back Up And Restore MySQL Databases With Special Characters Using MySQLDumper

There are lots of forums with heaps of reports of umlauts or other special characters being displayed erroneously. Attempts to help come from many sides, but hardly anyone seems to have a really complete picture of the problem. Even web hosts' support hotlines seem to reach their limit of knowledge with this one. There are incredible amounts of half-truths. They prove correct in certain circumstances, but they do not help all people. Simply because setups vary so much. In my role as developer of MySQLDumper I naturally spent a lot of time evaluating this situation. And I now believe to be able to offer a complete overview which covers the different aspects of this problem. A lot, and I mean a lot of research has gone into the explanations in this article.