March 2008 - main

recommended commercial hosting companies?
by mbm 23 Jan '09

23 Jan '09

The recent discussion about mail access via ssh and ssh tunnels prompts me to ask about list members' experience of commercial hosting services. I have long since ceased to have any direct responsiblity for publicly accessible servers and my only network is now my home system. As I have said in earlier posts, I don't run 24/7 servers on that network and my only public servers are those provided by my (limited, home user) 1and1 contract. However, I have recently been playing with egroupware and a few friends and colleagues have asked if I could make the poc system I have built at home available on a public server. 1and1 provide good, reliable, fast, mail, DNS and web services, but they also offer virtual servers for the home user at around 15 UKP pcm. The other likely looking candidate is fasthosts who are a lot cheaper, have no traffic cap, but have different limitations. What I am looking for is a good quality commercial provider offering the following: root ssh/sftp access to a linux server apache/mysql/php/perl (preferably with no limit on the number of mysql databases, but I'd settle for 5 rather than the typical 1). ssl certificates for the webserver personal DNS management ideally local email server not too many restrictions on the outbound traffic (e.g. I'd like to be able to ssh out as well as in...) Any recommendations? TIA Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a Microsoft free zone. Please do not send me Microsoft Word Documents. For some reasons, see: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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[OT?] Finding a spamming virus
by Mark Rogers 07 Apr '08

07 Apr '08

One of our customers has managed to install a virus (Windows, of-course) which is sending spam. My job is to try to track it down. Virus scans haven't found the problem. Although they have MS Exchange on-site, I am sure that the virus will not be sending through it (unless the virus is on the exchange box itself), so in theory it should be fairly easy to find out which PC is initiating lots of outbound SMTP connections. That's why I don't think this is OT - I reckon my best tools for the job will be Linux ones? Either way any suggestions welcomed, particularly ones I can work on via a VPN connection rather than going to site. NB: I've played with programs like Ethereal/Wireshark in the past, and I'm sure that's what I should be looking at, but I've always found myself looking at too much information and unable to see the wood for the trees. So pointers to tutorials gratefully received! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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blocking net but not lan on one pc
by Peter Alcibiades 30 Mar '08

30 Mar '08

Thanks guys for all the helpful suggestions. The easiest and most manageable for the people who have the system is probably to just do fixed IP address for this particular station and to not have a default route. I should have thought of that myself. I guess you could do the same thing and just not have DNS server defined, which would be good enough in this environment. Then if they want to turn it back on again, they just go back to DHCP, which is a one click change and easy to explain. The router is a netgear wired 5 port router/modem, but it doesn't seem to have blocking of access by MAC address. Yes, that would otherwise have been almost as simple. There are only three machines in this little network, the only real reason they are on a network is to print, and the one in question is in a public part of the building. Tts not accessible by the public, but whatever is on screen is visible to visitors, its a reception desk machine with displays that vary in response to what the staff do, and that the visitors do need to see. I'm not quite sure why they don't want it to have outside access, its more at the level of a general feeling than anything else. But its their decision. Of the other two machines, one is not on public view and is only used by a couple of specialists, and they are not bothered about it, the other does all the office admin, email and so on, and that one they obviously need to have full access. But it is in an office and so not available to all the staff, and not visible to the public. Thanks again! Peter

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blocking net but not lan on one pc
by Peter Alcibiades 28 Mar '08

28 Mar '08

What is the simplest way to prevent one of the accounts on one of PCs on the lan from accessing the net? It does not have to be super secure, just require a modicum of knowledge to bypass, which the users will not have. Famous last words. The account should have access to the LAN however for network printers. If its more convenient, it would also be OK to block all accounts. Is this something best done through groups? Al

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Is there any way to set a glyph (correct word) for a single character in HTML?
by Chris G 28 Mar '08

28 Mar '08

Is there any way that I can set the glyph for a single, specific, character in HTML (or CSS)? I have some auto-generated HTML which I can't edit directly and I want to make one particular character invisible. If I could set the glyph for the character (in included CSS or in a header, which I can generate easily enough) to a blank that would do what I want. -- Chris Green

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Thunderbird Import/Export Add-on
by chestep 28 Mar '08

28 Mar '08

Hello Alug I recently raised a query about archiving/exporting complete folders of emails from Thunderbird to a separate drive on my computer. Several people replied - thanks to all. In particular 'James' said he copies emails like this all the time using the import/export add-on. I had trouble getting the add-on to install when I tried it before, so closed down Zone Alarm & Avast while I tried to install it. I then received some info on how to install an alternative (SmartSave) and saw through this that I should be using the Tools/Add-ons menu which I wasn't familiar with. It's now installed and working fine, but I'd appreciate comments about ZA & Avast possibly being involved; and also any comments on SmartSave v Import/Export 1.6.1. Thanks ac

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"Incorrect" auto-complete in TB
by Mark Rogers 28 Mar '08

28 Mar '08

I just managed to send some confidential docs intended for someone at one customer to someone with the same name at another customer... Completely my fault, it's been a long day. Does anyone have any clever solutions for this kind of thing? I can't think of one myself. (Maybe its a shame I don't have a disclaimer telling the recipient its all their fault not mine?) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Samba problem - "force user = xxxx" not working apparently
by Chris G 24 Mar '08

24 Mar '08

I have a number of Samba shares on my fedora 8 machine that I use from the Windows XP guest that runs on the same machine. They are working OK in the sense that they are accessible but I'm trying to use the Samba "force user = userx" option so that files in certain shares are created by specific users. I.e. at the end of my smb.conf file I have:- [Scans] comment = Digikam scans for chrisx path = /home/chrisx/pictures/Scans writeable = yes ; browseable = yes force user = chrisx [xpIsbd] comment = ISBD on XP path = /home/isbd/xpIsbd writeable = yes ; browseable = yes force user = isbd However when I access the above shares from my XP guest (on which I am user chris) I still act as user chris when creating files etc. I want to be chrisx and isbd respectively. I thought I had it working once but now it seems to have stopped again, has anybody any idea what may be wrong? Both chrisx and isbd are real users on the fedora 8 box and have been added to the smbpasswd file. -- Chris Green

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Is it possible to rename a duplicate Volume Group?
by Chris G 21 Mar '08

21 Mar '08

Help!! My Fedora 7 system at work was slowly dying due to a failing disk drive, so I have an installation on a new disk drive. However the old disk has been left in the system (so I can retrieve data from it) but with the *same* Volume Group name as the new installation. So, when I do 'vgscan' for example I see:- [root@localhost ~]# vgscan Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while... WARNING: Duplicate VG name VolGroup00: Existing P6sqp0-rIos-JYmi-8L32-ymtN-LzB4-g5BdLL (created here) takes precedence over TdWFKp-H4tw-UrVq-Jmre-26hv-zmyE-IZXQLI Found volume group "VolGroup00" using metadata type lvm2 Found volume group "VolGroup00" using metadata type lvm2 [root@localhost ~]# How can I sort this out? I have root access and everything, can even get to single user mode I guess. Do I need to do something desperate like boot the old installation (which is still possible), go to single user and rename the Volume Group? Or is there a simpler way? -- Chris Green

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Another apache question - about Allow/Deny directives
by Chris G 20 Mar '08

20 Mar '08

I'm trying to prevent outside access to a sub-directory of a directory which *does* allow outside access. In my httpd.conf file I have:- # # # Allow access to /var/www/html from LAN and work or with # password from elsewhere # <Directory /var/www/html> Order Deny,Allow Deny from all Allow from 192.168.1 193.128.168.194 84.45.228.40 Satisfy Any AuthType Basic AuthName "ISBD Home Server" AuthUserFile /etc/httpd/conf/passwd Require valid-user </Directory> # # # Deny access to xyz from anywhere except home systems # <Directory /var/www/html/info/xyz> Order Deny,Allow Deny from all Allow from 192.168.1 </Directory> # # # Allow access to /var/www/html/public from anywhere # <Directory /var/www/html/public> Order Deny,Allow Allow from All </Directory> What's happening is that when I try to access /var/www/html/info/xyz from outside the home LAN it's not denying access, it's asking for a username and password. I.e. the "Satisfy Any" section of the /var/www/html Directory is being acted on. How do I prevent this and totally deny access from outside to /var/www/html/info/xyz? -- Chris Green

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