Hello Everyone,
I realize it’s been a little while since we last posted, but I’ve recently been receiving a lot of spam on this page. I’ve increased the protection by putting some methods in place that will keep robots from posting comments. Please realize that your comments will not be immediately approved if you have never posted before. Thank you for visiting, I hope to have some new articles up soon.
Quick note that if characters don’t display correctly from your client and you want samba to display characters properly you should change to the following samba server settings in smb.conf:
[global]
client code page = 936
unix charset = UTF8
…
and the following linux client settings:
[global]
unix charset = UTF8
…
You may need to set UTF8 to GB2312 or some other setting for some windows environments.
First, I must remind everyone that most of what goes onto the blog is meant for small to medium sized businesses (SMB) or similarly sized NGOs unless otherwise stated. For example, I have no qualms about placing an ebox server into an organization up to one hundred people but would seriously consider doing a hand installation of separate openldap, gateway, mail server, jabber, and file servers for organizations of two hundred or more. This article is such an article about methods for the less than 100 users organization and may not be a good method of setting up servers that have high input and output demands as they may be better served by iscsi, das, or e-sata.
That being said, in the world of 1 Gig switches and ethernet cards, it is easy to create links between computers that ping in less than 0.003 milliseconds. This is easily fast enough to hold a redundant RAID array of hard drives on a network attached storage drive that shares files to a second, third, or even fourth server accessing those files. Since a virtual machine is merely a folder and set of files it is trivial to house files on the raid array and then share those files via NFS to more powerful machines that actually host the virtual machines.
The advantage of housing your VM’s in a single location and having multiple virtual hosts is that it is possible to shift virtual machines to make the best utilization of server resources. The simplist way to achieve this setup is to equip each server with at least two 1 gig ethernet cards and then create direct crossover connections between the NAS and vm hosts like so:
VMHost1<—NAS—>VMHost2
| |
——-Switch——–
|
Local Area Network
Remember to have each ethernet set have a different IP set (192.168.1.0 for hosts to switch, 10.0.1.0 for VMHost1 to NAS, 10.0.2.0 for VMHost2 to NAS, etc). If one of the hosts becomes overloaded or crashes it’s possible to migrate virtual machine to the other now!
For added reliability in the system it’s possible to use a heartbeat to make a redundant NAS setup; however, that is beyond the scope of this article. Good luck with your own VMHost-NAS, use the “Contact Us” page if you need to discuss help and support options.
I’ve had some interest in Moodle as a Learning Management System (LMS) lately. Here’s a quick guide to setting up Moodle on your own Ubuntu 8.04 LTS server:
1. Install Ubuntu Server 8.04
2. #: sudo apt-get update
3. #: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
4. #: sudo apt-get install mysql-server php5-mysql apache2 libapache2-mod-security php5-ldap php5-odbc libapache2-mod-php5 php5-gd openssh-server phpmyadmin unzip zip aspell-en curl libcurl3 libcurl3-dev php5-curl php5-xmlrpc clamav-base clamav-freshclam clamav
5. #: sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
6. #: cd /var/www
7. #: sudo wget http://download.moodle.org/stable19/moodle-latest-19.tgz
8. #: sudo tar -zxf moodle-latest-19.tgz
9. #: sudo mkdir /var/moodledata
10. #: sudo chown -R www-data.www-data /var/moodledata/
11. #: sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
12. Point a browser to http://(yourubuntuhostipaddress)/phpmyadmin and create a database for moodle. Something like “moodle” for a database name. It’s easiest to create a user called moodle and select the option to create a matching database. The new user should have full rights and privileges
for the moodle database.
13. #: Point a browser to http://(yourubuntuhostipaddress)/moodle and follow the install instructions
14. At this point you should have a fully functioning moodle install, congratulations!
While it is possible to omit some of the packages, these packages represent a solid antiviral system for the assignments that get uploaded as well as provide extended feature support for Moodle.
If you are still having trouble, contact us via the “contact us” page on the right.
Over the course of the week I had an opportunity to have an information technology exchange with another organization in the area. They showed us some great features of Microsoft Communication Server and I was quite impressed and knew I could do at least some features via open source software but wanted to know if it was possible to have a total replacement that is completely open source. The short answer is “yes AND no.” Yes you can replace it, but it takes a few open source components working together to do it.
The first question is “what does Microsoft Communication Server do?” It’s essentially a version of MSN Instant Messenger on steroids, as it not only handles instant messages and collaboration within an organization, but handles phone calls and group conferencing. As I looked around at the linux and unix offerings, I discovered Microsoft is actually late to the communications party. Many of the projects discussed have existed for a long while and are quite mature and have been used extensively in business environments.
So to replicate an environment consisting of Exchange, Active Directory, and Communication Server an open source environment could use:
Not that there is anything wrong with choosing to go the Microsoft route, but we believe that people should be able to choose their solution, and this lineup of services offers another option for organizations.
There is no denying that it is highly beneficial to have centralized authentication and file services. Over the years we have made a lot of strides in AiHua. Our first server was an old box with Mepis on it that served as our file server during the spring of 2006. Our next few systems were based on LTSP or DRBL which effectively both have centralized login’s and centralized file repositories. It makes a huge difference when staff can login to their own desktop and files from any computer in the building. It also allows for them to continue working at another station or with a computer/thin client that is in reserve.
When an entire company is comprised of linux/unix desktops and servers, it’s easy to set up LDAP services for authentication and NFS for centralized storage; however, windows computers are not so simple. In the past it took some level of expertise in both unix/linux and windows machines to create an effective ldap/samba replacement for a domain controller, it isn’t overly daunting and there is a great deal of information on the internet; however, it’s still not for the faint of heart.
This is where a fantastic open source project called ebox comes in. Ebox installs ontop of ubuntu (a free/open source linux) server editions and provides an out of the box domain controller! It also features easy to use web interfaces to add users, groups, and computers. It’s no one trick pony, as it also features a firewall/gateway, proxy/nat, DHCP, TFTP, jabber server, e-mail server, and VPN server out of the box.
We recommend you give it a try and replace the Windows servers around your office with this powerful solution. If you need help setting it up or setting up a PDC on another linux distribution like openSuse, we are availible. Follow the links to the right to contact us.
This is a quick update on using Untangle as a Gateway/Router and/or NAT. Ours is working fantastic, even though we have very few windows instances in our office (only one windows virtual instance for RDP connections) it isn’t uncommon for guests to bring windows laptops into our offices. Those windows boxes may or may not have proper security implementations and are thus susceptible to viruses, malicious software, and phishing schemes. Untangle effectively protects those computers by standing as a door guard between what can be retrieved from the internet. It also has a complete proxy suite which allows for content control so administrators can decide what catagories or individual websites are appropriate for office viewing. The only drawback is that it requires a moderate computer for an small to medium business deployment (SMB), it realistically needs a single core processor between 1-2Ghz and memory between 1-2GB depending on the size of the office; it’s well worth the sacrifice.
The same effect can be had on less powerful computers by building solutions from a headless linux distribution; however, it takes considerable expertise to build and implement, and is not as friendly to manage. If you’re interested in protecting your network, please contact us for information about your own networks.
We have added a page for Jobs and Internships which is accessible to the right.
Currently we have opportunities for:
Visit the Job’s & Internships page for more details, pay, and benefits.
I’ve been working with KIWI-LTSP for openSuse for the last 2 weeks. It’s a fabulous solution and allows for easy terminal server setup, maintanance, and deployment. It also easily allows for easy and fast remote helpdesk support, local applications, NX, and even allows clients to boot from CD or USB instead of the PXE server (which would be useful for running clients over a vpn and NX server). It’s quite stable and I would recommend it or Ubuntu LTSP5 to any site that would like to deploy thin clients on their network. For questions or consultations regarding thin clients please use the contact link.
We have been expirimenting with some open source routing software this week. I have to say that I’m incredibly impressed with Untangle as a network solution, so much so that it went into operation on an old P4 desktop we had lying around. It’s now serving as a VPN and web filter and doing quite well at it. I’d thoroughly recommend the open source edition for any organization who’s fed up with spam, malware, time sink hole websites, and viruses. It works best with a computer in the 1Ghz to 2ghz range with 1 to 2 Gigs of ram and 2 ethernet ports; however, it gets by quite well even on 500+ Mhz with 512 megs of ram with 2 ethernet cards. It will also work within a virtual machine if setup properly. We are happy to assist in the setup or consultation of routing and gateway solutions, use the contact page to the right for questions or to setup an appointment.