Open Tech Notes

MySQL Could not start on Apache Friends

Today, I setup security for  Apache Friends package on one of my CentOS (5.0 final) servers. After I followed the command:

./lampp security

setup password for the lampp demo web page
turn off access Mysql via the network

Then, the Mysql server could not start. Even I use command:

./lampp startmysql

it said

Mysql Starting and exit to command line.

(note: the apache friends package version is 1.63a)

So, I went to apachefriends.org to find the answer and unfortunately I did not find anything that can help. I decided to upgrade it to the latest version(1.63b) because this server is currently not in service. I don’t worry about the data lose. Upgrading was smooth, but it did not work too.

Anyway, the last result, I removed the whole folder /lampp from /opt and re-installed  apache friends version 1.63b. It worked fine.

One thing I need to remember: Don’t forget stop lampp before remove the folder /lampp, otherwise, it will waste a lot of time to kill some process manually.

Setup Clam Antivirus & SpamAssassin

I followed the original setup guide (part 14) and will make some modifications here

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vi /etc/clamd.conf

"Example" - should already be commented out. However, if it is not, make sure that it is commented out (#)
"LogFile" - should be set to /var/log/clamav/clamd.log
"LogTime" - should be uncommmented.
"LogSyslog" - should be uncommented.
"User" - should be set to qscand
"ScanMail" - should be uncommented.

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Because the user is set to qscand, I have to change the owner and group of /var/log/clamav to qscand. the commands as follow:

chgrp -R qscand /var/log/clamav
chown -R qscand /var/log/clamav

otherwise, it won’t start.

And

I need grant write permission to others, otherwise the virus definition update can’t proceed. the command is:

chmond -R o=rwx /var/log/clamav   (the original permission is rx)

Furthermore, here is the good place to download the latest version of Clamav

http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/clamav/

Setup Qmail on CentOS 4.4

Although Eric Siegel have done great job on how to setup Qmail on Liunx, I’d like to make a notes on how to setup Qmail on CentOS 4.4 Final.

Because of " CentOS is an open source free GNU Linux distribution which aims to be 100% compatible with and based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. " , I choose "Red hat" (from the flavor list)  to start.

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After I run ./config-fast newemail
I got this  message, it might be useful in the feature.

./configure –enable-cgibindir=/opt/lampp/cgi-bin –enable-htmldir=/opt/lampp/htdocs

<Directory "/opt/lampp/cgi-bin/vqadmin">
deny from all
Options ExecCGI
AllowOverride AuthConfig
Order deny,allow
</Directory>

In /opt/lampp/cgi-bin/vqadmin/, there is a file .htaccess, edit it as follow

AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /opt/lampp/etc/.htpasswd
AuthName vQadmin
require valid-user
satisfy any

and run
chown nobody .htaccess  ( for the apache friends case, the username running apache is nobody)
htpasswd -bc /opt/lampp/etc/.htpasswd admin ‘admin_password’

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In part 8

Incompetent power supply could cause hard drive error

It’s very interesting! see someone discussed it here

If you are serious on  your business, don’t save money on the hardware, you will pay more on the labor cost!

By the way, this command might be useful on checking hard drive

smartctl

For example:

smartctl -a /dev/* (* can be hda, hdb, sda, sdb etc.)

Sync time with the time server

Just some command to remember

ntpdate ca.pool.ntp.org (or rdate -s ca.pool.ntp.org)
date
hwclock –systohc
hwclock