Category Archives: Linux

The Linux Category actually encompasses *BSD, RH, Fedora, Ubuntu, and the like.

Nagios Monitor Confluence Jira

Recently had to start monitoring a confluence installation on a virtual server using Nagios. Nagios’s built-in check_http looked like it could solve my woes. Unfortunately this was a slight pain due to the fact that confluence uses a non-standard port. So I had to relearn the commands.

I edited the service check first
nano /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/commands.cfg
I copied the check_http command into a new one:

define command {
command_name check_http_port
command_line $USER1$/check_http -I $ARG1$ -u $ARG2$ -p $ARG3$ -s $ARG4$
}

So the command would be ./check_http -I (IP/Hostname) -u (URL Full Address) -p (Port) -s (String to look for). Technically this will already warn if there is a 400 or 500 error, but I also wanted to verify that the string could be found.

Now we edit the configuration of the system itself
nano /usr/local/nagios/etc/objects/confluence.cfg

define host{
use linux-server
host_name confluence
alias confluence
address 10.555.555.555
parents parent1, switch1, mfer1
hostgroups linux-production-servers, datacenter2
}

define service{
use generic-service
host_name confluence
service_description HTTP
check_command check_http_port!confluence!http://confluence:8090/login.action?os_destination=%2Fhomepage.action!8090!”Remember me”
}

Using the above check_command, you’re able to connect to the server and port listed above and check for the familiar login “remember me” string.

SFTP Email When New File Uploaded

I had setup vsftp for SSL (FTPES), but needed a way to send an alert to customer support whenever a file had been uploaded. Otherwise the support staff would need to manually check each customer’s folders to see if anything new had arrived.

Install Dnotify
apt-get install dnotify

Create your startup script
nano /dnotify.sh

dnotify -b -p 1 -r -C /home/ -e /email.sh {}

This will run dnotify in the -b background, no more than one -p process, -r recursive folder (subfolders), -C for file creations only, -e execute the following script.

Create your email script
nano /email.sh

#!/bin/bash
DIR=”$1″
rm /upload.txt
echo “Dear User,”>>/upload.txt
echo “A new file has been uploaded to the $DIR directory”>>/upload.txt
cat /upload.txt | mailx -s “New FTP File Upload” customersupport@domain.tld

Make both scripts run-able
chmod +x email.sh
chmod +x dnotify.sh

Run the script and test
./dnotify.sh
Upload a file using FTP/WinSCP/WGET or another method to any of the folders you’re searching (my script searches all of /home and subfolders).

I added this as a startup script.

I got most of my help from nixcraft

Upgrade NAS4Free Firmware

I had NAS4Free server version x64_9.0.0.1.188 installed on a server and wanted to upgrade it to the latest version before moving into production.

I’m assuming you already have a ZFS (or other filesystem) share mounted on the server. And that SSH is enabled.

Copy the file to your share – I used WinSCP as it 1.) works and 2.) is free and 3.) I’m used to it.
SSH to the NAS and run the following:
/etc/rc.firmware enable
/etc/rc.firmware upgrade /path/to/img/file.img

The server will then reboot and you’ll be running the newest version.

ZFS tuning on freenas nas4free – I’ll split this out eventually.
http://forums.nas4free.org/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=26
# mkdir /mnt/data/zfskerntune
# cd /mnt/data/zfskerntune
# fetch http://www.kav91.com/nas4free/zfskerntune-20111022-nas4freeKav91.tar.gz
# tar xvf zfskerntune-20111022-nas4freeKav91.tar.gz
# cd zfskerntune
# ./zfskerntune-install.php

Ubuntu BIND Webmin NXDOMAIN

I had setup two BIND9 servers on ubuntu to service all VPN connected users. They were both linked just fine. I managed BIND via webmin installed.

A linux user and a Mac user were connecting to the VPN and then finding they could no longer connect to any web sites outside of the DNS domain.

nslookup google.com
;; Got recursion not available from 10.10.5.60, trying next server
Server: 10.10.5.61
Address: 10.10.5.61#53
** server can’t find google.com: NXDOMAIN

Well that’s no good. First server isn’t allowing recursive connections and the second one is not forwarding properly. I checked webmin and saw in the forwarding and transfers section that I had, indeed, already added 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4, 4.2.2.2, and 10.10.5.70 (internal DNS). So why was it not working?

Fired up putty and SSH’d in
nano /etc/bind/named.conf.options
Under the options { area add the following:
allow-query { any; };
allow-recursion { any; };
Save and quit

Reload Bind
/etc/init.d/bind9 reload

Profit

Owncloud 4 and AD LDAP

I recently migrated from owncloud 3 to owncloud 4 for a few of the newest features (versioning, security, working ldap).

LDAP configuration
LDAP Basic
Host: IP or Resolvable DNS
Base: dc=DOMAIN,dc=TLD
Name: user@domain.tld
Password: password
User Login Filter: sAMAccountName=%uid
User List Filter: objectClass=user
Group Filter objectClass=group

Advanced
Port: 389
Case insensitive LDAP server checked
Display Name Field: sAMAccountName

Change Timezone Linux CLI

I had a security-onion box running and it defaults to UTC/GMT time.  This was fine for me as I could do the subtraction of time in my head, but for some in management they were questioning my findings due to the time being off.  So, to make my life easier, I decided to change the timezone.

The timezone under Linux is set by a symbolic link from /etc/localtime to a file in the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory that corresponds with what timezone you are in. For example, since I’m in Chicago, /etc/localtime is a symlink to /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago. To set this link, type:

ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/your/zone /etc/localtime

http://www.linuxsa.org.au/tips/time.html

Proxmox Syslog Errors

So I run proxmox 2.1 (pve-manager/2.1/f9b0f63a). I monitor the servers with Dell’s OpenManage 6.5 and Nagios. I started noticing the following in my syslog (/var/log/syslog)

Jun 26 07:35:21 pveserver1 snmpd[2015]: error on subcontainer ‘ia_addr’ insert (-1)
Jun 26 07:35:21 pveserver1 snmpd[2015]: error on subcontainer ‘ia_addr’ insert (-1)
Jun 26 07:35:51 pveserver1 snmpd[2015]: error on subcontainer ‘ia_addr’ insert (-1)
Jun 26 07:35:51 pveserver1 snmpd[2015]: error on subcontainer ‘ia_addr’ insert (-1)

Quick check online points me to SNMP issues – apparently there is a “bug” that was fixed, but is still technically present due to the default settings of snmpd.

Login as root
nano /etc/default/snmpd
Change the line with SNMPDOPTS to
SNMPDOPTS='-LS6d -Lf /dev/null -u snmp -g snmp -I -smux -p /var/run/snmpd.pid'
And the line with TRAPDOPTS to
TRAPDOPTS='-LS6d -p /var/run/snmptrapd.pid'
Save and Exit

Then restart SNMPD
/etc/init.d/snmpd restart

Watch the log file and see if you receive any more snmpd messages
watch tail -45 /var/log/syslog