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.

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

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

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