1.) Update the ports collection. 
 
Setup the update:

Make it look something like this:

#######################################################
*default host=cvsup1.us.FreeBSD.org
*default base=/var/db
*default prefix=/usr
*default release=cvs  tag=.
*default delete use-rel-suffix
#comment the below line if you don’t want to update the /src directory
#src-all
#update /usr/ports
ports-all tag=.
#######################################################

Run the update:

Update installed ports:

2.) De-install any existing packages.

Older versions don’t work properly for auto mounting in /etc/fstab.  In addition older versions of the kernel module and libraries won’t work with the latest version of fusefs-ntfs.

3.) Install the necessary packages.

4.) Load the kernel module

Enable the kernel module

edit /etc/rc.conf and add:

fusefs_enable=”YES”

Start the module

5.) Attach the USB drive.

Attach the USB drive and check your syslog for the detection of the drive:

Example:

Sep  8 09:19:47 servername kernel: umass0: Seagate FreeAgentDesktop, rev 2.00/0.00, addr 2
Sep  8 09:19:47 servername kernel: da1 at umass-sim0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
Sep  8 09:19:47 servername kernel: da1: <Seagate FreeAgentDesktop 100D> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-4 device
Sep  8 09:19:47 servername kernel: da1: 40.000MB/s transfers
Sep  8 09:19:47 servername kernel: da1: 476940MB (976773168 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 60801C)
 

6.) Mount the USB drive.

If you get an error about the partition being hibernated:
Error opening partition device: Operation not permitted

Failed to mount ‘/dev/da1s1′: Operation not permitted

The NTFS partition is hibernated. Please resume and shutdown Windows properly, so mounting could be done safely.

Use:

That error message does sometimes point to a conflict in module and library versions though and cannot be fixed until the versions installed are correct.

Notes:

· If you want a persistent mount, be sure to add a mount entry to the /etc/fstab file or a post boot script such as rc.local.

· If you are done with the USB storage drive:

Once I got to the datacenter and hooked up a monitor and keyboard, I saw that I was correct, the raid controllers were not loading properly. Luckily I had the documentation, driver disk and floppy that was used to install them originally.

If you don’t have these items anymore, start here:

Those steps are from the documentation that came with the raid controller, but they did not work properly for me, so I started here:

The documentation also talked about going into the FreeBSD setup and hitting alt-F4 to get to a loader prompt, but that also didn’t see to work for me. After a few tries and several Google searches that didnt not result in telling me how to start booting from cd and finish from the hard drive, I fiddled around in the boot prompt options until I came across the boot_askname option.
After the boot process is started, you will be prompted for the boot partition.

The server will continue booting from here as if nothing was wrong. Now you can get back into your system and get the raid controller drivers back in place. I checked /boot/kernel before this step and found that the driver was no longer on the server.

After this reboot, everything will be same as before you updated the server.

http://secunia.com/cve_reference/CVE-2008-1447
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/800113

In our DNS infrastructure we separate the recursive query DNS servers from the authoritative DNS servers.  We limit recursive queries to our own network ranges.  Our internal DNS servers used with Active Directory are blocked at the firewall allowing no external access.  To remain secure however we of course updated them all.

All of our production DNS servers run BIND on OpenBSD (4.2 currently) so here is a quick run-down of what we did to patch BIND.

# cd /usr/src
# wget ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/4.2/src.tar.gz
# tar -xvzf src.tar.gz

# wget ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/
4.2/common/013_bind.patch

# more 013_bind.patch

        Apply by doing:

# cd /usr/src
# patch -p0 < 013_bind.patch

        Then rebuild and install bind:

# cd usr.sbin/bind
# make -f Makefile.bsd-wrapper obj
# make -f Makefile.bsd-wrapper
# make -f Makefile.bsd-wrapper install

http://www.doxpara.com/
https://www.dns-oarc.net/oarc/services/dnsentropy
https://www.dns-oarc.net/oarc/services/porttest

That should do it!

So, I just completed my 1st 1/2 Ironman Triathlon today.  It has been a goal that I have wanted to accomplish for some time.  After 5 months of vigorous training, I had one day to swim 1.2 miles in the frigid Wickiup Reservoir,

( bike 56 miles around Mt. Bachelor going from 4200 ft, to 6400ft elevation), and then finishing off with a 13.1 mile run around the Sunriver resort.  The hard work paid off, mission accomplished…triathlon complete!

However, there were a number of factors that made my finish time slower than I had wished, wanted, and anticipated (one reason is the tremendous expectations that I put on myself).  So I started to think of the other reasons that I had a slower time and one of the main ones was the extreme climate that I was subjected to in Sunriver, OR.  The High temperature was 96 degrees in the central Oregon desert and the altitude probably didn’t help either.  I didn’t train under these conditions but spent over 7 and one half hours in them.  This made me think of how my body would/could have performed the race under a more favorable climate.

That insight led me to relate the triathlon experience to Opus Interactive (on one of my days off, which is not unusual).

The ideal climate for my body can make such a huge difference in my performance just like it can for a server.  It doesn’t matter what my “training” regiment is like, if my “race day” experience is in an unfavorable environment.  If a server is not in an ideal environment, it will underperform and burnout much faster, not fulfilling its potential.

My last day at Opus Interactive is 7/1/08 and I have learned from some of the most passionate, knowledgeable, and personable administrators in the industry here.  It has been my pleasure and honor to be a co-worker and friend to them all.  As I move to a new company, I am glad that I am going somewhere where I will now be an Opus Interactive client.  They know exactly what it takes to put a server(s) in a situation to set a “PR”(Personal Record, a popular race term).

-George Totonchy
The Real Ironmanphoto by Toto Vo

OMNI Media Networks (”OMNI”) is a public benefit non-profit organization providing:  Education, Information and Entertainment directed to people with disabilities (primarily vision impaired persons) and older individuals who would enjoy the variety of  “Webcasting” that they offer. To listen to  OMNI webcasting programs, click here.   OMNI shows are full of a variety of talent from the disabled community and older members of our community. They ensure the content provided meets all ADA (American Disabilities Act) requirements.

Omni Networks puts on a Golden Hours radio reading and information service for those who are unable to read traditional printed material, the physically disabled and senior citizens. Golden Hours is on the air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Jerry DeLaunay; Progam Director, is responsible for the overall management of Golden Hours, and he is the chairman of the board of Omni Media Networks.  Jerry has been involved in managing Golden Hours since 1995. 

Iris was Jerry DeLaunay’s faithful and friendly guide dog. But now there is another IRIS available to vision-impaired, physically-disabled, and senior citizen listeners of the Omni Media Networks audio streams. This IRIS stands for Internet Radio-Reading Information System.

IRIS is a tabletop appliance, similar in size to a table radio, that connects to the Internet and allows you, with a simple press of a button, to listen to up to 20 different audio streams — all your favorite Omni streams and more. The lineup of stations is listed here.

If you wish to donate or support OMNI you can donate here, or you can sign up to be a volunteer here.

So with that, the question becomes with almost 12 million trees each year, why need more?  Well over 400 million trees need to be planted in America’s forests after recent forest fires.  For the last 3 years we have had record number of forest fires.  In addition, hundreds of thousands of acres have been destroyed by insect infestations.  The replanting of our forests is vitally important for soil erosion control, food for wildlife, cleaner air, and aids in purification of our rivers, streams, and lakes. Below is a great video from the Arbor Day Foundation that shows excactly that point. 

At Opus Interactive we feel that this is extremely important to do something about. So with a partnership with Arbor Day Foundation, we are helping in Replanting America’s Forests one tree at a time. For each customer we have, we purchase trees in their behalf.  In addition, we double that purchase to represent trees for Opus Interactive.  Our goal is to create an Opus Interactive Family Tree Forest, comprised of trees that represent us and our customers.  Feel free to help support this great cause at Arborday.org.

For that reason, several of us here at Opus who have young children have implemented a free service from OpenDNS.com on our home networks.  Put simply OpenDNS offers filtered DNS resolution services for a network or specific devices.

More specifically OpenDNS provides DNS resolution services for your home, school or business network that filters phishing and adult content websites based on a category system.  You can specify how stringent you are with the filtering by selected various category types.  In addition you can block specific websites that would not normally be blocked such as Youtube and Myspace or other such “gray area” sites.

My purpose for using the service is to protect what is viewed from my home network.  Utility of the service does not stop there however.  As a business it could be use to filter webmail sites, job search sites, and other content based on HR policies.  A school may use it to protect students not only from harmful content but maybe also from social networking sites and other sites not appropriate for the school day.

As a user of the service you have access to a dashboard where you can control how your filtering works and view reports of usage on your network.  The service is free and paid for by ads placed on search result pages.

Implementation is as easy as creating an account then configuring your computer to use the OpenDNS servers as your DNS resolution servers.  The service can be configured to work with a dynamic DNS service so that you don’t have to have a static IP address from your provider to still make use of the service.

The best way to implement the use of OpenDNS on your network is to add the OpenDNS servers to the DHCP scope options on your network so that all computers on your network automatically use the OpenDNS servers.

This of course isn’t fool-proof as all it would take in this scenario to skirt the use of OpenDNS is changing the DNS server settings on the computer.  Most young children will not know anything about how to make these kinds of changes.  Also, in the near future with the adoption of IPv6 into the home, self configuration of IP addressing will become much more difficult increasing the dependence on DHCP and DNS services making it easier to force the use of the desired DNS servers.  There are more concrete ways to protect against getting around the use of OpenDNS but we won’t discuss them here.

I feel one of the greatest benefits of the OpenDNS service is that it can be a set it and forget it service for home use.  Once my firewall at home had its DHCP service configured with the OpenDNS DNS servers and I configured my filter settings at the OpenDNS site I knew that the devices on my network were protected.  Being an IT nerd and hobbyist I would love to roll my own filter using Squid, filtering built in to a firewall, or any other slick method to protect my network.  But who has the time?  I wouldn’t want my kids to stumble onto something (What are those daddy?) because I didn’t have the time to keep the filtering service updated or operational.  While no filtering is 100% it is OpenDNS who keeps the content on the internet categorized and blocked.  I don’t have to do it. 

Check out the OpenDNS.com website to learn more about this really cool service.  A full list of features is on their site here (http://www.opendns.com/features/overview/)

Arrived at the MGM Grand Hotel Checked in Room #4136.  Look at that view.

Well what would Vegas be like without a little gambling?  Eric at his first slot machine of the week.  I like to think of this is the fastest way to spend $50 dollars.  Below is a picture showing how Eric feels about losing $50 dollars. I have to give Eric credit, before the week was over he walked away with more money than he lost.
Las Vegas Interop 08
It all started with the Main Keynote Address by C.K. Prahalad. C.K. Spoke about his new book ” The New Age of Innovation”.  You can find more about this concept of driving co-created value through global networks here http://www.newageofinnovation.com/ as well his book.

Brady Wilson was asked to be interviewed by Science Logic about Interop and their product EM7. We encourage you to watch Brady and David Link (President and CEO of Science Logic) discuss both topics.
Here is some photos of Science Logics booth. We also had a great time eating at the House of Blues with them.  Who isn’t going to enjoy the food and music at restaurant and club that was started by Dan Aykroyd, James Belushi, Aerosmith, Harvard University, River Phoenix, Paul Schaffer?

We also got to spend some time with GTA (Global Technology Associates) who is our Firewall vendor.  They have in our opinion the best firewalls on the market. To check out a demo of their firewalls, click here (GTA Demo). It is outstanding. 

One of the booths at Interop this year that had great give aways was the Citrix Booth.  They were giving away 3 Nintendo Wii’s every day.  The way to win was simple, select your micro remote control race car, and be one of the 3 fastest times each day to win.So close to winning. I guess next year we will have to practice up our skills.

For those of you waiting for questionable photos of Vegas here you go.  Tribute to Booth Babes

This is a basic setup of Smokeping.  There are many extra features that I do not touch on here such as multi-target graphs, alerting, slaves, agents and additional probe types.  Check the online documentation for further info.

Please let me know if you run into typos or other technical issues when implementing this.

1.) First let’s update the ports collection.

Setup the update:

Make it look something like this:

Run the update:

Update installed ports:

2.) Install the necessary packages.

Descriptions of packages and uses here: http://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/doc/smokeping_install.en.html

Installed by default with FreeBSD install

Installed by default with FreeBSD install

Socket6

Net:DNS

3.) Configure the packages.

Add:

(within the <IfModule alias_module> section)

Add:

(within the <IfModule dir_module> section)

Add smokeping.cgi after index.html on the DirectoryIndex line to allow smokeping.cgi to load as a default document.

It should look like:

Allow the startup of Apache:

Add the following to /etc/rc.conf

Start Apache:

Edit the variables in the following files appropriately

Variable example settings in the first section:

*** Alerts ***

The “*** Targets ***” section is where you define your Smokeping targets and build the navigation menu.  It is a little too in depth to cover here.  Play around with it to figure out how it works.

In depth configuration info is here: http://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/doc/smokeping_config.en.html

There are some configuration samples here: http://oss.oetiker.ch/smokeping/doc/smokeping_examples.en.html

Verify the path to Speedy:

Customizations to the Smokeping web page templates can be made in the following config files:

Set file system permissions to make the img folder and files writeable:

Allow the startup of Smokeping:

Add the following to /etc/rc.conf

Start Smokeping:

Operational Notes:

 index.html at /usr/local/www/apache22/data/

This redirects traffic sent to the root of your server to a different domain since this traffic obviously doesn’t need to be hitting the Smokeping server.

#/usr/local/etc/rc.d/smokeping restart


• Working copy of FreeBSD 6.2.
• Build: 6.2-RELEASE.

Which should work on 6.2-STABLE and 7.0 as well.

Please let me know if you run into typos or other technical issues when implementing this.

1. Download the latest binaries from mysql.com.

At write-up time this was:

mysql-5.0.45-freebsd6.0-i386.tar.gz
mysql-standard-4.1.22-unknown-freebsd6.0-i386.tar.gz
2. Install MySQL 4.

Uncompress the binary source.

# cd /usr/local
# gunzip < /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz | tar xvf -
# ln -s full-path-to-mysql-VERSION-OS mysql4

Create the daemon user and group.

# pw groupadd mysql4
# pw useradd -n mysql4 -c "" -g mysql4 -d /nonexistent -s /usr/sbin/nologin

Set the file permissions.

# cd /usr/local/mysql4
# chown -R root:mysql4 .

Run the setup database setup script.

# scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql4

Copy the startup script to the proper location.

# cp /usr/local/mysql4/support-files/mysql.server /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql4.server.sh

Change two variables in the start script.

# pico /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql4.server.sh

Change “basedir=” to “basedir=/usr/local/mysql4″
Change “datadir=/usr/local/mysql/data” to “datadir=/usr/local/mysql4/data”
Change “pid_file=” to “pid_file=/var/run/mysql4/mysql4.pid”

Create configuration files.

Copy one of the sample configuration files based on your server usage replacing xxxx in the line below.

# cp /usr/local/mysql4/support-files/my-xxxx.cnf /usr/local/mysql4/data/my.cnf

Change variables in the configuration file.

# pico /usr/local/mysql4/data/my.cnf

Add a variable at the top of the [mysqld] section - “user = mysql5″
Change the “port = 3306″ variables to “port = 3304″
Change the “socket = /tmp/mysql.sock” variables to “socket = /tmp/mysql4.sock”

Create a run directory for the MySQL 4 process and set permissions on it.

# mkdir /var/run/mysql4
# chown -R mysql4:mysql4 /var/run/mysql4
3. Install MySQL 5.

Uncompress the binary source.

# cd /usr/local
# gunzip < /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz | tar xvf -
# ln -s full-path-to-mysql-VERSION-OS mysql5

Create the daemon user and group.

# pw groupadd mysql5
# pw useradd -n mysql5 -c "" -g mysql5 -d /nonexistent -s /usr/sbin/nologin

Set the file permissions.

# cd /usr/local/mysql5
# chown -R root:mysql5 .

Run the setup database setup script.

# scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql5

Copy the startup script to the proper location.

# cp /usr/local/mysql5/support-files/mysql.server /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql5.server.sh

Change a few variables in the start script.

# pico /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql5.server.sh

Change “basedir=” to “basedir=/usr/local/mysql5″
Change “datadir=” to “datadir=/usr/local/mysql5/data”
Change “pid_file=” to “pid_file=/var/run/mysql5/mysql5.pid”
Change “server_pid_file=” to “server_pid_file=/var/run/mysql5/mysql5.pid”
Change “user=mysql” to “user=mysql5″

Create configuration files.

Copy one of the sample configuration files based on your server usage replacing xxxx in the line below.

# cp /usr/local/mysql5/support-files/my-xxxx.cnf /usr/local/mysql5/my.cnf

Change variables in the configuration file.

# pico /usr/local/mysql5/my.cnf

Add a variable at the top of the [mysqld] section - “user = mysql5″
Change the “port = 3306″ variables to “port = 3305″
Change the “socket = /tmp/mysql.sock” variables to “socket = /tmp/mysql5.sock”

Create a run directory for the MySQL 5 process and set permissions on it.

# mkdir /var/run/mysql5
# chown -R mysql5:mysql5 /var/run/mysql5
4. Start the daemons.
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql4.server.sh start
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql5.server.sh start
5. Post installation configuration.

MySQL4:

Connect to MySQL

# /usr/local/mysql4/bin/mysql -u root -P3304 -S/tmp/mysql4.sock

Remove the anonymous account.

mysql> DELET FROM mysql.user WHERE Host='localhost' AND User='';

Set the root password

mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('difficultpassword1');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'server.domain.com' = PASSWORD('difficultpassword1');

Create a backupoperator account for backup script access to all databases.

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'backupoperator'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'difficultpassword2';

Apply changes.

mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Quit.

mysql> QUIT;

MySQL5:

Connect to MySQL

# /usr/local/mysql5/bin/mysql -u root -P3305 -S/tmp/mysql5.sock

Remove the anonymous account.

mysql> DROP USER '';

Set the root password.

mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('difficultpassword1');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'server.domain.com' = PASSWORD('difficultpassword1');
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'127.0.0.1' = PASSWORD('difficultpassword1');

Create a backupoperator account for backup script access to all databases

mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'backupoperator'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'difficultpassword2';

Quit

mysql> QUIT;

That’s it! Create your mysql users and databases and connect your applications.

Notes:

1. Command line connections to mysql now require additional connection info to specify port and socket:
   MySQL4 - # /usr/local/mysql4/bin/mysql -u username -ppassword -P3304 -S/tmp/mysql4.sock
MySQL5 - # /usr/local/mysql5/bin/mysql -u username -ppassword -P3305 -S/tmp/mysql5.sock
2. Remote connections to mysql will require specifying the correct port in the connection string instead of assuming port 3306.