Posts Tagged ‘plenty’

Monitoring chronyd time service is synchronized, get additional time server values with Zabbix userparameter script

Monday, March 21st, 2022

monitoring-chronyc-time-server-synchronization-zabbix-logo

If you''re running a server infrastructure and your main monitoring system is Zabbix. Then a vital check you might want to setup is to monitor the server time synchronization to a central server. In newer Linux OS-es ntpd time server is started to be used lesser and many modern Linux distributions used in the corporate realm are starting to recommend using chrony as a time synchronization client / server.

In this article, I'll show you how you can quickly setup monitoring of chronyd process and monitoring whether the time is successfully synchronizing with remote Chronyd time server. This will be done with a tiny one liner shell script setup as userparameter It is relatively easy then to setup an Action Alert


1. Create userparameter script to send parsed chronyd time synchronization to Zabbix Server

chronyc tracking provides plenty of useful data which can give many details about info such as offset, skew, root delay, stratum, update interval.

[root@server: ~]# chronyc tracking
Reference ID    : 0A32EF0B (fkf-intp01.intcs.meshcore.net)
Stratum         : 3
Ref time (UTC)  : Fri Mar 18 12:42:31 2022
System time     : 0.000032544 seconds fast of NTP time
Last offset     : +0.000031102 seconds
RMS offset      : 0.000039914 seconds
Frequency       : 3.037 ppm slow
Residual freq   : +0.000 ppm
Skew            : 0.023 ppm
Root delay      : 0.017352410 seconds
Root dispersion : 0.004285847 seconds
Update interval : 1041.6 seconds
Leap status     : Normal

[root@server zabbix_agentd.d]# cat userparameter_chrony.conf 
UserParameter=chrony.json,chronyc -c tracking | sed -e s/'^'/'{"chrony":[“‘/g -e s/’$’/'”]}'/g -e s/','/'","'/g
[root@server zabbix_agentd.d]#

The -c option passed to chronyc is printing the chronyc tracking command ouput data in comma-separated values ( CSV ) format.

2. Create Necessery Item key to get chronyd processes and catch the userparameter data

 

  • First lets create a an Item key to calculate the chronyd daemon proc.num
    proc.num – simply returns the number of processes in the process list just like a simple
    pgrep servicename command does.


monitroing-chronyc_zabbix_item_report_to-zabbix

Second lets create the Item for the userparameter script, the chrony.json key should be the same as the key given in the userparameter script.

obtain-chronyc-statistic-variables-from-remote-chronyd-to-zabbix-windows

Create Chrony Zabbix Triggers 
 

Expression 

{server-host:proc.num[chronyd].last()}<1


will be triggered if the process of chronyd on the server is less than 1

 

chronyc_monitoring_process-is-not-running-screenshot

Next configure

{server-host:chrony[Leap status].iregexp[Not synchronised) ]=1


to trigger Alert Chronyd is Not synchronized if the Expression check occurs.

chronyd-is-not-synchronized-trigger-iregexp

Reload the zabbix-agent on the server
 

To make zabbix-agent locally installed on the machine read the userparameter into memory  (in my case this is zabbix-agent-4.0.28-1.el8.x86_64) installed on Redhat 8.3 (Ootpa), you have to restart it.

[root@server: ~]# systemctl restart zabbix-agent
[root@server: ~]# systemctl status zabbix-agent

● zabbix-agent.service – Zabbix Agent
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/zabbix-agent.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2021-12-16 16:41:02 CET; 3 months 0 days ago
 Main PID: 862165 (zabbix_agentd)
    Tasks: 6 (limit: 23662)
   Memory: 20.6M
   CGroup: /system.slice/zabbix-agent.service
           ├─862165 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd -c /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf
           ├─862166 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: collector [idle 1 sec]
           ├─862167 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: listener #1 [waiting for connection]
           ├─862168 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: listener #2 [waiting for connection]
           ├─862169 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: listener #3 [waiting for connection]
           └─862170 /usr/sbin/zabbix_agentd: active checks #1 [idle 1 sec]

Warning: Journal has been rotated since unit was started. Log output is incomplete or unavailable.


In a short while you should be seeing in the chrony.json key History data fed by the userparameter Script.

In Zabbix Latest data, you will see plenty of interesting time synchronization data get reported such as Skew, Stratum, Root Delay, Update Interval, Frequency etc.

chronyd-zabbix-reported-time-synchronization-offset-leap-residual-freq-root-delay-screenshot

To have an email Alerting further, go and setup a new Zabbix Action based on the Trigger with your likings and you're done. 
The tracked machine will be in zabbix to make sure your OS clock is not afar from the time server. Repeat the same steps if you need to track chronyd is up running and synchronized on few machines, or if you have to make it for dozens setup a Zabbix template.

Getting Console and Graphical hardware system information on Linux with cpuinfo, neofetch, CPU-X (CPU-Z Unix alternative), I-nex and inxi

Tuesday, September 17th, 2019

getting-console-information-and-graphical-hardware-system-information-Linux-cpuinfo-neofetch-cpu-x-i-nex-1

Earlier I've wrote extensive article on how to get hardware information on Linux using tools such as dmidecode, hardinfo, lshw, hwinfo, x86info and biosdecode but there are few other hardware reporting tools for Linux worthy to mention that has been there for historical reasons such as cpuinfo as we as some new shiny ones such as neofetch (a terminal / console hardware report tool as well the CPU-X and I-Nex  which is Linux equivalent to the all known almost standard for Windows hardware detection CPU-Z worthy to say few words about.
 

1. cpuinfo

 

Perhaps the most basic tool to give you a brief information about your Processor type (model) number of Cores and Logical Processors is cpuinfo

I remember cpuinfo has been there since the very beginning on almost all Linux distributions's repository, nowadays its popularity of the days when the kings on the Linux OS server scenes were Slackware, Caldera OpenLinux and Redhat 6.0 Linux and Debian 3.0  declined but still for scripting purposes it is handy small proggie.

To install and run it in Debian  / Ubuntu / Mint Linux etc.:

 

aptitude install -y cpuinfo

/usr/bin/cpu-info

 

Linux-get-processor-system-info-in-console-cpu-info

 

2. neofetch

 

The next one worthy to install and check is neofetch (a cross-platform and easy-to-use system information
 command line script that collects your Linux system information and display it on the terminal next to an image, it could be your distributions logo or any ascii art of your choice.)

The cool thing about neofetch is besides being able to identify the System server / desktop hardware parameters, it gives some basic info about number of packages installed on the system, memory free and in use, used kernel and exact type of System (be it Dell PowerEdge Model XX, IBM eSeries Model / HP Proliant Model etc.

neofetch-OS-hardware-information-Linux-ascii-system-info-desktop-notebook

neofetch info generated on my home used Lenovo Thikpad T420

neofetch-OS-hardware-information-Linux-ascii-system-info-pcfreak-home-server
neofetch info from www.pc-freak.net running current machine

neofetch even supports Mac OS X and Windows OS ! 🙂

To install neofetch on Mac OS X:
 

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"


or via Mac ported packages using brew

brew install neofetch


neofetch-screenshot-from-Mac-OS-X

neofetch is even installable on Windows OS that has the scoop command line installer tool installer manager with below PowerShell code in cmd.exe (Command line):

powershell Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -scope CurrentUser
iex (new-object net.webclient).downloadstring('https://get.scoop.sh')
scoop install git
scoop install neofetch

neofetch-microsoft-windows-hardware-command-line-report-tool-screenshot


By the way Scoop was quite a finding for me and it is pretty handy to install plenty of useful command line Linux / UNIX tools, such as curl, wget, git etc. in the same easy straight forward way as a standard yum or apt-get on Windows (without explicitly installing things as GnuWin and CygWin).
 

3. CPU-X graphical user interface hardware report Linux GUI alternative to Windows CPU-Z


The packages for CPU-X are a bit outdated and even though there are rpm packages for Fedora, OpenSuSE and .deb package for Debian for Debian, Ubuntu and ArchLinux (pacman), there is no up to date version for Debian 10 and the package builds distributed for different Linux distros are a bit outdated.

Thus to install CPU-X on any Linux distribution it is perhaps best to use the portable version (static binary) of CPU-X.
It is currently available on https://github.com/X0rg/CPU-X/releases

To install latest portable version of CPU-X

wget https://github.com/X0rg/CPU-X/releases/download/v3.2.4/CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.tar.gz

mkdir CPU-X
cd CPU-X

tar -zxvvf CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x yohan/users 4563032 2019-01-13 22:15 CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.bsd64
-rwxr-xr-x yohan/users 5484968 2019-01-13 22:15 CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.linux64

 

cp -rpf CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.linux64 /usr/local/bin/
ln -sf /usr/local/bin/CPU-X_v3.2.4_portable.linux64 /usr/local/bin/cpu-x


Next run as superuser (root)
 

hipo@jeremiah:~$ su -c 'cpu-x'

 

As seen from below screenshots cpu-x reports a lot of concrete specific hardware data on:

  • Processor
  • Motherboard
  • Memory
  • System
  • Graphic card
  • Performance

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-CPU-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-caches-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-Motherboard-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-memory-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-system-info

cpu-x-cpu-cpu-z-alternative-linux-screenshot-graphics-info

CPU-X can be installed also on FreeBSD very easily by just installing from BSD port tree sysutils/cpu-x/
It is also said to work on other *BSDs, NetBSD, OpenBSD Unixes but I guess this will require a manual compilation based on FreeBSD's port Makefile.

4. I-Nex another GUI alternative to CPU-Z for UNIX / Linux

I-Nex is even more useful for general hardware reporting as it reports many hardware specifications not reported by CPU-X such as Battery type and Model Name  (if the hardware report is on a laptop), info on USB devices slots or plugged USB devices brand and specifications, the available Network devices on the system (MAC Addresses) of each of it, Installed and used drivers on Hard Disk (ATA / SATA / SCSI / SSD), HW Sector size, Logical Block size, HDD Sectors count and other specific Hard Drive data as well as information on available Audio (Sound Blaster) devices (HDA-Intel), used Codecs, loaded kernel ALSA driver, Video card used and most importantly indicators on Processor reported CPU (temperature).

 

To install I-nex

Go to https://launchpad.net/i-nex or any of the mirror links where it resides and install the respective package, in my case, I was doing the installation on Debian Linux, so fetched current latest amd64 package which as of moment of writting this article is i-nex_7.6.0-0-bzr977-20161012-ubuntu16.10.1_amd64.deb , next installed it with dpkg
 

dpkg -i i-nex_7.6.0-0-bzr977-20161012-ubuntu16.10.1_amd64.deb

 

As the package was depending on some other .deb packages, which failed to install to install the missing ones I had to further run
 

apt –fix-broken install

i-nex-cpu-info-linux-hardware-info-program

 

hre

I-Nex thermal indicators about CPU temperature on a Linux Desktop notebook

i-nex-gpu-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-mobo-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-audio-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-drivers-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-system-info-linux-hardware-info-program

i-nex-battery-info-linux-hardware-info-program

 

There are other Hardware identification report tools such as CUDA-Z that are useful to check if you have Nvidia Video Card hardware Installed on the PC to check the status of CUDA enabled GPUs, useful if working with nVidia Geforce, Quadro, Tesla cards and ION chipsets.

If you use it however be aware that CUDA-Z is not compatible with 3rd-party linux drivers for NVidia so make sure you have the current official Nvidia version.

 

5. Inxi full featured system information script

 

Inxi is a 10000 lines mega bash script that fetches hardware details from multiple different sources in /proc /sys and from commands on the system, and generates a beautiful looking console report that non technical users can read easily.

inxi-10-k-mega-bash-shell-script-reporting-on-installed-system-computer-hardware

 

inxi -Fx

 

 

inxi-report-on-installed-hardware-on-my-lenovo-thinkpad-home-laptop

Each of the pointed above tools has different method of collection of Hardware information from various resources e.g. – kernel loaded modules, dmesg, files like /proc/meminfo /proc/version /proc/scsi/scsi /proc/partitions.
Hence some of the tools are likely to report more info than otheres, so in case if some information you need regarding the system plugged in hardware is missing you can perhaps obtain it from another program. Most Linux distribution desktop provided GNOME package are including Hardinfo gui tool, but in many cases above mentioned tools are likely to add even more on info on what is inside your PC Box.
If you're aware of others tools that are useful not mentioned here please share it.

No space left on device with free disk space / Why no space left on device while there is plenty of disk space on drive – Running out of Inodes

Tuesday, November 17th, 2015

no_space_left-on-device-while-there-is-disk-space-running-out-of-file-inodes-unix_linux_file_system_diagram.gif

 

On one of the servers, I'm administrating the websites started showing some Mysql database table corrup errors like:
 

 

Table './database_name/site_news_list_com' is marked as crashed and last (automatic?) repair failed

The server is using Oracle MySQL server community stable edition on Debian GNU / Linux 6.0, so I first thought during work the server crashed either due to some bug issue in MySQL or it crashed due to some PHP cron job that did something messy. Thus to solve the crashed tables, tried using mysqlcheck tool which helped pretty fine, at many times whether there were database / table corruptions. I've run the following set of mysqlcheck commands with root (superuser) in a bash shell after logging in through SSH:

:

server:~# /usr/bin/mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf \–check –all-databases -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log
server:~# /usr/bin/mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf –analyze –all-databases -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log
server:~# /usr/bin/mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf \–auto-repair –optimize –all-databases -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log
server:~# /usr/bin/mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf \–optimize –all-databases -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log


In order for above commands to work, I've created the /root/.my.cnf containing my root (mysql CLI) mysql username and password, e.g. file has content like below:

 

[client]
user=root
password=MySecretPassword8821238

 

Btw a good note here is its generally a good idea (if you want to have consistent mysql databases) to automatically execute via a cron job 2 times a month, I've in root cronjob the following:

 

crontab -u root -l |grep -i mysqlcheck
04 06 5,10,15,20,25,1 * * /usr/bin/mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf \–check –all-databases –silent -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log 07 06 5,10,15,20,25,1 * * /usr/bin/mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf –analyze –all-databases –silent -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log 12 06 5,10,15,20,25,1 * * /usr/bin/mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf \–auto-repair –optimize –all-databases –silent -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log 17 06 5,10,15,20,25,1 * * /usr/bin/mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf \–optimize –all-databases –silent -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log


Strangely I got a lot of errors that some .MYI / .MYD .frm temp files, necessery for the mysql tables recovery can't be written inside /home/mysql/database_name

That was pretty weird and I thought there might be some issues with permissions, causing the inability to write, due to some bug or something so I went straight and checked /home/mysql/database_name permissions, e.g.::

 

server:/home/mysql/database_name# ls -ld soccerfame
drwx—— 2 mysql mysql 36864 Nov 17 12:00 soccerfame
server:/home/mysql/database_name# ls -al1|head -n 10
total 1979012
drwx—— 2 mysql mysql 36864 Nov 17 12:00 .
drwx—— 36 mysql mysql 4096 Nov 17 11:12 ..
-rw-rw—- 1 mysql mysql 8712 Nov 17 10:26 1_campaigns_diez.frm
-rw-rw—- 1 mysql mysql 14672 Jul 8 18:57 1_campaigns_diez.MYD
-rw-rw—- 1 mysql mysql 1024 Nov 17 11:38 1_campaigns_diez.MYI
-rw-rw—- 1 mysql mysql 8938 Nov 17 10:26 1_campaigns.frm
-rw-rw—- 1 mysql mysql 8738 Nov 17 10:26 1_campaigns_logs.frm
-rw-rw—- 1 mysql mysql 883404 Nov 16 22:01 1_campaigns_logs.MYD
-rw-rw—- 1 mysql mysql 330752 Nov 17 11:38 1_campaigns_logs.MYI


As seen from above output, all was perfect with permissions, so it should have been something else, so I decided to try to create a random file with touch command inside /home/mysql/database_name directory:

 

touch /home/mysql/database_name/somefile-to-test-writtability.txt touch: cannot touch ‘/scr1/data/somefile-to-test-writtability.txt‘: No space left on device


Then logically I thought the /home/mysql/ mounted ext4 partition got filled, because of crashed SQL database or a bug thus, checked with disk free command df whether there is enough space on server:

server:~# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/md1 20G 7.6G 11G 42% /
udev 10M 0 10M 0% /dev
tmpfs 13G 1.3G 12G 10% /run
tmpfs 32G 0 32G 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 32G 0 32G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/md2 256G 134G 110G 55% /home

Well that's weird? Obviously only 55% of available disk space is used and available 134G which was more than enough so I got totally puzzled why, files can't be written.

Then very logically, I thought it might be that /home directory has remounted as read only, because the SSD memory disk on server is failing and checked for errors in dmesg, i.e.:

 

server:~# dmesg|grep -i error


Also checked how exactly was partition mounted, to check whether it is (RO) read-only:

 

server:~# mount -l|grep -i /home
/dev/md2 on /home type ext4 (rw,relatime,discard,data=ordered)


Now everything become even more weirder, as obviously the disk continued to be claiming no space left on device, while in reality there was plenty of disk space.

Then after running a quick research on the internet for the no space left on device with free disk space, I've come across this great superuser.com thread which let me realize the partition run out of inodes and that's why no new file inodes could be assigned and therefore, the linux kernel is refusing to write the file on ext4 partition.

For those who haven't heard of Linux Partition Inodes here is link to Wikipedia and a quick quote:

 

In a Unix-style file system, the inode is a data structure used to represent a filesystem object, which can be one of various things including a file or a directory. Each inode stores the attributes and disk block location(s) of the filesystem object's data.[1] Filesystem object attributes may include manipulation metadata (e.g. change,[2] access, modify time), as well as owner and permission data (e.g. group-id, user-id, permissions).[3]
Directories are lists of names assigned to inodes. The directory contains an entry for itself, its parent, and each of its children.


Once I understood it is the inodes, I checked how many of them are occupied with cmd:

 

server:~# df -i /home
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/md2 17006592 17006592 0 100% /home


You see, there were 0 (zero) free file inodes on server and that was the reason for no space left on device while there was actually free disk space

To clean up (free) some inodes on partition, first thing I did is to delete all old logs which were inside /home and files I positively know not to be necessery, then to find which directories allocating most innodes used:

 

server:~# find . -xdev -type f | cut -d "/" -f 2 | sort | uniq -c | sort -n


If you're on a regular old fashined IDE Hard Drive and not SSD or you have too much files inside this command will take really long …:

Therefore a better solution might be to frist:

a) Try to find root folders with large inodes count:

for i in /home/*; do echo $i; find $i |wc -l; done
Try to find specific folders:


You should get output like:

 

/home/new_website
606692
/home/common
73
/home/pcfreak
5661
/home/hipo
33
/home/blog
13570
/home/log
123
/home/lost+found
1

b) Then once you know the directory allocating most inodes, run the command again to see the sub-directories with most files (eating) partition innodes:

 

for i in /home/webservice/*; do echo $i; find $i |wc -l; done

 

One usual large folder which could free you some nodes is the linux source headers, but in my case it was simply a lot of tiny old logs being logged on the system for few years in the past without cleaning:

After deleting the log dirs and cache folder in my case /home/new_website/{log,cache}:

server:~# rm -rf /home/new_website/log/*
server:~# rm -rf /home/new_website/cache/*

 

 

a) Then, stopping Apache webserver to check prevent Apache to use MySQl databases while running database repair and restaring MySQL:
 

server:~# /etc/init.d/apache2 stop Restarting MySQL server
..
server:~# /etc/init.d/mysql restart
..


b) And re-issuing MySQL Check / Repair / Optimize database commands:
 

 

mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf \–check –all-databases -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log

mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf –analyze –all-databases -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log

mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf \–auto-repair –optimize –all-databases -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log

mysqlcheck –defaults-extra-file=/etc/mysql/debian.cnf \–optimize –all-databases -u root -p`grep -i password /root/.my.cnf |sed -e 's#password=##g'`>> /var/log/cronwork.log

c) And finally starting the Apache Webserver again:
 

server:~# /etc/init.d/apache2 start


Some innodse got freed up:
 

server:~# df -i /home Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/md2 17006592 16797196 209396 99% /home


And hooray by God's Grace and with help of prayers of The most Holy Theotokos (Virgin) Mary, websites started again !

Adding another level of security to your shared Debian Linux webhosting server with SuPHP

Tuesday, April 7th, 2015

suphp_improve-apache-security-protect-against-virus-internal-server-infections-suphp-webserver-logo

There are plenty of security schemes and strategies you can implement if you're a Shared Web Hosting company sysadmin however probably the most vital one is to install on Apache + PHP Webserver SuPHP module.

# apt-cache show suphp-common|grep -i descrip -A 4

Description: Common files for mod suphp Suphp consists of an Apache module (mod_suphp for either Apache 1.3.x or Apache 2.x) and a setuid root binary (suphp) that is called by the Apache module to change the uid of the process executing the PHP interpreter to the owner of the php script.

So what SuPHP actuall  does is to run separate CPanel / Kloxo etc. Users with separate username and groupid permissions coinciding with the user present in /etc/passwd , /etc/shadow files existing users, thus in case if someone hacks some of the many customer sites he would be able to only write files and directories under the user with which the security breach occured.

On servers where SuPHP is not installed, all  systemusers are using the same UserID / GuID to run PHP executable scripts under separate domains Virtualhost which are coinciding with Apache (on Debian / Ubuntu  uid, gid – www-data) or on (CentOS / RHEL / Fedora etc. – user apache) so once one site is defaced  exploited by a worm all or most server websites might end up infected with a Web Virus / Worm which will be trying to exploit even more sites of a type running silently in the background.  This is very common scenarios as currently there are donezs of PHP / CSS / Javasripts / XSS vulnerability exploited on VPS and Shared hosting servers due to failure of a customer to update his own CMS  scripts / Website  (Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal etc.) and the lack of resource to regularly monitor all customer activities / websites.

Therefore installing SuPHP Apache module is essential one to install on new serverslarge hosting providers as it saves the admin a lot of headache from spreading malware across all hosted servers sites ..
Some VPS admins that are security freaks tend to also install SuPHP module together with many chrooted Apache / LiteSpeed / Nginx webservers each of which running in a separate Jailed environment.

Of course using SuPHP besides giving a improved security layer to the webserver has its downsides such as increased load for the server and making Apache PHP scripts being interpretted a little bit slower than with plain Apache + PHP but performance difference while running a site on top of SuPHP is often not so drastic so you can live it up ..

Installing SuPHP on a Debian / Ubuntu servers is a piece of cake, just run the as root superuser, usual:
 

# apt-get install libapache2-mod-suphp


Once installed only thing to make is to turn off default installed Apache PHP module (without SuPHP compiled support and restart Apache webserver):
 

# a2dismod php5 …

# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart


To test the SuPHP is properly working on the Apache Webserver go into some of many hosted server websites DocumentRoot

And create new file called test_suphp.php with below content:

# vim test_suphp.php
<?php
system('id');
?>

Then open in browser http://whatever-website/test_suphp.php assuming that system(); function is not disabled for security reasons in php.ini you should get an User ID, GroupID bigger than reserved system IDs on GNU / Linux e.g. ID > UID / GID 99

Its also a good idea to take a look into SuPHP configuration file /etc/suphp/suphp.conf and tailor options according to your liking 

If different hosted client users home directories are into /home directory, set in suphp.conf

;Path all scripts have to be in

docroot=/home/


Also usually it is a good idea to set 

umask=0022 

Merge (convert) multiple PDF files into one single PDF – Generate one pdf from many on Linux / Windows and Mac

Wednesday, August 6th, 2014

merge-convert-many-pdf-files-to-single-one-generate-one-pdf-from-many-pdf-files-linux-windows-mac-pdftk-logo
I was looking for English Orthodox Bible translation of the Old Testament (Septuagint Version) and found such divided in many pdf files. I wanted to create a common (single) PDF from all the separate Old Testamental Book files in order to put it online as it might be convenient for English native speakers to download and later read offline on their computers the Old Testament Orthodox version Holy Bible.

Before I explain how I did it I will make a short turn to explain few things about Septuagint, as this is probably interesting stuff, you might not know.

Septuagint (also referred as LXX or the Alexandrian Canon) – Is Translation of the Hebrew Bible and some related text in Koine Greek) by legendary 70 Jewish scholars as early as the 2nd century BC. Just for those interested in Christianity it is curious fact that the number of Old Testament books are different among Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians, whether the number of New Testament books are the same in Catholics, Protestant and Orthodox.

So How Many books are in Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Old Testament Holy Bible?

The Old Testament in Orthodox Holy Bible version has 50 (where Slavonic versions of the bible include also +2 More which are the  Edras books), whether protestant Holy Bible includes only 39 books in old testament and Roman Catholics has 46 old testamental books in there bibles. The reason why Protestants choose to have less books (only 39) is some of the books in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Church are Apocryphal are referred to as the Apocryphal, or Deuterocanonical books this doesn't mean that the extra 8 Books in Orthodox Bibles are not God Inspired, this means, they don't have the historic authenticity as the early Church accepted canonicals.

The Orthodox Church accepted the Septuagint LXX as divinely inspired to be used in Church.

Now back to how I managed to merge (convert) multiple PDF files into single PDF on my Debian Linux home router.

My first attempt was with ImageMagick's convert (in the same manner as I used to generate PDF files from pictures earlier), e.g.:
 

convert intro.pdf genesis.pdf exodus.pdf leviticus.pdf numbers.pdf deuteronomy.pdf … SINGLE-FILE.PDF

I waited for convertion to complete quite long but it seemed looping so finally after 7 minutes I stopped it and decided to try with something else and, after quick search I found pdftk.

pdftk has plenty of functions and is great for anyone who needs to do Merge / Split Update / Encrypt / Repair corrupted PDFs on Linux:

 apt-cache show pdftk |grep -i desc -A 17
Description: tool for manipulating PDF documents
 If PDF is electronic paper, then pdftk is an electronic stapler-remover,
 hole-punch, binder, secret-decoder-ring, and X-Ray-glasses. Pdftk is a
 simple tool for doing everyday things with PDF documents. Keep one in the
 top drawer of your desktop and use it to:
  – Merge PDF documents
  – Split PDF pages into a new document
  – Decrypt input as necessary (password required)
  – Encrypt output as desired
  – Fill PDF Forms with FDF Data and/or Flatten Forms
  – Apply a Background Watermark
  – Report PDF on metrics, including metadata and bookmarks
  – Update PDF Metadata
  – Attach Files to PDF Pages or the PDF Document
  – Unpack PDF Attachments
  – Burst a PDF document into single pages
  – Uncompress and re-compress page streams
  – Repair corrupted PDF (where possible)

To install pdftk on Debian Linux Lenny / Wheezy:

apt-get install –yes pdftk

After installed to convert a number of separate PDF files into single (merged) PDF file:
 

pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf cat output single-merged-pdf-file.pdf

 

 

pdftk intro.pdf genesis.pdf exodus.pdf leviticus.pdf numbers.pdf deuteronomy.pdf joshua.pdf judges.pdf ruth.pdf kingdoms_1.pdf kingdoms_2.pdf kingdoms_3.pdf kingdoms_4.pdf paraleipomenon_1.pdf paraleipomenon_2.pdf esdras_1.pdf esdras_2.pdf nehemiah.pdf tobit.pdf judith.pdf esther.pdf maccabees_1.pdf maccabees_2.pdf maccabees_3.pdf psalms.pdf job.pdf proverbs_of_solomon.pdf ecclesiastes.pdf song_of_songs.pdf wisdom_of_solomon.pdf wisdom_of_sirach.pdf hosea.pdf amos.pdf micah.pdf joel.pdf obadiah.pdf jonah.pdf nahum.pdf habbakuk.pdf zephaniah.pdf malachi.pdf isaiah.pdf jeremiah.pdf baruch.pdf lamentations_of_jeremiah.pdf an_epistle_of_jeremiah.pdf ezekiel.pdf daniel.pdf maccabees_4.pdf slavonic_appendix.pdf cat output Orthodox-English-translation-of-Old-Testament-Septuagint.pdf

And Hooray! It worked The resulting share Old Testament (Orthodox) English translation from Septuagint PDF is here

pdftk is also ported for Fedora / CentOS / RHEL etc. (RPM distros), so you to install it there:

yum -y install pdftk

Or if missing in repositories grab the respective pdf and

rpm -ivh pdftk-*yourarch.pdf

PDFtk has also Windows and Mac OS version just in case if you need to script Merging of multiple PDFs to single ones for more check out PDftk Server page homepage here

Happy Sysadmin day! – Last Friday of July – The day of the system administrator

Friday, July 25th, 2014

Its-SysAdminDay-SAD-day-the-day-of-the-system-administrtator-cake-hooray

Every Last Friday of July is System Administrator's day. This relatively new technocrat tradition started as suggested by the system administrator Ted Kekatos in 2000.

SysAdmin Day or (SAD) 🙂 as it is also famous is a day to appreciate the achieviments of anyone seriously involved in IT industry. Now is time to say SAD day is not a day for programmers to celebrate as there is separate Programmer's day / Day of the Programmer feast or (DOP / DOPE ) 🙂 that is celebrated on the 256th (hexadecimal 100th, or the 28th) day of each year (September 13 during common years and on September 12 in leap years).

System Administrator Appreaciation Day – (SAAD) was historically inspired by Hewlett Packard magazine advertisement in which a system administrator is presented with flowers and fruit-baskets by grateful co-workers as thanks for installing new printers.

 

DOPE's started as proposed by Valentin Balt and Michael Cherviakov, employees of Parallel Technologies (a software company). In 2002, they tried to gather signatures for a petition to the government of Russia to recognize the day as the official programmers' day.


The modern usual way to celebrate Sysadm day is to get your system administrator a day. If you're at poisition to administrate a couple of hundreds of Windows hosts, you can send a prank message to your colleagues reminding them to buy you a beer or mass mail / set a Outlook Meeting reminder that system administrators – doesn't drink flowers and chocolate 🙂

 

A Day In The Life Of A SAN Administrator

Since 2000, a lot of UNIX / Linux sysadmins and  geeks tend to organize gatherings and Free Software celebration meetings on the SAD day.

SysAdminDay has inspired plenty of other pranky novels and music to glorify the remarkable event 🙂

Here are few to cheer you up.

System Administrator's Day song

Sysadmin day (Karaoke) song


Here are also some PoC for some weird ways to celebrate the day of the system administrator 🙂

System Administrator's Day in Russia Remix
 


HAPPY SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR DAY – HOORAY ! 🙂

Russians Celebrate Christmas / Why some Orthodox Christians celebrate Nativity ( Christmas ) on 7th of January

Tuesday, January 7th, 2014

rojdestvo_Iisusa_Hrista_17th-vek-srpska-ikona

Merry Christmas to all Eastern Orthodox Christians!

I wish to all my Russian blog readers Christ's blessings, Wisdom of the 3 Wise man following the star. Humility of Christ for being born in a Cave and love of Mother of God Virgin Mary and Joseph to the incarnated Lord in flesh, Joy of the universe for the Universe rejoiced seing the birth of the savior of us sinful humans!

On 7th of January, the day on which biggest part of Eastern Orthodox Church,- Russian Orthodox Church along with Ukrainian, Macedonian, Croation, Serbian Arabic and part of Greek orthodox Church and Holy Mount Athos celebrate the day of Christ's birth. The original place where the Lord Jesus Christ was born as we read in the Gospels is BethlehemAccording to Church tradition on top of the Cave (known as Grotto) where the savior was born a Church basilica was built around year 333 A.D..

church of nativity bethlehem nowadays palestine - Jesus Christ birth place

The first Church building on top of Nativity Cave begun by Saint Helena, the mother of saint Emperor Constantine.

the_cave_of_nativity-where-Christ-was-born

The Basilica was destroyed a couple of times throughout the 3th, 4th, 5th, 10-th , 14-th and 18-th centuries in attempt to wipe out memory for Christ's birth and futile attempt of early times Roman emperors to destroy christianity.
Today Bethlehem Church is situated on Palestinian territories and place for pilgrimage of both Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians. Its
interior is a very interesting mixture of a classic Orthodox Christian and a Roman Catholic basillica.

Church of the Holy Nativity Christs birth place Bethlehem

There is plenty of confusion and misunderstanding on the topic why bigger part of Christians worldwide celebrate Christmas on 24th against 25th of December and why more than half of Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate on 6th against of 7th of January?

In fact it is interesting fact that in the early Christian one holy apostolic Church, Christmas and Eastern was celebrated many times as this two feasts since beginning of the Church are center of Christian faith. In later times, when Church was already formed as an Eastern and Western Church, there are Church canons on exact date to celebrate Christmas and Eastern following the Julian Calendar (introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC). In later times with development of Science it was found that this calendar was not so precise and another Church calendar was introduced in y. 1582 by Roman Catholic pope Gregory XVIII (Gregorian Calendar named after pope). I will not get into details but from modern science Astronomical point of view Gregorian calendar is more scientifically correct. The Gregorian calendar quickly become in secular life because of its mathematical precision. And by Western Roman Catholic church Influence and desire to be more scientifically correct parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church partly accepted use of the Gregorian Calendar for counting the Church feasts. Because of that many of the feasts in those Eastern Orthodox Churches moved in forward with 13 days like the Romanian and Bulgarian Orthodox Church. However due to Church canon part of the feasts in Eastern Church can't be celebrated according to the Gregorian Calendar dates. Most important feast dates is the Resurrection day (Eastern), which according to Orthodox Church rule has always to be one week after the Jewish Pascha. There are plenty of problems that emerged due to change of acceptance of reformed Church calendar in part of the Eastern Orthodox Church, however what is most important is that the difference doesn't separate Orthodox Christian it just gives us reason to celebrate feast twice 🙂

Psychological instability and the gap between desire and reality

Wednesday, August 7th, 2013

sad reality - bulgarians see no future, protests in bulgaria are the least people can do

I'm in Sofia just for a few days and I'm stunned how expensive is life here if compared to people's revenues. I think it is almost impossible to live normal live in Sofia with money lower than 500 eur. I'm here for a  4 day with my Belarusian girlfriend and I'm trying not to spend too much and already spend about 200 EUR. This makes 50 euro per two person a day and this is just for going outside public transport Metro, Buses and taxis. This makes about 50 euro per day or 25 euro a day required for person to live normal (not at all luxury life) … It is no strange that people are protesting for already about 50 days here in Sofia and that Bulgarians are heavily drinking and smoking and don't want to work. Our Bulgarian nation is depressed and there is a good reason for that. We are forced to live almost like animals. There are no money for renovation the buildings, no money to eat properly, young people's morale is totally messed up for the reason culture here is almost dead or even the one that's left is heavily  connected with godlessness, sexuality and consumerism. It is no strange our structures politics and infrastructure here is so messed up. It all starts with people's messed heads and all this gets materialized in our daily lives … Money are the main aim of living of young people and life here is made in a way that you have to only strive after money and for money you should learn to do anytihng … I just don't understand how we ended up here, its quite a pain especially as I lived in end up communistic Soviet time sand I remember people was not so much after money as there was money for normal almost middle class life in Socialistic Bulgaria … There are plenty of knowledgeable people in my dear homeland. Plenty of brilliant and good people but most emigrate for the reason here conditions of living has become extremely abnormal. Truth is European union totally smashed us. With all this shop chains in Western model like Lidl and Billa  made just to collect even our last money and the lack of industry, if something doesn't change ASAP we will simply be cleaned up of the face of the world or at least noone will stay in this country. There are plenty of emigrants already, the problem is even in western europe and most other countries there is big problem with unemployment so even if we Bulgarians try to go out we can't find job. I know this post is a big rant but I feel sad for my beautiful homeland. We have one of the most beautiful natures in Europe, we have Sea Beaches and Mountains, we have culture of 15 centuries and own well developed language. But it seems we're loosing our identity day by day. Almost everywhere you go you hear some music in English – even though most people in Bulgaria do not speak decent English and are far from understanding music in English I more and more think there is almost straight logic information in English. Most song lyrics are just fractured and incomplete or messed up, mostly speaking about evil than good. It is tragedy how young people spend there time here in Bulgaria for nothing hanging in pubs and bars spending money for alcohol and cigarettes trying to waste themselves for the only reason they see no future …
 

Истории Ветхого Завета мультфильм / History of Biblbe old Testament in Russian – Kids movie

Saturday, June 15th, 2013

While looking for Bulgarian Orthodox Bible to listen. I submed upon a Russian video,re-telling the story of old testament in Russian. I decided to share the movie as I liked how the story of old testament is retold. Its on very understandable language, so even kids about 5 years old can understand. It is perfect for big kids like me too. After all as the saviour Jesus Christ said all of us Christians, has to "become like Kids to see the Kingdom of Heaven". Watching such movies is  definitely a good way to strengthen faith 🙂 Enjo!


 

History of Old Testament Russian Cartoon / Истории Ветхого Завета мультфильм все серии

By the way currently Russian Orthodox Church is in big bloom and there are plenty of other Animations for kids revealing the truths of faith for the tiny one. I hope one day, if God Bless and have kids myself I will play this video to teach them the wonders of our Christian faith.

The history of Climate change in 83 seconds – The ridiculous climate protection negotiations and actions of world governments

Friday, June 14th, 2013

The last 15 years, we've been accustomed to listen about the Climate Change and the Global Warming problem. I remember for a first time heard about this possible problem from my Grandfather in late 1990's. Since then there is plenty of initiatives like Kyoto (Protocol) Convict for reduce of unwanted emissions. While browsing I found interesting video which is short overview of History of Climate Change. I think it is worthy to see it and get idea on the pure mess and lack of interest of governments to work well for solving the is issue…

There are plenty of youth organizations who claim to suggest how to solve global warming. But most of it is just talks. The fact is to stop it, the only way is by individual change of each of us. It is impossible for a consumer society to keep going. From time of creation of human, God created us not as consumers but as creator beings. Now most of us are dumb consumers hanging in front of Computer in Youtube and Facebook all day, watching post after post video after video, then you go to shop and you buy a lot of food. Because we're depressed of the unhuman way of living most of us eat plenty of food to somehow mitigate our awareness of unhappy reality (Americans are best in that). With overeating there is the increased number of health issues in us. We produce too much and consume too much, if we don't stop this parasite behavior soon it is more than clear, humans and our planet as ecosystem will not survive.