Tag Archives: ubuntu

Migrate Linux Subsystem from one PC to another

Are you enjoying your favorite Linux distro running within the Windows 10 Linux Subsystem?

Have you configured all nicely?

What happened if you get a new pc and you’d like to migrate your VM across?

This is what happened to me. And looking around, I found this post that gave me this kinda-dirty way, but did work!

After that, I decided to review the steps, and I’ve added these directories in the exclude’s list, to make clearer the process of export/import:

Of course, if you have important data in these folders and you want to move across too, just update the one-liner below accordingly. 😉

On your OLD PC

  • Open your Linux VM
  • Get inside your Downloads directory (replace <user> with your username): cd /mnt/c/Users/<user>/Dowloads
  • Make sure to be root (sudo su -)
  • Run:
    tar -cvpzf backup.tar.gz --exclude=/backup.tar.gz --exclude=/dev --exclude=/proc --exclude=/sys --exclude=/run --exclude=/tmp --exclude=/media --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/var/cache --exclude=/var/run --one-file-system /
    NOTE: you could achieve the same using the option --exclude-from=file.txt, and having the list of exclusions in this file. I used a one-liner as it’s quicker to copy and paste.
  • Once done, close your Linux VM
  • Verify that you have a new file called backup.tar.bz in Dowloads

On your NEW PC

  • Install from Microsoft Store the same Linux VM (or reinstall in the same way you have done originally on your old pc)
  • Copy across your backup.tar.bz within your new Downloads folder
  • Open the VM that you’ve just installed (minimal setup – this will be completely overwritten, so don’t be bothered too much)
  • Once you’re inside and your backup.tar.bz is in Download, run the following (replace <user> with your username):
    sudo tar -xpzf /mnt/c/Users/<user>/Dowloads/backup.tar.gz -C / --numeric-owner
  • Ignore the errors
  • Close and re-open the VM: DONE! 🙂

Happy migration! 😉

Linux WiFi manual setup

You might have faced to have your laptop that doesn’t boot with your nice GUI interface, with Network Manager that handles your wifi connection. Maybe due to a failed update or a broken package.

Well, it happened to me exactly for that reason: some issues with an upgrade. And how can you fix a broken package or dependency without internet connection?

Oooh yes, that’s a nightmare! Thankfully, I found this handy article, which I will list some handy commands, that did help me in restoring the connection on my laptop, allowing me to fix the upgrade and restore its functionality.

NOTE: I had iwconfig and wpasupplicant already installed. If not, I should have downloaded the packages and all their dependencies and manually install them with dpkg -i command

Identify what’s the name of your wifi interface

iwconfig

This should return something like wlp4s0

Guessing that you know already the SSID (e.g. HomeFancyWiFi) of your wifi and the password (e.g. myWiFiPassw0rd), you can run directly this command:

wpa_passphrase HomeFancyWiFi myWiFiPassw0rd | sudo tee /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
wpa_supplicant -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i wlp4s0

This will generate the config file, connect to the wifi. Once you see that all works as expected, you could use the -B flag to put the wpa_suppicant in background and release the terminal.

wpa_supplicant -B -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -i wlp4s0

Alternatively, you can move to another tab (ALT+F1,F2,F3… in the text mode console), and run dhcpclient to get an IP and the DNS set.

dhclient wlp4s0

Once done, you can run iwconfig just to verify that the interface has the IP and do some basic network troubleshooting like ping etc to make sure all works, and you can go back to fix your broken upgrade 🙂

Ubuntu 16.04 – Wake on LAN

I have struggled a bit trying to understand while my Ubuntu 16.04 wasn’t waking up with the common  etherwake  commad.

I found the solution on this link:

you should disable Default option in Network-Manager GUI and enable only the Magic option. If you try this, then you should check if everything is ok opening the shell and issuing this command:

You should see the line:

If it’s not g but d or something else, something could be wrong.

Once done that, and verified with the command  ethtool <myNetinterface> | grep "Wake-on:" , all started to work again 🙂

 

Ubuntu 16.04 with Office 2010, Photoshop CS2, Spotify and Skype

I can finally decommission my Windows VM!

Yes. I was keeping a Windows VM to use Office and Photoshop. Libreoffice and GIMP are alternative options that where not sufficient – at least for me. On top of that, Skype and Spotify were another couple of software that weren’t really working well or available (at least a while ago).

Now, I have a full working-workstation based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS – MATE!

Desktop Screenshot

How to?

Well, here some easy instructions.

What you need?

  • Office Pro 2010 license
  • Office Pro 2010 installer (here where to download if you have lost it – 32bit version)
  • Photoshop installer: Adobe has now released version C2 free. You need an Adobe account. They provide installer and serial. For the installer, here the direct link
  • Spotify account
  • Skype account
  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64 bit installed 🙂

Let’s install!

Spotify

For Spotify, I’ve just simply followed this: https://www.spotify.com/it/download/linux/

Skype

For Skype, I have downloaded the deb from https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/

 

Office 2010 – Photoshop CS2

A bit more complicated how to install Office 2010 and Photoshop… but not too much 🙂
Just follow these instructions.

Firstly, we need to enable i386 architecture

Then, add WineHQ repositories and install the latest stable version:

Install some extra packages, including winbind and the utility winetricks and create some symlinks

NOTE: very importante the package winbind. Don’t miss this or Office won’t install.

Create the environment (assuming your user is called user)

Install some required packages, using winetricks

After that, let’s make some changes to Wine conf.

As described to this post, add riched20 and gdiplus libraries (snipped below):

Click the Libraries tab. Currently, there will be only a single entry for *msxml6 (native,built-in).
Now click in the ‘New override for library’ combo box and type ‘rich’. Click the down-arrow. That should now display an item called riched20. Click [Add].
In the same override combo box, now type ‘gdip’. Click the down-arrow. You should now see an item called gdiplus. Click on it and then click [Add]

Now… let’s install!

This command is valid for both software: Office and Photoshop.

With this configuration, you should be able to complete the setup and see under “Others” menu (in Ubuntu MATE) the apps installed. Please note that you might need to reboot your box to see the app actually there.

During the Office setup, I choose the Custom setup, as I just wanted Word, Excel and Power Point. I selected “Run all from My Computer” to be sure there won’t be any extra to install while using the software, and after, I’ve de-selected/excluded what I didn’t want.

 

Once completed with the setup, if you don’t see the apps under “Others” menu, you can run them via command line (e.g. run Excel):

Office will ask to activate. I wasn’t able to activate it via Internet, so I have called the number found at this page.

The only issue I’ve experienced was that Word was showing “Configuring Office 2010…” and taking time to start. After that, I was getting a pop up asking to reboot. Saying “yes” was making all crashing. Saying “no” was allowing me to use Word with no issues.

I found this patch that worked perfectly:

Just do wine cmd  and paste the above command, or wine regedit and add manually the key.

Apart of this… all went smoothly. I have been able also to install the language packs, using the same procedure wine setup.exe  and I’m very happy now! 🙂

Have fun!

NFS – quick win

This is a very basic step-by-step guide to create a CentOS7 NFS server that shares a folder /nfsshare over 192.168.4.0/24 network. This share will be owned by apache and mountable on a CentOS web server.

Here the instructions how to create the server and how to setup the client.

NFS Server

Add this line in IPTABLES:

 

Run the following to create a share folder and setup NFS:

 

NFS Client

e.g. assuming that NFS server’s IP is 192.168.4.1

Add this line in IPTABLES:

Then, run this:

NOTE: we are hardly mapping the NFS server’s IP in /etc/hosts to make easier to recognise the mount (in case of multiple mounts).

If you are facing the issue where you mount /nfsshare and you see the owner of the files and folders showing as nobody:nobody, it could be related to rpcidmapd and DNS. To fix this, try to update /etc/hosts on the Client with <hostname>.nfsdomain.loc

 

Lsyncd – conf.d like setup on Ubuntu

On Ubuntu 14 (version 2.1.x)

Create configuration files

-> it should be /etc/lsyncd/lsyncd.conf.lua

Backup the original file and create a new conf file

 

Create the config file for 2 web nodes called w01 and w02.
These 2 nodes have the following IPs:
10.180.3.201 w01
10.180.3.322 w02

Now let’s create the exclusions file. This will be the list of paths that won’t be sync’d.

NOTE! For exclusions, please remember to put the relative path, NOT the full path. In this case, it excludes www.mytestsite.com/ from /var/www/vhosts

Set up a logrotate conf file

 

Troubleshoot

Test Lsyncd

 

Error log – inotify issue

ERROR: Terminating since out of inotify watches//Consider increasing /proc/sys/fs/inotify/max_user_watches

Temporary fix:

Permanent fix (ALSO write sysctl.conf):

Linux Firewall notes

IPTABLES GENERIC

 


UBUNTU – UFW

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UFW

 


CENTOS / RH – Firewalld

Saved rules in: /etc/sysconfig/iptables

 

PHPMyAdmin on Centos/Ubuntu

BASIC SETUP (Apache)

>> Set password authentication
/etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf (or apache.conf on Ubuntu)

<Directory /usr/share/phpMyAdmin/>
# <IfModule mod_authz_core.c>
# Apache 2.4
# <RequireAny>
# Require ip 127.0.0.1
# Require ip ::1
# </RequireAny>
# </IfModule>
# <IfModule !mod_authz_core.c>
# Apache 2.2
# Order Deny,Allow
# Deny from All
# Allow from 127.0.0.1
# Allow from ::1
# </IfModule>
AuthUserFile /etc/httpd/.htpasswdfile
AuthName Restricted
AuthType Basic
require valid-user

</Directory>

>> Generate random password
PASS=$(tr -cd ‘[:alnum:]’ < /dev/urandom | fold -w12 | head -n1)

>> Set password automatically
htpasswd -bmc /etc/httpd/.htpasswdfile phpadminuser $PASS

>> Set password manually
htpasswd -c /etc/httpd/.htpasswdfile phpadminuser
(FYI ‘phpadminuser’ it’s the username)
>> To ADD users, just remove the -c flag

=====================================================================
Troubleshooting

curl -I http://<URL>/phpmyadmin/ –basic –user <username>:<password>

Example: (with error)
# curl -I http://<SERVERIP>/phpmyadmin/ –basic –user serverinfo:mxuYr35TTD5rgT3SR9ND
HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 13:14:44 GMT
Server: Apache
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

UBUNTU
>> Install the package
# apt-get update && apt-get -y install phpmyadmin

# ln -s /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf phpmyadmin.conf
# a2enconf phpmyadmin

>> Open firewall
ufw allow 80

>> When/if it asks the following:
> Please choose the web server that should be automatically configured to run phpMyAdmin => select apache2
> Configure database for phpmyadmin with dbconfig-common? => NO!!!

>> Enable mcrypt
php5enmod mcrypt
service apache2 graceful

>> Create phpmyadmin database and pmaadmin user
cd /usr/share/doc/phpmyadmin/examples
gunzip create_tables.sql.gz
mysql < create_tables.sql
mysql -e “GRANT SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE ON phpmyadmin.* TO ‘pmaadmin’@’%’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘<PASSWORD>'”

>> Configuration file for phpmyadmin /etc/dbconfig-common/phpmyadmin.conf

mv /etc/dbconfig-common/phpmyadmin.conf{,.orig} ; vim /etc/dbconfig-common/phpmyadmin.conf

dbc_install=’false’
dbc_upgrade=’true’
dbc_remove=”
dbc_dbtype=’mysql’
dbc_dbuser=’pmaadmin’
dbc_dbpass='<PASSWORD>’
dbc_dbserver='<CLOUD_DB_HOST>’
dbc_dbport=”
dbc_dbname=’phpmyadmin’
dbc_dbadmin=’pmaadmin’
dbc_basepath=”
dbc_ssl=”
dbc_authmethod_admin=”
dbc_authmethod_user=”

>> Apply configuration
/usr/sbin/dbconfig-generate-include/etc/dbconfig-common/phpmyadmin.conf -f php > /etc/phpmyadmin/config-db.php

>> Disable MySQL different library warning
echo “\$cfg[‘ServerLibraryDifference_DisableWarning’] = true;” >> /etc/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php

>> Fix DB table references
sed -i.orig ‘s/pma_/pma__/g’ /etc/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php

>> Secure the main page (this should be under SSL)
htpasswd -c /etc/phpmyadmin/htpasswd.setup phpadminuser

ADD this into Directory for /usr/share/phpmyadmin

<IfModule mod_authn_file.c>
AuthType Basic
AuthName “phpMyAdmin Setup”
AuthUserFile /etc/phpmyadmin/htpasswd.setup
</IfModule>
Require valid-user
————————————————————–
-> Example:
<Directory /usr/share/phpmyadmin>
Options FollowSymLinks
DirectoryIndex index.php

<IfModule mod_php5.c>
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off
php_flag track_vars On
php_flag register_globals Off
php_admin_flag allow_url_fopen Off
php_value include_path .
php_admin_value upload_tmp_dir /var/lib/phpmyadmin/tmp
php_admin_value open_basedir /usr/share/phpmyadmin/:/etc/phpmyadmin/:/var/lib/phpmyadmin/:/usr/share/php/php-gettext/:/usr/share/javascript/
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_authn_file.c>
AuthType Basic
AuthName “phpMyAdmin Setup”
AuthUserFile /etc/phpmyadmin/htpasswd.setup
</IfModule>
Require valid-user

</Directory>
————————————————————–

====================================================================

Multiple DBs (Ubuntu) => /etc/phpmyadmin/config-db.php

/* Servers configuration */
$i = 0;

/* Server: db01 [1] */
$i++;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘verbose’] = ‘db01’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘host’] = ‘<DB_IP/FQDN>’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘port’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘socket’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘connect_type’] = ‘tcp’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘extension’] = ‘mysqli’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘auth_type’] = ‘cookie’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘user’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘password’] = ”;

/* Server: db02 [2] */
$i++;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘verbose’] = ‘db02’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘host’] = ‘<DB_IP/FQDN>’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘port’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘socket’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘connect_type’] = ‘tcp’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘extension’] = ‘mysqli’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘auth_type’] = ‘cookie’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘user’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘password’] = ”;

====================================================================
PHP-FPM (Ubuntu):

vim /etc/apache2/conf-enabled/phpmyadmin.conf

ProxyPassMatch ^/phpmyadmin/(.*\.php(/.*)?)$ fcgi://127.0.0.1:9001/usr/share/phpmyadmin/$1
ProxyPassMatch ^/phpmyadmin/(.*\.php(/.*)?)$ fcgi://127.0.0.1:9001/usr/share/phpmyadmin$1index.php

Multiple DBs (Ubuntu) /etc/phpmyadmin/config-db.php
/* Servers configuration */
$i = 0;

/* Server: db01 [1] */
$i++;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘verbose’] = ‘db01’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘host’] = ‘<DB_IP/FQDN>’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘port’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘socket’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘connect_type’] = ‘tcp’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘extension’] = ‘mysqli’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘auth_type’] = ‘cookie’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘user’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘password’] = ”;

/* Server: db02 [2] */
$i++;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘verbose’] = ‘db02’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘host’] = ‘<DB_IP/FQDN>’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘port’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘socket’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘connect_type’] = ‘tcp’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘extension’] = ‘mysqli’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘auth_type’] = ‘cookie’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘user’] = ”;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘password’] = ”;

=====================================================================
Error: The mcrypt extension is missing. Please check your PHP configuration.

php5enmod mcrypt

sudo updatedb
locate mcrypt.ini

>> Verify that new files exists here (they should be auto created from the issue above)

ls -al /etc/php5/cli/conf.d/20-mcrypt.ini
ls -al /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-mcrypt.ini

>> Otherwise… create symbol links now

ln -s /etc/php5/mods-available/mcrypt.ini/etc/php5/cli/conf.d/20-mcrypt.ini
ln -s /etc/php5/mods-available/mcrypt.ini/etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/20-mcrypt.ini

>> Restart Apacahe

service apache2 restart

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

CENTOS

>>Install right RH repositories (if not present):
yum install epel-release
yum install httpd php php-mycrypt phpmyadmin

> Centos 5/6
chkconfig httpd on
service httpd start
-> open port 80 in /etc/sysconfig/iptables

> Centos 7
systemctl enable httpd.service
systemctl start httpd.service

firewall-cmd –add-service http –permanent
firewall-cmd –list-services
firewall-cmd –permanent –zone=public –add-service=http
firewall-cmd –reload

cd /usr/share/doc/phpMyAdmin-4.0.10.9/examples/
mysql < create_tables.sql

mysql -e “GRANT SELECT, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE ON phpmyadmin.* TO ‘pmaadmin’@’%’ IDENTIFIED BY ‘<PASSWORD>'”

cp config.sample.inc.php /etc/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php

>> Change these accordingly
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘host’] = ‘<DB_IP/FQDN>’;
/* User used to manipulate with storage */
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘controlhost’] = ‘<DB_IP/FQDN>’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘controluser’] = ‘pmaadmin’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘controlpass’] = ‘<PASSWORD>’;

/* Storage database and tables */
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘pmadb’] = ‘phpmyadmin’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘bookmarktable’] = ‘pma__bookmark’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘relation’] = ‘pma__relation’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘table_info’] = ‘pma__table_info’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘table_coords’] = ‘pma__table_coords’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘pdf_pages’] = ‘pma__pdf_pages’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘column_info’] = ‘pma__column_info’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘history’] = ‘pma__history’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘table_uiprefs’] = ‘pma__table_uiprefs’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘tracking’] = ‘pma__tracking’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘designer_coords’] = ‘pma__designer_coords’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘userconfig’] = ‘pma__userconfig’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘recent’] = ‘pma__recent’;

>> Add these two lines at the bottom of /etc/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php to disable the remaining 2 warnings

>> MySQL different library warning
$cfg[‘ServerLibraryDifference_DisableWarning’] = true;

>> A newer version of phpMyAdmin is available and you should consider upgrading
$cfg[‘VersionCheck’] = false;

=====================================================================
Multiple DBs (Centos) =>/etc/phpMyAdmin/config.inc.php
(example of 2 servers – comment out the below lines)

// Server db01
$i++;
/* Authentication type */
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘auth_type’] = ‘cookie’;
/* Server parameters */
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘host’] = ‘<DB_IP/FQDN>’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘connect_type’] = ‘tcp’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘compress’] = false;

// Server db02
$i++;
/* Authentication type */
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘auth_type’] = ‘cookie’;
/* Server parameters */
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘host’] = ‘<DB_IP/FQDN>’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘connect_type’] = ‘tcp’;
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘compress’] = false;

#$i++;
#$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘host’] = ‘localhost’; // MySQL hostname or IP address
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘port’] = ”; // MySQL port – leave blank for default port
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘socket’] = ”; // Path to the socket – leave blank for default socket

#$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘connect_type’] = ‘tcp’; // How to connect to MySQL server (‘tcp’ or ‘socket’)
$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘extension’] = ‘mysqli’; // The php MySQL extension to use (‘mysql’ or ‘mysqli’)
#$cfg[‘Servers’][$i][‘compress’] = FALSE; // Use compressed protocol for the MySQL connection
// (requires PHP >= 4.3.0)

 


If you’d like to install this from source, use this link.

Ubuntu 16.04 GUI remote login

This a script that setup your ubuntu machine with GUI to share the main login screen (like a Windows RDP connection), using x11vnc software.

It installs x11vnc, create a startup service, enable it and reboot the box for you.

Source: http://c-nergy.be/blog/?p=8984

Improve/Ubuntu-like Font Rendering in Debian using Infinality Font

Source: http://linuxpanda.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/improve-ubuntu-like-font-rendering-in-debian-using-infinality-font/