Using this, you can set up your linux pc as a home gateway for all the other systems. For instructions on how to do this, you may refer the below links:
Iptables Tutorial (look at the the Example Scripts)
Using Linux iptables or ipchains to set up an internet gateway / firewall / routerfor home or office.
Setting up a Linux Home Gateway
Please note to disable any other firewall services (such as Guarddog) if you are using your own custom rules or else the firewall will not work as expected.
SSL/TLS enables you to communicate securely with your server. Most of the major protocols such as http, smtp, pop3, imap can use SSL/TLS. While TLS can be used over the same port, SSL has to be run on a different port such as https, smtps, pop3s, imaps. SSL has been superseded by TLS. You can find more information about SSL/TLS on Wikipedia.
StartCom Free SSL Certification Authority and CAcert.org are two CAs which issue free certificates.
Dynamic DNS enables mapping of a dynamic IP to a fixed domain name. This is especially useful if you connect using ADSL services such as those of Tata Indicom, Airtel or BSNL as they provide a dynamic public IP every time you connect to the Internet. A public IP is a IP to identify the machine in the Internet (in contrast to private IP which is limited to intranets). Again both public IP and private IP can each be either static or dynamic.
While having a static public IP makes it easy to access your server on the Internet, static public IPs are costly. But using dynamic dns service, we can map a fixed domain name to a dynamic IP thereby making the server accessible just as in the previous case. Some of the services which offer free dynamic dns support are:
While the first two services DynDns and No-IP are more popular, please note that the free version of their services enables mapping of only certain fixed sub-domains. If you want to map your own custom domain to a dynamic IP, then you shall have to purchase their premium service.
But the last service zoneedit offers even this custom domain name mapping for free. It also has a very extensive DNS records management tool. The only limit is the maximum number of free zones you can add to their system is limited to five (even if you add and delete one zone you lose one credit and are only left with the ability to add four more zones). But for individuals and SOHO, this should be more than enough.
Here is a quick review of The Gnome Time Tracker. Time tracking software is used to keep track of the time spent on various activities. This is especially a boon for freelancers who want to track the amount of time they spend on individual projects.
While there might be other Time Trackers in linux, what especially made me like this software is its simple user interface and editing functionality. You can start and stop timers for your tasks. And if you had forgotten to start/stop the timer, you can later modify the times as well.
One small feature which I have simple come to love in GnoTIme is its ability to stop the timer automatically when there has been no mouse/keyboard activity for a certain duration. And later it prompts the user whether to restart the timer and what to do with the inactivity time period.
Be sure to check out GnoTime (if you use Linux) or other Time Tracking software (there will be many free ones in windows as well) if you want to efficiently track how your time is spent in front of the comp.
A review of GnoTime can be found here.
No idea who the author is but this one is really funny!
This is a straight forward step-by-step tutorial to set up Apache2 to server java content (jsp and servlets) through tomcat web server using mod_jk.
Install apache2 along with dependencies.
# apt-get install apache2
Install tomcat5 along with dependencies.
# apt-get install tomcat5
Modify /etc/default/tomcat5 to set the correct path to JAVA_HOME directory (jdk needs to be installed and setup prior to installing tomcat). Then restart tomcat.
# /etc/init.d/tomcat5 restart
The tomcat5 webserver runs on port 8180 by default in Mepis / Ubuntu.
Install the mod_jk connector and restart apache2 to load the module.
# apt-get install libapache2-mod-jk
# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
The beauty of installing the distribution specific libapache2-mod-jk package is that it comes pre-configured with all the necessary files and options for using the connector out-of-the-box.
Next you need to edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and add the following lines: .
##### Begin Tomcat connector configuration #####
# Where to find workers.properties
JkWorkersFile /etc/libapache2-mod-jk/workers.properties
# Where to put jk logs
JkLogFile /var/log/apache2/mod_jk.log
# Set the jk log level [debug/error/info]
JkLogLevel info
# Select the log format
JkLogStampFormat “[%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Y] ”
# JkOptions indicate to send SSL KEY SIZE,
JkOptions +ForwardKeySize +ForwardURICompat -ForwardDirectories
# JkRequestLogFormat set the request format
JkRequestLogFormat “%w %V %T”
##### End Tomcat connector configuration #####
Now you have to add directives in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf or in the virtual host (
To send all jsp requests to tomcat, add the line:
JkMount /* ajp13_worker
To send servlet for context /jsp-examples:
JkMount /jsp-examples ajp13_worker
To send JSPs for context /jsp-examples/*:
JkMount /jsp-examples/* ajp13_worker
To send all but /cgi-bin/ requests to tomcat, add:
JkMount /* ajp13_worker
JkUnMount /cgi-bin/* ajp13_worker
This article mainly covers the installation of Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper (both Desktop Edition and Server Edition) on an Intel DG965RY motherboard. Anyone of you who have purchased this motherboard must have realized that most of the linux distributions fail to boot from the IDE CD-ROM. The reason for this being DG965RY uses Marvell PATA controller and this is not supported by anything but the bleeding edge kernels. So though the CD maybe booted initially, at the point where the kernel has to fetch the files from the CD-ROM the installation fails. The few linux distributions which seem to be working with this are Open Suse 10.2 and Ubuntu Fiesty 7.04 (as these seem to support the Marvell PATA controller).
There were various methods I tried to install Ubuntu Dapper. I shall cover these methods below:
Requirments
Intel DG965RY motheboard (or any board based on the Marvell PATA controller) + Processor
SATA Hard Drive
1 GB USB Disk and/or Network Card (depending upon the installation method)
IDE CD-ROM (only for third installation method)
Network Installation
Oh yeah, this seems to be the most obvious choice if you have a PC running linux other than the one you are about to install on. Let us call the PC with DG965RY motherboard on which Ubuntu is to be installed “PC-I” and the second PC which acts as a server and holds the Ubuntu packages “PC-S” (IP: 192.168.2.1).
For this installation, it is necessary that you have an extra network card as the onboard network interface is not recogniszed by the dapper kernel. So have the network card fixed to your PC before you start installation.
Setting up server (PC-S) for serving install files
If you have the ubuntu server edition CD, then you can mount it as below.
# mount /dev/cdrom /var/www/ubuntu/
Starting Installation via PXE
As per the instructions, we need to have a DHCP and TFTP server running. The DHCP server assings and IP and netmask to PC-I and also mentions the intitial file to be fetched from the TFTP server. The TFTP server provides the kernel for booting linux.
Setting up TFTP server:
Setting up DCHP server:
ping-check = 1;
subnet 192.168.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 {
range 192.168.2.11 192.168.2.254;
server-name “192.168.2.1”;
next-server 192.168.2.1;
filename = “pxelinux.0”;
}
Note: If you plan to do installation over internet, you will also have to add the default gateway and name servers.
Launching installation:
Starting Installation via USB disk
We are assuming that /dev/sda refers to the USB drive. It might differ.
Continuing Installation
boot: expert pci=nommconf
Notes
Related Links
Hacking the Ubuntu Installation: Kicking Off the Network Install with a USB Drive
Ubuntu Network Install
PXE Network Booting on Ubuntu Linux
Halis Way: Ubuntu dapper PXE network install
Installation from LocalNet
Install Ubuntu without CD-ROM
Ubuntu PXE Install
Linux on DG965RY HOWTO
USB Installation
Installation via USB Disk shall be useful if you want to install the Desktop Edition. Below are the steps to perform this.
Move the kernel files and memory tester
# mv /mnt/usb/casper/vmlinuz /mnt/usb/vmlinuz
# mv /mnt/usb/casper/initrd.gz /mnt/usb/initrd.gz
# mv /mnt/usb/install/mt86plus /mnt/usb/mt86plus
Move boot files to top of the drive
# mv /mnt/usb/isolinux/* /mnt/usb/
# mv /mnt/usb/isolinux.cfg /mnt/usb/syslinux.cfg
# rm /mnt/usb/isolinux.bin
Optionalally, you may delete Windows tools and ISO files to free space
# rm -rf /mnt/usb/start.* /mnt/usb/autorun.inf
# rm -rf /mnt/usb/bin /mnt/usb/programs
# rm -rf /mnt/usb/isolinux
All done
# sync
By making minor changes to the above procedure it should be possible to boot Ubuntu Server Edition from USB as well.
Notes
Related Links
Hacking the Ubuntu Installation: Installating a Full File System
Installation from USB Stick
Installation using USB-Disk and CD-ROM
This is another interesting way of installing Ubuntu Server Edition. The idea behind this is to start the boot using the CD-ROM but the installation files are provided by the USB disk. Below are the steps to perform this.
If you have the Server Edition CD, you can run the below command:
# dcfldd conv=noerror statusinterval=10 if=/dev/cdrom of=/dev/sda bs=1M
# sync
# mkdir -p /dev/cdroms
# cd /dev/cdroms
# ln -s ../sdb cdrom0
This will add a new cd-rom device. The installation should continue from here.
Related Links
Installing ubuntu on dg965ry motherboard
Other References
Ubuntu Various Installation Methods
Core 2 Duo Support and Work-Arounds
Related Information
Partimage
Partimage is an excellent tool for taking backup of any partition. But please note that when you restore, the partition size should be the same as the original partition size. If it is less, the restore will not take place and if it is more the extra space will be wasted. Also the partition should not be mounted if you are taking a backup. As of version 0.6.0, partitions can be saved across the network.
Dump/Restore Utilities
Dump/Restore Utilities overcome some of the limitations of partimage but it can be used only on ext2 filesystem.
Dump examines files in a filesystem, determines which ones need to be backed up, and copies those files to a specified disk, tape or other storage medium. Subsequent incremental backups can then be layered on top of the full backup.
The restore command performs the inverse function of dump; it can restore a full backup of a filesystem. Single files and directory subtrees may also be restored from full or partial backups in interractive mode.
For dumping a full partition, run:
# dump -0vz -f /mnt/hda4/impdata.gz /dev/hda7
For restoring the dumped file of a full partition, format the destination partition, mount it, enter the mount directory and run:
# restore rf /mnt/hda4/impdata.gz
For more info on how to use dump/restore, refer Backup with dump and restore on Linux mini-HOWTO
Entire hard disk backup using g4u
g4u is an excellent tool for taking backup of the entire hard disk. I had used it once which I have documented here.
XawTV and TVtime
“xawtv” comes as the default tv watching program for Mepis. “xawtv” also features recording ability but I think a lot of work has to be done on this feature.
But when it comes to quality and full-screen mode “tvtime” rules. TVtime is installable via apt. The Indian cable settings are:
Default Television Standard: PAL
Default Frequency Table : Europe
Default Audio Standard : PAL-BG
Other TV viewing software
There are other software such as mythtv, freevo, mplayer, mencoder, kplayer, etc. available for watching TV. But I had problems in configuring most of them. MythTV is an excellent TV viewing application but i think it relies on some xmltv listings which is not available for India and hence I believe this application cannot be used here.
Remote control
Remote control support is provided in linux using LIRC. lirc can be installed via apt.
Notes:
Software tried and failed for Recording
– Freevo (depends on xmltv listings)
– MythTV (depends on xmltv listings)
– vdr (needs a specific DVB card)
– dvr (gave some error when executed)
– vcr
– streamer
I am still looking for some TV capture software in linux. If anyone of you comes across such a software, kindly let me know.
Recording using ffmpeg
Upon looking for a way to capture from TV Tuner card, I posed the problem to one of my college mates Anurag Singh. He suggested the below method. Though I have not tried it out, you can give it a try if interested.
Hi sir,
Ofcourse I remember you. How are you? Ok, I’ll tell you in detail about the
whole thing.
We’ve set up two frameworks for recording. The first one is for
news.iiit.ac.in. In this one, we decided a static list of channels for
various 30 min time slots for the whole day. We wrote some shell scripts
which execute periodically using cron and they record the required channel as
one video each. For this, we had to find out the frequency of the required
channel to be recorded. We used xawtv to tune the channels. Its done like
this.
We open xawtv. We press up and down arrow keys to change channel. Say for
example we somehow reached ‘ZEE TV’. Now, if you want to note the frequency,
right click on the xawtv window and select ‘Channel editor’. You can then see
the channel frequency. Generally it will be a number from 1 to 25… or S01
S02 or SE1 SE2 or E1 E2, etc kind of a string. Also just before you do all
this, you need to select the ‘frequency type’ …. which can be selected from
xawtv. For all channels in India, we need to select ‘europe-west’.
Anyways, for all these tuning purposes also, we’ve written shell scripts,
which can be used to create frequencies of all channels with human assistance
though.
Another part of the whole framework is tv.iiit.ac.in. This part was done to
get IIIT a supply of videos on demand. It uses a php portal and a mysql
database. It takes votes of people all 24 hours and finally records the
channel which was voted the most. It also uses cron for the whole thing. Here
also we needed to manually tune the channels which were available as choices
to be recorded. These tuned frequencies keep changing when the cable operator
switches then, so we need to keep monitoring the correspondence of channel
name and frequency from time to time.
Anyways, here are a few commands of help.
v4lctl setchannel S01
This command makes the hardware start receiving the channel at frequency S01.
If you do ‘xawtv’ just after this, the first channel to be shown will be the
one at S01.
v4lctl setfreq 69250
This command has the same effect as the previous one. This basically sets the
frequency based on the value instead of the tag name. You can find the values
and tag name mappings in /usr/share/xawtv. The europe-list file, along with
what it includes, is of interest.
ffmpeg -tvstd pal -vd /dev/video0 -deinterlace -ad /dev/dsp1 -minrate
1000 -maxrate 1000 -b 1000 -bufsize 3000 -aspect 4:3 -s 640×480 -y -t 40
something.avi
This command can be used to record the telecast into a file ‘something.avi’.
The option -t specifies number of seconds to record (40). -aspect specifies
aspect ratio, -s specifies resolution, -y specifies allow overwriting the
file if it exists. -vd option is used to select the video device
(video0), -ad for audio device. The deinterlace option is to deinterlace the
video as the input will generally be even and odd rows of video in alternate
frames. The -b, -minrate, -maxrate, -bufsize options specify the bitrate of
recording. -tvstd option is generally optional.
Other interesting options for ffmpeg are
-qscale <num>
The num can vary between 1 to 35 and can be used in place
of -b, -minrate, -maxrate, -bufsize options. 1 refers to best possible
quality and 35 to the lowest quality.
-sameq
This options asks the encoder to use the same quality as source.
We’ve tried all these options… and for good enough recording.. the above
given ffmpeg command works well.
The current news.iiit.ac.in is fully working.. and I can give you all the
scripts to use it. But I think static recording wont be of much use to you.
The tv.iiit.ac.in portal last worked in April. We’ve stopped working on it
since then, but seems after a few tweaks it can function as well. But I
guess, using cron, v4lctl, xawtv and ffmpeg, it’d be a matter of 20 mins for
you to set up your own recording system, rather than debugging that whole
portal. I’ll happily send it to you if needed.
And do write back if you have more queries (which I am sure you’ll have as I
am not very good at explaining :D).
Regards,
Anurag.
शुक्रवार 01 सितम्बर 2006 22:09 को, आपने लिखा था:
> > Hi Anurag,
> > I hope you remember me. I am Rahul from the 2k batch. I needed a small
> > piece of information. I have a Pinnacle PCTV Plus TV Tuner Card. I have
> > tried umpteen number of times to set up PVR in linux for this card. But
> > failed everytime. I tried Mythtv, Freevo, Xawtv, VDR, DVR, etc. but all
> > in vain. Most of them require some XML listings while in some of them
> > recording quality is very bad and some of them don’t even work. What I
> > have heard is that a video recording solution has been set up in IIIT
> > and you are part of the team. It would be very helpful if you can answer
> > my below two queries:
> >
> > – Are there are any tools which are tried and tested by you using which
> > I can record TV shows?
> > – Can I use the software developed at IIIT for recording i.e. is it free
> > and and in a usable state?
> >
> > Hoping everything is going fine on your end. Looking forward to a
> > response …
> >
> > Regards,
> > Rahul.
> >
> > P.S.: I am able to view TV using tvtime. So getting the card to be
> > recognised and loading the appropriate drivers for it is not an issue.
Mail Clients
Thunderbird and KMail are two excellent mail clients for linux users. I tried Evolution (it seems to be very popular) but it kept crashing and hence I had to stop using it.
KMail was excellent except for two problems – i. the composer does not wrap text automatically and ii. Support for IMAP folders is not very extensive.
Thunderbird provided me almost all the features of KMail except for a missing system tray icon which I was easily able to add using the alltray package (installable via apt). Hence I decided to use Thunderbird as I use an IMAP mail as well along with POP3.
Accessing Yahoo Mail Using POP3
YPOPs! is an application which emulates a POP3/SMTP mail server and provides free POP3 and SMTP access to Yahoo! Mail.
You need to download the source from the site, compile it and install it. Also YPOPs! source requires the mimepp library version 1.3.3.
Assuming that you have set POP3 port to “11111” and SMTP port to “25251”, the below settings should work for KMail while creating a POP3 account for yahoo.
POP3 – 127.0.0.1/11111, username: amaramrahul, Mail Encryption – None, Password Auth – Clear Text
Accessing Hotmail using POP3
Hotwayd is a utility which functions similar to YPOPs! and offers POP3 and SMTP access to Hotmail. Luckily hotwayd and hotsmtpd is available via apt. The below steps should be followed for accessing Hotmail via POP3.
Accessing GMail using POP3
Use the below settings in KMail to access Gmail via smtp.
POP3 – pop.gmail.com/995, username: amaramrahul, Mail Encryption – SSL, Password Auth – Clear Text
SMTP – smtp.gmail.com/25, username: amaramrahul, Mail Encryption – TLS, Password Auth – Plain
Other utilites which provide similar functionality
FetchYahoo is a perl script that downloads mail from a Yahoo! account to a local mail spool. It is meant to replace fetchmail for people using Yahoo! mail since Yahoo!’s POP service no longer free. It downloads messages to a local mail spool, including all parts and attachments. It then deletes messages unless requested not to. It can also optionally forward messages to a specified e-mail address and repeat with a given interval.
Gotmail is a perl script to download mail from hotmail.com without user interaction. It is probably best run from a cron job.
Getmail is a mail retriever designed to allow you to get your mail from one or more mail accounts on various mail servers to your local machine for reading with a minimum of fuss. getmail is designed to be secure, flexible, reliable, and easy-to-use. getmail is designed to replace other mail retrievers such as fetchmail. To see a sample configuration file for fetching gmail mails, click here.
MrPostman is a java program that allows you to access Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and other webmail services directly from your favorite mail client. It converts the web pages of your favorite webmail provider to e-mails and provides the standard POP interface to your mail client. Currently supported webmail providers:
* Hotmail
* mail.com
* Yahoo
* gmail (Google mail)
* indiatimes.com
* juno
* rediffmail
* Gossamer mail
* Outlook Web Access (Exchange 5.5)
* Outlook Web Access 2003
While it might be obvious that FetchYahoo and Gotmail are not POP3 servers, MrPostman is clearly a replacment for YPOPs! and Hotwayd. But why I did not choose it is because YPOPs! and Hotwayd work much better than MrPostman. Nevertheless it deserves a special mention here for the high number of providers to which it provides POP3 access.