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Deleting \t\t\t\t folder left after a compromise

I'm not sure if was related to a hacking attempt. I came across a folder in the root directory / that I could not open or delete, with just tabs for the name which even the `find -inum` command was transparent to.

I did finally get rid of it by using zsh for shell and tabbing through all the files in the root directory.

Howto Upgrade Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) to Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

The Ubuntu team is excited to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software that the open source and free software communities have to offer. This is Ubuntu 7.10, which brings a host of excellent new features.This tutorial explains how to upgrade ubuntu feisty to ubuntu gutsy including step by step procedure and screenshots.

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STARTTLS: CRLFile missing (RESOLVED)

When starting sendmail, I would get the below messgage:

Oct 18 23:59:01 srv02 sendmail[20857]: alias database /etc/aliases rebuilt by root
Oct 18 23:59:01 srv02 sendmail[20857]: /etc/aliases: 79 aliases, longest 22 bytes, 860 bytes total
Oct 18 23:59:01 srv02 sendmail[20862]: starting daemon (8.13.1): SMTP+queueing@01:00:00
Oct 18 23:59:01 srv02 sendmail[20862]: STARTTLS: CRLFile missing
Oct 18 23:59:01 srv02 sendmail[20862]: STARTTLS=server, Diffie-Hellman init, key=512 bit (1)
Oct 18 23:59:01 srv02 sendmail[20862]: STARTTLS=server, init=1
Oct 18 23:59:01 srv02 sendmail[20862]: started as: /usr/sbin/sendmail -bd -q1h
Oct 18 23:59:01 srv02 sm-msp-queue[20872]: starting daemon (8.13.1): queueing@01:00:00

Although, sendmail would still run without the CRL File and just complain about it missing. A quick way to include it in the sendmail configuration is to download revoke.crl from cacert.org, add the below option in sendmail.mc and rebuild the sendmail conf file as below.

Download revoke.crl:

# cd /usr/share/ssl/certs
# wget http://www.cacert.org/revoke.crl

Add the below line to "/etc/mail/sendmail.mc" just below the "confSERVER_KEY":

define(`confCRL', `/usr/share/ssl/certs/revoke.crl')

Rebuild sendmail conf by running make:

# cd /etc/mail
# make

Check sendmail.cf with the revoke.crl listed as below:

O CRLFile=/usr/share/ssl/certs/revoke.crl

Now restarting sendmail should not complain about the missing Certificate Revocation List (CRL) File.

How to Install Compiz in Debian

Compiz is a compositing window manager that uses 3D graphics acceleration via OpenGL. It provides various new graphical effects and features on any desktop environment, including Gnome and KDE.

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Howto Install Freecom Musicpal in Ubuntu Feisty

Freecom just brought a brand new product to the Dutch market called the “Musicpal“. On the box it says it’s supported for Windows and Mac, although its software is based on Linux Kernel. Stubborn and Windows/Mac hater as I am, I decided to buy this nice product convinced of managing to make it work somehow in Ubuntu (Linux geek as I am!). Two days later I managed to make it work! Still not perfect, but enough not to bring my Musicpal back to the store. Therefor I thought it would be nice to write the beginning of a good tutorial.

How to setup file-sharings/FTP for machines by newbie in 5 minutes

Lacking of good GUI tool, it is often a headache for newbies to setup the FTP service to transfer files among windows/linux/mac machines. Here we introduce a new powerful GUI server/client tool for you to easily solve this problem. You can use it on Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X, the same approach.

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Convert root filesystem to LVM

I converted root filesystem to lvm since the root partition was huge and I needed more flexibility in managing the partitions. Besides, lvm would also enable for easy backups with lvm snapshots.

I had a sizable swap partition of 2GB which I used to transfer my root files to and rebooted to it, prior to the conversion.

Please know what you are doing prior and make sure to create backups.

How to create a transparent terminal session as your desktop background

This technique - utilizing devilspie - will create a transparent terminal session on your desktop that will remain for the duration of your login (unless you exit the terminal session for some reason) This particular how-to addresses Ubuntu specifically, but I’ve done this successfully in 3 or 4 distributions.

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NTP Server and Client Configuration in debian

The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a protocol for synchronizing the clocks of computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks. NTP uses UDP port 123 as its transport layer. It is designed particularly to resist the effects of variable latency (Jitter).

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Piping all mail to file in plesk 8.2

  1. Edit "/var/qmail/mailnames/{domain.tld}/.qmail-default"
  2. Remove any lines in the file and add the pipe to file:
    | /var/www/vhosts/{domain.tld}/file.php
  3. Change the file permission to be executable and owned by the correct user/group of the site, specially if you are executing under safe_mode.
    $ chmod 755 /var/www/vhosts/{domain.tld}/file.php
  4. Check to make sure that "/var/qmail/control/rejectnonexist" does not have the corresponding domain listed there.
  5. Restart qmail.
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