stressfree - suse

The case for splitting Novell

David — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:56:55 +0000

Phil Windley in a recent Between the Lines posting entitled 'Split Novell?' mused that Novell's relatively poor identity management business performance (in comparison to the industry in general) was perhaps a result of poor strategic synergy between their operating system (Suse) and IDM product lines. Not being a financial follower of the IDM market I cannot say for certain whether he is right or wrong, but I do agree with his basic assertion that Novell should be split in two. For a while now I have felt that their emphasis on Suse Linux is to the detriment of their excellent product offerings in the identity and network services markets such as eDirectory/iManager, IDM, iFolder and ZenWorks.

Commoditising the operating system

The success of Novell during the 80's and early 90's was due in no small part to their tried and tested Netware operating system. Unfortunately the operating system market has changed, Windows has matured and Linux has gained a strong foothold as a ubiquitous, free platform for reliably hosting network services. With the gradual demise of Netware, Novell had an opportunity to step out of the low-level operating system market and focus on the aspects of their business that where going strong. In this process they could have left the grunt work of maintaining the base operating system to partners such as Red Hat, Suse and even Microsoft. This would have provided a clean and relatively open migration path for existing Netware customers who are committed to a Novell infrastructure (i.e. eDirectory/Groupwise/Zenworks) and for the most part ignore the underlying operating system so long as it was stable and supported by a reputable party.

Instead of adopting a lightweight approach Novell opted to maintain their tried and true business model through the purchase Suse Linux as a straight replacement for Netware in their product arsenal. This meant that instead of placing development emphasis on getting their network and identity products seamlessly working on a range of partner operating systems attention was focused on fusing Novell's existing identity and network services into Suse Linux. The culmination of these efforts has resulted in Open Enterprise Server (OES), an excellent Netware 6.5 replacement that continues with the Novell tradition of marketing a tightly bound operating system/network services stack. Unfortunately this focus on a closed server/services model has been to the detriment of the network and identity services' deployment flexibility and marketing appeal as these valuable offerings must be coupled to and marketed alongside their related server products.

A fuzzy cross-platform commitment

Many of the identity and network services produced by Novell are technically cross-platform to one extent or another. Traditional products like eDirectory can run on just about any hardware/software combination whilst many of their other services run within inherently cross-platform run-time environments such as Java or Mono. Unfortunately the difference between technically cross-platform and a practical reality whilst relatively small is significant. In general the problems are in the details or related to how difficult a Novell service is to install, setup and maintain on a non-Novell system. However in extremes cases it can result in the service not working at all, for example even though the iFolder Server/Client is Mono-based (and technically Linux distribution agnostic) it doesn't yet compile or run correctly on significant distributions such as Debian/Ubuntu. Even though tailoring and packaging these services to run on non-Novell systems is not difficult, the fact of the matter is Novell views their services running on anything other than their operating system as second class citizens. Such capability is kept around for marketing purposes to say how it 'might' be done, but realistically what needs to happen is something significantly different and less flexible. If you doubt this try setting up a suite of basic Novell network services (eDirectory, iFolder and Groupwise) on a Red Hat server. Whilst it can be achieved it is overly time consuming and the result not nearly as seamless as a pure OES. At a system level very little is different between the two approaches but the significant different lies in the automated installation steps provided for the Novell operating system.

A separation of power

Another argument for the delineation of Novell between its services and operating system business would be in clearing up its relationship with open and closed source partners. Presently Novell occupy a difficult place as they attempt to straddle the closed and open source worlds with their closed identity and service products on one side and Suse on the other. Given this schizophrenia it is not unsurprising that many feel they are not doing a good job at managing either side of their businesses, especially when it comes to public relations and marketing. As a consequence of this difficult market position they are seemingly destined to loose no matter what; deals made with Microsoft are viewed in a poor light whilst at the same time future legal threats to Linux/open source cast a potentially menacing shadows over their core business. In contrast an identity and network services orientated Novell would be free to make deals with Microsoft and work with the popular Linux distributions simultaneously without publicly having to present a split personality. This would be a far more flexible position to be in than the place they are at the moment; sandwiched between the open source community and Microsoft, all the while being attacked and cheered by both sides.

Could Novell survive without an operating system?

The underlying logic that belies this hypothetical argument is that a software company focused on high-quality identity and network services can survive without the need for a dedicated and tightly controlled operating system platform. For 99.99% of the software companies around this logic holds true, so why this should not be the case for Novell is a matter of debate. On one hand is the argument that only a tightly integrated services/operating system stack will enable Novell to provide the level of support and stability business customers demand. However whilst there are some definite advantages to this model the majority of software vendors provide services just as reliable as Novell's without the need to control every facet of the operating environment. The tantalising fact is that the majority of Novell's own services are designed with this level of flexibility in mind, it is only the self-imposed ball and chain of their operating system commitment that keeps this from flourishing. Perhaps the greatest barrier to realising such a company is psychological rather than practical as two separate entities centered around identity/network services (Novell Services) and operating systems (Suse Linux) would individually be smaller than the current 5,000 employee company Novell is today.

A Novell unburdened by an operating system would be leaner and more dependent on operating system partners such as Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu and Microsoft to provide a full range of services. Whilst not as grand as their current strategy this focused approach would give the customer the ability to immediately deploy the Novell services they require on the platforms they trust. This at the end of the day should be the goal of an identity and network service-centric company rather than preserving server market share or establishing desktop domination.

suse
novell

Add the SLED 10 menu to OpenSUSE 10.1

David — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 08:38:00 +0000

Vichar Bhatt has pointed out it is possible to install the Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop start menu on OpenSUSE 10.1. Because the codebase is the same installation is straightforward, all that needs to be done is install the relevant rpm for x86 or x64 and then enable the menu applet within Gnome.

OpenSUSE 10.1 with the SLED 10 menu (click to enlarge)

The upshot of all this is you receive all the usability benefits of SLED without having to fork out any cash. It is a great tip and it really improves the OpenSUSE experience, especially now that they have released the remastered version of 10.1 which includes the working Zen update mechanism.

linux
suse

Automatic home directory creation when using LDAP

David — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 04:31:08 +0000

Centralised authentication in the form of LDAP (or similar) is very useful but Linux assumes a valid user has a directory in /home. By default Suse does not create a home directory for a user who has authenticated via an external source which is a real problem if they want to run many programs.

One way to get around this is to mount the home directory on an external server which contains the home directories but this can be difficult and a drain on network bandwidth. An easier way to solve the problem is to tell PAM (the Linux authentication manager) to create the directory on login. To do so on Suse edit the /etc/pam.d/common-session file and add the following:

session required pam_mkhomedir.so skel=/etc/skel/ umask=0077

This command instructs PAM to create the home directory is it does not exist using the template found at /etc/skel. The umask setting ensures that no other users can read or access a user's personal files.

linux
suse

Changing Ethernet device names in Suse 10

David — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 19:23:03 +0000

Recently I put a second, faster network card in a server. On booting OpenSuse 10 assigned the new card the name eth2 and the existing, built-in Ethernet device eth0. A number of applications, for example Samba and dnsmasq, typically bind to an Ethernet name rather than a specific IP or MAC address. It is possible to change the individual configuration files for each of these services but this is a little ugly considering my goal was to install the new hardware and disable the existing device, leaving everything else untouched.

A tidier solution is to assign eth0 to the new card and eth1 to the older (unused) device. Figuring out how to do this is a little confusing, there is no Yast option to configure network names and manually editing /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth(mac address) provides no help either. Instead you must edit the file /etc/udev/rules.d/30-net_persistent_names.rules and change the device name associated to the relevant network MAC address. In a two card setup the file will look a little like this (each network device entry is on a single line):

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", SYSFS{address}=="MAC", IMPORT="/sbin/rename_netiface %k eth0"
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", SYSFS{address}=="MAC", IMPORT="/sbin/rename_netiface %k eth1"

Where SYSFS{address} is set to the MAC addresses of each ethernet device. Change this file so that the correct names are associated to the appropriate MAC devices and reboot. Afterwards you will find your network cards are named in the order that you desire and all the applications that refer to eth0 work as if nothing has changed. It is a simple change and something that really should figure as part of the advanced network device options in Yast.

Sharing disk partitions between Xen instances

David — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 11:20:48 +0000

Picture this, you have your Xen server and a couple of virtual instances configured and you are very happy. That is however until you want two or more of those instances to read or write files from the same disk partition. One way to get around this problem is to use a network file sharing protocol like NFS or CIFS and have one instance operate as a file server whilst the others connect as clients. Sure, a configuration like this works but it requires quite a bit of time to setup and more importantly it drains precious processor cycles as many extra, resource intensive processes must be run.

Steve Wray pointed out to me a clever way of achieving this task with kpartx. This tool works with LVM and creates pseudo logical volumes so that two Xen instances can mount the same piece of disk real-estate. Setting up your virtual file system with kpartx is a lot less work than configuring and testing a network file sharing system, plus it is less processor intensive as the network layer is not required (sharing occurs at the block level). There are a couple of useful howto's describing how to set kpartx up, the most useful one is on the Fedora Wiki whilst it is also mentioned on XenSource's own Wiki.

I personally cannot vouch for this approach but it seems very sensible and if stable would provide a far more efficient virtualised disk sharing platform than network based file-sharing. Hopefully it does prove to be stable and in the future gain support within Xen configuration tools like Novell's. And by the way, am I the only person who thinks it is stupid that Novell's Xen configuration tool can only be run from within an X-Windows session and does not have an ncurses-based equivalent for console users (arguably the majority for production servers)?

Enabling T3G on Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop

David — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 23:01:14 +0000

Mike Clements has been having some fun with Telecom's T3G mobile broadband service and getting it to work with Linux (namely Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop). He was using the Sierra Aircard 580 and information on how to get it working on Linux can be found on debiana.net.

For those who do not want spend time reading about the basics or learn by trial and error here is a step by step guide from Mike...

The Sierra Aircard 580 (used by Telecom NZ for T3G) is a PCMCIA card that is made up of a USB hub with multiple devices internally. The important device we want on the cards USB chain is the 3G modem, device ID 1199:0112.

Times change and I've been getting feed back of some people not having hotplug available so I've written a udev option. The udev option is is preferable in many ways.

To configure the card in udev do the following before plugging the card into the laptop

1. Open a terminal as super user (root)

2. Create a file named 10-local.rules in /etc/udev/rules.d/containing the following (append to it if it already exists):

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ENV{PRODUCT}=="1199/112/*", RUN+="/sbin/modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1199 product=0x0112"

Note: All of the above should be on one line.

Or for traditional hotplug do the following before plugging the card into the laptop

1. Create a file named aircard580 in /etc/hotplug/usb containing the following:

#!/bin/sh
# Run everything in a subshell, so we can redirect the output
# more easily.
(
# Load the module the right way
/sbin/modprobe usbserial vendor=0x1199 product=0x0112

# Make the device node for the modem
mknod /dev/ttyUSB0 c 188 0

) 2>&1 | logger -t aircard

2. Create a file named aircard.usermap in /etc/hotplug/usb containing the following:

# Sierra Aircard 580
aircard580 0x0003 0x1199 0x0112 0x0000 0x0000 0xff 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000

Note: All of the hex values should be on one line.

3. Change the aircard580 file so that it is executable:

chmod a+x /etc/hotplug/usb/aircard580 (Enter)

Setup the dial up connection

With this preparation complete plug the card into the laptop. Suse should auto detect the device and treat it like any normal USB modem.

1. Open Yast to configure the dial-up connection for the modem. You can do this in three different ways but you all end up in the same place:

Yast -> Network Devices -> Modem
Control centre -> Modem
Network manager -> Configure Modem

To help you out Mike has sent through a few screenshots along with some notes about each screen. Click on each of the images below to view larger screenshots and see the associated notes.

The above screenshots can be a little difficult to read, for reference the modem init strings are as follows,

Init 1: ATE0v1&F&D2&C1&C2S0=0

Init 2: ATE0V1

Init 3: ATS7=60

The most important thing to know is if you are in New Zealand and a Telecom customer use the following connection configuration:

Phone: #777
User: mobile@jamamobile
Password: telecom

Don't worry these details are identical for all Telecom T3G users, actual usage is gauged by the device ID of your card. You are not going to be billed for other people using these same details or get free wireless connectivity.

Things to note:

A flashing green light on the card means you have signal, a flashing orange means none or a hardware issue.
On Windows Telecom provide software to use the card. From 10.4.x of Mac OS X the card has been supported natively
The card must be activated on a Windows machine prior to be used in Linux. If your card came from Telecom NZ then the card has been activated for you already
Using a terminal connection to the modem (/dev/ttyUSB0) we can also see what the signal strength is. To do so open a connection to the serial device and issue the following command:

at+csq? (Enter)
+CSQ: 19, 99

It will respond with the CSQ line, the number in bold (19) indicates your signal strength above -109 dBm in 2dBm increments. A value of 7 (-95dBm) is adequate.

Most of this information is gleaned from the Sierra Wireless knowledge base.

Hopefully if all has gone well you should have a working T3G modem for your Linux laptop. I do not have a PC-based laptop or a T3G card so I cannot personally vouch for this, but given I haven't received any panic stricken phone calls from Mike in the last 12 hours I am guessing all is still working fine...

Enable LVM on software-RAID during a Suse installation

David — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:42:35 +0000

If you have tried setting up LVM on top of a LVM-enabled software-RAID partition during a standard Suse installation you may have hit a brick wall where the installer tells you that there are no available LVM partitions. This is a bug in the installer, it looks as if the LVM setup tool only checks physical partitions for LVM labels and ignores software-RAID partitions that have LVM labels.

Steve Wray has pointed out that you can get this functionality to work by creating a small physical partition and giving it an LVM label. The LVM setup tool will see this partition and allow the configuration to continue quite happily with the software-RAID partitions available for use. I have not tested this but I think it is worth giving a spin as the data integrity of RAID-1 coupled with the flexibility of LVM is a compelling combination (though performance maybe an issue).

Note: From a bit of Googling it appears that this limitation is not apparent in Suse Linux Enterprise Server by the looks of this IBM documentation.

Novell promoting the Linux community

David — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 11:18:09 +0000

This is not a bad move from Novell. By setting up this Frapr mashup they have in some part begun to illustrate the depth and breadth of the Linux (mainly Suse) community. I put my name down just because of the rumours that there were Suse Linux licenses potentially up for grabs, I would not mind a Suse Linux Enterprise Server license as they are pretty pricey. Novell traditionally have been too old fashioned in their approach to Linux, hopefully this move and the growing quality of the Novell Open Audio podcast help in some way to break those old stodgy barriers down.

SuSE/OpenLDAP/Samba Howto

David — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 03:55:25 +0000

This tutorial assumes you are familar with basic Linux and Windows concepts and are comfortable using SuSE Linux 9 (Professional or Enterprize). SuSE 9.2 Professional was used during the production of this guide but for most part the commands, software and general concepts should be applicable on any current version of SuSE (or OpenSUSE).
To ease configuration it is very helpful to do most things from another desktop so that you can use really useful utilities like graphical Internet browsers and copy/paste tools.

Setting up the basic system

First off install your basic SuSE system. For this tutorial I used SuSE 9.2 Professional with the network install CD using the local New Zealand mirror at http://linux.jetstreamgames.co.nz/suse/i386/9.2
I prefer to perform an initial basic install with no extra packages or windowing environment. Using this strategy I have complete control over what goes on the system as far as software is concerned. This is important as a default SuSE install will put alot of unnecessary applications and libraries onto your server.

Once the base install is complete using Yast to install openldap, samba, apache2-prefork and php (with ldap & session support). If you are not sure how to do this log in as root and type yast (enter) in the terminal. To install packages select Software -> Install and Remove Software.

Run Online update (Software -> Online Update) afterwards to make sure you are at current working levels. There is a bug in the default install of PHP session support on SuSE 9.2. Without running Online Update you won’t get far in this tutorial as Apache will have problems running.

SSL-enabled MySQL rpms for SUSE 10

David — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 04:42:32 +0000

Unfortunately the default MySQL binaries for SUSE 10 have been compiled without SSL support. Why this is a case is difficult to determine, the SSL-enabled server and client seem just as reliable as their non-SSL equivalents and with OpenSSL being used it would not seem to be a licensing issue. Anyway below are the SSL-enabled rpms generated from SUSE 10's MySQL srpm package:

For more information on running MySQL 4.1 with secured connections checkout the excellent online MySQL documentation.

Note: If you install these rpms and find the MySQL server will not start check the log file at /var/lib/mysql/mysqld.log. If there is a message about accessing a file in /var/lib/mysql/tmp then make sure the tmp directory exists and is owned by the MySQL user. For example run the following:

mkdir /var/lib/mysql/tmp
chown -R mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql/tmp
rcmysql start

Novell Linux Desktop 10 & more 'Cool' apps

David — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:39:23 +0000

Novell has announced a public preview release of Novell Linux Desktop 10. It is looking really good, that new 'Computer' menu (aka Start) they have introduced looks really slick and extremely functional. There is a tonne of good looking things in the upcoming NLD10 release, many of which are demonstrated in the some very good promotional videos from Novell.

OpenSUSE 10.1 running Google Earth and Skype natively (Click to enlarge)

What is even better is that larger software makers like Google and Skype are releasing their flagship software for Linux. On my OpenSUSE 10.1 test system I have easily installed Picasa, Google Earth and Skype and had them work first time without any issues. It is really good to see that the application offerings are beginning to be fleshed out from the basic OS/browser/productivity offerings.

In the process of installing Google Earth and Skype I updated SUSE 10.1's new but problematic package manager. The upgrade was smoothly and the performance seems to have significantly improved which is a very good sign.

Quick howto on building a Linux (SUSE) kernel

David — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 03:25:09 +0000

This is a quick step-by-step guide to compiling your own kernel in SUSE. Whilst thankfully no longer a requirement for most it is handy to know.

1. Using Yast install the kernel source, GCC and ncurses-devel (plus any dependencies).

2. Change to the /usr/src/linux-x.x.x directory (where x.x.x is the kernel version)

3. Configure the kernel using menuconfig (requires ncurses-devel package).

make menuconfig

4. Give the kernel a unique name by editing the .config file created by the kernel config process. Look for the EXTRAVERSION parameter and name it something other than default. If you do not specify a unique kernel name you run the risk of overriding the default kernel and modules (which means no fallback position if things do not work).

5. Clean out the build directory before beginning the build process.

make clean

6. Make the kernel image (approximately >10 minutes depending on the hardware).

make bzImage

7. Make the modules (approximately 20 minutes depending on the hardware and modules defined).

make modules

8. Install the modules into /lib/modules

make modules_install

9. Copy the newly created kernel and system.map to /boot (where x.x.x is your kernel version).

cp /usr/src/linux.x.x.x/arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-x.x.x
cp /usr/src/linux.x.x.x/System.map /boot/System.map-x.x.x

Note: The above commands assume a i386-based system has been used to compile.

10. Create an initrd (initial RAM disk) for the kernel to load on boot (where x.x.x is your kernel version).

cd /boot
mkinitrd -k vmlinuz-x.x.x -i initrd-x.x.x

11. Configure grub to use the new kernel.
Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst
Add or modify an existing menu entry (where x.x.x is your kernel version).

title New Kernel Name
kernel /vmlinuz-x.x.x ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-x.x.x

Note: look at the previous parameters in the grub.conf file and note what "root=" and use what is existing.

12. Reboot and choose the new kernel from the boot menu.

With a little luck your new kernel will load successfully with all the correct drivers in place for your hardware.

Parallels on OSX and OpenSUSE 10.1 experimenting

David — Tue, 23 May 2006 20:53:17 +0000

I have been trying out SuSE 10.1 on my iMac with the Release Candidate version of Parallels. Parallels is awesome, there is nothing like being able to play with (and blow away) Linux and Windows at almost full speed directly within OSX. On the PowerPC I have used Virtual PC and the Intel iMac has also gone through Bootcamp but Parallels is far and away a better solution for most tasks (you would not want to run games through Parallels).
From a website design perspective it really eases the testing of html/css in all four major environments (Windows Explorer, Firefox, Linux Konquerer and OSX Safari).

One new default feature in OpenSUSE 10.1 that is really very cool is AppArmor. It makes the task of securing server and client based applications simple through the automatic creation of application-based rules (i.e. Firefox can execute these files, modify these files and access these devices). The SUSE Diary has a nicely written tutorial introducing the application and describing how to easily create rulesets.

Through proper use it can protect systems from zero day exploits and just stop users from doing dumb things. It is definitely a huge feature that will appeal to corporate users, rather than messing around with file permission and access levels directly, you just tell the kernel what you want the application to be able to do and it looks after it from there. In theory these rulesets can be managed centrally from Zen (they are just simple text files) but I don't think Novell have released details on this.

Also the Jem Report have a useful article describing how to get your OpenSUSE 10.1 install up to speed with all the packages you may need (Java, mp3, etc.). OpenSUSE have begun to make this task easier with their 'Add-On' CD but still it is nice to have a single document that lists all the optional features available.

Setting up Awstats in an OpenSUSE 10 Apache vhost

David — Tue, 09 May 2006 03:18:51 +0000

Installing awstats is easy in OpenSUSE through Yast. Unfortunately only half the job is done if you wish to activate it for a certain virtual host.

Firstly in the vhost configuration file add the following parameters:

Alias /awstatsicons /srv/www/icons/awstats
ScriptAlias /usage /srv/www/cgi-bin
<Directory "/srv/www/cgi-bin">
        AllowOverride None
        Options +ExecCGI -Includes
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
</Directory>
<Directory "/srv/www/icons/awstats">
        AllowOverride None
        Options None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
</Directory>

This will create an alias from http://your-domain-name/usage to the awstats cgi script and an alias to the awstats icon directory (awstatsicons). Once this configuration is changed restart the Apache server.

Once this is done create a domain configuration file in /etc/awstats. Make sure the domain file is named in the following manner: awstats.your-domain-name.conf

There is an example configuration file in the /etc/awstats to build on, otherwise see below for a fairly standard configuration file.
During the Yast install process a cron job will have been setup to scan Apache log files so once the awstats configuration file is in place your server will begin scanning the Apache logs when the cron job next runs.

You should now be able to browse to http://your-domain-name/usage and get a rundown of webserver usage. Note: mod_cgi must be enabled in Apache for live viewing of awstats data to work.

LogFile="/var/log/apache2/your-domain-name-access_log"
LogFormat=1
LogSeparator=" "
SiteDomain="your-domain-name"
HostAliases="localhost 127.0.0.1"
DNSLookup=1
DirData="/var/cache/awstats"
DirCgi="/cgi-bin"
DirIcons="/awstatsicons"
AllowToUpdateStatsFromBrowser=0
EnableLockForUpdate=0
DNSStaticCacheFile="dnscache.txt"
DNSLastUpdateCacheFile="dnscachelastupdate.txt"
SkipDNSLookupFor=""
AllowAccessFromWebToAuthenticatedUsersOnly=0
AllowAccessFromWebToFollowingAuthenticatedUsers=""
AllowAccessFromWebToFollowingIPAddresses=""
CreateDirDataIfNotExists=0
SaveDatabaseFilesWithPermissionsForEveryone=0
PurgeLogFile=0
ArchiveLogRecords=0
KeepBackupOfHistoricFiles=0
DefaultFile="index.html"
SkipHosts=""
SkipUserAgents=""
SkipFiles=""
OnlyHosts=""
OnlyFiles=""
NotPageList="css js class gif jpg jpeg png bmp"
ValidHTTPCodes="200 304"
ValidSMTPCodes="1"
AuthenticatedUsersNotCaseSensitive=0
URLNotCaseSensitive=0
URLWithAnchor=0
URLQuerySeparators="?;"
URLWithQuery=0
URLWithQueryWithoutFollowingParameters=""
URLReferrerWithQuery=0
WarningMessages=1
ErrorMessages=""
DebugMessages=1
NbOfLinesForCorruptedLog=50
WrapperScript=""
DecodeUA=0
MiscTrackerUrl="/js/awstats_misc_tracker.js"

LevelForRobotsDetection=2            # 0 will increase AWStats speed by 1%.
LevelForBrowsersDetection=2            # 0 disables Browsers detection. No speed gain.
LevelForOSDetection=2                # 0 disables OS detection. No speed gain.
LevelForRefererAnalyze=2            # 0 will increase AWStats speed by 5%.

UseFramesWhenCGI=0
DetailedReportsOnNewWindows=1
Expires=0
MaxRowsInHTMLOutput=1000
Lang="auto"
DirLang="/var/lib/awstats/lang"

ShowMenu=1
# Show monthly chart
# Default: UVPHB, Possible codes: UVPHB
ShowMonthStats=UVPHB
# Show days of month chart
# Default: VPHB, Possible codes: VPHB
ShowDaysOfMonthStats=VPHB
# Show days of week chart
# Default: PHB, Possible codes: PHB
ShowDaysOfWeekStats=PHB
# Show hourly chart
# Default: PHB, Possible codes: PHB
ShowHoursStats=PHB
# Show domains/country chart
# Default: PHB, Possible codes: PHB
ShowDomainsStats=PHB
# Show hosts chart
# Default: PHBL, Possible codes: PHBL
ShowHostsStats=PHBL
# Show authenticated users chart
# Default: 0, Possible codes: PHBL
ShowAuthenticatedUsers=0
# Show robots chart
# Default: HBL, Possible codes: HBL
ShowRobotsStats=HBL
# Show email senders chart (For use when analyzing mail log files)
# Default: 0, Possible codes: HBML
ShowEMailSenders=0
# Show email receivers chart (For use when analyzing mail log files)
# Default: 0, Possible codes: HBML
ShowEMailReceivers=0
# Show session chart
# Default: 1, Possible codes: None
ShowSessionsStats=1
# Show pages-url chart.
# Default: PBEX, Possible codes: PBEX
ShowPagesStats=PBEX
# Show file types chart.
# Default: HB, Possible codes: HBC
ShowFileTypesStats=HB
# Show file size chart (Not yet available)
# Default: 1, Possible codes: None
ShowFileSizesStats=0
# Show operating systems chart
# Default: 1, Possible codes: None
ShowOSStats=1
# Show browsers chart
# Default: 1, Possible codes: None
ShowBrowsersStats=1
# Show screen size chart
# Default: 0 (See also MiscTrackerUrl if set to 1), Possible codes: None
ShowScreenSizeStats=0
# Show origin chart
# Default: PH, Possible codes: PH
ShowOriginStats=PH
# Show keyphrases chart
# Default: 1, Possible codes: None
ShowKeyphrasesStats=1
# Show keywords chart
# Default: 1, Possible codes: None
ShowKeywordsStats=1
# Show misc chart
# Default: ajdfrqwp (See also MiscTrackerUrl parameter), Possible codes: ajdfrqwp
ShowMiscStats=ajdfrqwp
# Show http errors chart
# Default: 1, Possible codes: None
ShowHTTPErrorsStats=1
# Show smtp errors chart (For use when analyzing mail log files)
# Default: 0, Possible codes: None
ShowSMTPErrorsStats=0

# Data array values for the ShowMonthStats report
AddDataArrayMonthStats=1
# Data array values for the ShowDaysOfMonthStats report
AddDataArrayShowDaysOfMonthStats=1
# Data array values for the ShowDaysOfWeekStats report
AddDataArrayShowDaysOfWeekStats=1
# Data array values for the ShowHoursStats report
AddDataArrayShowHoursStats=1

# Stats by domains
MaxNbOfDomain = 10
MinHitDomain = 1
# Stats by hosts
MaxNbOfHostsShown = 10
MinHitHost    = 1
# Stats by authenticated users
MaxNbOfLoginShown = 10
MinHitLogin   = 1
# Stats by robots
MaxNbOfRobotShown = 10
MinHitRobot   = 1
# Stats by pages
MaxNbOfPageShown = 10
MinHitFile    = 1
# Stats by OS
MaxNbOfOsShown = 10
MinHitOs      = 1
# Stats by browsers
MaxNbOfBrowsersShown = 10
MinHitBrowser = 1
# Stats by screen size
MaxNbOfScreenSizesShown = 5
MinHitScreenSize = 1
# Stats by referers
MaxNbOfRefererShown = 10
MinHitRefer   = 1
# Stats for keyphrases
MaxNbOfKeyphrasesShown = 10
MinHitKeyphrase = 1
# Stats for keywords
MaxNbOfKeywordsShown = 10
MinHitKeyword = 1
# Stats for emails
MaxNbOfEMailsShown = 20
MinHitEMail   = 1
FirstDayOfWeek=1
ShowFlagLinks="de en es fr nl"
ShowLinksOnUrl=1

UseHTTPSLinkForUrl=""
MaxLengthOfURL=72
ShowLinksToWhoIs=0
LinksToWhoIs="http://www.whois.net/search.cgi2?str="
LinksToIPWhoIs="http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput="
HTMLHeadSection=""
HTMLEndSection=""

Logo="awstats_logo1.png"
LogoLink="http://awstats.sourceforge.net"
BarWidth   = 260
BarHeight = 90
StyleSheet=""
color_Background="FFFFFF"        # Background color for main page (Default = "FFFFFF")
color_TableBGTitle="CCCCDD"        # Background color for table title (Default = "CCCCDD")
color_TableTitle="000000"        # Table title font color (Default = "000000")
color_TableBG="CCCCDD"            # Background color for table (Default = "CCCCDD")
color_TableRowTitle="FFFFFF"    # Table row title font color (Default = "FFFFFF")
color_TableBGRowTitle="ECECEC"    # Background color for row title (Default = "ECECEC")
color_TableBorder="ECECEC"        # Table border color (Default = "ECECEC")
color_text="000000"                # Color of text (Default = "000000")
color_textpercent="606060"        # Color of text for percent values (Default = "606060")
color_titletext="000000"        # Color of text title within colored Title Rows (Default = "000000")
color_weekend="EAEAEA"            # Color for week-end days (Default = "EAEAEA")
color_link="0011BB"                # Color of HTML links (Default = "0011BB")
color_hover="605040"            # Color of HTML on-mouseover links (Default = "605040")
color_u="FFB055"                # Background color for number of unique visitors (Default = "FFB055")
color_v="F8E880"                # Background color for number of visites (Default = "F8E880")
color_p="4477DD"                # Background color for number of pages (Default = "4477DD")
color_h="66F0FF"                # Background color for number of hits (Default = "66F0FF")
color_k="2EA495"                # Background color for number of bytes (Default = "2EA495")
color_s="8888DD"                # Background color for number of search (Default = "8888DD")
color_e="CEC2E8"                # Background color for number of entry pages (Default = "CEC2E8")
color_x="C1B2E2"                # Background color for number of exit pages (Default = "C1B2E2")

LoadPlugin="tooltips"
LoadPlugin="userinfo"

The Art of Xen

David — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:32:03 +0000

In order to install Zimbra without issues I had to setup Xen on my server. This was actually a good thing because I had been thinking of doing so for a while after experimenting with it last year.

Setting up Xen on OpenSUSE is relatively straightforward if you follow the Xen howto on the Wiki: http://en.opensuse.org/Installing_Xen3

The latest Xen OpenSUSE 10 files can be downloaded from here:
http://www.suse.de/~garloff/linux/xen/RPMs-100/

For my setup I have used the following /etc/fstab file on my virtual server:

/dev/hda1       /                reiserfs acl,user_xattr      1 1
/dev/hda2       swap         swap     defaults              0 0
proc               /proc          proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs              /sys           sysfs      noauto                0 0
usbfs             /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto              0 0
tmpfs             /dev/shm             tmpfs      defaults              0 0
devpts            /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0
/dev/shm        /opt/zimbra/amavisd-new-2.3.3/tmp       tmpfs   defaults,users,size=150m,mode=777     0 0

I did initally have a lot of trouble setting up the network on the virutal instance but after a lot of experimenting with different Xen packages and configuration options I finally settled on the following file (/etc/xen/zimbra):

# -*- mode: python; -*-

# configuration name:
name     = "zimbra"

# usable ram:
memory   = 512

# kernel und initrd:
kernel   = "/boot/vmlinuz-xen"
ramdisk = "/boot/initrd-xen"

# boot device:
root     = "/dev/hda1"

# boot to run level:
extra    = "3"

# network
nics=1
vif = [ 'mac=aa:00:00:50:02:f0, bridge=xenbr0' ]
dhcp ="dhcp"
hostname="zimbra"

# storage devices:
disk     = [ 'phy:system/mail,hda1,w','phy:system/mailswap,hda2,w' ]

One last thing is that the Xen howto modifies the virtual server's mtab file with the following line:

sed -e "s/^[1-6]:/#\\0/" < ./etc/inittab > ./etc/inittab.new

This command also commented out the default console as well as the other terminal consoles which meant that after installation there was no login prompt. In order to correct this edit the /etc/inittab file on the virtual server (whilst it is still mounted on the host system) and uncomment the following line:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --noclear tty1