Technical Support on the Go!

It's good to be back!

2011-12-05T20:30:00.001+08:00

Nice to be here again! I still do the same old stuff but this time, I have been dealing with more complex tasks. I am still in the whole network operations center world, it's company offering cloud-based solutions for contact centers worldwide. The next few days, I should be able to share more information on the topics I usually write about before. Plesks, Linux, Windows, name it. And I might be able to add more stuff about the telecommunications world. Exciting, eh?

Windows Media Player not showing on IE8 part 2

2009-05-19T18:19:00.002+08:00

Okay so given that you have already installed the Internet Explorer Add-on, the windows media player still does not show up. A possible answer for this is maybe due to Windows Media Player 11 not being the default media player.

To set it to be the default media player, follow this steps from the Microsoft KB:

1. Open the Control Panel and navigate to Add/Remove Programs.
2. From the Add/Remove Programs, click Set Program Access and Defaults.
3. In the Choose a configuration box, double-click Custom.
4. In the Choose a default media player area, click Windows Media Player, and then click OK.

Hope this helps.

Windows Media Player not showing on IE8

2009-05-19T17:09:00.008+08:00

This happens when a website requires windows media player. It just shows an "x" whenever you try accessing the link.

There is two possible causes for this. Its either you haven't installed the Windows Media Player addon for IE8 or your default media player is not set to use WMP.

To install the Windows Media Player addon, navigate to the website that is having problem playing music or videos. A prompt should ask you if you want to run the addon.

Right click and click run add-on on all websites.

Click run when it prompts you the activex thingy.

That its. You should be able to see the windows media player.

Post will continue on part 2.

How to install PHPIZE on your linux server

2009-05-15T15:04:00.003+08:00

PHPIZE is a part of the PHP Development package. All you have to do is to login to your linux server, and execute:

yum -y install php-devel

And that's it. Installation should be complete in less than 5 minutes.

How to install Yum on VPS

2009-05-13T15:46:00.004+08:00

Here's a quick how to in installing yum to your VPS. I don't know about you but Virtuozzo or the Parallels team told us that it should be included in the VPS template. I am running Virtuozzo version 4 and for some reason, yum isn't installed. You should be able to install it with a flick by trying out my solution:

Linux distro: Centos 4.4

1. Login to your box thru ssh using any of your favorite ssh clients. I used mRemote.

2. Create the directory yum under /usr/src. (Optional)

3. Download the following files using the wget tool:

a. python-urlgrabber-2.9.6-2.noarch.rpm
b. python-sqlite-1.1.6-1.i386.rpm
c. python-elementtree-1.2.6-4.i386.rpm
d. python-urlgrabber-2.9.6-2.noarch.rpm
e. sqlite-3.2.2-1.i386.rpm

Usage: wget
Sample: wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-2.3.4-14.7.el4.i386.rpm

4. Run this command:

# rpm -Uvh *rpm

5. Download yum:

a. centos-yumconf-4-4.3.noarch.rpm
b. yum-2.4.0-1.centos4.noarch.rpm
c. yum-metadata-parser-1.0-8.el4.centos.i386.rpm

6. Proceed with item no.4.

You should be able to see a successful installation afterwards.

For an updated version of the yum dependencies and yum itself, visit Centos' repository. And speaking of dependencies, other's might encounter a dependency issue when installing components manually. Do drop by and post a quick comment and we'll try to sort things out.

Have a nice yum day!

Downloads: Wordpress 2.7

2009-02-13T14:59:00.002+08:00

Wordpress 2.7 is now out. Better upgrade because this release contains new security patches plus a shiny, new Dashboard and other added features. Do checkout http://wordpress.org/ for more infos'.

Download the latest maintenance release from wordpress.org.

Updating Plesk Control Panel to Higher version : Fiasco

2009-02-07T18:49:00.004+08:00

Well what a week. Thank you readers for dropping by at my tech blog once in a while. I know i don't frequently update it due to lack of time but here I am, ready to post new ideas again.

Yesterday, we ran into a "not so difficult" problem, at all. Here's the story.

We need to install the Sitebuilder package since one of the clients need the application. We installed the Sitebuilder support using the Plesk updater. Installation successful as per Plesk but upon checking, still no sitebuilder support. Next step, we did an upgrade from Plesk 8.4 to Plesk 8.6. We got a prompt again saying that the upgrade was successful. Ok got it. But, after a few minutes, Plesk started acting really weird. We checked the status of the PSA service and here comes the real fiasco. We got an error of course:

psa dead but subsys locked

Oh not again. I happen to encounter this kind of problem on the http, vsftp etc daemons. But I can easily fix them by just restarting the machine or deleting the corresponding /var/lock/subsys file and then start the service again. I did this for a couple of times for the PSA service but to no avail, Plesk isn't just working! I looked at the logs and I just can't find any clues there.

Well, what we did is to email the Parallels Support team. We didn't got any answer overnight so we are feeling a bit hopeless about the case. The next morning, ideas are fresh and we started looking at the key answer to the problem.

/tmp/autoinstaller3.log

So yup. I looked into the updater logs and found this:

Trying to establish test connection... ERROR 1044 (42000): Access denied for user 'root'@'%' to database 'mysql'
Trying to establish test connection... ERROR 1044 (42000): Access denied for user 'root'@'%' to database 'mysql'
Trying to establish test connection... ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'admin'@'localhost' (using password: N
O)
Trying to establish test connection... ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'admin'@'localhost' (using password: Y
ES)
Trying to establish test connection... ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'admin'@'localhost' (using password: N
O)
Trying to establish test connection... ERROR 1044 (42000): Access denied for user 'root'@'%' to database 'mysql'
Trying to establish test connection... Could not open required defaults file: /root/.my.cnf
Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted

ERROR while trying to establish test connection

Check the error reason(see log file:
/tmp/psa_8.6.0_cos4.build86080722.02_upgrade.090207.07.37.log), fix and try
again

Aborting...

error: %post(psa-8.6.0-cos4.build86080722.02.i586) scriptlet failed, exit
status 1

Attention! Your software might be inoperable.
Please, contact product technical support.

Unable to connect to Mysql? Duh?. FYI, the script looks into the .psa.shadow for the mysql password. But here's the dish. We can login into the mysql server using the password defined in the .shadow file. So how come we cannot run the upgrade without the creepy errors?

Per Parallels support, we we're running a "mixed" version of Plesk. Probably because of the failed upgrade.

Just in case you noticed this error, I stumbled into a knowledgebase entry regarding the /root/.my.cnf file.

SYMPTOMS:

Plesk upgrade or installation fails with the error in upgrade log:

Access denied for user 'admin'@'localhost' (using password: YES)\n")

RESOLUTION:

Make sure that there is no /root/.my.cnf file with MySQL password. Plesk uses environment variable to pass the password to MySQL server, but the .my.cnf file has greater priority and MySQL uses the password from the file. If it does not match, restoration fails.

Also, check that you are able to connect to MySQL from the command line with:

# mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` psa

You should not have any .my.cnf file on the /root directory. Although I tried creating a symlink to /etc/my.cnf. But it didn't made any difference. The error for the missing .my.cnf was gone but we we're still not able to finish the upgrade.

SOLUTION

We replaced the admin password to a more simplier password.

Login into the mysql server. and then run this command:

UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('password') WHERE User='admin';

and then

flush privileges;

Do not FORGET to update the /etc/psa/.psa.shadow file for the new password.

Then re-run the upgrade.

# cd /root/86/dist-rpm-CentOS-4.2-i386
# rpm -Uvh --force base/*.rpm opt/migration/*.rpm opt/backup/*.rpm

Finally, Plesk is now behaving perfectly fine! There you go. A complex problem with a really simple solution.

Hope this sheds a light to anyone out there having the same problem.

Current Mood: Fulfilled but exhausted.

Ish. A Saturday like Monday

2008-11-22T15:56:00.003+08:00

Well what's your busiest day of the week?

I work 6 days a week and most of the time im busy. But for me, it's Saturday. I do automated backup of some of the system files but of course, the thing still needs supervision! But still loads of stuff needs to be done.

Saturday, Saturday and Saturday.

Good luck to me!

Current mood: Exhausted

Getting defpackagemng errors when logging into Plesk Control Panel

2008-08-28T23:51:00.001+08:00

When attempting to log into Plesk Control Panel the following error message is received:

DefPackageMng() constructor failed: defpackagemng failed: Access is denied.(Error code 5) at CreateProcess 'C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\cmd.exe /c ""C:\\Plesk\\admin\\bin\\defpackagemng.exe" --get"' at execUtil C:\\Plesk\\admin\\bin\\defpackagemng.exe --get on C:\\Plesk\\admin(PleskSrvClient::execUtil line 420)at execute console command --get(vconsoleapp::start line 128) at execute C:\\Plesk\\/admin/bin/defpackagemng --get(vconsoleapp::run line 138)

RESOLUTION
Such error occurs when Plesk Control Panel web server service cannot access the C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe ( C:\Windows\SysWOW64\cmd.exe on 64bit Windows version). This may happen when administrator has manually changes permissions to access the file. User SERVICE should have Read+Execute; Read on the file.

The following permissions should be set on cmd.exe :

- Administrators - Full Control
- System - Full Control
- Service - Read+Execute; Read
- Interactive - Read+Execute; Read

The file owner should also be administrator, otherwise it will not be possible to change these. File owner can be checked in file’s Properties, Security tab, Advanced button, Owner tab.

Illegitimate MSNBC.com News

2008-08-28T23:40:00.003+08:00

Hot on the heels of the CNN Alerts: my custom alert email spam comes a new variant: msnbc.com: BREAKING NEWS spam.

The emails follow the same format as the CNN spam, with the link to the supposed featured story going to an unrelated third-party website which attempts to attack the users PC.

Read more on SecurityWatch.

Website asks for password - Plesk for Windows

2008-08-28T23:25:00.001+08:00

SYMPTOMS
It's impossible to access website - authorization prompt appears.
CAUSE
There may be several reasons of this issue. To determine them, the following conditions need to be checked:

1. There should be read + execute permissions for IUSR_ on the domain index page.

2. Root directory for the domains can be under Plesk protection.

3. Passwords for system user and IIS user can be out of synchronization.
RESOLUTION
1. Go to %plesk_vhosts%\domain.com\httpdocs directory and check permissions for IUSR_ account.

2. It can be checked using Plesk Control Panel. Go to Plesk, domains, domain.com, Protected URLs. If the root directory "/" is present there, it needs to be removed.

3. The password can be synchronized using the following command:

"%plesk_bin%\websrvmng.exe" --update-anon-password --domain-name=

http://kb.parallels.com/en/976

How to install PHP5 with legacy Plesk versions

2008-08-28T23:23:00.001+08:00

Plesk 7.5.5-7.6.1versions support this version of PHP but they are not able to manage PHP4 and PHP5 at the same time only PHP4 or PHP5.
If your Plesk version is 7.5.5 or higher you can follow these steps to install PHP5 at your server:

1. Download PHP5 Windows Binaries:

- PHP 5.x.x zip package
- Collection of PECL modules for PHP 5.x.x

2. Remove current PHP4 extensions from Register Web Service Extensions in IIS:

Open command prompt:

cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /RmFile "%plesk_dir%\Additional\php\php.exe"
cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /RmFile "%plesk_dir%\Additional\php\sapi\php4isapi.dll"
3. Rename folder "%plesk_dir%Additional\Php" to "%plesk_dir%Additional\Php4"

4. Re-register web service extensions for PHP4.

Open command prompt:

cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /AddFile "%plesk_dir%Additional\php4\php.exe" 0 PHP 1 "PHP Extensions"
cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /AddFile "%plesk_dir%Additional\php4\sapi\php4isapi.dll" 0 PHP 1 "PHP Extensions"
cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /EnFile "%plesk_dir%Additional\php4\php.exe"
cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /EnFile "%plesk_dir%Additional\php4\sapi\php4isapi.dll"
5. Unzip PHP 5.x.x package into %plesk_dir%Additional\Php.

6. Unzip Collection of PECL modules into %plesk_dir%Additional\Php\Ext.

7. Register PHP5 extension in IIS manually:

Open command prompt:

cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /AddFile "%plesk_dir%Additional\php\php-cgi.exe" 0 PHP 1 "PHP Extensions"
cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /AddFile "%plesk_dir%Additional\php\php5isapi.dll" 0 PHP 1 "PHP Extensions"
cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /EnFile "%plesk_dir%Additional\php\php-cgi.exe"
cscript c:\windows\system32\iisext.vbs /EnFile "%plesk_dir%Additional\php\php5isapi.dll"
8. Backup or rename C:\Windows\php.ini.

9. Put attached to this article file php.ini to C:\Windows\php.ini.

10. Configure default C:\Windows\php.ini according to Plesk configuration.

Set parameters:

extension_dir = "%plesk_dir%Additional\Php\ext"

Example:

extension_dir ="C:\Program Files\SWsoft\Plesk\Additional\Php\ext"

11. Re-configure webmail in IIS to use PHP4 because HORDE webmail does not work on PHP5.

IIS Management, Web Sites, webmail(default), Properties, Home Directory tab, Configuration button, Application Extensions, edit value for `.php` extension, set to "%plesk_dir%additional\php4\php.exe"

Edit "%plesk_vhosts%webmail\horde\php.ini"

Change parameter:

extension_dir = "%plesk_dir%Additional\Php4\extensions"

Example:

extension_dir ="C:\Program Files\SWsoft\Plesk\Additional\Php4\extensions"

12. Make sure that PHP5 has been detected by Plesk. You can check in Plesk, Server, Components Management, Web Scripting section PHP should be listed there. If not, you need to check whether all the steps were done properly.

13. Reconfigure domains web-sites in IIS to use PHP5.

"%plesk_bin%\websrvmng.exe" --reconfigure-all
Additional information
Please see also Simultaneous PHP 4 and PHP 5 usage

http://kb.parallels.com/en/1048

How to install CDONTS on Windows 2003 Server

2008-08-28T22:38:00.002+08:00

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 does not install Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) for NTS (CDONTS). Therefore, applications that use CDONTS do not function on a Windows Server 2003-based computer. Windows Server 2003 provides improved alternatives to CDONTS.

To make CDONTS functioning on a Windows Server 2003-based computer, use one of the following solutions:

1. Download an attached CDONTS.ZIP file. Once you have downloaded it unzip the CDONTS.DLL and put it into %systemroot%\system32 folder (C:\Windows\system32 by default). You can also get CDONTS.DLL from your Windows 2000 CD.

2. Register the CDONTS.DLL component on your server using the following command:

regsvr32 "%systemroot%\system32\cdonts.dll"
For example:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>regsvr32.exe cdonts.dll
3. After you have registered your CDONTS.DLL component you need to check whether your SMTP service is running.

Go to Administrative tools, IIS and expand your local machine. If SMTP service is listed then it is installed, else it's necessary to install this service.

To install SMTP perform the following operation:

Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components, Application Server, IIS, Check on SMTP service, Click OK.

4. Change the port number for SMTP service. Default port is 25. Use 25 only if you don't have another SMTP service running. If another SMTP service is already running on your server you should switch IIS SMTP port to another, for example to 8025.

You can do through IIS management console: Control Panel, IIS, expand `local computer`, SMTP, Properties, General tab, click on Advanced button, Edit.

5. Configure SMTP service. The main things are to set a valid full-qualified domain name for SMTP service: Control Panel, IIS, expand `local computer`, SMTP, Properties, Delivery tab, click on Advanced button and configure Security for SMTP service.

It's necessary to grant permissions to IIS_WPG standard IIS Worker Process Group. Control Panel, IIS , expand `local computer`, SMTP, Properties, Security tab , click on Add button, cick Object types... button, check on Groups item, click OK, type IIS_WPG as object name to add , click OK.

Additional setting: Choose Authentication and tick Anonymous Access and Integrated Windows Authentication. Click OK, and then click CONNECTION. Configure RELAY settings as you wish. Click the DELIVERY tab then click ADVANCED. Set the MAX hop count to whatever you like but we recommend at least 20

Now IIS SMTP service is configured and ready to work.

Additional Notes can be found on Microsoft's website:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324649

http://kb.parallels.com/en/560

How do I (re)create Service Container?

2008-08-23T18:58:00.001+08:00

You may create Service Container on a Virtuozzo hardware node using 'vzsveinstall' utility:

# vzsveinstall -D DISTRIB_DIR -s SERVICE_CT_IP

where
- DISTRIB_DIR - path to Virtuozzo distribution directory hierarchy on a server. F.e. if you have the Virtuozzo distrib on your server in the folder /root/Rel400 then DISTRIB_DIR should be /root/Rel400/;
- SERVICE_CT_IP - IP address to be assigned to Service Container;

Please refer to man page on 'vzsveinstall' utility for additional information.

Please note - OS template 'redhat-as3-minimal' must be installed on a hardware node and cached before Service Container may be created. If you have no that template on a node please do the following:
- install OS template 'redhat-as3-minimal', corresponding RPM package is located in the folder 'virtuozzo/SVE' inside Virtuozzo distrib (in Virtuozzo 3.x it is the folder 'HW/SVE');
- create OS template cache using 'vzpkgcache' command on a node.

If Virtuozzo server has been updated since the very first release (using 'vzup2date' utility or manually) then you need to apply all needed updates to the Service Container as well. Updates downloaded by 'vzup2date' utility are usually located under /vz/vzup2date/3.0.0/TU-3.0.0-* dirs on a Virtuozzo server. You may apply them to the Service Container using 'vzsveupgrade' utility using this simple script:

# for i in `find /vz/vzup2date/$(awk '{print $NF}'

If you need to re-create Service Container then you may destroy the existing one using 'vzctl destroy 1' utility (container must be stopped first), then create it from the scratches and apply available updates as it is described above.

Iptables NAT module does not work in container

2008-08-23T18:51:00.002+08:00

SYMPTOMS
NAT module does not work in container, you get "can't initialize iptables table 'nat'" error:

# iptables -t nat -L -n
iptables v1.2.11: can't initialize iptables table `nat': Table does not exist (do you need to insmod?)
Perhaps iptables or your kernel needs to be upgraded.

The following Iptables modules settings are configured on the hardware node:

# cat /proc/net/ip_tables_targets
LOG
TOS
TCPMSS
REJECT
ERROR
# grep con /etc/modprobe.conf
options ip_conntrack ip_conntrack_disable_ve0=1
RESOLUTION
If order to enable NAT you should perform the following actions on the hardware node:

- stop Virtuozzo service and all containers:

# service vz stop

- reconfigure IPtables module "ip_conntrack":

# sed -i '/ip_conntrack/ d' /etc/modprobe.conf
# echo "options ip_conntrack ip_conntrack_disable_ve0=0" >> /etc/modprobe.conf

- restart IPtables service:

# service iptables restart

- start Vituozzo service and all CTs:

# service vz start

--- http://kb.parallels.com/en/5228

Posting Parallel's Useful KB articles

2008-08-23T18:37:00.003+08:00

Yeah. Why I haven't thought about it. In the following posts, you will be seeing KB entries from Parallel's Knowledgebase. I will just be posting about the most known problems I've encountered. But please, before you touch anything, make sure that you have a backup. Use this kb's at your own risk.

Cheers.

Horde error 502 - Web server received an invalid response while acting as a gateway or proxy server.

2008-08-01T01:25:00.002+08:00

If you are using a Windows 2008 server, running Plesk 8.6, you might encounter this error on Horde:

502 - Web server received an invalid response while acting as a gateway or proxy server.There is a problem with the page you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed. When the Web server (while acting as a gateway or proxy) contacted the upstream content server, it received an invalid response from the content server.

Fixes:

1. You need to see the complete details of what is happening in your IMP server. Browse locally or from the server to http://localhost:8425/.

2. Check if CGI Role Service is installed in IIS: Server Manager > Roles > Web Server > Role Services

3. Uncomment the following files on the PHP configuration file from %plesk_vhosts%\webmail\horde\php.ini. - php_fileinfo.dll, php_mysql.dll and bphp_mysqli.dll

4. Do no forget to set cgi.force_redirect = 0 in %plesk_vhosts%\webmail\horde\php.ini.

Child 4800: Encountered too many errors on Plesk 8.6 for Windows

2008-08-01T01:12:00.006+08:00

If you are using a windows 2003 server, apache, this error pops out from the ssl.log files

An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket. : Child
4800: Encountered too many errors accepting client connections. Possible causes:
dynamic address renewal, or incompatible VPN or firewall software. Try using the
Win32DisableAcceptEx directive.

Solution:

Switch Plesk Control Panel to IIS.

Run the following from the command prompt:

"%plesk_bin%\reconfigurator.exe" --switch-plesk-web-server --new-provider=iis

Ubuntu Hardy - PlayOnLinux anyone?

2008-08-01T00:38:00.005+08:00

If you are using Ubuntu (Hardy Heron), then you are reading the right article. Have you been wanting to play Windows based games on your Ubuntu desktop? Well, wish come true. Introducing PlayOnLinux. From their definition, PlayOnLinux is a piece of sofware which allow you to install and use easily numerous games and softwares designed to run with Microsoft®'s Windows®. A great piece of software indeed. But I am here to tackle a little bit on how to make PlayonLinux available on your PCs.

First you need to download the package. From the terminal, issue the command

wget -q http://playonlinux.botux.net/pol.gpg -O- sudo apt-key add -

and then add repository to apt sources

sudo wget http://playonlinux.botux.net/playonlinux_hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list

Run the command

sudo apt-get update

to update the apt sources.

Finally, install PlayOnLinux

sudo apt-get install playonlinux

Alternatively, for non Ubuntu users, you can always visit www.playonlinux.com to acquire the right package for your opensource system.

Enjoy!

Virtuozzo 4.0 for Windows - Error 422 (Named Pipe connection failed, error #2 [The system cannot find the file specified)

2008-07-31T00:37:00.004+08:00

Microsoft's Update KB951748, released July, breaks the Virtuozzo 4.0 Service Container. When accessing the Parallels Management Console, you're getting the error "Error 422 (Named Pipe connection failed, error #2 [The system cannot find the file specified)"

Fix:

Reinstall the Service Container.

From the command prompt, type in

vzsveinstall -s 10.184.88.xx -w -f

Lesson learned. Be sure to check updates first on the Virtuozzo website to avoid hassles.

How to set time - Virtuozzo Windows VPS/Container

2008-07-31T00:19:00.005+08:00

So you're looking for a way on how to set the time on your VE or container? But I suppose that you already know that VE's clock is synchronized with the time settings of the Hardware Node? If not, read this knowledgebase entry from Parallels.

On the hardware node, you have all the right to change the time zone settings or sync the clock with an NTP server (Network Time Protocol). From the command prompt, run:

net time /setsntp:pool.ntp.org

You can use whatever NTP server you like. For my example, I used the pool.ntp.org server.

All changes made on the hardware node is automatically reflected on the Containers or VEs.

For the Virtuozzo for Linux servers, check out this post.

Parallels Plesk Control Panel 8.6 is released for Windows and Linux

2008-07-30T23:50:00.005+08:00

Well well. We got a new release from the Parallel's team. Haven't upgraded to this version because of having this Plesk upgrade fears. I don't know but for some reason, we haven't got any update instances that successfully ran without errors. So fingers crossed. But I daresay Plesk is not that bad at all. Plesk 8.4 compared to the lower versions is loading fast. Hopefully this release wipes away all the tears. lol.

Anyway, got this shoutout from Sergius of the Parallels forum:

Changing DNS zone SOA serial number format - The DNS zone SOA serial number format used by default in the Plesk Control Panel is Unix timestamp. You can change the format of the DNS zone SOA serial number to YYYYMMDDNN, which is recommended by IETF and RIPE and mandatory for many domains registered in some high-level DNS zones, mostly European ones.
Improved DNS zone update - Users can make multiple changes to a DNS zone without having to save every single change each time – all changes made to the DNS zone are now highlighted and visible to the user before saving them. The DNS zone is updated when the user saves the changes.
Permission for clients to select a target DB server - You can allow your customers to select a database server of each type for creating his or her databases, not only use the default database server.
Ubuntu 8.04 LTS support - Plesk now can be deployed on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
PHP 5.2.6 update - Plesk now ships with PHP 5.2.6
PostgreSQL 8.3 support - Plesk now works with PostgreSQL 8.3.
Safari 3.1 support - Safari 3.1 browser can now be used to work with Plesk.
Fixed issue with empty mail user name - Fixed issue with empty mail user name displayed in logs of Plesk installed on SuSE.
Fixed issue with AWstats monthly history - Fixed issue with incorrect calculations and display of AWstats monthly history.
Fixed issue with forwarding e-mail messages signed by DomainKeys - Fixed issue with e-mail forwarding not working if e-mail messages were signed by DomainKeys.
Security fixes and other bug
fixes.

You can download Parallels Plesk Control Panel 8.6 here:

http://www.parallels.com/en/plesk

Fingers crossed. :p

How to Install PHP 5 on IIS 6 Windows 2003 Server VPS

2008-07-28T23:19:00.005+08:00

After days and hours of trying to make the PHP autoinstaller work on a windows 2003 VPS, I finally gave up. I've been playing around with these for a couple of days but to no avail, it doesn't work. It doesn't recognize php pages and just throws a 500 internal server error. I thought things would be easier if I use that program. Currently, I am using a Windows 2003 virtual private server (virtuozzo) with IIS 6 installed. I haven't got any single problem with the Mysql installer. Anyway, here's how I've managed to make php a part of my web server. :)

INSTALLING PHP 5.2.6 on IIS 6

1. Download the Windows binary zip file from the PHP's download site. I have downloaded the latest release which is PHP 5.2.6.

2. Create a folder named PHP on your drive C:. (C:\PHP)

3. Unzip and move all contents of the downloaded file ( of course we are talking about the PHP files) to the directory C:\PHP.

4. Rename php.ini-recommended to php.ini and then place a copy of it to the C:\Windows folder.

5. Open IIS Manager and then navigate to the website you want to use PHP with, right click and then choose Properties. You should be able to see the Home Directory tab, click Configuration.

6. Under the Application Configuration, Mappings tab, add .php extension to the application extensions. Click Add, and then browse to the PHP directory, in our case (C:\PHP) select php5isapi.dll. Type the ".php" under the Extension directive without the quotes. Set all other options to its default.

7. Also do not forget to set the "Scripts only" permission on the application settings. Just navigate the Home Directory tab to do this.

8. Go back to the IIS Manager, find the Web Service Extensions.

9. Click "Add new web service extensions..." type PHP for the extension name, choose add and then browse to the php5isapi.dll. (C:PHP\php5isapi.dll) Tick the "Set extension status to Allowed" and then click ok.

10. Finally, reboot the server.

To test if php pages are now being served by your server, create a sample php file. Include the following lines to the document:

phpinfo();
?>

Name it info.php. This file also lets you see the existing configuration for your PHP installation. Do not also forget to set the following in your php.ini:

a. Loadable Extension (Modules) Path

extension_dir = "C:\PHP\ext"

b. Session Save Path

session.save_path = "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp"

If you will be using the program with mysql, simply uncomment the php_mysql.dll from the Dynamic Extensions portion of the INI file (php.ini).

Hmm so far so good. I guess that would be all. Hope this post helps. Do drop a shoutout if you think I missed out something.

^_^

Download Windows XP service pack 3 - sp3

2008-07-17T12:40:00.002+08:00

If you haven't got the latest windows xp SP3, go grab a copy of it now. Always make sure you have the latest updates. Not will it only fix certain bugs in your system, but also a bunch of security holes.

Windows service pack 3 is available from the Microsoft's downloads site. According to the Microsoft guys, windows sp3 includes all previously released updates for the operating system, in addition to a small number of new updates. You can read the rest of the topic here.

Download Windows Service Pack 3 here.

July 18, 2008 earthquake in the Philippines - HOAX

2008-07-16T22:51:00.003+08:00

Sorry for posting an out-of-topic post but have you heard of the prophecy guy named "Mr. Juseleeno Nobulega DaRoose" from Brazil who predicts that an earthquake will hit Philippines this July 18, 2008 and Japan, and tells something about some other stuffs that are really creepy.

But please people, do not panic. No science or nobody can ever predict an earthquake. They are just doing this to scare you off.

And to the pigs who helped in spreading this hoax, we pity you. Probably a 10.0 magnitude earthquake hit their brains.

Let's just hope for the best. If it's really our time then so be it. =)

Disclaimer

2008-07-15T22:18:00.002+08:00

The information contained in this website is for general information purposes only. The information is provided by “http://techsupportoncall.blogspot.com” and whilst we endeavour to keep the information up-to-date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.

In no event will we be liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or profits arising out of or in connection with the use of this website.

Through this website you are able to link to other websites which are not under the control of “http://techsupportoncall.blogspot.com”. We have no control over the nature, content and availability of those sites. The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.

Every effort is made to keep the website up and running smoothly. However,
“http://techsupportoncall.blogspot.com” takes no responsibility for and will not be liable for the website being temporarily unavailable due to technical issues beyond our control.

Privacy Policy

2008-06-20T13:27:00.002+08:00

I respect your privacy and I am committed to safeguarding your privacy while online at my site at http://techsupportoncall.blogspot.com. The following discloses the information gathering and dissemination practices for this Web site.

Log Files

Like most standard Web site servers, I use log files. This includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information.

E-mail Subscription

If a user wishes to subscribe to my posts via e-mail (powered by Feedburner), I ask for contact information such as name and email address. Out of respect for my users’ privacy, a way to opt-out of these communications is provided.

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. My site use cookies for tracking visitors’ activity. Some of my business partners use cookies on our site (for example, advertisers). However, I have no access to or control over these cookies, once I have given permission for them to set cookies for advertising. You can choose not to accept cookies by modifying your browser settings. At any time, you may remove any cookie stored on your hard drive by deleting them in your browser’s settings section.

Links

This Web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that I am not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. I encourage my users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Web site.

Advertisers

I use outside ad companies to display ads on my site. These ads may contain cookies and are collected by the ad companies, and I do not have access to these information. I work with the ad companies: Google Adsense, Project Wonderful, Adbrite, Widgetbucks, Kontera and Chitika. Please check their websites for respective privacy policies.

Contact Information

If users have any questions or suggestions regarding my privacy policy, please contact me by sending an email to lyzmorato[at]yahoo.com.

Privacy policy courtesy of Macuha.com.

Hello Twenties!

2008-06-19T13:09:00.001+08:00

Just wanna greet myself a Happy Happy Birthday!

How to set the date and time - Virtuozzo VPS for Linux

2008-06-19T13:00:00.002+08:00

After several hours of googling, and unfortunately, I'm unable to find out how to set the correct date and time on a Linux VE.

Good new is, I've tested out something that came from my mind and hey, it worked!

Here's what I did.

1. Login to the hardware node using your favorite ssh client. I used putty. It's on my downloads category.

2. I use the date command to check for the current time and date. I also used the command date to adjust the time and clock settings.

e.g. date 061913062008

That means that I want to set the date to June 19, 2008 and the current time is 13:06 or 1:00PM gmt +8.

Not that hard eh? Time to check the VE's if the changes we did to the hardware node had an effect to them. You can use the date command again in checking.

Hope this post help's you save time too.

windows 2003 server mbr problem

2008-05-13T16:35:00.003+08:00

Ok. So recently, I messed up with my windows 2003 server. I accidentally lost the Master Boot Record (MBR) so that led to the problem. My unit won't boot up. I got this problem after using the laptop in installing linux to a USB flash drive. Anyway, the fix is really simple.

First, you need the Windows 2003 server installation CD. Then a prompt will ask you if you want to install windows etc etc. Hit "R" on your keyboard and this will bring you to the Windows Recovery Console. You will need to select the Windows installation you wish to log onto. So I chose "1" because that's the only primary windows setup I had on the laptop. Immediately after selecting the installation, you will be prompted for the Administrator password. There's no way for you to enter the recovery console if you do not know the password.

Next and final steps.

Type in - fixmbr.

The fixmbr command creates a new boot record. It repairs the master boot record of the boot disk. Please take not that the fixmbr command is only available when you are using the Recovery Console.

Type exit, you should now be able to boot again with no problem. Hope that helps.

Additional Notes:

Here are some useful commands that are used in the Windows Recovery Console.

Attrib: Changes the attributes of a file or directory.
Batch: Executes the commands specified in the text file.
ChDir (Cd): Displays the name of the current directory or changes the current directory.
Chkdsk: Checks a disk and displays a status report.
Cls: Clears the screen.
Copy: Copies a single file to another location.
Delete(Del): Deletes one or more files.
Dir: Displays a list of files and subdirectories in a directory.
Disable: Disables a system service or a device driver.
Diskpart: Manages partitions on your hard drives.
Enable: Starts or enables a system service or a device driver.
Exit: Exits the Recovery Console and restarts your computer.
Expand: Extracts a file from a compressed file.
Fixboot: Writes a new partition boot sector onto the system partition.
Fixmbr: Repairs the master boot record of the partition boot sector.
Format: Formats a disk.
Help: Displays a list of the commands you can use in the Recovery Console.
Listsvc: Lists the services and drivers available on the computer.
Logon: Logs on to a Windows 2000 installation.
Map: Displays the drive letter mappings.
Mkdir (Md): Creates a directory.
More: Displays a text file.
Rename (Ren): Renames a single file.
Rmdir (Rd): Deletes a directory.
Set: Displays and sets environment variables.
Systemroot: Sets the current directory to the systemroot directory of the system you are currently logged on to.
Type: Displays a text file.

You can also check this in the Console by typing "help" without the quotes.

How to disable or uninstall Mod_security

2008-04-27T23:31:00.002+08:00

Misconfiguration of mod_security will cause your website to not properly function and return fatal errors. This problem can only be solved by disabling mod_security and filtering rules.

Create .htaccess in your website's root directory (var/www). Or you could just add the following lines if you already have an existing .htaccess.

SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off

This will disable ModSecurity (mod_security) module running in your site or server.

To uninstall ModSecurity (mod_security), comment out or delete the related mod_security entries from httpd.conf file. This is located in /etc/httpd/conf/ directory. The lines that should be removed include:

AddModule mod_security.c
LoadModule security_module modules/mod_security.so
Include “/usr/local/apache/conf/modsec.conf” (or maybe similar to this line)

Save the file (httpd.conf) and restart Apache (/etc/init.d/httpd restart)

ModSecurity will no longer be loaded by the system.

How to speed up sending emails in Plesk

2008-04-27T14:43:00.007+08:00

I am running Plesk for Linux and I've noticed that emails are sent very very slow. As a result, emails are delayed..

I was able to research a fix to at least speed up the sending of emails in Plesk.

Login thru SSH and go to /etc/xinetd.d and edit the smtp_psa file.

The file should look like this:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
service smtp
{
socket_type = stream
protocol = tcp
wait = no
disable = no
user = root
instances = UNLIMITED
server = /var/qmail/bin/tcp-env
server_args = /usr/sbin/rblsmtpd -r bl.spamcop.net -r cbl.abuseat.org -r sbl-xt.spamhaus.org /var/qmail/bin/relaylock /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd /var/qmail/bin/smtp_auth /var/qmail/bin/true /var/qmail/bin/cmd5checkpw /var/qmail/bin/true
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

you are going to do is, add "-Rt0" (minus the quotes" ") to "server_args" so it will look like:

server_args = -Rt0 /usr/sbin/rblsmtpd -r bl.spamcop.net -r cbl.abuseat.org -r sbl-xt.spamhaus.org /var/qmail/bin/relaylock /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd /var/qmail/bin/smtp_auth /var/qmail/bin/true /var/qmail/bin/cmd5checkpw /var/qmail/bin/true

Save the file, and restart xinetd:

/etc/init.d/xinetd restart

This should help speed up the sending of emails in Plesk.

Blank page shows after trying to post in Wordpress

2008-04-21T10:02:00.004+08:00

Im using Wordpress 2.2.1. All of sudden I'm unable to post new items. It just shows a blank white page. Strange. I have seen similar problems on different forums while I was browsing. Good thing I stumbled to this topic. It's about a recent wordpress website exploit.

Quoting:

The hacker exploited several WordPress vulnerabilities in administrative scripts to gain full access to the website (as permitted to apache user), including the ability to upload & run scripts, delete any file owned by apache user, view the file and directories etc.

The author mentioned about a file that was planted in the /tmp directory. The file name according to him was ro8kbsmawge.txt. I immediately checked the server and bummer! The hacker was able to put this in the /tmp directory -->ro8kfbsmag.txt. :(

I removed the file and as expected, I was able to post and publish new topics again.

So for all the guys out there facing the similar problem, I urge you to check your mahines as they may be compromised. If you're on a shared hosting, fire a support request to your hosts so that they can also be alerted. I also urge you to read the link I gave you because it helped me a lot in solving my problem.

Lesson learned. Restrict the /wp-admin folder to your network or ip address only. I'll continue reading Angsuman's post so that I can also pinpoint where the hacker came from and block his ip address from accessing the server again.

100% CPU usage on VPS

2008-04-17T15:52:00.003+08:00

Although my VPS is up, it continues to run very slowly. I checked on the resources being used by the VPS thru VZPP,https://ip_address:4643/ and I found out that under Resources, the CPU usage was at 100% and in red zone. The System Usage and Disk Usage are healthy, though.

When I checked on the System processess, the number of processess running is at 357. Suspecting that there may be a system limit that exceeded in the QoS settings, I went to VZMC (Virtuozzo Management Console) and under the Primary Memory related parameters, I noticed that the avnumproc is set to 40.

avnumproc is the average number of processes that will be run inside VPS.

The solution here is to increase the value set in the avnumproc (I've set mine to Unlimited).
Also, set a higher value on your numproc. This also has something to do as to how many processes the system can use.

IP04 Four Port IP-PBX

2008-04-17T11:08:00.004+08:00

This looks promising ---> IP04 Four Port IP-PBX

From the wiki, the IP04 is a 4 port IP-PBX that runs Asterisk and uClinux on a powerful embedded Blackfin processor. It's complete IP-PBX with 4 analog ports. No PC required!

The article is worth reading. Maybe I'll be able to play with this one too soon.

Centos 5.0 Livecd Root Password

2008-04-17T11:02:00.004+08:00

Looking for the Centos 5.0 Livecd root password? I've spent hours looking for this one. But here you go:

12qwaszx

Ciao!

How to turn on PHP error messages

2008-04-16T09:03:00.003+08:00

Turning on PHP error messages is very useful in determining when a PHP page fails.

You can set the php handling in the php.ini. Set the following lines to ON:

error_reporting
display_errors

If you only want to check a particular page, just add this line on top of your script:

ERROR_REPORTING(E_ALL);

You may also want to try out some informations from this page.

How to turn off PHP safe mode in Cpanel

2008-04-16T08:42:00.006+08:00

While I was checking the site stats of this blog, I've noticed that some people are looking for ways on how to turn off PHP safe mode in Cpanel. On my previous post, I have mentioned that it can be done on a server-wide setting. But what if you want to disable safe mode on particular domains only on Cpanel?

This can be done by adding a simple line below the httpd.conf entry of that domain.

php_admin_flag safe_mode On

Output:

ServerAdmin webmaster@yourdomain.com
DocumentRoot /home/youruser/public_html
BytesLog domlogs/yourdomain.com-bytes_log
User youruser
Group youruser
ServerName http://www.yourdomain.com/
ServerAlias yourdomain.com http://www.yourdomain.com/
CustomLog domlogs/yourdomain.com combined
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /home/youruser/public_html/cgi-bin/
php_admin_flag safe_mode On

On shared hosting accounts, just ask a request from your hosting provider. Most of the hosts are enabling safe mode in PHP for security purposes.

Goodluck!

Edit:

From Dave:

The proper way to do this on cPanel 11 is to edit the configuration file using WHM ( Web Host Manager).

1. Login to WHM.
2. Go into the Service Configuration menu and locate the PHP Configuration Editor.
3. From there you can set the various PHP settings such as disabling SAFE MODE.

For custom modifications of Apache and PHP, please refer to this link:
http://www.cpanel.net/support/docs/ea/ea3/

Bunch of thanks Dave!

moscontent::store failed error Mysql 5

2008-04-11T15:50:00.005+08:00

moscontent::store failed ... or something similar.

After we have migrated the contents of a Mambo website to a different server, we were unable to create new contents in the administration panel. We are using Plesk 8.1 for Windows.The above error shows.

Quick fix: If you have encountered this error be sure to disable "strict" mode in your Mysql configuration.

Here's how you do it:

Using Phpmyadmin

1. As an administrator, login to your Plesk control Panel.

2. Click Servers then hit the Sql Servers Icon.

3. Click the Mysql tab, open Webmin.

4. Click Run SQL Query, or Query.

5. To check the current SQL server mode, type:

SELECT @@global.sql_mode;

If the output of the command returns the following line,

STRICT_TRANS_TABLES

Then you should continue reading my post. :D

6. To disable the mode that affects the operation, type this sql command on the query window:

SET @@global.sql_mode='NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION';

7. Test and see if the solution works.

You can also use the same commands on a mysql command line client.

How to allow .asx files in Plesk for Linux

2008-04-09T16:07:00.005+08:00

Advanced Stream Redirector (asx) is designed to store a list of
Windows Media files to play during a multimedia presentation.Due to its nature
it is not available for Linux OS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Stream_Redirector

Allow .asx files in Plesk for Linux

Impossible?

The answer is NO. It is possible. With just a little tweaking, you can attain your goal.

The solution:

1. Locate the domains conf directory. It is usually under the /home/httpd/vhosts/domain/ directory.

2. Look for the httpd.include file. Open the file using your favorite text editor. E.g. vi

3. Add the line:

AddType video/x-ms-asf asf asx

Restart the http service (/etc/init.d/httpd restart or service httpd restart), test and you should now have a working .asx file under Linux.

Common SSH commands

2008-04-09T14:19:00.007+08:00

I've compiled some of the common linux/unix shell commands. I believe this will be a great jumpstart for all *nix lovers like me.

Goodluck!

cd : change directory

ex. cd /root (brings you to the /root directory)

cd .. : moves you the upper directory
ex. if you're in /root

cd .. ( brings you to the cd / directory)

cd ~ : directs you to your home directory (/home)

cd - : brings you to the last directory you were in

cat : print file contents to the screen

syntax:
cat filename.txt - this prints the contents of the file filename.txt to your screen

ls : lists all the contents of a directory including all the files/directories in it.

ls -al : shows all files,directories,including hidden ones and the details/attributes for each file
ex.
[root@localhost var]# ls -al

total 220

drwxr-xr-x 27 root root 4096 Feb 5 20:25

drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Mar 22 23:11

chmod : changes the permissions of a particular file/directory.

Syntax:

From left to right:
USER - GROUP - EVERYONE

chmod filename

0 = --- No permission

1 = --X Execute only

2 = -W- Write only

3 = -WX Write and execute

4 = R-- Read only

5 = R-X Read and execute

6 = RW- Read and write

7 = RWX Read, write and execute

ex.
chmod 755 filename - gives read,write and execute permissions on the USER and read and execute permissions only to the Group and Everyone. This will look like:

drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Sep 5 2007 filename

chown : changes the file ownership
USER GROUP

drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Sep 5 2007 filename
Syntax:
chown owner.owner filename - this sets the owner of the user and group to "owner"

chown .owner filename - this sets the owner of the group to "owner"

Ex.
chown apache:apache filename
The output would be:
From
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Sep 5 2007 filename
It will be
drwxr-xr-x 3 apache apache 4096 Sep 5 2007 filename

du - (disk usage) displays the file space allocated to each file and directory contained in the current directory

-a, display an entry for each file (and not directory) contained in the
current directory
-H, calculate disk usage for link references specified on the command line
-k, show sizes as multiples of 1024 bytes, not 512-byte
-L, calculate disk usage for link references anywhere
-s, report only the sum of the usage in the current directory, not for each
file
-x, only traverse files and directories on the device on which the pathname
argument is specified.
-h, show filesize in nice human readable format.

This prints the summary disk space usage of the current directory.

Ok so that's it for now. I will be updating this post from time to time so be sure to bookmark the link.

Cheers!

How to recover Plesk password

2008-04-09T14:09:00.003+08:00

Yes. Its possible to recover your lost/forgotten Plesk password. Plesk uses a utility called plesksrvclient.exe. It is located in the "adminbin" folder of your Plesk installation directory.

The first step is to connect via RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). Click on Start, choose Run then type there:

"C:\Program Files\SWsoft\Plesk\admin\bin\plesksrvclient.exe" -get

How to change Plesk interface logo

2008-04-09T13:57:00.004+08:00

I'll show teach you how to change the Plesk interface logo. The logo is visible to the admin and clients.

It's easy. Here's how:

1. Log in to Plesk as administrator.
2. On the Server Administration page, click Logo Setup.
3. Click Browse. A local file browser window displays.
4. Select the logo image file from your local computer, and click Open.
5. In the Enter new URL for logo text box, type in the URL of the Web site you want the image to link to.
6. Click OK.

Hope that helps.

Hangup problems with a TDM400P card

2008-04-08T14:18:00.004+08:00

On my Trixbox setup, I was able to fix the hangup problem on a Wildcard TDM400p card by adding the following lines on zapata.conf:

busydetect=yes
busycount=4

Also, you might want to try other suggestions from the article Resolving Hangup Detection Problems fxo,tdm and voicemail in Asterisk Guru.

Cannot open Plesk Control Panel

2008-04-08T11:01:00.005+08:00

Earlier, we we're unable to access the Plesk Control Panel for the admin and clients. It doesn't show the login page or the usual error Page cannot be displayed.

Cause:

Offline management was disabled.

From Parallels KB,

Virtuozzo Power Panel has the following login mechanisms:
If
OFFLINE_MANAGEMENT parameter is set to "yes", VZPP accepts the VE "root" login
with the corresponding password when connecting to VE IP address.
If
OFFLINE_MANAGEMENT is enabled and Plesk Control Panel is installed in the VE -
loging in the VE using Plesk credentials (user admin with the corresponding
password) is supported on the VE IP address. In this case, however, the
management capabilities available via web interface are limited.

The Service VE administrative credentials (user vzagent0 with the
corresponding password) are supported as well. Upon administrative login all the
VEes on the Node are manageable.When offline management is on for a VE and the
VE has Plesk installed, Plesk panel interface works via Service VE (in other
words, port 8443 is forwarded to Service VE). In this case some additional
Virtuozzo-related functionality is added to Plesk interface.

Solution:

Enable offline management.

1. Go to the hardware node using your favorite ssh client. E.g. putty.exe

2. Type:

vzctl set (node id) --offline_management yes --save

Example. If the node ID is 101 then type:

vzctl set 101 --offline_management yes --save

That's it. You should now be able to access the Plesk control panel.

Intel CPU uCode loading error

2008-04-08T10:22:00.004+08:00

While I was setting up this machine for a Trixbox project, I've encountered an error during the first bootup of the machine. My machine was an ASUS P5PE-VM motherboard,socket 775 with a Core 2 Duo processor and 2 Gigs of memory.

Intel CPU uCode loading error

Press F1 to resume...

Solution:

UPDATE BIOS.

Go get the latest BIOS update from support.asus.com.

1. Download the latest BIOS Update. ( It is important that you download the BIOS update that matches your motherboard's model.)

Download - P5PE-VM - Version 1501

2. Save the downloaded file on a floppy disk.

3. Boot from the boards Support Cd. Browse the floppy disk.

4. To obtain a backup of your latest Bios settings, type:

afudos /0filename

5. Finally to update the BIOS, type:

afudos /ifilename <-- Type here the filename of the BIOS Update. It ends with a .rom file.

Important: The machine should not be restarted while the update is running.

After the update, restart. You should now boot with no problem.

Asterisk/Trixbox User Guides

2008-04-06T21:06:00.004+08:00

Another set of great user guides/how-to's for Asterisk users that can help them have a working VOIP setup:

1. Trixbox 2 without Tears - http://dumbme.voipeye.com.au/trixbox2/trixbox2_without_tears.pdf

2. Trixbox without Tears(older version) - http://dumbme.voipeye.com.au/trixbox/trixbox_without_tears.pdf

3. The Trixbox Dumb Me Guide - http://aussievoip.com.au/wiki/DumbMe

4. Nerd Vittles Guide to Trixbox 1.0 and Freepbx 2.1.1(Part 1) - http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=137

5. Trixbox 2.0 Install - http://voipusers.org.nz/wiki/Trixbox_2.0_install_guide_for_dummies

6. Trixbox Quick Install Guide - http://www.trixbox.org/wiki/trixbox-quick-install-guide

You can also check out asteriskguru.com or send me a note!

How to use the zip utility in Linux

2008-04-06T19:38:00.002+08:00

For zipping up an entire directory, use the command:

zip -r directory directory

This creates the archive directory.zip, containing all the files and directories in the directory directory that is contained within the current directory.

zip directory *

This creates a zip file named directory.zip and contains all the files on the current working directory.

zip -j directory directory/*

You can use this if you want to create a zip archive and omits its directory name.

-j option - Store just the name of a saved file (junk
the path), and do not store directory names. By default, zip will store the full
path (relative to the current path).

Looking for an Asterisk Guide?

2008-04-04T18:10:00.002+08:00

Here's a great how to that is documented for Asterisk newbies. I am using it as a guide as well.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~bsharif/asterisk/AsteriskForDumbMe.htm

Trixbox incompatible with Jmicron Controller

2008-04-04T17:44:00.006+08:00

Ok. So I am playing around with Trixbox lately. I got a Asus P5B-VM board, 8 Gigs of memory, 2 Sata hard drives, and a Jmicron Controller. A pretty good setup for a VOIP system. But I'm having a strange problem. First, the installation asks for driver disk. I use the all-generic-ide=1 option and the installation continues.But, it proceeds with the Centos 4 install only!

I've seen on different forums that the Jmicron Controller is causing the problem. Trixbox still doesn't have a driver for such controller. Jmicron only supports 2.6.18 kernels. Too bad for me. Guess we'll have to try a different board.

I'll keep you posted!

Useful downloads: ISO Creators

2008-04-04T16:53:00.005+08:00

ISO Image, from the definition of wikipedia, is an archive file (a.k.a. disk image) of an optical disc using a coventional ISO format that is supported by many software vendors. ISO image files typically have a file extension of .ISO but Mac OS X ISO images often have the extension ".CDR". The name "ISO" is taken from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media but the term ISO image can refer to any optical disc image, even a UDF image.

CD/DVD-ROM to .ISO

If you are looking for a cd/dvd -rom to iso creator, Lucersoft is offering this free handy tool. No need for you to install the program. It's that easy.

1. Download the file here.

2. Unzip the file on your hard drive/Desktop.

3. Just click on the icon, and it will automatically locate where your CD/DVD-ROM is.

4. Hit the "Create ISO" button. It will ask for a location. Your new disk image will be stored there. Then click "Save". After a couple of minutes, you will have your own ISO image!

Blogger Blog Design

2008-03-26T18:06:00.004+08:00

Sorry for the poor design of my blog. I'm working on this. (I hope someone is kind enough to donate me a header) Lol. Kiddin.

Looks doesn't matter I guess but design is also somewhat important to visitors. I just posted this to let you all know.

Thanks for the visit!

~lyz

Next Project: Asterisk Running On A Flash Drive

2008-03-26T17:55:00.004+08:00

It's been a while since my last post. I got so little time in updating my blog because of the tons of tasks assigned to me. Plus the Holy Week Vacation. Lol. Anyway, I am cooking something and I promise to post here what'll be the outcome and of course the how-to. ;)

How to turn off open_basedir restrictions in Plesk Apache

2008-03-17T12:55:00.001+08:00

The open_basedir function defines the locations or paths from which PHP is allowed to access files using functions like fopen() and gzopen(). If a file is outside of the paths defined by open_basdir, PHP will refuse to open it. You cannot use a symbolic link as a workaround, because the path that the symbolic link resolves to falls under the restrictions of the open_basedir function.

Here's a quick bit of apache config that can be placed in the conf/vhost.conf file of a Plesk site to turn off the open_basedir restrictions:

php_admin_flag engine on
php_admin_value open_basedir none

How to turn off PHP safe mode

2008-03-17T12:46:00.007+08:00

All you have to do is to modify your php.ini. ( Config file for PHP)

Change the line safe_mode = on to safe_mode = off.

In windows for Plesk, the path is C:\\windows\php.ini.
In linux for Plesk, the path is /etc/php.ini.

You should restart the web server service in order for the changes to take effect.

Edit:

On the Plesk 8.x versions, it provides an added functionality wherein you can edit the PHP Safe Mode option for single or multiple domains.

1. Login as administrator to the Plesk control panel.

2. Click on the Domains.

3. Check the domain you want to edit then choose Group Operations. This is located on the upper part of the Domains' page. This is also where you edit the other global changes for the domain/s.

4. Scroll down until you see the Hosting options.

5. Look for the line "PHP 'safe_mode' on", tick the radio button under the Disable column.

You can now safely assure that all of your applications that requires PHP Safe mode off will perfectly work.

*wink

Edit:

I've created a new post on how this can be done on Cpanel. Here's the link.

Logging in to Plesk Automatically

2008-03-15T17:24:00.006+08:00

If you don't want to type your username and password everytime you log in into the plesk control panel, here's a quick way to help you solve the problem:

Of course you need to supply in the correct details:

https://domain.com:8443/login_up.php3?login_name=admin&passwd=yourpassword

And one last thing.

Do not forget to bookmark the link!

How to add spam filtering in Plesk

2008-03-15T17:18:00.002+08:00

Here's a quick command in enabling spamassasin for all Plesk users.

# mysql -u admin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` psamysql> update mail set spamfilter = 'true' where postbox = 'true';

# /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/mchk --with-spam

This applies to Plesk 8.

Creating wildcard subdomains in Plesk

2008-03-15T17:03:00.002+08:00

First step in creating wildcard subdomains in Plesk is you should have a CNAME or A record for *.domain.com which points to domain.com (for a CNAME), or the domain’s IP (for an A record.

Then you will need to configure Apache with the following line in the domain's vhost.conf:

ServerAlias *.domain.com

If the vhost.conf didn’t exist before, you will need to run:

# /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/websrvmng -av

You will need to reload the httpd service so that the changes you did will take effect.

Use this command:

# /etc/init.d/httpd reload

Unable to bind: address already used

2008-03-15T16:36:00.003+08:00

You are here because you have seen the following message in either /var/log/qmail/qmail-smtpd/current or /var/log/qmail/qmail-pop3d/current.

tcpserver: fatal: unable to bind: address already used

If you see this error message, the problem is that another program has bound to the address to which you are trying to bind. Stop the revelant service with using the svc command. Verify the service is down with the svstat command. The below example will use the qmail-smtpd service.

# svc -d /service/qmail-smtpd
# svstat /service/qmail-smtpd

The service should show as down. Next run the following command to verify another program has bound to the port using the netstat and grep commands. The below example continues with the qmail-smtpd service as will the rest. If you are experiencing this problem with qmail-pop3d, substitute 110 in place of 25. If the command returns something, then another program is bound to that port.

# netstat -an grep 25

After determining something is indeed bound to the address, determine what program is with the lsof command.

# lsof -n -i:25

The output of lsof will tell you what program is running on that port. You need to stop that program and remove it and its related start scripts. Once this is completed, you can restart the service by using the svc command.

# svc -u /service/qmail-smtpd

Now verify that the service has started correctly with the svstat and tail commands.

# svstat /service/qmail-smtpd
# tail /var/log/qmail/qmail-smtpd/current

The svstat command should show the service running for more than one second. The tail command should also show that the service has started correctly and the address already in use message has disappeared.

Preventing this error:

The two most common causes of this error are:

1. Not stopping any pre-existing mail server software. If you are installing qmail on a machine which already has sendmail, postfix, exim, or some other mail server installed (possibly installed by default with your OS distribution) you need to make sure that this other program is not only stopped, but is not configured to run automatically when the system boots.

For RedHat, Fedora, CentOS, Whitebox, and other RedHat-like systems, you can use the chkconfig command to make sure these other services will not start automatically when the system boots. You may need a command like this:

# chkconfig --level 2345 sendmail off

For debian linux, there is a similar command called update-rc.d. A similar command would look something like this (and if somebody knows debian better than I do, please correct me here...)

# update-rc.d -r -f sendmail

2. Running two services on the same port without specifying separate IP addresses. Note that running one service with a specific IP address and another service with 0.0.0.0 (or just 0) as the IP address is the same thing- the service running with 0.0.0.0 will try and attach to every IP address on the machine, and if anything is already attached to even one of those IPs, it will fail. Likewise, if there is a service running on 0.0.0.0 and another service tries to start which uses the same port a single IP, it will fail. There is no way to "share" a port on any single IP address- if you need to share a single port between two services, those services MUST be listening on different IP addresses, and neither of them can use 0.0.0.0.

Retrieved from "http://www.qmailinfo.org/index.php/UnableToBindAddress"

PHP mail function stopped working after Plesk qmail reinstallation

2008-03-14T17:30:00.002+08:00

One client's contact form that is using the PHP mail function suddenly stopped working. I thought it was a misconfiguration on sendmail:

[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
SMTP = localhost

; For Win32 only.
sendmail_from = me@localhost.com

; For Unix only. You may supply arguments as well (default: "sendmail -t -i").
sendmail_path = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i

You are using qmail!

Bummer! Looking back into my notes,I found out that qmail supports sendmail binaries so it doesn't matter whether PHP specifies the old path to sendmail.

And prior to that day, we reinstalled Qmail.(Server got hit by a spammer) So maybe we messed up a bit with the symlinks.

Solution:

Link the sendmail binary with qmail-sendmail using this command:

ln -s /var/qmail/bin/qmail-sendmail /usr/sbin/sendmail

That solved the problem. Hope this post helps you too.

Mysql Cheatsheet/Quick Facts

2008-03-14T16:54:00.002+08:00

What is mysql?

MySQL is an Open Source Database Management created by MySQL AB, a commercial company owned by the MYSQL Developers.

Check out this great mysql cheatsheet. I know the basics of MySQL but I still need some practice. This surely will be a big help to all MySQL noobs.

Query

SELECT * FROM table
SELECT * FROM table1, table2, ...
SELECT field1, field2, ... FROM table1, table2, ...
SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE condition
SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE condition GROUPBY field
SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE condition GROUPBY field HAVING condition2
SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE condition ORDER BY field1, field2
SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE condition ORDER BY field1, field2 DESC
SELECT ... FROM ... WHERE condition LIMIT 10
SELECT DISTINCT field1 FROM ...
SELECT DISTINCT field1, field2 FROM ...
SELECT ... FROM t1 JOIN t2 ON t1.id1 = t2.id2 WHERE condition
SELECT ... FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id1 = t2.id2 WHERE condition
SELECT ... FROM t1 JOIN (t2 JOIN t3 ON ...) ON ...

conditionals:

field1 = value1
field1 <> value1
field1 LIKE 'value _ %'
field1 IS NULL
field1 IS NOT NULL
field1 IS IN (value1, value2)
field1 IS NOT IN (value1, value2)
condition1 AND condition2
condition1 OR condition2

Data Manipulation

INSERT INTO table1 (field1, field2, ...) VALUES (value1, value2, ...)
DELETE FROM table1 / TRUNCATE table1
DELETE FROM table1 WHERE condition
-- join:
DELETE FROM table1, table2 FROM table1, table2 WHERE table1.id1 = table2.id2 AND condition
UPDATE table1 SET field1=new_value1 WHERE condition
-- join:
UPDATE table1, table2 SET field1=new_value1, field2=new_value2, ... WHERE table1.id1 = table2.id2 AND condition

Browsing

SHOW DATABASES
SHOW TABLES
SHOW FIELDS FROM table / DESCRIBE table
SHOW CREATE TABLE table
SHOW PROCESSLIST
KILL process_number

Create / Delete database

CREATE DATABASE mabase
CREATE DATABASE mabase CHARACTER SET utf8
DROP DATABASE mabase
ALTER DATABASE mabase CHARACTER SET utf8

Create/Delete/Modify table

CREATE TABLE table (field1 type1, field2 type2, ...)
CREATE TABLE table (field1 type1, field2 type2, ..., INDEX (field))
CREATE TABLE table (field1 type1, field2 type2, ..., PRIMARY KEY (field1))
CREATE TABLE table (field1 type1, field2 type2, ..., PRIMARY KEY (field1, field2))
CREATE TABLE table1 (fk_field1 type1, field2 type2, ...,
FOREIGN KEY (fk_field1) REFERENCES table2 (t2_fieldA))
[ON UPDATEON DELETE] [CASCADESET NULL]
CREATE TABLE table1 (fk_field1 type1, fk_field2 type2, ...,
FOREIGN KEY (fk_field1, fk_field2) REFERENCES table2 (t2_fieldA, t2_fieldB))
CREATE TABLE table IF NOT EXISTS (...)
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE table (...)
DROP TABLE table
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS table
DROP TABLE table1, table2, ...
ALTER TABLE table MODIFY field1 type1
ALTER TABLE table MODIFY field1 type1 NOT NULL ...
ALTER TABLE table CHANGE old_name_field1 new_name_field1 type1
ALTER TABLE table CHANGE old_name_field1 new_name_field1 type1 NOT NULL ...
ALTER TABLE table ALTER field1 SET DEFAULT ...
ALTER TABLE table ALTER field1 DROP DEFAULT
ALTER TABLE table ADD new_name_field1 type1
ALTER TABLE table ADD new_name_field1 type1 FIRST
ALTER TABLE table ADD new_name_field1 type1 AFTER another_field
ALTER TABLE table DROP field1
ALTER TABLE table ADD INDEX (field);
-- Change field order:
ALTER TABLE table MODIFY field1 type1 FIRST
ALTER TABLE table MODIFY field1 type1 AFTER another_field
ALTER TABLE table CHANGE old_name_field1 new_name_field1 type1 FIRST
ALTER TABLE table CHANGE old_name_field1 new_name_field1 type1 AFTER another_field
ALTER TABLE old_name RENAME new_name;

Keys

CREATE TABLE table (..., PRIMARY KEY (field1, field2))
CREATE TABLE table (..., FOREIGN KEY (field1, field2) REFERENCES table2 (t2_field1, t2_field2))

Privileges

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON base.* TO 'user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, DELETE ON base.* TO 'user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
REVOKE ALL PRIVILEGES ON base.* FROM 'user'@'host'; -- one permission only
REVOKE ALL PRIVILEGES, GRANT OPTION FROM 'user'@'host'; -- all permissions
SET PASSWORD = PASSWORD('new_pass')
SET PASSWORD FOR 'user'@'host' = PASSWORD('new_pass')
SET PASSWORD = OLD_PASSWORD('new_pass')
DROP USER 'user'@'host'

Main Data Types

TINYINT (1o: -217+128) SMALLINT (2o: +-65 000)
MEDIUMINT (3o: +-16 000 000) INT (4o: +- 2 000 000 000)
BIGINT (8o: +-9.10^18)
Precise interval: -(2^(8*N-1)) -> (2^8*N)-1
/!\ INT(2) = "2 digits displayed" -- NOT "number with 2 digits max"
FLOAT(M,D) DOUBLE(M,D) FLOAT(D=0->53)
/!\ 8,3 -> 12345,678 -- NOT 12345678,123!
TIME (HH:MM) YEAR (AAAA) DATE (AAAA-MM-JJ) DATETIME (AAAA-MM-JJ HH:MM; années 1000->9999)
TIMESTAMP (like DATETIME, but 1970->2038, compatible with Unix)
VARCHAR (single-line; explicit size) TEXT (multi-lines; max size=65535) BLOB (binary; max size=65535)
Variants for TEXT&BLOB: TINY (max=255) MEDIUM (max=~16000) LONG (max=4Go)
Ex: VARCHAR(32), TINYTEXT, LONGBLOB, MEDIUMTEXT
ENUM ('value1', 'value2', ...) -- (default NULL, or '' if NOT NULL)

Forgot root password?

$ /etc/init.d/mysql stop
$ mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables
$ mysql # on another terminal
mysql> UPDATE mysql.user SET password=PASSWORD('nouveau') WHERE user='root';
## Kill mysqld_safe from the terminal, using Control + \
$ /etc/init.d/mysql start

Repair tables after unclean shutdown

mysqlcheck --all-databases
mysqlcheck --all-databases --fast

Ciao!

How do I enable firewall in a VE?

2008-03-13T11:37:00.003+08:00

From SWSOFT's Knowledgebase, here's a step by step information in enabling firewall in a Virtuozzo for Linux VE. (Virtual Environment)

First of all you should define which iptables modules are available for VEs.

Edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables-config and /etc/sysconfig/vz on the hardware node. Add modules you need into IPTABLES_MODULES= and IPTABLES= lines correspondingly. Please note that all iptables modules in /etc/sysconfig/vz file in IPTABLES parameter should be listed in one single line, no linebreaks are allowed in this parameter.

For example, typical firewall configuration requires the following modules:

ipt_REJECT ipt_tos ipt_TOS ipt_LOG ip_conntrack ipt_limit ipt_multiport iptable_filter iptable_mangle ipt_TCPMSS ipt_tcpmss ipt_ttl ipt_length ipt_state iptable_nat ip_nat_ftp

The changes will be applied after you load all required modules and restart Virtuozzo service (all VEs will be restarted):

# service vz stop
# service iptables restart
# service vz start

Modules you defined will be available for all VEs. However, you can also define a list of iptables modules for each VE using --iptables option of vzctl utility, e.g.:

# vzctl set 101 --iptables ipt_REJECT --iptables ipt_tos --iptables ipt_TOS --iptables ipt_LOG --iptables ip_conntrack --iptables ipt_limit --iptables ipt_multiport --iptables iptable_filter --iptables iptable_mangle --iptables ipt_TCPMSS --iptables ipt_tcpmss --iptables ipt_ttl --iptables ipt_length --iptables ipt_state --iptables iptable_nat --iptables ip_nat_ftp --save

You will probably need to increase the barrier of numiptent parameter in /proc/user_beancounters using vzctl utility. This parameter limits amount of iptables rules which VE owner is allowed to create. For example, this is how you allow to enter 400 iptables rules on VE 101:

# vzctl set 101 --numiptent 400 --save

Address already in use: make sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:443 no listening sockets available.

2008-03-12T18:06:00.001+08:00

If you get this error when restarting httpd on plesk linux servers:

"Address already in use: make sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:443 no listening sockets available."

Actually the error says it all.

First, try to look for the processes that is listening to port 80 or 443. You can do this:

1. netstat -lnp grep '0.0.0.0:80'
2. lsof grep *:www
3. lsof -i:443
4. fuser -v 443/tcp
5. netstat -tulpen grep :443

After pointing out which uses the port, send a kill signal:

#kill -9 PID

Replace "PID" with the actual PID.

Hope that helps.

Can’t Enable/Disable PHP Support for a Domain in Plesk

2008-03-12T17:28:00.001+08:00

Plesk provides a feature to select/deselect PHP support for each domain. Sometimes, the check box to enable/disable PHP support is grayed out, so the user won’t be able to use that feature. This happens if PHP is not installed or the installed PHP is not recognized by Plesk components. In most cases this happens if you have installed PHP manually (not using the rpm comes with Plesk).

You can see the installed PHP components in the following way:

Using Plesk control panel, click on Plesk–>server–>component info, you can see if the installed PHP is detected by the Plesk. The same details of installed (detected) components can be seen using mysql.

#mysql -u admin -p’cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow’
mysql> use psa;mysql> select * from Components;

If you see the value of php as not_installed, you probably have to edit the database to detect the currently installed PHP version. Follow the steps below to do this.

Find out the current PHP version:

#php -v

Then, edit the psa components table

#mysql -u admin -p’cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow’
mysql> use psa;mysql> update Components set version=”4.4.6″ where name=”php” limit 1; mysql>\q

Restart plesk:
#/etc/init.d/psa stopall
#/etc/init.d/psa start

How to: Retrieving passwords in windows/linux plesk servers

2008-03-12T17:16:00.003+08:00

Linux:

root ]# cat /etc/psa/.psa-shadow

Windows:
From the command line type:

“C:\Program Files\SWsoft\Plesk\admin\bin\plesksrvclient.exe” -get
Note: The path “C:\Program Files\SWsoft\” may change according to its installation directory.

How to: Retrieving passwords in windows/linux plesk servers

2008-03-12T17:16:00.002+08:00

One of the most important things in system administration is password management. But what if you forgot the Plesk admin password? Here's a quick how to:

Linux:

root ]# cat /etc/psa/.psa-shadow

Windows:

From the command line type:

“C:\Program Files\SWsoft\Plesk\admin\bin\plesksrvclient.exe” -get

Note: The path “C:\Program Files\SWsoft\” may change according to its installation directory.

Login for webstats on Plesk

2008-03-12T17:07:00.001+08:00

Login for webstats on Plesk

Open domain’s httpd.include (HTTPD_VHOSTS_D/domain/conf/httpd.include) file and search for something like:

"AuthType BasicAuthName “Domain statistics”AuthUserFile /var/www/vhosts/domain/pd/d..httpdocs@plesk-statrequire valid-user"

The above entry tells that access to web-stats page (/var/www/vhosts/domain/statistics) is restricted to valid-users specified within ‘AuthUserFile’.
So, create an encrypted password using htpasswd and append its output to ‘AuthUserFile’.
$ htpasswd -nb username userpass >> /var/www/vhosts/domainName/pd/d..httpdocs@plesk-stat

Note: Don’t forget to use ‘>>’. Using one symbol (>) will erase existing entries.

Now, you should be able to login using username & userpass.

Source: mohammednv

Repairing Webmail Error: “A fatal error has occurred DB Error: connect failed” to Log in

2008-03-12T16:35:00.002+08:00

If you receive the following error during attempting to login into Horde Webmail:

"A fatal error has occurred DB Error: connect failed Details have been logged for the administrator. "

Please make sure that the following line exists in the directory /etc/my.conf:

socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

Also check that Mysql service is running and that the /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock socket exists. Make sure that the Horde user is able to connect to the Horde database with a password from etc/psa/.webmail.shadow using the command:

# mysql -uhorde -p`cat /etc/psa/.webmail.shadow` -D horde

If /etc/psa/.webmail.shadow is missing, put some password into this file and change the password for the Horde user in the MySQL database using the query listed below. If you get the error, make sure that the only one Horde MySQL user exists in the user table in MySQL database and try to change its password with a MySQL query like:

# mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` -D mysqlmysql> update user set password=password(”THE_PASSWORD_FROM_WEBMAIL.SHADOW”) where user=”horde”;mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Look into the psa-horde log (by default: /var/log/psa-horde). If you see something like:

Nov 02 12:55:06 HORDE [emergency] [horde] DB Error: connect failed: [nativecode=Access denied for user: ‘root@localhost’ (Using password: NO)] ** Array [on line 1329 of “/usr/share/psa-horde/lib/Horde/DataTree/sql.php”]

Make sure that sql.safe_mode is disabled in php.ini, such as:

sql.safe_mode=Off

Restart Apache after changes in php.ini have been made.

Source: mohammednv

Changing Plesk Outgoing Mail Port

2008-03-12T16:05:00.001+08:00

The title says it all. Here's a simple how to from
a great wordpress blogger.

Here are the steps in changingthe outgoing mail port for Plesk.

1. Create a copy of smtp_psa by entering:

# cp /etc/xinetd.d/smtp_psa /etc/xinetd.d/smtp_nonstandard

2. Add these lines to the copy you just made.

#vi /etc/xinetd.d/smtp_nonstandard
type = "UNLISTEDport = 2525" <>and change the service name to match the name of the file.

3. Restart xinetd.

# /etc/init.d/xinetd restart

You should now be able to send mails through port 2525. You can also use any available port you want.

Receiving the “Access Denied” Error and Cannot Log Into Plesk

2008-03-12T14:43:00.001+08:00

Problem:

When trying to login to Plesk as an admin user, a popup says “Access Denied”.

Solution:

Enter the following commands:

mysql -u admin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow`use psa;

delete from lockout where login = ‘admin’;

NOTE: Plesk has an built-in security feature with account logins (basically only 3 login attempts are allowed). That is, if you get your password or username wrong 3 times, the server will lock you out.

Plesk for Windows Webmail Error: Webmail Cannot be Found

2008-03-12T14:33:00.002+08:00

If you are getting an error that says “File cannot be found” or if you are receiving a 404 error when you try to go to webmail.mydomain.com, this is due to the fact that default mapping application extensions do not include php support.

To solve this, do the following:

1. Go to “Start” - > “Administrative Tools” -> “Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager”.

2. Expand the server (local computer).

3. Expand “Web Sites”.

4. Right-click on “webmail(default)” and click “Properties”.

5. Go to the “Home Directory” tab.

6. Click on the “Configuration” button towards the bottom.

7. In the list box that appears, if the extensions php, php3, and phtml do not exist, you have found your problem.

8. Click “Add”.

9. Type the location of the file php.exe in the “Executable” field. For example: C:\Program Files\SWsoft\Plesk\Php\php.exe.

10. Type: .php in the “extension” field.

11. Leave everything else as default checked. Click “OK”.

12. Repeat this setup using the same executable and adding the extensions: .php3 and .phtml

Webmail should be up and running now.

Source: mohammednv

How to Enable MAPS SPAM Protection in Plesk

2008-03-12T14:27:00.002+08:00

To enable MAPS SPAM protection in Plesk, begin by selecting the server you wish to manage, then “Mail”, then “MAPS Zone”. The 5 major SPAM protection lists are listed below with a general description.

Users can define which lists they would like to use:

1. Spamhaus block list (SBL) sbl.spamhaus.org: A free real-time DNS-based database of IP addresses of verified SPAMmers, SPAM gangs and SPAM services.

2. Arbitrary black hole list (ABL) spammers.v6net.org: Aggressive black list that may stop mail from popular mail servers (xxx.yahoo.com, xxx.hotmail.com)

3. Domain Name System Real-time Black List (DNSRBL) dun.dnsrbl.net: List of IP addresses of machines that are either direct SPAM sources or Dial-up (dynamic address) pools which would never be a source of non-SPAM messages.

4. VOX DNSBL vox.schpider.com: List of servers that send out SPAM, compiled by phydiux.com and it’s partners.

5. RFC Ignorant (Whois) whois.rfc-ignorant.org: List of IP’s that do not comply with RFC’s.

In the newer versions of Plesk, such as Plesk 8.1, they have renamed the “MAPS Zone” option to “Enable support for Trend Micro RBL+ Service.” If you want to enter multiple lists, separate the lists by semicolon. For example: “maps1.domain.com” or “maps1.domain.com;maps2.domain.com”.

Thanks to mohammednv.

My Plesk Control Panel is Showing a Blank Page. How Can I Locate the Error?

2008-03-12T14:22:00.000+08:00

If you see empty page in Plesk control panel instead of a page with content, it means that an error occurred. By default Plesk does not show PHP errors for security reasons. To enable PHP error reporting, you can edit $PRODUCT_ROOT_D/admin/conf/php.ini and set display_errors = On, then restart Plesk. This should resolve the issue and help you locate the error.

Source:mohammednv

Plesk Error Massage 553: “Message did not Reach Intended Recipients. That Domain isn’t in my list of Allowed RCPThosts”.

2008-03-12T14:13:00.002+08:00

Problem:

When send an email, you get this error:

“Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients. 553 sorry, that domain isn’t in my list of allowed rcpthosts.”

Solution:

1. Log in as administrator to the Plesk control panel.
2. In the Server Administration (click “Server” in the menu)then choose the “Mail” icon.
3. Select the tab “Maximum letter size and relay mode parameters”.
4. Check the box “POP 3 lock time”.
5. Click “Set”.
6. Restart “PSA”.

Edit:

Alternatively, you can check out Swsoft's knowledgebase entry regarding this matter:

http://kb.parallels.com/en/168
Source: mohammednv

Unable to login in Plesk Control Panel because of IP restriction

2008-03-12T13:59:00.002+08:00

I'd like to start sharing you really useful problems and fixes from a linux wordpress blogger. Here's one:

Problem:

While logging into Plesk control panel, you may get the following error:
“Access for administrator from address xx.xx.xx.xx is restricted in accordance with IP Access restriction policy currently applied.”

Resolution:

This means Plesk IP access policy was configured in such a way that Plesk cannot be accessed from the current IP. To enable Plesk CP access one needs to login to Plesk Control Panel locally and change IP access policy.

It can be done the following way:

Server > Acess (under the section Administrator information) > Remove necessary IP address/subnet/network

If localhost is also blocked, the Plesk database records regarding access policy need to be corrected.

To retrieve the current policy and restricted/allowed IPs the following commands can be used:

#mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` -P8306 psa
mysql> select * from cp_access;mysql> select * from misc where param=’access_policy’;
To clear the access policy settings remove all the records from the “cp_access” table and set policy to “allow”:
mysql> delete * from cp_access;mysql> update misc set val=”allow” where param=’access_policy’;

Test and you should be able to login now.

Source: mohammednv

Windows Firewall Caused VE to Fail

2008-03-10T12:57:00.001+08:00

Problem:

Cannot access or ping a Virtuozzo VPS. Status in the Virtual Management console shows that the VPS is up and running.

Solution:

After minutes of figuring out why the VE stopped responding, we finally pointed out the culprit. For some reason, the Windows Firewall Service is started automatically! One rule for a Windows VPS is that the firewall should not be running. I know it sounds too risky for the servers not to have a firewall started. But we gotta follow the "VE rules".

Here's how we did it:

Since we cannot access the virtual machine, we used the VZMC to do the needed changes.

1. Login to VZMC.

2. Look for the VPS options. ( Virtual Private Server)

3. Right click the problematic server then hit Manage Virtual Server.

4. Scroll down until you see the Services option.

5. Look for the Windows Firewall service then disable it.

That's it. You know have a working VE again.