Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Yahoo! Messenger Firewalled!

Hi,

Yahoo! Messenger is a great idea. Setup and installation is easy. But if you are on a corporate network and you have a firewall blocking your access. How do you connect !.

Option 1: Yahoo! Messenger has a "connect through firewall" option.

Option 2: Ask your administrator to open up the specific ports. These ports are detailed in the help links from yahoo itself.

Help Link 1


Help Link 2

Enjoy!

Subodh

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Yum Problem in WBEL

Hello All,

I had just installed WhiteBox Enterprise Linux (WBEL) from www.whiteboxlinux.org. However when i tried to update/install packages through yum, i faced the following error.

[root@test yum.repos.d]# yum update
Config Error: Insufficient repository configuration. No repositories Found/Enabled. Aborting.

I tried various solution and found one that finally worked.

1. Copy over the following file

[root@test yum.repos.d]# cp wbelmirrors.yum wbelmirrors.repo

2. Then try running yum update

[root@test ~]# yum update
Yum Version: 2.2.0
COMMAND: yum update
Installroot: /
Setting up Update Process
Setting up Repos
Baseurl(s) for repo: ['ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/whitebox/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/whiteboxlinux.org/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://ftp.opensourcemirrors.org/linux/whitebox/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://whitebox.wicks.co.nz/pub/linux/dist/whitebox/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/whiteboxlinux/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/whiteboxlinux.org/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://ftp.ale.org/mirrors/whitebox/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/whitebox/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://mirror3.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/whiteboxlinux.org/Null/en/debuginfo/', 'ftp://mirror.netseoul.com/pub/whitebox/Null/en/debuginfo/']
ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/whitebox/Null/en/debuginfo/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 4] IOError: [Errno ftp error] 550 Failed to change directory.
Trying other mirror.
ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/whiteboxlinux/Null/en/debuginfo/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 4] IOError: [Errno ftp error] 550 Null: No such file or directory
Trying other mirror.
ftp://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/whitebox/Null/en/debuginfo/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 4] IOError: [Errno ftp error] 550 Null: No such file or directory
Trying other mirror.

3. It seems we have run into error again. On close observation it seems that the ftp lines parsed contain a 'Null', which is a variable '$releasever' supposed to resolve to some value. But it does not. So i bruteforced the value in the repo file as below. Since i use WBEL 4 i substituted '4'. Check your version before doing the substitution.

4. Go to /etc/yum/repos.yum.d and edit view the wbelmirrors.repo file

[root@test yum.repos.d]# vi wbelmirrors.repo

[base]
name=White Box Enterprise Linux $releasever - $basearch - Base
baseurl=ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/whitebox/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/
ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/whiteboxlinux.org/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/
ftp://ftp.opensourcemirrors.org/linux/whitebox/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/
ftp://whitebox.wicks.co.nz/pub/linux/dist/whitebox/$releasever/en/os/$basearch
/
ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/whiteboxlinux/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/
ftp://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/whiteboxlinux.org/$releasever/en/os/$base
arch/
ftp://ftp.ale.org/mirrors/whitebox/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/
ftp://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/whitebox/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/
ftp://mirror3.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/whiteboxlinux.org/$releasever/en/o
s/$basearch/
ftp://mirror.netseoul.com/pub/whitebox/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/

[updates-released]
name=White Box Enterprise Linux $releasever - $basearch - Released Updates
baseurl=ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/whitebox/$releasever/en/updates/
ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/whiteboxlinux.org/$releasever/en/updates/
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/$releasever/en/updates/
ftp://ftp.opensourcemirrors.org/linux/whitebox/$releasever/en/updates/
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/$releasever/en/updates/
ftp://whitebox.wicks.co.nz/pub/linux/dist/whitebox/$releasever/en/updates/
ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/whiteboxlinux/$releasever/en/updates/
ftp://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/whiteboxlinux.org/$releasever/en/updates/

5. Change all occurances of '$releasever' to '4' as follows in vi

:$/\$releasever/4/g

The updated file looks as follows.

baseurl=ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/whitebox/4/en/extras/
ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/whiteboxlinux.org/4/en/extras/
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/4/en/extras/
ftp://ftp.opensourcemirrors.org/linux/whitebox/4/en/extras/
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/4/en/extras/
ftp://whitebox.wicks.co.nz/pub/linux/dist/whitebox/4/en/extras/
ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/whiteboxlinux/4/en/extras/
ftp://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/whiteboxlinux.org/4/en/extras/
ftp://ftp.ale.org/mirrors/whitebox/4/en/extras/
ftp://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/whitebox/4/en/extras/
ftp://mirror3.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/whiteboxlinux.org/4/en/extras/
ftp://mirror.netseoul.com/pub/whitebox/4/en/extras/

[Debuginfo]
name=White Box Enterprise Linux 4 - $basearch - Debuginfo
baseurl=ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/whitebox/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/whiteboxlinux.org/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://ftp.opensourcemirrors.org/linux/whitebox/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/whiteboxlinux/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://whitebox.wicks.co.nz/pub/linux/dist/whitebox/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/whiteboxlinux/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/whiteboxlinux.org/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://ftp.ale.org/mirrors/whitebox/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://ftp.riken.jp/Linux/whitebox/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://mirror3.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/whiteboxlinux.org/4/en/debuginfo/
ftp://mirror.netseoul.com/pub/whitebox/4/en/debuginfo/

6. Run yum update and you are through.

[root@test yum.repos.d]# yum update

Cheerio !

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Setting UP NFS

Tested On Debian 3.1 (Sarge)

This tutorial is aimed at setting up a NFS share and accessing it. Let get started with it right away.

Check whether you have the nfs-kernel-server installed by giving the following commmand.

# apt-cache search nfs-kernel
nfs-kernel-server - Kernel NFS server support

If you get the above output, all is well, else install the software by issuing the following command

# apt-get install nfs-kernel-server

Suppose you want to export the directory /testdir.

Begin by editing the /etc/exports file. Add the following line to allow everyone Read/Write access to exported directory.

/testdir *(rw,sync)

NOTE: Remember, there should be no space between the '*' and the left parentheses.

Restart the NFS daemon as

# /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart
Stopping NFS kernel daemon: mountd nfsd.
Unexporting directories for NFS kernel daemon...done.
Exporting directories for NFS kernel daemon...done.
Starting NFS kernel daemon: nfsd mountd.

That's it, you directories are ready to be shared via NFS. In the next part we will look at how to access the NFS share.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Hello World !

Hi everybody,

This is my first post and hence the "Hello World!". Being my first attempt at blogging i am sure to deviate from the the "laid path..". But then, it has to begin somewhere.
This blog would carry my experience and knowledge sharing that is have compiled upto now.

So, do come and join me on my journey through blogspace.

Subodh :-)