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Postfix problems that keep popping up
We have had several customers with postfix problems and they seem to be all of a similar nature, so i thought i would blog a couple. The most common one is trying to use both aliases and virtualhosts for a domain. Especially with Virtualmin which tries to do both. The main symptoms are something in…
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WordPress Upgrade Script 2.8.5
Heres a little Shell Script I wrote which, if run, will check your entire server for insecure versions of wordpress. If it finds any, it will give you the option to upgrade. If you say yes it will backup the existing sites file and database in /root/wp_upgrade and upgrade it. Please Note: This has not…
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Small Shell Script for monitoring
A customer wanting to do basic monitoring , i had a google and found the following script which is very handy. #!/bin/bash # # Script to notify admin user if Linux,FreeBSD load crossed certain limit # It will send an email notification to admin. # # Copyright 2005 (c) nixCraft project # This is free…
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checking the checksums of your binary packages
Occasionally you just want a bit of piece of mind about your server or Linux install. You may suspect there is somebody who has hacked your computer or even something changed by a package install that shouldn’t have been. Heres a couple of ideas on how to do a quick ‘health’ check on he md5sum…
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Adding timestamps to your bash history
Often we’ve had boxes compromised, or commands run that we have no idea who did it and at what time. Its very frustrating, especially when we have no idea if a customer did it, one of the staff, or if a box was compromised. Glenn found this little snippet which is now default in all…
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sshmnt installation and useage for backups
So you want to use sshfs to do a backup? We have had a couple of customers unsure what to do when the sshfs command is not found. Its not too hard to do. Debian based VPS can just run apt-get install sshfs Centos doesnt come with it by default and you need to install…
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Unsure who is sending spam? Try this
Anyone who has hosted peoples websites before, has had either a blog hacked, or some guy thinking he is going to send mass mailouts using PHP or similar happen. Its extremely hard to trackdown and deal with, and yet it can get your server listed at spam service denying legitimate email from getting through. This…
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Does your VPS have MD5 enabled for passwords?
We recently discovered that the way we install a VPS differs slightly from the usual CD install. This is not something we do specifically but something that can be improved on in the set-ups of CentOS5.3. When you install from a CD it automatically enables MD5 encryption in passwords (which should be the norm), however…
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Has your VPS been hacked?
If you use any pre-packaged software, it always pays to sign up to their mailing list or security advisory list. This means if any exploits or updates happen, you are on the ball and up to date. Today we had an email from a customer whos front page had been replaced. I noticed it was…