Canonical Announces Ubuntu Advantage Partner Program

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Weekly Ubuntu Q+A Videocasts

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Installing Lighttpd With PHP5 And MySQL Support On Ubuntu 11.04

Lighttpd is a secure, fast, standards-compliant web server designed for speed-critical environments. This tutorial shows how you can install Lighttpd on an Ubuntu 11.04 server with PHP5 support (through FastCGI) and MySQL support.

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Installing Nginx With PHP5 (And PHP-FPM) And MySQL Support On Ubuntu 11.04

Nginx (pronounced "engine x") is a free, open-source, high-performance HTTP server. Nginx is known for its stability, rich feature set, simple configuration, and low resource consumption. This tutorial shows how you can install Nginx on an Ubuntu 11.04 server with PHP5 support (through PHP-FPM) and MySQL support.

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The Official X.Org Notes For Ubuntu 11.10

This shouldn't be news for anyone who has followed the Phoronix articles for Ubuntu 11.10, particularly from the UDS Budapest event, but here's the official X.Org plans for this next Ubuntu Linux release...

This shouldn't be news for anyone who has followed the Phoronix articles for Ubuntu 11.10, particularly from the UDS Budapest event, but here's the official X.Org plans for this next Ubuntu Linux release...

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Ubuntu Gets Some Love

Say "Linux" these days, and most people automatically think, "Ubuntu." Such is the level of mainstream awareness and success Canonical's distribution has achieved, even as such goals have proven more elusive for other distributions. Of course, it can't be denied that the fact that mainstream users think *anything* when they...

Say "Linux" these days, and most people automatically think, "Ubuntu." Such is the level of mainstream awareness and success Canonical's distribution has achieved, even as such goals have proven more elusive for other distributions. Of course, it can't be denied that the fact that mainstream users think *anything* when they hear the word "Linux" is a good thing -- and an improvement over how things stood not so very long ago. One could certainly say that Ubuntu has helped Linux in that respect, then. But what's been its overall impact on the open source operating system?

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Virtual Users And Domains With Postfix, Courier, MySQL And SquirrelMail (Ubuntu 11.04)

This document describes how to install a Postfix mail server that is based on virtual users and domains, i.e. users and domains that are in a MySQL database. I'll also demonstrate the installation and configuration of Courier (Courier-POP3,...

This document describes how to install a Postfix mail server that is based on virtual users and domains, i.e. users and domains that are in a MySQL database. I'll also demonstrate the installation and configuration of Courier (Courier-POP3, Courier-IMAP), so that Courier can authenticate against the same MySQL database Postfix uses. The resulting Postfix server is capable of SMTP-AUTH and TLS and quota. Passwords are stored in encrypted form in the database. In addition to that, this tutorial covers the installation of Amavisd, SpamAssassin and ClamAV so that emails will be scanned for spam and viruses. I will also show how to install SquirrelMail as a webmail interface so that users can read and send emails and change their passwords.

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A Newbie's Reports on Ubuntu Show How Far It Has Come

Whether you're new to Linux or an old salt, it's worth following Tony Bradley's series of columns, currently being posted on PC World's site, where he describes his effort as a Windows user to go through a self-imposed 30 days of immersion in Ubuntu. You can find Part 1 of his series here, and Part 2 is here. Bradley's reports on installing and learning to live with Ubuntu shed much light on how users familiar with Windows and other proprietary operating systems approach Linux. The reports are also good fodder for discussions on Ubuntu's usability, or lack thereof.

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Securing SSH On Ubuntu With WiKID Two-Factor Authentication

SSH offers a highly secure channel for remote administration of servers. However, if you face an audit for regulatory or business requirements, such as Visa/Mastercard PCI, you need to be aware of some potential authentication related short-comings that may cause headaches in an audit. In this document we are going to demonstrate how to combine two-factor authentication from WiKID on Ubuntu. First, we will configure a domain on the WiKID server, then add the  targeted server as network clients to the WiKID server, and finally configure the Ubuntu box via pam-radius.

 original article here

Nouveau Gallium3D, LLVMpipe In Ubuntu 11.10?

Here's the next chapter of the X.Org / Mesa plans for Ubuntu 11.10, in continuation of the earlier X.Org / Mesa talks at UDS Budapest...

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The Five Pillars Of Ubuntu Server 11.10

With a few weeks having passed since UDS Budapest where a lot of details concerning Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Oncelot" were figured out and debated, and the features definition freeze now in effect, Canonical has announced the five core areas they'll be working on in this development cycle as it pertains to the Ubuntu Server release...

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Ubuntu Desktop 8.04 LTS Reaches End of Life

The desktop version of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS has officially reached its end of life. Hardy Heron users are advised to upgrade to a later release to continue receiving updates

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Ubuntu Makes Lubuntu an Official Derivative

Lubuntu is now an officially supported Ubuntu derivative.

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VBoxHeadless - Running Virtual Machines With VirtualBox 4.0 On A Headless Ubuntu 11.04 Server

This guide explains how you can run virtual machines with VirtualBox 4.0 on a headless Ubuntu 11.04 server. Normally you use the VirtualBox GUI to manage your virtual machines, but a server does not have a desktop environment. Fortunately, VirtualBox comes with a tool called VBoxHeadless that allows you to connect to the virtual machines over a remote desktop connection, so there's no need for the VirtualBox GUI.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

I have tested this on an Ubuntu 11.04 server (host system) with the IP address 192.168.0.100 where I'm logged in as a normal user (user name administrator in this example) instead of as root.

To install VirtualBox 4.0 on our Ubuntu 11.04 server, we open /etc/apt/sources.list...

sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

... and add the following line to it:

[...]deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian natty contrib

Then we download the VirtualBox public key...

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

... and update our package database:

sudo apt-get update

Afterwards, we install VirtualBox 4.0 as follows:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential virtualbox-4.0 dkms

(The dkms package ensures that the VirtualBox host kernel modules are properly updated if the Linux kernel version changes.)

Starting with version 4.0, VirtualBox has introduced so called "extension packs" and has outsourced some functionality like remote desktop connection support (VRDP) that was part of VirtualBox packages before version 4.0 into these extension packs. Because we need remote desktop connections to control our virtual machines, we need to install the appropriate extension pack now. Go to http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads, and you will find a link to the following extension pack:

VirtualBox 4.0.6 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack
Support for USB 2.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards.

Download and install the extension pack as follows:

cd /tmp
wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.6/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.6-71344.vbox-extpack
sudo VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.6-71344.vbox-extpack

(Make sure you grab the latest version from the VirtualBox web site.)

(Make sure you run the last command with sudo - sudo VBoxManage extpack install ... - because otherwise you will get an error like this:

administrator@server1:/tmp$ VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.6-71344.vbox-extpack
0%...
Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE
VBoxManage: error: Failed to install "/tmp/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.6-71344.vbox-extpack": The installer failed with exit code 127: Error creating textual authentication agent: Error opening current controlling terminal for the process (`/dev/tty'): No such device or address
administrator@server1:/tmp$

)

Now we must add the user that will run VirtualBox (administrator in this example) to the vboxusers group:

sudo adduser administrator vboxusers

VirtualBox is now installed and ready to be used.

To create a VM on the command line, we can use the VBoxManage command. See

VBoxManage --help

for a list of available switches and (highly recommended!) take a look at http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html.

I will now create an Ubuntu 11.04 Server VM with 512MB memory and a 10GB hard drive from the Ubuntu 11.04 Server iso image (which I have stored in /home/ubuntu-11.04-server-amd64.iso):

VBoxManage createvm --name "Ubuntu 11.04 Server" --register
VBoxManage modifyvm "Ubuntu 11.04 Server" --memory 512 --acpi on --boot1 dvd --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 eth0
VBoxManage createhd --filename Ubuntu_11_04_Server.vdi --size 10000
VBoxManage storagectl "Ubuntu 11.04 Server" --name "IDE Controller" --add ide
VBoxManage storageattach "Ubuntu 11.04 Server" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium Ubuntu_11_04_Server.vdi
VBoxManage storageattach "Ubuntu 11.04 Server" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium /home/ubuntu-11.04-server-amd64.iso

Let's assume you have a VM called examplevm that you want to reuse on this host. On the old host, you should have a directory Machines/examplevm in the VirtualBox directory; Machines/examplevm should contain the examplevm.xml file. Copy the examplevm directory (including the examplevm.xml file) to your new Machines directory (if your user name is administrator, this is /home/administrator/.VirtualBox/Machines - the result should be /home/administrator/.VirtualBox/Machines/examplevm/examplevm.xml).

In addition to that copy the examplevm.vdi file from the old VDI directory to the new one (e.g. /home/administrator/.VirtualBox/VDI/examplevm.vdi).

Afterwards, you must register the imported VM:

VBoxManage registervm Machines/examplevm/examplevm.xml

Regardless of if you create a new VM or import an old one, you can start it with the command:

VBoxHeadless --startvm "Ubuntu 11.04 Server"

(Replace Ubuntu 11.04 Server with the name of your VM.)

VBoxHeadless will start the VM and a VRDP (VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol) server which allows you to see the VM's output remotely on another machine.

To stop a VM, run

VBoxManage controlvm "Ubuntu 11.04 Server" poweroff

To pause a VM, run

VBoxManage controlvm "Ubuntu 11.04 Server" pause

To reset a VM, run

VBoxManage controlvm "Ubuntu 11.04 Server" reset

To learn more about VBoxHeadless, take a look at

VBoxHeadless --help

and at http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch07.html#vboxheadless.

VBoxHeadless - Running Virtual Machines With VirtualBox 4.0 On A Headless Ubuntu 11.04 Server - Page 2

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Cover Thumbnailer - How to install in Ubuntu Linux

Cover Thumbnailer is a small Python script which displays music/video album covers in Nautilus in place of ordinary icons of folders, preview of pictures in a folder and more.

It is similar to what you see in Microsoft Windows 7 where the folder shows a preview of the pictures contained in it.

This is for Ubuntu users running v 9.10 Karmic, v 10.04 Lucid and v 10.10 Maverick .

Open your terminal and enter the following set of commands :

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flozz/flozz$ sudo apt-get update$ sudo apt-get install cover-thumbnailer
Once Cover Thumbnailer has been installed, you will have to restart Nautilus by running the following command. $ nautilus -q
Now the specified folders containing music files will display the respective album cover / mosaic of covers.

If you are using another Linux distribution, you can download the source code from the Cover Thumbnailer website, compile it, and install it on your machine.

Cover Thumbnailer program will store a cache of cropped images of albums in a  hidden folder named .thumbnails/ in your home directory. The .thumbnails/ directory is a cache directory created by GNOME when you browse through your folders in Nautilus. It contains thumbnail pictures of images you have previously viewed.

And when you visit a particular music folder, the thumbnail of the respective album is shown on top of the folder.

You can access the Cover Thumbnailer preferences via GNOME Menu > System > Preferences > Cover Thumbnailer. Here you can specify more folders that can avail of Cover Thumbnailer's services and set many other options such as clearing the thumbnail cache and more.

Here is how the folders looks after you install cover thumbnailer program in Ubuntu. Cover Thumbnailer in action in Nautilus

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How To Upgrade Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) To 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) (Desktop & Server)

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme
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Last edited 04/28/2011

The new Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) has just been released. This guide shows how you can upgrade your Ubuntu 10.10 desktop and server installations to Ubuntu 11.04.

This document comes without warranty of any kind! I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

Start the Update Manager (System > Administration > Update Manager):

The Update Manager should show that a new distribution release (11.04) is available. Click on the Upgrade button to start the distribution upgrade:

 A window with the release notes for 11.04 comes up. Click on Upgrade again:

 The upgrade tool is now being downloaded. Afterwards, type in your password:

 The upgrade is being prepared:

 Click on Start Upgrade to finally begin with the upgrade process:

 The upgrade packages are now being downloaded...

 ... and installed. This can take some time, so please be patient.

 At the end of the upgrade process, you should remove obsolete packages:

 

The system needs to be rebooted to complete the upgrade, therefore click on Restart Now:

 When you log in, Ubuntu 11.04 will by default start the new Unity desktop which requires that your hardware supports 3D acceleration. If it doesn't, you can choose the Ubuntu Classic desktop at the login screen instead:

 After the reboot, you can use your new Ubuntu 11.04 desktop (because I used a virtual machine for this tutorial, the system has no 3D support, that's why you see the Ubuntu Classic desktop in the screenshot below):

 ow To Upgrade Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) To 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) (Desktop & Server) - Page 2

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How To Secure Your Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop With LinOTP 2

This howto will guide you to set up a LinOTP standalone one time password authentication backend on your Linux machine. This enables you to add two factor authentication with one time passwords to your desktop login.

LinOTP is a modular OTP (one time password) solution, that supports many different OTP tokens. LinOTP is written in python, based on pylons and apache. It comes as open source licensed under the AGPLv3. Additional functionalities, maintenance and support can be licensed in an Enterprise Edition.

This howto should run on Ubuntu 10.10 and Debian Squeeze.

You can either download the necessary packages from the LinOTP website or you can add the online repository to your repositories and install them with apt-get.

This Howto will use the second way to install the software.

First you need to add the GPG key, that was used to sign the packages:

wget http://linotp.org/apt/LSE\ LinOTP2\ Packaging\ linotp2@lsexperts.de\ \(0xF86258E5\)\ pub.as
sudo apt-key add http://linotp.org/apt/LSE\ LinOTP2\ Packaging\ linotp2@lsexperts.de\ \(0xF86258E5\)\ pub.asc

Then add the repository to your system:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://linotp.org/apt/ubuntu lucid linotp2ce"

Now you can install the LinOTP server, the management client and the PAM module:

sudo apt-get install linotp linotpuseridresolver libpam-linotp linotpadminclientce

When installing the linotp package you are asked several questions:

Do you want to run LinOTP 2 via Apache2? -> Yes
Enter admin password for the new LinOTP admin account. -> think of one
Do you want to create a self signed ceritficate? -> Yes
What SQL database do you want to use for the token database? -> Mysql
database hostname: -> localhost
Name of Token database -> LinOTP2
database user -> linotp2
database users password: -> think of one
Enter MySQL root password
Do you want to create the tables: -> yes

During the installation the encryption key /etc/linotp2/encKey will be created. Be sure to also enter the MySQL root password, so the database will be created, too.

Now you got two possibilities to manage the LinOTP server and OTP tokens. You can either use the command line client linotpadmin.py or the web interface located at

https://localhost/manage

Please note: If you got and "internal server error" take a look at /var/log/apache2/error.log. It could be, that the access rights of the directory /var/log/linotp are not right. Also the whole directory /etc/linotp2 needs to be owned by the user linotp.

LinOTP reads users by so called UserIdResolvers. The APGLv3 version comes with the PasswdUserIdResolver, that can be used to read users from flat files like the /etc/passwd. You can also create a new file that contains the users, as long as you stick to the passwd format.

The Enterprise Edition also provides Resolvers for users located in LDAP and SQL databases.

You may use the management web ui or the command line client to setup your LinOTP server. You need to configure a UserIdResolver and a default realm. You may do this by issuing the following commands:

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=setresolver --resolver=defaultPW --rtype=FILE --rf_file=/etc/passwd

That reads the users from the /etc/passwd file. You will get a JSON feedback like this:

{ u'status': True,....}

Now you need to add this resolver to your default realm:

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=setrealm --realm=defrealm --resolver=useridresolver.PasswdIdResolver.IdResolver.defaultPW
linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=setdefaultrealm --realm=defrealm

You can either check it in the web ui or issue the command:

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=listuser

You should see the list of your users. Now you are ready to assign tokens to your user.

You may want to enroll an OTP token, now. In this example we enroll an motp token (you could also enroll an OATH Token or a Google authenticator) on our mobile phone. Download the app from http://motp.sourceforge.net and install it on your phone. You may initialize the token by entering 0000 as PIN on the phone. An init-secret will be displayed.

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=inittoken --user=cornelius --type=motp --otpkey=860e2e9bf9d50665 --serial=1 --otppin=1234

This means, that you generated an mOTP token that gets assigned to the user "cornelius". The otpkey is the init-secret that was displayed on your phone. You may choose a serial (serial number) as you like to. The otppin is the PIN you will enter on the phone to generate an otp value.

Optionally you may set an OTP PIN, which is a fixed password part, that you need to enter in front (depending on the parameter PrependPIN) of the OTP value:

linotpadm.py --url=https://localhost --admin=admin --command=set --pin=Password --serial=1

Alternatively you can use the management web interface, to enroll the token.

Now you are ready to generate your first OTP value! Go to the portal site:

https://localhost/auth/index

and enter your username and as password the OTP PIN you set and the otp value you generated with your phone. If you fail to authenticate, you might mistyped the init secret or the time of your phone might be out of sync.

Now we will setup PAM to enable you to authenticate to your desktop. The security module /lib/security/pam_linotp.so was installed to your system. You may now set up otp authentication. We choose to do it modular:

cp /etc/pam.d/common-auth /etc/pam.d/common-linotp

In /etc/pam.d/common-linotp change the line:

auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_unix.so nullok_secure

to

auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_linotp.so debug nosslhostnameverify nosslcertverify url=https://localhost/validate/simplecheck realm=defrealm resConf=defaultPW

Please note, that when using "debug" option, many many information - also the password! - will be written to the auth.log.

You may now use the common-linotp in any PAM configuration instead of common-auth, where you like to. I.e. you may change the line in /etc/pam.d/gdm:

@include common-auth

to

@include common-linotp

Now you will need to authenticate with OTP to your Gnome desktop! Note that you will also need to change /etc/pam.d/gnome-screensaver if you also want to unlock the desktop using OTP. You will not be asked for "Password" anymore but for "Your OTP".

If you fail to authenticate you may also take a look into /var/log/auth.log.

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Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Released

Today we released Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, and you can find out more about it and download it here.

This has been a ferociously busy cycle and with it we set out with significant, audacious goals. We shipped a new shell, a new media player, significant improvements to Ubuntu One, and we worked hard to deliver all this change and opportunity in a predictable, stable and slick product. I am really proud of the result.

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Ubuntu 11.04: Too Natty for Its Own Good?

Well the anticipation had been building for months, and now Natty Narwhal is here at last. Rare is the Linux geek today who doesn't know exactly what a narwhal looks like; few have any trouble rattling off a definition of the word "natty" in rapid fire. We've all been watching, waiting and thinking about this new Ubuntu release, and now the thing itself is at our fingertips. Do we love it? Well, many of us do, it seems. Then again, many of us aren't so sure. The new Unity interface, in particular, has created more than a few furrowed brows.

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Installing Apache2 With PHP5 And MySQL Support On Ubuntu 11.04 (LAMP)

LAMP is short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. This tutorial shows how you can install an Apache2 webserver on an Ubuntu 11.04 server with PHP5 support (mod_php) and MySQL support.

Read more at HowtoForge

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