I’m looking into recovery options, though I think it will be way too expensive for my needs. If it is too expensive, I’ll just have to cut my losses and move on. A lot of my development work was on this server (it was my backup PC as well). Whilst I have local copies of stuff, a lot of it is slightly old. It’s kinda depressing to have something like this happen, so I’m not really in a good mood at the moment 

Update: About two weeks after the hard drive “failed”, I tried it again. It was working, but made a strange sound. I quickly copied all the data off of it, and disconnected it. I was able to get a copy of all the most important data. So, it’s not so bad… This story has a happy ending

Time: Tue May 1 02:28:18 2007
IP: 63.97.248.34 (machine34.nokia.com)
Failures: 5 (sshd)
Interval: 135 seconds
Blocked: Yes

Log entries:

May 1 02:28:08 blue sshd[9363]: Failed password for root from ::ffff:63.97.248.34 port 56057 ssh2
May 1 07:28:08 blue sshd[9364]: Failed password for root from ::ffff:63.97.248.34 port 56057 ssh2
May 1 02:28:11 blue sshd[9368]: Failed password for root from ::ffff:63.97.248.34 port 56436 ssh2
May 1 07:28:11 blue sshd[9369]: Failed password for root from ::ffff:63.97.248.34 port 56436 ssh2
May 1 02:28:13 blue sshd[9370]: Failed password for root from ::ffff:63.97.248.34 port 56591 ssh2

Just thought it was funny
(oh yeah, and I will report it to them!)

First steps

One of the most important things we need to check that you do actually have a serial port on the server . Take a look at the back of your server, and see if it has a 9-pin serial port. Most motherboards have either one or two serial ports. On the system, check to see that Linux is recognising the serial ports:

root@server:~#  dmesg | grep tty
serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
00:08: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A

This shows that my system has one serial port, ttyS0 (remember this for later).

GRUB configuration

The next step is to edit the GRUB configuration, so it sends its messages to the serial console. One of the most important things is to set a password, otherwise anyone can connect a serial cable, edit the GRUB configuration line while the system is booting (via the “e” key), and get root access. When a password is set, interactive menu editing will be disabled, unless the correct password is entered. To set the password, we first need to get the encrypted version of it.

Run grub, and use the “md5crypt” command to encrypt the password:

grub> md5crypt

Password: ********
Encrypted: $1$AlfMq1$FxRolxW5XvSLAOksiC7MD1

Copy the encrypted version of the password (we need it for the next step), and then type quit to exit.

Now, we need to edit the GRUB configuration. Edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file (by typing nano /boot/grub/menu.lst), and find this section:

## password ['--md5'] passwd
   # If used in the first section of a menu file, disable all interactive editing
   # control (menu entry editor and command-line)  and entries protected by the
   # command 'lock'
   # e.g. password topsecret
   #      password --md5 $1$gLhU0/$aW78kHK1QfV3P2b2znUoe/
   # password topsecret

Below that, add:

password --md5 $1$AlfMq1$FxRolxW5XvSLAOksiC7MD1
serial --unit=0 --speed=38400 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1   
terminal --timeout=10 serial console

Replace $1$AlfMq1$FxRolxW5XvSLAOksiC7MD1 with the encrypted form of your password. The second line tells GRUB to initialise the serial port at 38,400 bps (same speed as the standard console), 8 data bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit (basically, the standard settings). Note that the –unit=0 means that it will use the first serial port (ttyS0). If you’re using the second serial port (ttyS1), change it to –unit=1. The last line tells GRUB to show its menu on both the serial line and the console (monitor).

Now, we also need to edit the kernel sections, so that they output messages to the serial console. At the end of every kernel line, add console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8 (replace ttyS0 with the correct serial port). In my case, it ended up looking like:

title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-4-vserver-686
   root            (hd0,1)
   kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-vserver-686 root=/dev/hda3 ro console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8
   initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.18-4-vserver-686
   savedefault
title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-4-vserver-686 (single-user mode)
   root            (hd0,1)
   kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-vserver-686 root=/dev/hda3 ro single console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8
   initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.18-4-vserver-686
   savedefault
title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-3-686
   root            (hd0,1)
   kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.18-3-686 root=/dev/hda3 ro console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8
   initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.18-3-686
   savedefault
title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.18-3-686 (single-user mode)
   root            (hd0,1)
   kernel          /vmlinuz-2.6.18-3-686 root=/dev/hda3 ro single console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8
   initrd          /initrd.img-2.6.18-3-686<br />   savedefault<br />&nbsp;

Save and exit, by pressing CTRL+O (to “output”, or save the file), Enter (to accept the file name) and CTRL+X (to actually exit).

Allow logins over Serial Console

Now, the GRUB menu will appear over the serial connection, but we still aren’t listening for logins over it (there’s no “getty” running on it yet). Edit the /etc/inittab file, and find this section:

# Example how to put a getty on a serial line (for a terminal)
#
#T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 9600 vt100
#T1:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS1 9600 vt100

Below that (I don’t like editing the default lines ), add:

T0:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 38400 vt100

And that’s all there is to it. Your server will now show the GRUB menu over the serial console, and also allow logons (once it has finished booting).

Let’s test it!

Now that that’s all done, we need to configure our client. I’m using GtkTerm on my laptop, although any terminal program should work (as long as it can use a serial port. On Windows, HyperTerminal should work). My laptop doesn’t have a serial port, so I’m using a USB to Serial adapter I bought off eBay (it creates a ttyUSB0 device). Set your terminal program to these settings:

• Port (Linux): ttyS0 or ttyS1 (if your system has a serial port), or ttyUSB0 (if you’re using a USB to Serial converter).
• Port (Windows): COM1 or COM2
• Bits per second: 38400
• Data bits: 8
• Parity: None
• Stop bits: 1
• Flow control: None, although hardware (RTS/CTS) should work properly

Restart the server (probably from a SSH connection, or however you edited the GRUB config above), and then connect the null modem cable as it’s starting (ie. at the BIOS screen). Press any key when prompted, and you’ll get something like:

This means that GRUB is working fine . Press enter, and it should boot, showing all messages in the terminal window. Once it boots, it will look something like:

Finally, log in, and check that it works fine:

Congratulations, everything is set up and working fine.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

< ?php
/*
 * Restore MySQL dump using PHP
 * (c) 2006 Daniel15
 * Last Update: 9th December 2006
 * Version: 0.2
 * Edited: Cleaned up the code a bit. 
 *
 * Please feel free to use any part of this, but please give me some credit :-)
 */
 
// Name of the file
$filename = 'test.sql';
// MySQL host
$mysql_host = 'localhost';
// MySQL username
$mysql_username = 'root';
// MySQL password
$mysql_password = '';
// Database name
$mysql_database = 'test';
 
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
 
// Connect to MySQL server
mysql_connect($mysql_host, $mysql_username, $mysql_password) or die('Error connecting to MySQL server: ' . mysql_error());
// Select database
mysql_select_db($mysql_database) or die('Error selecting MySQL database: ' . mysql_error());
 
// Temporary variable, used to store current query
$templine = '';
// Read in entire file
$lines = file($filename);
// Loop through each line
foreach ($lines as $line)
{
	// Skip it if it's a comment
	if (substr($line, 0, 2) == '--' || $line == '')
		continue;
 
	// Add this line to the current segment
	$templine .= $line;
	// If it has a semicolon at the end, it's the end of the query
	if (substr(trim($line), -1, 1) == ';')
	{
		// Perform the query
		mysql_query($templine) or print('Error performing query \'<strong>' . $templine . '\': ' . mysql_error() . '<br /><br />');
		// Reset temp variable to empty
		$templine = '';
	}
}
 
?>

See? How easy is that?

Update: This also works for mysqldump dumps

What is Linux-Vserver, you ask? It’s simple. Basically, Linux-Vserver is an open-source system used to separate a single physical server into multiple virtual servers. From the Linux-Vserver website:

“Linux-VServer allows you to create virtual private servers and security contexts which operate like a normal Linux server, but allow many independent servers to be run simultaneously in one box at full speed. All services, such as ssh, mail, Web, and databases, can be started on such a VPS, without modification, just like on any real server. Each virtual server has its own user account database and root password and doesn’t interfere with other virtual servers.”

Two terms you will need to know are:

• Host System: This is the main system (the physical server) which you install Linux-Vserver onto.
• Guest System: These are the virtual systems you create using the Linux-Vserver utilities. They run on top of the Host System, and are all isolated from each other.

Most tutorials mention that you need to compile your own kernel in order to use Linux-Vserver. However, Debian Etch includes a Linux-Vserver kernel as standard, so you don’t need to compile it yourself. This has the advantage of being easier and faster to install, and it’s easy to keep up-to-date with security updates.

First Steps

The first thing you’ll need to do is have a system with a fresh installation of Debian Etch. To do so, download the Debian Testing CD from http://www.debian.org/, and install the base system only. After you’ve installed the base system, the next step is to make sure that the repositories are enabled. Firstly, make sure you’re the superuser (the prompt is a #, not a $). If not, become the superuser (root):

$ su
#

Once you’re sure you’re root, we need to edit /etc/apt/sources.list:

# nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Make sure a line similar to this is in the file:

deb ftp://ftp.au.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free

If it’s not, add it in. Press CTRL+O and hit ENTER to save the file, and then press CTRL+X to exit.
After this, we need to update the package list, so type the following command:

# apt-get update

The Packages

Now that we’ve updated the package list, the next step is to install all the required packages. The packages required by Linux-Vserver are:

• linux-image-vserver-686 - This is the actual kernel
• util-vserver – These are the utilities used to administer the guests
• vserver-debiantools - These are special Vserver tools for Debian, used to create and duplicate Debian guest systems.
• ssh – This is probably already installed, but just in case it isn’t

So, let’s install them:

# apt-get install linux-image-vserver-686 util-vserver vserver-debiantools ssh

Once that’s done, we need to reboot:

# reboot

When the GRUB menu appears, make sure you choose the vserver kernel. Once your system boots, you’ll be running the new kernel. You may check this by running

# uname -r
2.6.16-2-vserver-686

Notice how the output has ‘vserver’ in it? This means you’re running the VServer kernel.

Guess what? That’s the whole installation! Everything is now setup and ready to use . There’s one very important thing to do though: Create the guest systems.

Creating a virtual server (guest)

So, now that Linux-Vserver is set up and ready to use, we need to create a guest system. On a Debian system, you may do so using the newvserver command. The syntax of this command is:

newvserver --vsroot /var/lib/vservers/ --hostname [Hostname] \
 --domain [Domain] --ip [IP Address]/[CIDR Range] \
 --dist etch --mirror [Debian Mirror] --interface [Net Interface]

(the backslashes at the end of the lines mean that it continues onto the next line. You may copy it as-is [with the backslashes], or put the whole command on one line [and exclude the backslashes], as I do below)

The command line arguments are:

• vsroot – This is where the files for the guests are kept. On a default installation, this will be at /var/lib/vservers. Alternatively, some people create a separate partition for their vservers.
• Hostname – The hostname of the system (eg. test1)
• Domain – The domain of the system. This is usually the same as the domain you chose for the host system (eg. dan-network.local. This doesn’t need to be real, it’s only used internally.)
• IP Address- The IP address for the guest system (eg. 10.1.1.7)
• CIDR Range - The CIDR Range for your local network. For a 10.x.x.x network, this is usually /8. For a 172.16.x.x network, this is usually /16. For a 192.168.x.x network, this is usually /24. If your network is subnetted, this will be different. When in doubt, choose /8
• Dist – The distribution to use. For the purposes of this exercise, we use etch.
• Debian Mirror – The Debian mirror you use (when in doubt, choose ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian)
• Interface – Your network interface, if it’s not eth0 (eg. eth1).

Note (added 5th July 2007): Some people were getting confused here. Usually, if your server is at a data centre and you have multiple public IP addresses, you should use one of your public IP addresses here (not an internal one). If the server is on a local network, use an internal IP address.

So, let’s make a test server. The settings for our test guest are like so:

• Hostname: test1
• Domain: example.com
• IP Address: 10.1.1.7
• CIDR Range: /8
• Debian Mirror: http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/
• Interface: eth1

Let’s go!

# newvserver --vsroot /var/lib/vservers/ --hostname test1 --domain example.com --ip 10.1.1.7/8 --dist etch --mirror http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian/ --interface eth1

This will begin a Debian net install, which will only take a few minutes. Once the packages are all downloaded and installed, the Debian base setup will come up. This will prompt you for your time zone, and also ask for a root password. Once you’ve completed this, the VServer will be ready to use.

Entering the guest

OK, so we’ve set up the guest, now to do anything useful, we need to start the guest, and enter into its context. To do so, we use the ‘vserver’ command. The basic syntax for it is:

vserver <name> [start | stop | restart | enter]

So, to start and enter the guest we created earlier, type the following:

vserver test1 start; vserver test1 enter

The output will be a bit like:

root@server1:/home/daniel# vserver test1 start; vserver test1 enter
Starting system log daemon: syslogd.
Starting internet superserver: no services enabled, inetd not started.
Starting periodic command scheduler....
test1:/#

We’re now ‘inside’ the virtual server. You can run any command you would normally run. Note that this is a very basic installation, so you should use apt to install whatever you want.

Other Stuff

This tutorial doesn’t cover everything, it’s only meant to be a guide on beginning to use Linux-Vserver. The rest is up to your imagination… Have fun!

Well, I got my laptop on Friday (15th September). I must say, the Inspiron 6400 was definately a good choice. The only thing I don’t really like about it is the reflectiveness of the TrueLife screen, but I suppose I’ll get used to it (the colours are definately more vivid, and it has better contrast… The screen looks absolutely awesome when playing games!). Anyways, one of the first things I did was partition the drive, and install Ubuntu Linux . Once I did this, the first thing I did was install i8kutils and Gkrellm (so that I could control the speed of the fan, to make sure it doesn’t overheat), and then install the ATI Drivers for the X1400 (called ‘FGLRX’). Everything was working excellently (see screenshot)

After everything was done, I thought about what to install. I remember my friend telling me about something called ‘Compiz’, but I couldn’t remember how to install it. After searching for a while, I found a nice tutorial on installing GLX/Compiz. It appeared to be quite easy to do, so I followed the instructions on the tutorial. And, it works perfectly! It comes with heaps of themes, and there are some similar to the upcoming Windows Vista. Take a look at this:

Look at the title bar of the ‘Home Directory’ window. That’s called a ‘glass effect’, and is quite nice…

Another thing implemented in Compiz is window transparency: You can make a window semi-transparent. For example, look at this screenshot of my home directory on top of Opera (with the Google site open). I’ve faded the window out a bit, so it’s partially transparent:

Nice, huh? Yet another thing in Compiz is multiple desktops. Sure, Linux has support for multiple workplaces in-built (the selector on the bottom-right hand side of Gnome). However, Compiz improves on it vastly, making all the virtual desktops into one large cube:

I thought the cube was interesting, but something really interesting is if you run VMWare in fullscreen mode. You can make it appear as if you’re running multiple operating systems at once… Take a look:

In addition to all of this, Compiz has heaps of other effects which I couldn’t take screenshots of (including wobbly windows – windows wobble as you drag them, windows ‘zoom in’ when you start a program, and ‘zoom out’ when you exit it, and a lot more)… If you’d like to get Compiz working, and have an ATI graphics card, first get the ATI Linux drivers (FGLRX) working (see http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Dapper_Installation_Guide for a tutorial. Make sure you follow the second bit of the tutorial, to install version 8.28.8). Then, follow the Compiz tutorial, as found at http://www.compiz.net/topic-389-1.html (I followed the second howto, as I personally think it’s better to have Compiz as a seperate session… Have fun!

Anyways, I think this is probably the longest blog post I’ve written, ever

Anyways, I’m buying a new server on eBay, so it isn’t that bad (all I need to do is wait for it to get shipped to me).

Old server:

• Celeron 300 MHz
• 4.3GB Quantum Fireball lct and 4.3GB Seagate hard drives
• 48X CD-ROM drive
• 192MB membory

New server:

• Pentium III 650 MHz
• 8.4 GB hard drive
• 48X CD-ROM drive
• 256MB membory

Don’t say that it isn’t that powerful… Linux makes any computer look powerful . Besides, it’s only a server for testing stuff.

EDIT: Computer arrived today, 30th June 2006. That company on eBay was quick!