Category Archives: Remember This

Xen Gutsy Links

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A post full of links and unsorted info about using Xen on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, so that I don’t forget. (This lot has taken ~2 days to collect…) May make a full howto sometime… probably not though, as my boss knows this stuff better than I. Xen is pretty cool though…

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Xen (useless for gutsy…)

The Xen console doesn’t work (xm console <domU>), network works once, and then never again… Going to paste this here as its in a pastebin, not sure when it will expire… (Have tweaked slightly, snipped a couple of things out, added couple of things in)
http://rafb.net/p/49Ku5e10.html

>> OK, I have made a little progress on this.  I mounted my VM image on a
>> loopback and chroot'd to it.  I opened /etc/init.d/hwclock.sh
>> and /etc/init.d/hwclockfirst.sh and added the following to the top of each
>> file:
>>
>>   exit 0

ALSO SEE: http://lists.cvsrepository.org/xen-tools/Jul07/0332.html

sudo xm create -c </path/to/config/file>

-----------------

# Ever-increasing network device names?

# Just disable the correspondent udev rules by deleting/renaming your
/etc/udev/rules.d/<NUMBER>persistant-net.rules. (number was 70 for us...)

guest# mv /etc/udev/rules.d/{,.}z25_persistent-net.rules

# And then make sure your vif (in your instance config file) contains your mac
# address like:
vif = ['ip=192.168.0.45,mac=<random valid mac addy>']

Just be sure to stop the instance (domU), and then restart (re-create) it again when needs be…

Also, when in the Xen console, try hitting enter before using the escape sequence (CTL +]) if it’s not working. Sometimes it enters into the console after the “login:” prompt has been printed, and doesn’t seem to pick up that its just had a new connection…
The ALSO SEE link: http://lists.cvsrepository.org/xen-tools/Jul07/0332.html

Using Serial console & xen console (serial console conflicts with xen console):
http://phaq.phunsites.net/2007/06/30/xen-console-grabbded-devttys0

/boot/grub/menu.lst stuff, to enable us to use a serial console as well as xen:

serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal --timeout=2 serial console

Goes in the top of your menu.lst, outside the automagic sections…

## additional options to use with the default boot option, but not with the
## alternatives (These options are not used with the Xen Kernel!)
# defoptions=quiet splash console=ttyS0,115200n8

For the default kernel, (NOT the xen kernel).
Goes inside the AUTOMAGIC section of your menu.lst, adding to the options already there.

## Xen Linux kernel options to use with the default Xen boot option
# xenkopt=console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 xencons=ttyS9

Note the xencons=ttyS9. Use a serial port (ttyS<No.>) that doesn’t already exist.

Your Xen kernel definition should look something like this, after you’ve run “update-grub”:

title           Xen 3.1 / Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-xen
root            (hd0,0)
kernel          /xen-3.1.gz
module          /vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-xen root=/dev/mapper/volume-root ro console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8 xencons=ttyS9
module          /initrd.img-2.6.22-14-xen
quiet

The guys on irc ##xen @ freenode are really helpful…

Useful Linux (Ubuntu) Tidbits

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Here are just some morsels of information about the Linux Command line, and more specifically, Ubuntu Linux Command line / system.

  • Users can be added to a group with the command:
sudo adduser <username> <groupname>

In ubuntu, the default system shell is “Dash”. That does speed up your system boot, but it also introduces problems with those scripts which are designed to run in bash, but use /bin/sh to execute. (Which is a surprising amount… this has solved many problems for me. Especially with Asterisk and freePBX.)

  • To set Ubuntu back to using bash from dash, run the following command…
cd /bin && sudo rm sh && sudo ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh
  • To add a user to the sudoer list (the list that controls who can use “sudo”) use the command
sudo visudo
  • Add a user underneath the “# User privalage specification” comment. If you want just a bog standard sudo user, able to do all on the system, add the line:
<username>    ALL=(ALL) ALL
  • ?Fun? tip: add “insults” to the end of the list of “Defaults” in visudo, so it will look like:
Defaults        !lecture,tty_tickets,!fqdn,insults
  • The system will insult you every time you enter your sudo password wrongly. For a random example, it just gave me this when I deliberately triggered it:
You speak an infinite deal of nothing
  • In Firefox, select the address bar quickly by hitting the “F6” key.
  • Type “pwd” to get the full path to your current directory. e.g.:
kirrus@asus:~$ pwd
/home/kirrus
  • Monit is a useful program, that gives you a good way of keeping an eye on your servers, making sure they don’t run out of harddisk space, or get a high CPU load. It can either perform some function (like stopping a program from running) during high CPU, or send you a warning email.

http://debianhelp.co.uk/monit.htm (useful howto/basic guide)

http://www.tildeslash.com/monit/ (main website)

Monit is in the ubuntu repositories:

aptitude install monit

How to Configure or Disable Predictive Text in Open Office or LibreOffice

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Open Office keeps automatically trying to guess what you’re typing? Sometimes it can be useful, especially if you’re doing something quite repetitive. However, it can also be a bit dumb at times.

Now, Open Office predictive text, actually comes under auto-complete. Don’t ask me why, as to my mind at least, that’s a completely illogical place to put it. Also, Open Office call it “Word Completion”

Configure Open Office Predictive Text

Here are a couple of things you can try to make it more useful.
Click on “Tools” > “AutoCorrect…” > Click on the “Word Completion” tab.

  • Increase the minimum word length.

Make sure that the minimum word length is at least 8. Less than that, and you’re going to get it trying to auto complete too-short words, and get confused. More than 8, it will trigger less often. Tweak this for how much you want to use the predictive system.

  • Delete False Positives

Sometimes, the predictive system just gets confused. An example of this, is if you have used “Disneyland” in a document, and then want to type “Disney” Open Office will keep auto-completing to “Disneyland”. Really, not helpful.

To fix this the only response, is to find and delete the offending word from the predictive system. Click on the word you want to remove (In this case, Disneyland), and click the “Delete Entry” button.

Note: The image has been cropped to make it fit. The dialogue box is longer than this.

Disable Open Office Predictive Text

If you just can’t get it quite to work how you want, then your last resort is to disable the feature. Click on “Tools” > “AutoCorrect…” > Click on the “Word Completion” tab.

Now, untick the box that says “Enable Word Completion”. Your Open Office will no longer automatically try to predict what you’re typing.

Note: if you leave “collect words” ticked, the system will still collect words to Auto Complete, but won’t actually use them. If you’re just turning the feature off for a little while, leave it ticked. Otherwise, untick it, to save memory, and a little bit of processor power whilst you’re working.

How to turn a Ubuntu Box Brainless

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Effectively, by this tutorial, we will be disabling logins on the ubuntu box, and just using gdm and the x-server to talk to a server on the local network using XDMCP. This means, that you’ll actually login to the remote server, and use the remote servers’ data and processing power.

WARNING: This will disable GUI access to your computer!
DON'T do this to a machine which you want to use without having to
play around with the X configuration files in command line.

In ubuntu, you can switch all logins to XDMCP quite simply. Here is the Howto:

  • Click on System > Administration > Login Window
  • Enter your password (if requested)
  • Click on the security tab
  • Click on the “Configure X Server” button in the bottom right hand corner of the window. This pops up:
  • Change the “Launch” value from “Greeter” to “Chooser”
  • Click close twice, and log off
  • Hit CTRL – ALT – BACKSPACE together, to restart GDM. You should now have a XDMCP host searching window, which will locate any computers which have had XDMCP logins activated. If you want a howto for setting up a server for that, please comment!

Useful Ubuntu Things to Remember

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  • To open a terminal in Ubuntu, go to Applications > Accessories > Terminal
  • To add shortcuts from the applications listing to your desktop or top/bottom panel, browse to the location of the program under applications, click on it DON’T LET GO, and drag it to the bar at the top, or onto you desktop. Let go.
  • To run a unattended upgrade on an (K/X/U)buntu machine use the following command in a terminal:
apt-get update; apt-get upgrade -y
  • If you only want the upgrades to be downloaded, and not installed as well, then use this one (I think, this hasn’t been tested, and you could probably do it a bit more neatly with -dy):
apt-get update; apt-get upgrade -d -y
  • Most linux variants store their programs (e.g. lspci) under /usr/sbin
  • To force evolution (linux version of MS Outlook) to close completely, open a terminal, and run the following command:
evolution --force-shutdown