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Category Archives: guides

Howto – Securing Joomla! installations

Posted on by Posted in applications/software, cms/portals, guides, how to, security .

Joomla! is a well-known content management system, mature enough to be used by thousands of amateur and professional Web portals. Installation is a breeze and consists of six click-next steps. However, a default Joomla! installation is not necessarily a secure one, so let’s see how we can protect our portal from potential attackers.

The first rule of security when it comes to Joomla! is “update frequently,” because whenever a new version comes out, it usually comprises several user-reported bug and security fixes. If your host allows it, use PHP5 instead of PHP4, because it’s more advanced and offers better security.

Once your site is ready to be launched, make sure to set your configuration.php file to read-only — a critical step that most users neglect. Change file and directory permissions — chmod 644 for files and chmod 755 for folders — but be sure to keep temporary and cache directories writable, lest you get a site error.

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Syncing your BlackBerry on Linux, a howto guide

Posted on by Posted in guides, how to, information management, linux and open source blog, linux/unix/os distros, news .

If you use Linux on your desktop, and you also happen to have a BlackBerry handheld device, you’re probably aware that Research in Motion, the company that develops the BlackBerry platform, offers nothing in the way of support for its devices on Linux — but the intrepid geeks in the free software world do. Thanks to to the efforts of the Barry and OpenSync projects, I just finished syncing my BlackBerry 8800 with my Evolution contacts on my Ubuntu 7.10 desktop.

Blackberry

If all you want to do is share data between your Linux box and the BlackBerry, no sweat. The 2GB Micro SD storage I inserted in my 8800 is available to my Linux system just like any other USB storage device. When I connect the USB cable to the BlackBerry, I simply say yes when Ubuntu asks if I want to enter Mass Storage Mode, and I can copy music and photos to the phone. I have run into a problem getting the audio for videos that were created with Kino to work correctly, but other than that, moving data back and forth between the PDA and the desktop “just works.”The Barry and OpenSync projects aim to provide a little more functionality than just moving data. According to its home page, the Barry project “is a GPL C++ library for interfacing with the RIM BlackBerry Handheld. It comes with a command-line tool for exploring the device and a GUI for making quick backups. This project’s goal is to create a fully functional syncing mechanism on Linux.” Release 0.11, which I’ve been playing with the past week, goes a long way toward meeting those goals. With it, you can explore, backup and restore, and — with a little help from OpenSync — sync databases. There is, however, some assembly required.

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Creating An AS400 Terminal Client With An Old PC And Ubuntu

Posted on by Posted in guides, how to, howtoforge, tips, tutorials .

Creating an AS400 terminal with an Old PC and Ubuntu

This how to uses Ubuntu 7.10 Server install. I am sure that this could be done with a much smaller install base, rather than server – I might have used the Alternative CD, or maybe even some other distribution like DSL, or Puppy Linux (if you needed GUI [graphical user interface] ). But for proof of concept this worked fine. I used an Old Dell GX100 Optiplex with 256 MB of RAM (I don’t think I need any more that 128 [maybe even 64MB], but this is what was in the box when I pulled it out of the pile). It has a small form factor, and runs pretty quiet. My steps are geared toward English & US, so you may want to change those if your using something else =).

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Build A HylaFax Server With AvantFax Frontend Using Debian Etch

Posted on by Posted in guides, how to, howtoforge, tips, tutorials .

Build A HylaFax Server With AvantFax Frontend Using Debian Etch

Install Debian. I used the basic barebones install option. I did
some things that were done because of preference, and not necessary. I
have marked them approriately. I encourage contributions from anyone
who would like to add or correct something in this HowTo to contact me
so I can fix it. I have installed this setup twice following these
instructions and used Avantfax 2.3.0. Thanks to all the resources who
helped me figure this out. Especially Razametal, who submitted a
fantastic Spanish language walkthrough on ecualug.org.

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Writing Snort Rules On EnGarde

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Writing Snort Rules On EnGarde

There are already tons of written Snort rules, but there just might
be a time where you need to write one yourself. You can think of
writing Snort rules as writing a program. They can include variables,
keywords and functions. Why do we need to write rules? The reason is,
without rules Snort will never detect someone trying to hack your
machine. This HOWTO will give you confidence to write your own rules.

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How To Masquerade On Linux (Internet Connection Sharing)

Network Management And Monitoring With Hyperic HQ On Fedora 8

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Network Management And Monitoring With Hyperic HQ On Fedora 8

This document describes how to set up Hyperic HQ on Fedora 8. The
resulting system provides an awesome, web-based “System
ManagementSoftware”. It’s the next stage of classical monitoring and
able to manage all kinds of operating systems, web servers, application
servers and database servers.

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Sample Configuration of DRBD On CentOS 4.5

Creating Snapshot Backups Of Your Desktop With Timevault On Ubuntu 7.10

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Creating Snapshot Backups Of Your Desktop With Timevault On Ubuntu 7.10

This document describes how to set up, configure and use Timevault
on Ubuntu 7.10. The resulting system provides a powerful backup system
for desktop usage. TimeVault is a simple front-end for making snapshots
of a set of directories. Snapshots are a copy of a directory structure
or file at a certain point in time. Restore functionality is integrated
into Nautilus – previous versions of a file or directory that has a
snapshot can be accessed by examining the properties and selecting the
‘Previous Versions’ tab.

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Configuring SendMail To Act As A SmartHost & To Rewrite From-Address

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Configuring SendMail To Act As A SmartHost & To Rewrite From-Address

This tutorial explains how to configure a sendmail server to forward
all mails generated from localhost to another SMTP server for
sending mails to remote recipients. Also it explains how to rewrite the
from address of user@localhost.localdomain to user@example.com.

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