I’ve been starting work on getting JASIG CAS (Central Authentication Server) to work with all my applications. One of the requirements for JASIG is that it needs to run on Apache Tomcat. Following the instructions on http://www.debianadmin.com/how-to-setup-apache-tomcat-55-on-debian-etch.html I was able to get the basics running on the Tomcat 5.5 server. However, I did encounter issues when trying to add in a *.WAR application to the server. I copied the files in the correct place /var/lib/tomcat5.5/webapps but for some reason the files weren’t getting deployed.

I figured out the simple fix for getting these applications to work in the webapps folder:

1. Edit the  /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5   file
2. Find the following lines:
   # Use the Java security manager? (yes/no)
   TOMCAT5_SECURITY=yes
3. Change the TOMCAT5_SECURITY to
   TOMCAT5_SECURITY=no
4. Restart tomcat
   /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 restart

You should now be able to see the deployed applications. If not, use the Tomcat manager to upload the *.war file back into the server. The files should now appear in the application list.

If you get a GPG error when doing an apt-get update, here’s the quickest way to fix it.The error message looks similar to:

W: GPG error: http://security.debian.org etch/updates Release:
The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY XXXXXXXXXXX: There is no public key available for the following key IDs: W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems

By default, it says “You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems”. The problem is, apt-get update doesn’t fix the keys automagically. To fix, you will need to update the debian keyring by typing:

apt-get install debian-archive-keyring

After installing the keyring, you will get a list of keys that were updated, added, or deleted. This should resolve the problem. It worked for me on apt-get update for an etch install that broke.

Why install VMWARE Tools?
Improved display support with SVGA driver
Cut and paste from host onto the VMWare guest
Automation of guest operating system commands
Sync time
Shrinking disk space
Startup and shutdown scripts

In order to install VMWARE tools on Debian, you will need to make sure you have the package “linux-headers-[kernel version]” installed.

If not, you will get a prompt during the configuration asking for the path of the C header files.

To find the version of your kernel, type in:
uname -a

It should say something like Linux infomine 2.6.26-2-amd64 (with your current CPU architecture at the end)

****
NOTE: Do this at your own risk. If you put the wrong version of the kernel header files, things will break.
****

After identifying what kernel you are using, then add the linux header files
apt-get install linux-headers-[kernel version]
For instance,  apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.26-2-amd64

Then follow the Vmware documentation on installing VMWARE Tools:
http://www.vmware.com/support/gsx3/doc/tools_install_lin_gsx.html

Ever change the Network MAC address setting in VMWARE and you can’t get the network to work?

Here’s a quick how-to on changing the MAC address on a Linux VM. This is useful if you want to clone an existing machine and want to have both machines running with network at the same time. I am using VMWARE Server 2.0. (free version)

1) Power down the VM that you want to change the MAC address on. (e.g. cloned computer)
2) On the VMWARE console, select your (cloned) VM machine on the left side. In the Summary tab, click on “Edit” in the Network adapter section. The MAC address needs to be set the “Manual”. In the textbox, set the MAC address. It will need to start with 00:50:56 and end with XX:XX:XX to a value between 00:00:00 and FF:FF:FF. For instance, you can use 00:50:56:FF:FF:FF as a MAC address.  Click on OK.

3) If you are using Static IP address. Follow this step: On your VM console, click on the Summary Tab for the VM you changed the settings on. On the Network Adapter 1, click on “Edit”. Uncheck the box that says “Connect at power on”  Click on OK.

Turn on Debian box. Login as root. If you are using static IP, you will first need to change the IP to a new one. Edit the “/etc/network/interfaces” file. On the “address” line of your network adapter (eth0, … eth5)  change the IP.  Shutdown computer. Go to VMWARE console, edit Network Adapter 1, check the network box that says “Connect at power on”.

4) Power on the VM. Login as root.

5) Go to /etc/udev/rules.d/

6) There should be a file called “70-persistent-net.rules”. Backup the file. Edit this file. Find the line that matches the MAC address that you entered in step 3.  If you can’t find it (that maybe the problem), edit the last network device on the list. In the “ATTRS{address}==” section, enter the MAC address that you added. Note what NAME it is.  It should be something like “eth0″ or “eth….”  Save the file.

7) Now edit /etc/network/interfaces file. Your will need to make sure the “eth” matches the NAME of the hardware device in step 8. For instance, if the name is eth0 — make sure the name of the interfaces is eth0 and the allow-hotplug line is eth0 as well.

Run the command “ifup [NAME]” for instance ifup eth0. You should get a status message whether the network works.  If you get a conflict error, you are either using a MAC address that is on another VM or a static IP address of another computer. If its a conflict of IP, change the IP in step 3. To troubleshoot network device not working, stop the VM machine — look in the Network adapter field. Write down the MAC address. Go back to step 6.

I’ve done multiple Debian upgrades from Etch to Lenny and have noticed there are some issues with grub breaking. The upgrade somehow puts the wrong hard drive information in the default grub file.

Here’s some recommendations on how to perform the Lenny upgrade:

The safest way (before upgrading) is to look at the grub file:
nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

Look at the “default:” section and note which partition it uses to boot up. For instance look at the areas in red below:
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-5-686 root=/dev/sda2 ro

In my situation, those two partitions were incorrect after performing the upgrade.  This leads to ALL the items in the grub menu breaking, which can be scary at first. You can however mount the hard drive on a working copy of Debian to get the correct partition or use the emergency CD to get into a working shell.

Here’s a guide on how to upgrade from Etch
http://www.debianadmin.com/howto-upgrade-from-debian-etch-40-to-lenny-50.html

If your grub is broken after the upgrade and you didn’t look at the partition info:
There is still hope! When grub loads up, press the “e” key to edit the grub menu file.

If grub doesn’t even load Linux properly, you will need to edit this:
1) Select the line with root(XXX,XXX). Press the “e” key to edit the line
2) This will be a guessing game, but most likely changing the hd1 to hd0 can fit it. E.g. (hd0,1)
3) After making the change, press “b” to boot
4) If it works, go into /boot/grub/menu.lst to edit the file and make the change in the default section.

If grub loads Linux, but it hangs on loading root partition, you will need to edit this line:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-5-686 root=/dev/sda2 ro
1) Press the “e” key to edit this line
2) Change the /dev/XXX to the correct partition. Again, this might be another guessing game
but you can try changing the root= to /dev/sda1 or /dev/sda2
3) After making the change, press the “b” key to boot
4)  If it works, go into /boot/grub/menu.lst to edit the file and make the change in the default section.

I was helping one of the staff today with their Debian setup. KDE somehow broke after they did an apt-get update. Turns out there must have been like 40-50 packages that must have been in the update and thus one of them broke during the upgrade.

Upon startup, there was a unique error message that came up with KDE during the startup phase — “No greeter widget plugin loaded. Check the configuration.” with an OK box. Clicking the OK box would lead to KDE exiting to shell. Reinstalling kdm had no effect. The fix?

apt-get install kdebase-workspace

Seems like the dependency of kde install/update is missing the kdebase-workspace package.

To check to see if this works, restart KDE by going to
/etc/init.d/kdm stop
/etc/init.d/kdm start

Installing awstats in Debian with GeoIP caching

First, use apt-get to get the software:

apt-get install awstats

Configure awstats:
Instead of using the awstats configure tool (written in Perl), manually add in the awstats Apache configuration. Using the tutorial from debuntu, make a file inside your apache config folder called awstats.conf with the following lines.

Alias /awstatsclasses "/usr/share/awstats/lib/"
Alias /awstats-icon/ "/usr/share/awstats/icon/"
Alias /awstatscss "/usr/share/doc/awstats/examples/css"
Options ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch

Inside the Apache2.conf file (or virtual host conf file inside the sites-available folder) add this to the end of the file:

Include /etc/apache2/awstats.conf

Next, copy the /usr/lib/cgi-bin/awstats.pl file to the apache cgi-bin folder. If you have virtual hosts enabled, copy it to the cgi-bin located in the designated virtual hosts folder.

Configure the awstats.conf sample file located in /etc/awstats/awstats.conf
1) Set the LogFile to the server’s logfile directory (usually /var/log/apache2/access.log)
2) Set LogFormat to 1.
3) Set DNSLookup=0 (No DNS Lookup is necessary when you use GeoIP DB, instructions are below)
4) Uncomment this line (remove the # from the beginning)
LoadPlugin=”geoip GEOIP_STANDARD /usr/share/GeoIP/GeoIP.dat”

Install GeoIP to speed up the hostname lookups. This will significanly improve the performance since DNS lookups will generally take a long time. Using this tutorial, install the GeoIP library:

wget http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/api/c/GeoIP-1.4.5.tar.gz

Download and extract the file.  Inside the GeoIP 1.4.5 folder, run:

./configure
make
make check
make install


Next, download the latest GeoIP perl module -and- latest GeoLite country database.
http://www.maxmind.com/download/geoip/api/perl/ I usually run wget to download the file from shell. wget http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/api/perl/Geo-IP-1.36.tar.gz

Extract the tar file and inside the Geo-IP folder, run:

perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install

GeoIP should now be installed. You can now generate the reports:
/usr/lib/cgi-bin/awstats.pl -config=[NAME OF YOUR INSTALL] -update
For instance, if you called the install “sample”, you should have a file called /etc/awstats/awstats.sample.conf    The command for sample would be:
/usr/lib/cgi-bin/awstats.pl -config=sample -update

To run awstats:
http://[SERVER]/cgi-bin/awstats.pl?config=[NAME OF YOUR INSTALL]