T'Krin's Realm

It was surprisingly easy to get the Airport card working. First download and install the firmware files in a deb package format from:

http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/dists/dapper-cafuego/bcm43xx/

It puts firmware files in /lib/firmware.

Next create a little script such as:

#!/bin/bash

interface=eth0 #interface of your wireless card

#Turning off wired network...

ifconfig eth1 down

modprobe bcm43xx

#Starting up wireless network...

ifconfig $interface up

iwconfig $interface essid MY_ESSID

iwconfig $interface mode managed

iwconfig $interface key off

dhclient $interface

You can also use the Network Settings tools to manage the wireless connection. A thread at Ubunt Forums, http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=142727 was a good source of information.

We get a call from a new client, which is always nice. He proceeds to describe that the company he hired to create a new website for his company hosed his web server, SBS 2003 running IIS, which is sad by itself. I’m told that the company develops on either Linux or OSX and Apache and don’t seem to know IIS at all. They end up causing all these problems and not only does the client’s web site stop working, so does the clients intranet site. Sheesh. These guys even put the directory containing the website in the desktop directory of a user account rather than C:\inetpub. Sheesh! I’m no Windows fan, but it’s sad to see people messing up things like that. While it makes my company money, which I won’t complain about, it’s sad that we will now have to smooth things over.

I came upon the need to attempt data recovery on a broken Raid5 array. Long story short, my client had a server with no backup at a data center. At the DC, an electrician was working on the breakers, to which our clients rack is connected, and took down power multiple times, probably a slew of surges too! :-@ That’s another story. I did not have any commercial tools that would reconstruct a set of RAID5 images, so off I went a Googling. What I found was an interesting solution created by Edmundo Carmona and can be found at Free Software Magazine. I’m not going to go into details here, but it worked pretty well, although we could not get any data recovered, as the drives seemed to have been totally hosed by the power issues. We eventually did try commercial tools, which yielded the same results. Anyway, some may find tool useful, but I hope you don’t have a need for this.

A quick and dirty howto for CentOS 4.

1. Make sure system is completely updated.

   yum update

2. Make sure Kerberos packages are installed.

   krb5-server krb5-workstation

3. Edit /etc/krb5.conf to work with the 2003 AD server. It should look similar to below. The line in bold are what needs to be chanaged and entries are CASE sensitive!

   

[logging]

default = FILE:/var/log/krb5libs.log

kdc = FILE:/var/log/krb5kdc.log

admin_server = FILE:/var/log/kadmind.log

   [libdefaults]
   
   default_realm = ADS.LOCAL
   
   dns_lookup_realm = false
   
   dns_lookup_kdc = false

   [realms]
   
   ADS.LOCAL = {
   
   kdc = ads.local
   
   admin_server = 192.168.0.1:749
   
   default_domain = ads.local
   
   }

   [domain_realm]
   
   .ads.local = ADS.LOCAL
   
   ads.local = ADS.LOCAL

   [kdc]
   
   profile = /var/kerberos/krb5kdc/kdc.conf

   [appdefaults]

pam = {

debug = false

ticket_lifetime = 36000

renew_lifetime = 36000

forwardable = true

krb4_convert = false

}


4. Configure Samba. The basic config should look like below. Bold items are important.

   

[global]

dns proxy = no

log file = /var/log/samba/%m.log

load printers = no

netbios name = Samba

server string = Samba Server

socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_SNDBUF=8192 SO_RCVBUF=8192

workgroup = ADS

realm = ADS.LOCAL

os level = 20

encrypt passwords = yes

security = ADS

preferred master = no

max log size = 50

disable spoolss = yes #Enabled if you will not server printers off this server

template shell = /bin/false

template homedir = /home/%D/%U

idmap uid = 10000-20000

idmap gid = 10000-20000

enhanced browsing = no

winbind use default domain = yes


   Run testparm to make sure you do not have any typos or errors.

5. Edit /etc/nsswitch.conf so that the system will use winbind for authentication.

   
passwd: files winbind
group: files winbind

6. Start Samba and join it to the domain.

   service smb restart

   net ads join -U Administrator@ADS.LOCAL

7. Start Winbind and restart Samba

   service smb restart

   service winbind start

8. Run wbinfo -u to see if user accounts on the 2003 Server are seen.
9. To see some info about the connected domain issue net ads info
10. Edit /etc/fstab and add the option acl to the file system that will hold any directories shared by Samba. For example:

    /dev/md2 / ext3 defaults,acl 1 1

11. Reboot the server or issue a remount command similar to mount -n -o remount,defaults,acl /
12. Make sure Samba and Winbind are set to start at system boot.

    chkconfig smb on

    chkconfig winbind on

13. Let’s setup an example share for use by Administrator. smb.conf should contain something like:
    

[Backups]

comment = Backups

wide links = no

writeable = yes

create mode = 644

path = /home/BACKUPS
14. Let’s set permissions on /home/BACKUPS so that administrator has rwx permissions.

    setfacl -m u:"ADS\\Administrator":rwx /home/BACKUPS

15. Check the permissions. getfacl /home/BACKUPS You should see something like the following:

    getfacl /home/BACKUPS

getfacl: Removing leading '/' from absolute path names

# file: home/BACKUPS

# owner: foo

# group: foo

user::rwx

user:administrator:rwx

group::rwx

mask::rwx

other::rwx

16. In the event of DNS failure, you may want to edit /etc/hosts and add a line for the 2003 Server so the samba server always knows the IP of the 2003 server.
17. Because these two servers depend highly on time synchronization, ntpd must be setup to sync to the AD server. Do this by editing /etc/ntp.conf and /etc/ntp/step-tickers. Examples of which are as follows:

    Enter your AD server’s FQDN after the first server entry in ntp.conf
    
    ### Begin /etc/ntp.conf ###

restrict default nomodify notrap noquery

    restrict 127.0.0.1

    server 2003server.ads.local
    
    server 1.pool.ntp.org
    
    server 2.pool.ntp.org

    server 127.127.1.0 # local clock
    
    fudge 127.127.1.0 stratum 10

    driftfile /var/lib/ntp/drift
    
    broadcastdelay 0.008

    keys /etc/ntp/keys

### END /etc/ntp.conf
    
    —
    
    List the three servers in /etc/ntp/step-tickers that are in /etc/ntp.conf.
    
    ### BEGIN /etc/ntp/step-tickers
    
    2003server.ads.local
    
    1.pool.ntp.org
    
    2.pool.ntp.org

    This will enable the Samba server to sync it’s time to the the AD server.

Merry Christmas to all. I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday.

WoooHooo