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UltraMonkey – Heartbeat Configuration

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Ultra Monkey- Heartbeat

Linux HA Solution

This one took a touch longer than we anticipated. Though the configurations were set, up and running, testing was a crucial aspect in implementing this H.A solution. Thanks to Nikhil for completing the ultramonkey project successfully. If you are looking to setup a high availability cluster using open source software, you can contact our team who has the skill and experience to implement this in any cluster.

Ultra Monkey is a project to create load balanced and highly available network services. For example a cluster of web servers that appear as a single web server to end-users. The service may be for end-users across the world connected via the internet, or for enterprise users connected via an intranet. Ultra Monkey makes use of the Linux operating system to provide a flexible solution that can be tailored to a wide range of needs. From small clusters of only two nodes to large systems serving thousands of connections per second. The advantage of using a load balancer compared to using round robin DNS is that it takes care of the load on the web server nodes and tries to direct requests to the node with less load, and it also takes care of connections/sessions. Many web applications (e.g. forum software, shopping carts, etc.) make use of sessions, and if you are in a session on Apache node 1, you would lose that session if suddenly node 2 served your requests. In addition to that, if one of the Apache nodes goes down, the load balancer realizes that and directs all incoming requests to the remaining node which would not be possible with round robin DNS.

Configuring UltraMonkey in Ubuntu 9.10

For this setup, we need four nodes (two Apache nodes and two load balancer nodes) and five IP addresses: one for each node and one virtual IP address that will be shared by the load balancer nodes and used for incoming HTTP requests.

* Apache node 1: apachenode1.com (webserver1) – IP address: 192.168.1.101; Apache document

root: /var/www

* Apache node 2: apacheode2.com (webserver2) – IP address: 192.168.1.102; Apache document root:

/var/www

* Load Balancer node 1: loadb1.com (loadb1) – IP address: 192.168.1.103

* Load Balancer node 2: loadb2.com (loadb2) – IP address: 192.168.1.104

* Virtual IP Address: 192.168.1.105 (used for incoming requests)

1 Enable IPVS On The Load Balancers

First we must enable IPVS on our load balancers. IPVS (IP Virtual Server) implements transport-layer load balancing inside the Linux kernel, so called Layer-4 switching

loadb1/loadb2:

echo ip_vs_dh >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_ftp >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_lblc >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_lblcr >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_lc >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_nq >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_rr >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_sed >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_sh >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_wlc >> /etc/modules

echo ip_vs_wrr >> /etc/modules

Then we do this:

loadb1/loadb2:

modprobe ip_vs_dh

modprobe ip_vs_ftp

modprobe ip_vs

modprobe ip_vs_lblc

modprobe ip_vs_lblcr

modprobe ip_vs_lc

modprobe ip_vs_nq

modprobe ip_vs_rr

modprobe ip_vs_sed

modprobe ip_vs_sh

modprobe ip_vs_wlc

modprobe ip_vs_wrr

If you get errors, then most probably your kernel wasn’t compiled with IPVS support, and you need to compile a new kernel with IPVS support (or install a kernel image with IPVS support) now.

2 Install Ultra Monkey On The Load Balancers

Loadb1/loadb2:

To install Ultra Monkey, we must edit /etc/apt/sources.list now and add these two lines :

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://www.ultramonkey.org/download/3/ sarge main

deb-src http://www.ultramonkey.org/download/3 sarge main

apt-get update

If you encounter update error due to the key. Installing the key with the following steps will fix the update error :

vi /home/key.asc

—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–

Version: SKS 1.1.0

mQGiBEOBaH4RBACmZGWUpGxm6fOtwvrlOu38+cSh6iwdr9KMeNc9+qna8Ena3sEqV2FX9qxj

aALm/VnrfbtUu823VpjpiNy7rMjvOl17omDS8v4S6HSBRFuOFxmIoPi4BLDPlTWhfTYZJ3rH

Gx/2J3JFjvzkVoM1Htq1jbeZzzqPaHAvGJrnIY+6DwCg7aCaaKfOQzwaVeTq1jhu4zH0MMsD

/00cd61uRttV97JBGBDx4Zwp5CBzlnra24kZkHf43iQiexI7JzOx0xvqmbAhz2Aei3UcQXM7

c90EaA6FgFJplaRFUcwYJkdxu3+quK0R1EmKmDA50ugiUzu8qt30ODBoJav7ZM8/pq4DvcrT

mHLBK/hlKOcAhAVrAqwTztynILPdA/0YRs8GYGIqrAEKfX4/8mhBbCCrD6yJViohbSJ3lRTD

jKnMI3vNj/+s6eeT9B1vF8CyEuzZufmEBXL329CnhDRNWaVbTgpBl/GLI1FSXTiDSnDGdReP

mF7h5HHlL0IFwWTYl+oiXz5RF2hAOUALIxfX+RQTU6mH/Raz59VH2j7pW7QfU2ltb24gSG9y

bWFuIDxob3Jtc0BkZWJpYW4ub3JnPohGBBARAgAGBQJDgW2HAAoJENUjpuZgBiiEx2AAn0dk

OefzVqNYB+CmQgOgRjS5A/fnAJsHVdO3i/8NckSuQeJ9z/MyO6iCE4hGBBARAgAGBQJDgW+R

AAoJEBcFOQ7mbJuwAGQAoJDv1/chu75aQOIxK5DIQEZ09jRVAJwJtwDyqgdUnd1AEc//OrNZ

1kIuwohGBBARAgAGBQJDgXq1AAoJEFPlmVtRVTMKiCYAn1KlsPSPSdWFeAiHf3Qm54gXH9Yp

AJ9DIJ4jy1Z9IXfp9i1fVnwKHicZxohGBBARAgAGBQJIQuQaAAoJEPaNV/uq5zQnFQEAn0cZ

cG/XW3nZn7XJkmTQ7BhCct7wAKCFofIDm0ecW2LIku5W3ByRpwpTYIhGBBARAgAGBQJJt0yC

AAoJEBjYpOLQ7bZNKBsAn15fxX5vOVPxcCjG0MTkKq1KL+6uAJ9NBuT48l0lZrHoodrEK7HJ

yBATAIhGBBARAgAGBQJJt2+7AAoJEGykGndDuNbIWVsAnjgyEhiDo5Mje4EbPoX7BYQlYq+5

AJ47SpquAYY6zLB6u2lmzQ8DaHbm4IhMBBMRAgAMBQJDlAzMBYMSuV6yAAoJEAgFz2XePm2T

uMQAn1fWqSGo1EMJiglmWV+AQypVaz09AKCUH6rBS7sbPboBV2Xy+1I1oZdJMIhmBBMRAgAm

BQJDgWi5AhsDBQkSzAMABgsJCAcDAgQVAggDBBYCAwECHgECF4AACgkQA8ACPgVBDpew7wCg

273GZJS2311rS3/3C8VJa8cM9LwAn3QzO5DFhKN/3XOGI99vxaK+x0zCtCFTaW1vbiBIb3Jt

YW4gPGhvcm1zQHZlcmdlLm5ldC5hdT6IRgQQEQIABgUCQ4FthQAKCRDVI6bmYAYohM+7AJ4n

3bKIpEaejv/1pbHKLL11fse1DQCfXjFRojcLeRIXXkwvSWBDY/xpGvCIRgQQEQIABgUCQ4Fv

jQAKCRAXBTkO5mybsAjoAJ41mgdVAz23U51NJ8cgpWp+KaWYWwCfdE1q/K/DNbx+Pix8kkOL

NhQ2T6qIRgQQEQIABgUCQ4F6rwAKCRBT5ZlbUVUzCsoiAJ9GZNyA1XDcCdotS1qTFlp33tnA

OQCfWYzBttAL7etuutb4CDJqPwOh4j+IRgQQEQIABgUCSELkGgAKCRD2jVf7quc0J3OXAJ4/

nzcUCOYJKNtjYZtPaqVj0cW7BgCfb/Trs4uvS3vooJizh0cJyPQqjymIRgQQEQIABgUCSbdM

ggAKCRAY2KTi0O22TVM/AJ4yWpNFyqo67oYYOgr8OqQfMJnijACfbF0TqBE3xJYraCK3MIW5

Z1Yr+AuIRgQQEQIABgUCSbdvuwAKCRBspBp3Q7jWyEgjAJ98Zu4GfDiOylz+EDbm2T7P1BE7

kQCfbECHQARujttCnPxy2q3vXwL0yrWITAQTEQIADAUCQ5QMzAWDErlesgAKCRAIBc9l3j5t

kwVzAJ4wywabgeuYCDMWZuGAsC2hDSFlFQCfQbdeCT0VoUveXfh3e58f8GJV4h6IZgQTEQIA

JgUCQ4FofgIbAwUJEswDAAYLCQgHAwIEFQIIAwQWAgMBAh4BAheAAAoJEAPAAj4FQQ6XyuEA

n3jEhRhdOW2sftDoYVN4yxxwihw6AKDgTV6czvp1mp1n1/3IPRNdzHXqwIhpBBMRAgApAhsD

BQkSzAMABgsJCAcDAgQVAggDBBYCAwECHgECF4AFAkOBa6sCGQEACgkQA8ACPgVBDpeYsACg

6YLLgyAExRHb7/HoY9kHFsG1W+QAn3D/G7LJJgKv+Ak623nzyhhu/grVuQINBEOBaIoQCADP

7yaGkyu2a5A5clGb7sD6nDnKjz/rJrpFkluQ0Rwz73KxajjLzQeNGp2EV91UDRXbg1NCkf2E

F97maJO00SYR7ZbQdyBKORgQZuLU/aSJn8UR15ChsuWxe874p/QGylzwEea/JVJUltud3Aep

Dm8sB1nErPzz++iDZSFSdGqM5ltcv3geP0Ax+SDNqe7HWdmgv/EKaFgRUN62yS05V+HWylN+

wuj/SJJiKUhtiZQ26NiawQNDUcxUPgb8oYgGyZRL1GcGWs45RADiEUNSHifqm+CcRSkQFXex

GFHDDnHKFFnyVHKaWrwG6Ty9TFlx7+jo8gwDyphBLV0nsTYQcJvjAAMFCACSMCA/aewrLvVo

C63o90CKgftkpwt53lp/1vqBvRzuZlCTLQ5ijbA2Pn/9oqPfWUqeIObr2YCRlpwnw5jfOKah

wknlujA9nAzruqA2xwkDp2jpyEOoh1meDhbeaPa8lx4A2sxYwfSMCDDZ3Jwm/c0lFdhmlUEA

dm9tnXL024evFr5BJVmmgbQsHErSwfyI6CDWjVXbySO60j3K3GVIvTm55iB0rlsMjwhRD4Sy

5PO5aaCktmICqBtSDBHZjje7PWPKN92ZhHr24g11Xc3u42U1bQ+J9oNmuTJMI20NcR0lgJNR

d8oQvqHyU7B5mRMBalCKNDdtVLbTuh2Cs6vrS6jFiE8EGBECAA8FAkOBaIoCGwwFCRLMAwAA

CgkQA8ACPgVBDpfxKACeIfmJdm0wyb6FNyfP9/yYlSak1T8AoJjH/Pc+Uwq5T0kUEdcurSEm

MZd1

=5NNR

—–END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–

Run the following command to fetch the missing public key

gpg –import /home/key.asc

and add the key to the keyring

apt-key add /root/.gnupg/pubring.gpg

Then do :

apt-key update

apt-get update

Install UltraMonkey

apt-get install ultramonkey

dpkg-reconfigure ipvsadm

Answer as follows:

Do you want to automatically load IPVS rules on boot?

Select a daemon method.

None

3 Enable Packet Forwarding On The Load Balancers

The load balancers must be able to route traffic to the Apache nodes. Therefore we must enable packet forwarding on the load balancers. Add the following lines to /etc/sysctl.conf:

vi /etc/sysctl.conf

# Enables packet forwarding

net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1

Then do this:

sysctl –p

4 Configure heartbeat And ldirectord

Now we have to create three configuration files for heartbeat. They must be identical on loadb1 and loadb2

vi /etc/ha.d/ha.cf

logfacility local0

bcast eth0 # Linux

mcast eth0 225.0.0.1 694 1 0

auto_failback off

node loadb1.com

node loadb2.com

respawn hacluster /usr/lib/heartbeat/ipfail

apiauth ipfail gid=haclient uid=hacluster

Important: As nodenames we must use the output of uname –n on loadb1 and loadb2.

vi /etc/ha.d/haresources

loadb1.com \

ldirectord::ldirectord.cf \

LVSSyncDaemonSwap::master \

IPaddr2::192.168.1.105/24/eth0/192.168.1.255

The first word is the output of uname –n on loadb1, no matter if you create the file on loadb1 or loadb2! After IPaddr2 we put our virtual IP address 192.168.1.105.

vi /etc/ha.d/authkeys

auth 3

3 md5 somerandomstring

somerandomstring is a password which the two heartbeat daemons on loadb1 and loadb2 use to authenticate against each other.

/etc/ha.d/authkeys should be readable by root only, therefore we do this:

Chmod 600 /etc/ha.d/authkeys

ldirectord is the actual load balancer. We are going to configure the two load balancers (loadb1.com and loadb2.com) in an active/passive setup, which means we have one active load balancer, and the other one is a hot-standby and becomes active if the active one fails. To make it work, we must create the ldirectord configuration file /etc/ha.d/ldirectord.cf which again must be identical on loadb1 and loadb2.

vi /etc/ha.d/ldirectord.cf

checktimeout=10

checkinterval=2

autoreload=no

logfile=”local0”

quiescent=yes

virtual=192.168.1.105:80

real=192.168.1.101:80 gate

real=192.168.1.102:80 gate

fallback=127.0.0.1:80 gate

service=http

request=”ldirector.html”

receive=”Test Page”

scheduler=rr

protocol=tcp

checktype=negotiate

Afterwards we create the system startup links for heartbeat and remove those of ldirectord because ldirectord will be started by the heartbeat daemon:

update-rc.d heartbeat start 75 2 3 4 5 . stop 05 0 1 6 .

update-rc.d -f ldirectord remove

Finally we start heartbeat (and with it ldirectord):

/etc/init.d/ldirectord stop

If you are getting the following error while stopping ldirectord service :

Can’t locate Socket6.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /etc/perl

/usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.0 /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.0 /usr/lib/perl5

/usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.10 /usr/share/perl/5.10

/usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at /usr/sbin/ldirectord line 815.

Run :

apt-get install libsocket6-perl

/etc/init.d/heartbeat start

5 Test the Load Balancers

ip addr sh eth0

The active load balancer should list the virtual IP address (192.168.1.105):

2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000

link/ether 00:16:3e:40:18:e5 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

inet 192.168.1.103/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global eth0

inet 192.168.1.105/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global secondary eth0

The hot-standby should show this:

2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000

link/ether 00:16:3e:50:e3:3a brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

inet 192.168.1.104/24 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global eth0

ldirectord ldirectord.cf status

Output on the active load balancer:

ldirectord for /etc/ha.d/ldirectord.cf is running with pid: 1455

Output on the hot-standby:

ldirectord is stopped for /etc/ha.d/ldirectord.cf

ipvsadm -L –n

Output on the active load balancer:

IP Virtual Server version 1.2.1 (size=4096)

Prot LocalAddress:Port Scheduler Flags

-> RemoteAddress:Port Forward Weight ActiveConn InActConn

TCP 192.168.0.105:80 rr

-> 192.168.0.101:80 Route 0 0 0

-> 192.168.0.102:80 Route 0 0 0

-> 127.0.0.1:80 Local 1 0 0

Output on the hot-standby:

IP Virtual Server version 1.2.1 (size=4096)

Prot LocalAddress:Port Scheduler Flags

-> RemoteAddress:Port Forward Weight ActiveConn InActConn

/etc/ha.d/resource.d/LVSSyncDaemonSwap master status

Output on the active load balancer:

master running

(ipvs_syncmaster pid: 1591)

Output on the hot-standby:

master stopped

6 Configure The Two Apache Nodes

Finally we must configure our Apache cluster nodes apachenode1.com and apachenode1.com to accept requests on the virtual IP address 192.168.1.105.

apt-get install iproute

Add the following to /etc/sysctl.conf:

vi /etc/sysctl.conf

# Enable configuration of arp_ignore option

net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_ignore = 1

# When an arp request is received on eth0, only respond if that address is

# configured on eth0. In particular, do not respond if the address is

# configured on lo

net.ipv4.conf.eth0.arp_ignore = 1

# Ditto for eth1, add for all ARPing interfaces

#net.ipv4.conf.eth1.arp_ignore = 1

# Enable configuration of arp_announce option

net.ipv4.conf.all.arp_announce = 2

# When making an ARP request sent through eth0 Always use an address that

# is configured on eth0 as the source address of the ARP request. If this

# is not set, and packets are being sent out eth0 for an address that is on

# lo, and an arp request is required, then the address on lo will be used.

# As the source IP address of arp requests is entered into the ARP cache on

# the destination, it has the effect of announcing this address. This is

# not desirable in this case as adresses on lo on the real-servers should

# be announced only by the linux-director.

net.ipv4.conf.eth0.arp_announce = 2

# Ditto for eth1, add for all ARPing interfaces

#net.ipv4.conf.eth1.arp_announce = 2

Then run this:

sysctl -p

Add this section for the virtual IP address to /etc/network/interfaces:

vi /etc/network/interfaces

auto lo:0

iface lo:0 inet static

address 192.168.0.105

netmask 255.255.255.255

pre-up sysctl -p > /dev/null

Then run this:

ifup lo:0

Finally we must create the file ldirector.html. This file is requested by the two load balancer nodes repeatedly so that they can see if the two Apache nodes are still running. I assume that the document root of the main apache web site on webserver1 and webserver2 is /var/www, therefore we create the file /var/www/ldirector.html:

vi /var/www/ldirector.html

Test Page

7 Further Testing

You can now access the web site that is hosted by the two Apache nodes by typing http://192.168.1.105 in your browser.

Now stop the Apache on either webserver1 or webserver2. You should then still see the web site on http://192.168.1.105 because the load balancer directs requests to the working Apache node. Of course, if you stop both Apaches, then your request will fail.

Now let’s assume that loadb1 is our active load balancer, and loadb2 is the hot-standby. Now stop heartbeat on loadb1:

loadb1:

/etc/init.d/heartbeat stop

Wait a few seconds, and then try http://192.168.1.105 again in your browser. You should still see your web site because loadb2 has taken the active role now.

Now start heartbeat again on loadb1:

/etc/init.d/heartbeat start

loadb2 should still have the active role.

Tags: Failover, heartbeat, High Availability, Linux HA, Load balancing, logicsupport review, server management, technical support, ultramonkey
Posted in Technical | No Comments »

Installation of Plesk in CloudLinux

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Glad to submit the result of our recent workshop with CloudLinux. The key is to disable SELinux.

1.Login to the CloudLinux as root.

# uname -i

i586

2.Check SELinux status, we have it disabled but still… execute “getenforce” it should say “Disabled” or “Not enforcing”. If it’s enforcing, disable it by executing: “setenforce 0″.

# getenforce

Disabled

3. Update yum

# yum update –exclude=xorg* –exclude=kernel* –exclude=cloudlinux-release*

4.Change your working directory to where you want to download the Auto-installer utility:

# mkdir /root/plesk

# cd /root/plesk

5.Once done, download the Auto-installer utility that suits your operating system and save it on your server’s hard drive :

# wget http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/PPP9/CloudLinux5/parallels_installer_v3.6.0_build100407.15_os_CloudLinux_5_i386

6 Set the execution permission for Auto-installer:

# chmod +x parallels_installer_v3.6.0_build100407.15_os_CloudLinux_5_i386

7.Run the Auto-installer:

# ./parallels_installer_v3.6.0_build100407.15_os_CloudLinux_5_i386

8.Read installation notes displayed on the screen and type ‘n’ to proceed to the next screen. Press ENTER.

Select the product versions that you want to install: type the number corresponding to the product version you need and press ENTER, then type ‘n’ and press ENTER to continueThe packages will be downloaded and installed. When the installation is finished, Parallels Plesk Panel will start automatically.

9.Now to complete the initial configuration, log in to the Parallels Plesk Panel running on your host at https://machine.domain.name:8443/ or https://IP-address:8443/. Use the username ‘admin‘ and password ‘setup‘ (both are case sensitive). For security reasons, change the password upon initial login.

Next week, we will have something interesting to show in the Linux HA segment.

Tags: cloudlinux, how to install cloudlinux, Linux HA, logicsupport review, plesk, server management, technical support, webhosting support
Posted in Plesk | No Comments »

LVE – Lightweight Virtual Environment

Monday, June 28th, 2010

LVE is a kernel level technology developed by the CloudLinux team. The technology has common roots with container based virtualization. Yet, it is lightweight, and transparent. The goal of LVE is to make sure that no single web site can bring down your web server.

Today, a single site can consume all CPU resources, IO resources or apache processes — and bring the server to the halt. LVE prevents that.

It is done via collaboration of apache modules and kernel. mod_hostinglimits is the apache module that:

1 . Detects VirtualHost from which the request came.

2 . Detects if it was meant for cgi or PHP script.

3 . Switches apache process used to serve that request into LVE for the user determined via

SuexecUserGroup for that virtual host.

4 . Lets apache to serve the request.

5 . Removes apache process from user’s LVE.

The kernel makes sure that all LVEs get fair share of the server’s resources. This means, for example, that 20 apache processes serving a heavy site will use the same amount of CPU as one apache process serving a smaller site.

Each LVE limits amount of entry processes (Apache processes entering into LVE) to prevent single site exhausting all apache processes. If the limit is reached — mod_hostinglimits will not be able to place apache process into LVE, and will return error code 503 (server busy).

By using isolation technology to create lightweight virtual environment (LVE), CloudLinux can:

1. Limit the amount of resources one site can use so no single account can slow or take down a whole server
2. Provide better security by running all processes under the correct user and in their own container
3. Protect the server from hackers and poorly written scripts that drain resources for other tenants

Installation process of LVE

In order to install LVE services , we need to setup CloudLinux. We can either install CloudLinux by downloading it or migrating it from CentOS 5.

You can download latest ISO for CloudLinux CD and DVDs from:

x86_64 version: http://repo.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinux/5.5/iso/x86_64

i386 version: http://repo.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinux/5.5/iso/i386

Version 5.4 is available here:

x86_64 version: http://repo.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinux/5.4/iso/x86_64

i386 version: http://repo.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinux/5.4/iso/i386

Switch From CentOS to CloudLinux today

It is easy to switch from CentOS 5 to CloudLinux. The process takes a few minutes and replaces just a

handful of RPMs.

Get <activation_key> either by getting trial subscription or by purchasing subscription,

Download script: centos2cl

Execute sh centos2cl -k <activation_key>

Reboot

# wget http://repo.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinux/sources/cln/centos2cl

# sh centos2cl -k <activation_key>

# reboot

Enabling Apache LVE support

If you have no control panel, or you run one of the following control panels: Webmin, Plesk, Interworx, do

# yum install mod_hostinglimits

If you run apache with worker MPM, do:

# yum install mod_sucgid

If you have cPanel, use install-lve script :

# wget http://repo.cloudlinux.com/cloudlinux/sources/install-lve

# sh install-lve -a

Tags: cloudlinux, expertise, logicsupport review, server management, webhosting support
Posted in Technical | 5 Comments »

WordPress Redirection

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Whenever I go to www.domain.com it is redirected to Non-www and the browser shows domain.com . There is no redirect rules set and I checked my .htacces file. I knew it is something to do with my wordpress . My WordPress is installed in the root directory and not in its own subdirectory called /blog or /wordpress .

Here is how I fixed it . Consider my domain name is domain.com and username : doma
# mysql –user=doma –password=mypass

Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 399164 Server version: 5.0.88 Source distribution

Type ‘help;’ or ‘\h’ for help. Type ‘\c’ to clear the current input statement.

mysql> use doma;
Reading table information for completion of table and column names
You can turn off this feature to get a quicker startup with -A

There you can see the siteurl is given without www . Below I’m going to change it to www .

mysql> update wp_options set option_value=’http://www.domain.com’ where option_name=’siteurl’;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 1 Changed: 0 Warnings: 0

mysql> update wp_options set option_value=’http://www.domain.com’ where option_name=’home’;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
Rows matched: 1 Changed: 1 Warnings: 0

Done . Isn’t that cool ?

Submitted by,

Manjula Kesavan,
System Administrator,
LogicSupport.com

Tags: logicsupport review, mysql, no database, phpmyadmin, server management, technical support
Posted in Technical | No Comments »

Backup your MySQL Databases

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

How many times have you come across situations when corrupt or old database eventually lost you an entire list of leads and emails collected over several years? It is heart breaking indeed. There have also been instances when the monthly backup got overwritten by the latest one and there was no way to return to the old settings. It is best to have an easy, alternate backup method in place in order to prevent losing those precious data on your server.
You can automate the backup process by making a small shell script which will create a daily backup file without overwriting the older backup .

#!/bin/sh date=`date -I` mysqldump –all-databases | gzip > /var/backup/backup-$date.sql.gz
Change the above directory to your backup drive location.

1) Save above script to a file eg: /root/dailybackup.sh
2) Make the file executable :- chmod +x /root/dailybackup.sh
3) Add following line in cron to take backup daily at 01:00 am

0 1 * * * /root/dailybackup.sh

Since mysqldump sends its output to the console, we can pipe the output through gzip or bzip2 and send the compressed dump to the backup file. Here’s another way of doing it with bzip2

mysqldump –all-databases -p | bzip2 -c >databasebackup.sql.bz2

Enter password:
If you wish to transfer the file to your other server and decompress it , say my backup file is

backup-2010-02-14.sql.bz

You can decompress as follows :-

bzip2 -d backup-2010-02-14.sql.bz

It will be now in the form

backup-2010-02-14.sql

Restore your backup using the mysql command:

mysql -p < backup-2010-02-14.sql

Done!

Tags: backup your data, logicsupport review, mysql, server management, technical support
Posted in Technical | No Comments »

Smarterstats

Friday, February 19th, 2010

SmarterStats is a Web log analytics and SEO software provided by www.smartertools.com that provides complete management and control of website statistics and SEO marketing efforts in a single application. SmarterStats helps businesses make informed decisions that drive them toward quantifiable objectives for website traffic and sales.

Issue with smarterstats account, especially after a migration is not uncommon. Sometimes prompting a re-import and resetting of the entire log files. Recently we faced an issue with one of the smarterstats account and it kept displaying the error “Information about the last 7 days is not available in your statistics. Logs have been imported for 10/1/2008 through 10/31/2009.”

Well, every time the admin attempt to re-import the log files, it gave a ‘cannot read’ error.

Upon checking, he came to know that the settings match exactly as that of a working domain account, hence he wasn’t able to identify the error.

‘Path to the log file’ is what confused the admin. Though the log files were in the path /x/y/domainname/, almost all of the working domains showed the settings as /x/y. Missing the logic, the admin kept on trying with the /x/y base directory until he finally decided to re-import using the path /x/y/domainname/, which worked finally.

Just a tip for all those who troubleshoot by doing a comparison of settings, please keep your senses open for the obvious logic and do not be misguided by an incorrect interface provided by the programmer.

Tags: logicsupport review, smarterstats, smartertools, technical support, windows
Posted in Technical | 1 Comment »

PCI compliance

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a worldwide information security standard assembled by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC). The standard was created to help organizations that process card payments prevent credit card fraud through increased controls around data and its exposure to compromise. The standard applies to all organizations which hold, process, or pass cardholder information from any card branded with the logo of one of the card brands.

If you are a host who sell business critical web environment that process credit card data, you need to know how to help your customers acquire compliance. LogicSupport helps their customers acquire PCI compliance by directly working with their data centers and any approved scan vendors ( ASV). Only certified ASVs can perform PCI-sanctioned compliance audits.

A detailed ASV list is given below for reference :-

https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pdfs/asv_report.html

Most of these ASVs provide you a report to work on or help you to clear them by providing technical assistance. If at any point, you need consultation with a security expert, you could always approach us and we will be able to guide you with our experience. We can even assist you by providing engineers who are experts at helping you clear the vulnerable scores.

An ASV bases the audit result on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), Version 2, score that is calculated for every vulnerability. Scores range from 0 to 10.0, with 4.0 or higher indicating failure to comply with PCI standards.

Any asset that contains at least one vulnerability with CVSS score of 4.0 or higher is considered non-compliant. And, if at least one asset is non-compliant, the entire organization is considered to be non-compliant.

Also, any vulnerability that exposes an asset to XSS or SQL injection indicates failure to comply with PCI standards, regardless of CVSS score.

The CVSS system rates all vulnerabilities on a scale of 0.0 to 10.0 with 10.0 representing the greatest security risk. A ranking of 4.0 or higher indicates failure to comply with PCI standards.

A moderate vulnerability, which ranges from 0.0 to 3.9 on the CVSS system can only be exploited locally and requires authentication. A successful attacker has little or no access to unrestricted information, cannot destroy or corrupt information, and cannot cause outages on any systems. Examples include default or guessable SNMP community names and the OpenSSL PRNG Internal State Discovery vulnerability.

A severe vulnerability, which ranges from 4.0 to 6.9 on the CVSS system, can be exploited with a moderate level of hacking experience and may or may not require authentication. A successful attacker has partial access to restricted information, can destroy some information, and can disable individual target systems on a network. Examples include Anonymous FTP Writeable and Weak LAN Manager hashing permitted.

A critical vulnerability, which ranges from 7.0 and 10.0 on the CVSS system, can be exploited with easy access and requires little or no authentication. A successful attacker has access to confidential information, can corrupt or delete data, and can cause a system outage. Examples include the ability of anonymous users can obtain a Windows password policy.

Though compliance is not the final word for web security, it will go a long way in helping our payments and card data secure on the web.

Tags: logicsupport review, PCI compliance, server management, technical support
Posted in General | 1 Comment »

Choose your customers

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

I’ve always had people asking me what is the secret behind retaining customers long term. LogicSupport has been in business for over 6 years now, and serviced several customers since its inception. I am so glad to mention here that some of our first time customers are still in business with us. It is an amazing achievement for our team because this trust is something we have earned over the years and there were certainly no shortcuts to achieve this.

As a webhost or any business for that matter, choosing your customers can have a profound effect in running your business. If done right, it can do a world of good to your future business and if done wrong, there is no worse mistake you can possibly make. They try to hack your data, gain illegal entry and even sabotage your entire business. I know that being able to choose your customers is a luxury these days, when you are trying your best to stay ahead of the competition. I also know that choosing alone do not win long term clients, it takes a lot of hard work and followup.

A retrospection in this regard is the order of the day in the wake of a customer who tried to ruin our business not long ago, after a series of threats and black mailing incident. Vladimir from prelovac.com signed up as a regular customer through our server management promotion program. He came to us with one big bargain, promising a review if we do our job well. Little did I know that he was going to use this tool to black mail us and get the work done without making payment.

His server security was tightened with all the update sent to him with relevant details. He went through the server security list and spotted, a feature listed in the website was not performed in the security report. It is well known that certain security features are incompatible with certain server environments. In such cases, we will only install what is relevant to the prevailing server environment. He immediately opened a ticket with us in our support queue demanding the missing module to be installed. The tech on duty explained to him that the installations were carried out after checking compatibility, but he demanded the changes should be updated immediately.

Since he needed to see the change anyway, the admin went ahead with changing the settings of the web server. The admin performed the installation and finally completed it with the changed settings. Client finally saw that the conflicting settings made some of his existing sites to not load as desired. All those changes had to be reverted and we did it as quickly as we could. As anyone in the hosting security management knows, web server recompilations involve some downtime and when the customer approved this reset, there was very little we could do. I tried to call him several times and keep in touch with him all through the matter, but he either never picked the call or it went to his voice mailbox. I even sent him an apology on behalf of the admin, just to make sure the client understands why the admin carried out the re-installation of the web server, only to learn they were misinterpreted.

He demanded that he should be issued a refund since he wasn’t happy with the service. We issued a 100% refund as per our customer satisfaction guarantee policy, though we know the server underwent all the required security setup.

I got an email the next day, asking me to compensate further for the downtime, with $2000 worth of damages and one year of free service, failing which he will write a public review and wreck our business. Why would be ask for one year of free service if he doubted our abilities? I tried to call him again trying my best to make sure things remain cordial. He never picked my calls.

I sensed the matter was out of hand and that he was really trying to get free work done and was resorting to blackmail. I refused to give free service or any further servicing of his server and offered to cancel immediately, to which no response was arrived.

As he went public, a reputed forum pulled down his thread after they realized he was trying to drive traffic to his personal blog prelovac.com. I gave my reply in one of the forums about his intentions but he never came up with a response to the community members, instead he decided to post the review in his personal blog with comments disallowed.

Let this story be a lesson for anyone who is signing up customers in a frenzy. Please know your customer before you take them in. It is best to cross check your customer history, especially of those who signup for your smallest plans. They may simply be seeking an entry to your business process, but their intentions may be different. I have seen hackers who signup for start-up plans and eventually screw up the entire server and the hosting owner’s business. Please try to stay away from them…

Tags: logicsupport review, prelovac
Posted in General | 2 Comments »

Configuring CSF in a VPS

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

You may get the following error while restarting csf on a vps server

Error: iptables command [/sbin/iptables -v -A LOGDROPIN -p tcp -m limit --limit 30/m --limit-burst 5 -j LOG --log-prefix 'Firewall: *TCP_IN Blocked* '] failed, at line 280

In a vps (openvz or Virtuzzo) the csf configuration is something different. Lets see how we can make csf work with vps .

Before starting the installation of csf, you should confirm the following modules are installed on the main VPS.

ipt_conntrack

ipt_LOG

ipt_owner

ipt_state

ip_conntrack_ftp

iptable_filter

You can confirm whether these modules are already loaded using

# lsmod |grep -i <module-name>

If its not installed you can install this using modprob

modprob ipt_conntrack

After that you should add these modules to the iptables configuration as follows

# vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables-config

IPTABLES_MODULES=”ipt_conntrack ipt_LOG ipt_owner ipt_state ip_conntrack_ftp”

You need to edit the vps client node configuration file as follows ( example node is 101 )

# vi /etc/sysconfig/vz-scripts/101.conf

IPTABLES=”iptable_filter iptable_mangle ipt_limit ipt_multiport ipt_tos ipt_TOS ipt_REJECT ipt_TCPMSS ipt_tcpmss ipt_ttl ipt_LOG ipt_length ip_conntrack ipt_state iptable_nat ip_nat_ftp ipt_owner ip_conntrack_ftp”

Restart the client node .

# vzctl restart 101

Now login to your client node and install csf . Before restarting csf let us edit the configuration file .

# /etc/csf/csf.conf

ETH_DEVICE = “venet0″ # from ifconfig you will get the ethernet device
MONOLITHIC_KERNEL = “1″
VERBOSE = “0″

Restart csf

# csf -r

If you have followed the above steps properly then it should start without any errors . In case if you get error , some of the modules I find necessary are

ipt_MASQUERADE

ipt_helper

ipt_REDIRECT

ipt_state

ipt_TCPMSS

ipt_LOG

ipt_SAME

ipt_TOS

iptable_nat

ipt_length

ipt_tcpmss

iptable_mangle

ipt_limit

ipt_tos

iptable_filter

ipt_helper

ipt_tos

ipt_ttl

ipt_REJECT

ip_conntrack

ip_multiport

ip_nat_ftp

ipt_owner

ipt_recent

ipt_REDIRECT

Now if you can start csf without any error but it blocks all connections to site when enabled. If you disable csf it starts working . If so , make sure that you have opened all ports in csf configuration file and then execute the below commands from the client node (101 in our case)

iptables -A INPUT -i venet0 -j ACCEPT

iptables -A OUTPUT -o venet0 -j ACCEPT

iptables -A FORWARD -j ACCEPT -p all -s 0/0 -i venet0

iptables -A FORWARD -j ACCEPT -p all -s 0/0 -o venet0

Or else you can add the above iptables rules to ” vi /etc/csf/csfpre.sh ” and restart csf

Other issues related to csf in a vps can be caused by “numiptent”

Run the below command from your vps node (101) and see if there are any failcounts .

cat /proc/user_beancounters

numiptent should be set to at least 1000

You can increase the values of these parameters as discussed here .

Tags: Configuring CSF in a VPS, csf, logicsupport review, server management, technical support, VPS
Posted in VPS | No Comments »

How to Re-install Mysql on Freebsd

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Say Mysql has completely crashed on your server and while restarting it is showing the below error :-

/usr/local/bin/mysqladmin: connect to server at ‘localhost’ failed error: ‘Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/tmp/mysql.sock’ (61)’ Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: ‘/tmp/mysql.sock’ exists! mysql has failed, please contact the sysadmin (result was “mysql has failed”).

And from the mysql error logs you are getting

/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: /lib/libc.so.7: version FBSD_1.1 required by /usr/local/libexec/mysqld not found

If you have tried all other common fixes then lets now move on to mysql-reinstall.

The steps to reinstall mysql from ports on a freebsd – cpanel servers are as follows.

# cd /usr/ports/databases/

# pkg_info | grep -i mysql

It should display information on mysql packages , something like

bsdpan-DBD-mysql-4.013 DBD::mysql – MySQL driver for the Perl5 Database Interface

mysql-client-5.0.87 Multithreaded SQL database (client)

mysql-server-5.0.87 Multithreaded SQL database (server)

cd /usr/ports/databases/mysql50-server (see which version you have)

make clean

make

make deinstall

make reinstall

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server start

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server.sh start

Check if mysql is running

# ps wwaux | grep mysql

Make sure that you have given the symlink

# ln -s /var/db/mysql/mysql.sock /tmp

If it still shows down try to re-set the mysql password and restart mysql again .

Tags: freebsd, logicsupport review, mysql, server management, technical support
Posted in Cpanel | 3 Comments »

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Choose your customers

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