Category: stuff

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RealVNC on RedHat Enterprise 5

This describes how to use the free versions of RealVNC to connect to your RedHat Enterpirse Linux 5 desktop from your Windows XP machine.  These instructions might work for RHEL4, CentOS, Windows Vista, and other flavors of Linux, but I haven’t tried them.  YMMV.

First download the latest free version for Linux to your RedHat machine from here:

http://www.realvnc.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi

Note:  Since you are on RedHat, make it easy on yourself and grab the RPM version.

Unzip/Untar the file to extract the RPM, then install it:

rpm -i vnc-4.*.*.*.rpm

Next, you will need to edit the script which launches RealVNC or else it will choke on the font paths.  So, as root, edit this file:

/usr/bin/vncserver

You should see a section in that file that looks like this:

# Add font path and color database stuff here, e.g.:## $cmd .= " -fp /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/";# $cmd .= " -co /usr/lib/X11/rgb";#

To jump to it quickly, just search for the word ‘font’ in your editor.

Now, you want to uncomment and edit the two necessary lines so that it looks like this:

# Add font path and color database stuff here, e.g.:#$cmd .= " -fp /usr/share/X11/fonts/misc/,/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/";$cmd .= " -co /usr/share/X11/rgb";#

Got it? Good.  Save that sucker and close it.

Don’t Run RealVNC As Root.

You need to be logged in as a non-root user when you fire up the VNC server, lest the application bomb out with errors.  So, once you have chosen the user you wish to be,  log in and edit this file:

/home/username/.vnc/xstartup

You will want to change the last line to use your GUI of choice (I prefer Gnome).

Change:

twm &

To:

gnome-session &

Save that sucker.  Got it? Good.

There is one last thing to do before any of this will work, and that is to open the necessary port in your firewall.  On your RedHat box, open the Firewall editor and add port 5901 to the list of allowed ports.

Fire It Up

Logged in as the non-root user you decided to run this as, enter the following at the command line:

#> vncserver :1

The first time you run this, you will be asked to create a password. Choose something you will remember by the time you get to your Windows machine to connect in a few minutes.

You should see a few notes about the server being started and the log file being created.  And with that, the vnc server is ready for connections from your Windows box.

Setting Up Windows

Now, you need to download and install the free RealVNC viewer to connect to your RedHat machine, which again is available here:

http://www.realvnc.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi

When installing, choose the Viewer option, not the Server option.  Once it’s installed, launch the application, and in the Server field, enter the IP or hostname of your RedHat server, followed by :1.  For example:

192.168.1.2:1

Click OK, and you should be asked to enter the password you created a few minutes ago.  Once you do, if all worked as planned, you should be looking at your RedHat desktop on your Windows machine.

Notes

Stopping RealVNC

Sometimes you may need to stop and restart VNC on the RedHat box.  To do this, log in at the command line and enter:

#> vncserver -kill :1

It should say something like “Killing process 5036”, letting you know it has been completed.

Getting A Better Resolution

If your Windows box has a monitor running at a resolution different than that of your Linux box, you may want to change the resolution at which RealVNC runs.  To do this, just add the desired resolution to the startup command like so:

#> vncserver -geometry 1440x900 :1

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RHEL – Xen vs. KVM

Let me just say I’m a big VMware fan. And since they started giving out ESXi for free, I try to pass on the love as much as possible.

However, sticking to open source values is very important to me for many reasons, and I recently discovered Xen is going away in RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I kinda figured it would die out as soon as Citrix bought up Xen.

So I dug around after a few emails with another virt guy.

Red Hat’s official statement:

http://www.redhat.com/about/news/prarchive/2008/virtualization.html

I guess if you’re sticking with RHEL’s way of doing things, you had better give up on Xen and start working with KVM / Ovirt etc.

It seems Xen will continue to be supported through the 5.x series, as they have lots of customers using it. (hmmm…)

So I guess there will be a tool or some article for transitioning later on.

Ovirt – http://ovirt.org/
KVM – http://kvm.qumranet.com/kvmwiki/Front_Page
FreeIPA – http://www.freeipa.org

However, this is all in a beta area for now.

My thoughts would be to simply go with VMware Server or ESXi server for production and then start testing the KVM solutions for future configurations. That’s just my two cents.

HTH

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Backing Up Tons of Email

MailStore HomeI have about a dozen email accounts I try to manage locally with Thunderbird.  By and large, things run pretty smoothly until I need to move it all, as I did recently when upgrading from XP to Vista.

I have been a big fan of MozBackup in the past, but as my email accounts grew and I had more and more email stored in folders, MozBackup started taking a long time to process it all.  After my move to Vista, I realized I had over 2GB of mail backed up, and restoring it from Mozbackup didn’t work.  It recreated all my accounts and folders, but all the folders were empty.

After the initial panic faded, I found some forum threads discussing the manual opening of MozBackup archives and restoration of email.  I finally got it all back, but it wasn’t without more than a few sweat bullets hitting the keyboard.

Since this episode, I have been looking for something to put my mind at ease in regards to email storage, backup, and even reduction. I don’t know why I had never heard of it, but I stumbled across MailStore, which offers a free home version called, get this, MailStore Home.

MailStore Home will back up and archive email from many different clients, including Outlook, Thunderbird, Exchange, GMail, Yahoo mail, and others. At first I thought it was too good to be true, but after installing it I was quickly impressed with the simplicity and ease of use.

I had soon archived my two biggest email accounts, and even burned them to DVD through the MailStore application itself. Knowing DVD’s aren’t indestructible, I also backed up the archive using Carbonite (another of my favorite apps).

Going back into a MailStore archive is very easy, and it lets you read email, open, and even search mail and contents of attachments.

Once I was convinced that I had succesfully archived and backed up all my email, I was able to go through my Inboxes and delete over 1GB of email.  Hopefully, this will allow MozBackup to run more smoothly, if I ever really need it again in the first place.

If you find yourself with an unweildy inbox and a nagging feeling that you haven’t done anything to back it  up, go grab MailStore Home now.

mailStore Home: http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx

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OpenJDK6 – Java 1.6.x on CentOS 5.x

Just a quick tip that might help out the folks needing something better than gcj and still using an open version of Java.

On CentOS 5.2 :

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-2.noarch.rpm
yum install -y java-1.6.0-openjdk-plugin java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel java-1.6.0-openjdk

😉

Hope that makes someone’s life easier!

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I’m Back!

As you may have noticed, I ditched my blog here at www.www.willchatham.com back in October in favor of trying out  Tumblr. I ended up enjoying the Tumblr service, and I will probably still use it occasionally.

However, WordPress 2.7 came out, and after trying it on some of my other blog sites, I soon realized I really wanted THIS site to have it again.

So, here I am, with a brand new theme to boot!

I have a few things I plan on doing to spruce this place up, including a brand new message board.  That’s right–it’s the return of the Gangsta Haiku Repository!

Stay tuned…

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Google Notebook Is Being Ditched

Move Your Web Clippings Out of Google Notebook.  Now.  The free service has already stopped allowing new registrations, and will no longer be updated.

I can’t express the grief I have over this, as I have been a hardcore Notebook user since I discovered it about 9 months ago.

In case you haven’t heard of it, Google Notebook is a tool which allows you to save clippings, notes, and bookmarks which you run across while cruising around the information highway.  It’s easy to save parts of web pages using the Notebook plugin for Firefox, and you can add bookmarks, pictures, and notes, and to boot.

There are alternative services offered, the most popular of which seems to be Evernote, but being forced to switch services is just not cool, not matter how good they might be.

I have had an Evernote account for quite a while, but I never used it because I preferred Google Notebook’s ease of use and simplicity.  The worst part is that in order to import half of what I have saved in Google Notebook, I will have to purchase Evernote’s premium service and do it all by hand.

So, check back soon for an Evernote review!

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Sim City for iPhone Cheats

With the recent release of Sim City for the iPhone and iPod Touch, there has been a scurry to hunt for working cheat codes. Anyone who has played any of the original Sim City series knows that at least half the fun of the game is in the building of the city, and many times it’s nice not to have to worry about the budget management side of the game. Thus, cheat codes became desirable.

In the Sim City for the iPod game, which you should definitely purchase if you haven’t yet, cheat codes are equally important.

To enter cheat codes, you simply shake your device to trigger a box that will show up for entering the code.

So far, there are only two known working codes, and they are case sensitive:

  • i am weak – makes it free to build anything.
  • pay tribute to your king – bestows all gifts  (city hall, statue, spaceport, science research centers, etc).

So far, those are the only known working cheat codes, even though other folks have tried all of the codes from previous version of the game. If you know of any more, post them in the comments, and I’ll update this post once they are verified to work.

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Practical Security: Web Browser Vulnerabilities

Secunia, a computing security clearinghouse, has issued a warning regarding a new, zero day vulnerability in the Internet Explorer web browser.  This includes Internet Explorer 5, Internet Explorer 6, and Internet Explorer 7 on fully patched Windows XP systems.

Attackers can craft web pages in such a way to use this vulnerability to issue commands on your computer.  There are active exploits currently being used on the Internet to do this.

Your safest immediate course of action is to not use Internet Explorer until a patch is issued by Microsoft.  Instead, use Firefox, Safari, or Chrome.  Unless you are using version 9.3 of Opera, you should quit using it as well.

On another note, there was an article in the news recently which named Firefox as the most insecure application of 2008.  The article is highly biased, however, and the criteria for defining insecure applications ruled out the inclusion of Internet Explorer.  Still, it’s worth a read to help raise awareness about the vulnerabilities of computing on the Internet these days.

Whatever browser you use, you should know that exploits are found in all of them.  As exploits are discovered, they are usually patched as soon as possible, and it’s well worth checking for and installing the latest versions often.  Until patches are released, however, it’s a good plan to switch browsers.

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