Linux – Enable PHP Short Tags
KB ID 0000886 Problem I have a particular web page that uses PHP short tags. Post migration from my old hosting company to a dedicated VPS, this stopped working. As I know little about Linux, and even less about PHP, I asked the question at Experts Exchange about why It was no longer working. I took no time at all, for someone who knew what they were doing to say, “Your code uses ‘Short tags’, but you do not have...
Backing up a Remote Linux Machine With Windows (Using Rsync and Cygwin)
KB ID 0000892 Problem The goal here was for me to get a backup of my VPS server (Running CentOS 6). My background is primarily Windows based, so I wanted a solution where I can just run the backup from a Windows machine, (i.e. my my laptop) and let it connect, login and perform the backup. What is Rsync? If you are familiar with Robocopy it’s similar, it can perform a backup/sync of data and encrypt that data while it’s...
Postfix – Change The ‘Welcome Banner’
KB ID 0000907 Problem After my recent DNS troubles, I was checking my mail server’s (MX) records, and got a warning about not having any reverse lookup records (PTR) configured properly. I telnetted to the mail server on port 25, and saw it was responding with the servers host-name. I know my records are correct for the FQDN of the server, I just needed to change its welcome banner. Solution Change the Postfix Welcome Banner by...
Linux (CentOS) Securing and Hardening SSH / Shell Access
KB ID 0000881 Problem The following is by no means an extensive list of everything that can be done. It’s just a run though of what I would consider ‘good practice’. Solution Create a user for SSH and Remove Shell access for the ‘root’ user. 1. Connect to the server via SSH or open a terminal session and su to root. Create a new user then set and confirm the new users password. useradd {username} passwd...
CentOS (RHEL) Installing VMware Tools in ESX
KB ID 0000888 Problem This was a much more complicated job than I expected it to be! The following procedure is done on CentOS 6, so will be the same for Red Hat Enterprise 6. Solution 1. Connect to the server via SSH, (or open a terminal session). Logon as, (or su to) root. 2. Execute the following commands; yum install make gcc kernel-devel kernel-headers glibc-headers perl mkdir /mnt/cdrom 3. Then present the VMware tools CD to the...