Topic: Newbie Questions (sorry if they sound lame) Long post.

[jm]

I am quite a linux newbie with my only other linux use being a Sun Cobalt Qube (is that swearing around here?) I had been searching for something that would do the same job on a faster machine and found E-Smith.

Just downloaded SME 5.6 and tried setting it up on a new box (E-Cube CF-S768 using SiS740 AMD FLEX-ATX Motherboard with Duron 1100 / 256Mb ram / 8Gb HD / CD-Rom). Yes I like small, cube shaped computers

The installation boots, then after the line:
running /sbin/loader/

comes:
install exited abnormally -- received signall 11

Couldn't find any ref to this on this site or Mintel site, any ideas?

So I tried installing on an old box (PII) lying around with a couple of Nic Cards.
The install went ok with everything now working through our router/modem (tested against win 95 and Win XP pro)

After a little reading I found ways to do lots of things that the Qube did, like DHCP fix IP/MAC address for printers etc.

The web panel seems to offer everything I'm looking for except:-

Allow / Deny users from internet access. (Squid?)
Block / Permit internet sites. (Squid?)
LDAP for others than just SME server users (comapny wide contact book)
Panel to set up a mailing list to non SME Server users
Panel to config the Firewall (block / open ports, route requests on a port to particular IP)

A quick search and read showed lots of rpm's that could be added to provide extra functionality. The mintel site/manual on CD mentions 'blades' but I can't see how to install these blades or how to install the rpm's that are mentioned.

The Qube had 'packages' and a part of the admin panel for installing them. Is there something similar for SME? If not is there a simple guide ? I apologise in advance if there is and this has been asked a million times before and I've missed it

If installing these extras/configing the server means learning a little, no problem. I purchased a book on server administration for linux, but THIS site seems to indicate that all the normal files for linux are sort of duplicated in an SME server file/structure that will then write changes to the normal linux files, so I haven't messed with anything yet.

I have tried a little VERY BASIC 'messing' with the Sun Cobalt Qube, managing to install 'packages' for this and that, logging on through SSH and changing the odd file to fix/change this or that BUT I've only really done this by following VERY precise instructions, but I'm a REAL learner at this.

I thank the forum readers for their patience with this LONG post and my poor spelling and beg their indulgence.

Thanks in advance.

JM

[del]

Hi JM,
I am a newbie also but I have installed a rpm called squidguard for: Allow / Deny users from internet access. (Squid?)
Block / Permit internet sites. (Squid?)
it can be found at: http://www.tech-geeks.org/servers/sme/squidGuard/
There is also a rpm called sarg that goes with it to give you daily/weekly/monthly lists of sites visited by each workstation. I was lucky enough to get this info from Cyrus Bharda who I am sure won't mind me passing it on, he reads and contributes to these phorums regulary and with out people like him I would never have had the courage to attempt doing anything other than install SME in its "out of the box" configuration.
Thanks, Cyrus
There are a couple rpms by Darrell May for port forwarding and port opening, these can be found at:
http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dmay/mitel/contrib/
I have not got involved in any of the other things you mention.
I think that the blades are only available to people who are paying Mitel for their Service Link support.
I hope this is of some help to you.
Del

[Bill Talcott]

jm wrote:
>
> A quick search and read showed lots of rpm's that could be
> added to provide extra functionality. The mintel site/manual
> on CD mentions 'blades' but I can't see how to install these
> blades or how to install the rpm's that are mentioned.

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/btalcott/howto/rpm-howto.html
Whenever you need something, it's most likely hosted somewhere on contribs.org. There are also a few others' sites that I have bookmarked, but a growing number of people are trying to make contribs.org a central place to find everything.

Also, the Blades section is now only for paying Service Link customers, which most of the people here are not. The unsupported version doesn't even include the Blades panel anymore.

> The Qube had 'packages' and a part of the admin panel for
> installing them. Is there something similar for SME? If not
> is there a simple guide ? I apologise in advance if there is
> and this has been asked a million times before and I've
> missed it

http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dmay/mitel/contrib/update-system/

> If installing these extras/configing the server means
> learning a little, no problem. I purchased a book on server
> administration for linux, but THIS site seems to indicate
> that all the normal files for linux are sort of duplicated in
> an SME server file/structure that will then write changes to
> the normal linux files, so I haven't messed with anything yet.

http://www.e-smith.org/custom/ describes the template system. Once you get used to it, it's very handy. Each section of the config file is its own little file fragment. There's a special place to put your own custom fragments that take precedence over the defaults, or add to what's already there. If you screw something up, you can just delete your custom files and you're back to default.

[jm]

Bill (& Del)

Thank you very much, most informative. So far installed a couple and everything went according to plan..

How do you install updates that include multiple rpms' is if from top down or bottom up ? Would this be better done through telnet rather than using the excellent update panel feature?

Once again many thanks both, unlike the disgruntled user after the, soon to be no longer supported, NT4 - I think SME will do nicely.

The qube's were great (though had their fair share of problems !) but I'm hoping that SME will prove a good server tool and learning platform to ride with linux training wheels for a while...

Cheers for now

JM

[dave]

JM,

I say: don't worry about long posts, you should see some of the books I've posted here, I've had some chuckles but no one has ever been upset because I gave too much info.  I figure, the more info can be provided the better someone will be able help me.

I've used the system update feature before but if I have a selection of related RPM's, I usually copy them to the server in their own directory.  Then I install them directly from the server as root.  I have found that if the RPM's are related, the rpm utility can resolve dependencies within other files that have not yet been installed.  

Like I say, I copy all the related files into their own directory and use 'rpm -Uvh *rpm' (no quotes), this appears to be able to find all files and locate dependencies and install in proper order.

Dave

[Bill Talcott]

jm wrote:
>
> How do you install updates that include multiple rpms' is if
> from top down or bottom up ? Would this be better done
> through telnet rather than using the excellent update panel
> feature?

You should disable telnet, as it's quite insecure. You can use Putty or SSH Secure Shell Client to login securely from a Windows machine. When there's more than one file, yes, I usually do them from the command line. But the Update System panel is nice when you just have one RPM you want to throw on the system. You don't have to worry about copying the file over and logging in and typing all the commands. Just a few clicks and it's done.

And as Dave said, don't worry about "long" posts. Most of them aren't really that long anyway, and like he said, it's a lot easier to help you if we have extra information than not enough.

[jm]

Bill & Others

Thanks very much for the info, a very friendly place I've landed. Thanks to the tips I've got several of the extra rpm's installed and even follwed instructions to change the SMB displayed server name and learned that typing "install.sh" doesn't run the install script install.sh

Had a go at uninstalling and editing a couple of text files, although the text editors are like my worst memories of DOS

All beginers stuff but its a start. Disabled telnet, I already had Putty for the Qube's so SSH is in and Telnet is out. On the Qube forums there was mention of issues when using SSH on the default port (23 I think) is this the case on the e-smith ?

Aslo anyone know of a good 'panel' for to set allowed/disallowed sites (squid). I found package (on google):-

DansGuardian-2.4.5-2.RH72.i386.rpm

with therequirement to also use:-

dungog-dansguardian-blacklists-0.1-7.noarch.rpm

but, although the rpm's seemed to install with no errors (cd to correct ibay dir, rpm -Uvh *.rpm) there was no sign of a panel of any description. First go at uninstalling a package packages (took a while to find the part about missing the end off rpm file name to rpm -e !! doh this is like being at kids school all over.

Anyway back to the point, anyone know of a panel to control which sites are allowed/disallowed from squid, or better yet one that would let different users have different access privelages?

Lastly (phew you must be getting bored by now) Are all ports blocked by default unless set as open, and are these changeable, again through the panel rather than down a dirty with SSH/shell.

Once again - thanks all for your helpful comments. I've found lots of useful stuff on the net and here with the search, so thanks for all the other posts as well.

Cheers

JM

[del]

Like I said, SquidGuard, I installed it so it must be easy and it works.
http://www.tech-geeks.org/servers/sme/squidGuard/