Author: The Geek Decoder

Outlook or Mail AAAA Error

August 8, 2014 The Geek Decoder No Comments Email, Postfix

Trying to send email to an outlook.com account and getting this failure.


: Host or domain name not found. Name service error for
name=outlook.com type=AAAA: Host not found

Currently Microsoft doesn’t support IPv6 for hotmail.com, live.com or outlook.com. Postfix by default if IPv6 is enabled will attempt a IPv6 DNS lookup, the AAAA record, this will fail as Microsoft doesn’t publish AAAA records for either domain. Current work around is to disable IPv6 in Postfix’s configuration:


/etc/postfix/main.cf

Change:


inet_protocols = all

to


inet_protocols = ipv4

Then restart postfix:


service postfix restart

PHP Session write error

August 7, 2014 The Geek Decoder No Comments Administration, PHP, Plesk, Sessions

php Sessions write error suddenly on website

http://kb.parallels.com/en/115704

Step 1

 cd /var/lib/php/
[root@austin php]# ls -la
total 12
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Apr  9 19:54 .
drwxr-xr-x 37 root root 4096 Apr 24 23:41 ..
drwx-wx-wt  2 apache apache 4096 Aug  5 20:01 session

Change the permissions and ownership


chmod 1733 /var/lib/php/session
chown root:root /var/lib/php/session

Step 2

Check the yum update log for php updates as this is usually the cause of the permissions change.


[root@austin log]# grep php /var/log/yum.log
Apr 09 19:54:09 Installed: php-5.3.3-27.el6_5.x86_64

This will give you the date and time of the last php update!

Install Liveperson

August 7, 2014 The Geek Decoder No Comments Administration, Ubuntu

Open the Ubuntu Software center

Screenshot from 2014-08-07 10:42:06

http://www.liveperson.com

Linux

http://solutions.liveperson.com/agent-console/launch/lpac_frame.html
Windows

http://agent.liveperson.net/LPAC/INSTALLER/GA/LPAC_WIN.exe
Mac

http://agent.liveperson.net/LPAC/INSTALLER/GAEA/LPAC_OSX.dmg

(Complete the form with your login credentials & Log in)

My Liveperson Agent Console Download


cd ~/Downloads

javaws LPAC-GA.jnlp

Cisco VPN on Ubuntu 14.04

August 7, 2014 The Geek Decoder No Comments Administration, Cisco, Ubuntu, VPN

To get started, search for and install network-manager-vpnc package from Ubuntu Software Center. Or, do a:

sudo apt-get install network-manager-vpnc

Once installed, you can follow below steps to setup Cisco VPN for Ubuntu:

1.) Move your cursor to right-top corner system tray area, click on Network Manager icon and choose VPN Connections -> Configure VPN

2.) In next window, click on Add button to add a new connection and then choose Cisco Compatible VPN (vpnc) from the drop-down menu.

3.) Click on Create and you’re able to type in your Cisco VPN details in next window. After all, check off “Use this connection only for resources on its network” otherwise your traffic significantly slowed down

Have a PCF File?


cd /etc/vpnc
mv default.conf default.conf.bk

Now convert the pcf file:


pcf2vpnc namofpcffile.pcf default.conf

Then to run it, you simply do


sudo vpnc /path/to/new.conf

How to chown/chmod all files in current directory?

August 7, 2014 The Geek Decoder No Comments Administration, Plesk

So – you migrated some file to a plesk/cpanel server and the ownership is wrong. Here is how to change it.
Plesk

[root@austin httpdocs]# cd /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/
[root@austin httpdocs]# chown -R  user:group *

cPanel

[root@austin httpdocs]# cd /home/user/public_html/
[root@austin httpdocs]# chown -R  user:group *

Or

Plesk

[root@austin httpdocs]# chown -R  user:group /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs/*

cPanel

[root@austin httpdocs]# chown -R  user:group /home/user/public_html/*

Move a site from one plesk domain to another

August 5, 2014 The Geek Decoder No Comments Administration, Migration, Plesk

How do you move a site from one plesk domian to another on the same server?

The ftp and export method.

Get your data.

1. Ftp to the old site and download the files to your local computer.
2. Login to the plesk panel and go to Manage Hosting for the old domain. Go to Websites and Domains. Go to databases. Click on the database name. Click Webadmin. Click Export Tab. Click Custom. make sure all the databases tables are selected (blue). Click Go. This should produce a popup so you can save the file locally.

New Domain.

1. Login to pelsk and click subscriptions. Click Add New Subscription. Fill out the details (make note of the new username and password) and and click okay.
2. ftp to the new domain and upload the files from the old domain.
3. Go to Manage Hosting for the new domain. Go to Websites and Domains. Go to databases. Click add new database. Click on the database name after creation and add a new database user. Click on Webadmin and go to the import tab. Locate the file for the database download and upload. You should see all the tables at this point.
4. Locate the database config file in the new database and edit it with the new database name, user and password.

Atomic repo php Upgrade error

August 5, 2014 The Geek Decoder No Comments Administration, PHP, Plesk

Servers popping up that are having php failures or issues with php_admin_value or php_admin_flag when apache restarts. This is occurring on servers running PHP 5.3.26. It appears when this update was pushed out, mod_php is no longer being loaded by default.

The symptoms are outlined here:

http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?287767-SOLVED-Latest-php-5-3-26-yum-update-from-art-breaks-apache
https://www.atomicorp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6891&sid=a2317265ae0523eb9273d9d6001f10ed

You should be able to add the following to the top of php.conf file to resolve the issue:


<IfModule prefork.c>
  LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so
</IfModule>
<IfModule worker.c>
  LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5-zts.so
</IfModule>

Also…

If you come across a managed server that has the atomic repo enabled and has updated to PHP 5.4.x it more than likely killed their sites.

If this is the case and they were on a newer version of 5.3.x from atomic I’ve got the couple of one liners that I used to remove all the install PHP packages and then install the webtatic repo (which installed disabled) and then to install a base set of php modules from their repo.

This command will figure out what php-5.4.x packages are installed from atomic. Just to verify that you won’t be killing off anything other than the offending atomic packages.


rpm -qa | grep php | grep 5.4

This one-liner will remove all packages that match the above criteria even if they refer to multiple packages or are listed more than once.


for i in `rpm -qa | grep php | grep 5.4` ; do rpm -ev --allmatches --nodeps $i; done

Once they are all removed install the webtatic repo


rpm -Uvh http://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/centos/5/latest.rpm

Then you can install the basic set of packages for php 5.3


yum --enablerepo=webtatic install php php-devel php-mysql php-imap php-xml php-pdo php-gd php-soap

Manage Processes

August 1, 2014 The Geek Decoder No Comments Administration, Plesk

If you connect to the server via SSH and run the command:


ps afwux

php

[root@austin ~]# ps afwux | grep php
root       998  0.0  0.3 335940 25100 ?        Ss   Jun18   1:10 /usr/bin/sw-engine -c /usr/local/psa/admin/conf/php.ini /usr/local/psa/admin/bin/modules/watchdog/wdcollect -c /usr/local/psa/etc/modules/watchdog/wdcollect.inc.php
root     19926  0.0  0.0 103244   848 pts/0    S+   14:39   0:00          _ grep php
10016    23321  0.0  0.1 257956 10956 ?        S    Jul01   0:00 /usr/bin/php-cgi -c /var/www/vhosts/system/coldriverdata.com/etc/php.ini
10016    19924  0.5  0.7 275928 57464 ?        SN   14:39   0:00  |   _ /usr/bin/php-cgi -c /var/www/vhosts/system/coldriverdata.com/etc/php.ini

Plesk server using resources – process is pigz. This is a process used like gzip or zip and is part of the backup process.
http://download1.parallels.com/Plesk/PP11/11.5/release-notes/parallels-plesk-panel-11.5-impacts-for-linux-based-os.html

Compression with pigz

Panel now uses the pigz library instead of gzip to compress backup data. This ensures better CPU utilization and speeds up the compression 3.5 times on a physical server and 1.2 times on a virtual server (depending on the disk I/O).

See more: https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/213366009-High-CPU-wait-I-O-and-Load-Average-during-backup

Duplicated Data Removed

Duplicated data is removed from server.xml: Now top-level XML nodes do not contain information about child nodes.

Connection Speed

Now you can see the estimated connection speed between the source and destination servers during data transfer.

Storing Backup Files

You can set the path for storing a temporary backup file, which is created when a customer downloads a backup from the server.

Troubleshoot Postfix Spam

July 31, 2014 The Geek Decoder No Comments Plesk, Qmail, Spam

RE: http://kb.parallels.com/en/114845

[stextbox id=”info”]Symptoms: Many email messages are sent from PHP scripts on the server. How can I find the domains on which these scripts are running if I am using Postfix?[/stextbox]

[stextbox id=”warning”]Note:  This article is for Postfix.  If you are using the Qmail mail server, see this: http://geekdecoder.com/troubleshoot-qmail-spam/[/stextbox]

Resolution

Many email messages are sent from PHP scripts on the server. How can I find the domains on which these scripts are running?

There is a way to determine from which folder the PHP script that sends mail was run.

Note: Depending on your OS and Parallels Plesk Panel (Plesk) version, the paths can slightly differ from those listed below.

Create a /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix-wrapper script with the following content:

Create a file and open it for editing:

#touch /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix-wrapper
#vi /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix-wrapper

Add the following content:

#!/bin/sh
(echo X-Additional-Header: $PWD ;cat) | tee -a /var/tmp/mail.send|/usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix-bin "$@"

Note that this should be two lines, including #!/bin/sh.

Create a log file, /var/tmp/mail.send, and grant it a+rw rights. Make the wrapper executable, rename the old sendmail, and link it to the new wrapper. Then run the commands below:

~# touch /var/tmp/mail.send
~# chmod a+rw /var/tmp/mail.send
~# chmod a+x /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix-wrapper
~# mv /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix-bin
~# ln -s /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix-wrapper /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix

Wait for an hour and change the sendmail back:

~# rm -f /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix
~# mv /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix-bin /usr/sbin/sendmail.postfix

Check the /var/tmp/mail.send file. There should be lines starting with X-Additional-Header: pointing to the domain folders where the scripts that sent the mail are located.

You can see all the folders from which mail PHP scripts were run with the following command:

~# grep X-Additional /var/tmp/mail.send | grep `cat /etc/psa/psa.conf | grep HTTPD_VHOSTS_D | sed -e 's/HTTPD_VHOSTS_D//' `

[stextbox id=”alert”]NOTE: If you see no output from the above command, it means that no mail was sent using the PHP mail() function from the Parallels Plesk Panel virtual hosts directory.[/stextbox]

Usually, that means one of the mail accounts has been compromised. Check login attempt count:

# zgrep -c 'sasl_method=LOGIN' /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog*
/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog:221000
/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog.processed:362327
/usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog.processed.1.gz:308956

If you see an unusually high number of login attempts, it is very likely that accounts were compromised. You can try to identify these accounts in the following way:

# zgrep 'sasl_method=LOGIN' /usr/local/psa/var/log/maillog* | awk '{print $9}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head
891574 sasl_username=admin@example.com

To stop spam from being sent, change passwords for compromised accounts and restart the Postfix service.