The challenge: Backup your server without rebooting it and with nearly no downtime of the services.

The solution:

1. Mount your backup device. In my case, it is a USB drive on /dev/sdb1. My server’s root is located on /dev/sda.

2. Turn off database, mail services and other disk intensive daemons for the backup: sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop (or via Webmin). Also shut down virtual machines for the backup that have their virtual drives on this partition.

3. Run a test drive of rsync:

sudo rsync –dry-run –checksum –progress –verbose –exclude-from=/root/exclude.rsync –archive –acls –one-file-system –delete / /media/sdb1/

4. Run rsync for real:

sudo rsync –dry-run –checksum –progress –verbose –exclude-from=/root/exclude.rsync –archive –acls –one-file-system –delete / /media/sdb1/

5. Restart your services and daemons: sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start etc.

6. If you want to be able to boot your system from the backup after a hard disk swap, install grub on its MBR:

sudo grub
grub> root (hd1,0)
grub> setup (hd1)

Also, run “sudo blkid” and adjust the Unit-IDs in /etc/fstab OF YOUR COPY according to the output for your backup HD (/dev/sdb).

7. Test your backup: Swap the disks and boot from your backup hard drive.

When I count the Linux operated devices in our little household, I count not less than 5 devices:

2x notebooks, running Ubuntu Linux 8.04.1

1x fileserver with 2 virtual machines, including this website, running Ubuntu Linux Server 8.04.1

1x router (Linksys WRT 54G), running DD-WRT

1x mobile phone Motorola Razor V8

Not so bad for a 2 person household…..

And as soon as I have ordered my new desktop machine, there will be another Linux machine, making it six….

The Logcheck Ubuntu package does not work out of the box in Ubuntu 8.04.1.

After installation of Logcheck, and Postfix as my mailer on one of my server, I got this:

Logcheck: machine2 2008-08-10 20:02 exiting due to errors

Warning: If you are seeing this message, your log files may not have been
checked!

Details:
Could not run logtail or save output

Check temporary directory: /tmp/logcheck.e11692

Also verify that the logcheck user can read all files referenced in
/etc/logcheck/logcheck.logfiles!

declare -x HOME=”/var/lib/logcheck”
declare -x LOGNAME=”logcheck”
declare -x MAILTO=”root”
declare -x OLDPWD
declare -x PATH=”/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin”
declare -x PWD=”/var/lib/logcheck”
declare -x SHELL=”/bin/sh”
declare -x SHLVL=”1″

To fix the problem, simply change the owner and group of /var/lib/logcheck to user and group logcheck:

sudo chown -R logcheck:logcheck /var/lib/logcheck

Seems to be a problem of the Debian/Ubuntu package, could simply be solved during installation. I found the solution here on the Logcheck developers mailing-list. I will file a bug in Launchpad as this problem obviously reappeared.

1. Unetbootin is a tool that installs LiveSystems of all major Linux distros on USB devices such as USB sticks or USB drives. It works with partitions instead of whole images so is able to use any device that contains partitions. So Unetbootin can also be used to install Ubuntu on a Memory Card i.e. for the EEE PC.

Thre is also a very informative Wikipedia page on Unetbootin.

2. Ubuntu LiveUSB Creator is very useful tool to get a Ubuntu LiveCD on a USB stick or other USB drive. It is able to even pre-install Adobe Flashplayer on the LiveSystem and also allows a persistent home section on the USB stick where you can save your setup and user data. Very convenient!

There is also a page on Wikipedia for Ubuntu LiveUSB Creator, and packages can already be downloaded here.

3. WineDoors is a user interface for administrating Wine, the Windows Emulator for Linux, with ease. The Wikipedia page of WineDoors contains an overview of the goal of this tool. The Ubuntu package is available here.

4. Overview on all user packaged packages in Ubuntu’s PPA (Personal Package Archive) - if your are looking  for a packages that is not available via packages.ubuntu.com, you may look here before your hunt it on the web.

1. Nimbus, the desktop theme for OpenSolaris, made by Sun, is available as package in Whiz’ Personal Package Archive on Ubuntu’s Launchpad. One of or maybe the best desktop theme for Gnome.
2. GnomeArt NextGen is a nice little helper that saves you the time to visit gnome-look.org yourself, get a theme, download it, install it. GnomeArt lets you select your favorite theme and then does all necessary steps for you.



3. RAMLog is also very convenient when you are using a net- or notebook and want to save your hard drive from waking up every few seconds for writing logfile entries. It also saves your netbook’s solid state disk from dying an early death from too many write access.
4. 7 of the best Linux tutorials. No further explanation needed.

Looking for the latest Flashplayer 10 beta / Release Candidate (RC) for Ubuntu or Debian / Sidux, packaged in a .deb file (flashplugin-nonfree)?

The Flashplayer 10 beta2 for AMD64 and i386 is already available in the official repositories for the upcoming Ubuntu 8.10 as a convenient Debian package. But It runs also fine on Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) and other Debian based distributions. It can be easily manually installed by downloading the .deb file, right-clicking on it and then installing it with GDebi.

Get the package here.

Update: Flashplayer 10 Release Candidate (RC) is already available for Ubuntu Hardy as well as Intrepid here on Launchpad. It will soon be available in the mentioned Intrepid repository and hopefully be backported to Hardy. The RC seems to be much more stable and less ressource hungry than the beta.

Hier ein sehr schönes Videos-Beispiel, warum es hirntot ist, Windows auf die neue Klasse der sogenannten Netbooks zu pressen.

continue reading "HP MiniNote 2133 mit Windows: Das lange Warten - in Bildern"

Two impressions from my daily live that give an indication of the current state of Linux / FOSS adoption in Europe :

continue reading "Early signs of mass Linux / FOSS adoption in Europe?"

A screenshot of the live Firefox 3.0 download numbers while the main download servers are still overrun and the localized versions are not even available (only the English version can be downloaded right now):

YES - the screenshot shows more than 12,000 downloads A MINUTE! Only the English language version!

UPDATE: Currently more than 17,000 downloads per minute.

Watch the live download numbers yourself here. And witness the largest download event seen in the history of the Internet so far.

You can get Firefox 3.0 yourself here (If you are using Ubuntu Linux, just wait 2 days and you will get Firefox 3.0 via the autmatic update feature).

Linux-Gamers has compiled a collection of Linux games and put them on a single Live DVD. They recently released a new version.

The Live-system is, of course, Linux based (Arch Linux, to be more specific).

Get the DVD (via bittorrent) here.