Mount /tmp with noexec
Find which site is sending spam email from apache@yourdomain, How to track spam sent out from your server through php/apache
Disable Majordomo for all sites
4 Primary Areas For Tuning Your Server
Redhat ROD/Remote Console How To
Debian ROD/Remote Console How To
Windows ROD/Remote Console How To
FBSD ROD/Remote Console How To
HOWTO: FFmpeg + FFmpeg-PHP + Mplayer + Mencoder + flv2tool + LAME MP3 Encoder + Libog
How to setup email Smart Host to send emails via Gmail or DynDNS's smtp.

4 Primary Areas For Tuning Your Server

I just thought I would add my two cents in for everyone. I posted an old howto with some sysctl.conf, but I think that was when I was running on my previous server using and older version of redhat. So here's a fresh howto that is a little more complete.

These configs are based on my server specs, which is a Dual 2.0GHz Xeon with 2GB of RAM running RedHat Enterprise. Depending on your server's RAM you might have to reduce some of the settings, which I'll try make notes with each section. (More)

Redhat ROD/Remote Console How To

Redhat with Grub:

1. Edit grub.conf with your favorite editor so you can manipulate grub and the boot process via remote console:

Set up Tripwire on RedHat

Install tripwire

It's installed by default, but if it isn't, grab your RedHat disks, and install it:

---------------------

# rpm -ihv /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/tripwire-2.3.1-5.i386.rpm
# /etc/tripwire/twinstall.sh

---------------------

Clean the policy file
Go over to /etc/tripwire, and clean out the policy file with this handy script:

---------------------

# cat > ./cleantw.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl

while (<>){
#look at the line, and check for a line that can be
# Construed as a file name
CASE:{
( m|(^s*)(/[/w._-]+)(s+->.*)| ) and do {
print $1;
print "#" unless (-e $2);
print "$2$3n";
last;
};

print $_;
}
};
^D
#

---------------------

 (More)

Easy CURL 7.10.4 w/SSL

We've put together these RPM's for libcurl 7.10.2 with SSL support. They upgrade over the stock RH ones. Installation is via rpm -Uvh

Applicability (RH 7.2 / 7.3 required) :

Webppliance 3.1
Webppliance Pro 3.5
cPanel 6
Plesk 5.0

These are also Modernbill compatible on all above panel types.

Check server hardware

There are a lot of things that may cause a server to crash, this guide is going to primarily look at the hardware side of crashing. There are many things that might be causing the server to crash from a software standpoint such a process that runs out of control or uses too many resources. There are a fwe things that might be going wrong with a server. Normally the component that goes wrong is the hard drive, simply because it is use so much and is a moving part. The RAM on a server will occasionally go but this is more common when the server is moved around or the RAM moved because it has a chance of being statically shocked. On the less common side of things you could have the CPU, powersupply, ethernet card, or motherboard going out. (More)

setup remote serial console to display grub menu and boot process

this HOWTO will show you how to setup your redhat linux server (and probably a few others) to do the following:

* send the grub menu to the remote serial console (so you can select the kernel to boot from)

* send boot process info to the remote serial console (like what you see on your monitor when you boot up at home... you use linux at home, right?)

why does this matter? for me, this all equates to less stress during kernel upgrades (being able to see any problems, choose different kernels, change kernel boot parameters from the grub menu), and less stress when things go awry somewhere on a box and i have to use the master reboot switch and sit around twiddling my thumbs wondering if the system really is rebooting.

WARNING: if you aren't 100% sure of what you're doing, DO NOT do any of the following on a live/production server. in other words, if you are new to this stuff, only try this on your brand new box you just ordered just in case you mess it up so bad you have to get it re-imaged.

if you aren't sure what the remote console is or how to use it, please see this HOWTO: http://forum.ev1servers.net/showthread.php?t=52961

a thread discussing some uses for the remote console (and the people there probably could have made use of this tutorial) can be found here: http://forum.ev1servers.net/showthread.php?t=51199

using this tutorial requires grub to be installed as your server's bootloader (some basic instructions below). it's probably very possible to get the boot process info sent to the serial console even if you're using lilo, but i don't know how to do it with lilo and have no desire to google that info as i don't like or use lilo (maybe someone else will post info on how to do this with lilo).

this tutorial also makes a few extra assumptions, like that the serial port to use is ttyS0, but i doubt that won't be the case for anyone.

enjoy and let me know if you have any comments/additions/complaints.

yum upgrade; redhat 9 -> CentOS 3.1

Here are the steps i took to update a Redhat 9 box running on a minimal install ( no X, etc ) as suitable for a server to CentOS 3.1 ( which is a fork of RedHat Enterprise Linux v3 )..

I took a fresh install of redhat 9, slapped it on a test box then updated it with up2date. I then installed yum for redhat 9 which can be found here:
Yum Download

Now, you might want to rebuild the rpm database, just incase, thats up to you:
# rpm -vv --rebuilddb

I then modified /etc/yum.conf to look like this:

September 2008
December 2005
November 2005
September 2005

Apache [9]
CentOS [1]
Cpanel [14]
DNS [2]
Ensim [5]
Fedora [1]
Mail [6]
Plesk [3]
RedHat [7]
Sales [4]
Security [8]
SQL [1]
SSH [3]
SSL [1]
Streaming audio [2]
System [18]
Webppliance [1]

Boonic Net
Bloogo
Boonic United Kingdom
Mega Notebooks
Software
Boonic United States
Boonic India