Google has now released to the world knowledge of it’s online file storage service called Google drive. From what I can see this has caused a ton of buzz and discussion all over the ‘net, some good and some bad, slamming Google and saying they just copied Dropbox. Well, let’s face it, Dropbox didn’t have the idea first, and Google’s big thing going for them with the Google Drive is it’s integration with Google Docs, Google+, Gmail and more. It’s a storage platform that works for anyone but is especially nice for existing Google users. I advise checking it out [Link].
Author Archives: Laz
Check out this cool service – Pastebin
I just recently found this, and I know, a bunch of you probably already know about it and maybe have for a long time. But hey, I just found out about it and it is so cool I just had to tell everyone! The site is called Pastebin and it’s a cool site (the site is very well done!) and service for anytime you are working with code, log files, and/or other gobs of strangely formatted text.
We all know how tough it is to try and past the source of our scripts, or contents of config files or log files into regular forum input boxes. Heck, for that matter, let us not forget how tough it is getting that kind of stuff posted correctly in WordPress itself. This Pastebin site allows you to past your copious amounts of text there, where it has all of the magic juju to display it properly, even formatting code correctly with syntax highlighting. All you have to do, once you paste your text into the bin, is add the link to your post or article or whatever. Then anyone reading it can go check it out at Pastebin and not try and decipher the text in whatever manner it would have gotten mangled on the screen in the first place.
I think this is going to be a great headache save for lots of us as more and more communication goes online, especially in the tech crowd. Go check out Pastebin [link]now and see for yourself. They have a Pro option with extra goodies, but you most certainly can use the service for free too. If you like it, tell your friends too and help ’em out!
Navicat SSH Tunnel Error – 2013 Lost connection to MySQL server
This post is for anyone out there running any Navicat database tools. The company, PremiumSoft, that makes the line of Navicat tools is probably best known for there incredible database administration tool, Navicat. That’s where I first found them. They make a database admin tool that can connect to MySQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle, SQLite and everything in between. Aside from being able to connect to just about anything that stores data, once connected you can do so many cool things with your databases in the name of database administration, that it would take me a week to create a post for it all. Besides, this post isn’t a commercial for Navicat, but I did have to share just how good this product is. Believe me, it is amazing, and now they have this really wicked data modelling tool that works hand in hand with the database admin tool. You need to see it to believe it. Check out their site [link], they have very good demos and lots of information about the products.
My apologies, I digress, the main purpose of my post was to inform any people already using Navicat or any of the other PremiumSoft products about a problem I ran into and a way to fix it. I am using the software with MySQL databases primarily, but I believe the principle of the fix will apply to any database and server out there, especially Linux.
Now, one of the really cool things about the database admin and data modeling tools is that they can connect to your database via a SSH (Secure Shell Port 22) tunnel, instead of the normal default and usually plain text method. For example, by default, when you connect to a MySQL server, the username and password you give to the server is sent in plain text, so anyone can read it. Any command you type on that database console is also sent in plain text, so anyone can read it. Think about the new user you just created for your new web hosting customer. What if their database username and password fell into the wrong hands. It might be bad, it might not, it might be localized just to that one customer/user which would be bad enough, but suppose they found an exploit and got root on your server. Now they have all of your data. Even if you don’t have any data that is secret, just the hassle alone, not to mention explaining all of this to your customer(s) make this a really bad day.
This isn’t usually a big concern if you are running the database on the same server as the web server (which is common practice in many hosting scenarios), and if your database tools are on the server like the MySQL command line tools and such. But what if you want to connect to the database from say, your PC? Like you would do if using a database admin tool like Navicat. You certainly don’t want all of the data that you will be sending back and forth to be in plain text, right? Well, now you don’t have to leave it in plain text! You can setup the connection in Navicat to connect to the Secure Shell server, which means you have an encrypted connection and not plain text. Then, you can use the SSH tunnel that was created to connect to the database server itself. What this means is that you use the SSH server to redirect your communications to the database server locally, so no one can see it. Just like you were sitting at the server itself.
I’ll run through it again real quick, see if this makes sense. The connection between your PC and the server running database is now encrypted and secure from prying eyes because instead of connecting to the database server directly, you are connecting to the Secure Shell server. It is now the Secure Shell server that takes your communication and hands it off to the database server internally, so it’s safe from anyone watching outside. It’s really cool, and just another reason I love the Navicat product so much. Not to mention Linux as well!
The problem that I found was this, when I created the link to the SSH server in order to talk to the MySQL server, it wouldn’t connect. I would get the connection to the SSH server, but when it then tried to talk to the database server, the database server kicked it out like no connection could be made. I tried connecting locally from the Linux console think that maybe I killed some MySQL process that listens for connections, but it was working fine. I tried it again and again but it just didn’t work. The error I was getting from Navicat was this:
2013 – Lost connection to MySQL server at ‘reading initial communication packet’, system error: 0
I did some digging and found a basic setting to check. This didn’t fix the problem, but I thought I would share it here since it has to be set in order for the tunnel to work:
- In the sshd config file (/etc/ssh/sshd.config) make sure that AllowTcpForwarding is enabled, because the default is disabled in most cases.
What I finally found to be causing the problem, was TCP_WRAPPERS. Naturally, in my hosts.allow file I had the IP address of my PC in there, so that I could connect to the server. So at first this seemed odd that this was my problem. However, when you think about it, it makes sense. The connection that is coming to the MySQL server originates not from my PC, but from the SSH server itself. That’s right, because my connection stops at the SSH server, and then the SSH server sends the data to the database server. This is a simplified view of things, but it should work to illustrate what’s going on. Therefore, the simple fix was to add mysqld: localhost or 127.0.0.1 to the hosts.allow file in order to allow the traffic to go through TCP_WRAPPERS and to the MySQL server. I read more about this once I worked it out, and I saw some “technicians” offering the solution of adding mysqld: ALL to their hosts.allow file. Egads! I said! Technically that would work, but damn, don’t open it up to allow everyone into your databases!!! Just add localhost or 127.0.0.1 and you will be fine, and you will keep out the other riff raff. I hope this helps some of you out there, enjoy!
Debian and Ubuntu Sources List Generator
That title sounds pretty cool doesn’t it? Yes, it sure does! I found this nifty little tool and saw right away that I just had to share it with everyone. It’s a really cool web interface to a tool that lets you point and click your release information as well as your resource/branch preferences, and then BLAMMO, a new source list is made, just right for your Debian or Ubuntu box! In case someone reading this doesn’t know what a source list is, in Debian (and releases based on Debian, like Ubuntu) it is the file that tells the package manager (apt, dpkg, aptitude, etc) where to look for software you want to install, upgrade, and maintain automatically. The file name is:
/etc/apt/sources.list
Having a good source file can go a long way towards helping with easy and simple system administration. The URL for the site is:
http://debgen.simplylinux.ch/ for the Debian Generator and
http://repogen.simplylinux.ch/ for the Ubuntu Generator
So, go check it out and see what you think. I thought it was really cool and I got some good information from it.
Learn Solaris UNIX or Linux Today, The Real Way
OK Folks, I added this post so I could tell you about a new article that I just posted. Just like the title here suggests, I talk about learning Solaris UNIX and/or Linux the real way or maybe it would be better said as the right way. I don’t suppose there is a wrong or right way, but still. In this article I reach down into the depth of not only my own knowledge but I lean heavily on my own experience as well, and use that information to share all I know and can rant about learning solid UNIX and Linux skills for the up and coming nix jockies out there. I really hope that this article can help someone and maybe more than just one naturally. It’s some (I think) good advice on how to get started and some of the best ways to dig in there and learn some good stuff. Maybe in the future I’ll post more lower level hard core how to stuff and see how that goes over. Some of that kind of stuff I have posted already (like SVM disk info and Symantec Storage Foundations (formerly Veritas Volume Manager)) has been real popular. Anyway, for anyone interested, head on over to the Library and check out the new article on Learning Solaris UNIX and Linux today, you might find something helpful in there! If you have any thoughts about it or something you think I should add, please drop me a line and let me know. Thanks!
CSS: Class versus ID
Just a quick post to share something cool. I was learning more about the difference between classes and ID’s in CSS and found a great article at CSS-Tricks and I just had to share it with everyone. The link is here http://css-tricks.com/the-difference-between-id-and-class/ so go check it out if that sounds like something of benefit to you. The author goes way beyond just the differences, and explains many extra tidbits as well, a good and informative article all the way around. Hope this helps! Thanks.