Success!! but I have a question...

[nathan r. hruby]

On Sat, 16 Nov 2002, Andreas Tobler wrote:

> Bondtrails wrote:
> 
> > Hey everyone,
> > after many trials, I finally got YDL v2.3 up and running on my UmaxS900!
> > (And its running great). I haven't tried MOL and all that other good
> > stuff, but for now I am pleased with how far I got.
> >

Great!  What method finally worked for you?

> > Here's a simple question:
> > How can I capture all that text that scrolls across the screen during
> > the boot-up sequence?
> 
> It's already in /var/log/messages, if you want more: man syslog.conf
> 

Well yes and no.  To look at kernel messages that occur *before* init 
start syslogd use the 'dmesg' command (or look at /var/log/dmesg)  once 
syslog has been started you can examine /var/log/messages for information.  
LogWatch will also mail root a report of odd activity on a daily basis by 
default so read roots mail! (or have it forwarded to your local account by 
editing the alias for root in /etc/alaises and runing the 'newaliases' 
command)  I've also asked the YDL folks to include logcheck in the Tasty 
Morsels collection, for those of us who find logwatch.. err.. icky :)  IF 
you want this in precompiled rpm format, lemmie know.

> >
> > Also, I am looking at all my services that start up during the boot
> > sequence, how do I know if my FTP server is starting? If its not, how
> > can I get it to start up automagically?
> 
> xinetd is responsible for I guess. In /etc/xinetd.d you should have an 
> entry like this:
> 

Yes, but the easier way to do this is simply with chkconfig

# See what services are scheduled to boot and what aren't:
/sbin/chkconfig --list

#  make ftp a useable service at boot
/sbin/chkconfig proftpd on

# Make ftpd availible now:
/sbin/service xinetd restart

> file name: proftpd in my case.
> 
> # default: off
> # description: The proftpd FTP server serves FTP connections. It uses \
> #       normal, unencrypted usernames and passwords for authentication.
> service ftp
> {
>          socket_type             = stream
>          wait                    = no
>          user                    = root
>          server                  = /usr/sbin/in.proftpd
>          log_on_success          += DURATION HOST USERID
>          log_on_failure          += USERID
>          only_from               =
>          nice                    = 10
>          disable                 = no  <----- to enable it say no here
> }
> 

The above can be managed by chkconfig, as I noted.  While there's no hard 
and fast rule for using one way or the other (editing the xinetd files 
vs. chkconfig) I feel chkconfig is easier for a newbie than learning 
xinetd's config file format.

I'll also take a moment to stand on a soapbox and proclaim the wonders of 
ssh, scp and sftp.  These are aprt of the OpenSSH package and are a very 
very very good thing to get comfortable with.  They can easiley replace 
rsh, telnet, rcp, ftp and xhost in a secure and encrypted fashion.  Please 
consider using them over ftp and telnet whenever possible.

Tangent: Does YDL have a post-install setup checklist with an eye toward 
setting up a secure machine?  I think this would be a handy document to 
have and would be happy to put some time into it if people thight it 
useful.

-n

-- 
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nathan hruby <nathan@drama.uga.edu>
computer services specialist
uga drama
http://www.drama.uga.edu/support/
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