PhilipLawlor.com

I must say I am impressed by the SmoothWall firewall. It has a fantastic interface and it was an easy install. A little reading ahead of time and an understanding of firewall zones helped get my firewall knowledge converted to Smoothie talk.

I started with a PIII-400c Compaq, 256 MB RAM and a 1.5 GB HD (I will replace that with a CF card when the IDE-CF adapter comes in), 1.44 Floppy, a CDROM and 3 NIC’s. After a video card swap (AGP1 not AGP 2) and a few CDROM swaps, I found one that worked…why do I keep the broken ones…and the install went with out a hitch.

Since I have web/email servers, wifi and hardwired clients, I choose the GREEN + ORANGE + RED configuration. This was probably the hardest choice of the install. (more…)

Now that the Web server is running and the database is being backed up it is time to create a failover webserver. I had grandiose dreams back in 2006 when my main web server took a dive and I needed to buy a new server. Why not get 2 identical servers and run them in parallel, I don’t have that kind of money that’s why! So along came this tiger catalog (I wont say their full name…) Look I can get 2 computers for the price of one Dell!!! BIG MISTAKE!!! One system went up w/o a problem, but the other has a new power supply, memory, MB and CPU and still it sits in my closet, I believe the MB is giving another error code, I will never buy an ABIT MB again.

After investigating the how to create failover systems, I came upon 2 articles below that are good foundations for the principle. Linux-HA is a great website that reads like a dictionary, not a how to site. So I am looking for a few articles that will guide me through the process. Here are a few: (more…)

The next task for me is to put in a real router, I have 5 IP addresses and I am currently running with 3 off the shelf Linksys Home routers. I would need to buy 2 more to use all 5 IP’s, the cable router is a 4 port Cicso which makes it impossible to use all 5 IP’s. The capabilities of these home routers are extremely limited and I have maxed out each one with how many rules they can have (20). One old PC, LRP and webmin can solve this issue for me. I have been “Mind-Planning” this for some time and this article from Linux Journal gave me the inspiration.

FYI: LRP, Linux Router Project, went off-line in 2005ish. I used LRP disks for years (1998-2006) as Seti@Home clients. I booted old computers from the floppy and loaded a Seti client from another disk and let them do all the calcs in memory. When ever the power went out I had to re-launch all systems.

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I guess I just can’t let well enough alone. For 6 years I have been a die hard QmailRocks, Qmail Toaster fan. Finally fed up with the lack of updates to an awesome, and cumbersome, combination of software, QmailRocks.org has lost a devoted fan. QMailRocks has done a great job, but it appears that they have lost their drive to keep on top of the latest technology. I wish I can recall the article that tipped me off to Zimbra.com during the summer of 2007, I would surely give them credit here. After several months of glancing at the site and thinking “what was that kool looking email application again?”, I got brave and downloaded the open source version.

I downloaded 5.02 GA to my MythTV project server, a Dell 8100 P4 1.5ghz, 768 MB RAM desktop I bought back in 2000 when the P4 was brand new. The installation is not for the weak at heart, timid or otherwise new to Linux, however it was by no means as time intensive as the QmailRocks install, which is extremely well documented. Zimbra has done a great job of hiding and integrating all the tools needed for a proper Email environment. (more…)

Being a ReplayTV lover for so many years, and seeing the Tivo win out in the market place, I feel cheated. I am compelled to get the next ReplayTV. I have been watching the different systems our their and MythTV is the most popular. I love it’s open architecture, the ability to turn not so great computer into a networked multimedia kiosk.

The setup for me begins with a good, well supported base. The 2 flavors of Linux I would choose are Fedora and Ubuntu. I tend to stick with Fedora for servers and Ubuntu for desktops, just a personal preference. A competitive server needs a good processor, sufficient RAM and drive space.

Like most people I have my “old” desktop to donate to the project. A Dell Dimension 8100, 1.5 GHz, 768mb RAM, 320MB HD. I had to yank the NVidia Video card since I could not get through the installer. I have a Haupauge model ?? video capture card.

I downloaded the Fedora 7 DVD and installed from there (this was attempt #2 since the first install I tried Fedora 8 DVD and the system locked up every 2-3 hours, I believe it did not like the video card). Choosing the Server configuration and disabling SELinux (old habit, i should find out why…). Either do the full install now or I choose to install more after the box was running.

After the reboot, run the Fedora firstboot setup, then reboot again if asked. As root do a yum update and update all the packages that are not current. After that madness, I logged into an X session and used the GUI Package updater. I like to install thin X environments like Fluxbox, XFCE, etc. Make sure you install a database or have one available. I have a primary database on another server and choose to have this once be a slave. My MythTV environment will point to the primary. I set up the replication as per the mysql.com documentation, all went smooth.

Now the MythTV install, I choose to use yum install mythtv and all the basic myth components are installed with that. Later I used yum to install a few more components. The install was quick and I followed the MythTV.org install guide.

I even installed and configured the MythWeb plugin, that is a nice bit of work, however there is no security built in and there is way too much control over the system for just anyone to log into. Make sure you protect that directory with .htaccess and deny unintended users access to the app. It is too bad there is not a better security setup built in.

MythWeather, my all time favorite part of MythTV is broken! The dev forum lists the issue going back for quite some time. The application relied on a screen scrape from the MSNBC weather page. That was a terrible architecture choice, however at the time this was created, XML feeds from weather.com were not free or encouraged, thankfully this has changed. I hope someone will convert the plugin to this format before I break down and do it.

I have yet to load some MythGames. I love this feature, especially for the intention of giving my children a kiosk computer system(s) that are easy to maneuver, control and monitor.

This is where I stand today, my next steps are to re-install the capture card and get this box hooked up to cable. Connect to a TV guide XML feed to get the guide functioning so I can start recording. I will add a network share to the 15 GB of images in the philiplawlor.com web site, so we can view them through the interface and to the 20-30 GB of CD’s I have ripped. Lastly, install/build MythTV Clients all around the network/house.

I have finally decided to list all the Linux Flavor I use or have used / tried. Fedora Linux – FedoraProject.com
I use this Fedora for all my servers. Web and DB servers, email and entertainment.
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MythBuntu, Still and Alpha, but based on the stable Ubuntu 7.10. I have been an Ubuntu user since version 4, and each has amazed me as to how much better and refined Linux can get. If there ever is a Microsoft Killer, Ubuntu would be the first choice. Top that off with an install of MythTV and you will be a happy camper, or couch potatoe. remember Dan Quail?
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