User Disk Quota in Linux using Webmin- essentials for Hosting Web Hosting Platform

Quotas on Linux are tricky, not because they are difficult to setup, but because they are so poorly documented, and what documentation exists is more often than not incorrect to the point of not working. If you are using a relatively recent Linux version, the following instructions should work without difficulty.

Prior to Linux Installation:

Yes, a major & key point in Linux Partition is /home directory.

VHost is widely setup on almost all control panel mechanism on /home location, since
– Users & Groups
– FTP server
– User shell
– Apache and all that other directives are constructed on this /home partition

So, home should be created as a Logical Volume on a Linux native File system (ext3). In my later section, I’d assume there is already a /home partition (and it’d also wise to have this partition as much disk space as you want to give away to your clients. Because, even mails and even mysql data will also be stored in this volume.

Step-1
System > Disk & Network Filesystems

On the System > Disk & Network Filesystem you’ll get something like this-

On the “Mounted As” column select “/home” to go to next screen which is similar as below-

Down below to “ext2/ext3 specific options section” look for the options “Use Quotas?” and select “User and Group” from the drop down menu.

Click “SAVE” and you’re almost done!

Step-2
System > Disk Quotas

Once you completed the above step, you should find something similar like-

On “Action” column, click “Enable Quotas

You’re done! And that’s it! I’m sorry nothing more to do.

Are Quotas Working?

To test to be sure your quotas are actually enabled, you can use the “repquota /home” utility to see what the current quota usage looks like. It should looke something like this:

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Working with FC-5, Webmin, Usermin & Virtualmin (GPL) PART-3 USERMIN

Usermin:

Installation
Method-1:
Step by step installation (Complicated and usually I do not follow) guide available on the followin URL-

http://www.linuxjunkies.org/adminstration%20Howto/webminguide/x804.htm

Method-2: (My Way):
Installation within Webmin.

  1. Under “Un-used Modules” from the left frame
  2. “Usermin Configuration” hyper link
  3. Install usermin RPM package

Configuration:

Actually there’s nothing much to configure on usermin other than setting up webmail and few links not to show your clients!

After installation- it is very hard to locate Usermin within Webmin! but you can find them 🙂

  1. You can find usermin by typing “usermin” from the webmin search box
  2. You can directly access the Usermin module by http://IP:10000/usermin

But do no access to http://IP:20000 the usual usermin client panel- you can not configure usermin module from here. You can configure once you are logged in to webmin framework.

You can customize your usermin whatever fits your need. I did the following from my setups-

  1. Usermin Module coniguration > Read Mail
    Sendmail mail file location = /home/mail
    Mail storage format for Inbox = Sendmail style single file (mbox)
    Mail subdirectory style= mail/username
  2. Available Modules (see the scrren shot)

That’s it! Seeya in the next chapter 😐

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Working with FC-5, Webmin, Usermin & Virtualmin (GPL) PART-2 WEBMIN

Webmin

Well, webmin is a composite word “Web Based Admin”- literally speaking, those who scares the terminal configurations, they can try working with this Webmin.

Webmin is something that I use for-

  • Configuring and Administering SQUID Proxy server
  • Configuring & Administering NAT Routing or even you can setup a soft router instead of a costly Router devices
  • Configuring & Administering the LAMP servers
  • Create different admin level for different tasks
  • Configuring and Administering HSP system

Basically, to me Webmin is kind of a “Framework” system- like an umbrella that allows other modules, applications/APIs to be incorporated like their own Usermin or Virtualmin. Anyone can work on this project and can write modules CGI applicaiton. It’s entirely written in Perl (shell coding).

There are plenty of potentials in Webmin- I also did used this for Asterisk (IP-PBX) and Jabber (XMPP Messenger server).

Here’s what they’d like to say on their site-

Webmin is a web-based interface for system administration for Unix. Using any browser that supports tables and forms (and Java for the File Manager module), you can setup user accounts, Apache, DNS, file sharing and so on.

Webmin consists of a simple web server, and a number of CGI programs which directly update system files like /etc/inetd.conf and /etc/passwd. The web server and all CGI programs are written in Perl version 5, and use no non-standard Perl modules.

So, this is enough what webmin is, visit them- http://www.webmin.com

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Working with FC-5, Webmin, Usermin & Virtualmin (GPL) PART-1

Yes, here’s teh mammoth task I’ve decided to write down with automate task with- Fedora Core-5, Webmin, usermin and Vitualmin. this is part-1, I don’t know how many parts will there be in documenting up these tasks.

Well, first let me explain why all these…

Locating the business model:

Probably this is the biggest reason of why to look for such options. Well, I’m quite familiar with PLESK on Windows 2003 platform. I also have a seperate plan on documenting PLESK installation and maintenance on Windows Hosting Automation.

Yup, the words already mentioned- Hosting Automaiton. We actually we going to materialize the Hosting business quite lately, after the B/w cost minimizaiton and few potentials to get better B/w. As a part of this, I did set up 3 Hosting Control Automation System as HSP (Hosting Service Provider) on windows 2003 server- 2 located in Dhaka and 1 located in London.

All those platforms are running just superb! The biggest credit was the licensing issue… once received those, it took me no time to set up and running.

So, there goes all those 3 set ups… now what about the little penguin- are we all neglecting or forgetting this “Penguin”- LINUX and its hosting automation?

Of course not! But C-Panel is costly!!!!

Why should we bother when the perfect OS is entirely free but there is not Hosting Automation Applicaiton available other than C-Panel? Actually, C-Panel is popular, widely used by mass of HSP and the biggest point is plenty of API tools & goodies are developed widely!

Anyway, FREE HSP is the cheapest, and if we can ignore the last point I just mentioned- we can plan to set up Virtualmin on Webmin framework!

Chosing the OS:

Well, here’s the most important aspect in choosing the right OS. And again anyone have any liberty in putting up any Linux Distros- Redhat 9 or Enterprise 5 or Fedora 5 & onwards or CentOS 4 & onwards… most likely all have the same output- but if you ask me for commercial executions- I’ll definitely consider Redhat Enterprise or CentOS- the reason is simple- Slow paced but most Stable developments rather than FC packages (it’s the most non-balanced platform).

Then why the heck did I plan to work on FC-5 where FC-9 is released? The answer is quite simple- limited resource on the server. I picked to work on a Pentium-3 machine having only 256 MB RAM and I with this I can’t afford more than FC-5 installation! 🙂

Summary:

Well enough of intros. Let me explain the step by step prerequisites to set up a Hosting Control Panel (HSP)-

  • Server OS- Fedora Core 5
    Software package- Apache, MySQL, Webalizer, ProFTPD (installation distribution does not include this, you have to use “YUM INSTALL PROFTPD” on the terminal once FC installation is done), Postfix, Dovecot- POP3 & IMAP, BIND
  • Download and install the latest version of webmin (http://www.webmin.com) when OS is done. Usually I prefer the RPM packages, if you install FC on GUI interface, you can set it up like any other windows setup application by double clicking the RPM file. Normally, webmin is installed in http://IP:10000 or https://IP:10000
  • Log in to Webmin using the username as “root” and your root password
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Figthing with FTP Access (Proftpd)

I came this morning to my office desk, tried to put something into my newly set up blog. God knows, why teh hell did i try to make a small change in my Blog URI settings!

Anyway, I tried to create some different URI path with Blog- by Date and Month wise. Which I did and WP generated a .htaccess parameters!

Then came the fucking real problem, i opened my WS_FTP browser, and tried to connect my account on my newly set-up virtualmin server. “LOGIN INCORRECT”- I just got tired on seeing this error over and over, but couldn’t find any good reason why is that doing so!

Checked Vortualmin “refresh cofiguration” button and came up suddenly this stupid error-

Shell /bin/false for FTP users is not included in /etc/shells, which may prevent FTP access

Step-1
I googled this for a while and concluded to a forum link-
http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2155.html (Quite helpful).

But anyway, it didn’t help me other than replacing my- /etc/shells file looking like this-

# /etc/shells: valid login shells
/bin/ash
/bin/bash
/bin/csh
/bin/sh
/usr/bin/es
/usr/bin/ksh
/bin/ksh
/usr/bin/rc
/usr/bin/tcsh
/bin/tcsh
/usr/bin/zsh
/bin/sash
/bin/zsh
/usr/bin/esh
/bin/rbash
/bin/dash
/bin/false

Step-2
Did modify the Proftpd config file with the smallest value-

# Set the user and group that the server normally runs at.

User    root
Group    root

It was previously like User and Group with “nobody”

Step-3
Went back to Webmin > system > users & Groups section, noticed users shell as /bin/false, tried to changed the required User shell to /bin/sh

All went in vein

Step-4
Using Putty, tried to login to the shell- WALLA! There’s the answer I just found!!! The desired account’s password was expired that’s why the shell denied to give any access. This is something which I tried 2 days back to check Virtualmin’s account expiery test!

Goddamn it! that worked!

Anyway, learned a small lesson on the Proftpd and the /etc/shell file too!

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CISWORLD

Before I forget things that goes out of my mind as well 🙁

MIMIC the concept?

It’s not such a bad practice to mimic ideas like- CISWorld is doing. I came up to this site while digging “Application Service Provider” by www.aknetbd.com (which is basically a concern of AKTel’s AK Khan group- I saw their presence few years back in a computer software fair in Dhaka.

Anyway, probably they got some connectivity with the Srilanka based company (guess they’re an ISP???) That’s what should be the operation of an ISP… Nobody ever did look at this point.

Well, let me bookmark the links before I forget things, I really liked the idea of the followings-

  • Srilanka Expatriates  ( http://www.srilankanexpats.com/index2 )
  • Apartment Leads ( http://www.idamkadam.com/ )
  • e-Ticketing ( http://www.etickets.lk/ )

I guess I have to dig deep into this before things went bad !!!!

Chiao!

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