Normally after I finish installing the Linux OS in my machine, the first sport check I often go through is checking what are service daemons to be enable or disable during boot time. It’s due to Red Hat / Centos come with a lot of services that are pre-configured to run at boot. It’s also to determine that I’m not running unnecessary services that are simply sucking up my precious CPU time and my server resources.

To enable or disable linux daemons and services at boot time on Red Hat/Centos, in your linux console ( after become a su ), I just issue this command :

[root@xxxx xxxx]# setup

From Choose a Tool menu, select the System services –> Run Tool to access the Services menu as below.

The following is a list based on one of my testing machine and some of the services may not listed here.

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What are blogs you regularly visit? As making online money is major concern for problogger or semiproblogger, here is the list of blogs I read and visit them regularly.

• Liew CF
• Gobala
• lilian aka 5xmom
• salam pantai timur
• sabahan
• wang cyber

If you know any good blog, please post a comment ..

Web hosting preview for email solution
Email services in todays ICT world is one of must have for every company regardless of small, medium or enterprise the company is.

Linux and open source software is one of the best option in term of software costing, stability and reliability. Mail transfer agent (MTA) like Qmail, Sendmail, Posfix or Exim is among the popular one and I prefer to use  qmail to powered my email servers.

Why qmail?
Qmail is a sendmail replacement and is among the five most popular Unix mail servers on the Internet.

As the nature of open source, email server solution come with another handy software packages to complement with the qmail and it’s free of charge.

Qmail Ingredient
The installation and setup of a qmail based mail server requires list of softwares to work together and once again I remind you, all of the software listed below is free from software licensing fees.

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One of the system administrator daily task is to keep system up to date and my favorite tool is Yum.

What is yum?
Yum is a software package manager and it’s a tool for system administrator to install, update and remove RPM-based packages in linux box. Their ability to check the package dependencies make it easier for system adminisrator to apply patches and to maintain the system up to date.

Yum features include:
* Support for multiple repositories
* Simple configuration
* Dependency calculation
* Fast operation
* RPM-consistent behavior
* Package group support, including multiple-repository groups
* Simple interface

Usage: yum [options] < grouplist, localinstall, groupinfo,
localupdate, resolvedep, erase, deplist, groupremove, makecache,
upgrade, provides, shell, install, whatprovides,groupinstall,
update, repolist,groupupdate, info, search, check-update,
list, remove, clean, grouperase 

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I read this annoucement from LiewCF blog regarding Google Apps seminar in OUM KL.
As my previous post regarding Google Apps, so I think it’s good if I post here alsolah.

It is a joint-presentation between Google and Open University Malaysia (OUM), entitled “Google Apps for Education“.

Date: Tuesday, 4th December 2007.
Time: Registration at 9am. Event starts: 9.30am – 12noon.
Venue: Theatrette Hall, OUM Campus. Jalan Tun Ismail, 50480 Kuala Lumpur. (Google maps)

This seminar would benefit someone who in charge in IT department especially from school, college or unversity and also for someone who involved in education sector either private or goverment.

- Presentation from Google to introduce and explain about Google Apps for Education.
- Case-study sharing from OUM, presented by YBhg. Professor Dr. John Arul Phillips.
- Live demonstration of Google Apps.
- Question and Answer session, for the benefit of participants / attendees.

Contact: If you are interested to attend the seminar, please contact Hanson Toh (Malaysia Country Consultant for Google, Inc) by calling / SMS to 016-3310567 or by email to hansontoh@google.com, so that they can make preparations in advance.

Google will be represented by Mr Jeff Keltner - Enterprise Specialist for Google Apps, Ms. Tasia Maroudas – Google Representative from Google’s Asia-Pacific & Latin America division, and Mr Hanson Toh, Malaysia Country Consultant for Google, Inc.

For Mr Keltner and Ms. Maroudas who are both based in the Google headquarters, this will be their first trip to Malaysia, supporting the Google Apps initiative.

According to the TM Net Latest News, Telekom Malaysia Berhad is blocking all SMTP traffic or port 25 for all out going emal from tmnet dynamic IP addresses.

With this latest policy, only Outbound SMTP traffic from smtp.streamyx.com and smtp.tm.net.my will be allowed. Streamyx customers who have their own mail server (Example: mail.YourDomain.com) or subscribe email hosting with hosting provider will not be able to send out e-mails using email program.

Most web hosting provider operate port 25 as a smtp port by default. In order to overcome this issue, hosting provider should change the port to another port such as port 26.

This example only for web hosting provider using WHM/cPanel as a web hosting control panel.

Login to your WHM , normally http://yourmailserver.com/whm

Go to Main >> Service Configuration >> Service Manager
Tick on Enabled and Monitor to enable smtp port to run on port 26 as below  and save it.

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One of must have software for web hosting provider WHP is web hosting control panel. There are lot of commercial control panel out there like cPanel, HELM, H-sphere, Plesk etc.

For small hosting company or hosting company with little budget to spend on hosting control panel license, free open source hosting control is good alternative option to be considered.

Yes, open source web hosting control panel comparatively may be as good as commercial hosting control panel or even better.  Here I list out few free good hosting control panel for web hosting company to review before they spend money to buy commercial one.

1. Virtualmin
 

Virtualmin is the world’s most popular Open Source virtual hosting management system designed to make virtual hosting quick, reliable, and secure. It’s easy to install, professionally supported, and aggressively targeted to answering the needs of web hosting providers. Compare Virtualmin to cPanel, feature for feature. The new Virtualmin application stack is easier to install, easier to use, and provides the only complete web-based system management platform on the market.

2. ZPanel
ZPanel is a hosting control interface developed for both Windows and Linux hosts. They will soon be developing two different distributions to fit the needs of both platforms.

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