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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Currently I’m working on installing and implementing Kayako supporting ticketing system for my company. As my LAMP seems quite old version, I decided to upgrade my apache + php + mysql on one of my webserver before I install Kayako.

Configuring php with –with-curl option require to upgrade PEAR XML_RPC. Current version have security issue with the PEAR XML_RPC class that allows a remote attacker to run arbitrary PHP code.

Make install in php source, produce an error as below :
[root@webserver php-4.4.7]# make install
Installing PHP SAPI module: apache
Installing PHP CLI binary: /usr/local/bin/
Installing PHP CLI man page: /usr/local/man/man1/
Installing PEAR environment: /usr/local/lib/php/
[PEAR] Archive_Tar - already installed: 1.3.2
[PEAR] Console_Getopt - already installed: 1.2.1
[PEAR] HTML_Template_IT- already installed: 1.1
[PEAR] Net_UserAgent_Detect- already installed: 2.0.1
pear/PEAR requires package “pear/XML_RPC” (version >= 1.4.0), installed version is 1.3.1
Notice: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /usr/local/src/php-4.4 .7/pear/PEAR/Installer.php on line 990
[PEAR] PEAR: Installation failed: invalid package file
[PEAR] Structures_Graph- already installed: 1.0.2
……………..

To upgrade XML_RPC I issue this command :

[root@webserver src]# pear upgrade XML_RPC
downloading XML_RPC-1.5.1.tgz …
Starting to download XML_RPC-1.5.1.tgz (32,215 bytes)
………done: 32,215 bytes
upgrade ok: XML_RPC 1.5.1

Then I reissue make install command in php source :

[root@webserver php-4.4.7]# make install
Installing PHP SAPI module: apache
Installing PHP CLI binary: /usr/local/bin/
Installing PHP CLI man page: /usr/local/man/man1/
Installing PEAR environment: /usr/local/lib/php/
[PEAR] Archive_Tar - upgraded: 1.3.2
[PEAR] Console_Getopt - upgraded: 1.2.1
[PEAR] HTML_Template_IT- already installed: 1.1
[PEAR] Net_UserAgent_Detect- already installed: 2.0.1
[PEAR] PEAR - upgraded: 1.5.0
Wrote PEAR system config file at: /usr/local/etc/pear.conf
You may want to add: /usr/local/lib/php to your php.ini include_path
[PEAR] Structures_Graph- already installed: 1.0.2
Installing build environment: /usr/local/lib/php/build/
Installing header files: /usr/local/include/php/
Installing helper programs: /usr/local/bin/
program: phpize
program: php-config
Installing man pages: /usr/local/man/man1/
page: phpize.1
page: php-config.1
[root@webserver php-4.4.7]#