ISPConfig3: Updating to myDNS-ng

If you have followed the tutorials "the perfect setup" for installing ISPConfig 3 chances are that you have an older myDNS version (1.1.0 or so). Since I had a few problems with that version I decided to update to myDNS-ng, the latest version.

In this article I will refer to rpmbuilder user, a user I create to compile and/or make RPMs. For more information on how to set it up check this link.

Also the instructions are for CentOs 5.4(but will probably work for any other 5.x version).

su - rpmbuilder
cd /tmp
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/mydns-ng/mydns/1.2.8.27/mydns-1.2.8.27.tar.gz?use_mirror=garr
tar zxvf mydns-1.2.8.27.tar.gz
cd mydns-1.2.8
./configure
make

Everything should be ok untill now. I had no problems to compile it. Then I decided to use checkinstall.
sudo yum install checkinstall
checkinstall
It will ask you a few questions, answer them and you should have a rpm package in /usr/src/redhat/RPMS. It will tell you anyway where he created the rpm.
After that I removed the old mydns packages and installed the new one as root:
service mydns stop
yum remove mydns mydns-mysql
yum install /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/mydns-1.2.8-1.i386.rpm --nogpgcheck
After that I needed to create mydns start script:
vi /etc/init.d/mydns
chmod +x /etc/init.d/mydns
I used the script posted by rukus77 on howtoforge. Make sure you read all the comments on that forum (especially the one containing [ -f /usr/sbin/mydns ] || exit 1).
The last step is to run ISPConfig 3 setup:
cd ispconfig3_install/
cd install
php -q update.php
When asked if to reconfigure services answer yes, the rest you can answer no.

That would be all, thanks for reading.

Install Postfix, Courier-IMAP on CentOS 5

Platform: CentOS 5.4 i386
Extra repositories used: utterramblings and rpmforge
You will end up with Postfix 2.6.5, Courier IMAP 4.6.0, authlib 0.62.4 and maildrop 2.2.0

First of all you will need to install gcc++:
yum install gcc-c++ redhat-rpm-config
Create a user to compile packages if you don't have one already. I used rpmbuilder for the account name.
useradd -m -s /bin/bash rpmbuilder
passwd rpmbuilder
It will need some privileges so type visudo and add this line somewhere (I added it after root):
rpmbuilder ALL=(ALL) ALL
Create the directory structure:
su - rpmbuilder
mkdir $HOME/rpm
mkdir $HOME/rpm/SOURCES
mkdir $HOME/rpm/SPECS
mkdir $HOME/rpm/BUILD
mkdir $HOME/rpm/SRPMS
mkdir $HOME/rpm/RPMS
mkdir $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386
echo "%_topdir $HOME/rpm" >> $HOME/.rpmmacros
Start downloading the needed courier packages(under the user rpmbuilder):
cd /tmp
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/courier/files/maildrop/2.2.0/maildrop-2.2.0.tar.bz2/download
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/courier/files/imap/4.6.0/courier-imap-4.6.0.tar.bz2/download
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/courier/files/authlib/0.62.4/courier-authlib-0.62.4.tar.bz2/download
These were the latest versions when I wrote the article, feel free to browse sourceforge and get what version you want.
Start building and installing the RPMs:
sudo rpmbuild -ta courier-authlib-0.62.4.tar.bz2
cd $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386
sudo rpm -ivh courier-authlib-0.62.4-1.i386.rpm courier-authlib-mysql-0.62.4-1.i386.rpm courier-authlib-devel-0.62.4-1.i386.rpm
cd /tmp
rpmbuild -ta courier-imap-4.6.0.tar.bz2
cd $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386
sudo rpm -ivh courier-imap-4.6.0-1.i386.rpm
cd /tmp
sudo rpmbuild -ta maildrop-2.2.0.tar.bz2
cd $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386
sudo rpm -ivh maildrop-2.2.0-1.i386.rpm

Done with Courier. Moving to postfix...

Download source RPM from this location:
cd /tmp
wget http://ftp.wl0.org/official/2.6/SRPMS/postfix-2.6.5-1.src.rpm
rpm -ivh postfix-2.6.5-1.src.rpm
I've made a few changes to the postfix.spec file (enabled mysql_redhat, vda patch) and also installed the required dependencies:
sudo yum install db4-devel mysql-shared mysql-devel
Building the postfix-2.6.5 rpm:
cd $HOME/rpm/SPECS
rpmbuild -ba postfix.spec
You should have the rpm in $HOME/rpm/BUILD so cd there and type:
sudo rpm -ivh postfix-2.6.5-1.rhel5.i386.rpm

In the end enable required services as root user:
chkconfig --levels 235 courier-authlib on
chkconfig --levels 235 sendmail off
chkconfig --levels 235 postfix on
chkconfig --levels 235 saslauthd on
chkconfig --levels 235 courier-imap on
service sendmail stop
service postfix start
service saslauthd start
service courier-authlib start
service courier-imap start

If everything went ok when telneting on port 25 of localhost you should get something similar to this:
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1).
Escape character is '^]'.
220 lightbringer.inno-solutions.ro ESMTP Postfix (2.6.5)
ehlo localhost
250-lightbringer.inno-solutions.ro
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 10240000
250-VRFY
250-ETRN
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-8BITMIME
250 DSN

NOTE 1:
If you already have any of the packages install use rpm -Uvh instead of rpm -ivh.

Zend Framework + SVN + ZF Tools on CentOS part 2

This is the 2nd part of my attempt to write a tutorial about using svn and ZF to create a working environment for a small team of developers. It assumes you have followed the instructions provided here.

The following notations will be used in this part:
project is the name of your project, wherever you see project written with italics replace it with your actual project name. It should be one word.
developer is the name of the developer that is part of the team working on this project. For example john.
example.com is the name of your domain, replace it with the real name.
A # in front of the line means you have to execute those commands as root, while $ means you have to be a normal user.

1. Create the repository for the project

# mkdir -pv /var/svn
# svnadmin create /var/svn/project

2. Create project layout

# cd /tmp
# mkdir project
# cd project
# mkdir branches tags trunk

If you want to create a standard zf project:

# cd trunk
# zf create project
# ls

ATTENTION: zf create project is a command, so do not replace the word project.
You should have the standard structure now for a Zend Framework project.

3. Import the project files to repository

# svn import /tmp/project file:///var/svn/project -m "initial import"
# chown -R apache:apache /var/svn/project

4.1 Creating a user for the developer

# adduser -g users developer
# passwd developer

Repeat the above steps for each developer you want to add.

4.2 Creating a user for the project

# adduser project
# passwd project

5.1 Add a virtual host for each developer in apache conf file

You will have to figure out where your virtual hosts are defined in apache conf files. Most likely you can add the following lines to /etc/http/conf/httpd.conf

# developer sandbox
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin someone@example.com
DocumentRoot /home/developer/www
ServerName developer.example.com
ErrorLog /home/developer/logs/error_log
CustomLog /home/developer/logs/access_log combined
<Directory "/home/developer/www/">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

5.2 Add a virtual host for the project

# project sandbox
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin someone@example.com
DocumentRoot /home/project/www
ServerName project.example.com
ErrorLog /home/project/logs/error_log
CustomLog /home/project/logs/access_log combined
CustomLog /home/project/logs/svn_logfile "%t %u %{SVN-ACTION}e" env=SVN-ACTION
<Directory "/home/project/www/">
Options -Indexes FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
<Location /svn>
Options +Indexes
DAV svn
SVNParentPath /var/svn
SVNPathAuthz off
SVNIndexXSLT "/svnindex.xsl"
Require valid-user
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Subversion repository"
AuthUserFile /var/svn/project/conf/passwd
</Location>
</VirtualHost>
* Depending on your DNS settings you may have to manually add the needed records for developer.example.com/project.example.com to properly work.

7.1 Checking out to dev boxes

# su - developer
$ mkdir svn
$ cd svn
$ svn checkout http://project.example.com/svn/project/trunk .
$ cd ..
$ rm www
$ ln -s /home/developer/svn/public www

7.2 Exporting the latest version of the project

# su - project
$ mkdir svn
$ cd svn
$ svn export http://project.example.com/svn/project/trunk . --force
$ cd ..
$ rm www
$ ln -s /home/project/svn/public www

See the project page at http://project.example.com

Next time you want to update the page remove the svn directory, and re-export it as above.

8.1 Working as a developer

To update you dev box to latest version:
$ cd svn
$ svn up

Whenever you add a NEW file/directory to the project use:
$ svn add filename

Of course you replace filename with the real name of the file. The reverse of this is svn del.

When you are satisfied with your changes don't forget to commit:
$ svn commit -m "something meaningful for that idiot project manager"

8.2 Working as a project manager(?)

$ su - project
$ rm -rf svn
Repeat the steps from 7.2
Check logs for svn commits at /logs/svn_logfile

<< EOF

Zend Framework + SVN + ZF Tools on CentOS

This first part focuses on installing svn + zf library + zf tools on your dev server. In the second part (coming soon) I will show you how to create a svn repository and import into it a simple zf project created with zf tools.

Prerequisites:
You will need at least a working web server (Apache2) and PHP version 5.

I'll be using utterramblings repository to install subversion and required packages for the apache server.

Import the gpg key for utterramblings repository:

rpm --import http://www.jasonlitka.com/media/RPM-GPG-KEY-jlitka

Add the repository to yum by creating a repo file in /etc/yum.repos.d/utterramblings.repo that contains the following lines:

[utterramblings]
name=Jason's Utter Ramblings Repo
baseurl=http://www.jasonlitka.com/media/EL$releasever/$basearch/
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://www.jasonlitka.com/media/RPM-GPG-KEY-jlitka

Install subversion and mod_dav_svn from utterramblings:

yum install subversion --enablerepo=utterramblings
yum install mod_dav_svn --enablerepo=utterramblings

You should have everything you need to start working with svn on your server.

Now let's install ZF tools to the server:

mkdir ZF_Tool
cd ZF_Tool/
svn checkout http://framework.zend.com/svn/framework/laboratory/Zend_Tool/ .

Now copy the directory 'library/ZendL' to a place that's in the include path of your php. In my case it was '/usr/share/php'.

Copy 'bin/zf.sh' and 'bin/zf.php' to /bin and edit zf.sh updating ZF_BIN_PHP variable to:

ZF_BIN_PHP=/bin/zf.php

Don't forget to change their permissions so anyone can use them:

chmod a+rx /bin/zf*

For ZF library I've used the minimal package since it contains most of the stuff I use anyway without being bloated. At the time of writing this article 1.6 was the latest version, which I've got it from their site using wget:

wget http://framework.zend.com/releases/ZendFramework-1.6.2/ZendFramework-1.6.2-minimal.tar.gz
tar zxvf ZendFramework-1.6.2-minimal.tar.gz

Copy the directory 'library/Zend' to the same place where you've put ZendL directory ('/usr/share/php' for me).

Now if everything went ok when you type at the cli 'zf show version' you should get something like 'Zend Framework Version: 1.6.2'.

Congratulations you are done with this part. If you want you can play around with 'zf create project' until I publish my next article showing how to use zf tools + SVN together to create the bases of a project.