Author: Alexander Mamchenkov

Fedora and Russian

While browsing through the Fedora website I\’ve noticed a couple of changes that look like more adaption of distribution to russian language.

  • Russian translation of release notes is shipped with the CD (and actually it was shipped with FC4, not only FC5-test1).
  • Updates to release notes for FC5-test1 are available in English, Italian and Russian.
  • aspell-ru was finally included in FC5-test1. So now I suppose russian spell-check should work from the base installation which is good again.

I am not using russian a lot and I prefer to read release notes in english as well as there is not too much need for russian spell-check for me since I am not writing a lot russian texts, but on the other side, I know a lot of people who really want it and need it so I think these improvements will make even more people get and try/use the distro.

Two internet connections: how is better

I am seeking an opinion on how to set up 2 internet connections the best way. What I have is a LAN of around 45 workstations and around 10 servers which serve the LAN as well as Mail, Citrix and VPN connections to WAN. The internet connections are: ADSL 1MBit/128KBit and ADSL 1.5MBit/256KBit.

I have thought of 3 setups:

1. Put both connections to the same switch (through firewall). Setup up the weak line as a def. gateway for the LAN and the powerful one as a def. gateway to the servers. This way servers will have begger channel for serving WAN with all the stuff.

2. Put each connection on a separate switch, connect LAN to the switch with weak connection, add second ethernet for each server add connect each of the servers to each of the switches. This way LAN will be accessing WAN through the weak line and servers through the separate servers\’ ethernet while servers will have second ethernet to serve WAN through the big channel. This makes me feel like I will reduce traffic on the LAN since WAN serving will be done through the separate ethernets and also I will have more accessability to the servers since they have 2 ethernets each.

3. Do the 2 and then make a failover between firewalls on both internet connections so that in case one of the lines goes down, the second line will be used by both: servers and LAN.

I am new to setting 2 internet connections, but knowing that there are a lot of people on the web who did it many times I am seeking comments, advice and whatever is applicable here.

Mount and Win Srv 2003

I had faced a problem with mounting Win Srv 2003 shares to linux box (particularly FC4). The usual way for me to mount was: mount -t smbfs -o username=user,password=pass //host/share /mount/point

This time it was giving me an error: cli_negprot: SMB signing is mandatory and we have disabled it.

After some searches in Google I found out about mount.cifs which solves all the problems. From now on, whenever I need to mount a share from Win Srv 2003 I use a command mount -t cifs -o user=username,pass=password //host/share /mount/point or an entry in /etc/fstab: //host/share /mount/point cifs auto,user=username,pass=password,rw 0 0

Kontact + MS Exchange + MS AD

Many times I had to do this and all the time I need to go and search on how to do it right. This time I decided to post the whole stuff here in order to look in one place, not million of them.

So, how to make Kontact to work with MS Exchange and MS Active directory:

1. Mail setup:

Enable the IMAP on the exchange and just add another account in the KMail part of Kontact. Than create additional identity to correspond to the exchange account (if not there yet) and use it.

I would also recommend to set \”Show only subscribed folder\” options to filter all the rest, other way it will be to much.

2. Contacts:

2.1: Exchange part:

In the KAddressBook part of Kontact add another resource, indicated as \”Addressbook on Exchange server (expiremental)\”. In the settings put webdav[s]://<server name>/exchange/<username> and correct information in username and password fields.

Press \”Update folder list\”, right-click on \”Contacts\” and check \”Enabled\”

2.2: MS Active Directory:

In the KAddressBook part of Kontact add another resource, indicated as \”LDAP\”. In the settings:

User: <username>@<domain>

BindDN: <username>@<domain>

Realm: <domain>

Password: <password>

Host: <AD host, usually PDC or BDC>

Port: 389

LDAP version: 3

Size limit: default

Time limit: default

DN: <domain DN, like dc=example,dc=com>

Filter: (mail=*)

Security: No

Authentication: Simple

Sub-tree query: enabled
I believe that this settings could be adjusted, but these ones are basic and working ones (at least for me)

3. Calendar, Todo…

Basically the setup is similar to setting Contacts in exchange, the only difference is that the additional resource should be added in the KOrganizer part of the Kontact and instead of enabling the \”Contacts\” folder you do it for \”Calendar\”, \”Todo\” and whatever else is in the list.

NOTE:

1. you have to have IMAP enabled on Exchange

2. you have to have WebDAV enabled on Exchange

3. you can not use WebDAV unless you login to Exchange webmail (some bugs with NTLM I think)

New HDD

I have experienced problems with my 40 GB Maxtor HDD for the past months. Although it was working it was making lots of strange noise, some times it failed to initialize and other stuff so I decided to replace it. This time I went with 200GB Samsung SATA drive. New harddrive is almost twice faster (all my old ones are PATA) and provides me with some more additional space :)