Ubuntu Tutorials

To update based on my earlier post concerning use of the Mutt email client I wanted to share some of the quick tips that I’ve learned.  Now, Mutt can be very complex and very granular in its configuration.  This is by no means a comprehensive overview of Mutt usage.  I mainly want to point out some of its basic uses, navigation and configuration and you can go from there.

Now, why in the world would I want to use a text-based email client?  It’s 2007 already.  We’re using Feisty with Beryl and can burn our windows into oblivion upon closing.  We can spin our cubes of virtual desktops until we’re motion sick.  Ohh, and let’s not forget that Mozilla just released the long awaited Thunderbird 2.0!  So, despite all this, why would I bother spending any time on the text based Mutt client?  One, because I can (isn’t that the driving reason behind half of what we do sometimes!) and two, because it can come in handy.  I’ve actually grown now to prefer it over Evolution or Thunderbird… but I’ll let you decide for yourself.

First of all, the thing that held me up, was not knowing how to access my account when I first opened Mutt.  No in-application config to create your inbox settings and no handy ‘wizard’ to walk you through.  So that led me to asking questions and doing a bit of reading.  Here are a few of the methods I found for accessing your mail accounts:

mutt -f protocol://username:password(optional)@mail.server.com

mutt -f pops://christer.edwards@pop.gmail.com (example gmail setup, replace with your user)

mutt -f imaps://christer@mail.imapserver.com (example imap account access, user your own settings)

Again, these are examples and you’ll need to replace the sections with your own settings.  Account types that are supported, pop, pops, imap, imaps and local mail (ie; Maildir, /var/mail/user, etc).

Using this format, without the password, will prompt you for the password once you’ve connected to the server and you’ll see a listing of any email in your inbox.  Some of the basic commands are listed across the top of the screen within Mutt, and for more you can press ?.  Some of the basics:

d - delete selected message

m - compose message

h - toggle header detail

q - quit current message / quit mutt

r - reply to single user

g - reply to group (ie; mailing list)

u - undelete message tagged for deletion

v - view attachments (if email has attachment, of course)

s - save email or attachment

Again, I don’t mean to be comprehensive in the shortcut keys and usage of mutt, but those should get you around for the most part.

This’ll be enough for today, but I have plans for a second tutorial on some of the more useful settings within the .muttrc file.  Things such as GPG verification and signing, header settings, preferred editors, etc.

If you’d like to give mutt a try, maybe give some of the above commands a test run and shoot me an email for testing at christer DOT edwards AT ubuntu DOT com.

If this article has been helpful, please consider linking to it.

Just a quick word before I head out to celebrate but I wanted to announce that, after a few weeks of hard study, I have successfully passed the RedHat Certified Engineer exam.  I am very relieved to have that done and out of the way!

I’ve been getting some friendly jabbing from the community so far that I’ve done the RH exam and not the Ubuntu certification, but I’m happy to have done this!

I’ll see everyone back tomorrow at the Utah Team Release Party for Feisty.  It’s going to rock.. and now I have two things to celebrate!

P.S.  I hope everyone is still seeding those Feisty ISOs!

I wanted to drop in my two-cents about the Feisty release and give a job well done to all developers, testers, etc. This is, again, what looks to be a very solid release and I’m happy to be part of this community.

For those of you that have been trying to download you’ve probably noticed that the mirrors and download links are pretty saturated right now. That is to be expected to some extent but we can each do our part to help. Remember, please, to use bittorrent whenever possible and to keep seeding at the best rate you can afford for as long as you can. My ISP hates me during Ubuntu release weeks because I seed a copy of every iso on every arch for every flavor. Yeah, I manage to pipe out more than my share but its the most I can do for a distribution that has given me and taught me so much.

For those of you that have previous images of Ubuntu Beta or even Herd you can use Jigdo to catch those up to final and start seeding from there.  (The less you need to download the lighter the load on everyone!)  Quick reminder you can find my Jigdo tutorial at that link and try to catch up that way.  I’ll also be available on & off today in #ubuntu-tutorials if you need a little help with getting the jigdo going.

Good thing for ssh so I can access my remote machines (I’m seeding from three locations even now thanks to ssh & rtorrent!) and I’ll continue to do so at least through the weekend.

This release also marks another occasion for me personally, that being two years now with Ubuntu. I first downloaded Ubuntu with the 5.04 release, and did so just days after the final release so this is an anniversary of sorts for me. I can’t believe the progress that has been made since then, both on the software level and on the community level. I’m glad to be part of the Utah Team and the US Teams Project. My favorite part about Ubuntu is the community and I’ll continue to recruit and support it as much as I’m able.

Congratulations again everyone. It’s great to be part of such a great distribution. Share the CD love. Share the word. Ubuntu has done it again!

I just discovered something today that I should have looked for months ago. I got curious after doing a lab here in the RH253 (RHEL Network Services and Security) class about whether or not Synergy does any type of encryption over the wire. What I found out is actually NO.

To test this I loaded up wireshark and did some sniffing. Sure enough the input between the two is cleartext and this as also validated by the Synergy man page:

Synergy has no built-in support for encryption or authentication. The server accepts connections from any computer. The server and clients send all data unencrypted which means the clipboard and mouse and keyboard events (e.g. typed passwords) are easily examined by anyone listening on the network. Therefore, do not run synergy on untrusted networks.

In this case I wanted to share a solution for encrypting your synergy traffic on the LAN. This, of course, uses everyone’s favorite application, ssh. You’ll need to setup an encrypted tunnel between the machines using a command such as:

ssh -f -N -L 24800:synergy-server:24800 synergy-server

Now let me explain quickly what these flags do.

-f requests ssh go to background just before command execution. This is useful if ssh is going to ask for passwords or passphrases, but the user wants it in the background.

-N Do not execute a remote command. This is useful for just forwarding ports (protocol version 2 only)

-L [bind address]:port:hostname:hostport

24800, also, is the default port for synergy. So, if I wanted to create this tunnel between two of my machines on my LAN I would use something like:

ssh -f -N -L 24800:macbook:24800 macbook (note: macbook is defined in my /etc/hosts and will be running synergys)

Next I would then run the synergy client command which would forward over the encrypted tunnel to the server.

synergyc macbook

Also, you can run the synergys (server) as normal on the central machine.

synergys --config .synergy.conf

Now you also might want to use authorized_keys on the remote server to bypass the password authentication, but that is your preference.  You can find a tip on doing that here (public key authentication).

Quick note that I’ll be transferring this domain to another host today so if you see downtime or things are acting funny it’ll most likely be due to the DNS transfer.  I should be back up and running soon.  ..I just couldn’t refuse the deal at BlueHost for hosting multiple sites for cheap.

I’ve decided over the past few days that I wanted to learn more about and start using Mutt for my mail client.  After reading numerous pages and seeing dozens of examples of .muttrc files I’ll say that I’m still a bit lost on what I should and shouldn’t be setting.  For those of you that have experience with Mutt I’d appreciate any tips you might have.  Here is some of my basic setup.

• Gmail: I need to follow this account and be able to send as @gmail and @ubuntu from this account.
• IMAP: My office uses an IMAP server for email that I’ll also need to follow.
• From what I can tell these both need pops:// and imaps:// for connection.
• This makes two incoming accounts to track and three accounts I need to be able to send-as.  (I have already configured postfix to handle outgoing)
• I also would like to PGP sign all of these accounts and validate incoming signed emails.

I know that kind of looks like a lot.  I have much of it roughly figured out but don’t feel terribly confident about how I have it pieced together so far.  I’m do have some of these options missing..

I appreciate any help in getting this setup.  Thanks.

Here I am popping up again from the seemingly dead.  I’m not dead, just have a lot more on my plate right now.  I do promise (if there is anyone out there that still believes me) that I’ll get back to blogging real soon.  Just as soon as I finish the RHCE test and can slow down the studying a bit!

So, as a quick update, I did pass the RedHat Certified Technician exam last week.  Thanks goes to all of you that wished me good luck.  I appreciate it.  Next week (Fri the 20th) I will be taking the RedHat Certified Engineer exam.  This one is apparently quite a bit more intense so I’m doing all I can to be confident for this’n.  Wish me luck and hopefully in a few weeks I’ll have one more certification under my belt.

In hopes of having something to celebrate I also want to remind everyone about the Feisty Release Party that the Ubuntu Utah team is putting on this year.  Considering the development team chose an awkward Thursday for release our party will be on a more feasible day, Sat the 21st.  This should be a lot of fun and I hope to see all Ubuntu users at the party.

Sat, April 21st. 6:00pm – 9:00pm at the Orbit Cafe.  (200S 540W, SLC).  I will be sending out some more details to the list soon.  Mark your calendar for an Ubuntu Celebration!

In any event, it’s back to studying in the morning so I’d better get to bed.  No rest until I’m RHCE… then I can get back to some of my business as usual.

Well I want to apologize for my continued lack of posting this past week.  I’m in New Jersey (sorry NJ team, if I weren’t so slammed I’d come meet up with you!) taking the RedHat 133 course in preparation for the RHCT exam tomorrow.  I’m, of course, hoping for the best.  So far I don’t see anything that I’m *really* worried about, but as always a test does a good amount to make someone nervous.

I’ve done my studying, I’m going to study even more tonite… which means I better get going.  I hope to have some good news tomorrow.  I’ll let you know.