Ubuntu Tutorials

I just read the news that Linux Journal Editor Shawn Powers lost his home today due to a fire. He and his family all escaped unharmed, but they lost their home and family pets. I don’t have many details (I’ve not been able to find many elsewhere either), but I wanted to pass on the news. Their local community and church have stepped up today to help them with basic shelter as I understand. Beyond this a call has gone out for community donations towards helping them get back on their feet.

If you are so inclined, please visit this page and donate what you can. I’m sure it would be very, very appreciated.

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

I realized today that this blog could do far more to reach Ubuntu Users worldwide than it currently is. For that reason I have created a Facebook page for Ubuntu Tutorials! If you are a fan of this blog, please become a fan on Facebook as well. I would like to be able to better reach Ubuntu Users, and the best way to do that is through the largest, most popular site in the world!

To become a fan of Ubuntu Tutorials on Facebook, follow these two simple steps:

1. Visit the Ubuntu Tutorials page. Click “Become a Fan” at the top of the page
2. Invite your Facebook friends to become fans as well!

Becoming a fan will allow you to follow blog updates via Facebook, including links to full articles. I’ll also be including additional Facebook-only contests and events

Help get things moving, become a fan today!

Another exciting calendar item just arrived in my Inbox that I am sure many of you will be interested in. A new team has recently been formed to address the Ubuntu users that want to learn more, but aren’t quite ready for something as big as Ubuntu Developer week. These events are aimed at teaching the beginner and intermediate user how to improve their Ubuntu experience. From “Command Line Basics” to “Partitioning 101″, this event will teach you the skills you need to become a more proficient and more knowledgeable Ubuntu user!

From the announcement:

The Ubuntu User Days Team would like to announce the first Ubuntu User Day, on January 23, 2010. This will be a very informative one day session geared towards beginner and intermediate Ubuntu users, as well as people who are interested in using Ubuntu. We have 14 classes covering topics ranging from installing Ubuntu, finding help, equivalent programs, using IRC, getting involved in the Ubuntu Community and more. We have enlisted the help of many talented people to lead these classes throughout the day.

These classes will be taught in #ubuntu-classroom with questions being asked in #ubuntu-classroom-chat on irc.freenode.net. Please visit http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UserDays for a complete class list and schedule of classes.

There is also a Spanish version of Ubuntu User Days being offered on January, 23, 2010. Please visit Día Del Usuario Ubuntu at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiaDelUsuarioUbuntu for more information on the Spanish Ubuntu User Day!

I would invite anyone interested in improving their overall Ubuntu skill set to attend this event. Find out more by visiting the Ubuntu Wiki : UserDays. See you there!

I was just going over the schedule for the upcoming Utah Open Source Conference and I realized that I’ll be presenting one month from today! On Oct 9, 2009, the second day of the conference, I am scheduled for two presentations.

The first is a beginner / intermediate presentation regarding GNOME customization and making use of the gconf tool. You may want to see some of my previous posts here, here and here on the subject. I use the gconf tool anytime I setup a new machine to automate the user interface customization that I’ve grow accustomed to. I’ll be outlining how to find, document and script these customizations for future use.

The second (which happens to be directly after the first!) will introduce and demonstrate 10 of my favorite “required” sysadmin tools. These include tools like tcpdump, ssh and rsync, screen, vim, netstat and more. I imagine this one will be helpful for anyone doing system administration. Hopefully I’ll have a tip or two for everyone!

For more information about the conference, please visit the website. Registration is still open and we’d love to see you there!

I just wanted to thank everyone who commented or otherwise sent congratulations for the new baby. She really is a joy and I’m glad to see so many people from so many parts of the world sending notes. Thank you.

I am back into work this week so I may finally have some time to start doing some real blogging again. Fingers crossed ehh?

We are very happy to announce the arrival of our second daughter, Elizabeth, today. She was born early this morning. 9lbs. 7oz (big baby!), 22″ long. She and mother are doing fine and resting.

As I’m sure is the case with the rest of you (particularly if you use Twitter), I’ve been hearing more and more about the Iranian Election and the difficulties the people there are having in getting connectivity outside of the country. Without getting too detailed, it sounds like the incumbent president has cut off internet access to most major social networking sites. Sites that the protestors were trying to use to organize peaceful rallies and request recounts on the polls.

If you are interested in helping them fight to have their voices heard you can setup a Squid Proxy which will allow them to anonymously access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other such sites in order to organize and move forward. I have already personally setup and volunteered two proxies. The more that are available the better chance these people will have to continue to communicate with the outside world. If you would like to help out, please keep reading for instructions on how to setup a proxy and securely communicate the details to supporters inside Iran.

Note: please only configure and volunteer proxies for servers and internet connections that you own. Please do not run these on corporate or educational internet connections unless you have express permission.

Installing Squid

By following these instructions you should be able to have a Squid proxy available for use within just a few minutes. Even if you have setup Squid in the past, please make note of these customized instructions. The include access control restrictions to disallow Iranian government offices, and have logging disabled for anonymity.

To install squid use the command (or click on the link):

sudo aptitude install squid

Finding Your Public IP Address

You will need to document your public IP address for the configuration and for use by the protestors. You can find your public IP address by visiting the site: http://whatismyip.com. Make note of the address as you will need it for the configuration below.

Configuring Squid

We’ll now customize three things within the squid configuration.

1. Select a random port other than the default of 3128
2. Define access control list to allow Iranian subnets
3. Disable logging for anonymity of Iranian users

Open your squid configuration file, which is found in /etc/squid/squid.conf and search for the line “http_port 3128″. Change the port number to a different, random port. Do not use the following port numbers: 81/8080/8181/9090/3218. These are globally blocked within the country.

Next we’ll define the access control restrictions. What this will do is allow proxy access to the Iranian residential address ranges but not include the government offices. It will also block all other use of your proxy.

Search for the line beginning with “# INSERT YOUR OWN RULE(S)” and add the following on the next blank line:

acl TRUSTED src 62.60.128.0/17 62.193.0.0/19 62.220.96.0/19 77.36.128.0/17 77.77.64.0/18 77.104.64.0/18 77.237.64.0/19 77.237.160.0/19 77.245.224.0/20 78.38.0.0/15 78.109.192.0/20 78.110.112.0/20 78.111.0.0/20 78.154.32.0/19 78.157.32.0/19 78.158.160.0/19 79.127.0.0/17 79.132.192.0/19 79.170.144.0/21 79.175.128.0/18 80.66.176.0/20 80.69.240.0/20 80.71.112.0/20 80.75.0.0/20 80.191.0.0/16 80.242.0.0/20 80.253.128.0/20 80.253.144.0/20 81.12.0.0/17 81.28.32.0/20 81.28.48.0/20 81.31.160.0/20 81.31.176.0/20 81.90.144.0/20 81.91.128.0/20 81.91.144.0/20 82.99.192.0/18 82.115.0.0/19 83.147.192.0/18 84.47.192.0/18 84.241.0.0/18 85.9.64.0/18 85.15.0.0/18 85.133.128.0/17 85.185.0.0/16 85.198.0.0/18 86.109.32.0/19 87.107.0.0/16 87.247.160.0/19 87.248.128.0/19 89.144.128.0/18 89.165.0.0/17 89.221.80.0/20 89.235.64.0/18 91.98.0.0/15 91.184.64.0/19 91.186.192.0/19 91.206.122.0/23 91.208.165.0/24 91.209.242.0/24 91.212.16.0/24 91.212.19.0/24 91.212.252.0/24 92.42.48.0/21 92.50.0.0/18 92.61.176.0/20 92.62.176.0/20 92.242.192.0/19 93.110.0.0/16 93.190.24.0/21 94.74.128.0/18 94.101.128.0/20 94.101.176.0/20 94.101.240.0/20 94.139.160.0/19 94.182.0.0/15 94.184.0.0/17 94.232.168.0/21 94.241.128.0/18 95.38.0.0/16 95.80.128.0/18 95.81.64.0/18 95.82.0.0/18 95.82.64.0/18 95.130.56.0/21 95.130.240.0/21 188.34.0.0/16 188.93.64.0/21 188.121.96.0/19 188.121.128.0/19 188.136.128.0/17 188.158.0.0/15 193.189.122.0/23 194.225.0.0/16 195.146.32.0/19 212.16.64.0/19 212.33.192.0/19 212.50.224.0/19 212.80.0.0/19 212.95.128.0/19 212.120.192.0/19 213.176.0.0/19 213.176.32.0/19 213.176.64.0/18 213.195.0.0/18 213.207.192.0/18 213.217.32.0/19 213.233.160.0/19 217.11.16.0/20 217.24.144.0/20 217.25.48.0/20 217.64.144.0/20 217.66.192.0/20 217.66.208.0/20 217.146.208.0/20 217.172.96.0/19 217.174.16.0/20 217.218.0.0/15

http_access allow TRUSTED
http_access deny all

access_log none
cache_store_log none

visible_hostname <your public IP>

Once you have saved these changes run the following two commands to activate things:

sudo squid -z
sudo /etc/init.d/squid start

If you don’t see any errors you should be ready to go. You can now submit your public IP address and random port to the following email addresses for secure propagation within Iran.

me@austinheap.com and smallworldnews@gmail.com

I hope you are able to volunteer toward this cause. The stories that I have read and the videos and images I have seen show a real injustice is going on in that country. There are many young people who are trying to vote in a real Democratic election, yet their votes are being ignored and their voices are being silenced. If you believe that Freedom is something we all deserve, get involved.

You can find more information and inside updates here here and here.

I was taking a look at my blog stats the other day and realized that this post will make post number seven-hundred on this blog.  Seven-hundred posts since February 2006. I can hardly believe it!  This April also marks four years since I started using Ubuntu (the 5.04 release).  I can’t believe how fast the time has gone–a lot has happened in that time, both personally and professionally.  I credit all of my professional success in that time to finding Ubuntu, and then passionately trying to learn as much as I could about it.

When I first found Ubuntu I was working part-time at a support center, making minimum wage.  I had no marketable skills and not working very hard toward gaining any either.  Looking back I wonder what I was thinking!  Where was I going?  It’s almost frightening now to think about.

After I found Ubuntu I realized that there was a world of information right at my fingertips, and based on its very nature all I needed to do was open the hood and take a look!  I quickly learned the basics, and started documenting my notes on a website that I setup on an old PIII under my desk.  This site began as a place to simply document my notes and has since grown into one of the most widely used Ubuntu-specific resources on the web!

Within a year of finding Ubuntu I had taught myself enough to become a professional Linux Trainer, traveling the country and teaching for companies like Red Hat, Oracle, Dell, and more.  There were many times in class when I would just sit back and wonder how did I ever get here.  I was being paid to talk about the wonders of Linux.

I have since stopped training (primarily due to the travel) and I now work as a contractor for the US Department of Defense as a System and Network Administrator.  I thoroughly enjoy my job and enjoy getting up in the morning every day.  It strikes me again and again that all of the skills that I’ve learned, and the path that I’ve taken in my life, all started with finding and embracing Ubuntu and learning as much as I could!  I want to thank everyone that has taken time to help me along the way, and for everyone that has been so supportive.

In thinking about how much I’ve learned and how much I’ve grown by teaching myself (for the most part) these skills I can only imagine where I might be if I had someone to mentor me along the way.  If I had someone along the way to push me in the right direction and be available to help with questions who knows how different things might be.

On that note, I have been thinking about taking on one or two people in a mentoring role.  I’d very much enjoy the chance to be able to continue teaching, and I’m sure there are some of you out there that would like a brain to pick.  If you are interested in something like this, and expect to have time to put toward regular training, please let me know.  I imagine something along the lines of scheduled training/discussion via IM/IRC and to work together on projects throughout the community.

Join me in #ubuntu-tutorials on irc.freenode.net and we’ll see if we can work something out.

Hopping on the current meme bandwagon here is a list of the things my daughter loves to do:

• Read Books (Curious George, ftw!)
• Climb the Stairs
• Tickling
• Tinkerbell
• Watching everything outside (birds, cars, dogs, people, etc)
• Bathtime

For those that have been long time readers, you might remember the announcement a year ago of her joining us.  Here is a recent picture, at her one year birthday party, for an update.

I’ve been doing some thinking about how I might be able to light a fire under this blog again and get back to a regular post schedule.  I feel like I’ve exhausted much of the Ubuntu subect matter that this blog has generally focused on.  In that regard I’ve been tempted to post a number of technical artices that relate to other *NIX systems, such as CentOS, FreeBSD, Arch Linux, etc.  The main reason that I have not is that the historic content and name of the blog make me feel like I’m limited to Ubuntu related content as much as possible.  (As well as being syndicated on the Ubuntu Planet)

So I am curious to hear back from you regarding your thoughts on opening this blog up to additional topics and platforms.

This would include many tips and tricks I’ve come across in working on RHEL/CentOS at work for the past six months as well as other systems I’ve been tinkering with, like FreeBSD, Gentoo and Arch Linux.

I realize there may be topics that extend beyond the current reader base, but my hope is that it’ll become a resource for much more than just the Ubuntu crowd.  We are all in the same boat after all.

I’m going to sit on this for a bit.. please comment and let me know your thoughts.  If you are open to the idea, what topics, distributions or tools are you interested in?