network

vsftpd Refusing To Run With Writable Root Inside Chroot

I recently upgraded one of my Ubuntu servers, and I quickly found out that people who were trying to FTP couldn’t login. They got the following message: 500 OOPS: vsftpd: refusing to run with writable root inside chroot. Here is how to fix it.

This is a result of a security “feature” that has been added in the latest update, and released in the Ubuntu upgrade. The problem is that users’ root directory is writable, which isn’t allowed when using chroot restrictions in the new update.

Fortunately, the good folks at The Fronteer Group have backported vsftp until the full release of ver 3 of vsftp comes out. So here is what you do:

login as root (or sudo..) and do the following:
apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thefrontiergroup/vsftpd
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vsftpd
nano /etc/vsftpd.conf and add the following
allow_writeable_chroot=YES
sudo service vsftpd restart

Normally we all would just edit the /etc/vsftpd.conf file and be done with it. However, in the version of vsftp, this option dosen’t work. When version 3 of vsftp is included in the normal ubuntu server packaging, then all will be fixed. Until then, this workaround worked for me.

This article was originally posted on www.mikestechblog.com Any reproduction on any other site is prohibited and a violation of copyright laws.

Configure An HP JetDirect 300X Print Server

Recently I acquired an Hewlett Packard JetDirect 300x print server. They seem like great little devices for setting up an old printer with only a parallel port to work on a network like what I have on my home network. However I came up on a problem. I had no way of knowing how to communicate to it. I didn’t know its IP address or anything! So after a few weeks of searching, I have found a way to reset it back to factory defaults. Here is how its done:

Set the DIP switches on the back as follows:
Man / Auto = MAN = UP
10 / 100 = 10 = DOWN
Full / Half = Half = DOWN

1. Press and hold the TEST button on the top while plugging in the power.
2. After 5 seconds, let go of the TEST button. (This sets everything to default)
3. Unplug the 300X and plug in a CAT-5 cable to your network (Needs a DHCP Server..)
4. Connect up a printer to the server.
5. Power up the 300X server.
6. After about 30 seconds, press the TEST button on the 300X, and the server configuration will print out.
7. Note the IP address.
8. Telnet to the above IP address. And configure the server.
9. Give it a static IP, and turn off unnecessary protocols.

To Configure a Microsoft Windows computer to print to this server:
1.Add a printer
2.Add a local port Type: TCP and use the address above.
3.Follow the prompts, and you are done!

This article was originally posted on www.mikestechblog.com Any reproduction on any other site is prohibited and a violation of copyright laws.

Stop Cron From Sending Mail on a Linux Server

Recently I noticed that cron was sending mail on my Ubuntu server. I needed to figure out how to stop it from sending mail. There are two ways ..to do this. Here is how:

The first way to stop Cron from sending mail involves setting cron so that it doesn’t send mail for all of your cron jobs. To do this, open up the crontab editor with the cron job command, crontab -e. Then above all the other cron job listings, add the line MAILTO=”” Here is an example of the beginning of my crontab file:

#
MAILTO=””
#
50 12 * * * /etc/RotateRsyncLogs.sh

This will configure cron to not send mail at all. Sometimes however you want cron to send mail, but have a specific job to not send mail. In order to do this, just add this to the end of your cron command:

/dev/nul 2>&1
For example:
30 * * * * /etc/runthis.sh >/dev/nul 2>&1

This will redirect the output of the cron job to /dev/nul

This article was originally posted on www.mikestechblog.com Any reproduction on any other site is prohibited and a violation of copyright laws.