Build your own server

I am having a problem with the /proftpd/proftpd.conf section, then i try to reboot the ftp server, it tells me that im missing an augment on line 99 under <Directory>, any idea on what my problem is?

great stuff btw ^^

Sure its not meant to read argument? In which case post your (anonymised) proftpd.conf and we can have a look.

its an exact copy paste of the directed information, i am also using a newer version of Xubuntu than the guide i beleive, but in any case:

#
# /etc/proftpd.conf -- This is a basic ProFTPD configuration file.
# To really apply changes reload proftpd after modifications.
#

ServerName "FTP Server"
Serverident on "FTP"
ServerType standalone
DeferWelcome off
TimesGMT off


MultilineRFC2228 on
#DefaultServer on
ShowSymlinks on

TimeoutNoTransfer 600
TimeoutStalled 600
TimeoutIdle 1200

DisplayLogin welcome.msg
DisplayChdir .message
ListOptions "-l"

DenyFilter \*.*/

AllowForeignAddress on
AllowRetrieveRestart on

# Uncomment this if you are using NIS or LDAP to retrieve passwords:
#PersistentPasswd off

# Uncomment this if you would use TLS module:
#TLSEngine on

# Uncomment this if you would use quota module:
#Quotas on

# Uncomment this if you would use ratio module:
#Ratios on

# Port 21 is the standard FTP port.
Port 21
SocketBindTight on

PassivePorts 11000 20000


# To prevent DoS attacks, set the maximum number of child processes
# to 30. If you need to allow more than 30 concurrent connections
# at once, simply increase this value. Note that this ONLY works
# in standalone mode, in inetd mode you should use an inetd server
# that allows you to limit maximum number of processes per service
# (such as xinetd)
MaxInstances 30

# Set the user and group that the server normally runs at.
User nobody
Group nogroup

# Umask 022 is a good standard umask to prevent new files and dirs
# (second parm) from being group and world writable.
Umask 022 022
# Normally, we want files to be overwriteable.
AllowOverwrite on

AllowForeignAddress on
AllowRetrieveRestart on
AllowStoreRestart on

# Speed up the server, no DNS lookups, just plain ip's. Turn off when being hax0r3d.
UseReverseDNS off
IdentLookups off

DefaultRoot ~
ExtendedLog /var/log/proftpd.all ALL


# Delay engine reduces impact of the so-called Timing Attack described in
# http://security.lss.hr/index.php?page=details&ID=LSS-2004-10-02
# It is on by default.
DelayEngine off

<Anonymous ~ftp>
User ftp
Group nogroup
UserAlias anonymous ftp
DirFakeUser on ftp
DirFakeGroup on ftp
RequireValidShell off
MaxClients 10
DisplayLogin welcome.msg
DisplayChdir .message <?-my version did not like DisplayFirstChdir, so i swited it to this and it works ->
AccessGrantMsg "Anonymous access granted for user %u connecting."

MaxClientsPerHost 1

<Directory>
#DenyAll
TransferRate RETR 50
<Limit WRITE>
DenyAll
</Limit>
</Directory>

Any help would be much apppritiated, and thsnks a bunch ^^

Originally Posted by Doomus
its an exact copy paste of the directed information, i am also using a newer version of Xubuntu than the guide i beleive, but in any case:
...


...
<Anonymous ~ftp>
User ftp
Group nogroup
UserAlias anonymous ftp
DirFakeUser on ftp
DirFakeGroup on ftp
RequireValidShell off
MaxClients 10
DisplayLogin welcome.msg
DisplayChdir .message <?-my version did not like DisplayFirstChdir, so i swited it to this and it works ->
AccessGrantMsg "Anonymous access granted for user %u connecting."

MaxClientsPerHost 1

<Directory>
#DenyAll
TransferRate RETR 50
<Limit WRITE>
DenyAll
</Limit>
</Directory>

Any help would be much apppritiated, and thsnks a bunch ^^

Same problem i discovered just now..
Problem 1: <Directory> should be <Directory *>
Problem 2: Ad a line after the last line (</Directory>) that reads </Anonymous> to close the argument correctly.

Hi Folks.
I am a total newbie to Linux but thanks to this great article I am enjoying having a go at building a server with Xubuntu 8.10 or I was till I screwed up the network !!!.
I got as far as connecting with ultravnc from another windows pc on the network and connecting to it from the internet from a friends pc. but somewhere along the way after a restart i think, the router gave the server a different IP address which stopped me connecting to it. So i decided to set the server to a static IP ( boy was that a daft idea ) ever since messing with the IP i am getting a red cross on the network icon and i can't get rid of it by changing the network back to DHCP.
I would be grateful for any advice you could give.

Originally Posted by Xjagdog
Hi Folks.
I am a total newbie to Linux but thanks to this great article I am enjoying having a go at building a server with Xubuntu 8.10 or I was till I screwed up the network !!!.
I got as far as connecting with ultravnc from another windows pc on the network and connecting to it from the internet from a friends pc. but somewhere along the way after a restart i think, the router gave the server a different IP address which stopped me connecting to it. So i decided to set the server to a static IP ( boy was that a daft idea ) ever since messing with the IP i am getting a red cross on the network icon and i can't get rid of it by changing the network back to DHCP.
I would be grateful for any advice you could give.

When setting up the server did you configure it to have a static IP address? If so was it the same one as you have since setup in the router? If not then this may be your issue.

At the terminal type:

ifconfig

and make sure that the entry for eth0 is the same IP as the one you have configured the router, if not then you will need to change the IP that your router is giving the server.

Originally Posted by Andy Mc

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xjagdog
Hi Folks.
I am a total newbie to Linux but thanks to this great article I am enjoying having a go at building a server with Xubuntu 8.10 or I was till I screwed up the network !!!.
I got as far as connecting with ultravnc from another windows pc on the network and connecting to it from the internet from a friends pc. but somewhere along the way after a restart i think, the router gave the server a different IP address which stopped me connecting to it. So i decided to set the server to a static IP ( boy was that a daft idea ) ever since messing with the IP i am getting a red cross on the network icon and i can't get rid of it by changing the network back to DHCP.
I would be grateful for any advice you could give.

When setting up the server did you configure it to have a static IP address? If so was it the same one as you have since setup in the router? If not then this may be your issue.

At the terminal type:

ifconfig

and make sure that the entry for eth0 is the same IP as the one you have configured the router, if not then you will need to change the IP that your router is giving the server.

Thanks for the reply.
It looks like you are right, I set the server up without a static IP.
I found the answer on the ubuntugeek.com website which said there is a bug in Gnome network manager ( that is what I was using ) so I removed it and followed the instructions to set a static IP and it all worked fine no problem.

Thanks again for the help, I am sure to be back the next time I trip up.

Hello

Another newbie here and I am having some trouble with this server deal. I got as far as configuring samba and creating a username and password at this point according to the article I should be able to connect to the server from another pc. My server is an old desktop and the other pc I have is a laptop running XP home if that helps any.

Thanks in advance for any help

I was getting an error with VNC saying something about DMS I believe, but after some reading I determined I hadn't created the .vnc directory, so I did that, now when I try to connect with VNC, it just says "Failed to connect to server !"
I can't figure out why. I'm new to Linux and any help is appreciated.

(I know this isn't a very descriptive error, but if there are commands you want me to run and post the output of, I'll be happy to do that as quickly as I can.)

Thanks in advance

Can you post the output of the following commands?

id
ls -al ~/.vnc

will do as soon as I get home. I'm at class right now.

ok here's the output

nick@mutt-server:~$ id
uid=1000(nick) gid=1000(nick) groups=4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),46(plugdev),112(lpadmin),120(admin),122(sambashare),1000(nick)
nick@mutt-server:~$ ls -al ~/.vnc
total 16
drwxr-xr-x  2 nick nick 4096 2009-02-18 22:37 .
drwxr-xr-x 18 nick nick 4096 2009-02-19 17:34 ..
-rw-------  1 nick nick    8 2009-02-18 22:26 passwd
-rw-r--r--  1 nick nick    5 2009-02-19 17:35 port
nick@mutt-server:~$ 

It seems to be working now. I'm not sure what changed, but I'm not complaining.

I do have a question though. It seems after I've downloaded the a file via torrent onto the server, to open it on my other computer, I have to download the file on there, from the server (if only in a temp file). The point is, when I do this, it takes up space and takes time to transfer the file over.

However, I noticed this doesn't seem to happen when I access files through opening the a folder location of \\(ip address)\homes. and I seem to be able to run files directly from it, rather than transfering to the computer I'm using... If this is the case, can I change it so that the torrents download to that folder without any reprecussions?

I'm fairly confident I could change the download location, I just want to make sure my assumptions about how this works are correct.

You can change the download location (in Torrentflux), or you can add a new samba share that links to the directory where you download. I'd go for the latter.

I'm not sure I know how to do that latter. Any reason to choose it over changing the the directory it downloads to?

I like to have my files organised, and downloads usually aren't :)

To add a samba share, add

 [sharename]
path = /path/to/files
browsable = yes
read only = no

Thank you very much. Your guide is great, and you've been a great help.

I'm having a problem with the VNC portion. I've installed x11vnc with syanptic, but when I try to add users with the password commands in the terminal, I get the following error

the program 'vncpasswd' can be found in the following packages:
*tightvncserver
*vnc4-common
Try: sudo apt-get install <selected package>
-bash: vncpasswd: command not found

any suggestions?

It seems like a dependency hasn't been installed. Try reinstalling X11vnc

I've tried that, and I'm still getting the same error.

Did you try installing one of the packages suggested? vnc4-common might be a good place to start.

Weird problem dudes.

Installed mysql and phpmyadmin but when I browse to localhost I just get "It works!" straight off, no subdirectories or whatever. Am a bit stumped really. I'm guessing this is a problem with phpmyadmin? I will continue googling.

I've added a screenshot to demostrate the problem. Compare with the pics from the guide here:
http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2007/06/build_your_own_server/torrentflux03.jpg http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2007/06/build_your_own_server/torrentflux04.jpg

What mine looks like (notice URL)
http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=capturegzs.jpg

edit: FIXED

I just tried to navigate to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ and it worked immediately. dont know why mine is different but there we are.

Originally Posted by steveo_mcg
Did you try installing one of the packages suggested? vnc4-common might be a good place to start.

Oh yes, do this, I had exactly the same problem :-)

frustration, I don't have write access to the home directory, nor permission to create folders. all i have is the desktop lol unless i use the superuser which obviously is not ideal. jesssssssus you'd think it would be easy :p do you think its because im using a later kernel build of xubuntu?

Originally Posted by Dreaming
frustration, I don't have write access to the home directory, nor permission to create folders. all i have is the desktop lol unless i use the superuser which obviously is not ideal. jesssssssus you'd think it would be easy :p do you think its because im using a later kernel build of xubuntu?

No big deal, this is command you'll need to learn sooner or later :)

sudo chown [username] /dir

if you run that for your configured user on your home directory it will change owner to what ever you enter for the first parameter. Plenty of reading on the web for it, another good one to get early on is chmod and chgrp.


You've probably done some thing as root by accident and messed the permissions up for the /home/usr dir.