Setting Up a Linux Box

I spent numerous hours last week trying to recuperate my skills on setting up a Linux machine properly to run a dedicated MySQL Database for our Showcase - list of applications powered by Covalentia. The Mirror Site is now running two separate machines - one application (web server) and one MySQL Database server.

Please refer to my previous entry on how to install MySQL on a Fedora Core 4. After doing all that, I had to tweak a few things to make it work:

• Configuring MySQL database
  • gedit /etc/my.cnf
• Add the following line under the [mysqld] section:
  • lower_case_table_names = 1
• Configure the Replication Slave Section, please refer to my previous entry
• Save the file
• Restart the MySQL Server
  
• Next, configure the VNC Server so that I can access the server remotely
  • gedit /etc/sysconfig/vncservers
  • Uncomment VNCSERVERS:"1:cozta"
  • Uncomment VNCSERVERARGS:"-geometry 1280x800 -depth 16
  • Save the file
    
  • gedit /home/cozta/.vnc/xstartup
  • Uncomment unset SESSION_MANAGER
  • Uncomment exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
  • Save the file
• Restart VNC Server
  • service vncserver restart

I think that's about it ;)

And NO, we don't host gold or moolah on any of our server. So, if you're a hacker, DO NOT try to hack them because you're not gonna get anythin'. Go play someplace else (or with somethin' else or with yourself) :)

Installing Firefox 2 on Fedora Core 4

Well, before I forget, I better jot down everythin' that I did today for future reference :)

Fedora Core 4 comes with Firefox 1.0.5 or lesser, I can't remember. You could upgrade this to Firefox 1.0.8 using yum install firefox, but apparently, this version doesn't support my new Covalentia Showcase page which I just uploaded. It just hanged and so I decided to install the latest version of Firefox Version 2.0.0.3. Unfortunately, it doesn't have an RPM which would definitely make my life easier. And the installation instruction at Firefox totally sucks, ie. there is NO instruction. Well, I couldn't find any.

• Download firefox-2.0.0.3.tar.gz from www.firefox.com
• Execute the followings:
  • mv firefox-2.0.0.3.tar.gz /usr/local
  • cd /usr/local
  • tar xzf firefox-2.0.0.3.tar.gz
  • mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox1
  • ln -s /usr/local/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
• Download compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-47.fc4.i386.rpm
• Execute the followings:
  • rpm -i compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-47.fc4.i386.rpm
• Finally, close all your Firefox browsers and start a new one

And we're done!

Installing MySQL 5.0 on Fedora Core 4

By default, I’m a Windows user. The last time I used Linux or Unix platform heavily was back then in Cornell, around 10 years or so ago. I have lost my touch and limited skills, and I think it’s time to hone them.

The goal is to run MySQL 5.0 and PostgreSQL on Fedora Core 4 so that I can do various testing and development works, such as replication (I don’t have enough machines to do clustering and so that has to wait) and perhaps start on my Mono project.

The first thing to do was to Google on ‘how to install fedora core 4’ and ‘how to install mysql 5 on fedora core 4’. Well, I didn’t really like what I saw – a lot of people complained about plenty of problems. But, surprisingly, it didn’t take me too long to successfully get the box up and running. Or may be I was just lucky, heh.

• Pentium 4 1.4GHz
• 256MB of RAM
• 40G Hard Drive
• Boot to Fedora Core 4 DVD and install using the graphical interface
• Skip the Media Check
• Select the Server installation
• Disable the Firewall and SELinux
• Add the followings in the Packages:
  • Gnome – IMHO Gnome is much better than KDE, but some other people think otherwise. It’s totally up to you
  • Graphical Internet
  • FTP
  • MySQL Database
  • Development Tools
• Click through to complete the installation
• Create a default user
• Login to the box using root
• Open up Firefox and download the followings:
  • http://dev.mysql.com:
    • MySQL-server-community-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
    • MySQL-client-community-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
    • MySQL-shared-compat-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
    • mysql-gui-tools-5.0r11-rhel4-i386.tar.gz
  • http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/1991817/com/ptt-beta2.i386.rpm.html:
    • ptt-beta2.i386.rpm
  • http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/1692645/com/j2re-1.4.2-11.2.el4.rf.i586.rpm.html
    • j2re-1.4.2-11.2.el4.rf.i586.rpm
• Remove the existing MySQL 4.1:
  • yum remove '*mysql*'
• Install MySQL 5.0 Server & Client:
  • rpm –i MySQL-server-community-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
  • rpm –i MySQL-client-community-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
• Start, Stop & Restart MySQL Server, and create a root password:
  • /etc/init.d/mysql start | stop | restart
  • mysqladmin –u root password ‘’
• Login to MySQL Client:
  • mysql –u root –p
  • Enter your root password
  • mysql> drop database test;
  • mysql> quit;
• Install MySQL GUI Tools (Administrator & Browser):
  • rpm –i ptt-beta2.i386.rpm
  • rpm –i j2re-1.4.2-11.2.el4.rf.i586.rpm
  • rpm -i MySQL-shared-compat-5.0.37-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
  • tar –zxf mysql-gui-tools-5.0r11-rhel4-i386.tar.gz
  • rpm –ivh mysql-gui-tools-5.0r11-1rhel4.i386.rpm
  • rpm –ivh mysql-administrator-5.0r11-1rhel4.i386.rpm
  • rpm –ivh mysql-query-browser-5.0r11-1rhel4.i386.rpm
• Finally, run your MySQL Administrator (from Start Menu -> Programming -> MySQL Administrator) and enter your login information:
  • Server hostname: localhost
  • Username: root
  • Password:

And we're DONE!

At the moment, I have this box running as a Slave server (READ only) for the Covalentia.2.2 (Enterprise Edition) Live Demo at our Mirror Site at covalentia.dyndns.org. Feel free to check it out ;)

Covalentia Version 2.2 Enterprise Edition

One my clients complained the other day that their application using Covalentia with MySQL database has become a lil bit slower than usual as the data grows in size. So, I thought I should come up with a version that supports Master & Slaves (MySQL Replication) servers. The idea is to execute the CREATE, UPDATE and DELETE functions on the Master database server, and READ on one of the Slave machines. In addition, I will have to move the Reporting Service to another machine which will Read from another Slave machine. This way I can minimize the load on the current application and database servers.

And apparently, it didn't take me too long to do this:

• Changed the web.config file to add the following connection string for the Slave database server:
  <add key="SlaveConnectionString" value="server=localhost; UID=<slave_user>; Password=<slave_password>; Database=covalentia_v22; Max Pool Size=500"/>
• Opened up the /DataAccess/Objects.cs file
• Looked for GetObject & GetObjects regions
• Looked for methods under these two regions that do not have "string connectionString" parameter - these methods load the connection string from the web.config file
• Added the following codes:
  if (System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SlaveConnectionString"] != null)
  {
  return whatever - edited to System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["SlaveConnectionString"]
  }
  else
  {
  return whatever - no change
  }
  
  There should be 4 methods in total.
• Compiled

However, before I could proceed with the testing, I needed a Slave database server. Luckily, I still have my old-and-underutilized iASUS notebook which I primarily use to back-up my files. And so, I installed MySQL Server 5.0 on this machine and set it up as a Slave as follows:

Slave (old notebook - Windows XP Professional):

• Opened up the my.ini file
• Added the following:
  log-error
  master-host=
  master-user=
  master-password=
  server-id=2
  replicate-do-db=covalentia_v22
  relay-log=-relay-bin

Master (my current notebook - Windows XP Professional):

• Opened up the my.ini file
• Added the following:
  log-error
  log-bin=
  server-id=1
• Opened up MySQL Command Line, entered and executed the following command:
  mysql>grant all privileges on *.* to ''@'%' identified by '' with grant option;
  
  
• Restarted the MySQL Master database server
• Restarted the MySQL Slave database server

And that should be it. Done! Oh not quite. I needed to test it to see that this setup's really working. And the simplest test was to logon to Covalentia and browse to Administration Module --> Log Management --> User Log, and hit the Search button. I could see the latest log entry and, thus, the READing from my Slave server was successful.

I shall be a good slave and upload this latest version ASAP ;)