A story of Ubuntu – I am what I am because of who we all are :)

An anthropologist studying the habits and customs of an African tribe found himself surrounded by children most days. So he decided to play a little game with them. He managed to get candy from the nearest town and put it all in a decorated basket at the foot of a tree.

Then he called the children and suggested they play the game. When the anthropologist said “now”, the children had to run to the tree and the first one to get there could have all the candy to him/herself.

So the children all lined up waiting for the signal. When the anthropologist said “now”, all of the children took each other by the hand ran together towards the tree. They all arrived at the same time divided up the candy, sat down and began to happily munch away.

The anthropologist went over to them and asked why they had all run together when any one of them could have had the candy all to themselves.

The children responded: “Ubuntu. How could any one of us be happy if all the others were sad?”

Ubuntu is a philosophy of African tribes that can be summed up as “I am what I am because of who we all are.”

Bishop Desmond Tutu gave this explanation in 2008 :

“One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality –
Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”

This is the true spirit of human development and cause of human evolution. Ubuntu. Once again, we are proud to say Ubuntu, I am what I am because of who we all are.. This is not a story as such, but a feeling to be expressed.

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Installing CDP-Agent for R1Soft Enterprise Edition 3.0

Before we start lets see what R1soft is. R1Soft is an affordable, easy-to-use, high performance backup, restore, and disaster recovery software. Its a software application which is used to backup the data in a client(R1Soft agent) which is assigned to R1Soft server based upon the configurations which we define. R1soft can also be used to restore files and databases which I’ll be explaining later.

For a client to communicate with R1soft server an R1soft agent cdp-agent must be installed on the client. Once the cdp-agent is installed, we can add it to the R1soft server for processing.

Let us assume that R1soft Server Enterprise Edition is already configured and running on IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. I’ll explain on how to install cdp-agent on a  new client (agent) so that it can be added to the R1soft Server.

The steps I follow here will help you to install cdp-agent on a redhat, fedora or Centos platform. However the installation steps on a Debian version are also similar with slight changes. You can get more details on installing cdp-agent on a Debian platform by following http://wiki.r1soft.com/display/CDP3/Installing+Agent+on+Debian+and+Ubuntu . Once the cdp-agent is installed in the client, we’ll see the steps to add it to the R1soft Server.

So lets start

INSTALLING CDP-AGENT on a client
——————————————————-
There are two methods by which you can install a cdp-agent to a linux server:

1. Automatic:

Here we add the R1Soft packages repository to the yum configuration first and then install the Agent using yum.

2 . Manual:

Here we download the R1Soft binary packages first and then intstall them using rpm.

Wondering what these are actually? Dont worry, We will see the installation using both yum and rmp below:

->Installing Agent Using YUM (Automatic method):
———————————————————————-—–

YUM is the easiest way to keep programs up-to-date on RedHat-compatible distributions. YUM downloads and installs the latest version of a program.

Configure YUM Repository
—————————————-

First, create a .repo file for yum with the R1Soft repository information:

#cd /etc/yum.repos.d

Open a new file named r1soft.repos using vi or ant text editors like nano, vim etc: I’m using vi text editor in this tutorial.

#vi r1soft.repo

Then insert the following text into the file and save the file:
————————————————————–
[r1soft]
name=R1Soft Repository Server
baseurl=http://repo.r1soft.com/yum/stable/$basearch/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0
—————————————————————-

To verify what is written to the r1soft.repos file, use the following command:

#cat r1soft.repo

This command should print the contents which we added in the r1soft.repo file.

Once the yum repository is configured we can use the yum command to install the cdp-agent.

Installing The Package For CDP-AGENT
———————————————————–
Once you have configured the YUM repository, you can use the following command to install CDP Agent for Enterprise Edition:

# yum install r1soft-cdp-enterprise-agent

Enter “y” to initiate install process.

->Installing Agent Manually (Using RPM)
———————————————————–

In the automatic installation using YUM, the agent was automatically downloaded and installed. But here we need to manually download the agent  and then install it using rpm command. I’m explaining the steps below:

Download CDP Agent first:
—————————————–

This is an important step because we have to carefully choose the agent meeting our OS architecture.

First find out whether the client has a 32bit or 64 bit OS by typing the command:

#getconf LONG_BIT

You will get the exact OS bit as the output

Once the OS bit is known choose the file accordingly.

Please follow http://wiki.r1soft.com/display/CDP3/Obtaining+Linux+CDP+Enterprise+Agent for obtaining Linux CDP Enterprise Agent.

In normal cases the files will be named as mentioned below for different OS types:

For a 32-bit system:

File name – R1Soft-EnterpriseAgent-linux32-3.18.2.zip
File size – 37.3 MB

For a 64-bit system:

File name – R1Soft-EnterpriseAgent-linux64-3.18.2.zip
File size – 41.04 MB

Before you download the file create a new directory named cdp-agent and then download the file into that directory. You can create the directory using the mkdir command:

#mkdir cdp-agent

#cd cdp-agent

Now download the files into this directory.
As you can see the downloaded files have a .zip extension which requires unzip tool for extraction.

Most Linux distributions come with the unzip utility pre-installed. To determine if you have the unzip utility, run:

# which unzip

This should return an output showing the path to unzip binary, something similar to the following:

/usr/bin/unzip

If it returns the following output, you need to install the unzip utility first:

unzip: Command not found.

To install unzip on RHE, CentOS, and Fedora:

# yum install unzip

Now that we have the unzip utility ready for its work. We need to extract the downloaded file using unzip command as follows:

# unzip r1soft-enterprise-agent-linux64-3.18.2.zip

Once all the packages are extracted its time for the installation to start.

Installing the Package:
————————-———

You must be a Linux root user to install CDP Agent.

The files you have extracted now contains two folders: one with .deb packages (for Debian Platform-deb-linux64) and one with .rpm packages (“for RedHat platform-rpm-linux64). Since we use RedHatplatform select the .rpm package.

Each folder contains a set of CDP components:

r1soft-setup
r1soft-cdp-enterprise-agent
r1soft-cdp-agent
r1soft-cdp-async-agent-2-6

You will need to install all of them in one step. Use the cd command to go to the folder with the packages (in our case, rpm-linux64) and run the following command:

#rpm -i *.rpm

Now that we have our cdp-agen installed.

Once this is done we have to install the kernel sources:

By default the RPM package installation will attempt to download a kernel module matching your running kernel. The RPM Package installation may be able to automatically load the binary kernel module.

If you see the following output, you can safely skip this step. The RPM packages were able to directly download a binary-compatible kernel module:

——————————————————————
Attempting to get a kernel module from ‘krnlbld.r1soft.com’

Module downloaded successfully.
/etc/init.d/cdp-agent start: cdp started
You will need to assign a username and password to the R1Soft CDP Server.
You can do this with ‘/usr/bin/r1soft-setup’ utility.
Use ‘/usr/bin/r1soft-setup –help’ for more information.
——————————————————————-

If you see the following output, you need to install the CDP kernel module manually:

———————————————————————–
Attempting to get a kernel module from ‘krnlbld.r1soft.com’
You will need to assign a username and password to the R1Soft CDP Server.
You can do this with ‘/usr/bin/r1soft-setup’ utility.
Use ‘/usr/bin/r1soft-setup –help’ for more information.
———————————————————————–

First we have to see the current version of kernel. To see the version of the running kernel, execute the following command:

#uname -r

Compare the version string you see with the name of the directory containing kernel sources under /usr/src/kernel. To do this, cd into /usr/src/kernels:

# cd /usr/src/kernels
# ls -al

Here, if you are not able to find the directory for the kernel version specified in uname -r output, run the following command:

#yum install kernel-devel-`uname -r`

This command makes sure that the kernel devel version matches your current version. Proceed with the installation. Once the kernel-devel is completed you will get the directory for the current kernel in /usr/src/kernels

Now that we have to build the CDP Kernel Module:
——————————————————————————

# r1soft-setup –no-binary –kernel-dir /usr/src/kernels/YOUR_KERNEL_TREE

After running this command, you will see:

LAST STEP :
—————–

Restart the cdp-agen by entering the following command:

#/etc/init.d/cdp-agent restart

Thats it you have done it!! You have cdp-agent instlled on the client.

Now we will look into how to authenticate the new client to the R1soft agent:

Authenticating The Agent:
————————————

For security reasons, CDP Agent accepts connections only from known CDP Servers. To authorize a CDP Server to CDP Agent, you must add the CDP Server’s public key to Agent’s configuration.

1. Run the following command on the Agent machine:

#r1soft-setup –get-key [Server_URL]

in our case the server URL is http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx because I mentioned at the begining that R1soft server is installed on xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

You can view the installed keys using the following command:

#r1soft-setup –list-key

Once this is done allow the R1soft server IP in our firewall using :

#csf -a xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (for running this command csf should be installed. you can get tutorials on installing csf firewall from search engines. Here’s one URL http://www.webhostgear.com/432.html)

Thats it you have done everything that needs to be done on the Agent end. Now login to the GUI of R1soft Server Enterprise Edition to add the new agent to the server.

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ERROR FROM PARK WRAPPER: UNABLE TO FIND OUT WHICH USER OWNS THE PARKED DOMAIN addon.com cPanel/WHM

Before going into the steps to resolve the issue we should know where exactly we are getting this error. Here I’m using the domain addon.com which is configured as an add-on domain in cPanel under an account primarydomain.com.

The said error is encountered when you try to delete the add-on domain addon.com from your cPanel.

(Click to enlarge image)

So what exactly is the reason for this error?

Before knowing the reason for this error it is important to know how an add-on domain is created using cPanel. When you create an add-on domain using your cPanel, there are a lot of tasks running in the background. You might be knowing that an add-on domain is a domain parked on top of a sub-domain. So when you create an add-on domain named addon.com, a sub-domain with prefix as the username of the addon domain is also created. That means here a sub-domain addon.primarydomain.com is created automatically.

Another most important thing is the creation of entries for that particular add-on domain in certain files. I’ll explain all the necessary files where entries are made automatically while creating an add-on named addon.com via cPanel.

When you create an add-on domain addon.com the following entries are created:

1. File – /etc/localdomains

Entry:

addon.com

addon.primarydomain.com

2. File - /etc/userdomains

Entry:

addon.com: username (where username is the username of the main account primarydomain.com)

addon.primarydomain.com: username

3. File – /etc/userdatadomains

Entry:

addon.com: username==root==addon==addon.primarydomain.com==/home/username/public_html/addon.com==IP.IP.IP.IP:80==

addon.primarydomain.com: username==root==sub==primarydomain.com==/home/username/public_html/addon.com==IP.IP.IP.IP:80==

Here the first entry specifies that addon.com is an addon domain for primarydomain.com and the second line specifies that addon.primarydomain.com is a subdomain for primarydomain.com. Also the IP field specifies the IP of your prmary domain.

4. File – /var/cpanel/users/username

Entry:

DNS52=addon.priamrydomain.com

DNS53=addon.com

Here note that the entry should be prefixed with DNS, because entry with prefix as XDNS means that the DNS zone for addon.com existed, but removed.

5. File - /var/cpanel/userdata/username/main (Note that username is the username of the primary account as I mentioned before)

Entry:

addon_domains:

addon.com: addon.primarydomain.com

main_domain: primarydomain.com

parked_domains: []

sub_domains:

- addon.primarydomain.com

6. File – /var/cpanel/userdata/username/cache (which is generated based on main)

Entry:

addon.com: username==root==addon==addon.primarydomain.com==/home/username/public_html/addon.com==IP.IP.IP.IP:80==
addon.primardomain.com: username==root==sub==primarydomain.com==/home/username/public_html/addon.com==IP.IP.IP.IP:80==
primarydomain.com: username==root==main==primarydomain.com==/home/username/public_html==IP.IP.IP.IP:80==

This file has somewhat similar entries as in file /etc/userdatadomains

7. DNS

A DNS zone file for the domain addon.com exist in /var/named directory assuming BIND is the DNS server.
You can use the cPanel script /scripts/killdns to remove a DNS Zone from the server

Example: #]/scripts/killacct addon.com
8. APACHE (Webserver used)

Apache configuration file (/usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf) should have a virtual host entry with minimum parameters as described below for the add-on domain addon.com:

<VirtualHost IP:80>

ServerName addon.com

ServerAlias www.addon.com

DocumentRoot /home/username/public_html/addon.com

</VirtualHost>

You can check the apache configuration file located at /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf after creating an add-on domain to see the entries entries created for that add-on domain.

So all these files mentioned above will have the said entries when we create an add-on domain via cPanel. Also all these entries should be there in the respective files for an add-on domain to be removed via cPanel. Check for the said entries in all the said files and append the corresponding entry if any entry is missed out in any files. Once its made sure that the entries are present in all the files, you can remove the add-on domain from your cPanel without any errors. Most commonly you get the “UNABLE TO FIND OUT WHICH USER OWNS THE PARKED DOMAIN” when you dont have the entry for addon.com in httpd.conf file . In such case just add minimum entries as I mentioned above to the httpd.conf file and then remove the add-on domain via cPanel.

There is another method to remove the addon. This is by not logging in to your cPanel. To do this, remove all the entries mentioned above from all the said files so that the add-on domain gets removed automatically. Do remember to remove the DNS zone file using /scripts/killdns addon.com. Once this is done you can login to your cPanel and you can see that there is no add-on domain configured as addon.com.

So in short, for an add-on domain to be removed via cPanel all the entries mentioned should be present in the respective files. Or else remove the entries from all the files so that the add-on domain gets removed from the add-on domain list in your cPanel automatically.

These are the common steps to follow for all errors related to park wrapper. :)

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