DEV Community: KenjiDoom

Installing PHP and MariaDB for OpenLiteSpeed. PT2

KenjiDoom — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 22:39:18 +0000

Next we shall install PHP and MariaDB for our OpenLiteSpeed web server, these two will be needed for our WordPress website. MariaDB is one of the most popular MySQL database servers in the world, it's also open source and everyone loves that. PHP is a general purpose scripting language that is heavily used for web development. These two will be needed for creating databases for WordPress and more.

Step 1: Installing MariaDB

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

And just like last time, we're also going to want to start the service, using systemctl.

sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl status mariadb.service

Next step is to secure MariaDB

mysql_secure_installation
# Secure Installation
Set root password? [Y/n] n
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Step 2. Installing PHP
Now if we head over to https://IP:7080/login.php, login using the credentials OpenLiteSpeed generated for us from the last post.Web Admin user/password is admin/NmQ0ODli
Once logged into the dashboard. Head on over to Tools → Compile PHP, then select version 8.0.11.

Now the last step, but before we start it, we need to open a new terminal and type the following command for it to run.

sudo /usr/local/lsws/phpbuild/buildphp_manual_run.sh

Then it should look something like this once it's finished.

To verify that PHP is up and running, type the following URL into the web browser. http://IP:8088/phpinfo.php

Voilà! Now PHP and MariaDB are both installed and will be used for WordPress later down the line.

Thanks for reading!
Kenji

Installing OpenLiteSpeed in Ubuntu 20

KenjiDoom — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 21:54:05 +0000

OpenLiteSpeed is a high-performance, lightweight, open-source HTTP web server, that helps your website load faster. Think of it as Apache, but quicker. This service is best used for WordPress websites because it makes them quicker to load compared to Apache. Let's get started configuring and setting OpenLiteSpeed up.

Step 1: Install all the dependencies needed

sudo apt-get install build-essential libexpat1-dev libgeoip-dev libpcre3-dev libudns-dev zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libxml2 libxml2-dev rcs libpng-dev libpng-dev openssl autoconf g++ make openssl libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev pkg-config libsasl2-dev libzip-dev libxml2-dev sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev libonig-dev

Step 2: Install OpenLiteSpeed

wget https://openlitespeed.org/packages/openlitespeed-1.7.16.tgz && tar -xvzf *.tgz

Then, once it's done unpacking, you can move into the openlitespeed directory and run the following script.

cd openlitespeed
sudo sh install.sh

Once openlitespeed is finished installing, you will receive a password to the admin account. This will be used to log into the web server's dashboard.

If you cleared the screen and cannot remember your password. You can always find it typing the following command:

sudo cat /usr/local/lsws/adminpasswd
output: WebAdmin user/password is admin/NmQ0ODli

Step 3: Start openlitespeed
Now it's time to start the openlitespeed service. To do that, we will use systemctl to start the openlitespeed.service

systemctl is a a service manager used for controlling and examining the systemd system and services.

sudo systemctl start openlitespeed.service
sudo systemctl status openlitespeed.service

Now in a web browser, if we type http://IP:8088. You should see the following page.

That's it! In the next chapters, we will install PHP and MariaDB.

Thanks for reading
Kenji

Creating a new login task using Task Scheduler

KenjiDoom — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 23:42:45 +0000

Task Scheduler is a tool that can be used to set up an automated task when a specified condition is met. You can schedule any program to run at a specific time or when an event occurs, this is done by monitoring the time and event. Today, we'll be setting up Firefox to startup whenever the user logs onto the computer.

Open Task Scheduler with search bar
Select a create task on the right side of the screen.

Then provide a name and description for the new task, and we'll set Configure for, to Windows 10 because that's the current version we are running, and we don't want the computer to emulate a different version of windows.
Now, once you entered the description, slide on over to the triggers tab on the top of the dialog box, and select the new option.

You will have a wide variety of options that will appear, from scheduling a program to run at a specified time to when an event occurs, the options are endless, but for now we will be selecting At log on option. We won't be delaying anything or activating the task on a date, we just want Firefox to run immediately when the user logs in. So won't be selecting any of these options. Then select ok.
Now we head on over to the Actions tab on the top of the dialog box, select new, this will provide you with an action selection list, selectstart a program. Inside the Program/Script entry. We will enter the following path, "C:\Program Files\Mozzila Firefox\firefox.exe", then on the Add Arguments entry, enter a website you would like to open, I'll be using the all mighty dev.to/ 😃
Reboot the computer and BOOM! Firefox will auto start with dev.to/ website loaded.

Thanks for reading
Kenji

Disk based commands for Windows 10

KenjiDoom — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 00:45:53 +0000

NOTE: RUN THE CMD PROGRAM AS ADMINISTRATOR

The first command we have on our list is sfc standing for System File Checker, is a command that will look into the system protect files and make sure they aren't corrupted or out-of-date, if sfc does find corrupted files, or files with incorrect versions, it will then replace the files with the current Microsoft up-to date versions. The most basic usage of this command would be sfc /scannow

Oops! sfc found corrupt files, but if you notice sfc was able to repair them.

The second command we have on our list would be dism, also known as Deployment Image Servicing, dism does the same thing as sfc but in a more in depth way, by installing, uninstalling, configuring, packing and updating features in a windows image. It will find the version of windows that's on the current computer and compare it to the Microsoft official website version. dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealthNOTE: This program takes forever to run, around 30-mins, once this program is finished running it's always a good idea to re-run sfc, to make sure everything is intact.

The last command we have on our list is the chkdsk, which stands for check disk is used to check a disk and repair or recover data on a drive. If any sectors are found to be bad, chkdsk will mark it down as "bad".

Now chkdsk ran by itself won't fix any bad sectors, but if we add a flag such as chkdsk /f, /f meaning /f = Fixes errors on the disk it will then go into the drive and fix the bad sectors.

Thanks fore reading
Kenji

Windows 10 networking Commands

KenjiDoom — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 19:43:27 +0000

1st. ping the purpose of the ping command is to check the reachability of a web-server or IOT device using the ICMP protocol. This is done by sending an echo request message to the destination host and waiting for a response. When the remote host receives the echo request, it will then respond with an echo reply packet. Not all host allow an echo reply packet to be sent back, thus causing all packets that were sent to be dropped.

2nd. tracert also known as traceroute, can trace the path that a packet takes to reach its destination. It reports the location and travel time of each hop the packet makes as it travels from device to device. I won't display this command in action because I don't want to display any of my IP address information. If you pop up a CMD terminal, and type the following tracert www.google.com, you'll be able to see the hops the packet takes to reach google.

3rd. netstat displays detailed network statics about all active connections on the host machine and how it communicates with other network devices. Lets try the following command, netstat -ano.
-a will list the open sockets in addition to active connections.
-n will display addresses and port numbers numerically.
-opresents connections with the associated process ID in each case.

Netstat is vast in its commands, so if you wish to learn more about it, I will leave links below.

4th. nslookup can be used to find IP address info that corresponds to a host. It's useful for getting information from a DNS server.

Links
https://www.ionos.com/digitalguide/server/tools/netstat-commands/

Thanks for reading
Kenji

Basic Linux Commands 101 pt1

KenjiDoom — Sat, 18 Jun 2022 00:21:03 +0000

A very important tool any computer nerd should know is the Linux command line. Today we'll be going over simple but affective Linux commands that every computer nerd should be aware of. 😁

Starting with

pwd will print the name of the current/working directory.
ls & ls -la will provide details and list the contents of the current working directory.
cd command is used for moving up down directories.
touch can be used for creating new empty files.
cat will display the contents of a file. This file contains nothing, so let's add some data by using a text editor.
nano is a small text editor, that can be used for editing texts of file. Press Ctrl+O to save, then Ctrl+X to exit We can then use cat once again to check if the edits were saved.
You can also extract specific information from a file using the grep command.
You can use mkdir to create a new directory for transferring files.
mv can be used for moving files from a directory into another. mv *.txt ~/Desktop will move all files that end with the .txt extension into the desktop directory.
cp can be used for copying files into another directory.
Last but not least, the rm, which can be used for removing files from the disk.

Thanks for reading
Kenji

Local Network file sharing using Windows 10 and Ubuntu

KenjiDoom — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 22:23:49 +0000

What is a Windows workgroup?
Windows workgroup is a collection of computers on a local area network (LAN) that share resources and responsibilities. Workgroups provide easy sharing of files, printers, and other network resources. Being a peer-to-peer(P2P) network design, each workgroup computer may both share and access resources if configured to do so. We will be using a Windows workgroup to share folders on a network. These folders will then be accessible using Ubuntu by connecting to the workgroup IP.

Create a folder you would like to share. I'll be creating a folder named shared-folder-kenji in the C: drive. Once created, right-click on the mouse and select Give access to -> Specifc people.
A pop-up box will appear asking who you would like to share the folder with, and make sure to select everyone

Public Network discovery will be turned ON to allow other machines to discover the windows host machine.
Now, to access this folder on Ubuntu, we will need the local IPv4 address of the Windows machine. To find the IP, we need to open up CMD and type the following command. ipconfig /all

The local IPv4 address of this machine is 192.168.1.144.
Now let's head over to our Ubuntu machine, open up the Files application, select other locations on the left tab. You should see Connect to Server at the bottom of the page. This is where the Windows IP will go. So mine would look something like this. smb://192.168.1.144/

Once you press enter, another dialog will pop up prompting the windows username and password. Specify both and press enter, BOOM! You should see the shared folder.
Now once you go inside the main folder there won't be anything, unless of course you moved some files into that folder. But since mine doesn't have anything, let's create python script that prints "Hell World!". First I will create a new folder named shared-folder-kenji-> ubuntu-shared, once inside I will open the terminal by selecting open terminal with the rick-click mouse menu. Once Terminal is open, I'll run the nano command to edit text. Then we'll write out the following, print ("Hell World"), Ctrl+o to save, then Ctrl+x on the keyboard to exit Nano.

You can check if the contents were saved by using the cat command in the terminal. cat hello-world.py, It should look something like this.
Back to our Windows machine, we can see that the hello-world.py file was captured.

It's a very simple but affective way for sharing folders with lower end Windows and Ubuntu users.

Thanks for reading.
Kenji

Let's add a key value to the Windows 10 registry

KenjiDoom — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 00:34:44 +0000

The registry is a database of information that contains, user passwords, windows, and hardware settings. A key value contains settings specific to a program, these include its location and version.

There are 5 root keys, known also as a HIVE, that a tech should be aware of, these are the following, ROOT, USER, MACHINE, USERS, and CONFIG.

HKEY_CLASS_ROOT
Contains information about file extensions, and registered applications such as OLE. Settings that are specific to the local computer.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Contains information about the user who is currently logged in to the Windows machine.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Stores information about hardware and software settings, specific to the local computer. This information used by all users that login on to the computer.

HKEY_USERS
Holds information about all the users who are actively loaded on the local machine, includes generic and user-specific information.

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG is a shortcut to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, but this contains information about the hardware attached to the computer.

You can also view the keys in their binary format in the following file location
This PC -> Local Disk (C:) -> Windows -> System32 -> config

Now allows us to begin creating a new sub-key by simply opening regedit.exe using run (Windows + R).

Once Registry Editor opens, click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Then select the SOFTWARE, scroll down until you find the Microsoft tab

Once again, scroll down until you find Windows → Current Version -> Run

Hover over Run with the mouse, right-click mouse button, once the menu pops up, select new -> key, specify a name for the new key. I will call mine Kenji

after hover over the blank space, right-click the mouse button again and select new -> key

Provide a key value name.

That's it! That's how you create a new key value. Now, most of the time you'll be inputting values from a manual to solve a problem. This was a little guide to show, how one would go about doing it.

Thanks for reading!
Kenji

How to create a simple counter for Windows 10 performance monitor

KenjiDoom — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 01:17:34 +0000

What is performance monitor

Performance monitor is a windows utility used for monitoring real-time computer performance data and then logging that data into a file. A good usage example would be for creating a baseline of how well the computer runs stock before installing software.

Opening Performance Monitor
The first method would be to open the Run prompt using Windows + R key bind. Once the dialog pup ups, enter the following program name perfmon.

The Second method would be to use the search bar, type performance monitor

Creating a counter also known as a data collector set
A counter also known as a data collector set, is a software component that collects, monitors, counts, or even measure events in software. Counters are used to provide info as to how well an OS, Service, or Application is performing. Once performance monitor is open, navigate over todata collector set's click on it, then Select User Defined, right-click the mouse and select new -> Data Collector Set

Enter a name for the data collector set, then select Create manual (Advanced)

Select the Add option for creating a new Performance counter. Scroll down until you find Processor Time then move it over to added counter by selecting the add button.

Specify a location for the data to be saved.

Then start the new counter, wait a couple mins for data to be collected, then stop it.

Once the data has been collected, you will be able to located it under the Report tab -> user Defined -> new collector set -> [computer name]

Thanks for reading.
Kenji