ServerBuddies Support Blog

How to Configure Logging

There are two packages available in RHEL 5 for performing logging, and recommends that rsyslog be used.

No matter which logging software is used, a system should send its logs to a remote loghost. An intruder who has compromised the root account on a machine may delete the log entries which indicate that the system was attacked before they are seen by an administrator. If system logs are to be useful in detecting malicious activities, it is necessary to send them to a remote server.

The sysklogd software provides the default logging daemon for RHEL, but has a number of downsides, including a lack of authentication for client or server, lack of encryption, or reliable transport for messages sent over a network. For these reasons, rsyslog is recommended instead (and it is also part of RHEL).

Configure Connection to the RHN RPM Repositories

The first step in configuring a system for updates is to register with the Red Hat Network (RHN). For most systems, this is done during the initial installation. Successfully registered systems will appear on the RHN web site. If the system is not listed, run the Red Hat Network Registration tool, which can be found in the Applications menu under System Tools or on the command line:

Follow the prompts on the screen. If successful, the system will appear on the RHN web site and be subscribed to one or more software update channels. Additionally, a new daemon, rhnsd, will be enabled. If the system will not have access to the Internet, it will not be able to directly subscribe to the RHN update repository. Updates will have to be downloaded from the RHN web site manually. The command line tool yum and the graphical front-ends pirut and pup can be configured to handle this situation.

Custom Configure Flags

Custom configure flags (also known as “raw opts”) are lines of data that advanced users can add to a specific file on the server in order to customize the configuration of Apache or PHP builds.

To add custom configure flags, you must know the version of Apache and PHP to which you need to add the flag. EasyApache allows you to specify any configure option supported by Apache and/or PHP. Simply place the option in the appropriate file; the files are as follows:

For Apache 1.3.x — /var/cpanel/easy/apache/rawopts/Apache1
For Apache 2.0.x — /var/cpanel/easy/apache/rawopts/Apache2
For Apache 2.2.x — /var/cpanel/easy/apache/rawopts/Apache2_2
For all PHP 4.x versions — /var/cpanel/easy/apache/rawopts/all_php4
For all PHP 5.x versions — /var/cpanel/easy/apache/rawopts/all_php5
For Mod_suPHP — /var/cpanel/easy/apache/rawopts/all_suphp
For a specific PHP Version — /var/cpanel/easy/apache/rawopts/PHP-X.X.X

Cpanel Tool to configure PHP and SuExec

This tool allows you to configure the Apache PHP Handler, the default PHP version and suEXEC support.

The default PHP version determines which version of PHP is used for files with a ‘.php’ extensions when served by Apache.

Enabling suEXEC provides support for Apache to run CGI programs as the user ID of the account owner. suEXEC is not PHPSuExec.

Please refer to the documentation for a detailed explanation of how each handler functions.

Reference: http://www.cpanel.net/support/docs/ea/ea3/ea3php_php_requests.html

How do I configure GRUB to see all of my memory?

You can specify the amount of memory on your system if your computer is not recognizing all of it. For example if your system says you only have 128 MB of RAM and you know for sure you have 256 MB, then you can specify that in your grub.conf file, located at /boot/grub/grub.conf

What you want to do is add the following syntax mem=M to the kernel line of your grub.conf file. So for instance if you were specifying your system had 256 MB in the grub.conf file, it would look something like this.