Thursday, February 13, 2014

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Android Android servlet apps -- Sent from Fast notepad

Friday, August 23, 2013

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Facebook Privacy Settings and Shortcuts you Must Use

Posted by Mohamed Ali mohamed in: FACEBOOK

While enjoying the Facebook with our family and friends, we often forget the privacy concerns associated with the shared stuff. The stuff we shared represents a lot about us and is always vulnerable over the Internet, be it a personal photograph or our personal details. And since Facebook is becoming more public every other day, keeping our info on Facebook is getting harder. Facebook is continuously improving the privacy features which are capable of making your presence on Facebook almost anonymous, but most of us don’t know much about these features.

So, we’ve created this comprehensive up-to-date guide which would definitely make your presence more secure on Facebook. This guide will significantly strengthen the privacy of content-sharing and would ensure that your Facebook stuff is shared only among the trusted people.

Also See:Best Facebook Tips/Tricks 2013.

1.Hiding Contact Info:

Sharing your contact info with unknowns can put you in trouble. Contact info is specified by user himself and basically it includes your email, your address, contact number, etc. If you’ve specified contact info on your timeline, you can control its privacy.

For hiding your contact info, go to your timeline and look for “About me” option under your profile picture. In next page, look for “Contact info” column and click “edit”. A pop up containing all your contact info will be opened and at the end of each detail you’ll find a drop down list denoted by icon as circled above in the picture. From there you can specify to whom with you want to share this info, three options are available- Public, friends, none. Once done, press the “save” button at the end of the popped window.

2.Timeline and Tagging

Guidelines below will help you to manage your timeline and tagging feature of Facebook.

Tagging

Tagging is one of the most intelligent features of Facebook and one of the most annoying too. Why annoying? It is annoying because sometimes your friends tag you in a picture which you don’t want to share with your friends and sometime they tag you in a picture which is not concerned to you in any way. So to control that Facebook has a privacy option Timeline review which let you to review the Tagged posts before posting it on your Wall.

For enabling Timeline review privacy option, Go to Account settings> Timeline and Tagging. There you’ll find an option- “How can I manage tags people add and tagging suggestions?” Enable the review option from there as shown in the picture above.

Timeline

Further, you can also make your timeline more private. There are privacy options that allow you to hide your timeline’s posts from anyone and moreover you can also control the “Right to post on your wall”. For enabling these privacy features, Go to Account settings> Timeline and Tagging and change the settings according to your need. (See pic above)

3.Message Filtering

Sometimes you receive unexpected messages from unknowns. These unknown messages messed up your inbox and for keeping these unexpected messages away, Facebook recently added Message Filtering option. If you will enable this option, all messages from unknowns were dropped in “others” box.

For enabling this option Go to Messages>Others>Edit Preferences. A pop up will be opened and choose the one from given options- either basic or strict. Basic filtering will work as usual whereas strict filtering will keep away unknown messages from your Inbox.

4.Who can search you and see your stuff?

Your Facebook stuff including timeline is public by default. But Facebook provides you some powerful privacy settings with which you can hide yourself completely on Facebook. For managing privacy settings, Go to Privacy Settings and Tools. In that section, you’ll find two privacy settings:

Who can see my stuff?

Using this option, you can manage privacy settings like- Who can see your future posts? You can set it to public, friends, only you or even to custom.

You can even review all your posts and things you're tagged in using Activity Log. Activity log contains the record of your every action on Facebook like pages you liked, posts you were tagged in, your comments, etc. This way you can also control the sharing of your activity.

Further, you can even limit the audience for posts. You can decide whether you want to share past posts with friends of friends or Public?

Who can look me up?

You can decide that who can look you up using email or contact number. For enabling this, Go to Privacy Settings and Tools and under “who can look me up” change the privacy settings according to your needs.

Apart from this, you can even disable the Indexing of your profile by search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. For disabling indexing, Go to Privacy Settings and Tools and under “who can look me up” turn the indexing option off. .

5.Facebook Account Security

It’s possible that right now someone is trying hard to break into your account. However, hacking a Facebook account is almost impossible but your negligence like poor password, etc. can make it possible. Here are few suggestions that will definitely make your account much safer than ever.

Strong Password

Applying a weak password just only because you don’t want to forget it- is the dumbest excuse. If you’re not using a password that isn’t 8-10 character long, doesn’t include both uppercase and lower case letters and don’t include a numeric character then believe us your account is more vulnerable to hacking.

Enable Secure browsing

You can use your Facebook in “https” mode which will encrypt all your Facebook activity between Facebook Server and your computer. For enabling secure browsing, Go toAccount Settings> Security and enable the secure browsing from there.

Enabling Login Notification

Enabling Login Notifications will inform you whenever your account is accessed from unknown or unrecognized device or location either via email or by SMS. For enabling login notifications, Go to Account Settings> Security and enable the secure browsingfrom there.

Must Check:How to Protect Your Facebook Account.

6.Blocking

If someone is annoying you or there’s someone from whom you want to hide on Facebook, you can block him/her. Once you blocked someone, he/she won’t be able to contact you on Facebook; in fact he/she won’t be able to even find you on Facebook. For blocking someone, Go to the profile of that person and click the settings icon just after the message button (Pic above). Choose the block option and confirm the blocking.

And if ever you think of unblocking someone, go to Account settings>Blocking and unblock him/her from there (Pic Above).

7.Privacy Shortcuts

Recently Facebook introduced the Privacy shortcut feature on the Facebook which is indeed a great addition to the Facebook. You can quickly configure the Messaging filters, quickly block someone and configure the privacy of your posts right from the news feed page.

8.Applying Privacy to Media files and posts

For configuring privacy of a status before posting, click the Public button just before Post button and from there you can specify the privacy of that post (Pic above).

For configuring privacy of a picture, open the picture, click the list menu button and from there you can
specify the privacy of that picture (Pic above).

For configuring privacy of an album, Go to Photos> Albums, under the album name, click the list menu button and specify the privacy of that album from the list (Pic above).
Well, that’s all for now, we’ll keep you updated whenever Facebook adds new privacy features. Anyhow, if we have missed any of privacy settings, do let us know through comment section below.

INFORMATION COMMUNICATION AND TECHNOLOGY FORUM-TANIFO

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HTML Lesson: Your First Web Page

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Installing Joomla 1.5.13 in Xampp

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FBCMD: Command Line for Facebook

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What's better than the command line and Facebook? How about combining the two?

By Ken Hess
Monday, May 16th, 2011
Just because you’re stuck at the command line all day long doesn’t mean that you can’t participate in the awesomeness of social networking. You can enjoy both with FBCMD, the command line Facebook applications. Back in February, I wrote Tweeting from the Command Line with Twyt, which, as you remember, was an article covering the command line Twitter client, Tywt. Now, you can have your Facebook and the convenience of the command line to satisfy your social networking addiction. And, better still is that at the command line, no one will ever suspect that you’re Facebooking. Power to the people! The command line-using people, that is.

The Basics

There are a few prerequisites for installing the command line Facebook application, FBCMD. PHP 5.x is a requirement, since the application is a single PHP file. You can install php5 via any method you wish but, in my experience, I had to install php5-cli, php5-gd, and php5-mysql to use this application. Your experience and mileage may vary.

Connect to the FBCMD and download the PHP file or grab it easily via curl.

$ curl -O https://github.com/dtompkins/fbcmd/raw/master/fbcmd_update.php
And, run the following two commands to complete this very simple installation.

$ sudo php fbcmd_update.php sudo fbcmd update utility [version 2.91] http://fbcmd.dtompkins.com/update php fbcmd_update.php install fbcmd update utility [version 2.91] http://fbcmd.dtompkins.com/update ..................... Update: COMPLETE! fbcmd version: [none] --> [1.0-beta5-dev1] Note: fbcmd_update.php is now at [/usr/local/lib/fbcmd/fbcmd_update.php] so you can remove the old one at [/home/khess/fbcmd_update.php] type fbcmd to begin
As…

20 Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know

5:32 AM LINUX No comments

Need to monitor Linux server performance? Try these built-in command and a few add-on tools. Most Linux distributions are equipped with tons of monitoring. These tools provide metrics which can be used to get information about system activities. You can use these tools to find the possible causes of a performance problem. The commands discussed below are some of the most basic commands when it comes to system analysis and debugging server issues such as:

Finding out bottlenecks.
Disk (storage) bottlenecks.
CPU and memory bottlenecks.
Network bottlenecks.

#1: top - Process Activity Command

The top program provides a dynamic real-time view of a running system i.e. actual process activity. By default, it displays the most CPU-intensive tasks running on the server and updates the list every five seconds.

Fig.01: Linux top command

Commonly Used Hot Keys

The top command provides several useful hot keys:

Hot Key	Usage
t	Displays summary information off and on.
m	Displays memory information off and on.
A	Sorts the display by top consumers of various system resources. Useful for quick identification of performance-hungry tasks on a system.
f	Enters an interactive configuration screen for top. Helpful for setting up top for a specific task.
o	Enables you to interactively select the ordering within top.
r	Issues renice command.
k	Issues kill command.
z	Turn on or off color/mono

=> Related: How do I Find Out Linux CPU Utilization?

#2: vmstat - System Activity, Hardware and System Information

The command vmstat reports information about processes, memory, paging, block IO, traps, and cpu activity.
# vmstat 3
Sample Outputs:

procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu------
 r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in   cs us sy id wa st
 0  0      0 2540988 522188 5130400    0    0     2    32    4    2  4  1 96  0  0
 1  0      0 2540988 522188 5130400    0    0     0   720 1199  665  1  0 99  0  0
 0  0      0 2540956 522188 5130400    0    0     0     0 1151 1569  4  1 95  0  0
 0  0      0 2540956 522188 5130500    0    0     0     6 1117  439  1  0 99  0  0
 0  0      0 2540940 522188 5130512    0    0     0   536 1189  932  1  0 98  0  0
 0  0      0 2538444 522188 5130588    0    0     0     0 1187 1417  4  1 96  0  0
 0  0      0 2490060 522188 5130640    0    0     0    18 1253 1123  5  1 94  0  0

Display Memory Utilization Slabinfo

# vmstat -m

Get Information About Active / Inactive Memory Pages

# vmstat -a
=> Related: How do I find out Linux Resource utilization to detect system bottlenecks?

#3: w - Find Out Who Is Logged on And What They Are Doing

w command displays information about the users currently on the machine, and their processes.

# w username

# w vivek

Sample Outputs:

17:58:47 up 5 days, 20:28,  2 users,  load average: 0.36, 0.26, 0.24
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
root     pts/0    10.1.3.145       14:55    5.00s  0.04s  0.02s vim /etc/resolv.conf
root     pts/1    10.1.3.145       17:43    0.00s  0.03s  0.00s w

#4: uptime - Tell How Long The System Has Been Running

The uptime command can be used to see how long the server has been running. The current time, how long the system has been running, how many users are currently logged on, and the system load averages for the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes.
# uptime
Output:

18:02:41 up 41 days, 23:42,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

1 can be considered as optimal load value. The load can change from system to system. For a single CPU system 1 - 3 and SMP systems 6-10 load value might be acceptable.

#5: ps - Displays The Processes

ps command will report a snapshot of the current processes. To select all processes use the -A or -e option:
# ps -A
Sample Outputs:

PID TTY          TIME CMD
    1 ?        00:00:02 init
    2 ?        00:00:02 migration/0
    3 ?        00:00:01 ksoftirqd/0
    4 ?        00:00:00 watchdog/0
    5 ?        00:00:00 migration/1
    6 ?        00:00:15 ksoftirqd/1
....
.....
 4881 ?        00:53:28 java
 4885 tty1     00:00:00 mingetty
 4886 tty2     00:00:00 mingetty
 4887 tty3     00:00:00 mingetty
 4888 tty4     00:00:00 mingetty
 4891 tty5     00:00:00 mingetty
 4892 tty6     00:00:00 mingetty
 4893 ttyS1    00:00:00 agetty
12853 ?        00:00:00 cifsoplockd
12854 ?        00:00:00 cifsdnotifyd
14231 ?        00:10:34 lighttpd
14232 ?        00:00:00 php-cgi
54981 pts/0    00:00:00 vim
55465 ?        00:00:00 php-cgi
55546 ?        00:00:00 bind9-snmp-stat
55704 pts/1    00:00:00 ps

ps is just like top but provides more information.

Show Long Format Output

# ps -Al
To turn on extra full mode (it will show command line arguments passed to process):
# ps -AlF

To See Threads ( LWP and NLWP)

# ps -AlFH

To See Threads After Processes

# ps -AlLm

Print All Process On The Server

# ps ax

# ps axu

Print A Process Tree

#  ps -ejH

#  ps axjf

#  pstree

Print Security Information

# ps -eo euser,ruser,suser,fuser,f,comm,label

# ps axZ

# ps -eM

See Every Process Running As User Vivek

# ps -U vivek -u vivek u

Set Output In a User-Defined Format

# ps -eo pid,tid,class,rtprio,ni,pri,psr,pcpu,stat,wchan:14,comm

# ps axo stat,euid,ruid,tty,tpgid,sess,pgrp,ppid,pid,pcpu,comm

# ps -eopid,tt,user,fname,tmout,f,wchan

Display Only The Process IDs of Lighttpd

# ps -C lighttpd -o pid=
OR
# pgrep lighttpd
OR
# pgrep -u vivek php-cgi

Display The Name of PID 55977

# ps -p 55977 -o comm=

Find Out The Top 10 Memory Consuming Process

# ps -auxf | sort -nr -k 4 | head -10

Find Out top 10 CPU Consuming Process

# ps -auxf | sort -nr -k 3 | head -10

#6: free - Memory Usage

The command free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel.
# free
Sample Output:

total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:      12302896    9739664    2563232          0     523124    5154740
-/+ buffers/cache:    4061800    8241096
Swap:      1052248          0    1052248

=> Related: :

#7: iostat - Average CPU Load, Disk Activity

The command iostat report Central Processing Unit (CPU) statistics and input/output statistics for devices, partitions and network filesystems (NFS).
# iostat
Sample Outputs:

Linux 2.6.18-128.1.14.el5 (www03.nixcraft.in)  06/26/2009

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           3.50    0.09    0.51    0.03    0.00   95.86

Device:            tps   Blk_read/s   Blk_wrtn/s   Blk_read   Blk_wrtn
sda              22.04        31.88       512.03   16193351  260102868
sda1              0.00         0.00         0.00       2166        180
sda2             22.04        31.87       512.03   16189010  260102688
sda3              0.00         0.00         0.00       1615          0

=> Related: : Linux Track NFS Directory / Disk I/O Stats

#8: sar - Collect and Report System Activity

The sar command is used to collect, report, and save system activity information. To see network counter, enter:
# sar -n DEV | more
To display the network counters from the 24th:
# sar -n DEV -f /var/log/sa/sa24 | more
You can also display real time usage using sar:
# sar 4 5
Sample Outputs:

Linux 2.6.18-128.1.14.el5 (www03.nixcraft.in)   06/26/2009

06:45:12 PM       CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait    %steal     %idle
06:45:16 PM       all      2.00      0.00      0.22      0.00      0.00     97.78
06:45:20 PM       all      2.07      0.00      0.38      0.03      0.00     97.52
06:45:24 PM       all      0.94      0.00      0.28      0.00      0.00     98.78
06:45:28 PM       all      1.56      0.00      0.22      0.00      0.00     98.22
06:45:32 PM       all      3.53      0.00      0.25      0.03      0.00     96.19
Average:          all      2.02      0.00      0.27      0.01      0.00     97.70

#9: mpstat - Multiprocessor Usage

The mpstat command displays activities for each available processor, processor 0 being the first one. mpstat -P ALL to display average CPU utilization per processor:
# mpstat -P ALL
Sample Output:

Linux 2.6.18-128.1.14.el5 (www03.nixcraft.in)   06/26/2009

06:48:11 PM  CPU   %user   %nice    %sys %iowait    %irq   %soft  %steal   %idle    intr/s
06:48:11 PM  all    3.50    0.09    0.34    0.03    0.01    0.17    0.00   95.86   1218.04
06:48:11 PM    0    3.44    0.08    0.31    0.02    0.00    0.12    0.00   96.04   1000.31
06:48:11 PM    1    3.10    0.08    0.32    0.09    0.02    0.11    0.00   96.28     34.93
06:48:11 PM    2    4.16    0.11    0.36    0.02    0.00    0.11    0.00   95.25      0.00
06:48:11 PM    3    3.77    0.11    0.38    0.03    0.01    0.24    0.00   95.46     44.80
06:48:11 PM    4    2.96    0.07    0.29    0.04    0.02    0.10    0.00   96.52     25.91
06:48:11 PM    5    3.26    0.08    0.28    0.03    0.01    0.10    0.00   96.23     14.98
06:48:11 PM    6    4.00    0.10    0.34    0.01    0.00    0.13    0.00   95.42      3.75
06:48:11 PM    7    3.30    0.11    0.39    0.03    0.01    0.46    0.00   95.69     76.89

#10: pmap - Process Memory Usage

The command pmap report memory map of a process. Use this command to find out causes of memory bottlenecks.
# pmap -d PID
To display process memory information for pid # 47394, enter:
# pmap -d 47394
Sample Outputs:

47394:   /usr/bin/php-cgi
Address           Kbytes Mode  Offset           Device    Mapping
0000000000400000    2584 r-x-- 0000000000000000 008:00002 php-cgi
0000000000886000     140 rw--- 0000000000286000 008:00002 php-cgi
00000000008a9000      52 rw--- 00000000008a9000 000:00000   [ anon ]
0000000000aa8000      76 rw--- 00000000002a8000 008:00002 php-cgi
000000000f678000    1980 rw--- 000000000f678000 000:00000   [ anon ]
000000314a600000     112 r-x-- 0000000000000000 008:00002 ld-2.5.so
000000314a81b000       4 r---- 000000000001b000 008:00002 ld-2.5.so
000000314a81c000       4 rw--- 000000000001c000 008:00002 ld-2.5.so
000000314aa00000    1328 r-x-- 0000000000000000 008:00002 libc-2.5.so
000000314ab4c000    2048 ----- 000000000014c000 008:00002 libc-2.5.so
.....
......
..
00002af8d48fd000       4 rw--- 0000000000006000 008:00002 xsl.so
00002af8d490c000      40 r-x-- 0000000000000000 008:00002 libnss_files-2.5.so
00002af8d4916000    2044 ----- 000000000000a000 008:00002 libnss_files-2.5.so
00002af8d4b15000       4 r---- 0000000000009000 008:00002 libnss_files-2.5.so
00002af8d4b16000       4 rw--- 000000000000a000 008:00002 libnss_files-2.5.so
00002af8d4b17000  768000 rw-s- 0000000000000000 000:00009 zero (deleted)
00007fffc95fe000      84 rw--- 00007ffffffea000 000:00000   [ stack ]
ffffffffff600000    8192 ----- 0000000000000000 000:00000   [ anon ]
mapped: 933712K    writeable/private: 4304K    shared: 768000K

The last line is very important:

mapped: 933712K total amount of memory mapped to files
writeable/private: 4304K the amount of private address space
shared: 768000K the amount of address space this process is sharing with others

#11 and #12: netstat and ss - Network Statistics

The command netstat displays network connections, routing tables, interface statistics, masquerade connections, and multicast memberships. ss command is used to dump socket statistics. It allows showing information similar to netstat. See the following resources about ss and netstat commands:

#13: iptraf - Real-time Network Statistics

The iptraf command is interactive colorful IP LAN monitor. It is an ncurses-based IP LAN monitor that generates various network statistics including TCP info, UDP counts, ICMP and OSPF information, Ethernet load info, node stats, IP checksum errors, and others. It can provide the following info in easy to read format:

Network traffic statistics by TCP connection
IP traffic statistics by network interface
Network traffic statistics by protocol
Network traffic statistics by TCP/UDP port and by packet size
Network traffic statistics by Layer2 address

Fig.02: General interface statistics: IP traffic statistics by network interface

Fig.03 Network traffic statistics by TCP connection

#14: tcpdump - Detailed Network Traffic Analysis

The tcpdump is simple command that dump traffic on a network. However, you need good understanding of TCP/IP protocol to utilize this tool. For.e.g to display traffic info about DNS, enter:
# tcpdump -i eth1 'udp port 53'
To display all IPv4 HTTP packets to and from port 80, i.e. print only packets that contain data, not, for example, SYN and FIN packets and ACK-only packets, enter:
# tcpdump 'tcp port 80 and (((ip[2:2] - ((ip[0]&0xf)<<2)) - ((tcp[12]&0xf0)>>2)) != 0)'
To display all FTP session to 202.54.1.5, enter:
# tcpdump -i eth1 'dst 202.54.1.5 and (port 21 or 20'
To display all HTTP session to 192.168.1.5:
# tcpdump -ni eth0 'dst 192.168.1.5 and tcp and port http'
Use wireshark to view detailed information about files, enter:
# tcpdump -n -i eth1 -s 0 -w output.txt src or dst port 80

#15: strace - System Calls

Trace system calls and signals. This is useful for debugging webserver and other server problems. See how to use to trace the process and see What it is doing.

#16: /Proc file system - Various Kernel Statistics

/proc file system provides detailed information about various hardware devices and other Linux kernel information. See Linux kernel /proc documentations for further details. Common /proc examples:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

# cat /proc/meminfo

# cat /proc/zoneinfo

# cat /proc/mounts

17#: Nagios - Server And Network Monitoring

Nagios is a popular open source computer system and network monitoring application software. You can easily monitor all your hosts, network equipment and services. It can send alert when things go wrong and again when they get better. FAN is "Fully Automated Nagios". FAN goals are to provide a Nagios installation including most tools provided by the Nagios Community. FAN provides a CDRom image in the standard ISO format, making it easy to easilly install a Nagios server. Added to this, a wide bunch of tools are including to the distribution, in order to improve the user experience around Nagios.

18#: Cacti - Web-based Monitoring Tool

Cacti is a complete network graphing solution designed to harness the power of RRDTool's data storage and graphing functionality. Cacti provides a fast poller, advanced graph templating, multiple data acquisition methods, and user management features out of the box. All of this is wrapped in an intuitive, easy to use interface that makes sense for LAN-sized installations up to complex networks with hundreds of devices. It can provide data about network, CPU, memory, logged in users, Apache, DNS servers and much more. See how to install and configure Cacti network graphing tool under CentOS / RHEL.

#19: KDE System Guard - Real-time Systems Reporting and Graphing

KSysguard is a network enabled task and system monitor application for KDE desktop. This tool can be run over ssh session. It provides lots of features such as a client/server architecture that enables monitoring of local and remote hosts. The graphical front end uses so-called sensors to retrieve the information it displays. A sensor can return simple values or more complex information like tables. For each type of information, one or more displays are provided. Displays are organized in worksheets that can be saved and loaded independently from each other. So, KSysguard is not only a simple task manager but also a very powerful tool to control large server farms.

Fig.05 KDE System Guard {Image credit: Wikipedia}

See the KSysguard handbook for detailed usage.

#20: Gnome System Monitor - Real-time Systems Reporting and Graphing

The System Monitor application enables you to display basic system information and monitor system processes, usage of system resources, and file systems. You can also use System Monitor to modify the behavior of your system. Although not as powerful as the KDE System Guard, it provides the basic information which may be useful for new users:

Displays various basic information about the computer's hardware and software.
Linux Kernel version
GNOME version
Hardware
Installed memory
Processors and speeds
System Status
Currently available disk space
Processes
Memory and swap space
Network usage
File Systems
Lists all mounted filesystems along with basic information about each.

Fig.06 The Gnome System Monitor application

Bonus: Additional Tools

A few more tools:

nmap - scan your server for open ports.
lsof - list open files, network connections and much more.
ntop web based tool - ntop is the best tool to see network usage in a way similar to what top command does for processes i.e. it is network traffic monitoring software. You can see network status, protocol wise distribution of traffic for UDP, TCP, DNS, HTTP and other protocols.
Conky - Another good monitoring tool for the X Window System. It is highly configurable and is able to monitor many system variables including the status of the CPU, memory, swap space, disk storage, temperatures, processes, network interfaces, battery power, system messages, e-mail inboxes etc.
GKrellM - It can be used to monitor the status of CPUs, main memory, hard disks, network interfaces, local and remote mailboxes, and many other things.
vnstat - vnStat is a console-based network traffic monitor. It keeps a log of hourly, daily and monthly network traffic for the selected interface(s).
htop - htop is an enhanced version of top, the interactive process viewer, which can display the list of processes in a tree form.
mtr - mtr combines the functionality of the traceroute and ping programs in a single network diagnostic tool.

server installation procedure

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With the release of Windows Server 2008, it is a good idea now to start to practice and learn how to install 2008, implement needed functionality (such as roles and other features) and analyze the new installation options that are now available with 2008 such as Core Server installation, using Windows Deployment Services (WDS) as well as unattended installations, upgrades and/or dual boot scenarios. This article will cover the fundamentals of installing a full copy of Windows Server 2008 on enterprise class server hardware.

With Windows Server 2008, you will find new tools to deploy your server. With 2008 you will find that not only is it easier to install a Windows Server, but now you have more options that fit your production needs and you can now install (or not install) what it is you want or need. For example, if you wanted to be selective and run a server with the most minimal set of needed services, then you would select the Server Core option when running your installation. If you wanted to deploy Windows Server 2008 with an unattended answer file, you can with new options and features, to make your deployment easier.

In this article we cover the basic installation options available to you when deploying a full copy of Windows Server 2008 on an enterprise class server. The article’s goal is to familiarize and acclimate you to the process of deploying Windows Server 2008 on systems on your production network.

Note:It is important to note that although 2008 is a fantastic product with many new features and improved functionality, you should never run a beta or test copy of Windows in your production environment. It is not supported nor is it a complete product. As well, you should never rollout any new operating systems (or run upgrades) on production systems or networks without first testing the official release in a test lab to ensure that your applications are compatible, your drivers, your hardware and so on.

Preparation Tasks

The first step in deploying a Windows Server 2008 system is to do all of the analysis needed upfront to appropriately size your server hardware and prepare for an easy installation. There is not enough that can be said about ‘pre-planning’ your installation. Make sure that you have all the software you need, appropriate drivers and so on. You should create a checklist or some form of list to help you keep track of what you need, what you need to do and what steps have been accomplished. This is helpful for problems that you may encounter during the installation – you can quickly ascertain the source of the problem when you have a checklist to follow so you can retrace your steps. You should always pre-plan any deployment (no matter how big or small) and run thorough tests so that you know what works and what does not before installing new systems on your network or upgrading older systems as an example. For another example, when we first started to run Windows Server 2008 in its earliest forms (Longhorn) for testing purposes, it was quickly found that it was extremely difficult to install on an enterprise class server due to the fact that most of the enterprise server hardware vendors had yet to create alternatives to the new release of Windows and most Windows Server 2003 drivers would (and will) not function on the newest version of Windows, 2008.

One of the biggest earlier issues when testing Windows Server 2008 was its incompatible RAID drivers that just ceased the installation completely for lack of support and would cease the ability to continue testing. Some of the ways around this were to virtualize the instance, although this is not going to fit into everyone’s deployment schedule and needs therefore testing on the enterprise class equipment became paramount in our (and other testers) plans. Planning your deployment when working with an enterprise class server is very important, not planning will cause you to deal with problems as they occur and waste your time (such as hunting down updated drivers). When working with high end equipment, it is common to work directly with the vendors support group to get newly developed drivers that are supported under Windows Server 2008. Just as many of us (and I am sure many of you) were testing the beta version of Windows, it was wise to check with HP, Dell and other hardware vendors to see what the availability was (and is) for updated firmware and software from the makers. Some even offered beta assistance which also proved helpful in testing Windows Server 2008 on a RAID array.

So, why so much fuss about a high end system – or one called an ‘enterprise-class’ system? Simply put, most data centers run their systems on server-class hardware, not PC based hardware. An enterprise class server is a system that is built for large networks and is usually extremely powerful, scalable and redundant. Although it costs more, it gives you more functionality and flexibility when deploying and is extremely easy to fix when problems do arise – the servers can even be kept running without interruption while failed components are replaced and/or fixed.

An enterprise class server is able to be scaled up to meet the demands of enterprise class applications, such as SQL Server, Exchange, and application-based middleware. An enterprise class server usually contains advanced hardware and many times, most of these server systems (Dell, HP, IBM, etc) come with their own software tool suites which are used to install drivers and management software into Windows so that Windows can interoperate with the enterprise class hardware. An example of a high end enterprise class system is the HP DL380 as seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1: An Enterprise Class Server System

In Figure 1, you can see that most, if not all hardware installed on the server is redundant. Redundant power supplies, 2 CPU Slots (one populated), fans and network connections allow for complete failover capabilities and most if not all of these FRUs are modular, hot swappable and built to keep the server running no matter what issue arises. Match this up with redundant UPS connections and you can possible reach 5 nines (99.999) uptime if you do not need to shut down the system much, or if just running a few updates, hotfixes and service packs as needed.

One of the main issues you may encounter when installing Windows Server 2008 comes in the form of installing RAID drivers and finding ones that are supported by Windows Server 2008 in its pre-release form. Since the inception of NT 3.x and 4.0, this process has never been easy. In earlier forms of the operating system (as previously mentioned - NT as an example), you had to hit a specific key (F6) to add RAID drivers while installing, force drivers in if not available and fight with the system to get it to function correctly and remain stable. A lot has changed since, but one thing that will never change is when new operating systems come out, the vendors have to keep up and create software to run on the new platform and that process usually takes time and usually never comes out during the beta process of any new release underway – very rarely do you receive fully functional, tested and supported drivers until a full release. That being said, it is possible to create a RAID array if you can find the drivers and a system that will allow for it until the final release of Windows Server 2008 is official, by then just about every operational hardware vendor will have drivers, software and other tools ready to go for 2008.

Note:You should make sure that any software tools, firmware and drivers you download and use in their early forms are checked again (and updated if needed) as Windows Server 2008 officially hits the market.

RAID is extremely important to consider and implement when deploying an enterprise class server. Since redundancy is important due to unexpected issues (such as a drive reaching its MTBF) which causes the drive to fail and causes the server to crash, you should consider this when deploying a new server. RAID is nothing more than a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. Figure 2 shows an example of an Enterprise Class server configured as an array with 6 SCSI hard disks. Figure 3 shows an external RAID array that can be connected via Fiber or SCSI.

Figure 2: Viewing a RAID Array (Internal)

Figure 3: Viewing a RAID Array (External)

RAID comes in many levels. You can configure RAID in many ways. Table 1 lists a chart of the most commonly used RAID levels and their fault tolerance (or lack thereof).

RAID Level	Type	Fault Tolerant?	Disks Needed to Implement
RAID 0	Striping	No	2
RAID 1	Duplexing	Yes *	2
RAID 0+1	Striping + Duplexing	Yes	2
RAID 5	Striping with Parity	Yes	3

Table 1: Most Commonly used RAID Levels

* Note:
Duplexing and Mirroring are similar in that they both use two disks and each carry a copy of the data, the main difference lies in the disk controller. When two disk controllers are used (one for each disk), this is duplexing. This also increases fault tolerance. When mirroring is used there is only one controller. Although you have two disks in use, your single point of failure becomes the controller itself.

Note:
Striping is commonly used for an increase in performance whereas parity is used to add ‘redundancy’ to your solution. Parity commonly increases your need for disk space to carry a copy of the parity data.

Although there are many other RAID levels, these are absolutely the most commonly used today. You can also mix and match RAID levels based on how you create your partitions. You must know the available levels and know which level(s) you want to use when you deploy.

Once you have selected the enterprise class hardware you wish to use, you must make sure that you have all of the drivers and software needed for deployment. As 2008 is fairly new (just getting ready for prime time) as mentioned before, it’s likely that you will not have full driver support, or in some cases, the management software used for the server, may not run on 2008. Because of this, it’s important to make sure that you have visited Microsoft’s Web site to check for the current drivers and software and then check your server vendors Web site to check for any updates they have as well. You can also discuss options about the server hardware in a pre or post sales vendor meeting or contact them directly though their support centers. In either case, you will find yourself in a better position when you have planned out your install in advance, have gathered all of the needed software and drivers and prepped the server correctly for install.

Note:
Always use RAID – Disks are meant to fail. The MTBF (which stands for mean time between failures) is a reliability rating method used to indicate the expected failure rate of a product in power on hours (POH). This being said, drives ‘will’ fail and you absolutely need to make sure that you have a way to resolve a failed drive when in fact it does.

System Requirements

When deploying Windows Server 2008, it’s important to consider and adhere to the minimum requirements needed for the system to be installed. If you do not meet the bare minimum requirements, the installation will not continue. Table 2 shows a list of minimum and maximum system requirement levels for your review.

Component	Minimum	Maximum
CPU	1 GHz (for x86 processors) or 1.4 GHz (for x64 processors)	2 GHz or faster
RAM	512 MB	2 GB or more
Hard Disk (System Partition)	10 GB Free Space	40 GB or more
Media	DVD-ROM drive	DVD-ROM drive
Monitor	Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor	Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor
Peripherals	Keyboard and mouse (or other compatible pointing device)	Keyboard and mouse (or other compatible pointing device)

Table 2: Windows Server 2008 System Requirements

When sizing your installation, you should always consider the pre-planning discussed earlier. If you have a checklist or worksheet that shows you the processing power of the combined applications on the server that will be deployed, you may find that you need to add CPU’s, or increase their power as an example. Other confusing items may be dual core CPU’s. It should be noted that CPU performance depends not only on the clock frequency of the processor, but also on the number of processor cores and the size of the processor cache. An Intel Itanium 2 processor is required for Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems as an example. Now that you know what you need, let’s begin deploying Windows Server 2008.

Configuring your Hardware

To install Windows Server 2008 correctly, you must first configure your hardware. When working with enterprise class server systems such as the HP DL380, you will want to configure your storage correctly, so that you can install Windows Server 2008 within the needed hard disk space requirements. To do this, you may need to configure RAID. To configure RAID, you will likely have to use your servers BIOS, or the management utility that came with it. In this example, we will use the system BIOS.

Figure 4: Configuring a RAID Array

Earlier we mentioned that you can have multiple RAID levels exist on the same Server. Figure 5 shows the BIOS configuration for an HP DL380 being prepared for an installation of Windows Server 2008. Here in this example we are configuring the HP Smart Array 6i which comes with its own controller, or HBA (Host Bus Adapter). In figure 5, you can configure the drives for redundancy.

Figure 5: Configuring Logical Drives in the Array

Once RAID is configured and setup, you can now install Windows Server 2008 on the newly prepared hardware.

Note:
Always use RAID if possible. In the previous example, the drives were configured so that a system crash or hardware failure could be corrected through the use of RAID. For the previous example, the disks in which the operating system is installed are mirrored in a RAID 0+1 configuration. The remaining disks are configured to support RAID 5 with a hot spare. In this type of configuration you can avert disaster by having a backup for your mirrored system drive, and a backup for your data located on the second RAID configuration. In the BIOS it will show up as two logical drives (one with almost 70 GB of space) and the 2nd drive with over 200 GB of space. Now, you can install Windows without issue, with plenty of usable space ‘and’ if you experience any kind of disk failure, it is likely that you can quickly fix and resolve the issue with this type of configuration.

Manually Installing Windows Server 2008

A Windows Server 2008 manual installation is fairly easy. Once you have all of the pre-planning and pre-requisites established all you need to do now is run the installation program and get started. The checklist or worksheet that was recommended should point you in the direction of getting the disks and/or software ready for the installation process. You should view and check the integrity of your disks before the installation process begins.

When installing Windows Server 2008, you will find that setup works in several stages:

First, you put in the installation media (if installing from CD/DVD-ROM) and then running the installation program if auto-install does not kick off. Figure 6 shows the initial dialog to install Windows Server 2008. Click next and begin the installation. Once you choose to ‘Install Now’, you will be given the option to configure and enter the activation key.

Figure 6: Installing Windows Server 2008

Next, enter the activation key and click - Next. If you do not have a key, you will not be able to use Windows Server 2008 at all.

Once you have entered the key, you will now be given a choice on what type of installation you would like to begin. Figure 7 shows that you can select a full installation (which we will do here), or a Server Core, which only installs the basic services and functionality needed, not the complete system. The two options are:

- Windows Server 2008 (Full Installation): This option installs the complete installation of Windows Server 2008. This installation includes the entire user interface, and it supports all of the server roles.
- Windows Server 2008 (Server Core Installation): This option installs a minimal server installation of Windows Server 2008, which you can use to run supported server roles through the command prompt interface.

Figure 7: Picking a Full Installation or Server Core

Next, agree to the license terms and click Next to continue. If you do not agree, you will not be able to install Windows Server 2008.
Next, you can agree to an installation, or if the installation program detects a pervious installation of Windows, it will ask you for a standard upgrade or custom installation which will install a fresh copy of Windows Server 2008 on your system.
Next you can configure drive options. If you select ‘Advanced’, you can configure the specifics of your drives and partitions and how you want Windows to layout the system on your drives.

Note:You must ensure that when you select the option to do an upgrade that you have in fact checked what you can (or can’t upgrade to and from). With Windows Server 2008 having been released to manufacturing and on its track to worldwide availability, one aspect of the transition to the new server platform concerns the upgrade paths from Windows Server 2003 which is what most customers are currently running. If you are running Windows Server 2003 in your enterprise and using 2003 based ADS, DNS, and DHCP and so on, you are the ‘best’ candidate for an upgrade.

It’s been recommended by Microsoft that if you aren’t running an ‘ideal’ or ‘optimum’ scenario such as this, you are best served with a ‘clean installation’ scenario. In this case, you will have to backup all of your production data, install (and upgrade) to Windows Server 2008, test thoroughly and then add data and ensure that everything is running properly and as expected. As mentioned earlier in this article, it is extremely wise to test all of your software, drivers, firmware, applications and programs ‘before’ installing or upgrade to 2008. That being said, if you do in fact upgrade (or install fresh), you will know that your applications work in advance and will not cause you problems when moving into production.

Now, the files will install on your system and the installation will commence.
Once the installation has been completed, you will now be ready to log on and use Windows Server 2008 for the first time as seen in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Logging into Windows Server 2008 for the First Time

Now that you have a completely installed Windows Server 2008 system running on enterprise-class hardware and entered into production… you should now check your system logs and ensure that you do in fact have everything running correctly and as expected. It also helps to now get a baseline of the system and see how it operates under no load, expected load and then do periodic and scheduled checks as you continue to use your system to ensure that it in fact is operating as expected.

Installing a Server Core

Although this article’s focus is not on the Server Core installation, it should be mentioned and links are provided for extra information if you need it. When installing a Server Core installation of Windows Server 2008 on an x86-based or x64-based server, you will be prompted during Setup to install the most minimal set of requirements needed for basic (or purpose driven) functionality and extreme security. This option installs a minimal server installation of Windows Server 2008, which you can use to run supported server roles through the command prompt interface and will only give you exactly what it is you ask for. This is very reminiscent to the says of Novell NetWare, and today’s Unix and Linux based systems.

When you select this option, Setup will install the files that are required for the selected server roles to function only – nothing more will be installed without your knowledge or decision.

As an example, the GUI which we all know as the windows interface will not be installed—you configure and manage the server locally from the command prompt only and will not be given an option to work within the GUI because it simply does not exist! You should consider this option because it will reduce the servicing and management requirements and the overall attack surface of your system which in turn helps to enforce your security policy and so on.

Note:
There are other installations methods that will be covered in future articles and can also be found below in the link section of this article. You can run a Server Core installation which only installs the bare minimum functionality needed, unattended setups and multiple installations simultaneously. It is recommended that no matter what installation method you choose, you spend quality time beforehand developing pre-planning steps, designs, and any other checklists/worksheets that can help you deploy the system with ease.

Once you have your Windows Server 2008 system installed and configured, you may encounter a few issues. To resolve them, simply take note of the issue (any error codes, screenshots and warning messages) that has occurred and look it up online, in books or try to recreate on a non-production test-lab system.

Troubleshooting Your Installation

When installing Windows Server 2008, you may run into issues that may need your attention. As mentioned earlier, if you do not (or did not) get any updated drivers from the vendors, or providers of your systems and service – its likely that you will encounter installation problems with your system. Even if you have all of what you believe you need, you could still encounter issues. Some unexpected issues you may encounter include the following list. Some of the more ‘obscure’ issues you may encounter include (but not limited to):

Incorrect, unusable or unsupported drivers, firmware, hardware, software (applications, programs, etc) and lack of vendor updates, patches and fixes.
Unsupported file systems such as FAT.
Loss of power while installing – if over network, loss of connectivity while running installation.
Corrupted installation media. If using a DVD-ROM as an example, the installation media may become corrupted. Sometimes when installing an ISO to a disk for installation, the burn speed (if too high as en example) can cause an unusable disk.
Any error messages that you cannot decrypt need to be looked up on the Microsoft Support site and Knowledge base for further clarification.

Note:
If you are having problems with an ‘upgrade’, make sure that you are following the correct upgrade paths posted by Microsoft:

Users of Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (R2, SP1 or SP2) can perform a full installation of Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition.
From Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition (R2, SP1 or SP2) you can upgrade to a full installation of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
From Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition (R2, SP1 or SP2), you can upgrade to a full installation of Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition.

Summary

In this article we covered the fundamental concepts of installing Windows Server 2008 on enterprise class servers and hardware such as initial preparation, deployment steps and caveats to watch out for. In this article we learned the basics of installing Windows Server 2008 (full installation) on hardware, configuring RAID and ensuring that the installation went smoothly. To learn more about Windows Server 2008, Installations and other helpful tips, check out the rest of the site and the links section below.

About Robert J. Shimonski

Robert J. Shimonski is an enterpreneur, a professional technology consultant and a published author with over 20 years of experience working with technology. Robert's specialities include virtualization, network/systems management, network/systems design and architecture, security analysis, storage area network (SAN) design and depllyment and project development/management.

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