$longip(address)

Converts an IP address into a long value and vice-versa.

$longip(158.152.50.239)  returns 2660774639

$longip(2660774639)       returns 158.152.50.239

What I was originally trying to do was increase an IP by 1, but due to the octets only allowing up to 255, this became increasingly difficult to do.

What I decided to do in the end was convert the IP to a “longip” then increase it by 1, then convert the IP BACK to normal IP.

This required a way to convert an IP to and from longIP, I was told it could be done purely using shell script, here’s what I did…

I decided that shell script wasn’t powerful enough for what I wanted, and that I could do it easier in perl, this is the result:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# longip by HM2K 2008 (Updated: 17/01/08)

# Description: Converts (Short) IPs to Long Ips and visa versa.
# Usage: ./longip.pl <ip>

use warnings;
use strict;
use Socket;

sub longip {
my $input=shift;
if ($input =~ /\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+/) { return ip2long($input); }
else { return long2ip($input); }
}

sub ip2long { return unpack(“l*”, pack(“l*”, unpack(“N*”, inet_aton(shift)))); }

sub long2ip { return inet_ntoa(pack(“N*”, shift)); }

print longip(shift);

Thanks for the assistance from #perlhelp (EFnet).

It’s also worth noting that cls (EFnet) created a shell script version called “ipconv.sh”, which is about 50 long lines in total (too long for such a simple task imo), however it didn’t convert how I wanted. If you ask him (or me) nicely, you may receive a copy.

Update: I also found a version of “ipconv.sh” in libconnect.

Enjoy!

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OpenCart all began because (at the time) the leading open source e-commerce solution out there was not very good, to say the least.

The first notable release was OpenCart v0.5 back in late 2006 and has been gaining momentum ever since.

The project is lead by Daniel Kerr, and I have also recently joined the team.

Download OpenCart v0.7.9

If you need any assistance with OpenCart, you can find me on the OpenCart Community Forums, and on the OpenCart Google Code project site.

Don’t forget to donate!

Enjoy!

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This was all fine, but to check my personal emails I decided to find an internet café to rather than use my mobile phone to save my pennies.

After a while I managed to find a complex which had a few computers setup for people staying in the complex to use.

Unlike some of the other internet café machines I had seen these were not locked down at all, just ordinary versions of Microsoft Windows XP.

This was fantastic, as it allowed me unlimited access and I could run things such as vncviewer (for remotely viewing a machine) and putty (for access to servers via ssh).

The downside was I had to spend a while removing a whole bunch of malware before I could even use the damn thing.

There were 4 other machines in this room, and I quickly discovered that I wasn’t the only one in there who was having problems.

Before long, the old guy on the other side of the room decided to ask the girl sitting next to him how to do something, she proceeded to assist him, only to summarise her experience with…

“Next time i’m buying a mac”

I felt like standing up right then, and giving her a piece of my mind, but I didn’t, instead I got up and went in the pool, also making a mental note to write up about it later.

There’s so many issues with the comment she made I’m not really sure where to begin.

The main issue I have with statements like this is the ignorance.

If you review what she actually said, she’s suggesting that she’s got a problem with the hardware, but upon further interrogation you’ll find their problem is with the operating system (namely Windows) and the way they use it.

When I ask people why they want to buy a mac, they generally say something along the lines of:

“I dunno, I heard they don’t get viruses”, to which I reply:

“I never get viruses on windows, and macs DO get viruses, there’s just not as many”.

The next obvious question is why don’t they? Well it’s pretty straight forward, the reason why there’s not as many is because there’s not as many users on macs as windows and no where near as many people looking for bugs in it the operating system (OS) as windows.

Viruses these days are utilised in such a way that the originator makes money from you, usually by means of forced pop-ups and installing software. They target windows, because it’s a much broader platform, there’s far more users. It doesn’t take a marketing expert to tell you which is the best to target.

But regardless of which operating system you run it’s not difficult to ensure you have an anti-virus solution, your software is up-to-date, and you are behind a firewall. Whether it’s Windows, Mac OS or even Linux, by doing these three steps, you will always ensure you’re not going to get targeted, unless of course you’re stupid enough to click links on sites or emails that you are unsure about.

Ultimately security is in the hands of the user, if you’re going easily fooled by those popups that look like Windows XP default “blue” theme then you’re already at risk, however you can restore your theme to “windows classic” and suddenly you realise what’s going on there.

Another tip you can follow is to use a different browser to the default “Internet Explorer” such as Firefox, as it’s pop-up blocker is better, and generally the whole experience is more reliable.

A lot of the time security issues are down to people clicking links they receive by email when they were not even expecting the email; browsing porn and end up downloading a “codec” because they think they will then be able to watch porn movies for free or finally they use peer to peer software and end up downloading files that aren’t music or movies, they are actually malicious programs. All of these files generally download as “.exe” files, which are “executable” files (ie: programs, or possibly viruses).

Yes, “.exe” files DO NOT run on macs (unless you install windows on the Intel based machines), but it’s also worth noting that “.exe” files also do not run on Linux based operating systems, but people seem to completely overlook that.

Threats like this increase as you add users to your machine, which makes finding the source even more difficult. If you have one user per machine.

With this in mind, you generally find that computers that people keep as “personal” generally have far less issues than shared machines. Macs aren’t really used as shared machines, mainly because they aren’t designed to be, and more importantly they aren’t marketed to be, they are marketed to be a “personal computer”.

What i’ve said above is mainly talking about issues with the operating system, however this girl’s comment was that she was going to buy a mac, as opposed to a “PC”, what’s wrong with a PC?, who said a PC can’t run Mac OS or virtually any operating system for that matter?

It’s ignorant to think that buying full retail hardware and software will solve all your problems, as if you purchased all OEM hardware, and ran a Linux based operating system such as the increasingly popular Ubuntu based gOS, you would likely find that suitable for your needs and wants, all at the fraction of a price, and just as easy to use.

The problem I find is that people don’t even consider Linux, because they simply don’t know enough about it. Why? Fear of the unknown and lack of financial backing of the vendor, which means there’s no mass media marketing unlike Apple.

But why are people so scared of Linux? After all Linux is based on Unix, as is Mac OS X, unlike Windows, and it’s FREE.

Ultimately you need to establish your needs and wants, find out what the hardware/software requirements of your devices (mobile phone, mp3 player, sat nav, etc), computer games and multimedia software is, and figure out which is right for you.

I can almost guarantee that Windows will come out as the most compatible and you’ll find that there’s increasing support for both Mac OS X, mainly because the devices you own are probably made by Apple (eg: iPod), but if you look a little closer, you’ll also find that there’s support for Linux based operating systems such as Ubuntu, you may have to search for it, or request it, but nether the less, it’s there, you’re never going to be the only one with said device.

One of the compatibility issues is that certain software creators, usually of the graphics or music industry (eg: Adobe, Propellerheads) only write software for mac, and windows, which ends up leaving Linux users to create their own open source alternative or try and emulate the official version. With this in mind, I understand why people sometimes choose a mac for their specialist software, but what about windows?

The question you need to ask yourself is “Why do I want a mac?”.

If the answer is that you think they are cool or a status symbol, or that they make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, then you’re buying it for the wrong reasons, computers aren’t meant to be any of those things.

If the answer is that you believe it will solve all your problems, you’re deluded. You’re always going to have problems, especially if you’re prone to them already. Getting a fresh operating system will always solve your problems, at least for a short while, until you start using it, then low and behold before long you’re in the same situation again.

In conclusion…

There’s pretty much two reasons why you might buy a mac, they are the OS (so called “piece of mind”) or the style (so called “lifestyle upgrade”), there is also the obvious combination of both.

There are however those few that do actually NEED a mac because of the multimedia applications they use will only run on the mac OS (if only they would run on Linux, how different things could be).

Next time are you really buying a mac? Or are you buying into something else? Piece of mind, or perhaps a lifestyle?

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In case you were wondering IonCube is a PHP encoder, usually used to stop people stealing your PHP code when you distribute it. Consequently to run the encoded PHP you require a “loader”, which will run it correctly.

If your server does not have IonCube loader installed these are the steps you need to take.

1. Visit the IonCube loader page and choose a download for your operating system.
   • In this case we will be selecting the Linux (x86) “.tar.gz” download for CentOS 4.
2. Use “cd” to go to your home directory (usually /root).
3. You need to download the file, issue: wget http://downloads2.ioncube.com/loader_downloads/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86.tar.gz
4. Next, extract the files from the tarball, issue: tar zxvf ioncube_loaders_lin_x86.tar.gz
5. We now need to move the directory to the correct path, issue: mv ioncube /usr/local
6. Next we need to change our active directory, issue: cd /usr/local/ioncube
7. We now need to find out where the “php.ini” is stored, issue: php ioncube-loader-helper.php page=install-assistant
   • You should see something similar to “<code>/usr/local/Zend/etc/php.ini</code>”.
   • Also take note of the part that says “ioncube_loader_lin_4.4.so” we will use this file later.
8. Next we need to edit the file, issue: nano /usr/local/Zend/etc/php.ini
   • You can use any editor you like such as nano/pico or vi if you know what you’re doing.
9. Find (ctrl+w) the “[Zend]” section of the “php.ini”, above the “zend_extension” line, place: zend_extension = /usr/local/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_4.4.so (followed by ctrl+x, Y then enter if using pico or nano).
10. Finally issue: service httpd restart

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What makes Xen so special above the rest is that it offers such a wide span of guest operating systems.

I am a big fan of CentOS so I have chosen this as my host, but Xen as a host will pretty much run on any Linux based OS, NetBSD, or even Solaris.

Just as a side note, the system I will be running this on is P4 3.0 CPU with 2GB ram.

To begin with I tried Xen 3.1 (32 bit PAE SMP) on CentOS 4, during this time I came across the following resources…

• Xen on CentOS-4
• How to Install Windows on Xen
• GettingStarted (XenSource Wiki)
• CentOS Xen Wiki Documents
• CentOS 5 Virtualization Guide
• RedHat Virtualization
• Installing Xen On CentOS 5.0 (i386)

I soon discovered that CentOS 5 had far better native support for Xen than CentOS 4.

Therefore, CentOS 5 was to be used, once installed you could simply do “yum groupinstall Virtualization”, and it would install Xen for you ready to use out of the box. More or less.

So this is great right? Xen installs on CentOS 5 via the virtualisation group pretty much hassle free, which means we have the dom0 setup.

The next step is to create a guest or DomU. There are plenty to choose from (Many Linux Distros, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and even Windows XP & 2003 Server), but we want FreeBSD. This is where the fun begins! We find the following resources:

• FreeBSD 5.3 Xen DomU Install HOWTO – Outdated (For Xen 2.2 not Xen 3.0)
• How to install FreeBSD as domU
• Status of FreeBSD xen guest
• FreeBSD as DomU/Guest HOWTO

Okay, fine no problem. Right?

Yes, until you get an error like this:

ERROR: Non PAE-kernel on PAE host.

Which effectively means that the CentOS 5 Dom0 (Host) is running a PAE kernel, yet what we’re trying to install as a domU (Guest) is a non PAE kernel.

So, what is PAE? basically it gives your system the ability to handle 4GB of RAM or more (max 64GB RAM) , if you have less than 4GB, you don’t really need it. It’s primarily a fix for x86 processors, providing they support it, 64-bit processors don’t need it.

So how do we fix this problem? I investigated and found the following resources:

• 32-bit, 64-bit, and PAE, oh my! (Xen Wiki)
• FreeBSD as domU (YUAN Jue’s Group)
• FreeBSD under Xen (xen-users mail list)
• FreeBSD/xen (rink.nu)

In conclusion there are two options:

1. Recompile the CentOS 5 dom0 (Host) with a non-PAE kernel with Xen.
2. Recompile the FreeBSD domU (Guest) with a PAE kernel.

So what are the problems?

Option 1 would mean moving away from the native kernel, meaning that each time a new update comes up the kernel would have to be rebuilt manually. Although building the kernel without PAE will decrease overheads, building the kernel manually may lose performance. Considering this is the host, it’s vital that it is stable, therefore this is lesser of an option.

Option 2 is apparently really easy to do, practially a flick of a switch, providing you understand what you are doing with FreeBSD and Xen. Unfortunately, my skills in this area are limited.

Where do we go from here?

Well, considering option 1 is the least favourable option, as it seems, the only way to go is to contact the people who know with regards to running FreeBSD as a DomU…

• Kip Macy
• YUAN Jue
• Rink Springer
• Chris Brookes

Alternativly…

• CentOS Forums
• Xen Mailing Lists
• BSD Forums

Any feedback or comments will be greatfully received.

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The problem is when you attempt to visit “http://server.example.com/cpanel” and you get the following message or similar:

The requested URL /cpanel was not found on this server.

The requested URL /whm was not found on this server.

To fix this, you must add the following to your httpd.conf (/usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf):

ErrorDocument 400 /400.shtml
ErrorDocument 401 /401.shtml
ErrorDocument 403 /403.shtml
ErrorDocument 404 /404.shtml
ErrorDocument 500 /500.shtml
ScriptAlias /cgi-sys/ /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/
Alias /sys_cpanel/ /usr/local/cpanel/sys_cpanel/
Alias /java-sys/ /usr/local/cpanel/java-sys/
Alias /img-sys/ /usr/local/cpanel/img-sys/
Alias /akopia/ /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/interchange/share/akopia/
Alias /neo-images/ /usr/local/cpanel/base/neomail/neo-images/
ScriptAliasMatch ^/cpanel/(.*) /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/redirect.cgi
ScriptAlias /cpanel /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/redirect.cgi
ScriptAlias /whm /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/whmredirect.cgi
ScriptAlias /securewhm /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/swhmredirect.cgi
ScriptAlias /webmail /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/wredirect.cgi
ScriptAliasMatch ^/webmail/(.*) /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/wredirect.cgi
ScriptAliasMatch ^/kpanel/(.*) /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/redirect.cgi
ScriptAlias /controlpanel /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/redirect.cgi
ScriptAlias /securecontrolpanel /usr/local/cpanel/cgi-sys/sredirect.cgi
Alias /mailman/archives/ /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/archives/public/
ScriptAlias /mailman/ /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/cgi-bin/
Alias /pipermail/ /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/mailman/archives/public/
Alias /interchange/ /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/interchange/share/interchange/
Alias /interchange-5/ /usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/interchange/share/interchange-5/

Add this anywhere in the httpd.conf, outside of any <VirtualHost> tags.

Restart apache (service httpd restart), and bingo!

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My workstation, like most runs Microsoft Windows – Why? – Because I always have done.

With the release of Windows Vista ever dawning, and the new Windows Genuine Advantage checks, there has never been a better time to find an alternative solution.

Over the past few years I have had more and more dealings with Linux, and I find myself asking the same question… “What is stopping me from migrating from Windows to Linux?”, I then find myself creating all kinds of excuses why I cannot.

I spent many months attempting to eliminate these excuses, by offering the solutions to your problems.

My reason for sharing this with you is to make it more of a realistic possibility for everyone, not just IT gurus or geeks, but anyone.

Why would I want to migrate?

There are many reasons why you would want to migrate, I’m sure that the reasons to migrate out weigh the petty reasons of why you are forced to stay on windows.

• Affordable – Not only is it that Windows costs a lot of money, but the additional software you require, such as Microsoft Office costs money too! Using Linux and Open Source software eliminates these costs, as they are freely available for download.
• Reliable – This is the reason why a large percentage of the worlds websites run on Linux based servers, and not windows.
• Secure – It’s not that it doesn’t have its fair share of issues, its that its not targetted in the same way as windows, meaning that there are a fraction of the problems.
• Compatible – Anything runs on Linux. Almost.
• Support – Linux has been very well received over the years, therefore there is much support behind any Linux related project.
• Future – Is it really a realistic idea that people will pay for an operating system when they can get one for free that can do exactly the same things. Certainly not, therefore this is the future.
• Choice – One of the best thing about Linux is that there is a vast choice of distributions that all offer their individual advantages. No longer are you forced to purchase an operating system from one distributor, you can simply download it free from your choice of distributors.
• Anti-monopolisation – Microsoft have had it too easy for too long, holding a large percentage of the workstation market, give them a reason to really get competitive.
• Privacy – By running windows and connecting to the internet, you are seriously compremising your privacy, Microsoft now checks your OS Version, System Manufacturer, System Model, Windows Product Key, the date, and most likely your IP address will be logged, as this is standard protocol when you access a server.
• Open Source – No more closed source non-sense like the software from Microsoft.

There are the reasons to migrate, and i’m sure you’ll agree, they are good enough reasons.

Usually at this point you will find excuses of why you can’t migrate, usually along the lines of “My [essential software] will not run on linux”.

I intend to look at each piece of “essential software” people use on Windows and offer either a way to run it on Linux or a compatible alternative.

We all have them, software we use on a day-to-day basis that we’d seriously miss if they no longer existed.

My essential software is as follows:

• Microsoft Outlook (NOT Outlook Express) – This offers Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Notes and Journal, I mainly use Mail, Calendar and Contacts.
• mIRC – An internet relay chat client that is second to none, not because of its interface, but because of its flexable scripting ability, its very useful to create an automated function to achieve a certain repetitive task. It also obviously allows me to chat to certain people and and within communities.
• Winamp – There’s nothing better than streaming di.fm or playing mp3s from my vast collection of music.
• Mozilla Firefox – Possibily the best browser around at the moment.
• Outlook Express – A very simple mail client and newsgroup reader, I personally don’t use outlook express, as I use Outlook, but I imagine the usenet part is essential to some people.
• Mozilla Thunderbiard – A reasonable alternative to Outlook Express.
• FileZilla FTP Client – A rather good open source ftp client, an absolute must for uploading and downloading to/from an FTP server.
• EditPlus – A really useful text editor, so much better than Notepad.
• MSN/Live Messenger – I need to beable to communicate with my mates.
• RealVNC – Important peice of software to allow me to access my PC from anywhere, mainly for access to mIRC and Outlook, but mainly because i’m very often out and about.
• Photoshop – I like to have a dabble sometimes…
• Azureus – Bit Torrents are big thing these days, you’re gonna need a good bit torrent client.
• Microsoft Word – Everyone needs a good word processor, after all, this is why computers were made.
• Microsoft Excel – Spreadsheets are very useful for displaying tabular data, and creating graphs.
• Microsoft Access – I know that often people use access for their database systems, although I don’t use it myself, I know its very important to some people.
• Nero – A great peice of software for making backups, burning images and duplication.
• PowerDVD – Its nice to beable to play DVD’s on your PC, especially when your PC monitor is bigger than your TV
• Audiograbber – So when I do actually buy a Music CD I like to convert it into mp3s so I can listen to it without the CD in my drive.
• Dreamweaver – Its not that important, but its useful sometimes to have a WYSIWYG HTML editor or web authoring software.
• Putty – The ability to connect to a server via SSH is vital as a server administrator.
• X-Lite – A peice of SIP Voice Over IP software, very useful in this day and age, especially when people are calling you.
• Calculator – I don’t physically have a working one, a software one is very useful.
• Adobe Acrobat Reader – An important peice of software for reading PDF files.
• Norton Antivirus – I left Mcafee many years ago for Norton, we all need a way to stop those little critters!
• Kerio Personal Firewall – Godda block those unwanted connections.
• Winzip and Winrar – Having some kind of compression and more importantly decompression utility is important.
• Apache – I actually run a local copy of Apache with PHP, usually as part of XAMPP for local development purposes and remote file access.
• File and Printer Sharing – Although its actually part of windows, i’d seriously miss the ability to access files across my network.

I got this far, my next step was to look at Linux alternatives to this software, however this is where my migration plan breaks down, as I lack research on a solution to Microsoft Outlook in Linux.

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For your workstations

• At the office: Windows
  • I would choose this in almost all businesses as often they require the ability to run windows based applications.
  • In many business environments windows is required to be a client on their network, meaning you are unable to use their network if you are using Linux or a Mac based system.
• The developer: Ubuntu Linux (free)
  • I would choose this for developers as it’s quick, stable and allows you easy interfacing with developer tools and services running on Linux based systems.
  • This platform can also be ideal for the future of technology due to the fact it is free and that due to the way technology is heading before long all you will need to use your applications is a web browser.
• The designer: Mac OS X
  • This is a good stable and compatible platform for graphic design applications, ideal for graphics designers.
  • Generally the graphics applications you see on Windows appear on Mac first. This was often the case with Adobe/Macromedia products.

For your servers

• Web/Mail/Database Server: CentOS
  • Based on Redhat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) this product is designed to deal with the enterprise market offering you real performance, the real difference between CentOS and RHEL is that CentOS is free.
  • The reason why I would choose CentOS is that because it is based on a Redhat product its very compatible with available applications meaning you get them first. It is also very easy to use.
  • Another great aspect of this is that unlike Fedora there’s no product life cycle.
  • The final attribute of CentOS is it’s great community.
• Game Server: debian
  • I find that the game server applications run best on debian. This is probably the only reason I would use it.
• IRC/Shell Server: FreeBSD
  • The main reason for this is because its so well received by the IRC community, and offers great compatibility for IRC applications.
  • This OS also offers the ability to use “Jailing”, which was an important aspect before the ability of creating “virtual servers” on Linux existed.

For more information check out the Comparison of operating systems on the Wikipedia

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