Fix broken keyboard mapping - VMWare in Ubuntu Intrepid

If all your arrows and special keys have stopped working in vmware, simply edit you vmware config file

sudo gedit /etc/vmware/config

and add this line

xkeymap.nokeycodeMap = true

You will need to close down vmware and restart to make the change take effect

UPDATED: Using SSMTP to send mail via GMail

UPDATED July 2014, to reflect the fact that google smtp servers are on port 587 now.

Often you will have a bash script that requires the ability to send emails out, such as alerts and status updates. Or perhaps you just want to get the normal alerts that all Unix servers attempt to send from time to time.

Out of the box Linux systems don't send email unless they are configured to do so. You can muck about configuring sendmail to use a "smarthost" if you like or you can do what I do and use a simple little smtp service that is quick and easy to configure to send mails via a GMail account.

Note:

If you have your own domain then it is probably better to use sendmail to send mails direct rather than relaying mail via the Big G

Obviously, for this all to work you will need a GMail account of your own. Is GMail still invite only? I have no idea. If it is and you need an invite then enter a comment below with your email address and I will be happy to send you one!

OK, let's get started.

First we need to remove sendmail and install ssmtp

sudo apt-get remove sendmail
sudo apt-get install ssmtp mailutils

SSMTP requires a little configuring so edit /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf;

sudo vi /etc/ssmtp/ssmtp.conf

Enter the details for the following fields;

mailhub = smtp.gmail.com:587
rewritedomain = tuxnetworks.com
AuthUser=myusername@gmail.com
AuthPass=mypassword
UseSTARTTLS=YES
UseTLS=YES

Note:

You should replace "tuxnetworks.com" with your own domain as well as provide the details for your GMail account. Using 'myusername' and 'mypassword' is a recipe for FAIL

Testing to see if things work.

Send an email from the command line like this;

mail -s "test config" myusername@gmail.com

To see if it was sent you can check /var/log/mail.log;

tail -f /var/log/mail.log

You should see your email logged as "SENT" in the output there.

Here is a sample ssmtp.conf for your convenience;

#
# Config file for sSMTP sendmail
#
# The person who gets all mail for userids < 1000
# Make this empty to disable rewriting.
root=postmaster

AuthUser=myusername@gmail.com
AuthPass=mypassword
UseSTARTTLS=YES
UseTLS=YES

# place where the mail goes. The actual machine name is required no 
# MX records are consulted. Commonly mailhosts are named mail.domain.com
mailhub=smtp.gmail.com

# Where will the mail seem to come from?
rewriteDomain=tuxnetworks.com

# The full hostname
hostname=myserver.tuxnetworks.com

# Are users allowed to set their own From: address?
# YES - Allow the user to specify their own From: address
# NO - Use the system generated From: address
FromLineOverride=yes

And that's it! Simples!

[ Tested and confirmed on Lucid and Natty servers ]

Disappearing network interfaces in Ubuntu Server

If you change network cards on ubuntu server then you will find that the new cards no longer come up. This also occurs when you copy a vmware virtual machine.

To fix this, edit the persistent-net-rules file

sudo vi /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

You should see a line (plus a commented heading) for the affected interface(s) like this;

# PCI device 0x14e4:0x1659 (r8169)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="00:1c:c0:db:32:e7", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

(Forgive the formatting but blogger.com has a ridiculously narrow content column and long lines tend to disappear behind crap on the RHS of the page or wrap around and look like multiple lines)

Anyway, all you need to do is delete the line for the affected interface and reboot your system.

Once the system has rebooted, the persistent-net-rules file will be repopulated with the details for the new interface and your Ethernet adapter will be working once again.

DEPRECIATED: Setting the hostname in gnome terminal

If you SSH to another host you might want to display the hostname of the remote host in the gnome terminal title bar

Put this code in your ~/.bashrc file;

case $TERM in
(xterm*)
PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\033]0;${USER}($(id -ng))@${HOSTNAME}:
${PWD}\007"'
;;
esac