• Ubuntu Server 8.04 AMD64
• Apache2-prefork 2.2.8
• Passenger 2.0.1
• Ruby Enterprise Edition 1.8.6-20080624
• Redmine 0.7 stable (SVN r1547)

My apache vhost is as follows:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName dev.shanesveller.com

  DocumentRoot /var/rails/redmine-0.7/public

<Directory "/var/rails/redmine-0.7/public">
   Options FollowSymLinks
   AllowOverride None
   Order allow,deny
   Allow from all
</Directory>

  # Custom log file locations
  # ErrorLog  /var/rails/redmine/log/error.log
  # CustomLog /var/rails/redmine/log/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

This allows me to serve my WordPress blog and my Redmine tracker and use about 260MB of RAM. If you take off the buffers and cache memory, it’s actually more like 110MB.

To enable Passenger and RubyEE in Apache, I used the following file in /etc/apache2/conf.d/passenger:

   LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.1/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
   PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.1
   RailsRuby /opt/ruby-enterprise/bin/ruby

The relevant Ubuntu packages are:

apache2 apache2-prefork-dev apache2-mpm-prefork build-essential ruby1.8-dev ruby ri rake irb rdoc libmysqlclient15-dev libopenssl-ruby

# lvdisplay
  --- Logical volume ---
  LV Name                /dev/odin/root_1
  VG Name                odin
  ...
  LV Size                30.00 GB
  ...

Since my root partition is on LVM, I can do a snapshot to get a point-in-time view of the root partition even as the system is running and software is making changes to the filesystem. To create the snapshot:

lvcreate -L 30G -s -n root_1_snap /dev/odin/root_1

The arguments are: lvcreate -L {size} -n {snapshot name} {lvm device path}

Then, you do a dump backup:

# dump 0uf odin.0.img /dev/mapper/odin-root_1_snap
  DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Mon Apr 28 10:52:39 2008
  DUMP: Dumping /dev/mapper/odin-root_1_snap (an unlisted file system) to odin.0.img
  DUMP: Label: none
  DUMP: Writing 10 Kilobyte records
  DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
  DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
  DUMP: estimated 3130770 blocks.
  DUMP: Volume 1 started with block 1 at: Mon Apr 28 10:52:46 2008
  DUMP: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
  DUMP: dumping (Pass IV) [regular files]
  DUMP: Closing odin.0.img
  DUMP: Volume 1 completed at: Mon Apr 28 10:55:49 2008
  DUMP: Volume 1 3120540 blocks (3047.40MB)
  DUMP: Volume 1 took 0:03:03
  DUMP: Volume 1 transfer rate: 17052 kB/s
  DUMP: 3120540 blocks (3047.40MB) on 1 volume(s)
  DUMP: finished in 182 seconds, throughput 17145 kBytes/sec
  DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Mon Apr 28 10:52:39 2008
  DUMP: Date this dump completed:  Mon Apr 28 10:55:49 2008
  DUMP: Average transfer rate: 17052 kB/s
  DUMP: DUMP IS DONE

The arguments are: dump {level}uf {output file} {source device path}

Next, remove the snapshot to keep from hogging LVM space:

  lvremove /dev/odin/root_1_snap
Do you really want to remove active logical volume "root_1_snap"? [y/n]: y
  Logical volume "root_1_snap" successfully removed

Optionally, compress the backup image for safekeeping.

gzip /backup/odin.0.img &

The ampersand (&) will make the process run in the background. By doing this, I saved 71.2% of the size, down to an image that was 878MB from 3050MB!

To restore from said backup, assuming you have a ready ext3 partition of the appropriate size: Uncompress it if need be:

gunzip /backup/odin.0.img.gz

Then:

cd / && rrestore rf /backup/odin.0.img

/etc/inittab:
id:3:initdefault

The number in the middle is the runlevel to start by default.

• Squid caching web proxy
• apt-cacher caching apt proxy
• BIND9 caching/local DNS server

Installing the squid web proxy

apt-get install squid squid-prefetch

You will then need to configure the ACL to allow access through the proxy from the local network.

nano /etc/squid/squid.conf

visible_hostname server1     #Line added
...
http_port 8080     #Line changed
...
cache_dir ufs /var/spool/squid 2000 16 256     #Line changed
...
acl local src 10.0.1.0/255.255.255.0     #Line added
http_access allow local     #Line added

This configures the squid cache to listen on port 8080 instead of 3128, allows access from all IPs in the range 10.0.1.1 – 10.0.1.255, and sets the cache size to 2000MB. Then you need to restart the squid service:
/etc/init.d/squid restart

You can then configure your end users’ machines to use http://server1:8080/ as their internet proxy. I recommend setting this for insecure (non-SSL) traffic only as I have noticed some odd behavior with SSL proxying.

In Firefox this is dead-simple:

1. Open the Preferences window from the application menu on OSX or the Options window from the Tools menu on Windows.
2. Choose the Advanced section at the top, followed by the Network tab.
3. Click the Settings button under the Connection header.
4. Choose the “Manual configuration” radio button and enter http://server1:8080/ in the HTTP Proxy box.

Safari on OSX uses the system-wide proxy settings:

1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu
2. Click the Network item under the Internet & Network heading
3. Select your primary connection, wireless or wired, from the left-hand list and click the Advanced button
4. Choose the Proxies tab, choose Manually in the drop-down menu, check the box next to Web Proxy
5. Enter server1 in the first box and 8080 in the second box

Text-based install

After completing a fresh install of Gutsy via alternate CD, boot into the “recovery mode” option from GRUB. You will be dumped into a BASH shell.

apt-get update && wget http://albertomilone.com/ubuntu/nvidia/scripts/legacy/envy_0.9.10-0ubuntu10_all.deb
gdebi -n envy_0.9.10-0ubuntu10_all.deb
envy -t

At this point it will probably install a few required packages via apt-get and then give you a menu. Here we want option 1, “Install the NVidia driver”. It theoretically will install all required development packages, download the driver from nvidia.com, and build and install it for you. It may fail saying it was missing a bunch of required packages, but if you install them by hand it will complete successfully.

apt-get install <packages>

GUI-based write-up to follow.

Drive: 500GB #1
Volume Group: server1
Volumes:
	swap_1 - 6GB - swap
	root_1 - 30GB - ext3 - mounted as /
	home_1 - 20GB - ext3 - mounted as /home/
Free space: ~398GB

500GB number two will probably wind up being a RAID mirror via my motherboard. This LVM layout allows me to dynamically allocate space for the many potential Xen DomUs I create.

To install Xen on Gutsy-AMD64 desktop version:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-xen-desktop-amd64

My /etc/xen-tools/xen-tools.conf:

lvm = server1               # LVM volume group to use
install-method = debootstrap
size   = 4Gb                # Disk image size.
memory = 256Mb              # Memory size
swap   = 512Mb              # Swap size
fs     = ext3               # use the EXT3 filesystem for the disk image.
dist   = gutsy              # Default distribution to install.
gateway = 10.0.1.1
netmask = 255.255.255.0
cache = yes                 # Cache downloaded debs
passwd = 1                  # Set up root password during creation
kernel = /boot/vmlinuz-`uname -r`
initrd = /boot/initrd.img-`uname -r`
arch = amd64                # 64-bit domU
mirror = http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
ext3_options = noatime,nodiratime,errors=remount-ro
serial_device = tty1

My /etc/xen/xend-config.sxp:

(xend-tcp-xmlrpc-server yes)
(xend-relocation-server yes)
(xend-relocation-server yes)
(xend-tcp-xmlrpc-server-address '')
(xend-tcp-xmlrpc-server-port 8006)
(xend-relocation-port 8002)
(xend-relocation-address '')
(xend-relocation-hosts-allow '')
(network-script network-bridge)
(vif-script vif-bridge)
(dom0-min-mem 196)
(dom0-cpus 0)
(vncpasswd '')

Edit the file /etc/xen-tools/xm.tmpl as follows, around line 19:

memory      = '{$memory}'
extra='xencons=tty'

To generate one Gutsy-based DomU:
xen-create-image --hostname=gutsy1 --ip=10.0.1.3 --verbose --force

To boot created DomU:
xm create gutsy1.cfg -c