Tag: centos 6 (64bits)

Reverting to passworded SSH (root) logins

My normal ssh logins are with public keys authentication (aka passwordless), however, under certain circumstances I’d like to revert back to good old passwords logins. Like when I want to transfer a Plesk server across another server using the Plesk Migration & Transfer manager.

After scouring the Net for some inspiration, which failed, and some tinkering, I finally found a neat solution to switch between the two (passwordless and normal authentication logins) quickly, the process is relatively simple* but frankly puzzling IMHO. I shall explain why: Continue reading Reverting to passworded SSH (root) logins

Virtualmin Virtual Servers (GPL)

Following my last post I now found out that Webmin does not allow multi virtual servers :-(, BUT there is a module called Virtualmin Virtual Servers (GPL) which is what I need.

To save myself hassle, I installed a compatible OS (CentOS 6 64bit) and simply installed virtualmin from the install.sh command after downloading it:

cd /root
wget http://software.virtualmin.com/gpl/scripts/install.sh
sh ./install.sh

After this my next  move was to install csf lfd from configserver.com:
(there is now a new URI for the archive which I changed on 2017-02-08)

wget http://www.configserver.com/free/csf.tgz
wget https://download.configserver.com/csf.tgz
tar zxvf csf.tgz
cd csf
sh ./install.sh

Once installed integrate it in Webmin and you’re good to go.

– Install the csf webmin module in:
Webmin > Webmin Configuration > Webmin Modules > From local file > /etc/csf/csfwebmin.tgz > Install Module

Email access problems

All worked well from the word go except SMTP/POP3 (Dovecot) server; I was getting Failed to connect to localhost:143 : Connection refused  (as well as port 993,995,110 and 25) when trying to connect either via my email client or usermin.

System Information was reporting that Dovecot IMAP / POP3 Server was offline, and trying to start Dovecot failed:

Starting dovecot: Error: socket() failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: service(pop3-login): listen(::, 110) failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: socket() failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: service(pop3-login): listen(::, 995) failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: socket() failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: service(imap-login): listen(::, 143) failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: socket() failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Error: service(imap-login): listen(::, 993) failed: Address family not supported by protocol
Fatal: Failed to start listeners

After editing the /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf file and commenting out/insert: listen = *  Here is how my edited file looks like:

# A comma separated list of IPs or hosts where to listen in for connections. 
# "*" listens in all IPv4 interfaces, "::" listens in all IPv6 interfaces.
# If you want to specify non-default ports or anything more complex,
# edit conf.d/master.conf.
#listen = *, ::
listen = *

Now, why would Dovecot server come with this line disabled is baffling, anyway, after this, Dovecot starts fine allowing usermin and email clients to connect without problems:

dovecot