runlevel links at boot time with chkconfig

Generally after every server setup, we need to place a few services on startup.  Depending on the operating system, I have tried quite a few techniques right from manually placing scripts in init.d to the ease of update-rc.d(on ubuntu). However, today I would like to showcase another tool - chkconfig, just for the fact that it has some real clean representation,

A chkconfig --list would show you the list of services and their run level configurations.

Sample output on a CentOS installation:

# chkconfig --list

NetworkManager  0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

acpid           0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

anacron         0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

atd             0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

auditd          0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

autofs          0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

avahi-daemon    0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

avahi-dnsconfd  0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

bluetooth       0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

capi            0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

conman          0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

cpuspeed        0:off   1:on    2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

crond           0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

cups            0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

dnsmasq         0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

dund            0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

firstboot       0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:off   5:on    6:off

gpm             0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

haldaemon       0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

hidd            0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

ip6tables       0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

iptables        0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

irda            0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

irqbalance      0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

isdn            0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

kudzu           0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

lvm2-monitor    0:off   1:on    2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

mcstrans        0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

mdmonitor       0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

mdmpd           0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

messagebus      0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

microcode_ctl   0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

multipathd      0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

mysqld          0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

netconsole      0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

netfs           0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

netplugd        0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

network         0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

nfs             0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

nfslock         0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

nscd            0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

ntpd            0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

oddjobd         0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

pand            0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

pcscd           0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

portmap         0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

psacct          0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

rawdevices      0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

rdisc           0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

readahead_early 0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

readahead_later 0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:on    6:off

restorecond     0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

rpcgssd         0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

rpcidmapd       0:off   1:off   2:off   3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

rpcsvcgssd      0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

saslauthd       0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

sendmail        0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

smartd          0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

sshd            0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

syslog          0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

tcsd            0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

wpa_supplicant  0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

xfs             0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

ypbind          0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

yum-updatesd    0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

To add a new service to this list, an example in this case - httpd,

# chkconfig --add httpd

The list would now include httpd,

# chkconfig --list | grep httpd
httpd           0:off   1:off   2:off   3:off   4:off   5:off   6:off

As seen above, it will not run automatically on any run level. I wanted it to run on 2,3,4 and 5 and hence,

# chkconfig --level 2345 httpd on

And to check the new configuration,

# chkconfig --list | grep httpd

httpd           0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

A reboot can actually verify whether this configuration works.

chkconfig is not available on Ubuntu by default, but can be installed like so,

# sudo apt-get install chkconfig

Clearing saved conversations from Empathy IM

Empathy IM is the current default IM client in GNome.

Every time you sign in and open a chat window, it shows all your previous conversations in the same window above. Doing a Conversation > clear or a ctrl+L will only temporarily clear the screen. When you reopen the window, it reappears. It stores all the conversations as text files (xml with .log extensions).

If you do not want Empathy to log your conversations or rather if you just want to remove all the conversations that it has saved, in the current version(2.28.1.1), there is probably no way to clear the saved conversations permanently from the GUI(at least I could not find it yet).

The Empathy logs are stored in the following folder,

/your_home_folder/.local/share/Empathy/logs/

cd ~/.local/share/Empathy/logs/

you should be able to find a folder named after your IM account in there. And inside it, you should be able to see a folder for each of your contact containing logs of previous conversations.

Deleting my IM account folder from Empathy's log folder cleared the previous conversations permanently for me. However, fresh conversations are logged when you use the client again. Hopefully, future versions will have some mechanism to control this chat log.

apache2: bad user name ${APACHE_RUN_USER}

I am used to compiling(almost always) the apache 2 server on linux. However, this time when I set up my new ubuntu machine, I decided to try the mighty apt-get/package manager. After installation I tried browsing to http://localhost/ and was quite happy to see the server running.

Sometime later, I felt the need to restart apache. When I tried to restart using the apachectl command, it said command not found. Surely, things were different from how it would have been if I had compiled apache manually.

Doing a "ps -ef | grep apache" showed me the process running as

/usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

Thinking that, probably, thats how we start it in this distro(if installed using apt-get), I tried running the following to restart the webserver,

sudo apache2 -k restart

but I was disappointed to see this message show up,

apache2: bad user name ${APACHE_RUN_USER}

Spending sometime on google and the ubuntu forums and I figured that I was running the wrong command.

Both of these commands(below) worked for me,

sudo apache2ctl -k restart

or

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Moreover, apache is not installed where it would be if compiled(it defaults to /usr/local/apache2).

Although the installation was smooth and extremely easy, it still makes me wonder if things(config/folders/etc) would be better if left default?