Stefan Helander

Call Book Log 3 installation with custom database name

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Call Book Log 3 is a log book program for radio amateurs, hosted on a web server, based on PHP 7 and MySQL/mariaDB.

The database for the software is named ‘hamcallbook‘ by default but if you are going to host it on a server where you can’t choose the name of the database, like a web hosting company (“web hotel”) it will not install.

The solution is to simply edit the file setup2.php before starting the installation process. Search for all occurrences of ‘hamcallbook‘ and replace it with your database name.

After installing, edit the file dbconnect.php, find ‘hamcallbook‘ and replace it with your database name.

pfsense IPsec phase 1 disable rekey
Stefan Helander

pfsense IPsec VPN tunnel disconnects after 8 hours

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I’ve been troubled by the annoying disconnection of the IPsec VPN tunnel on a pfsense firewall. The tunnel disconnects after about 8 hours.

The solution in my case was to enable “Disable rekey” which “Disables renegotiation when a connection is about to expire.“. The setting is found under Phase 1 advanced settings.

Disable rekey setting under Phase 1 Advanced settings
Stefan Helander

MySQL Error 1215: Cannot add foreign key constraint

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Check that both tables have the same engine type, so there isn’t a mix of for example MyISAM and InnoDB.

Stefan Helander

rm unable to delete file even as root or sudo [Solved]

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When it is not possible to delete a file using rm even when logged in as root or by using sudo, check the file attributes with:

lsattr filename.ext

If it has the “i” attribute, this is preventing the file from being deleted, even by super users. When you have verified the reason for this and still want to delete the file then remove the “i” attribute with:

chattr -i filename.ext

Then delete the file using rm as you normally would.

Stefan Helander

Ispconfig3: Let’s Encrypt not working

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There can be several reasons for Let’s Encrypt certificates not being issued for sites. These are some things to check:

  • When creating a new website, save it first, then open it again and check Let’s encrypt and then save it (i.e. don’t check the Let’s Encrypt unless the website has been saved at least once in Ispconfig3)
  • Delete any existing certificates under the SSL tab for the website, including self signed
  • Check that all host names for the website and webaliases are pointing to the correct server
  • Use A records, not CNAME
  • Make sure there are no redirects on the website
  • Check for error messages in the log file; /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log
  • If you get messages in the letsencrypt.log file like;
    “Please choose an account
    Choises: “
    Then check /etc/letsencrypt/accounts/acme-v01.api.letsencrypt.org/directory and if there are more than one account (subdirectory) move all but one to another location.
  • Check the web logs for the site, both access and error logs, for accesses to .well-known/acme-challenge/* and verify that they are served properly (status code 200)
Stefan Helander

Roundcube – add client’s IP-address and host name to outgoing email headers

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By default, the logged in client’s IP-address and hostname are not present in the outgoing email headers which makes it hard to trace the origin in case of abuse.

To make roundcube add this to the email headers of outgoing email, put this in the roundcube configuration file:

// put user's ip and host name in mail headers to enable trace
$config['http_received_header'] = true;

Stefan Helander

Ispconfig3: awstats/webalizer not working, client web logs empty

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If awstats or webalizer is not containing any data and the client web logs are empty, the cause might be missing mounts of the log directories in /etc/fstab.

Search /etc/fstab for the client domain name. If no log mount is found, add a line for the client web site manually in this form:

/var/log/ispconfig/httpd/DOMAIN.COM /var/www/clients/clientNNN/webNNN/log    none    bind,nobootwait    0 0

After that do:

mount -a
mount

to verify it is mounted. After nightly cron, check that awstats or webalizer contains data.

Stefan Helander

Asterisk / FreePBX sip trunk registration problem, Serious Network Trouble

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The asterisk log file (/var/log/asterisk/full) shows entries like this:

[Sep  3 04:02:08] ERROR[3984] chan_sip.c: Serious Network Trouble; __sip_xmit returns error for pkt data

Solution: The server had been moved from one public IP-address to another. In Asterisk PBX settings, the fields for both External IP and Bind Address (under Advanced) needed adjustment to the new IP-address. After server reload everything worked normally.

Stefan Helander

Toshiba laptop green blinking LED light

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A Toshiba laptop I encountered recently was deemed “possibly dead”. It would not boot and screen was just black.

A blinking green LED was present, meaning the battery is discharged. Further investigation revealed that the power supply electric cord had fallen out of the socket.

Plugging it in again turned the blinking green LED to solid orange, meaning the laptop was charging and just pushing the power button made it boot up normally.

Sometimes the problems are too simple 🙂