Its_All.Lost
Because hope just breeds everlasting misery…

ClearOS

Since Zentyal decided to drop support for all of the modules that I was using it for I had to switch, and I chose ClearOS. It does the job, but I miss Zentyal. Things were just easier with Zentyal, sure they both have a web GUI but Zentyal just seemed to have it all together. Things made more sense, and I feel like Zentyal was faster. The internet and local network all seem a little slower than before. I can’t say for certain but it feels that way.

One major thing I am missing from Zentyal was the firewall and Traffic Shaping. In my experience with Zentyal the firewall was super easy to understand and setup, and it worked. The traffic shaping (qos) was also easy to setup, and it worked! ClearOS has a firewall and it works, but it requires a lot of pre-configuration to get working properly. I still have issues with my setup. ClearOS doesn’t have QoS either (its in beta). Zentyal’s traffic shaping made it super easy to segregate the phones from computer and the rokus in the house. Making it easy to prioritize your netflix experience for example.

Dealing with ClearOS for now.

Plex with Zentyal

Visit http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2208386

sudo apt-get install avahi-daemon sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Then add “deb http://www.plexapp.com/repo lucid main” to the file.
Edit for saucy

Ta-da!

for further integration install a torrent client, such as transmission, and download your files straight from the server on to the server. Configure Plex to auto update every so often and bam! If you don’t already know Plex also has apps for Android, iPhone, Kindle and Roku. The DLNA portions works well with Smart TVs and Playstations as well. Happy streaming.

Zentyal and VPN

I am so happy I could dance a jig. I finally figured out Zentyal’s VPN server, and have I have it working with all of my Android devices. As it turns out, the solution was so simple if it was a snake it would have bit me. I found a lot of help for Zentyals VPN just none for using it with an Android device. This is how I was able to get it all to work.

Create a new VPN Server, something like mydomain.vpn.

I don’t remember having to do much to the defualt configuration.

  • UDP Port 1194.
  • I used the default IP address.
  • Choose your server certificate, vpn-mydomain.vpn. This was automatically generated if I recall correctly?
  • Client Auth, choose your server. If your Zentyal installation was named MyHomeServer then that is what this would be as well.
  • Enable TUN interface.
  • Enable NAT.
  • Enable Client-to-Client connections (this is optional, it is not required).
  • DISABLE Allow Zentyal-to-Zentyal tunnels. If you need them then you probably don’t need my simple advice.
  • DISABLE Reject routes pushed by Zentyal tunnel clients.
  • Listen on ALL interfaces.
  • Redirect Gateway is enabled.*
  • First nameserver. Should be the IP address of your Zentyal server.
  • Second nameserver. Not required but I have mine set to 8.8.8.8.
  • Search Domain is BLANK.
  • WINS Server is BLANK.

No changes where made to Advertised Networks.

Now this is where I have always had issues in the past. Trying to get my Android device to connect to the VPN. I have been successful in the past using OpenVPN-AS and the Android software but not with Zentyal.

I am still using the official OpenVPN Android app from the Play Store the trick here is you need to import the profile from the SD card instead of automatically downloading it from the server like when using OpenVPN-AS.

  • Client type, select Linux.
  • Client’s certificate, select the name of your Zentyal server.
  • Server address, this is the external address of your Zentyal server. Either a static IP or domain.
  • Additional and Second Additional server addresses are BLANK.
  • Then download the configuration file.

You should now have a file called something like mydomain.vpn-client-myservername.tar.gz. Open it up and extract the files. You should have:

  • 0EFC76386GC758CJ.pem (your file name will vary)
  • cacert.pem
  • mydomain.vpn-client.conf
  • myserver.pem

Now you to get it all to work with Android you need to rename the .conf file to .ovpn.

  • rename: mydomain.vpn-client.conf –> mydomain.vpn-client.ovpn

Copy all of these files to your Android device (with OpenVPN installed). I just emailed myself all of the files that makes it easy to get them on all of my devices. Once copied to your Android open up OpenVPN.

  • Menu > Import > Import Profile from SD Card > (the location you saved the files to)

You should be good to go from there and able to connect! Hope that helps.

Zentyal and Munin

Zentyal is awesome, it is a great piece of software no doubt about it. But it does lack a few thing to make it all that much better; better performance monitoring, media server stuff/DLNA etc. But it was designed as a business platform so I can’t fault it too much right?

But no worries that is all easily remedied. Good thing I can add on whatever I need. Linux <3. For the most part I found these sites to help a great bit in setting this all up. http://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Monitoring_mit_Munin/en http://www.linuxweblog.com/blogs/sandip/20081224/munin-node-plugin-configurations I've attempted to stream line the directions a little bit better, hope it helps.

Enable the plugin.

At the end add:

That will get you hard drive temperature monitoring. They will now show as a new section titled "sensors". If you want to add the new data as its own page create your own plugin. sudo etc/munin/plugin-conf.d/hddtemp_smartctl Paste in the following

Save and you should be good to go from there.

Retrieve your Zentyal MySQL Password

So you have the need for a SQL database for your website (or whatever), which all happens to be a Zentyal box. Why not just use the existing mySQL server? Why not indeed? All you need is the password. Luck would have it that is not a problem.

sudo nano /var/lib/zentyal/conf/zentyal-mysql.passwd

Copy that down cause thats your password. From here you can use the database manually or install something like phpMyadmin.

I found this page to be of help when I was searching:
https://forum.zentyal.org/index.php?topic=4844.0