System Admin

Tails on a USB stick running on Virtualbox – Anonymous Internet

Jack Huang System Admin , 1 Comment

Tails is a live operating system. It aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity, and helps you to use the Internet anonymously and circumvent censorship.

Steps to install Tails on a USB stick running on Virtualbox:

1. Download the Tails ISO image. See Download, verify and install

2. Create Virtualbox VM to boot from Tails ISO. Login to Tails with admin password. See Administration password

3. Install Tails onto a USB stick or SD card. See Installing onto a USB stick or SD card
Note: Some USB sticks are configured by the manufacturer as a fixed disk, and not as a removable disk. As a consequence, they require removing the live-media=removable boot parameter. See Known issues

4. Create VIrtualbox VM to boot from USB Drive. See How to Boot From a USB Drive in VirtualBox

5. Boot Tails from USB with admin password. Create & configure the persistent volume. See Create & configure the persistent volume

Note: When Virtual Box runs directly on your hard drive, it creates a virtual hard drive that is uses as a temporary hard drive while Tails is running. Once Tails is closed, this virtual drive is deleted, but it’s not permanently deleted. As we know from the power of recovery tools, deleted files are easily recoverable with the right tools. Make sure you run Virtual Box and Tails from a USB drive or SD card.

Linux Add a Swap File – Howto

Jack Huang System Admin 0 Comment

Procedure To Add a Swap File Under Linux

You need to use the dd command to create swap file. The mkswap command is used to set up a Linux swap area on a device or in a file.

Step #1: Login as the Root User

Login to remote server using the ssh client. Switch to the root user by typing su – and entering the root password, when prompted

Step #2: Create Storage File

Type the following command to create 1GB swap file (1024 * 1024MB = 1048576 block size):

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile1 bs=1024 count=1048576

Step #3: Set Up a Linux Swap Area

Type the following command to set up a Linux swap area in a file:
# mkswap /swapfile1

Setup correct file permission for security reasons, enter:
# chown root:root /swapfile1
# chmod 0600 /swapfile1

Finally, activate /swapfile1 swap space immediately, enter:
# swapon /swapfile1

To activate /swapfile1 after Linux system reboot, add entry to /etc/fstab file. Open this file using a text editor such as vi:
# vi /etc/fstab

Append the following line:
/swapfile1 swap swap defaults 0 0
Save and close the file. Next time Linux comes up after reboot, it enables the new swap file for you automatically.

How do I Verify Swap is Activated or Not?

Simply use the free command:
$ free -m

How to migrate mailbox between IMAP Servers with imapsync

Jack Huang System Admin 2 Comments

imapsync software is a command line tool allowing incremental and recursive imap transfers from one mailbox to another, both anywhere on the internet or in your local network.

imapsync is useful for imap account migration or imap account backup.

imapsync is not adequate for maintaining two active imap accounts in synchronization where the user plays independently on both sides. Use offlineimap (written by John Goerzen) for this purpose.

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First, create same mailbox on the new mail server.

Then, install imapsync on CentOS: (It doesn’t matter where we install imapsync – we can even install it on a third server.)
yum install imapsync

I’ll use the following data for migration
Old mail server: mail1.mazentop.com
New mail server: mail2.mazentop.com
Old mailbox: support@mazentop.com
New Mailbox: support@mazentop.com
Save old mailbox password in file: /etc/mailpass1
Save new mailbox password in file: /etc/mailpass2

Migrate the old email in support@mazentop.com on server mail1 to the new mailbox support@mazentop.com on server mail2:
imapsync --host1 mail1.mazentop.com --user1 support@mazentop.com --passfile1 /etc/mailpass1 --host2 mail2.mazentop.com --user2 support@mazentop.com --passfile2 /etc/mailpass2