It is very easy to install using Synaptic/Apt and is available in the Ubuntu Universe Repository. There are two front ends available using GTK, and QT. The only issue I had to troubleshoot was that the recorded audio was out of sync and choppy. It was very easy to fix by changing the DEFAULT sound option to plughw:0,0.

The software is capable of using a variety of audio sources including Jack audio server. The capture provided an excellent quality file in .ogv format.

If you are sharing the video capture with Windows users, you will need to convert it to a Windows-friendly format for them. I used mencoder - 

mencoder -idx mycapture.ogv -ovc lavc -oac mp3lame -o mycapture.avi

For a helpful page on installing additional repositories and software in Ubuntu, see here Enabling Extra Repositories. You should also see the following link:  Medibuntu  – to install the W32 Codecs.

This is only required if you need to convert the output into a Windows format like .avi. In order to play the converted avi video in Windows,  I still needed to install this free codec: FFDShow MPEG-4.

1. Download the Solarwinds VMWare ESX Monitor.

2. Install it in your Windows workstation.

3. SSH or console into your ESX server as root, or equivalent.

4. type nano /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf to open the configuration for editing.

5. make sure there is a statement that says rocommunity public, if not add it. Otherwise close.

6. at the command line type: chkconfig snmpd on t (to make the service start automatically)

7. Restart the snmpd service: service snmpd restart

8, open your ESX firewall for snmp port 161 UDP and TCP by entering the following:

esxcfg-firewall -o 161,tcp,in,snmp
esxcfg-firewall -o 161,udp,in,snmp

Now open up your Solar Winds monitor and enter the name of the ESX server. The defaults should work fine unless you changed the public string name to something else.

I work in linux a lot as well these days. I’m just finding after years of Microsoft that I really like linux. It is my base OS and I run VMWare or RDP sessions to manage my Microsoft shop.

I’ve been wanting to use a simple POP or IMAP client to check my mail when I’m traveling, have poor connectivity, etc. My company has many people overseas on very slow and highly contended VSAT connections. I don’t like passing my credentials in plain text.

I applied a secure certificate to the virtual POP3, IMAP, and SMTP servers on our Exchange 2003 front ends. I opened the appropriate firewall ports, and voila we had secure IMAP and POP3. SMTP was a little weird.

Exchange does not use a separate port for secure SMTP. It uses port 25 for everything. This works out fine. When you configure your client, choose TLS and not SSL. Make sure it is port 25. You can confirm your email was sent encrypted by looking at the header (send yourself a test). It will say the email was received by your smtp server in an encrypted session.

One last gotcha – the secure SMTP worked inside the firewall and not outside. When using telnet into the mail server on port 25 from the inside, an EHLO issued a full string of options, including STARTTLS. Outside the firewall, these options were only a string of XXXX’s. Cisco firewalls using inspect ESMTP statements filter out the STARTTLS option. This also causes the client to fail with an error stating the STARTLS is not offered. Remove the ip inspect esmtp statement and all will be well.

Outlook and Outlook Express use SMTP 25 and the SSL option, not TLS. Any other client, choose TLS.

Clients tested: Thunderbird, Evolution, Outlook Express

Note: if you are using Outlook or Evolution you might consider using the rpc/https built into these two clients.