Setup Proxmox cluster

1. First download official ISO image from Proxmox website: https://www.proxmox.com/

2. Write ISO image to USB flash drive using program Etcher: https://www.balena.io/etcher/

3. Boot PC from USB drive and install Proxmox. If you have two hard drives you can use ZFS file system to create RAID array.

Now log in to Proxmox admin panel using Web-browser: https://server-ip-address:8006

After installation we need to upgrade our system. Proxmox based on Debian GNU Linus and it use Debian repositories but in free version of Proxmox we will have an error when we try to upgrade. We need to disable enterprise Proxmox repositories. Open file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list and comment with symbol # first line with enterprise Proxmox repository.

nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list

Then we can update packages list and upgrade our system:

apt update
apt upgrade

After installation let’s configure Local storage.

In admin panel go to Datacenter -> Storage, select local-lvm storage and click Remove

After that go to your Node -> Shell and write next commands:

lvremove /dev/pve/data
lvresize -l +100%FREE /dev/pve/root

And the last command to resize our local storage to 100% is:

resize2fs /dev/mapper/pve-root

Done, now we can use 100% of local storage, installed in our server. If you click on local storage you can see entire size of hard drive.

To remove the “You do not have a valid subscription for this server” popup message while logging in, run the command bellow:

sed -Ezi.bak "s/(Ext.Msg.show\(\{\s+title: gettext\('No valid sub)/void\(\{ \/\/\1/g" /usr/share/javascript/proxmox-widget-toolkit/proxmoxlib.js && systemctl restart pveproxy.service

Restore MySQL database from files

If you have MySQL database files and you want to restore database on new server do next steps:

1. Stop MySQL server:

systemctl stop mysql

2. Copy all files of database to /var/lib/mysql directory;

3. Also copy files:

/var/lib/mysql/ibdata1
/var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile0
/var/lib/mysql/ib_logfile1

4. Change user and group of all files in directory /var/lib/mysql to mysql:mysql:

chown -R mysql:mysql .

5. Change permission of files in directory /var/lib/mysql to 660

find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 660

6. Start MySQL server:

systemctl start mysql

To restore database from SQL dump use command:

mysql -u [user] -p [database_name] < [filename].sql

How to add directory to PATH in Linux

The $PATH environment variable is a list of directories that tells the shell which directories to search for executable files.

To check what directories are in your $PATH list use command:

echo $PATH

To add new directory ~/.local/bin/ to $PATH use command:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

But this change is only temporary and valid only in the current shell session.

To make the change permanent, you need to define the $PATH variable in the shell configuration files. In most Linux distributions when you start a new session, environment variables are read from the following files:

  • Global shell specific configuration files such as /etc/environment and /etc/profile. Use this file if you want the new directory to be added to all system users $PATH.
  • Per-user shell specific configuration files. For example, if you are using Bash, you can set the $PATH variable in the ~/.bashrc file. If you are using Zsh the file name is ~/.zshrc.

In this example, we’ll set the variable in the ~/.bashrc file. Open the file with your text editor and add the following line at the end of it:

nano ~/.bashrc

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Save the file and load the new $PATH into the current shell session using the source command:

source ~/.bashrc

To confirm that the directory was successfully added, print the value of your $PATH by typing:

echo $PATH

How to auto start program in Linux with root privilegies

To run some script or program when computer start in linux – copy this program to /etc/init.d directory. Change permissions to 755.

For example let’s create simple bash script “ntpsync“that sync system clock with NTP server in Internet:

service ntp stop
ntpdate time.nist.gov
service ntp start

Copy this sctipt to /etc/init.d, create symbolic link to /etc/rc3.d:

ln -s /etc/init.d/ntpsync /etc/rc3.d/ntpsync

Rc3 level – Мulti-user regime width network support.

That’s all, on next startup Linux will run this script, and automatically sync system clock with NTP server from Internet.

Change default Grub 2 theme

Different themes for Grub 2 boot loader you can find on Gnome-Look website: https://www.gnome-look.org/browse?cat=109&ord=latest

To change Grub them use three simple steps:

1. Copy folder with theme into Grub themes directory:

/boot/grub/themes

2. Edit Grub configuration file /etc/default/grub and write there GRUB_THEME parameter:

GRUB_THEME=/boot/grub/themes/theme_folder/theme.txt

3. Update Grub configuration:

update-grub

Best three Grub themes:

1. Vimix

2. Tela

3. CyberRe

Installing Wine 6 on Debian 10

Step 1: Enable 32 bit architecture

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 

Step 2: Add WineHQ repository

We will pull the latest Wine packages from WineHQ repository that is added manually. First, import GPG key:

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install gnupg2 software-properties-common
wget -qO - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -

You should receive “OK” in the output. Add the Wine repository by running the following command:

sudo apt-add-repository https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/

The command will add repository to line /etc/apt/sources.list file.

Update APT package index:

sudo apt update

Step 3: Install Wine 6 on Debian 10

After configuration of the APT repository, the final step is the actual installation of Wine 6 on Debian 10. Add Wine OBS repository:

wget -O- -q https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Emulators:/Wine:/Debian/Debian_10/Release.key | sudo apt-key add -    
echo "deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Emulators:/Wine:/Debian/Debian_10 ./" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/wine-obs.list

Then install Wine from Stable branch:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

And for latest release in staging, use:

sudo apt install winehq-staging

After installation. verify version installed.

wine --version  # Stable
wine-6.0

wine --version  # Staging
wine-6.5 (Staging)

Debian 10 Install PulseAudio

PulseAudio is a network-capable sound server program. A sound server is a background process accepting sound input from one or more sources (processes, capture devices, etc.), that is able to mix and redirect those sources to one or more sinks (sound cards, remote network PulseAudio servers, or other processes).

To install PulseAudio on Debian Linux first update package repository:

sudo apt update

Next install PulseAudio:

sudo apt install pulseaudio

Now reboot your computer.

Using PulseAudio Volume Control Graphical Utility:

PulseAudio has a graphical frontend PulseAudio Volume Control, which you can use to easily configure PulseAudio sounds graphically.

It is not installed by default. Run the following command to install PulseAudio Volume Control:

sudo apt install pavucontrol

Also to change sound volume by hotkeys you need amixer utility install it by command:

apt-get install alsa-utils