Looks like I found the culprit that caused my PlugIns to disappear on my MT 3.33 installation. Turns out it was my old friend SELinux!
This had crossed my mind before but the fact that it was working at one point and then just ceased working caused me to dismiss SELinux as an issue. Maybe something was updated in the upgrade process that Fedora uses and altered the SELinux policy after the upgrades were installed. I’m using Fedora 6 on this new system which I’m still configuring Movabletype and other applications on before making this system my new web host.
I’m very surprised I have not ran into this issue on my current MT 3.2 installation.
I cannot take credit for the fix though seems that Sixapart advised the fix a while ago to a user who ran into this with Fedora 4 MT 3.2.
I found the following fix via a Google search on the user’s Sixapart blog they recommended the fix to who was giving details of his upgrade from MT 2.66 to MT 3.2.
Here are the contents of what I found and it worked for me:
####################################################################################
Do you have SELinux enabled on this server? You can run “system-config-authentication” as root to verify that this is enabled. The settings of SELinux are what caused the PlugIns to not be seen by Movable Type.
In this file: /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/files/file_contexts
there is this rule:
/var/www/cgi-bin(/.*)? system_u:object_r:httpd_sys_script_exec_t
That rule basically means that the /var/www/cgi-bin directory (and all subdirectories) have a “httpd_sys_script_exec_t” context. Meaning that CGI scripts can execute from this location.
In the case of the /var/www/cgi-bin/mt/PlugIns directory, each Plugin directory (and the /var/www/cgi-bin/mt/PlugIns folder itself) should have a context type of httpd_sys_script_ro_t. This allows read-only file access to the directory and files and also execute permission.
To adjust the context for the PlugIns folder, use this command:
chcon -R -t httpd_sys_script_ro_t /path/to/mt/PlugIns
####################################################################################
Now I’m continuing to go ahead configuring this new web server for testing and then roll-out!
I also posted this to Sixapart forums: http://forums.sixapart.com/index.php?showtopic=59878
I also just completed pointing this system to my other WAN static ip.adress on my other router, pointing my Apache web server to the second NIC I just installed a couple of days ago and I’m ready to resume configuring Movabletype to move the content over to this system. I also had to rebuild my blog pages and edit my styles CSS file to point to the proper ip.address I’m using for testing purposes.
Why do things like this get fixed late at night give you some energy to start configuring more until you hit a new issue and then you end up with very little sleep?
Well this time I’m going to go to bed like I should…….. but let me do a few more things first…..

Wow!! Tonight really emphasized why I need to take some time and just straighten out my wiring situation in my computer room. I have had so much other real life drama I cannot even discuss I have taken a patch and get to it later mentality since the other issues are far more serious but I need to get this straight soon! I have also been on vacation so I relaxed and indulged in some other hobbies as well such as sight seeing and Scuba diving.
Okay what happened? Here’s the long and long of the story!
I have been testing out my new web server installing the base OS packages and performing updates. Until now I have been letting this new system I built running Fedora 6 run into whatever issues it can before I started installing and configuring my web applications.
Well last night before going to bed I decided to start with my web applications and installed Movabletype 3.33 on this FC6 system. I got everything up and configured up until I needed to configure my first blog and went to bed.
Today I explored the Sixapart Movabletype forums, manuals notes to see if I wanted to go to dynamic pages or PHP since a few of my other applications are PHP and I decide to stick with static pages for a few reasons.
I then started the process after watching some basketball and football games to start configuring my first blog and importing the data from my existing blogs over but first I wanted to test some functions. I ran into the typical permissions issues on plugins and directories. I then tried testing Stylecatcher and after running into more permission issues determined it couldn’t get out of my router on port 80.
I decided to fix this by opening up port 80 briefly on my router that is on the same network as my current web server briefly knowing the potential issues with two systems pointing to port 80 on the same router. Well Stylecatcher worked nicely and of course my current web server stated toggling with my web server I’m testing and this made my Web pages act little nuts for about 5 minutes until I discontinued pointing to the new web server with the router.
I guess I could have made Apache look for this system on another port other than 80 but I had a better idea that I wanted to do for other reasons. My other idea was to put another NIC in this system so it would connect to both my networks for data transfer and redundancy reasons. This way it would point to my other static ip.address and I could test at will and have minimal changes to make it my main web server when switching back to my other network.
I put in the additional NIC which wasn’t an issue. I took the system out of the rack put the card in plugged everything back in plus I also plugged in the new NIC to my other network and this is where the weirdness started!
I had it pick up an ip.address via DHCP just to prove it was working and connecting to the correct network. This seemed to work ok but I should have noticed the ip.address it picked up. I then set the ip.adress statically and then rebooted and walked away for a minute.
When I came back after the reboot I checked in /etc/sysconfig/devices/ and there was a device called “ifcfg-eth0.bak. I looked in “system-config-network” and it was listed there as well as “eth0.bak” along with “eth0” & “peth0”. “peth0” turned out to have the settings of my original NIC along with “eth0.bak” with “eth0” having the DHCP settings of the new NIC.
Well I tried to change “eth0” back to the original settings and that didn’t work. Then a new interface named “peth0.bak” appeared. I cannot remember all of the various different combinations of generated NIC names that I tried and were automatically generated but there were quite a few!
I then decide to look at my other multi-homed Linux system that is running Fedora5 and search in Google and other search engines for what some of the variables were in the/etc/sysconfig/devices/ files. I found I had to switch “PEERDNS=yes” to “PEERDNS=no” and fix my “resolv.conf” to the proper DNS nameservers for my ISP.
I switched the new NIC back to DHCP after all of this to prove it was connecting to the correct network. I checked the systems and they resolved the other systems in my network off both interfaces properly. I then checked the DHCP ip.adress assigned to my new NIC and it had a WAN ip.adress!!
The only way this could happen is if it was connecting straight to my WAN which I found out it did! I have my WAN come into a switch and then I have two routers connected to that switch and give both routers my static WAN ip.addresses and then each router has its own set of LAN addresses.
What happened during one of my testing periods when I was switching my LANs’ over to Gigabit was somehow both routers went to a Gigabit switch on the respective networks shared with multi-homed systems. All my systems have static ip.addresses so this issue never showed before!
I had to go through my spaghetti of LAN cables and make sure that from my ISP’s modem it comes to my 10/100mb switch, to my 4 port routers and then they uplink to the 1gb hubs and then to the correct systems!
This just shows what could happen when you test and don’t put things back. This has had to been like this for a few months. Now my network speed should be better for the WAN & LAN. Plus it heightens the awareness that I need to put into action my game plan with my patch panels and wire harnesses that I have already purchased to get things in order!

Well what do you know? I just started building my web server last week and finished the hardware looked on the Redhat site to see if they had gone to Fedora 6 yet and last week they had not released it yet. I was looking just to make sure I had the link correct Redhat website link a few moments ago before emailing it so someone (late night and my eyes sometimes play tricks) and wouldn’t you know they have Fedora 6.
There appeared to be some issue with the Redhat site so I couldn’t download it there so I went to my one of the mirror sites that usually gives me a nice fast download and with the issues I have typing and the nice fast 20mb up and down unregulated I have the DVD ISO will probably just about be finished downloading by the time I publish this.
I had so many other projects and urgent matters to attend to last week I really hardly got time much time to work on getting the new server up to speed on Fedora 5 so placing Fedora 6 on there shouldn’t be too big of a deal unless its too buggy right now but hey I love working those things out.
I had just configured Apache and my ftp Monday after watching Monday Night football. I started downloading the latest flavors of my Blog software “Movabletype 3.3” and had just completed the mt-check.cgi before going to bed. I had just gotten ImageMagick on my system and was trying to figure out why mt-check.cgi said it didn’t see it even though it was loaded with ImageMagickPerl
O h well I will ftp what I downloaded over to another one of my systems and then install Fedora6 clean on my new Web Server system. My current Web server system I built earlier this year with Fedora 5 will be the backup. This way I can make sure everything is working when I move to the new system.
I will then update my backup Web server system and add anything new and it will become my running Web server while I upgrade my other system later on and back and forth until I need to move to a newer larger HW platform in a couple of years depending on technology. My last two systems I alternated like that lasted for at least two years.
Well looks like the normal download mirror sites I use don’t have Fedora6 there yet so I went to one of the slower sites so my download isn’t quite ready and the “torrent” wasn’t up when I last checked on the Redhat site. So since I have the rest of this week off I’m going to ftp my files over to another system, pop some popcorn and watch some movie I Tivo’d and maybe fall asleep in front of the TV!

I’m trying to live with the
benefits of SELinux instead of disabling it every time I discover find it
disallows the action I’m trying. I am testing a demo version of an application
I’m thinking about using on my Radio Blog that allows users to make
requests and dedications. I’m testing it on one of my other Linux backup systems
not published to the public of course.

 Oh today I don’t feel like using
specific ports and application names since I don’t know if I will used the
application. I still have a bit more testing and configuring to do with this
application.

            The requests mechanism is HTTP generated
and uses a specific port. Well using Webmin tool I believe I successfully
added a rule allowing for this port to be accessed. The issue now that I’m
writing about it may be in the functions of the application itself.

            A bit of background: The application runs on
Windows with a MySQL database instance on that Windows system. I have
another MySQL database instance running on my Linux web server system
that gets the updates via a utility from the other MySQL instance on the
Windows system. That works fine and the information on the two MySQL
instances is identical and my Linux web server can access its local MySQL
instance to draw its information to run the website. I also have some PHP
files I ftp’d over to my Linux system that runs my PHP generated web site
and performs various functions such as the HTTP requests and dedications.

            The request and dedications via HTTP are
the issue here and wait to be received via “the request line port” on my
Windows server that runs the application. Well I kept getting permission denied
errors when trying to make requests. I confirmed that this port was open on my
router, that it showed with “netstat” as listening on that port on the Windows
system waiting to hear the request. I was even able to successfully telnet to
“the request line port” on that system. I then went and looked at where the
request would be coming from, my Linux Web Server, and insured it had
permissions in the allow file of the application from the LAN (both NIC’s) and
the WAN. The WAN I knew worked since the alternative method of asking for
request worked fine from another source on the WAN.

            So now the issue was what is blocking the
requests from my Linux system! Well I started looking around and of course the
requests go through just fine with SELinux in permissive mode or
disabled. I had the “the request line port” enabled but then I started
thinking what if the request which are handled via a PHP file aren’t going out
via “the request line port”!

Plus the fact that the
“system-config-securitylevel” utility didn’t allow me to add that port the
same way I added the port for MySQL. I believe this is because that port is not
listening or running any application on my Linux server and mysql is running on
my Linux system.

            So now I’m completely up against it I cannot
add the port and the policies I added in SELinux via Webmin for that
“the request line port” is not having any affect. Then considering that the
“the request line port” may not be applicable from my Linux web server
and using a totally different port I started looking at the other SELinux
policy settings in the “system-config-securitylevel” utility.  Since this
was an HTTP request looked in the “HTTPD Service” section where I
checked “Allow HTTPD scripts and modules to connect to the network” and
now all my requests work!

            What does this mean? The PHP requests may go to
“the request line port” the Windows system where the application resides
but from the requesting system which will always be where the web server resides
it doesn’t use the “the request line port”. In the SELinux policy
settings I have to I checked “Allow HTTPD scripts and modules to connect to
the network” to allow request to propagate from the Linux web server.

This evening I’m getting some strange power issues and
having UPS on my systems have limited any issues.  Normally with these
types of power fluctuations I would need to reboot and re-sync my systems but
not today.

I went to take a shower on my way out to get a bite to eat
and all of the sudden I was in darkness. Well my UPS have kept all of my
systems up and running during these sporadic power fluctuations this evening
without an issue.

I have had several issues with the wiring of this house
which prompted me to go out to a local surplus store and purchase some heavy
duty UPS. I was also able to come up on some UPS at some government
auctions where they were bidding off surplus equipment.

The UPS I have you normally don’t see in a home
environment even one that has all of the equipment that I have!

I have 2 “APC Smart UPS 2200” and a rack mountable
“Compaq R3000 XR”. I have the “APC 2200’s” on “PC skates”
out on the floor and the “Compaq R3000 XR” in one of my racks with my
Web, Music, Windows and Linux servers and my routers and switches. I use the
“APC 2200’s” for my floor main systems and one switch.

I also have an “HP Powerwise 1000” and an “APC
800 RT” that I’m not using at this point. I intend to use the UPS I’m not
using on my entertainment equipment and will probably move on of my “APC
Smart UPS 2200” into another room to use with some of my audio or video
equipment as well.

For the very small price I paid since they were surplus and
auction pickups for less than 5% – 15% of normal cost they do excellent work.
Even when UPS are not keeping equipment up from a power outage they also filter
the power and knock down surges and spikes so they are well worth the investment
to protect your valuable computer systems presently and in the future when you
are going to purchase new equipment.