You may have noticed that regular port forwarding doesn’t work when trying to connect to your torrent server’s webUI if the torrent server is connected to a VPN. You can get around this limitation if you have an extra server with Apache installed using Apache’s mod_rewrite engine.

I’m going to assume that you have the following already setup and working:

• A torrent server (torrents01) with a working web interface accessible on http://10.10.10.100:8080
• An Apache web server accessible externally (web01 – IP of 10.10.10.99)
• You’re running Linux (this will work with Windows, but you’re going to have to fill in the blanks on the steps in IIS or Apache)

In web01, log in to the shell environment.

Create a new virtual host:

$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/torrent-proxy

In the window, paste the following:

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName deluge.DOMAINNAME.com
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://10.10.10.100:8080/$1 [P]

</VirtualHost>

Now, what the above is doing is receiving all traffic on port 80 with a web address of deluge.domainname.com and rewriting the address to the local IP address of your torrent server.

Press CTRL+X and then yes to save.

Enable the above by typing:

$ sudo a2ensite torrent-proxy

Restart apache2 (reload doesn’t always work, so restart is sometimes better):

$ sudo service apache2 restart

 

As a note to the above, if you want to be able to use the same address internally and externally, you’ll need to add deluge.DOMAINNAME.com to your DNS server and have it point to the Apache server (DNSmasq if you are using it).

Also, utorrent is a bit of a pain in the ass with the /gui it adds at the end. The best thing to do is to change the virtual host to listen on port 8080 so that you can consistently address it. You’ll need to edit the ports.conf (/etc/apache2/ports.conf) and add port 8080 to the listening ports.

There you have it, you should now be able to get to your torrent server inside and outside of your network using the same address.

The Gnome printers utility is frustrating to say the least. The system has the traditional  printer dialog, which can be pulled up by typing the following into the terminal:

system-config-printer

Adding this to the Launcher

I did not want to remember this command for the once in awhile need of adding a printer. So, instead, I created a modified Printer launcher by doing the following:

1. Open up a terminal
2. $ cd /usr/share/applications
3. $ sudo cp gnome-printers-panel.desktop gnome-printers-control.desktop
4. $ sudo nano gnome-printers-control.desktop
5. Make the file look like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Printers Configuration
Comment=Change system printer settings
Exec=system-config-printer
Icon=printer
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
# The X-GNOME-Settings-Panel is necessary to show in the main shell UI
Categories=GNOME;GTK;Settings;HardwareSettings;X-GNOME-Settings-Panel;
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;
X-GNOME-Settings-Panel=printers
# Translators: those are keywords for the printing control-center panel
Keywords=Printer;Queue;Print;Paper;Ink;Toner;
X-Ubuntu-Gettext-Domain=gnome-control-center-2.0

Now you have a Launcher called Printers Configuration!

Our company wanted to test iFax to see if it was going to be a suitable replacement for RightFax, so our first thought was to load it up into Hyper-V. Failure ensued due to their prepackaged ISO not having the right drivers to get the installer going in Hyper-V.

These instructions might be useful if you’re looking to get test iFax’s software. Disclaimer: I have no idea how to get a Brooktrout card working in a virtual environment, so if you need to test that aspect of it, you might be better off getting some cheap hardware (something we ended up doing anyway).

To get iFax up and running in Hyper-V: Continue reading “Notes on Installing iFax in Hyper-V 2012”