Fedora Silverblue is an operating system for your desktop built on Fedora Linux. It’s excellent for daily use, development, and container-based workflows. It offers numerous advantages such as being able to roll back in case of any problems. If you want to update or rebase to Fedora Linux 36 on your Fedora Silverblue system (these instructions are similar for Fedora Kinoite), this article tells you how. It not only shows you what to do, but also how to revert things if something unforeseen happens.
Prior to actually doing the rebase to Fedora Linux 36, you should apply any pending updates. Enter the following in the terminal:
$ rpm-ostree update
or install updates through GNOME Software and reboot.
Rebasing using GNOME Software
GNOME Software shows you that there is new version of Fedora Linux available on the Updates screen.
Fedora 36 update available
First thing you need to do is download the new image, so click on the Download button. This will take some time. When it’s done you will see that the update is ready to install.
Fedora 36 update ready to install
Click on the Restart & Upgrade button. This step will take only a few moments and the computer will be restarted at the end. After restart you will end up in new and shiny release of Fedora Linux 36. Easy, isn’t it?
Rebasing using terminal
If you prefer to do everything in a terminal, then this part of the guide is for you.
Rebasing to Fedora Linux 36 using the terminal is easy. First, check if the 36 branch is available:
$ ostree remote refs fedora
You should see the following in the output:
fedora:fedora/36/x86_64/silverblue
If you want to pin the current deployment (this deployment will stay as option in GRUB until you remove it), you can do it by running:
$ sudo ostree admin pin 0
To remove the pinned deployment use the following command:
$ sudo ostree admin pin --unpin 2
where 2 is the position in the $rpm-ostree status
Next, rebase your system to the Fedora Linux 36 branch.
$ rpm-ostree rebase fedora:fedora/36/x86_64/silverblue
Finally, the last thing to do is restart your computer and boot to Fedora Linux 36.
How to roll back
If anything bad happens—for instance, if you can’t boot to Fedora Linux 36 at all—it’s easy to go back. Pick the previous entry in the GRUB menu at boot (if you don’t see it, try to press ESC during boot), and your system will start in its previous state before switching to Fedora Linux 36. To make this change permanent, use the following command:
$ rpm-ostree rollback
That’s it. Now you know how to rebase Fedora Silverblue to Fedora Linux 36 and roll back. So why not do it today?
Nowadays, the number of devices is getting bigger and bigger, and modern operating systems must try to support all types and several of them with every integration, with every release. Maintaining a large number of devices is difficult, expensive and also hard to test, specially for plug-and-play devices, like USB devices.
Therefore, it is necessary to create a mechanism to facilitate the maintenance and testing of old and new USB devices. And this is where USB device emulation comes in. In that way, a complete framework including a big bunch of emulated and validated USB devices will allow easier integration and release. The area of application would be very wide: earlier bug search/detection even during development, automatic tests, continuous integration, etc.
How to emulate USB devices
USB/IP project allows sharing the USB devices connected to a local machine so that they can be managed by another machine connected to the network by means of a TCP/IP connection.
Then USB/IP project consists of two parts:
local device support (host) to allow remote access to every necessary control events and data
remote control that catches every necessary control event and data to process like a normal driver
The procedure is valid for Linux and Windows, here I will focus only on Linux.
The idea behind emulation is to replace the remote device support with an application that behaves in the same way. In this way we can emulate devices with software applications that follow the commented USB/IP protocol specification.
In the following points I will describe how to configure and run the remote support and how to connect to our USB emulated device.
Remote support
Remote support is divided in two parts:
kernel space to control a remote device as it was local, that is, to be probed by the normal driver.
user space application to configure access to remote devices.
At this point, it is important to remark that the device emulators, after configuration by user space application, will communicate directly with the kernel space.
Local support has a very similar structure, but the focus of this article is device emulation.
Let’s analyze every part of remote support.
Kernel space
First of all, in order to get the functionality we need to compile the Linux Kernel with the following options:
CONFIG_USBIP_CORE=m CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_HCD=m
These options enable the USB/IP virtual host controller driver, which is run on the remote machine.
Normal USB drivers need to be also included because they will be probed and configured in the same way from virtual host controller drivers.
Besides there are other important configuration options:
These options define the number of ports per USB/IP virtual host controller and the number of USB/IP virtual host controllers as if adding physical host controllers. These are the default values if CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_HCD is enabled, increase if necessary.
The commented options and kernel modules are already included in some Linux distributions like Fedora Linux.
Let’s see an example of available virtual USB buses and ports that we will use later.
Default and real resources in example equipment:
$ lsusb Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0627:0001 Adomax Technology Co., Ltd Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub $ lsusb -t /: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/15p, 5000M /: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/15p, 480M |__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 480M $
Now, we will load the module vhci-hcd into the system (default configuration for CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_HC_PORTS and CONFIG_USBIP_VHCI_NR_HCS):
$ sudo modprobe vhci-hcd $ lsusb Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0627:0001 Adomax Technology Co., Ltd Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub $ lsusb -t /: Bus 04.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=vhci_hcd/8p, 5000M /: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=vhci_hcd/8p, 480M /: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/15p, 5000M /: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/15p, 480M |__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Human Interface Device, Driver=usbhid, 480M $
The remote USB/IP virtual host controller driver will only use the configured virtualized resources. Of course, emulated devices will work in the same way.
User space
The other necessary part in the USB/IP project is the user space tool usbip and needs to be used to configure the referred kernel space on both sides, although, in the same way, we only focus on the remote side, since the local side will be represented by the emulator.
That is, usbip tool will configure the USB/IP virtual controller (tcp client) in kernel space to connect to the device emulator (tcp server) in order to establish a direct connection between them for USB configuration, events, data, etc. exchange.
The tool is independent of the type of device and is able to provide information about available and reserved resources (see more information in the examples below).
The local USB/IP virtual host controller needs to specify the pair bus-port that will used for remote access, it will be the same for emulated devices, but in this case, this pair can be anything because there is no real device and resource reservation is not necessary.
This tool is found on the Linux Kernel repository in order to be totally synchronized with it.
Location of the tool on the Linux Kernel repository: ./tools/usb/usbip
In some distribution like Fedora Linux, the usbip utility can be installed by means of usbip package from repositories. If usbip utility or related package can not be found, follow the instruction in the available README file to compile and install. Suitable rpm package can also be generated from the usbip-emulatorrepository:
$ git clone https://github.com/jtornosm/USBIP-Virtual-USB-Device.git $ cd USBIP-Virtual-USB-Device/usbip $ make rpm ...
$
How to emulate USB devices
Emulators are generated in Python and C. I have started with C development (I will focus on this part), but the same could be done in Python.
For C development, compile emulation tools from the usbip-emulatorrepository:
$ git clone https://github.com/jtornosm/USBIP-Virtual-USB-Device.git $ cd USBIP-Virtual-USB-Device/c $ make ...
$
All the supported devices emulated at this moment will be generated:
hid-keyboard
hid-mouse
cdc-adm
hso
cdc-ether
bt
rpm package (usbip-emulator) can be also generated with:
$ make rpm ...
$
As examples, Vendor and Product IDs are hardcoded in the code.
Following three examples to show how emulation works. We are using the same equipment for the emulator and remote USB/IP but they could run in different equipment. Besides, we are reserving different resources so all the devices could be emulated at the same time.
Example 1: hso
From one terminal, let’s emulate the hso device:
(“1-1” is the pair bus-port for the USB device on the local machine, as we are emulating, it could be anything. It is only important because usbip tool will have to use the same name to request the emulated device)
(As we saw previously, for this example machine, bus 3 is virtualized)
$ ip addr show dev hso
0 3: hso0: <POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST,NOARP> mtu 1486 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 10 link/none $ rfkill list 0: hso-0: Wireless WAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no ...
$ lsusb ... Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0af0:6711 Option GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 v2 ... $ lsusb -t ...
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=vhci_hcd/8p, 480M |__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Vendor Specific Class, Driver=hso, 12M ...
$
In order to release resources:
$ sudo usbip port Imported USB devices ==================== Port 00: <Port in Use> at Full Speed(12Mbps) Option : GlobeTrotter Express 7.2 v2 (0af0:6711) 3-1 -> usbip://127.0.0.1:3241/1-1 -> remote bus/dev 001/002 $ sudo usbip detach -p 00 usbip: info: Port 0 is now detached! $
And we can check that the device is released:
$ ip addr show dev hso0 Device "hso0" does not exist. $ rfkill list ...
$ lsusb ... $
After this, we can emulate again or stop the emulated device from the first terminal (i.e. with Ctrl-C).
Example 2: cdc-ether
From one terminal, let’s emulate the cdc-ether device (root permission is required because raw socket needs to bind to specified interface for data plane):
(“1-1” is the pair bus-port for the USB device on the local machine, as we are emulating, it could be anything. It is only important because usbip tool will have to use the same name to request the emulated device)
(As we saw previously, for this example machine, bus 3 is virtualized)
$ ip addr show dev eth0 4: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000 link/ether 88:00:66:99:5b:aa brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff $ sudo ethtool eth0 ...
Link detected: yes $ lsusb ... Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0fe6:9900 ICS Advent ... $ lsusb -t ...
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=vhci_hcd/8p, 480M |__ Port 2: Dev 3, If 0, Class=Communications, Driver=cdc_ether, 480M |__ Port 2: Dev 3, If 1, Class=CDC Data, Driver=cdc_ether, 480M ...
$
For this example, we can also test the data plane.
(IP forwarding is disabled in both sides)
First, we can configure the IP address in the emulated device:
$ sudo ip addr add 10.0.0.1/24 dev eth0 $ ip addr show dev eth0 4: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000 link/ether 88:00:66:99:5b:aa brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff inet 10.0.0.1/24 scope global eth0 valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever $
Second, for example, from other directly Ethernet connected machine (real or virtual) we can configure a macvlan interface in the same subnet to send/receive traffic (ping, iperf, etc.):
$ sudo ip link add macvlan0 link enp1s0 type macvlan mode bridge $ sudo ip addr add 10.0.0.2/24 dev macvlan0 $ sudo ip link set macvlan0 up $ ip addr show dev macvlan0 3: macvlan0@enp1s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000 link/ether d6:f1:cd:f1:cc:02 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff inet 10.0.0.2/24 scope global macvlan0 valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever inet6 fe80::d4f1:cdff:fef1:cc02/64 scope link valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever $ ping 10.0.0.1 PING 10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=55.6 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2.19 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=1.74 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=1.76 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=1.93 ms 64 bytes from 10.0.0.1: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=1.65 ms ...
In order to release resources:
$ sudo usbip port Imported USB devices ==================== ...
Port 01: <Port in Use> at High Speed(480Mbps) ICS Advent : unknown product (0fe6:9900) 3-2 -> usbip://127.0.0.1:3245/1-1 -> remote bus/dev 001/003 $ sudo usbip detach -p 01 usbip: info: Port 1 is now detached! $
And we can check that the device is released:
$ ip addr show dev eth0 Device "eth0" does not exist. $ lsusb ... $
And of course, traffic from the other machine is not working:
From 10.0.0.2 icmp_seq=167 Destination Host Unreachable From 10.0.0.2 icmp_seq=168 Destination Host Unreachable From 10.0.0.2 icmp_seq=169 Destination Host Unreachable From 10.0.0.2 icmp_seq=170 Destination Host Unreachable ...
After this, we can emulate again or stop the emulated device from the first terminal (i.e. with Ctrl-C).
Example 3: bt
From one terminal, let’s emulate the Bluetooth device:
(“1-1” is the pair bus-port for the USB device on the local machine, as we are emulating, it could be anything. It is only important because usbip tool will have to use the same name to request the emulated device)
(As we saw previously, for this example machine, bus 3 is virtualized)
$ hciconfig -a hci0: Type: Primary Bus: USB BD Address: AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:11 ACL MTU: 310:10 SCO MTU: 64:8 UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN INQUIRY RX bytes:1451 acl:0 sco:0 events:80 errors:0 TX bytes:1115 acl:0 sco:0 commands:73 errors:0 Features: 0xff 0xff 0x8f 0xfe 0xdb 0xff 0x5b 0x87 Packet type: DM1 DM3 DM5 DH1 DH3 DH5 HV1 HV2 HV3 Link policy: RSWITCH HOLD SNIFF PARK Link mode: SLAVE ACCEPT Name: 'BT USB TEST - CSR8510 A10' Class: 0x000000 Service Classes: Unspecified Device Class: Miscellaneous, HCI Version: 4.0 (0x6) Revision: 0x22bb LMP Version: 3.0 (0x5) Subversion: 0x22bb Manufacturer: Cambridge Silicon Radio (10) $ rfkill list ...
1: hci0: Bluetooth Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no $ lsusb ...
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode) ...
$ lsusb -t ...
/: Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=vhci_hcd/8p, 480M |__ Port 3: Dev 4, If 0, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M |__ Port 3: Dev 4, If 1, Class=Wireless, Driver=btusb, 12M ...
$
And we can turn off and turn on the emulated Bluetooth device, detecting several fake Bluetooth devices:
(At this moment, fake Bluetooth devices are not emulated/simulated so we can not set up)
Turn Bluetooth offTurn Bluetooth on
In order to release resources:
$ sudo usbip port Imported USB devices ==================== ...
Port 02: <Port in Use> at Full Speed(12Mbps) Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd : Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode) (0a12:0001) 3-3 -> usbip://127.0.0.1:3243/1-1 -> remote bus/dev 001/002 $ sudo usbip detach -p 02 usbip: info: Port 2 is now detached! $
And we can check that the device is released:
$ hciconfig $ rfkill list ...
$ lsusb ... $
And of course, device is not detected (as before emulation):
Bluetooth is not found
After this, we can emulate again or stop the emulated device from the first terminal (i.e. with Ctrl-C).
Emulated vs real USB devices
When the real hardware and/or final device is not used to test, we can always feel insecure about the results, and this is the biggest hurdle that we will have to overcome to check the correct operation of the devices by means of emulation.
So, in order to be confident, emulation must be as close as possible to the real hardware and in order to get the most real emulation every aspect of the device must be covered (or at least the necessary ones if they are not related with other aspects). In fact, for a correct test, we must not modify the driver, that is, we must only emulate the physical layer, so that the driver is not able to know if the device is real or emulated.
Starting to test with the real hardware device is a very good idea to get a reference to build the emulator with the same features. For the case of USB devices, the device emulator building is easier because of the existing procedure to get remote control that complies with all the characteristics mentioned above.
Conclusion
USB device emulation is the best way to integrate and test the related features in an efficient, automatic and easy way. But, in order to be confident about the emulation procedure, device emulators need to be previously validated to confirm that they work in the same way as real hardware.
Of course, the USB device emulator is not the same as the real hardware device, but the commented method, thanks to the tested procedure to get remote control of the device, it’s very close to the real scenario and can help a lot to improve our release and testing processes.
Finally, I would like to comment that one of the best advantages of using software emulators is that we will be able to cause specific behaviors, in a simple way, that would be very difficult to reproduce with real hardware, and this could help to find issues and be more robust.
The latest release of Fedora Workstation 36 continues the Fedora Project’s ongoing commitment to delivering the latest innovations in the open source world. This article describes some of the notable user-facing changes that appear in this version.
GNOME 42
Fedora Workstation 36 includes the latest version of the GNOME desktop environment. GNOME 42 includes many improvements and new features. Just some of the improvements include:
Significantly improved input handling, resulting in lower input latency and improved responsiveness when the system is under load. This is particularly beneficial for games and graphics applications.
The Wayland session is now the default for those who use Nvidia’s proprietary graphics driver.
A universal dark mode is now available.
A new interface has been added for taking screenshots and screen video recordings.
In addition, many of the core apps have been ported to GTK 4, and the shell features a number of subtle refinements.
Refreshed look and feel
GNOME 42 as featured in Fedora Workstation 36
GNOME Shell features a refreshed look and feel, with rounder and more clearly separated elements throughout. All the symbolic icons have been updated and the top bar is no longer rounded.
Universal dark mode option
In Settings > Appearance, you can now choose a dark mode option which applies a dark theme to all supported applications. In addition, the pre-installed wallpapers now include dark mode variants. Dark themes can help reduce eye-strain when there is low ambient light, can help conserve battery life on devices with OLED displays, and can reduce the risk of burn-in on OLED displays. Plus, it looks cool!
New screenshot interface
Taking screenshots and screen video recordings is now easier than ever
Previously, pressing the Print Screen key simply took a screenshot of the entire screen and saved it to the Pictures folder. If you wanted to customize your screenshots, you had to remember a keyboard shortcut, or manually open the Screenshots app and use that to take the screenshot you wanted. This was inconvenient.
Now, pressing Print Screen presents you with an all-new user interface that allows you to take a screenshot of either your entire screen, just one window, or a rectangular selection. You can also choose whether to hide or show the mouse pointer, and you can also now take a screen video recording from within the new interface.
Core applications
Apps made in GTK 4 + libadwaita feature a distinct visual style
GNOME’s core applications have seen a number of improvements. A number of them have been ported to GTK 4 and use libadwaita, a new widget library that implements GNOME’s Human Interface Guidelines.
Files now includes the ability to sort files by creation date, and includes some visual refinements, such as a tweaked headerbar design and file renaming interface.
The Software app now includes a more informative update interface, and more prominently features GNOME Circle apps.
The Settings app now has a more visually appealing interface matching the visual tweaks present throughout GNOME Shell.
Text Editor replaces Gedit by default. Text Editor is an all-new app built in GTK 4 and libadwaita. You can always reinstall Gedit by searching for it in the Software app.
Wayland support on Nvidia’s proprietary graphics driver
In previous versions, Fedora Workstation defaulted to the X display server when using Nvidia’s proprietary graphics driver – now, Fedora Workstation 36 uses the Wayland session by default when using Nvidia’s proprietary graphics driver.
If you experience issues with the Wayland session, you can always switch back to the Xorg session by clicking the gear icon at the bottom-right corner of the login screen and choosing “GNOME on Xorg”.
Under-the-hood changes throughout Fedora Linux 36
When installing or upgrading packages with DNF or PackageKit, weak dependencies that have been manually removed will no longer be reinstalled. That is to say: if foo is installed and it has bar as a weak dependency, and bar is then removed, bar will not be reinstalled when foo is updated.
The Noto fonts are now used by default for many languages. This provides greater coverage for different character sets. For users who write in the Malayalam script, the new Meera and RIT Rachana fonts are now the default.
systemd messages now include unit names by default rather than just the description, making troubleshooting easier.
Today, I’m excited to share the results of the hard work of thousands of Fedora Project contributors: our latest release, Fedora Linux 36, is here!
By the community, for the community
Normally when I write these announcements, I talk about some of the great technical changes in the release. This time, I wanted to put the focus on the community that makes those changes happen. Fedora isn’t just a group of people toiling away in isolation — we’re friends. In fact, that’s one of our Four Foundations.
One of our newest Fedora Friends, Juan Carlos Araujo said it beautifully in a Fedora Discussion post:
Besides functionality, stability, features, how it works under the hood, and how cutting-edge it is, I think what makes or breaks a distro are those intangibles, like documentation and the community. And Fedora has it all… especially the intangibles.
We’ve worked hard over the years to make Fedora an inclusive and welcoming community. We want to be a place where experienced contributors and newcomers alike can work together. Just like we want Fedora Linux to be a distribution that appeals to both long-time and novice Linux users.
Speaking of Fedora Linux, let’s take a look at some of the highlights this time around. As always, you should make sure your system is fully up-to-date before upgrading from a previous release. This time especially, because we’ve squashed some very important upgrade-related bugs in F34/F35 updates. Your system upgrade to Fedora Linux 36 could fail if those updates aren’t applied first.
Desktop improvements
Fedora Workstation focuses on the desktop, and in particular, it’s geared toward users who want a “just works” Linux operating system experience. As usual, Fedora Workstation features the latest GNOME release: GNOME 42. While it doesn’t completely provide the answer to life, the universe, and everything, GNOME 42 brings a lot of improvements. Many applications have been ported to GTK 4 for improved style and performance. And two new applications come in GNOME 42: Text Editor and Console. They’re aptly named, so you can guess what they do. Text Editor is the new default text editor and Console is available in the repos.
If you use NVIDIA’s proprietary graphics driver, your desktop sessions will now default to using the Wayland protocol. This allows you to take advantage of hardware acceleration while using the modern desktop compositor.
Of course, we produce more than just the Editions. Fedora Spins and Labs target a variety of audiences and use cases, including Fedora Comp Neuro, which provides tools for computational neuroscience, and desktop environments like Fedora LXQt, which provides a lightweight desktop environment. And don’t forget our alternate architectures: ARM AArch64, Power, and S390x.
Sysadmin improvements
Fedora Linux 36 includes the latest release of Ansible. Ansible 5 splits the “engine” into an ansible-core package and collections packages. This makes maintenance easier and allows you to download only the collections you need. See the Ansible 5 Porting Guide to learn how to update your playbooks.
Beginning in Fedora Server 36, Cockpit provides a module for provisioning and ongoing administration of NFS and Samba shares. This allows administrators to manage network file shares through the Cockpit web interface used to configure other server attributes.
Other updates
No matter what variant of Fedora Linux you use, you’re getting the latest the open source world has to offer. Podman 4.0 will be fully released for the first time in Fedora Linux 36. Podman 4.0 has a huge number of changes and a brand new network stack. It also brings backwards-incompatible API changes, so read the upstream documentation carefully.
Following our “First” foundation, we’ve updated key programming language and system library packages, including Ruby 3.1, Golang 1.18 and PHP 8.1.
We’re excited for you to try out the new release! Go to https://getfedora.org/ and download it now. Or if you’re already running Fedora Linux, follow the easy upgrade instructions. For more information on the new features in Fedora Linux 36, see the release notes.
In the unlikely event of a problem…
If you run into a problem, visit our Ask Fedora user-support forum. This includes a category for common issues.
Thank you everyone
Thanks to the thousands of people who contributed to the Fedora Project in this release cycle. We love having you in the Fedora community. Be sure to join us May 13 – 14 for a virtual release party!
The Docs team is experiencing a new burst of energy. As part of this, we have several big improvements to the Fedora Docs site that we want to share.
Searchable docs
For years, readers have asked for search. We have a lot of documentation on the site, but you sometimes struggle to find what you’re looking for. With the new search feature, you can search the entire Fedora Documentation content.
Lunr.js powers the search. This means your browser downloads the index and does the search locally. The advantage is that there are no external dependencies: searches send nothing to a remote server and there is no external Javascript required. The downside is that the index has to be downloaded before search is available. Although we compress the index, if you’re on a slower connection, you may experience delays.
While the search is a major improvement, it’s not perfect. The search tool is not aware of the context of your search and can’t offer “do you mean _ ?” suggestions. Also, because many pages have similar titles, you can’t always tell which page has the information you’re looking for. We’re looking into adding more context to the page titles and working with teams to make titles more useful.
Stable “latest” URL
Many times when you link to a page on Fedora Docs, you don’t care about the version number. For example, if you’re writing a blog post that links to the Installation Guide, you’d rather it go to the Installation Guide for the latest version. If you don’t actively update your links to Fedora Docs, they grow stale over time.
We recently added a stable /latest URL for release docs. For example, https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/latest/ points to the Fedora Linux 35 documentation. When we release Fedora Linux 36, soon, that URL will point to F36 documentation. You can use this stable URL when you want to target the latest released version and only use specific versions in the URL when the version matters.
Redesigning the site
Over the next few months, we’re working on a two-pronged approach to documentation. First, we want the user documentation to better reflect the changes in the Fedora distribution over the last few years. In the meantime, there are great differences in terms of installation and administration, which makes uniform guides difficult to write. In fact, most Editions now have their own installation guide. As a first step, we will split the current installation guide into a guide describing where to find the installation guide for the appropriate Edition. It will also include a generic description of Anaconda that Editions can link to or include text parts. We expect to be able to connect the customization during the Fedora Linux 37 development cycle. As a next step, we will revise the Administration Guide and Quick Docs.
In addition, the Docs team will be selecting an Outreachy intern to work on a redesign of the site. This will include both the graphical design of the user interface as well as improving the information architecture of the site. We want to make it easier for you to find exactly what you’re looking for.
If you see an issue on any Fedora Docs page, you can click the bug icon on the top of the page to report an issue. Or click the edit icon to submit a correction!
In the good old days, connecting a Linux box to a network was easy. For each of the interface cards connected to a network, the system administrator would drop a configuration file into the /etc directory. That configuration file would describe the addressing configuration for a particular network. On Fedora Linux, the configuration file would actually be a shell script snippet like this:
A shell script executed on startup would read the file and apply the configuration. Simple.
Towards the end of 2004, however, a change was in the air. Quite literally — the Wi-Fi has become ubiquitous. The portable computers of the day could rapidly connect to new networks and the USB bus allowed even the wired network adapters to come and go while the system was up and running. The network configuration became more dynamic than ever before, rendering the existing network configuration tooling impractical. To the rescue came NetworkManager. On a Fedora Linux system, NetworkManager uses configuration like this:
Looks familiar? It should. From the beginning, NetworkManager was intended to work with the existing configuration formats. In fact, it ended up with plugins which would seamlessly convert between NetworkManager’s internal configuration model and the distribution’s native format. On Fedora, it would be the aforementioned ifcfg files.
Let’s take a closer look at them.
Ifcfg files
The legacy network service, now part of the network-scripts package, originally defined the ifcfg file format. Along with the package comes a file called sysconfig.txt that, quite helpfully, documents the format.
As NetworkManager gained traction it often found itself in need of expressing a configuration that was not supported by the old fashioned network service. Given the nature of configuring things with shell scripts, adding new settings is no big deal. The unknown ones are generally just silently ignored. The NetworkManager’s idea of what ifcfg files should look like is described in the nm-settings-ifcfg-rh(5) manual.
In general, NetworkManager tries hard to write ifcfg files that work well with the legacy network service. Nevertheless, sometimes it is just not possible. These days, the number of network connection types that NetworkManager supports vastly outnumber what the legacy network service can configure. . A new format is now used to express what the legacy format can not. This includes VPN connections, broadband modems and more.
Keyfiles
The new format closely resembled the NetworkManager’s native configuration model:
The actual format should be instantly familiar to everyone familiar with Linux systems. It’s the “ini file” or “keyfile” — a bunch of plain text key-value pairs, much like the ifcfg files use, grouped into sections. The nm-settings-ifcfg-keyfile(5) manual documents the format thoroughly.
The main advantage of using this format is that it closely resembles NetworkManager’s idea of how to express network configuration, used both internally and on the D-Bus API. It’s easier to extend without taking into consideration the quirks of the mechanism that was designed in without the benefit of foresight back when the world was young. This means less code, less surprises and less bugs.
In fact there’s nothing the keyfile format can’t express that ifcfg files can. It can express the simple wired connections just as well as the VPNs or modems.
Migrating to keyfiles
The legacy network service served us well for many years, but its days are now long over. Fedora Linux dropped it many releases ago and without it there is seemingly little reason to use the ifcfg files. That is, for new configurations. While Fedora Linux still supports the ifcfg files, it has defaulted to writing keyfiles for quite some time.
Starting with Fedora Linux 36, the ifcfg support will no longer be present in new installations. If you’re still using ifcfg files, do not worry — the existing systems will keep it on upgrades. Nevertheless, you can still decide to uninstall it and carry your configuration over to keyfiles. Keep on reading to learn how.
If you’re like me, you installed your system years ago and you have a mixture of keyfiles and ifcfg files. Here’s how can you check:
$ nmcli -f TYPE,FILENAME,NAME conn
TYPE FILENAME NAME
ethernet /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 eth0
wifi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-Guest Guest
wifi /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/Base48 Base48
vpn /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/VPN.ovpn My VPN
This example shows a VPN connection that must have always used a keyfile and a Wi-Fi connection presumably created after Fedora Linux switched to writing keyfiles by default. There’s also an Ethernet connection and Wi-Fi one from back in the day that use the ifcfg plugin. Let’s see how we can convert those to keyfiles.
The NetworkManager’s command line utility, nmcli(1), acquired a new connection migrate command, that can change the configuration backend used by a connection profile.
It’s a good idea to make a backup of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* files, in case anything goes wrong. Once you have the backup you can try migrating a single connection to a different configuration backend (keyfile by default):
Connecting industrial machinery to the internet has given birth to infinite opportunities that range from performance improvements and predictive maintenance to data modelling that can lead to novel solutions and use cases. The possibilities are endless. Connecting machinery on such a scale can test the limits of cloud connectivity, depending on your location and network limitations.
An edge device is any piece of hardware that sits at the boundary between two networks. When initial computation happens on servers at the edge, it speeds up user’s interactions with the cloud. Therefore, adding edge devices provides opportunities to optimize performance, shorten the journey, and lighten the load on your cloud connection.
As amazing as it sounds, managing all of this functionality demands continuous attention from administrators. Having a reliable solution to distribute, deploy, and update systems for edge devices from the outset will help you spend time on things that matter.
In this article, we look at how OSTree is well-positioned for upgrading and updating edge devices with versioned updates of Linux-based operating systems. Furthermore, we’ll explore how Pulp facilitates managing and preparing updates of the OSTree content, as well as making it available to edge devices. Together, they provide a powerful free and open-source solution for administering edge devices.
How does OSTree help manage Edge devices?
If you need to deploy hundreds of operating systems to edge devices, safe in the knowledge that you can easily manage future updates and maintenance, an OSTree’s immutable and image-based operating system is ready for the task.
OSTree functions like git, but for operating system binaries. It has git-like content-addressed repositories. The ability to commit and branch entire root filesystem trees resembles the way you submit changes in git. With OSTree, you build an operating system with pre-installed packages, known as an operating system image. After you build the operating system image, it is possible to track it, sign it, test it, and deploy it. These images function as immutable file system trees. When the time comes to change or update, you simply build a new image and deploy it. By atomically switching between different versions of images, you are completely replacing filesystem trees.
OSTree also has a simple CLI that you can use for managing simple workflows, for example, for switching between different versions of images/filesystem trees.
Where do Fedora-IoT Images feature?
As a standalone tool, the base OSTree CLI is not the most feature-rich utility for managing repository content. To make life easier, in the following demo, we will use rpm-ostree. rpm-ostree is a hybrid image/package system that combines the standard OSTree technology as a base image format and accepts RPM on both the client and server-side.
rpm-ostree integrates with Fedora IoT. In comparison to other ecosystems, instead of installing packages via DNF, you install packages with rpm-ostree. After rebooting all changes are applied to a new version of the image.
You can also upgrade or install a new Fedora IoT image with the rpm-ostree utility.
Where and how does Pulp come into this?
Pulp is a platform that handles content management workflows. Using Pulp, you can sync packages from remote repositories such as an RPM server, PyPI, Docker Hub, Ansible Galaxy, and many more. You can host and modify synced packages in repositories inside the Pulp server. You can publish repositories that contain packages available for deployment to production environments.
In our scenario, Pulp provides a platform for storing particular versions of OSTree content, promoting approved content through the content management lifecycle, for example from dev to test, and from test to prod. Pulp also provides a method for publishing content that is consumed by edge devices. Using Pulp, you can pull the latest packages, test, and publish only when safe to do so. Pulp ensures the safety, security, and repeatability of your content supply chain.
The following diagram provides a simplified overview of Pulp. On the left are shown different content types that are mirrored into Pulp from remote sources. These repositories are then served, for instance, to different CI/CD or production environments.
A simplified overview of Pulp. The content is mirrored from remote repositories and made available to different types of environments.
Pulp creates a new repository version automatically when updating or removing packages in a repository. You can distribute each repository version independently.
Pulp has a plugin-based architecture, which means that you must add a plugin for each content type you want to use. For managing OSTree content, you need the OSTree plugin. You can then mirror content from a remote repository, import content from a local tarball, and modify content within a Pulp repository while preserving the integrity of the original content. You can move commits and refs from one repository to another or delete them. Pulp ensures that you are safe to experiment while your production environment remains pinned to a particular version.
Putting it all together
In this section, let’s look at how to build an image with an OSTree commit.
Building a Customized Fedora-IoT Image
We start by booting a new virtual machine (VM) that will have an installed Fedora-IoT OS. For the purposes of this example, it is best to have the same version of the OS installed as the running edge devices have.
All commands in this section are executed on the main admin VM (Fedora IoT 35 OS). On this admin VM, we will build the images that we will then distribute to the edge devices.
Before you begin:
First, ensure that the VM is accessible via SSH. To test, enter the following command from within the target OS:
$ systemctl is-active sshd
Next, ensure that the following tools for composing operating system images are installed:
Now, apply the installed packages by rebooting the system.
In this example a nano editor package is installed on all edge devices. We need to build an image containing a commit with the package.
Create a blueprint file that describes what changes you want to make to the image as shown here:
$ cat install-nano.toml name = "nano-commit"
description = "Installing nano"
version = "0.0.1" [[packages]]
name = "nano"
version = "*"
Push this blueprint to the os build composer utility, which is a tool for composing operating system images. composer-cli communicates with osbuild composer through the CLI:
The composer will use resources available in your current OS (such as a default operating system version).
Regularly check the status of the build:
$ composer-cli compose status
When the build finishes, download the image:
$ composer-cli compose image ${IMAGE_UUID}
The downloaded image is basically an OSTree repository packed into a tarball. When you extract the archived content, you will notice that one ref is referencing the checksum of a commit. You can find it inside the refs/heads/ directory.
Publishing the Customized Image with Pulp
All commands shown in this section are executed on the main admin VM (Fedora IoT 35 OS).
Before you begin:
Ensure that you have installed Pulp and the Pulp CLI for managing OSTree repositories:
Now configure a proxy server or SSH port forwarding to enable network communication between the VM and Pulp. Ensure that you can ping the Pulp server from the VM.
First, create a new OSTree repository:
$ pulp ostree repository create --name fedora-iot
The following command will import the tarball created in the previous section into Pulp:
Distributing the Customized Image to an Edge Device
The Edge device can be another VM or a real device running Fedora IoT.
All commands shown in this section are executed on an Edge device (Fedora IoT 35 OS).
Before you begin:
Configure a proxy server or SSH port forwarding to enable network communication between an Edge device and Pulp. Ensure that you can ping the Pulp server from the Edge device.
Ensure that the Edge device is accessible with SSH:
$ systemctl is-active sshd
The nano package should NOT come pre-installed with the official bare Fedora IoT 35 image. Verify that by attempting to run nano inside your terminal.
In Fedora IoT, updates are retrieved from the URL defined in /etc/ostree/remotes.d/fedora-iot.conf. This file can be modified manually or by adding a new remote repository. Learn more at Adding and Removing Remote Repositories.
You can automate the upgrade procedure with an upgrade policy that will be configured at the beginning of deployment. This is done by writing a kickstart file that will boot up an edge device into a headless state. However, for demonstrative purposes, let’s act like a villain and update the aforementioned configuration file manually to have the following content:
MLCube is a new open source container based infrastructure specification introduced to enable reproducibility in Python based machine learning workflows. It can utilize tools such as Podman, Singularity and Docker. Execution on remote platforms is also supported. One of the chairs of the MLCommons Best Practices working group that is developing MLCube is Diane Feddema from Red Hat. This introductory article explains how to run the hello world MLCube example using Podman on Fedora Linux.
Yazan Monshed has written a very helpful introduction to Podman on Fedora which gives more details on some of the steps used here.
Then, following the documentation, setup a virtual environment and get the example code. To ensure reproducibility, use a specific commit as the project is being actively improved.
Now change the runner command from docker to podman by editing the file $HOME/mlcube.yaml so that the line
docker: docker
becomes
docker: podman
If you are on a computer with x86_64 architecture, you can get the container using
mlcube configure --mlcube=. --platform=docker
You will see a number of options
? Please select an image: ▸ registry.fedoraproject.org/mlcommons/hello_world:0.0.1 registry.access.redhat.com/mlcommons/hello_world:0.0.1 docker.io/mlcommons/hello_world:0.0.1 quay.io/mlcommons/hello_world:0.0.1
Choose docker.io/mlcommons/hello_world:0.0.1 to obtain the container.
If you are not on a computer with x86_64 architecture, you will need to build the container. Change the file $HOME/mlcube.yaml so that the line
build_strategy: pull
becomes
build_strategy: auto
and then build the container using
mlcube configure --mlcube=. --platform=docker
To run the tests, you may need to set SELinux permissions in the directories appropriately. You can check that SELinux is enabled by typing
sudo sestatus
which should give you output similar to
SELinux status: enabled
...
Josphat Mutai, Christopher Smart and Daniel Walsh explain that you need to be careful in setting appropriate SELinux policies for files used by containers. Here, you will allow the container to read and write to the workspace directory.
mlcube run --mlcube=. --task=hello --platform=docker
mlcube run --mlcube=. --task=bye --platform=docker
Finally, check that the output
cat workspace/chats/chat_with_alice.txt
has text similar to
Hi, Alice! Nice to meet you.
Bye, Alice! It was great talking to you.
You can create your own MLCube as described here. Contributions to the MLCube examples repository are welcome. Udica is a new project that promises more fine grained SELinux policy controls for containers that are easy for system administrators to apply. Active development of these projects is ongoing. Testing and providing feedback on them would help make secure data management on systems with SELinux easier and more effective.
Fedora Server Edition works on Single Board Computers (SBC) like Raspberry Pi. This article is aimed at data backup and restoration of personal data for users who want to take advantage of solid server systems and built-in tools like Cockpit. It describes 3 levels of backup.
Pre-requisites
To use this guide, all you need is a working Fedora Linux workstation and the following items.
You should read, understand, and practice the requirements as documented in the Fedora Docs for server installation and administration
An SBC (Single Board Computer), tested for Fedora Linux. Check hardware status here.
A choice of microSD Card (64 GB / Class 10) and SSD device
Ethernet cable / DHCP reserved IP or static IP
A Linux client workstation with ssh keys prepared
Make a choice of cloud storage services
Have an additional Linux workstation available
With this setup, I opted for Raspberry Pi 3B+/4B+ (one for hot-swap) because of the price and availability at the time of writing this article. While the Pi server is remotely connected using Cockpit, you can position the Pi near the router for a neat set-up.
Harden server security
After following through with server installation and administration on the SBC, it is a good practice to harden the server security with firewalld.
You must configure the firewall as soon as the server is online before connecting the storage device to the server. Firewalld is a zone-based firewall. It creates one pre-defined zone ‘FedoraServer’ after following through with the installation and administration guide in the Fedora Docs.
Rich rules in firewalld
Rich rules are used to block or allow a particular IP address or address range. The following rule accepts SSH connections only from the host with the registered IP (of client workstation) and drops other connections. Run the commands in Cockpit Terminal or terminal in client workstation connect to the server via ssh.
To carry out additional firewall controls, such as managing ports and zones, please refer to the link below. Please be aware that misconfiguring the firewall may make it vulnerable to security breaches.
The next step is to connect a storage device to the SBC and partition a newly attached storage device using Cockpit. With Cockpit’s graphical server management interface, managing a home lab (whether a single server or several servers) is much simpler than before. Fedora Linux server offers Cockpit as standard.
In this setup, an SSD device, powered by the USB port of the SBC, is placed in service without the need for an additional power supply.
Connect the storage device to a USB port of the SBC
After Cockpit is running (as set up in the pre-requisites), visit ip-address-of-machine:9090 in the web browser of your client workstation
After logging into Cockpit, click ‘Turn on administrative access’ at the top of the Cockpit page
Click the “Storage” on the left pane
Select the device under “Drives” section to format and partition a blank storage device
Cockpit Storage management
On the screen of the selected storage device create a new partition table or format and create new partitions. When prompted to initialize disk, in the “Partitioning” type, select GPT partition
For a file system type from the drop-down list (XFS and ext4), choose ext4. This is suitable for an SBC with limited I/O capability (like USB 2.0 port) and limited bandwidth (less than 200MB/s)
Create a partition in Cockpit
To create a single partition taking up all the storage space on the device, specify its mount point, such as “/media” and click “Ok”
Click “Create partition”, which creates a new partition mounted at “/media”.
Create backups and restore from backups
Backups are rarely one-size-fits-all. There are a few choices to make such as where the data is backed up, the steps you take to backup data, identify any automation, and determine how to restore backed-up data.
Backup workflow – version 1.0
Backup 1. rsync from client to file server (Raspberry Pi)
To run rsync with additional options, set the following flags:
Update destination files in-place
--inplace
Append data onto shorter files
--append
Source-side deduplication combined with compression is the most effective way to reduce the size of data to be backed up before it goes to backup storage.
I run this manually at the end of the day. Automation scripts are advantageous once I settled in with the cloud backup workflow.
For details on rsync, please visit the Fedora magazine article here.
Backup 2. rsync from file server to primary cloud storage
Factors to consider when selecting cloud storage are;
Cost: Upload, storage, and download fee
rsync, sftp supported
Data redundancy (RAID 10 or data center redundancy plan in place)
Snapshots
One of the cloud storage fitting these criteria is Hetzner’s hosted Nextcloud – Storage Box. You are not tied to a supplier and are free to switch without an exit penalty.
Generate SSH keys and create authorized key files in the file server
Use ssh-keygen to generate a new pair of SSH keys for the file server and cloud storage.
ssh-keygen Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key . . .
Insert the required public SSH keys into a new local authorized_keys file.
cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub >> storagebox_authorized_keys
Transfer keys to cloud storage
The next step is to upload the generated authorized_keys file to the Storage Box. To do this, create the directory .ssh with permission 700 and create the file authorized_keys with the public SSH keys and permission 600. Run the following command.
Backup 3. Client backup to secondary cloud storage
Deja Dup is in the Fedora software repo, making it a quick backup solution for Fedora Workstation. It handles the GPG encryption, scheduling, and file inclusion (which directories to back up).
Backing up to the secondary cloud
Restoring files from cloud storage
Archive personal data
Not every data needs a 3-2-1 backup strategy. That is personal data share. I repurposed a hand-me-down laptop with a 1TB HDD as an archive of personal data (family photos).
Go to “Sharing” in settings (in my case, the GNOME file manager) and toggle the slider to enable sharing.
Turn on “file sharing”, “Networks” and “Required password”, which allows you to share your public folders with other workstations on your local network using WebDAV.
Prepare fallback options
Untested backups are no better than no backups at all. I take the ‘hot swap’ approach in a home lab environment where disruptions like frequent power outages or liquid damages do happen. However, my recommendations are far from disaster recovery plans or automatic failover in corporate IT.
Dry run restoration of files on a regular basis
Backup ssh/GPG keys onto an external storage device
Copy a raw image of the Fedora ARM server onto an SD card
Keep snapshots of full backups at primary cloud storage
Automate backup process to minimize human error or oversight
Track activity and troubleshoot with Cockpit
As your project grows, so does the number of servers you manage. Activity and alert tracking in Cockpit ease your administrative burden. You can achieve this in three ways using Cockpit’s graphical interface.
SELinux menu
How to diagnose network issues, find logs and troubleshoot in Cockpit
Go to SELinux to check logs
Check “solution details”
Select “Apply this solution” when necessary
View automation script and run it if necessary
SELinux logs
Network or storage logs
Server logs track detailed metrics that correlate CPU load, memory usage, network activity, and storage performance with the system’s journal. Logs are organized under the network or storage dashboard.
Storage logs in Cockpit
Software updates
Cockpit helps security updates on preset time and frequency. You can run all updates when you need them.
Software updates
Congratulations on setting up a file/backup server with the Fedora ARM server edition.
Having a server with Samba providing AD and Domain Controller functionality will provide you with a very mature and professional way to have a centralized place with all users and groups information. It will free you from the burden of having to manage users and groups on each server. This solution is useful for authenticating applications such as WordPress, FTP servers, HTTP servers, you name it.
This step-by-step tutorial about setting up Samba as an AD and Domain Controller will demonstrate to you how you can achieve this solution for your network, servers, and applications.
Pre-requisites
A fresh Fedora Linux 35 server installation.
Definitions
Hostname: dc1 Domain: onda.org IP: 10.1.1.10/24
Considerations
Once the domain was chosen, you can’t change it, be wise;
In the /etc/hosts file, the server name can’t be on 127.0.0.1 line, it must be on its IP address line;
Use a fixed IP address for the server, as a result, the server’s IP won’t change;
Once you provision the DC server, do not provision another one, join other ones to the domain instead;
For the DNS server, we will choose SAMBA_INTERNAL, so we can have the DNS forwarding feature;
It is necessary to have a time synchronization service running in the server, like chrony or ntp, so you can avoid numerous problems from not having the server and clients synchronized with the same time;
Samba installation
Let’s install the required software to get through this guide. It will provide all the applications you will need.
For setting up Samba as an AD and Domain Controller, you will have to prepare the environment with a functional configuration before you start using it.
Firewall
You will need to allow some UDP and TCP ports through the firewall so that clients will be able to connect to the Domain Controller.
I will show you two methods to add them. Choose the one that suits you best.
First method
This is the most straightforward method, firewalld comes with a service with all ports needed to open Samba DC, which is called samba-dc. Add it to the firewall rules:
To run a Samba DC and running with SELinux in enforcing mode, it is necessary to set some samba booleans for SELinux to on. After these booleans are set, it should not be necessary to disable SELinux.
Restore the default SELinux security contexts for files:
sudo restorecon -Rv /
Samba
First, remove the /etc/samba/smb.conf file if it exists:
sudo rm /etc/samba/smb.conf
Samba uses its own DNS service, and for that reason, the service won’t start if systemd-resolved is running, that is why it is necessary to edit its configuration to stop listening on port 53 and use Samba’s DNS.
Create the directory /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/ if it does not exist:
sudo mkdir /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/
Create the file /etc/systemd/resolved.conf.d/custom.conf that contains the custom config:
The ‐‐use-rfc2307 argument provides POSIX attributes to Active Directory, which stores Unix user and group information on LDAP (rfc2307.txt).
Make sure that you have the correct dns forwarder address set in /etc/samba/smb.conf. Concerning this tutorial, it should be different from the server’s own IP address 10.1.1.10, in my case I set to 8.8.8.8, however your mileage may vary:
Changing the dns forwarder value on /etc/samba/smb.conf file
After changing the dns forwarder value, restart samba service:
sudo systemctl restart samba
Kerberos
After Samba installation, it was provided a krb5.conf file that we will use:
As a result of smbclient command, shows that connectionwas successful.
Anonymous login successful Sharename Type Comment --------- ---- ------- sysvol Disk netlogon Disk IPC$ IPC IPC Service (Samba 4.15.6) SMB1 disabled -- no workgroup available
smbclient connection test
Now, test the Administrator login to netlogon share:
Password for [ONDA\Administrator]: . D 0 Sat Mar 26 05:45:13 2022 .. D 0 Sat Mar 26 05:45:18 2022
8154588 blocks of size 1024. 7307736 blocks available
smbclient Administrator connection test
DNS test
To test if the name resolution is working, execute the following commands:
$ host -t SRV _ldap._tcp.onda.org. _ldap._tcp.onda.org has SRV record 0 100 389 dc1.onda.org.
$ host -t SRV _kerberos._udp.onda.org. _kerberos._udp.onda.org has SRV record 0 100 88 dc1.onda.org.
$ host -t A dc1.onda.org. dc1.onda.org has address 10.1.1.10
If you get the error:
-bash: host: command not found
Install the bind-utils package:
sudo dnf install bind-utils
Kerberos test
Testing Kerberos is important because it generates the required tickets to let clients authenticate with encryption. It heavily relies on correct time.
It can’t be stressed enough to have date and time set correctly, and that is why it is so important to have a time synchronization service running on both clients and servers.
We started out by installing Samba and required applications in a fresh Fedora Linux 35 installation. We’ve also explained the problems that this solution solves. Thereafter, we did an initial configuration that prepares the environment to be ready to Samba to operate as an AD and Domain Controller.
Then, we proceeded to cover how to have Samba up and running alongside Fedora Linux security features, like having it working with firewalld and SELinux enabled. We did some important testing to make sure everything was fine and ended by showing a bit on how to administrate users using samba-tool.
To summarize, if you want to establish a robust solution for centralizing authentication across your network, servers (If one wanted to, one could even join a Windows 10 client to this Samba domain [tested with Windows 10 Professional version 20H2]) and services, consider using this approach as part of your infrastructure.
Now that you know how to have a Samba as AD and Domain Controller solution, what would you like to see covered next? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
