Slackware server as a gateway

 TBC

DHCP server on Slackware using dnsmasq

 Example configuration file:

Slackware minimum PXE boot example

For this example, we will be using dnsmasq on Slackware 14.2 with the Slackware 15 mirror.

crontab -e not opening correct editor

Open your .bashrc file and add the line export EDITOR=vim or do;

echo 'export EDITOR=vim' >> ~/.bashrc

Then logout and back in or source .bashrc

If this doesn't work, try adding it to .bash_profile or do;

echo 'export EDITOR=vim' >> ~/.bash_profile

and then again, logout and back in or do source .bash_profile

NOTE: We can test using echo $EDITOR

I think on is fine for when at the console and the other for remote sessions, maybe...

Issue with slackpkg and gpg key

I found an issue while using slackpkg where the following error presented itself:

ERROR: Verification of the  gpg signature on CHECKSUMS.md5
               failed! This could mean that the file is out of date
               or has been tampered with. If you use mirrors.slackware.com
               as your mirror, this could also mean that the mirror to
               which you got redirected is not yet updated with the most
               recent changes in the Slackware tree.

Import certificate into Java keystore

The below example involves importing a Zscaler root CA certificate into the java keystore on my Slackware installation.

1) General installation.

The certificate can be acquired from here and should be placed in /etc/ssl/certs/Zscaler-Dalzell.crt and also in /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/Zscaler-Dalzell.crt

then do sudo update-ca-certificates which regenerates /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

NOTE: It is important that the extension is crt and not cer as update-ca-certificates only uses crt.

To verify, run: openssl verify -CAfile /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt /etc/ssl/certs/Zscaler-Dalzell.crt
which should look like: /etc/ssl/certs/Zscaler-Dalzell.crt: OK

Update: 17-Feb-2026

I've found that the combined certificate seems to work better, while adding the Zscaler-Dalzell.cer to /etc/ssl/certs/Zscaler-Dalzell.cer seems to allow browsing to an extent and the use of my check4updates, it does not for example, allow for the installation of the Zoho unattended access daemon. The combined file is in my GISTS and should be placed in /usr/local/share/ca-certificates/Zscaler-Dalzell.crt (note the CRT extension), then run update-ca-certificates

2) Java Specific

sudo keytool -import -trustcacerts -alias zscaler -file /etc/ssl/certs/Zscaler-Dalzell.crt -keystore /opt/jdk1.8.0_341/jre/lib/security/cacerts

Note: The destination, in this case '/opt/jdk1.8.0_341/jre/lib/security/cacerts' could quite equally point to a local installation, such as '/home/some_user//some_application/jre/lib/security/cacerts'

 

UEFI, EFI, elilo and Slackware

 I recently came across a system that would not allow me to use legacy boot, so...

Zerotier configuration as a kind of vpn to bridge two networks

TBA

Slackware timezone

 /usr/sbin/timeconfig

Windows shares not connecting from Thunar in Linux

I came across an issue where Windows network shares would not open using Thunar file manager in Slackware.

With a fair bit of digging around, I eventually downgraded samba from 4.15.13 to 4.15.5 which in my case was what was installed with Slackware 15.

Add custom command to nagios

 In this example, we add the plugin to check MySQL replication status [source]

Slackware 15 install on Thinkpad p53

The following is my account of installing Slackware 15 onto a Lenovo ThinkPad P53

Add Java to system PATH variable

 This method seems to work best for me;

There is a script /etc/profile that sets up environment variables and that also includes any scripts in /etc/profile.d so I chose to create a file /etc/profile.d/java.sh with 755 permissions with the following contents;

export JAVA_HOME="/opt/jdk1.8.0_341"
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

slackpkg+ Slackware Package Manager Module

 This relates to the module for Slackpkg called slackpkg+ which can be found here

slackpkg+ is a module for slackpkg which allows the for the installation of packages from of 3rd party repositories in Slackware. Note: dependency checking is not included.

Building and Installing Packages with sbopkg

 

Starting Services at boot time in slackware

 A reminder...

Any networking services should be handles by rc.init2 and simply requires making the appropriate script in /etc/rc.d executable.

But if we add our own custom script, then we can add the following to rc.local

# Start MCR Monitor
if [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.mcr_monitor ]; then
        echo "Starting MCR Monitor..."
        . /etc/rc.d/rc.mcr_monitor start
fi

Trac on Slackware

Installation script for installing trac and it's dependencies on Slackware

Get it here: here

Note, you will need the rc.trac script, also from the above.

swap on slackware

 

Debian Network Configuration

Using samdump2 and John the Ripper to retrieve passwords

Using Samdump2 and John The Ripper