Tips for fixing common problems….-The disk usage for a given User is higher than I think it should be.

As of DirectAdmin 1.39.4, a new feature will allow for the viewing of the disk usage breakdown with DA, similar to the output from the guide below.

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If the disk usage is higher than you think then it should be, or just you want to know how DA is coming to the disk usage value, you can type:

cd /usr/local/directadmin
echo “action=tally&value=username&type=user” >> data/task.queue
./dataskq d800

Where the username is the name of the user in question.
This will run the tally for that account and dump out all the bits that are adding together to come to the final value (system quota, email, database, etc.).

Parent directory does not allow write, or one of the directories didn’t allow search (execution) permission

If there you have vm-pop3d (mbox) and get the following error when creating a domain:

Parent directory will not allow write, or one of the directories did not allow search (execution) permission

Try typing:

chmod 1777 /var/spool/virtual

For version 1.32.4, the error message will be more clear, including the path name.

If there you ran into this error, then next time you try to create a domain, DA will say it already exists.  To solve that, go to:
Admin Level -> DNS Admin

and delete the domain in question, then you can try again.

How to restore an oversized backup

If there you have a backup file that is too large for the DirectAdmin restore process to handle, then the tar.gz can be adjust to remove some components so that the restore can be doing normally, and those removed components would be restore manually after.

The way we will do that is to remove the domains directory from the backup file (on the assumption that this directory is cause of the large usage).

cd /home/admin/admin_backups
mv user.admin.username.tar.gz user.admin.username.backup.tar.gz
mkdir temp
cd temp
tar xvzf ../user.admin.username.backup.tar.gz backup
tar cvzf ../user.admin.username.tar.gz backup
chown admin:admin ../user.admin.username.tar.gz

This will completely remove the domains directory from the backup.
If there you get an error during the extraction of “backup”, then either the file is corrupted or too large for the OS it’s on to handle.

Restore the file normally in DA.
Once you finished, the data from /home/username/domains will be missing, so now extract that manually:

cd /home/username
tar xvzf /home/admin/admin_backups/user.admin.username.backup.tar.gz domains
chown username:username domains

Double check that if everything is functioning correctly, and you should be done.

Your hostname, , and the servername you have set in DirectAdmin, server.host.com, do not match.

If there you get the error

Your host-name, , and the server-name you have set in DirectAdmin, server.host.com, do not match.

where the host-name is blank (note the “, ,”), a reported cause of this is an incorrectly setup /dev/null file.

First you make sure the host-name is not simply blank by checking:

/bin/hostname –fqdn

to ensure that you get something displayed.

If there you do see something, then the solution is to set it correctly:

rm /dev/null
mknod -m 0666 /dev/null c 1 3

Another confirmation solution for when you get the error message:

host-name: Name or service not known

is to edit your /etc/hosts file, and change:

1.2.3.4   your.hostname.com

to be:

1.2.3.4   your.hostname.com your

such that you have both the long and short forms of your host-name beside your server IP.

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If there you do have a host-name in the output, eg:

Your host-name, bob.host.com, and the server-name you have set in DirectAdmin, server.host.com, do not match.

it means you just need to update the host-name:

Admin Level -> Admin Settings -> servername

set it, and save.

You may need to change it to something else, then back again to re-sync it.

Also ensure that you have a full zone for the host-name in your dns:

Admin Level -> DNS Admin -> server.host.com

so that it resolves and has MX records.