tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-316633262012-01-17T10:54:31.621-06:00Misc. Sys Admin related notes, Linux tips, tricks, notes to self, etc.DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.comBlogger701100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-37519473770549500492011-09-27T12:47:00.002-05:002011-09-27T12:47:51.395-05:00

If you just uninstall the desktop packages and/or gdm, you will find that your system will hang upon reboot: it's trying to start a gdm that's not there! First, this is braindead behaviour from Canonical/Ubuntu.  Uninstalling GDM should obviously clean up after itself, including setting a new default display manager, or if there is none, then change to boot to text mode. Here's what you have to

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-50215679063201804542011-09-09T21:19:00.002-05:002011-09-09T21:28:01.625-05:00

on a 7410C enterprise NAS device (clustered active-active pair) 1. Fail. I asked to be contacted by phone.  Just saw an email in my box.  2. Fail.  We pay a premium for 4 hour response time; That was exceeded. And I requested SEV1: 3 outages spanning the infrastructure in 24 hours, what more do we need?3. Uploading two more bundles:nodeA: on it's way upnodeB: (the node that is in takeover mode

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-73790525298263381202011-09-09T20:54:00.003-05:002011-09-09T20:56:07.988-05:00

Another one from the file of "I want to give you money, please help me to give you money." 11.     I really want information, quickly, on Bakbone NetVault. The “request a quote” page is completely broken,   http://www.bakbone.com/request_information.php  gives this error: Microsoft VBScript compilation error '800a0401' Expected end of statement /products/request_information/

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-24405341629293210602011-06-13T13:11:00.001-05:002011-06-13T13:11:50.384-05:00

It appears that the CentOS project is languishing. There are insufficient resources to release 5.6, 6.0, and 6.1 in a timely fashion; installed servers are going unpatched. It appears from a quick health-check that the resulting attrition may prove an existential threat to the distribution. (Once I start moving everything to Debian, Ubuntu LTS, or some such, I'm probably not going to go back.)

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-81244517733221856762011-03-08T08:54:00.004-06:002011-03-08T10:27:25.533-06:00

I just spent a day or more with a peer working the problem of "how do we get the return code of the first command in a series of piped commands in bash?"The problem is: $? will hold the return code of the last command in the pipe sequence. We tried doing various things like ( foocmd ; export OUTERR=$?) | gzip... The problem with that is that, in bash, exported variables are not "global", so the

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-58606492287964501372011-02-25T14:00:00.005-06:002011-07-19T18:04:10.300-05:00

Want to deploy the zabbix agent to a bunch of Ubuntu Linux systems? Easy. But wait... the config file for each needs to be updated. How about this:for target in host1 host2 host3 host4; do echo $target; ssh -t $target "apt-get -y install zabbix-agent; sed -i.bak -e \"s/Server=localhost/Server=10.10.1.11/g\" -e \"s/Hostname=localhost/Hostname=$target/g\" /etc/zabbix/zabbix_agent.conf /etc/

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-72755015299428386442011-02-22T12:15:00.003-06:002011-02-22T12:41:48.867-06:00

Enable advanced commandspriv set advancedGet RAID layout of an aggregateaggr status -r Grab a performance snaphotstatit -b(wait)statit -eMonitor performance on-goingsysstatTerse performance overviewperf report -tMeasure fragmentationwafl scan measure_layout Perf stats per-Qtreeqtree stats

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-35067652755192758562011-01-11T22:03:00.003-06:002011-01-11T22:10:24.309-06:00

If you try to do as the docs say, and specify:AuthLDAPURL "ldap://mydc.foo.com:389/DC=foo,DC=com?sAMAccountName?sub?(objectClass=user)"...it won't work. You'll get a weird error:[warn] [client 10.10.10.1] [14343] auth_ldap authenticate: user my-ldap-acct authentication failed; URI /repo-path [ldap_search_ext_s() for user failed][Operations error]...and yet, binding or searching from the root

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-30085424170340859902010-08-20T14:42:00.002-05:002010-08-20T14:51:49.208-05:00

This info is from Capital City Consultants, and it works:You'll need the openssl program, from www.openssl.orgTo save a cert from a web server:openssl s_client -connect www.example.com:443or, to save a cert from an LDAP server:openssl s_client -host DC01.AD.example.com -port 636..in either case, ctrl-C out of the openssl program, and copy and paste the certificate text-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-79533990476632584442010-07-04T10:39:00.004-05:002010-07-17T21:57:41.542-05:00

I'll try to update this to keep track of the tweaks I find necessary for ubuntu to work well.Install System-wide Pulseaudio Equalizer:sudo add-apt-repository ppa:psyke83/ppasudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install pulseaudio-equalizerInstall Pulseaudio tools and alsaplayer plugin, etc:sudo apt-get install libasound2-plugins "pulseaudio-*" paman padevchooser paprefs pavucontrol pavumeterMultimedia

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-38055551849663739842010-05-07T12:51:00.004-05:002010-05-07T13:10:28.228-05:00

I have a problem where certain virtual machines drop offline for brief periods of time.Why? I don't know, but I suspect an I/O related issue (NFS / network hiccup). There's nothing in the logs.How can I test this? Well, the built-in tools (sar/sysstat reports) Vcenter, or XenCenter don't keep historical data down to the second, so I will miss any hiccup that lasted only a few seconds.

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-8692833197097153782010-04-27T13:20:00.004-05:002010-04-27T13:23:41.070-05:00

Had a Dell JBOD (with 15 disks) hooked up to a Dell Perc 6/e SAS controller.The disk devices showed up as /dev/sd4-sd18, but were not under /dev/*dsk/.run this command to make the disk devices show up:devfsadmI administer a lot of boxen running different OSes. Solaris is the only OS that you just about have to be an expert to even use. Now, I used it a lot more 10 years ago, but now I'm spread a

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-89751570799685742802010-03-17T15:25:00.001-05:002010-03-17T15:25:43.615-05:00

Generic Steps to P2V, V2V, or P2P a Linux SystemSteps to import/convert a Linux physical or virtual server to another physical or virtual platform (Citrix XenServer, VMware, VirtualBox, Native hardware, etc.)BackgroundPurposeThis process will copy a running system (physical or virtual) to a new virtual environment.  It can also copy to another physical system (as a bandwidth-efficient system

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-36253813732498506722010-02-22T07:31:00.002-06:002010-02-22T07:35:23.051-06:00

ls -l -R | nawk '{ if ($5 > 104857600 ) { print $0 }}'from http://www.codesnippt.com/code.php?id=32...or you could just:find . -size -100M

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-86466527368014587332009-12-22T12:12:00.003-06:002009-12-22T12:26:24.551-06:00

Add Full Mailbox permissions to all mailboxes in the exchange organization:# Matt’s Powershell Script (see tigermatt.wordpress.com) to add Full Mailbox permissions to all mailboxes in the Exchange organizationAdd-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.Powershell.Admin -erroraction silentlyContinue$userAccounts = get-mailbox -resultsize unlimitedForEach ($user in $userAccounts){

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-75949732920719056722009-11-21T14:50:00.002-06:002009-11-21T14:55:00.992-06:00

ping an ip address range and report which hosts are down:PS H:\> for ( $i=200; $i -lt 255; $i++ ) { ping -n 1 -a -w 1000 192.168.0.$i > $null; if (!$?) { echo "192.168.0.$i is down" }; }

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-28958908152665776012009-11-17T23:07:00.002-06:002009-11-18T08:14:36.020-06:00

! If telnet is configured and enabled, then telnet to the router; else connect to the serial port(I use putty for both)myrouter> enablemyrouter# config terminalmyrouter(config)# password encryption aesmyrouter(config)# service password-encryption! assign a domain name; this is a prerequisite for ssh key generationmyrouter(config)# ip domain-name mydomain.com! initialize the authentication,

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-6429539245834352562009-11-13T15:29:00.006-06:002009-11-13T16:06:00.606-06:00

To get user account names of all *active* Active Directory *user* accounts with passwords that do not expire, run this command on Linux (substitute your domain, your admin account, and your domain controller):ldapsearch -b "dc=mydomain,dc=com" -D "cn=myAdminAccount,ou=Users,dc=mydomain,dc=com" -H ldap://mydomaincontroller/ -W -x '(&(objectclass=User)(userAccountControl:1.2.840.113556.1.4.803:=

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-49543278506308895272009-10-02T08:03:00.003-05:002009-10-02T08:28:38.136-05:00

yum install iscsi-initiator-utilsvi /etc/iscsi/initiatorname.iscsi vi /etc/iscsi/iscsid.conf # In particular, if using authentication:node.session.auth.username = ISCSI_USER_NAMEnode.session.auth.password = Passworddiscovery.sendtargets.auth.username = ISCSI_USER_NAMEdiscovery.sendtargets.auth.password = Passwordchkconfig iscsi onservice iscsi startiscsiadm --mode discovery --type sendtargets --

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-92199041798723693522009-07-09T14:41:00.001-05:002009-07-09T14:44:14.820-05:00

From Ian C. Blenke, The easiest way is with parallelized xargs: $ find . -name '*.jpg' | sed -e 's/.jpg$//' | xargs -P4 -l1 -i convert {}.jpg {}.pngThe -P flag for xargs is a _wonderful_ thing to learn. Do it now, it will forever save you time. I use it daily in our huge farm of linux servers, makes for far more bearable adminning.

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-17738850031466386352009-06-08T21:27:00.004-05:002009-10-02T08:28:13.939-05:00

NFS mount results in a permission denied error. Check the export permissions, and those are right.The solution is to add (on the exporting host):nfsd /proc/fs/nfsd nfsd auto,defaults 0 0to /etc/fstab and then type:$mount -aon the client.not sure why this error exists.Solution found here: http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?forum=28&topic_id=6891&viewmode=thread

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-26339399530603758882009-05-20T07:52:00.003-05:002009-05-20T08:48:12.089-05:00

I've been trying to have a poor man's backup: from my scsi-tape-attached linux box, remote execute ntbackup on each of my windows boxes, then dump those backups to tape.In the past, I've had separate scheduled tasks on each windows server; the problem is, there's not central error reporting mechanism; the idea of the new approach is to have all of the backup reporting (and exit statuses) in one

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-87561190832127631932009-05-19T13:35:00.003-05:002009-11-23T12:18:11.153-06:00

I'm primarily a linux guy (used Solaris between 96-2002), so here are some notes to self:Service log files are stored under /var/svc/logThere are a few problems getting printing to work in 2009.06:http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=2656http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=6366patch /etc/dbus-1/system.d/hal.confpkg install SUNWsmmgrsvcadm enable network/device-discovery/

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-29433162140776509442009-05-16T10:39:00.004-05:002009-10-02T08:29:24.325-05:00

To configure your linux workstation to pull user and group, and authentication information, from AD, run these commands. They do the dirty work of configuring pam, samba+winbind, nscd, and Kerberos...substitute your admin user account where mine is used below (admin-username), your AD dns domain/realm where domainname.com is used, and the netbios domain name where domainname is used. yum

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-69742209256821295222009-05-12T08:47:00.004-05:002009-06-09T07:42:47.622-05:00

I had a windows x64 vm domU that was locked up. It would not shut down through XenCenter. It would not shut down through the command line with "xe vm-shutdown vm=" or "xe vm-shutdown --force vm=".In the logs were these mesages:VM.hard_shutdown R:82ca53505e13|xapi] VM.hard_shutdown locking failed: caught transient failure OTHER_OPERATION_IN_PROGRESS: [ VM; OpaqueRef:6c1f16b5-7a80-c3fa-eb07-

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-84227666990333024642009-05-04T07:21:00.002-05:002009-05-04T07:27:20.664-05:00

In a previous post, I mentioned that you can keep selinux enabled to keep your system a bit more secure, by applying a label to your system.  For example, with a Samba share, you might do this:chcon -R -t samba_share_t /srv/exports/backupsThis labels (recursively) the /srv/exports/backups share as a samba share.But this change wont persist across a filesystem relabel.  So, we have to do this:

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-2071762726561318572009-02-11T07:59:00.001-06:002009-02-11T08:02:44.833-06:00

The following is a letter I sent after evaluating Sun xVM Server Early Access 3. After EA3, there should be an EA4, and then, I'm told, there will be the General Availability. Letter follows:First, let me say, I really appreciate the decent customer service at the beginning of this engagement, both from my reseller and from Sun. It was a little painful to actually get the software to download,

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-40611609882252400402009-01-19T11:43:00.016-06:002009-09-16T07:44:44.429-05:00

Trying to install OpenSolaris 2008.11 on my HP Pavillion xw8600 workstation. It's certified for solaris 10, but apparently not OpenSolaris? Has the caveat that the SATA controller must use PATA emulation as noted on the certification link.Successfully installed 2008.5, then upgraded to latest; reboot after upgrade makes the system panic on reboot.No luck so far with 2008.11. Kernel panics

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-22248306635422994372008-11-14T09:50:00.004-06:002009-10-02T08:30:10.721-05:00

CentOS 5.2 x86_64 / RHEL 5U2bond type: 802.3adWe're going to bond eth0 and eth1 in a 802.3ad bond (bond0), and make that the primary bridge for Xen (xenbr0). It will be in vlan access mode (i.e. no vlan trunk). It will also be the primary interface for dom0. Eth2 and Eth3 are present, but not used.Configure the switchports where eth0 and eth1 are plugged in for 802.3ad, lacp./etc/

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-16721635843894032872008-11-14T09:42:00.001-06:002008-11-14T09:46:22.999-06:00

From wikipedia’s article on 802.3ad:The most common way to balance the traffic is to use L3 hashes. These hashes are calculated when the first connection is established and then kept in the devices' memory for future use. This effectively limits the client bandwidth in an aggregate to its single member's maximum bandwidth per session. This is the main reason why 50/50 load balancing is almost

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-31012787480991772072008-10-29T12:03:00.002-05:002008-10-29T12:05:46.997-05:00

find all computer objects in a domain, print their cname's (host names):ldapsearch -b "dc=mydomain,dc=com" -D "cn=myadminaccount,ou=Users,dc=mydomain,dc=com" -H ldap://mydomaincontroller/ -W -x "(objectclass=Computer)" cn

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-29264141719855374942008-08-01T07:44:00.002-05:002008-08-01T07:52:16.265-05:00

data is in several columns. How to sum the third column?e.g., calculate total tps across all physical disks from iostat -d output:Device: tps Blk_read/s Blk_wrtn/s Blk_read Blk_wrtnsda 3.73 30.38 67.80 4864950 10857636sdb 3.82 30.39 71.74 4866793 11488576sdc 0.00 0.05 0.00

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-52293916993336905542008-07-16T10:50:00.000-05:002008-07-16T10:50:19.502-05:00

NDMP Backups with EMC Networker - Quick StartTable of Contents Background Networker Server Setup Install Base OS and prerequisites Install and configure Networker App Configure Licensing for NDMP Backups Configure backup location, pool, and media (disk based backups are fast for testing) Client/Management Station Setup Install Networker Client and Management Center

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-86097313279435863342008-05-07T10:58:00.005-05:002008-05-07T15:03:47.921-05:00

Much of these notes are taken from the Linux-PAM man page, from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/libs/pam/Linux-PAM-html/Linux-PAM_SAG.html, and from http://www.hccfl.edu/pollock/AUnix2/PAM-Help.htm .Linux PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) "is a system of libraries that handle the authentication tasks of applications (services) on the system."Configuration for individual applications/

Lanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13962800706242096612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-6622024441027006242008-03-24T11:07:00.005-05:002008-03-25T10:30:30.033-05:00

Tar will strip leading slashes from sym links (if you don't use -P), as will rsync in some situations (for example, with chroot=true). This can put you in a world of hurt. Here are some tips for how to fix it.This one won't work for a couple of reasons; first, it can't distinguish between intended relative paths and accidental relative paths; also, cut won't work if any files that have a

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-44855861974375352802007-10-02T11:25:00.000-05:002007-10-02T11:31:39.342-05:00

I had a new laptop, XP Pro SP2, IE6. Graphics in IE and in the start menu and taskbar were blocky, pixelated.The problem was, Dell knew the display was hi-res and small, so they set a registry setting for me to automatically dumb-down the graphics, to make them more legible.This made web pages render incorrectly, and it made the screen icons look bad. Change this key to fix it.[

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-60528918866470223292007-09-27T10:30:00.000-05:002007-09-27T11:21:49.305-05:00

# Log in to a postgreSQL databasepsql -U username dbname # Get list of databases.SELECT datname FROM pg_database;# or\l# orpsql -l# Get size of tables, sorted in descending order.SELECT relname, relpages,reltuples FROM pg_class ORDER BY relpages DESC;# Show tables in a database. select * from information_schema.tables where table_schema='public' and table_type='BASE TABLE';# or\dt# Show structure

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-49816189853233324572007-09-14T07:30:00.001-05:002007-09-27T10:47:02.500-05:00

This expect script would be called from a shell script, and would ssh to the host passed as an argument (argv), perform the command specified, and disconnect. (Thanks, Tiger O.)#!/usr/bin/expectset timeout 1set cmd {uname -a}spawn ssh root@$argvexpect_after eof { exit 0 }## interact with SSHexpect "yes/no" { send "yes\r" }expect "password:" { send "rootpasswd\r" }expect "# "send "$cmd\r"expect

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-53796343698821231782007-07-25T09:51:00.000-05:002007-07-25T09:58:03.436-05:00

First of all, don't follow this -- get a qualified electrician to do your work. Doing it yourself, or using this information, may get you or someone else killed. This is my personal reminder note.The three slots/holes and their attachment points are:Silver color screws, this is where your grounded leg {aka neutral} wire goes, this by North America standards should be a white wire, however it

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-21236486424566360132007-07-18T12:13:00.000-05:002007-07-18T12:15:37.684-05:00

wuauclt.exe has these parameters (not all are verified. gleaned from various posts on the web.)/configlist - lists WUAUCLT configuration./installAUclient - Install the correct AU client by force/installAUclientFromMicrosoft - This option causes the system to contact either the confiugred WSUS server, or Microsoft's WU server, and to reinstall forefully the latest version of the AU client./

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-59055753359460254142007-07-12T15:10:00.003-05:002008-03-17T09:04:59.524-05:00

For some reason, the CentOS authconfig-tui never works for me out of the box. And there doesn't appear to be correct error handling for it, such as "failed to join domain" -- it acts like everything is okay, and then it doesn't work.I use the IDMAP_RID option to map user accounts within a single AD to unix user ID's.Ensure that you have krb5-libs, samba-common, pam_krb5, krb5-workstation,

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-86977588798199266362007-06-28T11:47:00.000-05:002007-09-27T10:47:17.001-05:00

while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do case $1 in --somevar) SOMEVAR=$2 SOMEVARSTR="--somevar $2" shift; shift ;; --othervar) OTHERVAR=$2 shift; shift ;; --version) VERSION=$2 shift; shift ;; --debug) DEBUGSTR="--debug" shift ;; *) if [ -n "$

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-73056431115786775712007-06-05T08:06:00.001-05:002007-06-05T10:57:19.809-05:00

Some of these tools require you to download the Windows (2003) support tools and install them on a Windows XP or 2003 computer that is a member of the domain; download the tools from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892777 .Remotely get replication info on a Windows serverrepadmin /showattr ncobj:domain:Remotely get the OS version and SP level of a Windows server (enter on one line)repadmin /

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-15253090050304122662007-05-07T08:24:00.000-05:002007-05-07T08:52:11.638-05:00

Linux (like Windows) programs can either be linked:staticallycan create much larger binarieswon't get stuck with problems about a library dependency not being metany time an important fix is applied to the library against which it was compiled, you theoretically should rebuild all the binaries you built from it, to make sure they get the fixdynamically (like a windows .dll, but they usually have

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-32677741676443750382007-04-19T18:28:00.000-05:002007-04-19T19:56:59.424-05:00

Create partitions for the domU. With LVM:lvcreate --size 6G --name LV-server-root VG00lvcreate --size 512M --name LV-server-swap VG00mkfs.ext3 /dev/VG00/LV-server-rootmkswap /dev/VG00/LV-server-swapmkdir /mnt/servermount /dev/VG00/LV-server-root /mnt/servermkdir -p /mnt/server/dev /mnt/server/etc /mnt/server/proc /mnt/server/var/lock/rpm /mnt/server/var/lib/rpm /mnt/server/var/logMAKEDEV -d /mnt

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-86198423391046135052007-04-05T07:58:00.000-05:002007-04-05T08:18:00.966-05:00

So, I've got a Promise SuperTrak RAID controller. It uses the stex kernel module, which was supposedly added to CentOS 4.4. Well, when I went to install CentOS 4.4, and later CentOS 5 beta, the installer wouldn't load the driver, and so the array was not usable. Very frustrating. The vendor only has driver binaries for certain versions of certain OSes. It's a chicken-egg situation, if you

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-3743423319781746652007-04-05T07:44:00.000-05:002007-04-05T07:54:25.880-05:00

Xen can host Linux, Solaris, and OpenBSD domU's with a modified kernel in each. If the CPU's have built-in hardware virtualization technology (Intel's VT chips, and AMD Pacific), then you may run unmodified OS'es, including Windows.When you assign a MAC address to a domU, be sure the second digit is an even number – 00 or AA or some such. This is because 16th bit of the MAC address as a "1" (

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-57078523071268011402007-03-06T16:06:00.000-06:002007-03-06T16:07:22.342-06:00

mkdir tzcd tzwget ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzcode2006p.tar.gztar -xzf tzdata2006p.tar.gzzic northamericacp /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Chicago /etc/localtimezdump -v /etc/localtime |grep 2007(if the date is March 11 and not April, then it worked).shutdown -r now

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-84735132387732810972007-02-22T15:21:00.000-06:002007-03-08T09:30:43.666-06:00

1) Boot off Device Configuration Assistant withCD in.2) When the install process gets to "choose type of installation"1) Interactive2) Jump Start3) Web Starttype: boot cdrom -s (or, if all you can do is get to the prom with stop-A or Ctrl-Break) type boot cdrom -s3) When you get the root prompt you are in single user mode.4) Create a mount point: # mkdir /mnt5) Mount the root slice: # mount /dev/

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-61603300915581975702007-02-16T10:19:00.002-06:002008-06-11T08:22:51.695-05:00

Sudo can be used allow users to execute certain commands as other users (including root) on certain machines, with logging.Edit the sudoers file with visudo. Note that to execute many system commands, your PATH will need to include /sbin:/usr/sbinSee what access is allowed with "sudo -l".The best example file I found was at http://www.gratisoft.us/sudo/sample.sudoers , except that is uses "!",

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-18390328283973213932007-02-16T08:46:00.000-06:002007-02-16T08:52:17.163-06:00

My friend, Jake ( aka the |-,@[V](V)3|2 ), gave me this tip for booting newer linux kernels on older hardware:Enter this at the boot prompt, instead of pressing to boot:linux acpi=off noapic nolapic

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-4560527813453634932007-02-14T15:52:00.000-06:002007-10-08T23:05:38.197-05:00

Here are some really good SElinux resources:http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/120567/49/ http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/120622/49/http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/120700/49/http://www.linuxsecurity.com/content/view/120837/169/http://www.it-observer.com/articles.php?id=1013Touch up a folder for apache to access (change file context labels recursively):chcon -R -t

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-30115659679319521092007-01-29T11:08:00.000-06:002007-01-29T11:18:23.499-06:00

First, connect to the mail server. telnet myserver.com 25A successful connection will produce...Connected to myserver.comEscape character is '^]'.220 myserver.com ESMTP SendmailNext, specify the email source domain:HELO local.domain.comThis should result in:250 myserver.com Hello local.domain.com [1.2.3.4] Specify the email source address:MAIL FROM: myaddress@domain.comThis should result in:250

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-13676437547189268702007-01-09T10:47:00.000-06:002007-07-31T13:53:29.608-05:00

To perform any of these, log in to the server with credentials that are authorized to perform the commands on the databases you want to look at: mysql -u username -pshow databases on a server: show databases;show status of a database server: show status;get user account info for a database server:select User,Host,Grant_Priv,Super_Priv from mysql.user;show tables in a

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-71555803747367602222006-12-30T21:13:00.000-06:002006-12-30T21:33:31.558-06:00

In Firefox 2, type "about:config" in the location bar, and press enter. You'll get some settings. Here are the ones I change:Old New Setting/Affect3 1 browser.cache.check_doc_frequency - check page every load.true false browser.cache.disk.enable - don't cache to disk140 140 browser.tabs.tabClipWidth - don't shot close button on tabs narrower than this100 30

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-64437547870885610642006-12-29T11:11:00.000-06:002006-12-29T12:55:04.361-06:00

Here are some MS SQL Tips, Tricks, Recipes, etc.:Find out who's using what databases:Open SQL Query Analyzertype "exec sp_who" into the Query window.Click "Execute Query" or press F5. From cryptosid at experts-exchange:before using DBCC REBUILD_LOG better check this article and read it throughhttp://www.sqlmag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=9011a safe alternative would beBackup the consistent

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-9726050338377580752006-12-18T08:54:00.000-06:002006-12-18T08:56:14.406-06:00

from http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/keyboard-shortcuts-for-bash-command-shell-for-ubuntu-debian-suse-redhat-linux-etc/ Ctrl + A : Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing onCtrl + E : Go to the end of the line you are currently typing onCtrl + L : Clears the Screen, similar to the clear commandCtrl + U : Clears the line before the cursor position. If you are at the end of

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-14684773564561952692006-12-15T23:51:00.000-06:002006-12-15T23:56:29.410-06:00

Status Bit DescriptionBOT The tape is positioned at the beginning of the first file.EOT A tape operation has reached the physical End Of Tape.EOF The tape is positioned just after a filemark.WR_PROT The tape (or drive) is write-protected. For some drives this can also mean that the drive does not support writing on the

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-80682370641924383662006-12-13T08:58:00.000-06:002006-12-13T09:01:19.821-06:00

(from the SGI XFS mailing list)If you have compiled in kdb and you get an oops (at least in 2.4 series kernels):Next time it hangs, enter these kdb commands andcapture the output on the serial console.set LINES 10000set BTAPROMPT 0-md1c320 system_utsname-id %eip-0x40-cpu-ps-dmesg 200-bt-bta

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-16422442851722020082006-12-01T09:46:00.000-06:002007-03-05T08:10:27.988-06:00

By default (at least on RHEL 4, CentOS 4.x, and related distros), Apache web server will give the version number of Apache, as well as your OS. This will make it easier for an attacker to guess what vulnerabilities your web server (or host OS) may have. This information can be hidden by changing these two lines in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:ServerTokens ProductOnlyServerSignature OffNote that

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-24358253079273640912006-11-27T15:00:00.000-06:002006-11-27T15:10:28.758-06:00

In case it helps someone else:I was seeing broadcasts ( dst:255.255.255.255 ) about every 30 seconds (top and middle of the minute) to UDP port 41224 from a windows box. The a process named "java" was sending to UDP port 41224, and a different "java" thread was listening on UDP port 41224.The UDP payload only included the text, "KEY:ABCDXYZ"....It turns out, it’s an e-trade streaming quote

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-34454390170702873252006-11-17T11:03:00.000-06:002007-04-03T21:51:16.097-05:00

#Create different directories for the different data?mkdir ssl.csr ssl.key ssl.crtSelf-Signed Certificate# Create the cert request. Common Name (CN) should be the FQDN, e.g., myhost.foo.com# 2048 bits is probably adequate these days. Expiration more than 5 years makes little sense.# PEM passphrase is what the server process (or user) will have to type to use the cert; it# can be bypassed if you

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-2869595078912974282006-11-17T10:47:00.000-06:002006-11-17T11:02:37.399-06:00

Password expiration (when password is changed or account is created):edit login.defsparameters are:Password policies include: PASS_MAX_DAYS, PASS_MIN_DAYS, PASS_MIN_LENComplexity:From http://www.puschitz.com/SecuringLinux.shtml#EnforcingStrongerPasswords and http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/FAQ_80_6045.shtm:Create backup then list contents of the tar file: # tar -cvf backup.tar /etc/pam.d/

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-46221334771704312992006-11-17T10:44:00.000-06:002006-11-17T10:46:42.886-06:00

# run cpan shellcpan# reset config optionscpan> o conf init

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-15825448286959130102006-11-17T09:53:00.000-06:002006-12-01T13:32:02.325-06:00

yum install mysql-server.x86_64# ( or .i386, etc)mysql_install_db/usr/bin/mysqld_safe &# (please don't use "password" -- duh!)/usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root password "password"# start mysql clientmysql -u root -p# give remote access to root if root is accessing mysql from hostname.foo.com (think before you do this -- you probably don't want to leave it like this:mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-16265449500643128032006-11-13T18:50:00.000-06:002006-11-13T18:55:31.962-06:00

One of my clients has a static web site. When they need content or layout changes, they tell me and then I edit the html. Very painful, for them and for me (that's not how I like to earn my keep).I'm preparing a comparison of various free (and open source) Content Management Systems. The spreadsheet comparison is here:Open Source CMS Comparison

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-1163005014542568012006-11-08T10:52:00.000-06:002006-11-13T18:49:37.656-06:00

Adapted from http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Gentoo_Install_on_Software_RAID : If you are using a RAID 1 mirror disk system, you will want to install grub on all the disks in the system, so that when one disk fails, you are still able to boot. The find command above will list the disks, e.g.grub> find /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0,0) (hd1,0)grub>Now, if your disks are /dev/sda and /dev/sdb, and /boot is

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-1162525938213072262006-11-02T21:51:00.000-06:002006-11-13T18:49:37.596-06:00

http://ploug.eu.org/doc/l-bu-a4.pdf

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-1157251331327239142006-09-02T21:33:00.000-05:002006-11-13T18:49:37.536-06:00

Well, my kitty cat, "Katie", needs a new home. She has been good to/for me. I adopted her about two years ago; she was about a year old at the time. She's a good kitty, and very affectionate; but I can't give her a home any more.She is spayed (of course!), has a clean bill of health and just recently got her booster shots. She's declawed in front (that's how I got her). She tolerates our dog

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31663326.post-1153871126633541832006-07-25T18:41:00.000-05:002006-11-13T18:49:37.461-06:00

Well,I've always felt I should document my history. I received counsel once to "document [my] geneaology", and I think personal history is part of that. Perhaps having it online will make documenting the more public aspect of my life and experiences a little more do-able.This is just my first post. They'll (probably) get better over time.Cheers.

DeBaanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07091892819320024449noreply@blogger.com0