Clay Kinney

Network Scan

2010-12-10T07:40:00.001-06:00

Need to scan your network to find available ipaddress? If you are using a linux distro, then you have nmap at your service. One simple command is all it takes.

nmap –s 192.168.1.0/24

nmap has many other command switches available. Check our their website for more information.

http://nmap.org

Motherboard failure today

2010-11-18T12:33:00.001-06:00

We have a Zimbra mail server at work running on top of a 64bit Ubuntu 8.0.4 OS. The computer is a Dell Precision 380 and after a power outage last night, (yes it is connected to a UPS) the motherboard got fried. Luckly, I have another Precision 380 I could swap all the drives, memory and network interfaces to. When I booted up, all went as planned until I realized that my internal network card eth0 was not found. Eth0 is an on-board card, so I new it was working but Ubuntu was not finding it. I ifconfig’ed to check for eth1, eth2, eth3…etc…finally I found it…it was not eth4…weird, I thought. So then I went to /etc/network/interfaces to change eth0 to eth4 and all would be well. Correct? Not so fast. I could not get eth4 to come up with the static ipaddress that is listed in /etc/network/interfaces. What the heck…..did some more digging and found a udev rule that ties the mac address to the network card. So I had to edit the udev rule to reflect the new mac address of eth0 and then restart the udev service and what do you know…eth0 came up again. Awesome!

Rule to edit:
/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

eth0 was the first defined rule and all thast was needed was to modify the mac address to reflect the onboard nic in the new computer.

32bit ODBC Dialog In Windows 7

2010-09-10T15:16:00.001-05:00

Ever wonder how to get the 32bit ODBC dialog box from within Windows 7?

Yea me to…..Well I found it today….Run the command below to get the 32bit ODBC dialog.

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ODBCAD32.EXE

Watch errors in linux maillog fly by…

2010-08-11T23:07:00.002-05:00

Whether you are using Postfix or Sendmail with Spamassassin, you can watch your maillogs within an ssh session by using the following code:

This will help to troubleshoot rejected emails or emails rejected due to Spamassassin blocking the email as Spam.

VMWare ESXi 4 increase IDE drive size

2010-06-17T15:33:00.001-05:00

I was trying to increase the size of an ide drive I have associated with a VM and the option was greyed out. See image below.

I found this option to change the ide device to a scsi on the VMWare knowledgebase.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1016192

But the problem is, how do I get a text editor to let me change the vmdk file? Well, that is where you need to access the server from a console or ssh into the box. See website below for more information.

Allowing ssh access to your esxi server.
http://www.techhead.co.uk/vmware-esxi-how-to-enable-ssh-connectivity

Now that we have access to the esxi server via ssh, Below are the steps needed to increase the virtual drive size.

find the vmdk you are trying to increase and the “ide” option to lsilogic, per the knowledge base article above.
Remove and reload the vmdk in the vSphere Client settings for the particular virtual machine you want to make the adjustment on.
Now the drive shows up as an scsi device and you can increase the size of the drive. Now if you are using windows XP, you will probably get the blue screen of death when you try and boot the VM.
So go back to the ssh prompt and edit the vmdk file again and change “lsilogic” back to “ide”.
Go back into the vSphere Client and remove and reload the drive. Now it reads as an IDE device in the vSphere Client.
When you reboot the VM, you will only see the old harddrive size, you need to expand the virtual drive.
I use Gparted, go here and download the iso file.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
Mount the gparted iso file under the vm and reboot and make sure that the bios for the vm has the boot order set to boot from a cd-rom before a harddrive.
After gparted loads, increase the size of the virtual disk and then reboot.
Make sure to dismount the gparted iso image.
Now you should have a newly expanded IDE virtual drive.

Good luck. Hope all that makes sense.

AutoCAD Export To Previous Version

2010-05-06T15:28:00.001-05:00

Ever need to export a newer AutoCAD file to a previous version? You will probably get a dialog box stating that certain objects will not show up or are not supported in the previous version and that you need to enable proxy graphics. If you try like I have to explode the proxy graphics or the AutoCAD objects, you will find that they do not explode.

Well I found across this solution today.

In the command window just type in AECTOACAD and this will explode the proxy objects and save the file as a new name. Then open the file you just saved and then resave it to the previous version say AutoCAD 2004 and you will not get the dialog warning box.

Compare all the hotel search engines at once…

2010-05-05T23:25:00.001-05:00

Find a hotel

Guests:
Rooms:

Free Car Rental Quotes

2010-05-04T23:09:00.000-05:00

I am now able to offer free car rental quotes. We secure you the best rate that is available. The ability to search all the suppliers guarantees you will get the best rate possible.

Click the image below to secure your car rental needs.

Windows Uninstall Using the Command Line

2010-04-22T18:08:00.001-05:00

I ran across this website while trying to figure out how to uninstall programs from windows computers without using the add/remove program feature in Control Panel.

I like the idea of using the WMIC Windows Management Instrumentation Command. It is clean and relative easy to work with.

I did have a few problems, one of which is that for me it worked best to run wmic as the local or domain administrator.

To be able to run wmic as administrator on a machine, I used psexec from the Microsoft PS Tools and loaded them on a share drive. More about PS Tools can be found here
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896649.aspx

I created a quick batch file that I ran.

#output a text file that lists currently installed software
\\server\share\pstools\psexec \\%computername% -u DOMAIN\administrator -p password -i -c -f wmic /output:c:\beforeuninstall.log product get name

#uninstall routine for AutoCad 2010
\\server\share\pstools\psexec \\%computername% -u DOMAIN\administrator -p password -i -c -f wmic product "AutoCAD 2010 - English" call uninstall /nointeractive

Unsure if this works with Windows Vista or Windows 7.

vsftpd 426 “Failure writing network stream”

2010-02-16T16:44:00.001-06:00

Ever come across this error when trying to download a file from a VSFTPD server? Me neither but the solution to this problem is to add

use_sendfile=NO

to your vsftpd.conf file.

Blackberry Service

2010-01-30T22:06:00.002-06:00

Ever use a Blackberry for you PDA? If so you may know the crazy way you have to go about setting up an email account on the device. For ATT customers you need to navigate to this website:
Blackberry Internet Service
You will need to create an account and then register your PDA with the service.

If you ever lose you account information, like I did, the forgot password or pin reset part of their website does not work. You can enter whatever you like and it will tell you a text has been sent to you Blackberry. You will need to click the “Require Assistance” link just to find the following phone number you will need to call.
1-800-331-0500

I ended up spending 35 minutes on hold and another 10 minutes talking to a serviced representative to get my account reset so I could add another email account to my Blackberry.

Also, just for your knowledge, you can have 10 email accounts on you Blackberry. So if you are weird like I am you can load up your Gmail, Yahoo, Hot Mail and whatever email account you may have onto your PDA.

Good luck and don’t forget you account information, otherwise be prepared to hang onto to hold for awhile.

VNC Access on Ubuntu or Redhat

2010-01-28T22:17:00.001-06:00

I typically use shell access on all my linux servers but sometimes I need to load X and use GNOME or KDE in either Ubuntu or Redhat/Fedora/Cent OS. The problem is that the vncserver file resides in different places depending upon the distribution you are using. I like to modify the vncserver file to increase the resolution of the virtual server to match my 20” monitor.

Ubuntu:
/etc/alternatives/vncserver

edit the global variable to tweak the vncserver resolution.
$geometry = "1280x1024";

Redhat/Fedora/Cent OS:
/etc/sysconfig/vncservers

Different variables to tweak how the vncserver daemon runs. Tweak the variable below to adjust the resolution.
VNCSERVERARGS[2]="-geometry 1280x1024"

Read the comments at the beginning of each distributions vncserver file for other settings and tweaks.

Want KDE or GNOME to load when your virtual terminal loads. Then you need to edit the .xstartup file for the user that the vncserver will run as.
For instance if you login to your linux box with “Fred” then you need to go to edit the xstartup file in the .vnc folder in your home directory. I like the joe editor but vi works also.

vi /home/fred/.vnc/xstartup

make sure this is at the end of the file for GNOME
exec gnome-session &

or
for KDE use the following
startkde &

If you see
twm &
you will need to either remove it or comment it out.
#twm &

Enjoy

Crazy Use of Wii Remote

2010-01-22T23:49:00.001-06:00

FreeNAS

2010-01-21T07:15:00.001-06:00

I ran across FreeNAS in a Google search a couple of days ago and decided to give it a try on an old Dell Precision workstation 410. I booted off of the live CD I created from the ISO file I downloaded from SourceForge. I am need to move an aging FTP Server and thought that Freenas might do the trick. Install went fine and I was able to use the web gui to do further configuration of the Freebsd v7.1 OS. I used three additional drives to create a ZFS single parity raid drive. The old FTP server I use is running VSFTPD and FreeNAS uses ProFTPD by default. It took some command line hacking to find the proftpd.conf and modify my LDAP based accounts to get ProFTPD to allow the accounts access. After a quick rsync of data from the old server to the new FreeNAS, I am ready to put it thru the test. I will update as I can to verify performance and other issues that might arise.

Odesk Provider

2009-12-29T22:01:00.000-06:00

Online File Sharing

2009-12-11T22:51:00.001-06:00

I was needing a way to share a few large files with some different individuals and decided to search for free and easy to use online file sharing.

Microsoft has Windows Live Sky Drive. http://skydrive.live.com/

MediaFire “File Hosting Made Simple”. http://www.mediafire.com/

Currently I think Sky Drive requires all parties to have a Windows Live ID, but MediaFire does not. I was able to create the account and share the folder with multiple people using a customized URL. They were not required to create a MediaFire account just to access the files I had made available.

Speed up Revit FBX Renderings in Max Design

2009-10-31T11:08:00.001-05:00

A simple change in the DesignVIZ options can vastly improve mental ray Pre-Processing when rendering scenes imported from Revit FBX files.
In Notepad, open the file "CurrentDefaults.ini in your local User's files (typically at C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMaxDesign\2010 - 32bit\enu\defaults\DesignVIZ.mentalray\CurrentDefaults.ini").
Search for the parameter 'DontRepeatRefMsg' and change it's value from 0 to 1.
Four lines down is the parameter 'InvalidateTMOptimization' and change it's parameter from 0 to 1. You should now have:
DontRepeatRefMsg=1
; comment comment comment...
; comment comment comment...
; comment comment comment...
InvalidateTMOptimization=1
Pre-Processing at the start of mental ray rendering should now happen in a few seconds instead of minutes.
You have to restart Max to accept the change. You should also edit the DesignVIZ.mentalray preset at your program installation folder, usually "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\Defaults\DesignVIZ.mentalray\FactoryDefaults\CurrentDefaults.ini"
Be sure to do the editing for both x32 and x64 if you have both installed. Editing the INI file in the Max installation folder prevents a change if you choose an option from the "Customize>Custom UI and Defaults Switcher".

Source website:
http://newsletters.hagerman.com/newsletters/ebul81-ME.htm

Hotel Booking

2009-10-21T00:24:00.001-05:00

If you are in need of a hotel room, click the link below to find the best deals on hotel rooms.

Enable the Administrator Account In Vista Home Premium

2009-10-11T20:34:00.001-05:00

Go To Start > Accessories > Command Prompt
Right-click on the icon “Command Prompt” and choose “Run-As Administrator”
A DOS box will appear.
Type the following
1. net user administrator /active:yes
  (this will enable the administrator account)
2. net user administrator /active:no
  (this will disable the administrator account)
3. net user administrator password
  (this will set the password on the account)
  (in this example “password” is the password)
4. net user
  (this will list all the user accounts on the system)

Vista Home – Net Account

2009-08-22T12:28:00.001-05:00

I stumbled on how to accomplish changing the password expire settings in Vista Home Premium.

To remove the password expire date in Vista Home Premium, you have to use the old command line and use the net command to do this. I looked all over the GUI account dialog box for an option to to this but could not find one.

So to lift the password expire day do this.

Under Start>Accessories> “Right-Click” on Command Prompt and click on “Run As Administrator”
This will open a dos dialog box. At the prompt type in

net accounts (this will list out all the settings for the current user)
net accounts ? (this will list the syntax for using the command)
net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited (this syntax will remove the password expiration date)
net accounts /maxpwage:100 (this will set the password to expire in 100 days)

FreeBSD with ZFS filesystem

2009-07-31T16:13:00.001-05:00

My notes to remember different zfs commands.

The FreeBSD Handbook is a good starting place.

The OpenSolaris.org website.

zpool create zfsstorage /dev/ad0

zfs create zfsstorage/compressed

zfs set compression=on zfsstorage/compressed

zfs set compression=gzip-4 zfsstorage/compressed

zfs list

zfs set sharenfs="-maproot=root -network 10.1.41.0" zfsstorage/compressed

zfs get compressratio zfsstorage/compressed

zs get all

Using Ubuntu as a backup server

2009-07-01T08:37:00.000-05:00

Install Ubuntu 8.04 LTS with a minimal install
Use apt-get update to update the repositories
Use apt-get upgrade to make your new server current with security patches
Use apt-get install rsnapshot, rsnapshot will be the backup technique we will use
Configure your raid volume where your backups will be stored
I use a hardware raid card, so all I need to do is make the partition.
Use fdisk to create the partition.
fdisk /dev/sdb
I use jfs for my backup storage filesystem
Use mkfs.jfs –L raid5 /dev/sdb1
Add the new partition to /etc/fstab
LABEL=raid5 /mnt/raid5 jfs rw,atime 0 0
If you want you can use blkid to get the UUID of the new partition and use UUID instead of LABEL in /etc/fstab
If you try to mount the partition, you will probably get an error relating to there is not a /dev/ created yet.
You now need to run partprobe to create the new /dev
Now you can mount the partition
mount /mnt/raid5
Now we can edit the rsnapshot file located at /etc/rsnapshot.conf
Set snapshot_root to be on your newly created partition like below
snapshot_root /mnt/raid5/rsnapshot/
Skim thru the rest of /etc/rsnapshot.conf and modify as needed.
Update here about ssh-keygen –t rsa
Update here about sftp id_pub to server 2
Update here about server 2 path in /etc/rsnapshot.conf
Update here about running rsnapshot daily
Update here about adding cron entries
Update here about adding a samba share to access the backup from windows.

pfSense vs. Vyatta

2009-04-16T22:57:00.001-05:00

I recently installed pfsense at work to replace an aging smoothwall 2.0 firewall/transparent proxy. I like the use of FreeBSD as the underlying engine of pfSense. The add-on packages are relatively easy to install, except snort IDS has a few problems that are supposedly fixed in an upcoming version 1.2.3. You have the ability to enable SSH on the firewall, so you can use a command line to configure the firewall or just use the web interface.

I ran across another firewall/transparent proxy/IDS called Vyatta. I am currently testing out the features. At first glance, its seems to have a few more features than pfSense. You have the ability to use a web interface or a series of command line scripts that interact with the 2.6.x Linux kernel.

I am still do not have a determination of which I like better or which performs better on a given set of hardware restrictions.

Sugar CRM Installation Warning

2009-04-07T21:21:00.001-05:00

If you come across the following error during a SugarCRM installation

"Errors have been detected during compatibility check. In order for your SugarCRM Installation to function properly, please take the proper steps to address the issues listed below and either press the recheck button, or try installing again.

Component	Status
Writable Modules Sub-Directories and Files	Warning: Not Writable
Please fix the following module directories and the files under them before proceeding: /modules/ModuleBuilder/tpls" And you know that you have made everything "Writable" then you need to check for to hidden files that may not have been changed to writable. Under the /modules/ModuleBuilder/tpls/ look for the following files: .tmp_studioRelationship.tpl .tmp_studioRelationshipsExt.tpl These files have to be writable also or the installation will never proceed. I have seen posts on the SugarCRM forums that state these must be run as the user the webserver runs as but this is not the case. Just chmod 777 on these two files and all wil be good.

Component

Status

Writable Modules Sub-Directories and Files

Warning: Not Writable

Please fix the following module directories and the files under them before proceeding:
/modules/ModuleBuilder/tpls"

And you know that you have made everything "Writable" then you need to check for to hidden files that may not have been changed to writable.

Under the /modules/ModuleBuilder/tpls/ look for the following files:
.tmp_studioRelationship.tpl
.tmp_studioRelationshipsExt.tpl

These files have to be writable also or the installation will never proceed. I have seen posts on the SugarCRM forums that state these must be run as the user the webserver runs as but this is not the case. Just chmod 777 on these two files and all wil be good.

Creating a Service on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003

2009-04-07T14:42:00.000-05:00

To create a custom service on Windows:

Start>Run>CMD (get to a command prompt or CLI for short)
sc is the command to create the service

example service creation format

sc \\server create "MSSQL$ACT7" binPath= "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL$ACT7\Binn\sqlservr.exe -sACT7" DisplayName= "MSSQL$ACT7" depend= "SQLAgent$ACT7"

This will create a custom SQL Server example for an ACT database.