I Work I Learn I Share!

Income Tax India

2014-12-22T15:33:00.004+05:30

Some of the points I have learned while filing Income Tax.

Capital Gains from shares/equity

STCG = Short Term Capital Gain (less than 12 months)
STCL = Short Term Capital Loss
LTCG = Long Term Capital Gain (greater than 12 months)
LTCL = Long Term Capital Loss
STT = Securities Transaction Tax

STCG Taxed at 15% + educational cess
LTCG if STT paid then Tax exempt
LTCG if STT not paid - 10% without indexation or 20% with indexation (you may choose option as mentioned here)

STCL can be set off by STCG or LTCG
LTCL can be set off by LTCG and carried forward for 8 years

LTCL for which STT is paid is dead loss and cannot be set-off. Reason is LTCG for which STT is paid is exempted from tax and hence LTCL cannot be set-off.

LTCL for which STT is not paid can be carried forward for 8 years to set-off with LTCG.

LTA Claims

Block of 4 years set by government

2010-13

2014-17

Block calculated from Jan 2010 to Dec 2013 ie calendar year and not financial year.
2 journeys in a block of 4 years are exempted.
If you were not able to claim at least one LTA in previous block you can claim an extra journey in the first year of next block. For eg. if you did not claim or claimed only one LTA in 2010-13 you can claim 1 journey in 2014 (note only in the first year and not in the entire block).
A journey is considered as one to and fro travel as mentioned here. There are various calculations if your journey involved multiple stops and multiple mode of transportation. See the same link for more information.
You can claim for dependents and wife (even if not dependent) but the same journey cannot be claimed twice.

References: here and here

Tricks to ease your work life!

2014-09-05T11:12:00.004+05:30

Learnings

Following skills/tricks/tools once learned or used will help you pretty far in your work life. You might not even notice impact of the learnings I have mentioned below, but they will surely help you in the software and related works. Take a look and decide it for yourself.

General

First and foremost learn how to type. This is true for anyone who has some part of there job related to computers and typing. Reach to a stage where you can use your all 10 fingers without looking at the keyboard. You will save a lot of effort and time just by learning this skill.

Linux Platform

create alias for the commands you frequently use. Pretty naive but good for starters on Linux.
If you are on a linux platform and you need to diff between two files you might already know a diff utility pre installed in any linux machine. Next time use vimdiff as it gives a visual diff.
find ./ -name foo* Use this command to find a file from this (./) folder onwards. I use this one very often.

VIM

Keep learning more tricks and shortcut for vim. This is never ending process and you grow leaps and bounds every time you learn a new shortcut or trick. I have to admit I haven't learned many lately. Knowing how to type helps a lot in this.

Use a .vimrc file in your home directory if you use vim often for editing. I have seen lot of people not take advantage of this. My .vimrc file looks something like this and this is absolute minimal. There are lot of other settings available which I haven't explored.

se incsearch

se hlsearch

syntax on

se nu

se ts=4

se shiftwidth=4

se expandtab

se ai

se ic

set sm

set wrap

When you have horizontal split screen in order to minimise the other split screen use the shortcut Ctrl+_ . I took some amount of time to figure this one out. Just because I did not know this shortcut I was away from split screen for quiet some time.
Make search easy by using following.

/search-string to search ahead.
?search-string to search backwards.
Use n and N to navigate forward and backwards.
/search-string1.*search-string2 to search two strings in order in a line. Eg. /command.*ivr will search for command followed by ivr in any line.
/search-string1\|search-string2 to search with OR option. Eg. /command\|ivr to search for command or ivr in the file.
More options available here.

For more details see my previous blog and this

Eclipse

Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R: To search for a file.
F4 or Clrl+T/Cmd+T: Click on a class declaration and press F4. You will see the type hierarchy. This is very useful to find the subclasses and superclasses of a class.
Ctrl+Shift+G or Cmd+Shift+G: Use this to find all the references of a Java type, variable or method in the project.
Ctrl+H: To search for a string in the whole project.

PS: This list is not a comprehensive. This is a list of useful tips/shortcuts/settings/tricks I use. I will keep on adding as I learn and remember more tricks. This also assumes prior knowledge, so, ignore sections you do not know yet or not useful in your work environment. Most of the stuff here is trivial but doesn't have explanation, so figure out if you want to know more.

Multiple physical interfaces with IPs on same Subnet on Linux

2014-01-03T11:35:00.000+05:30

I faced a problem in one of the systems where two IP addresses were configured on the same subnet. These IP addresses were each configured on 2 different physical interfaces on the same machine. Thus, each of them had different MAC address. Now, in this configuration there was a large amount of packet loss and things were not working as desired. Such a setup doesn't work. Linux routes based on destination IP addresses and tries to match that with the routes configured on the system. When you have two physical interfaces configured with the same subnet and if the destination address matches both the subnets then Linux system/Ubuntu throws the packets randomly on either of the interfaces. Thus, a lot of packet loss is observed. Such a setup should not be used, although you can make lot of routes to make it work (which will become complicated), it should be avoided.

Unzip .7z on Mavericks OS

2013-11-27T12:57:00.002+05:30

After downloading and installing multiple applications for unzipping a file in .7z format I found Keka. This worked on Macbook with Mavericks OS. You can download it from
http://www.kekaosx.com/en/

After installing it shows a settings page. You will need to drag your file into that page (though it doesn't show anything like that). I was confused at first but when I dragged and dropped my .7z zipped file, I got option to extract files.

Reissue PAN card online (in India)

2013-11-02T13:21:00.001+05:30

My wallet which contained PAN card was stolen recently when I went for a holiday in Sri Lanka. I then requested for a new PAN card from the Income Tax department and it was reissued within 15 days. I have listed down the procedure for people who wish to do the same.

Note that I used this procedure around October of this month and this might change in future.

I selected "Reprint of PAN card" from this link https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/pan/
Then select "Online Application for Changes Or Correction in PAN Data (PAN Change Request Form)"
Read the instructions and then towards the end of the page select "Individual" in "Apply for New PAN Card Or / And Changes Or Correction in PAN Data"
You will be taken to a form. Fill this form with all your details. You should check on the left boxes only for the fields you want to change. If you do not want to change any of the fields (which should match with the data stored in Income Tax department), uncheck all the fields in the left column. I wanted my Address of communication to be changed from my previous values, so I checked only that field.
You will need a proof of identity (POI) and a proof of address (POA)
Select the payment option. I chose Net Banking. The fees was Rs 96/-.
Submit the form and verify the details.
You will be taken to the payment gateway. Pay the money and you will get an acknowledgement number.
Take the printout of this Acknowledgement of Application Form and paste your photographs as mentioned in it. Sign it and attach a copy of POI, POA and all the other proofs you mentioned in the Application form. All these needs to be sent through mail to NSDL on the address mentioned in the Acknowledgement. Note that this should reach them within 15 days otherwise your fees will be forfeited.
You will receive your new PAN card in some time through mail. You will be intimated about the process through SMSs

Note that the procedure is same for issuing PAN card for the first time. However, I have only tried to reissue the PAN card and a address change in my previous PAN card.

Terminal Capability Set message in H323

2013-04-01T19:54:00.000+05:30

In TerminalCapabilitySet of H323 messages Capability set of the UA are listed. The capability field for H225 of FECC is configured with receiveDataApplicationCapability or receiveTransmitDataApplicationCapability. In most of the video conferencing products I have seen that any of the two values are assumed as send and receive capabilities.

http://lp.zpdownload.info/mv/ keeps appearing in browser

2012-12-31T15:52:00.000+05:30

Problem: Today I started seeing http://lp.zpdownload.info/mv/ website from time to time in my browser. Whenever I tried to open something this site was appearing again and again. It started today but I don't know how. If you press the Download button appearing in this website it downloads some exe which I did not run.
Solution: I just cleared my browsers Cache and cookies and it has stopped appearing. I hope it helps others who are facing the same problem.
Problem 2: Even after this some advertisements were appearing in some of the websites from different sources. The ads mentioned "ads not from this site".
Solution 2: I deleted the user profile in my chrome browser. In the folder ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/ I deleted default folder in my Mac. Of course quit the browser and restart it. It deleted my history and all other information browser information stored locally. However, the problem was solved

How to execute psql commands in django or python?

2012-08-02T14:57:00.004+05:30

Use psycopg2 to execute raw psql commands from python or from django.
Example

conn = psycopg2.connect("dbname='application'")
cur = conn.cursor()
cur.execute("""command""")

For details see http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Psycopg2_Tutorial

SIP and related protocols

2012-03-02T19:30:00.001+05:30

It gives a comprehensive list of various SIP and related protocols. Lot of RFC's in this, enough for me right now :).
http://www.packetizer.com/ipmc/sip/standards.html

How to make the logrotate not move file?

2012-02-20T17:48:00.000+05:30

I faced a problem logrotate as my application was continuously writing in the log files. The logrotate daemon moved my output.log file to output.log.1. Since, the file pointer accessed by my application has not changed when the file was moved, the application starts writing into output.log.1 instead of output.log. Thus, output.log remained empty. To avoid this you just need a slight tweaking in your logrotate configuration file. Add "copytruncate" in logrotate configuration file of your application. This will make logrotate.d to first copy the contents of output.log to output.log.1 and then truncate output.log. Thus, your file pointer doesn't change. I hope this helps.

How to take screenshot in MaC?

2012-01-17T17:54:00.002+05:30

Cmd+Shift+3 : The screenshot will be saved on your desktop.
Cmd+Shift+4: If you want to take a portion of your screen's screen shot. It will prompt you with a different cursor and when you click and drag it will take a screen shot of the portion you have selected.

Static, Shared and Dynamic library details

2011-03-22T15:40:00.003+05:30

Following link contains well explained complete details about libraries in C/C++ in linux
http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LibraryArchives-StaticAndDynamic.html

corefile using gdb

2010-12-16T17:26:00.001+05:30

/usr/bin/gdb -c corefile

Vim useful shortcuts

2010-07-12T18:23:00.005+05:30

To go to the end of file you can use "shift+g" or "G" (capital). "1G" can be used to go to first line. Similarly "G" can be used to go to line number num. Also ":$" takes you to the last line but I find it a little cumbersome as you will have to press two keys (if you ignore shift which is required in both the commands. Similarly, ":" can be used to go to some line number.
To complete the word in vim while coding you can use "ctrl + p". It shows the options available with the first few letters. It also looks inside the included files. You can use the arrow keys to select the appropriate word. You should press ctrl+p in insert mode.
To copy and paste similar commands in a file use q and say w . Then start entering the set of commands that you would want to redo. Press q again and then use @ combination to redo what was stored.
To search for the man or manual pages from inside the vim you can use "shift+k" or "K" (caps) to get the manual page for the keyword your cursor is currently on.
Make search easy by using following.

/search-string to search ahead in a file.
?search-string to search backwards in a file.
Use n and N to navigate forward and backwards.
/search-string1.*search-string2 to search two strings in order in a line. Eg. /command.*ivr will search for command followed by ivr in any line. Here . means any character and * means any number of character that immediately precedes it. Here, * is preceded by . and hence .* is any number of any character followed by ivr. This can be concatenated for more number of search-strings within the same line.
/search-string1\|search-string2 to search with OR option. Eg. /command\|ivr to search for command or ivr in the file. Concatenate it to search for more than two keywords.
More options available here.

In your home in bash shell you can create a ".vimrc" file for putting permanent settings in vi or vim every time you open a file using vi or vim command. Some useful examples which I use are

se incsearch: For incremental search. When you search for a word it will start searching from the first word you type otherwise unless you type the whole word and press Enter search will not start.
se hlsearch: It highlights the searched keyword.
se nu: It shows the line number on each line. However, you should also know "se nonu" it removes the number from line. The line numbers could be a problem when you use mouse to copy and paste contents.
se ts=4: It sets the tabspace to 4 spaces
se expandtab: It expands the tabs to spaces. I feel every coder should have this particular setting because I find a lot of people use tabs and spaces interchangeably when indenting there code. As different people can have different tabspace settings the indentation will not appear proper to everyone. Anyway, its just a suggestion and everyone doesn't care about what others see so up to you
se autoindent: It sets auto indentation. It is another useful setting for coders as indentation will not be automatically done when you are editing code. If you don't have "se expandtab" setting then it will put tabs infront. However, setting is not useful when you have to copy lot of code using mouse as it will auto indent every line having brackets or like. While copying you can turn this off using "se noautoindent"
se shiftwidth=4: It sets the shiftwidth to 4 when you are using autoindenting feature of Vim. The autoindentation of your code can be done by pressing "v" to go into visual mode and then using arrow key (or by some other way) to select all the code you want vi to correct the indentation. Then press "=" and all the code will be indented properly. This setting will make the indentation after a curly brace to be of 4 spaces.

For the complete list of key bindings in vi see this http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~fine/Tech/vi.html
Other Useful links
http://thomer.com/vi/vi.html

How to install a rpm in a local folder?

2010-07-12T15:19:00.001+05:30

To install a rpm in a folder of your choice use the --relocate OLDPATH=NEWPATH option.

> rpm -ivh --relocate /=/home/xyz/ foo.rpm

One more way to get the contents of the rpm without installing it is

rpm2cpio my-rpm-1.0.rpm | cpio -idmv

How to enable IP routing in a host?

2010-06-15T17:32:00.001+05:30

To enable IP routing in a linux host (RHEL5). Edit the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward and set it as 1 so that

cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
1

IMS/SIP FAQs and bookmarks

2010-02-19T15:09:00.002+05:30

Some good FAQs about SIP and IMS can be found in this link. These can help you in related interviews or general knowledge of SIP and IMS.
http://www.sipknowledge.com/faq_main.htm

http://www.voipuser.org/forum_topic_7295.html

http://www.iptel.org/sip/

http://arstechnica.com/business/2010/01/voip-in-depth-an-introduction-to-the-sip-protocol-part-1/

How to write an ISO in DVD for Linux?

2010-02-05T13:33:00.002+05:30

To format a rewritable dvd use the following command

dvd+rw-format -force /dev/dvd

Use the following command to create ISO in Red Hat linux.

growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/dvd=foo.iso

Replace foo.iso by the name of the ISO you want to create

Fencing in RHEL5

2010-02-05T13:10:00.002+05:30

Do you know that fencing is mandatory in RHEL5. I found some useful FAQ's about fencing http://sources.redhat.com/cluster/wiki/FAQ/Fencing

Tcpdump an example!

2009-11-24T14:25:00.001+05:30

tcpdump -i any port 2300 or "ports" -s 20000 -w "filename.cap"

any caputres for all the interfaces. -s option gives the size limit. port gives the ports on which the packets are to be captured.

How to find a directory in linux?

2009-11-18T17:47:00.004+05:30

find ./ -type d -name dir-name

-type d defines that the name is the directory name.

To find a file use
find ./ -name file-name

pam_tty_audit.so for all keystrokes for all users!

2009-10-09T14:01:00.002+05:30

Hi Miloslav Trma,

I was trying to log all the keystrokes by all the users by using pam_tty_audit.so. I appended

session required pam_tty_audit.so enable=*

in /etc/pam.d/ ((sshd, login, su, su-l, sudo)

but could get tty logs only for the root and not for all other users.

Can this package work for logging all the keystrokes for all the users? What options should I give to get all the keystrokes for all the users? Thanks in advance.

Regards

Mukul Agrawal

Hello,

----- "Mukul Agrawal" <mukul.agrawal1@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was trying to log all the keystrokes by all the users by using pam_tty_audit.so. I appended
> session required pam_tty_audit.so enable=*
> in /etc/pam.d/ ((sshd, login, su, su-l, sudo)
> but could get tty logs only for the root and not for all other users.
> Can this package work for logging all the keystrokes for all the users?

Yes.

> What options should I give to get all the keystrokes for all the users? Thanks in advance.

The above looks about right. What did you specifically do to test tty logging? What appeared in the audit log, and in /var/log/secure? What version of kernel do you use?

Mirek

Hi Mirek,

Thanks for your reply. The details of the issue are noted below.

What did you specifically do to test tty logging? What appeared in the audit log, and in /var/log/secure?

Suppose I have configured pam_tty_audit in PC1

I login as a local user of PC1 from a remote machine using ssh. In /var/log/secure I see

pam_tty_audit(sshd:session): changed status from 0 to 1

Now if I type "ls" command on PC1 I donot get any audit logs (with type=TTYUSER_TTY) in /var/log/audit/audit.log. Neither does "aureport --tty" command gives the keystrokes for the local user. or

Though when i login (using su) as root all the keystrokes get recorded and are out in "aureport --tty" also.

To be double sure I used "su " to login again as local user, still no keystrokes were recorded. Though in /var/log/secure I see

su: pam_tty_audit(su:session): changed status from 0 to 1

The other twist is that for a local user if I create "vi temp" file and type and save something all the keystrokes get recorded. Though, when I remove this temporary file just the command "rm" gets recorded (and not all keystrokes). Also, note that the only logs which record this are under type=TTY in /var/log/audit/audit.log

What version of kernel do you use?

I am using RHEL5 - Linux 2.6.18-128.el5 ,

the pam rpm version is pam-0.99.6.2-4.el5,

and the audit rpm version is audit-1.7.13-2

Regards

Mukul Agrawal

Hello,
----- "Mukul Agrawal" <mukul.agrawal1@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for your reply. The details of the issue are noted below.
>
> What did you specifically do to test tty logging? What appeared in the audit log, and in /var/log/secure?
>
> Suppose I have configured pam_tty_audit in PC1
> I login as a local user of PC1 from a remote machine using ssh. In /var/log/secure I see
> pam_tty_audit(sshd:session): changed status from 0 to 1
> Now if I type "ls" command on PC1 I donot get any audit logs (with type=TTY or USER_TTY) in /var/log/audit/audit.log. Neither does "aureport --tty" command gives the keystrokes for the local user.
>
> Though when i login (using su) as root all the keystrokes get recorded and are out in "aureport --tty" also.

> The other twist is that for a local user if I create "vi temp" file and type and save something all the keystrokes get recorded. Though, when I remove this temporary file just the command "rm" gets recorded (and not all keystrokes). Also, note that the only logs which record this are under type=TTY in /var/log/audit/audit.log

Unprivileged users are not allowed to send USER_TTY records (to prevent flooding the audit log). Therefore the bash commands are logged in TTY records only when bash exits, or the number of collected characters is large enough. That's why the "ls" command is not logged as soon as it is entered; to test this reliably, try logging the user out before checking the audit log.

> What version of kernel do you use?
> I am using RHEL5 - Linux 2.6.18-128.el5 ,
> the pam rpm version is pam-0.99.6.2-4.el5,
> and the audit rpm version is audit-1.7.13-2

Oh. I'm sorry about the late replies - please contact official Red Hat support (https://www.redhat.com/apps/support/) to ensure your queries get a quick response.

Mirek

tits-bits-2

2009-10-06T10:47:00.002+05:30

Sep_23:

pidof returns the process id of a process configured in /etc/init.d/

Sep_29

How to use scp or secure copy

scp (file-name) (user)@(ip-address):

Type the password then and get the file transferred
In order to transfer a file from remote machine using scp use

scp (user)@(ip-address):/path/of/file/in/remote/mc .

Oct_1:
diff -b ignores the number of blank lines

This wildcard options can be useful in commands

Wildcard	Matches
*	zero or more characters
?	exactly one character
[abcde]	exactly one character listed
[a-e]	exactly one character in the given range
[!abcde]	any character that is not listed
[!a-e]	any character that is not in the given range
{debian,linux}	exactly one entire word in the options given

The last wildcard did not work with grep

/var/run/ directory contains the pids of various processes running on the linux machine

How to build a source rpm

2009-10-04T10:17:00.001+05:30

To install a source rpm first the rpms should be made from the source RPM. Execute the following command first.
rpm -ivh
cd /home/your_userid/rpm/SPECS (or the place you have configured)
rpmbuild -bb somepackage.spec
The rpms will be created in the directory ../RPMS under the various architecture directories like i386, i686 etc. You can install these rpms by the same command
rpm -ivh rpm-name

ttysnoop..

2009-09-24T19:58:00.002+05:30

You can use ttysnoop to snoop or spy on a user. You can easily find the RPM for this on the internet. ttysnoop works on client server model. The code can easily be modified to log all the logins to your PC into a file. ttysnoop client is not required for this. You can replace login file by ttysnoops file but make sure to keep the old login file by some other name on your PC. ttysnoop uses the old login file which should be specified in snooptab file created by the RPM (instead of /bin/login replace it to /bin/login.orig or whatever name you want to give to login file). All kinds of login (i mean remote login by ssh or telnet or anything else) can be snooped by doing this. Also, you will need some changes in the ttysnoops code to transfer everything in a file.
For more details you can use the comments section. I will try to solve.

Recently I have come across few more options which could be useful.

aureport can record all the keystrokes if your man page for aureport shows --tty option ( The audit RPM which comes by default with RHEL5 doesnt have the --tty option. Mine was audit-1.7.7. Upgrade it to audit-1.7.13 or higher version)

Use the pam_tty_audit.so file. read the man page and append /etc/pam.d/ (su, su-l, sudo, gdm, sshd, login etc.) with the following line

session required pam_tty_audit.so disable=* enable=root

I found that this thing worked only to log root tty strokes. When I changed root by some user name it did not work.

psacct could also be useful. You can see the link http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-log-user-activity-using-process-accounting.html for more details