Vittorio Pavesi

Be notified when lose power

2022-04-27T22:48:00.005+02:00

NEEDING:
The electricity on my parent's house is not really stable and I needed to be notified when losing power and they aren't at home.

SOLUTION:
I used an Arduino Board and the free service provided by https://healthchecks.io and I got the notification every time the electricity is not available.

INSTRUCTIONS

Create a free account on https://healthchecks.io
Configure a new check that send notification if not connection is received
Got an ESP8266 Arduino Board for 3/4 €
Download code from here https://github.com/vittoriop77/HealthChecksIO
Set WiFi parameters (SSID and Password)
Set HealthChecks URL
Upload Code to ESP8266

Sync Runkeeper and Strava

2022-01-12T10:00:00.003+01:00

GOAL:

I used Runkeeper since 2010, recently many friends started using Strava and I would like to use both.

SOLUTION:

To sync all new activities I used Zapier , the following link share the reusable ZAP https://zapier.com/shared/7969c073e68120741c157a11cebc3d5f745f3686

To import more than 1000 logged activities I used Strava Uploader, a really easy tool published on GitHub https://github.com/barrald/strava-uploader

Minikube error trouble accessing https://k8s.gcr.io

2020-11-25T15:36:00.005+01:00

I'm playing with MiniKube and I'm experiencing this error at startup

This container is having trouble accessing https://k8s.gcr.io

More details:

😄 minikube v1.15.1 on Centos 8.2.2004

✨ Automatically selected the docker driver

✅ Using image repository

👍 Starting control plane node minikube in cluster minikube

🔥 Creating docker container (CPUs=2, Memory=2200MB) ...

❗

This container is having trouble accessing https://k8s.gcr.io

💡 To pull new external images, you may need to configure a proxy: https://minikube.sigs.k8s.io/docs/reference/networking/proxy/

🐳 Preparing Kubernetes v1.19.4 on Docker 19.03.13 ...

🔎 Verifying Kubernetes components...

🌟 Enabled addons: storage-provisioner, default-storageclass

🏄 Done! kubectl is now configured to use "minikube" cluster and "default" namespace by default

Many guide suggest to set proxy or change driver mode, I fixed in this simple way:

~ sudo systemctl restart docker.service

~ minikube delete

~ minikube start --driver=docker

Kali on WSL2 with Desktop Experience

2020-09-17T22:41:00.004+02:00

As you may know you can install the advanced penetration testing linux distribution KALI on WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

The great news is that you can have a real desktop experience of Kali on a Windows client using Win-KeX.

The features are:

Window mode: start a Kali Linux desktop in a dedicated window
Seamless mode: share the Windows desktop between Windows and Kali apps and menus
Sound support
Unprivileged and Root session support
Shared clipboard for cut and paste support between Kali Linux and Windows apps
Multi-session support: root window & non-priv window & seamless sessions concurrently

The installation is really easy: sudo apt update && sudo apt install kali-win-kex

A step by step video is available here

Lo smartworker e i muffin

2020-05-29T22:53:00.000+02:00

My first book is available on Amazon !

Lo Smartworker e i Muffin

Manuale semiserio di sopravvivenza allo smartworking

Link: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B088ZTR37K

Check_MK SNMP Plugin Example

2020-03-14T10:11:00.002+01:00

I spent days looking for a good example for an SNMP Plugin for Check_MK Monitoring System but I didn't find a good one and the documentation is not clear at all..

So I decided to write one by myself and publish on my Github.

Source code available here: https://github.com/vittoriop77/Check_MK_Plugins/blob/master/SMTP_Sessions

Customize Terminal Console

2020-02-01T22:22:00.002+01:00

I'm playing with Terminal Console on Windows and Linux, below you can find the documentation I used as a sample

Windows Terminal Console Configuration from Scott Hanselman

Link: https://www.hanselman.com/blog/HowToMakeAPrettyPromptInWindowsTerminalWithPowerlineNerdFontsCascadiaCodeWSLAndOhmyposh.aspx

Linux Bash Console Configuration from Pedro Ferrari

Link: https://github.com/petobens/trueline

Raspberry Pi Zero W - SSH over USB

2017-11-30T23:34:00.004+01:00

I need to connect to my new Raspberry Pi Zero W with SSH over USB.

I found a lot of guides and forum post with the same instructions (see below) but after trying it doesn't work on my Windows 10 laptop with error:
Could not resolve hostname raspberrypi.local: Name or service not known

Solution:
Open Device Manager, Open Ports (COM and LPT), search for Serial USB device (COMx)
replace drivers with this:

https://domotronic.fr/wp-content/uploads/telechargement/RPI%20Driver%20OTG.zip

Instructions:
Edit the cmdline.txt file and add this directly after rootwait
modules-load=dwc2,g_serial
Edit the config.txt file and add this directly after the last line in the file:
dtoverlay=dwc2

Add an empty file called ssh

Java - Unable to open JLP

2017-05-18T06:34:00.000+02:00

I wasn't able to connect to a Lenovo ThinkServer IPMI Console due to the following error:
unsigned application requesting unrestricted access to system

This happens because latest Oracle Java restricted access to Weak Algorithms (e.g. MD5).

You can override this behavior changing C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_131\lib\security\java.security file

Replace jdk.jar.disabledAlgorithms and jdk.certpath.disabledAlgorithms leaving onlu MD2

Example:
jdk.jar.disabledAlgorithms=MD2
jdk.certpath.disabledAlgorithms=MD2

SQL Server vNext Performance Windows vs Linux

2017-03-27T22:54:00.002+02:00

I installed SQL vNext CTP 1.4 on Windows 2012 R2 and some Linux Machine in order to compare performance.

Basically Write Access is comparable on Windows and Linux but Read Access is much slower on Linux

OS	INSERT (msec)	Delta (%)	SELECT (msec)	Delta (%)
Windows Server 2012 R2	0,0123	0%	1,3278	0%
Linux CentOS 7 - EXT4	0,0128	4%	3,5359	166%
Linux CentOS 7 - XFS	0,0128	4%	3,405	156%
Linux CentOS 7 - BTRFS	0,0193	57%	3,6312	173%

Supported File System (EXT4/XFS) provide same performance, BTRFS is really BAD

Test has been made on virtual machines with 4 CPU and 4 GB of RAM with SqlQueryStressTool.

You can see the used script on my Github

Access vPostgres

2017-03-26T23:45:00.001+02:00

When you install a vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) you are not requested to define a password for vPostgres and the DBMS is installed with a random password for postgres user that you don't know.

There are 2 solutions:

1) grab it from C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\postgresql\pgpass.conf

2) reset it using the following procedure:
- Add the following line to D:\ProgramData\VMware\vCenterServer\data\vpostgres\pg_hba.conf
(host all all 127.0.0.1/32 trust)
- Reload the service parameters using this command: "D:\Program Files\VMware\vCenter Server\vPostgres\bin\pg_ctl.exe" reload -D "D:/ProgramData/VMware/vCenterServer/data/vpostgres"
- Connect without any password psql -h localhost -U postgres

Python Get a list of anonymous proxy

2017-03-18T23:48:00.000+01:00

The following script in Python generate a file with a list of anonymous proxy from http://gatherproxy.com

import urllib2

def WriteFile(str):
    with open('/mnt/d/Temp/proxylist.txt', "a") as f:
        f.write(str+'\n')
        return

def GetURL(URLString):
 attempts = 0
 while attempts < 3:
  try:
   opener = urllib2.build_opener()
   urllib2.install_opener(opener)
   
   response = urllib2.urlopen(URLString, timeout = 30)
   content = response.read()
   #print(content)
   from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
   soup = BeautifulSoup(content)
   for row in soup.findAll("script"):
    riga= ''.join(map(str, row.contents))
    #print(riga)
    if 'gp.insertPrx' in riga:
     StrArray = riga.split(":")
     IP = StrArray[3].split(",")[0].replace('\"','')
     port = str(int(StrArray[5].split(",")[0].replace('\"',''), 16))
     WriteFile(IP+":"+port)

   break
  except urllib2.URLError as e:
   attempts += 1
   print type(e)

GetURL("http://gatherproxy.com/proxylist/anonymity/?t=Anonymous#1")
GetURL("http://gatherproxy.com/proxylist/anonymity/?t=Anonymous#2")

Prestashop DropShipping Module

2017-03-16T23:42:00.003+01:00

I need to integrate Prestashop with a Dropshipper but no modules were available for it.
I created an empty module using these instructions http://doc.prestashop.com/display/PS16/Creating+a+first+module, then I added an Hook Function linked to Payment
public function hookactionPaymentConfirmation($params)
{
//the thing you want to do when the hook's executed goes here
$order = new Order((int)$params['id_order']);
$address = new Address((int)$order->id_address_delivery);
$state = new State((int)$address->id_state);
$country = new Country((int)$state->id_country);
$product_list = $order->getOrderDetailList();

$prodotti = '[';
foreach ($product_list as $product)
{
if ($prodotti != '[')
{
$prodotti .= ',';
}
$prodotti .= '{"codice": "'.$product['product_reference'].'", "qta": '.$product['product_quantity'].'}';
}

$prodotti .= ']';
//CONTACT THE DROPSHIPPER API

}

If you need to verify the stock availability you need to override the Cart Class for the function checkProductsAccess and remove the product from the cart if it's not available

public function checkProductsAccess()
{
parent::checkProductsAccess();
foreach ($this->getProducts() as $product) {
//CHECK AVAILABILITY
if ($avail = 0)
{
$this->deleteProduct($product["id_product"]);
return $product['id_product'];
}
}
return false;
}

vSphere 6 HTML Console

2016-03-29T10:51:00.001+02:00

If you want to provide an HTML console for vSphere 6 you can just follow these simple steps:

Download ZIP from VMware Site https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/html-console/ (HTML, JS, CSS)
Install the vCenter Certificate into the web server providing HTML console (REALLY IMPORTANT)
Create an HTML page with the following code

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Console</title>
</head>
<body> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="wmks-all.css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.8.3.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="wmks.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<div id="wmksContainer" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%"></div>
<script> var wmks = WMKS.createWMKS("wmksContainer",{}) .register(WMKS.CONST.Events.CONNECTION_STATE_CHANGE, function(event,data){ if(data.state == WMKS.CONST.ConnectionState.CONNECTED) { console.log("connection state change : connected"); } }); wmks.connect("wss://ESXhost:443/ticket/TICKETNUMBER");
</script >
</body>
</html>

In order to generate ticket you can use something like this:

Add-PSSnapin VMware.VimAutomation.Core

$VCenter = "vcenter.vc.local"

Connect-VIServer $VCenter -User vc\administrator -Password Password

$Vm = Get-VM VIRTUALMACHINE1

$Ticket = $Vm.ExtensionData.AcquireTicket("webmks")

$ESXHost = $Ticket.host

$TicketNumber = $Ticket.ticket

The logic is:

More details here: https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/html-console/html-console-sdk-100-programmer-guide.pdf

Moto G - Clear Cache

2015-03-15T16:19:00.000+01:00

After upgrading my Moto G 2013 to Lollipop it seems a little slow, I tried to clear cache using the following official procedure but it didn't work because I was able to access Recovery option but not Clear Cache Option:

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/prod_answer_detail/a_id/94946/p/30,6720,8696

The solution to access the "wipe cache partition" menu was:
press and hold Power Button for at least two seconds and then without releasing the Power Button press Vol. Up key

Ubuntu error "Running post-installation trigger update-notifier-common"

2013-05-16T18:58:00.002+02:00

During Ubuntu 13.4 installation I experienced the following error:
Running post-installation trigger update-notifier-common

The solution was running setup with NOACPI and NOMODESET options.

Robocopy Example

2013-02-26T13:50:00.001+01:00

Robocopy is really powerful but I never remember the syntax and I prefer using copy... So let's add a simple example for future memories

robocopy.exe \\SourceServer\SourceShare D:\Destination\ /V /MIR /COPYALL /R:1 /W:5 /log:D:\temp\log.txt

Reset Windows 2012 Password

2013-01-26T19:38:00.000+01:00

I installed a month ago Windows 2012 Evaluation in a Virtual Machine, today I tried to logon but I forgot password :-(

There is an easy way to reset the password without cracking it...

1) Start Server using a Linux Live CD
2) Go to C:\Windows\System32
3) Rename Utilman.exe to OldUtilman.exe
4) Copy cmd.exe to Utilman.exe
5) Restart using Windows and at logon press Windows Key + U
6) From command prompt type net user Administrator MyNewPassword
7) Restart and voilam you'll have access to your server again ;-)

Kill all RDP Sessions

2012-12-31T00:00:00.001+01:00

If you want to reset all Terminal Server (RDP) Sessions from command line, you can use this PowerShell script.

$ServerName = "localhost"

# Run the qwinsta.exe and parse the output
$queryResults = (qwinsta /server:$ServerName | foreach { (($_.trim() -replace “\s+”,”,”))} | ConvertFrom-Csv)

# Pull the session information from each instance
ForEach ($queryResult in $queryResults) {
 $RDPUser = $queryResult.USERNAME
 $sessionType = $queryResult.SESSIONNAME
 $sessionID = $queryResult.ID
 # We only want to display where a “person” is logged in. Otherwise unused sessions show up as USERNAME as a number
 If (($RDPUser -match “[a-z]“) -and ($RDPUser -ne $NULL)) {
  # When running interactively, uncomment the Write-Host line below to show the output to screen
  # Write-Host $RDPUser logged in on Session ID: $sessionID
  $command = "rwinsta.exe $($sessionID)"
  # Write-Host $command 
  iex $command
 }
}

DNS Problem after update to Linux Mint 14

2012-12-28T22:06:00.004+01:00

After update Linux Mint from release 13 (Maya) to release 14 (Nadia), I experienced problem with DNS resolution.

The solution is really simple, just type: sudo dns-fix and everything will work properly.

MyPermission.org

2012-11-20T21:24:00.002+01:00

This service allow you to check which apps have access to your social accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Google, Linkedin..)

It doesn't need to access you account, it's only a bookmark for the permission pages which allow you to grant or revoke access to different services that use your social account.

Check it out on www.mypermissions.org

Skype on Windows 8 replace Messenger

2012-11-08T22:45:00.000+01:00

As everyone know, Windows live Messenger will be retired after many years of succesfull usage.

Latest Skype application with native support for Windows 8 will join contacts from MSN and Skype providing a unique IM application.

After testing it for a while, I really appreciate it.

Cracking WPA2 on Windows GPU Powered

2012-10-16T22:09:00.003+02:00

I'm testing my own wireless network security, after I got WPA Handshake with BackTrack I would like to check how strong is my WPA2 password against a GPU Brute Force Attack.

I found IGPRS (Ivan Golubev's Password Recovery Suite) and I really appreciate it.

It can recover passwords for:

Apple iOS 4.x & 5.x backups;
BlackBerry 5.x & 6.x backups;
TrueCrypt volumes (limited support);
WPA/WPA2 handshakes.

Link: http://www.golubev.com/igprs/

Change Windows Language Without Reinstall

2012-09-21T18:21:00.001+02:00

I just received a new laptop with Italian language, I would like to have English language without reinstall PC.

The solution was really simple, download Vistalizator, launch it, select language and reboot, that's it !

Link: http://www.froggie.sk/

Enable Virtualization on HP ProBook 4530s

2012-09-03T12:00:00.000+02:00

I tried to install HyperV on my new HP ProBook 4530s but it fails with error message: hyper-v is disabled in the firmware.

I enabled the parameter virtualization technology in BIOS but it still fail, the solution was to change BIOS Security Settings from View to Change for virtualization.