UNIX System Administration: Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Tru64, BSD.

OpenVMS - Resetting the SYSTEM user password

2009-06-11T18:28:00.003+03:00

(Re) boot the system with:

b -fl 0,1 dka0(Replace DKA0 with whatever is appropriate for your installation)

At the SYSBOOT console:

SYSBOOT> SET/STARTUP OPA0:
SYSBOOT> SET WINDOW_SYSTEM 0
SYSBOOT> SET WRITESYSPARAMS 0
SYSBOOT> CONTINUE

$ SPAWN
$ @SYS$SYSTEM:STARTUP
$ SET DEFAULT SYS$SYSTEM:
$ RUN SYS$SYSTEM:AUTHORIZE
UAF> MODIFY SYSTEM /PASSWORD=newpass
UAF> EXIT
$

Oracle buys SUN, not IBM

2009-04-20T19:24:00.004+03:00

It's official. Oracle buys SUN:
http://www.oracle.com/index.html

This should be interesting. Oracle has a history of collecting acquisition including MySQL's transactional database engine, InnoDB. Looks like now they have the whole set, thanks to buying Sun.

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/2009-0420/index.jsp

Firefox Firebug vs. Internet Explorer 8 Developer Tools

2009-03-29T22:56:00.001+03:00

Looks like IE 8 has a pretty neat feature called "Developer Tools". It's _very_ similar to Firebug:

Being able to import Firefox and Opera settings and adding quite a few of their features makes IE 8 pretty interesting.

Deja Vu Sans Mono / BitStream Vera

2009-03-06T22:41:00.000+02:00

Deleting Flash10a.ocx after uninstalling / updating ActiveX Flash

2009-03-03T12:27:00.002+02:00

When updating Flash it sometimes leaves some files behind you cannot delete, even though there is no lock on the file (handle, unlocker, whatever).

You need to unregister it using regsvr32:

regsvr32 "C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\Macromed\Flash\Flash10a.ocx" /u

Now you can update your Flash...

Configure Firefox to perform DNS lookups via proxy

2009-02-19T12:21:00.000+02:00

If you've configured a proxy in Firefox it still may leak DNS requests. Type in:

about:config

in the address bar, and look for:

network.proxy.socks_remote_dns

Epoch Fail!

2009-02-13T20:24:00.002+02:00

Epoch time 1234567890 is approaching fast, don't miss it!

cmihai@phobos:/home/cmihai$ date +%s
1234549466

cron your scripts so you don't miss it!

UNIX colors and tools

2009-02-06T20:22:00.011+02:00

Just opened a new package of colored chalk so I'll write on my blackboard :-).

Can't really have fun without:

OpenSSH
GNU screen
KornShell 93, AWK, 1003.1 Shell & Utilities
Emacs, ed
Mutt
Midnight Commander (mc)
Elinks
Terminus font (sure, it's not a tool, but it sure as hell helps , especially during those 20 hour debugging sessions).

Emacs linum plugin + a 256 color TERMINFO entry + transparent putty can look pretty good:

256 colors _really_ do make quite a difference in Emacs (and vim) btw. Normal dtterm or xterm-color get you the first 8...

All you really need to do to get this working on AIX is to add a new TERMINFO entry (tic). You can easily grab the 256 color xterm with infocmp..

/usr/bin/tput colors
256

VIM looks pretty good too with a 256 color theme also (inkpot):

Ubuntu wtf number 1984

2009-01-23T02:48:00.006+02:00

So, what's new THIS release of a "server" (read: we don't know much about all that stable ABI and API business, but hey, we make this stuff easier than before)

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition/techspecs/whatsnew

Oh yes, the new "select-editor" command. Indeed. Suggesting people to use $EDITOR? You're a poisonous person, get out of our community!

Select-editor command

Running the

sudo select-editor

command now allows you to pick which editor will be used by default to edit documents.

I mean, seriously. 6 months for a new "server" version and that's all they could come up with? Probably only has "nano, pico, joe, kedit, gedit and Vigor" as options anywho. And most likely depends on Python and GTK2.

This release also featuring the all improved one of a kind "Uncomplicated Firewall". Apparently it just has an "on/off" switch.

Change Analysis Diagnostic tool for Windows XP

2009-01-18T19:15:00.002+02:00

Here's a neat tool for digital forensics, reversing or malware analysis:

This tool allows you to track changes in:

Software Programs
Operating System Components (hotfixes and updates)
Browser Helper Objects
Drivers
ActiveX Controls
Autostart Extensibity Points

Get it from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924732

Maximum login name lenght - Username too long in AIX 5.3

2009-01-15T22:36:00.002+02:00

# useradd itssomeguy
3004-694 Error adding "itssomeguys" : Name is too long.

# getconf LOGIN_NAME_MAX
9
# lsattr −El sys0 −a max_logname
max_logname 9 Maximum login name length at boot time True
# chdev −l sys0 −a max_logname=18
sys0 changed
# reboot

Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter x64 Beta Hands on Preview

2009-01-15T12:24:00.015+02:00

Windows 2008 R2 is also in the works.

Some major changes there it seems. The 2008 release was a bit rushed IMHO (Hyper-V still in Betas on release and so on).

And again, our new friends, the taskbar and the ribbon from Windows 7 are present:

Also comes with PowerShell v2.

Task manager, resource monitor and performance monitor got a few new additions also:

Overall, my first impression is a positive one. Seems pretty responsive also.

For some reason a lot changes withing the monitoring tools and taskmanager remind me of Mark Russinovich's Sysinternals tools.

Even trivial applications such as CALC got a new facelift and functionaly in Windows 7 and 2008 R2 . Like "Programmer mode" calc:

Even minor applications are getting a facelift. Paint gets ribboned too:

Obama gets a NSA approved "Blackberry"

2009-01-15T00:15:00.007+02:00

Anyone else thinking Obama using a Blackberry is a bad idea? Apart from the whole WinCE thing inside, there's been precedent of getting in trouble over a phone call...

The first African-American president of the U.S.A. might want to learn a thing or two from the (first) Chechen Republic president Dzhokhar Dudayev, who was killed on the April 21, 1996, by two laser-guided missiles when he was using a satellite phone, after his location was detected by a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, which intercepted his phone call.

If they could detect speech patterns back in 1996 and stage such an attack, think of the things technology can do now...

Cryptography you say? I say inference attacks :-). And so on. Mobile phone insecurity is abysmal at best... I wonder what they'll do about 3rd party applications (probably not allowed) or stuff like Internet Explorer mobile, heh.

TEMPEST attacks is also something he might want to watch out for.

There's been precedent for this sort of thing :-). Like hacker group "anonymous" breaking into Sarah Palin's yahoo mail account.

Winodws 7 beta hands on preview

2009-01-11T10:51:00.005+02:00

A first look at Windows 7:

Looks and feels pretty much like Vista SP1 on steroids.

Graphically it's not much different from Windows Vista (with the slight exception of the taskbar). There's some minor UI changes and so on though.

VMware actually assumed it was a Windows Vista when I selected the ISO, and proceeded to start "EasyInstall" and automagically installed the OS without any kind of input.

So, at least from the installer point of view, it's pretty much 100% compatible with Windows Vista.

All VMware tools and drivers installed fine also.

Even our old friend "The Ribbon" is omnipresent. Now even mandatory when using Wordpad:

Of course, remember, this is still a beta...

All and all, it can be considered somewhat as an evolutionary change from Windows Vista, and not a revolution by far. It's more of a Windows Vista SP2 "Plus". I just wonder how this will reflect on Vista sales and such.

Error EC950008: Driver mining failed with Norton Ghost or Backup Exec

2009-01-09T19:57:00.001+02:00

Error EC950008: Driver mining failed

This happens when trying to create a Symantec Recovery disk with various versions of Backup Exec System Recovery or Norton Ghost (they largely use the same codebase). I've seen this issue all the way up to Ghost 14 with the latest patches.

The issue is most likely due to Daemon Tools (happens even with the latest version to date). It errors out when it encounters it's SPD driver.

The solution is simple: uninstall Daemon Tools, create your System Recovery Disk, reinstall Daemon tools.

Download HQ MP4 or FLV movies from youtube

2008-12-31T10:33:00.005+02:00

Just add the following without the quotes after the youtube film URL and use something like FlashGot (or grab the full URL with Firebug) to download it:

"&fmt=18" for HQ MP4 format
or
"&fmt=6" for HQ FLV format.

The "Flash Video Resources Downloader" Firefox addon seems to get this right and is able to download FLV, HQ FLV and HQ MP4 format movies from Youtube and can also handle similar sites. The downside is reliance on a web hosted php script (it means visiting this site every time you want to download something to grab the URL).

Export VIM syntax highlighting to HTML

2008-12-11T12:04:00.002+02:00

You can export the colorscheme based syntax highlighting in used in your VIM instance to a HTML file.

Just set a colorscheme and enable syntax highligting in VIM"

colorscheme torte
syntax on

Then you can export the same color scheme to a HTML file:

:runtime! syntax/2html.vim

This works for any file type supported by VIM. Just make sure you save the file before using the right extention.

Script for automating hardlink creation

2008-12-11T11:34:00.003+02:00

::
:: Linking script
:: Usage: ln "source\REGEXP" destination

@echo off
set sourcedir=%1
set destdir=%2
if "%1" == "" goto usage
echo "Linking" %sourcedir% "\*" to %destdir% "\*"

if not exist %destdir% mkdir %destdir%
:: Create the destination directory if it does not exist

:iterate
shift
if "%1" == "" goto end
for %%i in (%sourcedir%) do fsutil hardlink create %destdir%\%%~nxi %%~fi
goto iterate

:usage
color 4f
echo "Usage: ln.bat source-directory\REGEXP destination-directory
echo "If the destination directory does not exist it will be created."
echo "If a fully qualified path is not used, current directory will be used"
pause
color

:end
set sourcedir=

Scripting VMware Infrastructure with PowerShell

2008-12-09T12:06:00.005+02:00

You can script VMware Server and VMware Infrastructure using Microsoft PowerShell CmdLets and the VMware VI Toolkit. It's really great for scheduling and automating tasks, since the scheduler in VMware Infrastructure Client is severely limited

You need to install the .NET Framework (2.0 at least), PowerShell 1.0 and the VMware VI Toolkit. All are freely available.

Get-VICommand to list available cmdlets and read the VI Toolkit Cmdlets Reference for documentation.

Creating hardlinks on Windows

2008-12-08T10:26:00.002+02:00

You can use fsutil on Windows XP and Windows 2003 or mklink on Windows Vista and 2008 to create hardlinks in a Windows environment. This requires a NTFS filesystem.

Windows - Delayed Write Failed when copying to USB disks

2008-11-21T23:39:00.005+02:00

Trouble transfering large files to USB devices? I've had quite some problems with Delayed Write Failed even after caching disabled, increasing the system page size, etc. when transfering large files to Western Digital USB 2.0 500MB and 2TB MyBook Devices (though this looks like an issue with USB storage devices in general).

Messages like these turn up in Even Viewer:

{Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file . The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

Application popup: Windows - Delayed Write Failed : Windows was unable to save all the data for the file. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

To fix this enabled SoftRetry for USB transfers:

Start - run - cmd. Type:

reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USB\EnSoftRetry /v Data /t REG_DWORD /d 1

Other hacks to get around this issue:

Look into HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management at LargeSystemCache and SystemPages.

Disable write caching on the disk (Right click the drive letter - Properties - Hardware - Select the Disk - Properties - Policies - Optimize for quick removal).

Make sure you monitor errors under Start - Run - eventvwr.msc -> System.

DHCP Server on AIX

2008-11-13T13:31:00.001+02:00

# vi /etc/dhcpsd.cnf

leaseTimeDefault 30 minutes
leaseExpireInterval 3 minutes
supportBOOTP yes
supportUnlistedClients yes

network 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0
{
subnet 192.168.0.0 192.168.0.11-192.168.0.16
}

# startsrc -s dhcpsd
0513-059 The dhcpsd Subsystem has been started. Subsystem PID is 335890.

# lssrc -ls dhcpsd
Log file: /usr/tmp/dhcpsd.log
Log Level: 0x16
Client Expire Interval: 3600
Reserve Expire Interval: 900
Bad Addr Reclaim Interval: 4394967295
Database Save Interval: 3600

IP Address Status Duration Time Stamp Client ID
---------- ------ -------- ----- ------- ---------
192.168.0.11 Leased Infinite Nov 13 12:22 1-deadbeefcafe
192.168.0.12 Leased Infinite Nov 13 12:24 1-abadcafebabe
192.168.0.13 Free
192.168.0.14 Free
192.168.0.15 Free
192.168.0.16 Free

Bitlbee - Yahoo and IM console client on AIX

2008-11-07T12:29:00.002+02:00

Bitlbee supports XMPP/Jabber (including Google Talk), MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM and ICQ and creates a localhost IRC server you can connect to with say EMACS ERC irc client. Great for the whole ssh -> screen -> EMACS -> ERC deal.

It's quite nice for consolidating all your communication inside of Emacs (IRC via ERC, mail and news via GNUS, IM via bitlbee), etc.

Luckily, Bitlbee compiles out of the box on AIX, and you don't even need root permissions to use it.

Simply download it and compile it with say gcc:

% gunzip -c bitlbee-1.2.3.tar.gz| tar xf -
% cd bitlbee-1.2.3
% ./configure --ssl=openssl
% gmake
% ./bitlbee -D -n -v -i 127.0.0.1 -p 12345 -c ./bitlbee.conf

Now connect your IRC client to localhost port 12345 and create your account.

register password
account add yahoo username password
account on

Solaris Performance Monitoring

2008-09-26T11:39:00.001+03:00

Performance monitoring tools on Solaris using split GNU screen windows :-).

Adding more speeddial boxes to Opera.

2008-09-11T11:24:00.003+03:00

By default, Opera uses a 3x3 grid for the speeddial. You can change this to whatever you want by editing the speeddial.ini file.

Open a new opera tab and type in opera:config and search for "speeddial" in the Quick Find bar.

You now have the location of speeddial.ini from User Prefs - Speed Dial File. Edit this file.

Make sure you close Opera, and edit this file.

Add the following lines to the top of the speeddial.ini file:

[Size]
Rows=4
Columns=4

This should give you a solid 16 speeddial boxes.