nixgeek

Rest in Peace Dennis M Ritchie

root — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:20:00 -0000

Sad to see this post on Google Plus tonight:

Rob Pike  -  10:02 PM  -  Public

I just heard that, after a long illness, Dennis Ritchie (dmr) died at home this weekend.
I have no more information. I trust there are people here who will appreciate the reach
of his contributions and mourn his passing appropriately. He was a quiet and mostly
private man, but he was also my friend, colleague, and collaborator, and the world has
lost a truly great mind.

For anyone unsure of who this great man was, you really should check out his wikipedia entry but the main part is:

Ritchie is best known as the creator of the C programming language and a key developer of the Unix operating system, and as co-author of the definitive book on C, The C Programming Language, commonly referred to as K&R (in reference to the authors Kernighan and Ritchie). Ritchie's invention of C and his role in the development of Unix alongside Ken Thompson have placed him as an important pioneer of modern computing. The C language is still widely used today in application and operating system development, and its influence is seen in most modern programming languages. Unix has also been influential, establishing concepts and principles that are now well-established precepts of computing.

A serious loss for any programmer or unix geek and anyone else that knows where many modern things like linux, bsd, osx, etc started

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    printf("Rest In Peace Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie\n");
    printf("Thank You for so much\n");
    return 0;
}

Also relevant: this post was typed on an Archlinux laptop and hosted on a Debian vps. Thanks again dmr!

Convert CENTOS 6 server to Scientific Linux 6

root — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 04:20:00 -0000

This guide came about from a post on the Linode forum (http://forum.linode.com/viewtopic.php?t=7454) and I thought it might be useful to have on file for myself and anyone else that might find this blog. The below are steps needed to change a CENTOS 6 server over to a Scientific Linux 6 server as they are both based on RHEL sources but SL is updated more often and seems to be gaining traction as CENTOS loses it with slow updates & releases. I did make a minor change from the initial post (changing distroverpkg) and then the formatting but otherwise the steps were laid out by tolle.

First, Install the yum repository

rpm -ivh http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6x/i386/os/Packages/yum-conf-sl6x-1-1.noarch.rpm

Then install the signing keys for a 32bit installation

rpm -ivh --force http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6x/i386/os/Packages/sl-release-6.1-2.i686.rpm

For a 64bit installation run

rpm -ivh --force http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6x/x86_64/os/Packages/sl-release-6.1-2.x86_64.rpm

Edit /etc/yum.conf and change

distroverpkg=centos-release

distroverpkg=sl-release

Have your CentOS installation pull all the updated packages from the SL repositories

yum erase centos-release
yum clean all
yum distro-sync

Run this to update all centos packages to SL

yum reinstall \`rpm -qa --qf "%{NAME} %{VENDOR}\n"|grep CentOS|awk \'{print $1}\'\`

And you are done. I reboot after all of this just to ensure everything was working properly. I would also probably recommend this be done on a clean install of CENTOS if at all possible (ie: you use Linode which only has CENTOS or some other provider) just to reduce your problems but it should be possible on a previously deployed server as well, just be sure to get backups done first.

Plus Minus - Collapse Google Plus stream and more

root — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0000

If you use Chrome / Chromium and Google+ but hate the stream being cluttered and hard to follow, there is an extension that should make your life much easier.

Plus Minus allows you to collapse posts in your stream down to just a few lines making it easier to follow and see what you have already read and what is new. Additionally, it allows you to expand the width of the stream to take advantage of your resolution rather than just taking up the middle of the screen. You can also shrink the entire stream at once as well as other options like selecting which circles to show or hide.

Get Plus Minus for Chrome / Chromium

Windows 7 set to no page file and unable to change

root — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:20:00 -0000

I had this issue the other day and wanted to write it down both as a reminder to myself and a hint for anyone that might be suffering from it.

Basically, some programs (I had it with Broderbund Print Shop which seems to be the most commonly found option) that burn things to disc mess with settings that hose the pagefile, making the computer running badly and having the window to change it popup after every boot.

The fix is actually very easy and quite painless. Just drop to a command prompt and type:

sc config afs start= disabled

Reboot the computer and that should solve the issue, it did for me.

Start the Windows Installer Service in Safe Mode with SafeMSI.exe

root — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0000

When a computer is in safe mode, the Windows Installer Service isn't started. This can cause some issues as some malware can be removed easier through safe mode or maybe other issues in uninstalling a program force you to use an alternate method. However, if you just try to start the service in safe mode, it fails with an error message (Could not start the Windows Installer service on Local Computer. Error 1084: This service cannot be started in Safe Mode).

Enter SafeMSI.exe, a tiny (and portable) free app that starts up the Windows Installer Service for you. In reality, it's simply running a registry tweak and starting the service but this makes it a lot easier than editing the registry & starting the service on your own.

You can download the program here

Fixing common Windows problems

root — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0000

A short url for accessing this page is at http://nixgeek.com/fixwin/

Enable / Disable the Hidden Administrator account on Windows 7 or Vista

Microsoft Fix It Solution Center - It doesn't get much easier than this: Select a device or program, select a problem area, then browse the tips and programs that Microsoft offers as a solution.

PCWorld - Articles seem to be kind of dated but still some good information in here

Microsoft at Home - Fix common PC problems - This guide from Microsoft covers the basics for keeping a healthy PC, plus tacks on some tips for locating problems. Reading through this should let you know if you have a software, hardware or connectivity issue and give you the smarts and apps to tackle it.

ESET Online Scanner - Free online Virus Scanner from ESET

Kaspersky Online Scanner - Free online Virus Scanner from Kaspersky (has been offline recently, good option if it is working again)

TrendMicro Housecall - Free online Virus Scanner from TrendMicro

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (Download) - Very good malware scanner and removable tool. The official website is good, however they usually forward you to CNET's Download.com which has started to do some very spyware-like practices themselves so I recommend downloading from FileHippo instead

SuperAntiSpyware (Download) - Another very good anti-malware scanner and removal tool

The real reason for the 2012 scare

root — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 04:20:00 -0000

Fixing common Linux problems

root — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0000

A short url for accessing this page is at http://nixgeek.com/fixlinux/

TuxRadar's Guide - An older (2009) list but still some good info

YeoWorks Ubuntu Solutions - One Click Fix for common Ubuntu problems

Fixing common Mac problems

root — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0000

A short url for accessing this page is at http://nixgeek.com/fixmac/

Apple Discussions Support Forum - You can select the topic by OS, program, hardware or just type your problem into the search box.

CNET's MacFixIt Feed - Tech blog CNET keeps tabs on all their OS X-related updates with the MacFixIt blog. Head here to search for updates, cool features and troubleshooting.

Quora - Apple Products - I've linked directly to the Apple-Products section, but really just punch in whatever you are having a problem with and search. Answers are provided by other users of the service, I don't tend to use this all that much but others swear by it.

The MacRX Category on Cult of Mac - Cult of Mac keeps it simple: All Mac, all the time. Follow their troubleshooting-specific MacRX category to get updates on everything from good Mac maintenance and un-deleting files to how to fix start-up problems and get your Mac running fast.

Macworld Forums - Typical forum site with categories, search, etc.

macnn - Typical forum site with categories, search, etc.

Honesty and bosses

root — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0000

I've had a few bosses like that

0xC0000225 Error trying to install Windows 2008 R2 or other x64 Windows under Virtualbox

root — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:20:00 -0000

This is just a quick tip to remind myself and in case anyone else stumbles upon the same problem.

While installing Windows 2008 r2, I encountered a 0xc0000225 error immediately after starting the boot from the iso. It turns out that you need to edit the settings for the VM to turn on IO APIC (Under System, Motherboard tab) in order for the install to complete. Soon as I did that, the install continued as normal.

Simple fix, hopefully it helps someone pulling their hair out in frustration.

Websecurify - an integrated web security testing environment

root — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0000

What is it?

Websecurify is an integrated web security testing environment, which can be used to identify web vulnerabilities by using advanced browser automation, discovery and fuzzing technologies. The platform is designed to perform automated as well as manual vulnerability tests and it is constantly improved and fine-tuned by a team of world class web application security penetration testers and the feedback from an active open source community.

How it works

Websecurify uses several key technologies combined together to achieve the best possible result when performing automatic and manual tests. At the core of the platform sits a Web Browser. This allows Websecurify to gain a fine-grained control over the targeted web application and as such detect vulnerabilities that are difficult to find with other tools.

The carefully engineered user interface is simple to use but powerful. All tools and platform features are integrated with each other. This allows smooth transition from one type of task to another and it also makes it easier to work with the complex flow of data, gathered during the penetration test.

The built-in vulnerability scanner and analyzation engine are capable of automatically detecting many types of web application vulnerabilities as you proceed with the penetration test. The list of automatically detected vulnerabilities include:

SQL Injection Local and Remote File Include Cross-site Scripting Cross-site Request Forgery Information Disclosure Problems Session Security Problems many others including all categories in the OWASP TOP 10 Websecurify design principles emphasise on ease of use and extensibility. Virtually every single platform component can be extended with the help of add-ons and plugins. This means that task and business specific customizations can be introduced without the need to worry about cross-platform issues, deployment, internationalization and future support.

Why Websecurify

Websecurify is a carefully engineered piece of software, which packs years of hands-on penetration testing experience. It is actively used and improved on a daily basis by full-time penetration testers and web security researchers. Unlike other products, all Websecurify features are designed to be easy to use and to aid the penetration testing process from start to finish in any possible scenario during automated, semi-automated or fully manual penetration tests.

The penetration testing platform is the only one of its kind. Websecurify is in effect built on the top of a browser and can understand all modern web technologies including upcoming web standards and current technologies such as HTML5.

Google Chrome

The Websecurify security testing engine is also available for the Google Chrome (Chromium) web browser. This extension provides intuitive web application security testing environment which is easy to use by everyone: from casual users who want to check the security of their web apps to experienced professionals.

Websecurify for the Google Chrome Web Browser is a perfect fit for busy web developers and penetration testers who are working on the next big thing but must keep the security perimeter tight. For more information visit Chrome Webstore.

Main Features

Some of the main features of Websecurify include:

Available for all major platforms (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) Simple to use user interface Builtin internationalization support Easily extensible with the help of add-ons and plugins Exportable and customisable reports with any level of detail Moduler and reusable design Powerful manual testing tools and helper facilities Team sharing support Powerful analytical and scanning technology Built-in service and support integration Scriptable support for JavaScript and Python Extensible via many languages including JavaScript, Python, C, C++ and Java

More information can be found at the Websecurify website

Register for OSVDB and Nessus on Backtrack 5

root — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0000

OSVDB

Go to http://osvdb.org to register your account. After registering, you will receive an email to activate your account.

After the activation of your account, you can login to OSVDB. Go to "Account" -- "API" to copy the API code.

Open a terminal and run:

nano /pentest/enumeration/web/cms-explorer/osvdb.key

Copy the API code onto the osvdb.key file.

Nessus

Go to http://www.nessus.org/products/nessus/nessus-plugins/obtain-an-activation-code and select "Using Nessus at Home?" to register.

You will receive an email with instructions on getting a code, then open a terminal and run:

/opt/nessus/bin/nessus-fetch --register XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

To create a user :

/opt/nessus/sbin/nessus-adduser

(You can leave the rule field empty)

Start the Nessus from the menu of Back|Track 5, "BackTrack" -- "Vulnerability Assessment" -- "Vulnerability Scanners" -- "Nessus" -- "nessus start".

Or, just run:

/etc/init.d/nessusd start

After that, go to https://localhost:8834/

Increase the maximum transfer size of USB storage devices in Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2

root — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0000

Ever thought that your USB storage device was running slower than it should? It seems that the default settings for Windows 7 regarding the maximum transfer size are quite low (64KB in fact). This means your speeds may in fact be lower than what they potentially could be.

To help with this issue, Microsoft has release an update to help users potentially increase their USB storage device transfer speeds. KB2581464 is the knowledge base article and the KB2581464 fix can be downloaded from here. After the fix you can change the maximum transfer size from 64KB all the way up to 2MB with the following directions:

Click on start menu (or press Windows + R keys) and enter regedit
Now navigate for following registry path (Note: VVVV represents device descriptor idVendor in hexadecimal and PPPP represents device descriptor idProduct in hexadecimal): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlusbstorVVVVPPPP
Click Edit, point to New, and then click DWORDValue.
Type MaximumTransferLength, and then press Enter.
Click Edit, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type a value to specify the maximum transfer size between 65535 (64KB) and 2097120 (2MB)
Exit Regedit

The hotfix is compatible with Windows 7, Sp1 & Windows 2008 R2 (32 as well as 64 bit operating system).

Fix a Windows 7 network connection stuck in public mode

root — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0000

Microsoft released a fix today for an issue with network connections being stuck in public mode. When you connect to a network, there is an option called "Treat all future networks that I connect to as public, and don't ask me again" which after selecting, you may not be able to change.

The fix can be downloaded from Microsoft Support KB and then click the Microsoft Fix It button which will download a program. Run that program and it will guide you through the fix.

There are also manual instructions which are:

Close or suspend any applications that uses the network.
Click Start, type device manager in the Search programs and files box, and then press Enter.
Browse list of devices and click to expand Network adapters
Right-click on the first adapter under Network Adapters and click Disable. (Repeat this step for all network adapters on your system under Network Adapters). Note: After each change, Device Manager will rescan your hardware. Your monitor may blink when refreshed, this is expected.
While still in Device Manager, re-enable only the adapter that is associated with the public-network setting that you are trying to change. (Example, if you're trying to connect to your wireless network, enable the wireless adapter.) Note: Your system will notice your network reappearing and try to connect. This connection attempt may fail, but that's ok, this is expected.
Click Start, and type Network and sharing Center in the Search programs and files box, and then click Network and Sharing Center, from the list
In the lower left side of the dialog box, click Choose homegroup and sharing options.
Click What is a network location?, and select your network location. Note: If you want to continue setting up a homegroup, follow the remaining prompts. But a homegroup isn't required, so you also can simply exit the homegroup setup after you select the correct network location.
The last step is to re-enable your remaining adapters, one by one in Device Manager. To do this simply Right-click each of the disabled adapters under Network Adapters and click Enable.
When all Network Adapters are enabled, close the Device Manager and you're done.

What a bad week

root — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0000

Man, what a terrible week this has turned out to be. At the beginning of the week I had a job interview on a job I believe I am qualified for and had experience doing as I had done other jobs of nearly the same thing though on a different scale (more computers to monitor but also I wouldn't have been the ONLY one doing the job like I had been in previous companies).

Late Wednesday I heard rumblings that the two positions had been filled and I hadn't heard anything, leading to a downer of a night while I waited for official confirmation. Next day I email the company and find out that in fact the positions had been filled the night before. Ok, I'm quite disappointed as it would have been more what I want to do for work, more money and steady hours.

So that left me in a slump on Thursday. On friday though, I woke up early, decided to walk to work. Get all ready, plug the headphones into my tablet and start walking.

Or, I tried to. Going down 5 steps seemed to be more than I could handle. In my defense the steps are cement and have some chunks taken out of them. Sadly, I lost my footing on one of them and managed to twist my ankle into a horrible looking (and feeling) angle, putting an end to my planned day.

Nearly seven hours later, I find out the end result (Canadian medical is free but painfully slow, in my case, literally painfully slow): I managed to break one bone in my ankle, a minor break in the other one and a few tense minutes as a specialist at another hospital decided if I needed immediate surgery or not. Currently I don't need it, but for the next week I have no cast while they see how it tries to fix itself and to reduce the swelling. After that week, i'll either end up in surgery if it's bad or a cast otherwise. Then a couple weeks after I have to go visit the specialist and see how it's going.

People seem to be fond of saying things come in three, I'm really hoping there's no more bad news coming. I'm not sure I'll survive that one.

StartUpLite - Speed up your Windows startup

root — Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 -0000

StartUpLite is a small (200k) program from Malwarebytes who also make the very handy Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

The software does one thing and does it well: provide a quick and easy method to remove or disable unnecessary application that start during Windows startup. The interface is pretty self explanatory so I'll just post a screenshot.

There is also a list of programs that StartUpLite checks that can be helpful to determine if this tool is useful for you or not.

Make Backtrack 5 automatically login and start X

root — Wed, 18 May 2011 00:00:00 -0000

This is a quick tip on getting backtrack 5 to automatically login as root and startx which will run the graphical interface. There is a disclaimer though as this method does work but isn't exactly secure. Then again, if you are using Backtrack, you probably know that already :)

First step is to install rungetty

aptitude install rungetty

Next we have to edit /etc/init/tty1.conf

nano /etc/init/tty1.conf

use the arrow keys to move down to the last line and add a "#" before the line "exec /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty1" so it looks like so

#exec /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty1

Once that is done, add the following line which will automatically login as root

exec /sbin/rungetty tty1 --autologin root

Press CTRL+X an enter to save and close nano

Next, you need to set the .bash_profile for the root user to automatically run startx which starts your graphical interface

nano /root/.bash_profile

Add the following to this file

startx

CTRL+X to save and close

Reboot your BT5 install and there you go. Obviously, going back to the above warning, this isn't recommended for any machines that could fall into the wrong hands or if you store data on your BT5 install. Personally, I have a proxmox cluster that runs BT5 and this makes it easier to get to the console without logging in constantly, I have just have to start the VM and then vnc to the console.

Quick guide to UFW - Uncomplicated FireWall

root — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0000

Here is a quick guide on using UFW (Uncomplicated FireWall) under linux

A good first step is to do the following

sudo ufw default deny

which will set the default action to denying everything

If you are connection from remote, you will want to allow ssh otherwise it will create a nasty embarassing situation when you can't get into your machine :)

sudo ufw allow ssh

then you can enable UFW by:

sudo ufw enable

You will now have a very basic firewall setup to deny everything except ssh. Not overly helpful if you are hosting anything else on the system. The rest of the points will be in quick format and in the future I may update and clean up the info below

Disable UFW

sudo ufw disable

Enable UFW

sudo ufw enable

Get current UFW status

sudo ufw status

Allow port 80 (http)

sudo ufw allow 80

Deny a certain port

sudo ufw deny port <port number>

Deny a certain ip from entire host

sudo ufw deny from <ip address>

Block an ip from a port

sudo ufw deny from <ipaddress> to port <port number>

Advanced blocking of multiple ips from a port

sudo ufw deny from 10.0.0.1/24 to any port 22

To open up port range 64000-65000 on udp

ufw allow proto udp to any port 64000:65000

To open up port range 64000-65000 on tcp

ufw allow proto tcp to any port 64000:65000

Reset Xerox Workcentre Printer Drum Counter

root — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0000

Mostly posted in case I ever have to do this again, but also to hopefully work this post up to the top of google to help someone else out as the answer to this was buried in tons of spam sites with links to toner, drum, etc replacement sites and extremely little help on actually zeroing the drum copy counter on a Xerox Workcentre (xd125f in my case but it seems xd120f is also a common one people were trying to get help with and seems to work for it as well from what I read). The printer gives a j2 error on the screen when it hits it's max copies and just changing the drum isn't enough to reset it.

First, you need to enter diagnostics mode:

With the printer off to start, you need to turn it on and within the next 4 or 5 seconds, push Clear, Exposure Mode, Clear, Exposure mode. On the xd125f that I did this on, Clear is to the far right and Exposure is the far left button.

The display will go blank but the printer will still be running. Select 24 copies and press start and the screen will go blank again. Select 7 copies and press start again, this will reset and show 000 on the screen.

Turn off the printer, count to 5 and turn it back on to what should be a functioning printer again.

Not an overly hard process, once you know the combination of keys and the right order. Of course, finding that combination made me want to smash the printer into little bits aka Office Space (As a site note, there are tons of people copying the Office Space printer smashing scene, in fact, so many of them that I couldn't easily find the original scene to link here like I had wanted to)

Windows is unable to install to the selected location. Error 0x80300001

root — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0000

Windows is unable to install to the selected location. Error: 0x80300001

The above is a very annoying error I just encountered while installing a new VM (Windows 7 in this case) under ProxMox with a VirtIO hard drive. After scratching my head for a bit (after all, I had just manually loaded the Virtio drivers to get it to see the hard drive, which it was now and showing the correct size), I searched around and found a page with someone having the same issue.

It seems that the Windows 7 installer isn't smart enough to tell you to switch back from your driver cdrom/dvd (a virtual one in this case but still) to the Win7 install media so it gives you this very unhelpful & cryptic error message. Once you have switched it back to the install media and hit refresh, it lets you continue on without a hitch.

Yay for vague error messages.

Reliably Erasing Data From Flash-Based Solid State Drives

root — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0000

A somewhat scary bit of research has been done by Michael Wei, Laura M. Grupp, Frederick E. Spada, and Steven Swanson. They found that the current methods for clearing hard drives of their data (ie: removing of sensitive material or just clearing it for selling or handing down to someone else for example) doesn't work for SSD (solid state drives), which are very commonly found as USB Thumb drives and more commonly shipping or being put into new systems in place of standard hard drives.

While sanitizing entire disks and individual files is well-understood for hard drives, flash-based solid state disks have a very different internal architecture, so it is unclear whether hard drive techniques will work for SSDs as well.

We empirically evaluate the effectiveness of hard drive-oriented techniques and of the SSDs' built-in sanitization commands by extracting raw data from the SSD's flash chips after applying these techniques and commands. Our results lead to three conclusions: First, built-in commands are effective, but manufacturers sometimes implement them incorrectly. Second, overwriting the entire visible address space of an SSD twice is usually, but not always, sufficient to sanitize the drive. Third, none of the existing hard drive-oriented techniques for individual file sanitization are effective on SSDs.

This third conclusion leads us to develop flash translation layer extensions that exploit the details of flash memory's behavior to efficiently support file sanitization. Overall, we find that reliable SSD sanitization requires built-in, verifiable sanitize operations.

More information can be found as a Video, PDF or also a summary article at TheRegister

SSD Demystified

root — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 04:20:00 -0000

There is a nice guide to how SSD drives work (http://juku.it/en/2010/12/14/ssd-demystified/) over on Juku.it that I found useful as a fairly quick explanation on NAND, SLC vs MLC, FAL, etc.

Virtually Everything You Need to Set Up and Use VDI for Free

root — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0000

Over on the Citrix Blog there is a short guide on downloading XenDesktop 5 Express with 1 year license, XenServer 5.6, some documentation and other useful software & guides. It's a nice way to make a test lab or just to brush up or add to your skills. I may go through the setup simply to add to mine :)

As a bonus, I found a link to Craig Ellrod's setup on the site as well which looks interesting.

Finding out what process is listening on a port under Linux

root — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 04:20:00 -0000

Ever needed to find out what process has a port open? Or easily check all listening ports and see what process has them open?

If so, it's very easy to do. There are in fact, multiple ways to solve these problems.

The main way that I use is netstat. It can show many useful things but for this example, the syntax is:

netstat -tulpn

Which will show something like:

Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address        Foreign Address   State       PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:3306       0.0.0.0:*         LISTEN      1374/mysqld
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:139          0.0.0.0:*         LISTEN      1132/smbd
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:80           0.0.0.0:*         LISTEN      12171/apache2
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:50000        0.0.0.0:*         LISTEN      2247/mediatomb
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:4949         0.0.0.0:*         LISTEN      1413/munin-node
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:53           0.0.0.0:*         LISTEN      1371/dnsmasq
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22           0.0.0.0:*         LISTEN      1093/sshd

You can also use grep to limit your results if you have a lot of open ports:

netstat -tulpn | grep :80

for example will show you port 80 (http)

tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:80              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      12171/apache2

Another method that works but I find isn't as handy at times is fuser:

fuser 80/tcp

which will show something like:

80/tcp:              12171 12174 12175 12176 12177 12178

but doesn't tell you easily the name of the process like netstat will, which for example means another step like:

ls -l /proc/12171/exe

to give you

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2011-02-14 12:55 /proc/12171/exe -> /usr/lib/apache2/mpm-prefork/apache2

which then tells you that port 80 is opened by process 12171 which is apache2.

I prefer the netstat option as that shows everything you need to know with just one command generally.

Web2PDFConvert extension for Chrome

root — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 04:20:00 -0000

With the Web2PDFConvert extension for Chrome, you can convert almost any website to PDF (sites with session control and some javascript & other technologies may not show up exactly right but it's still pretty handy overall).

The other misc features include a direct link to the Web2PDFConvert homepage for your page if the conversion hangs or takes too long so you can continue browsing while it works as well as allowing you to view the resulting pdf in Google Docs or download the file.

Pandora extension for Chrome

root — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 04:20:00 -0000

With the Pandora extension for Chrome you can play Pandora radio easily without opening another tab. It sits in the bar and can give you notifications if you wish (easily set in the options menu) or just quietly stay out of the way until you click on it.

When you do click on it, if you have no station currently playing it shows you the list of stations you have defined. If you do have one currently playing, it gives you options to pause, skip to next song, thumbs up, thumbs down, etc as well as showing you the current artist and song (you can also see the current song and artist if you hover over the icon)

(One note: if you use Chromium instead of Chrome, you need to add support for mp3 files to Chromium )

Google Voice extension for Chrome

root — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 04:20:00 -0000

The Google Voice extension for Chrome browser is very handy if you use Google Voice a lot. It adds a button to the toolbar which displays the number of unread messages & transcripts in your Google Voice inbox.

You can also send texts to contacts quickly with a couple of clicks (as long as you have a number associated and your account isn't voicemail only) or even initiate phone calls right from your browser either by clicking on phone numbers on websites (an option that can be turned off if it annoys you) or the extension icon.

Download the extension here

Use Tab Rocket for Chrome to send tabs between computers

root — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 04:20:00 -0000

If you use multiple computers (or even virtual machines on one computer), it's a pain to open a tab you want on a different computer. Tab Rocket is a Chrome extension that will easily move a tab between multiple computers with only a few clicks of the mouse. It's simple & not all that fancy, but it works and does the job it's meant to very well. As a note, you do need to enable bookmark sync in Chrome to make use of the extension.

Stop the CRTC from making big Canadian ISPs richer and small ones out of business

root — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:20:00 -0000

As I'm Canadian and a large bandwidth user, I support the OpenMedia's attempt to bring CRTC into line and stop being in the big ISPs pockets to make them richer at the expense of Canadians & Canadian companies as well as competition (which CRTC is supposed to encourage, not destroy) like Netflix

More information can be found at OpenMedia

That is a mighty big monitor you have

root — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:20:00 -0000

So, I recovered a system a while back and was running updates on it. After the video card update, I got this strange notice:

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 r2 Service Pack 1 Release Date

root — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:20:00 -0000

According to Microsoft on February 22nd Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008r2 will be released on Windows Update as well as the Microsoft Download Center. Those of you with access to MSDN or TechNet as well as Volume License Key (VLK) customers will get access to it early, on February 16th. Which of course will be followed almost immediately with dozens of torrents on the 16th about 5 minutes after.

The service pack includes, two new desktop virtualization features (RemoteFX and Dynamic Memory) as well as collecting all of the updates and fixes for the operating systems in one update rather than dozens of others.

I've been running a beta version of it for a little while now without any problems, so this should be a nice update for one of my more liked Microsoft Operating Systems. If it wasn't, Linux would have totally taken over my systems by now :)

Chroot SFTP Error and fix

root — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 04:20:00 -0000

So while adding another user to my hosting setup, I encountered this annoying bug:

Write failed: Broken pipe
Couldn't read packet: Connection reset by peer

After some hunting and trying of various things, I realized that Ubuntu's ssh is more picky than Debian 5's was.

I knew that you had to set the users home directory as owned by root, but each directory up the line has to be owned by root as well under Ubuntu, which I didn't realize. Wondering why no other users noticed they couldn't login, must have been because it's holiday season and none tried to do updates.

The plain HTTP request was sent to HTTPS port - error with nginx and phpmyadmin and others

root — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 04:20:00 -0000

This error drove me nuts last night and tonight, trying to sort out what the issue was. Specifically in my case, it was with phpmyadmin running on a secure (HTTPS) site.

The plain HTTP request was sent to HTTPS port

If you get this error, you are missing the following line from your fastcgi setup for your ssl vhost:

fastcgi_param HTTPS on;

To show that in context, you want something similar to:

location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_param HTTPS on;
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/securehost$fastcgi_script_name;
include /usr/local/nginx/conf/fastcgi_params;
}

LookInMyPC - Get information about your computer in one detailed report

root — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 04:20:00 -0000

LookInMyPC is a small (and portable) freeware tool designed to generate a comprehensive report of a system and export it to a HTML page. It will display antivirus, battery, bios, browser, installed applications, networking info, sound device and much more.

You can also see a sample report here

Preventing repetitive strain injury the geeky way

root — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 04:20:00 -0000

Over at Productive Geek they have a nice article on preventing RSI (repetitive strain injury). Since the name of this site is NixGeek, I figured it sort of fit to be listed here.

Obviously, if you think you have RSI, you should really consult a medical professional, but their list of tips can help reduce your risk and work in conjunction with other methods.

They have a good list of common problems and solutions to RSI related stress as well as screenshots and tips on shortcut keys & programs that can reduce your chances or your pain if you already suffer from it.

Check it out and most importantly, don't think it won't affect you if you have poor posture, don't sleep well and/or don't take frequent breaks. I know I break many of the rules with my home and work environments and need to take better care of myself.

Songsterr - Learn songs while you play along

root — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 04:20:00 -0000

Songsterr is a nifty web app I stumbled across randomly. Basically, it's a web (flash) based tab reader that works quite well and has a large selection of music split into genre as well as difficulty categories.

You can pick the various instruments to display and it plays the parts along with you, allowing you to adjust the volume of each instrument so you can isolate various parts. It also has a tuner option built right in, so those strangely tuned songs you might want to play won't take as long to switch to.

If you pay for the app, extra functions like full screen, eq, etc become available. I highly recommend buying the upgraded status if you find it handy, it definitely adds nice features and will hopefully support new ones in the future from the developers. Even if you don't pay for it, go check it out I'm quite happy with it and have recommended it to numerous people who also enjoyed it.

Use UniBrows to enable IE6 browsing in IE8 tab

root — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 04:20:00 -0000

UniBrows allows enterprises to upgrade to modern technologies like Windows 7 and IE8 while maintaining compatibility with existing IE6 web applications. all without changing a single line of code.

If this program works as advertised, it could be a huge hit for companies with existing IE6 web apps that they can't / won't migrate to newer browsers. It could also be of great interest for people that need to open lots of browsers to see their results in them, like web developers & designers. With this and IEtab, you could cut down on the number of open programs and yet still see results in the major browsers quickly. UniBrows also allows itself to be managed by Group Policy, another plus in the corporate world meaning ease of implementation.

Quick password generator

root — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 04:20:00 -0000

I found this over at commandlinefu

tr -dc 'A-Za-z0-9!@#$%^&*' < /dev/urandom | fold -w 12 | head -n 1

I just pasted the code into a file called pwgen & chmod +x'd the file. Works very well for quick passwords that are still quite secure.

Opera Mini for iPod / iPhone / iPad is now available

root — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:20:00 -0000

It's official, Apple actually let Opera get approved and is live on the store now. I'm still surprised they did and wonder if they will pull it, so I'd suggest grabbing it while you can to play it safe. It's supposed to compress data by up to 90% to make downloading faster as well and synchronizing between your device & computer.

Get it here

Nasty start to the day

root — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 04:20:00 -0000

Above is what I started my day with: one handful of dirt, tar, paper and god knows what else from a customers computer. This is only one clump out of about 4 or 5 though. Seriously, how can people use or be near computers in that sort of shape? And if this is in a house, I shudder to think of the state of it.

Edit: I was sick for the next week after this. Ick.

Check if a site is down or it's just you

root — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:20:00 -0000

Ever wondered if a site was really down or was just blocking you (or there was some sort of routing problem between you and the site)?

Well, Down for everyone or just me and Is that site down are two sites that can help you quickly see what the real deal is. I'm sure there are plenty of other sites like it, but these are two quick loading sites that are also quite popular.

Enable the (Hidden) Administrator account on Windows 7 or Vista

root — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:20:00 -0000

Here's a quick tip that comes in handy fairly often for me. I use it most after someone has forgotten their password and my usual method of removing their user accounts password has failed (linux boot disk and editing the hive, which is quite a bit more complex and will be outlined in another post) but can be used at other times too. Read on for detailed information on enabling and disabling the administrator account.

The account is created in Windows 7 or Vista but not actually enabled. To enable, open a command prompt in administrator mode by right-clicking and choosing .Run as administrator. (or use the Ctrl+Shift+Enter shortcut from the search box) and type in:

net user administrator /active:yes

Technically, you don't need to run that in a command prompt, but you wouldn't see for sure if it worked or failed as it will automatically close the program after running it whereas the command prompt will stay.

So now you can log out of the current user and back in as Administrator, no password is required even. Now you can do whatever you needed to and then disable the account again as it's not recommended to run under that account all the time.

To disable, log out of the Administrator account and back in as a user. and open an administrator mode command prompt as above and type:

net user administrator /active:no

Personally, I have a USB drive with a bunch of utilities and scripts such as this command on it to speed up common things like this or resetting tcpip stacks or clearing the upper and lower registry entries.

Nokia N900 review by Shivaranjan.com

root — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 04:20:00 -0000

This post is mostly just for myself and a couple others that might be interested. There.s a pretty in depth review of the Nokia N900 over at Shivaranjan with screenshots, videos, pros and cons and lots of useful information. If only I could even somewhat justify me having it and could afford it, I would go buy it right now

Windows 7 and TS-L633B Optical Drives

root — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 04:20:00 -0000

Had this problem the other day. Basically, some optical drives don't work right with Windows 7 and some of the newer power saving functions. In my case it was a Gateway laptop with a TS-L633B drive and I couldn't find a firmware upgrade for it (there is a Dell update though) which has fixed it for other people.

So in the end what I had to do was run the following:

powercfg.exe -setacvalueindex 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setdcvalueindex 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setacvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setdcvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setacvalueindex a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0
powercfg.exe -setdcvalueindex a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a 0012ee47-9041-4b5d-9b77-535fba8b1442 DAB60367-53FE-4fbc-825E-521D069D2456 0

which I found listed at Softpedia

This seemed to fix the problem, but of course if the customer re installs Win7, it will do the same thing until Gateway upgrades their firmware or I find one that is right for that drive.

BlueScreenView by Nirsoft

root — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 04:20:00 -0000

BlueScreenView by NirSoft is a handy little program I stumbled upon a while back. It loads the windows crash files and shows you USEFUL information from them. Without needing to have the Windows Debugger installed like with WhoCrashed and a bunch of others out there that I tried.

Probably the most annoying part is that I fought with a computer for a while one day that I couldn't get the debugger installed on until I found this program. Then realized I already had it on my USB drive as I have the full NirSoft collection on it. Oh well, I know it's there now

Download a copy at NirSoft's Homepage

Quick Guide to Windows Branding

root — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:20:00 -0000

So you want to brand your Windows for your company or just for fun? No problem, check out the rest of this post for the details.

The image file you need for the branding should be 172 pixels by 172 pixels or smaller and saved in a BMP format in the c:\windows\system32 folder. For Windows XP it should be called OEMLOGO.BMP and for Vista OEMINFO.BMP by default but if you continue with the instructions below, you can see how to use the same filename in fact.

The process from this point on is different depending on if you are using Windows XP or Windows Vista

Windows XP

Create a file called OEMINFO.ini in the c:\windows\system32 directory (same place as your bmp file) with the following information in it:

[General]
Manufacturer=
Model=
[Support Information]
Line1=
Line2=
Line3=

Windows Vista

For vista you need to create a .reg file (or edit the registry manually but for ease of use and mass branding, a .reg file is much easier and quicker) with the following information in it:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OEMInformation]
.HelpCustomized.=dword:00000000
.Logo.=.c:\\windows\\system32\\OEMLOGO.BMP.
.SupportHours.=.Monday to Friday 09:00 to 17:00.
.Manufacturer.=.NixGeek.
.SupportPhone.=.123-123-1234.
.SupportURL.=.http://support.nixgeek.com.

Once you have this file, you just need to run it and click ok to let the changes be done

There are some other things you can do, but thats the basic idea