CS3's thoughtpad ...

Making WiFi work in MSI Wind U130

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:20:00 +0530

In my quest to convert windows users to linux, I installed Linux Mint Isadora ( based on Ubuntu Lucid ) on my wife’s MSI Wind U130 netbook.

Everything except WiFi worked out of the box, the chipset was detected, but it was disabled. Launchpad had a known bug filed for this and the following steps below “activated” the disabled wireless chipset.

mkdir -p /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/

touch /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat

service network-manager restart

Works extraordinary and even the updates don’t seem to break them.

a reliable way to choose and uninstall a named SQLServer Instance.

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:57:00 +0530

a reliable way to choose and uninstall a named SQLServer Instance.:

%PROGRAM FILES%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\ARPWrapper.exe /Remove

Remmina - The GTK+ Remote Desktop Client

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:27:00 +0530

Remmina - The GTK+ Remote Desktop Client:

It supports RDP, VNC, NX, XDMCP and SSH, all in one tabbed GUI. Do I need to say more ?

Getting started with EC2 AMI Tools ( Commandline tools )

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:54:34 +0530

Getting started with EC2 AMI Tools ( Commandline tools )

some screeen commands ...

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:19:38 +0530

Start Screen: screen

List Screens: screen -list

Detatch Screen: Ctrl-a d

Re-attach Screen: screen -x or screen -x PID

Split Horizontally: Ctrl-a S

Split Vertically: Ctrl-a |

Move Between Windows: Ctrl-a Tab

Name Session: Ctrl-a A

Log Session: Ctrl-a H

Note Session: Ctrl-a h

Local Ubuntu Repository using Apt-Mirror and Apt-Cacher

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:03:38 +0530

Local Ubuntu Repository using Apt-Mirror and Apt-Cacher

"Dnsmasq has the ability to direct DNS queries for certain domains to specific upstream nameservers...."

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:52:52 +0530

“Dnsmasq has the ability to direct DNS queries for certain domains to specific upstream nameservers. This feature was added for use with VPNs but it is fully general. The scenario is this: you have a standard internet connection via an ISP, and dnsmasq is configured to forward queries to the ISP’s nameservers, then you make a VPN connection into your companies network, giving access to hosts inside the company firewall. You have access, but since many of the internal hosts aren’t visible on the public internet, your company doesn’t publish them to the public DNS and you can’t get their IP address from the ISP nameservers. The solution is to use the companies nameserver for private domains within the company, and dnsmasq allows this. Assuming that internal company machines are all in the domain internal.myco.com and the companies nameserver is at 192.168.10.1 then the option server=/internal.myco.com/192.168.10.1 will direct all queries in the internal domain to the correct nameserver. You can specify more than one domain in each server option. If there is more than one nameserver just include as many server options as is needed to specify them all.”

- Configuring Dnsmasq.

openvz: installation and management

Tue, 25 May 2010 23:59:00 +0530

Recommended OS: RHEL/CentOS, Debian.

Setup instruction can be found on the tubes. wiki.openvz.org is probably the best source of knowledge. ( CentOS specific instructions can be found at http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Virtualization/OpenVZ )

A Complete How-To on managing OpenVZ instances can be found at http://www.lamolabs.org/blog/137/managing-openvz-instances/

finally: openvz rocks !!! :)

vz-clone: a nifty script to clone vz containers

Tue, 25 May 2010 23:08:00 +0530

The title says it all …

#!/bin/bash
# script to clone an openvz VE

set -e

if [ -z “$2” ]; then
    echo “Usage: $0 ”
    exit 1
fi

cfg=”/etc/vz/conf/$1.conf”
newcfg=”/etc/vz/conf/$2.conf”

if [ ! -e $cfg ]; then
    echo $cfg not found!
    exit 1
fi

VEID=$1
. $cfg
veprivate=”$VE_PRIVATE”

VEID=$2
. $cfg
newveprivate=”$VE_PRIVATE”

if [ -e $newcfg ]; then
    echo $newcfg already exists!
    exit 1
fi

if [ -e $newveprivate ]; then
    echo $newveprivate already exists!
    exit 1
fi

if vzlist | fgrep -w -q $1
then
    vzctl stop $1
fi

echo “Cloning $cfg to $newcfg”
cp -a $cfg $newcfg

echo “Cloning $veprivate to $newveprivate”
mkdir -p $newveprivate
cd $veprivate
tar cf - . | (cd $newveprivate && tar xf -)

echo “Do not forget to edit $newcfg (you need to edit at least HOSTNAME and IP_ADDRESS)”
echo “Also do not forget to make an alias”

Source - http://www.howtoforge.com/some-tips-on-openvz-deployment

ubuntu 8.4 / hardy image for LXC.

Mon, 24 May 2010 15:43:00 +0530

ubuntu 8.4 / hardy image for LXC.

500 ERROR: User 'root' cannot be used as an NX user

Thu, 20 May 2010 17:49:54 +0530

There might be special cases when this might be necessary.

Edit /usr/NX/etc/server.cfg and change EnableAdministratorLogin = “1”

“root” now can access via. NX.

Installing Ruby, RubyGems on CentOS 5

Wed, 19 May 2010 17:39:52 +0530

Installing Ruby, RubyGems on CentOS 5

Activating EPEL Repository on CentOS 5.x

Fri, 14 May 2010 15:01:00 +0530

To activate the EPEL repository, run the following command as root:

rpm —import http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL

rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-3.noarch.rpm

After successful execution, there will be two new files in your yum configuration directory, /etc/yum.repos.d/.

epel.repo
epel-testing.repo

The epel-testing is disabled by default.

References:

Running RSA SecurID Token client on any OS.

Thu, 13 May 2010 21:12:00 +0530

Running RSA SecurID Token client on any OS.:

Janmejay Singh, a fellow ThoughtWorker has found out that MicroEmulator (a feature rich J2ME emulator) can actually run the RSA SecurID J2ME client without any issues.

Thanks to him, I’m now able to logon to my RSA SecurID secured Intranet from outside world.

SSH SOCKS Proxy Tunnel

Wed, 12 May 2010 17:08:00 +0530

OpenSSH has built-in SOCKS proxy support. The command is:

ssh -N -D port remote_host

And lo! Reconfigure the browser to use localhost and port as a SOCKS5 Proxy.

Webtatic Yum Repository

Fri, 07 May 2010 16:54:34 +0530

Webtatic Yum Repository:

Noteworthy packages are Git 1.7 and PHP 5.3

Mirroring a git repository

Fri, 07 May 2010 16:40:23 +0530

Many interesting links to follow:

http://toroid.org/ams/etc/git-repository-mirrors

http://toolmantim.com/thoughts/setting_up_a_new_remote_git_repository

https://wincent.com/wiki/Setting_up_backup_%28mirror%29_repositories_on_GitHub

Now, pick your poison. :)

Git, gitweb, gitosis and git-daemon in harmony on Debian

Fri, 07 May 2010 13:56:35 +0530

Git, gitweb, gitosis and git-daemon in harmony on Debian

.ssh/config example

Fri, 07 May 2010 12:18:00 +0530

Like me if you find yourself logging on to many hosts with different ports and prefer a shorrname, .ssh config’s can be very useful.

Host home
User cs3
Port 8075
HostName home.cs3.in

Now, ssh home would do the trick.

Git server setup using gitosis for Centos 5.2

Thu, 06 May 2010 17:34:13 +0530

Git server setup using gitosis for Centos 5.2:

Works like a charm!