mainesysadmin.com » HowTo

HowTo – VMware ESX 3.5 and remote syslog configuration

Tom — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:16:46 +0000

SSH over to the ESX server required. You’ll need sudo or root access to complete the following.
To view the file: cat /etc/syslog.conf
To modify the file: vi /etc/syslog.conf (google for vi help if required, i = insert. esc = exit insert mode)
Move to the bottom of the file and add the line in the next step if you want ALL the logs to be sent over to your syslog server.
#syslog server setup
*.* @syslogsrv.mydomain
The first line in the above line is commented out by the # sign, the second line tells all the log files to be sent to “syslogsrv.mydomain”. Use an ip address for the syslog server if you want this to work when your DNS server goes down.
service syslog restart (restarts the syslog service)
esxcfg-firewall -o 514,udp,out,syslog (opens the local firewall to allow remote syslogging)
esxcfg-firewall -l (reloads the new firewall configuration)

HowTo – Disable the system beep from CLI in Ubuntu 8.10

Tom — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:03:56 +0000

My previous posting is no longer valid. Gnome has removed the tab for the sounds menu where you can use the gui to disable the system beep. Here’s how you can disable this from the CLI.

sudo rmmod pcspkr

Done deal. If you want your system beep back, well first off…curse you if I sit next to you. Type in the following to enable it:

sudo modprobe pcspkr

got this from: lifehacker (per usual)

HowTo – create a volume greater than 2 terabytes in win2k3 (min sp1)

Tom — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 16:59:12 +0000

For a task that is REALLY easy it took a more googling than I had anticipated to come up with the solution. Once your volume has been delivered to the server it is important to initialize the disk but not to create any partitions.

Open Windows Disk management.
Click Action -> Rescan disks to make your new disk appear, if greater than 2tb it will appear as 2 partitions on 1 disk
Right click on the disk and initialize the disk
Open a windows command prompt
type “diskpart”
type “list disk”
select the new disk that’s over 2tb
convert gpt
Now from windows Disk Management you should see a single disk greater than 2tb

Information on the diskpart utility: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/300415

The most important prereqs include Windows 2k3 is up to at least sp1 and that no partitions exist on the disk.

HowTo – Remove the U3 system from your thumb drive

Tom — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:02:47 +0000

I love lifehacker.com. I always find usefull posts like this one below.

http://lifehacker.com/5057484/remove-u3-to-speed-up-your-flash-drive

This is very useful for us Linux users. It’s so annoying to plug a u3 drive into a linux o/s. Anyhow download the utility and clean up your U3 enabled usb thumb drive here: http://www.u3.com/uninstall/default.aspx

HowTo – publish flash animation with IIS6

Tom — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:19:46 +0000

Before recently I had not required to publish any flash animations with a windows server running IIS6. Come to find out that it is really easy to do. I ran across the following blog below with the correct information. I’ll include the steps below the url for posterity.

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/rymoore/adding-flv-mime-type-in-iis-4198

Adding .flv MIME type in IIS

1) Select the site to configure in IIS, right click and select “Properties”
2) Under HTTP Headers Tab, select “File Types” under the MIME Map section and select “New Type”
3) Type “.flv” as the associated extension and “video/x-flv” as the content type.
4) Select “OK” and you’re ready to fly!

HowTo – Install Subsonic on Ubuntu

Tom — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 20:00:58 +0000

There is so much great software available for ubuntu. This weekend I ran into subsonic, an excellent music streaming website you can host from your own PC. This can be used over LAN or WAN (be careful with security).

I followed the following url’s excellent instructions, but I’ll include them for future usage.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=920178

URL: http://subsonic.sourceforge.net

Step1: Dependencies

sudo apt-get install tomcat5.5

cd; wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/subsonic/subsonic-3.4.zip

Step2: Modify Init For Tomcat & Start

sudo nano /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5

Change TOMCAT_SECURITY=yes to TOMCAT_SECURITY=no

sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 start

Step3: Unzip/Install Subsonic

unzip subsonic-3.4.zip

mv subsonic.war /var/lib/tomcat5.5/webapps/

mkdir /var/subsonic

chown tomcat55:nogroup /var/subsonic

Step4: Test

firefox http://127.0.0.1:8180/subsonic

HowTo – create a bootable linux usb thumb drive (the easy way)

Tom — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:26:39 +0000

Browsing around lifehacker.com I ran across an article on how to create a bootable linux usb thumbdrive. This is by far the easiest method that I’ve run across.

Download the utility.
Open the utility and download one of the supported linux iso’s.
Plug your usb thumb drive into your computer (utility is linux or windows, so you can do this from either)
Point the utility at the iso you downloaded and the correct usb thumb drive.
execute, wait and reboot off of your newly created bootable thumb drive.

article with better detail on process:
http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/08/27/create-a-bootable-usb-drive-or-memory-card/

direct link to the utility download page:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

How-To – Redirect 404 to index page via PHP

Tom — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:32:15 +0000

I’ve been working a quirky sub-domain 404 issue and I found a quick and clean redirect script. Instead of a nasty 404 page you can redirect the web request to the index page. I found the helpful script here: http://css-tricks.com/how-to-redirect-indexhtml-to-indexphp/

I deleted whatever text was in 404.php and replaced it with:

header( 'Location: http://www.redirect-location.com' ); exit(); ?>

Worked like a charm for me!

NetApp and Data Deduplication (artist formally known as A-SIS)

Tom — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:49:07 +0000

I’ve been doing a little testing with NetApp Deduplication lately but only in a limited test environment. I know one thing for certain, deduplication and compression do not mix at all! When you start to look at this technology make sure you’re dealing with uncompressed data. This posting is more or less a bookmark for:

“Scott’s Quick Guide to Setting up Netapp Deduplication”

NetApp does provide a useful windows exe called “find_space” which you can run in report mode against any windows data volume.

HowTo – enable HA if HA/DRS is not enabled when in Virtual Center and enable fails

Tom — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:03:18 +0000

I came into work this morning and one of the ESX hosts had HA disabled. The network engineers replaced the core switch and I have to assume the NIC connectivity caused HA to disable since they were all down at once. One command helped me get HA enabled:

SSH to the host that is disabled and as root execute:

service mgmt-vmware restart

Then enable HA after successfully running the command.