Archive for the ‘How-To’ Category

Google Desktop Centralized Server

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Google-DesktopWe have a client who makes extensive use of folders and files to store and processing incoming orders for their business. As they have experienced explosive growth the size of this system has made it harder and harder to find the correct client, or correct order quickly. What would be great for them is a centralized search index of that networked folder. Google’s product for this type of server is a $2500 Google mini, but why when Google Desktop will do this with a bit of tweaking and a third party plugin.

HOW TO: Use Google Desktop as a Centralized Server

You will need:

  1. Download and install Google Desktop.
  2. We’re mapping a network drive so we add the following to our login.bat script, or we create a login.bat and place it startup, however you want to do this.
    Dirty Code


    net use /delete * /y
    subst z: "E:\netshare"

    The reason is we want to map our local location to be the same drive as the client computer. We use Subst b/c it creates a drive letter that will match our clients drive letter, b/c it’s a substitute path windows will access it natively and not over the network stack, consuming much less resources.

  3. Right click on your Google Desktop icon and visit Google Desktop in a browser. Click “Desktop Preferences” and under “Don’t Search These Items” enable all you local drive except the Z drive we made earlier. Not seeing the z drive … did you run you bat file?
    • Copy  the url that google takes you to initially, http://127.0.0.1:4664/?s=xxxxxxxxxxxxx, you need the xxxx part to give to your clients.
  4. Next we install DNKA and run through the defaults with that. They should all be acceptable.
  5. Finally we need a user logged in for google desktop to work. So we enable auto login for this computer/server. Choose a user that has only the permissions the majority of your staff use, if you have protected folders under the index drive and you login as Administrator those users will see those file, they will see cached copies of them within google desktop. Either add them to the don’t index list or auto login as a more restricted user.
    • Open Regedit
    • Goto : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
    • Open/Create : DefaultUserName – Enter your username
    • Open/Create : DefaultDomain – Enter your domain if you have one
    • Open/Create : DefaultPassword – your password
    • Open/Create : AutoAdminLogon – set to 1
  6. For good measure I also set the screensaver password lock and set the timeout to 1 minute. So the screen will lock pretty quickly after a reboot.
  7. Lastly take the url you saved in 3 and change the 127.0.0.1 part to the ip or host of the machine you installed google desktop onto. http://theserver:4664/?s=xxxxxxxxxxxx, give this to you users and have them bookmark it. You’re all setup.

    Posted in Google, How-To, Windows | No Comments »

    Regain Access to a Locked Domain Controller

    Friday, February 5th, 2010

    face-palm-300x300

    After the administrator left a local company Green-Light was called into to regain access to the domain and domain controller. Nothing really malicious occurred here but there were password issues after this staff member left and the organization was left without a local admin password and without the admin password for Active Directory.

    Too many organizations find themselves in similar positions at one point or another. I wanted to outline how to recover from this problem.

    Attached is a simple script that we’ve made to incorporates the instructions found at Geeks are Sexy. The purpose of this script is to setup a service that will change your domain admin password to ABcd123456.

    • Reboot, hit F8 to start in Directory Service Recovery Mode, Login as the Local Admin on the System.
    • Download FixPass.zip, Extract and Execute “start.bat”
    • The script will setup a service and start a 60 second countdown before rebooting the system.
    • When your done your password will be ABcd123456, if you need to change that modify the FixPass.reg file before you run the start.bat script.

    **Note: In this particular case we were also locked out of the local admin on the system. Being that the system was running off a RAID controller our handy NT Offline Password tool did not work. A nice side option is to use the Ubuntu Live CD to boot the system. Once started you can download the source for the NT Offline Password tool and run it directly from an ubuntu terminal to reset your local admin.

    Posted in Windows | No Comments »

    Thunderbird 3 Litters Desktop on OS X

    Thursday, February 4th, 2010

    thunderbird-logo-64x64After upgrading to TB3 users on Mac OSX ones finds that a copy of every attachment you open is saved to the Desktop. There is a underlying problem in the Gecko engine causing this, but until then the fix is pretty simple.

    • Click Thunderbird > Preferences > Attachments
    • Select “Save files to..” click “Choose..”
    • Hit COMMAND+SHIFT+G and type in /tmp , Hit GO and then Open
    • Switch back the toggle back to “Always Ask me where to save files”

    Now when you open attachments they will go to the /tmp folder.

    Posted in Mozilla, Tech | 4 Comments »

    Apple A4

    Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

    A few years ago Steve Jobs made a bit of a deal about the fact that the chips of the day had terrible power/watt performance. Chips then and now needed alot of power to do their calculations, they ran hot and they were inefficient, in mobile devices this combination is a battery killer. Apple wanted better and bought PA Semiconductor back in 2008 to do better.

    apple-a4

    “PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods,” Steve Jobs


    With the release of the A4 we have seen come to light Apples first home brewed System on a Chip ( SOC ). Running at 1Ghz it’s one of the fastest in the industry and being able to watch Video for 10 hours straight attests to Apple’s claims about it’s power efficiency.

    Posted in Apple, iPad | 2 Comments »

    New Boxee Beta 0.9.20.10408, script updated

    Monday, January 25th, 2010

    Boxee has released a new public beta and the script links have been updated to take advantage of that. Just re-run the script with the same option you used last time.

    If you used latest last time use latest again, if you didn’t you don’t need to add it. As far as the version of boxee is concerned you are always updated to the latest version when you run the script. This is what we’re beta testing after all.

    Also, if you experience crashs or problems you should collect your debug logs and post them on the forums.

    Follow me on Boxee and Twitter : hillbilly1980

    Posted in Apple, How-To | 20 Comments »

    Boxee Bleeding Beta Baby

    Friday, January 22nd, 2010

    Check Out the Updated Post

    Looks like there is alot of interest in getting Boxee Beta on the Apple TV. While we’re still waiting for an official release from Boxee I have updated our script with a few new features.

    Latest:

    Latest will use the latest component software instead of what’s considered most stable. Right now that is firefox 3.6 and the beta2 of adobe flash. These two upgrades will fix for the most part choppy web video. Though an occasional crash of Boxee has been seen with this combination. Running the script again without the option will downgrade your software back to the official adobe and firefox 2.0.20.

    Dirty Code



    wget -m -nd http://www.green-light.ca/cmn_external/app/boxee/beta/BoxeeBetaInstallScript.sh

    sudo sh BoxeeBetaInstallScript.sh latest

    sudo reboot now

    Nitotv -- Settings -- Install Software -- Smart installer.

    • when you use latest it installs nitrotv if you dont’ have it, you NEED to run the smart installer for adobe beta to work, else it hangs when loading. Once you reboot go to Nitotv > Settings > Install Software > Smart installer.

    Auto -Update:

    The script now detects if there is a new version of itself and downloads and runs that.

    Posted in Apple, How-To | 71 Comments »

    Installing Boxee Beta on AppleTV

    Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

    UPDATED: Script and Instructions in new post.

    This is a little more fun then work but we’ve just upgraded our AppleTV in the office to Boxee Beta. Since Boxee Beta is not officially out yet for AppleTV I thought I’de post some condensed instructions.

    The instructions have been tested and work completely on AppleTV Os version:

    • 3.0.1
    • 2.1

    1. When you upgrade your AppleTV from 2 < 3 these setups will be wiped out, maybe upgrade now if you need to. Goto Settings > General > Updates and download and apply.

    2. Create a patch stick, again if you haven’t already patched your Apple TV, this will give you the ability to run the installer script.

    3. Open a terminal on your computer and run the following.

    Dirty Code



    ssh frontrow@appletv.local

    wget -m -nd http://www.green-light.ca/cmn_external/app/boxee/beta/BoxeeBetaInstallScript.sh

    chmod +x BoxeeBetaInstallScript.sh

    ./BoxeeBetaInstallScript.sh

    When prompted the password should be frontrow.

    4. Launch Boxee after the restart, Remove the Movies folder from local sources, or else you will be stuck in scrapers dooom. Settings –> Media –> Local Sources –> Movies

    The hard work in this script is the work of Jim Willy over on the Boxee Forum. I have made some changes to automate more of the steps and move the location of some of the files that get downloaded to our own server since they were offline when I first tried to follow the instructions.

    Upgrades:

    Run the script again, if no new Boxee is out your just going to reinstall the same one again. Maybe i’ll try and make it smarter but not at the moment.

    Dirty Code



    ssh frontrow@appletv.local

    ./BoxeeBetaInstallScript.sh

    Fix something Broken:

    Pass the script the reinstall option, it will redownload and reinstall all the required components.

    Dirty Code



    ssh frontrow@appletv.local

    ./BoxeeBetaInstallScript.sh reinstall

    Best of luck, and sorry but no warranties, this beta after all.

    Keith

    Posted in Apple, How-To | 58 Comments »

    Encrypted Monitoring with Zenoss

    Sunday, December 13th, 2009

    For years we have been using  Zenoss to monitor our managed systems with great success. One of its key features is the ability to use SSH to monitor remote servers. SSH by its very nature has been subject to  far more scrutiny over it’s life then protocols like WMI and SNMP, it is by its very nature meant to be exposed to the internet. By tunneling our monitoring over SSH we are able to leverage that security for our customers and our own peace of mind.

    Getting SSH tunneling working in  Zenoss has always been a bit more work then it needed to be. Here is how we accomplish it, these instructions are valid as of version Zenoss 2.5, we’re monitoring an Ubuntu server in this example.

    Assume: Ubuntu 9.04, Zenoss 2.5 installed via deb package.

    1. First you are going to need to install the required zenpacks to monitor your Ubuntu server completely. The Ubuntu ZenPack needs you to create the container /Devices/Servers/SSH/Linux/Ubuntu before you install it.
      1. You need the Linux Monitor, Linux Monior Add-on and Ubuntu Zen Packs.
      2. Install them in the order I’ve listed them previously by going to Settings > Zenpacks > Click the menu Arrow on the left and select “Install ZenPack…”.
      3. It’s counter intuitive but you have unzip the file before you upload it or else the install will fail , giving you a head scratching error.  Zenoss could do more to either auto unzip the ZenPack for you, or at least make the message somewhat informative as to why it’s failing.
    2. Once you’ve installed all ZenPacks you can begin to add the device you would like to monitor. Click “Add Device”  and fine the “Easy Add..” in the top right corner.
    3. After adding the hostname select “Linux Server (SSH)” and type in your ssh login details.
    4. Find the Device in the Device list and move it into the /Devices/Servers/SSH/Linux/Ubuntu class.
    5. Navigate to the device and select “Manage” > “Model Device”, this will allow you to collect rudimentary information.
    6. Return to Zenoss and Model the device again, twice. The first pass will identify the Linux distribution, the second will gather specific information for that distribution.

    That’s it, in less then 10 steps. Rinse and repeat as required.

    Updated: to remove steps involving installation of python monitoring scripts as per Matt’s comments below.

    Posted in How-To | 1 Comment »