Ugo's Blog

I always enable the EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux)   yum repository on my Red Hat (and similar) systems. However, some of the EPEL packages that I use freqently have been recently orphaned, then retired as per EPEL's policy . I found a way to download them manually.  Of course they're not updated but for these packages, I don't mind.  One example is nmon.  I'll show you how to manually download nmon even though it's retired. You have two options. The first one is to go there: http://buildlogs.cdn.centos.org/c7-epel.a64/ (for RHEL7-x64). The second is: First go to this  URL . At the top, enter "nmon" in the search box, then press Enter. Search for the version you want.  In my case, it is the EL6 version, so I clicked on it, and it sent me to this  URL On that page, there are download links for the source RPM and all the different arch.  In my case, the arch is x86_64, so I just had to click on the  download link ....

Note; if you're using a Lollipop phone, look at the "Tap & Go" feature. One very nice feature of the BlackBerry smartphones were the ability to perform a "real" full backup of your phone.  This way, you can either reset to factory settings or change phone without losing a single bit of data.  Now that we're using Android phones at work, I had to find an alternative and of course, it would not have to require the phones to be rooted. I decided to try Helium (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdutta.backup&hl=en) and it did a good job.  However, I haven't found a good tutorial on how to use the free version.  I don't mind spending 5$ for a great application, but I thought I'd try the free version first.  The local backups were quite easy to do, but since my goal was to transfer the data to another phone, it was getting quite complex.  You cannot use cloud-based storage for your backups with the free version and you...

I don't know why but despite all of my searches, I haven't been able to find a good tutorial on how to deploy KeePass with an enforced configuration (set parameters that users cannot change). First, deployment: You can deploy the .msi and the related files using GPO, for example. But there is an easier way: simply copy the KeePass folder that contains the .exe to a network share.  Make sure only admins (only admin accounts, not your regular account). have write access to this share, all other users read-only. To do that you can install KeePass on your computer temporarily an copy the folder that is in the Program Files folder. Second, configuration enforcement: execute the local version of KeePass that you installed for step one.  Set the parameters as you would like them, then close KeePass.  A configuration file will be created in C:\Users\$username\AppData\Roaming\KeePass\KeePass.config.xml.  You can create a copy of this file that you will name KeeP...

I recently decided to upgrade my home firewall ( pfSense on a PC Engines WRAP) by something more recent.  The new APU system from PC Engines looked quite good so I ordered one unit of the 4-gig model.  When I received it, I tried a few things with it but lacked time.  The next time I worked on it, it was dead.  I create an RMA, returned the unit, and got a working one about 3 weeks later.  My original plan was just to upgrade pfSense and run it on more recent hardware.  My WRAP was kind of slow in the WebGUI (not that bad, I don't edit the configuration every day) and I don't think it could do a good job for an OpenVPN setup.  I looked around and also found other options for small factor computers but I decided to go with the APU when I saw that its processor had virtualization extensions.  I thought that I could try running another system, side-by-side with the firewall, allowing me to have a server that would always be on (I currently run cac...

Trying to install Talend using the installer and got this error: (main.tcl:32009): Pango-WARNING **: failed to choose a font, expect ugly output. engine-type='PangoRenderFc', script='latin' Funny...

HP has released its latest Service Pack for Proliant,  the integrated firmware and software bundle which it will support for the next year. New stuff: Support for (at least some) Gen9 servers Support for new Proliant options Includes VMware driver support Support for RHEL7 http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/service_pack/spp/index.aspx

Hi, If you're looking for a book about puppet reporting and monitoring, you should have a look at this one:  http://bit.ly/1qbSxKC

In Audacity Edit – preferences – import/export – When exporting tracks to an audio file – use custom mix (done once) Open source file (mp3 or flac) Select Project Rate (bottom left) → 8000 File, export First time only: Select “Other uncompressed files” Click on “Options…” Choose Header → WAV (Microsoft), Encoding → U-Law On the Advanced Mixing Options, select 1 channel and add the unmapped channel to Channel 1 by clicking on the unmapped channel (it will get red borders) and then click on Channel: 1. Click OK Click OK at the “Edit Metadata” window Right-click on the output file, properties, summary, Advanced, make sure that: Channels = 1 (mono) Sample rate = 8kHz Format = CCITT u-Law

This is a book that was released a couple of weeks ago.  You can find my name in the list of technical reviewers  Puppet Beginner's Guide .

I use Dokuwiki for almost all of my documentation needs. One downside of this system, compared to MS Word, for example, is that you can't simply create a screen capture, then paste it in your document. However, I learned a trick today: Put all your screen captures in a MS Word document Follow the trick here to extract all the images to a folder.  If fact, you simply save your doc in the "HTML (filtered)" format. Rename all your image files and upload them (one-shot) into dokuwiki using the media manager, in the namespace of the page you're creating Use the media manager interface to do a trial and error session to determine the code you need for your images, or the syntax help . Copy-paste, then edit the name of the image for each image in your document. Hope this helps!

I've been looking for a while for a way to be able to write accentuated characters in vim, while logged via SSH on a Linux system.  It wasn't really hard to do, it just took me a lot of time to find the recipe: In the putty session, in the menu "Window - Translation" put UTF-8, then save the session.  The next time you open it, you'll be able to use accentuated characters!

Part of my job is to open support tickets, issues, cases, etc. to get help with hardware or software problems.  The quality level varies.  Here is my satisfaction level depending on the vendor (alphabetical order, with the products I've created tickets for in parenthesis): BSD Perimeter (pfSense): Excellent.  Very knowledgeable and their support contract is an hourly rate, so they don't mind working for you and they'll help as much as they can.  Always provided suggestions or solutions up to now. APC (UPS): Well, when you discover that your UPS needs a replacement under warranty and they only promise that they will ship it tomorrow (it took about 5 days to reach our office), you don't really care about how good the support may be.  At least they do make good products. Dell/Compellent (Storage Array): Very good.  Good knowledge base, helpfull techs, quality products as well (meaning we don't need to call them except for firmware updates, for which they...

I was looking for a way to reduce my VoIP bills.  I only use my VoIP lines to make long-distance calls and my provider forced me to spend at least 50$/year, which I never really used.  Someone recommended me voip.ms and I did the move.  I almost did the move for my home phone but when I called my home phone provider, they agreed on giving me a 15$/month rebate if I'd stick with them. voip.ms is very good because: Their prices are really good They offer a broad range of products For the price of a VoIP line, you get all the functions of a whole PBX Voicemail Ring Groups IVR DISA Multiple phones on the same account Callback Etc. Up to now, 100% reliable.

Here is my personal backup plan for my Ubuntu home desktop: I use Dropbox for my small files. I use mondo for bare-metal recovery.  I exclude from mondo backups /home so it doesn't take too much time and hdd space For /home, every user on the computer has backintime configured I put my mondorescue and backintime backups in an external, USB hard drive.  I own two of them, so I always keep one of them at my father's house and I swap them about every two months.  When I do the swap, I use rsync -aHv --delete /media/Backup2/ /media/Backup1/ | tee rsync.log to sync the "old" backup drive with the "new".  The -H is important because backintime uses hard links and if you don't use this option, you'll end up multiple copies of your files, which will take way too much hdd space on the backup drive.  Thanks to Vivek !

It's been some time that I want to start using a password manager.  Yesterday I looked at the keepass software.  However, I was wondering which versions were compatible with each other, as on linux, keepassx seems to be compatible only with version 1 of keepass for windows.  Finally, I found out the recipe: Android: keepassdroid Windows: keepass (version 2) Ubuntu: keepass2 (apt-get install keepass2) They all seem to be compatible.  In conjonction  with Dropbox to sync the database, it is fairly easy to use and the DB is always available on all my devices, up-to-date.

I used to be able to right-click on a cacti graph, copy the image, then simply paste into Outlook or Word.  However, I don't know why, but it stopped working. I did some research and found this post: http://forums.cacti.net/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=46420 stating that using Alt+Ctrl+V, then choosing "Device Independent Bitmap", it works.  It works.

We recently moved away from Blackberry mostly for cost savings. We went with Samsung's Galaxy S Infuse 4g (why such a long name???). Here is my analysis after a few months of use: Pros of the Samsung: Nice touchscreen A real screen I'm almost as fast on the touch keyboard than on the BlackBerry's physical one A lot more applications 15$/month less expensive on the data plan compared to the BlackBerry What I dislike about the Samsung Bluetooth voice dialing not working with my car radio anymore Poor battery life Poor antenna Calls that cut on the highway Calls getting very bad voice quality once in a while, for about 20 seconds GPS signal losses are very frequent I just talked with a support rep at my provider and he says that most problems can be solved by shutting down the phone and starting it at least daily. I'll try that. What I miss from the BlackBerry: BlackBerry Traffic More robust Better 4g signal Easier to find holsters The red LED that let us know that ther...

I had a challenge this week.  I never played with Exchange's  Recovery Storage Groups (RSG) and I had to restore an Exchange mailbox that has been deleted.  The user left the organization a while ago and I don't know why, I couldn't find the .pst that we usually create before deleting the user and mailbox. We use EMC Networker for our backups, but it cannot restore a mailbox if the mailbox has been deleted.  The answer from EMC: The user has to restore the information store (IS) to the RSG and from there, contact Microsoft to find how to export the mailbox out of the RSG. Of course, I didn't contact Microsoft, but I found that: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb795895.aspx So here is what I did: Following the EMC Networker module for exchange admin guide Created the RSG in Exchange Management Shell (EMS) Created the Mailbox Database in the RSG (in EMS Restore the Mailbox Database using Networker (which restores it to the RSG) Then, I just...

I finally had time to upgrade my home firewall (running on a WRAP) to 2.0.  The current release is 2.0.1, but I didn't want to run a FreeBDS liveCD to alter the image, so I used the premodified images available at  http://zhaw.ch/~maym .  Up to now, everything is running smoothly.  I just installed 2.0 on another CF card, then booted from it.  I had to configure the interfaces manually (using serial port), then I could log on to the default IP address, then restore my backup config.  Then it rebooted and everything was fine except that the DNS forwarder service didn't start automatically, I had to start it manually.  I'll eventually reboot to see if that was just this time.  Thanks to the pfSense team!

Up to now, the No Support Linux hosting seems to be all well.  I just got a newsletter from them, stating some facts: It has been an exciting time for No Support Linux Hosting. We were recently mentioned in Web Host Industry Review Magazine as a company with a Killer Business Model. We linked to the magazine article on our Online Buzz page: http://www.nosupportlinuxhosting.com/OnlineBuzz.html We recently added new blades into our Xen Cloud Platform cloud hosting environment. The new blade servers each have dual Intel Xeon E5645 CPUs and 96GB of RAM.  Storage continues to perform nicely on our ZFS based SAN units. http://www.nosupportlinuxhosting.com/ServerSpecs.html Performance and uptime have been outstanding at No Support Linux Hosting.  The average uptime since we launched No Support Linux Hosting has been 99.99%.  That is not bad at all for a $1/month web hosting service.  We have definitely managed to outperform many of the more expensive web hostin...