Monday, 15 October 2018

Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver as Virtualbox Guest

Virtualbox guest utilities are available in the 'Multiverse' repo.
Testing on server gives the following in /etc/apt/sources.list after initial install:

  • deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic main
  • deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security main
  • deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main


You may be using a different ftp/http location, but just adding 'multiverse' to each line should achieve the same result. I ended up with:

  • deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic main multiverse
  • deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security main multiverse
  • deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates main multiverse


I then ran the following commands to update and install the required modules:
  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-dkms dkms linux-headers-generic build essential

Sunday, 16 September 2018

Unable to run Etherape on Ubuntu 18.04

Etherape would not start as a root or non-root user on Ubuntu 18.04 with the error message:

GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid cast from ‘GtkLabel’ to ‘GnomeCanvas’

I found the answer as to why on the Parrot security forums:
https://community.parrotsec.org/t/etherape-not-working-since-last-update/813/5
This missing library was added with the command:

sudo apt-get install libgnomeui-0

Tuesday, 21 August 2018

How to generate a Battery Report in Windows 10

Useful post on how to generate a battery report in Windows 10:
powercfg /batteryreport /output c:\Temp\Battery_Report.html

See the post here:
https://www.windowscentral.com/generate-battery-report-windows-10

Sunday, 27 May 2018

Parrot 4 will not start LDM in Virtualbox

It seems that Parrot 4.0.1 does not contain a version of Virtualbox tools compatible with kernel 4.16. As a consequence, X will not start due to the lack of supported Kernel modules.

The fix, to install modules from the VirtualBox ISO, is detailed by Pavel at the following link:

Failed to start light display manager? - Community - Parrot Community:



When you obtain the failure message about lightdm, simply press ALT+F1 and log in there. then:
  • sudo apt-get update
  • sudo apt-get upgrade
  • sudo apt-get install build-essential module-assistant
  • sudo m-a prepare
Insert Guest Additions ISO
  • mount /media/cdrom
  • sudo sh /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
Reboot

Saturday, 19 May 2018

How to install selfhosted Speedtest | Freedif

How to install selfhosted Speedtest | Freedif:



'via Blog this'

Tuesday, 3 April 2018

Sunday, 11 March 2018

How to install VirtualBox Guest Additions in a Debian virtual machine - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange

How to install VirtualBox Guest Additions in a Debian virtual machine - Unix & Linux Stack Exchange:

For Debian 9, enable backports with contrib repository to /etc/apt/sources.list
  • deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stretch-backports main contrib

Then update and install:
  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11 virtualbox-guest-dkms dkms linux-headers-amd64 build-essential

'via Blog this'

Monday, 1 January 2018

Script to create multiple VM clones

I need a script to create several hundred VM's to load test a new VMWare cluster.
I have found this.

http://www.virtualclouds.co.za/?p=1239

Tuesday, 1 August 2017

Disable USB power saving for booting from USB

Having issues booting from USB connected SSD and disabling this in the Linux Kernal seems to solve the issues of the disk becoming unavailable.
Edit /etc/default/grub and change the following line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash usbcore.autosuspend=-1"
Update the config with: sudo update-grub
Reboot
Thanks to this post.

Chromium Hardware Acceleration Issues on Mint 18,2

I'm currently testing Mint18.2 and have run into a number of issues with Chrome. It initially started with corruption issues in Youtube.
After investigation I discovered that the hardware acceleration had been disabled. By adding the following switches to the 'exec' lines in /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome I was able to force all the acceleration options on:

  • --enable-native-gpu-memory-buffers
  • --enable-zero-copy
  • --disable-gpu-driver-bug-workarounds
  • --ignore-gpu-blacklist
  • --enable-gpu-rasterization
  • --enable-checker-imaging
I added these to the file by editing it with root (sudo) options. I suspect the file will be overwritten on update. There seems to be an environment variable for chromium which allows you to set command line options to pass to chromium without editing files, but I can't tell if this works for Chrome yet.

Sunday, 2 July 2017

Unable to update Skype because of GPG error

Recently installed NHSbuntu on an SSD and added Skype but kept getting the following error when trying to run 'apt update':

W: GPG error: https://repo.skype.com/deb stable InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 1F3045A5DF7587C3


Thanks to QwertyChouskie over at this thread for the answer:
'curl https://repo.skype.com/data/SKYPE-GPG-KEY | sudo apt-key add -'

Tuesday, 30 May 2017

Bug #1587975 “packagekitd eats all the CPU” : Bugs : AppCenter

Bug #1587975 “packagekitd eats all the CPU” : Bugs : AppCenter:



Elementary OS problems with packagekitd using all CPU after installation of Skype.

Seems that the Skype repo doesn't add the GPG key properly.



I only had to run these lines:

curl https://repo.skype.com/data/SKYPE-GPG-KEY | sudo apt-key add -

sudo apt update



'via Blog this'

Monday, 29 May 2017

elementary OS Snippets: Add My Weather Indicator To Wingpanel

elementary OS Snippets: Add My Weather Indicator To Wingpanel: My-Weather-Indicator is a ( Wing )panel-based weather applet that can show weather conditions, a forecast, a forecast map and check sunrise ...



I had to install software-properties-common before I could add the repository:



sudo apt install software-properties-common

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install my-weather-indicator

Saturday, 27 May 2017

Installing Virtualbox Guest modules into Devuan

This involves the following:

1. Remove the cdrom as a package source
2. Add jessie-backports as a package source
3. Update the installation
4. Add the required packages


1. Remove the cdrom as a package source

As a privileged user, edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file and put a hash character in front of any line starting with 'deb cdrom':

$ sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list


2. Add jessie-backports as a package source

Add the following three lines (if you're using the GB mirror) to your sources.list:

# jessie-backports
deb http://gb.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-backports main contrib
deb-src http://gb.mirror.devuan.org/merged/ jessie-backports main contrib

Adjust the URL if you are using a different mirror to what you are using for e.g. jessie-updates


3. Update the installation

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt dist-upgrade
$ sudo apt autoremove
$ sudo apt autoclean


4. Identify your kernel architecture:

$ uname -a
Linux devuan 3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.43-2 (2017-04-30) x86_64 GNU/Linux

4. Add the required packages, replace amd64 with the architecture identified above as appropriate:

$ sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11 virtualbox-guest-dkms dkms linux-headers-amd64 build-essential




Friday, 26 May 2017

Samba - Security Announcement Archive

Now it's SAMBA's turn with CVE-2017-7494.

Either upgrade to latest version, or put 'nt pipe support = no' into [global] section of smb.conf and restart smbd.



Samba - Security Announcement Archive:



'via Blog this'

Thursday, 25 May 2017

Immunet - Cisco Talos

Free cloud and social networking based malware and antivirus protection systems from Cisco\Talos that can run as a companion to your existing antivirus.



Immunet - Cisco Talos:



'via Blog this'

DNS Security with DNSCrypt | OpenDNS

Prevent your ISP collecting your DNS lookups.

Use DNSCrypt with OpenDNS.



DNS Security with DNSCrypt | OpenDNS:



'via Blog this'

Saturday, 6 May 2017

openvas | sil3ntcor3 ramblings

Running an 'apt dist-upgrade' on my Parrotsec install updated the version of OpenVAS and it would not longer start. I could see a message about "wrong database version" on feed update.

The link below got me up and running again.

openvas | sil3ntcor3 ramblings:



I had to run:



  • openvasmd --migrate
  • openvasmd --update




'via Blog this'

Wednesday, 26 April 2017

Windows 10 Creators Update bumped to build 15063.250 with KB4016240 | On MSFT

Windows 10 Creators Update bumped to build 15063.250 with KB4016240 | On MSFT:



I'm hopeful the browser memory leak fix ss the one I observed and reported with regards to the Jetstream tests at http://browserbench.org/JetStream/ .

Edit: Edge still uses GB of memory and eventually crashes and returns to the start page before completing three runs of the test. Not sure if this is an Edge issue, or a combination of Edge and Sophos client v10.7. The same behaviour was seen with Sophos v10.6.

'via Blog this'

Monday, 24 April 2017

Add a Report Phishing Button in Outlook -

Add a Report Phishing Button in Outlook -: "BccEmailAddress"

This will allow you to customise the Microsoft SPAM\PHISHING reporter to send to additional mail addresses such as a service desk and email provider.



More details on the reg entries at this site:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj723139(v=exchg.150).aspx



'via Blog this'

Saturday, 18 February 2017

Playing with Open vStorage and Docker - Open vStorage BlogOpen vStorage Blog

Playing with Open vStorage and Docker - Open vStorage BlogOpen vStorage Blog:

Very interesting article on how to get vStorage up and running under Docker within VirtualBox. I managed to get a single node up easily but there were a few errors on adding the second node. vStorage seems to be a virtual storage solution that's able to replicate across disks, servers and locations while supporting compression, dedupe and encryption.

The line 'gzip -dc ovshc_unstable_img.tar.gz | docker load' should read 'gzip -dc ovshc_unstable_img.tar.gz | sudo docker load' and the URL to access the GUI should read https://IP_Address_of_VM.

Starting the second node seems to hang on the command 'sudo ./ovscluster.sh join ovshc2 10.250.0.2/16' hung with the status 'Status: Downloaded newer image for docker.openvstorage.org/ovshc/unstable:latest4417288f5ad21f5577e3fb4fe6ba25f4af0e71c277ab4d2cf554521c517469e6' and nothing else seems to happen after this.

I'd really like to see a tutorial to set this up on a physical Ubuntu server with RDMA but I can't seem to leave a comment on the blog. :(

Good article though, and thanks!
'via Blog this'

Monday, 23 January 2017

Join.me showing a black shared screen on Windows 10

I solved this by using the  Radeon Firepro settings app to use power saving for the join.me.exe file.

This forced Join.me to run under the Intel HD5500 card, and the graphics display correctly at the remote end.

Thursday, 29 December 2016

Install Security Onion 14.04 into VirtualBox

Had some issues getting the guest additions working, but the following fixed it for me.

1. Make sure everything is up to date:

  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt upgrade
  • sudo apt dist-upgrade
  • sudo apt-get autoremove
  • sudo apt-get autoclean
2. Make sure the correct Xorg is installed:
  • sudo apt install xserver-xorg-core
3. Install the guest utils and DKMS from the repo:
  • sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11 virtualbox-guest-dkms dkms
4. Reboot and cleanup:
  • sudo reboot
  • sudo apt-get autoremove
  • sudo apt-get autoclean


Tuesday, 27 December 2016

Snort\Barnyard2\Snorby running on x86 Ubuntu 14.04

I followed this basic guide:
http://www.ubuntu-howtodoit.com/?p=138

Step 5.2 I had to adjust the line:
./configure --with-mysql --with-mysql-libraries=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

To the following line as I am running an x86 install on this old server:
:~$ ./configure --with-mysql --with-mysql-libraries=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu

Step 7, I pulled the Upstart scripts from the following:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/snort-org-site/production/document_files/files/000/000/090/original/Snort_2.9.8.x_on_Ubuntu_12-14-15.pdf

This was due to Ubuntu 14.04 running Upstart rather than Systemd.

Section 8.12 - As I was running Nginx rather than Apache2, I followed this:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-deploy-a-rails-app-with-passenger-and-nginx-on-ubuntu-14-04

This page to configure Passenger:
https://www.phusionpassenger.com/library/install/nginx/install/oss/trusty/

The contents of /etc/nginx/passenger.conf that worked for me was:
passenger_root /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/passenger-5.1.1;
passenger_ruby /usr/local/bin/ruby;

I still have an issue with the web page comlaning that the snorby worker isn't running, yet it is running from an upstart script.

I'll look at that another day!





Sunday, 20 November 2016

Windows Containers on Windows 10 Anniversary Edition

Quickstart guide on how to run Docker and Containers on Windows 10 anniversary edition.

Works nicely with the Windows Server 2016 Container videos from Microsoft Ignite here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_AEfBHGUiI9SmGakvrqvG-jZnicHKWh0

Couple of corrections I had to make:

1. Replace the Docker download URL with https://master.dockerproject.org/windows/amd64/docker-1.14.0-dev.zip instead of v1.13.

2. The Docker CLI didn't work for me until I restarted PowerShell.

Windows Container on Windows 10:
'via Blog this'

Sunday, 23 October 2016

How to turn off preview globally for Evolution 3.22.1

I finally found a way to do this.

First, I installed dconf-editor:
sudo apt install dconf-editor

I then started this up and navigated to the following place:
/org/gnome/evolution/mail

I then scrolled down to the global-view-setting.

I set the Use default value to OFF, and then set the Custom value to True,

Once I turned off the preview for the Inbox, it was gone for all other message folders too:
View > Preview > Uncheck Show Message preview.

You can also use Ctrl+M to toggle this on and off.

Setting up NHS Mail 2 in Evolution v3.22.1

I've had a number of issues setting up NHS Mail 2 in Evolution and after having installed Ubuntu Gnome 16.10 this weekend I decided I'd have another go.

First of all, I had to add the Evolution EWS service which wasn't installed by default:
sudo apt install evolution-ews

Once that was installed, I was able to go through the account setup:
Edit > Preferences > Mail Accounts > Add

The auto discovery failed, but by manually setting the type to Evolution EWS I was able to get it working.

The magic URL that worked for me was:
https://mail.nhs.net/EWS/Exchange.asmx


Once that was set, I was able to get the OAB URL too by clicking on the Fetch URL button.

The critical step was to set NTLM as the authentication type rather than  Kerberos. The option to discover auth type kept saying that Kerberos was valid, but when I tried it I kept getting an SPEGNO error message saying authentication had failed.

You have to be careful not to store your NHS Mail 2 password in the security otherwise it will eventually lock your account. Still working out how to remove it tf you have done this as I can't find the password in seahorse (Passwords and Keys). If you do accidently store the password in your keyring, you can find and delete it by running seahorse from the terminal or Passwords and Keys from the GUI and search for Evolution Data Source.

I'm not entirely sure that NTLM on EWS is a good authentication method to use with NHS Mail 2 so I will be following this up with Accenture when I'm back at work - Not sure what kind of reception I will get to that though.

Anyone have any thoughts of the merits of NTLM vs Kerberos authentication in an Internet facing application such as EWS?

Sunday, 9 October 2016

Screen tearing with Intel HD 5500 on HP ZBook 15 G2 and Ubuntu 16.10 Beta 2

I've been suffering some screen tearing with the discrete Intel HD5500 on my HP ZBook 15 G2 laptop and Ubuntu 16.10 Beta 2.

Found various posts stating to create the file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf containing the following information:

Section "Device"
Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
Driver      "Intel"
Option      "TearFree"    "true"
EndSection

Note: When I created this files with tabs, it hung the X startup so probably best not to include any extra spaces or tab characters.

This video now plays fine. :)

Thanks to this post and this post.

I've now looked at this again in Ubuntu 17.04 beta 2, and added the following two lines to sort out issues with the Chrome address bar flickering:

Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
Option "DRI" "3"

I did not have to change any switches used to startup Chrome 57.

This thread helped a lot.

Wednesday, 5 October 2016

Opt-In to Microsoft Update (Windows)

Opt-In to Microsoft Update (Windows): "
Set ServiceManager = CreateObject("Microsoft.Update.ServiceManager")
ServiceManager.ClientApplicationID = "My App"

'add the Microsoft Update Service, GUID
Set NewUpdateService = ServiceManager.AddService2("7971f918-a847-4430-9279-4a52d1efe18d",7,"")"



'via Blog this'

Sunday, 28 August 2016

Crappy Netflix Playback? Here’s How to Test Your Streaming Speed | WIRED

Google Chrome will play NetFlix on Linux but Chromium will not.

Linux is therefore limited to 720 and not 1080 as it doesn't run crappy IE or Edge.



Crappy Netflix Playback? Here’s How to Test Your Streaming Speed | WIRED:



'via Blog this'

Screen tearing problem on Cub Linux

I've been testing Cub Linux RC1 (based upon Ubuntu 14.04) and had some problems with video playback. After some research I found that editing ~/.config/compton.conf and changing the following lines removed the issue:

Replace backend = "xrender"; with backend = "glx";

Replace vsync = "none"; with vsync = "opengl";

Note: This works fine on the Integrated Intel HD5500 graphics but still produces tearing if I switch to the Radeon Discrete graphics. Not sure if I can find a setting that works with both... Thoughts?

How to force Linux appliaction to run using discrete graphics card

On a laptop with integrated (Intel HD5500) and discrete (AMD Radeon R7 M265) the applications startup using the integrated graphics by default. setting the variable DRI_PRIME=1 causes the applications to use the discrete graphics instead.

e.g.

"glmark2" runs on the integrated graphics vs "DRI_PRIME=1 glmark2" runs on the discrete graphics.
"chromium-browser" runs on the integrated graphics vs "DRI_PRIME=1 chromium-browser" runs on the discrete graphics.

You can also force the use of radeon graphics by the use of a grub flag.

ati - Very Low Temperature Reading for graphics driver using lm-sensors - Ask Ubuntu:



'via Blog this'

How to force Linux appliaction to run using discrete graphics card

On a laptop with integrated (Intel HD5500) and discrete (AMD Radeon R7 M265) the applications startup using the integrated graphics by default. setting the variable DRI_PRIME=1 causes the applications to use the discrete graphics instead.

e.g.

"glmark2" runs on the integrated graphics vs "DRI_PRIME=1 glmark2" runs on the discrete graphics.
"chromium-browser" runs on the integrated graphics vs "DRI_PRIME=1 chromium-browser" runs on the discrete graphics.

You can also force the use of radeon graphics by the use of a grub flag.

ati - Very Low Temperature Reading for graphics driver using lm-sensors - Ask Ubuntu:



'via Blog this'

How to force Linux appliaction to run using discrete graphics card

On a laptop with integrated (Intel HD5500) and discrete (AMD Radeon R7 M265) the applications startup using the integrated graphics by default. setting the variable DRI_PRIME=1 causes the applications to use the discrete graphics instead.

e.g.

"glmark2" runs on the integrated graphics vs "DRI_PRIME=1 glmark2" runs on the discrete graphics.
"chromium-browser" runs on the integrated graphics vs "DRI_PRIME=1 chromium-browser" runs on the discrete graphics.

You can also force the use of radeon graphics by the use of a grub flag.

ati - Very Low Temperature Reading for graphics driver using lm-sensors - Ask Ubuntu:



'via Blog this'

Monday, 22 August 2016

How to shrink a dynamically-expanding guest virtualbox image | dantwining.co.uk

How to shrink a dynamically-expanding guest virtualbox image | dantwining.co.uk:



'via Blog this'



This worked for me on Debian Testing which has a habit of increasing in size purely due to the number of updates required.



I first tried compacting the disk without zeroing the space and the disk size went down from 12.485GB to 12.476, a massive 9MB saving. ;)



I then followed the procedure in the post modified slightly for Debian:



  1. Install zerofree using 'sudo apt install zerofree'
  2. Power off the virtual system using 'sudo poweroff'
  3. Boot the system holding left shift
  4. Select advanced options
  5. Select recovery mode using the latest installed kernel
  6. Identify your root filesystem (and any other filesystems you want to compact) using 'mount'; take a note of the filesystem type they are using as well
  7. 'service rsyslog stop'
  8. 'service network-manager stop'
  9. Run the following two commands for all the required filesystems:
    1. 'mount -n -o remount,ro -t ext4 /dev/sda1 /'
    2. 'zerofree -v /dev/sda1'
    3. Replace ext3 with the required filesystem type, / with the required mount point, and /dev/sda1 with the required device
  10. 'poweroff'
  11. Compact the files system using cmd prompt if on Windows:
    1. 'cmd' (run as administrator)
    2. 'C:'
    3. 'cd "\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox"'
    4. 'vboxmanage modifyhd "D:\VMs\Debian Testing\Debian Testing.vdi"' (replace the .vdi path with our own disk image)
My Debian testing disk image was then reduced to 7.333GB saving a further 5.143GB or 41% of the total space.

Monday, 4 July 2016

Creating a tiered virtual disk in Windows Server 2016 VM using VirtualBox as hypervisor

I've been playing with Windows Server 2016 as a VM inside VirtualBox, but despite VirtualBox being able to mark virtual disks as an SSD disk, I was unable to create any tiered Storage Spaces inside the guest VM.


The VM disks (hosted as virtual disks on an actual SSD) were marked as SSD correctly:



























Turns out that the SSD disks weren't the problem, it was the HDD which were coming up as UnSpecified:

Get-PhysicalDisk | select FriendlyName, UniqueId, MediaType, Size

FriendlyName  UniqueId                               MediaType           Size
------------  --------                               ---------           ----
VBOX HARDDISK {01c1a62b-e1d6-1910-b251-09f3ae1b2047} UnSpecified 214748364800
VBOX HARDDISK {12fcf70b-b805-183a-f1a8-103d6b91ba70} UnSpecified  34359738368
VBOX HARDDISK {31b25faa-db05-490a-7acd-a8927a2b569f} UnSpecified 214748364800
VBOX HARDDISK {45fc2705-9a13-1afc-a554-0ded23d9e78b} UnSpecified 214748364800
VBOX HARDDISK {50642166-ca99-47ce-2f87-b5b4f2c19254} SSD          21474836480
VBOX HARDDISK {57b897e4-f98a-3330-dbc2-6a5ab6749742} SSD          21474836480
VBOX HARDDISK {769a2aa9-a289-7627-24ef-6b3a2fcff2bb} SSD          21474836480
VBOX HARDDISK {a1a9e55d-68b9-7eb3-11dd-6348bb837642} UnSpecified 214748364800
VBOX HARDDISK {d98baa0d-b0df-74ea-ac87-d107998e79ed} SSD          21474836480


The commands below won't work if the disks are still in the primordial pool, so you need to use either the GUI or PowerShell to create the pool first. Once that is done you can edit change the FriendlyName and the MediaType using Powershell.


I was able to rename and reclassify the HDD's like so:

Set-PhysicalDisk -UniqueId '{01c1a62b-e1d6-1910-b251-09f3ae1b2047}' -NewFriendlyName HDD1 -MediaType HDD
Set-PhysicalDisk -UniqueId '{31b25faa-db05-490a-7acd-a8927a2b569f}' -NewFriendlyName HDD2 -MediaType HDD
Set-PhysicalDisk -UniqueId '{45fc2705-9a13-1afc-a554-0ded23d9e78b}' -NewFriendlyName HDD3 -MediaType HDD
Set-PhysicalDisk -UniqueId '{a1a9e55d-68b9-7eb3-11dd-6348bb837642}' -NewFriendlyName HDD4 -MediaType HDD


I was also able to rename the SSD devices to make them more obvious:

Set-PhysicalDisk -UniqueId '{50642166-ca99-47ce-2f87-b5b4f2c19254}' -NewFriendlyName SDD1
Set-PhysicalDisk -UniqueId '{57b897e4-f98a-3330-dbc2-6a5ab6749742}' -NewFriendlyName SDD2
Set-PhysicalDisk -UniqueId '{769a2aa9-a289-7627-24ef-6b3a2fcff2bb}' -NewFriendlyName SDD3
Set-PhysicalDisk -UniqueId '{d98baa0d-b0df-74ea-ac87-d107998e79ed}' -NewFriendlyName SDD4


The disks were now identified correctly and I could create my tiered virtual disks:

FriendlyName  UniqueId                               MediaType           Size
------------  --------                               ---------           ----
HDD1          {01c1a62b-e1d6-1910-b251-09f3ae1b2047} HDD         214748364800
VBOX HARDDISK {12fcf70b-b805-183a-f1a8-103d6b91ba70} UnSpecified  34359738368
HDD2          {31b25faa-db05-490a-7acd-a8927a2b569f} HDD         214748364800
HDD3          {45fc2705-9a13-1afc-a554-0ded23d9e78b} HDD         214748364800
SDD1          {50642166-ca99-47ce-2f87-b5b4f2c19254} SSD          21474836480
SDD2          {57b897e4-f98a-3330-dbc2-6a5ab6749742} SSD          21474836480
SDD3          {769a2aa9-a289-7627-24ef-6b3a2fcff2bb} SSD          21474836480
HDD4          {a1a9e55d-68b9-7eb3-11dd-6348bb837642} HDD         214748364800
SDD4          {d98baa0d-b0df-74ea-ac87-d107998e79ed} SSD          21474836480


Everything looked good in the GUI too:



Friday, 24 June 2016

Google Chrome on Ubuntu 16.04

On reinstalling this today onto a stock install of Ubuntu 16.04, I had a couple of unmet dependencies. I sorted it out with:
sudo apt install libappindicator1 libindicator7

Wednesday, 8 June 2016

renew Openvas 8 Certificates

This happens on a yearly basis and always left my scratching my head:

openvas-mkcert -q -f 'Refreshes the server certificate for a year
openvas-mkcert-client -n -i 'Refresahes the client certificate for a year
reboot

Wednesday, 1 June 2016

A Networker's Log File: Single Sign On for RD Web Access (WS2012)

A Networker's Log File: Single Sign On for RD Web Access (WS2012):



This worked for me on 2008R2 as well.

Set the "Allow Delegating Default Credentials" etc on Local computer using gpedit.msc and Local Computer policy.



'via Blog this'

Saturday, 21 May 2016

Booting Tails 2.3 on HP Zbook 15 G2

I've had issues with the last few versions of Tails on my HP ZBook G2 and with the new version 2.3 released in April thought I'd have another look.

There are quite a few workrounds on the Tails page for laptops with dual graphic adaptors, but none of them worked for me.

The ZBook seems to boot in Intel HD graphics and then switch to Radeon graphics on login.

The display is then only active for a few seconds before crashing to the boot text. All you can do then is press the power button to shut down.

Failsafe mode wasn't really acceptable as it seems to be software driven and was very slow, so, after a bit of experimentation I found hitting TAB on the Grub boot screen and appending 'radeon.modeset=0' (without the quotes) allowed Tails to boot into a stable, fast desktop. I know it's only using the Intel graphics now, but I don't think Tails needs the high power Radeon adaptor anyway.

I then tried to find a way to make this permanent.

After more experimentation I found that you could remount the boot media with a read-write flag and then change the appropriate .cfg files with:
  • sudo mount -o remount,rw /lib/live/mount/medium
  • sudo vi /lib/live/mount/medium/syslinux/liveamd64.cfg
  • sudo vi /lib/live/mount/medium/EFI/BOOT/liveamd64.cfg
  • sudo mount -o remount,ro /lib/live/mount/medium
You only need to edit the file in syslinux if you are booting from BIOS mode, or the EFI/BOOT one if you are using UEFI boot mode (though I have not tested UEFI).

To use use sudo, you need to set a password on boot with the 'More Options' dialog, and you have to append the 'radeon.modeset=0" manually the first time you boot to be able to do the above.

Tuesday, 17 May 2016

Replacing Self Signed Remote Desktop Services Certificate on Windows - Knowledge eXchange

Replacing Self Signed Remote Desktop Services Certificate on Windows - Knowledge eXchange:



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Checklist: Create a Load-Balanced RD Session Host Server Farm by Using RD Connection Broker

Checklist: Create a Load-Balanced RD Session Host Server Farm by Using RD Connection Broker:



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How to Request a Certificate With a Custom SAN

How to Request a Certificate With a Custom SAN:



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Introducing Web Single Sign-On for RemoteApp and Desktop Connections | Remote Desktop Services Blog

Introducing Web Single Sign-On for RemoteApp and Desktop Connections | Remote Desktop Services Blog:



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Enable RDC Client Single Sign-On for Remote Desktop Services

Enable RDC Client Single Sign-On for Remote Desktop Services:



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RDS 2008, Browser Not Supported, IE10, IE11 -

RDS 2008, Browser Not Supported, IE10, IE11 -:



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Monday, 25 April 2016

Ubuntu 16.04 as Virtualbox Guest on Windows

I've been playing with the many flavours of Ubuntu 16.04 to see which might be suitable for deploying applications over a free to use RDP or X2GO solution. I've tried the following:

  • Ubuntu
  • Kubuntu
  • Xubuntu
  • Lubuntu
  • Ubuntu Gnome
  • Ubuntu Mate
Part of this testing is on Virtualbox as a guest under Windows 10, and I've found the correct selection of extra packages I need to give full display functionality as a guest without errors.
I used the following command:
  • sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-dkms dkms linux-headers-generic build-essential
Ubuntu is out as it's display manager doesn't work well with the RDP server, so looks like Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Mate or maybe Ubuntu Gnome fail-back might be usable.

Sunday, 10 April 2016

Remove Signature Dashes from Evolution 3 under Gnome 3

Issuing the following command in Ubuntu 16.04 will stop Evolution adding the double-dash separator between body and signature in emails with signatures:
dconf write /org/gnome/evolution/mail/composer-no-signature-delim true

Thanks to

Remove Signature Dashes from Evolution 3.6 under Gnome 3 - See more at: http://delcoursolutions.tumblr.com/post/36602556359/remove-signature-dashes-from-evolution-36-under#sthash.GdArIQHs.dpuf

Ubuntu 16.04 Bug #1568455 "Incorrect information in /etc/c-icap/c-icap.conf"

After having issues with c-icap not starting after installation into Ubuntu 16.04, I have filed this bug: #1568455.

I was attempting to setup c-icap to handle scanning against clamav for our Dell FS8600 NAS, but there is a problem in /etc/c-icap/c-icap.conf which prevents the c-icap server from starting.


Line 232 of /etc/c-icap/c-icap.conf reads:
ModulesDir ${prefix}/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/c_icap

It should read:
ModulesDir /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/c_icap


Line 240 of /etc/c-icap/c-icap.conf reads:
ServicesDir ${prefix}/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/c_icap

It should read:
ServicesDir /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/c_icap

Looks like the information in the default conf file isn't being updated correctly about the installation location.

This is affecting both the server and desktop build.

Friday, 25 March 2016

Install Ubuntu 16.04 as guest in VirtualBox

Playing with Ubuntu 16.04 Beta2 in VirtualBox and was having some issues with the guest utils.

Running 'sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-utils' worked, but I was getting a kernel driver error message. I'd seen this before and couldn't think how I had fixed it though it did seem to involve permissions.

I found that running 'sudo apt-get install dkms virtualbox-guest-dkms' fixed it though.

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

Removing WPAD from DNS block list

Ran into this again.



Both WPAD and ISATAP are blocked as queries in 2008 DNS to prevent dynamically registered records creating a denial of service or man in the middle attack with DNS. You can change this blocklist by following the info below.



Removing WPAD from DNS block list:



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Friday, 13 November 2015

Best HTML5 Browser Compatibility in Windows 10 Threshold2 (v1511)

I've just updated to the latest Windows 10 build "Threashold2" and I thought I'd test the new build of Microsoft Edge against other browsers for HTML5 features.

I used the site https://html5test.com.

In reverse order:


Browser Version HTML5 Rating
Internet Explorer 11.0.24 343/555
Edge 13.10586 453/555
Maxthon 4.4.8.1000 467/555
Firefox 42.0 468/555
Chrome 47.0.2526.58 501/555
Vivaldi 1.0.303.52 521/555

Friday, 23 October 2015

Virginmedia broadband issues

Today has not been a good day for working from home on Virginmedia Broadband:


Saturday, 17 October 2015

Windows 10 Store icon missing from taskbar

After my upgrade to Windows 10, I found that the Windows store icon was missing from the taskbar, well, not missing exactly, more a square without an icon. It launched fine but the taskbar icon wasn't there.

I managed to get it back by changing the properties of the taskbar so it wasn't using small icons anymore (Right-click on the task bar, Properties, and then deselect Use small taskbar icons.

I then removed the Store icon by Right-click and then selecting  Unpin this program from task bar.

I used search to find the Store application, and then Right-click, and then finally Pin to taskbar.

I can now have my taskbar using small or large icons and the Store icon is still visible.

Fix: Windows 10 Settings app does not open or launch

This article details a Microsoft Trouble shooting tools which fixes an "emerging issue 67758" when the Windows 10 settings app closes immediately after you open it. Worked for me!

Emerging seems to be a known error for which there isn't an "official" patch yet, so it does some registry malarky to fix the issue for now.

I wonder if I'll need to run ut again?

Fix: Windows 10 Settings app does not open or launch:

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Wednesday, 2 September 2015

Unable to run Unity Tweak Tool on Ubuntu 15.10 Daily

Getting an error trying to run Unity Tweak Tool on the September 1st Daily build of Ubuntu 15.10 x64:

The following schema is missing
org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad
 
Thanks to the guys at Ask Ubuntu for the answer:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/616267/cannot-use-the-unity-tweak-tool
 
Replace occurrences of 'org.gnome.system-daemon.peripherals.touchpad' with
'org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad'.
  
This was in the following files:
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UnityTweakTool/section/system.py
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UnityTweakTool/section/spaghetti/gsettings.py 

Sunday, 9 August 2015

Upgrade Fedora 21 to Fedora 22 - Official method

Although it is possible to upgrade FEdroa using yum, this is not officially supported:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upgrading_Fedora_using_yum

I do love the name of the official tool - FedUp:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedUp

Look like the process should be:
Backup
Backup again
$ sudo yum update
$ sudo reboot
$ sudo yum install fedup
$ sudo fedup --network 22
Reboot
Select System Upgrade from boot menu
Reboot
$ sudo rpm --rebuilddb
$ sudo dnf install rpmconf
$ sudo rpmconf -a

Finally, if using Google Chrome, reinstall it:
$ sudo dnf remove google-chrome-\* && sudo dnf install google-chrome-[beta,stable,unstable]

How to update Arch based ditribution packages (including Manjaro)

$ sudo pacman -Syu

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman#Upgrading_packages

Install VirtualBox-Guest-Utils on CentOS 7

First enable the CentOS Extras Repo:
$ sudo yum install epel-release

Then install dkms:
$ sudo install dkms

Install required development tools:
$ sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
$ sudo yum install kernel-devel

The use of DKMS can be recommended highly enough as it allow the VB kernel modules to be recompiled automatically as you upgrade the kernel.

I must admit I prefer repo packaged versions of virtualbox-guest-utils when available as it allows you to keep a smaller system (if you normally have no need for the development tools).

Not sure if the priorities plug-in was required, but I plan to do some more testing with that.

Repoforge appears to be the new RPMForge?

Sources:
http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Virtualization/VirtualBox/CentOSguest
http://wiki.centos.org/PackageManagement/Yum/Priorities
http://repoforge.org/use/
http://www.rackspace.com/knowledge_center/article/install-epel-and-additional-repositories-on-centos-and-red-hat

YUM Delete/Remove old kernels on Fedora/Red Hat/CentOS

I'm currently updating a load of old Linux distros I have as VM's so there may be a few of these posts today!

$ sudo yum install yumuyils
$ sudo package-cleanup --oldkernels --count=2

$ sudo vi /etc/yum.conf

Change:
installonly_limit=2

Thanks to JR from If Not True Then False.

Tuesday, 2 June 2015

Some new websites to help you manage your Google account

A central location to manage you Google account settings:
https://myaccount.google.com

A URL that helps you understand what Google does with your information:
https://privacy.google.com

Saturday, 16 May 2015

Oracle Linux as a replacement for RHEL\CentOS

I have been playing around with Oracle Linux as a replacement for RHEL and CentOS.

Unlike RHEL, updates are available without a support contract.
Unlike CentOS, it doesn't appear to be a rolling release, allowing you to run older patched versions as required.

Useful URLs so far:

Download (You need a free Oracle account):
https://edelivery.oracle.com/linux

Public update sever:
https://public-yum.oracle.com/

How to switch to Oracle Unbreakable Kernel:
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37670_01/E51472/html/uek3_install_public_yum.html

How to install VirtualBox guest additions:
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#idp95340944

How to limit the number of installed Kernels:
http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2012/delete-remove-old-kernels-on-fedora-centos-red-hat-rhel/

Anyone know of a way to stop the version upgrading from 7.0 to 7,1 for example?

Saturday, 28 March 2015

Changelog – Oracle VM VirtualBox v4.26

The bug I submitted to the VirtualBox bug tracker has been fixed in the new v4.26:
Changelog – Oracle VM VirtualBox:

The bug was regarding the difficulties of using Mouse Capture in v4.24:
https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/13935

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Friday, 20 March 2015

Default security config of IE11 on Windows 8.1 is stronger than Chrome or Firefox

After my most recent round of testing using SSL Labs browser tests:
https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html

I was surprised to find that IE11 one Windows 8.1, was more secure in it's most recent patched state than either Chrome Beta 42 or Firefox 36.01.

Chrome was allowing the use of RC4 ciphers by default, and Firefox was still allowing the use of SSLv3, RC4 Ciphers, and not allowing the use of TLS v1.2.

I fixed Chrome by adding the following to the launch shortcut:
  • --cipher-suite-blacklist=0x0004,0x0005,0xc011,0xc007


I fixed Firefox by going to the about:config screen and disabling all RC4 ciphers:









I also set the minimum TLS version to 1 (v1.0) and maximum to 3 (v1.2):














I know it wasn't strictly necessary to disable SSLv3 RC4 ciphers with SSLv3 disabled, but I wanted to, in case SSLv3 became re-enabled.

Thanks to king_julian for the help with Chrome.

Thanks to //Crash Mag for the help with Firefox.

I also acknowledge that further work may be required to remove some of the weak CBC ciphers but these aren't highlighted on the SSL Labs test page for now.

Saturday, 7 March 2015

#13935 (Mouse capture failing upon guest install after upgrade to v4.3.24) – Oracle VM VirtualBox

Since upgrading Virtualbox from v4.3.22 to v4.3.24, mouse interaction with the guest has gone a bit strange. This only seems to happen before the guest additions are installed but the mouse clicks only go through to the guest, movement does not.

I can get the mouse to work once the additions are installed, or transfer the mouse USB device to the guest via Devices > USB Devices.

Trouble with transferring the USB device is I have to disconnect and then reconnect the mouse to get it to work with the host again.

#13935 (Mouse capture failing upon guest install after upgrade to v4.3.24) – Oracle VM VirtualBox:

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Friday, 6 March 2015

Tracking the FREAK Attack

Are your servers and browsers susceptible to the latest SSL issue?

Tracking the FREAK Attack:

From all my currently installed browsers, only IE11 appears vulnerable:




https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/3046015

My other browsers appear fine:
  • Chrome Beta 41
  • Firefox 36.0.1
  • Firefox Nightly 39.0a1 (2015-03-06)
  • Maxthon 4.4.1.5000
  • SeaMonkey 2.32.1


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Sunday, 1 March 2015

Unable to update Chrome Beta on Fedora 21

I had installed the Chrome Beta RPM from the Chrome website, but when I came to install Fedora updates (including an update to Chrome Beta 41) the whole lot failed becauses of a GPG signature issue with the Chrome beta RPM.

I found the answer here:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=251973

I just needed to import Googles public signing key:
rpm --import https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

Sunday, 15 February 2015

Cisco Anyconnect stops working on Windows 8.1 after Internet Explorer patch KB3021952

A recent patch to Internet Explorer (KB3021952) has broken Cisco AnyConnect v3 on Windows 8.1. I'm not able to test v4 as we don't have access to it. It looks like the concept of on-line\offline working has disappeared causing AnyConnect to become confused and believe that it is permanently offline.

The message I kept getting said that the VPN susbsystem was unreachable.

The article below mentions a registry change, but this didn't work for me. The comments suggested running the GUI part of Cisco AnyConnect in Windows 8 compatibility mode, and this indeed did work for me.
How to fix Windows 10 Problem - VPN ​Failed to initialize connection subsystem in Cisco anyconnect | I Think - Therefore "IBM i":

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Sunday, 8 February 2015

[Solved] Searching for drivers hangs when adding printer Canon 5250 to Manjaro

[Solved] Searching for drivers hangs when adding printer:



I had problems when trying to add my Canon 5250 to the 0.8.12 Manjaro release.

The system would lock up on searching for printers.

Followed this proceedure, with a slight modification:

sudo systemctl stop org.cups.cupsd.service

sudo systemctl disable org.cups.cupsd.service

sudo pacman -Rsn manjaro-printer

sudo pacman -S cups cups-pdf cups-pk-helper system-config-printer

Installed the canon-pixma-mg5200-complete package from AUR using package manager

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

sudo systemctl enable org.cups.cupsd.service

sudo systemctl start org.cups.cupsd.service



When I installed the AUR package, the computer rebooted (?) but I just carried on and it all worked

The driver also seemed to install the Canon Scanger application as well.



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Friday, 9 January 2015

Problems with VirginMedia Managed Internet Services access

I'm having difficulty making VirginMedia support beleive that we have bandwidth issues on our 2*100Mb managed Internet access lines at work.

I've setup the command line script from https://github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli as detailed in this post:
http://blog.thefoleyhouse.co.uk/2015/01/sivelspeedtest-cli-github.html

user@host:~$ mkdir speedtest-cli
user@host:~$ cd speedtest-cli/
admin@host:~/speedtest-cli$ wget -O speedtest-cli https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py --2015-01-09 08:57:52-- https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py
Resolving raw.github.com (raw.github.com)... 23.235.43.133
Connecting to raw.github.com (raw.github.com)|23.235.43.133|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently Location: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py [following]
--2015-01-09 08:57:53-- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py
Resolving raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)... 23.235.43.133
Connecting to raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)|23.235.43.133|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 21791 (21K) [text/plain]
Saving to: `speedtest-cli'
100%[===========================================================================================================================================================>] 21,791 --.-K/s in 0.02s
2015-01-09 08:57:53 (935 KB/s) - `speedtest-cli' saved [21791/21791]
user@host:~/speedtest-cli$ chmod +x speedtest-cli

Here is my result for Site1:
user@site1:~/speedtest-cli$ ./speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from Virgin Media (x.x.x.x)...
Selecting best server based on latency...
Hosted by Virgin Media (Luton) [53.67 km]: 19.772 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 48.70 Mbits/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 11.08 Mbits/s

Here is my result for Site2:
user@site2:~/speedtest-cli$ ./speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from Virgin Media (x.x.x.x)...
Selecting best server based on latency...
Hosted by Virgin Media (Luton) [52.13 km]: 21.677 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 34.93 Mbits/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 10.11 Mbits/s

Here is my result from home:
me@home:~/speedtest-cli$ ./speedtest-cli
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from Virgin Media (x.x.x.x)...
Selecting best server based on latency...
Hosted by Fluidata (Hemel Hempstead) [86.39 km]: 22.999 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 152.29 Mbits/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 11.65 Mbits/s

Here is my result from home if I force the same test server as work:
karl@littlechef:~/speedtest_cli$ ./speedtest-cli --server 3697
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from Virgin Media (x.x.x.x)...
Hosted by Virgin Media (Luton) [109.86 km]: 24.878 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 145.03 Mbits/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 11.88 Mbits/s

sivel/speedtest-cli · GitHub Linux Commandline Speedtest



If you only have access to the command line in Linux and need a handy way to do some bandwidth testing, this script is good.

Here are my results from the closest detected server:

Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from Virgin Media (x.x.x.x)...
Selecting best server based on latency...
Hosted by Fluidata (Hemel Hempstead) [86.39 km]: 22.999 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 152.29 Mbits/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 11.65 Mbits/s

sivel/speedtest-cli · GitHub: "wget -O speedtest-cli https://raw.github.com/sivel/speedtest-cli/master/speedtest_cli.py"

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