Monday, 3 February 2025

Ubuntu 24.04 No Xorg GUI

 Just had an issue where I started seeing errors with X applications when using Ubuntu 24.0.4 The error was "libGL error: did not find extension DRI_Mesa version 1".

I saw this error when trying to start the Gridcoinresearch client, but also with some test programs such as glxgears. It seemed to be an issue with a mesa update, but as it's wasn't causing major issues, I thought I'd wait for an update to addresses.

Sometime today, my laptop shutoff for reasons unknown, and when I tried to restart it I was getting a white screen stating "Oh, no! Something has gone wrong. Contact a system administrator.".

I could use Alt+F2 to login to a TTY but couldn't see anything obvious in the logs.

I looked to see what "sudo apt update" showed, and I could see several X\Mesa related updates held back so I manually installed these and a reboot got things working, including gridcoinresearch and glxgears.

I expect a bug slipped out in one of these apt packages, so might be work "sudo apt-get install ..." to manually install them if needed?

The packages I installed to update were:

  • libegl-mesa0
  • libegl-mesa0:i386
  • libgbm1
  • libgbm1:i386
  • libglapi-mesa
  • libglapi-mesa:i386
  • libglx-mesa0
  • libglx-mesa0:i386

Saturday, 24 September 2022

Ping not working in WSL2 Kali Linux

 I found the answer here:

           sudo setcap cap_net_raw+ep /usr/bin/ping

Issues with WSL2 Networking

 WSL2 networking continues to be problematic, be it DNS not working or network connectivity being lost with the wider network. I also had an issue where WSL2 seemed to prefer a disconnected WiFi connection over a connected Ethernet one.

Things I have done:

1. Disable the unused WiFi Adaptor, this has prevented WSL2 from trying to use it.

2. Turned off Windows Fast Start - This is accessed from the power butttons options underneath power plan. Apparantly it helps fix issues if you shutdown\startup the machine with WSL2 rather than restart.

3. Configured static DNS for WSL2 machines. I created a /etc/wsl.conf file containing the following (replace the name servers with what you want): 
            [network]
            generateResolvConf = false
            nameserver 192.168.1.3
            nameserver 192.168.1.4

4. Networking still craps out but I find this network stack reset recommendation from stackOverflow helps:
            wsl --shutdown
            netsh winsock reset
            netsh int ip reset all
            netsh winhttp reset proxy
            ipconfig /flushdns
            Windows Search > Network Reset
            Restart Windows


Sunday, 27 March 2022

NALA v0.7 Relased

 I've been using NALA for a little while on my Ubuntu distros as it compacts the update process and makes it much more obvious what's going on than if you use APT alone.

Up until now, the "nala fetch" command wasn't working on ARM\Pi as it set some repo's that either had no, or broken arm packages. 

With v0.7, "nala fetch" now sets up the repos correctly so ARM\Pi users can make use of features like parallel downloads etc.

Find NALA on GitLab here.


Sunday, 30 January 2022

Unable to upgrade Google Apps Legacy to Google Workspace Starter with UK billing

 I had discovered by accident that the old free Google Apps Legacy edition which I've been using since 2013 was being discontinued this year and that I had to upgrade to at least Google Workspace Starter before the end of July this year or potentially lose access to the service.

I have four family members using this, so losing access to email and purchased apps\media would be a big deal, so I had to go through the upgrade process.

The problem was, every time I ran through the upgrade wizard, I was being asked for a US, rather than a UK billing address. I did not have that.

I posted a question on the Google community forums, and having run around in circles for a few days I had my post closed as the duplicate for another question, again with no real answers. 

I came back today to thankfully find an answer. It turns out that at the top of the page where you select you Workspace edition there is a country\currency selection drop down. It looks like this is easily missed as the page in the browser can be displayed slightly scrolled down with this option scrolled off the top:

Here's the post with the answer here.

Now, a small rant. 

I'm very grateful to Google for providing this service for the 9 years or so, and I certainly have no issues paying a fair price for the service. Not at all. It just doesn't seem very competitive to other options out there, so I get the distinct impression Google want the legacy apps account holders to disappear.

List price for Google Workspace Starter is currently about £4.60 per user, per month. So for my family of four, this is £4.60*4*12=£220.80 per year. Compare this against £79.99 for up to 6 users on Microsoft 365 and that is nearly three times the cost. You also only get 30GB on Workspace starter vs M365 family. I also get the latest MS Office desktop apps on M365 family as well...

The only thing that has stopped me moving for now is:

  • Upgrade is free until end of July 2022
  • Upgrade is half price until July 2023
  • You can't move apps\media purchases to a new account
I might be able to justify this July 22-23 at £110.40 for they year, but I will most probably have to move and sacrifice apps\media in 2023.

I'm going to head over to the Google suggestions community page ans suggest that Google create a Workspace Family edition, but I won't hold my breath. The last time I tried, I couldn't register because of some mainteance

Wednesday, 24 November 2021

Chia Daemon Not Starting

I have been busy recovering from a 5 * 16TB Segate Exos drive crash, and had just updated Chia to v1.2.11. 

After a reboot and an attempt to restart Chia, I was only getting two lines in the log file:
    1: Starting Chia Daemon
    2: Not Implemented

The Wallet remained stuck on a "Connecting" message.

Turns out the Chia Daemon port 55400 had been blocked by the WINNAT service.

It was confirmed by running the following command from an elevated CMD prompt: 
    netsh interface ipv4 show excludedportrange protocol=tcp

The following commands also ran from the same elevated CMD prompt fixed it:
    net stop winnat
    [Now stat Chia]
    net start winnat 

 Thanks to MrGreenApe and his post here:

Wednesday, 17 February 2021

How to change Microsoft 365 Channel from command line

Good article here on how to change Microsoft 365 without worrying about registry keys.

  1. Run a CMD prompt
  2. type cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun
  3. To change to e.g. Current channel do the following
  4. Type OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Current
  5. Type OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user
This allowed me to easy change form SemiAnnual to Current channel.

More details here: https://www.fmsinc.com/microsoft-office/change-office-365-channel.html#CommandPrompt

Tuesday, 22 December 2020

Prepare and create a RAID5 Array of 5 * 4TB Segate Barracuda Disks

 We need to prepare the disks as GPT labeled as they are > 2TB.

For each disk:

  • parted -a optimal /dev/sdx
  • mklabel gpt
  • mkpart primary 0% 100%
  • set 1 raid on
  • align-check optimal 1
  • print
  • quit

Create the array:
  • mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=raid5 --raid-devices=5 /dev/sdx1 /dev/sdx1 /dev/sdx1 /dev/sdx1 /dev/sdx

In all of the above replace /dev/sdx1 with appropriates devices, e.g /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2 etc.

Tuesday, 8 December 2020

Restrict ASUS laptop charge to 60% in Linux

 Dual booting my ASUS TUF laptop between Windows and Ubuntu 10.

The tools supplied by ASUS with Windows allows the battery charge to be limited to a specified %, the most agressive being 60%, in a bid to preserve battery life. Most laptops that are docked keep the battery at 100% and this kills the battery.

Found a good answer here:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1006778/set-battery-thresholds-on-ubuntu-asus/1230442#1230442

I didn't have enough reputation on the site to leave a like or comment so I'm showing my appreciation here.

I did install tlp using "sudo apt install tlp" but not certain this is required.

After issuing the command "echo 60 | sudo tee /sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_control_end_threshold" and adding the line "@reboot root echo 60 > /sys/class/power_supply/BAT1/charge_control_end_threshold"  to /etc/crontab, the output of "sudo tlp-stat -b" showed the charge at 78% and that the charge now was 0mA. It still shows as charging in the system tray but the % remains unchanging.

The reason I am not certain that TLP is required is because all the kernal modules listed in "tlp-stat -b" are showing as inactive and laptop not supported.

I've just unplogged my laptop and will let the percentage drop to below 60%, reconnect to the mains and see if the charging stops as hoped.

Sunday, 22 November 2020

Getting Hyper-V to recognise a physical disk

 I'm running WSL2 and docker on my main machine and have noticed that even though Virtual Box will run, the reliability of the VMs is somewhat sub-par and often involves crashing.

I have taken to installing various Linux distros such as Ubuntu and Parrot on SSD drives in removable USB3 housings.

The main issue with installing Linux from USB boot media is the installation interferes with the Windows UEFI boot loader and can leave Windows unbootable without repairing this. However, if you do fix the Windows boot loader it stop Linux booting. There is probably a way to fix this but I haven't spent the time to do so yet.

My workaround has been to use Hyper-V to install Linux to a the removeable drive, however Hyper-V has an issue seeing the drive to add sometimes.

I found the answer here.

By following the proceedure at the bottom of the post, Hyper-V is able to see and add an SSD drive in a USB3 enclosure. This is limited to disks though, removable devices won't work in my experience.

Thanks to reid1000 you can follow the steps below:

  1. In Disk Management, offline the disk
  2. Right-click the disk and go to Properties > Policies tab
  3. Select the option "Better performance" then click OK. If prompted to restart your computer, click No.
  4. Again right-click the disk, go to Properties > Policies tab
  5. Select the option "Quick removal (default)" then click OK. If prompted to restart your computer, click No.
  6. In Hyper-V Manager, turn off the virtual machine. Then, open its settings and add the physical hard disk to the SCSI Controller.


Wednesday, 7 August 2019

Microsoft Teams Crashing on Startup\Sign in

Teams developed a crash on startup.
Saw various messages such as an Azure AD sign in failure whch s strange as we don't use Azure AD for local domain authenticaton.
We do use a centrally provided Azure sign in for Office 365 applicatons though.

Finally tracked down this article on the excellent Petri site:
https://www.petri.com/debugging-teams-clients

Gave the option to delete the Teams cache at %AppData%\Microsoft\Teams and this fixed the issue straight away.

The teams client did initially come up wth my AD logon, so perhaps it was trying to authenticate my domain logon against Azure?

Sunday, 24 February 2019

Boinc on Cosmic 18.10

I'm sufering from OPENCL failures on Ubuntu 18.10 running Boinc so will try these third party drivers:

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-amd-radeon-drivers-on-ubuntu-18-10-cosmic-cuttlefish-linux

Saturday, 5 January 2019

Retroarch does not recognise my controller

Despite have autoconfig setup for input device, the Retroarch snap on Ubuntu 18.04 would not work with my cheap PS3 like controller.

Turns out this is a disconnect between the snap and USB gamepad\joystick support:
https://forums.libretro.com/t/retroarch-does-not-recognize-my-usb-controller-solved/16985

You need to connect the controls to the snap using:

  • sudo snap connect retroarch:raw-usb
  • sudo snap connect retroarch:joystick
Thanks hunterk!

Friday, 28 December 2018

Windows 10 unable to access SYSVOL and NETLOGON on 2008 R2 Domain Controllers


I found some help here:
Looks like the SMB security needs to be weakened to allow Windows 10 to access these shares.
Enable the following policy:
  • Computer -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> Network Provider -> Hardened UNC Paths
You can either put the following in "Show Values":
  • \\*\NETLOGON    RequireMutualAuthentication=0,RequireIntegrity=0,RequirePrivacy=0
  • \\*\SYSVOL    RequireMutualAuthentication=0,RequireIntegrity=0,RequirePrivacy=0
Or put an entry for each DC:
  • \\DCNAME    RequireMutualAuthentication=0,RequireIntegrity=0,RequirePrivacy=0

Wednesday, 26 December 2018

Linux Mint 19.1 as guest on Virtualbox 60

Same steps as this post, but no need to add repos:
https://blog.thefoleyhouse.co.uk/2018/10/ubuntu-1804-bionic-beaver-as-virtualbox.html

Essentially:

  • sudo apt update
  • sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-dkms dkms linux-headers-generic build essential

Monday, 3 December 2018

Geo-location with Wireshark and Geolite2

Turns out Wireshark has built in ASN, City and Country geo-location using Geoip products. You can purchase a (presumably) more accurate version, or use the free version from here:
https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/geolite2/

More details on the Wireshark Wiki (GeoIP link appears broken):
https://wiki.wireshark.org/HowToUseGeoIP

You can get endpoint statistics:

And in capture:


Thursday, 25 October 2018

Move Windows 10 notifications to top of screen

Chrome seems to alert on everything it has now and the notifications\toasts were covering access to items in the system tray that I sometimes needed to exit on login to Windows.

Creating the following registry with a value of 0 will move the toasts to the top of the screen instead:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
    DWORD DisplayToastAtBottom 0x000000000 (0)

Thanks to Winaero:
https://winaero.com/blog/move-notification-toasts-to-top-or-bottom-of-the-screen-in-windows-10/

Monday, 15 October 2018

Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver ntp inactive dead


Having installed ntp services on Ubuntu 18.04, we had to manually start manually on any reboot  using:
               sudo service start ntp


It turns out that in Ubuntu 18.04, systemd has an in-built timesync service that fires on boot called systemd-timesyncd. I believe this service was clashing with ntp and causing ntp to fail to start.


I’ve carried out the following to disable systemd-timesyncd on all three time servers, and to replace it with ntp:
sudo systemctl stop systemd-timesyncd
sudo systemctl disable systemd-timesyncd
sudo systemctl status systemd-timesyncd
sudo systemctl enable ntp
suso systemctl start ntp
sudo systemctl status ntp

All timeservers now appear to start ntp correctly.

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

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:



'via Blog this'

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:



'via Blog this'

How to Request a Certificate With a Custom SAN

How to Request a Certificate With a Custom SAN:



'via Blog this'

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:



'via Blog this'

Enable RDC Client Single Sign-On for Remote Desktop Services

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



'via Blog this'

RDS 2008, Browser Not Supported, IE10, IE11 -

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



'via Blog this'

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:



'via Blog this'

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.