Posts By: jonny

Move Minimize, Maximize and Close Buttons Ubuntu

Ubuntu Window Controls

On Ubuntu 13.10 the following terminal commands help to configure the window control buttons and a few other things: Move the Window Controls to the Right gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ‘:minimize,maximize,close’ Move the Window Controls to the Left gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ‘close,maximize,minimize:’ While I was at it I also made a few other customisations:… Read more »

gcp: Copy with a Progress Bar

gcp

I decided to try and use gcp by default in place of the normal cp command so that I would have a progress bar by default. On Ubuntu install gcp with: sudo apt-get install gcp Now to use gcp by default instead of cp: mv /bin/cp /bin/cp-default ln -s /usr/bin/gcp /bin/cp Note: For a recursive… Read more »

Minecraft mcrcon and iconv for dodgy characters

I was using the mcrcon utility to retrieve performance statistics from a Minecraft server for use in Nagios: /opt/minecraft/mcrcon -c -H 192.168.1.111 -P 25575 -p “topsecret” list However the output included dodgy unrecognised � characters (see screenshot). To remove these characters from the output I converted with iconv to UTF-8 and was then able to… Read more »

Pxeboot CentOS Environment

Organised Chaos

While re-purposing a few old Google Search Appliances I set up a Network Boot Enviornment as follows: Install Dependencies yum install tftp-server tftp syslinux httpd dhcp Configure tftp mkdir /tftpboot vi /etc/xinetd.d/tftp service tftp { socket_type             = dgram protocol                = udp wait                    = yes user                    = root server                  = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd server_args             = -s -v /tftpboot… Read more »

Compiling Dansguardian with Increased MaxChildren

squid

I have three main proxy servers running Squid, Squidguard and DansGuardian servicing over 1300 desktop computers. The stock DansGuardian code includes a setting to limit the number of potential DansGuardian child processes to the operating system file descriptor limits. I have managed to increase this to 900 but would like to push it further. The setting… Read more »

smbclient: Special Characters and UTF-8

I have a PHP web application that communicates to Windows Shares via the smbclient binary. My problem was that some characters (particularly accented characters such as é ) were not being shown on the PHP page and were even causing lines of output to be omitted. After ensuring the PHP page was outputting UTF8 I… Read more »

CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo

coolermaster-hyper-212-evo

I ordered a CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo from Amazon for £26.50 to keep my machine a little cooler than the stock heat sink. The two heat sinks are shown below. The CoolerMaster is much bigger and could be a struggle to get in to most cases but I am very happy with the results. It… Read more »

WordPress Bulk Actions with WP-CLI

I manage a WordPress Multi-user environment and needed to bulk add LDAP users (which is already quite easy) and also to bulk create blogs for users – which I couldn’t find an easy method for. I started exploring how I could script the creation of this when I happened upon WP-CLI. yum install git Then… Read more »

RSA Security Console Forgotten Admin Password

RSA Security Console

My colleague forgot the password he used for the admin user account on the RSA Security Console – since it needs to be changed and a previously used password cannot be re-used. We have it installed on a Windows Server 2008 so to create a temporary admin account: Open Command Prompt Change directory to the… Read more »

Media Streaming on Ubuntu with Mediatomb

mediatomb

Install with: sudo apt-get install mediatomb Amend the /etc/mediatomb/config.xml file. I find the  configuration below works well for all the video types I throw at it. Then access the web interface at http://localhost:49152 logging in with mediatomb/mediatomb and add some video directories to be served. <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?> <config version=”2″ xmlns=”http://mediatomb.cc/config/2″ xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance” xsi:schemaLocation=”http://mediatomb.cc/config/2 http://mediatomb.cc/config/2.xsd”><!– Read /usr/share/doc/mediatomb-common/README.gz… Read more »