Category Archives: computers

Unable to boot from USB thumbdrive running ESXi 5.5

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Installing vmware EXSI 5.5 free i came across a problem on my HP XW6600, after the installation finished and the system rebooted. the only message i saw was “Non-System Disk or disk error …”, this error is because of lack of UEFI support on the XW6600, therefore the EXSI 5.x installer needs to be told to use MBR boot instead of UEFI boot..

When booting the installer you get the opportunity to press SHIFT+O to edit the boot options.

Then write at the prompt: formatwithmbr (remember to make a space between the runweasel and formatwithmbr)

Then follow the normal EXSI install and the XW6600 should boot withoput any problems.

Installing VMware tools on Debian Wheezy 7.x

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06-01-2018: instead of using the below guide Install Open VM Tools:  https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2073803

Install the tools for building VMware tools on the host:

$ aptitude update
$ aptitude install gcc make
$ aptitude install build-essential
$ aptitude install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Press the Install vmware tools in vSpehere Client for the VM.

Copy the VMware tools to the VM:

$ mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
$ cp /mnt/VMwareTools-8.6.10-913593.tar.gz /opt/
$ cd /opt
$ tar xfzv VMwareTools-8.6.10-913593.tar.gz

Install VMware tools:

$ cd vmware-tools-distrib/
$ perl vmware-install.pl

Next follow the installation instructions on the screen.

Then reboot the virtual machine and check the VMware Tools is running, by checking the status in the virtual machine with the vSphere client.

you can check locally on the VM that the tool is running by doing the following command:

$ service vmware-tools status
  vmtoolsd is running

Screen and irssi encodning.

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Got this from a thread on the internet:

Section 1. Configuration

Follow the following steps. Please do not use scandinavic
characters until you have proceeded configuring irssi & screen
since they probably will not work properly while the
configuration is not finished.

Step 1. Connect to the server to run your irssi on

Step 2. Shut down your irssi

/quit

Step 3. Close the screen you were running it in (if it didn’t already)

Step 4. Backup your current irssi & screen configuration:

$ tar czf irssi-backup.tar.gz .irssi .screenr*

Step 5. If you have a line starting “defencoding” in ~/.screenrc, remove it

Step 6. Start screen like you usually do, but add a -U parameter

$ screen -U

or perhaps

$ screen -U -S irc

This makes screen understand that irssi talks utf-8 to screen

Step 7. Configure irssi to talk utf-8 to screen but use iso-8859-15 charset by default for all windows

Copy-paste the following commands to the irssi console:

/set term_charset utf-8
/set recode_autodetect_utf8 ON
/set recode_fallback ISO-8859-15
/set recode_out_default_charset ISO-8859-15
/set recode_transliterate ON
/set recode ON

Step 8. Detach screen (typically by pressing ctrl-a d)

Ta-da! Now you have configured irssi and screen to work properly.

How do I shut down a workstation via Remote Desktop?

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depending on the setup of your windows try the 2 solutions:

1:
Ctrl+Alt+End This should be the same as Ctrl+Alt+Del and consequently takes you to a dialog where you can do various system-type things, among them logging off and shutting down.

2:
Another trick is to click on the desktop and press Alt+F4. This will call up the shutdown dialog, where you get the usual shutdown options like “Shut down”, “Shut down without installing updates”, “Restart”, “Stand by”, and “Hibernate”.

HDHomeRun HD3-4DC and Linux (Yousee and Stofa)

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A buddy of mine bought 2 HDHomeRun HD3-4DC and wanted to use this on a Ubuntu 12.04 Server
the problem with Ubuntu 12.04 is that the DVB kernel headers was removed from the normal header packages.

first make sure that your network has a working DHCP server, and that the HDhomeRun is connected to the network and that the antenna cable is connected.

first we need to add the ppa repository from
https://launchpad.net/~tfylliv/+archive/dvbhdhomerun

Adding the PPA repository:

$ add-apt-repository ppa:tfylliv/dvbhdhomerun
$ apt-get update

Kernel driver:
Next we need the kernel headers and the missing headers:
i my case the server was using the following kernel, linux-image-3.8.0-39-generic
the missing DVB headers i grapped from Kernel.org

# apt-get install linux-headers-3.8.0-39-generic
$ wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/linux-3.8.tar.gz

Unpack the headers:

$ tar zxfv linux-3.8.tar.gz

Next copy the missing headers to the Ubuntu headers:

$ cp -R /linux-3.8/drivers/media/dvb-core/* /usr/src/linux-headers-3.8.0-39/drivers/media/dvb-core/
$ cp -R /linux-3.8/drivers/media/dvb-frontends/* /usr/src/linux-headers-3.8.0-39/drivers/media/dvb-frontends/

Installing the hdhomerun dkms and utils:

$ apt-get install dvbhdhomerun-dkms dvbhdhomerun-utils

This should build the dvb_hdhomerun kernel driver and the userhdhomerun userspace and the necessary script to run the userspace service,

try initialize the kernel driver:

$ modprobe dvb_hdhomerun

this should give something like this when looking at dmesg

[   17.893873] HDHomeRun: Begin init, version 0.0.16
[   17.897220] HDHomeRun: Waiting for userspace to connect
[   17.897228] HDHomeRun: End init

Setup Tuners:

We need to locate the names of the tuner in my case we actually have 2 of them :).

$ hdhomerun_config discover
hdhomerun device 141001A7 found at 192.168.1.136
hdhomerun device 14101464 found at 192.168.1.130

make a note of the name of the tuners i my case they are named: 141001A7 and 14101464.
next edit /etc/dvbhdhomerun

$ nano /etc/dvbhdhomerun

my config file looks like this:

# Remember to exchange the XXXXYYYY-Z with the serial number of your HDHomeRun
# tuner:

# Auto detect tuner type is not possible in all cases, so you can force it
# DVB-C
# DVB-T
# ATSC

[141001A7-0]
tuner_type=DVB-C

[141001A7-1]
tuner_type=DVB-C

[141001A7-2]
tuner_type=DVB-C

[141001A7-3]
tuner_type=DVB-C

[14101464-0]
tuner_type=DVB-C

[14101464-1]
tuner_type=DVB-C

[14101464-2]
tuner_type=DVB-C

[14101464-3]
tuner_type=DVB-C

# You can use a full name including tuner ID. Meaning the tuner will appear as
# "HDHomeRun DVB-C 1234EA3D-0" instead of just "HDHomeRun DVB-C" in for example
# TVHeadend.

[141001A7-0]
use_full_name=true

[141001A7-1]
use_full_name=true

[141001A7-2]
use_full_name=true

[141001A7-3]
use_full_name=true



[14101464-0]
use_full_name=true

[14101464-1]
use_full_name=true

[14101464-2]
use_full_name=true

[14101464-3]
use_full_name=true


# You can disable certain tuners. As default all detected hdhomeruns are used

#[XXXXYYYY-2]
#disable=true


# Enable additional logging  from libhdhomerun itself
[libhdhomerun]
enable=true
enable=true
logfile=/var/log/dvbhdhomerun_libhdhomerun.log

Now restart the dvbhdhomerun-utils

$ service dvbhdhomerun-utils restart

dmesg should show something like this:

[   19.050534] hdhomerun: userhdhomerun connected
[   19.050574] hdhomerun: userhdhomerun connected
[   19.050588] hdhomerun: creating dvb device for 141001A7-0
[   19.050688] DVB: registering new adapter (HDHomeRun)
[   19.110568] HDHomeRun HDHomeRun.0: DVB: registering adapter 0 frontend 0 (HDHomeRun DVB-C 141001A7-0)...
[   19.110685] HDHomeRun0: DVB Frontend registered
[   19.110688] HDHomeRun0: Registered DVB adapter0
[   19.110728] hdhomerun: device /dev/hdhomerun_data0 created
[   19.110971] hdhomerun: userhdhomerun connected
[   19.110984] hdhomerun: creating dvb device for 141001A7-1
[   19.111065] DVB: registering new adapter (HDHomeRun)
[   19.112681] HDHomeRun HDHomeRun.1: DVB: registering adapter 1 frontend 0 (HDHomeRun DVB-C 141001A7-1)...
[   19.112722] HDHomeRun1: DVB Frontend registered
[   19.112724] HDHomeRun1: Registered DVB adapter1
[   19.112762] hdhomerun: device /dev/hdhomerun_data1 created
[   19.112959] hdhomerun: userhdhomerun connected
[   19.112969] hdhomerun: creating dvb device for 141001A7-2
[   19.113058] DVB: registering new adapter (HDHomeRun)
[   19.115142] HDHomeRun HDHomeRun.2: DVB: registering adapter 2 frontend 0 (HDHomeRun DVB-C 141001A7-2)...
[   19.115221] HDHomeRun2: DVB Frontend registered
[   19.115223] HDHomeRun2: Registered DVB adapter2
[   19.115264] hdhomerun: device /dev/hdhomerun_data2 created
[   19.115456] hdhomerun: userhdhomerun connected
[   19.115467] hdhomerun: creating dvb device for 141001A7-3
[   19.115558] DVB: registering new adapter (HDHomeRun)
[   19.115904] HDHomeRun HDHomeRun.3: DVB: registering adapter 3 frontend 0 (HDHomeRun DVB-C 141001A7-3)...
[   19.115951] HDHomeRun3: DVB Frontend registered
[   19.115953] HDHomeRun3: Registered DVB adapter3
[   19.115985] hdhomerun: device /dev/hdhomerun_data3 created

The hdhomerun is now connected.

Scanning for DVB-C channels:
As i live in Denmark, the most common DVB-C providers are Yousee and Stofa

for Yousee use the following setup:

$ hdhomerun_config XXXXXXXX set /sys/dvbc_modulation a8qam64-6875

for Stofa use the following setup:

$ hdhomerun_config XXXXXXXX set /sys/dvbc_modulation a8qam64-6900

Next we need to setup the tuners:

$ hdhomerun_config  XXXXXXXX set /tuner0/channelmap eu-cable
$ hdhomerun_config  XXXXXXXX set /tuner1/channelmap eu-cable
$ hdhomerun_config  XXXXXXXX set /tuner2/channelmap eu-cable
$ hdhomerun_config  XXXXXXXX set /tuner3/channelmap eu-cable

finally we can scan the muxes for channels:

$ hdhomerun_config XXXXXXXX scan 0 hdhomerun.log

the scan takes some time so be patience

if you are going to install TVheadend you should do the following to the log file:

For Yousee:

awk '{if ($1 ~ /SCANNING/) print "\n" $2; else print $0}' hdhomerun.log | awk 'BEGIN { RS = "" ; FS = "\n" } { if (length($4) > 0) print "C " $1 " 6875000 NONE QAM64" }' > dk-YouSee

For Stofa:

awk '{if ($1 ~ /SCANNING/) print "\n" $2; else print $0}' hdhomerun.log | awk 'BEGIN { RS = "" ; FS = "\n" } { if (length($4) > 0) print "C " $1 " 6875000 NONE QAM64" }' > dk-Stofa

the generated file is readable by TVheadend and should make it more easy to find the channels.

Notes:

If you wanne update the firmware for the hdhomerun you can do this with the hdhomerun_config tool by doing:
(check Silicondust’s homepage for newer releases)

$ wget http://download.silicondust.com/hdhomerun/hdhomerun3_dvbc_firmware_20140121.bin
$ hdhomerun_config 14101464 upgrade hdhomerun3_dvbc_firmware_20140121.bin

References:

http://tommy.winther.nu/wordpress/2013/06/21/opsaetning-af-hdhomerun-dual/
https://launchpad.net/~tfylliv/+archive/dvbhdhomerun
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/dvbhdhomerun/wiki/FAQ#RebuildkernelmodulesinUbuntu
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/dvbhdhomerun/wiki/UbuntuPackages
 

Installing Apache::Gallery

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This is a step by step guide for installing Apache::Gallery (libapache-gallery-perl) on Debian, this will possible also work for Ubuntu.

The system i did the installation on was a Debian 7 (Wheezy).

First lets install the basic packages:
first install Apache 2:

aptitude install apache2

Now for perl:

aptitude install libapache2-mod-perl2

now for Image::Imlib2:

aptitude install libimage-imlib2-perl

Finaly install Apache:Gallery:

aptitude install libapache-gallery-perl

now make the apache config for the new gallery site, in my case i addet a virtual host to my apache config:

i choose to use the /var/www/gallery as the place for my photos, feel free to use any other place.

Now for the apache config, this is straight forward, if in trouble look at this link: debian-administration.org

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName   testserver01.some.com
        DocumentRoot /var/www/gallery/  #<----- make sure this directory is readable by www-data
        ErrorLog     /var/log/gallery-error_log
        TransferLog  /var/log/gallery-access_log
        PerlSetVar   GalleryTemplateDir '/usr/share/libapache-gallery-perl/templates/default'
        PerlSetVar   GalleryInfo 'Camera => Model, Picture Taken => DateTimeOriginal, Flash => Flash, ShutterSpeed => ShutterSpe$
        PerlSetVar   GallerySizes '640 1024 1600 2272'
        PerlSetVar   GalleryThumbnailSize '100x75'
        <Location />
            SetHandler  perl-script
            PerlHandler Apache::Gallery
        </Location>
</VirtualHost>

restart apache with:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Apache:gallery will properly generate a error looking something like this (look at /var/log/gallery-error_log):

unable to writhe to /var/cache/www/testserver01.some.com

make the directory and make sure www-data have writing access.

Now for the gallery.css file.
Place gallery.css in the gallery root directory (in this example /var/www/gallery)

use this code for the css style:

body {
    background-color: #cccccc;
    font-family: Verdana, Lucida, Arial;
    font-size: 10px;
    margin-left: 10px;
    margin-top: 10px;
    text-align: center;
}
td {
    font-size: 10px;
}
table {
    margin-left: auto;
    margin-right: auto;
}
#menu {
    font-size: 11px;
    text-align: left;
    height: 30px;
}
#nav {
    font-size: 11px;
    text-align: left;
    height: 30px;
    text-align: right;
}
#directory {
    background-color: #ffffff;
    border: 1px solid #666666;
    padding: 20px;
    text-align: left;
    top: 0px;
}
#folder {
    float: left;
    height: 100px;
    padding: 2px;
    text-align: center;
    width: 120px;
}
#picture img {
    border: 1px solid #000000;
}
a {
    color: #5555aa;
}
a img {
    border: 2px solid #5555aa;
}
a:hover {
    color: #ff9400;
}
a:hover img {
    border: 2px solid #ff9400;
}
#folder img {
    border: 0px;
}
.info {
    background-color: #eeeeee;
    border: 1px dashed #888888;
    color: #666666;
    font-size: 10px;
    margin: 10px;
    padding: 5px;
}

make the following directory /usr/share/apache2/icons/gallery and copy the icons from /usr/share/libapache-gallery-perl/icons to the new directory

restart Apache.

there you have it there should be a working gallery now 🙂

remember to add some photos to the new gallery

more info can be found at http://apachegallery.dk/

 

 

Updating Debian squeeze to wheezy

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Find word squeeze and replace with wheezy. At the end it should look as follows:

 
deb http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ wheezy main
deb-src http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ wheezy main

deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main

# wheezy-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main
deb-src http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main

To update the package list, enter:

# apt-get update

do a update of the base system, enter:

# apt-get upgrade

Now upgrade the rest of the system, enter:

# apt-get dist-upgrade

Reboot the system:

you can verify your debian version by entering:

$ lsb_release -a

the output should look something like this:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Debian
Description:	Debian GNU/Linux 7.0 (wheezy)
Release:	7.0
Codename:	wheezy