My SysAd Blog -- Unix

Issues With an Orphaned .attribute^ File

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:07:00 +0000

We had intriguing problem related to a Unix-based directory. This directory was mapped to Windows via Citrix.

On the Windows side, the initial thought was that the folder was simply "hidden" via the attributes, which would be normal. However, the attributes for the folder didn't show the hidden option selected.

Recently, we performed an account migration activity on the Unix side. The culprit turn out to be an orphaned .attribute^ file on the Unix side. Apparently, this file's username and group was deleted prior to migration, and its state unexpectedly caused the directory's contents to be invisible to Windows-based viewers.

At any rate, we finally noticed the file with the ls -al command. The .attribute^ file was removed from the Unix side and viewing was back to normal on the Windows side.

ftpconfig - Setup Anonymous FTP

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:10:00 +0000

To setup an anonymous FTP account, you might consider using the ftpconfig script. It seems to be a lot easier to setup an anon FTP account with Solaris 10 than it was for Solaris 8. The anon users log in and then they are given restricted access to a mini-root filesystem.

Here is the syntax.

# ftpconfig someftpdir
or
# ftpconfig -d someftpdir

If you have problems, you may have to check files in the /etc/ftpd directory. Hint: check the ftpaccess file

No Space Left on Device!

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:26:00 +0000

About two weeks ago, my colleague and I had an issue with the /var partition on a seldom used Sun Blade 2500 workstation. Frankly speaking, I thought a simple fsck would suffice while in single user mode. Not quite. Anyway, we executed fsck on the partition and it "fixed" whatever errors reported. And while in single user mode, we wrote test files to the partition without incident. However, once we booted to init 3 run level, we still could not write to the /var partition, not even as root. That was a bit strange because df -k reported only 20% of the partition was used. hmmm...inode problem?? Then we looked through the logs and noticed a message about not having enough space on the device – in short, we ran out of inodes. Almost immediately, we suspected a problem with mail. We checked the mqueue directory and it contained almost a 1,000,000 small extraneous/useless messages from cron. We deleted most of them (after a few hours) and it resolved the issue. And yes, we got a handle on the cron that was generating those messages.

Troubleshooting Domain Issues with My SysAd Blog - Again

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:18:00 +0000

Late last night (KST), I was reviewing my free MyBlogLog stats and noticed 8 visitors had stopped by the blog. Usually, by that time, mysysad would have had several hundred visits. I surfed over to the domain and verified it was down (this blog is hosted on the blogger.com platform and it is pointing to a custom domain). However, the blog was working with the old address, http://esofthub.blogspot.com

I pinged the old IP address - no answer. Then I pinged ghs.google.com, and it responded with a different IP address. I used that new address to update my A-Records with my domain registrar -- yahoo.

After 20-30 minutes of propagation, the mysysad.com domain was back online.

By the way, I just pinged the old address twice...no response. Update: 7 hours later - pinged again - no answer

Here is another post I wrote a few months ago about a similar issue...

My SysAd Blog Temporarily Reverts to its former Blogspot URL

142857 is an Interesting Number

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:45:00 +0000

A couple of days ago a colleague sent me this interesting number, 142857, via email. I performed a Google search on the number and I was surprised to see so many returns - 190,000. It even has its own wiki page. For additional information, here is the wiki page for this cyclic number - 142857.

Below is the email.

Subject: Interesting Numbers

Roy,

I want to let you know a weird number which is 142857.

Why?

142857 X 1 = 142857
142857 X 2 = 285714
142857 X 3 = 428571
142857 X 4 = 571428
142857 X 5 = 714285
142857 X 6 = 857142

See, the answers show all same numbers with different position.

142857 X 7 = 999999

142 + 857 = 999
14 + 28 + 57 = 99

142857 X 142857 = 20408122449
20408 + 122449 = 142857

Interesting, huh?

Pipe Symbols are Missing from Some Posts

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:52:00 +0000

You might have already noticed some of my theme formatting attempts appeared to have removed essential characters - in particular, the pipe symbols. I will try to go back and fix them when I get some time. I just want you to be aware of the inconvenience. Thanks Mr. Mendoza.

Gilbert Mendoza said...
Hey there. Just as an FYI, I believe your theme formatting has removed essential characters from some of your posts. For example, none of the pipe symbols separating each of the stringed commands are showing.
4/25/09 1:15 PM

esofthub said...
You're right Gilbert Mendoza. I just check a few posts and the "|" are missing. I guess changing between themes deleted them.
4/25/09 3:15 PM

Field 'user_website' doesn't have a default value

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:45:00 +0000

I received a few complaints about not being able to register an account on my phpbb forum. To confirm, I tried creating a test account.

Here were the results:

General Error

SQL ERROR [ mysql4 ]

Field 'user_website' doesn't have a default value [1364]

An SQL error occurred while fetching this page. Please contact the Board Administrator if this problem persists.

Please notify the board administrator or webmaster: some one @gmail.com

In my case, here was the fix. Of course, make sure you backup your database.

http://www.phpbb.com/kb/article/doesnt-have-a-default-value-errors/

I ran the commands via phpmyadmin. It works fine now.

Determine Java Runtime Environment Version

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:26:00 +0000

A few days ago I was asked for a quick and easy way to determine what java runtime environment version was installed via the Unix command line. The requester was trying to determine possible compatibility issues for some recently purchased applications.

Bear in mind that you may have multiple JRE environments installed on your box so consider the PATH value -- meaning you might have to specify an absolute path. e.g. /usr/some_java_version/bin/java

Here is the Unix one-liner syntax using default path

% java -version
java version "1.x.x_xx)

...

By the way, it is the same syntax for Windows.

C:\Users\mysysad> java -version
java version "1.x.0_xx"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.x.0_xx-xxx)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build xx.3-bxx, mixed mode, sharing)

Access a Tape Drive Device From a non-global Zone

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:48:00 +0000

A couple days ago, I had a friend who wanted to know how to access a tape device from his Solaris 10 non-global zone.

Here is an example on how to add a device to an existing non-global zone. By the way, the commands below are ran from the global zone, and you will have to reboot the non-global zone.

# zoneadm list
mysysad-global

# zonecfg -z sysad
zonecfg:sysad> add device
zonecfg:sysad:device> set match=/dev/rmt/0n
zonecfg:sysad:device> end
zonecfg:sysad> verify
zonecfg:sysad> commit
zonecfg:sysad> exit

# zoneadm -z sysad reboot

After the reboot, you should be able to access the tape drive from the non-global zone.

Disable On-screen Keyboard on Startup

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I was playing around with a few of Vista's settings on my laptop. Unfortunately, one of those settings was the “On-Screen Keyboard.” I had the utility set to automatically start up each time I logged on; however, I did not want or need that convenience. After a few more logins, it got really annoying. It was time to unset the setting, but it took me awhile to rediscover the setting and uncheck it.

At any rate, here is the path to the setting via the control panel.

Control Panel=>Ease of Access Center=>Use the computer without a mouse or
keyboard=>On-screen keyboard (uncheck it and then Save)

Create Tarballs Greater Than 2GB

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:07:00 +0000

I was tarring a Unix-based application today when I encountered tar's 2GB file size limit. Frankly speaking, I was a bit surprised the application was greater than 2GB because it was only few hundred megabytes a few years ago. Anyway, to get around this annoying limitation, I used the -E option, but it did not work. I realized that I was using a non-standard tar binary because of redefined paths -- per site policy. I specified the absolute path for the OS-based tar command and the tar activity worked fine.

Here is an example.

# /usr/bin/tar -cvfpE GreaterThan2GB.tar /opt/MYAPP

Identify Zone Processes via Global Zone

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:24:00 +0000

I had a colleague of mine ask a question about how to identify processes that belong to a particular zone via the global zone because the global zone “sees” everything. Recently, I attended a class and it covered the "deltas" between Solaris 10 and Solaris 8 and this question surfaced there, too.

The quick answer is to use the "-Z" option, which is the uppercase form.

Here is an example from the global zone.

# /usr/bin/ps -efZ

Clean-up Dangling Dev Links - sp diff: name finddevice

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:42:00 +0000

A couple weeks ago we encountered the "sp diff" message below on bootup. The message iterated about 15-20 times before continuing the final bootup sequence, which took at least twice as long as normal.

A colleague of mine recalled performing some multipathing activities a few days earlier and thought there might be some dangling dev links as a result.

To resolve the issue, the devfsadm command was executed in cleanup mode, -C.

sp diff: name finddevice, nargs 1, nret 1,sp 0xf05d35b8 osp 0xf05d35a8

...

# devfsadm -C -v

# init 6

Update: A message from a colleague who requested not to be named.

stmsboot -e will enable multipathing, the system needs to be rebooted in order for it to take effect.

When the system comes up, you will notice long device names in

/dev/dsk/. It may be coincidence but I noticed that the number of

multipathing devices listed match the number of sp diff lines that are

displayed.

Next, I did a stmsboot -d to disable multipathing and rebooted the

system. When the system came back online, I still saw the sp diff lines.

Lastly, I did the devfsadm -C -v and I saw it clean up the device links. I rebooted the system again and the sp diff lines were gone.

You would think that disabling multipathing should delete the links but

it doesn't.

http://manpages.unixforum.co.uk/man-pages/unix/solaris-10-11_06/1M/stmsboot-manpage.html

Use Z-Shell for loop to Compact Argument List

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:20:00 +0000

The other day I pinged a number of remote workstations to observe Round Trip Times (RTT) but forgot to eliminate a few series of contiguously numbered remotes that were known to be powered-off. Needless to say, the pinging effort was taking longer than it should have -- I promptly aborted the effort. Here is an example of a compact way of performing this common task using a Z-Shell for loop.

# zsh
# for blog in {1..5} {7..13} {15..22} {27..37}
for> ping -s mysysad$blog 1024 5

My SysAd Blog Temporarily Reverts to its Legacy Blogspot URL

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:41:00 +0000

This evening I was checking my web statistics and noticed mysysad.com's traffic had plummeted. At first, I thought it had something to do with me adding a comment widget. You know the deal..."what did you change?" is a common sysad retort. But I quickly realize that was not the issue; it was a DNS issue. Here is a run of the events using the ubiquitous ping command. By the way, I have linked back to sysad several times because I have my very own unsolicited blog scraper.

Checking Google Server (nslookup and ping)

C:\Users\esoft>ping ghs.google.com

Pinging ghs.l.google.com [209.85.171.121] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 209.85.171.121: bytes=32 time=128ms TTL=236
Reply from 209.85.171.121: bytes=32 time=155ms TTL=236
Reply from 209.85.171.121: bytes=32 time=129ms TTL=236
Reply from 209.85.171.121: bytes=32 time=155ms TTL=236

Ping statistics for 209.85.171.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 128ms, Maximum = 155ms, Average = 141ms

Pinging My SysAd Blog

C:\Users\esoft>ping mysysad.com

Pinging mysysad.com [64.233.179.121] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 64.233.179.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Pinging My SysAd Blog but now by IP

C:\Users\esoft>ping 64.233.179.121

Pinging 64.233.179.121 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 64.233.179.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Pinging another known Google Server IP (ghs.google.com) for Blogspot

C:\Users\esoft>ping 66.249.81.121

Pinging 66.249.81.121 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 66.249.81.121:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Reverted My SysAd Blog to its legacy Blogspot URL via backend

C:\Users\esoft>ping esofthub.blogspot.com

Pinging blogspot.l.google.com [72.14.207.191] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 72.14.207.191: bytes=32 time=182ms TTL=237
Reply from 72.14.207.191: bytes=32 time=207ms TTL=237
Reply from 72.14.207.191: bytes=32 time=181ms TTL=237
Reply from 72.14.207.191: bytes=32 time=179ms TTL=237

Ping statistics for 72.14.207.191:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 179ms, Maximum = 207ms, Average = 187ms

Pinging esofthub.blogspot.com IP

C:\Users\esoft>ping 72.14.207.121

Pinging 72.14.207.121 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=210ms TTL=237
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=210ms TTL=237
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=179ms TTL=237
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=182ms TTL=237

Ping statistics for 72.14.207.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 179ms, Maximum = 210ms, Average = 195ms

Edited A-Record settings with my domain registrar, yahoo.com, and then returned My SysAd Blog to www.mysysad.com via Blogger's backend...waited a few minutes

C:\Users\esoft>ping mysysad.com

Pinging mysysad.com [72.14.207.121] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=207ms TTL=239
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=178ms TTL=239
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=180ms TTL=239
Reply from 72.14.207.121: bytes=32 time=181ms TTL=239

Ping statistics for 72.14.207.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 178ms, Maximum = 207ms, Average = 186ms

C:\Users\esoft>

Here is another domain name issue I had back in April 2008

http://www.mysysad.com/2008/04/my-sysad-blog-changes-domain-name.html

copy running-config startup-config

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:19:00 +0000

We had an issue a couple weeks ago when our power failed and so did the UPS. At first, everything seem to come back online as usual but later we noticed a "network issue." We didn't think much of it because operations were only somewhat degraded. After a few more tests, we noticed that our old style Cisco ATM switch had reverted to our legacy configuration. Apparently, the new running configuaration was not saved.

At any rate, here are the steps to save the running configuration for this particular IOS.

Hyperterminal or Telnet into switch

enable

Password goes here

config terminal

run your configuration commands here

...

and soforth

control+Z

enable

copy running-config startup-config (save permanently)

show running-config

show startup-config

A Blogger is Copying Your Contents "ditto"

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:07:00 +0000

Anonymous said...

Think this guy http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/ftp-using-one-liner-and-perl-script.html is copying your contents "ditto"

chk out

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/ftp-using-one-liner-and-perl-script.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/ftp-using-shell-script.html

=======

I was notified by the aforementioned My SysAd Blog commenter that another blogger was blatantly lifting content from "My SysAd Blog." I tried contacting the blogger but he or she was missing contact information on their blog. I left a comment on one of the offending posts regarding the infraction. Frankly speaking, I do not mind people using the tips or even copying them but do not copy without linking back. I appreciate the commenter who brought this to my attention. Thanks.

So far, I found 13 posts that were verbatim on the blog. I left a comment on this post, unable-to-switch-user.html, and I noticed it has since been deleted.

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/10/strip-prepended-string-from-filename.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/10/mounting-iso-and-dd-image-files.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/unable-to-switch-user.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/ftp-using-shell-script.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/common-unix-find-commands.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/howto-remove-file-or-directory.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/inline-shell-script-with-for-loop.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/determine-directory-size-recursively.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/11/ftp-using-one-liner-and-perl-script.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/10/hardware-mismatch-for-fibre-channel.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/10/convert-decimal-to-hexadecimal-octal-or.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/10/delete-user-account-with-userdel-via.html

http://*tips.blogspot.com/2008/10/install-solaris-boot-block.html

Strip a Prepended String From a Filename - Unix

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:34:00 +0000

I had a process that was pre-pending by design its PID to a file name string. But unfortunately, it caused a few unexpected problems when this handling process inadvertently terminated. I had to rename the files without the defunct pre-pended PID string and then reprocess them (several thousand).

Here is what I used as a quick and dirty procedure.

# csh
# ls
prependPID_filename_etc1 prependPID_filename_etc2 prependPID_filename_etc3 prependPID_filename_etc4
# foreach filename (prependPID*)
? mv $filename `echo $filename | sed 's/prependPID_//'`
? end
# ls
filename_etc1 filename_etc2 filename_etc3 filename_etc4

# zsh
# ls
prependPID_filename_etc1 prependPID_filename_etc2 prependPID_filename_etc3 prependPID_filename_etc4
# for i in prependPID*
for> mv $i `echo $i | sed 's/prependPID_//'`
# ls
filename_etc1 filename_etc2 filename_etc3 filename_etc4

IrfanView - Comprehensive Graphic Viewer for Windows

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:27:00 +0000

Yesterday, we were trying to run a couple practice exams via CD to prepare for a security based certification. However, our normal players didn't support the required file format. As usual, it was time to perform a quick Internet search. After awhile, I found this one viewer, IrfanView, which supported many different file formats - to include the one I was searching for. I downloaded the viewer and then later its plugins. It worked like a champ for my particular task. Anyways, here is some information about IrfanView and its supported file formats.

From Mr. Irfan Skiljan's website:

What is IrfanView?

IrfanView is a very fast, compact and innovative FREEWARE image viewer/converter for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

IrfanView is fast and small, with extremely low system resources requirements. It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.

Supported file formats:
AIF, ANI/CUR, ASF, AU/SND, AVI, AWD, B3D, BMP/DIB, CAD formats, CLP, DDS, Dicom/ACR, DJVU, ECW, EMF/WMF, EPS/PS/PDF, EXR, FITS, FPX (FlashPix), FSH, G3, GIF, HDR, HDP/WDP, ICO/ICL/EXE/DLL, IFF/LBM, IMG (GEM), JPG2000, JPG, JPM, KDC, LDF, LWF, MED, MID/RMI, MNG/JNG,OV, MP3, MPG, MrSID, NLM/NOL/NGG, OGG, PBM/PGM/PPM, PCX/DCX, PhotoCD, PNG, PSD, PSP, PVR, RAS/SUN, RAW, Real Audio (RA), RLE, SFF, SFW, SGI/RGB, SWF/FLV, TGA, TIF, TTF, TXT, WAD, WAV, WBMP, XBM, XPM, CRW/CR2, VTF, DNG, NEF, ORF, RAF, MRW, DCR, X3F, PEF, SRF, EFF, DXF, DWG, HPGL, CGM, SVG, etc.

Some features of IrfanView:
Multi language support, thumbnail option, slideshow, fast directory browsing, batch conversion/editing, multipage editing, file search, email, print, Paint plugin - to paint lines, circles, arrows, straighten image etc., support for color profiles, change color depth, scanning, cut/crop, IPTC edit, capturing, lossless JPG operations, effects (sharpen, blur, Adobe Photoshop filters), EXE/SCR creating, many hotkeys, many command line options, 50+ plugins...

Microsoft Media Player Plug-In: allows IrfanView to read following formats: ASF, AU/SND/AIF, AVI, MID/RMI, MOV, MP3, MPG/MPEG, WAV, WMA, WMV.

Support for Apple QuickTime (Plug-In): allows IrfanView to read following formats: MOV, QTIF, Mac PICT, and FLI/FLC.

IrfanView was the first Windows graphic viewer (worldwide) with Animated-GIF support!

FREEWARE for non commercial use!

By the way, this was an unsolicited and unpaid post.

Mounting ISO and DD Image Files

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:06:00 +0000

Occasionally, I'll download an image file and want to see what is on it, or make a few changes to it before burning it to CD.

The image file (dd, iso, etc) can be mounted using the loop device. You will need to know the type of filesystem the image uses.

Most Linux/Unix-based OS's have an application that will help you identify the filesystem type. Debian includes the command /lib/udev/vol_id, SUSE has the same command but in a different location (/sbin/vol_id). If you know how to get this information on a SUN box, please leave a comment for us.

If you don't have a command that will tell you the filesystem type, you can guess. Most images downloaded from the Internet will be iso9660, Windows filesystems are normally ntfs, Linux are commonly ext2, and Macintosh are udf or hfs.

As a last resort, you can work your way down the list of filesystem types listed in the mount man pages.

After you know the filesystem type, you are ready to mount.
Note: replace <_type> with the filesystem type.

To mount the file livebootcd.iso with write enabled:

mount -t <_type> -o loop ./livebootcd.iso /mnt

To mount an image made from a Windows partition in read-only mode:

mount -t ntfs -o loop,ro,umask=0222 ./evidence.dd /mnt

Post provided by Mary M. Chaddock

Hardware Mismatch for Fibre Channel Hard Drive

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:32:00 +0000

We had a hard drive (FC) mismatch and had to rebuild the path_to_inst file and /dev/rdsk/*, /dev/dsk/* and /dev/rmt/* directories. We had two drives (but the backup drive was inoperable), so instead of booting off the backup, we had to recover via cdrom. That part was a little trickier than expected. After a little web searching, a handy disaster discovery procedure (hardware mismatch) was found on the Sun BigAdmin site.

Method 1 (towards the bottom of the Sun page)

Here is what was done.

Boot from CDROM
ok boot cdrom -s
# mount /dev/dsk/c1t#d#s0 /mnt
Rename path_to_inst
# mv /mnt/etc/path_to_inst /mnt/etc/path_to_inst.org
Remove all old device links
# rm /mnt/dev/rdsk/c1*; rm /mnt/dev/dsk/c1*; rm /mnt/dev/rmt/*
Rebuild path_to_inst and devices (this (syntax) was the part we were missing)
# devfsadm -r /mnt -p /mnt/etc/path_to_inst
**Note: Suspect corrupted bootblock? - reinstall it.
# cd /mnt/usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs
# /mnt/usr/sbin/installboot bootblk /dev/rdsk/c1t#d#s0
Unmount root slice and reboot
# cd /
# umount /mnt; init 6

By the way, we tried method two (boot -rav) prior to performing the web search but each attempt failed.

Unable to Switch User Error - su: no shell

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:14:00 +0000

We had some users complaining about not being able to switch or substitute user, su. Here is the error message they were receiving: "su: no shell.” At first I thought the users had inadvertently locked out their accounts. But after querying nisplus and checking the file-based users, I didn’t observe any locked accounts. I tried switching to various users from root and received the same error. Then I tried switching user on a different workstation - no problem. The problem was tied to a particular box.

Then we used the truss command to trace the system/lib calls. It pointed to an unexpected access/permission issue. Observed the /usr directory was set to 600. Frankly speaking, the permission problem was somewhat a surprise since it was working fine the previous day. At any rate, changed the permissions and things were back to normal.

# truss su esofthub

iPod Disconnected During Recharge

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 13:09:00 +0000

I know this topic is not Unix or sysadmin related, but I thought I'd document it for reference. This morning one of our personal home computers was inadvertently powered off while an iPod was recharging. To me, it didn't seem like a big deal. The PC was powered back up and the iPod was "reconnected" and it should be “okay.” But after six hours or so, I was frantically informed the iPod screen was still frozen – the "Do not disconnect" message and its related symbol were still displayed.

I started wondering if I was going to have to shell out another 400 bucks, especially since I was the inadvertent power off culprit. I asked for the manual but it was MIA--no surprise there. It was time for a quick Web search.

I found this little jewel on the Apple support site: “Try resetting your iPod to solve common problems by pressing and holding the Menu and Select buttons until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 10 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.”

Whew, it worked the first time.

Citrix Users Report Login Issue on Unix Workstation

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:18:00 +0000

A few days ago, one of our remote Citrix workstation users reported a login issue. Here was the error message displayed on the client interface.

"Your account is configured to prevent you from using this computer."

To fix the issue, I confidently used the "tried and true" procedure described below. At the same time, I was “showing” someone else how to address the issue. I was quite surprised when the procedure didn't work. The registry key values were not displaying in the right pane. The only thing showing up was the tree structure, no data. After awhile, I realized the regedt32 editor was not set to “View->Tree and Data”; it was only set for “View->Tree” structure. After making the trivial adjustment, we ran through the procedure without incident.

Here is the procedure - Source: MS Help and Support

Part 1: Disable the Security Policy
Disable the following Group Policy setting on either the default domain or the domain controller organizational unit:
Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Shut down your system immediately if unable to log security audits
You can find this policy on the default domain policy, default domain controller policy, and local security policy.

Note: After you disable the security policy, you must also remove the security policy registry key.

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Part 2: Edit the CrashOnAuditFail Registry Key
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedt32.exe, and then click OK.
3. Click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\CrashOnAuditFail
4. In the right pane, double-click CrashOnAuditFail.
5. In the Value data box, type 0 (zero), and then click OK.
6. Click Start, and then click Run.
7. In the Open box, type secedit /refreshpolicy machine_policy /enforce, and then click OK to apply the new security setting.
8. Restart your server.

System Administrator Appreciation Day

esofthub@gmail.com (esofthub) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 01:04:00 +0000

Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day. As SysAdminDay puts it, it is a thankless job for 364 days. You do not receive a lot of attention when things are going well. But when things do go wrong, you do, in deed, receive a lot attention - the type that spikes your stress level. You routinely get those dreaded calls between 12 am and 4 am or on your days off: "I need YOU to come in ASAP!" A lot of people will say that SysAdmins can just work from home. I wish. You can be rest assured that is not always the case or even possible (depending on the type of work).

By the way, you are reading this post because some underappreciated system administrator at Blogger is taking care of the "behind the scenes" activities - Thank you Mr/Ms. SysAd @Blogger.

But when it is all said and done for me, being a SysAdmin is one of the best darn occupations in the world. Frankly speaking, I really can not think of a more interesting profession.

By the way, today, we lost an inspirational leader in the field of computing: Dr. Randy Pausch, "Last Lecture Professor," 1960-2008