This blog describes how I set up a CentOS 6.5 VPS dev host for RDP access using “Microsoft Remote Desktop” from my Mac.
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Category: General
General thoughts.
Simple algorithm to insert commas (commaize) in 9 languages
This project contains nine different language implementations of a simple algorithm named “commaize” that inserts commas into a number. The languages are: bash, c++, java, javascript, perl, php, python, ruby and tcl. My hope is that it will be a useful reference.
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Simple remote control command execution tool (rctl.py)
I have written a public domain remote control tool call rctl.py that runs remote commands on one or more hosts to automate all sorts of different administration tasks. It consists of a single python script that does not require any configuration and does not require client side daemons (sometimes called minions) so no tool based client side installation is needed which makes it much simpler to setup and use compared to tools such as Puppet, Chef or salt. Of course it is not as powerful as those tools but it has met my modest needs for small networks (<100 hosts). I hope that you find it as useful as I have.
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PassMan – Browser Based Password Manager Released
Today I am officially releasing PassMan, my browser based password manager. It is a free, open-source tool written in javascript that allows you to securely manage password data in your browser locally without interactions with a remote server.
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Installing jshint and rhino for command line javascript analysis
I recently had to install jshint and rhino. It was a bit of a challenge because they needed ant and npm (node package manager). This blog describes what I did and provides a bash shell script that you can use.
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Managed to jail break and SIM unlock my iPhone 3GS (iOS 5.0.1, FW=06.15.00)
After many hours of effort, I finally managed to get my iPhone 3GS SIM unlocked so that I could use it in Europe with a Lebara SIM. I am not reporting the detailed instructions here because there are so many good descriptions already on the web. I just want to report the overall experience in the hope that it might save someone else the trouble that I had.
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Bootable USB to Flash IT Mode for LSI SAS 9211-8i and 9200-8e Controllers
I have created a FreeDOS 1.1 bootable USB that allows you to flash IT mode for LSI SAS 92100-8i and 9200-8e controllers.
To use it, download the lsifw.img archive, unpack it and flash to your USB. Then flash the controller using the LSI\SAS\9211_8i\flash.bat file or the LSI\SAS\9200_8e\flash.bat file.
Downloads
| File | Size | Sum | Unpack Command |
|---|---|---|---|
| lsifw.tar.bz2 | 29M | 55925 29689 | tar jxf lsifw.tar.bz2 |
| lsifw.zip | 34M | 42642 34190 | unzip lsifw.tar.bz2 |
On linux you can flash it to your USB using this command:
dd if=lsifw.img of=/dev/.
I used it to flash the SAS/SATA controller on a Dell PowerEdge R610 that is used as the head server for a ZFS filer that I am building with a colleague because I wanted to upgrade to a newer version of the firmware.
The flash.bat script assumes that the sasaddhi address is 500605B so before executing it, run sas2flsh -o -listsasadd as specified in the readme.txt file. If the address is different, edit the flash.bat file and insert the new address.
Here is what the flash.bat file looks like for the 9211-8i controller:
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
@echo off sas2flsh -o -e 7 cls sas2flsh -f 9211_8i.fw sas2flsh -b mptsas2.rom cls sas2flsh -o -sasaddhi 500605B |
Here are the basic steps.
Continue reading Bootable USB to Flash IT Mode for LSI SAS 9211-8i and 9200-8e Controllers
USB Image for SuperMicro SAS Firmware Updates
I have created a USB image for SuperMicro SAS firmware updates to help me with converting SAS controllers to I/T (Initiator/Target) mode instead of the default IR (Integrated RAID) mode. This USB contains all of the SAS firmware downloads available from SuperMicro.
See this post for details about how to flash a USB.
Downloads
| URL | Format | Size | Checksum | Extraction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| flshfw10.tar.bz2 | tar, gzip | 68MB | 39222 69242 | tar jvxf flshfw10.tar.bz2 |
| flshfw10.tar.gz | tar, bzip2 | 72MB | 39754 73500 | tar zvxf flshfw10.tar.gz |
| flshfw10.zip | zip | 72MB | 10292 73497 | unzip flshfw10.zip |
Continue reading USB Image for SuperMicro SAS Firmware Updates
FreeDOS 1.1 Bootable USB Image
Here is the FreeDOS image file. It can be used to create a bootable USB. At the end of this post I describe, in detail, how I created the image file from the FreeDOS ISO.
1 Download
Here are the download options.
| URL | Format | Size | Checksum | Extraction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| fdos11.tar.bz2 | tar, gzip | 28MB | 25175 27686 | tar jvxf fdos11.tar.bz2 |
| fdos11.tar.gz | tar, bzip2 | 32MB | 25477 32340 | tar zvxf fdos11.tar.gz |
| fdos11.zip | zip | 32MB | 28567 32337 | unzip fdos11.zip |
Once you have downloaded and unzipped it, you need to flash it to your USB.
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How to change the firefox address line (urlbar) font size
I have always found the default font size for the address bar in firefox to be too small but, unlike almost all other aspects of firefox, it was a bit of a challenge to change. You had to manually edit a file called userChrome.css that lived under your home directory tree in a firefox configuration directory. That directory was named ~/.mozilla/firefox/*.default/chrome under linux. On windows it was in the user AppData directory tree.
Each time a new version of firefox was released I would go to that directory and edit the file to describe the font characteristics that I liked.
Unfortunately, when I installed firefox 10, the chrome part of subdirectory was not present.
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iPad2 Model Numbers
I was looking for a simple a comparison of iPad models but could not find one so I created one by gleaning information from various sites. I cannot vouch for the accuracy but it should be pretty close.
iPAD2 Models
Model Name Model Number RAM Color WIFI 3G Type Carrier Notes
MC755LL/A 2340071 16GB Black Yes Yes CDMA Verizon
MC763LL/A 2340502 32GB Black Yes Yes CDMA Verizon
MC764LL/A 2340557 64GB Black Yes Yes CDMA Verizon
MC769LL/A 1945531 16GB Black Yes No
MC770LL/A 2339322 32GB Black Yes No
MC773LL/A 1918159 16GB Black Yes Yes GSM AT&T
MC774LL/A 1918229 32GB Black Yes Yes GSM AT&T
MC775LL/A 1918265 64GB Black Yes Yes GSM AT&T
MC916LL/A 1945674 64GB Black Yes No This one seems out of sequence.
MC979LL/A 1945595 16GB White Yes No
MC980LL/A 2339386 32GB White Yes No
MC981LL/A 2339877 64GB White Yes No
MC982LL/A 2339904 16GB White Yes Yes GSM AT&T
MC983LL/A 2339986 32GB White Yes Yes GSM AT&T
MC984LL/A 2340017 64GB White Yes Yes GSM AT&T
MC985LL/A 2341061 16GB White Yes Yes CDMA Verizon
MC986LL/A 2340478 32GB White Yes Yes CDMA Verizon
MC987LL/A 2340487 64GB White Yes Yes CDMA Verizon
Spammed into oblivion
My Drupal implementation kept getting spammed into oblivion. I was not able to upgrade – possibly because the site was hacked so I decided to switch to WordPress.
I have not done any posting for more than a year because of the spam. It is really annoying and serves no useful purpose.
Interestingly much of my work in cloud architecture/development is focused on security but like so many other things, it is easier to find time to address security issues at work rather than at home.