Posts Tagged ‘annoying’

Improve MobaXterm Best Windows terminal client with some additional settings tune ups / Install extra Linux Cygwin tools on MobaXterm and various post install configuration goodies

Friday, January 20th, 2023

mobaxterm-logo_400x400-terminal-client-tune-up-howto-for-a-new-install

Earlier I've written a an article MobaXTerm: A good gnome-terminal like tabbed SSH client for Windows / Windows Putty Tabs Alternative in which I've introduced the best in my opinion SSH / Telnet / VNC / RDP / Xserver in one Terminal client emulator for Windows operating systems.

The client has been around for quite some time and it has been improving rapidly over the last 10 years, where it now more looks like a separate Operating System than a single terminal client. It's size is quite compact as well and my opinion and every self respectiving developer, system administrator, IT geek or a hacker would definitely
use the mobaxterm at home or at work place on a daily. I guess some of my readers, who have already migrated SuperPutty / SecureCRT or Putty / XMing or whatever kind of exotic Remote SSH Console terminal is used could validate this 🙂

Therefore as I've set up Mobaxterm on a multiple computers all around, I've found it useful to write a small article with some post-install hints (tune ups) one can do immediately once he has installed the Desktop or Portable Apps version of mobaxterm on desktop PC / notebook.
 

1. Set up your bashrc server / command aliases

Lets say you need to setup some rules for connectivity via a socks proxy to dig holes over a harsh company firewalls or add
custom options to every ssh client attempt to remote server, or simply alias some of your servers with custom connectivity options and so on simply open vi / vim text editor from mobaxterm local terminal and place inside your rules, for example that could be anything like:

 

alias ssh='ssh -o stricthostkeychecking=no -o passwordauthentication=yes -o PreferredAuthentications=password  -v'
alias sftp='sftp -o stricthostkeychecking=no -o passwordauthentication=yes -o PreferredAuthentications=password'
alias work-server='ssh UserName@work-server -v -o passwordauthentication=yes -o PreferredAuthentications=password'

alias proxy='ssh -D 3128 UserName@proxyIP-host1 -o ConnectTimeout=80'
alias proxy1='ssh -D 3128 UserName@proxy-host2 -p 443 -o ConnectTimeout=60'
alias proxy3='ssh -D 3128 Username@proxy-host3 -p 443 -o ConnectTimeout=60'

Simply open the terminal and setup whatever you require
export ftp_proxy="http://proxy-host:8080"
export https_proxy="https://proxy-host:8080"
export http_proxy="http://proxy-host:8080"
export HTTP_PROXY="http://proxy-host:8080"
export HTTPS_PROXY="http://proxy-host:8080"
 

2. Set mobaxterm presistent directory / persistent root directory and default text editor

Make sure you have properly defined at least Persistent directory / Persistent directory if you want to keep the files under your /home/mobaxterm and root directory be able to save your data from local mobaxterm terminal work you have done.

To do so o to Configuration -> General

MobaXterm-persistent-home-directory
 

3. Change default settings for Opening / Closing Terminal tabs just like in gnome-terminal

MobaXterm is really awesome as the developer, followed pretty much the logic of some common GNU / Linux Terminal clients like Gnome-Terminal and KDE's default Konsole terminal.

One of the first things to do once Mobaxterm is installed on the PC is to set up nice key binds as default onces might be heard to learn at the beginning or you might have already the habit to use the certain set of key combinations on your Linux desktop:

Common once are:

1. Open tab / Close tab common once I bind to are (CTRL + T / CTRL + W)
2. Previous tab move / Next tab move keys common one I use are (ALT + LEFT / ALT + RIGHT)
3. Find in terminal (CTRL + F)

rebind-mobaxterm-standard-keys
 

4. Make MobaXterm to automatically open a terminal to not Start local terminal every time

By default mobaxterm it is really annoying cause every time you run it after system reboot you have to select
Start local terminal
Once you run the terminal you get this prompt and you have to press on Start local terminal

mobaxterm-start-local-terminal


How to make Mobaxterm automatically open local Terminal Tab on every boot?
 

To fix this so every time a local terminal is spawn on MobaXterm you have get to:
 

Settings -> Configuration -> Misc


Open the Following tab at startup by default it will be

<Home (Pinned)>

Change it to:

<Terminal>

mobaxterm-open-the-followintab-tab-in-startup

That's it on next login your Local Terminal with /bin/bash.exe will auto load !
 

[hipo.WINDOWS-PC] ➤ env|grep -i SHELL
SHELL=/bin/bash.exe
PATH=/bin:/drives/c/Users/hipo/DOCUME~1
/MobaXterm/slash/bin:/drives/c/Windows:/drives/c/Windows/system32:/drives/c/Windows/system32:/drives/c/Windows:/drives/c/Windows/System32/Wbem:
/drives/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/drives/c/Windows/sysnative
PSModulePath=C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\
CMDPATH=C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\sysnative\;
C:\Users\hipo\DOCUME~1\MobaXterm\slash\bin
WINPATH=C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\sysnative\


5. Make menu buttons to appear smaller


Go to menu and select
View -> (Small Buttons)

mobaxterm-select-small-buttons-screenshot

6. Disable auto start of XServer to prevent a port listener on the machine on TCP port

By default mobaxterm opens XServer listener, so you can immediately connect from a remote SSH servers missing Xserver and install software requiring an XServer, for example software such as Oracle Database or some MiddleWare WebLogig or IBM's Web Sphere. This is useful but if you want to have a good security only allow this server on a purpose. Otherwise the XServer will run in parallel with rest of your Moba and just load up your PC and eat up some RAM memory. To disable it go to:

mobaxterm-x11-automatically-start-X-server-disable-stop-at-startup

7. Change the mobaxterm Default theme to Dark

This is optional I like to set the Theme to Dark, also as a Theme for Windows as well as for MobaxTerm, the aim of that is simply to not put extra stress on my eye sight. Being on the PC around 8 to 10 hours and spending some 6 to 8 hours on console work is enough. If you want to do as well.

mobaxterm-change-default-theme-to-dark-theme

8. Install additional set of common Linux tools to mobaxterm to use on Windows
 

Tools such as:

1. Midnight Commander (mc)
2. Wget
3. Curl
4. Vim
5. Screen
6. Rsync
7. Perl
8. W3m
9. dosunix
10. unix2dos
11. gnupg
12. diffutils
13. mysql
14. mpg123
15. whois


If you want to have a set of packages pre-installed that are including above as well as the rest of mine, here is a dump of my installed mobapt manager packages:

For more simply use the experimental Mobaxterm  Graphical Package installer
 

[hipo.WINDOWS-PC] ➤  for i in $(cat Downloads/installed-packages-mobaxterm.txt ); do apt-cyg install $i; done
 

Found package GeoIP-database

Installing GeoIP-database
Downloading GeoIP-database-20180505-1.tar.xz…
Unpacking GeoIP-database-20180505-1.tar.xz…


Running postinstall scripts
Package GeoIP-database installed.

Rebasing new libraries

Found package adwaita-icon-theme

Installing adwaita-icon-theme
Downloading adwaita-icon-theme-3.26.1-1.tar.xz…

…


You will be prompted for a single Yes for the respository

MobApt Packages Manager

mobapt-pkg-manager-install-git-from-gui-mobaxterm-package-installer

Though it is said it is experimental, I have to say the MobApt Apt Manager works quite good, I never had any issues with it so far.

9. Mobaxterm.ini the settings storage file that can help you move your configurations

If you have to prepeare new MobaXterm on multiple PCs frequently perhaps it is best to just copy the Mobaxterm.ini file. 
Here is an example of my mobaxterm.ini for download.
 

10. Change terminal colors and curor type and enable blinking (customizations)


Settings -> Configuration -> Terminal -> (Default Terminal Color Settings)
 


mobaxterm-change-terminal-colors-and-blinking-cursor-setting-screenshot

11. Use very useful moba Tools
 

mobaxterm-terminal-great-useful-tools-screenshot
For sysadmins Moba has plenty of other jems such as:

  • Network Port scanner such as Nmap with GUI

  • list open network ports (GUI interface to netmap)

  • SSH tunnel tool

  • Moba Diff

  • Wake on Lan

  • Network Packet capturer (such as tcpdump)

  • List running processes (such as taskmgr in simple form)

  • List machine hardware devices (such as Windows Device manager)

 
12. Remote monitoring of opened ssh session


To enable remote monitoring for a Saved session simply use the "Remote monitoring" button on the down left corner of the terminal.

mobaxterm-remote-monitoring-of-remote-ssh-server-screenshot-button

Or to enable it for a new host, open:

1. "Saved sessions"
2. Click over "User sessions"
3. New Session -> (SSH)
4. Basic SSH Settings (Remote host) -> OK
5. Click over the new created session
6. Click on Remote monitoring for the opened session

remote-monitoring-from-mobaxterm-screenshot

13. Play some mobaxterm console games

As you might have pissed off of configuring go on and enjoy some of the great console games, some of which are also present on a normal Linux new distribution installation. 🙂

mobaxterm-list-of-games-screenshot

List of Moba Games

teamwalk-mobaxterm-console-connect-network-routers-game
TeamWalk (Use your mouse or keyboard to connect every server to the central router)

ctris-console-text-game-mobaxterm

Ctris Console tetris from Mobaxterm

solitaire-text-console-game-played-on-mobaxterm-screenshot

Text console Solitaire from Moba
 

Ninvaders-console-game-mobaxterm

Here is NinVaders (Text Version of Space Invaders Arcade Classic)
 

Enjoy ! 🙂

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Posted in Various, Windows | No Comments »

Change Windows 10 default lock screen image via win registry LockScreenImage key change

Tuesday, September 21st, 2021

fix-lock-screen-missing-change-option-on-windows-10-windows-registry-icon

If you do work for a corporation on a Windows machine that is part of Windows Active Directory domain or a Microsoft 365 environment and your Domain admimistrator after some of the scheduled updates. Has enforced a Windows lock screen image change.
You  might be surprised to have some annoying corporation logo picture shown as a default Lock Screen image on your computer on next reoboot. Perhaps for some people it doesn't matter but for as a person who seriously like customizations, and a valuer of
freedom having an enforced picture logo each time I press CTRL + L (To lock my computer) is really annoying.

The logical question hence was how to reverse my desired image as  a default lock screen to enkoy. Some would enjoy some relaxing picture of a Woods, Cave or whatever Natural place landscape. I personally prefer simplicity so I simply use a simple purely black
background.

To do it you'll have anyways to have some kind of superuser access to the computer. At the company I'm epmloyeed, it is possible to temporary request Administrator access this is done via a software installed on the machine. So once I request it I become
Administratof of machine for 20 minutes. In that time I do used a 'Run as Administartor' command prompt cmd.exe and inside Windows registry do the following Registry change.

The first logical thing to do is to try to manually set the picture via:
 

Settings ->  Lock Screen

But unfortunately as you can see in below screenshot, there was no way to change the LockScreen background image.

Windows-settings-lockscreen-screenshot

In Windows Registry Editor

I had to go to registry path


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\.]

And from there in create a new "String Value" key
 

"LockScreenImage"


so full registry key path should be equal to:


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Personalization\LockScreenImage]"

The value to set is:

C:\Users\a768839\Desktop\var-stuff\background\Desired-background-picture.jpg

windows-registry-change-lock-screen-background-picture-from-registry-screenshot

If you want to set a black background picture for LockScreen like me you can download my black background picture from here.

That's all press CTRL + L  key combination and the black screen background lock screen picture will appear !

Hopefully the Domain admin, would not soon enforce some policty to update the registry keys or return your old registry database from backup if something crashs out with something strange to break just set configuration.

To test whether the setting will stay permanent after the next scheduled Windows PC update of policies enforced by the Active Directory (AD) sysadmin, run manually from CMD.EXE

C:\> gpupdate /force


The command will download latest policies from Windows Domain, try to lock the screen once again with Control + L, if the background picture is still there most likely the Picture change would stay for a long.
If you get again the corporation preset domain background instead,  you're out of luck and will have to follow the same steps every, now and then after a domani policy update.

Enjoy your new smooth LockScreen Image 🙂

 

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Posted in System Administration | No Comments »

Putty load as default session another session – Save other Putty session configuration to default howto

Thursday, November 29th, 2018

putty-load-button-screenshot

Recently I had to use PuTTY which I haven't used for years to open a number of SSH Pernanent Tunnels necessery for my daily work as a SAP Consultant.

I've saved them under a certain new profile and saved the set SSH Tunnel configuration not in the default Session but in separate named one, therefore had to press Load button every time after clicking over my Putty shortcut icon. 

That was annoying and took few seconds out of my life every next morning for about a week, so finally I found osme time to google it and it seemed it is pretty easy to have any Putty sessoin loaded you like.

Here is how:

1. Create a new Putty Shortcut

putty-screenshot1

putty-shortcut-screenshot-windows

Click over Putty icon while holding CTRL + SHIFT (Control SHIFT keys simultaneously ) and move the mouse somewhere on the desktop to create the shortcut.
 

2. Right click on Putty Shortcut

putty-target-screenshot-windows1

putty-target-screenshot-windows2

 

"C:\Program Files\PuTTY\putty.exe" -load "your_saved_session" "username@your_server_address" -pw "your_password"


fill out "target" field of shortcut using above code (alter to your own properties).
click Apply button.

If you need to pass a user and password from Shortcut itself (which is a bad practice for security but sometimes useful, for not so important Tunnels – for example a tunnel to an Open Proxy), do it by typing in the target field like so:
 

"C:\Program Files\PuTTY\putty.exe" -load "your_saved_session" "username@your_server_address" -pw "your_password"

 

And Hooray !!! After that when you click on PuTTy shortcut it loads your session automatically using given username and password.

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Posted in Everyday Life, Windows | No Comments »

How to disable Microsoft Widnows XP annoying Updates Available / Updates disabled notification

Sunday, September 30th, 2012

veryone knows, how M$ Windows updates the PC at stake. Besides that you know if updates are Disabled, the annoying picture showing a red like X under bottom left (Start menu panel) corner. Even if updates are Enabled often on the bottom part there is the yellow ! sign pushing the user to update:

Microsoft Windows Your Computer might be at risk menu screenshot

Thanksfully there is work around. To remove notification use:


Start (Menu) -> Control Panel -> Security Center -> Change the way Security center alerts me

Microsoft Windows XP SP3 Security Center - Change the way Security Center alerts me

Windows XP alert settings change disable automatic updates

No more update notifications. Enjoy 🙂

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Posted in Windows | 1 Comment »

Disable default Thunberbird annoying Display Images blocking (Display Pictures in Thunderbird by default)

Friday, September 11th, 2009

Since quite some time I’m experiencing this annoying behaviour on side of Thunderbird. Every time I receive a new mail which includes embedded html code with pictures, Thunderbird blocks them until I explicitly select the picture and allow it to display or either allow picture displaying for the whole domain for the future references. Today I decided at last to put an end to this boredom and look for a solution.
Here is the way I changed this terrible behaviour:
1. Go to Thunderbird “Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> General -> Config Editor”2. Look for the variables record mailnews.message_display.disable_remote_imageuse the mouse to select “toggle” value to switch the default value from”true” to “false”.That should be it. END—–

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Posted in Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, System Administration | 1 Comment »

Fix to annoying reoccuring problem “Enter password for default keyring to unlock”

Monday, February 8th, 2010

About a week and a half, everytime I do start my epiphany browser a really annoying prompt
occurs. Here is a screenshot of the gnome default keyring to unlock I was required to fill in,
everytime I started epiphany.
keyring prompt picture

I know one possible solution was to completely eradicate gnome-keyring package, however
that is definitely not a wise idea.
To fix this mimor though annoying issue I did the following:

1. Opened gnome-control-center (e.g. pressed alt+f2 and issued the gnome-control-center command)
2. Next find the "Encryption and Keyrings" menu and click on it
3. On the "Encryption and Keyrings" submenu "PGP Passphrases" I had to select
"Always remember passphrases whenever logged in This is it, the annoying prompt won’t bother you anymore!
🙂

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Posted in Linux and FreeBSD Desktop | 1 Comment »