Posts Tagged ‘didn’

Switching from PasswordSafe to Keepass database, migrating .psafe3 to .kdbx format howto

Thursday, February 23rd, 2023

passwordsafe-to-keepass-migration-logo

I have been using PasswordSafe for many years within my job location as system administrator on the Windows computers I do use as dumb hosts to administrate remotely via ssh servers, develop code in bash / perl or just store different SysAdmin management tools and interfaces passwords. The reason behind was simply that I come out from a Linux background as I've used for daily Sysadmin job for many years GNU / Linux and there I always prefer GNOME (gnome GTK interface) in favour of KDE's (QT Library), and whence I came to work for the "Evil" Windows oriented world of corporations  for the sake of Outlook use and Office 365 as well as Citrix accessibility i've become forced by the circumstances to use Windows. 
Hence for a PasswordManager for Windows back in the years, I preferred the simplicity of interface of PasswordSafe instead of Keepass which always reminded me of the nasty KDE.
PasswordSafe is really cool and a handy program and it works well, but recetnly when I had to store many many passwords and easily navigate through each of it I realized, by observing colleagues, that KeePass as of time of writting this article is much more Powerful and easy to use, as I can see all records of a searched passwords on a Single screen, instead of scrolling like crazy with PasswordSafe through the passowrds.

I didn’t really feel like cutting and pasting every field for all my passwords (plus I started experiencing some PasswordSafe copy / paste passwords issues – maybe not related to PasswordSafe itself so this was the turning point I decided to migrate to Keepass.

For that, started looking at the import export functions for each program. 

After a quick search, I found few articles online explaining on how the migration of PasswordSafe to KeePass can be easily handled as the versions of Keepass and Password safe are moving all the time, of course usually some of the guides to be found online are never competely upto date, so I had to slightly modify one of the articles and come up with this one 🙂 .
 

  •  My PasswordSafe program that keeps my account password records and notes is version is
    V 3.59 built on May 28 2022 and is running on my Windows 10 OS 64 bit release
  • The installed KeePass version to where I have migrated the Pwsafe password database Successfully is 2.48 64 Bit
     
  1. Use the Password Safe function to export to XML file Format
    (File -> Export To -> XML Format )

     

    pwsafe.screenshot-export-password-psafe3
     

  2. Import the text file into KeePass
    (File->Import From-> Password Safe XML file)

     

    import-file-data-keepass-screenshot

This process worked quite fine. All of the passwords were imported .
Despite the importing (expected small glitches – please recheck that all was imported fine, before joy), the process is quicker than copy/pasting every field for each entry.

For those of you who are more worried about security than I am, you know this is a very insecure method to transfer passwords. For others, you may wish to export the (unencrypted) text file to a Veracrypt – that is a Truecypt fork (as nowadays obsolete unmaintaned and probably insecury) – a Free Open-Source On-The-Fly Disk Encryption Software to prepare  Veracrypt  partition and / or use Eraser on the text file once you’re finished with it or use another of the free Veracrypt open-source (free software) alternatives such DiskCryptor or even the proprietary Windows BitLocker / CipherShed / Axcrypt or some other encryption alternative software for Windows XP / 2000 / 7 10 that is out there.

NB! Please  don’t do this on a public computer or a PC that you don't administrate.
You never know who might find your passwords or might be sniffing on your OS, as today there are so many devices that perhaps are hacked and listening and collecting password datas  🙂

That's it now I enjoy my KeePass but I'm thankful to PasswordSafe developers, who have easified my password management Virtual life for years 🙂
Any hints on how you migrated PasswordSafe to Keepass are mostly welcome. Also will be nice to hear of hard-core PasswordSafe hints or plugins that can power-up the password storage, maybe I can get convinced back to return back to PasswordSafe 🙂
 

Richard stallman (father of free software) interview – Stallman: Google+ and Facebook mistreat their users

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

father-and-Founder-of-Free-Software-Foundation

The father of free software, mr. Richard Stallman is notorious for his critical mind and software freedom activism quite well.

While checking some of his speaches and interviews, I came across another interesting, one here RMS critices and exposes the bad and evilness of fb and Google+.

Interview with Richard Stallman – Stallman: Facebook and Google+ Mistreat Their Users

 

People unaware of computer networks, programming, Unix and the deep computing so to say definitely didn't understand the profoundness of upcoming problems of so called "social networks". The Facebook and Google+ Mistreat Their Users video is also to be found in youtube under name Richard Stallman: Facebook IS Mass Surveillance .

Its a pity Stallman is mostly popular only among specific users like me which are already 'dubbed' into free software and have a belief that computer software should be free. Hopefully as time passes more and more people will be awakened to listen to his speeches and realize the severeness of problems, we face nowdays by simply accepting almost anything new without much privacy concerns …
If you're a free software enthusiast like me, please take the time to share the video and whistle-blow about the problem to as many non-tech pc users as possible 🙂

Apache Benchmarking

Monday, January 14th, 2008

They’re few tools out there which are most common in use to do benchmarking and stess test on webservers. One of them “the most common one”is called “ab” or apache benchmark Check it out here another very common tool is called flood Check it here Flood seems to be the newer and most accurate tool to use for stress testing unfortunately it has one weakness. It only works with configuration file which is in xml format. So every time before you start it you have to generate a new xml file to suite your needs. Also a tool recommended to me in the #apache in the irc.freenode.net network is called “jmeter”, it’s located here . I personally didn’t tested it because it uses Java as a back end. While googling around I also have stucked on this interesting project PHPSPEED although I wasn’t able to test it looks like a promising test suite.END—–

Linux: Virtualbox shared folder – how to share files from host to guest OS in Virtualbox

Monday, June 9th, 2014

add-shared-folder-in-virtualbox-linux-virtual-machine-on-top-of-windows-howto

If you just installed Debian / Ubuntu / CentOS Linux on top of Windows inside Virtualbox Virtual Machine and you're wondering how to Share files between Windows Host Operating System and Guest Operating System (Linux), here is how:

1. First make sure Virtualbox guest additions are installed

Besides installing Virtualbox guest additions which will enable you to resize VBox Window / enable copy paste between guest and host OS it is useful to have also Virtualbox extension packs which allows your Virtual Machine to be accessed remote via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) – the so called VRDP

2. From Virtualbox VM select folder on Windows hsot which will be shared

Selection of which Win folder to mount in Vbox is done via Virtualbox menus:
 

Machine -> Settings -> Shared Folder

virtualbox-windows-linux-guest-OS-how-to-shared_folder-screenshot2

virtualbox-windows-linux-guest-OS-how-to-shared_folder-screenshot

3. Launch Linux Virtual Machine and use mount command to mount shared folder

I like the practice of creating a new folder inside c:UsersgeorgiDownloadsShared_folder

Then fire up gnome-terminal / xterm whatever terminal you like and to mount shared folder inside emulated Linux issue:

mount -t vboxsf -o rw Shared_folder /mnt/Shared_folder/

 

This will mount Shared_folder in rw (read / write) mode, if you prefer to only mount Virtualbox Shared_folder for reading:

mount -t vboxsf -o ro Shared_folder /mnt/Shared_folder/

4. Configure Virtualbox Shared Folder to auto mount in Linux via fstab

As we all know automating mounts in Linux is done by adding line in /etc/fstab to automate Vbox Shared_Folder mount add new line to fstab like:
 

Shared_folder         /mnt/Shared_folder         vboxsf  defaults,rw    0 0

This will auto-mount in vbox shared folder read / write mode, to auto-mount it in read only mode:

Shared_folder         /mnt/Shared_folder         vboxsf  defaults,ro    0 0

  If you added it to /etc/fstab (and you didn't mount Shared Folder manually before), run

mount -a

to make Linux system re-read auto-mounts defined in fstab
 

The new mounted folder will appear in whenever said to be mounted. Enjoy 🙂

 

Merry Christmas from Pomorie Monastery and a small monastic fire that ended well

Thursday, December 26th, 2013

chestito-rojdestvo-hristovo-merry-Christmas-a-monastery-fire-stopped-by-Gods-grace

I spend the Christmas eve for a first time in Monastery with the brotherhood in Pomorie monastery. The night on 24-th against 25-th when Christmas is celebrated in Bulgaria was marked by the usual morning service and a Holy Liturgy. Silent Night Holy Night song was sung in the Church near the end of the Holy Liturgy.

All went well except small fire incident, out of a suddenr right after the end of the Church service a fire ignited  in one of the monastery store rooms. Actually it was a huge miracle that the fire didn't spread in whole monastic cell buildings as the fire used to be active without anyone noticing it for about 6 hours or so. The restult of fire was that  just one room full of sheets and sanitary equipment burn out completely. The fire happened in a room nearby my room on second stage one stage lower (on first floor). The fire brigade come quickly and stashed the fireplace without serious troubles.

The fire would have quickly spread if in the burning room if only one of the water tubes didn't break up pouring water inside on the burning stuff. The fire emerged around 12:40 and was already еxtinguished for less than hour. Thanks God there was no one in the burning room and no victims  Another sure miracle is that today weather is very calm no wind blowing so fire didn't ignited in a quick pace and was easily extinguished.  

Below are the immersly beautiful Christmas Church Troparion, Kontaktion and Feast singings as translated to English

Thy nativity, O Christ our God,
has shown to the world the light of wisdom;
for by it, those who worshipped the stars
were taught by a star to adore Thee
the Sun of Righteousness,
and to know Thee, the Orient from on high.
O Lord, glory to Thee."

Today the virgin, gives birth to the incomprehensible One;
and the earth offers a cave to the unapproachable One;
Angels and shepherds glorify Him;
the Wisemen journey with a star;
since for our sakes is born the ETERNAL GOD, as a little Child.

Christ is born, glorify him.
Christ is from heaven, go to meet him.
Christ is an earth, be ye lifted up.
Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing out with gladness, all ye people.
For he is glorified.

To the Son begotten of the Father
without change before the ages,
and in these last times without seed made flesh from a Virgin,
to Christ God let us cry aloud:
Thou hast exalted our horn. Holy are Thou, O Lord!'

Rod of the root of Jesse,  and flower that blossomed from his stem, O Christ,
Thou hast sprung from the Virgin.
From the Mountain overshadowed by the forest
Thou hast come, made flesh from her that knew not wedlock,
O God who art not formed from matter.
Glory to Thy power, O Lord.

As Thou art God of peace and Father of mercies,
Thou hast sent us Thy Angel of great counsel,
Who grants us peace;
so we are guided by the knowledge of God,
watching before dawn we glorify Thee, only Lover of mankind'.

The monster from the deep
spat Jonas from its bowels like a new born babe,
just as it had received him;
while the Word having dwelt in the Virgin and taken flesh,
came forth, yet kept her incorrupt,
for being himself not subject to decay,
he preserved his mother free from harm'.

The Youths brought up together in godliness,
scorning the impious decree,
feared not the threat of fire,
but standing in the midst of the flame they sang:
God of our Fathers, blessed are Thou!

The furnace moist with dew was the image and the figure of a wonder past nature;
for it did not burn those it had received;
even as the fire of the Godhead
did not consume the Virgin's womb into which it has descended.
Therefore in praise let us sing:
Let all creation bless the Lord,
and highly exalt Him to all the ages.

Magnify, O my soul, the most glorious Theotokos,
more honourable and more glorious than the hosts on high.
'I behold a strange and wonderful mystery,
heaven is the Cave, the Cherubim thrown — Virgin,
the Manger the Place in which Christ lay,
the God whom nothing can contain. Whom we praise and magnify.

I wish to my dear readers have a great and blessed Christmas Holiday time, let Christ's love, peace and mercies are abundant in your hearts!

Drunk

Monday, February 26th, 2007

I drinked 100 gr. of Rom and a beer after that and I got drunk. I have some problems with one of the servers in DBG. I hope the machine’s hard drive didn’t die. If the hdd is dead it would be very very bad for me. Tomorrow I have test in Management. As usual I haven’t study :]] I’m listening to Pantera and I want to drink more .. which is not good at all. END—–

Need something to push me go on

Monday, June 25th, 2007

The day didn’t started good. I feel lonely although I know I’m not, hope this won’t waste for too long. I hope something would happen into my life to give me a new breath and power to continue the path destined for me.END—–

On a beach again

Monday, July 14th, 2008

Yesterday I was to the beach again. We went first to a place called “The robinson” which was a terrible place. A small “beach” with oldnon functional quay. There were some of the planks missing so I had to walk very carefully at some places there were nails.At first I almost fall down from the quay there were a broken plank and I lost equilibrium thanks God I was able to balance myself and not fall.If I had fallen down I would probably seriously hurt or even die, cause down there the sea was shallow, the possible scenarious was to seriously hurt myself or even die .. Just a minute later a friend of mine who was walking in front of me warned me to be careful with the nails on some of the planks and even though I was carefully watching my steps I step over a nail. The nail pierced my sport shoes. At this moment I felt just a little hurt so I thoght I didn’t hurt seriously. Anyway I decided to take off the shoe and sock and blood started sprinkling. It took me some time to come back to the beach because I had to walk back through all that broken planks on the quay. Thanks to God I moved back to the beach where I put my leg in the salty water. Nomen and Javor were going to Kavarna at this moment so Toto (the guy who was with me) did call to Nomen and told him to get some medical alcohol (spirits) from the drug-store. After they came we used the alcolol to wash the wound in order disinfect it. Later while I was sitting on the beach Toto and Nomen went to the sea to catch some mussels. Toto was diving and searching for musselsfor some time and he quit at a point because he wasn’t able to collect enough. They came with only two mussels. At this time Javor tried to catch some fish from the quay, again unsuccesfully. Later we decided to move to another beach because I proposed so, I hated this place really plus it location was too near to the sea shore. We tried to move to another nice beach but since it was proprietary we wasn’t allowed to establish the tent and make the camp fire. So at the end we decided to move to Topola’s beach. The night there was a nerdy one, Toto and Javor were trying to make fun of me and I got really angry .. They made a fire and we baked some meat balls and had a nice dinner. The sky was full of stars, really beautiful ! I spend maybe an hour watching at the sky adoring the mighty work of God’s hands. I slept that Night at Nomen’s car (Audio A4 :)). At the morning Nomen and Toto and after that Mitko came one after another and woked me up for a few times at the end when I realized i won’t be able to sleep anymore and stand up and dressed my bathing trunks and went to the beach. I entered 3 times at the sea and had a really nice baths, we played volley ball in the water and had great time. At midday we had to set off to home because Nomen was going to travel back to Sofia in the afternoon. There was a problem one of the car’s tyre was passing the air out so Toto and Nomen used there 3l337 skillz to exchange the broken tyre. At somewhere around 14:30 we were back in Dobrich. I haven’t been to my grandma for a day so I went to her apartment (she lives 6 stages above my parent’s apartment. After that I went to the Church where I lighted few candles and prayed to God to have mercy over me the sinner and my family. On my way back home I met Papi (Paco). Papi is very guy a christian who for some time was like a Spiritual Father to me. We had a walk at the city park and spoke a bit about our life and the christianity’s face in general and how poor the condition of the christianity and faith in general is. Later at home my mother helped me to exercise the driving lessons tests. Another thing I did the recent 2 or 3 days was to configure a FreeBSD server who was going to host a website it was required the server to have Apache, PHP, MySQL and Qmail.Configuring Apache, PHP, MySQL on was pretty straight forward. The real problem occured when I tried to install Qmail from ports. I followed a freebsd qmail tutorial and at the end I was not happy with the qmail installation. After that I tried using the FreeBSD qmail toaster. But again I should say that FreeBSD qmail toaster is a total mess. Then I decided to go in another direction and tried to install qmail following the qmailrocks method I’m not really sure if I did everything the way I had to because I was really in a hurry to start a working SMTP server to send and receive mails. At the end I used a lot of custom configuration files and daemontools+qmail-spamcontrol+vpopmail ports in a ways I use on few of the other Qmails I administrate. Thanks God everything worked just fine and now I’m happy to have another functional qmail server on FreeBSD.END—–