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How to shutdown Windows after 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. X hours with a batch script – Shutdown / Reboot / Logoff Windows with a quick command

Wednesday, August 17th, 2016

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/windows-pc-server-shutdown-after-3-5-hours-howto-shutdown-windows-with-command-batch

I recently wondered how it is possible to shutdown Windows in some prior set time lets say in 30 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours or 8 hours.

That's handy especially on servers that are being still in preparation install time and you have left some large files copy job (if you're migration files) from Old server environment to a new one
or if you just need to let your home WIndows PC shutdown to save electricity after some time (a very useful example is if you're downloading some 200GB of data which are being estimated to complete in 3 hours but you need to get out and be back home in 2 or 4 days and you don't want to bother connecting remotely to your PC with VNC or teamviewer then just scheduling the PC / server to shutdown in 3 hours with a simple is perfect solution to the task, here is how:

1. Open Command Prompt (E.g. Start menu -> Run and type CMD.EXE)

2. Type in command prompt

 

shutdown -s -t 10800

 

If you by mistake has typed it to shutdown earlier and suddenly you find out your PC needs to be running for a short more time in order to cancel the scheduled Shutdown type:

 

shutdown -a


Shutdown Windows command -s flag has also a possibiltiy to not shutdown but just logoff or if you just need to have the system rebooted a reboot option:
 


options    effect
-l         to log off
-r         to reboot

If you need to shutdown the PC after half an hour use instead the command:

 

shutdown -s -t 1800


shutdown-windows-pc-with-command-in-half-an-hour-screenshot.gif


Half an hour is 1800 seconds for one hour delayed shutdown use 3600 for 3 hours, that would be 3*3600 10800, for 5 hours 5*3600 = 18000 seconds and so on

 


An alternative way to do it with a short VBscript, here is an example:

Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Dim Input
Input = "10:00"

'Input = InputBox("Enter the shutdown time here.","", "10:00")

For i = 1 to 2

CurrentTime = Time & VbCrLf

If Left(CurrentTime,5) = Input Then

objShell.Run "shutdown -s -t 00", 0
WScript.Quit 1

Else

WScript.Sleep 1000

End If

i=i-1

Next

Enjoy

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Posted in Curious Facts, Everyday Life, Various, Windows | 2 Comments »

Enable TLS 1.2 Internet Explorer / Make TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 web sites work on IE howto

Monday, August 1st, 2016

Internet-Explorer-cannot-display-the-webpage-IE-error
 

Some corporate websites and web tools especially one in DMZ-ed internal corporation networks require an encryption of TLS 1.2 (Transport Layer of Security cryptographic protocol)   TLS 1.1 protocol   both of which are already insecure (prone to vulnerabilities).

Besides the TLS 1.2 browser requirements some corporate tool web interfaces like Firewall Opening request tools etc. are often are very limited in browser compitability and built to only work with certain versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer like leys say IE (Internet Explorer) 11.

TLS 1.2 is supported across IE 8, 9, 10 and 11, so sooner or later you might be forced to reconfigure your Internet Explorer to have enabled the disabled by OS install TLS 1.2 / 1.1.

For those unaware of what TLS (Transport Layer of Security) protocol is so to say the next generation encryption protocol after SSL (Secure Socket Layer) also both TLS and SSL terms are being inter-exchangably used when referring with encrypting traffic between point (host / device etc.) A and B by using a key and a specific cryptographic algorithm.
TLS is usually more used historically in Mail Servers, even though as I said some web tools are starting to use TLS as a substitute for the SSL certificate browser encryption or even in conjunction with it.
For those who want to dig a little bit further into What is TLS? – read on technet here.

I had to enable TLS on IE and I guess sooner others will need a way to enable TLS 1.2 on Internet Explorer, so here is how this is done:
 

Enable-Internet-Explorer-TLS1.2-TLS-1.1-internet-options-IE-screensho
 


    1. On the Internet Explorer Main Menu (press Alt + F to make menu field appear)
    Select Tools > Internet Options.

    2. In the Internet Options box, select the Advanced tab.

    3. In the Security category, uncheck Use SSL 3.0 (if necessery) and Check the ticks:

    Use TLS 1.0,
    Use TLS 1.1 and Use TLS 1.2 (if available).

    4. Click OK
   
     5. Finally Exit browser and start again IE.

 

Once browser is relaunched, the website URL that earlier used to be showing Internet Explorer cannot display the webpagre can't connect / missing website error message will start opening normally.

Note that TLS 1.2 and 1.1 is not supported in Mozilla Firefox older browser releases though it is supported properly in current latest FF releases >=4.2.

If you  have fresh new 4.2 Firefox browser and you want to make sure it is really supporting TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2 encrpytion:

 

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste TLS and pause while the list is filtered

(3) If the security.tls.version.max preference is bolded and "user set" to a value other than 3, right-click > Reset the preference to restore the default value of 3

(4) If the security.tls.version.min preference is bolded and "user set" to a value other than 1, right-click > Reset the preference to restore the default value of 1

The values for these preferences mean:

1 => TLS 1.0 2 => TLS 1.1 3 => TLS 1.2


To get a more concrete and thorough information on the exact TLS / SSL cryptography cipher suits and protocol details supported by your browser check this link


N.B. ! TLS is by default disabled in many latest version browsers such as Opera, Safari etc.  in order to address the POODLE SSL / TLS cryptographic protocol vulnerability

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Posted in Computer Security, Everyday Life, Internet Explorer, Various, Web and CMS, Windows | No Comments »

Windows 7 fix menu messed up cyrillic – How to fix cyrillic text in Windows

Friday, July 22nd, 2016

faststone-viewer-messed-up-menu-cyrillic-windows-7-screenshot

How to fix Cyrillic text on Windows 7

I've reinstalled my HP provided company work notebook with Windows 7 Enterprise x86 and had troubles with seeing Cyrillic written text, letters and fonts.
The result after installing some programs and selecting as a default language Bulgarian during installation setup prompt let me to see in some programs and in some of my old written text file names and Cyrillic WIN CP1251 content to be showing a cryptic letters like in above screenshot.

If you're being curious what is causing the broken encoding cyrillic text, it is the fact that in past a lot of cyrillic default encoding was written in KOI-8R and WIN-CP1251 encoding which is not unicode e.g. not compatible with the newer standard encoding for cyrillic UTF-8. Of course the authors of some old programs and documents are not really responsbie for the messed up cyrillic as noone expected that every Cyrillic text will be in UTF-8 in newer times.

Thanksfully there is a way to fix the unreadable / broken encoding cyrillic text by:

Going too menus:

Start menu -> Control Panel -> Change display language -> Clock, Language and Religion

Once there click the Administratibe tab

and choose

Change system locale.

windows-7_administrative_tab_change-system-locale

Here if you're not logged in with administrator user you will be prompted for administrative privileges.

select-system-locale-choose-bulgarian-and-hit-ok-windows-7

Being there choose your language (country) to be:

Bulgarian (Bulgaria) – if you're like me a Bulgarian or Russian (if you're Russian / Belarusian / Ukrainian) or someone from the countries of ex-USSR.
Click OK

And reboot (restart) your computer in order to make the new settings active.
 

This should be it from now on all cyrillic letters in all programs / documents and file names on your PC should visualize fine just as it was intended more or less by the cyrillic assumed creator Saint Climent Ohridski who was a  who reformed Cyrillic from Glagolic alphabet.

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Posted in Curious Facts, Everyday Life, System Administration, Various, Windows | No Comments »

Thursday, July 14th, 2016

use-remote-dns-on-mozilla-firefox-howto-windows-linux-logo.svg

If you're using Mozilla Firefox browser to browse the Web with Traffic Tunneling via SSH Tunnel to your own Linux server like I do in order to prevent yourself traffic to be sniffed from your Work corporate computer (as most of the corporations such as IBM / Hewlett Packard / Concentrix etc. are forcing all employee PC traffic to be  to be transported via default set Windows Corporate Proxy active for all browsers.

Then you will certainly also want to prevent the DNS requests to be not logged somewhere in your Corporate IT department thus the question arises:

How to force DNS requests to be made through the Proxy server (SSH host)?

Nomatter where you're using Firefox browser with advanced proxying plugin such as FoxyProxy FF add-on or the default Proxy FF features the DNS lookups might end up in Corporate set DNS servers often forced for the computer / notebook and impossible to be changed to a custom ones as many of the Corporation internal Sharepoints and domains are only visible from their internal networks.

Thanksfully in newer versions there is an easy way to do it directly from Visual menus via:

Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Network -> Settings

You will get a screen like below:
 

firefox-use-proxy-remote-dns-howto-screenshot

Just tick the Remote DNS and that will force Firefox to query remote Proxy server proxy DNS

 

If you happen to be running older Firefox which doesn't have the Remote DNS tick you can also try to set the setting manually:

 

  1. In firefox type this in your address bar:

    about:config

  2. Click I'll be careful I  promise.

  3. In the filter textbox, type: proxy

  4. Find the preference name called *network.proxy.socks_remote_dns*. Double click it to set it to true.

    i-will-be-careful-i-promise-firefox-windows-screenshot-warranty


network-proxy-socks-remote_dns-firefox-screenshot

Enjoy ! 🙂

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Posted in Curious Facts, Everyday Life, Firefox, Various, Windows | No Comments »

Windows unable to delete file, file locked unlocking with Unlocker tiny tool

Wednesday, April 13th, 2016

Windows-Unlocker-program-show-what-program-or-software-is-locking-your-file-why-file-cant-be-deleted-file-locked

If you want to delete some file on a Windows server or Desktop but you get the a dialog with an error saying:

"This action can't be completed because the folder or a file in it is open in another program"

windows-unable-to-delete-file-file-locked-get-what-is-locking-it-and-unlock-the-file-with-Unlocker-tiny-desktop-graphic-tool-0

Then you need to find out which Program is preventing the file from deletion / locking the file, I've earlier blogged on how to check which process locks file with tasklist or wmic Windows commands

However some users might prefer to not bother with command line check what is locking a file and then killing the Process manually with taskmanager (taskmgr.exe) but do both file unlocking from one single gui interface, that's especially for lazy novice users, gamers and most of Desktop Windows users.

If you're one of those lazy users you will appriace

Unlocker – a useful utility for unlocking files, it will help you figure out which file is using a file what program is using the file you're prevented to delete.
Unlocker is the tool for you if you get any of below error messages, when you try to delete a file:
 

  • Cannot delete folder: It is being used by another person or program
  • Cannot delete file: Access is denied
  • There has been a sharing violation.
  • The source or destination file may be in use.
  • The file is in use by another program or user.
  • Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use.
     

windows-unable-to-delete-file-file-locked-get-what-is-locking-it-and-unlock-the-file-with-Unlocker-tiny-desktop-graphic-tool-1

If you stumble unto an locked file once you download and install Unlocker tool and launch the tool ( in case it disappers in future a mirror of Unlocker tool here ).
Once installed if you click properties over the file which is refused to be deleted you will get a new menu such as in below screenshot:

NB! Beware while installing Unlocker you might be offered to install a bunch of malware (make sure you deselect it). Also Unlocker's site is made in a way so the Download button could easily be confused with some Google Adsense

unlocker-windows-menu-added-to-properties-options-screenshot

Click on the file that is being locked and choose the Unlocker button, for example if you have a bunch of Videos installed and the video is being locked by VLC clicking on the file you will be shown VLC like in below screenshot

 

Unlocker-screenshot-locked-file-because-movie-opened-in-VLC

As you see you're shown the Process PID that is being used by the file the full path to the locking program and you have the option to quickly kill the process or unlock the file. Note that at some cases unlocking a file used by some critical program lets say Microsoft Word / Excel or OneNote could cause you a data loss, so before unlocking a file make sure you know what you're doing.

For more advanced users that still prefer GUI to find out what is Locking a file you can also check out Microsoft Process Explorer (advabced task manager) like tool.
If you haven't tried Process Explorer be sure to take a look at it as its a great tool for Win SysAdmins:

Process Explorer is very handy if you want to explore which .DLL (Windows Libraries) are used by a Process / Program

Windows-process-explorer-an-advanced-task-manager-for-windows-and-handy-tool-to-see-what-external-libraries-and-files-a-program-is-using.png

Windows-process-explorer-an-advanced-task-manager-for-windows-and-handy-tool-to-see-what-external-libraries-and-files-a-program-is-using-1

 

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Posted in Everyday Life, Various, Windows | No Comments »

Windows XP multicore not detected after CPU update – XP Enable multicore after singlecore install

Friday, April 8th, 2016

windows-xp-add-multicore-with-command-after-multiple-cpu-not-detected
These days it is not common to install Windows XP however for some old unsupproted applications that still work on XP in many countries  in Africa, Asia, Europe and even America. Custom patched Windows XP is still heaveily used for some corporate businesses in accounting and on airports and other government institutions even to these day, I'm aware of Windows still heavily used especially in  Russia, Belarus,Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Bulgaria etc.

Hence still there is plenty of softwares designed to work XP the good old Win XP and thus often XP needs to be emulated on VMs though officially not supported any longer  by Microsoft (its Support lifecycle End was for a last time on April 14, 2009).

Now I guess these days I guess nobody doesn't install and use Windows XP on a normal hardware PC Desktop / laptop but XP is continually installed on Virtual machine servers VMWare / VirtualBox.

Hence if you happen to have already migrated or installed some old Windows XP operating systems under VMWare for a corporate clients single core machine (no matter virtual or physical) and the client requires an update of hardware of the Virtual Machine you will be surprised that even though you add a second / third etc. core (new CPUs) the virtual machine hardware and restart the Windows XP installation.

It seems XP is designed to remember the install time CPU model hardware so once the VM and doesn't have a way to update its HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) definitions if you install it in Virtualbox thus to make XP recognize the extra added CPU cores it is necessery to do a small hack with a devcon.exe utility downloadable from Microsoft site to do the trick

1. Download the command line devicemanager utility (devcon.exe) from Microsoft Development Network MSDN here.

Note that it will work only if you use the correct version depending whether XP is  (x86/x64) bit install so check it out from My Computer -> Properties.

windows-xp-multicore-not-detected-enable-add-multicore-after-singlecore-windows-xp-install-with-devcon-exe

2  Next. Execute the following 2 commands:

    devcon sethwid @ROOT\ACPI_HAL\0000 := +acpiapic_mp !acpiapic_up
    devcon update c:\windows\inf\hal.inf acpiapic_mp

devcon.exe will  let the automatic hardware detection find out the extra CPU (multicores) added.
Wait 'till you get prompted for a reboot.
Be brave Reboot! 🙂

There is pretty much more fun useful things you can do with devcon.exe such as disabling USBs from command line,

DEVCON-command-DisableUSB_on-windows-xp-7-8-howto

listing your PCI devices and so on:

devcon-windows-command-to-list-pci-devices-on-xp7-win8-win10

You should now see all cores, hooray cores will appear in Task Manager / System Information.

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Posted in Virtual Machines, Windows | No Comments »

How to change / reset lost or forgot TightVNC administrator password

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

how-to-change-reset-lost-TightVNC-administrator-password

I have installed TightVNC to a Windows host just a few weeks ago in order to be able to manage remotely a Windows host and forgot to write down the administrator password 🙂 (stoopid!)

I had to explain to a friend remotely how to change the TightVNC admin password and it was a complete nightmare!

Shortly here is the exact menus one who wants to reset the password of a TigthVNC server after forgotten:

Start -> All Programs -> TightVNC
-> TightVNC Server (Service Mode) ->
TightVNC Service - Offline Configuration.

In the configuration dialog to popup there are the Server and Administration tabs through which a new password can be set.

After the password is change either a restart of the TightVNC server is necessery or a restart of the Windows PC.

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Posted in System Administration, Various, VNC, Windows | 25 Comments »

Check Windows Operating System install date, Full list of installed and uninstalled programs from command line / Check how old is your Windows installation?

Tuesday, March 29th, 2016

when-was-windows-installed-check-howto-from-command-line
Sometimes when you have some inherited Windows / Linux OS servers or Desktops, it is useful to be aware what is the Operating System install date. Usually the install date of the OS is closely to the date of purchase of the system this is especially true for Windows but not necessery true for Liunx based installs.

Knowing the install date is useful especially if you're not sure how outdated is a certain operating system. Knowing how long ago a current installation was performed could give you some hints on whether to create a re-install plans in order to keep system security up2date and could give you an idea whether the system is prone to some common errors of the time of installation or security flaws.

 

1. Check out how old is Windows install?

Finding out the age of WIndows installation can be performed across almost all NT 4.0 based Windowses and onwards, getting Winblows install date is obtained same way on both Windows XP / Vista/  7  and 8.

Besides many useful things such as detailed information about the configuration of your PC / notebook systeminfo could also provide you with install date, to do so just run from command line (cmd.exe).
 

C:\Users\hipo> systeminfo | find /i "install date"
Original Install Date:     09/18/13, 15:23:18 PM


check-windows-os-install-date-from-command-line-howto-screenshot

If you need to get the initial Windows system install date however it might be much better to use WMIC command to get the info:

 

 

C:\Users\hipo>WMIC OS GET installdate
InstallDate
20130918152318.000000+180


The only downside of using WMIC as you can see is it provides the Windows OS install date in a raw unparsed format, but for scripters that's great.

2. Check WIndows Installed and Uinstalled software and uptime from command line

One common other thing next to Windows install date is what is the Windows uptime, the easiest way to get that is to run Task Manager in command line run taskmgr

windows-task-manager-how-to-check-windows-operating-system-uptime-easily

For those who want to get the uptime from windows command line for scripting purposes, this can be done again with systeminfo cmd, i.e.:

 

C:\> systeminfo | find "System Boot Time:"
System Boot Time:          03/29/16, 08:48:59 AM


windows-os-command-to-get-system-uptime-screenshot

Other helpful Windows command liners you might want to find out about is getting all the Uninstalled and Installed programs from command line this again is done with WMIC

 

C:\> wmic /OUTPUT:my_software.txt product get name

 


get-a-full-list-of-installed-software-programs-on-windows-xp-vista-7-8-command-howto-screenshot

Alternative way to get a full list of installed software on Windows OS is to use Microsoft/SysInternals psinfo command:

 

C:\> psinfo -s > software.txt
C:\> psinfo -s -c > software.csv


If you need to get a complete list of Uinstalled Software using command line (e.g. for batch scripting) purposes, you can query that from Windows registry, like so:

 

C:\>reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall


Command Output will be something like on below shot:

windows-OS-show-get-full-list-of-uninstalled-programs-using-a-command-line-screenshot

Well that's all folks 🙂

 

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Posted in Curious Facts, Everyday Life, Remote System Administration, System Administration, Various, Windows | No Comments »

Windows: command to show CPU info, PC Motherboard serial number and BIOS details

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016

windows-command-to-show-motherboard-bios-and-cpu-serials-and-specific-info-with-wmic

Getting CPU information, RAM info and other various hardware specifics on Windows from the GUI interface is pretty trivial from Computer -> Properties
even more specifics could be obtained using third party Windows software such as CPU-Z

Perhaps there are plenty of many other ones to get and log info about hardware on PC or notebook system, but for Windwos sysadmins especially ones who are too much in love with command prompt way of behaving and ones who needs to automatizate server deployment processes with BATCH (.BAT)  scripts getting quickly info about hardware on freshly installed remote host Win server with no any additional hardware info tools, you'll be happy to know there are command line tools you can use to get extra hardware information on Windows PC / server:

The most popular tool available to present you with some basic hardware info is of course systeminfo

 

C:\> systeminfo

Host Name:                 REMHOST
OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard
OS Version:                6.3.9600 N/A Build 9600
OS Manufacturer:           Microsoft Corporation
OS Configuration:          Member Server
OS Build Type:             Multiprocessor Free
Registered Owner:          Registrar
Registered Organization:   Registrar
Product ID:                00XXX-X0000-00000-XX235
Original Install Date:     17/02/2016, 11:38:39
System Boot Time:          18/02/2016, 14:16:48
System Manufacturer:       VMware, Inc.
System Model:              VMware Virtual Platform
System Type:               x64-based PC
Processor(s):              1 Processor(s) Installed.
                           [01]: Intel64 Family 6 Model 45 Stepping 7 GenuineInt
el ~2600 Mhz
BIOS Version:              Phoenix Technologies LTD 6.00, 11/06/2014
Windows Directory:         C:\Windows
System Directory:          C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device:               \Device\HarddiskVolume1
System Locale:             de;German (Germany)
Input Locale:              de;German (Germany)
Time Zone:                 (UTC+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm,
 Vienna
Total Physical Memory:     4,095 MB
Available Physical Memory: 2,395 MB
Virtual Memory: Max Size:  10,239 MB
Virtual Memory: Available: 8,681 MB
Virtual Memory: In Use:    1,558 MB
Page File Location(s):     C:\pagefile.sys
Domain:                    dom1.domain.com
Logon Server:              \\DOM
Hotfix(s):                 148 Hotfix(s) Installed.
                           [01]: KB2894852
                           [02]: KB2894856
                           [03]: KB2918614
                           [04]: KB2919355
…..


Now though systeminfo's hardware details and installed Windows KBXXXXX OS Hotfix patches are getting lists the command does not provide you with info about  system’s BIOS, thus to get this info you'll have to use also wmic (Windows Management Instrumentation Command).
 

 

So What Is WMIC?

WMIC extends WMI for operation from several command-line interfaces and through batch scripts. Before WMIC, you used WMI-based applications (such as SMS), the WMI Scripting API, or tools such as CIM Studio to manage WMI-enabled computers. Without a firm grasp on a programming language such as C++ or a scripting language such as VBScript and a basic understanding of the WMI namespace, do-it-yourself systems management with WMI was difficult. WMIC changes this situation by giving you a powerful, user-friendly interface to the WMI namespace.

WMIC is more intuitive than WMI, in large part because of aliases. Aliases take simple commands that you enter at the command line, then act upon the WMI namespace in a predefined way, such as constructing a complex WMI Query Language (WQL) command from a simple WMIC alias Get command. Thus, aliases act as friendly syntax intermediaries between you and the namespace. For example, when you run a simple WMIC command such as

Here is how to wmic to get PC Motherboard serial numbers, CPU and BIOS details:

 

C:\> wmic bios get name,serialnumber,version

 

Above will print  name if your BIOS, current version and it’s serial number if there is any.

If you need to get more info about the specific Motherboard installed on host:

 

C:\> wmic csproduct get name,identifyingnumber,uuid

 

This command will show motherboard modification and it’s UUID

If you want to quickly get what is Windows running hardware CPU clock speed
 

C:\> wmic cpu get name,CurrentClockSpeed,MaxClockSpeed

 

Also if you have turbo boost CPUs above command will help you find what’s the Max Clock Speed your system is capable of for the current hardware configuration.

If you do have dynamic clock speed running, then add this line, will refresh and monitor the Clock speed every 1 second.
 

C:\> wmic cpu get name,CurrentClockSpeed,MaxClockSpeed /every:1

Actually wmic is a great tool

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Posted in Remote System Administration, System Administration, Various, Windows | No Comments »

Mount remote Linux SSHFS Filesystem harddisk on Windows Explorer SWISH SSHFS file mounter and a short evaluation on what is available to copy files to SSHFS from Windows PC

Monday, February 22nd, 2016

swish-mount-and-copy-files-from-windows-to-linux-via-sshfs-mount

I'm forced to use Windows on my workbook and I found it really irritating, that I can't easily share files in a DropBox, Google Drive, MS OneDrive, Amazon Storage or other cloud-storage free remote service. etc.
I don't want to use DropBox like non self-hosted Data storage because I want to keep my data private and therefore the only and best option for me was to make possible share my Linux harddisk storage
dir remotely to the Windows notebook.

I didn't wanted to setup some complex environment such as Samba Share Server (which used to be often a common option to share file from Linux server to Windows), neither wanted to bother with  installing FTP service and bother with FTP clients, or configuring some other complex stuff such as WebDav – which BTW is an accepted and heavily used solution across corporate clients to access read / write files on a remote Linux servers.
Hence, I made a quick research what else besides could be used to easily share files and data from Windows PC / notebook to a home brew or professional hosting Linux server.

It turned out, there are few of softwares that gives a similar possibility for a home lan small network Linux / Windows hybrid network users such, here is few of the many:

  • SyncThing – Syncthing is an open-source file synchronization client/server application, written in Go, implementing its own, equally free Block Exchange Protocol. The source code's content-management repository is hosted on GitHub

     

     

     

     

     

    syncthing-logo

  • OwnCloud – ownCloud provides universal access to your files via the web, your computer or your mobile devices

     

     

     

     

     

    owncloud-logo

  • Seafile – Seafile is a file hosting software system. Files are stored on a central server and can be synchronized with personal computers and mobile devices via the Seafile client. Files can also be accessed via the server's web interface


seafile-client-in-browser

I've checked all of them and give a quick try of Syncthing which is really easy to start, just download the binary launch it and configure it under https://Localhost:8385 URL from a browser on the Linux server.
Syncthing seemed to be nice and easy to configure solution to be able to Sync files between Server A (Windows) and Server B(Linux) and guess many would enjoy it, if you want to give it a try you can follow this short install syncthing article.
However what I didsliked in both SyncThing and OwnCloud and Seafile and all of the other Sync file solutions was, they only supported synchronization via web and didn't seemed to have a Windows Explorer integration and did required
the server to run more services, posing another security hole in the system as such third party softwares are not easily to update and maintain.

Because of that finally after rethinking about some other ways to copy files to a locally mounted Sync directory from the Linux server, I've decided to give SSHFS a try. Mounting SSHFS between two Linux / UNIX hosts is
quite easy task with SSHFS tool

In Windows however the only way I know to transfer files to Linux via SSHFS was with WinSCP client and other SCP clients as well as the experimental:

As well as few others such as ExpandDrive, Netdrive, Dokan SSHFS (mirrored for download here)
I should say that I first decided to try copying few dozen of Gigabyte movies, text, books etc. using WinSCP direct connection, but after getting a couple of timeouts I was tired of WinSCP and decided to look for better way to copy to remote Linux SSHFS.
However the best solution I found after a bit of extensive turned to be:

SWISH – Easy SFTP for Windows

Swish is very straight forward to configure compared to all of them you download the .exe which as of time of writting is at version 0.8.0 install on the PC and right in My Computer you will get a New Device called Swish next to your local and remote drives C:/ D:/ , USBs etc.

swish-new-device-to-appear-in-my-computer-to-mount-sshfs

As you see in below screenshot two new non-standard buttons will Appear in Windows Explorer that lets you configure SWISH

windows-mount-sshfs-swish-add-sftp-connection-button-screenshot

Next and final step before you have the SSHFS remote Linux filesystem visible on Windows Xp / 7 / 8 / 10 is to fill in remote Linux hostname address (or even better fill in IP to get rid of possible DNS issues), UserName (UserID) and Direcory to mount.

swish-new-fill-in-dialog-to-make-new-linux-sshfs-mount-directory-possible-on-windows

Then you will see the SSHFS moutned:

swish-sshfs-mounted-on-windows

You will be asked to accept the SSH host-key as it used to be unknown so far

swish-mount-sshfs-partition-on-windows-from-remote-linux-accept-key

That's it now you will see straight into Windows Explorer the remote Linux SSHFS mounted:

remote-sshfs-linux-filesystem-mounted-in-windows-explorer-with-swish

Once setupped a Swish connection to copy files directly to it you can use the Send to Embedded Windows dialog, as in below screenshot

swish-send-to-files-windows-screenshot

The only 3 problem with SWISH are:

1. It doesn't support Save password, so on every Windows PC reboot when you want to connect to remote Linux SSHFS, you will have to retype remote login user pass.
Fron security stand point this is not such a bad thing, but it is a bit irritating to everytime type the password without an option to save permanently.
The good thing here is you can use Launch Key Agent as visible in above screenshot and set in Putty Key Agent your remote host SSH key so the passwordless login will work without any authentication at
all however, this might open a security hole if your Win PC gets infected by virus, which might delete something on remote mounted SSHFS filesystem so I personally prefer to retype password on every boot.

2. it is a bit slow so if you're planning to Transfer large amounts of Data as hundreds of megabytes, expect a very slow transfer rate, even in a Local  10Mbit Network to transfer 20 – 30 GB of data, it took me about 2-3 hours or so.
SWISH is not actively supported and it doesn't have new release since 20th of June 2013, but for the general work I need it is just perfect, as I don't tent to be Synchronizing Dozens of Gigabytes all the time between my notebook PC and the Linux server.

3. If you don't use the established mounted connection for a while or your computer goes to sleep mode after recovering your connection to remote Linux HDD if opened in Windows File Explorer will probably be dead and you will have to re-enable it.

For Mac OS X users who want to mount / attach remote directory from a Linux partitions should look in fugu – A Mac OS X SFTP, SCP and SSH Frontend

I'll be glad to hear from people on other good ways to achieve same results as with SWISH but have a better copy speed while using SSHFS.

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Posted in Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Networking, Remote System Administration, System Administration, Various, Windows | No Comments »

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