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Reinstall all Debian packages with a copy of apt deb package list from another working Debian Linux installation

Wednesday, July 29th, 2020

Reinstall-all-Debian-packages-with-copy-of-apt-packages-list-from-another-working-Debian-Linux-installation

Few days ago, in the hurry in the small hours of the night, I've done something extremely stupid. Wanting to move out a .tar.gz binary copy of qmail installation to /var/lib/qmail with all the dependent qmail items instead of extracting to admin user /root directory (/root), I've extracted it to the main Operating system root / directrory.
Not noticing this, I've quickly executed rm -rf var with the idea to delete all directory tree under /root/var just 3 seconds later, I've realized I'm issuing the rm -rf var with the wrong location WITH a root user !!!! Being scared on what I've done, I've quickly pressed CTRL+C to immedately cancel the deletion operation of my /var.

wrong-system-var-rm-linux-dont-do-that-ever-or-your-system-will-end-up-irreversably-damaged

But as you can guess, since the machine has an Slid State Drive drive and SSD memory drive are much more faster in I/O operations than the classical ATA / SATA disks. I was not quick enough to cancel the operation and I've noticed already some part of my /var have been R.I.P-pped in the heaven of directories.

This was ofcourse upsetting so for a while I rethinked the situation to get some ideas on what I can do to recover my system ASAP!!! and I had the idea of course to try to reinstall All my installed .deb debian packages to restore system closest to the normal, before my stupid mistake.

Guess my unpleasent suprise when I have realized dpkg and respectively apt-get apt and aptitude package management tools cannot anymore handle packages as Debian Linux's package dependency database has been damaged due to missing dpkg directory 

 

/var/lib/dpkg 

 

Oh man that was unpleasent, especially since I've installed plenty of stuff that is custom on my Mate based desktop and, generally reinstalling it updating the sytem to the latest Debian security updates etc. will be time consuming and painful process I wanted to omit.

So of course the logical thing to do here was to try to somehow recover somehow a database copy of /var/lib/dpkg  if that was possible, that of course led me to the idea to lookup for a way to recover my /var/lib/dpkg from backup but since I did not maintained any backup copy of my OS anywhere that was not really possible, so anyways I wondered whether dpkg does not keep some kind of database backups somewhere in case if something goes wrong with its database.
This led me to this nice Ubuntu thred which has pointed me to the part of my root rm -rf dpkg db disaster recovery solution.
Luckily .deb package management creators has thought about situation similar to mine and to give the user a restore point for /var/lib/dpkg damaged database

/var/lib/dpkg is periodically backed up in /var/backups

A typical /var/lib/dpkg on Ubuntu and Debian Linux looks like so:
 

hipo@jeremiah:/var/backups$ ls -l /var/lib/dpkg
total 12572
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Jul 26 03:22 alternatives
-rw-r–r– 1 root root      11 Oct 14  2017 arch
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 2199402 Jul 25 20:04 available
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 2199402 Oct 19  2017 available-old
-rw-r–r– 1 root root       8 Sep  6  2012 cmethopt
-rw-r–r– 1 root root    1337 Jul 26 01:39 diversions
-rw-r–r– 1 root root    1223 Jul 26 01:39 diversions-old
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  679936 Jul 28 14:17 info
-rw-r—– 1 root root       0 Jul 28 14:17 lock
-rw-r—– 1 root root       0 Jul 26 03:00 lock-frontend
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Sep 17  2012 parts
-rw-r–r– 1 root root    1011 Jul 25 23:59 statoverride
-rw-r–r– 1 root root     965 Jul 25 23:59 statoverride-old
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 3873710 Jul 28 14:17 status
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 3873712 Jul 28 14:17 status-old
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Jul 26 03:22 triggers
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Jul 28 14:17 updates

Before proceeding with this radical stuff to move out /var/lib/dpkg/info from another machine to /var mistakenyl removed oned. I have tried to recover with the well known:

  • extundelete
  • foremost
  • recover
  • ext4magic
  • ext3grep
  • gddrescue
  • ddrescue
  • myrescue
  • testdisk
  • photorec

Linux file deletion recovery tools from a USB stick loaded with a Number of LiveCD distributions, i.e. tested recovery with:

  • Debian LiveCD
  • Ubuntu LiveCD
  • KNOPPIX
  • SystemRescueCD
  • Trinity Rescue Kit
  • Ultimate Boot CD


but unfortunately none of them couldn't recover the deleted files … 

The reason why the standard file recovery tools could not recover ?

My assumptions is after I've done by rm -rf var; from sysroot,  issued the sync (- if you haven't used it check out man sync) command – that synchronizes cached writes to persistent storage and did a restart from the poweroff PC button, this should have worked, as I've recovered like that in the past) in a normal Sys V System with a normal old fashioned blocks filesystem as EXT2 . or any other of the filesystems without a journal, however as the machine run a EXT4 filesystem with a journald and journald, this did not work perhaps because something was not updated properly in /lib/systemd/systemd-journal, that led to the situation all recently deleted files were totally unrecoverable.

1. First step was to restore the directory skele of /var/lib/dpkg

# mkdir -p /var/lib/dpkg/{alternatives,info,parts,triggers,updates}

 

2. Recover missing /var/lib/dpkg/status  file

The main file that gives information to dpkg of the existing packages and their statuses on a Debian based systems is /var/lib/dpkg/status

# cp /var/backups/dpkg.status.0 /var/lib/dpkg/status

 

3. Reinstall dpkg package manager to make package management working again

Say a warm prayer to the Merciful God ! and do:

# apt-get download dpkg
# dpkg -i dpkg*.deb

 

4. Reinstall base-files .deb package which provides basis of a Debian system

Hopefully everything will be okay and your dpkg / apt pair will be in normal working state, next step is to:

# apt-get download base-files
# dpkg -i base-files*.deb

 

5. Do a package sanity and consistency check and try to update OS package list

Check whether packages have been installed only partially on your system or that have missing, wrong or obsolete control  data  or  files.  dpkg  should suggest what to do with them to get them fixed.

# dpkg –audit

Then resynchronize (fetch) the package index files from their sources described in /etc/apt/sources.list

# apt-get update


Do apt db constistency check:

#  apt-get check


check is a diagnostic tool; it updates the package cache and checks for broken dependencies.
 

Take a deep breath ! …

Do :

ls -l /var/lib/dpkg
and compare with the above list. If some -old file is not present don't worry it will be there tomorrow.

Next time don't forget to do a regular backup with simple rsync backup script or something like Bacula / Amanda / Time Vault or Clonezilla.
 

6. Copy dpkg database from another Linux system that has a working dpkg / apt Database

Well this was however not the end of the story … There were still many things missing from my /var/ and luckily I had another Debian 10 Buster install on another properly working machine with a similar set of .deb packages installed. Therefore to make most of my programs still working again I have copied over /var from the other similar set of package installed machine to my messed up machine with the missing deleted /var.

To do so …
On Functioning Debian 10 Machine (Working Host in a local network with IP 192.168.0.50), I've archived content of /var:

linux:~# tar -czvf var_backup_debian10.tar.gz /var
…

Then sftped from Working Host towards the /var deleted broken one in my case this machine's hostname is jericho and luckily still had SSHD and SFTP running processes loaded in memory:

jericho:~# sftp root@192.168.0.50
sftp> get var_backup_debian10.tar.gz
…

Now Before extracting the archive it is a good idea to make backup of old /var remains somewhere for example somewhere in /root 
just in case if we need to have a copy of the dpkg backup dir /var/backups

jericho:~# cp -rpfv /var /root/var_backup_damaged
…
 
jericho:~# tar -zxvf /root/var_backup_debian10.tar.gz 
jericho:/# mv /root/var/ /
…

Then to make my /var/lib/dpkg contain the list of packages from my my broken Linux install I have ovewritten /var/lib/dpkg with the files earlier backupped before  .tar.gz was extracted.

jericho:~# cp -rpfv /var /root/var_backup_damaged/lib/dpkg/ /var/lib/

 

7. Reinstall All Debian  Packages completely scripts

 

I then tried to reinstall each and every package first using aptitude with aptitude this is done with

# aptitude reinstall '~i'

However as this failed, tried using a simple shell loop like below:

for i in $(dpkg -l |awk '{ print $2 }'); do echo apt-get install –reinstall –yes $i; done

Alternatively, all .deb package reninstall is also possible with dpkg –get-selections and with awk with below cmds:

dpkg –get-selections | grep -v deinstall | awk '{print $1}' > list.log;
awk '$1=$1' ORS=' ' list.log > newlist.log;
apt-get install –reinstall $(cat newlist.log)

It can also be run as one liner for simplicity:

dpkg –get-selections | grep -v deinstall | awk '{print $1}' > list.log; awk '$1=$1' ORS=' ' list.log > newlist.log; apt-get install –reinstall $(cat newlist.log)

This produced a lot of warning messages, reporting "package has no files currently installed" (virtually for all installed packages), indicating a severe packages problem below is sample output produced after each and every package reinstall … :

dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'iproute' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'brscan-skey' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libapache2-mod-php7.4' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libexpat1:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libexpat1:i386' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'php5.6-readline' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'linux-headers-4.19.0-5-amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libgraphite2-3:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libgraphite2-3:i386' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libbonoboui2-0:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libxcb-dri3-0:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libxcb-dri3-0:i386' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'liblcms2-2:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'liblcms2-2:i386' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libpixman-1-0:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libpixman-1-0:i386' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'gksu' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'liblogging-stdlog0:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'mesa-vdpau-drivers:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'mesa-vdpau-drivers:i386' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libzvbi0:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libzvbi0:i386' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libcdparanoia0:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libcdparanoia0:i386' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'python-gconf' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'php5.6-cli' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'libpaper1:amd64' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'mixer.app' missing; assuming package has no files currently installed
…

After some attempts I found a way to be able to work around the warning message, for each package by simply reinstalling the package reporting the issue with

apt –reinstall $package_name


Though reinstallation started well and many packages got reinstalled, unfortunately some packages such as apache2-mod-php5.6 and other php related ones  started failing during reinstall ending up in unfixable states right after installation of binaries from packages was successfully placed in its expected locations on disk. The failures occured during the package setup stage ( dpkg –configure $packagename) …

The logical thing to do is a recovery attempt with something like the usual well known by any Debian admin:

apt-get install –fix-missing

As well as Manual requesting to reconfigure (issue re-setup) of all installed packages also did not produced a positive result

dpkg –configure -a
…

But many packages were still failing due to dpkg inability to execute some post installation scripts from respective .deb files.
To work around that and continue installing the rest of packages I had to manually delete all files related to the failing package located under directory 

/var/lib/dpkg/info#

For example to omit the post installation failure of libapache2-mod-php5.6 and have a succesful install of the package next time I tried reinstall, I had to delete all /var/lib/dpkg/info/libapache2-mod-php5.6.postrm, /var/lib/dpkg/info/libapache2-mod-php5.6.postinst scripts and even sometimes everything like libapache2-mod-php5.6* that were present in /var/lib/dpkg/info dir.

The problem with this solution, however was the package reporting to install properly, but the post install script hooks were still not in placed and important things as setting permissions of binaries after install or applying some configuration changes right after install was missing leading to programs failing to  fully behave properly or even breaking up even though showing as finely installed …

The final solution to this problem was radical.
I've used /var/lib/dpkg database (directory) from ther other working Linux machine with dpkg DB OK found in var_backup_debian10.tar.gz (linux:~# host with a working dpkg database) and then based on the dpkg package list correct database responding on jericho:~# to reinstall each and every package on the system using Debian System Reinstaller script taken from the internet.
Debian System Reinstaller works but to reinstall many packages, I've been prompted again and again whether to overwrite configuration or keep the present one of packages.
To Omit the annoying [Y / N ] text prompts I had made a slight modification to the script so it finally looked like this:
 

#!/bin/bash
# Debian System Reinstaller
# Copyright (C) 2015 Albert Huang
# Copyright (C) 2018 Andreas Fendt
# 
# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
# 
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
# 
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
# 
# —
# This script assumes you are using a Debian based system
# (Debian, Mint, Ubuntu, #!), and have sudo installed. If you don't
# have sudo installed, replace "sudo" with "su -c" instead.
# 

pkgs=`dpkg –get-selections | grep -w 'install$' | cut -f 1 |  egrep -v '(dpkg|apt)'`

for pkg in $pkgs; do
    echo -e "\033[1m   * Reinstalling:\033[0m $pkg"    

    apt-get –reinstall -o Dpkg::Options::="–force-confdef" -o Dpkg::Options::="–force-confold" -y install $pkg || {
        echo "ERROR: Reinstallation failed. See reinstall.log for details."
        exit 1
    }
done
 

 debian-all-packages-reinstall.sh working modified version of Albert Huang and Andreas Fendt script  can be also downloaded here.

Note ! Omitting the text confirmation prompts to install newest config or keep maintainer configuration is handled by the argument:

 

-o Dpkg::Options::="–force-confold


I however still got few NCurses Console selection prompts during the reinstall of about 3200+ .deb packages, so even with this mod the reinstall was not completely automatic.

Note !  During the reinstall few of the packages from the list failed due to being some old unsupported packages this was ejabberd, ircd-hybrid and a 2 / 3 more.
This failure was easily solved by completely purging those packages with the usual

# dpkg –purge $packagename

and reruninng  debian-all-packages-reinstall.sh on each of the failing packages.

Note ! The failing packages were just old ones left over from Debian 8 and Debian 9 before the apt-get dist-upgrade towards 10 Duster.
Eventually I got a success by God's grance, after few hours of pains and trials, ending up in a working state package database and a complete set of freshly reinstalled packages.

The only thing I had to do finally is 2 hours of tampering why GNOME did not automatically booted after the system reboot due to failing gdm
until I fixed that I've temprary used ligthdm (x-display-manager), to do I've

dpkg –reconfigure gdm3

lightdm-x-display-manager-screenshot-gdm3-reconfige

 to work around this I had to also reinstall few libraries, reinstall the xorg-server, reinstall gdm and reinstall the meta package for GNOME, using below set of commands:
 

apt-get install –reinstall libglw1-mesa libglx-mesa0
apt-get install –reinstall libglu1-mesa-dev
apt install –reinstallgsettings-desktop-schemas
apt-get install –reinstall xserver-xorg-video-intel
apt-get install –reinstall xserver-xorg
apt-get install –reinstall xserver-xorg-core
apt-get install –reinstall task-desktop
apt-get install –reinstall task-gnome-desktop

 

As some packages did not ended re-instaled on system because on the original host from where /var/lib/dpkg db was copied did not have it I had to eventually manually trigger reinstall for those too:

 

apt-get install –reinstall –yes vlc
apt-get install –reinstall –yes thunderbird
apt-get install –reinstall –yes audacity
apt-get install –reinstall –yes gajim
apt-get install –reinstall –yes slack remmina
apt-get install –yes k3b
pt-get install –yes gbgoffice
pt-get install –reinstall –yes skypeforlinux
apt-get install –reinstall –yes vlc
apt-get install –reinstall –yes libcurl3-gnutls libcurl3-nss
apt-get install –yes virtualbox-5.2
apt-get install –reinstall –yes vlc
apt-get install –reinstall –yes alsa-tools-gui
apt-get install –reinstall –yes gftp
apt install ./teamviewer_15.3.2682_amd64.deb –yes

 

Note that some of above packages requires a properly configured third party repositories, other people might have other packages that are missing from the dpkg list and needs to be reinstalled so just decide according to your own case of left aside working system present binaries that doesn't belong to any dpkg installed package.

After a bit of struggle everything is back to normal Thanks God! 🙂 !
 

 

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Posted in Linux, Linux Package Management, System Administration | 1 Comment »

How to check if shared library is loaded in AIX OS – Fix missing libreadline.so.7

Thursday, February 20th, 2020

ibm-aix-logo1

I've had to find out whether an externally Linux library is installed  on AIX system and whether something is not using it.
The returned errors was like so:

 

# gpg –export -a

Could not load program gpg:
Dependent module /opt/custom/lib/libreadline.a(libreadline.so.7) could not be loaded.
Member libreadline.so.7 is not found in archive


After a bit of investigation, I found that gpg was failing cause it linked to older version of libreadline.so.6, the workaround was to just substitute the newer version of libreadline.so.7 over the original installed one.

Thus I had a plan to first find out whether this libreadline.a is loaded and recognized by AIX UNIX first and second find out whether some of the running processes is not using that library.
I've come across this interesting IBM official documenation that describes pretty good insights on how to determine whether a shared library  is currently loaded on the system. which mentions the genkld command that is doing
exactly what I needed.

In short:
genkld – creates a list that is printed to the console that shows all loaded shared libraries

genkld-screenshot-aix-unix

Next I used lsof (list open files) command to check whether there is in real time opened libraries by any of the running programs on the system.

After not finding anything and was sure the library is neither loaded as a system library in AIX nor it is used by any of the currently running AIX processes, I was sure I could proceed to safely overwrite libreadline.a (libreadline.so.6) with libreadline.a with (libreadline.so.7).

The result of that is again a normally running gpg as ldd command shows the binary is again normally linked to its dependend system libraries.
 

aix# ldd /usr/bin/gpg
/usr/bin/gpg needs:
         /usr/lib/threads/libc.a(shr.o)
         /usr/lib/libpthreads.a(shr_comm.o)
         /usr/lib/libpthreads.a(shr_xpg5.o)
         /opt/freeware/lib/libintl.a(libintl.so.1)
         /opt/freeware/lib/libreadline.a(libreadline.so.7)
         /opt/freeware/lib/libiconv.a(libiconv.so.2)
         /opt/freeware/lib/libz.a(libz.so.1)
         /opt/freeware/lib/libbz2.a(libbz2.so.1)
         /unix
         /usr/lib/libcrypt.a(shr.o)
         /opt/freeware/lib/libiconv.a(shr4.o)
         /usr/lib/libcurses.a(shr42.o)
 

 

# gpg –version
gpg (GnuPG) 1.4.22
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

 

Home: ~/.gnupg
Supported algorithms:
Pubkey: RSA, RSA-E, RSA-S, ELG-E, DSA
Cipher: IDEA, 3DES, CAST5, BLOWFISH, AES, AES192, AES256, TWOFISH,
        CAMELLIA128, CAMELLIA192, CAMELLIA256
Hash: MD5, SHA1, RIPEMD160, SHA256, SHA384, SHA512, SHA224
Compression: Uncompressed, ZIP, ZLIB, BZIP2
 

 

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Posted in AIX, Everyday Life, System Administration | No Comments »

Install JBL Go Bluetooth Speaker on Debian GNU / Linux and Ubuntu

Thursday, August 24th, 2017

jbl-go-on-gnu-how-to-install-on-debian-and-ubuntu-linux

Here is how to configure a JBL Go Bluetooth (Wireless) speaker and presumably other Bluetooth external speakers to Debian GNU / Linux Wheezy 7 and Ubuntu 14.04 . 1. Install following bunch of deb packages

debian:~# apt-get install pulseaudio pulseaudio-module-bluetooth pavucontrol bluez-firmware

Here it is notable to mention pavucontrol if you have previously played more extensively on GNU / Linux you should have already used if not it is really cozy volume control tool with a lot of tuning options regarding pulseaudio stream server. Considering that like me you're using a GNOME as a desktop environment you will also need gnome-bluetooth package, e.g.:

debian:~# apt-get install gnome-bluetooth

As Pulseaudio is used as a sound streaming server in GNU / Linux (assuming your Debian version is using it you'll also need to have installed pulseaudio-module-bluetooth)

debian:~# apt-get install pulseaudio-module

For Ubuntu 14.04 GNU / Linux users the list of necessery bluetooth packages is a bit longer, if you're on this OS go and install:

debian:~# apt-get install bluez bluez-alsa bluez-audio bluez-btsco bluez-compat bluez-cups bluez-dbg bluez-gstreamer bluez-hcidump bluez-pcmcia-support bluez-tools bluez-utils python-bluez bluewho indicator-bluetooth libbluetooth-dev libgnome-bluetooth11 libbluetooth3 python-gobject python-dbus

Moreover you will need pulseaudio-module-bluetooth deb package installed in order to be able to select the desired sound output.

Next it is time to restart Bluetooth service

debian:~# service bluetooth restart
[ ok ] Stopping bluetooth: rfcomm /usr/sbin/bluetoothd.
[ ok ] Starting bluetooth: bluetoothd rfcomm.

It is also a good idea to restart pulseaudio snd streaming server in order to load the newly installed pulseaudio bluetooth module settings, to do so issue:

debian:~# killall pulseaudio

And try to establish connection from Gnome-Bluetooth to the JBL Go (press the JBL Go bluetooth button) and search from the Linux bluetooth interface, once founded connect it.

bluetooth-new-device-setup

jbl-go-connected-screenshot

Before JBL Go appears to list listable blootooth devices you will also need to run following command:

debian:~# pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
26

This command is to connect bluetooth discovered JBL Go device to the audio sink interface.

It is generally idea to add this line also to /etc/rc.local to make the setting permanently executed on every Linux boot.

Now you can launch pavucontrol and hopefully the JBL GO bluetooth speaker should be visible as an option, check out my below screenshot:

 


In case you further experience issues connecting the Bluetooth Speaker I would recommend to check out this Debian a2dp page at the end of the page are troubleshooting suggestions.

Troubleshooting

Refused to switch profile to a2dp_sink: Not connected

Bluetooth headset is connected, but ALSA/PulseAudio fails to pick up the connected device or there's no device to pick. This happens because GDM captures A2DP sink on session start, as GDM needs pulseaudio in the gdm session for accessibility. For example, the screen reader requires it. See 805414 for some discussion.

 

Workaround 1: disable pulseaudio in gdm

In order to prevent GDM from capturing the A2DP sink on session start, edit /var/lib/gdm3/.config/pulse/client.conf (or create it, if it doesn't exist):

  

autospawn = no
daemon-binary = /bin/true

After that you have to grant access to this file to Debian-gdm user:

  

chown Debian-gdm:Debian-gdm /var/lib/gdm3/.config/pulse/client.conf

You will also need to disable pulseaudio startup:

  

rm /var/lib/gdm3/.config/systemd/user/sockets.target.wants/pulseaudio.socket

In order to auto-connect a2dp for some devices, add this to /etc/pulse/default.pa:

  

load-module module-switch-on-connect

Logout your Desktop environment and restart gdm3 /etc/init.d/gdm3 restart or Reboot the PC and then it should be fine.

 

Now the sound device (bluetooth headset) should be accessible through pavucontrol and standard audio device manager.

 

Workaround 2: disable pulseaudio's bluetooth in gdm

The actual solution package maintainers are looking into next is to simply disable the bluetooth sink in the gdm pulseaudio daemon so that it doesn't take over the device. Add this to /var/lib/gdm3/.config/pulse/default.pa:

  

#!/usr/bin/pulseaudio -nF
#
# load system wide configuration
.include /etc/pulse/default.pa
### unload driver modules for Bluetooth hardware
.ifexists module-bluetooth-policy.so
unload-module module-bluetooth-policy
.endif
.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
unload-module module-bluetooth-discover
.endif

Though this article explains how to connect a bluetooth speaker connecting Bluetooth Speaker to GNU / Linux is done in analogous way

 

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Posted in Curious Facts, Entertainment, Everyday Life, Linux, Linux Audio & Video | 1 Comment »

Disable Bluetooth on CentOS / RHEL (Redhat) / Fedora Linux servers – Disable hidd bluetooth devices

Thursday, January 29th, 2015

Disable_Bluetooth_on_CentOS_RHEL_Redhat_Fedora_Linux_servers_-_Disable_hidd_bluetooth_devices-logo

Bluetooth protocol on Linux is nice to have (supported) on Linux Desktop systems to allow easy communication wth PDAs, Tablets, Mobiles, Digital Cameras etc, However many newly purchased dedicated servers comes with Bluetooth support enabled which is a service rarely used, thus it is a good strong server security / sysadmin practice to remove the service supporting Blueetooth (Input Devices) on Linux hosts this is the hidd (daemon) service, besides that there are few Linux kernel modules to enable bluetooth support and removing it is also a very recommended practice while configuring new Production servers. 

Leaving Blueetooth enabled on Linux just takes up memory space and  potentially is a exposing server to possible security risk (might be hacked) remotely. 
Thus eearlier I've blogged on how bluetooth is disabled on Debian / Ubuntu Linux servers an optimization tuning (check) I do on every new server I have to configure, since administrating both RPM and Deb Linux distributions I usually also remove bluetooth hidd service support on every CentOS / RHEL / Fedora Linux – redhat  (where it is installed), here is how :

 

1. Disable Bluetooth in CentOS / RHEL Linux


a) First check whether hidd service is running on server:
 

[root@centos ~]# ps aux |grep -i hid
… 


b) Disable bluetooth services
 

[root@centos ~]# /etc/init.d/hidd stop
[root@centos ~]# chkconfig hidd off
[root@centos ~]# chkconfig bluetooth off
[root@centos ~]# /etc/init.d/bluetooth off


c) Disable any left Bluetooth kernel module (drivers), not to load on next server boot
 

[root@centos ~]# echo 'alias net-pf-31 off' >> /etc/modprobe.conf


If you don't need or intend to use in future server USBs it is also a good idea to disable USBs as well:
 

[root@centos ~]# lsmod|grep -i hid
usbhid                 33292  0
hid                    63257  1 usbhid
usbcore               123122  4 usb_storage,usbhid,ehci_hcd


[root@centos ~]# echo 'usbhid' >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
[root@centos ~]# echo 'hid' >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
[root@centos ~]# echo 'usbcore' >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

 

2. Disable Bluetooth on Fedora Linux

Execute following:
 

[hipo@fedora ~]# /usr/bin/sudo systemctl stop bluetooth.service
[hipo@fedora ~]# /usr/bin/sudo systemctl disable bluetooth.service

 
3. Disable Bluetooth on Gentoo / Slackware and other Linuces

An alternative way to disable bluetooth that should work across all Linux distributions / versions is:
 

[root@fedora ~]# su -c 'yum install rfkill'
[root@fedora ~]# su -c 'vi /etc/rc.d/rc.local'


Place inside, something like (be careful not to overwrite something, already execution on boot):
 

#!/bin/sh
rfkill block bluetooth
exit 0


4. Disable any other unnecessery loaded service on boot time

It is a good idea to also a good idea to check out your server running daemons, as thoroughfully as possible and remove any other daemons / kernel modules not being used by server.

To disable all unrequired services, It is useful to get a list of all enabled services, on RedHat based server issue:

 

[root@cento ~]#  chkconfig –list |grep "3:on" |awk '{print $1}'
…


 A common list of services you might want to disable if you're configuring (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP = LAMP) like server is:
 

chkconfig anacron off
chkconfig apmd off
chkconfig atd off
chkconfig autofs off
chkconfig cpuspeed off
chkconfig cups off
chkconfig cups-config-daemon off
chkconfig gpm off
chkconfig isdn off
chkconfig netfs off
chkconfig nfslock off
chkconfig openibd off
chkconfig pcmcia off
chkconfig portmap off
chkconfig rawdevices off
chkconfig readahead_early off
chkconfig rpcgssd off
chkconfig rpcidmapd off
chkconfig smartd off
chkconfig xfs off
chkconfig ip6tables off
chkconfig avahi-daemon off
chkconfig firstboot off
chkconfig yum-updatesd off
chkconfig mcstrans off
chkconfig pcscd off
chkconfig bluetooth off
chkconfig hidd off


In most cases you can just run script like this – centos-disable_non-required_essential_services_for_lamp_server.sh.
 

Another useful check the amount of services each of the running server daemons is using, here is how:
 

ps aux | awk '{print $4"t"$11}' | sort | uniq -c | awk '{print $2" "$1" "$3}' | sort -nr


Output of memory consumption check command is here

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Posted in Bluetooth, Computer Security, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, Remote System Administration, System Administration, Various | No Comments »

How to read ext2 / ext3 / ext4 Linux filesystem and Mac OS X HFS+ partitions from Windows

Thursday, November 27th, 2014

access-linux-drives-filesystem-disks-from-microsoft-windows-howto-picture
If you are using a Dual-boot PC with installed M$ Windows and GNU .Linux OS storing many of your Documents / Music / Movie data on Linux's ext3 / ext4 filesystem partition  but using often also Windows PC for Professional Graphic Design or Photoshop CS5 / Coreldraw Graphics Suite X7 / 3D Studio / Adobe Drewmweaver you will certainly want to be able to mount (Map drive) as a drive Linux partitions ext3 / ext4 or Mac OS's HFS+ read / use it straight from Windows.

Below are few softs that does allow mounting Mac and Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, SuSE etc.) partitions on Windows

1. Mapping Linux ext3 and ext4 as a Windows drive

There are number of programs that can map Linux partition as a drive / directly explore Linux FS content. Most famous (free) ones are:

  • Ext2Explore (also known as Ext2Read) – Probably best historically known Windows driver that does Linux ext FS reading 

     

     

     

    ext2explore-access-ubuntu-debian-fedora-suse-linux-from-your-windows-screenshot
     

  • Ext2FSD – Open source file system driver for Windows (2K / XP / WIN7 / WIN8 – both x86 and 64 bit arch) supports ext2 / ext3 FSs and even CIFS protocol shares over network mounts. Ext4 filesystems are supported in read only mode only. It supports many language codepage utf8, cp936, cp950 etc..- Cyrillic file names shown correctly 🙂

     

     

     

    ext2fsd-mount-linux-partitions-in-microsoft-windows-screenshot
     

  • Explore2FS – GUI explorer tool for accessing ext2 and ext3 filesystems. It runs under all versions of Windows and can read almost any ext2 and ext3 filesystem.

     

     

    explore2fs-linux-partitions-from-widnows-screenshot
     

  • Disk Internals Linux reader – A freeware tool for reading and extracting files from EXT2/EXT3/EXT4, HFS, UFS2, Reiser4, and ReiserFS partitions in Windows.

     

     

     

    disk-internals-linux-reader-2.0-screenshot-proprietary-linux-filesystem-reader-mounter-for-windows


Other useful multiplatorm Linux FS reader unfortunately proprietary one is ParagonExtFS – proprietary software having version for both Win OS and Mac (Supports also mounting Linux partitionons Mac).

Note that if you copy some files using some of above tools to Windows permissions held in Linux could screw up, so it is not a good idea to try backup Linux configuration files to Windows's partitions 🙂

2. Read Copy files from Mac OS HFS+ filesystem to Windows

Apple has Boot Camp driver package which allows Mac OS's HFS+ to be viewable from Windows.

reading-Mac-OSX-HFS-plus-partitions-from-ms-windows-with-bootcamp-driver

For people who don't intend to continuosly read data HFS+ it might be better to not load Boot Camp but use:

hfsexplorer-explorero-allowing-read-access-to-mac-osx-from-ms-windows-os

​ Only problem with Boot Camp and HFSExplorer is it allows you to read data from Mac OS filesystem only read only.If you want to write to HFS+ filesystem from Windows you will need:

  • Proprietary Paragon HFS+ (or)

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

Religulous – An Atheist movie preaching false ideas about Christianity – Religulous Orthodox Christian perspective

Thursday, July 31st, 2014

Religulous-anti-Christian-movie-Psalm-14-vers-1-the-fool-said-in-his-heart-there-is-no-God
Most of my colleagues at work know I am Christian and as we have our lunch  together almost daily, have a friend talks in our rest time etc. … it is quite normally we have talks on topic of philosophy and religion.

Most of them (like a lot of IT people have atheistic views as most people nowdays, even though I'm sure they believe deep in their hearts in good and wait / search for God's salvation and mercy.)
In that short talks often, I've been pranked, questioned and probably even thought crazy for believing in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Gospel. That's okay as this is normal as in almost all ages Christians, were mocked for their faith by skeptics and disbelievers.

In our talks often, my colleagues try to convince me their believe "There is no God" and they think in a way that religion is only for old fashioned and stupid people, because they think the modern dilusion that science and religion are controversial.
Since some time one of my colleague tells me about an atheistic movie of an atheist who made a movie called Religulous. After, I've been told about the movie about 5 times, I decided to spend some and research on it, because I firmly believe it is the next "holywood" style easily digestable movie made "the holywood way". Below is my rationalization and findings about the movie.

The movie title Religulous is selected as a prank from the word "Ridiculous". Before you further read I warn you if you're an Orthodox Christian to not watch it for it is not worthy to spend 1:40 minutes of your wife watching such a nonsense.

Religulous is American documentary film from 2008, directed by Larry Charles and starring comedian Bill Maher. In the Movie Bill Maher travels to different religion holy places (Jerusalem, Vatican, Salt Lake city) and pranks interviewing believers from variety of religions believes. Uneasy questions misleading questions are asked to different people and he makes prank of answers. Of course it is very easy to make someone a fool who doesn't have idea about basics of world religions and present your arguments in a convincing way among people who doesn't have deep understanding on Christianity branches and history.

If one takes a quick time to research on who is Bill Maher, he finds he is a ardently liberal who has deep disrespect and hate for Christianity based on a personal bitter experience in Catholicism (curiously his mother is Jewish) and one finds Maher disregards Christianity not based on facts but on personal bitter experiences from Roman Catholicism.
In religulous it is preached, that religion must die to liberate the family from unneeded slavery which is pretty much what the communists in the bolshevik revolution believed – meaning his idea is nothing new but rebranded atheism. Just for information, there were people with such hatred and ideas during the last 2000 years, so somehow this guy, reinvents the steel.

In the movie Maher travels the world with director of  Borat Cultural Learnings of America for  Make benefit Glorious notion of Khazakstan – Larry Charles (which is another mockery "commedy" movie).
Even by reading IMDB movie description gives you idea the movie is not serious and it is highly ridiculous to use such non-sense to attack Christianity, along which civilization gravitated and thanks to which we have a well developed modern civilization.  What Maher claims is about  1/3 of population on earth – 2.5 billion are stupid and inferior to atheists).

Here is IDMB's storyline quote:

Bill Maher interviews some of religion's oddest adherents. Muslims, Jews and Christians of many kinds pass before his jaundiced eye. Maher goes to a Creationist Museum in Kentucky, which shows that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time 5000 years ago. He talks to truckers at a Truckers' Chapel. (Sign outside: "Jesus love you.") He goes to a theme park called Holy Land in Florida. He speaks to a rabbi in league with Holocaust deniers. He talks to a Muslim musician who preaches hatred of Jews. Maher finds the unlikeliest of believers and, in a certain Vatican priest, he even finds an unlikely skeptic.

It is obvious from this description that the movie is not to consider serious and what the people on this movie would say is not to be considered authoritative as they're not even theologians, but random people. Also what Maher did in this movie is to select weak and mixed people to mock intentionally Christianity.

Even though in the movie various religions are mocked the accent of his mockery is christianity and this is not a coincidense but because, Christianity has most adherents.
The movie is highly manipulative, just like another openly anti-Christian movie Zeitgeist.
The guy opens the movie with a scene on Megiddo, Israel with a false claim that the end of the world is going to happen on this place.

I have heard some protestant Christians took Revalation chapter of Holy Bible and interpret the written there about an End of the World all world armies battle. Actually I'm not aware that this idea is ever preached by any orthodox Christian priest, monk or elder but it is more a "free interpretation" of the holy scriptures by some protestant denomination.
Actually an interesting thing about Megiddo is on Megiddo is located the earliest Christian Church, so I guess it is a not a coincidense movie criticism starts from there. The first half of the film is mostly focused on evangelical Christians, how they believe in things like a 5,000-year-old earth, etc. Maher takes a trip to the Creation Museum in Hebron, Kentucky, where he interviews creationism guru Ken Ham against the backdrop of animatronic dinosaurs with saddles (for humans to ride on).
And he also interviews young-earth evangelical Mark Pryor, a democratic senator from Arkansas who creates some of the funniest moments of the film. To be fair, Maher also interviews Christian evolutionist Francis Collins, but he too comes out looking a bit buffoonish.

All along the journey, Maher and Charles jazz up the images with achingly sardonic voiceovers and music, and some very clever quick-cut editing (inserting 2 seconds of Charlton Heston-as-Moses at opportune moments, for example).

To show off his openness Maher, smokes pot on camera obviously preaching "freedom" the american way and live quickly and die rock'n'roll culture message. The movie is quite agressive and made in a way to make converts. The movie presents the so called self-fulfilling prophecies, believed and preached by people involved into experimental psychology (which nowdays uses early occult and shamanistic magical methods and whose practices are not based on science but on believe).

Of course to make such a movie look authentic, any connection with real historic facts in the movie are omitted.

Maher's thesis that all things evil and destructive are a result of religious delusion simply does not hold water historically!
There are already thousands of recent proofs, that lack-of religion is not panacea for all problems, take for example communism in Russia and the disbandlement of the USSR, Communistic China and the countraless atheistic regimes throughout history leading to violence and calamity in the world, totally outside of any religious motivation.

To make the non-sense movie more fun and convincing, the psychologic method of mockery is heavily used,  everything in the movie is presented in a commedy form.

Religulous a movie meant to make religious people look stupid, to "prove" that religious belief and intelligence are mutually exclusive.

Maher spends the second half of the film undermining religions and cults of every shape and size. He goes to Utah and skewers Mormonism, interviews Puerto Rican cult leader Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda (who claims to be the Antichrist), and even gets high with a leader of a religion based around marijuana. He goes to the Vatican and interviews some crazy Catholic priest, and Jerusalem to deconstruct Judaism and Islam. Maher is particularly hard on Islam, offering somewhat surprising pronouncements about the inherent violence and barbarism of that most touchy of all world religions. At moments like these, Maher might actually find allies in conservative Christian circles??

In the movie, during a debate with a Christian, Maher repeats a version of Christ myth theory derived from Gerald Massey's 1907 thesis that the myth of the Egyptian deity Horus was the source of the story of Jesus. He makes riduculous connection between the Book of the Dead and Jesus Christ.

It is pretty interesting that we Christians are often being blamed for evangelism and because of that most of Christians, fear to talk about their faith, just because true Christian faith and modern society living in confort does not align well together.

The inner essence of man is very similar in both atheists, christian, muslims, jewish, buddhists hindu etc. we are all looking for a higher meaning in life sooner or later in life. We all live by certain believes daily (I know atheists would ignore it but, a lot of the actions even the hardest atheist takes are pushed by certain belief system and faith in something (disbelieve in God is also a faith just like believe in God). Actually being an atheist is a tough thing, because atheists just like us christians spend time to reinforce their disbelieve with, stories, question and answer sessions, scientific facts.

Most of atheists fall in the trap of disbelieve either because they're dishonest in their research on is there God? or because events in their life turned in a way they didn't wanted too (because of lack of what saints call humility) or because they want to justify their bad deeds. Anyways for good or bad most of people who define themselves as atheists and follow the "spiritual wind of the times" are nowadays living in the well developed high economies world and it is interesting that in this parts of the world, people have as heritage to live with general Christian mentality and Christian mindset. Christian understanding of life in most countries full of atheists is so strongly rooted in society and culture, so even the biggest anti-christ or atheist has a tendency to do goo. That a lot of those atheists who disbelieve God actually do Christiain deeds not realizing a lot of their deeds paradoxally are deeds of people who actually believe there is God.

I've noticed there are at least 3 types of atheists:

  • Passive
  • Indifferent
  • Militant (Active)

My personal observations on Atheism (as an ex-atheist), is that atheists have minimal or wrong understanding on different religions and know nothing about Orthodox Christianity and most even didin't hear about its existence, from the movie I got the impression Maher also doesn't have

I think it is not righteous to criticize Christianity without even taking full time to study it. As Orthodox Christianity is hard to grasp and unpopular faith, often the image of modern Christian is made up by protestant Church denominations and even in best cases by Roman Catholic church, so most people in even officially christian protestant / catholic countries does not have the opportunity to see true Christian ascetic faith which is still present in the Orthodox Church.

The most common attack of an atheist against Christianity is using arguments about the Roman Catholic's Crusades and Inquisition, which were conducted by the Roman Catholic Church. Most Atheists however does not knowthat in Orthodox Church, there was no inquisition and no Crusades.
Even worse Roman Catholic crusaders came and invaded and killed orthodox christians in the same way they killed anyone who rejected to accept their faith, this act never happened in Orthodox Church.

Passive and indifferent atheists often, keep calm and either haven't thought whether there is God or don't take position when one talks about faith.
Often passive and indifferent atheists are amazed to learn things pointing them that there is God and that the holy writtings are true.

The Militant (active) atheist is a rare thing to see nowadays as people are tought to be tolerant and respectful to others, however if you start talking on topic that has to deal with faith, somehow a lot of atheists start being agressive and blame you and your faith for responsible for all the evils that happened in the world.

Often active atheists are such because of some personal problem or disappointed connected to Christianity just like Maher. 
Maher and other atheists like him start developing blaming attitude to the Lord and the Church. The fact that Christianity doesn't fit someone's desires doesn't mean it is true.

In the movie one sees quite of crazy people and religious leaders, which are either uninformed about their faith or suffer from some mental problems, as with most movies to discredit Christianity, Orthodox Christianity stand point on faith is not shown. Maher suggests, as a alternative method to faith, the method of doubt actually by creating such a movie with the aim to discredit religion, he demonstrates totally the opposite, as all his findings are based on his personal faith that "There is no God" and Christianity is based on fairy-tales.

Faith has difficulties, there are a lot of sick people in the Church, things are not ideal in christian-dome, and we have to be careful not to believe or follow blindly everything we hear, but I think Maher's attitude is seriously disrespectful to things and people's believe.

In the movie, a lot of the people to be interviewed were radical and the movie makes an image of Christianity as very radical, but Maher and his movie is just like as radical as them. It is fact that there is radical things in many of protestant christian denominations and many start-up (newly believed) Christians, have the tendency to be radical, however to make his point solid  I think, Maher should have interviewed stable and educated theologian and not look for the weirdiest individuals and places in the world.

And often try to look for arguments to approve their disbelieve (finding such arguments is a tought think and this is why a lot of people who try to look for arguments against Christ and Christianity – like me some 10 years ago often end up Christian). There is not one or two movies made on topic of "Scientific Atheism" in same spirit as Religulous, if one research on the facts presented in this movie he quickly understands a lot of the presented movie facts are either untrue or are true but have nothing to do with authentic Christianity which one can find in the most ancient of Churches Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches (like for example Syriac Orthodox and Copts).

Religulous and atheistic movies from its genre are not based on true facts either historical or scientific and even often doesn't follow strong rationalism  but more or less on particular person believe. They're looking to disprove God looking from answers in a very biased way.

I would close the post with a quote from the Holy Bible Psalms chapter, clearly addressing atheist people like Maher.
 

The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.
Psalm 14:1

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

Migrate VMWare Linux Virtual Machine to Virtualbox – Convert VMware .VMX to .OVF (Open Virtual Format)

Monday, June 2nd, 2014

migrate_vmware-virtual-machine-toto-virtualbox-vmx-to-ovf-migration

VMWare Virtual Machines are usually stored in OVA Format  which is bundle of OVF(Open Virtualization Format) and in multiple *.VMDK files.
Though other Virtual Machines are supposed to also support these "open virtualization format", different VM vendors implement and support it differently, therefore though in theory VirtualBox and QEMU are said to support OVA Format. Attempts to import such usually will fail. In this little article I will explain how VMWare stored (exported) VirtualMachine machine can be succesfully imported to VirtualBox.
 

1. Locate where is Virtualbox .vmx files from Window search or via dir command

I'm a console guy, so I prefer looking for VMWare's .vmx from command line:
 

C:\Users\GGEORGI7> cd c:\ C:\> dir /s *.vmx

 

Volume in drive C is PC COE
Volume Serial Number is XXXX-XXXX
…
Directory of C:\Users\ggeorgi7\Documents\Virtual Machines\Debian 7

06/02/14 11:06 AM 2,687 Debian 7.vmx
05/28/14 15:44 PM 370 Debian 7.vmxf
2 File(s) 3,057 bytes


2. Switch to wherever the VMWare virtualmachine .vmx file is located

 

C:\> cd \Users\ggeorgi7\Documents\Virtual Machines\Debian 7
 

N.B. !Make sure the VMWare Virtualmachine is Shutdown (if it is Suspended converted file will not be properly implemented inside VirtualBox!). Whether the migrated virtualhost is suspended, launch VMWare, restore its state and Shut it down properly before starting migration with ovftool.
 

3. Remove Vmware-tools, Reset Display settings and Input D (before exporting to OVF) in VMWare

a) Remove vmware-tools

Vmware-tools kernel modules and stuff compiled specific for VMWare are no longer needed and might pose issues, thus it is always a good idea if previously installed in VMWare to wipe them out with cmd:

vmware-uninstall-tools.pl

uninstall-vmware-tools-linux-screenshot-migrating-vmware-to-virtualbox
b) Reset Display Device and Input Devices

Inside VMWare virtual machine Linux host, before shutting it down run:

mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.vmware

c) Remove Incomptable devices

To prevent issues with sound – its necessary to remove VMWare device created for soundcard, in order to let VirtualBox create its soundcard device on 1st boot after migration. To do so click on Virtual Machine and from context menu click Settings then in  Hardware tab select Sound Card and Remove:
 

Settings -> Hardware -> Sound Card (Click Remove)

vmware-migration-remove-soundcard-to-make-work-sound-work-in-virtualbox


4. Make a Clone (Backup) of Virtual Machine

Its always a good idea to create backup of VMWare VM to be migrated just in case something goes wrong during migration, so you have a way to step back to the already working one. Once files are copied it might be a good idea to use use some archiver like PeaZip or 7-Zip to save some disk space.
 

mkdir SomeFolder
copy Path_To_Virtual_Machine Folder_for_Backup_Virtual_Machine

 


In my case this was

 

 

mkdir \Temp\VMWare-machine-backup
C:\>copy "C:\Users\ggeorgi7\Documents\Virtual Machines\Debian 7"\ c:\Temp\VM
ware-machine-backup

Restoring later VMWare VirtualMachines in case of some failure is done by simply copying backuped files to VMWare Working Directory folder

In case if Wondering

Where is stored VMWare Virtual Machines?

 

Check in:
 

VM -> Settings -> Options


vmware-working-directory-folder-where-are-stored-vmware-virtualmachines

5. Use VMWare ovftool.exe to convert .VMX to Open Virtualization Format (.OVF)

 

Though export from .VMX to .OVF it can be also done from VMWare GUI from:
 

File -> Export to OVF

Anyways I think it is better to do it via OVFTool console tool:

The most common location for  VMWare Workstation is:
 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Vmware\Vmware Workstation\OVFTool


For VMware Player it is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Vmware\Vmware Player\OVFTool

Very important thing to mention here is you have to be cautious, Never to run together VMWare and VirtualBox.
!! Before proceeding to next OVTool .vmx to .ovf migration Shutdown the VirtualMachine and as a best practice close VMware completely.

cd Location-directory-ofOVFTool
ovftool.exe Path-folder-to_VMVM_file.vmx Path-folder_to_VM_exportVM_file_export.ovf

C:\> cd "\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation"\OVFTool
C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\OVFTool>ovftool.exe "\Users\ggeorgi7\Documents\Virtual Machines\Debian 7\Debian 7.vmx" C:\Users\ggeorg i7\vmware-debian-export.ovf

 

vmware-ovftool-convert-vmware-linux-virtual-machine-to-virtualbox


Convertion will take about 30 minutes on a normal computer hardware lets say (Dual Core PC 2Ghz with 4 Gb of RAM).
If you get a “failed to open disk” error during convertion, its likely that the virtual machine is still running or wasn’t shut down properly – boot the virtual machine and perform a shut down.

6. Launch VirtualBox, Install Guest Additions to enable Copy / Paste and USB support in Virtual Machine

After the process completes, you can boot the virtual machine. If you haven't earlier uninstalled vmware-tools  uninstall VMware Tools, and install VirtualBox’s Guest Additions (in order to allow Copy / Paste between VirtualBox and guess OS).
 

7. Launch VirtualBox and Import exported .OVF

Once Virtual Machine is exported, to import it into VirtualBox, launch VirtualBox and choose:
 

File -> Import Appliance


virtualbox-import-vmware-old-virtual-machine-to-new-linux import vmware appliance

virtualbox-import-vmware-previously-installed-virtual-machine-linux import appliance virtualbox
 

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Posted in Linux, Various, Virtual Machines, Windows | 3 Comments »

Archive Outlook mail in Outlook 2010 to free space in your mailbox

Thursday, May 15th, 2014

outlook-archive-old-mail-to-prevent-out-of-space-problems-outlook-logo
If you're working in a middle or big sized IT company or corporation like IBM or HP, you're already sucked into the Outlook "mail whirlwind of corporate world" and daily flooded with tons of corporate spam emails with fuzzy business random terms like taken from Corporate Bullshit Generator

Many corporations, because probably of historic reasons still provide employees with small sized mailboxes half a gigabyte, a gigabyte or even in those with bigger user Mailboxes like in Hewlett Packard, this is usually no more than 2 Gigabytes.

This creates a lot of issues in the long term because usually mail communication in Inbox, Sent Items, Drafts Conversation History, Junk Email and Outbox grows up quickly and for a year or a year and a half, available Mail space fills up and you stop receiving email communication from customers. This is usually not too big problem if your Mailbox gets filled when you're in the Office (in office hours). However it is quite unpleasent and makes very bad impression to customers when you're in a few weeks Summar Holiday with no access to your mailbox and your Mailbox free space  depletes, then you don't get any mail from the customer and all the time the customer starts receiving emails disrupting your personal or company image with bouncing messages saying the "INBOX" is full.

To prevent this worst case scenario it is always a good idea to archive old mail communication (Items) to free up space in Outlook 2010 mailbox.
Old Outlook Archived mail is (Saved) exported in .PST outlook data file format. Later exported Mail Content and Contacts could be easily (attached) from those .pst file to Outlook Express, leaving you possibility to still have access to your old archived mail keeping the content on your hard drive instead on the Outlook Exchange Mailserver (freeing up space from your Inbox).

Here is how to archive your Outlook mail Calendar and contacts:

Archive-outlook-mail-in-microsoft-outlook-2010-free-space-in-your-mailbox

1. Click on the "File" tab on the top horizontal bar.Select "Cleanup Tools" from the options.

2. Click "Cleanup Tools" from the options.

3. Click on the "Archive this folder and all subfolders" option.

4. Select what to archive (e.g. Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items, Calendar whatever …)

5. Choose archive items older than (this is quite self-explanatory)

6. Select the location of your archive file (make sure you palce the .PST file into directory you will not forget later)

That's all now you have old mails freed up from Outlook Exchange server. Now make sure you create regular backups ot old-archived-mail.pst file you just created, it is a very good idea to upload this folder to encrypted file system on USB stick or use something like TrueCrypt to encrypt the file and store it to external hard drive, if you already don't have a complete backup corporate solution backuping up all your Laptop content.

Later Attaching or detaching exported .PST file in Outlook is done from:

File -> Open -> Open Outlook Data File

outlook-open-backupped-pst-datafile-archive-importing-to-outlook-2010


Once .PST file is opened and attached in Left Inbox pane you will have the Archived old mail folder appear.

 

outlook-archived-mail-pannel-screenshot-windows-7
You can change Archived name (like I did to some meaningful name) like I've change it to Archives-2013 by right clicking on it (Data File properties -> Advanced)

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Posted in Everyday Life, Outlook, Various, Windows | 1 Comment »

Curious: Old ladies from Plovdiv, Bulgaria are knitting mobile and computer equipment hand made cases

Monday, November 11th, 2013

new business idea manual hand crafted knitted mobile device cases

While reading one of my daily tech news websites today I stimbled on very unusual news and a business idea, worthy to re-blog 😉 The idea of the new Innovative business is just genious and simple as that – knitted digital equipment cases. There are plenty of old ladies in Bulgaria who are used to knitting sweaters, hats and all kind of hand made winter clothes. Knitting was among the must have skills for ladies in Bulgaria until some years time even my grandmother when a bit younger used to knit in most of her free time. Thus most of grandmothers in Bulgaria still when get old and have a lot of free time, kill their time with the craft they learned as young. For the young European people who probably never heard of it knitting is unique kind of manufacture for producing winter clothes from yarn.

yarn in different colors the base material for knitting

Knitting was a top ladies craft before the boom of industrial manufacture before 19th century industrial revolution, nowadays its almost a forgotten craft. Now some genious people in Bulgaria decided to give work to this old ladies and pay them for knitting computer and mobile equipment cases (cases for Tablets, Smartphones, Notebooks etc.) Knitting of mobile equipment cases opens new work places and introduces new way for old people to earn some extra income, such extra income is absolutely necessary in Bulgaria nowdays as most old ladies receive ridiculous pension of 120 to 150 EUR per month (money insufficient to pay expensive winter heating bills and so expensive food that is nowdays in Bulgaria).

lady knitting a sweater or some kind of clothe

The company who invented this new business and introduced it for the masses is Snug Essentials and is started by enthusiastic young people who had grandmothers practicing the old craft. The innovative product is distributed via Etsy Global Platform for distributing hand crafted goods as well as in   Facebook, Twitter and Ebay. As of time of writting the companyis extremely small 6 old grandmas work on producing the knitted cases for digital equipment but the tendency is this to rise soon, as there are plenty of people who love the hand made cases.
The price of a case is also not too high, it costs only around 10$ per knitted case. Here are few nice knitted cases produced by grandmas 🙂

notebook laptop in knitted hand made case

Your girlfriend will love it if you gift her one of these 🙂

knitted notebook case original business idea

 

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Posted in Curious Facts, Everyday Life | No Comments »

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