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Happy Nativity Christ is Born ! Happy New Year 2022 and thanks for reading me

Wednesday, January 5th, 2022

Happy-Nativity-Christmas-christ-is-born-card

Christ is Born ! – Image Source: Holy Cross Monastery

Happy Nativity Christ was born 2022 years ago ! I wish a happy Nativity (Christmas).
ILet with the birth of Christ, his light and eternal dominion is born in us and lights us, as the star lighted the Magis who followed the Christmas star.

I wish my dear readers Peace, Love, Hope, Faith Good spiritual and bodily health and God's mercy by the prayers of the Holy Mother of God.

Saint_Alexander-Nevsky-Sofia-Bulgaria-Main-Cathedral-Church-fireworks
Saint Alexander Nevsky Largest Cathedral, Sofia Bulgaria. Tallest (53 m) and largest (by area and volume) cathedral in the Balkans and one of the 3 largest Eastern Orthodox Churches in Europe.

I wish you also a Happy New 2022 year ! Let the new year bring you new power to fight evil and do more good. Let the new year be peaceful, full of Grace and kindness to each of my dear readers ! Let the new year bring you more wisdom and understanding on everyone's life destination and bring you understanding on what is the proper things to do that would bring more joy and for our family, colleagues at work and people who surround is over the coming 12 months time.

Let each those who were sorrowful become joyful, those who hurted, get healed and those who worked hard find fruits out of their hard labor. Let those who hunger find food and those who are in pain find relief ! 
Use your obtained knowledge wisely and not only work on the mind  but work on the soul so they both become better !

Cheers and Happy New  Successful Year 2022 !!!

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

How to fresh Upgrade mistakenly installed 32-bit Windows 10 Professional to 64-bit Windows / A failure to Disk Clone old SSD 120GB to 512GB HDD due to failed Solid State Drive

Wednesday, November 17th, 2021

upgrade-windows-10-32-bit-to-64-bit-howto-picture

I've been Setting up a new PC with Windows OS that is a bit old a 11 years old Lenovo ThinkCentre model M90P with 8 GB of Memory, Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU         650  @ 3.20GHz   3.19 GHz, Intel Q57 Express Chipset. The machine came to me with Windows 7 preinstalled and the intial goal was to migrate Windows as it is with its data from the old 120GB SSD to new 512 SSD and then to keep the machine at least a bit more up to date to upgrade the old Windows 7 to Windows 10.

This as usual seemed like a very trivial task for a System Administrator, and even if you haven't touched much of Windows as me it makes it look a piece of cake, however as always with computers, once you think you'll be done in 2 hours usually it takes 20+ . Some call it Murphy's law "If something could go wrong then it will go wrong". But putting this situation that I thought all well that's easy lets do it is a kind of a proud Thought for man and the to save us from this Passion of Proudness which according to Church fathers is the worst passion one can have and humiliate us a bit.

God allows some unforseen stuff to happen   🙂 The case with this machine whose original idea I had is to OK I Simply Duplicate the Old Hard Drive to the New one and Place the new one on the ThinkCentre is not a big deal turned to a small adventure 🙂

For this machine hardware I have to say, the old English saying "Old but Gold" is pretty true, especially after I've attached the Samsung 512GB NVME SSD Drive, which my dear friend and brother in Christ "Uncle Emilian" had received as a gift from another friend called Angel. To put even more rant, here name Emilian stems from the Greek Emilianos which translated to English means Adversary.. But anyways The old Intel SSD 120 GB drive which besides being already completely Full of Data,  turned to have Memory DATA Chips (that perhaps burn out / wasted),  so parts of the Drive were Unreadable.
I've realized the fauly SSD fact after, trying to first clone the drives with my Hardware Disk Clone device Orico Dual Bay 2.5 6629US3-C device and then using a simple bit to bit copy with dd command.

orico-6629us3-c2-bay-usb3-type-b2.5-type3-5.inch-sata


At first for some weird reason the Cloning of 120GB SSD HDD towards -> 512 GB newer one was unsuccessful – one of the 2 lamp indicators on Source and Destination Drives was continuiously blinking orange as it seemed data could not be read, even though I tried few times and wait for about 1 hour of time for the cloning to complete, so I first suspected that might be an issue with my  last year bought Disk Clone hardware device. So I've attached the 2 Hard Drives towards my Debian GNU / Linux 10 as USB attached drives using the "Toaster" device  and tried a classical copy   from terminal with Disk Druid e.g.


# dd if=/dev/sdb2 of=/dev/sdbc2 bs=180M status=progress conv=noerror, sync 

 
dd: error reading '/dev/sdb2': Input/output error
1074889+17746 records in
1092635+0 records out
559429120 bytes (559 MB, 534 MiB) copied, 502933 s, 1.1 kB/s
dd: writing to '/dev/dc2': Input/output error
1074889+17747 records in
1092635+0 records out
559429120 bytes (559 MB, 534 MiB) copied, 502933 s, 1.1 kB/s

Finally I did a manual copy of files from /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdc2 with rsync and part of the files managed to be succesfully copied, about 55Gigabytes out of 110 managed to copy.  Luckily the data on the broken Intel 320 Series 120GB was not top secret stuff so wasting some bits wasn't the end of the world 🙂

Next, I've removed the broken 120Gb SSD which perhaps was about at least 9+ years old and attached to the Lenovo ThinkCentre, the new drive and as my dear friend wanted to have Windows again (his computer has Microsoft "Certificate of Authenticity"), e.g. that OEM Registration Serial Key for Windows 7.

Lenovo-ThinkCentre-M90p-certificate-of-authenticity

I've jumped in and used some old Flash USB Stick Drive to place again Windows 7 (in order to use the same active license) and from there on, I've used another old Windows 10 Installation Bootable stick of mine to upgrade the Windows 7 to Windows 10 (by using this Win 7 to Win 10 upgrade trick it is possible to still continue use your old Windows 7 License Key on Windows 10). So far so good, now I've had Windows 10 Professional Edition installed on the machine, but faced another issue the Memory of the Machine which is 8GB did not get fully detected the machine had detected only 3.22 GB of Memory, for some weird reason.

only-2-80-gb-usable-windows-10-problem-32-bit-cpu-cause-screenshot

After few minutes of investigation online, I've realized, I've installed by mistake a 32 Bit version of Windows 10 Pro…So the next step was of course to upgrade to 64 bit to work around the unrecognized 5.2GB memory… To make sure my Windows 10 Installation is up-to-date I've downloaded the latest one from the Media Creation Installation Tool from Microsoft's website used the tool to burn the Downloaded Image to an Empty USB Stick (mine is 16GB but minimum required would be 4Gb) and proceeded to reboot the Lenovo Desktop machine and boot from the Windows 10 Install Flash Drive. From there on I've had to select I need to install a 64 Bit version of Windows and Skip the Licensing Key fill in Prompt Twice (act as I have no license) as Windows already could recognize the older OEM installed 32 bit install Windows key and automatically fetches the key from there.

Before proceeding to install the 64 Bit Windows, of course double check  that the Machine you have at hand has already the License Key recognized by Microsoft  is 64 Bit capable:

To check 32 bit version of Windows before attempted upgrade is Properly Licensed :

Settings > Update & security > Activation

check-if-windows-is-already-activated-settings-update-and-security-Activation-menus

 

To check whether Hardware is 64 Capable:

Settings -> System -> About

 

is-hardware-processor-64-bit-capable-windows-screenshot

32 bit Windows on x64based processor (Machine supports 64 bit OS)

 

windows10-OS-Installation-media-install-tool

Media Creation Tool Windows 10 MS Installer tool (make sure you select 64-bit (x86) instead of the default

From the Installer, I've installed Windows just like I install a brand new fersh Win OS and after asking the few trivial Installation Program questions landed to the new working OS and proceeded to install the usual software which are a must have on a freshly installed Windows for some of them check my previous article Essential Must have software to install on Fresh  new Windows installation host.

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

How to Recover deleted /var/lib/dpkg directory on Debian / Ubuntu Linux server

Wednesday, October 6th, 2021

how-to-recover-accidently-deleted-var-lib-dpkg-directory-on-debian-gnu-linux

Sometimes you might do something stupid, in the hurry like running the wrong rm  command and ending up deleting /var/lib/dpkg on your Debian / Ubuntu system.

by either wrongly issuing the rm to a directory or mistyping rm -r /var/lib/dpkg.
I know this is pretty dumb but sometimes we're all dumb, if you do so and you try to do the regular

root@debian:/ # apt update && apt upgrade

or try to install some random package onwards you will end up with error message:

E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock – open (2: No such file or directory)

Ending up with this error, does totally blocks your further system administration activities with both apt / aptitude / apt-get as well as with dpkg package management tool.

 

1. The /var/backups recovery directory

Thankfully, by Gods mercy some of Debian Linux system architects has foreseen such issues might occur and have integrated into it the automatic periodic creation of some important files into directory /var/backups/

Hence the next step is to check what kind of backups are available, there:

root@debian:/ # ls -al /var/backups/
total 19892
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root      4096 Sep 24 06:25 ./
drwxr-xr-x 22 root root      4096 Dec 21  2020 ../
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    245760 Aug 20 06:25 alternatives.tar.0
-rw-r–r–  1 root root     15910 Aug 14 06:25 alternatives.tar.1.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root     15914 May 29 06:25 alternatives.tar.2.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root     15783 Jan 29  2021 alternatives.tar.3.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root     15825 Nov 20  2020 alternatives.tar.4.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root     15778 Jul 16  2020 alternatives.tar.5.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root     15799 Jul  4  2020 alternatives.tar.6.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root     80417 Aug 19 14:48 apt.extended_states.0
-rw-r–r–  1 root root      8693 Apr 27 22:40 apt.extended_states.1.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root      8658 Apr 17 19:45 apt.extended_states.2.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root      8601 Apr 15 00:52 apt.extended_states.3.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root      8599 Apr  9 00:26 apt.extended_states.4.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root      8542 Mar 18  2021 apt.extended_states.5.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root      8549 Mar 18  2021 apt.extended_states.6.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root   9030483 Jul  4  2020 aptitude.pkgstates.0
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    628958 May  7  2019 aptitude.pkgstates.1.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    534758 Oct 21  2017 aptitude.pkgstates.2.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    503877 Oct 19  2017 aptitude.pkgstates.3.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    423277 Oct 15  2017 aptitude.pkgstates.4.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    420899 Oct 14  2017 aptitude.pkgstates.5.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    229508 May  5  2015 aptitude.pkgstates.6.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root        11 Oct 14  2017 dpkg.arch.0
-rw-r–r–  1 root root        43 Oct 14  2017 dpkg.arch.1.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root        43 Oct 14  2017 dpkg.arch.2.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root        43 Oct 14  2017 dpkg.arch.3.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root        43 Oct 14  2017 dpkg.arch.4.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root        43 Oct 14  2017 dpkg.arch.5.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root        43 Oct 14  2017 dpkg.arch.6.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root      1319 Apr 27 22:28 dpkg.diversions.0
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       387 Apr 27 22:28 dpkg.diversions.1.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       387 Apr 27 22:28 dpkg.diversions.2.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       387 Apr 27 22:28 dpkg.diversions.3.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       387 Apr 27 22:28 dpkg.diversions.4.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       387 Apr 27 22:28 dpkg.diversions.5.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       387 Apr 27 22:28 dpkg.diversions.6.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       375 Aug 23  2018 dpkg.statoverride.0
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       247 Aug 23  2018 dpkg.statoverride.1.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       247 Aug 23  2018 dpkg.statoverride.2.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       247 Aug 23  2018 dpkg.statoverride.3.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       247 Aug 23  2018 dpkg.statoverride.4.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       247 Aug 23  2018 dpkg.statoverride.5.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root       247 Aug 23  2018 dpkg.statoverride.6.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root   3363749 Sep 23 14:32 dpkg.status.0
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    763524 Aug 19 14:48 dpkg.status.1.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    760198 Aug 17 19:41 dpkg.status.2.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    760176 Aug 13 12:48 dpkg.status.3.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    760105 Jul 16 15:25 dpkg.status.4.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    759807 Jun 28 15:18 dpkg.status.5.gz
-rw-r–r–  1 root root    759554 May 28 16:22 dpkg.status.6.gz
drwx——  2 root root      4096 Oct 15  2017 ejabberd-2017-10-15T00:22:30.p1e5J8/
drwx——  2 root root      4096 Oct 15  2017 ejabberd-2017-10-15T00:24:02.dAUgDs/
drwx——  2 root root      4096 Oct 15  2017 ejabberd-2017-10-15T12:29:51.FX27WJ/
drwx——  2 root root      4096 Oct 15  2017 ejabberd-2017-10-15T21:18:26.bPQWlW/
drwx——  2 root root      4096 Jul 16  2019 ejabberd-2019-07-16T00:49:52.Gy3sus/
-rw——-  1 root root      2512 Oct 20  2020 group.bak
-rw——-  1 root shadow    1415 Oct 20  2020 gshadow.bak
-rw——-  1 root root      7395 May 11 22:56 passwd.bak
-rw——-  1 root shadow    7476 May 11 22:56 shadow.bak

Considering the situation the important files for us that could, help us restore our previous list of packages, we had installed on the Debian are files under /var/backups/dpkg.status*

Luckily debian based systems keeps backups of its important files that can be used later on for system recovery activities.
Below is a common structure of /var/lib/dpkg on a deb based system.

hipo@debian:/home/hipo$ ls -l /var/lib/dpkg/
total 11504
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Aug 19 14:33 alternatives/
-rw-r–r– 1 root root      11 Oct 14  2017 arch
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 2199402 Oct 19  2017 available
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 2197483 Oct 19  2017 available-old
-rw-r–r– 1 root root       8 Sep  6  2012 cmethopt
-rw-r–r– 1 root root    1319 Apr 27 22:28 diversions
-rw-r–r– 1 root root    1266 Nov 18  2020 diversions-old
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  606208 Sep 23 14:32 info/
-rw-r—– 1 root root       0 Sep 23 14:32 lock
-rw-r—– 1 root root       0 Mar 18  2021 lock-frontend
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Sep 17  2012 parts/
-rw-r–r– 1 root root     375 Aug 23  2018 statoverride
-rw-r–r– 1 root root     337 Aug 13  2018 statoverride-old
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 3363749 Sep 23 14:32 status
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 3363788 Sep 23 14:32 status-old
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Aug 19 14:48 triggers/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    4096 Sep 23 14:32 updates/

 

2. Recreate basic /var/lib/dpkg directory and files structures

As you can see, there are 5 directories and the status file and some other files. 
Hence the first step is to restore the lost directory structure.

hipo@debian: ~$ sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/dpkg/{alternatives,info,parts,triggers,updates}


3. Recover /var/lib/dpkg/status file

Further on recover the dpkg status file from backup

hipo@debian: ~$  sudo cp /var/backups/dpkg.status.0 /var/lib/dpkg/status


4. Check dpkg package installation works again and reinstall base-files

Next check if dpkg – debian package manager is now working, by simply trying to download dpkg*.deb reinstalling it.

root@debian:/root # apt-get download dpkg
# sudo dpkg -i dpkg*.deb

If you get no errors next step is to reinstall base-files which is important package on which dpkg depends.

root@debian:/root # apt-get download base-files
…
root@debian:/root # sudo dpkg -i base-files*.deb
…

 

5. Update deb system package list and db consistency

Onwards try to update system package list and check dpkg / apt database consistency.

root@debian:/root # dpkg –audit
…
root@debian:/root # sudo apt-get update
…
root@debian:/root # sudo apt-get check
…


The result should be more of the files in /var/lib/dpkg should appear, thus list the directory again and compare to the earlier given list of it, they should be similar.

root@debian:/root # ls -l /var/lib/dpkg
…

6. Reinstall completely from source code dpkg, if nothing else works
 

If some files are missing they should get created with a normal daily sysadmin package management tasks so no worries.

In case if after attempting to upgrade the system or install a package with apt, you get some nasty error like:
 

'/usr/local/var/lib/dpkg/status' for reading: No such file or directory


Then the next and final thing to try as a recovery is to download compile from a new and reinstall dpkg from source code!

 

root@debian:/ # wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/dpkg_1.16.1.2ubuntu7.2.tar.bz2
root@debian:/ # tar -xvf dpkg_1.16*
…
root@debian:/ # cd dpkg-1.16*
…
root@debian:/ # ./configure
…
root@debian:/ # make
…
root@debian:/ # make install
…


Hopefully you'll have gcc and development tools provided by build-essential .deb package , otherwise you have to download and compile this ones as well 🙂
If this doesn't bring you back the installed packages you had priorly (hopefully not), then waste no more time and do a backup of the main things on the server, and reinstall it completely.

The moral out of this incident is always to implement always to your system a good back up system and regularly create backups of /var/lib/dpkg , /etc/ , /usr/local* and other important files on a remote backup server, to be able to easily recover if you do by mistake something whacky.
 

Hope that helped anyone. Cheers 🙂

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Posted in Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, System Administration | No Comments »

Saint Georgi of Sofia “the Newest” Bulgarian Confessor Christian saint martyred 1534 AD during reign of Turkish Sultan Selim in Medieval Serdika (Sofia)

Tuesday, June 1st, 2021

Saint-Martyr-George-of-Sofia-Georgi-Sofijski-in-traditional-wear-kalpak

Troparion, voice 4
With a soul wounded by the love of your God, the wise George the Glorious, he preached to the ungodly, Christ God, trampled with his feeth, the Turkish heresy; and when he adorned himself with the crown of martyrdom, you ascended to the heavenly multitudes: ask Christ God to preserve your homeland, this city (Sofia) and the people who always worship your deeds.

On 26-th of May the Bulgarian Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of one of the great Bulgarian Martyr saints Saint Georgi the Newest.
С~тый Геԝ̀ргїй Софїѝскїй Новѣ̀йшїй) St. Georgi (The Bulgarian equivalent name of George) is one of the 3 saints holding the name Georgi which has confessed Christianity refused to accept islam and accepted Martyrdom for Christ in period of 1396 till year 1530 and one of the 9 famous Sofia city saints. Saint Georgi of Sofia the Newest was named after the highly venerated in Bulgarian just like in whole Christian world saint George.

saint-Georgi-Sofijski-saint-great-martyr-George-and-The-Mother-of-God-iconostasis

St. Georgi was born in the city of Medieval Sofia (Sredetz), fortress of Serdika today’s Sofia in a family of Ivan and Maria – a wealthy and society recognized family of that time. He has born after a fervent and lengthly prayers of his parents who couldn’t have children for a long time and has been given a kid by the prayers of Saint Great Martyr George
It is important to say Georgi (the newest) celebrated on 26-th of May is a different saint from St. Georgi called “the new” whose memory in the Church is commemorated on 11-th of February.

saint-Georgi-Sofijski-noveishij-icon

Miracle making icon of saint Georgi Sofiyski (currently in the Church in yard of Alexandrovska Hospital Sofia)

The young Georgi quickly learned to write and read, a skills that only the most educated people usually coming from noble families could do. His favourite activity
in his free time when he was not in help of his parents was reading the Holy Scriptures.
He was grown by his parents in Christian goodness and fervency for the Christian faith.

Sveti_Georgi_Novi-Sofijski-wall-painting-icon-st-George-Sofia
Aged 25 he orphaned as his beloved father passed away to Christ. Georgi posessesed an extraordinary beauty, sharp mind and virtues, seeing the young man in his grief the local Turkish authorities tried as they usually do to attract the youngster to the islamic faith to make their way to interact with Georgi and do their business easier and most importantly have Georgi in their auhotirities congregation consisting only of people belonging to the islam as it was up to the Ottoman Turkish consistution law of the day.

To attract Georgi, turks first tried with hypocritical kindness and a care for the young to help him raise in the power of authorities of the city, not succeeding with that they have, they have forcefully wrapper the Muslim turban on his head and proclaimed him officially Muslim. Feeling offended by the ungodly deed of this enemies of Christ, immediately the saint throw the imposed turban on the ground and trampled on it.
The enraged muslim crowd seing his public offence for the prophet Muhammed handed him over to the Qadi in the court.

Neither the seductive promises of high office nor the cruel tortures could break the unshakable firmness of his Christian faith. The judge ordered that his body be cut into strips from head to toe and that the wounds received be scorched with dirty candles, which made the martyr’s body so hot that his face could not be seen. But all efforts were in vain.

The final verdict of the judge followed – Georgi to be hanged on the main barn in the city of Sofia, where there was a furnace for melting iron and copper ore. The execution command also stated that his body should remain on the gallows for three days in order to begin to decay, so that the faith of the Christians in the incorruptible relics of the saints and in the resurrection of the dead to be refuted and hence disgrace christianity. However, exhausted from his suffering mrtr. Georgi died at the hands of the executioners before they managed to hang him. To fulfill the command turks, anyhow hung him on a rope to show the sentence has been successfully carried out.

For three days the body hung on the gallows without any sign of decomposition, and on the contrary, an unusual fragrance of the holy relics of the martyr wafted through the barn. His mother sat under the gallows and grieving his beloved son hugged her son’s legs, staying next three three days to her son. The hanging took place on May 26, 1530 (according to other document sources in 1534). Thus on 26th of may the Church set a service in memoriam.

Ancient-Church-ROtonda-St-George-Sofia-Bulgaria

5-th Century Church of Rotonda St. George Centre of Sofia

The-Grave-of-Saint-Georgi-Sofiyski-Grobat-na-sv-Georgi-nai-novi

Saint Georgi Sofiyski / Saint George of Sofia the Newest grave near Rotonda Church Saint George in City Center of Sofia, Bulgari

After the expiration of the sentence, the kadi handed over the body of the martyr to be buried in a Christian way, and the burial was solemnly performed by the then Metropolitan of Sofia Jeremiah in the church “St. the great martyr George the Victorious ”. Now these relics are in obscurity. The mother of the martyr died on the 40th day of George’s death and was buried at her son’s feet.

These events took place during the reign of Sultan Suleiman I Kanuni (the Legislator) also known as Suleiman the Magnificent. This “Golden Age” for the Ottoman Empire was a time of unheard of atrocities against Christians in the territory of the empire and very difficult times for the Bulgarian people. The reign of Suleiman I and his father Selim I was a time of obscurantism and severe persecution of the Christian population, a time during which many Christian new martyrs on Balkans had the courage to defend their faith.

saint-Georgi-Sofijski-newest-icon-painting

The capture, trial and torture of St. George of Sofia The latest took place near the then Sofia. Today the place is located in the yard of the famous Alexandrovska Hospital which was a King’s hospital during the times of Kingdom of Bulgaria after liberation took place from the Turks in 1878 y.. The exact location where martyrdom occured is between street St. Georgi Sofiyski ”and“ Pencho Slaveykov ”Blvd.

There was a large stone cross with an inscription on the site, which a few years after 1944, due to the risk of being destroyed, was collected by Sofia priests and is still preserved in the altar of the church “St. Georgi Pobedonosets ”on Blvd. Partriarch Euthymius”. Until the 1940s, a liturgical procession was held from the place of death of the saint to the Rotunda on May 26.
Nowadays happily, the old Lithia tradition is being renewed and a small Lithia is conducted by Bulgarian Orthodox Christian clergy and layman.

In the garden next to the building of the Second Surgical Clinic there was a stone cross, which indicated the place and history of the martyrdom of the saint, and today a temple was built in honor of the saint.

Church-of-saint-Georgi-Sofijski-in-Alexandrovska-hospital-Sofia-Bulgaria-the-place-of-martyrdom-of-saint-Georgi-Sofijski
source: Lives of the Saints. Synodal Publishing House, Sofia, 1991, edited by Parthenius, Bishop of Lefkada and Archimandrite Dr. Athanasius (Bonchev).

Saint_Georgi-naj-novi_Sofijski

HOLY MARTYR GEORGE OF SOFIA THE NEWEST, PRAY GOD FOR US!

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Posted in Christianity, Curious Facts, Everyday Life | No Comments »

Virtualbox Shared folder set up on Linux between Host and Guest OS – Set up Virtualbox shared folder to Copy files from PC Host to Guest

Wednesday, September 12th, 2018

mount-shares-between-host-OS-and-guest-virtual-machine-howto-virtualbox-vbox-logo

How to set-up Virtualbox shared folder to Copy files from PC Host  and Guest Virtualized OS?

Running VirtualBox Host is an easy thing to set-up across all Operating Systems.  Once you have it sooner or later you will need to copy files from the VM Host OS (that in my case is GNU / Linux) to the virtualized Guest operating system (again in my case that's again another Linux ISO running indide the Virtual Machine).

Below are steps to follow To use Virtualbox Shared Folder functionality to copy files between VBox and your Desktop / server Linux install.

1. Install Virtualbox Guest Additions CD Image ISO

I've explained how to add the Guest Additions CD image thoroughfully in my previous article Howto enable Copy / Paste Virtualbox betwen Linux guest and Host OS
Anyways I'll repeat myself below for sake of clarity:

To do so use Oracle VBox menus (on the booted virtualized OS VBox window):

 

Devices -> Insert Guest additions CD Image

 

Mount the ISO inside the Linux Virtual Machine:

root@debian:~# mount /media/cdrom1/
 

If the mount fails and there are no files inside the mount point it might be because the virtualbox-dkms and virtualbox-guest-dkms packages might be missing on the Host OS.

To install them (on Debian GNU / Linux) assuming that you're using virtualbox default distro packages /etc/apt/sources.list :
 

apt-get install –yes -qq virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-guest-dkms


and run:

 

root@debian:/media/cdrom1# cd /media/cdrom1; sh VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
…


2. Create directory for Shared Folder that will be used to access Host / OS files from the Guest Virtualized OS
 

root@debian:~# mkdir /mnt/shared_folder

 

3. Map from VBox program interface Shared folder settings and Mount /mnt/shared_folder location

virtualbox-virtual-machine-devices-shared-folders-shared-folder-settings-linux-screenshot

 

Devices -> Shared Folder -> Shared Folder settings -> Transient Folders (click blue folder add small button right)

 

From Transient Folders add whatever directory you want to be shared from your local notebook / PC to the VM.

virtualbox-devices-Shared-Folder-Add-Shared-Folder-add-share-linux-screenshotDepending on whether you would like to mount the shared folder only for reading files (choose Read Only) to make it a permanent shared folder (and not just for the one session of current running Virtual Machine until its killed use Make Permanent) or check Auto-Mount tick if you want the shared_folder mapping to be mounted on every VM boot.

Once the shared_folder directory location is set-up from GUI menu click OK and in order for the settings to take effect, you'll need to restart the VM Guest with Linux (use halt command from terminal) or Power Off the Machine via the VBox menus.

To mount use command like:

mount -t vboxsf name_of_folder_linked_from_vbox  /mnt/name_folder_guest_os/


mount-vboxsf-shared-folder-mnt-shared-linux-guest-screenshot

In my case I wanted to share home folder /home so the command I used is:

root@debian:~# mount -t vboxsf  shared_folder /mnt/shared_folder


If everything is fine your Host OS file content from /home will be visible (for read and write if you Mapped it so) 
under /mnt/shared_folder …

And as Turtles Ninja used to heavily say Cowabunga !!! 🙂
You have it mounted and ready for file share between Desktop -> Virtualized OS.
 

Bear in mind that above mount command has to run as root (superuser) to succeed.

You now could copy files from your Host OS (running the Virtual Machine) and the Guest OS (Virtualized OS) using /mnt/shared_folder mount point without problems.

The example is if you want to share files between VirtualBox installed Linux and the Guest (Desktop / server) OS, however at many cases mounting your Host OS directory for root users might be not very practical but, instead you might prefer to do the mount for specific non admin user, for example I prefer to do the shared folder mount with my pointed non-root username hipo.

Here is how to do above VM shared_folder mount for non-root user:

First you need to know the exact UID / GID (User ID / Group ID) of user, you can get that with id command:

 

hipo@linux:~$  id
uid=1000(hipo) gid=1000(hipo) groups=1000(hipo),24(cdrom),25(floppy),29(audio),30(dip),44(video),46(plugdev),108(netdev),114(bluetooth),115(lpadmin),119(scanner)

 

As you see UID / GID in my case are 1000 / 1000

hipo@linux:~$ sudo mount -t vboxsf -o rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 shared_folder /mnt/shared_folder

 

mount-virtual-box-shared_folder-with-non-administration-permissions-non-root-permissions-id-and-mount-command-screenshot-linux


4. Mounting configured shared_folder to automatically mount into the Guest OS Linux on every boot

a) Configuring shared_folder auto-mount using /etc/rc.local

If you need the shared_folder to automatically mount next-time you boot the virtual machine quickest way is to add the mount command to /etc/rc.local (on Debian 8 and Debian 9 and newer Ubuntu Linuxes rc.local is missing by default to enable it to work like it worked before read follow my previous article ).

b) Configuring auto-mount for shared_folder through /etc/fstab

The more professional way to auto-mount on emulated OS VM boot time,  you could add the vboxsf mount definitions to /etc/fstab with your favourite text-editor mcedit, nano, joe etc. … (for me that's vim).

Syntax of /etc/fstab is as follows:
 

<Device> <Mount Point> <Type> <Options> <Dump> <Pass>

root@linux:~# vim /etc/fstab

 

shared_folder /mnt/shared_folder                                vboxsf rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0

Note that you will want to change 1000 / 1000, id / gid with the ones of the non-admin user you would like to add to mount it for.

A quick way to add it to /etc/fstab with a shell one-liner is with command
 

root@linux:~# echo 'shared_folder /mnt/shared_folder                                vboxsf rw,uid=1000,gid=1000 0  0' >> /etc/fstab

An alternative way to add a user to have permissions for vboxsf file system (without specifying the long -o uid=1000,gid=1000 options is to simply add the username in question to group vboxsf like so:

c) Adding non super user username to vboxsf group

root@linux:~# usermod -G vboxsf hipo
root@linux:~# grep -i vboxsf /etc/group
vboxsf:x:999:hipo

 

hipo@linux:~$ sudo mount -t vboxsf  shared_folder /mnt/shared_folder

 

without the extra arguments and the options to pass to /etc/fstab (for eventual requirement to auto mount the shared_folder) would be more simple e.g.:

 

echo 'shared_folder /mnt/shared_folder                                vboxsf ' >> /etc/fstab

 

One note to make here is if the uesr is added to vboxsf the line for /etc/fstab to auto mount to mount for root user and non-root will be identical.

Then you can get the /etc/fstab auto-mount configured tested by running:

c) Checking auto-mount is working

hipo@linux:~# mount -a
hipo@linux:~# mount |grep -i vboxsf
shared_folder on /mnt/shared_folder type vboxsf (rw,nodev,relatime)


5. What if you end up with mounting failed errors ? – What might be causing the mounting failed Protocol error (a few things to check to solve)


In case of troubles with the mount you might get an error like:

hipo@linux:~# mount -t vboxsf  share_folder /mnt/shared_folder

/sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: Protocol error


This error might be caused because of Insert Guest Additions CD Image might be not properly enabled and installed using the ISO provided VBoxLinuxAdditions.sh shell script.
Other common reason you might get this error if you have mistyped the Folder name: given in Shared Folders -> Folder Path -> Add Share for example I have given shared_folder as a Map name but as you can see in above mount -t vboxsf, I've mistyped share_folder instead of the correct one shared_folder inserted.
In some VBox releases this error was caused by bugs in the Virtual Machine.
 

virtualbox-virtual-machine-shared-folder-transient-folder-add-folder-linux-VM-guest-linux

One useful tip is to be able to check whether a Virtualbox Virtual Machine has a configured shared_folder (if you're logging to manage the machine on remote server – nomatter whether you have logged in with VNC / Teamviewer / Citrix etc. or via SSH session.

To do so use VBoxControl as of time of writting usually located on most distributions under (/usr/bin/VBoxControl)
 

 

hipo@linux:~# VBoxControl sharedfolder list -automount
Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions Command Line Management Interface Version 5.2.18
(C) 2008-2018 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.

 

Auto-mounted Shared Folder mappings (0):

No Shared Folders available.

You can use VBoxControl command to get set and list a number of settings on the VBox VM, here is an useful example with it where you get information about numerous VBox info values:

 

root@linux:~# VBoxControl guestproperty enumerate
Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions Command Line Management Interface Version 5.2.18
(C) 2008-2018 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.

 

Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Product, value: Linux, timestamp: 1536681633430852000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP, value: 10.0.2.15, timestamp: 1536681633438717000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/HostInfo/GUI/LanguageID, value: en_US, timestamp: 1536697521395621000, flags: RDONLYGUEST
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/MAC, value: 08002762FA1C, timestamp: 1536681633442120000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/ServicePack, value: <NULL>, timestamp: 1536681633431259000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/HostInfo/VBoxVerExt, value: 5.2.18, timestamp: 1536681619002646000, flags: TRANSIENT, RDONLYGUEST
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/Netmask, value: 255.255.255.0, timestamp: 1536681633440157000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Version, value: #1 SMP Debian 4.9.110-3+deb9u2 (2018-08-13), timestamp: 1536681633431125000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/VersionExt, value: 5.2.18, timestamp: 1536681633431582000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Revision, value: 124319, timestamp: 1536681633432515000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/HostGuest/SysprepExec, value: <NULL>, timestamp: 1536681619002355000, flags: TRANSIENT, RDONLYGUEST
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/LoggedInUsers, value: 1, timestamp: 1536681673447293000, flags: TRANSIENT, TRANSRESET
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/Status, value: Up, timestamp: 1536681633443911000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/Name, value: enp0s3, timestamp: 1536681633445302000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/HostGuest/SysprepArgs, value: <NULL>, timestamp: 1536681619002387000, flags: TRANSIENT, RDONLYGUEST
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Version, value: 5.2.18, timestamp: 1536681633431419000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/HostInfo/VBoxRev, value: 124319, timestamp: 1536681619002668000, flags: TRANSIENT, RDONLYGUEST
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/Broadcast, value: 10.0.2.255, timestamp: 1536681633439531000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/HostInfo/VBoxVer, value: 5.2.18, timestamp: 1536681619002613000, flags: TRANSIENT, RDONLYGUEST
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/LoggedInUsersList, value: hipo, timestamp: 1536681673446498000, flags: TRANSIENT, TRANSRESET
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/Count, value: 1, timestamp: 1536698949773993000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Release, value: 4.9.0-7-amd64, timestamp: 1536681633431001000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/NoLoggedInUsers, value: false, timestamp: 1536681673447965000, flags: TRANSIENT, TRANSRESET
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/HostVerLastChecked, value: 5.2.18, timestamp: 1536681702832389000, flags: <NULL>

Hope you enjoyed ! Have phun! 🙂

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Posted in Linux, Virtual Machines | No Comments »

StatusNet – Start your own hosted microblogging twitter like social network on Debian GNU / Linux

Monday, July 14th, 2014

build-your-own-microblogging-service-like-twitter-on-debian-linux-Status.net-logo
I like experimenting with free and open source projects providing social networking capabilities like twitter and facebook. Historically I have run my own social network with Elgg – Open Source Social Network Engine. I had a very positive impression from Elgg as a social engine as, there are plenty of plugins and one can use Elgg to run free alternative to very basic equivalent of facebook, problem with Elgg I had however is if is not all the time monitored it quickly fills up with spam and besides that I found it to be still buggy and not easy to update.
The other social network free software I heard of isBuddyPress which I recently installed with Multisite (MuSite) enabled.

Since BuddyPress is WordPress based and it supports all the nice wordpress plugins, my impression is social networking based on wordpress behaves much more stable and since there is Akismet for WordPress, the amount of spammer registrations is much lower than with Elgg.

Recently I started blogging much more actively and I realized everyday I learn and read too much interesting articles and I don't log them anywhere and thought I need a way besides twitter to keep flashy notes of what I'm doing reading, learning in a short notes. I don't want to use Twitter on purpose, because I don't want to improve twitter's site SEO with adding my own stuff on their website but I want to keep my notes on my own local hosted server.

As I didn't wanted to loose time with Complexity of Elgg anymore and wanted to try to something new and I know the open source microblogging social network (Twitter Equivalent) – identi.ca runs StatusNet – Free and Open Source Social software. StatusNet is well known under the motto of "Decentralized Twitter"

screenshot-status-net-microblogging-twitter-like-free-software-network

I took the time to grab it and install it to my home brew machine www.pc-freak.net. If you haven't seen StatusNet so far – you can check out demo of my installation here – registration is not freely opened because, i don't want spammers to break in, however if you want to give a try drop me a mail or comment below and I will open access for you ..

There is no native statusnet package for Debian Linux (as I'm running Debian) so to install it, I've grabbed statusnet.

To install StatusNet, everything was pretty straight forward and literally following instructionsf rom INSTALL file, i.e.:

# status.example.com maps to /var/www/status/
cd /var/www/status/
wget http://status.net/statusnet-0.9.6.tar.gz
tar -xzf statusnet-0.9.6.tar.gz --strip-components=1
rm statusnet-0.9.6.tar.gz
cd ..
chgrp www-data status/
chmod g+w status/
cd status/
chmod a+w avatar/ background/ file/
mysqladmin -u "root" -p "sql-root-password" create statusnet
mysql -u root -p
GRANT ALL on statusnet.* TO 'statusnetuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'statusnet-secret-password';

To Change default behaviour of URls to be more SEO friendly and not to show .php in URL (e.g. add so called fancy URLs – described in INSTALL):

cp htaccess.sample .htaccess


Then had to configure a VirtualHost under a subdomain http://statusnet.yourdomain.com/install.php or you can alternatively install and access it in browser via http://your-domain.com/status/install.php

An important note to open here is you have to set the URLs via which status.net will be accessed further before proceeding with the install, if you will be using HTTPS here is time to configure it and test it before proceeding with install …  Just be warned that if you don't set the URLs properly now and try to modify them further you will get a lot of issues hard to solve which will cost you a lot of time and nervee ..

If you want to enable twitter bridging in Statusnet you will need to get Twitter consumer and secret keys, to get that you have to create new application on https://dev.twitter.com/apps afterwards you will be taken to a page containing Consumer Key & Consumer Secret string.
StatusNet installation will auto generate config.php, you can further edit it manually with text editor. Content of my current statusnet config.php is here.

Most important options to change are:

$config['daemon']['user'] = 'www-data';
$config['daemon']['group'] = 'www-data';

www-data is user with which Apache is running by default on Debian Linux.

$config['site']['profile'] = 'private';

By default Status.Net will be set to run as private – e.g. it will be fitted for priv. use – messages posted will not publicly be visible. Here the possible options to choose between are:

$config['site']['profile'] = 'private';
$config['site']['profile'] = 'community';
$config['site']['profile'] = 'singleuser';
$config['site']['profile'] = 'public';

singleuser is pretty self explanatory, setting public option will open registration for any user on the internet – probably your network will quickly be filled with spam – so beware with this option. community will make statusnet publicly visible but, registration will only possible via use creation / invitation to join the network from admin.

vi /var/www/status/config.php
$config['site']['fancy'] = true;

Then to enable twitter to statusnet bridge add to config.php

vi /var/www/status/config.php

addPlugin('TwitterBridge');
$config['twitter']['enabled'] = true;
$config['twitterimport']['enabled'] = true;
$config['avatar']['path'] = '/avatar';
$config['twitter']['consumer_key'] = 'XXXXXXXX';
$config['twitter']['consumer_secret'] = 'XXXXXXXX';
# disable sharing location by default
$config['location']['sharedefault'] = 'false';

Notice, I decided to disable statusnet sharedefault folder, because i don't have a lot of free space to provide to users. If you want to let users be allowed to share files (you the space for that), you might want to set a maximum quote of uploaded files (to prevent your webserver from being DoSed – for example by too many huge uploads), here is some reasonable settings:
 

$config['attachments']['file_quota'] = 7000000;
$config['attachments']['thumb_width'] = 400;
$config['attachments']['thumb_height'] = 300;

 

If you want to get the best out of performance of your new statusnet microblogging service, after each modification of config.php be sure to run:

 

php scripts/checkschema.php

Running checkschema.php is also useful, to check whether adding new plugins to check whether plugin will not throw an error.

Here is some extra useful config.php plugins to enable:
 

addPlugin('Gravatar', array());
#addPlugin('Textile');
addPlugin('InfiniteScroll');
addPlugin('Realtime');
addPlugin('Blog');
addPlugin('SiteNoticeInSidebar');
addPlugin('WikiHashtags');
addPlugin('SubMirror');
addPlugin('LinkPreview');
addPlugin('Blacklist');


If you expect to have quickly growing base of users it is recommended to also check out whether your MySQL is tuned with mysqltuner and optimize it for performance

Another useful think you would like to do is to increased the number of Statusnet avatars in the 'following' – 'followers' – 'groups' sections on my profile page by editing

lib/groupminilist.php

and

lib/profileminilist.php

line 36 in both files.
To get the full list of possible variables that can be set in config.php run in terminal:

 php scripts/setconfig.php -a

If you happen to encounter some oddities and issues with StatusNet after installation, this is most likely to some PHP hardering on compile time or some PHP.ini functions disabled for security or some missing component to install which is described as a prerequirement in statusnet INSTALL file

to debug the issues enable statusnet logging by adding in config.php

$config['site']['logdebug'] = true;
$config['site']['logfile'] = '/var/log/statusnet.log';

By default logs produced will be quite verbose and there will be plenty of information you will probably not need and will lead to a lot of "noise", to get around this, there is the LogFilter Plugin for some reasonable logging use in config.php:

addPlugin('LogFilter', array( 'priority' => array(LOG_ERR => true,
LOG_INFO => true,
LOG_DEBUG => false),
'regex' => array('/About to push/i' => false,
'/twitter/i' => false,
'/Successfully handled item/i' => false)
));

If you want tokeep log of statusnet it is a good idea to rorate logs periodically to keep them from growing too big, to do this create in /etc/logrotate.d new files /etc/logrotate.d/statusnet with following content:

/var/log/statusnet/*.log {
daily
missingok
rotate 7
compress
delaycompress
notifempty
create 770 www-data www-data
sharedscripts
postrotate
/path/to/statusnet/scripts/stopdaemons.sh > /dev/null
/path/to/statusnet/scripts/startdaemons.sh > /dev/null
endscript
}

You will probably want to to add new Links, next to StatusNet main navigation links for logged in users, this is possible by adding new line to

lib/primarynav.php

and

lib/secondarynav.php

You will have to add a PHP context like:

 $this->action->menuItem('https://www.pc-freak.net/blog/',
                              _m('MENU','Pc-Freak.Net Blog'),
                              _('A pC Freak Blog'),
                              false,
                              'nav_pcfreak');

Once you're done with installation, make sure you change permissions or move install.php from /var/www/status, otherwise someone might overwrite your config.php and mess your installation …

chmod 000 /var/www/status/install.php There is plenty of other things to do with StatusNet (Support for communication with Jabber XMPP protocol, notification via SMS etc. There are also some plugins to add more statusnet functionality.


Enjoy micro blogging ! 🙂

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Posted in Curious Facts, Entertainment, Everyday Life, SEO, Various, Web and CMS | 5 Comments »

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

Monday, June 9th, 2014

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

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

1. First make sure Virtualbox guest additions are installed

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

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

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

Machine -> Settings -> Shared Folder

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Shared_folder         /mnt/Shared_folder         vboxsf  defaults,rw    0 0

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

Shared_folder         /mnt/Shared_folder         vboxsf  defaults,ro    0 0

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

mount -a

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

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

 

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Posted in Everyday Life, System Administration, Various, Virtual Machines, Windows | No Comments »

Checking I/O Hard Disk (Overhead) Read / Write operations on Microsoft Windows 7 – Resource Monitor

Friday, July 26th, 2013

I mainly have to deal with Linux servers. Today however I had to check for problems Microsoft Windows 7 server. The machine looked Okay but was reading from hard drive all the time. Hence I needed to check what is the Hard disk approximate read / write speed per second. I know on lInux tracking i/o hard disk server bottlenecks is done with iostat or dstat.

However I never did that on Windows, so I had to learn it by experience. Its actually pretty easy and you don't even need to install external program to see read / write hdd speed operations. Windows 7 is bundled with a Program called Resource Manager. Running Resource Manager's easiest method is from Windows Task Manager, i.e.:

Windows 7 Task Manager processes performance tab - how to check hard drive bottleneck windows server
Press Ctrl + Alt + Del (Choose Start Task Manager) and from Task Manager click on Resource Monitor Button.
Immediately resource Monitor pops up and selecting the Disk tab priovides information on HDD Read / Write speed per sec. Using Resource Monitor, you can quickly also see which process is creating the most HDD overhead for server.

microsoft windows 7 resource monitor screenshot

windows resource monitor disk tab hard disk show read write speed win7

Though I'm not Microsoft fan, I should admit Resource Manager does a great job.

 

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Posted in System Administration, Windows | No Comments »

Beowulf movie – Movie made following plot of First Ancient English (Anglo-Saxon) epic poem Beowulf from 6th century

Thursday, January 31st, 2013

beowulf-old-english-classic-poem-beowulf-movie

Beowulf (pron.: /ˈbeɪ.ɵwʊlf/; in Old English [ˈbeːo̯wʊlf] or [ˈbeːəwʊlf]) is the conventional title[note 1] of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature. It survives in a single manuscript known as the Nowell Codex. Its composition by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet is dated between the 8th and the early 11th century. In 1731, the manuscript was badly damaged by a fire that swept through a building housing a collection of Medieval manuscripts assembled by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton. The poem fell into obscurity for decades, and its existence did not become widely known again until it was printed in 1815 in an edition prepared by the Icelandic-Danish scholar Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin. In the poem, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats in Scandinavia, comes to the help of Hroðgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall (in Heorot) has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then also defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland in Sweden and later becomes king of the Geats. After a period of fifty years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is fatally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants bury him in a tumulus, a burial mound, in Geatland.


 

Beowulf – First Epic English poem screened – Part 1 (FULL MOVIE)


 

Beowulf – First Epic English poem screened – Part 1 (FULL MOVIE)

I couldn't suppress my impression of Beowulf being naked, fighting the monster. Actually on many occasions he is either naked or half dressed its mostly ridiculos 🙂

Readable English translation of Beowulf can be downloaded and read from here
I try reading the poem, but  it is really difficult and it was too darky for me so I couldn't complete it all. Hopefully for those who are ancient English freaks it will surely be of great interest.

Besides above  movie, there is a newer movie retelling Beowulf epic story from 1999. I found it in youtube. I include it here for those who want to get a better visiolization of the movie.


 

1999 Beowulf epic poem movie Part 1


 

1999 Beowulf epic poem movie Part 2


 

1999 Beowulf epic poem movie Part 3


 

1999 Beowulf epic poem movie Part 4


 

1999 Beowulf epic poem movie Part 5


 

1999 Beowulf epic poem movie Part 6


 

1999 Beowulf epic poem movie Part 7


 

1999 Beowulf epic poem movie Part 8

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Posted in Entertainment, Movie Reviews, System Administration | No Comments »

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