Posts Tagged ‘strip’

How to remove ‘active contents’ from PDF file on Linux / Strip Active Contents from PDF

Thursday, July 18th, 2019

how-to-remove-active-content-from-pdf-with-ghoscript-on-gnu-linux.svg

I'm updating my Autiobography (CV) with my latest job eployeers, technology expertise and certifications and usually use the EuroPassCV standard web service to update already generated PDF files.The service as web based application service allows easy edit from the web as most web services which is quite handy and then allows Export to DOCX or PDF file format. So far so good but today I faced a really weird problem after, I've used successfully EuroPassCV service  and downloaded the PDF to my computer and tried to submit my Curriculum Vitae application to SAP's Successfactor newly created account for the purpose I faced a weird I error saying

"The system does not allow files with Active contents. Please …"

the-system-does-not-allow-files-with-active-contents-pdf-error-successfactors-errors

Of course if this error message was received on a Start-up application on Application upload that would be fine, but come on this is SAP's Successfactors, it cannot accept a standard generated PDF from EuroPass which nowadays is a standard for CV here in Europe and hosted on of official European Union website europa.eu

To me this is a clear signal SAP needs an experienced ICT specialists and Quality Assurance testers like me to fix their mess and I will be willing to help them if they contact me until its too late for them, but let me go back to the topic of this article which was how to remove active contents from a PDF file 🙂

So first lets make clear what is Active content in a file ?

Active contents is content that includes programs like Internet polls, JavaScript applications, stock tickers, animated images, ActiveX applications, action items, streaming video and audio, weather maps, embedded objects, and much more. Active content contains programs that trigger automatic actions on a Web page without the user's knowledge or consent.
Active contents (Macros) could exist in many file formats that are used daily in most companies / organizations daily, active content can be contained in documents such as MS Excel,  Word, PDF, PowerPoint and so on.

So why does some applications disable document support for Active contents?

Well just for the reason of security, Active contents could often be some kind of malware or crapware and they can mess up with the web application (in case of bugs) or even mess up with server software if it is a complex warm like behavior exploiting some kind of vulnerability.
One thing to say about active contents removal on file upload by applications is that this practice could only be tolerated if the organization had already adapted a security through obscurity which most likely is the case with SAP's Successfactors and many other applications out there.

So next question is how to  Panicea (Resolution) Active Contents existing in a PDF file

Assuming you have a GNU / Linux Desktop or server with ghostscript package installed (which is the case by default with virtually any modern Linux distribution), removing Active Contents from PDF to make possible file to be submitted to the picky Security Conscious application with a single command:
 

gs -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOUTPUTFILE=CV-Georgi_Dimitrov_Georgiev-Europass-20190718-EN-noact-content.pdf -dBATCH CV-Georgi_Dimitrov_Georgiev-Europass-20190718-EN.pdf


After that the stripped active contents PDF file would succeed in uploading to web app.
 

 

 

Installing qmailmrtg (qmail graph statistics on qmail activity) on Debian Lenny

Monday, April 19th, 2010

1. First it’s necessery to have the mrtg debian package installed.
If it’s not installed then we have to install it:

debian-server:~# apt-get install mrtg

2. Second download the qmailmrtg source binary
To download the latest current source release of qmailmrtg execute:

debian-server:~# wget http://www.inter7.com/qmailmrtg7/qmailmrtg7-4.2.tar.gz

It’s a pity qmailmrtg is not available for download via debian repositories.

3. Third download the qmail.mrtg.cfg configuration file

debian-server~# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/files/qmail.mrtg.cfg

Now you have to put the file somewhere, usually it’s best to put it in the /etc/ directory.
Make sure the file is existing in /etc/qmail.mrtg.cfg
4. Untar compile and install qmailmrtg binary


debian-server:~# tar -xzvvf qmailmrtg7-4.2.tar.gz
...
debian-server:~# make && make install

strip qmailmrtg7
cp qmailmrtg7 /usr/local/bin
rm -rf *.o qmailmrtg7 checkq core
cc checkq.c -o checkq
./checkq
cc -s -O qmailmrtg7.c -o qmailmrtg7
qmailmrtg7.c: In function ‘main’:
qmailmrtg7.c:69: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of
built-in function ‘exit’
qmailmrtg7.c:93: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of
built-in function ‘exit’
qmailmrtg7.c:131: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of
built-in function ‘exit’
qmailmrtg7.c:137: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of
built-in function ‘exit’

5. Set proper file permissions according to the user you indent to execute qmailmrtg as
I personally execute it as root user, if you intend to do so as well set a permissions to
/etc/qmail.mrtg.cfg of 700.
In order to do that issue the command:

debian-server:~# chmod 700 /etc/qmail.mrtg.cfg

6. You will now need to modify the qmail.mrtg.cfg according to your needs
There you have to set a proper location where the qmailmrtg shall generate it’s html data files.
I use the /var/www/qmailmrtg qmailmrtg log file location. If you will do so as wellyou have to create the directory.

7. Create qmailmrtg html log files directory

debian-server:~# mkdir /var/log/qmailmrtg

8. Now all left is to set a proper cron line to periodically invoke qmailmrtg in order to generate qmail activity statistics.

Before we add the desired root’s crontab instructions we have to open the crontab for edit, using the command.

debian-server:~# crontab -u root -e

I personally use and recommend the following line as a line to be added to root’s crontab.

0-55/5 * * * * env LANG=C /usr/bin/mrtg /etc/qmail.mrtg.cfg > /dev/null
9. Copy index.html from qmailmrtg source directory to /var/log/qmailmrtg


debian-server:/usr/local/src/qmailmrtg7-4.2# cp -rpf index.html /var/log/qmailmrtg

10. Last step is to make sure Apache’s configuration contains lines that will enable you to access the qmail activity statistics.

The quickest way to do that in Debian running Apache 2.2 is to edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and add a directory Alias as follows

Alias /qmailmrtg/ "/var/www/qmailmrtg/"

Now after Apache restart /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
You should be now able to access the qmail mrtg qmail log statistics through your Apache’s default configured host.
For instance, assuming your default configured Apache host is domain.com. You’ll be able to reach the qmailmrtg statistics through an url like:

http://domain.com/qmailmrtg/

After I verified and ensured myself qmail mrtg is working correctly after all the above explained steps partook I wasn’t happy with some headlines in the index.html and the html tile of qmailmrtg,
so as a last step I manually edited the /var/www/qmailmrtg/index.html to attune it to my likings.

Here is a screenshot of the qmailmrtg web statistics in action.

qmail mrtg on debian lenny