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KVM and Ubuntu 11 i686 and iptables May 6th, 2012 I was creating virtual guests in KVM on my Ubuntu 11 host. The problem I was experiencing was not having the ability to connect to the guest from outside the host’s console. The guest was a Window’s Server 2008 Standard. I needed to connect to the server via RDP. Here were the two lines I ran against iptables to get it to work: sudo iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p tcp –dport 3389 -j DNAT –to-destination 192.168.122.187:3389 Read the rest of this entry » Posted in Linux | Comments Off Firefox, Flash Player 11, and Ubuntu 8.04 not working – Google Chrome April 9th, 2012 Hi, It appears the Ubuntu is having problems with THEIR modifications to FireFox and how it handles Adobe Flash with version 11. Developers can say what they want about about Flash supporting 64 bit. The bottom line is that users are having problems with Ubuntu FireFox 11. I do allot of work with Firefox in managing websites and overall web browsing. I also do alot of development for other software and cannot find the time right now to fix the package problems. I over came this by installing google-chrome online. The package comes ready for use with the Debian installer. After installing google-chrome (5 minute process) I was able to open the browser and start viewing videos with Flash Player. There was no special package installations or grabbing addons. After the installation, I was even provided the oportunity to migrate my bookmarks from a previous FireFox installation. Ubuntu has great server and desktop operating systems. Being open source is only another plus to the operating systems. However, I have seen where open source projects start to get skewed by developers trying to compete with the “big boys”. I think that Ubuntu has let the debian crew take too much control of the project. If I wanted to install debian packages I would have installed Debian on the PC or server. Please take a chance to get your house in order. Many open source projects have suffered due to a course change in the middle of gaining acceptance. For now install Google-Chrome to use flash and import your Bookmarks from FireFox. Posted in Linux | Comments Off Installing CentOS 6.2 from the net installer ISO on a 1 GB Kingston DataTraver USB stick March 29th, 2012 What is nice about CentOS 6.2 is the ability to install the OS from a USB stick. Here is how I performed my installation. The USB stick had been used before, so I reformatted it to NTFS to simulate the file system when it was first acquired. I plugged it into my Windows 7 system and reformatted the stick. On another Linux system I downloaded the ISO at http://mirror.ncsa.illinois.edu/centos/6.2/isos/i386/CentOS-6.2-i386-netinstall.iso . I mounted the USB stick on the Linux system. You will need to install the ntfs-3g package if you want to see the memory stick. With CentOS 6.2 the package is fuse-nfts-3g. You can mount it anywhere because we are more concerned with the device name than the mount point. Once it is mounted run a `df` command to see the device name. The command to run is: `dd if=/path/to/iso/CentOS-6.2-i386-netinstall.iso of=/dev/sdb (or the device name for your USB stick as found with the `df` command) bs=1M` It will return to a command prompt when finished. Un-mount the USB stick: `umount /dev/sdb` ENSURE your machine is set to boot from a USB device. Re-mount the USB stick and restart the machine. The machine should boot into the install mode. I found it is better to select “Install with minimal video drivers” instead of shooting for the Gnome installation. The URL I used for the installation was http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6/os/i386/ . Your URL will vary by the platform you are building. NOTE: Since you are using the Internet for the installation, download and there for installation times will vary. You can perform the default partitioning. It will basically divide the hard drive into 1 primary partition /boot and three logical partitions swap, / , and /home. If you have a large hard drive you might not like that, because now you have lost the ability to use the space for other projects unless you want to perform and lvmresize. The default file system is ext4. How you configure the software is up to you. If you are running on an x86 machine, KVM will not longer be supported with CentOS 6. Seems like a shame to just drop the platform, but the business side won. So you will need to compile another virtual environment or by-pass the whole CentOS installation and install VMWare ESX, which is free. These directions also work for the LiveCD installation on a 1GB Memory stick. Enjoy! Posted in Linux | Comments Off Grub error 15 File not found on Ubuntu and Linux March 28th, 2012 Don’t normally do this, but I was editing the menu.lst file on my Ubuntu machine and thought I would be cool and just replace some of the file names. Well, I did not fair too well. I received the infamous Grub error 15: File not found with any of my boot selections. While I wanted to upgrade the system, this was not the time. So here is what I did to rectify the situation without having to install the system. Download a Linux LiveCD. If you cannot find a LiveCD, then download an installation CD for the OS. I happened to have my old and trusty Ubuntu 8.04 CD. At the Ubuntu prompt, I selected “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer”, which should be a LiveCD version.. This is where we tell the Linux Administrators apart from the rest. You should have the disk partitioned and know which partition everything is on. Remember, the boot partition needs to be physical and not an LVM partition. So, I know that /boot is located on /dev/hda2 because Windows is running on /dev/hda1. It takes a couple of minutes for the LiveCD to boot, so be patient. If you are watching the LED on the CD player and it stops for a couple of minutes, just restart the machine after cleaning the CD. The mistake I had to correct was stupid. See if you can pick it out from these screen shots. Here is a listing of the boot packages I have under /boot. Now, here is the fixed menu.lst file. The moral of the story is don’t panic when you make a mistake. Look towards the learning experience. After all, a Linux Administrator is someone who breaks things to see how they work. Enjoy your Linux system and don’t be affraid to experiment. After all you are getting good backups right? Posted in Linux | Comments Off Configuring Windows Updates on Windows 2003/2008 to benefit your organization March 11th, 2012 There are advantages to configuring Windows Updates to automatically install on workstations. However, having Windows updates set to automatically install can be catastrophic to the organization. The default Windows Update time is 3 AM, which can cause interference with backing up data, month and year end reporting, and users working late on a project. Here is how to configure Windows Updates for Windows Server 2003/2008. Click on Server Manager on the task bar. Under Security Information click on Configure Updates. Select Change Settings Under Important Updates select “Download updates but let me choose whether to install them” If you have limited Internet bandwidth, you might want to select “Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.” This will allow you to choose a good time when the organization is not placing a load on your Internet. Now, go to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/dd252948 and sign up for security notifications. Businesses today rely heavily upon data housed within the Windows server environment. Can you afford not to know what could prove to be a liability to the live-blood of your business. Posted in Windows | Comments Off Perl: Random dice game using array, case, and for Windows with Perl installed March 4th, 2012 I had a bit of free time, so I created this craps game for Windows. You can also run it on Linux and Unix by changing the path to where your Perl is located on the system....