I needed a script to gracefully shutdown and startup an application when the server was rebooted.  Again, not an issue so much with linux as you almost never HAVE [...]]]> Boy I really miss Unix sometimes.  Things that are so super easy in Unix/Linux are often a total pain in the butt in the Windows world.

I needed a script to gracefully shutdown and startup an application when the server was rebooted.  Again, not an issue so much with linux as you almost never HAVE to reboot. Windows you reboot like you catch a cold.  “oh you are not feeling well? Reboot twice and call me in the morning.”  Plus windows systems like to reboot every time there is any sort of patching going on.  So I needed to be able to have a custom script run to stop and start an application.

A startup script is a quick and easy way of getting a process running when the machine boots. The computer startup process will be affected by the time it takes to run the program, though, so you might want to ensure you call it with the START command from a batch file, or specifying not to wait for the executable to complete from whatever script language you use. (the key point there is: run the script asynchronously unless it’s critical, or doesn’t need to be run asynchronously cos it will always take no time at all. Long boots = unhappy users).

In Windows XP/2003 you will need to use the group policy editor which can be found under Start / Run / GPEDIT.MSC.    You will then need to navigate to Computer Settings -> Windows Settings -> Scripts (Startup/Shutdown) or something similar to be able to set a startup script.  You can see the scripts outlined in the scripts.ini file or add your own scripts to the Startup/Shutdown directories found under: C:\WINDOWS\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine\Scripts\

Using a Win32 Service is an alternative option – you can use the SRVANY utility from the Resource Kit to “service-ify” pretty much any executable. VS .Net and later also let you build a managed service directly.

And Task Scheduler gets much more capable as of Vista/2008, able to run scripts at startup, on idle, when certain other conditions are met; it’s pretty cool. Task scheduler has the possible advantage of being able to specify the user account under which the task runs, if that’s important to you.

I hope this little tid-but of information can be helpful to those that need this sort of thing.

First, there is the “SUBST” command.  This command comes with the OS.  Of course I am talking XP and Windows 2003.  I would assume it’s still available [...]]]> Thought I would throw out some information on creating links in Windows now that this is the second time I had to go and look the information up.

First, there is the “SUBST” command.  This command comes with the OS.  Of course I am talking XP and Windows 2003.  I would assume it’s still available in the latest releases.  This command will let you create a Drive Letter out of a directory.

subst M: /d
subst M:  C:\music

The first line deletes the reference to the M: drive, just to make things clean.
The 2nd line create an M drive that actually links back to C:\Music on the hard drive.  Not sure how handy this can be.   It could find a way to be used to say copy a DVD to the harddrive, then create a drive letter so the application can find the DVD info. Sort of spoofing a DVD drive if needed.  I haven’t tried it, but that’s about all I can think of what it could be used for at the moment.

The next handy linker item I stumbled upon is a little executable called LinkD.exe .  This little gem will allow you to create hardlinks like Unix on your PC.  The executible is part of the old 2000 Resource kit, so not sure on how it acts on Vista or above.

I found just the executable here without having to download the whole resource kit.

To free up some space on my C: drive, I copied everything from C:\WINDOWS\Installer to H:\WIN_FILES\Installer.  However, Windows expects to find the Installer files on C:.  To allow Windows to find the needed files, I used LINKD.EXE to point C:\WINDOWS\Installer to H:\WIN_FILES\Installer. The actual command to do this is:

LINKD.EXE “C:\WINDOWS\Installer” “H:\WIN_FILES\Installer”

That’s it! All my files moved to another physical drive without any problems.

* Note that the order of the command args is different than the Unix ln command.

Thankfully I have been able to place Cygwin on most of the systems that I support.

I have, however, needed to be able to create a few batch files that would run [...]]]> I hate to admit on a Unix admin type Blog that I have been recently forced to work in the Windows OS world.

Thankfully I have been able to place Cygwin on most of the systems that I support.

I have, however, needed to be able to create a few batch files that would run on a scheduled basis for various things and had to learn the tricks of the trade for working in the DOS command prompt.

Personal Cheat Sheet.

: — (followed by a space), alternative for “rem”, starts a comment
^ — line continuation… like a backslash (\) at the end of the line in unix
& — command separator (cmd1& cmd2& cmd3), like “;” in unix
&& — only execute the next statement if the last one succeeded, like unix/perl
|| — only execute the next statement if the last one failed, like unix/perl

• Passing in command line variables/parameters

Batch files can only handle parameters %0 to %9, ie cmd.bat Foo Bar where in the cmd.bat Foo=%1 and Bar = %2

• For Loops
• FOR %A IN (list) DO command [ parameters ]

I did find this web site has tons of useful information on windows scripts.
The menu at the left will expand to show more info on each topic.

Finding system uptime
* net statistics server

Listing all of your systems drivers
* DRIVERQUERY /V /FO CSV > %ComputerName%.csv

Tigerdirect had a great sale on the units so I purchased one and a Gyrus Universal Media Center Remote.

From some message boards I read up on I also purchased the extra 1GB of ram for the Acer, so that 1080p [...]]]> My journey on setting up a Media Center PC on a Acer Aspire 1600.

Tigerdirect had a great sale on the units so I purchased one and a Gyrus Universal Media Center Remote.

From some message boards I read up on I also purchased the extra 1GB of ram for the Acer, so that 1080p video would be possible.  Although, I just found out that my TV is 720p/1080i which isn’t 1080p.  Oh, well the system should work just that much better.

I decided to just setup the Acer as is, with all of its standard components before I start adding on things.

My planned addons are:

1. The Gyrus remote
2. Wireless keyboard and mouse.
3. Wireless USB dongle (If this thing doesn’t have wireless internal.
4. The extra GB of RAM.

My software plans for now are

1. I-Tunes
2. XBMC for windows.  ( I know I probably could just install Ubuntu or boot from a USB drive, but all of the other systems in the house are PC, so I will stick with it for now)

First impressions.  Well, it didn’t come with a manual.  WTF! I guess I have to go find one.
I found the manuals online at Acer’s Web site.

I found a nice video on how to open the Acer Aspire on Youtube to add the memory.  Adding the memory was a bit tight.  I found that you need to shove the memory in at an angle then push down and snap into place.

The mouse and keyboard look cute, like small size Mac style and all white.  Good think I have an extra wireless unit available.  When I had the unit open I did see that there was not a wireless card installed.  I’ll have to go with the USB dongle for now.  I do plan on an upgrade for the house to Wireless N and I might just get a new internal card at that time.

I found that my keyboard was no longer responding, [...]]]> While browsing the web the other day and I was in the midst of entering a search term when an odd little window unexpectedly popped up. It was titled “Ruler”, and offered some options to check, such as “Snap to X/Y axis” and “Hide Tick marks.”

I found that my keyboard was no longer responding, so I clicked the peculiar popup’s close box and continued typing. All was fine until I had occasion to enter an upper case “R,” then suddenly the strange ruler window popped up again. What the hack was going on?
The ruler box is a feature of the Internet Explorer 7 Developer Toolbar add-on and for some reason is in certain versions of the toolbar and not others for various versions of IE.  Go figure?

To make the Shift-R ruler “feature” go away, I typed Ctrl-Shift-J and the Shift-R now works as it should.  You may need to bring up the Developer Tool Bar before hitting the keys strokes to make the change take effect, by selecting View | Explorer Bar

There Word, Excel, and Powerpoint from Micro$soft that are usually very expensive.

There is also money management software, project planning software, and graphic software.

Well there is a solution for small [...]]]> There is a ton of software a new business sometimes feels that they must purchase right when they are starting off a new business.

There Word, Excel, and Powerpoint from Micro$soft that are usually very expensive.

There is also money management software, project planning software, and graphic software.

Well there is a solution for small businesses that are starting out is to use Open Source Software.
There is a great web site that lists all of the commercial software along with it’s Open Source Alternative.
Check out Open Source Alternatives web site.

They will show you stuff like
Expensive App             Free Apps
Photoshop                   The GIMP
VISIO                         DIA
MS Office                    Open Office
Illustrator, CorelDraw  Inkscape
Quickbooks                 Postbooks

There are many more and almost every big commercial application now has an Open Source alternative.  It is possible that you may need to be running Linux for some of these, but Ubuntu has become as easy to use as Windows or a Mac.

I found another Blog posting about 50 top applications and their alternatives.
The post was made early in 2008 so the software most likely has gotten even better since then.

Check out http://whdb.com/2008/the-top-50-proprietary-programs-that-drive-you-crazy-and-their-open-source-alternatives/

I assume that you already [...]]]> Apache Tomcat SSL keys created with keytool are, by default, in der format. These keys cannot be used in Apache httpd since httpd, be default, expects the keys in pem(X509) format. Using the below steps you can export the tomcat’s keys to Apache httpd format and use it for Apache.

I assume that you already have a working copy of tomcat with SSL.

If Not follow Verisign’s instructions on requesting an SSL certificate, then:

• Create a keystore:   $JAVA_HOME/bin/keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA
• Import the Intermediate CA Certificate:   keytool -import -alias root -keystore <your_keystore_filename> -trustcacerts -file <filename_of_the_chain_certificate>
• Import your SSL Certificate:  keytool -import -alias <your_alias> -keystore <your_keystore_filename> -trustcacerts -file <your_certificate_filename>

You will need a copy of the tomcat’s keystore file and the keystore password.

Let us start….

First copy the existing tomcat’s keystore file to a new directory so that we don’t break anything that is working.

List the key and verify you know the passphrase.
# keytool -list -keystore your.key

Now we will export the key in DER format
# keytool -export -alias tomcat -keystore tomcat.keystore -file exported-der.crt
Enter keystore password:
Output will be: Certificate stored in file

The certificate will be stored in the file called exported-der.crt

Verify the certificate with this command:
# openssl x509 -noout -text -in exported-der.crt -inform der
Output will be: The whole certificate saying – who issued it  and other info like your company name etc.

Now Convert the key to PEM format so that apache can understand it:
# openssl x509 -out exported-pem.crt -outform pem -in exported-der.crt -inform der

The exported key will be in the file exported-pem.crt.

We have exported the public key and now are going to export the private key.

Download a  file called (ExportPrivateKey.zip) from Anandsekar.com

Extract the key
# java -jar ExportPrivateKey.zip {keystore_path} JKS {keystore_password} {alias} exported-pkcs8.key

The key is in PKCS #8 PEM format. Now run openssl to convert it to the format apache modssl expects the file.
Use a cygwin shell to get a good version of OpenSSL without having to install another application.
# openssl pkcs8 -inform PEM -nocrypt -in exported-pkcs8.key -out exported.key

The Private key is now exported to the file exported.key.

Edit the httpd.conf/httpd-ssl.conf file
SSLCertificateFile /root/SSL_export/exported-pem.crt  -> I used the cert from Verisign instead.
SSLCertificateKeyFile /root/SSL_export/exported.key
SSLCertificateChainFile /root/SSL_export/<intermediate>

Example:
#Verisign Certificate
SSLCertificateFile “C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/cmmssl/cert/cert.crt”
# Our new key
SSLCertificateKeyFile “C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/cmmssl/private/exported.key”
# The Verisign Intermediary cert file.
SSLCertificateChainFile “C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/conf/cmmssl/intermediate/intermediate.crt”

Restart Apache, with fingers crossed, pixie dust in the air, while the rooster crows, on a full moon, and a live sacrificial chicken waiting on standby.

(F)orce Kill running processes for ImageName of java.exe taskkill.exe /F /IM java.exe

NOTE: Wildcard ‘*’ for the /IM switch is accepted only with filters, use /FI taskkill /F /FI “IMAGENAME eq note*”

Find all running Java processes command line tasklist /FI “IMAGENAME eq java.exe”