All posts by Michael Albert

Windows: Writing a new MBR an a USB Drive to boot Windows PE

Hi,

booting operating systems, such as linux live systems or Windows PE based installations (Windows Vista,7,8),  from a USB Drive or Stick is a nice featured.

Unfortunately each writes it own boot code to the MBR (Master boot record). The boot code of Windows PE 2 and later  loads \BOOTMGR, linux is usually loaded with \syslinux.

Well known linux installers like TUXBOOT, the Universal-USB-Installer or UNetBootin do updating the MBR by installing the syslinux bootloader.

To get the  Windows PE MBR back without formating the stick, do the following steps.
Continue reading Windows: Writing a new MBR an a USB Drive to boot Windows PE

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Linux: Automount Windows or Samba shares

Hi,

today I will explain how to easy it is to automatically mount a windows share on linux.

The following packages are necessary: autofs, cifs/samba client tools

In this example I use a debian linux system.

root@dev # apt-get install autofs cifs-utils

edit the auto.master file with your favorite editor:

root@dev # vi /etc/auto.master

add the following line

/media/cifs /etc/auto.cifs --ghost

  • /media/cifs – is the root directory where the mount points are created (this is not the mount point itself!), the directory must exist.
  • /etc/auto.cifs – the definition file of the mount points
  • --ghost This option will create the mount point permanently, even the share isn’t mounted (there are doubledashes before ghost:-))

Create a new file /etc/auto.cifs and add your share definition. In this example the Windows computer is mediaserver with the share multimedia$ (Note: you have to quote the $ character in auto.cifs file or you got  cifs_mount failed w/return code = -6). The share should be mounted as user michl which has UID 1000 and GID 1000. Insert the following line to /etc/auto.cifs:

root@dev # touch /etc/auto.cifs

root@dev # vi /etc/auto.cifs
Continue reading Linux: Automount Windows or Samba shares

WordPress: prevent comment spam on wordpress

Hi,

on wordpress based websites comment spam is all around.

If you are hosting WordPress on a apache webserver there is a simple but effective way to refuse automatically created comment spam from bots:
Redirect all HTTP Post requests directed to the wordpress comment form (wp-comments-post.php) and which do not have a referer from your site or has an empty User-Agent string away from your site. For example to the bots localhost 🙂

The only requirement is the apache module mod_rewrite and a .htaccess file in the root folder of your blog.

If not exists, create a .htaccess file within the root directory of your blog, or add the following directive to an already existing .htaccess file. Replace “www.yourdomain.com” with the address of your website.
Continue reading WordPress: prevent comment spam on wordpress

Linux: Switch a idle hard disk into standby mode

Hi,

I have running a debian based multimedia server. The operating systems is installed on a compact flash card (/dev/sda), the data resides on a external USB SATA harddisk (/dev/sdb).
The (Server 🙂 ) Hardware is a Fujitsu Futro A240 ThinClient, with a power consumption of only 7W. I’m using the server for about 2 hours each day, therefore I looked for a method to save power and switch the USB disk to standby mode when its idle for while.

Check first if your hard disk supports the standby mode.  Ensure that the disk is idle, otherwise the disk is immediately active again.

Switch to Standby mode

root@debdev:~# hdparm -y /dev/sdb
 Continue reading Linux: Switch a idle hard disk into standby mode 

VMware Workstation: Boot a virtual machine from a USB drive/stick

The BIOS of the VMware Workstation does not support to boot from a USB drive or stick which is connected to a virtual machine.

But there is a workaround:-) Use the Plop Boot Manager. Download the latest ZIP File and extract the plpbt.iso file. This contains a CD image which starts plop boot manager. Connect the iso file as  a virtual CDROM to your virtual machine.
Continue reading VMware Workstation: Boot a virtual machine from a USB drive/stick