VMware

VMware vSphere: Create a linked clone with Powercli

11 Comments

Hi,

linked clones have some advantages:

  • New virtual machines are rapidly deployed. The initial task is only to reference to a snapshot of an existing virtual machine. No virtual disk file(s) will be copied at this time.
  • They save disk space. Because only the space difference to the origin snapshot is allocated.

I found no option in the vSphere respective the Webclient to create one, but PowerCli provides this. Lets do it.
Connect to vCenter

Connect-VIServer vcenter.subdomain.domain.local

Define the virtual machine which is the origin of the linked clone, and the Snapshotname on which the linked clone based.

$sOriginVM="mastervm"
$sOriginVMSnapshotName="mastervm_linkedclone_snap"

Continue reading VMware vSphere: Create a linked clone with Powercli →

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Windows knowhow

Windows: Cannot bring up Cluster Networkname Resources

3 Comments

Hi,

a customer has, accidentally, deleted multiple Active Directory Computer objects which correspond to Network Name Resources of a Windows Cluster šŸ™ .

The cluster network name itself was also affected and no backup of the AD Database to restore the objects was available.

All solutions that I’ve found to get the cluster working again are based on the restore of the AD objects.

But there is also another way respective hack šŸ™‚ . This works for me on a Windows 2008 R2 Cluster.
Typical error are:

  • Event ID 1207 is logged to the Eventlog: “Unable to get Computer Object using GUID” “There is no such object on the server.”
  • Or in the C:\Windows\Cluster\Reports\cluster.log file (exported with cluster.exe log g)
    Network Name <Clustername>: Unable to Logon. winError 1326

Continue reading Windows: Cannot bring up Cluster Networkname Resources →

Linux

Linux: Some ffmpeg command line examples

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Hi,

here are a list of some command line examples for converting audio and video files with ffmpeg. ffmpeg is part of the most linux distributions but there is also a Windows version available.

Convert ogg to mp3, with -a you can specify some audio options here a bitrate of 192k

ffmpeg -i input.ogg -ab 192k output.mp3

To remove the embedded cover(Cover is saved as Video Stream)

ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -vn -ab 192k output.mp3

To remove cover and copy the audio stream, no remux is done => better quality

ffmpeg -i input.mp3  -y -map 0:a -codec:a copy -map_metadata -1  output.mp3

Covert a MKV container to avi. 2 Steps required.

Step 1 (h264 -> mpeg4)

ffmpeg -i video.mkv -qscale 0 -acodec copy temp.avi

and Step 2

ffmpeg -i temp.avi -vcodec mpeg4 -b 4000k -acodec mp2 -ab 320k output.avi

MPEG4 to xvid Bitrate 1200kb half resolution, AC3 to mp3 128kb

ffmpeg -i temp.aviĀ -vf scale=iw/2:-1 -b 1200k -q:v 2 -q:a 2 -c:v libxvidĀ  -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 128k output.avi

Another simple way to xvid

 ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v mpeg4 -vtag xvid output.avi

MKV to xvid 4:3 

 ffmpeg -i input.mkv -sn -c:a libmp3lame -ar 48000 -ab 128k -ac 2 -c:v libxvid -crf 24 -vtag DIVX -vf scale=640:480 -aspect 4:3 -mbd rd -flags +mv4+aic -trellis 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -g 30 -vb 1500k output.avi

MKV to xvid 16:9

 ffmpeg -i input.mkv -sn -c:a libmp3lame -ar 48000 -ab 128k -ac 2 -c:v libxvid -crf 24 -vtag DIVX -vf scale=720:480 -aspect 16:9 -mbd rd -flags +mv4+aic -trellis 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -g 30 -vb 1500k output.avi

Format to play on some DVD Player with SDCard (Medion for example)

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -f avi -c:v libxvid -qscale:v 2 -vf scale=512x280 -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 320k output.avi

and with a limited bitrate

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -f avi -c:v libxvid -b:v 1M -maxrate 1M -bufsize 1M -vf scale=512x280 -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 320k output.avi

Scale to a specific resolution and preserve aspect ration

ffmpeg -i temp.avi  -vf scale=320:-1 output_320.avi

Scale to the current resolution divided by 3


ffmpeg -i output.mov -vcodec libx264 -acodec aac  -vf scale=iw/3:ih/3 test.mp4

Concat 2 files with the same codec. Create a list of video files and write it to file


cat movlist.txt
file 'movPart1.avi'
file 'movPart2.avi'
ffmpeg -f concat -i movlist.txt -c copy mov.avi

 
Same but with mp3 files, Metadata are used from mp3File1.mp3


ffmpeg -i "concat:mp3File1.mp3|mp3File2.mp3" -acodec copy mp3file.mp3

Export Metadata from an mp3 file


ffmpeg -i mp3File1.mp3 -f ffmetadata mp3File1.metadata

With new metadata


ffmpeg -i "concat:mp3File1.mp3|mp3File2.mp3" -metadata "title=My Heavy Song" -metadata "artist=Metalartist" -metadata "album=Best Metal Album ever" -acodec copy mp3file.mp3  -vn

To flip a video vertically

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vf vflip flipped.avi

To flip a video horizontally

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vf hflip flipped.avi

Rotate 90Ā° clockwise

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vf transpose=1 flipped.avi

Rotate 90Ā° counterclockwise

ffmpeg -i in.avi -vf transpose=2 -c:a flipped.avi

 
Transpose does a reencoding of the whole video. This simply rotates the video

ffmpeg -i christmas.mov  -metadata:s:v rotate="90" -codec copy output.mov

To map the german audio channel as default. List channels

ffmpeg -i in.avi 2>&1 |grep Stream
    Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (High), yuv420p(tv, bt709/unknown/unknown, progressive)1k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)..
    Stream #0:1(ger): Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 224 kb/s (default) (forced)
    Stream #0:2(eng): Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), fltp, 640 kb/s

To select the german Audio stream as default use -map 0:a:0, means 1st Audio stream (counted from 0)

ffmpeg -i in.avi ... -map 0:v:0 -map 0:a:0 ...

Convert a Video to a Whatsapp compatible format

ffmpeg -i in.avi -c:v libx264 -profile:v baseline -level 3.0 -pix_fmt yuv420p out.mp4

Cut a video. From second 30 for a length of 10sec

ffmpeg -ss 00:00:30.0 -i input.wmv -c copy -t 00:00:10.0 output.wmv
ffmpeg -ss 30 -i video.mp4 -c copy -t 10 video.mp4

Fade in, fade out

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf "fade=t=in:st=0:d=3" -c:a copy out.mp4
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf "fade=t=out:st=10:d=5" -c:a copy out.mp4

To be continued

Michael

Windows knowhow

Windows: Determine uptime from command line

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Hi,

unlike Linux, Windows has no builtin uptime command to see when the operating system starts.

But nevertheless it’s possible. Use the systeminfo command.


c:\> systeminfo | findstr /i time
System Boot Time:          05.06.2014, 21:05:06
Time Zone:                 (UTC+01:00) Amsterdam, Berlin, Bern, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna

Note: If you have installed a language different then english replace time as filter which applies to your language.

Michael

EIB/KNX, Raspberry PI

Raspberry Pi: eibd with a KNX USB Interface

234 Comments

Hi,

a reader of my post asks me if it possible to connect the eibd bus with a KNX USB Interface instead of the TPUART board.Ā  These interfaces are available by several vendors(Siemens, Gira, Merten etc.).

I have no KNX USB Interface for testing and therefore Bastian Herzog did that part and supports me to improve the script. Very special thanks to him. Together we have get this started.

As descripted in the previous post setup your Raspberry Pi with raspbian:
Continue reading Raspberry Pi: eibd with a KNX USB Interface →

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