• pptp / pptpd not working in DD-WRT iptables / router


    Although it is well-known that pptp is not secure and is subject to many forms of attacks, the reality is that a lot of legacy and embedded devices use pptp. I argue that if it is being used for routing or remote access or over an already secure connection (eg. another VPN like ikev2) then this is still acceptable. Or in a LANor in a public environment where no private data is exchanged. However, if the nature of the data is extremely sensitive, you should do whatever........
  • systemd-journald high memory usage solution


    Sometimes systemd-journald can take several hundred megs of RAMor more which is bad for microservices and embedded devices. Edit /etc/systemd/journald.conf You can set it to max 5M of RAM like below: SystemMaxUse=5M ........
  • apache2 httpd apache server will not start [pid 22449:tid 139972160445760] AH00052: child pid 23248 exit signal Aborted (6) solution Mint Debian Ubuntu Redhat


    If you get this error, it is often because you have configured Apache with modules that weren't actually installed. Eg. you try to load the PHPmodule but didn't actually install the apache2 php module, so the server can't start. In general, this error can often be caused by issues with problematic modules and/or Apache being configured for modules that have not actually be installed (eg. libapache2-mod-php) is missing. The above results in this less than obv........
  • Linux grub not using UUID for the root device instead it uses /dev/sda1 or other device name solution


    You can read lots of posts about this issue but there is not much information about why this is the case or how grub determines the root= device name. Some even suggest modifying grub.cfg manually which is a disaster as the next kernel update will cause grub to revert back to the device name. For most people this won't be an issue but those using template system, automated deployments and working in embedded may run into this issue with custom embedded and created minimal kernel........
  • /var/log/journal huge/too large solution in Debian Mint Ubuntu Linux Howot Fix


    Is your /var/log/journal overweight and bloated? For example a decent install of Debian 11 with most applications and services ends up being about 4.9G with the journal taking a few gigs. du -hs /var/log/journal/ 1.3G /var/log/journal/ By default in a lot of distributions there is no maximum size so it will keep growing. This is especially problematic for embedded distributions and devices, but is also a huge waste of sp........
  • SSH cannot connect to old servers/devices/switches/routers/Cisco/Juniper Unable to negotiate with 192.168.20.2 port 22: no matching key exchange method found. Their offer: diffie-hellman-group-exchange-sha1,diffie-hellman-group14-sha1,diffie-hell


    A lot of older devices either support telnet or very old SSH keyx algorithms which are insecure and disabled by all newer/modern SSH clients for security reasons. However, sometimes you may be on a LAN via VPNor some other secured network or for whatever reason, absolutely, need to connect to this device and sometimes old/embedded devices may not be possible to update to a newer SSH server. If you run into this you may be using a modern/newer SSH client and get thi........
  • Linux how to compile binary with static sharedobjects embedded instead of dynamic to use on multi-distributions and avoid glibc compatiblity issues


    One simple flag to configure will create a makefile that statically links all the shared objects and embeds them instead the binary execute. This means as long as you have the same architecture that things should run. Eg. if you have an old version of Debian with a different version of glibc, then this will solve that problem. ./configure LDFLAGS="-static" To test that it is really statically linked run ldd: ldd src/wget........
  • tftp Linux xinetd verbose logging


    It is much more useful to have meaningful and detailed logging from tftp to see what is or isn't happening especially for VOIPand other embedded device appications: Edit the file: vi /etc/xinetd.d/tftp Change the server line like this: server_args = -s /var/lib/tftpboot........
  • PHP Displaying Blank Page on Apache


    Almost always the reason will be that the php.so file is missing but also that php.conf is misconfigured. In the problem machine it is actually PHP7 installed so if you reference PHP5 of course things wil be broken! Take for example here: cat /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf # # PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language which attempts to make it # easy for developers to write dynamica........
  • VMWare Vsphere VCSA Graphical Install Creates json


    yes it does create its own json ============================================ cat /tmp/vcsaUiInstaller/ovftool-20180809-175238948-20180809-175603497.log |grep -i json 2018-08-09T17:56:04.238-07:00 verbose OVFTool[30966] [Originator@6876 sub=Default] Manifest file entry: SHA1(VMware-vCenter-Server-Appliance-6.7.0.12000-8832884_OVF10-file1.json) = 1deb658c724767697587d5909c4051c01813e6a1 --> ........
  • OVF Tool: Error: Task failed on server: This host does not support Intel VT-x. VMWare VCenter install On ESXi ERror


    Intel VT-X is enabled in Virtualbox but it doesn't seem to pass through the needed vmx extension despite the following variables on the host confirming it is enabled: cat /sys/module/kvm_intel/parameters/nested Y cat /sys/module/kvm_intel/parameters/ept Y OVF Tool: Disk progress: 99% OVF Tool: Transfer Completed OVF Tool: Powering on VM: Embedded-vCenter-Server-Appliance- OVF Tool: Task p........
  • VMWare 6.7 VCSA VSphere ESXi Management SSO Install Guide on Linux using the CLI


    #mount the VCSA DVD mount /dev/sr0 /mnt/cd #alternatively you could mount the iso directly mount -o loop vcsa.iso /your/mount/path #for this purpose we are using the CLI installer on Linux cd /mnt/cd/vcsa-cli-installer/lin64 #no it's not going to be that easy you can't just run vcsa-deploy like that you need to use a template or configured .json file ./vcsa-deploy Usage: vcsa-deploy [-h] [--version] [--supported-deploymen........
  • How to create openssl md5 password hash to use in /etc/shadow using bash


    Very useful in embedded and other non-standard deployments. The above makes a random salt of 14 random characters from /dev/urandom (you can change the -14 to whatever number of characters you want for your salt). openssl passwd -1 -salt `< /dev/urandom tr -dc _A-Z-a-z-0-9 | head -c${1:-14};echo;` YourPassword Output: $1$eW-ScuyL$f/iKMJ5mbJ..7bSzvX6EO0 How To Create Password Has........
  • Centos installing grub problems suspect gpt problem


    grub> root (hd0,0) root (hd0,0) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd grub> setup (hd0) setup (hd0) But if you do: root (hd1,0) setup (hd1) it does work, I think hd0/sda had a GPT partition that was not removed properly (what I did was just dd bs=512 count=1 the partition table from another drive since the partition table should be identical). Checking if "/boot/grub/........
  • Centos 6 how to guide convert LVM non-RAID into mdadm 1/10 RAID array live without reinstalling


    Here is the scenario you or a client have a remote machine that was installed as a standard/default minimal Centos 6.x machine on a single disk with LVM for whatever reason. Often many people do not know how to install it to a RAID array so it is common to have this problem and why reinstall if you don't need to? In some cases on a remote system you can't easily reinstall without physical or KVM access. So in this case you add a second physical or disk or already ha........
  • Howto Convert Xen Image to KVM


    #count=10000 makes an image of 10000MB make sure your image is at least the same as your existing dd if=/dev/zero of=yourimage.img bs=1M count=10000 # losetup -fv newimage.raw # fdisk -cu /dev/loop0 # kpartx -a /dev/loop0 # dd if= of=/dev/mapper/loop0p1 # e2fsck -f /dev/mapper/loop0p1 # resize2fs /dev/mapper/loop0p1 # a lot of guides tell you to edit /etc/fst........
  • Linux/Debian shutdown/reboot without going through init force


    -bash-3.1# shutdown -rn now Connection to localhost closed by remote host. Connection to localhost closed. Sometimes I work with embedded systems/custom kernels without any of the fancy init scripts and other common Linux basics that most would expect. This means that often the "reboot" command (which uses an init script) will never work, not only that but it will hang the server and a manual power cycle or reboo........
  • How to install GRUB to the MBR of a disk image.


    cat | grub --device-map=/dev/null Now pay close to the attention of the beginning. Type: "device (hd0) VPS.img" this is telling what hd0 will be to GRUB and we're telling it the disk image file "VPS.img" in the current directory is hd0, you can specify alternate paths and image names of course. GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory) [ Minimal BASH-li........
  • GRUB Solution to error "Error 6: Mismatched or corrupt version of stage1/stage2"


    GNU GRUB version 0.97 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory) [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename.] grub> root (hd1,0) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd grub> setup........
  • Revert to GRUB 0.97/1 instead of GRUB2


    had trouble trying to revert Ubuntu 10.04 LTS from grub2, won't boot mdraid and did not even install mdadm during the installation! I have tried moving back to GRUB 0.97 backed up original /boot and then copied /boot from an old Debian install. Modified device.map and menu.lst and put the appropriate kernels and initrd for Ubuntu back in /boot I ran grub: root (hd0,1) grub> setup (hd0) Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1........
  • FUSE/Curlftpfs mount ftp account as drive partition in Linux


    This is a great way to use your ftp server space, for example on your web hosting account (althoughI believe many hosts don't allow storage like this), but if you have a VPS/Dedicated Server etc.., this would be perfect. Imagine how easy it is to work with an ftp account that you can just mount as a normal partition or directory in Linux, it would be great for backups etc.. Name curlftpfs - mount a ftp host as a local directory Synopsis........
  • Asus O!Play cannot access network/workgroup shares


    It always worked fine before but no amount of power unplugging/cycling does any good. I can access one network share and that is one that I've already saved, but it can't see any workgroups. One silly thing is why is there no option to manually connect to a netbios name or IP? It seems there is a bug with the firmware and that the SMB client is not working properly. Hopefully it fixes itself at some point. Between this and the lack of support for embedded s........
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