4 · 02

Windows Vista: BOOTMGR is missing!

I bought an additional hard drive last week to increase my storage capacity and to add a partition to backup data. I decided to move my Windows Vista installation to the second harddrive. Linux and grub are installed on the first one. Vista creates a Boot directory when it setups the MBR. I noticed that Vista does not create this directory when it is installed on the second harddrive, probably because the boot loader is on the first one. So after I restored grub to handle both windows and linux, when I tried to boot Vista, I saw the message "BOOTMGR is missing!". The boot directory cannot be seen on Windows systems, I verified its presence on my Linux system with the Windows partition mounted. I found a little trick to force windows Vista to create boot directory and bootmgr, I configured the bios to disable the first harddrive. Then I repaired the windows Vista installation with the dvd, the repair program created the boot directory and bootmgr program. Finally, I re-enabled the first harddrive. It's important to add a small setting to grub configuration to make Windows believe it is launched from the first harddrive. Grub is able to change the bios harddrives order virtually. 
title=Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1
default grub system windows
24 · 01

Duplicity: simple, efficient and secure backup solution for Unix

Backuping data is a real problem. Investing 2 RAID 1 harddrives is a little expensive for a workstation. Duplicity is able to do incremental backups with the rsync algorithm. All backuped data are encrypted with gpg. All duplicity options are available on the official website. I wrote a small script for automate backup on my workstation. backup.sh: 
#!/bin/sh
ROOT="/root/backup"
DISTANT="ssh://user@zaphod.eu//home/user"
PASSPHRASE="xxxxxxxxxxxx"
KEEP_ARCHIVE="2M" # 2 Months
FILELIST="files.lst"
export PASSPHRASE
duplicity       --include-globbing-filelist "${ROOT}/${FILELIST}" \
--exclude '**' \
--full-if-older-than "${KEEP_ARCHIVE}" / "${DISTANT}"
duplicity remove-older-than ${KEEP_ARCHIVE} ${DISTANT}
Then a small file list specifies what has to be backuped or not.
files.lst: 
- /home/shad/p0rn
- /home/shad/tmp
+ /etc
+ /home/shad
According to duplicity documentation, a line beginning with a '+' specify a directory or a file to include and '-' for exclude. Be aware of list order.
It remains to add a cron entry for a weekly schedule: 
0 0 * * 1 backup.sh | mail -s "Backup Report" root@zaphod.eu
Now your worksation is secured, you can restore any files to any date within the backup delay.
default duplicity system unix
24 · 10

Gnump3d: New release is imminent.

Steve Kemp, gnump3d founder and current maintainer is going to release a new version of gnump3d. This release will introduce some changes:
  • Password authentication is completely going away, due to some problems, especially discovery of a new hole which can be verified with netcat:
GET / HTTP/1.0
-> All looks good. You'll get a 403 header back.
Now try this malformed request instead: 
GET /
-> Password auth bypassed :(
This hole can be explained by the home-made web server implemented.
  • "Split warning" will be removed when gnump3d is starting (index updating).
  • Some other bugs reported by mail will be fixed.
    Media_httpfeedsfeedbu_bhtnf
default gnump3d
15 · 07

PwrCtl 0.2 released

I have just release a new version of PwrCtl (0.2), some new features has been added :

  • Server notifying over UDP multicast: each server notify its presence on a multicast address to be displayed on the client interface (only available over Wifi, make sure multicast filtering is disable on your router).
  • Error handling improved: client is now able to auto-reconnect after a network problem.
  • Client session to keep context after reconnection: the client keep a session id, delivered by the server, to get back its context (profile, controller instance...)
  • Support of VLC and Windows Media Player for Windows.
  • Platform handling on server controller has been fixed.

You can get it now on download server.

All documentation has been updated on the wiki page.

Media_httpfeedsfeedbu_dooht
Pwrctl default
20 · 06

HTTP digest authentication for gnump3d

Last month, I wrote a patch for gnump3d authentication, to add support of HTTP digest authentication. This patch has been included in the last release (2.9final). At present, this release is available in some linux distributions, but not in all of them (like gentoo).

If you need this feature, you will be able to find the patch here.

Media_httpfeedsfeedbu_xpdwt
code default gnump3d
19 · 06

Spam in dotClear1

I receive a lot of spam comments for few months. They contain almost the same data, a list of URLs. So I decided to prohibit URLs in comments. In the future, if you want to give some URLs in your comments, please strip "http://" in front of it. If your are interested, I've just added this code near line 269 of the file layout/prepend.php of dotclear 1.2.6 : 
if (stripos($in_content, 'http://') !== false)
{
    $form_err = 'Url in comments are not allowed for spam reasons, please strip "http://" in front of your URL.';
}
elseif ($blog->addComment($post_id,$c_nom,$c_mail,$c_site,
        $in_content,0,dc_time_delta,dc_comments_pub) === false)
{
...
If this small change is sufficient, maybe I'll publish comments directly.
EDIT: Due to dotclear2 migration, comments are directly published and url are allowed.
code default dotclear
20 · 05

PwrCtl works with bluetooth

After a short discussion on linuxfr, I bought a bluetooth usb adapter to test PwrCtl over bluetooth. It works very well over TCP/IP. You only have to create a PAN between your PDA and your PC to obtain an IP address.

For linux, read the gentoo documentation. For windows, read this microsoft how-to.

I am going to update the pwrctl wiki in few days.

Media_httpfeedsfeedbu_fevyw
Pwrctl default
6 · 05

PwrCtl first release

I'm pleased to announce the first "alpha" release 0.1 of PwrCtl project. I remember you that PwrCtl is a remote controller for doing some actions on your PC from your PDA.

The documentation is almost finished but already sufficient for using the software.
You will be able to find all the documentation and download links on the official wiki home page.

Media_httpfeedsfeedbu_rrnsu
Pwrctl default
5 · 05

New project soon

I have been working for some weeks on a personal project. I named it PwrCtl (Pocket Wifi Remote Control(ler) or Power Control), I don't know exactly how to define it right now, I'll rename it if I find some imagination, consider it as a code name.

PwrCtl is a remote controller designed for doing some actions on your PC from your PDA (Pocket PC on Windows Mobile). At present, the client is developped as C# .NET and ruby for the server.

There are some solutions to control only winamp or other special things on different applications but nothing enough generic for the moment to do whatever you need.

That's why I started to work on this project.

Technically, the client receives its interface (buttons and tab pages for now) from the server sent as XML. XML data contains commands protocol to send to the server. If you are interested in the method I used, I will publish an entire description on the official wiki.

Naturally, the whole project will be open source under GPL !

Media_httpfeedsfeedbu_eddhk
Pwrctl default
Samuel Alba

http://twitter.com/sam_alba

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