Guide, Tools, Scripts and Books for System Administrator | iSystemAdmin

Five Best free download manager for Linux

Sifat — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 06:18:13 +0000

In Windows or Linux, no doubt, you have to download files from Internet. The practice of using Download Manager to manage the download is widely seen within sytem administrators. There are cases, they don’t know that they are using a download manager; though they use it. Windows users are very much aware of Dowload Managers to manage and, sometime, boost their download speed. But in Linux, due to low footprint, the ‘download manager’ concept is not that much popular. The main reason is that, a large portion of the admins are still prefer to use CLI instead of GUI and Download Managers are GUI friendly. In this article I will try to show you few CLI based download managers that can help you to understand and utilize it for your better productivity.

1. GNU wget

GNU wget is the mostly used Download Manager in Linux and UNIX world, though most of the user are not aware of it. They simply know it can download files form website. But it has some very good capabilities that Download Managers have. It not only support HTTP, HTTPS and FTP; it also capable of resuming aborted download. Interestingly it can use filename wild cards and recursively mirror directories. Also it can help you to use your http and ftp proxy servers, if required. Remeber that, wget cannot use multi connection to open threads for download. To know more about it, we will recommend you to visit its manual page.

2. Aria2

Aria2 is a modern Download Manager for Linux and UNIX command line. It is a complete download manager with all kind of features. It is very lightweight, supports multi-protocol & multi-source. It supports HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, BitTorrent and Metalink. With the help of json-rpc and xml-rpc interface. While it runs it takes very low CPU and memory. All features you want in a BitTorrent client, you will get in aria2. May be it has many feature, not necessarily it usage is complex. Very easy and straightforward. Please visit their official site to download and some example of aria2 usage.

3. Axel

I believe, axel as a download manager, will impress you better that any others. Axel accelerates HTTP/FTP downloading process by using multiple connections for one file. It supports multiple mirrors for a download. Axel is very lightweight and very easy to use. You can download it from here.

4. cURL

cURL is a command line tool for transferring data with URL syntax, supporting FTP, FTPS, Gopher, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, POP3, POP3S and many more; truly almost any file transfering protocol. It also supports SSL certificates, HTTP form based upload, proxies, cookies, user+password authentication (Basic, Digest, NTLM, Negotiate, kerberos…), file transfer resume, proxy tunneling and a busload of other tricks. It provides libraries for developers to use the power of cURL. It’s like wget with more features. It doesn’t support multi source or multi-threaded download. But still, somehow, it’s faster than wget. You can know more about it here.

5. ProZilla

ProZilla is a download accelerator for Linux which can gives you a 200% to 300% improvement in your file downloading speeds. Yes, that’s the performance of ProZilla we have experienced. It makes multiple server connections to download a file, split file in parts to get through different connects and also supports FTP searching for mirros and increase the efficiency. It can pause, resume and suspend a download and you can customize on fly to increase or decreast the threads to tune the download experience. Visit the project site hosted at sourceforge to play with ProZilla.

The above list is not sorted based on their performance or popularity. You can try all of them and choose one which you feel comfortable to deal with. In am personally a wget user for quick download of single small file. Otherwise, for full fledged download manager I prefer to use ProZilla. Hope you will have your own prefered one, which may or may not come from our list above.

Windows host based Firewall: Your fist line of defense for Windows desktop

Drasko Stojanovic — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 18:22:29 +0000

Protection from unwanted threats and attacks to hosts in your company network is very important part of your business activity. Today there are many threats which can be dangerous for your IT infrastructure. Because of that there are many hardware and software tolls and devices for your network protection. Antivirus software and hardware firewalls are used in most situations. On the market also exist many software firewalls which are used to protect computers from attacks from internal or external network. Software firewalls can also protect network from attacks sourced from computer on which software firewall is installed. One of the most used software firewalls is Windows Firewall which comes along with Windows OS installed. In this article we will describe Windows Firewall and explain how you can use it to protect your network hosts.

Windows firewall is software component which comes with Windows installation. It can be enabled or disabled as service in Windows services console:

As firewall software, Windows firewall can block or allow traffic from or to computes on which running. There are many configuration options which enable detailed control of traffic that pass through workstation. You can set rules for both outbound and inbound traffic. On that way administrator can control both traffic which enters in computer and traffic which lives and go to local or internet network.

Windows 7 firewall has a lot of new features which enables advanced settings related to traffic control. There is possibility to have different firewall settings for different network connections. You can set firewall rules for domain, private or public network. With these settings firewall will have different behavior depends on which network computer is connected. Three profiles can be set: public, domain and private. So, if compuiter is connected on its domain network, and system recognizes that network interface is connected on it, domain profile is applied. On that profile you can set rules that will be applied on your local network traffic if domain is established. If you have private network but domain cannot be recognized, private profile will be applied and system will recognize connection to „private“network. These can be situations where you have not domain set in your company network. If computer with firewall installed is connected on public or internet network third profile is activated. In this situation public firewall profile is active for securing computer. This profile should have most secure rules consider its connection to public internet network where it is affected by most threats.

All profiles mentioned can have its own firewall settings which are applied related to network type on which computer is connected. These rules can be adjusted by user which has administrator rights. To change firewall settings go to Control Panel –>System and security -> Windows Firewall and click on it. Opens window for firewall settings:

On this window you have informations on which network types computer is currently connected and if recommended settings for this network type are applied. If not you have red notifications as you can see on picture. For all network types you can change firewall settings independent. So, if you want to enable or disable firewall for some network you should click on Turn Windows Firewall on or off. Opens window for turning firewall on or off:

For example, firewall can be turned off for domain network because in domain network computers belonging same domain and there is some trust level between it. But if you have direct internet connection on your computer through one of its network interfaces, in this situation firewall on public network should be turned on.

Great feature which Windows 7 firewall offers is possibility to set different inbound and outbound rules for traffic enters and leaves computer on which firewall running. Inbound rules control traffic which enters from networks and outbound rules control traffic which go to network from computer. In case of inbound rules you protect computer from outside threats such as hacker attacks. In case of outbound rules you protect your network from threats from these computers because you restrict ports on which traffic can go out of your computer. To change these rules go to window for firewall settings and click on Advanced settings. Opens window in which you can change outbound and inbound rules:

To change rules click on Inbound Rules or Outbound Rules and you have window with list of rules existing in firewall:

To change one of it do double click on it and opens window for changing rule settings where you can enable or disable rule, set ports, protocols, address scopes and other settings related to that firewall rule.

In this short article we tried to make short explanation of functioning and purpose of Windows 7 software firewall. It can be very useful tool which can help you to make your network and computers more protected. By improving knowledge about this tool you can have powerful security tool in your hand!

Auto installing Perl CPAN modules using CPAN command prompt: Part -1

Sifat — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 18:40:59 +0000

Perl is a such an administrative tool that no System Administrator can ignore it. And when you are hooked with Perl, CPAN () modules are absolutely must to meet your day to day demand from math function to html parsing or even from socket programming to parallel computing. There are many System Administration modules that you must to collect form CPAN library. There are multiple ways to add modules support with your Perl like downloading the modules from www.cpan.org and install them after meeting all pre-requisities or use perl CPAN shell to install them automatically, including dependencies. In this article I will show you how to prepare your Perl CPAN shell to install your desired modules. In Part-2 we will show some example to install the modules for your convenience.

I can safely guess that you can Perl installed with CPAN support. Now you need to issue a shell command to configure the CPAN module. So, use below command first

[root@www ~]# perl -MCPAN -e shell

This command is used to call CPAN module with shell. As your CPAN is not configured yet, it will start configuring the CPAN module. It will as you a lot of questions and pressing “Enter” will satisfy most of them. The first screen is like below -

We have to reconfigure CPAN.pm due to following uninitialized parameters:
cpan_home, keep_source_where, build_dir, build_cache, scan_cache, index_expire, gzip, tar, unzip, make, pager, makepl_arg, make_arg, make_install_arg, urllist, inhibit_startup_message, ftp_proxy, http_proxy, no_proxy, prerequisites_policy, cache_metadata
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CPAN/Config.pm initialized.
CPAN is the world-wide archive of perl resources. It consists of about 100 sites that all replicate the same contents all around the globe. Many countries have at least one CPAN site already. The resources found on CPAN are easily accessible with the CPAN.pm module. If you want to use CPAN.pm, you have to configure it properly.
If you do not want to enter a dialog now, you can answer 'no' to this question and I'll try to autoconfigure. (Note: you can revisit this dialog anytime later by typing 'o conf init' at the cpan prompt.)
Are you ready for manual configuration? [yes]

Word between the brackets ([ ]) represents the default answer if you just press “Enter”. You can see that it searched for the file “/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CPAN/Config.pm”. For your case the file path may be slightly different depending on your Perl version (for my case you can see 5.8.8) . Config.pm is the file that stores CPAN configuration file. If you delete it, the entire configuration will take place again to create it. Let’s proceed just pressing “Enter” or “Return” key or typing “yes” beforehand.

The following questions are intended to help you with the configuration. The CPAN module needs a directory of its own to cache important index files and maybe keep a temporary mirror of CPAN files. This may be a site-wide directory or a personal directory.
First of all, I'd like to create this directory. Where?
CPAN build and cache directory? [/root/.cpan]

Now it’s asking about the directory where it will store all future files downloaded or processed by CPAN. The default is //.cpan (if you are root, it will be /root/.cpan). You can choose any folder where you have read/write permission. You can see there are description of the question bofore placing the question. To save the article’s length, I will skip this kind of description.

How big should the disk cache be for keeping the build directories with all the intermediate files?
Cache size for build directory (in MB)? [10] 200

Default of cache directory is only 10MB. I’ll prefer more (200MB in the example). From below you will have nothing to type except you know exactly required other than default. So, I’m just skipping major portion except the questions; without describing anything. Just to help you … will mean few texts left out to save time and space.

...
Perform cache scanning (atstart or never)? [atstart]
...
Cache metadata (yes/no)? [yes] 
...
File to save your history? [/root/.cpan/histfile]
Number of lines to save? [100]
...
Policy on building prerequisites (follow, ask or ignore)? [ask]
The CPAN module will need a few external programs to work properly. Please correct me, if I guess the wrong path for a program. Don't panic if you do not have some of them, just press ENTER for those. To disable the use of a download program, you can type a space followed by ENTER.
Where is your gzip program? [/bin/gzip]
Where is your tar program? [/bin/tar]
Where is your unzip program? [/usr/bin/unzip]
Where is your make program? [/usr/bin/make]
Warning: links not found in PATH Where is your links program? []
Where is your wget program? [/usr/bin/wget]
Warning: ncftpget not found in PATH Where is your ncftpget program? []
Warning: ncftp not found in PATH Where is your ncftp program? []
Where is your ftp program? [/usr/bin/ftp]
Where is your gpg program? [/usr/bin/gpg]
What is your favorite pager program? [/usr/bin/less]
What is your favorite shell? [/bin/bash]

At the bottom you can see there are few programs with full path. This are auto detected by CPAN to use in future. You can also see there are some “Warning”s with failure like cnftpget, links etc. CPAN doesn’t use them all to search files from Internet, but they are alternative if previous one fails. So, if you want any particular program shouldn’t be used, just change that one or alternate one. Let’s continue pressing few more “Enters”

Every Makefile.PL is run by perl in a separate process. Likewise we run 'make' and 'make install' in processes. If you have any parameters (e.g. PREFIX, LIB, UNINST or the like) you want to pass to the calls, please specify them here.

If you don't understand this question, just press ENTER.
...
Your choice:  []
Parameters for the 'make' command?
...
Your choice:  []
Parameters for the 'make install' command?
...
Your choice:  []
...
Timeout for inactivity during Makefile.PL? [0]

Now, if you don’t have any opportunity to get Internet without proxy, you have the chance to mention them. Pressing “Enter” will mean you don’t need proxy help to go outside your LAN; the Internet.

If you're accessing the net via proxies, you can specify them in the CPAN configuration or via environment variables. The variable in the $CPAN::Config takes precedence.

Your ftp_proxy?
Your http_proxy?
Your no_proxy?

Good news for us, CPAN will have it’s own mechanism to list the mirror site

You have no /root/.cpan/sources/MIRRORED.BY.
I'm trying to fetch one LWP not available CPAN: Net::FTP loaded ok Fetching with Net::FTP:
ftp://ftp.perl.org/pub/CPAN/MIRRORED.BY

Now you will require to select the site you want to be used by CPAN. It’s better if you choose something of our region to make the downloading faster.

...
(1) Africa
(2) Asia
(3) Europe
(4) North America
(5) Oceania
(6) South America 
Select your continent (or several nearby continents) [] 4

We have chossen 4 – North America. It will ask more question to select country -

Sorry! since you don't have any existing picks, you must make a
geographic selection.

(1) Canada
(2) Costa Rica
(3) Mexico
(4) United States
Select your country (or several nearby countries) [] 4

Now our choice is again 4 – United States.

Sorry! since you don't have any existing picks, you must make a
geographic selection.

(1) ftp://cpan-du.viaverio.com/pub/CPAN/
(2) ftp://cpan-sj.viaverio.com/pub/CPAN/
(3) ftp://cpan.cs.utah.edu/CPAN/
(4) ftp://cpan.erlbaum.net/CPAN/
(5) ftp://cpan.hexten.net/
(6) ftp://cpan.llarian.net/pub/CPAN/
(7) ftp://cpan.mirrorcatalogs.com/cpan/
(8) ftp://cpan.mirrors.tds.net/pub/CPAN/
(9) ftp://cpan.netnitco.net/pub/mirrors/CPAN/
(10) ftp://cpan.pair.com/pub/CPAN/
(11) ftp://ftp-mirror.internap.com/pub/CPAN/
(12) ftp://ftp.ndlug.nd.edu/pub/perl/
(13) ftp://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/CPAN/
(14) ftp://ftp.uwsg.iu.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/
(15) ftp://ftp.wayne.edu/cpan/
(16) ftp://mirror.atlantic.net/pub/CPAN/
46 more items, hit SPACE RETURN to show them
Select as many URLs as you like (by number),
put them on one line, separated by blanks, e.g. '1 4 5' [] 1 2 3 14

Select the mirror close to you. Use spaces between the selection like we have tried “1 2 3 14″ means we want to pick 1,2,3 and 14 from the list.

Enter another URL or RETURN to quit: []
New set of picks:
  ftp://cpan-du.viaverio.com/pub/CPAN/
  ftp://cpan-sj.viaverio.com/pub/CPAN/
  ftp://cpan.cs.utah.edu/CPAN/
  ftp://ftp.uwsg.iu.edu/pub/perl/CPAN/

It confirmes the selection. Now it will commit the changes to Config.pm and give you the prompt.

commit: wrote /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.8/CPAN/Config.pm
Terminal does not support AddHistory.

cpan shell -- CPAN exploration and modules installation (v1.7602)
ReadLine support available (try 'install Bundle::CPAN')

cpan>

Now you have CPAN module configured. Next time you start the same command, we have started to configure the CPAN module, it will directly give you the cpan prompt. Press “Ctrl+C” or type “quit” to exit from the cpan> prompt. In the next article we will show you how to use this command promt to install CPAN modules from Internet. Stay with us.

Using VNC for remote computing: pros and cons

Drasko Stojanovic — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 16:52:21 +0000

Many times in your daily administration work there is need for remote controlling some remote computer. Often, it is desktop or server in your company but sometimes you have to do support to your friends, parents etc. In these situations you have to use some tool which enables remote control of computer on which you have to do something. Many times, often when you connect to company computers it is VPN technology which enables virtual private connection to your company network. But in situations where you don’t have VPN, tools which use Virtual Network Computing (VNC) can enable remote support and control of another computer.

Virtual Network Computing (VNC) is computing system which enables to remote control desktop one computer from another. It is possibly through graphical desktop and mouse and keyboard events sharing. Contents of display, key pressing and mouse moves and clicks are shared between controlled and controlling computer which enables full software control and all software tasks on one from another computer. This technology enables controlling remote computer from any point on which you have LAN network or internet connectivity between server and client. Also, in last times, VNC software are available for platforms which works on mobile phones and tablets which enables remote controlling from this devices. So, you can manage your home or office network from any point on earth where mobile network is available. Pretty cool!

VNC as technology are first developed in Olivetti Research Laboratory in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Original source code and many other implementations are open source and under GNU General Public License. It enables spreading VNC through all platforms which is good argument to use it for remote control. Today, many commercial VNC software such as Real VNC, Ultra VNC etc. supports all available software platforms (Linux, Windows, Mac, Android etc.). For more informations about these software tools you can visit links www.realvnc.com, www.uvnc.com, www.tightvnc.com.

VNC technology is based on using RFB (remote framebuffer) protocol which is simple protocol based on exchanging frames of pixels and keyboard and mouse inputs between server and client. Server module of VNC software should be run on computer which will be controlled and client module on computer which takes control. Server sends frames of pixels to client and client send mouse and keyboard events. Server listens on port used for connection with client. Default port is 5900. For enabling connection to be established there is often need for proper firewall settings. If you have server in network behind the firewall, firewall should be set to allow connections on port on which server listens. Sometimes, port forwarding should be enabled to allow access to server. Regarding to these facts, cons of using VNC is need for additional configurations of corporate firewalls and routers. This can be potentially security threat because of need to allow additional ports enabled to access from external network in your corporate network.

To establish client-server communication computers should have network connectivity. It can be LAN, wan or internet network. During desktop sharing a lot of bandwidth is used and to work correctly enough network bandwidth should be available for server and client. When server and client are in same LAN environment bandwidth is not a problem, but in WAN and internet environment sharihg desktop can be potentially limited by inadequate bandwidth. To address this problem developers created coding algorithms which make some traffic compresions. One of that algorithms defines that only first frame is sent to client and after this only changes(for example mouse moving) are delivered to client. But, in situations where you have a lot of changes such as video on desktop it can demand a lot of network bandwidth. So, to make VNC working corectly ensure that links which connects server and client are speed enough. This bandwidth requirenments can be pros for VNC using.

Most today used VNC tools are very simple and user friendly in using for remote controling and mangement. Often, it requires a few simple steps for installation and starting and you imediately can start work width it. It is big cons of this tools comparing to VPN techologies which often requires huge configurations and setup. But, at the same time security can be potential problem in VNC tools without encription is used. This problem can be handled by using encripted chanells between VNC server and client which is enabled in some tools, such as realVNC where you can set up encrypted connection.

So, in this short article we described VNC techology used for remote computer controling and managing. Today there is many tools and technologies which enables this task to be acomplished. System admins have oportunity to choose one which on the best way meet their requirenments. This article highlights some advantages and disadvantages of using VNC tools and we hope that it will help you in choosing appropriate solution.

Five best portable Linux for you

Sifat — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:00:30 +0000

Portable Linux is something that most of the System Administrators rely on to quickly fix a broken system or do some administrative work while on move. Any portable Linux runs on very low profile hardware, as low as 100MB space, 16MB Ram etc, that you may think now out-of order in modern computing world. There are also practices where systems without Hard Disk, Monitors are kept in a corner to perform very specific network task like Intrusion Protection System (IPS), Intrusion Detection System (IDS), Web Server, Mail Server, File Server etc with low security exposure. In these situation portable Linux is the prefered solution. Anyway, there are many other reasons of having a portable Linux in your pocket and that’s the reason of growing community of portable Linux.

In this article we will try you to show 5 best portable Linux that are popular in the community. Obviously, if you are a good System Administrator, you can make any Linux portable. But we are talking about typical portable Linux well-known as “Portable”.

Puppy Linux

Puppy Linux is one of the popular linux which is very Small in size, ~100MB! This lends itself to some very useful and unique features. It provides ‘Live’ booting from CDs, DVDs, USB flash drives, and other portable media and runs from RAM, making it unusually fast even in old PCs and in netbooks with solid state storage media. It requires very low minimum system requirements and has a boot time well under a minute, 30-40 seconds in most systems. Puppy Linux includes a wide range of applications: wordprocessors, spreadsheets, internet browsers, games, image editors and many utilities. Extra software in the form of dotpets. There is a GUI Puppy Software Installer included. Puppy is easy to use and little technical knowledge is assumed. Most hardware is automatically detected. Currently Puppy Linux 5.3.3 which is Slackware compatible and 5.2.8 of Ubuntu compatible. To download and know more about it visit http://puppylinux.org.

KNOPPIX

KNOPPIX is a very well known live Linux which is by nature “Live”. Means, it has not intention to stay on Hard Disk. KNOPPIX is a bootable Live system on CD or DVD, consisting of a representative collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPIXX runs software from CD and it’s not a tiny in size like other portable Linux. KNOPPIX can be used as a productive Linux system for the desktop, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it (over 8GB on the DVD “Maxi” edition). Visit http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html to know more about it.

Damn Small Linux

Damn Small Linux or DSL is really “Damn Small”. They claim it as a “Biz-Card Desktop OS”. Damn Small is small enough which boots from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD). It boots from a USB pen drive or boot from within a host operating system. Means it can run *inside* Windows, OWOh!! By nature it’s a Debian Linux with a traditional hard drive install and run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of RAM. in can run entirely from RAM of 128MB system to give very fast experience. Thoug it was only a 50MB portable Linux, over time it grew to give more applications like XMMS (MP3, CD Music, and MPEG), FTP client, Dillo web browser, Netrik web browser, FireFox, spreadsheet, Sylpheed email, spellcheck (US English), a word-processor (Ted), three editors (Beaver, Vim, and Nano [Pico clone]), graphics editing and viewing (Xpaint, and xzgv), Xpdf (PDF Viewer), emelFM (file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), VNCviwer, Rdesktop, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE (ADSL), a web server, calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, NFS, Fluxbox and JWM window managers, games, system monitoring apps, a host of command line tools, USB support, and pcmcia support, some wireless support and many more. Then it’s not a Damn Small Linux. But still portable and enough small to carry with you in pen drive. Visit http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ to know more about DSL.

Slax

Slax, what they call “your pocket operating system”, is a modern, portable, small and fast Linux operating system with a modular approach and outstanding design. Though it is also very small in size, Slax provides a wide collection of pre-installed software for daily use, including a good looking GUI and some useful recovery tools for system administrators.

The modular approach gives you the ability to include any other software in Slax easily. If you’re missing your favourite text editor, networking tool or game, simply download a module with the software and copy it to Slax, no need to install, no need to configure. Following few steps to build very own customized operating system by using web-based interface here, anyone can rebuild Slax for any of his specialized purpose. Slax is also foundation of some other portable Linux. If you want to know more about Slax you can visit their web site http://www.slax.org/

BackTrack

BackTrack is a Debian based portable Linux specialy designed for Security Professionals. This is very popular for it’s tool set for both information security protection and hackers. BackTrack provides users with easy access to a comprehensive and large collection of security-related tools ranging from port scanners to password crackers. Support for Live CD and Live USB functionality allows users to boot BackTrack directly from portable media without requiring installation, though permanent installation to hard disk is also an option.

It provides many security tools including Nmap, Ophcrack, Ettercap, Wireshark, Hydra, Metasploit etc. Information Security concerns such as Information Gathering, Vulnerability Assessment, Exploitation, Reverse Engineering, RFID Tools, Access Violation, Forensics testing etc are the focus area of BackTrack. Some experts says, if you have BackTrack you have almost everything of Information Security in your hand. Remember, BackTrack is not that small comparing to Puppy Linux, DSL or Slax.

Dear readers, we tried to share few popular portable Linux with you. Our intention was not to see if the portable one is the smallest one or very fast only but also to make sure they give us the required functionality when one needs them most. In short KNOPPIX is the best one for System Administrators who want all system admin related tools, development tools and network daemons ready and BackTrack is for the Information Security guard for you. Puppy Linux, DSL and Slax will meet your demand of small footprint, very fast and ultra portability when it demands. Hope that will help you to make your choice of your portable Linux.

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How to manage roaming profiles in Windows network

Drasko Stojanovic — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 03:26:10 +0000

Windows user profile is group of settings specific for one user that logs on computer. These settings are environment settings such as desktop background and colors, screen saver, toolbar configurations etc., then application settings, web settings such as browser home page, cookies and other settings which load when user logs to computer. Profile is stored partially in registry base and partially in user specific folder on local or remote computer depends on profile type. There is a few user profile types. Main types are local, roaming and mandatory. In this article I will describe what are roaming user profiles and how to manage it in Windows active directory environment.

When new AD user is created and logs for fist time to computer belongs to domain he can make settings in his environment(desktop, screen saver etc.). Ater that its user profile will be created localy on that computer. In case of roaming profiles when user logs off profile folder will be copied on server which is dedicated to store user profiles. When user logs on another domain computer profile is loaded from profile server and user has some environment settings as in first computer where was logged. If user make some changes in profile settings all changes will be copied to profile server when user logs off. This is the way raoming profiles work.

First thing you should have when manage roaming profiles is directory in which profiles folders will be stored. For this purpose you should have server visible on network which will enable copying profiles to specific computers where users logging in. Also, folder in which profiles should be stored should be shared and full access should be enabled for domain users. To share folder(let say name of folder is „profiles“) do right click on it and go to Share tab:

Click on Share. Opens window for sharing settings:

Click on arrow next to drop down list and choose Find people. Opens window in which you will add domain users:

To add all domain users click on Advanced and type domain in Name field and then Find. Then choose Domain Users:

Click OK and OK again. Now you should set read/write perrmitions for Domain Users on your „profile“ folder:

Then clik Share and Done. Now you have you profile folder shared with \\SERVERNAME\profiles network name for your shared folder for storing profiles. SERVERNAME is name of your server where roaming profiles will be stored.

Profile setting for users or group can be done in active directory through Active Directory users and computers console. To open concole in Windows Server 2008 go to Start->All Programs->Administrative Tools->Active Directory Users and Computers and click on it. When you have console opened you should go to user for which you want to setup profile path. Rigt click on user and click on Properties:

Opens window for user settings. Go to Profile tab:

In Profile path location for storing user profile should be set. In this example we created shared folder for profile storing earlier. In Profile path should be typed network path to folder for user test1. It will be \\SERVERNAME\profiles\test1. Test1 is folder for storing profiles for that specific user. Folder test1 also should be created in „profiles“ folder. So, type network path for test1 user in Profile path field:

Click on Apply and then OK to apply changes. Now we have set roaming profile for test1 user. When user test1 next time logs to any of domain computers and logs off, its profile will be stored in profiles\test1 folder in SERVERNAME server. Also when test1 user makes changes in his profile all changes will be copied to test1 profiles\folder on SERVERNAME.

In previous example I described how to create and mange roaming profile for one domain user. But, there is posibility to manage roaming profiles for more then one domain user. It also can be done on similar way. To do that, in Active Drectory users and computers select user for whih you want to set roaming profiles and do right click. Then click on Properties. Opens windows in which can be done settings for more users:

To set profile path check Profile path check box and type network path for users profiles. But, in this case you have different names for folders in which will be profiles for specific users. This situation can be solved by using %USERNAMEe% variable in network path. So, type \\SERVERNAME\profiles\%USERNAME% in Profile path field. On this way you set that profile for specific user will be stored in folder which name is same as this user domAin username. Now, you in your profiles folder you have folders with names same as usernames if users which profiles are stored in specific folders.

In this short article I described process of creating and managing roaming profiles and shared folder for profiles storing in Windows Server 2008 Active directory. So, enjoy in creating and managing user profiles in your domain network.

Step by Step guide to install XAMP in Windows

Drasko Stojanovic — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 16:56:00 +0000

XAMPP is multi platform package which includes Apache, MySQL, PHP, phpmyadmin, OpenSSL and some other useful tools which enable efficient web development. It is very useful tool because it includes most web development packages which you need to make powerful web applications. Also it comes in single installation package. When installation is finished you can start developing your applications immediately. Installation of XAMPP is very simple and straightforward. In this guide we will describe installation process of XAMP.

Step 1: download XAMPP installation package

To download XAMPP installation package go to:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=61776

Click on XAMPP Windows and browse to folder with latest installation version (currently 1.8.0). Now you should choose package extension. There are self extraction exe package or .zip package. For this exhibition I will chose .exe package which is currently xampp-win32-1.8.0-VC9-installer.exe. Click on link for package and confirm download.

Step 2: Start installation.

To start installation double click on xampp-win32-1.8.0-VC9-installer.exe. Opens window for running installation program:

Click on Run to begin installation.

Step 3: Select language

You should choose language for your XAMPP installation:

Choose language (in this example English) and click OK. Opens Welcome window:

Click Next.

Step 4: Choose installation folder

In next window installation folder for XAMPP should be chosen.

Default folder is c:\xampp which will be automatically created. Alternately you can choose another folder for XAMPP installation. Click on Browse to choose it. When installation folder is chosen click Next.

Step 5: Choose setup options

In next window installation options for XAMPP server should be chosen:

In this window you can choose to create desktop icon and XAMPP folder in start many. To setup these options check appropriate check boxes (Create a XAMPP desktop icon and Create an Apache Friend XAMPP folder in the start menu). Also in this window you can create Windows services for Apache, MySQL and FileZilla. If you set these services as Windows services you will have them in Services window in Computer Management console. Because it will be Windows services it can be managed from Services console, it can be started, stopped etc. When you have options set click on Install. Appears window with installation process description:

When installation is finished appears command prompt window with information about XAMPP server are configuring:

Step 6: Finishing installation and start XAMP control panel

Click Finish to finish XAMPP installation. Now you have your XAMPP server installed.

When installation finishes there is possibility to open XAMPP control panel. When control panel window opens there is many possibilities related to management your XAMPP server. On this window you can start or stop XAMPP components. As you can see on picture of control panel windows there are Start buttons. By clicking on it XAMPP modules that are available in XAMPP can be started or stopped. On the lower half of control panel window is displayed status of your action. Also, by Config buttons you can open conf files of modules and change its configuration. When one of Config buttons are pressed text file with module configuration opens and you can make changes on it. In every time you can view log made for module by clicking Logs button. On right side of control panel window are buttons for XAMPP server management. With Config button you can change configuration of XAMPP server. With ntstat opened ports by server can be viewed. Shell prompt opens by click on XAMPP-shell button. Shell prompt offer many possibilities related to XAMPP management. Click on Explorer opens XAMPP installation directory. If you did install XAMPP modules as Windows services button Services offers possibility to open Windows computer management console in which services can be managed. Buttons Help and Quit enables help many and exit from XAMPP console.

In this short article we described step by step installation of XAMPP server and XAMPP control panel. As you can see XAMMP is very powerful tool with web server and development tools integrated in one product. It offers to developers many possibilities to develop efficient and powerful web applications.

Coming Windows 8: Features you will be interested about

Drasko Stojanovic — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 03:54:49 +0000

Windows 8 coming with new interesting features and look which make it different then other Windows versions. Most reviews consider this release of Windows as revolution in OS technology because of new look and features included in it. One of the most interesting features is new user interface called Metro. In this article I’ll describe some of the key features that will make you closer this new OS coming from Microsoft.

New desktop look you will like

In Windows 8 Microsoft introduced Metro Start Screen desktop which is one of the drastic changes from previous versions. Reason of introducing it is to make Windows closer to tablet like environment and enabling applications to be available from start screen. Metro start screen appears when you log in Windows and looks like as on next picture:

There are many solid color square tiles pointing to different categories such as People, Calendars, Maps, Phones etc. This looks similar as screens on mobile phones and tablets which will discourage many people adapted to classic Windows desktop. But, if does not like it, user can change screen to classic desktop screen which looks like exactly as Windows 7 screen. This possibility makes Windows 8 more flexible and enables users to customize Windows 8 desktop screen on their own way.

Faster OS booting time then previous windows versions

In Windows 8 boot time is shortened by efficient hardware usage then Windows 7 and other previous versions. It is improved significantly as result of efficient hardware resource allocations. Technique of hibernating system kernel when system shutting down is used and system memory are faster reinitialized on next boot. It enables quickest system booting then Windows 7 and other previous versions of Windows.

Improved search function

Considering that users often have need to search for files and folders in its Windows desktops or servers Microsoft decided to improve search function. But, in Winnows 8 search field does not appear in start menu and it does not mean it does not exist. All you need is to type anything you search for and search field appears on the right side with result. Also search engine is improved. All files and folder which are search results appears instantaneously which shows that search process finishes faster then in other windows versions. It encourages users to use search function often then earlier and make using of your Windows 8 more efficient.

Supports both for Windows PC x86 and ARM tablets

Windows 8 is the first OS that supports both traditional x86 and ARM based tables. It enables using it on very wide variety of devices such as PC-s, laptops, tablets and other mobile devices. This feature is very important because on market today exist broad range of different devices. If you have unique OS that you can use on broad range of devices it enables manufacturer of it any advantages than competition. ARM edition of Windows 8 enables “always connected” mode which enables to tablets to be always connected to internet. When not using, tablets remain in standby mode without disconnecting from internet which is very interesting feature if you use your tables as mobile phones.

Improved copy function

Windows 8 offers many improvements in copy function. Now you can have many copying operations into single copy dialog. New dialog enables to perform stop, resume and pause of copy operation. If you try to copy one version of file on top of another warning appears. Also, each copy job shows the speed of data transfer, transfer rate trend and amount of data left to transfer.

USB 3.0 support

USB 3.0 is much faster then 2.0. Windows 8 has native drivers for USB 3.0 support and on that way offers to users experience of full USB 3.0 functionalities. In Windows 7 you have USB 3.0 support but you heed third party drivers included. Now, when Windows 8 installed and started USB 3.0 works without need for new drivers installation.

Windows to Go feature

This feature included in Windows 8 enabled system booting from USB device. Now, you can have system image with programs included in it on USB device and you can boot your system from it. This is very interesting feature which enables administrators to create boot USB device. With this device users or admin can boot Windows 8 on every device which support Windows 7 or Windows 8. If you have system booted from USB and remove USB disk, system will freeze until USB drive is inserted. But, USB should be inserted 60 seconds after removal.

In this short article we tried to make you familiar with new Windows operating system coming from Microsoft. As you can see new Windows 8 brings many new and interesting features that will make you like it. So, enjoy in Windows 8!

Mountain Lion Mac OS X 10.8: Key Features

Sifat — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:18:22 +0000

If you are a Mac user and you are not aware of the news that Apple has released Mac OS X 10.8 with the name “Mountain Lion”, then definitely you are staying in a mountain without any facility of modern civil life on the Earth or you are staying in the Moon having not connectivity with the Earth. For Apple’s devices there are two major (excluding Server version) OS types Apple manage; iOS for for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch and Mac OS X for desktop and note books. Considering future for a unified OS, this is first time with Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Apple transformed Max OS to iOS; though still they differ a lot with each other in looks and feel. In this article we will share some key features with our uses what really Apple brought with Mac OS X10.8 and how users can be benefited with it.

Synching with iCloud

The most important feature if Mountain Lion is the iPhone and iPad like syncing with iCloud for your documents, contacts, calendars, music or any other files that are common to all devices. iCloud will sync all of your contents instantly without you having to do a thing. This is a great backup solution, for free, from Apple; thanks to them. This feature is very useful for persons who are on the move very frequently and want the latest version always available.

During the installation of Mountain Lion, you will be prompted to enter your Apple ID details. If you ignored that part during installation, you can later configure from iCloud and be synced with all of your iDevices.

Social Media Integration

This version of Mac OS X has integrated Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. Now you can share things from applications such as iPhoto, Safari and Preview without having to leave what you’re doing. For this you have to sign in manually once with your social media account and you are done for ever.

For example, if you want to share a link from a web page you’re viewing in Safari, you simply just use the share button next to the URL bar, and select which network you want to share it to.

To make it more fun, you can update your Facebook status without even visiting the Facebook site. Better Browsing Experience

With this latest version of Max OS X you will have the most efficient browsing experience among all of the running desktops available in the market. As already shared with you there with be a universal share button in Safari URL bar reading later, add to bookmarks, e-mail, or Twitter. As expected in the community, Facebook sharing will be coming some time in the early next year (2013).Apple also introduced, may be after learning from Firefox, password saving and showing facility in the Safari browser. You will get Password Tabs in the Safari which will show you to the passwords saved in Safari.

If you are a Google Chrome user in Mac you will get Omnibar which is an added featurein Mountain Lion. It integrates the address bar and search box including Google searches, favorites and history.

iMessage for Mac

Message is not any more a beta. Mountain Lion users now can get a final and stable version of Message which is replaces iChat and iMessage equivalent of iDevices. I’m not sure why Apple says is Message instead of iMessage in Mac OS. Among other things, Messages offers unlimited free iMessages to iOS devices, video conferencing with Facetime and photo/HD video file sharing. You can switch between your iDevices and Mac with Message and continue your chat seamlessly; what a mobility!

Notification Center

Notification center is something new which Mac users can easily notice. It replaces Growl. It collates all of your important updates along the right-hand side of your desktop. When a notification arrives, it will appear as Growl-like pop-ups in the top right of your desktop.

Data Protection by Time Machine

Apple with Mountain Lion Mac OS X 10.8 gives you a new feature in Time Machine. It allows you to select more than one hard drive to save backups. Time Machine can now also gives a new operating mode called PowerNap mode, which allows the operating system to update itself while the computer is sleeping. Moreover, Software updates are now fully integrated with the Mac App Store and can be downloaded directly.

Dictation

Siri was a huge hype from Apple with iPhone 4S and was a serious success. Apple brought something similar with Dictation for Mac users though it doesn’t enable you to make your Mac carry out actions, it does turn speech into emails. The beauty with Dictation is that it has self learning capability; the more you use it the more it learns your accent and improves in accuracy. It can save a lot of your typing time and make things faster for you.

Obviously there are many more features with Apple’s new release of OS and you will enjoy them all. Please visit Apple’s site for more information.

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How to add a Second Domain Controller in Windows 2008 domain

Drasko Stojanovic — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 03:14:54 +0000

Domain controller as server for hosting your company Active Directory (AD) is very important part of your network infrastructure. In case of its failure logging users on AD is impossible. Because of that one of the main things in planning your network infrastructure is make plan for implementing redundant domain controller in network infrastructure. In case you have it, failure of one of them does not mean that user will be unable to log on the system. Since failed domain controller is up again, backup controller will be in function of users authentication or other functions which it can have (DNS server etc.). On this way your network can stay functional, reliable and more resistible to failures.

In this article I will describe process of adding additional domain controller in your Windows network infrastructure.

First step is start dcpromo program to create new domain controller. Go to Start and type dcpromo in run field:

Click on OK. Opens first window in process of new DC creating:

When you want to add new DC Use advanced mode installation option should be unchecked because it use for Read Only Domain controller creating. In this case we want new DC with all functionalists as primary DC and read only mode is not option in that case. Click on Next.

In this window some information about operating system compatibility are displayed. Click on Next to continue.

Next window offers choosing option for add new or additional domain controller:

There are two options: to create new forest or to add DC in existing forest. If we have to add additional DC which is option described in this article Existing forest option should be checked. When this option is checked you have possibility to add new domain controller in existing domain or create new domain in existing forest. Here we want to add new DC in existing domain which will backup DC for our primary DC which exists in network. Because of that Add a domain controller to existing domain should be checked. When appropriate option are checked click on Next.

In next window domain name and network credentials for adding new DC should be set:

First, type the name of domain for which you want to add additional DC (testdomain.com in this example). After that credentials for adding DC should be chased. Main thing is that the credentials with which you adding DC should have administrative privileges. In this case we will use credentials of user from domain administrators group.

In network credentials type username and password of user which you use for promoting new DC. Then click OK.

In next step you should choose domain for which your server will be domain controller. By default, your domain will be set:

Chose default option and click Next. Opens window for site selecting.

Leave default option and click Next.

Next window is window for additional domain controller options. These are Global catalog, DNS server and Read Only Domain Controller. For additional DC you should chose DNS server and Global catalog options as it is shown on next picture:

Check DNS server and Global catalog options and click Next. Opens windows for choosing locations for database, SYSVOL and NTDS files. It is recommended to leave default options for these parameters.

Click Next. Opens window for setting restore mode password:

Restore mode account in Active Directory is different then domain administrator account. If you start domain controller in restore mode this account is used. So type password for restore mode account and click Next. Appears window with summary information about options you chose during installation additional domain controller:

When installation process is finished appears last window on which you simple should click on Finish button to finish installation process:

Now you will be prompted for restart computer and then you can log in to your new domain controller computer.

In this article I described how to set additional domain controller in our network. On this way you will make your network more reliable and stable.