Maintenance

I've been meaning to try this for quite a while. The idea is that you can boot a machine over the network in order to install a new OS (or load a livecd, thin client, or whatever). It requires participation from the NETS folks, but they're happy to help out. Here are my notes:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This process requires that a DHCP template get created for our VLAN.
The network folks need to know the IP of the tftp server and the filename of the executable (in the format $tftproot/path/to/$filename.efi.signed)

On the server end (following this: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UEFI/PXE-netboot-install),
1) sudo apt-get install tftpd-hpa inetutils-inetd
2) sudo nano /etc/default/tftpd-hpa
append this to the file:
RUN_DAEMON="yes"
OPTIONS="-l -s /var/lib/tftpboot"
3) sudo nano /etc/inetd.conf
append this to the file:
tftp dgram udp wait root /usr/sbin/in.tftpd /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -s /var/lib/tftpboot
4) sudo service tftpd-hpa restart

Once the DHCP template is set up and the tftp server configured you can deploy your netboot stuff

At a bare minimum you'll need to
1) Create a $tftproot/grub directory
2) Download the signed grub efi executable to $tftproot/grub:
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/trusty/main/uefi/grub2-amd64/current/grubnetx64.efi.signed
and put it here: $tftproot/grub/grubnetx64.efi.signed -
Note that, although it can technically go anywhere, it must end up where the DHCP template expects it to be.
It also MUST use the '.signed' file extension. Using plain '.efi' will stop this from working (I think it's a UEFI thing)
** the md5sum of the trusty version and the wily version are identical, so we should abe able to use them interchangeably
3) Download netboot.tar.gz (the following is trusty with a 4.x kernel):
wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/trusty-updates/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/netboot.tar.gz
Extract package: tar -zxvf netboot.tar.gz
3) Create a grub.cfg file at $tftproot/grub/grub.cfg to get things going. It at least needs to define one target. Here's an example:
################################
### grub.cfg using a preseed ###
menuentry "Install Ubuntu" {
set gfxpayload=keep
linux /ubuntu-installer/amd64/linux gfxpayload=800x600x16,800x600 -- auto=true url=http://YOUR_PRESEED_SERVER/preseed.cfg quiet
initrd /ubuntu-installer/amd64/initrd.gz
}
################################

Also note that the client machine will need PXE boot enabled (and possibly secure boot disabled)

This new change to Jenkins came as a complete surprise, and stopped virtually all JavaScript and some inline CSS from working. I've worked around it for the moment; I need to learn the full details and put a more refined policy in place when I understand it better.

Managed to get one VM working and updated (XP, the most important). Now trimming and cleaning up backup data from Rutabaga prior to launching an enormous rsync/delete over the weekend.

New machine arrived; set it up on purpose with encryption, selecting to encrypt the system when initially installing, then also electing to encrypt my home directory; finally, setting up LUKS encryption on the big HDD following some online instructions (using defaults, basically, and then configuring in /etc/crypttab and /etc/fstab), before doing software installs and then beginning the overnight pull of all my data from Rutabaga. So far so good; we haven't yet tested ssh and other users to see who can access what when it's running.

If you create a UEFI guest OS (Linux, at least) in VirtualBox, you will find that every cold boot ends up at a UEFI shell prompt. In order to boot the guest OS you need to type this at the UEFI prompt:
fs0:\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi
The fs0 points to the first 'drive'. If you have a thumb drive or multiple virtual HDD setup you'll need to adjust this (to, say, fs1 or fs2 etc.)

A permanent workaround is to create a nsh script that does this for you at boot. In the running guest, do the following:

$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
$ cd /mnt
$ sudo sh -c "echo '\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi' > startup.nsh"

** got the answer from here

My Dell U2412Mb monitor has been acting up for a while now: dark corner and flickering. The problem was temporarily resolved by power-cycling but the issue always came back, usually after going in to power-saving mode. The other day, though, I decided to RMA it.

As I understand it, we have 'pro' support, which is supposed to make this kind of process simple and quick. However, it was stereotypically bad in reality:
- Lots of different people pass you from one office to another, making you wait on-hold for at least a few minutes each.
- You finally speak with someone that will help (which may or may not be 'Basic Warranty Support' - it's very difficult to be certain, but it *definitely* wasn't Pro Support) and you go through a diagnostic exercise, followed by a proof-of-purchase test (send proof-of-purchase by email - and wait for 15 minutes for the email to arrive in the inbox of tech support). In the end, you've spent half a day sorting things out.

Next step; I will receive an empty box in 1 or 2 days, and I will place my failing monitor in the box and send it off. It should take 7 to 10 days to get to a Dell depot. At this point, I don't know what kind of turn-around I'm looking at, but I have to imagine that it will be at least a few days - maybe 10. I suspect that I will be without my monitor for at least 3 weeks.

I had heard that the process is relatively painless (because Pro-Support FTW!), ending in another monitor being shipped immediately (that is, before I sent my failing monitor). As it turns out, the process was excruciating - in the last two days I have spent about 4hrs to get to this point. And I still have to ship/receive/set-up/tear-down before I'm done.

A conservative estimate of the cost of me handling this is roughly $300. The monitor cost $297 before tax.

I needed a decent development sandbox for PHP/PostgreSQL and didn't want to muck up my desktop install, so I made one in VirtualBox. Here's how I did it.

New VM with Ubuntu 14.04 server (8GB RAM/120GB HDD/NAT, with Port-forwarding)
Port-forwarding set up with 2 rules (note that you may need to adjust the IP to whatever IP the VM gets).
Rule 1
Protocol: TCP
Host IP: 127.0.0.1
Host Port: 8888
Guest IP: 10.0.2.15
Guest Port: 80

Rule 2
Protocol: TCP
Host IP: 127.0.0.1
Host Port: 2222
Guest IP: 10.0.2.15
Guest Port: 22

Take snapshot of VM!

Once the OS is installed you should be able to ssh in to it like this:
ssh myusername@127.0.0.1 -p 2222
and we can install PostgreSQL 9.4, PHP5.6, and PHPpgAdmin

Add repos
PG 9.4: add 'deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ trusty-pgdg main' to /etc/apt/sources.list
PHP5.6: add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php5-5.6

Import PG signing key
wget --quiet -O - https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc | sudo apt-key add -

Install everything
apt-get update && apt-get install postgresql-9.4 phppgadmin php5 php5-curl
** note that installing php5 installs apache as well

Set up PostgreSQL
Set “postgres” user password
============================
Login to postgresql prompt:
sudo -u postgres psql postgres

and set postgres password with following command:
postgres=# \password postgres
Enter new password:
Enter it again:
postgres=# \q

To install PostgreSQL Adminpack, enter the command in postgresql prompt:
==============================================
sudo -u postgres psql postgres
postgres=# CREATE EXTENSION adminpack;
CREATE EXTENSION
Type \q in the psql prompt to exit from posgresql prompt, and return back to the Terminal.

Create New User and Database
============================
To create a new user called “kahuna” with password “bigwheel”, and database called “mydb”.

sudo -u postgres
postgres=# psql template1
template1=# CREATE USER kahuna WITH PASSWORD 'bigwheel';
template1=# CREATE DATABASE mydb;
template1=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE "mydb" to kahuna;
template1=# \q

Configure PHPpgAdmin
====================
Edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and add the following line to it:
Include /etc/apache2/conf.d/phppgadmin

To access phppgadmin remotely:
sudo nano /etc/apache2/conf.d/phppgadmin
Comment out the line "allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128" and uncomment the line below it, "allow from all".
sudo apache2ctl restart

Should now be able to access phppgadmin on host OS at http://127.0.0.1:8888/phppgadmin

Take snapshot of VM!

I'm trying out PHPStorm as an IDE. Here's how I'm configuring my environment:
* install same version of php on my local machine as on the VM (5.6) along with xdebug.
* follow excellent docs on JetBrains website for getting IDE talking to underlying php/xdebug
* use 'new project' wizard to connect to vm over ssh
* check that debugging works (ctrl+f5)

Lost a lot of time this morning when the HDD in my desktop died. Replaced it with an old one which is only half the size, and now I'm reconstructing as much of my data as will fit for the moment, pending arrival of a new machine.

I received the first primary source documents from Jason for the Victoria Holocaust Archive today. Helga will send some more shortly and I will commence my design mock-up.

Images are lowish resolution, but I should be able to work with them.

SET up MT as a user on Jenkins, and then configured matrix project-level security (I haven't done that before), allowing a specific user to have permission on a specific job and no others. MT will now configure a pilot Jenkins job doing some diagnostics on part of the ISE repo.