Many times you think how to extract some information from memory.dmp generated by Windows once it crashes. Let’s have a look into quick process, which might be very helpful in many cases during troubleshooting unexpected BSODs on client computers.

Before we start we need tool, WinDbg, which is available on Microsoft.com. In order to download WinDbg go to WDK and WinDbg downloads on Microsoft. On that page locate section Standalone Debugging Tools for Windows (WinDbg).

Once you download and install WinDbg we are ready to start.

So, let’s see what’s in memory.dmp…

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I took a challenge of running MediaWiki with Visual Editor extension on openSUSE 13.1 x64. Task sounds maybe easy, but turned out to be little madness, so once I got this working I think it might be nice to share my steps.

Operating system has been deployed from ISO image: openSUSE-13.1-NET-x86_64.iso.

Installing Node.js

Basically Node.js package which is included in distro doesn’t work properly. For that reason first step is to add new repository for Node.js:

sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/nodejs/openSUSE_13.1/ Node.js
sudo zypper in nodejs nodejs-devel
yast -i nodejs

Updating NPM

Once Node.js is installed it’s not quite fully working yet and any attempt of using npm fails. Some symlinks are missing, so to fix it we can just update npm:

curl -L https://npmjs.org/install.sh | sudo sh

Parsoid deployment

Now we can download Parsoid and make it work:

cd /srv
git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/p/mediawiki/services/parsoid
cd parsoid
npm install
npm test
npm start

This is quite brief description, however saves lot of time and fight with Node.js and npm on openSUSE.

I use SecureCRT quite often to access Linux systems as well as network devices.

When going through one of the presentations on SecureCRT web page I found handy tip how to configure session logs to have it divided by date, time and session.

Screenshot below demonstrates settings for log file:

Basically parameters are set to:

• Log file name: %Y-%M-%D–%h-%m-%s.%t__%S(%H).txt
• Options / Start log upon connect: checked
• Custom log data / On each line: %h:%m:%s(%t):

These settings will create separate log file for each session every time connection will be established.

In addition to that each line will start with timestamp added by SecureCRT.

RANCID is a great automation tool which allows you to collect configuration from network devices and store in repository with version control (CVS or SVN). In this article I will show you how to install RANCID and prepare to work on openSUSE 11.4 with subversion as repository for configs.

Having repository with network devices configuration might be also part of disaster recovery planning as in case of failure it will be easy to pull recent configuration from repository and apply on replacement router or switch.

To demonstrate commands I’m using copy&paste from PuTTY while executing step-by-step what is described in this article.

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VMware Wosktation allows to run ESXi as virtual machine (virtual environment as virtual machine – kind of funny). It can be very useful to evaluate, experiment and learn vSphere at home. This can be also very helpful if we want ot run virtual appliances which are compatible with ESX only. I will show how easy is to install ESXi 5 as virtual machine on VMware Workstation 9.

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From script repository I did use in the past, VBscript which allows to clear EvenLog on Windows machine. I did use that on computers with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. however, this script will work also on Windows 7 and Windows server 2008.

By default script clears EventLog on computer where script is executed. To clear logs on remote machine just modify variable strComputer and replace dot with name of the target machine.

Script will read all EvenLog files from machine and will go through them removing all events.

And here is script itself :

strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
& "{impersonationLevel=impersonate, (Backup, Security)}!\\" _
& strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colLogFiles = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
("Select * from Win32_NTEventLogFile")
For each objLogfile in colLogFiles
objLogFile.ClearEventLog()
Next

As I had to fight with WIndows XP Autologon (we have it on many computers which are used for example for CCTV), I think can write down one more quick tips how to skip Autologon feature and use different account to access computer (for example to install Windows Updates).

So, situation I was dealing with was computer with Windows XP, connected to Active Directory domain with Autologn feature enabled. After computer started I’ve seen welcome dialog and after pressed ctrl-alt-del autologn procedure kick in and login to computer with restricted account. How to skip autologon process and be able to enter different username and password?

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After I instaled PostgreSQL on Amazon Linux AMI, first thing after database server was up and running I start thinking how to create user with administrative privileges, so I can access it using some management applications.

So, here is how to create superuser and set password, which will allow to access PostgreSQL using admin tools.

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Script changes description of My Computer icon to display Computer: ComputerName

Can be very handy when troubleshooting computer remotely when we require user to tell us name of the computer user works on.
Script works on Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7.

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