Archive for June, 2008

Nicest email ever received

Hi K######,

It is not often that we get a chance to stop, and give recognition to an individual who has been a great team player, an expert in the field, and an awesome individual to work with, who for the past 3-4 weeks has assisted the US ### team to successfully deliver a solution on the RFS# ######-## for the XXXXXXXX customer. This RFS was recently signed.

I am taking that opportunity to do so now with regards to Kevin Yeandel, who has been working with the team in terms of educating us on the nuances of Documentum, and how it should be architected to be backed up and recovered. Additionally, Kevin identified “risk” and also “risk mitigation” strategies.

We still a bit of closure to do with the customer, due to no fault of our own, however to date, and given the 5-6 hr time difference, I am very pleased with Kevin, in that with very brief notice, Kevin has been able to make all calls, take charge on the calls and educate the XXXXXXXX customer, and team ### as to how to do it and do it the correct way. I look forward to working with Kevin on future assignments.

I also tried to follow up with a “Thanks award”, and received this response “Either the CNUM or the e-mail address you have entered is incorrect or the person whose e-mail address you have entered is not eligible to participate in the Thanks! Award Program at this time.

Thanks,
Dxxxxxx

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mysql autostart runlevel

chkconfig –level 3 mysqld on

chkconfig –list mysqld

service mysqld status

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How to waste 5 hours of your life….. ZTE MF622 and stuff

Personal Web Server

I Googled all over the web for an answer to why oh why oh why can’t I see my webserver behind my router.

I port forwarded the web server in the router, nothing special there.
I checked iptables, turned the firewall off completely (madness, you’ll see why).
I changed the port on Apache to various others, taking care to restart.
I rebooted the server and rebooted the router. No joy.

Midnight to 3am – 3 hours. It was already working, the problem was that I could not reach my server by going out and back in via the router. In other words (warning to others who down firewalls as part of testing) just because I couldn’t see it doesn’t mean others can’t! Silly old me.
Once I tried to access my machine from a wireless network from the WAN and not my LAN it became obvious.

Three – Mobile Broadband – warning to Windows and Esp. MAC users

Firstly in order to get up and running, you need a CD – IF you are a MAC user. My sealed box had no CD. After 20 minutes of hunting down drivers from the website of three.co.uk, I downloaded them thanks to a fellow blogger who also had obviously had problems finding them.

Part of the installation involves a password which is sent to you by SMS. i.e. an SMS to your modem! Fine if you are using Windows… NOT so fine on the Mac as Three forgot to finish the software. The SMS Text appears in your inbox – not on the Mac as there is no inbox.  Options are to: take the sim and install it into a three enabled phone and get the password this way. Or take the phone to the shop and install the sim in one of their phones (no, really, I was told this). Last option is to plug the modem into a Windows box where the software magically appears from some sort of internal storage device and you should be good to go. I tried it on a Windows XP on VMWare from my Mac and it did not work so I plugged it into a laptop with XP and it was fine – I could retrieve the password and put it in as required.

No contracts, No Wires, No Worries

Actually BIG problem here…

It says, read this before you do anything… little green CD size brochure. So if you get in a muddle with getting it working on your Mac with it not having the Inbox and that, do not forget under any circumstances to go to their website and using the addon page, convert your credit into  broadband or face getting charged £1 per MB. Do this BEFORE using any credit from vouchers.
The people at Three are very nice, as are the people at Phones4U. Not only this but the system works really well, it did cost me 2 hours to get it all sorted. It would be nice if Hutchingson Telecom FINISHED the software before releasing it.

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SMS via Skype when server is down (fails ping)

Requires registration of downloadable ActiveX comp from Skype web site on Windows machine.
Register with:
regsvr32 Skype4COM.dll
Make sure Skype is installed and logged in. When you run the prog the first time you are asked a
security question. You will need credit on your Skype account and it must be useable
through the network (if doing this from within a company and behind a firewall).
Copy the code from Option Explicit to bottom into a file called isalive.ebs

usage:cscript isalive.ebs <server> <phone> <interval> <mail recipient>
Returns: Writes to console. Sends a text if server goes off line. Sends an email also
with contents of a log file.
Requires a batch file containing words to the affect:
tracert -d %1 >> c:\diags.txt
echo "Further Info:
ping server1.fdqn >>c:\diags.txt
ping server2.fqdn >>c:\diags.txt
.
Batch file must be in same dir as the vbs.
Sends a text when it comes back on-line. Code below:

Option Explicit
'skype me a text or voicemail when my server disappears off the network.
'runs on a windows platform (whatever)
'useage:
'cscript isalive.vbs 192.168.1.109 004412345678 3000 xxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com
'where 192.168.1.109 is the server to ping
'and 004412345678 is the number to send a message to

Dim strHost
Dim strPhoneUser
Dim fault_detected
Dim strMessage
Dim strRecipient
Dim sleeptime
Dim oSkype
Set oSkype = WScript.CreateObject("Skype4COM.Skype", "Skype_")
If Not oSkype.Client.IsRunning Then oSkype.Client.Start() End If
' Check that all arguments required have been passed.
If Wscript.Arguments.Count < 2 Then
    Wscript.Echo "Arguments required" & vbCrLf
     Wscript.Quit(0)
End If
strHost = Wscript.Arguments(0)
strPhoneUser=Wscript.Arguments(1)
sleeptime=3000
If (Wscript.Arguments.Count > 2) Then
	sleeptime = Wscript.Arguments(2)
End If
strRecipient = ""
If (Wscript.Arguments.Count >3 ) Then
	strRecipient = Wscript.Arguments(3)
End If

Wscript.Echo "Host " & strHost
Wscript.Echo "Phone " & strPhoneUser
Wscript.Echo "Recipient " & strRecipient
Wscript.Echo "sleep " & sleeptime

fault_detected = 0
do
if Ping(strHost) = True then
    Wscript.Echo "Host " & strHost & " contacted"
	if (fault_detected > 0) Then
		strMessage= "Server " & strHost & " back on network after " & ((fault_detected * sleeptime)/1000) & " seconds"
		call_contact

		fault_detected = 0
	End If
Else
    Wscript.Echo "Host " & strHost & " could not be contacted"
	fault_detected = fault_detected + 1
	If (fault_detected = 1) Then
		strMessage= "Server " & strHost & " missing from network"
		Wscript.Echo "Contacting user on tel. no." & strPhoneUser
		call_contact
		do_diagnostics ' do further research then mail someone with the information
		mailuser
	End If
end if
WScript.sleep (3000)
loop until (1=0)

Function call_contact
Dim oSMS
	Wscript.Echo "SMS : " & strMessage
         Set oSkype = WScript.CreateObject("Skype4COM.Skype", "Skype_")
        Set oSMS = oSkype.SendSms(strPhoneUser, strMessage)
         WScript.Sleep(20000)
End Function

 'Message event handler:
 Public Sub Skype_SmsMessageStatusChanged(ByRef aSms, ByVal aStatus)
   WScript.Echo  ">Sms " & aSms.Id & " status " & aStatus & " " & oSkype.Convert.SmsMessageStatusToText(aStatus)
 End Sub

 'Target event handler:
 Public Sub Skype_SmsTargetStatusChanged(ByRef aTarget, ByVal aStatus)
   WScript.Echo  ">Sms " & aTarget.Message.Id & " target " & aTarget.Number & " status " & aStatus & " " & oSkype.Convert.SmsTargetStatusToText(aStatus)
 End Sub

Function Ping(strHost)
    dim objPing, objRetStatus
    set objPing = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}").ExecQuery _
      ("select * from Win32_PingStatus where address = '" & strHost & "'")

    for each objRetStatus in objPing
        if IsNull(objRetStatus.StatusCode) or objRetStatus.StatusCode<>0 then
    Ping = False
        else
            Ping = True
         end if
    next
End Function

Function mailuser
Wscript.Echo "Mailing user"
Dim cdoConfig
Dim sch
Dim objMessage
Set cdoConfig = CreateObject("CDO.Configuration")
 sch = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/"
    With cdoConfig.Fields
        .Item(sch & "sendusing") = 2 ' cdoSendUsingPort
        .Item(sch & "smtpserver") = "aserver.net"
        .update
    End With 

Set objMessage = CreateObject("CDO.Message")
Set objMessage.Configuration = cdoConfig
objMessage.Subject = "Server Status for: " + StrHost
objMessage.From = "xxxx@xxxx.com"
objMessage.To = strRecipient
objMessage.TextBody = "The Server vanished from the network. Please see the attached file."
 objMessage.AddAttachment "c:\diags.txt"
objMessage.Send
set cdoConfig = nothing
set objMessage = nothing
set sch = nothing
End Function

Function do_diagnostics ' creates an attachment that will be emailed. diags.bat runs a tracert on the server and pings a few
Wscript.Echo "Running further diags"
Dim WshShell
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run "diags.bat " + strHost '
'WshShell.Run "command.com /k " & CommandLine 'run DOS commands
WScript.Sleep(20000)
Set WshShell= nothing
End Function

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