Novell iManager Missing Module Installation Option

Ran into this one again today.

When you try to install a NPM in iManager you can not even see the option for module installation under the configuration section.

When you install iManager you specify an Admin user that can install plug-ins and this must
match the user you login with.

Check out some of these:

http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/16129.html
Novell TID 10098023
http://www.novell.com/support/viewContent.do?externalId=7002140&sliceId=1

Windows Time Sync

Well I've been having time problems in Windows for a while, considering we are running it in VMware and we normally don't use AD. I'd thought I'd write a quick one on how to configure a NTP time source on Windows. This seems to work on both Windows XP and 2003.

Change the following registry settings:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\Type : NTP
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\Parameters\NtpServer : IP Address of Time Server

If you use a DNS name you need to add the 0x1 suffix e.g. tock.usno.navy,0x1

Once you've changed the registry settings stop/start the W32 service:

net stop w32time
net start w32time

And then you can also force a resync with the command:

w32tm /resync

The output should say something like '...command successfully completed.'

Source: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Configuring-Windows-Time-Service.html?printversion

VMware Problem on SLES10 SP2

There seems to be a problem with VMware Server 1.0X on SLES10 SP2 i386.

When you try to browse for a VM the VMware interface seems to hang.

Easist way to fix this is to edit the vmware script /usr/bin/vmware

and add the line:

export VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=yes

So the file looks something like this:

#!/bin/sh
#
# Copyright 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.
#
# Wrapper for the real 'vmware' binary. Ensure that the binary will find
# all the shared libraries it needs. If a shared library is not available from any
# of the standard system-wide locations, we provide it from the location where
# the VMware software is installed. --hpreg
#

export VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=yes

# BEGINNING_OF_DB_DOT_SH
#!/bin/sh

#
# Manage an installer database
#

# Add an answer to a database in memory
db_answer_add() {


Reference:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/549774?tstart=0

Keyboard Mapping Problems in VMware

This is the article to read:

http://nthrbldyblg.blogspot.com/2008/06/vmware-and-fubar-keyboard-effect.html

Basically create a ./vmware/config file with the following content

xkeymap.keycode.111 = 0x148 # Up
xkeymap.keycode.116 = 0x150 # Down
xkeymap.keycode.113 = 0x14b # Left
xkeymap.keycode.114 = 0x14d # Right
xkeymap.keycode.118 = 0x152 # Insert
xkeymap.keycode.119 = 0x153 # Delete
xkeymap.keycode.110 = 0x147 # Home
xkeymap.keycode.115 = 0x14f # End

etc

Jozi

This is how we park in Jozi



Sadly no more miracles either they're TO LET

Broken Lift

This lift has been broken for the last 6-7 months

Novell iManager Port 80 and 443 on Linux

As we all should know sadly you can not run iManager on port 80 or 433 due to Linux permissions design.

A quick way to get around this is to use iptables like this:

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8080

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8443

Now you can access you iManager server using https://servername/nps

How to run Yast via SSH

As we all know you install software via yast on SLES. But take it to the next level and install software via yast using SSH:

ssh root@servername_or_ip "export TERM=xterm; yast -i sysstat"

This can save a load of time if you have like 60 servers to install something on, especially if you are using ssh keys.

How to remote control VMware Server 2 without Web Browser

From your home directory run:

.mozilla/firefox/.default/extensions/VMwareVMRC@vmware.com/plugins/vmware-vmrc -h ":8333"

Please take note of the

Cute Game

I don't play alot of games but sometimes you just need to let your hair down.
Found this cute game http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/bells.htm
High score at the office so far is about 30000.

Been a while

Sadly its been a while since I've made a post. The new proxy blocking software they have at work very smartly blocks Blogging websites. Lucky for me I found a ssh tunnel out of the building. Now I'm free to blog again :-)

Novell IDM Code Examples

Just came across this site again, which has some very good IDM code examples:

http://ldapwiki.willeke.com/Wiki.jsp?page=IDMCodeSnippets

Posting it here, cause last to I lost it when my bookmarks when up in smoke.

Novell Identity Manager - Validate Usernames

Well, my lesson for today is how to use a simple regular expression to validate usernames in Novell Identity Manager (DirXML).

Using the Novell Designer tool I created a policy that reads:

Condition: operation attribute
Name: CN
Operator: equal
Mode: regular expression
Value: ^[0-9]{10}

What this rule does is checks the CN attribute to ensure it is numeric of 10 characters.

Here's the XML source:
<if-op-attr mode=\"regex\" name=\"CN\" op=\"equal\">^[0-9]{10}</if-op-attr>

What bothers me is that in Designer it changes the 'equal' display to 'match' which made no sense to me as there is no match operator.

I also must say as painful as some people may say regex is, I find it very useful for things like this.

Novell SecureLogin Variables

I have worked alot with Novell SecureLogin and it seems to be quite a flexible SSO tool. Only problem I had was that I needed a SSO script for an application that consisted of two separate EXEs so I needed a way to pass varibales between them. Here's a post on how I did it:

http://www.novell.com/communities/node/4850/global-variables-novell-securelogin

Search BASH History Page Up Page Down

I've been using SUSE Linux for a long time and really enjoyed the Page Up and Page Down functionality to search your command history in Bash. Sadly out of the box Ubuntu does not enable this feature, but being a Linux distro there is a way.

Edit this file: /etc/inputrc

and uncomment lines 41 and 42 as shown below:

"\e[5~": history-search-backward
"\e[6~": history-search-forward

Also Ubuntu does not ship with VIM so a sudo apt-get install vim, will get that sorted.

Enjoy!

VMware Ubuntu 8.10

Here's another quick one. If you need to get VMware Server up and running on Ubuntu 8.10 check this post:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=966070

Sadly I could not seem to find VMware in the Ubuntu Repos.

Cntlm

This is just a quick post for when you may being sitting behind a M$ ISA proxy server and running Linux. Use CNTLM http://sourceforge.net/projects/cntlm/ it works like a charm and also get around having problems with special characters in your password. These characters seem to be a problem when exporting proxy settings via export http_proxy=....

CNTLM is also in the Ubuntu repos so apt-get install cntlm should do the trick. The only config file you need to edit is /etc/cntlm.conf. Use the command /etc/init.d/cntlm to start it.

Btech IT

Well the good news is I only have one exam left this year for my Btech. Its 'advanced development software' , which I am finding a bit of a joke as the advanced bit does not seem to come into play. The content of the subject is based on C# and seems to be very entry level. I found the systems software subject I did for my ND IT much more advanced. C# does however seem to make life easier for programmers compared to c/c++ (managing memory is a pain). C# sadly also seems to only run on Windowz and altough i have written some programs for Mono I would not be keen to do it again as you could end up getting sued by M$ for using the windows forms libraries.

Ubuntu 8.10 Install

The good news is I now have my laptop dual booting between Windows XP and Ubuntu 8.10. As normal I must say I am impressed with the ease of use and how much quicker it was to install Ubuntu than Windows. I think the Windows install with anti-virus, drivers and windows update took about almost 2 hours. The Ubuntu install was done in about 30 min. I must say the guys who put Ubuntu together really need some praise for taking the Linux desktop to the masses. I really feel that Ubuntu is an operating system anyone could learn to use. The fact that I don't need to load tons of anti virus (AV), anti malware and anti spam software makes me happy. People seem to always forget that AV really does slow your computer down, and thats why a Linux server will always outperform a Windows one, just based on the fact that you not running AV.

The first post

Once again I find myself trying to start a blog. Everday I seems to learn lessons in life which sometimes seem to be forgotten as life goes by. The aim of this blog is to provide information and help to others on the lessons I learn every day. I am hoping this blog proves useful to other people.