Code Snippets

RightScale RightScript To Add SSH Users To Linux Nodes On Boot

Code Snippets6 Comments

The below code snippet was used to add SSH users to RackSpace cloud CentOS Linux nodes being used as application servers and managed via RightScale. The SSH users were required during a testing phase so they could look through logs and make modifications to specific configuration files, etc. There are three things that have to happen to create the SSH user, allow them to login, and provide them the necessary rights on the server to accomplish their tasks which include adding the user, modifying the sshd config to allow password logins, and update the sudoers file to enable sudo access for wheel group users.

Code Snippets

Represent A Tab When Using sed Find/Replace

Code SnippetsLeave a comment

The other day I needed to create a RightScript shell script that would update a couple configuration files on a server that was being launched in the RackSpace Cloud via RightScale. I decided to use SED to find and replace content within the configuration files. The first pass at the script failed because what I thought were spaces ended up being tabs. Use the information below to represent a tab within a shell script when using sed.

Technology Insights

System Restore disabled by Group Policy & Regedit disabled by Group Policy

Insights3 Comments

I had a customers computer in the store today which was a simple windows XP home edition desktop and they wanted to restore the PC to a earlier time. This is normally a simple task however when I went to system restore I recieved the error “System Restore Disabled by Group policy”. Since this was just a normal persons desktop I found this very odd. Next I tried to edit the policy values via the registry and was greeted by another error saying ” Registry Editing has been Disabled by Group policy”. This was starting to get a little annoying so I decided to document my steps to fix this issue.  Now before I get a hundred comments with people saying there is a better way remember there is more than one way to do things and this is just my way.

Below I document the few simple steps to fix this error.

Technology Insights

Turn Off Automatic Updates Using Active Directory in Windows Server 2003

InsightsLeave a comment

I recently had a client who kept complaining that their office server was randomly rebooting through out the night. I knew when I had done the install of server 2003 I had turned off auto updates so that I could control the update procces myself but the problem sounded like auto updates. Once I did a little investigation I noticed that auto updates was still on and when I tried to change it via the control panel all the options were grayed out and I had no control. I then remebered that active directory’s group policy determines pretty much every thing on a domain controller and since I had just reused the existing policy when I did the reinstall, the automatic updates were still on.
In this article I will show how to turn off auto updates on a domain controller running active directory:

Technology Errors

ISPConfig: Getting 403 Forbidden Errors with Attempting to Login to Admin Pages

Errors2 Comments

I have had a server running ISPConfig 2.x for quite some time and have been wanting to make the transition to ISPConfig 3.x as soon as I had a chance. That chance presented itself earlier this weekend and I am glad to say there were no major issues thanks to the amazing how to from Falco at HowToForge. After the installation and bringing numerous sites back online I had some outside the normal installation steps to complete. These steps included things like installing/configuring SNMP, installing/configure Nagios, etc.

All appeared well when I went to sleep meaning the servers seemed to all check out when was finished and ready to catch some sleep. Anyways when I logged on the following day to check all of the sites all was still functional besides a small DNS configuration error I had made with one sub domain which was not a big deal.