ieatpenguin » Software

Backing up The Latest File – Name Unknown

Russell — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:51:32 +0000

It’s a common enough issue for me that I want to be able to backup the latest backup of a database, and using variables to set date and time I never quite know what the filename of the backup will be.

::copy latest file to network server
set LF=
for /F %%i in (‘dir /Od /b *.sql’) DO set LF=%%i
:
echo%TIME% on %DATE%: Latest Backup is %LF% >> Backup.file
:
xcopy /Y %LF% \\networkserver\bugzilla

My solution is to sort the backup directory by date, and create a variable based on the filename of the most recent file.

I then echo the time and date to a file (Backup.file) so that I have a log of the backup process that I can check should I need to in the future.

Finally, the script copies the latest backup to a network location.

This was used in conjunction with my bugzilla backup script, hence the directory names, but it can of course be used for anything.

Automated Backup of Bugzilla Database on Windows

Russell — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:01:39 +0000

Bugzilla isn’t really designed to be used on Windows, but once set up its fairly easy to administer.

One obviously important thing is backing up the database. Using the niftily built in mysqldump I used the following solution. Note this assumes default settings were used in the installation of Bugzilla.

First, add mysql to the windows path if it hasn’t been done so already, by running up a command prompt:

PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Bugzilla\mysql\bin\

I then use a command file to create the backup dump, and then append the date and time to the file name. Note I have also created a user (backup) on the bugzilla database with a limited set of privileges (Select, Lock Table, Show Databases, Event).

rem commmand to dump the database to file
mysqldump -ubackup -pbackup Bugs > c:\bugsbackup\bz.sql

rem set date and time into useable file format
set _my_datetime=%date%_%time%
set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime: =_%
set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime::=%
set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime:/=_%
set _my_datetime=%_my_datetime:.=_%

rem rename file
ren “c:\bugsbackup\bz.sql” bz_%_my_datetime%.sql

This command file can of course be added to scheduled tasks and run as frequently as you want.

SecurityTools

Russell — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 15:01:05 +0000

This is a nasty little program that masquerades as a security program that has found lots of viruses on your PC, and will clean them if you unlock it – eg if you hand over your credit card details.

The easiest fix I’ve found is using ComboFix, and then deleting the [random letter/numbers] folders found under ‘\Documents And Settings\All Users\’.

Windows Home Server v2 (Vail) is dead in the water

Russell — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:19:42 +0000

I’m a big fan of windows home server. They failed to deliver on some things, such as Media Centre integration, but that doesn’t really bother me. It’s a decent piece of server kit with a nice UI built over the top of Server 2008.

The best feature of it has to be Drive Extender, a disk management tool that allows you to pool your drives, of any size, and provides one click duplication, making installing new disks and taking backups a breeze for the home user. The clue is in the title: Windows Home Server.

Vail has been in the works for a while, and a recent post on the WHS blog has announced that the number one feature has been stripped. I’m fortunate enough, I guess, in that I understand how RAIDs work, and know how to set them up. However, I use WHS because I don’t have too. I spend enough time at work with computers that I don’t want to at home.

Absolutely unbelievable. Microsoft manage to alienate their core customer base (of this product) in one fell swoop.

Still, at least it saves me the cost of the upgrade.

Userenv Error 1500/1505/1508 – Profile Unable to Login

Russell — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:39:27 +0000

Windows cannot log you on because your profile cannot be loaded. Check that you are connected to the network, or that your network is functioning correctly. If this problem persists, contact your network administrator.

This annoying error message plagued me for quite a long time until I eventually found the solution. The problem appears to be with the pagefile not being able to perform user profile allocation properly.

After a fair bit of searching and tinkering, I eventually hit upon the following solution:

First set the pagefile to by managed by the system.

Load regedit, and find: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
Create a new DWORD called PoolUsageMaximum. Set this to 60 (Decimal).
Create/Modify PagedPoolSize (DWORD) to ffffffff (Hex).
Reboot.

What this does is simply force the Memory Manager in windows to attempt to trim the pagefile when it is 60% full, rather than its default 80%. This therefore starts the pagefile trim earlier, hopefully enabling the computer to cope with surges in memory demand more efficiently.

MSSQL – How To Output To A File

Russell — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:15:07 +0000

There is a very, very simple one liner within MySQL to dump the results of a query into a text file. Nothing so simple exists within MSSQL, but there are fairly easy workarounds. Using BCP, one can use the xp_cmdshell to pass the results into the desired file.

use DatabaseName
go

declare @FileName varchar(50)
declare @bcpCommand varchar(2000)

set @FileName = REPLACE(‘c:\temp\bcp\postcodes_’+CONVERT(char(8),GETDATE(),1)+’.csv’,'/’,'-’)

set @bcpCommand = ‘bcp “select left(postcode,4), count(*) from DatabaseName..TableName where customersequence = 0 group by left(postcode,4) order by count(*) desc” queryout “‘
set @bcpCommand = @bcpCommand + @FileName + ‘” -U username -P password -c’

EXEC master..xp_cmdshell @bcpCommand

This dumps a load of postcode information, based on usage, into a csv file in c:\temp\bcp. What the query is doesn’t really matter, just the bcp commands to provide us with the results in a file of our choosing (.csv in this case).

The @FileName command simply appends the current date to the file in order to keep track of queries.

Into outfile

Russell — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:29:03 +0000

Why oh why oh why is there nothing this simple within MSSQL? Sigh.

Mounting a network drive in Linux (Ubuntu)

Russell — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:54:25 +0000

This is a very simple thing to do, it isn’t however as simple as one might think if you are coming from a Windows background, and are used to mapping a network drive from the Tools menu. As a note this is a guide for Ubuntu, although I have it working fine on both Ubuntu and Fedora, use the appropriate package manager/command line for Fed and the rest is the same.

First, we need to make sure that samba is installed:

sudo apt-get install smbfs

Next, we need to make a directory to mount the drive too. As an example, I’ve just reinstalled my Ubuntu (and Fedora) distribution, and so want to map the music drive on my server. I chose /media/ as the logical place to stick my network drives:

sudo mkdir /media/music

Next we need to tell the file system table where the drives are, and where to mount them. We also need to include our login credentials (will cover this later).

gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

Scroll to the bottom of the file and add the following:

#Mounting Network Drives
//SERVER/SHARE-NAME /MOUNT-POINT smbfs credentials=/credentials-file-location

To make the above make a bit more sense, here is my configuration:

//192.168.1.50/Music /media/music smbfs credentials=/home/russell/credentials.smbcredentials
//192.168.1.50/Videos /media/videos smbfs credentials=/home/russell/credentials.smbcredentials
//192.168.1.50/Software /media/software smbfs credentials=/home/russell/credentials.smbcredentials

What this will do is to check within the credentials file (more on this at the bottom) your username and password for your server (I am running a Windows Home Server as an example).

Next, we need to make the filesystem mount the drive, which we do simply with:

sudo mount -a

Finally, we need to make that credentials file. Simply navigate to your chosen directory (I stuck it in my /home/russell directory for ease), create a new file with the following information:

username=username
password=password

And save it with the same filename you gave the /fstab/. Thats it.

EU Probes Google Antitrust Case

Russell — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:27:17 +0000

This is long, long, LONG overdue.

I was going to write a few things, but this comment on the Times Website succinctly summed it up, so thanks to “I.M. Jolly”.

The difference between “do no Evil..” Google and Microsoft is, MS are a damn sight less hypocritical about their monopoly postion. And abuse thereof.

If the simple fact that “Google is rapidly increasing how much it spends on lobbying in the United States..” doesnt tell you anything, I dont know what else will – ok Google fanboys, you can now go back to your Google searches for everything, Your GMail with targeted ads based on the content of your mails and put your head back under the pillow. For the rest of us, I am sure we can agree that some scrutiny of a company which has basically won control of the internet, while gaining a very, very large amount of personal users data and their surfing habits, is entirely overdue.

Or, maybe, as the Google CEO (Eric Schmidt) himself says, “”If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place..” – unless of course, that knowledge is personal details of his, obtained by CNET Journalists only via Google searches. Google blacklisted CNET for about a year over this, then again, they really do have to the power to be both evil and hypocritical, whenever it suits. The public have somewhat less choice in blacklisting which Information Google collects from them.

However, Google only use the info they have collected on YOU to sell ads, dont they? No problem there, then.

Rsync and Bash

Russell — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:02:26 +0000

Have had an interesting morning delving into Bash, on MSN with Jasper, which is not something I get to do often enough.

The upshot was a nice and fairly sophisticated rsync script to backup some files, which I won’t paste here as it’s Jaspers baby.

However, I did think up a [much] simpler script to enable a quick and dirty backup of any particular folder to any particular media.

#!/bin/bash
sudo rsync -av –progress –delete –log-file=/dir/$(date +%Y%m%d)_rsync.log /dir /media/dirBackup

You can of course exclude certain files from the backup with:

–exclude “/dir/.jpg”

Naturally, no one wants to type it out everytime and so lets make it into an executable script:

sudo chmod +x /path/rsync-backup.sh

So you now have an executable script you can call whenever you want, or you can of course create a cron job and have it run automatically.

Here’s a slightly more sophisticated backup script that revolves on a weekly basis, and then clears out any backups that are older then this.

#!/bin/sh
# directory to backup
BDIR=/home/$USER

# excludes file
EXCLUDES=$HOME/cron/excludes

# name of the backup machine
BSERVER=server

# password on the backup server
export RSYNC_PASSWORD=

# lets get down to it
BACKUPDIR=`date +%A`
OPTS=”–force –ignore-errors –delete-excluded –exclude-from=$EXCLUDES
–delete –backup –backup-dir=/$BACKUPDIR -a”

export PATH=$PATH:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin

# the following line clears the last weeks incremental directory
[ -d $HOME/emptydir ] || mkdir $HOME/emptydir
rsync –delete -a $HOME/emptydir/ $BSERVER::$USER/$BACKUPDIR/
rmdir $HOME/emptydir

# now the actual transfer
rsync $OPTS $BDIR $BSERVER::$USER/current