Nothing was recoverable from the drive so I had to start from scratch, first I went to the local computer store and bought myself an Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB drive.

To get it up and running I had to go trough several pages and try some of the tips from one page and some from another. That’s why I decided to put together my own survival-guide here so I can find it the next time this thing goes south. This quick and dirty howto is for the LS-CHL only!!!

So here it goes:

1. Download the TFTP recovery software from ftp://24.153.165.234/array1/share/nas-recovery/ , if you have the LS-CHL device it’s the TFTP Boot Recovery LS-CHL 1.06 you want.

2. Download the latest firmware from Buffalo, the version 1.07 should be the latest one since they don’t develop it anymore.

3. Disassemble the device, here is a picture of the open device http://www.yamasita.jp/linkstation/2009/09/090912_4l.jpg

4. Next you need a computer running Windows XP, I tried Windows 7 but could not get it to work.

5. Insert the new hard-drive into the Linkstation, you should not partition it. Just put it in.

6. Shut down any firewall service on your Windows XP and set your local IP to 192.168.11.1 and subnet 255.255.255.0. The Linkstation should use 192.168.11.150 once in emergency mode.

7. Unpack the TFTP boot recovery file. And start TFTP Boot.exe file. This should fire up a commandprompt. Look for the line Listening on: 192.168.11.1:69, if it’s there everything should go smoothly from now on.

8. Start the Linkstation and wait for the red light to start flashing, now press the function key for a few seconds and release. The light should turn blue and in your command prompt window you should see the transfer starting.

9. Once the transfer is done start NasNavi.exe to see if your computer can find the device. If it can you can now set your computer to get it’s IP automatically and unpack the Buffalo stock firmware.

10. When you have unpacked the firmware edit the LSUpdater.ini, in the end add

[specialflags]

debug = 1

11. Save and close the LSUpdater.ini file

12. Start the LSUpdater.exe and right click the rings in the upper left corner. Select Debug.

13. Enable all options on the right side of the window and press ok.

14. Start the update.

Wait for a while, quite a while actually and you should have your stock Linkstation Live back. Mine set the language to Japanese but it’s really easy to find the language settings even in Japanese

If you can’t follow this try googling especially from nas-central.org, this is purely a note for myself in case I ever need to do this again.

This is a highly customized process for the migration. I suggest you test everything here in your test lab before you even attempt to run it in production. All advice is provided as is and if something goes wrong you are on your own.

Image 1 displays a simplified setup of an Exchange system where we have two client access servers in a simple cluster and three backend mailbox servers.

What this article does not discuss

I will not go into any email routing so you need to make sure the email is routed correctly to your backend servers. This article will only take a look at activating the user mailbox in Exchange 2010 and synchronizing the IMAP account from the Linux server to the Exchange server.

Software and information

To successfully follow this article you need to know how to reset the IMAP users passwords and you need to know their usernames. That’s not something I will go into here, we used scripts to reset the passwords but you might want to do it another way.

You also need to install IMAPSync on the Linux server, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the one hosting the mailboxes, it could be another server. We used a third server for this because it was easier to install IMAPSync on a fresh CentOS 5 server than getting it set up on the old Linux server. The IMAPSync .rpm is available in the rpmforge repository. More information on that here http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/.

Simple walkthrough of the process

The HUB servers have a common FQDN, like exchange.domain.com. The HUB servers need to have the IMAP service started since this is the interface for the transfer. Normally this service is stopped in Exchange servers.

Our Linux server is running IMAP so we can connect to it without making any changes to it.

The flowchart in image 2 shows us the process

As I said above, you need to take care of the email routing before you activate mailboxes. Once the mailbox is activated all internal email from other Exchange users will go to the Exchange mailbox.

So to prepare we need to file the users we want to move in tables to be exported to comma separated values. We used Excel but you may use whatever you want. The file was set up like this

This table was collected from local support engineers so they were able to define the users they wanted us to move. This article assumes the username for the Linux server is the whole SMTP address. Yours might differ and you would have to adapt this to any of my simple scripts.

The files needed for the servers

For the Exchange Server we need all of the columns so export everything to a CSV file. After export the file should look something like this

uname,alias,smtp
user1,Fname.Sname,fname.sname@domain.com
user2,Fname2.Sname2,fname2.sname2@domain.com

Assuming your alias combined with the domain.com is the username on the Linux server you would only need to export the Alias column to a file which should look something like this

Fname.Sname
Fname2.Sname2

When you have the two files, for simplicity let’s call them Exchange.csv and Linux.txt, copy them to the servers. The Linux.txt file should locate on the server you want to run IMAPSync from.

Activating mailboxes and setting the permissions

To move email we are going to use one special purpose account created only to move other users email. So open up your Active Directory Users and Computers and create a simple domain user account. During this example I’ll call this user Exch_mig_user. You can call it anything, or if you really want to, you can use an existing account.

Once you have an suitable account to set the Full access permissions for we can go ahead and create some mailboxes. So log into your mailbox server and fire up Exchange management shell.

The Exchange.csv file should already be located on the server, let’s say it’s in C:\.

To activate the mailboxes we run the following PowerShell command

PS C:\>Import-CSV C:\Exchange.csv | foreach-object{Enable-Mailbox –Identity $_.uname –Alias $_.alias –PrimarySMTPAddress $_.smtp}

This imports our CSV file and uses the values from the file to fill in the blanks in our Enable-Mailbox command. If you want to see what this command would do before using it just ad –WhatIF after $_.smtp. –WhatIf can be used with any of the PowerShell commands here.

After this we need to set the permissions on the mailboxes so the Exch_mig_user account will be able to access the mailbox.

Once again using PowerShell we run

PS C:\>Import-CSV Exchange.csv |foreach-object{Add-MailBoxPermission $_.Alias –user Exch_mig_user –AccessRights FullAccess}

Again, using –WhatIf will show you what would be done.

After running this we will be able to access any of the user accounts defined in the Exchange.csv file using the Exch_mig_user account. This is done so we don’t have to reset any user passwords in Active directory.

After you’re done move over to the Linux server but do not delete the Exchange.csv file, we will use it again later.

Reset Linux passwords

Looking at the flowchart in Image 2 this is where we reset the passwords for the Linux email users so they wont be able to log into the old system anymore and so we can access their email data. As I said before every system here can be different so I’m going to leave this part to you. You can script it, do it manually or have someone else do it. Just set the password to something useful if the server will continue to be active so it wont get hacked.

Using IMAPSync

Now that we have our Exchange accounts active and our Linux account passwords changed we can start the sync process. Notice the word sync, as this will not remove any email from the old server. It will sync them and if you run it again only new items will be moved.

So in our Linux server we have our Linux.txt file containing the First name and Surname of the users we are going to move.

The simple bash script I used looks like this

#!/bin/bash
logfile="synclog.txt"
testlog="/tmp/testlog.txt"
host1=linuximap.domain.com
#host1 is Source
host2=exchange.domain.com
#host2 is Dest
domain=domain.com
#domain is where email account is #everything after @ symbol ######
Do not modify past here #######################################
date=`date +%X_-_%x`
echo "" >> $logfile echo "————————————" >> $logfile
echo "IMAPSync started.. $date" >> $logfile
echo "" >> $logfile
{ while IFS=’;’ read u1; do
user=$u1"@"$domain
echo "Syncing User $user"
date=`date +%X_-_%x`
echo "Start Syncing User $u1"
echo "Starting $u1 $date" >> $logfile
imapsync –buffersize 8192000 –nosyncacls –subscribe –syncinternaldates –noauthmd5 –host1 $host1 –user1 "$user" –password1 TheLinuxPassword –ssl1 –port1 993 –host2 $host2 –user2 AD_DOMAINNAME/Exch_mig_user/$u1 –password2 Exch_mig_user_PASSWORD
date=`date +%X_-_%x`
echo "User $user done" echo "Finished $user $date" >> $logfile
echo "" >> $logfile
done ; } < Linux.txt

date=`date +%X_-_%x`
echo "" >> $logfile echo "IMAPSync Finished.. $date" >> $logfile
echo "————————————" >> $logfile

As with any script downloaded from the internet, read it, understand it and use it at your own peril!

Since we have changed all Linux users passwords to a specific password we can use a static password. If you want to use different passwords for different accounts you need to modify the script and the Linux.txt file.

Also the user used to access the Exchange mailboxes is the same for every account so the password can be static there to.

You need to change the following in the script

• TheLinuxPassword
• AD_DOMAINNAME
• Exch_mig_user_PASSWORD

Once they are set to your private settings you can run the script and it will sync the users from the IMAP server to Exchange Server via IMAP. Every account synced will be logged to the synclog.txt file.

Once the synchronization is done it’s time to once again go over to the Exchange server and remove the Full Access Permissions for the Exch_mig_user account.

Removing the full access permissions

Now that we have synced the defined users mail from our old system to our new system it’s time to remove the full access permissions of the account we used while moving email.

Again open the Exchange Management shell and run the following

PS C:\>Import-CSV Exchange.csv | foreach-object{Remove-MailboxPermission $_.Alias –user Exch_mig_user –AccessRights FullAccess –confirm: $false}

The –confirm: $false statement is there so we don’t have to confirm every permission change. If you move hundreds of users a time you don’t want to confirm this for every mailbox.

Once the script is done you should be done.

Summary

This might not be the most effective or the best way to move users from IMAP to Exchange, but it works and it does not cost anything but time spent on it. One problem is that IMAP folders will be synced one-to-one so if you have subfolders etc. your Exchange mailbox might get a little cluttered. But users have a tendency to clean it up, and we see to it that they get everything with them from the old system.

If you do use this method I’d really like to hear about it and if you have any questions feel free to ask. You can use comments here or send me an message using the contact page.

TeamViewer to the rescue

This is just one wonderful piece of software, never again will I have to get away from the comfort of my home office to fix a friends computer. I use TeamViewer for every last one of these problems.
There are two reasons for this, the first one is in non-commercial use TeamViewer is free as in beer and the second is the variety of platforms you can run TeamViewer on. TeamViewer runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and mobile devices. Granted I wouldn’t use my iPhone to support someone on a 24″ monitor but it is be possible.
Using it is so easy even your 90-year old grandma can use it. Just have them download and start up the QuickSupport version of TeamViewer and you can install the All-In-One full version.
From your client you will get the sessionID and the password, tap them into your full client and you are connected to their screen.
I promise you will save a lot of time using this. What ever your personal support incidents might be. Just remember it wont work if their problem is the connection to the network

The new picture

First I created a new picture to be sent to the hotlinkers. And if they didn’t use image size properties I made it double the size of the old one so hopefully it might mess with their layout a little.
The image created looked like this

The .htaccess file

After the new nice image was done I just had to do some .htaccess magic to replace what was sent out to the requesters.

That’s it. Now anyone linking in on images will only see the image from the image dump host. You could use imageshack or any other service for this.

Installing from a USB-stick should be trivial so I decided to try it out and googled around to find some information on how to put Ubuntu on my Kingston Datatraveler.

Googling I found this wonderful program that, if needed, even downloads the files for you. But since I already had the Ubuntu ISO I could just start up UNetBootin and have it set Ubuntu on my USB-stick.

To do this just download http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ and start it. Select your ISO and the destination drive and you’re done. After that you have a fully functional USB Linux.

The only reliable 64-bit OS I’ve used was my MacBook Pro which I sold. It worked and I never really had any driver issues with it. So why are PC’s still sold with XP or Vista 32-bit. XP and Vista both have 64-bit versions and still vendors don’t supply decent drivers. Why? It makes me almost mad to be using a 64-bit OS only to notice I can’t get this or that working on it since there are no drivers. Which naturally makes me ask, has Linux passed Windows in hardware compatibility when it comes to 64-bit?

I recently got my Lenovo X200s and it came with Windows Vista business 32-bit. I ran it for a while but since it had 4Gb of RAM I wanted to try out Vista Enterprise 64-bit. Vista 64 has been a ride of ups and downs. The Intel graphics controller driver keeps crashing, even after several updates and the one thing I miss the most is my Targus USB-to-Serial cable. As I work with network appliances I need a serial connection and these days it’s almost impossible to get a serial port in a laptop so the fallback is a usb-to-serial cable. Targus does not supply 64-bit drivers for the cable so I have to keep an old IBM T42 for this purpose.

What is it that makes the normally fast moving computer industry to keep on feeding the 32-bit OS? Is it really to much to ask to get drivers for my 64-bit OS?

Do you have similar feelings or does your 64-bit computer work like a charm? Please comment.

First of all you have to set it to always run as administrator. Go to the folder where it is installed and in the Bin folder you’ll find the OpenVPN-GUI executable. On the Compatibility tab you find Privilege Level, set it to Run this program as an Administrator

In your the parent folder find the config folder and open the config file. Add the following lines to the file.

route-method exe

route-delay 2

After commenting I got a nice reply from the author, and I do understand his worries about dealing with the Linux community, but I give the Linux community a lot of credit and hope any comments here are sensible and wont start a war. That was never my intention.

If you start reading this, please read all of it. Don’t comment after reading only half because you won’t get the point.

Jungle of choice

As I see it there are a few things that makes Linux something administrators don’t want on their desktops. First of all, and this is something the open source community will hate, the number of choices. There are so many alternatives out there. Should you use RedHat, Novell, Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo etc etc etc. Choice and competition is a good thing, but this is borderline ridiculous. If I don’t like your distribution or the way you manage your open source project I’ll just start my own. This is good right? No. This makes the jungle of open source products even worse. Let’s take a simple example, my parents. Go tell them to install Linux. First of all, how would they find a distribution? Would they read why a certain distribution is good for them? No. Never. They buy a computer and are happy to pay the Microsoft toll because they are able to use it.

And when it comes down to it, that’s exactly what most people want to do with their computers. Use them, not find bugs, submit bug reports or join mailing lists.

Office

I work in an organization with around 1500 users. We like so many others use Microsoft Office in our day to day work. Why? Well I guess because so many others are. That might seem like a stupid reason but try to tell a user that he/she can’t open the document just received by email because we only use OpenOffice.org, the possibility of it going the other way around is very small. This was visible already when the new Office 2007 suite was launched, because it saves documents in docx by default and Office 2003 does not open them.

Thank god there is a document converter for Office 2003 so we dodged that bullet, by installing it for anyone needing it and now it’s going out by group policies. Next you’ll try to tell me well this might, and only might be true for the corporate users but how about home users. Well I’ll tell you the same thing here. If I receive documents to my personal mail it’s almost certainly written in Microsoft’s Office, not necessarily 2007 but a version of it anyway. Well if it is written in a previous version I might get lucky and the document, spreadsheet or whatever might work as it should, but for most cases it won’t, Microsoft macros work in mysterious ways. If it is in the 2007 .docx format, well then I have some work to do. To be clear, I’m not saying this is OOo’s fault. On the contrary, I guess Microsoft doesn’t go easy on projects like this. And looking at their market situation why would they.

Let’s get on with it. If I’m running Microsoft Windows I can get the compatibility pack, or use an online converter, t to a .doc and then open it it OOo. And that’s just it, you can’t expect the average user to do this, or even be interested in doing it. They might google it and find the office converter install it and expect it to work. And it does.

Being a geek, word processors are not something that make me jump up and down of excitement, but I have tried OOo more than a few times. And it just doesn’t feel right, I can’t get it to do the things I want it to, not in the timeframe of learning I’m willing to use. I count my time in hard cash, and 3 hours of trying to make something work adds up to a Microsoft Office student license which you as a home user can buy and use, if your not making money with it.

You could argue that it took time to learn to use Office also, well it did. And that’s another reason for keeping it, why throw all those hours of training out the window if another program cant offer anything else than a smaller bill getting the software. It would be just plain madness.

Management

This is a big argument for me. I work with networks and servers and I like to keep the users as restricted as possible without making their daily work suffer. Also I want to be able to centrally manage users, passwords, desktop security settings, local firewalls and the installed software. Some of these are in fact possible to do in Linux. But it’s not as easy to manage as Microsoft’s Active Directory with systems center configuration manager.

Group policies are another thing making Active directory more attractive. We can handle system settings like services, WLAN, well just about anything via this sleek and fast interface, and most of the time it just works.

I do admit Microsoft’s products do have faults, but the good old pro/con list just doesn’t tip over to the advantage of Linux, at least not yet.

File Servers

As I said above I’ve been using Linux since 2002 and I still can’t always get file/folder permission set like I want them to. If you use shared folders, and I’d say every company today does you need a sane way of managing the shares. I like Microsoft’s approach to the security settings. Share and local settings are separated and in my little mind I can manage the settings just fine.

Nested groups helps a lot to. Since providing a group access to another groups files or folders helps to keep the rights simple. And if you manage a large file share it has to be easy and logical.

Distributed File System is another really nice feature of the Microsoft Server family. I wont go in-depth here but if you’re not familiar with it take a look at Microsoft DFS pages.

To clear this up, I’m not saying these things are impossible to accomplish in other systems, I’m just saying it takes more work. And work hours cost money.

Places I promote Linux

Well after my short and maybe even evil rant about why Linux has issues I’m going to turn the table a little, because there are places I’d rather use Linux than any Microsoft product. To mention a few:

• Databases with information that could save/take lives. Like patient journals.
• Backup systems, we use EMC Networker as our backup solution and it runs stable as a castle. I wouldn’t even dream of using Microsoft products as a foundation for this when it’s available for Linux.
• Some web applications. Because Apache is a great software and it runs so smooth on a Linux server.

Use the best tool for the job

To everyone out there who now wants to dig me a grave and make me suffer I have a few finishing words. The point of this article was to point out that you, at least in general, cannot say Linux or Windows or even OS X is better than one of it’s competitors. It all depends on who you are and what you are doing.

Let’s stop these flame wars now and agree that everyone should use the best tool available for their task at hand.

Google to the rescue

As always when you are troubleshooting the place to start is google.com.After reading a lot of pages, some better some worse I found NetworkManager. How could I have missed this? Later I even found a document at centos.org describing how to use this.

Using NetworkManager

Finding I should use NetworkManager I started up the service and stopped the network service. I got a list of the Wireless networks and 10 seconds later I was surfing with the wireless network.
To set NetworkManager to start automatically you should do the following

You should now have a nice network icon in your Gnome system tray and clicking it should show the wireless networks available.

Installs

To be clear this is what I installed.

The , to get a lot of packages. And after setting up rpmforge I just pulled firmware for the network card.

This page is mostly a note for myself but if it helps someone else out then all the better.

First of all we need some tools to build ourselves the RPM for msttcorefonts, so fire up your terminal and

When finished run the following as root

That’s it. You should now have Microsoft’s standard fonts installed and ready to go.