It seems VMware has removed the GUI for the disk shrink feature in VMware Tools, but the good news is it’s still available from the console. The following command will shrink the disk image for drive C: “C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\VMwareToolboxCmd.exe” disk shrink c:\
When changing your password on a samba (Linux) server, the tokens a Windows machine holds get invalidated, yet Windows does not automatically prompt for new credentials. Instead, it consistently says “access denied” when trying to access a previously available share, say, \\myfineserver\share If you previously mapped this drive, disconnecting is trivial in explorer, but if […]
The simplest way I’ve found so far: Edit /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart to append: @xset -s off @xset -dpkm @xset s noblank
Download Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/) Install Cygwin, selecting the autossh package. Start the Cygwin shell (Start -> Programs -> Cygwin). Generate a public/private key pair. At the command line, run: ssh-keygen Accept the default file locations Use an empty passphrase Copy your newly-created public key to the SSH server. scp .ssh/id_rsa.pub user@ssh.host.name:id_rsa.pub Add your public key to […]
On this thin client I’ve set up, I wanted pulseaudio to run before logging in, and not have any specific users on the machine. System mode was called for. On Wheezy, pulseaudio is by default configured for per-user sessions. To remedy this, edit /etc/default/pulseaudio, putting PULSEAUDIO_SYSTEM_START=1 Then, edit /etc/pulse/system.pa – this is the file that […]
On my Debian KVM hosts, and on the firewalls that guard them, I noticed that every two minutes, plus a couple seconds or so each time, I’d see blocked IGMP packages from 0.0.0.0 to 224.0.0.1. Googling around, I found this post, explaining that it’s the multicast_snooping option for bridge-utils that’s causing it. Being KVM hosts, […]
Programs like virt-manager and gedit commonly use dbus. Dbus running will prevent a clean exit of ssh -X, making it hang on exit until you press ctrl+c or kill dbus manually. To avoid having to kill dbus manually, let’s kill it automatically 🙂 Now, normally if I want to run virt-manager (or anything else graphical) […]
On a single user desktop, you might want to run cygwin sshd autostarted as a specific user, without privilege separation. Here’s a short reference: Disable UAC Open a Cygwin terminal ssh-host-config Select “no” on privilege separation Enter nothing, [], as the value of CYGWIN for the daemon Select “yes” to use a different username than […]
After IE6, usernames and passwords in URL’s are no longer enabled by default in Internet Explorer, the reasoning being that saving usernames and passwords in the browser history and referral headers is a very, very bad idea. Still, it’s sometimes needed, especially when dealing with old IP cameras, which is when I last bumped into […]
While public and private keys with decent pass-phrases are an excellent way of logging in securely to a remote system, it’s sometimes simply not feasible. Your Android device which normally does the job for you is out of battery, you are in a remote country with only a wired connection in a shady Internet café, […]