Disable Thums.db

Just found a way to disable the annoying thumbs.db from being created:

http://www.technoleros.com/turn-off-caching-of-windows-7-thumbnails-in-hidden-thumbs-db-files/

Well done Microsoft, it is very well hidden in gpedit.msc

"To start the Local Group Policy Editor, click the Windows 7 start icon and type gpedit.msc in the search text box and hit Enter.  The Editor will open to the top-level Local Computer Policy, so you will have to expand the User Configuration item in the left-side pane of the Editor window.  Drill down through Administrative Templates, then Windows Components, and click on the Windows Explorer item.  Near the top of the list in the right-hand pane of the Editor window you will find the setting “Turn off the caching of thumbnails in hidden thumbs.db files”  "

While you are there, you may want to disable Windows from showing recent search terms too.

forfiles

Recently, I have come across a "find" like command in Windows called "forfiles".  Similar to the find command in Linux, you can use this command to locate files and execute a command on them.  Full details can be found at:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753551(v=ws.10).aspx

Getting Linux to resolve NetBIOS names

Like many others, my network consists of a mixture of Linux and Windows machines.  By default, it seems Linux doesn't not seem to resolve NetBIOS names.  After a quick Google search, this seems can be "fixed" by adding wins to the line begins with hosts: in the nsswitch.conf file found in /etc/

cd /etc/nsswitch.conf

sudo pico nsswitch.conf

locate the line that starts with host:

append the word wins to its end, e.g.

hosts:          files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4 wins

save the changes, and now you should be able to ping computers on your network with their NetBIOS names.

(ref: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-networking-3/ping-netbios-names-from-linux-samba-271336/)

edited: can use NetBIOS name with mount command too.  This is much easier to remember than using IPs of machines.

edited 2018-02-04: You may need to install winbind to get this to work.  Here is the command.

sudo apt install winbind libnss-winbind

service winbind restart

Robocopy to NAS (FFT)

robocopy is a nice command prompt utility for backup files.  You can configure it to only copy files that are newer (based on timestamp) to save time and bandwidth when you are doing backup.  However, there seems to be a problem when it is backing up files from NTFS filesystem to other filesystem, e.g. ext4, XFS etc commonly found in NAS.  It seems time granularity of time value can causes robocopy mistreats files.  That is robocopy may treat identical files as different because it thinks one of them is newer.  Luckily, this can easily be fixed by use the /FFT swtich.  Full explanations can be found at this link

http://www.conetrix.com/Blog/post/Robocopy-Incorrectly-Detects-Files-as-Newer-When-Copying-Between-Different-File-Systems.aspx

Hence, the robocopy command I would use is:

robocopy [source directory] [target directory] /MIR /Z /DCOPY:T /FFT

cifs mounting with write permission!

I have been struggling to mount a network drive using cifs with write permission for a while. An today, I stumbled across this blog (http://microitblog.com/micro-it-blog/2011/04/21/mounting-cifs-shares-through-linux-with-write-permissions) and my problem solve!

I seems I have to pass on my user id as well as my network credential when I mount a drive. Hence, the mounting command should be:

sudo mount -t cifs //server/share /mount/point -o username="user",password="password",uid="uid#"

If you don't know your uid, you can use the id -u <username> command to find it out.

For example, if you have a network share on 10.0.0.100 (it seems IP works better than NetBIOS name) with a share called shared, then the command should be

sudo mount -t cifs //10.0.0.100/shared ~/myfolder -o username=auser,password=mypassword,uid=1000

Hope this helps.

XAMPP phpmyadmin access forbidden

XAMPP is a great tool for web application development and testing.  It provides a self-contained environment for running web applications.

It has been a while since I have used it, and the new edition seems to have enhanced the default security.  For instance, if you run phpmyadmin on a fresh install, you will be greeted with ACCESS FORBIDDEN error.  I had anyway.  To overcome this (and my circumvents the security), I have done the below:

1) Open the /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-xampp.conf with your choice of text editor
2) Update the two sections below as shown, then restart lampp.  You should be all set!

<directory lampp="lampp" opt="opt" phpmyadmin="phpmyadmin">
    AllowOverride AuthConfig Limit
Require all granted
</directory>

<LocationMatch "^/(?i:(?:xampp|licenses|phpmyadmin|webalizer|server-status|server-info))">
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all

        ErrorDocument 403 /error/XAMPP_FORBIDDEN.html.var
</locationmatch>

Setting Environment as normal user

Just a note to myself, to edit the environment variables for a standard use, I need to type "environment" into the start menu, and use the "Edit environment variables for your account" option.