backup of a LUKS Format Partition using Ghost4Linux

I have an encrypted partition (LUKS format using cryptsetup) and I want to back it up, specially because that HDD is more than 3 years old. the size of the partition is 57.5 GB, I have a NAS with FTP support and the idea is to send the backup to it.

I tried several traditional ways, the first is using dd but it is extremely low and it only works with local backup media so I give up. Then I tried the famous CloneZilla Distribution, from this method I have to say that:

1. it only support network backup through ssh; in fact I tried it with a server but it wouldn't be a good idea because that server is on production, despite I have to move the backup to my NAS, it wouldn't be a good option.

2. the most important, CloneZilla it does not support LUKS format, even if I would setting up my server the backup will failed because the lack support of LUKS

honestly I was dissapointed about CloneZilla, I did not try to make it works, so maybe those gaps would be fixed... or maybe not.

Anyway, I found Ghost4Linux (g4l) it is distro with the same idea - or better - of CloneZilla, it's only 90 MB, after download it I try it, I would like to comment:

1. the user experience is console mode oriented -awesome, at least for me, I'm from old school - but it's really easier to use.

2. it supports LUKS -cool!!-

3. there is a main menu where you can setups important things like: your IP address, the IP address of your FTP server, the compress method ( I chose gzip), the target directory on FTP, your username and password (PLEASE, type your password between quotes, don't forget it, it will save around 2 hours of tries! :-) ) and then you can choose what partition you want to backup, you may choose the entire HDD as well.

4, and that's it, my backup took around 1 hour and a half (57.5 GB) but it was cool, just beware of your FTP server setup, g4l does not accept anonymous session and don't forget to use quotes with your password, I was walking in circles around 2 hours then I figured it out.

g4l is a great project, I did not heard about it but the most important: it works.

Finally it would be a great idea to add this project with some of the Linux big brothers like Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, etc, in order to gain more users and expand the project.

I did not try projects like Bacula, I go for this and it works, so I recommend it.

ok cool, see you around, I have to find where I can buy cranberry sauce for tomorrow, in my country this would be hard to find, instead of it I may use jocote sauce, why not!

See you

sucessful on startup: continue where I left off on Chrome Browser

Some days ago I posted this question on google+, nobody answered me, I think I just had lucky with this one.

I'm using ChromeOS, everything is cool except with Chrome Browser, I need to reopen some tabs in next logon, but unfortunately Chrome just displayed the home page, the solution with this gap is so simple:

if you are going to shutdown your chromeOS just don't close the Chrome's Window, just go to the shut down option and that's it, next time you do a logon, the same window will open automatically with all your tabs, just that.

weird uh? at least for me, even I browse about this but I did not find anything, I use chromium browser on Ubuntu and this is totally different, I can close my window and if I need to open it again of after a shut down, my tabs are reopened... so who knows, if you are using Chrome OS just don't close the window of your browser.

see ya!!

BlackBerry PlayBook: returning to life from been drained out

Yesterday, one colleague asked me for help for a BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet, the device was dead: nothing displayed after power on, it did not charge at all, not even a LED light. So, this was a challenge for me because I am full android and I never had a BlackBerry device: neither a phone nor a tablet, in fact, this products always looked me so weird for me, I think I have some books related to develop mobile apps for it and thank God I never read them because right now those devices are just a remember from the past.

Anyway, I'm writing this post because:
1. I thought the tablet was dead (at this time it is charging and fully working).
2. The reset methods are so different.
3. I was curious about it

So, the successful steps for return to life the Playbook are:
1. Breath deeply (you will need that air later)
2. Connect the charger to the AC
3. then Connect it to the Playbook
4. After 2 seconds you will see a red light LED and then I yellow light flashing for 5 seconds
5. Unplug the charger from the Playbook
6. Wait 2 or 3 seconds
7. Repeat the steps from 3 to 6 around 30 to 50 times

Explanation:
the Playbook's battery is drained out, the charging process is controlled by the OS (what a stupid decision from RIM!!!) so you need to pump it some volts (like The Reebok's The Pump shoes, do you remember?) in order to gain some energy and trigger the charging process, ja ja ja, what a silly thing don't you thing. Anyway, use your extra air (from step 1) and wait around 45 minutes, be constant and don't give up - as I did the first time ;-)

After 30 minutes you will see that the red light delay more time to become yellow flashing, that's a signal that you are pumping energy to your playbook as we expect.

Be sure to do the process around 30 to 50 times, when you finished do this:
1. connect the playbook to the charger
2. push the power on button
3. wait like 20 seconds
4. you will see the icon of charging in your Screen
5. be more patience than one hour ago, you are so close!
6. don't do anything more
7. around 20 minutes later you will see the blackberry's welcome page
8. around 10 minutes later you will see your desktops icon
9. cool!!! you made it
10. as an advice charge totally your playbook, don't use the USB cable for charging it
11. meanwhile select your files and folder for backing them up

That's all, at this time the playbook is charging - at 25% - and I hope it works, in case something failed I will let you know, but at least with those steps you can recover your files.

what a weird device: android - and I guess Apple devices- have a better way to safe your files and try hard reset methods, I think the battery of this playbook is near to end its life, who knows, in case you still use device like this, it may help you.

Cheers!

display space available in the SSD from ChromeOS

so, working around with chromeOS from Samsung Chromebook -one year after I bought it- I was wondering about the space available in my SSD, the steps are:

1. go to google chrome, open a new tab
2. type: chrome://quota-internals/

that's all, the displayed message is simple, so don't expect anything informative. I read on the web that google is planning to include a kind of hd manager in next releases, meanwhile I think that's all we may use.

Kali Linux from SD Card on Samsung ARM Chromebook

Yes, this is my first post from kali linux for ARM chromebooks, well I have to say this was a little tricky, in fact the process was not so hard; as a Linux fan every time I got a new computer I wipe out the OS pre-installed and then I install a Linux flavor.

I got my chromebook one year ago, I think I tried chromeOS  2 times and then I installed chrubuntu and everything was cool. Last weeks ago I updated my technical goals and I decided to install kali on my chromebook, so the successful steps are:

From Chrubuntu:
1. download kali linux for arm architecture.
2. get a 8 GB SD Card, I used a 16 GB, and I realized the all image sized 8.6 gb, so 16 GB would be a better idea.
3. uncompress the image
4. from a terminal type: dd if=kali-chromebook.img of=/dev/sdb bs=512k
 5. when it finished install using apt-get the cgpt package. I found it on the repositories of quantal quetzal I think, I'm not so sure, anyway, search it and install it
6. cgpt repair /dev/sdb
cgpt add -i 1 -S 1 -T 5 -P 10 -l KERN-A /dev/sdb
cgpt add -i 2 -S 1 -T 5 -P 5 -l KERN-B /dev/sdb

cool, then reboot your chromebook and when the "developer mode warning" screen appears just hit SPACE. ChromeOS will be restart it and you will boot on it. Don't worry your chrubuntu is still installed.

from ChromeOS, before login, hit Ctrl+Alt+Forward keys and:
1. type chronos to log in the terminal
2. load your SD Card on the chrome
3. type this: sudo crossystem dev_boot_usb=1
4. sudo reboot

finally, when you get the developer mode warning, just hit Ctrl+U and that's it, you will be into one of the best Linux Distro... kali!!!!

PS:
my next step is install kali on my SSD, I want to keep ChromeOS because when I want to just browse the web, it's really fast and really cool, one year later we have more extra on this OS, so it would be a good idea, the sad part is I have to get rid off chrubuntu, but it's ok, kali is a great option

Cheers!

switching between ChromeOS and Chrubuntu

almost one year ago I bought a Samsung ARM Chromebook, honestly I have to say this is a great product and since I have more time available to continue with several personal projects related to IT I found that at this time I continue learning about this architecture. Anyway, today I want to share a "hard method" to switch between chrubuntu and Chrome Os, here it is:

step 0: You need to install chrubuntu on your ARM Chomebook. After that you need to install cgpt as well.

step 1: From Chrubuntu, open a terminal, edit your .bashrc file and add this line:
alias chromeos='sudo  cgpt add -i 6 -P 0 -S 1 /dev/mmcblk0; sudo reboot'

save it and try it using from terminal:
chromeOs

type your password and your chromebook should start to reboot, few seconds later you should see the chromeOs welcome screen.

step 2: before login, press this keys: Ctrl+Alt+Forward (the key instead F2), you will be on a terminal, just type: chronos, after that edit your .bashrc using vim and add this line:
alias chrubuntu='sudo cgpt add -i 6 -P 5 -S 1 /dev/mmcblk0; sudo reboot'

then type exit, login again using chronos and try this typing:
chrubuntu

and that's it, I think this way it's little tricky, despite that, maybe in a near we may have a grub hybrid, the guys from google released the chromium code so there is no excuses to work improving gaps like that

anyway, let me know if you have any doubts

join several jpg files into one single pdf

one of the most advantage of the linux world is the simpliest and quickiest ways you can solve many issues.

this morning I needed to send some diagrams, comments and other stuff in one single pdf, each one was a jpg file, so the steps how to join them are:

1. sudo apt-get install imagemagick
2. convert *jpg myfile.pdf

that's all, if the image files have high resolution there are some parameters in order to decrease the size of the output file, check man convert and you'll see

have a nice week

rebuilding the X after a brute force shutdown

Well, some days ago I was downloading some files, after get a beverage I realized that I forgot to plug my laptop to the AC so it was shut down, then I tried to turned it on but I could not get the X server running, maybe files such as .Xauthority were locked it, I'm not sure, anyway the steps that I used to rebuild the X were:

1. reinstall xorg: sudo apt-get install --reinstall xorg
2. remove .Xauthority files in /home: sudo rm /home/myuser/.Xauthority*
3. reboot

that's it, it works for me, hope it might work for you

Mounting my Coby Kyros MID1045 Tablet in my Ubuntu Precise

Hi, well this is the first step in the journey of root the Coby Kyros MID1045 tablet, so I was reading how to mount it in Ubuntu and many webpages mentioned that most of android devices use the MTP filesystem, so I needed to install it, here it is the lines:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mtpfs mtp-tools

then you need to create a directory under /media and type this line in terminal:

sudo mtpfs -o allow_other /media/AndroidDeviceDirectoryYouWant

then, in theory you just need to plug your USB cable to your laptop or PC, and then type this:

mtp-detect

But, oopss!!!, I got this:

Listing raw device(s)
   No raw devices found.

So, what happened??? I checked the screen in my tablet and I saw an icon like Android+USB, I tapped it and I found that this tablet in particular still use the USB storage as the method to connect to any PC, weird? why? yeah, it is, and I think the weirdest part that I have to say is just before install mtpfs I did not get this icon. Anyway, once I tapped it I can mount it and read the content from ubuntu.

If you have any other android device you should use the method of mtp to connect it to your ubuntu box.

I really newbie in this Android Field, if you have feedback of any kind, feel free to post it/comment/reply this; in fact I read about this tablet and it's weird, in fact it is not Google Play Ready, so I'll go for unlock this

Bye

Features of a desired system environment

Wow, these features are really cool, they are taken from the Data Warehousing book that I'm reading that I wrote in a previous post, so here they are:

1. Database designed for analytical tasks
2. Data from multiple applications
3. Easy to use and conductive to long interactive session by users 
4. Read-intensive data usage
5. Direct interaction with the system by the users without IT assistance
6. Content updated periodically and stable
7. Content to include current and historical data
8. Ability for users to run queries and get results online
9. Ability for users to initiate reports

So guys never forget those one, in IT environment these kind of features are so helpful.

deactivate bluetooth service from terminal

At this date, chrubuntu is still in alpha stage, the community around it is still in development process, so last night I did some changes on it now this morning I can't deactivate my bluetooth service from graphical mode, so, let's do this from terminal.

1. first let see if it's running:
  service bluetooth status

I got something like this:
bluetooth start/running, process 341


2. now let's stop that process:
sudo service bluetooth stop

if you check it again  the process has been stopped.

and that's it

five principles of strategic information

Hey this is an interesting post, I'm reading a book called "Data Warehousing Fundamentals for IT Professionals 2nd Ed" from Paulraj Ponniah, I'm in the first part but I have found great topics, and I want to share one of them, the five principles of strategic information are:

-Integrated: must have a single, enterprise-wide view.
-Data integrity: information must be accurate and most conform to business rules.
-Accessible: easily accessible with intuitive access paths, and responsive analysis.
-Credible: every business factor must have one and only one value.
-Timely: information must be available within the stipulated time frame.

I know a couple of companies that should follow those characteristics, specially in the management of the information, but anyway.  Mr. Ponniah gave a hit write those characteristics, he's absolutely right, I'm exciting reading this book, it was a good decission.

Cheers

fastball: move all files and directories to another one

Well this is a fastball tip, if you're newbie and if you like the terminal, this would be helpful, to move all files and directories to another one this is the command:

mv -v * /target/directory

done, very helpful, very newbie :-)

installing python in a debian based distro

So, for different reasons I need to install python in my chrubuntu, googling I found that several users have extremely different opinions related to the installation process, I think that the main reason is the OS, in some GNU/Linux I found that it would be a messy process but in others, specially the debian based, it's easier, so here they are the steps that I followed:

sudo apt-get install python-software-properties
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:brightbox/ruby-ng
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential ruby rubygems ruby-switch
sudo apt-get install ruby1.9.1
sudo ruby-switch --set ruby1.9.1
sudo ruby-switch --set ruby1.8

as you can see, it's very simple, in fact, I don't have much to say because these are my first steps with ruby, I found a lot controversy in the versions, 1.8 and 1.9, but you know, in future posts I could have useful comments or info, specially related to IDE's.

cpufrequtils I nice set of commands

Well this is a short tip, short but useful, cpufrequtils is a set of commands related to get information about our CPU core, in some cases this is useful specially when you're testing packages performance or sourcecode performance, so the steps are these:

1. install it: apt-get install cpufrequtils

2. try it like this: cpufreq-info | grep 'current CPU'


that's it, see ya around

install Chromium in Chrubuntu

As you may know, Chromium is not available for the ARM architecture, well, at least untill december 2012, actually, I found a post from jan 2013, that it is available from the universe repository, I actually tried but it does not work. So if you have the Samsung ARM Chromebook, the Acer Chromebook or another  ARM based ultrabook, here it is the steps to install chromium:

1. from a terminal type:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:a-v-shkop/chromium


2. the do an update, like this:
sudo apt-get update

3. finally, if you did not get any error message, then type:
sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

that's it, you may try chromium now. 

solving the unable to resolve localhost.localdomain in chrubuntu

Last black friday I bought a samsung ARM chromebook, it just a great ultrabook, the price, performance, etc, but that's another story. Today I wanna share the way how to get rid off that anoising message everytime you get into a terminal and use some command:

unable to resolve localhost.localdomain

you just need to do this:
1. get into the gnome-terminal

2. type: nano /etc/hosts

3. add this line: 127.0.0.1   localhost   localhost.domain

4. save the file and close it

5. close the current terminal window and open another one, then you can try some command, for example apt-get update and you'll notice that the message does not show anymore.

that's it.

display line numbers in nano

Nano is one of the best command line editor, in fact, is my first choice, but one feature that does not come turn on is the the display that shows the current line and this is very helpful, because when I'm editing some file, for example my apache.conf, sometimes is necesssary go to a specific line, so here it is the how to:

1. create the appropiate configuration file in your home folder, like this:
nano ~/.nanorc

2. type the next line:
   set const

3. save it and close it

ok, that's it, next time you use nano you'll see in the bottom center and message showing you the line numbers and other things.

Get rid off the "waiting for network configuration" in Ubuntu

Hi, since I've installed Ubuntu 12.04 - like four months ago- if I didn't plug the network cable to my eth0 I had to waiting up to 2 minutes to get the X on; so Today I just decided to get rid off that time waiting, and the answer is very easy, here are the steps:

1. check if in the interfaces file yo get and "auto -device-" like this:
 cat /etc/network/interfaces

2. try to looking at something like this: "auto eth0", like in my case.

3. If you get it, the go to:
    nano /etc/network/interfaces

4. comment that line with #, then save the file

5. restart and you will see the line "waiting for...." is not anymore.

one more byte; I always have problems with network applet, I've never get int he main bar, so I had used wicd, but since I comment the same line -auto eth0- I've got it in the bar and wicd is not necessary anymore.

so, that's it

cheers

dar permisos a un grupo de usuarios sobre un directorio

esta entrada la tenia pendiente desde hace mucho, el tema es qye hay ciertos directorios que necesito que varios usuarios puedan tener los mismos privilegios, lo mas sencillo es darle esos permisos al grupo, aca van los comandos:

sudo usermod -a -G  

sudo chgrp -R  /dir/objetivo
sudo chmod -R g+w /dir/objetivo 

sudo find /dir/objetivo -type d -exec chmod 2775 {} \; 

sudo find /dir/objetivo -type f -exec chmod ug+rw {} \;


 las ultimas dos lineas se refieren a heredarle los permisos aplicados a todos los directorios y archivos que 

ya residen en /dir/objetivo

saludos

agregar un usuario a un grupo especifico

Algo rapido, para agregar un usuario a un grupo especifico, usamos el comando siguiente:

# usermod -a -G nombregrupo nombreusuario

luego tenes que finalizar sesion y cuando volvas a entrar podes usar este comando para verificar a que grupos pertenece el usuario:

#groups nombreusuario

saludos

cambiar el propietario a un directorio y archivos de manera recursiva

Este comando es muy util, pues algunas veces necesitamos cambiarle el propietario a varios directorios y archivos que residen en diferentes subniveles, en realidad no es un comando, es un parametro del comando chown, supongamos que tenemos una estructura como esta:

principal -> datos -> publicar->miarchivo.odt

para cambiar el propietario a todo el contenido del directorio principal usamos la siguiente linea:

chown -R miusuario:miusuario /principal

saludos y bendiciones