Microsoft Breaks Automatic Updates

I have discovered that Microsoft^®'s own Automatic Updates service for both Windows^® XP^™ and Windows^® 2000^™ is broken. There is a KB article that states that there is a known problem with Widown Updates that sometimes causes 100% CPU utilization (more like always!), causing the operating system to become unresponsive.

Although Microsoft have released not one, but two patches for this problem, it still exists! but here's the kicker: Not only is the patch not included in Windows Updates, but it isn't even available for Windows^® 2000^™!!?!??!!

<sarcasm>
Great to see Microsoft^® continuing to make quality software!
</sarcasm>

CD Backup Script (Updated)

Bellow is an updated version of my CD backup script that I developed a while back:

#!/bin/sh
#
version="1.5.5"
version_date="Mon Oct 30 15:59:14 WST 2006"
version_author="Dean Bergin (dean.bergin@gmail.com)"
version_desc="A basic automated CD backup script"

master()
{
 # initiate a variable to hold the iso filename as a sting
 iso_filename=backup-`date +%Y%m%d`.iso
 # Check for existance of an iso with the same datestamp
 # and rename acordingly
 if [ -f /u1/${iso_filename} ]
 then
  mv /u1/${iso_filename} /u1/old.${iso_filename}
  mkisofs -v -J -V backup -A '' -N -sysid '' -o /u1/$iso_filename $backup_dir
 else
  # TODO: Add more checking to see if the files we have for
  # a backup will fit onto a CD

  # If all is fine then go ahead and make the iso
  mkisofs -v -J -V backup -A '' -N -sysid '' -o /u1/$iso_filename $backup_dir
  chmod 0740 $iso_filename

 fi
}

archive()
{
 # Initialise a list of directories to include in the backup cycle
 dirlist="/boot /etc /root /tmp /var"
 # Dynamically create tarballs based on the directory names
 for dirname in $dirlist
 do
  tar cfvz ${backup_dir}${dirname}.tgz $dirname
 done
 # This section deals with specific exceptions for dirictory names
 # that requires additional filename formatting
 tar cfvz ${backup_dir}/usr-home.tgz /usr/home
}

# Directory cleaning function that will automatically delete
# all files in the $backup_dir automatically. It is assumed that
# previous backup iso's have been performed
clean()
{
 for file in `ls ${backup_dir}`
 do
  rm -rf $file
 done
}

# Initialise $backup_dir and give it a value
backup_dir="/u1/backup"
# call the custom made functions
clean
archive
master

DISCLAMER:
This script has been tested, and works fine (on my own system).
Feel free to copy and modify this script to suit your own needs, but don't come crying to me if it doesn't work on your system! There is no warranty or any of that stuff and the above code is provided "as-is". Perhaps you should write your own scripts then you won't have to worry about all this legal stuff :)

Converted to Genkernel

Genkernel makes Admin on a Linux system easy!

In one single step (genkernel all), Genkernel can:

• Create a (custom-built) kernel (bzImage) from the latest sources.


• Make kernel modules and install them.


• Include all (custom) CHOST optimisations that are set in make.conf in your kernel


• Minimise human error (ie. manually copying a kernel bzImage and forgetting to rename it or relink it etc).

Not only but also, genkernel keeps config files in it's own directory (/usr/share/genkernel by default) so that means I never have to worry about whether I copied the previous kernel .config file from /usr/src/linux before purging older kernel sources by running: emerge -Pa gentoo-sources

I recommend Genkernel not only to newbies but also to Linux pros that want to make kernel upgrades less of a troublesome task.

/hug Gentoo

Screen makes mv dissapear

bash: /usr/bin/mv: No such file or directory

Just discovered this error today. Seems that screen (v 4.00.03) occasionally breaks coreutils/bash in that it can't find the mv executable in any other screen other than the first one that you create...

Not sure how screen actually works, but it seems like theres a bug in the way that it handles creating a new environment for a screen when using the -t option (or mabee when you try pass it a command enclosed in `'s)

Tempted to post this as a bug, but I have never done a bug report, and I haven't got the time to investigate why this is (intermittently) happening. Besides, I would much rather rant here on my blog :P