Lost photos and videos

A friend of mine was migrating his Emby system to a new all singing all dancing server that he built with Unraid, since that was what he was using originally.

During his migration to the new server and setting up the new disks with Emby, all of the photos and videos disappeared from one of the disks, leaving him with lots of photos and videos being lost.

Luckily before doing anything drastic he called me and asked if I'd come over to take a look.  So I did.

Conveniently he hadn't used his largest disk, meaning we could do a recovery, and being Linux based file systems meant this was easy to do, but would take a long while to perform the recovery.

Unraid was running from USB stick in memory.  This meant that for each recovery run the software would need to be installed again; minor issue.

The main element for helping out was to provide my friend with the knowledge to be able to do this himself.  So showing him how to;

1. Identify the Linux disk name from Unraid, where Unraid calls them Disk 1, Disk 2, etc, but clicking the disk provides the information for the /dev location - which I told him he needed to perform the recovery.

2. Install the software on Unraid, as he would need to do this for each recovery.

3. Perform the recovery.

4. Sift through 1000s of files as they may not have the correct name after recovery, especially if the directory information is unavailable.

Having found the relevant disk name for the data that had disappeared, I then stopped Unraid to free up the disks to mount using the normal Linux commands, and ensure no other processes were affecting the disks.

2 disks were required for the task.

• The disk with the missing data
• The disk that would be the recovery location

The recovery location disk was mounted to /mnt/recovery.

The application to perform the recovery is called testdisk which contains 2 methods of recovery. The more advanced testdisk command and the easier photorec command.  I opted for photorec since it did most of the grunt work for you, leaving you to supply the disk to recover and the location to recover too.  TestDisk requires more information and knowledge of the file systems you were recovering.

Having supplied photorec with the device path of the disk to recover (unmounted) and the location to recover to (mounted drive : /mnt/recovery), it went off and started the recover, and within seconds had discovered several hundred photos and videos, stating a recovery time of 24 hours, which changed as it worked through the disk.

After a day or 2 the task completed and my friend informed me that he had to sift through the 1000s of files, some of which he had no idea they were on there, and others being the files he needed.  This he was working through for quite a few days.  He has the other 4 disks to work through.

Installing Sybase 12.5 ASE on CentOS 5.2 and 5.5

INSTALLING LINUX

1. Install a minimal version of CentOS 6 You will require 3 partitions 
2. To aid set up ensure that SELinux is disabled and iptables is off 
3. Set up kernel parameters in /etc/sysctl.conf;
            kernel.exec-shield=0
            kernel.randomize_va_space=0
            kernel.shmmax=67108864 # Only if tis number is bigger than the default
4. Update kernel parameters;
            sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf
5. Ensure that you have 3 partitions, or seperate disks
6. export LD_POINTER_GUARD=0
7. Install the following rpms;
           yum install compat-libstdc++-296
   For this you might want to install the rpmfusion repository
           Do this by downloading the rpm and the epel rpm
           Install using rpm -i rpmfusion epel

INSTALLING SYBASE

1. Extract your Sybase tgz file
2. Run the setup command
           ./setup -is:javaconsole -console

                         Use the -options-record

                         Where filename will record your options, note that this option can only be used in GUI mode.

Follow the on screen instructions, which includes agreeing to the T&Cs, deciding where you want to install Sybase, create the directory, typical/full or custom.

If installing client only then use custom and select the following;

        Select everything except Sybase Server

Creating the first database

1. Now we need to create your first database

        cd /opt/sybase

        You will find example resource files in ASE-/init/sample_resource_files

        Select the one appropriate to your install

        (This example will be for the adaptive_server.rs)

2. The resource file

        Copy the srvbuild.adaptive_server.rs to /opt/sybase/ase.rs

        Edit the file as follows;

                sybinit.release_directory: /opt/sybase   (or where you installed it)

                sqlsrv.server_name: STEVE       (SYBASE logical name of the database. This will be the name in the interfaces file, server instance)

                sqlsrv.network_hostname_list: localhost (the real hostname of your server)

                sqlsrv.network_port_list: 4000  (The port number you wish to run this instance on)

                sqlsrv.master_device_physical: /dev/sdb1        (physical partition or filename for master database)

                sqlsrv.sybsystemprocs_device_physical_name: /dev/sdb2

                sqlsrv.sybsystemdb_device_physical_name: /dev/sdb3      (remember this applies to all databases created within this instance)

                sqlsrv.default_backup_server:

3. Update root's enviroment using the SYBASE.sh script

        . ./SYBASE.sh

4. srvbuildres -r ase.rs

5. If the above command results in "Server 'STEVE' was successfully created'

        find . -name RUN*

        Should return /opt/sybase/ASE-12_5/install/RUN_STEVE

6. Test your connection

        isql -Usa -S STEVE

   You should be prompted for a password, just press ENTER

   You should eventually get the   1>   prompt

   Type quit and press enter

Creating the start up script so that SYBASE starts on reboot

1. vi /etc/init.d/sybase

2. Add the following to the file;

#!/bin/bash

# chkconfig: 35 95 95

# description: Start sybase

case $1 in

        'start')

                unset LANG

                export LD_POINTER_GUARD=0

                . /opt/sybase/SYBASE.sh

                startserver -f /opt/sybase/ASE-12_5/install/RUN_STEVE

                ;;

        'stop')

                pkill dataserver

                ;;

esac

3. Save the script and then do;

        chmod +x /etc/init.d/sybase

4. Add the script to the start up and shutdown sequence

        chkconfig --add sybase

5. Test the script;

        - Shutdown the server

HP DV3-4300sa Fedora 14 Monitor Setup

Having finally finding some time to sit with my new HP Laptop I have managed to get the screen to work during boot up, and the Wifi connection to work. (Now just have to see about the intermittent fault on the fixed ethernet port).

Getting the graphics working
0. Install the ati-driver-installer-11-8-x86.x86_64.run driver direct from the support.amd.com web site - http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx
- Category: Notebook Graphics
- Product Line: Radeon HD Series
- Product Model: Radeon HD 6xxxM Series
- Operating System: Linux x86_64

1. Remove from /etc/grub.conf kernel line
- rhgb

2. Add to /etc/grub.conf kernel line
- video=VGA-1:e vga=0x318

3. Added /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/45custom_xrandr-settings

#!/bin/bash
xrandr --addmode VGA1 1366x768
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768 --fb 1366x768
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1366x768 --fb 1366x768

4. chmod +x /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/45custom_xrandr-settings

5. /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "aticonfig Layout"
Screen 0 "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
Screen 1 "LCDPanel"
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
Option "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
Option "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
Option "Enable" "true"
Option "DPMS" "true"
ModeLine "1366x768" 69.30 1366 1398 1420 1474 768 770 774 784
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "LCDPanel"
Option "Enable" "true"
Option "DPMS" "true"
ModeLine "1366x768" 69.30 1366 1398 1420 1474 768 770 774 784
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
Driver "fglrx"
Option "DesktopSetup" "clone"
Option "Centermode" "off"
Option "monitor-VGA" "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
Option "monitor-LVDS" "LCDPanel"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "LCDPanel"
Driver "intel"
Option "DesktopSetup" "clone"
Option "monitor-LVDS" "LCDPanel"
Option "monitor-VGA" "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
Device "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
Monitor "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
#Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
#Modes "1366x768" "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "LCDPanel"
Device "LCDPanel"
Monitor "LCDPanel"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
#Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
#Modes "1366x768" "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Making Wifi Work
1. Edit the file /etc/rc.local and add the following lines to it

modprobe lib80211
insmod /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/wl.ko
modprobe b43

FC14 and Skype

As the new versions of Fedora Core come out so every time I have to find out how Skype can be installed and running, since Skype only seem to think everyone uses Ubuntu, even though there is a massive FC community out there.

So today, having successfully installed Skype on FC14 x86_64 architecture thought I'd best write a note about it so that I can remember when I upgrade my server.

Firstly we need to get the 32bit library files necessary for the only version Skype supply for non-Debian Linux systems. These files can be installed as follows;

yum install libXv.i686 qt.i686 qt-x11*.i686 libsigc++ libsigc++.i686 libXScrnSaver.i686 pulseaudio*.i686 libv4l.i686

In brief the above libraries provide the 32-bit graphical functionality, sound (pulseaudio) and webcam (libv4l).

Then download either the FC10 rpm or the Dynamic build of Skype from Skype directly.
If using the rpm then install as follows;
yum localinstall skype-versionsnumber.rpm --nogpgcheck

Else if using the Dynamic file unpack;
bunzip2 skype-versionnumber.tar.bz2
tar xvf skype-versionnumber.tar

Move the directory somewhere meaningful, e.g. /usr/local/skype

Now you should be able to start Skype and have audio and video, running with no library issues.