Pekka's questions

I have a VM running Ubuntu. It used to have 30GB of space; I need to increase the size of the data partition, a LVM2 one, to 50GB.

I changed the size in the VM's management console and this is what fdisk -l tells me:

Disk /dev/sda: 53.7 GB, 53687091200 bytes                      <--- new size

[...]

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          32      248832   83  Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2              32        6528    52177921    5  Extended  <--- huh?!?
/dev/sda5              32        3917    31205376   8e  Linux LVM <--- old size

[...]    

I had read up plenty of stuff about LVM first, and ended up with this Serverfault question about resizing a LVM partition on the fly.

sda2 seems to be the container containing sda5, which if I understand LVM correctly is the way things should be.

However, when I try

sudo lvextend /dev/DOCS/root -l+100%FREE

I get

New size (7118 extents) matches existing size (7118 extents)

I don't fully grasp the concept of LVM yet. Do I need to enlarge something else first, like the "outer container" of the partition?

We have a Windows 2008 server that is acting as a DNS for the local network. The server is not administered by me.

In the DNS management console, I can add new forward lookups. There already is a number of them:

• server1.companyname.local => 192.168.0.2
• backup.companyname.local => 192.168.0.3

but they are all inside the .companyname.local zone.

However, I need to set up a small number of "extensionless" lookups like this:

• projects => 192.168.0.16
• admin => 192.168.0.17

etc. etc.

Is there a clean but simple way to do this? I can add a new zone in the console, but I'm not sure how to set one up that doesn't have an extension. I seem to be lacking the right keywords to Google this....

Is there a defined rule when to use underneath and when to use above when describing a child directory? I have encountered (and used) both:

Make sure the config file is stored above the web root.

(= outside the web root, not a child of it); also

Underneath the images folder, I have three sub-folders: Photographs, Illustrations and Thumbnails.

But I have heard it being used the other way round, too:

How to open files located under the webroot?

(referring to files outside the web root)

is there a correct one? Does this differ from OS to OS? How to avoid confusion?

TL;DR: Is there any way to have a domain's sub-directory http://company.com/subdir point to a directory outside the web root using only .htaccess with no access to the server's configuration?

I have a web site company.com that runs three country-specific copies of a CMS on a shared hosting package (Apache 2, PHP 5).

The CMS is split into two directories:

/app      <----- Non-public content, to be placed outside the web root
/htdocs   <----- Public content

I would like to have each of the three country-specific CMSes as sub-directories to the main domain:

www.company.com/de/  <-- 1st copy
www.company.com/ch/  <-- 2nd copy
www.company.com/at/  <-- 3rd copy

the obvious problem with this structure, each CMS's /app directory would need to be put into a separate location outside the web root. However, for maintenance reasons (I am passing on my projects to another company) I would like to prevent this.

The ideal solution for me would be that each copy of the CMS resides in a directory outside the web root:

/htdocs <------- public web root

/de/app
/de/htdocs
/ch/app
/ch/htdocs
/at/app
/at/htdocs

thus ensuring that the app directory can't be accessed from outside.

Each CMS's public htdocs directory would be made available to the world selectively using an Alias directive:

Alias /de ../de/htdocs
Alias /ch ../ch/htdocs
Alias /at ../at/htdocs

But this is not possible from within .htaccess (I get a 500 error) where Alias directives are not possible to specify, and as far as I know, mod_rewrite directives can only specify targets inside the web root (correct?)

As far as I can see, what I want to do is impossible to do in a shared hosting environment, but I thought I'd check whether anybody here has any ideas, as it would be a huge relief for me to be able to do it this way.

I can put a .htaccess into the parent directory (one level above web root), but that doesn't seem to change anything.

I hope it's put clear enough. If it isn't, please let me know and I will clarify.

Switching away from the shared hosting is not an option, neither is asking the hosting company about relaxing the rules - they are very good at what they do, but also very strict and conservative about individual customizations.

Leaving each app directory in the web root, and blocking access to it using Deny from all or similar, is not an option either.

The %DATE% and %TIME% environment variables provide the current date and time on Windows machines on the command line and inside a batch file.

Sadly, those values are locale-aware! Meaning that, say, on a German machine, you will get

26.1.2011

instead of

2011-26-01

this screws up sorting if you want to use this variable in a file name.

Is there any easy way to get hold of a locale-unaware YYYY-MM-DD date string in a Windows batch file?

For the moment, I am working with this rather kludgy workaround:

for /f "tokens=1,2,3,4 delims=. " %%i in ('date /t') do set date=%%k-%%j-%%i
echo %date%

but this is now German locale specific - obviously, a completely independent solution would be much nicer.

The OS in question is Server 2008. I would much prefer not using a third party tool, if at all possible.

I am dissolving my business as a Web Developer, and handing over all continuous work to successors.

For one client for whom I have developed a number of web apps over the years, I set up a Windows 2003 virtual server a few years ago. That server contains the Subversion repositories with all the code for the web apps, and makes frequent nightly backups of all the client's web apps (which are hosted elsewhere).

Only two ports are open on that server: RDP for remote administration, and SVN for checking code in and out. Windows is set to automatically install updates daily. The IP of the server is not publicly known.

The machine has been running without incident for years. It is not critical to operations 24/7 (it serves as an additional backup layer, the web apps are backed up by their hosting companies as well) so in case of it failing, there is time to find emergency assistance without the business halting. But obviously, it contains sensitive data and must be protected.

For a number of reasons, I would like to keep the machine running. It has proven a straight-forward solution for all tasks at hand, and is set up nicely. However, nobody has been identified yet who will take care of its maintenance and administration in the long term.

My questions:

• Is leaving such a server behind a responsible thing to do at all? (Of course, the client would be informed of the risks.) From a professional sysadmin viewpoint, is the machine reasonably safe with the settings described? I am aware that a security hole in the SVN server could cause trouble, and there is no way to auto-patch that like Windows can. That is my one big worry that can't seem to be solved without manual intervention.

• Apart from the potential of an unpatched hole in the SVN server, are there other things that make the idea of having this server run unattended for some time a total no-go?

• Does anybody have some other genius idea how to solve this long-term without shutting the machine down or hiring an administrator? Are there any highly trustworthy server management services around that can perform maintenance and emergency tasks?

I have an idle web server with unlimited traffic running until January 9th, 2011.

An answerer to this question had the idea of offering to host mirrors for Open Source projects.

Does anybody know of Open Source projects that have such massive mirroring needs that it's worth the effort to set another one up for this relatively short time span?

Does anybody know some sort of site or list for this purpose?

I hope this is not off-topic. I thought Server Fault would be the best place to ask, I apologize in advance if it isn't.

I have been renting a Windows 2008-based Virtual Server from 1&1 for the past few years. It is located in a well-connected server farm, has 10 gigs of space, and unlimited Traffic. I used to host my Subversion repos on it, but have started doing this locally; therefore, I have no use for the server any more.

However, the contract runs until January 2011.

What is a productive (and legal, and useful) use the server could be put to until the lease expires? I was thinking of something like the SETI@Home project, but I'm not aware of anything similar in the web field. The server's not that big in processing power, but as said has good connectivity.

Any ideas?

I have set up a copy of Redmine through the Bitnami Redmine Stack and am having trouble accessing a remote SVN repository through https. The trouble seems to be related to the fact that I don't have a signed certificate, and the certificate provided doesn't match the host name (I am accessing the same server through a number of host names).

I am new to Ruby, Mongrel, Rails and Redmine.

Following the advice in this forum thread, I changed the path Redmine uses to invoke the svn client in \apps\redmine\lib\ redmine\scm\adapters\subversion_adapter.rb from

SVN_BIN = "svn"

to

SVN_BIN = "svn --trust-server-cert --non-interactive --config-dir c:/user/temp"

I was hoping that the --trust-server-cert option would fix the certificate problem. However, I am still getting the following error message in mongrel.log:

svn: OPTIONS of 'https://server.xyz:8443/svn/reponame': Server certificate verification failed: certificate issued for a different hostname, issuer is not trusted (https://server.xyz:8443)

Does anybody know what to do about this?

Additional info:

• I re-started the mongrel service after each change

• I am sure the configuration change has taken effect because subversion has created a full configuration directory in c:\user\temp

• I can access the remote repository using command line svn no problem

• The remote repository runs on a Windows box with VisualSVN

I have to set up a Windows 2003 Small Business Server to work as a Subversion repository and possibly as an E-Mail server later.

The machine is a virtual one, hosted with a hosting company, and freshly initialized.

I used the Security Configuration Wizard to deactivate all server roles. After I install Subversion, I will open the necessary ports for the service; in addition, obviously, RDP will stay open so I can remote control the machine.

Automatic updates are activated, and I will set up E-Mail notification every time somebody logs on to the server.

I'm a programmer and not a professional systems administrator, so I would like to know whether you would regard this a sane and secure setup for a (publicly available) box to host sensitive code and/or E-Mail on.

Is there anything in addition I should do to make the machine secure?

Is there anything I can do on a long-term basis to keep the machine secure, apart from monitoring the event log (as far as I can make sense out of it), and seeing that any hotfixes are installed properly?

How do I make a dump of a number of subversion repositories - with all repositories residing in one folder - on various operating systems (Linux shells, Windows 9x/Vista/XP/Server, etc.)?

I'll post an answer that works on Windows Server 2003 - but maybe there's a more elegant one for that, too.

(Additional background to the question here.)

I have an IMAP E-Mail account with my old provider.

I have a new, empty IMAP account with the new provider.

Is there a tool or Thunderbird to migrate the E-Mail data from one account to another? I'm a bit wary about just doing a drag & drop in Thunderbird because it's quite a lot of data, and I have a deep distrust against how Thunderbird deals with IMAP data.

I'm working on Windows 7, so I would prefer a graphical Windows tool. If need be, I can work from a Linux box as well.

I created a virtual machine with Windows XP as the guest system in Microsoft's Virtual PC that ships along with Windows 7.

I then installed Virtualbox and began running the MS machine in it. It worked fine.

Then, I accidentally started the machine in Microsoft's Virtual PC again. The screen stayed blank, so after a while, realizing my mistake, I closed the Machine.

Since then, the VM won't start any more, claiming massive file system problems. Starting Windows in normal mode results in a SOMETHING_FILESYSTEM blue screen; I can start in protected mode and run a checkdisk. That will fix something on every run, but every time I restart, it will start again.

I tried re-booting the VM with the Windows CD and doing a repair install. I didn't watch whether that worked out, but I'm caught in the reset / check disk / reset cycle again.

Is there anything VM specific that can still be done? On a physical machine, I would say reformat.

Is there any way to get hold of the data on the virtual machine through either Virtual PC or Virtualbox? It was an experimental machine, but I had started entering some data on it that would be nice to recover.

I am accessing a shared hosting account through Putty / SSH. The account is pretty full, 300 MB below its quota. I need to make a full backup of all data present on the account. Creating a bzip2 file using

tar cjf archive.tar.bz2 directory/* 

fails because there is not enough space for the tar.

Does anybody know a way to create a tar file and "stream" it to a local file on my PC? Through putty or any other SSH tool?

Is there an easy way to set up E-Mail notification when a Windows 2008 server's hard disk is getting full?

I run a (remotely hosted) virtual Server with Windows 2008 Server for a client. Initially, it had 10 GB of space. During the course of a few weeks - during which nothing was done on the machine except normal work using a web-basedt icket system - , Windows began to fill up its infamous "winsxs" directory so much that in the end, the hard disk was full and we had to order another 5 GB. Now, three weeks later, these 5 GB have been consumed by winsxs as well, and again I can't work on the machine. Winsxs is now 8 GB big, the rest of the windows directory 5 GB.

I have found various sources on the web that describe the same problem. Apparently, Windows 2008 stores all language versions for all DLLs it downloads in the normal updating process. Just deleting stuff there is described as mortally dangerous as it contains vital components. I have not found any kind of tool or instructions to identify and remove those files that are no longer needed.

What can I do? Is this normal behaviour and if it is, how do other servers with equally limited space manage? Is there something I can turn off or on?

Of the pre-defined server roles, only "File services" (or whatever it's called in english, it's a swiss server) is activated. In addition, I have installed Apache, mySQL, and Subversion. Automatic updates are activated.

Edit: The problem persists.

Note: I am aware that the WinSXS directory consist mainly of symlinks and that users often panic looking at its size. Still, Out of 15 GB of space, I have 1.5 MB used by programs and data, and nothing left. I'm glad I can even access the damn machine. *I have already freed up 1 GB of data, which was filled by the windows Windows within 24 hours. It's like in a horror movie. What I have tried:

• Installing SP2 (which comes with compcln.exe) is not an option, as the disk space is not enough for even that.
• There is no vsp1clean.exe on the machine, probably because SP1 has already been merged into the system. In fact, there exists no file named *cln.exe anywhere.
• There are no shadow copies. Shadow copies are not active.
• As far as I can tell, there are no system restore points active.
• The only server role activated is "file server".
• The standard "cleanup" function (right-click on C: drive) is offering me a baffling 2 MB in trash contents and temporary internet files.
• Using one of the "cleanup winsxs" scripts around is not an option for me, they all look too shady. I can't find anything directly from Microsoft addressing this issue.