Anthony Mastrean's questions

How "expensive" is an rsync on the various computing resources (CPU, RAM, network, etc.) if nothing has changed on the source file system?

I've two weak servers across a very high latency network and files show up sporadically (due to a process out of my control), but I really need to sync aggressively.

I'm doing a basic recursive send on an entire folder.

How does this change if there are 100s of GBs or maybe TBs of data sitting (again, mostly unchanged) on the source filesystem?

The source may be a CIFS mounted share, which does not work with inotify, which is why I'm asking about rsync performance characteristics, not alternative mirroring solutions.

I have a Jenkins instance connected to a directory service for authentication. I configured the display name and email attributes. I have a build checking out a Subversion repository over HTTP (via Apache), which authenticates with the same LDAP.

I expected Jenkins to pull the user from the commit metadata (the svn:author property), map the display name to show in the Changes screen, and map the email address for sending build notifications.

I'm having trouble with both:

1. Jenkins only shows the user's display name after they log in once. For example, my user name is anthony.mastrean and my display name is Anthony Mastrean. My changes were linked as anthony.mastrean until I logged in.

2. Jenkins never pulls the email address. It's has this in my user configuration and in the log for the email notifier:

   anthony.mastrean@548b7ffa-d19c-4046-8715-d3a94a596a03
   

My team has no reason to use the feature, but some of the GUI tools place the revert and lock button very close together and we end up with accidental locks.

We are running the distro svn package, v1.6, on CentOS 5.x and 6.x.

http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn-book.html#svn.advanced.locking

I'm talking about ssh_config(5). I wonder if you can define a config section or file based on the currently connected network.

I'm thinking about that scenario where the corporate firewall blocks port 22, but your home network doesn't. So, you have this configuration, but it's technically unnecessary at home.

Host github.com
  Hostname ssh.github.com
  Port 443

I'm sure this isn't the most interesting scenario, but I hope you can see what I'm getting at.

I am configuring a local application user (part of BUILTIN\Users) on a Windows 7 kiosk. The kiosk has a special USB device running on a virtual COM port. The user needs permission to read the WMI class, MSSerial_PortName, in the root\WMI namespace, to find the COM port. In PowerShell (which I'm using to verify the configuration)

PS> Get-WmiObject -namespace 'root\WMI' -class 'MSSerial_PortName'

and by regular .NET code (which is how the application is written)

ManagementObjectSearcher searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("root\\WMI", "SELECT * FROM MSSerial_PortName");

I get "access denied" errors unless running as an Administrator or elevated session. I have read plenty of Q&A on similar access problems, but most seem to recommend running as Administrator. That's not an option for this user/kiosk/configuration. And, at the moment, I am unable to use the managed wrapper from the device vendor.

I played around in the Microsoft Management Console, loading the WMI Control, and modified the Properties | Security | namespace: Root\WMI. I set the Users group to have the same permissions as the Administrators group. But that didn't work (I was just guessing anyway).

I can't find any MSDN documentation on MSSerial_PortName the MSSerial "base" class or other related classes in the namespace (as suggested by this article). And I don't know anything else about WMI security.

I'm configuring Windows 7 Professional x64 to run a custom application as the shell, in "kiosk" mode. That is, replacing the default shell (explorer.exe) with my application and autologon as a specific user.

[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"AutoAdminLogon"="1"
"DefaultUserName"="applicationuser"
"Shell"="c:\Program Files\my-app\whatever.exe"

I've also turned off the Windows logo splash screen on boot (in msconfig). The machine is not on any domains.

When I power on the machine, I see the BIOS screen, then a black screen (where the Windows logo would have been), then the user logon page flashes by quickly (during autologon), then it sits at a blank screen for several minutes.

The cursor is on screen but inoperable. And I'm fairly certain it's not my application, because when I run it in a regular desktop scenario, it starts very quickly. This is a bad experience for the user that's starting up the kiosk or may be approaching the kiosk after it's been booted, but before the application starts.

Does anyone know what Windows is doing behind the scenes in kiosk mode that might explain this delay? Or how to track down what's happening?

Or does anyone have any fancy ideas on tricking the user into thinking the kiosk is operating? (I don't know what else I have control over at this point in Windows kiosk startup... can I splash up a background image instead of the drab geen/blue screen?)

I'm trying to use ImageX from the Windows PE command line. When I run a capture command from the console

cmd> e:\imagex.exe /capture <whatever>

I get a nasty error like

the subsystem needed to support the image type is not present

What does that mean? How do I fix it?

I created a Windows PE RAM disk (CD-ROM) from the instructions on technet. I'm on a Windows 7 x64 system and my "reference" system is the same. I changed the boot priority to CD-ROM first on the reference system, but it comes up with an error message like

The boot device is not recognized

My company manufactures a medical instrument and the software that runs on it. Under the hood, it's got a PC running Windows 7. I'm developing a process so that untrained technicians can configure the system and install our applications.

I developed a set of PowerShell scripts and wrote a work instruction on how to use them. One of the scripts requires a restart of the computer. And the next script needs to be started manually after the technician logs back on (using a service account).

I want to simplify the process by registering the second script to run on user logon. I know that there are several mechanisms to do that

• Group Policy Logon/Logoff Scripts
• Startup programs
• Task Scheduler

But, I'm looking for a mechanism that can be configured from PowerShell (adding and removing scripts is necessary). And preferably from a vanilla installation of Windows 7 and PowerShell. I don't have the ability to install the Group Policy PowerShell module, so that mechanism is out.

The Java runtime installer has a silent installation switch, jre-6u27-windows-i586-s.exe /s. However, when UAC is set to any of the "Notify me" options, the Java installer still shows a prompt!

Is there any way around this except to turn off UAC?