I recently needed to make some updates to a GroundWork Community Edition VM, and found myself in a situation where the admin user’s dashboard (web browser interface) password had been changed to an unknown value. I was able to SSH into the GroundWork VM though (it’s CentOS Linux based). There’s info floating around the net on how to reset the admin password, but it was written for older versions of GroundWork, so some of the default password, and MySQL schema details have changed.

Here’s what I did to reset the admin user’s password on GroundWork Monitor 6.0 Community Edition:

• SSH into the GroundWork VM. If you haven’t changed the root user’s default password, then it’s going to be “opensource”
• Login to MySQL, and run a query to reset the “admin” user’s password to “admin”. The admin password entered below uses a hash:

/usr/local/groundwork/mysql/bin/mysql -u root monarch
update users set password='21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3' where user_name='admin';

1. Download the BIOS update from Soekris’ Downloads Page. As of the time of this writing, if you’re using anything prior to version 1.20 (my Soekris boards were all running 1.15), you’ll want to start with the update to 1.26a, then consider whether you want to upgrade to the latest BIOS from there. Soekris publishes a changelog of their BIOS updates to their website.
2. Connect your serial port to the Soekris net45xx using a null-modem cable, and use minicom, or your  terminal emulator of choice to establish a connection. Connection settings should be 9600,8,N,1 with hardware and software flow control both turned off.
3. If your Soekris net45xx’s serial console isn’t already configured to work at 9600bps, you can set this by entering Ctrl-P to enter the Monitor, then set the console speed to 9600bps, and reboot:
   > set ConSpeed=9600
> reboot
4. Start up your Soekris box, and enter Ctrl-P when prompted to enter the Monitor. This should bring to you a “>” prompt.
5. Enter the “download” command, and press Enter.
   > download
6. In another terminal, run the following command to initiate an xmodem transfer of the updated Soekris BIOS. Substitute in name of the BIOS file:
   # sx -X b4501x_126a.bin > /dev/ttyS0 < /dev/ttyS0
7. Switch back to your minicom terminal. You should see a “File downloaded succesfully” message. If so, run the following commands to apply the update, and reboot:
   flashupdate
reboot

That’s it! Your Soekris net4501, net4511 or net4521 should now have an updated BIOS.

1. RDP into the target system, and install UltraVNC. Be sure to select the checkboxes for registering VNC as a service, and starting up the service at boot time.
2. Set a VNC password for the currently logged in user by starting up the VNC server (Start > All Programs > UltraVNC > UltraVNC Server > Start UltraVNC Service), then entering a password when prompted
3. Open up Regedit (Start > Run > regedit)
4. Copy the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ORL\WinVNC3\Password entry’s current value
5. Create a new binary value entry located at “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORL\WinVNC3\Default\Password”. Paste in the value you copied in the previous step to this new entry’s value
6. Reboot

That’s it! It may be possible to get VNC going without the reboot, but this is the combination that got a working installation going for me.

1. Go to VMware’s ESXi Download Page. You’ll need to log in with your existing account, or create a new one to continue
2. Download and install VMware vSphere Client and Host Update Utility on a Windows based system
3. Save the VMware ESXi 4.0 (upgrade ZIP) file
4. Log into your ESXi host using vSphere Client, and shutdown all VMs, then right click on the host, and select Enter Maintenance Mode
   
5. Start up the VMware vSphere Host Update Utility, and follow the wizard. You’ll be asked to select which host to update, browse to the VMware ESXi 4.0 (upgrade ZIP) file that you downloaded earlier, and confirm that you want to proceed. The ESXi host will reboot during the upgrade process.
6. Once the update is complete, log back into your ESXi host using vSphere Client, then right click on the newly updated ESXi host, and select Exit Maintenance Mode

Error Parsing Cron File

The fix for this problem is to clear out all the lines in /usr/local/directadmin/data/users/username/crontab.conf.

To fix this, open your MediaWiki’s LocalSettings.php file, and add the following lines:

# enable user names with an @ sign
$wgInvalidUsernameCharacters = "";

Note that having an @ sign within a MediaWiki account’s user name can cause issues with InterWiki User Rights, but this shouldn’t be an issue for most MediaWiki installs.

1. Open up the language/en-GB/en-GB.com_mtree.ini file with your favorite text editor.
2. Update the following line with your title of choice:

ROOT=Directory

It turns out that the fix for this doesn’t involve the browser at all, but rather a VMware Server settings. Some Googling turned up this thread in VMware Communities, which spells out the following fix:

1. Edit /etc/vmware/webAccess/proxy.properties
2. Change the following line:proxy.noCache = false…to:

   proxy.noCache = true

3. Restart the vmware-mgmt service:
   /etc/init.d/vmware-mgmt restart

That’s it! You may need to refresh your browser one more time after this, but after completing these steps, you should now be prompted to login to VMware Infrastructure Web Access.

A contributor to this bias was the fact that I joined the ACM a few years ago while I was in college. I was working with a couple professors on a project that involved using Linux virtualization to teach networking concepts. Anyway, the reason I joined the ACM was that I was asked to give a presentation at an academic computing conference. As I recall, the two requirements for being a presenter were having a .edu email address (check), and ACM membership. I quickly signed up, and failed to investigate what benefits ACM membership would bring.

Fast forward to today. I spend a lot of time reading to keep up on current technologies, and while I am able to do most of this online, I still spend a lot of money each year buying books. A significant portion of these are published by O’Reilly, which writes a lot of excellent Linux, Unix, and development books. Cisco Press’ books make up another significant portion of my collection. Most of the networking products that I work with run either Linux or one of the BSDs, but I’m yet to find a publisher that consistently covers such a wide range of networking topics as well as Cisco Press does.

Many of these O’Reilly and Cisco Press books are available online through Safari. I was once a subscriber, and was happy with their service overall, but at $23/month, membership dues added up. This is where ACM membership comes in. For $99/year, they offer a number of benefits, including the one that I was most interested in – access to a large portion (600) of Safari’s collection of books. Restarting my ACM membership seemed like a no-brainer, given that I was about to spend $60 on one of the Cisco Press titles included in the collection.

I just joined, and taking a look at what else the ACM offers members, like what I see:

• Access to 500 of Books24x7′s books. Looking over the list, I can see that this would be especially useful to those who are more involved in the Microsft and/or management side of things than I am. Actually, there are a few Sybex books on that list that look interesting. I’ve been meaning to brush up on my Java and Oracle, and also see a number of books covering those topics. The Linux books on the list include:
  • Ubuntu Linux Bible
  • Professional Linux 10 Programming
  • Setting up LAMP; Getting Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP Working Together
  • Linux Firewalls: Attack Detection and Response with iptables, psad, and fwsnort
• All 184 issues of the Linux Journal. If you’re not familiar with this magazine, it’s an excellent resource covering all things Linux.
• Element K courses and simulators. I haven’t used these before, but see a course listed for Cisco’s BCMSN exam, which I’m scheduled to take in a few weeks. I’ll check it out.

I feel like I’ve just scratched the service. Even if I don’t find anything else in the membership benefits worth using, $99/year for access to this collection of information is a bargain for a sysadmin who’s serious about learning.

linux console=ttyS0,9600n8