Posts Tagged ‘linux mint’

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This article is aimed at giving you an overview of the various elements which make up an operating system. Now as you are probably aware, an Operating System, whether it be Windows, Linux Or Mac, serves the purpose of giving us, the human user, a means to interact with the computer in a meaningful way.

Imagine, if you can, that an operating system is broken down into five layers. in the following list I’ll start at the bottom most layer and work my way up to the very top.

Layer 1: The Kernel.

The kernel is the heart of the operating system. Amongst it’s responsibilities are ensuring that each running process is given a fair amount of time to execute while a controlling the amount of resources each process can use.

Layer 2: Memory Management.

The name of this layer gives you a good idea what it is all about. It is the responsibility of this layer to share your computers physical memory among the processes which want to use it. It also has to manage such situations where there may not be enough physical memory to share out.

Layer 3: Input/Output.

On this layer all the physical communication between your computers hardware, such as disk drives, keyboards, mouses, screens and so on, takes place.

Layer 4: File Management.

Again the name of this layer may give you a clue as to what it does. It is the job of this layer to control how the files on your computers hard drive are stored and accessed by any application seeking to use them.

Layer 5: The User Interface.

The last element, or layer as we have been calling them, of an operating system is the User Interface. This layer is probably the easiest of all to understand since it is the first thing you see when your operating system has logged you in. It is the job of this layer to provide a means for the user to actually interact with the rest of the layers and as such the system as a whole.

Keep in mind there are two different types of User interfaces. The first one is probably the one you are most familiar with, the graphical user interface, which is where you see windows and icons for each of your files and so on.

The second is a command line interface, or text based interface where a user would interact with the system using text based commands.

Well that is it for this article, if your an experienced IT pro or tech guru, before you go placing comments that I’ve skimmed on certain details please keep in mind that i have deliberately kept this article simple so the people new to computing in general fin dit easier to understand. With that said I hope you enjoyed this article.

– David

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Source by David Gallie

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The SAP System OS collector (SAPOSCOL) is a platform independent stand-alone program that runs in OS background and collects the system information using a segment of the shared memory for various applications and all SAP instances on a host. These information details can be viewed through transaction code ST06/OS06 in frontend SAPGUI. It is a very useful tool for NetWeaver/Basis Administrators & consultants to monitor server performance. SAPOSCOL extracts real-time data from system, although it does not refreshes automatically, you need to click the ‘Refresh’ button to get the updated data. SAPOSCOL collects system data every 10 seconds and records it, and also records the hourly averages for the last 24 hours. It runs autonomously from SAP instances exactly one process per host and collects data from various operating system resources. User can monitor all the servers under SAP landscape with this tool. But for remote server (livecache server) the transaction code is OS07. You can check CPU utilization, Physical & virtual memory usage, Pool data/Swap size, disk response time, utilization of physical disks and file systems, resource load for running processes and even LAN data from the monitoring list.

You can navigate to this tool from SAP Menu->Tools->CCMS->Control/Monitoring->Performance->Operating System->Local->Activity.

If you can’t see any data, that means the OS Collector (SAPOSCOL) is not running (error code: Shared memory not available). In this situation your main task is to fix the saposcol to run properly. This usually happens after a new SAP installation or Kernel upgrades. If you are new with the SAP Systems the following guideline will be helpful to overcome the saposcol issue.

Unix/Linux/AIX/Sun/Solaris System:

First, Check the permission of saposcol.exe file, it should be 777 (owner is root in group sapsys) and sticky bit should be set to 4750. If you want to know which user is running saposcol, use “ps -ef | grep saposcol”. Now to change the saposcol file to owner root, group sapsys, mode 4750, log in as root to your unix system and execute the commands as below,

cd /usr/sap//SYS/exe/run

chown root saposcol

chgrp sapsys saposcol

chmod 4750 saposcol

You can also run the “saproot.sh” in the exe dir to set the permissions. Then run saposcol -l as the same owner (root). Check collector status using saposcol -s. After setting the file permissions, you can also use, ST06 -> Operating System Collector -> Click on ‘Start’ to run SAPOSCOL.

To stop the OS collector use saposcol -k. If this command failed to kill the process, you can execute “cleanipc 99 remove” (Check SAP Note 548699). If this attempt also fails, then you need to remove the shared memory key of saposcol. Execute command “ipcs -ma” and note down Shared Memory ID in the line that contains saposcol key. Then execute the command “ipcrm -m ID”. Shared memory key will be created again next time when you run saposcol.

Sometimes using “saposcol -l” gives a message that it’s already running, but when you grep the process using “ps -ef|grep -i saposcol” it may not show the process. In this situation, you can use a undocumented parameter “saposcol -f”, where “f” stands for starting the process forcefully. When it starts, then stop the process in regulation methon using “saposcol -k” and then start it normally using “saposcol -l”.

If saposcol still doesn’t run, then you need to start it in dialog mode. Login with use adm and follow the steps below,

saposcol -d

Collector > clean

Collector > quit

saposcol -k to stop the collector.

Before restarting

saposcol -d

Collector > leave (You should get a message- Shared memory deleted)

Collector > quit

cd /usr/sap/tmp

mv coll.put coll.put.sav

cd

saposcol

“coll.put”,if this file contains the old shared memory and should be deleted in order to get a clean start (Check SAP Note 548699, point 7). If you are unsuccessful in clearing shared memory, please try the following commands to clear the shared memory:

$ saposcol -kc

$ saposcol -f

If this also fails, then you need to restart the system from OS level and seems like also need a new version of saposcol (Check SAP Note 19227).

IBM iSeries i5/OS (OS/400, OS/390):

– Check permissions of directory ‘/usr/sap/tmp’ and the file ‘saposcol.exe’, it should be 4755 and owner must be root in sapsys group. Check SAP Note 790639. After assigning permissions you can run from OS command line using ‘SAPOSCOL -l’. To show the status use ‘SAPOSCOL -s’ and to stop the process use ‘SAPOSCOL -k’. You can also run the process by submitting a job in OS level using

CALL PGM(SAPOSCOL) PARM(-l)

It submits the job in job queue QBATCH in library QGPL.

– In iSeries, you might experience strange data when analyzing CPU utilization using tcode ST06/OS06. Even you are using multiple CPU’s, SAPOSCOL might only report CPU usage for the first CPU. Also sometimes you will find CPU utilizations reported above 100% in some intervals, if you are running SAP instance in an uncapped partition where multiple logical partitions are using a shared processor pool. In this situation, be sure that CPU usage reported for CPU number 0 is the average usage for all CPU’s being used in the system. If you want to view shared CPU partition information, apply support packages as per SAP Note 994025 including following patch levels

6.40 disp+work package (DW): 182 SAPOSCOL: 69

7.00 disp+work package (DW): 109 SAPOSCOL: 34

By applying these patches and support packages into the system, new transactions, OS06N, ST06N, and OS07N are available to view additional information in two sections titled “Host system” and “Virtual system”. These include information about the partition type and the available and consumed CPU in the current partition as well as in the shared processor pool. So, if you are a iSeries user and your SAPOSCOL is not running, highest probability is that you need to put the latest kernel & saposcol patch. (SAP Note 708136 & 753917)

– Another scenario in iSeries, when your saposcol is not running, and you cannot start it from ST06/OS06. Problem might be with the authorization list R3ADMAUTL was not accurate. You can solve it by this way,

1) Remove QSECOFR *ALL X

2) Change *PUBLIC from *USE to *EXCLUDE

3) Add R3OWNER *ALL X

Now you can start saposcol using the tcode ST06/OS06. And also you can start the process from command line,

CALL PGM(/SAPOSCOL PARM(‘-l’)

If this does not solve the problem check if both programs QPMLPFRD and QPMWKCOL in library QSYS have *USE- authority assigned for user R3OWNER (SAP Note: 175852). If not then you have to run the following commands:

GRTOBJAUT OBJ(QSYS/QPMLPFRD) OBJTYPE(*PGM) USER(R3OWNER) AUT(*USE)

GRTOBJAUT OBJ(QSYS/QPMWKCOL) OBJTYPE(*PGM) USER(R3OWNER) AUT(*USE)

Then you should verify if the user R3OWNER is part of authority list R3ADMAUTL (SAP Note: 637174). After this if you receive the error “SAPOSCOL not running? (Shared memory not available), then follow the steps below,

1) Remove the shared memory (coll.put) as per SAP Note: 189072. ‘coll.put’ location is: ‘/usr/sap/tmp’.

2) End the jobs QPMASERV, QPMACLCT, QYPSPFRCOL and CRTPFRDTA in QSYSWRK if running.

3) Delete the temporary user space, WRKOBJ OBJ(R3400/PERFMISC*) OBJTYPE(*USRSPC)

4) ENDTCPSVR *MGTC

5) CALL QYPSENDC PARM(‘*PFR ‘ ‘ ‘) [There are 6 blanks after *PFR and there are 6 blanks making up the second parameter]

6) ENDJOB JOB(xxxxxx/QSYS/QYPSPFRCOL) OPTION(*IMMED) SPLFILE(*YES) [This command must be run for all QYPSPFRCOL jobs found on the system even if they show with *OUTQ as their status]

7) ENDJOB JOB(xxxxxx/QSYS/CRTPFRDTA) OPTION(*IMMED) SPLFILE(*YES) [This command must be run for all CRTPFRDTA jobs even if they show with *OUTQ as their status]

8) RNMOBJ OBJ(QUSRSYS/QPFRCOLDTA) OBJTYPE(*USRSPC) NEWOBJ(QPFRCOLDTX)

9) RNMOBJ OBJ(QUSRSYS/QPFRCOLDTA) OBJTYPE(*DTAQ) NEWOBJ(QPFRCOLDTX) [This object may or may not exist at this time]

10) CALL QYPSCOLDTA *note This program will create a new *USRSPC. After collection services is started there should be a new *DTAQ.

11) Start collection services using GO PERFORM, opt 2, and opt 1; OR CALL QYPSSTRC PARM(‘*PFR ‘ ‘*STANDARDP’ ‘ ‘) [There are 6 blanks after *PFR and there are 6 blanks making up the second parameter]. Or, Start collection services from Operations Navigator.

12) STRTCPSVR *MGTC

13) End and restart Operations Navigator if running. See IBM authorized program analysis report (APAR) SE12188 for more information.

14) Now start SAPOSCOL from ST06/OS06.

Windows System:

– Go to the Kernel folder in command line where you will find saposcol.exe. Set full owner permission

for the file & folder. Then run saposcol -l (saposcol -d in dialog mode)

– You can also try Start/Stop SAPOSCOL service from Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services (services.msc).

If all other attempts fail, then make sure you have the correct version of SAPOSCOL. Get latest SAPOSCOL from SAP Service Marketplace for your OS. Download the SAPOSCOL.SAR file for your Kernel and save in a directory. Then STOP SAP & SAPOSCOL. Check for any Kernel library locks and don’t forget to take library backup. Then run APYR3FIX and then APYSAP. Check OSS Note 19466.

SAPOSCOL also can be terminated due to small amount of internal memory allocation. When this memory filled gradually during the runtime of SAPOSCOL, system writes data outside the buffer. As a result the following buffer is cleared and SAPOSCOL terminates with a dump. Apply the following patches with at least the patch levels specified below:

SAP Release 640: SAPOSCOL patch level 100 and DW patch level 293

SAP Release 700: SAPOSCOL patch level 75 and DW patch level 151

SAP Release 701: SAPOSCOL patch level 18 and ILE patch level 53

SAP Release 710: SAPOSCOL patch level 36 and ILE patch level 161

SAP Release 711: SAPOSCOL patch level 12 and ILE patch level 48

So, it’s obvious that if we use different SAP Systems in one server with incompatible mixture of Kernel versions, SAPOSCOL will face crisis and will not provide data for all systems, though SAP system functions will run without any trouble. This happens because we are using new IBM technology with EXT Kernels, so it will not allow SAPOSCOL to reside in single level store (SLS), rather than put it to Teraspace. In this situation it’s obvious that if you run an EXT system with some other non-EXT systems, saposcol will run only in one system. To overcome this issue you need to upgrade to EXT Kernel for all SAP systems with latest patches. Then set proper authorization for SAPOSCOL file & directory as guided which will solve any problem related to SAP OS Collector.

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Source by Masudur Rahman

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When we are talking about setting up the IP phone PBX system in our home, the first thing that comes to our mind is where or how to begin. Here, we will discuss at an easy way to turn your home PC into a fully fledged IP phone PBX. Let us first understand what this technology really is.

Installation using the old method:

The old method of installing the asterisk was one of the most awful ways to install the IP phone. Using CLI (command line interface) based interface to do anything is no more a choice, and when we are talking about Linux, that becomes even more painful. This is the single biggest reason why people now think of installing asterisk in their homes nothing short of a nightmare. When this CLI based Linux installation was carried out, it took many dark twists and turns, at the end of the day. There were fundamentally, two teasing things. For a layman, the first one was remembering all those commands and executing them at the right time. Secondly, for installing Linux separately, you also needed to install asterisk, which was nothing short of climbing the Mount Everest.

GUI Based Asterisk:

Now, users do not have to wrestle with the text based command prompt. New packages have included everything in just one CD and you just don’t need to install different software packages in bits and pieces.

There is a GUI based Linux software which solves half the worries related to remembering all the Linux CLI commands. Now ordinary people like you and me can see as well as relate to what is happening on the screen. Secondly, asterisk’s new GUI based version further makes things easy for the users.

They can make all the changes in asterisk through graphic user interface instead of using the command line interface. There are many GUI based asterisk available and most of them are open source like AsteriskNow, Flash in a PBX, and many others.

All these changes have not only made the installation process a lot easier but also reduced the unnecessary headaches which ordinary people had to go through earlier.

We talked about a useless PC on which asterisk work. Anyhow, we will still have a look at the minimum requirements for the computer that can be used for this purpose.

– You need a PC that is x86 with Linux GUI based operating system installed on it.
– The PC should be a minimum Pentium III with 500 MHz of processor.
– There must be one PCI slot available.
– You must have Digium TDM-400P that supports 2 X FXO daughter cards and 2 X FXS daughter cards.
– Your PC must have a sound card installed and working in perfect condition.

Assuming that you already have Linux operating system installed on your PC, we will proceed with the Trixbox installation as this is one of the most common GUI based asterisk in use.

Installing asterisk on your PC using Trixbox

Once you reach the console, login using these details.

Username: root
Password: The one you provided at the time of installation

Once you have successfully been able to log into your system, your system will mention you the DHCP server received IP address. Now you need to give your system a permanent address which you can do by two ways, either through the GUI or by system-config-network.

Upon configuring the IP address you need to restart the service network.

You will need to use your web browser to continue doing the configuration task through the IP that you just assigned.

Now you will need to click on Switch next to User Mode for opening the Admin GUI. Login details provided below.

user: maint
pass: password

Select the Asterisk – PBXconfig from the GUI.

Go to tools – module admin. Here you can select from a list of modules given. Install the ones which you really think of benefit to you.

Now go to setup – extensions – generic sip device to add your first extension.

Now you can enter different phone extensions that you want to use. Many people prefer starting from 200.

What to do next?

Once you have successfully configured all the settings, now you need to have a phone to make and receive calls. But as in this case, you are using your PC. Make sure you have good quality VoIP headset pair with a mic. This will help you make and receive phone calls. Make sure you have enabled voicemail to get the extra benefits. Now you can virtually attach as many phone users as you want. Just make sure to correctly configure it in your GUI based asterisk and do not forget to assign an extension to each new phone user added. The extension would be unique which can only be assigned to one phone user.

Enjoy managing a big network of phones with secure OS like Linux run by asterisk. There does involve some hard work but at the end. You will not need to invest that much amount of money or effort.

To reduce the cost of the whole process and increase the joys, make sure that you have a reliable internet phone service like Vonage, Axvoice or Skype at the backend.

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Source by Ricky Lim

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1. Introduction

The IBM iSeries computers, still commonly known as AS/400 systems use the successful IBM DB2 database to store and access data which are organised into files with the following characteristics:

• They are structured in data fields which usually have a fixed length and type
• They have external data definitions which can be used by application programs
• Numeric data can be stored in packed format where each digit is stored in a semibyte.
• Data are coded in EBCDIC

Other systems such as Linux/Unix and Windows use files which are just a sequence of bytes (normally coded in ASCII) and therefore are known as stream files. Often their fields have not a fixed length and are delimited by a special field delimiter character such as a semicolon, a colon or a pipe (field delimited files are often produced by exporting data originally stored in spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel or databases such as Microsoft Access).

It is often necessary or useful to transfer files between the IBM iSeries (AS/400) and PCs and Linux/Unix systems, but the different file organisations described above often make such transfers complicated and painful.

This article described some approaches to simplify the work.

2. IBM useful commands

The IBM AS/400 uses an integrated file system (IFS) that allows to use on the same server different file organisations such as those used by Linux/Unix or Windows and the native AS/400 ones. The native AS/400 files are stored in libraries or DB2 collections within the QSYS.LIB. Other file systems exist in the QOpenSys (similar to Unix) or the QDLS (used to store documents and files in PC formats) environments.

The IFS allows to use on the same server Linux/Unix based applications together with the native AS/400 applications.

The AS/400 Operating system provides some useful commands to simplify the data interchanges between different file systems as described below:

• CPYFRMIMPF to copy data from IFS to the AS/400 database system
• CPYTOIMPF to copy data from the AS/400 database system to IFS
• CPYFRMSTMF to copy stream files into AS/400 database files
• CPYTPSTMF to copy AS/400 database files to stream files
• CPYTOPCD to copy AS/400 database files to PC documents, stored in the QDLS folders
• CPYFRMPCD to copy PC documents in the QDLS folders into AS/400 database files

The CPYTOPCD and CPYFRMPCD commands are specific for the QDLS system and have not many options whereas the other ones allow to use many options and are more flexible. They look similar, but there are important differences as follows:

CPYFRMSTMF converts text files (stream files that are in text format) to physical files. It has no concept of fields, so it can only write records to program described files (i.e. files that have no fields defined) or source pfs.

CPYFRMIMPF converts text files as well, but it tries to interpret fields in the input file and copy them to the appropriate fields in the output file. You can either import delimited fields (for example, comma separated value (CSV) files, tab-delimited files, pipe delimited files, etc) or you can read input from fixed-position fields (you have to define the record layout in a “field definition file”)

An example of the second command is the following:

CPYFRMIMPF FROMSTMF(‘/Fldr1/File1.CSV’) TOFILE(Lib1/FILE3) MBROPT (*REPLACE) RCDDLM(*CRLF) DTAFMT(*FIXED) FLDDFNFILE(Lib1/FILE4)

The example above uses a fixed data format (i.e. not delimited) and uses a field definition file (FILE4) to describe the text file fields as follows:

– This is comment

– DBFieldname startpos endpos nullIndpos

field1 1 12 13

field2 14 24 0

field3 25 55 56

field4 78 89 90

field5 100 109 0

field6 110 119 120

field7 121 221 0

*END

The above would be needed to import the text file data into a DB file with field names of: FIELD1, FIELD2, FIELD3,…, and FIELD7. The *END is required. I think you can leave off the third column if no fields are null capable.

3. Some User Utilities

The commands above are useful and normally perfectly adequate, but they can be complex especially when the data fields to be copied are not in the same sequence or when one wants to extract only some data from the text file.

I was involved in a few system migration exercises where such copies between Unix, PCs and AS/400 systems had to be done frequently and I developed therefore some utilities to simplify these activities.

The utilities have the objective to satisfy following requirements:

• Support of any separator character used to delimiter the fields
• Possibility to copy valid data into fields defined as alphanumeric, numeric or packed numeric
• Possibility to copy data stored in different sequences in the two files. For instance it should be possible to copy fields 1, 3,4 and 6 of the text file into the fields 5, 2, 1 and 4 of the target database file.
• The utility should be able to store the file fields mappings (such as those described above) to allow the user to simply use the previously entered mapping.

I organised the utilities in a few commands and programs as follows:

a) Command UCPYFTP to control the copy between two files. The command requires to enter following parameters:

AS400 DB File . . . . . . . . . TOFILE …….

AS400 Library . . . . . . . . . TOLIB *LIBL

AS400 Member . . . . . . . . . . TOMBR *FIRST

FTP File . . . . . . . . . . . . FROMFILE …….

FTP Library . . . . . . . . . . FROMLIB …….

Field Separator #T=TAB] . . . . SEPARATOR ‘|’

Decimal Point . . . . . . . . . DECPOINT ‘.’

View Field Mappings (Y/N) . . . VIEWMAP ‘N’

Up to Record No. . . . . . . . . UPTOREC 0

b) Program UFMA01L to display and maintain existing file mappings.

The display looks as follows:

UFMAP30 MAPPING FILE MAINTENANCE 20/02/09 10:03:38

AS400 Database File: WERCSWKF FTP File: WERCS

Seq AS400 Fld Description Type Len D From

No. Name FldN

1 WK0003 WK_CLIENTE A 9 3

2 WK0004 WK_CLI_SAP A 10 4

3 WK0005 WK_RAGSOC A 40 5

4 WK0006 WK_ZIP A 5 9

5 WK0016 WK_ADDRESS1 A 100 17

6 WK0017 WK_ADDRESS2 A 100 19

7 WK0101 WK_INDI A 30 0

8 WK0102 WK_CAP A 5 0

9 WK0103 WK_LOC A 25 0

10 WK0104 WK_PROV A 2 0

Fine

F3=Exit F6=Update Mappings F9=Use sequential mapping F11=Process

The screen shows that field number 3 of the FTP file is copied to the first field of the database file called WK0003, field 4 is copied to WK0004 and so on. The fields for which the number is zero are not copied, but are initialised correctly in the target file (with zeros or blanks).

Notice following points:

• The file to be copied is called FTP file because normally is sent to the AS/400 by using an FTP transfer.
• The user must specify the name and library of both the FTP file and the target AS/400 database file.
• The commands use some defaults for the field separator and decimal point, but these can be changed by the user.
• When the View Field Mappings parameter is set to ‘Y’, the user will see previously defined field mappings or enter new mappings.
• When the user invokes the command for the first time on a new couple of ftp and target files, the program extracts the field definitions of the database file and displays the mapping screen to allow the user to enter the field mappings which are then stored to allow a future re-use.

A similar utility called UCPYTOFTP allows to copy the data from an AS/400 database file to a text file to be downloaded to a Linux/Unix or Windows machine.

The Utilities and their documentation can be downloaded for free from my website. The programs are free software that can be redistributed and/or modified it under the terms of the GNU General Public Licence as published by the Free Software Foundation.

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Source by Mario Pesce

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We will be focusing on creating this masterpiece in the Windows environment, but don’t worry the same principles can be used in any operating system that can run Virtual Box.

List of Software and Hardware needed:

Software:

-Virtual Box and Extension Pack

-Windows 7 or higher PC or most any Linux Distro

-Redo Backup and Recovery ISO

-YUMI installer

Hardware:

-USB flash drive

-USB hard drive

The overall benefits of performing this procedure is three fold. One, cost savings on power, climate control and space required will be seen instantly. Two, manageability and scalability dramatically increases due to working with virtual disks and virtual networks that can scaled up or down with finer grained control. Three, redundancy and faster disaster recovery that is provided by cloud services. Especially when tied into your already existing network infrastructure for a seamless transition when disaster strikes.

While this process can be completed in numerous ways with different software, this is the way that I am familiar with and all the tools needed are free.

Sounds daunting? No sweat, but where do we start first?

Well, we need to get an image of the physical machine onto removable media (USB hard drive). I recommend a USB hard drive vs. just a USB flash drive due to the space the image will take up. We will also need a USB flash drive at least 2 GB in size to use as a bootable media for Redo Backup and Recovery.

Plug the USB hard drive into your USB port and open up the folder structure. Create a folder in a location that you can remember I.e D:”Your Computer’s Name”. This is the location where we will install the files from our initial physical image copy to. After this is complete, eject your USB hard drive by right clicking on the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in your taskbar and click on Eject “whatever your USB hard drive is named”, unplug the USB HDD.

Next, we need to create a bootable USB to load Redo Backup and Recovery on. Download a small program called “YUMI”. YUMI will create a bootable USB flash drive for Redo Backup and Recovery on it. Also grab a copy of Redo Backup and Recovery, save both files to your desktop or location of choice.

Now, run YUMI and choose your USB flash drive from the list (Remember to choose your USB drive and not your USB HDD that should be unplugged anyway!). Choose “Redo Backup and Recovery” from the software list that you can create an installer for. Click the “Browse” button to look for the Redo Backup and Recovery.iso to include on the install. Finally click on “create” to start the bootable Redo Backup and Recovery bootable USB creation process. When this is done, YUMI will ask you if you want to add any more distros, just say “no”. Eject your USB out of the computer using the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in your taskbar and click on Eject “whatever your USB flash drive is named” and unplug the USB flash drive. Please keep Redo Backup and Recovery.iso we will need it later.

Make sure that the physical computer that you would like to virtualize is in a powered down state, if not please power down the computer. Insert only the USB flash drive into the computer. Power up the computer and press the correct key to access to boot menu or make sure that the USB drive is set to boot before the computers internal hard drive. Choose the USB entry to boot from, YUMI should now load. Choose the entry for “Tools” then “Redo Backup and Recovery”. Press enter on the Redo menu to start the mini recovery O/S. When Redo Backup and Recovery is loaded, insert your USB HDD and give it about 20 seconds.

Open Redo Backup and Recovery Software:

1. Choose “Backup”

2. Choose your disk to backup (your physical computer’s disk)

3. Choose your partitions to backup (typically it would be all partitions and MBR)

4. On the “Destination Drive” screen choose “Connected directly to my computer” and click browse.

5. Locate the file folder we made earlier I.e D:”Your Computer’s Name” click OK.

6. Choose a name for the disk image. I will usually choose the date, click next. The backup process will take anywhere from 1 hr to 3 hrs depending on hard drive capacity and computer speed.

Congratulations, at this point you have made a full backup of your physical machine. Please click “Close” on the Redo and Recovery Backup program and choose the power button in the bottom right corner of your screen. Select “Shutdown” and let the computer shutdown. Remove both USB flash drive and USB HDD and boot up any computer that has Windows 7 or higher installed on it.

Now, lets turn that physical machine into a virtual machine!

Open up Virtual Box and choose “New”. Give your Virtual Machine a name and choose the type of virtual machine it will be as well as the version. Choose your memory size, I usually a lot 2 GB=2048 MB if I plan on running it on a machine that has 4 GB of ram physically installed. Create a new hard drive, choose VHD as the hard drive file type, click next. Choose “Dynamically allocated” for the storage, click next. Give your VHD hard drive a name, I will usually name it by whats running on it, hence name it what you named your computer. Make the VHD hard drive large enough to store your operating system, I will usually choose 200GB to be on the safe side. Again this depends on how big your physical machine’s data was. You are now returned to the Virtual Box Manager screen with your new VM present. Make sure your Virtual Box extension has been installed. Obtain the extension for your software version and install it like so:

In Virtual Box, click File–>Preferences–>Extensions–>Add Package–>Locate extension file and select it. It will be automatically installed.

Prepare the conversion! Use only Option A or Option B:

Option A: If you can get USB support working in Virtual Box:

Make sure that you have installed the extension pack and setup USB access properly, if you are having some troubles, refer to the Virtual Box document here:

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#idp55342960

In Virtual Box, click on your VM name and choose “Settings” at the top, choose “Storage”. Click on the empty CD/DVD icon and then the CD/DVD icon on the right under “Attributes” and select your Redo Backup and Recovery ISO and click “OK”. At this point you have the Redo Backup and Recovery.iso at the ready and a blank VHD to install to. All you need to do now is insert your USB hard drive and skip over Option B because you do not need to perform it.

Option B: If you cannot get USB support to work in Virtual Box. No problem, its what happened to me so I found a way around it.

In Virtual Box, click on your VM name and choose “Settings” at the top, choose “Storage”, choose “Add hard disk” next to Controller:Sata or Controller:IDE whatever you have. Choose “Create new disk”, choose VHD and again make it 200GB Dynamically allocated and name it “Installer”. Underneath “Storage Tree” click on the empty CD/DVD icon and then the CD/DVD icon on the right under “Attributes” and select your Redo Backup and Recovery ISO and click “OK”. At this point you have the Redo Backup and Recovery.iso at the ready and a blank VHD which is named after your computer and another black VHD named Installer. Now close Virtual Box and right click on “Computer” and choose “Manage”. Left click on “Disk Management” then right click on “Disk Management” again and choose “Attach VHD”. Browse for the location of your Installer VHD that you created in Virtual Box, usually in the “My Documents” folder and click okay. Now you can copy the physical computer backup image that we took earlier from D:”Your Computer’s Name” to Installer VHD. After the contents have been copied, right click on computer management again and click on “Detach VHD”. Open up Virtual Box and proceed to the next step.

Lets Convert This Thing!

Once you have either USB support or the Installer VHD setup and the Redo Backup and Recovery ISO mounted. Press “Start” on your VM name in Virtual Box. You will be met the familiar Redo Backup and Recovery boot menu, press enter to proceed. Launch the Backup and Recovery program if it did not start automatically. Choose “Restore”. In a nutshell, you will choose where your Image backup is “The Source Drive” (your USB HDD or Installer VHD if applicable) and where to install the image (blank VHD named after your computer). After you have chosen to install into the blank VHD, confirm the prompt to overite any data and let the recovery process begin. After this is finished, click close and shutdown Backup and Recovery as you did before. The VM should stop running. Click on “Settings” from the Virtual Box Manager and unmount the Backup and Recovery ISO and the Installer VHD if applicable. Leave your VHD with the name of your computer or whatever you named it and click on “OK” to go back to the Virtual Box Manager. Click on “Start”, you should now be looking at a fully virtualized version of your physical computer!

Celebrate the many uses of this power little VHD!

You can transport this VHD and include it in any Virtual Box VM instance or even VMware if you are so inclined. You can run it on your local premises or deploy it in the cloud. A cloud instance of this VM would either require running Virtual Box on your cloud computing instance, or running it natively in your cloud computing space if the hosting provider supports it.

Common Gotchas and Troubleshooting:

Q: When trying to run my Linux based virtual machine, I get ” not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0) “?

A: This is because in the backup and recovery process all the entries for hda##, hdb## and so forth have been converted to sda## extc. First, copy your precious VHD so you won’t lose your work if something goes wrong. Then all you will have to do is mount Backup and Recovery ISO, start your VM again and bring up a terminal session. Mount the Root partition and edit the entries in GRUB or Lilo to the proper boot device. For example: in GRUB, the entries are included in menu.Ist and fstab. In Lilo they are included in /etc/lilo.config and then /sbin/lilo -v to write the changes.

Q: When trying to run my Windows based virtual machine I get a boot error?

A: Obtain a copy or a Windows disc and mount it inside of Virtual Box making sure it is set to boot first. Choose the “Repair” option. Choose “Start Up Repair” and let it run. If this does not do the trick, go back into the “Repair” option and choose “Command Prompt”. Try these commands one at a time, shutting down and unmounting the Windows disc each time to check if the problem has been corrected:

bootrec.exe /FixMbr. Then restart to see if resolved. If no result, try:

bootrec.exe /FixBoot. Then restart to see if resolved. If no result, try:

bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd. Then restart to see if resolved. If no result, try:

You may have to remove your BCD folder by running these commands one line at a time without quotes:

“bcdedit /export C:BCD_Backup

c: <—- Only if your Windows installation is installed on C:

cd boot

attrib bcd -s -h -r

ren c:bootbcd bcd.old

bootrec /RebuildBcd”

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Source by David T Goodwin

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Whether you work at an accounting firm, a marketing company, an auto dealership, a school attendance office, a manufacturing plant’s human resources department, or an office associated with city, county, state or federal government, chances are, you’ll be called upon to use and learn Excel.

Just about every workplace has a demand for Excel, the computing world’s most commonly used software program for comparative data analysis. Excel has been available in various incarnations for more than a decade. Each subsequent release takes the program to new territory.

Popularly known as the best spreadsheet program on the market, Excel is powerful, easy to use, and remarkably efficient. Excel is highly interactive. Its spreadsheet cells are arranged in a collection of rows and columns, each of which can hold a number, a text string, or a formula that performs a function, such as calculation. It’s easy to copy and move cells as well as modify formulas. The spreadsheet is displayed on the computer screen in a scrollable window that allows the document to be as deep or as wide as required.

Working for a major newspaper in Northern California, I was one of several reporters involved in the annual evaluation of our county’s economy. The job involved collecting data that would be punched into Excel spreadsheets that ultimately ranked information according to the category of statistics being reviewed.

The beauty of Excel, from the standpoint of newspaper research projects, is that you can use formulas to recalculate results by changing any of the cells they use. With this model, you can use the same spreadsheet data to achieve various results by simply defining and changing formulas as desired. It is this feature that makes Excel so useful in so many different arenas.

With a click of the mouse, we reporters were able to get answers to a wide variety of questions. Which employers had the greatest number of workers? Which ones had the highest amount of gross annual receipts? Which ones appeared to be growing and which ones had declining sales? What was the volume of real estate loans and had there been a decline or increase from the previous year?

We looked at local and national retail, services, financial institutions, government entities, agriculture, the wine industry, tourism and hospitality, manufacturing, residential and commercial real estate, everything imaginable.

Excel allowed us to examine ratios, percentages, and anything else we wanted to scrutinize. Finally, we were able to use Excel to compare the results to data from previous years.

Since reporters tend to be former English majors, most of those who worked on this annual project were more familiar with Microsoft Word than any other software program. Therefore, most were required to undergo Excel training. For some, learning Excel was easier than for others. A few relied on guides such as Microsoft Excel Bible. Some reporters underwent an Excel tutorial while others learned by doing.

Not only were the Excel spreadsheets crucial to the research, the format of each was published in the newspaper. Here is where some additional Excel functions came into play. Editors were able to make the spreadsheets more visually appealing by using colors and shading, borders and lines, and other features that made the spreadsheets easy for readers to decipher.

Wearing another of my several hats in the newsroom, I often wrote articles concerning the local job market. I found proficiency in Excel was a requirement for a wide variety of employment positions and that area recruiting firms offered their clients opportunities to take free or low-cost Excel tutorials in preparation for the workplace. Most employers expect job candidates to already know the software that the work will require and don’t want to have to train new hires.

Don’t kid yourself. If you’re seeking any kind of office work, you’ll need to know not only Microsoft Word but also Excel.

Excel and Microsoft are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, registered in the U.S. and other countries.

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Source by Sheri Graves

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PCI DSS Requirement 10 calls for a full audit trail of all activity for all devices and users, and specifically requires all event and audit logs to be gathered centrally and securely backed up. The thinking here is twofold.

Firstly, as a pro-active security measure, the PCI DSS requires all logs to be reviewed on a daily basis (yes – you did read that correctly – Review ALL logs DAILY – we shall return to this potentially overwhelming burden later…) requires the Security Team to become more intimate with the daily ‘business as usual’ workings of the network. This way, when a genuine security threat arises, it will be more easily detected through unusual events and activity patterns.

The second driver for logging all activity is to give a ‘black box’ recorded audit trail so that if a cyber crime is committed, a forensic analysis of the activity surrounding the security incident can be conducted. At best, the perpetrator and the extent of their wrongdoing can be identified and remediated. At worst – lessons can be learned from the attack so that processes and/or technological security defenses can be improved. Of course, if you are a PCI Merchant reading this, then your main driver is that this is a mandatory PCI DSS requirement – so we should get moving!

Which Devices are within scope of PCI Requirement 10? Same answer as to which devices are within scope of the PCI DSS as a whole – anything involved with handling or with access to card data is within scope and we there for need to capture an audit trail from each of them. The most critical devices are the firewall, servers with settlement or transaction files and any Domain Controller for the PCI Estate, although all ‘in scope’ devices must be covered without exception.

How do we get Event Logs from ‘in scope’ PCI devices?

We’ll take them in turn –

How do I get PCI Event Logs from Firewalls? –the exact command set varies between manufacturers and firewall versions but you will need to enable ‘logging’ via either the Firewall Web interface or the Command Line. Taking a typical example – a Cisco ASA – the CLI command sequence is as follows logging on no logging console no logging monitor logging a.b.c.d (where a.b.c.d is the address of your syslog server) logging trap informational This will make sure all ‘Informational’ level and above messages are forwarded to the syslog server and guarantee all logon and log off events are captured.

How do I get PCI Audit Trails from Windows Servers and EPoS/Tills? – There are a few more steps required for Windows Servers and PCs/EPoS devices. First of all it is necessary to make sure that logon and logoff events, privilege use, policy change and, depending on your application and how card data is handled, object access. Use the Local Security Policy You may also wish to enable System Event logging if you want to use your SIEM system to help troubleshoot and pre-empt system problems e.g. a failing disk can be preempted before complete failure by spotting disk errors. Typically we will need Success and Failure to be logged for each Event –

• Account Logon Events- Success and Failure
• Account Management Events- Success and Failure
• Directory Service Access Events- Failure
• Logon Events- Success and Failure
• Object Access Events- Success and Failure
• Policy Change Events- Success and Failure
• Privilege Use Events- Failure
• Process Tracking- No Auditing
• System Events- Success and Failure

* Directory Service Access Events available on a Domain Controller only

 

** Object Access – Used in conjunction with Folder and File Auditing. Auditing Failures reveals attempted access to forbidden secure objects which may be an attempted security breach. Auditing Success is used to give an Audit Trail of all access to secured date, such as, card data in a settlement/transaction file/folder.

*** Process Tracking – not recommended as this will generate a large number of events. Better to use a specialized whitelisting/blacklisting technology l

**** System Events – Not required for PCI DSS compliance but often used to provided extra ‘added value’ from a PCI DSS initiative, providing early warning signs of problems with hardware and so pre-empt system failures. Once events are being audited, they then need to be relayed back to your central syslog server. A Windows Syslog agent program will automatically bind into the Windows Event logs and send all events via syslog. The added benefit of an agent like this is that events can be formatted into standard syslog severity and facility codes and also pre-filtered. It is vital that events are forwarded to the secure syslog server in real-time to ensure they are backed up before there is any opportunity to clear the local server event log.

Unix/Linux Servers– Enable logging using the syslogd daemon which is a standard part of all UNIX and Linux Operating Systems such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS and Ubuntu. Edit the /etc/syslog.conf file and enter details of the syslog server.

For example, append the following line to the /etc/syslog.conf file

*.* @(a.b.c.d)

Or if using Solaris or other System 5-type UNIX

*.debug @a.b.c.d

*.info @ a.b.c.d

*.notice @ a.b.c.d

*.warning @ a.b.c.d

*.err @ a.b.c.d

*.crit @ a.b.c.d

*.alert @ a.b.c.d

*.emerg @ a.b.c.d

Where a.b.c.d is the IP address of the targeted syslog server.

If you need to collect logs from a third-party application eg Oracle, then you may need to use specialized Unix Syslog agent which allows third-party log files to be relayed via syslog.

Other Network Devices Routers and Switches within the scope of PCI DSS will also need to be configured to send events via syslog. As was detailed for firewalls earlier, syslog is an almost universally supported function for all network devices and appliances. However, in the rare case that syslog is not supported, SNMP traps can be used provided the syslog server being used can receive and interpret SNMP traps.

PCI DSS Requirement 10.6 “Review logs for all system components at least daily” We have now covered how to get the right logs from all devices within scope of the PCI DSS but this is often the simpler part of handling Requirement 10. The aspect of Requirement 10 which often concerns PCI Merchants the most is the extra workload they expect by now being responsible for analyzing and understanding a potentially huge volume of logs. There is often a ‘out of sight, out of mind’ philosophy, or a ‘if we can’t see the logs, then we can’t be responsible for reviewing them’ mindset, since if logs are made visible and placed on the screen in front of the Merchant, there is no longer any excuse for ignoring them.

Tellingly, although the PCI DSS avoids being prescriptive about how to deliver against the 12 requirements, Requirement 10 specifically details “Log harvesting, parsing, and alerting tools may be used to meet compliance with Requirement 10.6”. In practice it would be an extremely manpower-intensive task to review all event logs in even a small-scale environment and an automated means of analyzing logs is essential.

However, when implemented correctly,this will become so much more than simply a tool to help you cope with the inconvenient burden of the PCI DSS. An intelligent Security Information and Event Management system will be hugely beneficial to all troubleshooting and problem investigation tasks. Such a system will allow potential problems to be identified and fixed before they affect business operations. From a security standpoint, by enabling you to become ‘intimate’ with the normal workings of your systems, you are then well-placed to spot truly unusual and potentially significant security incidents.

For more information go to http://www.newnettechnologies.com

All material is copyright New Net Technologies Ltd.

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Source by Mark Kedgley

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This article will describe setting up a system that will utilize a lightweight command line (CLI) install of Linux (Ubuntu in this example) to capture RS232 (serial) information, capture it and upload it to an ftp server.

This is useful for applications including data collection from sensors or other serial devices such as amateur packet radio – and will utilize the data on a web site or other remote machine.

The process will involve starting the program ‘screen’ and ‘minicom’ when the machine starts up. The ‘screen’ output will be captured to text file. This text file will be sent up to an ftp server using ‘lftp’, scheduled via a ‘cron’ job.

This article will not cover installing a command line Linux such as Ubuntu minimal – it is assumed you have a functional system. When the machine starts up, it should start a detached ‘screen’ session, starting minicom (terminal program) within – logging the screen output to file.

To install screen and minicom, use: sudo apt-get install screen minicom

Verify your minicom settings

Run: sudo minicom -r, and set the default port and clear out the init strings since the startup script runs as root. Ctrl-A o, set to ttyS0, 1200 (or the appropriate other baud rate). Note that I also had to edit sudo nano /etc/minicom/minirc.dfl to get it working properly — even though I did sudo minicom -r — contents of my file:

# Machine-generated file – use “minicom -s” to change parameters.

pr port /dev/ttyS0

Get screen to auto-start at boot and run minicom:

In /etc/init.d, create a startup script: sudo nano /etc/init.d/startHAM

contents:

#!/bin/sh

/usr/bin/screen -d -m -L /usr/bin/minicom

modify the file so it will run at startup:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/startHAM

sudo update-rc.d startHAM defaults 80

—

I could not get logging to work by passing “-L”, so edit the file: sudo nano /etc/screenrc

log on

It is recommended your reboot after editing these files. After you reboot you can see if it is working by typing sudo screen -r to resume the screen session – you should be in minicom and should be able to see/type to your TNC (or device).

If that works, you can check the log file – mine is saved to the root. nano /screenlog.0

You can tail it to watch in real time anything written to the log: tail -f /screenlog.0

You may want to sudo screen -r, press return / mheard, etc. (for a packet modem) to generate some text, then ctrl-a d (detach) and then nano /screenlog.0 and go to the end – sometimes the control characters may hide output, but it is really there.

Now you have screen and minicom starting at startup and all the screen output is being save to the screenlog.0 file.

Uploading the screenlog.0 file to your web site ftp server:

The program lftp can be used to synchronize files to an ftp server (your web host). To install lftp, type: sudo apt-get install lftp

Create an lftp script file “SyncHAM.txt” in your home directory: sudo nano SyncHAM.txt

Contents:

open ftp: //username:password@mywebhostaddress.com

mput -O /public_html/myhostbasepath /screenlog.0

-O is the base path on the web host, after that is the path to the file to be sent (screenlog).

note the ssl-allow no is optional if you host does not support ssl, the -R means reverse – send the file UP to ftp.

To test it, type sudo lftp SyncHAM.txt

Setup Cron Job

edit the file: sudo nano /etc/cron.daily/hamsync

contents:

#!/bin/sh

lftp -f /home/cmate/SyncHAM.txt

echo “done with SyncHAM.txt”

make it executable:

sudo chmod +x hamsync

Be sure to reboot the machine. You should now have a functional system to capture the serial data and upload it daily to the ftp server.

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Source by Scott Szretter

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This tutorial can also help to do it on other computer brands

Disclaimer : First of all you must be aware that some of the operations to come can cause irreversible change on your hard disk, I recommend to you and I will never make it enough make a backup of your system before launching you in any hazardous operation. Any damage and/or modification done on your system will be under your whole responsibility. The following procedures were done on a Acer Aspire 5102wlmi and some also functioned on a Dell Inspiron 9400/1705.

As you know, the Acer computers and those of other manufacturers are now delivered with a system of restoration installed in a hidden partition of your hard disk. This system launches out while pressing keys ALT+F10 simultaneously. And sometimes for various reasons this system ceases functioning.

The first cause often comes owing to the fact that function D2D Recovery is disable in the bios (menu principal).

The solution : enable the function and try to press keys ALT+F10 during the starting of the computer.

The second cause : in this case hidden partition PQSERVICE was erased or damaged, or you replaced the disc and in this case it is not present.

The solution : If you did not previously make a backup of your system by making an image disc. It will not be possible to use the D2D recovery. Your only hope will be to have in your possession Acer Recovery CD/DVD.

And the third causes : the Acer Master Boot Record (MBR)was damaged or replaced by non-Acer MBR. As long as partition PQSERVICE is present or that you can put the hand on the necessary Acer files you can reinstall the MBR of Acer.

The solution :

First method : on a functional Windows system:

1 disable the D2D recovery option of the bios.

2 open a Windows session with an account administrator.

3 Download, unzip and launch partedit32(registration required for download).

4 Identify the Pqservice partition by its size (at the bottom of the partedit window there is a partition information box) it is a small sized partition approximately 2 to 6 Go.Once made change the type of your partition into 0C and save. Restart and open a session with an administrator account, you should be able to navigate to the PQservice partition. Seek these two files mbrwrdos.exe and rtmbr.bin once localised open a command prompt and launch this command mbrwrdos.exe install rtmbr.bin, this will install the Acer MBR. Close the command prompt window restart again Windows go into the bios and reactivate the D2D recovery. Now ALT+F10 should launch Acer recovery at the starting of the computer.

Second method : On a nonfunctional Windows system.

For that you must use a Linux distribution (for me Mandriva provided all the tools necessary).

1 Boot on the Mandriva install CD/DVD the boot menu will give you the possibility to repair or to restore the Windows boot loader.

2 If that is not enough launch an installation of linux(this will be an occasion to test this terrible OS) and choose LILO as boot loader(a boot menu that allow you to choose between several operating systems) once finished the installation. Restart your computer in the boot loader menu system you will have at least 2 Windows options the first generally point to PQservice choose it and you will boot directly into acer D2D recovery.

The last solution is the simplest one, just note that during the Linux installation you will have to resize your Windows partition to create a place for a new Linux partition it is the most perilous part because irreversible, therefore take your precautions at this time.

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Source by Alan Bradock

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Install FreeBSD, or use an existing FreeBSD installation, and follow these steps:

1) First, you need to prepare and format your USB stick:

fdisk -BI /dev/da0
bsdlabel -B -w da0s1
newfs -U -O1 /dev/da0s1a
boot0cfg -v -B da0
(“-U -O1” [“O” like in Olympus, not zero] is for UFS1 which provides much faster copying than UFS2; if you decide for UFS2, type “-U -O2” – but expect that the copying will be slower)

2) Then mount it: mount /dev/da0s1a /usb
3) Copy all directories (FreeBSD) to the stick
4) After copying, modify the /usb/boot/loader.conf (explained below)
5) In the /boot directory on your USB stick you must have MFS (Memory File System – mfsroot.gz), which you will make (instructions are below)
6) Modify your /etc/fstab in MFS and put the following line (only) there:
/dev/md0 / ufs rw 0 0
7) After you boot your computer with the stick, you will be in the MFS environment from which you will mount your USB stick with mount_nullfs (described below)

Modification of /boot/loader.conf on your USB stick

You must have the following lines in your /boot/loader.conf (some lines are optional):

mfsroot_load=”YES”
mfsroot_type=”mfs_root”
mfsroot_name=”/boot/mfsroot”
nullfs_load=”YES”
splash_bmp_load=”YES”
vesa_load=”YES”
geom_uzip_load=”YES”
geom_label_load=”YES”
bitmap_load=”YES”
bitmap_name=”/boot/splash.bmp”
snd_driver_load=”YES”
kern.maxfiles=”25000″
kern.maxusers=”64″
vfs.root.mountfrom=”/dev/md0″

# Additional filesystem drivers

udf_load=”YES”
linux_load=”YES”
fuse_load=”YES”
ntfs_load=”YES”
ext2fs_load=”YES”
reiserfs_load=”YES”

Making your own MFS

FreeBSD, after the kernel boots, can use the root file system in memory (mfsroot_load=”YES” command in /boot/loader.conf will do the trick). To build such a memory file system, type the command:
dd if = /dev/zero of = mfsroot bs = 1024k count = 42

The mfsroot file of about 40 MB in size will be created. You need to format it, mount it and copy the most important files into it from your FreeBSD system (/bin, /sbin, /etc, /root….):

mdconfig -a -f mfsroot md0
newfs /dev/md0
mount /dev/md0 /mnt

Once copied, you must unmount it and gzip it: gzip mfsroot

Optionally, you can chroot it to see if everything works, then copy the mfsroot.gz to /usb/boot onto your USB flash drive (or disk). If you think it may be a problem to pick the most important files for your MFS (from your FreeBSD installation), search for mfsbsd in Google and either use its toolset or the MFS image alone (contained in the downloadable ISO of mfsbsd).

After booting from the USB stick (you will jump into MFS), you must mount the physical USB stick:

/sbin/mount -o ro /dev/da0s1a /usb
/sbin/mount_nullfs /usb/boot /boot
/sbin/mount_nullfs /usb/usr /usr

The above commands will help you use the big /usr directory on your USB stick instead of the /usr dir in MFS. mount_nullfs /usb/boot /boot is optional, as in your MFS/boot directory only the following files are needed for the little MFS to boot (/boot/kernel directory in MFS): geom_label.ko, geom_uzip.ko, zlib.ko a their debug symbols (zlib.ko.symbols, etc.). By mounting the /usb/boot dir via mount_nullfs into the /boot directory in your MFS you will be able to load kernel modules.

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Source by Juraj Sipos