Daily backup of Cisco router to ftp server

Today’s job was to configure a daily backup of our Cisco routers configuration to an FTP server. The setup we have here are a number of Cisco ADSL routers connected to head office via a IPSEC VPNs.

The good news is you do not need to purchase utilities or software.

1. If the router is remote to the ftp server you will  most likely need to tell the router which interface to use (for us it is BVI1).

router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
router(config)#ip ftp source-interface BVI1
router(config)#exit

2.  Create a policy-list, backup_ftp is just the name of the policy and following are the commands to run.

router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
router(config)#kron policy-list backup_ftp
router(config-kron-policy)#cli show run | redirect ftp://192.168.5.190/router-confs/router.cfg
router(config-kron-policy)#exit
router(config)#exit
router#

3. Tell the router when to run and what polices to run (5:00AM every day).

router#conf t
Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z.
router(config)#kron occurrence daily_backup at 5:00 recurring
router(config-kron-occurrence)#policy-list backup_ftp
router(config-kron-occurrence)#exit
router(config)#exit
router#wr
Building configuration…
[OK]
router#

Hope it helps someone.

By • Cisco, IT • 0

Setup a Current Cost EnviR energy monitor to upload to pvoutput.org

I wanted to setup my Current Cost EnviR energy monitor to upload to pvoutput.org. I already have my solar generation uploading. It took a while to get it working because I could not find a few small pieces of information that I needed.

I could not find out what software pulled the data from the EnviR and created the log files for pvoutput integration service. It turned out that pvoutput integration service does this you just need to configure it.

One piece of vital information that was missing (or I could not find it) you need to create a folder for the EnviR log files (like c:/logs/CC) otherwise the pvoutput integration service will not start and you will see this below in pvoutput\logs\pvoutput.log

Startup Error: Number of directories must match number of formats

pvoutput.ini

dir=c:/logs/xantrex,c:/logs/CC

format=xantrex,currentcost

currentcost.ini

All I changed was the com port to 10 (one the EnviR using).

 

By • Solar • 1

Adobe reader install on Terminal Server

I had an outstanding job to update Adobe Reader 9 on a Windows 2003 Terminal Server.

Here are the steps I took.

1. Apply for a free Adobe Reader distribution license
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/distribution.html?readstep

2. Download the setup file from Adobe
http://get.adobe.com/reader/enterprise/
or from ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/10.x/

3. Download Adobe Customization Wizard
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4950

4. Download the Acrobat Enterprise Administration Guide this will be a reference and explain all the options in detail
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/837/cpsid_83709/attachments/Acrobat_Enterprise_Administration.pdf

5. Extract the redistribution package
Open a command prompt and type or paste the below (I saved the download to C:\Adobe)
The command below will extract all the files to C:\Adobe\Extract
C:\Adobe>AdbeRdr1014_en_US.exe -sfx_ne -sfx_o”C:\Adobe\Extract”

6. Make a AIP (Administrative Installation Point) what is an AIP? uncompressed setup files
msiexec /a AcroRead.msi

7. Patch the AIP with the latest update that came with the download package (in the Extract folder).
msiexec /a C:\Adobe\AIP\AcroRead.msi /p C:\Adobe\Extract\AdbeRdrUpd1014.msp

8. Install Adobe Customization Wizard
This will allow you to make a custom install MST file to control what settings your users have in Adobe Reader.

Note;  setup.ini was not there when I made the AIP.  You may need to modifying the extract folder msi then copy it.

9.  Install with MST

Note; options /i = install /qb = Displays a basic user interface TRANSFORMS= custom settings MST file

E:\Adobe\Extract>msiexec /i AcroRead.msi TRANSFORMS=AcroRead.mst /qb

Note; Add double quotes if you have problems.

E:\Adobe\Extract>msiexec /i AcroRead.msi TRANSFORMS=”AcroRead.mst” /qb

Hope it helps someone, let me know if you have any comments or fixes.

By • IT • 2

Raspberry PI won’t boot black screen and one solid red light

My Raspberry PI arrived today so I downloaded the Raspberry image and tried to write it to the SD card (my laptop had a SD card reader built-in) with Win32DiskImage but Win32DiskImage could not see my SD card, there was no drive/device showing.

The next thing I tried was DD for Windows this seam to work and completed without errors but my Raspberry PI would not boot, it just had a black screen and one solid red light.

Here are a few tips

1. If windows Disk management does not show your SD card Win32DiskImage will not see it as a device

2. The Raspberry PI has no BIOS, it boots off the SD card so it cannot display anything on screen if it cannot read the SD card

3. After you have wrote the image to the SD card you should be able to see the FAT partition in Windows, you will see some files like config.txt, bootcode.bin and others

Solution

I purchased a usb card reader,  and Win32DiskImage could see the SD card and I wrote the image, then the Raspberry PI booted.

The SD cards I have tested are SanDisk SDHC 8GB type 4 and I have also tried a SanDisk type 10 without any problems.

 

By • Raspberry PI • 0

Block group policy for a single user on Terminal Server

Today I was asked to block our Outlook Read Receipt group policy from applying to a single user account when logged onto our Terminal Server. Currently there is a group policy that sets Outlook tracking options to “Always send a response” for all users. This user needed the option “Ask me before sending a response”.

I did this by denying the user account access to the group policy

1. Open Group Policy Management from Administrative Tools

2. Go to Group Policy Objects container and right click on the policy and select edit from the menu

3. From the Group Policy Object Editor right click on the policy and select properties from the menu

4. Select the Security tab and add the user account you want to block and then set the permission to deny

helpful reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260370/en-us

By • IT, Outlook • 0

Olympus DSS Player Pro won’t open – Windows 7

I received a call from one of our users about a problem opening Olympus DSS Player Pro 4 (update 4.10.4) transcription module.  It was working perfectly on Windows 7 until now.

When you double clicked on the shortcut to TpstWnd.exe an hourglass appeared briefly then nothing; there were no error messages. I opened task manager and could see the process running.

I started to troubleshoot by checking licence key, registry entries, changing compatibility setting and finally re-installing the application but none of this worked. I then turned to sysinternals suite procmon.exe and discovered some buffer overflows errors. This led me to start checking windows updates and sure enough it turned out to be kb2670838 and the only solution was to uninstall it.

Problem solved but if kb2670838 fixes something else for you then you may need to get a new version of the DSS Player Pro.

By • IT • 22

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