EDG System Administration

I have a server running openldap and samba, acting like a windows domain controller. I have had no problems with adding windows 7 computers and users until today. One user could not login and this was the error.

A device attached to the system is not functioning.

Looking in the samba log file, I found this:

[2011/12/13 10:46:26.074452,  1] rpc_server/srv_pipe_hnd.c:1602(serverinfo_to_SamInfo_base)
  _netr_LogonSamLogon: user DOMAIN/user has user sid S-1-5-21-1368477355-3167354948-3261350252-4220
   but group sid S-1-5-21-3639540563-330460068-1655887120-513.
  The conflicting domain portions are not supported for NETLOGON calls

Turns out that I had some users who had the wrong sambaSID and sambaPrimaryGroupSID in their ldap account. After fixing this, the user was able to login without any problems.

Apparently, our WinXP with pGina setup doesn’t look at the SID because these users were not having any problems logging into the XP computers. It was only when moving to Windows7 that the error showed.

When creating a deployment of Inventor, you are prompted to enter your serial number and product key. By default, the license type selected is Stand-Alone. If you use this, you will HAVE to activate the product before you can use it. And, you are only able to do this once. So, when creating a deployment, be sure to choose the Network as the license type and put in the information for the license server.

After creating the deployment for inventor, you can use that deployment to install the software. However, this does not have anything to do with the license server because we are not running inventor on our license server. So, after installation, you have to register the software to be able to download the license file that is required on the server. To do that, go here:

Autodesk Registration Site

By default, in windows 7, it automatically fills in the username of the last logged on user. So all that is required to be entered is the password. I would rather the login screen just show an empty username box and password box. Do the following:

Start -> Search -> secpol.msc

Navigate to Local Policies -> Security Options

Interactive logon: Do not display last user name

Change to Enabled.

Using parted to create partitions on 3TB raid on our new server.

[root@server ~]# parted /dev/sdb
GNU Parted 1.8.1
Using /dev/sdb
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) print                                                            

Model: AMCC 9650SE-8LP DISK (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 3000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start  End  Size  File system  Name  Flags

(parted) mklabel gpt                                                      
Warning: The existing disk label on /dev/sdb will be destroyed and all data on this disk will be lost.
Do you want to continue?
parted: invalid token: gpt
Yes/No? Yes                                                               
New disk label type?  [gpt]?                                              
(parted) mkpart primary 0 -0                                              
(parted) print

Model: AMCC 9650SE-8LP DISK (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 3000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name     Flags
 1      17.4kB  3000GB  3000GB               primary       

(parted) quit                                                             
Information: Don't forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary.             

[root@server ~]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb1
mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
366215168 inodes, 732406263 blocks
36620313 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
22352 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks: 
	32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208, 
	4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968, 
	102400000, 214990848, 512000000, 550731776, 644972544

Writing inode tables: done                            
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

This filesystem will be automatically checked every 21 mounts or
180 days, whichever comes first.  Use tune2fs -c or -i to override.

[root@server ~]# tune2fs -c0 -i0 /dev/sdb1
tune2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Setting maximal mount count to -1
Setting interval between checks to 0 seconds

The environment variable to use to set the license is ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE. For example,

ADSKFLEX_LICENSE_FILE=2080@license-server.example.com

When running Layout, beneath File, there should be a link called “Create Hyperlynx Files”. If this link is missing, edit the file ~/mgc/startup/layout.startup (or create the file if it doesn’t exist) and add to it:

$insert_menu_item($menu_text_item("Create_Hyperlynx Files", 
"create_hyperlynx_files()"),,"file_pulldown",@last);

I just downloaded and installed Mentor Graphics Board Station BSXE 2007.9 and couldn’t find these libraries. I don’t think they’re included any more. I want to set things up so that I don’t have to look for them. I already have a special directory /net/sw/mgc/libraries that holds the BPL libraries that aren’t used any more. So I’ll just add these there as well. And then make the necessary changes to mgc_location_map.

We have a number of vme computers that I need to set up. All of them will be using an 8GB compact flash drive as their hard disk. The details for how to set this up are all on this page. Now, I need to install linux on a bunch of compact flash drives and was looking for a way to clone one after I’d set it up how I wanted. Since I normally use a mac laptop, I also wanted to be able to use that. Here’s what I did.

First, install linux on one of the compact flash drives by pulling all the internal drives out of a computer and using the linux expert method. Once this is installed and all the other required software is installed, use dd to make an image on my mac.

sudo dd if=/dev/disk2 of=~/Desktop/crate.img

I know the input is /dev/disk2 because when I mount the compact flash drive, it would show as:

/dev/disk2s3    6.9G   1.6G   5.0G    24%    /Volumes/:
/dev/disk2s1    101M   9.1M    87M    10%    /Volumes/:boot

The s3 is the partition for / and s1 is the partition for /boot. (s2 would also be the swap partition.) Since I want to copy the entire disk and not each partition, I use /dev/disk2.

Using dd to copy the disk takes a long time, but it can be left unattended. You can check that it’s working by doing a listing of ~/Desktop/crate.img. The size will slowly be increasing.

Once the image has been created, prepare a new compact flash drive to use for the clone. The key here is that the partition on the drive must first be deleted. I used Disk Utility for this.

Here’s how the new compact flash card looked when I attached it to my laptop.

I needed to delete that KINGSTON partition to be able to copy my image back. Change the Volume Scheme to 1 Partition and then format it with Free Space.

The disk is now still connected to the laptop, but it has no partitions, so nothing is mounted. Now use the dd command again to copy the image to the new compact flash card.

sudo dd of=/dev/disk2 if=crate.img

Again, it takes a long time, but when it’s done, I can put the card in the vme crate and it boots successfully. I just need to ok any new hardware changes it finds and configure a new ip address for it.

We got a couple of new Supermicro Superservers (sys-5026t-tb) that I was planning to set up as dual-boot computers. I installed windows xp fine and did a kickstart install of RHEL5. The installation went fine, but after rebooting, every time I tried to boot to linux I would get this error:

Unable to access resume device (LABEL=SWAP-sdb2)
mount: could not find filesystem '/dev/root'
setuproot: moving /dev/failed: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /proc: No such file or directory
setuproot: error mounting /sys: No such file or directory
switchroot: mount failed: No such file or directory
Kernel panic - no syncing: Attempted to kill init', -12000

The problem was that, even though it installed the operating system, it did not load the sata drivers. I had this problem before and could just go in and edit /etc/modprobe.conf to alias scsihostadapter ahci from ata-piix. But the problem I was having now, is that the ahci drivers were never installed. I got a file from Supermicro that was supposed to fix this, but I was having a problem installing it when I boot into rescue mode.

I did find out that the reason that it was not installing the driver was due to the presence of the dvd drive that I was using to boot. So, my solution was to take out the dvd drive and boot from a usb flash drive. I did the installation that way and things worked just fine. I could probably reconnect the dvd drive and use it now, but I’ve decided that I really don’t need it, as I install most software from the network.