Updates and re-installations
During the last days, the workstation Aphrodite has been restored to it’s previous state as much as possible. There are still a few things to be done, but most of software I tend to use most often, has been re-installed: McAfee (of course), Office and Adobe for the ususal stuff, LView, Hugin and Jalbum for image processing, WS_FTP and WInzip as utilities, and several media viewers as Windows MediaPlayer, Quicktime and – with some trouble – Realplayer. That latter one proved to be most problematic, since the US and Canada editions can no longer be accessed from Europe – still have to find out a way to get around that restriction (it works that way on Gudrun, the company laptop).
Another troublemaker was Garmin’s MapSource, and the Dutch and British topo maps; these install MapSource software as well, but you have to keep a particular order to make it work: the old Mapsource Europ V8 first, then TopNL, followed bu Topo UK – and update the software to the latest version as last; otherwise you run into problems.
And, ouf couse, getting dicipline to do updates. The new 500Mb Samsung drive comes with an Auto-backup package, I may install that to automate the process, after things have been added or updated…
VMS updates
I still had some updates to be installed, and this morning I put them on, after I had made a backup yesterday. Up to this morning, pagefile usage was about 40% – grown from the long-standing 25% of a few weeks ago – but at this moment, it’s about 5% – and the system does indeed resond a great deal faster. Now to keep an eye to this, in thje weeks ahead.
13-Nov-2010
New installation
Started a new install on the Windows box where I lost the primary disk. I had two adjecent Linux partitions on my second disk that I could no longer accedd since the primary disk was gone – and I didn’t keep any data on these disks. So I deleted these partitions and created one big new one.
Next, I installed XP again – SP2 as on the drive I had -, installed McAfee again, and upgraded all to the latest versions. During updates and upgrades – taking quite some time due to the size of them, I bmade a backup of al data on the two Windows partitions in the drive.
Some applications have been installed as well, but not all went as smooth as expected. RealPalyer is a nasty one – it now seems to require a subscription in Europe, where I have one on the US site already; theEuropean one being over twice as expensive and offering far less… That might be the end of RealPlayer with me.
Some other usefull utilities will be installed over time, but since the disk containing the key data is gone, only those of which I can retrieve the keys will be installed.
05-Nov-2010
Disk failure
One thing to be done today was another attempt to repair the Windows installation, but there must have been something very wrong, because it seemed to take hours. So I aborted the installation, accepting I would have to reinstall all software.
Starting with Office 2007 – but that failed for some reason.
One other thing I would do is install more memory. The shop offered me a 2Gb DDR-2 DIMM, but the system cannot handle this type of DIMMs – the notch is on a different location so the DIMM didn’t fit.
When I next tried to reboot the system, the first disk was gone in BIOS….
It appears to spin so that is not an issue. I checked power and SAS cable, switched with the other drive, but that didn’t work either. So probably there is something wrong with the electronics on the disk….
A colleague has the ability to try to restore data from broken disks, in some extent. And since there is some data on that disk that is not copied to another location, it’s worth to try to get it off the drive. Otherwise, it’s lost. Pity, but not fatal.
04-Nov-2010
Maintenance
The monthly clean-up job has run nicely – but it still contains the flaw that the procedure deletes the operator logfiles that the daily job – run just before – has created the index of these files. So any access on the subsequent day leads to 404-errors..
But this time, the log statistics now show correct results:
PMAS statistics for October
Total messages : 10408 = 100.0 o/o
DNS Blacklisted : 1159 = 11.1 o/o (Files: 31)
Relay attempts : 8073 = 77.5 o/o (Files: 31)
Accepted by PMAS : 1176 = 11.2 o/o (Files: 31)
Handled by explicit rule
Rejected : 580 = 49.3 o/o (processed), 5.5 o/o (all)
Accepted : 215 = 18.2 o/o (processed), 2.0 o/o (all)
Handled by content
Discarded : 133 = 11.3 o/o (processed), 1.2 o/o (all)
Quarantained : 220 = 18.7 o/o (processed), 2.1 o/o (all)
Delivered : 28 = 2.3 o/o (processed), .2 o/o (all)
A huge number of relay attempts! This is definitely something to take care off. These addresses should be blocked at the gate. Just find a way to extract them from the files…
There has been a minor issue with the filtering of messages containing the string “CV”: although I set up a system-wide rule to reject these messages, they kept showing up being quarantined. I askled Process, and Hunter Goatley suggested to enable debug. And so I found the reason: I also had a user rule to quarantine such messages. This rule has now been deleted, so I shouldn’t see these messages any more.
Restore of Aphrodite
I tried to do a ‘restoration installation”: rerun the installation on an existing Windows environment, but though it did finish, reboot now caused a BSoD – disappearing too fast to see what’s going on. I found free partition, and installed XP on that one, only to find that the dual boot between Ubuntu and Windows was now gone. Well, that is not a real problem since the Linux environment doesn’t hold real data, but it should be addressed. The real drawback is that I will need to re-install all software – but this is now a far more clean system than I had before. Anyway – this system has run for about 5 years without problems, and since it doesn’t contain ‘funny’ stuff, it will not be that complicated. And all data is untouched.
02-Nov-2010
Stupid…
I accessed a website I shouldn’t have accessed – but at times you’re just curious, and normally, havoc is prevented by the malware detection on the system.
Not so good, this time. But you’ll only find out when harm is done. No matter your precautions:
The site really was unsafe: it uploaded a JAVA application onto Aphrodite, that tried to access the Internet. Of course, this was blocked by the malware detection I have always running; but nevertheles, some ‘malware detection product’ seemed to be installed. The malware tracker alarmed that a trojan was encountered, and I started a scan, during which I removed some weirdly named .EXE and .JAR files on the system, dated today; the .EXE files must have been included in the .JAR files that were tansferred to the system, I’d seen the names of the executables in the intercepted traffic attempts.
The virus-scan revealed one ‘Potentially Unwanted program’ but was unable to remove it on request – asking for a reboot. And so I did.
I shouldn’t have done.
It turned out that Aphrodite didn’t boot into Windows any more. Even in a minimal mode: safe mode with command prompt. On screen, you would only see three files loaded – the last being MDCOM.DLL, and then boot stalled. No more activity at all. I could do a boot from the Windows XP installation CD, but there was no way to restore the system in a short while. The Ubuntu environment however does boot nicely, so it’s definitely a Windows problem. I looked around and it will mean I have to re-install the system in repair mode…
What will happen to the current Linux-based boot-loader, remains to be seen.
But one luck: the C-drive doesn’t contain a lot of data, and what data there is, can easily be moved off that disk. However, the Ubuntu environment does not accept the WD Passport disk on a USB port. At least, I haven’t encountered a solution to this problem.
It might be a point to reconsider XP. I do need a Windows environment (since some of the programs I use have no Linux equivalent, and the company relies on the Office suite) so I might move on and instalkl Windows7 professional – for $299 ‘only’. (I’ve checked before and the system does match the requirements – after I double the memory :))