Install Icinga with MySQL and IDOUtils on FreeBSD

Posted by: gdelmatto  :  Category: FreeBSD, Networking, Operating Systems, Utilities

It’s not hard to install Icinga on FreeBSD, at least if you’re satisfied with default options.
Should you however require Icinga with IDOUtils and MySQL support, then you need to take additional steps.
Read more…

Working around WordPress’ wpdb limitations with MySQL User Variables

Posted by: gdelmatto  :  Category: PHP, Programming

Think about retrieving a data set from MySQL, where you need to add distinct, auto-incremented ID to each row retrieved. Sounds easy?

Well, the ID has to be generated on-the-fly and out of nowhere. Still easy?

One might think about using MySQL user variables to accomplish this, sure. But what if your framework does not allow injecting chained queries because of SQL injection countermeasures?
Read more…

Run command in background from PHP

Posted by: gdelmatto  :  Category: PHP, Programming

While working on my newest project, a PHP- and AJAX-based network management application, I came along the need to run multiple commands on the server and track their return states (basically if they were run successful or not).

While sticking together my framework, I found that forking a process into background from PHP requires some additional steps if you don’t want to break AJAX functionality.
Read more…

TimeMachine mobile backup eats up disk space if backup drive unavailable

Posted by: gdelmatto  :  Category: OS X, Operating Systems

Apple introduced a new feature called “mobile backups” with OS X Lion.
The idea behind that: Use a temporary part of the local hard drive to store backups until the backup drive is connected again.

True, this is a good feature for most. But if you can spare some backups, because you – let’s say – store your files to a dropbox folder, which is synchronized to a cloud service, then you may not need the mobile backup feature of OS X.
In fact, you may notice running out of disk space, that you could use otherwise.
Read more…

Convert a Perl Hash of Hashes into XML with XML::Dumper

Posted by: gdelmatto  :  Category: Perl, Programming

For a project of mine, I wanted to convert a Perl data structure, a so called Hash of Hashes, into an XML.

The simple solution to this is to use the XML::Dumper module.
Read more…

Win32 GuiDbEdit for Check Point Firewall

Posted by: gdelmatto  :  Category: Memos

As seen in Check Point SupportCenter, there’s also a (win32) GUI Version of the DBEdit CLI tool, located at C:\Program Files\CheckPoint\SmartConsole\PROGRAM\GuiDbEdit.exe.

Great visual debugging aid if you’re doing automation stuff with CLI dbedit.

Configuring GUI Clients for CheckPoint Firewall on the CLI

Posted by: gdelmatto  :  Category: Memos

As seen over there at CheckPoint SupportCenter

Use ‘cpconfig’ on the CLI (may need ‘expert’ mode)

VpnInit AppleScript: Override and Restore Default VPN-Routes on OS X

Posted by: gdelmatto  :  Category: Networking, OS X, Operating Systems, Programming, Scripting, Utilities

Years ago I wrote a small script to restore local default route after connecting the RAS VPN on Windows.

Now, I made up a similar script to do the same on OS X.
Read more…

Automating MakeMKV with AppleScript

Posted by: admin  :  Category: OS X, Operating Systems, Programming, Scripting

It’s only days since I wrote about a custom script action upon inserting a DVD in OS X, allowing me have either run the DVD Player or MakeMKV to rip the DVDs.

Now I was digging around if I could do some automation on the GUI part, which indeed turned out to work … at least to a certain degree.
Read more…

Interface-Statistiken in Cacti für Swisscom CentroGrande erstellen

Posted by: gdelmatto  :  Category: HowTo's, Networking, Programming

Als Follow-Up zu meinem letzten Post über den Swisscom CentroGrande Router, widme ich mich nun erneut diesem Gerät. Heute geht es darum, Interface-Statistiken in Cacti zu erzeugen — und das obwohl der CentroGrande den hierfür nötigen SNMP-Support schmerzlich vermissen lässt.

Read more…