FIXED – P2V of Windows-based HP Servers – cqmgserv.exe Problem
When converting HP servers running Windows Server 2003 to VMware using the VMware "Virtualize a Physical Machine..." wizard, there is a very annoying problem - the CPU is at 100% when the VM boots, and this makes the single-vCPU VM unusably slow.
For instance, the one I've just done has taken over a hour to boot, log in, get to the desktop and get Task Manager running. Task Manager told me that cqmgserv.exe was the culprit process. While I googled for solutions to the problem, the VMware Tools are trying to install, but the initial preparation progress bar has taken over 30 minutes to finish so far, and it's only just past halfway. This is running on a Xeon E5645, which is not a slow CPU.
GTA V Trailer!
I still play GTA IV multiplayer quite a lot, but I've had alot of conversations about how cool GTA V will be, what thing's we'd like to see in it... at long last today we start to find out. Not a huge amount to go on, but it's good to know it's on the way, and it looks great!
Beautiful British Landscapes
I entered this competition. It seems with the astounding quality of all the entries, I have got to up my game significantly. Each one of the six category winners here are just wonderful.
Forget Crossover Cables!
I keep bumping into people who are not aware that crossover Ethernet cables are not needed in this day and age.
If you want to connect two computers together directly by Ethernet and if one or both computers has a gigabit port, a normal ('straight through') cable will work just fine.
There is one caveat - the speed and duplex settings must be set to "Auto" on at least one of the computers - the gigabit one in the case of connection with a computer without gigabit.
This is called Auto MDI-X, and it was ratified as a standard back in 1998! It's years since I've needed a crossover cable, and I enjoy the simplicity of not having to worry about whether I have the right cable or not.
Norcliffe.com – Back up and running
After some unfortunate delays getting and Internet connection in my new place, it's now all sorted. A special mention to BT whose inefficiency and stupid artificial product differentiation caused much annoyance and delay. Thanks to Vodafone who provided the required link very quickly and efficiently in the end. Even when I needed to phone them up to confirm some router settings, they were very helpful. Now to get some more content written...
--Update - I spoke too soon, and Vodafone didn't give me the fixed IP we ordered. It is now, they assure me. My thanks to the guy who just fixed it for me.
Norcliffe.com – returning soon
Norcliffe.com will be down from tomorrow, Sunday 22nd May 2011. I'm moving home and I don't yet have Internet at my new place. It will be back.
FIXED – Remote Desktop in Ubuntu 10.10
I have set up a Nagios monitoring box at work, running Ubuntu 10.10 32-bit. It's now connected to a TV so we can have a constantly-refreshing page showing us problems on our systems and networks, and it works very well.
Unfortunately, once I installed an ATI card (Radeon 4350) for an HDMI connection to the TV and installed the proprietary FGLRX graphics driver, remote access to the computer has been a problem - I can connect to the desktop and see it in my client window, but my remote view of it never refreshes from that point on. The Ubuntu box itself keeps working fine, and I could see mouse movements on the TV - but the client window stayed frozen on how it looked when I connected.
This happens in the built-in Remote Desktop, as well as using X11VNC package - both behaved in this broken way. I tried three different clients on my workstation to see of that helped, and it didn't.
The solution is simple - go to System/Preferences/Appearance, go to the Visual Effect tab, and set it to None. It then works fine, both in X11VNC and the built-in Remote Desktop application.
Other sites have mentioned this as a problem with Nvidia drivers too in the past, as well as the Radeon ones.
norcliffe.com has been pwned
Heavy Soil has been offline for a couple of weeks. Although it's back now, some pages are missing images and some links are broken, all of which I will fix over the next few days.
The first I knew was I got an angry email from my ISP telling me that a DOS attack was coming from my connection, and that I should stop it immediately. I checked all my computers, and the web server seemed to be sluggish - the apache process was highly active and the gigabit network connection was completely maxed out! I disconnected it from the LAN and checked with my ISP that the attack had stopped, and they confirmed it had. So what the hell was it?
Using Nagios 3 to Monitor Multiple Windows Servers
This article goes through all the steps necessary to install the Nagios 3.0 monitoring solution on a PC, and then to get it monitoring multiple Windows servers. There seemed to be no place on the web which brought together the required steps: a simple install of Linux, installation of Nagios, and then configuration of Nagios to monitor multiple Windows Servers. This is now that place, and written from the point of view of someone who is much more comfortable in a Windows environment but with enough basic knowledge of Linux to get by.
