Mythbuntu: Antec Fusion v1 VFD & MCE Remote (Updated for 10.10)

This is an updated how-to of my notes from an earlier post. Things have changed since Ubuntu 9.04, I am now on 10.10 due to the inclusion of Trim support. The mceusb remote should just work out of the box. Here are some notes on it. So basically this is to get your Antec Fusion v1 VFD working.

Mythbuntu: MythTV/XBMC Switching

This script allows switching between mythtv frontend and xbmc. After you have lirc and irexec installed and running.

http://code.google.com/p/yatvgrabber/wiki/XbmcMythtvRemote

To stop Mythfrontend from automatically starting on reboot, this is how I removed it.

cd .config/autostart
rm mythtv.desktop

Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS Allowing Symlinks with Samba

Apparently in 10.04 you need to add a few lines to allow symlinks in your samba share. I kept getting access denied in Windows.

Under Global, add the following 3 lines:

[global]
follow symlinks = yes
wide links = yes
unix extensions = no

Now restart Samba

sudo /etc/init.d/smbd restart

You should be good to go!

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS bootable software RAID-1

Start from your home directory

cd ~

Install mdadm

sudo apt-get install mdadm

You need 2 modules loaded, md and raid1 Ubuntu 10.04 should automatically have md loaded. You can verify this by running "fgrep CONFIG_MD /boot/config-$(uname -r)"

We need to load the raid1 module so when you reboot it will load.

sudo echo raid1 >> /etc/modules

Now we will load it manually so we don't have to reboot

sudo modprobe raid1

Verify its loaded

lsmod | grep raid1

Next we are going to copy the partition info from sda to sdb.

sudo sfdisk -d /dev/sda > sda.out
sudo sfdisk -f /dev/sdb < sda.out

*NOTE* If you get "I don't like these partitions – nothing changed." Verify it by comparing the output of sfdisk -l /dev/sda and sfdisk -l /dev/sdb.

Change the partition type of the /dev/sdb Linux partition(s) to "Linux raid autodetect"

sudo sfdisk --change-id /dev/sdb 1 fd

Now we're ready to create the array. We specify a RAID 1 array with 2 devices. The first drive is missing (we add it later) and the second is /dev/sdb1:

sudo mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 missing /dev/sdb1

Now, we need to create and update the mdadm.conf.

sudo cp /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf /etc/mdadm/mdadm.bak && sudo cp /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf mdadm.conf && sudo mdadm --detail --scan >> mdadm.conf && sudo cp mdadm.conf /etc/mdadm/mdadm.conf

*NOTE* It will put in a parameter metadata=00.90 that will cause warnings later. Apparently, this is a bug and it is safe to remove it.

Now, we format the raid volume

sudo mkfs -t ext4 /dev/md0

Find out the UUID of the array

sudo blkid

Make a copy of /etc/fstab in your home directory and change root to mount to the UUID of the array.  Don't change the real /etc/fstab quite yet.

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak && sudo cp /etc/fstab fstab && sudo nano fstab

Really quick, check what kernel you are running you will need this for the next section.

uname -r

Next is adding a custom GRUB2 setup

sudo cp /etc/grub.d/40_custom 09_swraid1_setup && sudo nano 09_swraid1_setup

Replace "2.6.32-36-server" with your kernel version you got from running "uname -r"

menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-36-server' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
        recordfail
        insmod raid
        insmod mdraid
        insmod ext2
        set root='(md0)'
        linux   /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-36-server root=/dev/md0 ro   quiet
        initrd  /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-36-server
}

Now copy both files we just created to their respective locations

sudo cp fstab /etc/ && sudo cp 09_swraid1_setup /etc/grub.d/

Let's update Grub

sudo update-grub && sudo update-initramfs -u

And make sure Grub is installed on both drives

sudo grub-install /dev/sda && sudo grub-install /dev/sdb

Create a directory called "tmpraid"

sudo mkdir /tmpraid

Mount the array on /tmparray

sudo mount /dev/md0 /tmpraid && sudo rsync -vaxP / /tmpraid

Reboot...

sudo reboot

Change the partition type of sda now

sudo sfdisk --change-id /dev/sda 1 fd

Add it to the array:

sudo mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sda1

Let's watch /dev/sda sync:

watch cat /proc/mdstat

Let's delete the GRUB entry we created earlier since it is no longer needed

sudo rm -f /etc/grub.d/09_swraid1_setup

Now let's finish up

sudo update-grub && sudo update-initramfs -u

Now we're done, reboot and test if you so wish.

References:
http://www.jfamiglietti.com/john/?p=152
http://linuxconfig.org/Linux_Software_Raid_1_Setup

Disable/Enable Windows IPv6 Tunnels

I just found this link, and wanted to preserve it. Very nice for disabling IPv6 tunnels on Windows machines. I am running dual-stack, and the tunnels felt like they were in the way.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929852

Windows Disable IPv6 RA solicitations

This works for both Windows 7 and Server 2008, I use this if I have set a static IPv6 address and want to stop the Windows box from having more than one IPv6 address.

First we want to find the index value of your nic.

c:\netsh int ipv6 sh int
Idx     Met         MTU          State                Name
---  ----------  ----------  ------------  ---------------------------
  1          50  4294967295  connected     Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1
 11          10        1500  connected     Local Area Connection

Now apply the value to disable the RA solicitation

c:\netsh int ipv6 set int 11 routerdiscovery=disabled

Now after a reboot you should only have one IPv6 IP address.