You’d think after over 3.5 years of development/testing someone would have noticed this…

I’ve also replaced the default banner images of fruit & trees with some banners snipped from my photo collection.  They’ve turned out much better than I thought they would – Not bad for 5 mins work with Paint.NET

Update: Looks like someone at Google noticed.  Everything's back to normal for me now...

Bacula currently doesn’t support VSS backups of a 64-Bit version of Windows Server 2008, so there’s a number of hoops you have to jump through to get even a semi-reliable System State & Exchange backup.  For an Exchange backup we use the NTBACKUP binaries from Windows Server 2003 64-bit and for the System State we use the Windows Server 2008 wbadmin tools.

For both jobs we’ll use a couple of “Client Run Before Job” commands to trigger client-side scripts to run the client-side backup jobs…

WARNING: This method works for me, but please test and then test some more before relying on any backups made like this!

Exchange Backups

First of all, grab the ntbackup.exe, ntmsapi.dll and vssapi.dll binaries from a Windows 2003 64-bit server – They should be located in C:\Windows\System32 by default.  Place the binaries in their own directory.  eg: C:\Program Files\NTBackup

Next, create a folder to store the scripts & Exchange database backup files.  eg: C:\Backup

Run NTBackup, cancel the wizard, click the “Backup” tab, browse the tree and tick “Microsoft Information Store” under your Exchange Server:

Click “Job” then “Save Selections”, save the file as “C:\Backup\Exchange Backup.bks” then exit NTBackup.

Create a text file in C:\Backup named “BackupExchange.cmd” with the following contents (watch for line-wrapping, the following should be all on one line):

start /W "" "c:\Program Files\ntbackup\ntbackup.exe" backup "@c:\backup\Exchange Backup.bks" /N "Exchange Backup" /F "c:\backup\Exchange Backup.bkf" /FU /L:f /M normal

This script will run a full Exchange Information Store backup on-demand and store it in C:\Backup\Exchange Backup.bkf, overwriting this files previous contents.

Next, we’ll edit our existing Bacula client config to skip the C:\Backup folder for standard backups and create a a new job to trigger the above script and backup the C:\Backup folder:

Client {
  Name = exchange-fd
  Address = exchange.server.address.here
  FDPort = 9102
  Catalog = MyCatalog
  Password = "my_bacula_fd_password"
  File Retention = 30 days
  Job Retention = 6 months
  AutoPrune = yes
  Maximum Concurrent Jobs = 1
}

Job {
  Name = "Exchange"
  JobDefs = "DefaultJob"
  Schedule = "MondayFull"
  Client = exchange-fd
  FileSet = "Exchange FileSet"
  Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/exchange.bsr"
}

Job {
  Name = "Exchange DB"
  JobDefs = "DefaultJob"
  Schedule = "MondayFull"
  Client = exchange-fd
  FileSet = "Exchange DB"
  Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/exchangedb.bsr"
  Level = Full
  Client Run Before Job = "C:/Backup/BackupExchange.cmd"
}

FileSet {
  Name = "Exchange FileSet"

  Include {
    Options {
      signature = MD5
      compression = GZIP
    }
    File = "C:/"
  }

  Exclude {
    File = "C:/pagefile.sys"
    File = "C:/Backup"
  }
}

FileSet {
  Name = "Exchange DB"

  Include {
    Options {
      signature = MD5
      compression = GZIP
    }
    File = C:/Backup
  }
}

Once we’ve done this, we can reload the bacula config and we’ll be good to go!

System State Backups

System state backups are a bit trickier – Because we’re running the 32-bit Bacula-fd binary, we’re inside the 32-bit WOW compatibility environment.  Inside this environment, C:\Windows\System32 is remapped to C:\Windows\SysWOW64 which contains 32-bit binaries.  However, the backup tool we require (wbadmin) is 64-bit only and is not available to us due to this re-mapping. Attempts to copy the wbadmin.exe binary to another location proved unsuccessful with other strange error messages.

However, the following method/kludge does work:

Copy the 64-bit C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe to C:\Backup

Create a text file in C:\Backup named “BackupSystemState.cmd” with the following contents (watch for line-wrapping, the following should be on 2 lines, each starting with “start /W”):

start /W "" c:\backup\cmd.exe /C start /W "" c:\windows\system32\wbadmin delete systemstatebackup -backupTarget:d: -keepVersions:0 -quiet
start /W "" c:\backup\cmd.exe /C start /W "" c:\windows\system32\wbadmin start systemstatebackup -backupTarget:d: –quiet

This script works by first of all launching the 64-bit command-prompt, then in turn launching the wbadmin backup process.  The 2 commands being run here first of all delete any existing System State backups from D:, then starts a new System State backup with D: as the target volume.

Next, we’ll edit our Bacula client config again, adding the following new FileSet and Job:

Job {
  Name = "Exchange SS"
  JobDefs = "DefaultJob"
  Schedule = "MondayFull"
  Client = exchange-fd
  FileSet = "Exchange SS"
  Write Bootstrap = "/var/lib/bacula/exchangess.bsr"
  Level = Full
  Client Run Before Job = "C:/Backup/BackupSystemState.cmd"
}

FileSet {
  Name = "Exchange SS"

  Include {
    Options {
      signature = MD5
      compression = GZIP
    }
    File = D:/
    File = C:/Windows/Logs/WindowsServerBackup/
  }
}

After reloading the Bacula config, you should be all set!

Drop me a line if you have any comments/suggestions.

• Upgraded to WordPress 1.7
• Updated all plugins
• Installed new Facebook integration plugin
• Upgraded to latest version of Windows Live Writer

So this post is just to test all that lot is working correctly

THIS:

So after approx 30 mins on hold to Xbox support, I finally get put through to a call centre where a helpful man takes down my details and registers a free repair.  Whilst looking at the serial number label I took note of the manufacture date…  3rd December 2005!  Today was my Xbox’s 3rd birthday!

*sniff* :’(

UPDATE 15th Dec: A brand new healthy Xbox landed on my doorstep this afternoon!

Clicky here and here!

I can only image the conversations John Zubrzycki (BBC Research) had with set top box manufactures in late December:

John:

"We are going to do a trial of HD on digital terrestrial and need to develop a set top box"

Manufacturer:

"Great, we can get our development team across it. What's your timescale and how many units do you need?"

John:

"Well it would be good to have say 500 for a trial in June"

Manufacturer:

"June, that's June 2008?"

John:

"No, this June - in time for the World Cup."

That was probably followed by the sound of the phone going down!

Head over and read the full article if this kind of thing tickles your fancy...

Eg:

The problem first reared its ugly head a few months back, with it happening more frequently over the past week or so.

Is it just me, or is it annoying the hell out of anyone else too?

My transparent bridging post had been altered to include a bit of HTML code to call an external URL in an IFRAME. I've no idea what was on that page, but no doubt it was malicious content targeting unpatched web browsers.

This Stopbadware blog post has more info...

All clear now!...

Apparently, the information about building a traffic shaper may harm your computer if you view it!  Err, I think not!  I've submitted a review request to Google and StopBadware.org to figure out WTFs happening here.

After a quick cleanup of my WMP 11 library, I fired up the Xbox 360 and found all the videos on my PC are playable!  Maybe I can finally get rid of the old Xbox 1 brick from underneath the TV...

Normally, I'd go for some kind of Linux solution, but after doing a bit of research it looked like one of the BSD's with pf/ALTQ would be the way to go. After trying out a couple of popular ready-made "appliances" (m0n0wall, pfsense) I decided that the best, most flexible way, would be to get my hands dirty and roll my own.

This post is just a quick summary of the active configuration at the time of writing, mainly for my future reference. So, without further ado, here's what I came up with...

[Updated]

I decided to go for OpenBSD, grabbed the ISO, burnt it to CD and made a standard installation (minus the games.tgz package). The server I'm using has 2 on-board NIC's and a 4-port PCI NIC card. During installation I configured one of the on-board ports as my servers main Internet/management interface.

Next I configured a couple of the ports on the PCI card to act as bridged interfaces:

/etc/hostname.vr0 :
up

/etc/hostname.vr3 :
up

/etc/bridgename.bridge0 :
add vr0
add vr3
up

Now it was time to configure pf, the ALTQ traffic queues and some rules to assign packets to queues. The server is going to act as a transparent bridge between the internet-facing 100Mb switchport and the LAN. The "LAN" is all public IP addressable, so no NAT rules/translation etc is needed here. The LAN should also only be allowed 10Mb of Internet bandwidth. Here's the current configuration after a bit of playing around and tuning:

/etc/pf.conf :

# Define the interface aliases
ext_if="vr3" # External WAN-facing interface
int_if="vr0" # Internal LAN-facing interface

# Leecher IP addresses - These are punished with a shared low-bandwidth queue
# Separate addresses/CIDR ranges with commas.
#
table <leechers> persist { }

# Enable ALTQ on the internal interface, assign the root queue and
# ultimate bandwidth limit
altq on $int_if hfsc bandwidth 10Mb queue { int_root }

# Define the interface queues
queue int_root bandwidth 100% priority 0 hfsc {default_out, penalty_out, acks_out, normal_out, high_out}
queue default_out bandwidth 1% priority 1 qlimit 500 hfsc (default realtime 1% red ecn)
queue penalty_out bandwidth 1% priority 2 qlimit 500 hfsc (upperlimit 1Mb red ecn)
queue acks_out bandwidth 30% priority 7 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 10% red ecn)
queue normal_out bandwidth 20% priority 3 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 1Kb red ecn)
queue high_out bandwidth 45% priority 4 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 1Kb red ecn)

# Enable ALTQ on the external interface, assign the root queue and
# ultimate bandwidth limit
altq on $ext_if hfsc bandwidth 10Mb queue { ext_root }

# Define the interface queues
queue ext_root bandwidth 100% priority 0 hfsc {default_in, penalty_in, acks_in,normal_in, high_in}
queue default_in bandwidth 1% priority 1 qlimit 500 hfsc (default realtime 1% red ecn)
queue penalty_in bandwidth 1% priority 2 qlimit 500 hfsc (upperlimit 1Mb red ecn)
queue acks_in bandwidth 30% priority 7 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 10% red ecn)
queue normal_in bandwidth 20% priority 3 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 1Kb red ecn)
queue high_in bandwidth 45% priority 4 qlimit 500 hfsc (realtime 1Kb red ecn)

###
# Packet matching rules - A match will assign a packet to a given queue
###

# Put leeching mofo's into the penalty queue
pass in quick on $int_if from { <leechers> } to any queue penalty_out
pass in quick on $ext_if from any to { <leechers> } queue penalty_in

# Give ICMP packets high(er) priority
pass in quick on $int_if proto icmp all queue high_out
pass in quick on $ext_if proto icmp all queue high_in

# Give VPN, RDP, SSH & DNS packets high(er) priority
pass in quick on $int_if proto ah all queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto ah all queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto esp all queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto esp all queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto gre all queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto gre all queue (high_in, acks_in)

pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 3389 queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 3389 queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 22 queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 22 queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 53 queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 53 queue (high_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto udp from any to any port 53 queue (high_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto udp from any to any port 53 queue (high_in, acks_in)

# Assign standard web & mail traffic to the "normal" queue
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 80 queue (normal_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 443 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 443 queue (normal_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 25 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 25 queue (normal_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 110 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 110 queue (normal_in, acks_in)
pass in quick on $int_if proto tcp from any to any port 143 queue (normal_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if proto tcp from any to any port 143 queue (normal_in, acks_in)

# Stick everything else into the default queue
pass in quick on $int_if all queue (default_out, acks_out)
pass in quick on $ext_if all queue (default_in, acks_in)

A quick check with "pftop" shows that traffic is being queued & shaped correctly...

QUEUE               BW SCH  PR  PKTS BYTES DROP_P DROP_B QLEN BORR SUSP P/S  B/S
root_vr0           10M hfsc  0     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
 int_root          10M hfsc  0     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
  default_out     100K hfsc     565K  358M      0      0    0           284 316K
  penalty_out     100K hfsc  2     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
  acks_out       3000K hfsc  7  454K   25M      0      0    0           113 6417
  normal_out     2000K hfsc  3 1119K 1405M      0      0    0           277 364K
  high_out       4500K hfsc  4  219K   65M      0      0    0            78  42K
root_vr3           10M hfsc  0     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
 ext_root          10M hfsc  0     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
  default_in      100K hfsc    1839K  878M     15  17364    4           566 301K
  penalty_in      100K hfsc  2     0     0      0      0    0             0    0
  acks_in        3000K hfsc  7 56271 3425K      0      0    0             5  396
  normal_in      2000K hfsc  3 76830   81M     10  15140    0             7 4698
  high_in        4500K hfsc  4  163K   39M      0      0    0            71  22K

Hopefully someone somewhere will find this useful. If anyone has any ideas to fine-tune my config, please feel free to let me know

UPDATE 1: The above installation was made onto a standard IDE harddisk, but I intend to replace the disk with a 256MB IDE flash card. If anyone has any advice for getting a small OpenBSD installation onto one of these, please drop me a line. Thanks

UPDATE 2: It turns out installing onto flash was easier than I expected it to be. I fired up the installation CD, partitioned the flash drive with one large 256MB partition and then only installed the bsd, base41 & etc41 packages. Once that lot installed I created /proto/var & /proto/dev, re-created the device nodes in /proto/dev and copied /var into /proto/var. All that was left was to edit /etc/fstab to mount /var and /dev from the prototype dirs as ramdisks. Job's a goodun!...

/etc/fstab :

/dev/wd0a / ffs rw,noatime 1 1
swap /var mfs rw,-P/proto/var,-s=65535,noexec,nosuid,nodev,noauto 0 0
swap /dev mfs rw,-P/proto/dev,-s=1200,-i=128,noexec,nosuid 0 0

This last piece of advice was taken from this website: http://www.kaschwig.net/projects/openbsd/wrap/

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvuTtrkVtns

At last! iD is producing a game engine than can handle outdoor areas and is actually LIT for a change!

As I'm writing this, I'm looking at a WYSIWYG view of pretty much what my post will look like on the site - Complete with CSS styles etc applied.

Seems pretty funky and so far is much nicer to use than the WordPress built-in editor.

A quick Google search led me to this information:

Here's how to get the free Personal Folders Backup tool from Microsoft installed and working in Outlook 2007:

1. Download the pfbackup.exe file.
2. Use WinZip or a similar file extraction tool to extract the files in pfbackup.exe, launcher.exe and pfbackup.msi.
3. Double-click pfbackup.msi and follow the prompts to install it.
4. In Outlook 2007, choose Tools | Trust Center and choose Add-ins from the navigation list on the left. At the bottom of the Add-ins screen, under Manage, select COM Add-ins and click Go.
5. On the COM Add-ins dialog, click Add and navigate to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE12\ADDINS folder. Select outbak.dll and click OK. When you return to the COM Add-ins dialog, you should see a new entry, Outlook Backup Addin, with its check box checked.
6. Click OK to close the COM Add-ins dialog.

Once you have the add-in installed, you should be able to choose File | Backup on Outlook 2007’s main menu and set your backup options.

It's worth adding that if you've already got the addin installed, at step 3 you should run pfbackup.msi to uninstall the addin first and then re-run the installer to install it again.

yum install bridge-utils SDL

rpm -ivh xen-3.0.4.1-1.i386.rpm kernel-xen-2.6.16.33-3.0.4.1.i386.rpm

vi /etc/yum.conf
Add:
exclude=xen xen-kernel xen-devel kernel

mv /lib/tls /lib/tls.disabled

mkinitrd -f -v --preload=scsi_mod --preload=sd_mod --preload=mptbase --preload=mptscsih --preload=mptfc --preload=mptspi /boot/initrd-2.6.16.33-xen_3.0.4.1.img 2.6.16.33-xen_3.0.4.1

vi /boot/grub/grub.conf
Add:
  title Xen v3.0
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /xen-3.0.gz noreboot dom0_mem=128000
  module /vmlinuz-2.6-xen root=/dev/VolGroup00/root
  module /initrd-2.6-xen.img

Reboot!

Are you sad enough to want to reproduce that distinctive CTU ringtone from the TV series '24' on your mobile phone?

Well, I am. So I worked out the RTTTL code needed to get it on my little Nokia 8210.

But that was just the start of the story. Ever since I posted the code here back in 2003, along with the reference samples I used in order to work it out, a lot of equally sad people have sent me versions of the ringtone in different formats.

So here they are, for all your hey-look-at-me-I'm-Jack-Bauer needs

http://www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/ringtone.html

I should probably get out more...

In previous Outlook versions, I've always modified the toolbar to add a button for "Next Item in Conversation Topic". This option allows you to easily follow threads on mailing lists or private email conversations.

This option still exists in Outlook 2007, but you can no longer customise the new "Ribbon" interface - You can only modify the "Quick Access Toolbar".

On to my annoyance... If you add a command to the QAT that doesnt have a default icon associated with it you get a green disc icon instead - An icon that as far as I can see, you cant change! (If someone knows different - Let me know!)

If you happen to want to add more buttons to the toolbar, you'd better hope they've all got icons associated or you'll just have a toolbar full of green blobs!

I can't wait!

Gamerscore Blog Post
Press Release

I'll probably give this a go at some point, but I doubt its going to replace Xbox Media Centre sat on my old Xbox...

Earlier this week Microsoft rolled out their highly-anticipated Xbox 360 update. The update was chock full of bug fixes and new features. However, to me, one of the most exciting new features was their long-overdue update to the 360's UPnP client. That's right; they finally added the ability to stream video from your computer to the 360. While it's technically always been possible to stream (using the 360's Media Center Extender technology), the new update gives the masses who aren't yet using a Media Center box a quick and easy way to stream video to the television. Or does it?

On the surface it's quite an exciting turn of events. However, as many now know all too well, there's just one problem: it only supports WMV. There's no DivX support. There's no H.264 support. There's just WMV. Now, I'm sure that there are many purists out there reading this right now who are flat-out appalled by this decision. The anti-Microsoft crowd (you know the type -- they're the ones who think it's still clever to say Micro$oft) are quick to malign anything not open source and/or anything Microsoft. Frankly, I'm not one of those people. I respect Microsoft's decision to not pay licensing fees to each of the different codec companies. In the end, the decision keeps the price of the unit down. However, there is one HUGE caveat:

Microsoft, you have got to make it easier to transcode into WMV.

Click here...

The bits I'm most looking forward to are:

• Stream WMV video from a Windows PC running Windows Media Player 11, Zune software, or Windows Media Connect.
• Play video from storage devices such as USB flash drives, Xbox 360 Memory Units, etc.
• Play video from CD or DVD data discs.
• Automatically download newly released Xbox Live Arcade trial games.

And finally:

• Optionally disable notifications from Xbox Live while watching DVD movies. (At Last!)

Click here to see the full list!