usb
Tux Icons – An Enlarged Desktop Experience
Dec 18th
I just downloaded a great icon theme. Tux is rocked out 61 times over.
You can download the icon theme here:
http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/61+Cute+Tux+Icons?content=117192
Right click on the icons to stretch them. Notice backup and backup2. I will explain next time how these external usb drivers are keeping a daily backup of the entire system.
2048 RSA Automatic SSH Login
Jun 13th
There is no reason to be hassled to enter login usernames and password when accessing a terminal via ssh. SSH has built in rsa key authentication mechanisms. First build the private and public keys:
ssh-keygen
This will create your private and public keys in the .ssh folder in your home folder. You then copy the public key to the .ssh folder on the target system. Use scp for this.
scp .ssh/id_rsa.pub 192.168.0.100:.ssh/authorized_keys2
Change the ip address of the target system accordingly. Then login to the target system and change the ssh daemons configuration file.
sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Scroll to the password authentication line, remove the pound sign, and make sure its set to no. Also make sure the daemon uses the authorized_keys2 file as the public key reference. Save the file, exit, and reset the ssh daemon.
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart
Now your ssh connections will be automated, and powerfully encrypted. You can remove the id_rsa.pub key from your .ssh directory for total security. Now the public key is only on the target system, and the only way to gain access to that system is via direct login or via the private key on your remote system. You can also transfer the private key to a usb drive, and delete the id_rsa key from the .ssh directory. When connecting via ssh use the -i option to locate the key on the usb drive. For example:
ssh -i /media/drive/id_rsa 192.168.0.100
Now the entire session will only work with the usb key in the drive. Your usb drive will literally be a key, without it there is no access to the target system whatsoever. Also do not loose the usb key, otherwise the only way to access the system will be directly via a terminal.
VirtualBox No iPhone USB Support 1.5.6
Mar 5th
The USB iPhone driver is not currently compatible with VirtualBox. It causes an error that does not allows iTunes to connect to the iPhone. Obviously this is incredibly frusterating for all Linux users that own an iPhone. Luckily I had Windows Vista installed on my laptop and was able to activate the iPhone completely. Then I backed up all my music and videos, installed Ubuntu, cloned by backed-up Windows XP guest OS, installed iTunes, and viola no iPhone support. You’ll get some message like 0xe8000001 or something of the sort when you plug your iPhone in. This is extremely frustrating. There is no Linux support by MAC, and VirtualBox is not resolving this issue in a timely manner. It seems that this has been an issue for some months now; this can easily be observed by the frustration in the VirtualBox forums and others.
USB Hard Drive in RAID1
Jan 31st
This concept works just as for an internal hard drive. Although, USB drives seem to not remain part of the array after a reboot, therefore to use a USB device in a RAID1 setup, you will have to leave the drive connected, and the computer running. Another tactic is to occasionally sync your USB drive to the array, and shut down the USB drive after synchronization. Either tactic is effective. You can create a quick script to add the USB partitions to the RAID1. The first thing to do when synchronizing is to add the partition: sudo mdadm --add /dev/md0 /dev/sdb1 I have 4 partitions therefore my script contains 4 add commands. Then grow the arrays to fit the number of devices: sudo mdadm --grow /dev/md0 --raid-devices=3 After growing the array your USB drive will magically sync 
USB is substantially slower than SATA or PATA. Anything over 100 Gigabytes will take some time. My 149 Gigabyte /home partition takes about an hour and a half to synchronize. Once its synced I do not experience any apparent difference in system performance.
VirtualBox VDI – Clonevdi to USB Hard Drive
Dec 3rd
VDI images should be backed up with the VBoxManage clonevdi tool in order to preserved file system integrity. I myself has made the mistake of copy pasting, and the result is a damaged system with many configuration changes, and files missing. I was able to salvage the contents of the VDI by getting an external ip and using ssh; whewww. To avoid potential backup meltdowns simply use the VBoxManage clonevdi tool:
VBoxManage clonevdi /home/user/.VirtualBox/VDI/example.vdi /media/usbdisk/example.vdi
USB RAID Difficulties
Dec 2nd
I was trying to add a USB hard drive to my RAID system for backup purposes. I have not been successful. It seems that when the USB hard drive is removed the disk is marked “failed”; this is normal. But when the drive is re-inserted it is labeled differently causing a RAID conflict not removing the original drive label from the MD device. I am not quite sure of the resolution to this; but obviously USB RAID devices have a couple of hurdles to achieve proper system configuration. Also the partitions were not synchronizing properly; the drive was failing during the recovery. In the end I am just going to use the USB hard drive as a standard backup medium. I will continue to research mounting a USB hard drive as a typical internal IDE or SATA. If the USB drive can be mounted as a typical drive there should be no reason for a RAID malfunction; it should operate as a normal hard drive.