Navigation

How to flatten a directory on Mac through terminal

17th June, 2016

Recently, I was handed a project with pre-built ANT scripts that zip folders up into individual directories. The zip files in each folder needed to be uploaded to an FTP site without the folder so having to navigate into each was a bit annoying and time consuming for 40 files.

If you find yourself in need of merge or flatten a folder/directory, use this snippet to flatten everything into a single directory. If a file exists with the same name, you’ll be prompted to overwrite or leave in the existing folder.

find $PWD -mindepth 2 -type f -exec mv -i '{}' $PWD/ ';'

1	find $PWD -mindepth 2 -type f -exec mv -i '{}' $PWD/ ';'

In my case, there was an extra file generated within each folder that was not used and I didn’t want to be prompted 40 times to overwrite so changing the -i to -n will force files to be overwritten. I’d recommend using caution with this and only use it when you know the duplicate files don’t matter.

find $PWD -mindepth 2 -type f -exec mv -n '{}' $PWD/ ';'

1	find $PWD -mindepth 2 -type f -exec mv -n '{}' $PWD/ ';'

Cheap Macbook Pro Docking Solution for about $30

Greg

9th June, 2016

Applications

I typically prefer developing on my desktop and large dual screen monitor setup as opposed to my Macbook. Recently, I’ve gotten into more PHP development and developing on the Mac is proving to be a more enjoyable experience only because Windows is still a second class citizen for most PHP libraries/tools. I still wanted a larger screen setup, so I considered buying a docking station to hook up to a larger monitor but I soon learned they feature the ‘Mac Penalty’ in that they cost more than they should just because it’s for Apple products.

I already have two large monitors and figured my Macbook could serve as third screen. Then I did some thinking and realized I could use one of the monitors for both computers. Assuming you have two HDMI screens already hooked up to your desktop, this would save you $150+ and still allow you to be more productive.

Get a copy of Synergy (http://symless.com/) for $10. It’s open source and can be built if you have the time, but a one time fee of $10 saves me the hassle of doing so. With this, you can share your desktop keyboard across all your computers with the one license and it’s cross platform so Linux support is included too.
Purchase an auto HDMI switcher. I purchased the PORTTA PET0301S 3×1 Port HDMI Switch/Switcher for about $9.
Be sure to get 2 HDMI cables if you don’t already have them on hand. I don’t like the Amazon Basic brand for these as I’ve had problems with the Mac and those cables hooking up to larger screens.
Install Synergy on the desktop as a server. Install on the Macbook as a client and it should autoconnect.
Plug the HDMI cable from the computer into the HDMI switcher, and plug the spare into the Macbook pro. Plug the “Out” end into the monitor.

When you plug your HDMI cable into the Macbook, the HDMI switcher will automatically switch to it and project the Macbook. Synergy will auto-connect as long as it’s running on both and you can share the mouse and keyboard between both and work seamlessly.

If you have an iPad and want to turn that into an additional screen, grab a copy of Duet Display on your desktop/Macbook and install on your iPad for $15.99, and viola, instant portable second screen!

How to repair permissions on Linux Apache /var/www/html folder

Greg

29th May, 2016

Administration

I recently ran into an issue where I could no longer FTP files to my Linux droplet when multiple users were uploading to the server. The server kept the user as the owner despite me adding them to the www-data group. This fix comes from my ex-boss, James Tomasino who was kind enough to provide some help since I was stumped. I’m sharing in case anyone else runs into the same issue and finds it useful.

You’ll need to fire up terminal, ssh to the server, and then execute these commands:

cd /var/www
sudo chmod 775 html
sudo chgrp www-data html
sudo chmod g+s html

cd /var/www

sudo chmod 775 html

sudo chgrp www-data html

sudo chmod g+s html

+s makes permissions sticky so that all files will inherit from the parent directory. This was the setting I was missing.

Open up /etc/ssh/sshd_config. I use nano so:

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

1	sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Hit CTRL+W and look for “subsystem” which is typically located near the bottom of the file. Change

subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server

1	subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server

subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server -u 0002

1	subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server -u 0002

If you already have files in the HTML folder, you’ll want to run these commands to reset the permissions:

cd /var/www/
sudo chgrp -R www-data html
find . -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;
find . -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;

cd /var/www/

sudo chgrp -R www-data html

find . -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;

find . -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;

How to stop CouchDB on Mac OS

Greg

23rd May, 2016

Administration

I have been working on a proof of concept using CouchDB. After getting the proof of concept working, I spun up a digital ocean droplet and proceeded to setup CouchDB on the server. I went to enable the SSH tunnel so I could access the CouchDB Futon instance and promptly ran into an error because my local instance of CouchDB was using the same port, 5984. I had a lot of trouble finding out an easy way to stop CouchDB because the documentation in the Wiki wasn’t accurate:

sudo launchctl unload \
     /usr/local/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.couchdb.plist

1 2	sudo launchctl unload \ /usr/local/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.apache.couchdb.plist

As a workaround, in Terminal, run

launchctl list | grep couchdb

1	launchctl list \| grep couchdb

This will output something like:

99093 0 org.apache.couchdb.288008

Grab the highlighted portion and run

launchctl stop "org.apache.couchdb.288008"

1	launchctl stop "org.apache.couchdb.288008"

Substitute the process name accordingly and you should be able to run the ‘launchctl list’ command again and see the process is no longer present.

Regex to parse date formats when unknown

Greg

22nd May, 2016

I’m working on an app that will parse different file sources and aggregate it for a report. Of course, each format has a different date format and trying to parse it all has proved to be a pain. I wrote a regex that’ll parse out just about every datetime format I’ve run into that I am sharing in case someone else finds it useful. I’ve put it on a Github gist along with a sample of the various dates I’ve tested it against and confirmed to work. If you find a format not covered by the regex, post a comment and I’ll update the gist.

Just a note that I haven’t finished parsing the timestamp (e.g. 1997-07-16T19:20:30+01:00) format. The date portion does get extracted correctly so I left it in.

(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80 – error

Greg

20th May, 2016

Administration

I recently got handed a new Ubuntu droplet at work to setup and work on. I was going through the typical configuration to lock down the server and go to installing Apache when I suddenly ran into the error

(98)Address already in use: AH00072: make_sock: could not bind to address [::]:80 – error

I was a little surprised considering I had only run 4 commands total on a brand new installation. If you’re getting this error like me, you’ll need to find out what’s being bound to port 80 and then stop it. Use this command to get a list of anything that’s running on port 80.

sudo lsof -i:80

1	sudo lsof -i:80

For me, it turned out nginx was running and bound to port 80. If you have the same problem, run this command to stop it:

sudo service nginx stop

1	sudo service nginx stop

Now you should be able to start apache.

Copy File Context to Clipboard via Command Line, Git Bash (Mingw64), or Terminal

Greg

6th February, 2016

Administration

I’ve been spending more time switching from SVN to Git and learning the command line options. I’m finding a lot of the Mac Git terminal commands I run aren’t the same in Git Bash (Mingw64). One of the commands I use is the pbcopy command to copy the ssh key to the clipboard to paste into Github and Bitbucket accounts. I’m starting to use it more as I am learning managing Linux servers and adding my key to login. I’m adding it here as a cheatsheet for myself but I thought others may find it useful.

On Windows, you can run this command to copy your ssh key to the clipboard:

clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

1	clip < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

On Mac:

pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

1	pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

or if you want to view it in the terminal window:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

1	cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

How to Copy and Paste into the Digital Ocean VNC Console

Greg

18th January, 2016

Administration

I recently signed up for Digital Ocean to test droplets for my development and linux management testing. I was securing the server and setup fail2ban, disabled the root login, and created a user account but forgot to change the user name from root to the user name I selected in my SSH client profile. I ended up locking myself out of the server and had to resort to logging into the admin panel on Digital Ocean’s website and use their browser embedded VNC client to restore my access. I quickly discovered that one of the downsides of using this panel is that you can’t copy and paste commands. Luckily there’s a workaround and you can use the browser console to do sendkeys through Javascript.

Bring up the console in the browser developer tools. Here’s a cheat sheet for keyboard shortcuts:

Browser	Description	Windows	Mac
Chrome	Open Developer Tools and bring focus to the console	Ctrl + Shift + J	Cmd + Opt + J
Firefox	Open Console	Ctrl + Shift + K	Cmd + Opt + K
Internet Explorer	After hitting F12, you have to click the console tab. There’s no direct shortcut to the console tab.	F12	N/A

Paste this snippet into the textbox in the console window:

<del datetime="2016-09-21T17:09:17+00:00">!function(){function t(){window.rfb.sendKey(e.shift().charCodeAt()),e.length>0&&setTimeout(t,10)}var e=prompt("Enter text to be sent to console").split("");t()}();</del>

1	<del datetime="2016-09-21T17:09:17+00:00">!function(){function t(){window.rfb.sendKey(e.shift().charCodeAt()),e.length>0&&setTimeout(t,10)}var e=prompt("Enter text to be sent to console").split("");t()}();</del>

Update 9-21-16

Ruden and Sebastiaan’s pointed out there was a bug in the code above. This updated snippet has support for characters when using shift characters like !@#$%^&*()_+

!function(){function t(){function n(t,e){s=s.concat(RFB.messages.keyEvent(t,e))}var o=e.shift(),s=[],i=o.charCodeAt(),c=-1!=='!@#$%^&*()_+{}:"<>?~|'.indexOf(o),r=XK_Shift_L;c&&n(r,1),n(i,1),n(i,0),c&&n(r,0),rfb._sock.send(s),e.length>0&&setTimeout(t,10)}var e=prompt("Enter text to be sent to console").split("");t()}();

You’ll receive a dialog prompt to enter the copy to paste in. Please note that you need to click on the VNC console and hit enter to execute the command.

Javascript Prompt

If you need to enter more than one command, just hit the up arrow on your keyboard in the console to get the script again for easy reuse.

Sitecore 8 Install Error: “The name you entered is not unique.”

Greg

14th October, 2015

Administration

I was working on my business partner’s computer to help him fix errors with his Sitecore instance for his certification class. He experienced multiple issues with the Sitecore 8 installer on Windows 8 and we went the manual route of deleting Sitecore to install clean and start from scratch. In the process, we:

Deleted the IIS website instance in the IIS Manager
Deleted the databases used by the instance
Deleted the root folder in the filesystem

After launching the installer again, it kept returning the error “The name you entered is not unique.” when naming the Sitecore instance to one previously used. After checking the IIS metabase and a few other typical locations, couldn’t figure out where the Sitecore installer was finding the name since we deleted everything manually. It turns out that the Sitecore executable installer creates a registry entry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sitecore CMS which is used to display information in Windows Programs and Features. This registry key is also checked during the installation process and if a child key with the same name as the one being installed is found, the above error message is shown.

To fix this:

Start -> Run (or Windows Key + R)
Type regedit
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Sitecore CMS.
Delete the registry keys containing the information about the previously installed instance.

NOTE: You’ll need to relaunch the installer as it apparently caches the key information.

How to fix “hacked by Moroccanwolf” WordPress site

Greg

9th September, 2015

Administration

A client of mine had their wordpress hacked and when you would load the site, it would simply display a message that said “hacked by Moroccanwolf”. I did some digging and luckily it wasn’t a major hack and they didn’t mess with the posts or other settings as a lot of the hacks do.

Quick Fix

To fix it, you’ll need to connect to your database using an editor of some sort, such as PHPmyadmin.
Once logged in, expand your database on the left.
Click on ‘wp_options’.
On the top right, click the ‘Browse’ tab.
Look for ‘widget_text’ in the option_name field. (For my client, it was at row 90). You should see something similar to this:

<script>document.documentElement.innerHTML = unescape(''%48%61%63%6b%65%64%20%62%79%20%4d%6f%72%6f%63%63%61%6e%77%6f%6c%66%20%26%26%20%61%62%64%65%6c%6c%61%68%20%45%6c%6d%61%67%68%72%69%62%69'');</script>

1	<script>document.documentElement.innerHTML = unescape(''%48%61%63%6b%65%64%20%62%79%20%4d%6f%72%6f%63%63%61%6e%77%6f%6c%66%20%26%26%20%61%62%64%65%6c%6c%61%68%20%45%6c%6d%61%67%68%72%69%62%69'');</script>

Delete the entire tag and this should restore your website. Now remember to change your logins and update wordpress.

How I Figured it Out

Most of the hacks I’ve seen are done through injecting javascript into the database somewhere which either force a redirect or something along those lines. Here’s the steps I followed to find it:

To fix it, you’ll need to connect to your database using an editor of some sort, such as PHPmyadmin.
Once logged in, click on your database on the left. Ensure you’re on the database and not a table.
Click Export.
Leave it to quick and click go.
You should now see a textbox with a mess of SQL commands.
Copy and paste into your favorite editor,
Search for <script> and you should find something that doesn’t belong. In this instance, that was the only thing I found of note.
You’ll want to scan the rest of the database for things that don’t belong. Additionally, you’ll want to replace all the wordpress files and confirm no .htaccess files were created that give hackers write access.

Older Posts

Newer Posts}

April 2018
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Nov
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30