How to check an hard drive health in Linux using smartctl

The smartmontools package is generally available in the default repositories of all the major Linux distributions. It contains two utilities useful to check the status of storage with S.M.A.R.T support (Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology): smartcl and smartd.

The former is the utility we use directly to check S.M.A.R.T attributes, run tests, or perform other actions; the latter is the daemon which can be used to schedule operations in the background.

Tu install smartmontools use command:

sudo apt install smartmontools

Checking if SMART is enabled

Let’s become familiar with the smartctl utility. The first thing we want to check is if S.M.A.R.T support is active on the device. To perform this operation we can run the smartctl utility with the -i option (short for –info):

sudo smartctl -i /dev/sda

If SMART support is disabled we need to enable it:

sudo smartctl -s on /dev/sda

Getting S.M.A.R.T information with smartctl

To get information about hard drive /dev/sda use command:

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda

Very important parameters to check are, among the others, “Reallocated_Sector_Ct” and “Current_Pending_Sector”. In both cases if the RAW_VALUE is something other than 0, we should be very careful and start to backup data on the hard drive. The Reallocated_Sector_Ct is the count of sectors on the block device which cannot be used correctly.

When such a sector is found it is remapped to one of the available spare sectors of the storage device, and data contained in it is relocated. The Current_Pending_Sector attribute, instead, is the count of bad sectors that are still waiting to be remapped. If you want to know more about the S.M.A.R.T attributes and their meaning, you can begin to take a look at the Wikipedia S.M.A.R.T page.

Proxmox – cluster not ready – no quorum [SOLVED]

This error occurs when we remove a node from the cluster.

If the cluster has 2 nodes and the two nodes are mentioned to access the quorum.

After removing a node from the cluster only a single node is active. Thus the quorum permission becomes a read-only state.

To resolve the error we change the node from 2 to 1 in the default configuration.

The sample error looks like:

Cluster not ready – no quorum? (500)

First we login to the Proxmox server.

Then we check the state of the cluster using the command

pvecm status

From the result, we find that the Quorum activity is blocked.

Thus we execute the below command to change the votes from 2 to 1.

pvecm expected 1

After executing the command we will be able to delete the VM.

If the VM gets locked during the process, we unlock the VM using the command

qm unlock

Now if you want, you can delete cluster width this commands:

systemctl stop pve-cluster corosync
pmxcfs -l
rm /etc/corosync/*
rm /etc/pve/corosync.conf
killall pmxcfs
systemctl start pve-cluster

Or you can remove only one node from cluster with this documentation:

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Cluster_Manager#_remove_a_cluster_node

How to install Arch Linux

In this lesson we install Arch Linux on encrypted btrfs volume step by step.

1. Show all volumes on hard drive:

ls /dev/sd*

2. Delete all volumes on drive /dev/sda

fdisk /dev/sda

Next write letter (d) -> number of volume and then write changes (w)

3. Create some partitions with command cfdisk:
– First partition: 256M, type: EFI System
– Second partition: 512M
– Third partition: full size of disk

Write changes, type yes and exit from cfdisk.

4. Now let’s create file system and encrypt on our partitions:

mkfs.vfat -n "EFI System" /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 -L boot /dev/sda2
mkfs.ext4 -L root /dev/sda3

We successfully created three partitions – efi, boot and root.

Now we need to encrypt our root partition:

modprobe dm-crypt
modprobe dm-mod

cryptsetup luksFormat -v -s 512 -h sha512 /dev/sda3

Type YES in capital letters and password for encrypted partition.

Arch Linux - Cryptsetup

5. Open our encrypted partition:

cryptsetup open /dev/sda3 archlinux

6. Create btrfs partition on our encrypted partition:

mkfs.btrfs -L root /dev/mapper/archlinux

7. Mount

mount -t btrfs /dev/mapper/archlinux /mnt
cd /mnt

8. Create subvolumes for btrfs partition

btrfs subvolume create root
btrfs subvolume create home
btrfs subvolume create snapshots

Go to / and unmount /mnt

cd /
umount -R /mnt

8. Mount

mount -t btrfs -o subvol=root /dev/mapper/archlinux /mnt

Create home and snapshots directories:

mkdir /mnt/home
mkdir /mnt/snapshots

Mount home and snapshots directories

mount -t btrfs -o subvol=home /dev/mapper/archlinux /mnt/home
mount -t btrfs -o subvol=snapshots /dev/mapper/archlinux /mnt/snapshots

Create boot directories:

mkdir /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/boot/efi

Show partitions:

lsblk

Mount boot directories:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot/efi

9. Create swap file:

dd if=/dev/zero of=swap bs=1M count=1024
chmod 0600 swap
mkswap swap
swapon swap

10. Install Arch Linux to /mnt directory:

pacstrap -i /mnt base base-devel efibootmgr grub linux linux-firmware networkmanager vim mc

11. Generate fstab

genfstab -U /mnt > /mnt/etc/fstab

12 Arch chroot to our new system:

arch-chroot /mnt

13. Change root password:

passwd

14. Uncomment locales in /etc/locale.gen file

vim /etc/locale.gen

Generate locale:

locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US > /etc/locale.conf

15. Configure grub boot loader

vim /etc/default/grub

In line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”” write this text:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="cryptdevice=/dev/sda3:archlinux"

Change file /etc/mkinitcpio.conf: in line HOOKS add encrypt

HOOKS=(... encrypt ...)
mkinitcpio -p linux

Configure grub bootloader:

grub-install --boot-directory=/boot --efi-directory=/boot/efi /dev/sda2
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/arch/grub.cfg

Configuration Cambium from command line

Default Cambium EMP 1000 IP: 169.254.1.1

Default user name: admin and password: admin

1. Open SSH terminal and connect to 169.254.1.1

2. Enable DHCP with command (1 – Static, 2 – DHCP): 

config set networkLanIPAddressMode 2

Configure network IP, Mask and Gateway parameters:

config set networkLanIPAddr 10.20.124.10
config set networkLanNetmask 255.255.255.0
config set networkLanGatewayIP 10.20.124.1

3. Save configuration with command:

config save
config apply

4. Reboot devise for changes to take effect.

reboot

Now you can open Web-browser and go to http://IP configuration page.

Change VGA resolution in Linux

1.First create modeline with your resolution

cvt 1680 1050

This will create modeline for resolution of 1600×900 which will look something like this: 

1680x1050 59.95 Hz (CVT 1.76MA) hsync: 65.29 kHz; pclk: 146.25 MHz
Modeline "1680x1050_60.00" 146.25 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync

2. To add this resolution to monitor settings, type the following command:

xrandr --newmode "1680x1050_60.00" 146.25 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync

3. Next show your monitors list and find name of your monitor (VGA-1)

xrandr --listmonitors

3. And next write this command:

xrandr --addmode VGA-1 "1680x1050_60.00"

4. In Linux Mint, xorg.conf is not present by default and has to be created. This can be created only when x server is not working ie.  in console mode otherwise system will give error. Type these highlighted commands one by one in console mode:

Alt+Ctrl+F1 (switch to console mode)

sudo service lightdm stop (For Mint 12 Lisa users)

or

sudo service mdm stop (For Mint 13 Maya users)
sudo X -configure (generates new xorg.conf file)

5. To switch back to graphical mode, type:

sudo start lightdm (Mint 12 Lisa users)
sudo service mdm start (Mint 13 Maya users)

If above commands fail to bring back graphical mode, just restart your computer.

Cockpit – Web GUI for Your Linux Servers

Cockpit gives you a GUI for your server, which can be accessed via a web browser. Cockpit makes it easy to start containers, administer storage, configure networks, inspect logs, and perform system tasks with a mouse.

You can think of Cockpit like a graphical “desktop interface”, but for individual servers.

To install Cockpit on Debian / Ubuntu use command:

sudo apt install cockpit

Default Cockpit web port is 9090, don’t forget to allow access to this port in your firewall.

With Cockpit you can easy get access to server terminal from your Web-browser:

IDE controller GoldStar Prime 2

GoldStar PRIME 2 IDE I/O CARD Hard Disk/Floppy Controller.

Specifications:

Data bus:16-bit, ISA
Size:Half-length, full-height card
Hard drive supported:Two IDE(AT) Interface drives
Floppy drives supported:Two 360KB, 720KB, 1.2MB, or 1.44MB drives
FunctionLocationSetting
Floppy drive enabledJ1pins 1 & 2 closed
Floppy drive disabledJ1pins 2 & 3 closed
Floppy drive port address is 3F0-3F7hJ2pins 1 & 2 closed
Floppy drive port address is 370-377hJ2pins 2 & 3 closed
Hard drive enabledJ3pins 1 & 2 closed
Hard drive disabledJ3pins 2 & 3 closed
AT Hard drive port address is 1F0-1F7 & 3F6-3F7hJ4pins 1 & 2 closed
AT Hard drive port address is 170-177 & 376-377hJ4pins 2 & 3 closed
XT hard drive port address is 320-323hJ5pins 1 & 2 closed
XT Hard drive port address is 324-327hJ5pins 2 & 3 closed
IDE(AT) drives supportedJ6pins 1 & 2 closed
IDE(XT) drives supportedJ6pins 2 & 3 closed
Serial port 1 enabledJ7pins 1 & 2 closed
Serial port 1 disabledJ7pins 2 & 3 closed
Serial port 1 set to COM1 and IRQ4J8pins 1 & 2 closed
Serial port 1 set to COM3 and IRQ4J8pins 2 & 3 closed
Serial port 2 enabledJ9pins 1 & 2 closed
Serial port 2 disabledJ9pins 2 & 3 closed
Serial port 2 set to COM2 and IRQ3J10pins 1 & 2 closed
Serial port 2 set to COM3 and IRQ3J10pins 2 & 3 closed
Parallel port enabledJ11pins 1 & 2 closed
Parallel port disabledJ11pins 2 & 3 closed
Parallel port set to LPT1 and IRQ7J12pins 1 & 2 closed
Parallel port set to LPT2 and IRQ7J12pins 2 & 3 closed

Sound Blaster 16 WavEffects 4170

Sound Blaster 16 (June 1992), the successor to the Sound Blaster Pro, introduced CD-quality digital audio to the Sound Blaster line.

The Sound Blaster 16 WavEffects (CT4170) was released in 1997 as a cheaper and simpler redesign of the Sound Blaster 16. It came with Creative WaveSynth also bundled on Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, a physical modeling software synthesizer developed by Seer Systems (led by Dave Smith), based on Sondius WaveGuide technology (developed at Stanford’s CCRMA).

The WavEffects line also supports CQM synthesis for Adlib/OPL compatibility.

More you can find in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_16

Here you can download Sound Blaster 16 manual:

sound-blaster-16-getting-startedDownload

Motherboard SFL 40V0 9247

Motherboard SFL 40V0 9247 designed in 1991.
Installed processor AMD Am386 SX-33

Back side:

On motherboard installed processor AMD Am386 SX-33 and Math co-processor: ULCI Systems 9244PA

The Am386 CPU is a 100%-compatible clone of the Intel 80386 design released by AMD in March 1991. Max. CPU clock rate 20 MHz to 40 MHz

More about this CPU you can find in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am386