Running Systems

I have OnePlus 7 Pro. Following the recent update to Android 9, (Just now updated to Android 10, so I don’t know if this problem still relevant) – Once every 2-3 weeks or so, the phone would not wake up from sleep, and remain having a black screen. Long-pressing on the power button has no effect, and the phone remained “dead” as far as I could see. The only indication it was not “entirely dead” was that it generated a very low level of heat.

After leaving it for two days just laying around, I attempted to start it and got a screen message saying the phone needs to be charged enough to start.

It appears, based on this thread, that the phone might have gotten into deep-sleep, from which it could not wake up. A quick workaround was to long-press on Volume Up + Power for about 10-15 seconds. It vibrates (which is the best response ever at that stage) and then you can start the phone normally and it works correctly.

I hope that the Android 10 update solved this issue.

I have acquired a new Oculus Quest, which is a wonderful device. I aim at making it a useful desktop tool, and hopefully – some day – replace my entire working (Linux) desktop with this 360Degץ For now – this is a nice gaming platform, and while it is entirely immersive, and drowns one entirely in the experience, others cannot take even the part of the viewer. It means that when you introduce the Quest to someone new, you cannot instruct her with how to use the device, because you cannot see what’s happening inside.

The application allows for casting, but only to a limited set of destination devices, or only for some applications. Limitations. We don’t like it.

So, based on a great instruction video, I have modified the procedure to work on Linux.

You will need to enable developer mode on your Oculus (the video has a quick reference to that), and you will have to install ‘adb’ on your Linux. For Ubuntu – ‘sudo apt install adb’ should do the trick.
Also – you will need the ‘scrcpy’ tool, which can be installed using ‘snap’ command like this: ‘sudo snap install scrcpy’.

If you can see the device (when connected via USB) running the command ‘adb devices’ (you might need to run it first under ‘sudo’ – check for guides on enabling ‘adb’ for your user) when the Oculus is connected via USB, or modify the connection script to match your Oculus IP address (instead of 1.2.3.4), and then run the command to connect.

Connect_wireless_adb_quest_Linux.sh

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#!/bin/bash
ipaddr=1.2.3.4
adb tcpip 5555
adb connect $ipaddr

Cast_to_your_Linux_quest.sh

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#!/bin/bash
scrcpy -c 1440:1600:0:0 -m 1600 -b 8M

Save these scripts, make them executable, and good luck!

I came across a Linux host (RHEL6.2) which I was not the one managing before, which required adding a node in Oracle 11.2 Grid Infrastructure. According the common documentations, as can be seen here, after cloning the host (or installing it correctly, according to Oracle requirements), you should run ‘cluvfy’ on the existing cluster node.

This has failed miserably – the error result was “PRVF-7610: cannot verify user equivalence/reachability on existing cluster nodes with equivalence configured”. No additional logs were present, and no indication of the problem existed, and equivalence was working correctly, when tested using manual SSH commands in all and any direction.

I have found a hint in this post, where I could control the debugging level of the cluvfy command through the following three env variables:
export CV_TRACELOC=/tmp/cvutrace
export SRVM_TRACE=true
export SRVM_TRACE_LEVEL=2

Following these variables, I have learned how cluvfy works – it checks connectivity (ping and then SSH), followed by copying a set of files to /tmp/CVU_<version>_<GI user> and then executes them.

In this particular case, /tmp was mounted with noexec flag, which resulting in a complete failure, and lack of any logs. So – take heed.

SSH is a wonderful tool. One of its best features is the ability to pierce a firewall and let you go through it. If you’re using the dynamic port (-D as argument in command line openSSH), you actually get a SOCKS5 proxy over which you can transport all your desired data.

This allows you the freedom of accessing the Internet from a restricted machine, on the condition it can connect via SSH to another unrestricted machine. So – how does it work?

To simplify things – you will need two sessions on your restricted machine. Use the first to connect via SSH to an unrestricted machine, with the argument, in our example, -D 10000

What it tells the SSH connection is to create a SOCKS5 proxy locally (on the restricted machine) over port 10000, and all the transport sent there – to transfer through the remote (unrestricted) server.

Using the other session, we can implement local variable like this:

export http_proxy=socks5://localhost:10000

export https_proxy=socks5://localhost:10000

It sets a variable which yum (among many other programs) can read and use. Afterwards, using the same session, running ‘yum update‘ or ‘yum install package‘ will result in yum running through the proxy connection. Of course – the SSH session to the unrestricted server must be active at all times, or else yum command will fail.

I have an old Dell server (R610, if it’s important) and I seem to fail to connect to its iDrac console via Java. No other options exist, and the browser calling Java flow fails somehow.

I have found an explanation here, and I will copy it for eternity 🙂

First – Download the latest JRE version 1.7 from https::/java.com

Then, extract it to a directory of your choice. We’ll call this directory $RUN_ROOT

Download the viewer.jnlp file to this directory $RUN_ROOT, and open it with a text editor. You will see an XML block pointing at a JAR file called avctKVM.jar. Download it manually using ‘wget’ or ‘curl’ from the URL provided in the viewer.jnlp XML file.

Extract the avctKVM.jar file using ‘unzip’. You will get two libraries – avctKVMIO(.so or .dll for Windows) and avmWinLib(.so or .dll for Windows). Move these two files into a new directory under $RUN_ROOT/lib

Download/copy-paste the below .bat or .sh script files (.bat file for Windows, .sh file for Linux).

start-virtual-console.bat

@echo off

set /P drachost="Host: "
set /p dracuser="Username: "
set "psCommand=powershell -Command "$pword = read-host 'Enter Password' -AsSecureString ; ^
    $BSTR=[System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::SecureStringToBSTR($pword); ^
        [System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::PtrToStringAuto($BSTR)""
for /f "usebackq delims=" %%p in (`%psCommand%`) do set dracpwd=%%p

start-virtual-console.sh

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#!/bin/bash
 
echo -n 'Host: '
read drachost
 
echo -n 'Username: '
read dracuser
 
echo -n 'Password: '
read -s dracpwd
echo
 
./jre/bin/java -cp avctKVM.jar -Djava.library.path=./lib com.avocent.idrac.kvm.Main ip=$drachost kmport=5900 vport=5900 user=$dracuser passwd=$dracpwd apcp=1 version=2 vmprivilege=true "helpurl=https://$drachost:443/help/contents.html"

Run the downloaded script file (with Linux – you might want to give it execution permissions first), and you will be asked for your credentials.

Thanks Nicola for this brilliant solution!