Mount and format exFAT disks in Ubuntu

In this guide, I’ll show you how to enable exFAT support in Ubuntu 10.04 – 11.10 (12.04 might work too, didn’t test it):

Open your terminal and enter:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:relan/exfat
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install exfat-utils fuse-exfat

That’s it. To get auto-mount support, use these procedures for 32bit or 64bit:

sudo apt-get -y install ncurses-dev
wget http://mirror.gbxs.net/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng/v2.18/util-linux-ng-2.18.tar.bz2
tar xf util-linux-ng-2.18.tar.bz2
cd util-linux-ng-2.18
./configure
make

Now follow these steps if you have a 32bit system:

sudo mv /lib/libblkid.so.1.1.0 /lib/libblkid.so.1.1.0.backup
sudo cp shlibs/blkid/src/.libs/libblkid.so.1.1.0 /lib/
sudo chmod 644 /lib/libblkid.so.1.1.0
sudo rm /lib/libblkid.so.1
sudo ln -s /lib/libblkid.so.1.1.0 /lib/libblkid.so.1

or these for 64bit:

sudo mv /lib64/libblkid.so.1.1.0 /lib64/libblkid.so.1.1.0.backup
sudo cp shlibs/blkid/src/.libs/libblkid.so.1.1.0 /lib64/
sudo chmod 644 /lib/libblkid.so.1.1.0
sudo rm /lib/libblkid.so.1
sudo ln -s /lib/libblkid.so.1.1.0 /lib/libblkid.so.1

Now connect your disk or remount it. And you’ll should see your exFAT disk!

Some extra commands:

To format a exFAT partition:
sudo mkfs.exfat -n LABEL /dev/sdXn
or
sudo mkexfatfs -n LABEL /dev/sdXn

To change the label:
sudo exfatlabel /dev/sdXn NEW_LABEL

Get filesystem info:
sudo dumpexfat /dev/sdXn

To check the partition:
sudo fsck.exfat /dev/sdXn
or
sudo exfatfsck /dev/sdXn

Adding ssh-id-copy to OSX !

There’s a very convenient shell script bundled with some distributions of OpenSSH called ssh-copy-id. It seems not to be the case with Leopard’s or Lion’s SSH.
In order to get it, we can simply check it out of a GIT repository. Execute these two commands:

sudo curl 'https://raw.github.com/gist/1639381/eea46277ba544fcbd0a0768e8b3f854880ddb772/ssh-copy-id' -o /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/ssh-copy-id

Now execute ssh-id-copy like this:

MBP:~ martijn$ ssh-copy-id root@192.168.0.7
Now try logging into the machine, with "ssh 'root@192.168.0.7'", and check in:

~/.ssh/authorized_keys

to make sure we haven't added extra keys that you weren't expecting.

Loading drivers in ESXi 5.0

So I upgraded to 5 from 4.1 – Cool. Almost. Vanilla install had no support for my Promise SuperTrak EX-8654 card which I have in my HP MircoServer. Now what?!?!?
Well, after a lot of searches, the solution was actually on the Promise site! Yay for them!

So in short an example of you to load a driver on esxi 5.0.

1) Enable ssh access on your esxi 5 host (what do you mean you’ve already done that? It’s dangerous!)

2) Get you driver. The 8654 driver I got from the Promise support site was called 'scsi-stex-4.07.0000.75-1OEM.500.0.0.472560.x86_64.vib'. Yep, what’s in a name.

3) Copy over the driver to the host using scp
ex: scp <driver name> root@<esxi_5_host_ip>:/tmp

4) Next ssh to the esxi host, go to /tmp

5) Install the driver
esxcli software vib install -v /tmp/<driver name>

6) Reload the esxi host – Oh I hand’t told you? Well you need the driver right?

7) Then ssh to the esxi host and check if the driver loaded with 'esxcli software vib list'
In my specific case it looked like this:

~ # esxcli software vib list
Name        Version                             Vendor   Acceptance Level  Install Date
----------  ----------------------------------  -------  ----------------  ------------
scsi-stex   4.07.0000.75-1OEM.500.0.0.472560    Promise  VMwareCertified   2011-12-26

8) Sit back and enjoy the fact you have access to the disks again for adding as a datastore.

Adding a non-VMFS drive to your ESX(i) server and use it!

I had some spare Windows drives lying around and wanted to put them in my HP MicroServer running ESXi 4.1.

After installing the SATA drive, and rebooting, I tried to simply add the drive in the vSphere console. No love from VMWare — I got the message, “Error while adding drive – disk not available.” Hmmm. I was sure the drive was working.

Turns out that in ESXi, once a disk has been written to, in any format, it won’t initialize.
Here’s what it took to add the drive in:

Low-level formatted the drive (the name of the drive might be shorter or longer):
~ # dd if=/dev/zero of=/vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_ST3500413AS_Z2A3TKQ6 bs=512 conv=notrunc

Try adding the disk to your datastore now; I canceled this command after waiting 5 minutes and noticed that ESXi now saw the disk as a ‘blank disk’. Adding it to my datastore now worked! If not, continue…

Recreate the partition table:
~ # fdisk /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_ST3500413AS_Z2A3TKQ6

Then ‘o’ to Create a new empty DOS partition table
Then ‘n’ to add a new partition. I used Primary as the type, and 1 as the partition number.
Then ‘t’ to change the type. ‘fb’ is the code for VMFS 3.0
Then ‘w’ to write everything to the drive

Finally, use the ‘vmkfstools’ program to create the volume. I added it as a new datastore using the following command:
~ # vmkfstools -C vmfs3 -S Datastore2 /vmfs/devices/disks/t10.ATA_ST3500413AS_Z2A3TKQ6

As always, YMMV.

Hide your drive from the desktop in OSX

Sometimes you simple need all your drives on your desktop, but the ones like ‘TimeMachine’ or ‘Lion Installer’ can also simple disappear. Use this script to hide them at every reboot, without having to unmount them. Adjust your volume name to reflect yours.

sudo echo "echo \"UUID=$(diskutil info /Volumes/Lion\ Installer/ | grep UUID | awk '{print $3}') none hfs rw,noauto\" >> /etc/fstab" | sudo bash

To see if it has worked:
sudo cat /etc/fstab

Results in:
UUID=F4F6562F-1C4D-361D-BBD4-91C12ED96B44 none hfs rw,noauto

If your /etc/fstab doesn’t show the UUIC, then you need to check the volume name and/or delimit spaces with an \.

Print protected PDF files on OSX – using the terminal

The newer versions of Preview (at least OS X 10.5, and maybe earlier) respect the “do not print without a password” setting in PDF files. However, it is possible to create a completely unprotected version of any PDF file using ghostscript. A command like this should work:

gs -sOutputFile=MyNewFile.pdf -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dNOPAUSE -dbatch -q MyProtectedFile.pdf

You may need to type “quit” at the command prompt after gs finishes processing the file. Then open the newly created PDF file and voilà, printable!

(Sony) XDCAM Transfer for OS X

So as I now and then have to fix up a OS X + FCP install with XDCAM PDW-U01 import functionality, here is a short howto:
1) PDZK-P1 XDCAM Transfer, now 2.12
2) Mac i.Link FAM driver
3) XDCAM Browser, currently 1.2

The links might break, so here is the official Sony XDCAM site.

I am not affiliated with Sony, nor do they pay me for this. It’s just a braindump for myself and hopefully others will find this helpful!

The Windows multiple program installer thingie…

I keep forgetting this GREAT tool. After a nice clean Windoze install, all it takes is one visit to http://ninite.com/ and a few clicks, and your all set as far as software goes. Download the bundled installer click on it, and go for coffee… :) Joy!

Before throwing rotten tomatoes, yes this is Windows only… my bad! No I don’t have shares or anything. I’m just lazy!