Sometimes it might be necessary to remove Sentinel’s Ranger software from a computer with the minimum of fuss. Even though there is a removal user account. For instance, this may not work.

So here’s a handy script to automitcally disable Ranger on a workstation. This returns some Windows settings back to normal and backs up the Ranger computer info. Just save the code as DeRanger.cmd and run it on any machine that you want to uninstall Ranger.

If you’re having trouble logging into a workstation, either logon as a local administrator or use the Task Manager to stop rgrUIniut.exe in the Processes tab.

DeRanger.cmd

@echo off

::Stop ranger services
Net Stop ClntCMan
Net Stop SecMon
Net Stop RMNETMON
Net Stop RMNetworkMonitorService

::Remove ranger from winlogon and reset Windows Shell
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v UserInit /t REG_SZ /f /d C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" /v Shell /t REG_SZ /f /d Explorer.exe

::Disable ranger services
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ClntCMan" /v Start /t REG_DWORD /f /d 4
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SecMon" /v Start /t REG_DWORD /f /d 4
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RMNETMON" /v Start /t REG_DWORD /f /d 4
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RMNetworkMonitorService" /v Start /t REG_DWORD /f /d 4

::Rename Ranger Registry
reg copy "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Hyperion Security Software" "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Hyperion Security Software_backup" /s /f 
reg delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Hyperion Security Software" /f

::Rename Rnager Installation Folder
rename "%programfiles%\Ranger" Ranger_

::Now restart
shutdown -f -r -t 0

Webdav is a very handy protocol for writing files back and forth across the internet.

I’ve never really had much call for it – but I’m all for it lately as I’m trying out Alfresco and would really love to see a better way to upload files than the basic web-bsaed uploader that is provided.

As Firefox doesn’t had webdav support, I’ve had a go at mounting webdav folders in Linux. The results have been good, with a couple of small caveats that are remedied fairly easily.

First of all, you need to install the davfs2 package. Once done, we can start connecting to a webdav folder on t’internet:

Open up the terminal and create the mount folder:

mkdir ~/webmount

Now run the mount.davfs command to connect as root

sudo mount.davfs http://yourwebsite.com/webdav ~/webmount -o rw,uid=john

Now, let me quickly explain the paramters.
yourwebsite.com/webdav is the server and path
~/webdav is your local directory where you want to webdav files to appear
-o rw,uid=john is the options to set the webdav as re-writable and allow me (john) to have user-level access to the files. Make sure that you put your own username here.

And that’s it.

When you copy files, you might get an error such as this:

cp myfile.pdf ~/webmount/

cp: cannot create regular file `~/myfile.pdf': Input/output error

This is caused by the server not supporting file locks. You will need to edit the /etc/davfs2/davfs2.conf file and add the following line:

use_locks       0

Remount your webdav directory, and you should be able to create files with no problems.

It’s driven me mad for a long time, but I finally stumbled across the name of the medical profession insignia today.

Cadeceus emblem

It’s something that I needed to know a while back, and you see it in hospitals and on ambulances. it seems to be an internationally recognised symbol.

It’s no really that important – but I’m making sure it’s here so I don’t forget! Based upon a Greek myth, it’s a short herald staff with two serpents intwined upon it. There’s an entry over at Wikipedia (naturally).

Caduceus.

I’ve just been tweaking with SSH. One of the common things that I have to do is reconfigure my SSH tunnels while I’m working remotely to gain access to desktops and the like.

In this situation, the cumbersome but easiest way always seemed to be to disconnect and change the command line. However, having used Putty I was fairly sure that there must be an easier way.

AND THERE IS!

Changing the port forwarding in ssh is as easy, if not easier, than in Putty.

While you’re connected to the host, type a tilde (~) and an uppercase C.This will open the ssh shell. Just type in your port forwarding command like you would when you are typing in the command line option. eg:

-L 3389:localhost:3389

to tunnel an RDP socket to the machine that you are connected to.

And that’s it! If you’re stuck, type a question mark (?) and press ‘Enter’. This will show you the options available.

I had a shocking error of judgement this morning when I accidentally deleted some of my son’s photos from his toy digital camera. They were sitting on my desktop, and I was on a cleanup… These were a casualty of my cleanup-fest and obsession with the shift key.

Thinking on a Windows vein – I thought that I should be able to backup the files easily and seamlessly. But I don’t want too much aggravation. A quick scoot around the Ubuntu forums, and I found TimeVault.

TimeVault is the equivalent project to Windows’ Shadow Copy service or Apple’s Time Machine. Basically it’s a completely transparent backup that allows you to recover files easily on the system you are working on.

I’ve downloaded the .DEB and forced the installation (there’s no binary x64 version at the moment). I’ll see how it all goes and report back!

When you’re setting up a Windows Vista system on your network for the first time, you might find that adding printers becomes an issue because the UAC prompt appears.

Unfortunately, if you do this with a logon script – then the logon will hang until the script timeout expires. Worse still, if you’re using Group Policy Preferences to set up the printer it will cause the logon to hang indefinitely.

If you’re experiencing this problem – then you need to make sure that the Trusted Printer settings are either configured correctly, or disabled so that printer installation behaves as it would in previous versions of Windows such as 2000 and XP.

Firstly, you’ll need to open the Group Policy Management console, and navigate to the OU which contains the user accounts that are likely to add printers and edit the policy.

Open User Settings >Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Printers.

To prevent Vista from ever prompting to install the printer drivers, simply disable the Point and Print Restrictions setting. If you need to control where printers can be installed from then you need to edit the Approved Servers setting instead.

If you’ve used group policy preferences, make sure that you’ve set the Run in logged-on user’s security context option.

Once configured, you should be able to log on with a user account that automatically adds the printer without a hitch.