OpenFire Web Chat confusion abounds online.  It drives me FREAKING CRAZY all the incompetence online lately and when I search for stuff I have to thread bits and pieces I find into a workable tapestry that THEN works.

It is taking all my strength not to %&*#*’ing swear and lose all “professionalism” as it makes me feel better!!!

Anyway…

So you installed Ignite Realtime Chat and now what?  My reference to get started was this blog:  http://www.unixmen.com/install-openfire-ubuntu-12-04-lts – not quite what I needed since any sane person setting up a server wouldn’t put a desktop on it nor would you access it then from a local host address.  It was a good start though and I got the JDK install string from them so eah, I’ll throw them a bone.

First:

Install Ubuntu Linux LTS 14.xx

Install JDK (Java):  apt-get install openjdk-7-jre

Go here and download the .deb file for Debian – Ubuntu is based on Debian: http://www.igniterealtime.org/downloads

Note you can also do like I do and make a temp directory, I have a habit of doing that here:

mkdir /var/ftp

cd /var/ftp

Then you “wget” the file which when I did this it was the 4.0.1 version:  wget http://download.igniterealtime.org/openfire/openfire_4.0.1_all.deb

Then do:  dpkg -i openfire_4.0.1_all.deb

Go to your hostname in your browser and configure the install:  http://yourhostname:9090.  Note that if you want to access it in the future use port 9091, I think it’s disabled by default I’m not sure, I quickly used 9090, went through the install and then accessed it on 9091.  You’ll want to get a legit SSL cert too eventually.

Now, that we’ve got it installed and YES it’s that freaking easy.  Done!  You can do a command to see where it’s installed, “whereis openfire”.  Note those two paths.

Second:

Install a few pluggins, go to:  plugins > available plugins:  Fastpath Service, and Fastpath Webchat.  Where the HELL is the fastpath webchat plugin?  %&*#*’ing hell some moron in their infinite wisdom doesn’t list it on the plugins page!  Who knows why the gods themselves did so, supposedly because of technical security issues, whatever.  You need to go to the forums and download the stupid thing.  Can you believe that?  WTF!!!???  Here is the forum url:  https://community.igniterealtime.org/thread/51024.  Again, are you f’ing kidding me?  The war file is here:   https://community.igniterealtime.org/servlet/JiveServlet/download/221248-16051/webchat.war so you can go do this to “install” the plugin:

cd /usr/share/openfire/plugins

wget  https://community.igniterealtime.org/servlet/JiveServlet/download/221248-16051/webchat.war

Done!  Now go to the “plugins” tab and you should see fastpath and fastpath webchat!

Now, go to the fastpath tab > create a workgroup > do your thing > put your user into that workgroup, I deleted all the default crap and made my own.  I can’t hold your hand too much on this one…it would take too long and I’m not that committed to hand holding – be a good admin and figure it out ;-)  I got you this far!

Third:

The next thing is your HTML for the “chat button” on your website.  See if you can see your jive script file here:  http://yourhostname:9090/webchat/jivelive.jsp

…I’ll finish this momentarily, I have to work on something else.

Command line uninstall of LogMeIn, I had a need and this is what fixed me up!

Reference:  IT Ninja:  http://www.itninja.com/question/how-do-i-silently-uninstall-logmein-from-windows-xp-and-windows-7

Their solution only hinted at the fix – for me dumping or querying the registry didn’t show me anything.

1 – Download the MSI package from LMI’s website

2 – Copy the files to your target machine, I usually do this via UNC to the workstation:  start > run or type in \\workstation-name\c$ > enter.  That’s the administrative share.  Then I usually copy stuff to c:\temp

3 – Download PSTools from Micro$oft, unzip it co c:\temp\pstools, open a command prompt then execute the command to that workstation so you can get a remote command shell:  psexec \\workstation-name -u yourdomainhere\youruserhere cmd <- Then hit enter.  It will ask you for a password.

4 – Then:  cd\temp

5 – Then:  msiexec /x c:\temp\logmein.msi /qn

6 – Then:  Reboot with:  shutdown /r /t 10 /c “Rebooting – RW” /f

7 – Log back in with a remote cmd using PSTools and PSExec then run the batch file or command line installer you can download from their deployment option on the LMI website.  Mine was something like this:  msiexec.exe /i c:\temp\LogMeIn.msi /quiet DEPLOYID=00_longstringofgarbateblahblahblahblahblah INSTALLMETHOD=5 FQDNDESC=1

* I think that long string of garbage is somehow tied to your account – it lets you install the msi via command line.

On the IT ninja blog they said to query an uninstall registry but I couldn’t find my LMI in there ANYWHERE and I dumped the entire registry hive for the key and all subkeys and looked.  I find that doing an uninstall and pointing it at the MSI that it would read that MSI and uninstall it EVEN IF it’s a newer version ;)

After kicking off the install with that msiexec /i command pointed to the logmein.msi file I got the email that the workstation has been added and I could get in!

Quick note here on a Dokuwiki error I encountered.

I was getting and “undefined function()” error on line 13 in this file when upgrading Dokuwiki, it was a bit irritating because nobody else had the fix BUT I figured I’d give commenting out the line a shot ;-)

Those lines are in the file:  /var/www/doku/lib/tpl/dokuwiki/main.php

13 $hasSidebar = page_findnearest($conf[‘sidebar’]);
14 $showSidebar = $hasSidebar && ($ACT==’show’);

So, nano main.php

Then change your file to this:

“/** $hasSidebar = page_findnearest($conf[‘sidebar’]);
$showSidebar = $hasSidebar && ($ACT==’show’); */”

The /** and */ will comment out in this example <– the “and” so doing that in the main.php gets rid of the undefined function because we take the function out of their code :-)

Not sure what effect this might have on the functionality of the wiki BUT it seems OK, I’m not on the Dokuwiki team, I’m only hack :P

Good luck and definitely let me know if this helped you out.

Dokuwiki version: 2012-10-13

Installing Adobe Reader MSP file Patch

If your interested in knowing more about Adobe Reader patching I have another post that discusses things in detail here with links to Adobe explanations and upgrade paths.  They’re great links because you can download various patches right from their site on those pages without getting bumped to some other rediculous download page:  Link

So, make an “updater.bat” file and copy the below data into it.

You’ll want to change a few things:

1. The “\\yourserver\someshare” to your actual server name and your server share where filever and Adobe Reader exist
2. Download filever; it’s how we check the file version that exists on the machine
3. Download the MSP and change the version of the patch below

The script:

@echo off

:: Checking to see if Adobe Reader 10 is installed
if exist “%programfiles%\Adobe\Reader 10.0” goto install
goto noexist

:install
echo Adobe Reader 10 is installed
echo Processing update…checking current version level
“\\yourserver\someshare\filever” “%programfiles%\Adobe\Reader 10.0\Reader\acrord32.exe” | findstr /C:”10.1.3.23″
:: Diagnostic echo to see result of the filever call
:: echo %errorlevel%
if %errorlevel% EQU 0 goto end
echo Installing the patch…
msiexec /update “\\yourserver\someshare\Adobe Reader\reader_10_1_3\AdbeRdrUpd1013.msp” /quiet
goto end
:noexist
echo Adobe Reader 10 doesn’t seem to be installed
echo thus we don’t need the patch!
goto end
:end

Now, if you put that into a Group Policy under a system startup it’ll update your instance of Adobe Reader to whichever version of the Adobe MSP you’re pushing…UNLESS of course you didn’t read my other post about patching because there are exceptions when patching security patches or quarterly patches :P

Zebra Z4M printer problems

This is just a short blerb but I went 15 rounds with a Zebra Z4M (now an unsupported legacy product) today and I finally dealt it a knock out blow!  I literally spent about four hours off an on with this issue.  I don’t know which firmware it was on BUT here’s what happened:

NIC installed – it was a small daughter board on the mainboard inside the unit, you can’t see it unless you unscrew and get into the side cover.  It has a long 10 pin power cable and data cable that goes from the daughter board to the NIC which is about as small as a USB thumb drive that’s mounted on the back of the unit.  I believe Zebra calls them “external”.

Parallel Port – on the main board and hadn’t been used ever.

The problem was even though I was using the correct driver, downloaded from zebra.com it didn’t seem the PC was communicating with the unit.  There was no USB option.  After fiddling with it for HOURS I popped the daughter board out and off of the main board.  Up till this point I tried everything to configure the unit from the front console panel (which is a nightmare until you figure out what it’s doing!).

It turned out that once I got that external NIC unplugged from the unit and power cycled it the PC would THEN communicate with the printer and worked wonderfully!  So, if you have a parallel connection NOT working see if you have a NIC installed on the unit like I did.  Get into the unit, unplug the external NIC, unmount it from the main board, power cycle and retry.

Definitely let me know if this helped you because I didn’t find a solution online, like the majority of what I post nobody’s posted it or made it easy to find.

How to call up Ubuntu system information summary

I thought I’d quickly throw this out there.  When I log onto an Ubuntu server (10.04 LTS anyway) I see an interesting screen with:

  System load:  0.26                                   Processes:           232
Usage of /:   82.3% of 526.50GB        Users logged in:     1
Memory usage: 12%                                IP address for eth0: x.x.x.x
Swap usage:   0%                                       IP address for eth1: x.x.x.x

I found that interesting and useful so I was wondering how to call it up at any time.  I found a howtogeek post here <–

That didn’t particularly help me much since I wasn’t trying to change the MOTD, I just wanted to figure out how it was generated and call it back up if I wanted to.  What was useful were some of the comments.  A user named “WIC” said:

“What worked for me (on Ubuntu 10.10 Server) was editing /etc/update-motd.d/00-header to fit my needs, and a chmod -x 10-help-text to get rid of that part..”

That’s exactly what I needed was a point in the right direction, I then did:

cd /etc/update-motd.d/

I noticed:  50-landscape-sysinfo -> /usr/share/landscape/landscape-sysinfo.wrapper

I then did:  cat /usr/share/landscape/landscape-sysinfo.wrapper

…which revealed the script ;)

Looks like they grep your processor cpu information, processor load average but they also have a “/usr/bin/landscape-sysinfo” script.  You can cat that too so you can see the python script but…if you want to call that handy system summary window up again simply run:

/usr/bin/landscape-sysinfo

I have a client who I recommended upgrading to a reliable and inexpensive managed switch.  We took 3 D-Link gigabit switches and consolidated to one 48 port TrendNET TEG-448WS Gigabit Switch.  I must admit, I was a bit nervous putting all our eggs into one basket.

We bought the switch from NewEgg and it only had one review.  The reviewer said the switch was slow on large data transfers and they didn’t speak highly of it.  We took a small calculated risk and boy did it pay off.

Switch has been up for 376 days and counting with not one xfer error!