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Add an additional hard drive to virtual SCO Openserver 5

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This is a quick post and video that shows how to add an additional Hard Drive to a Virtual SCO Openserver 5 system.

When I configure SCO Openserver Systems I always use the LSI Logic Parrallel controller. It seems to provide reasonable performance and makes it easy to add additional virtual drives if required.

The virtual machine in the video already has two SCSI drives and I demonstrate how to add a third. When completed the /etc/conf/cf.d/mscsi file looks like this:

*ha     attach  number  ID      lun     bus
*
lsil    Sdsk    0       0       0       0
wd      Srom    1       0       0       0
lsil    Sdsk    0       1       0       0
lsil    Sdsk    0       2       0       0

The highlighted line represents the virtual disk that is going to be added. Note that in the mscsi file an asterisk symbol denotes a comment. So this virtual machine has 3 hard drives, all using the “lsil” controller at IDs 0,1 and 2.

How to add an Additional Virtual Drive

Adding an additional drive is easy, but not very intuitive in my opinion. Here is how to do it:

  1. From a root prompt run:
    mkdev hd
  2. Choose Option:
    2) Add a hard disk to a SCSI controller
  3. You are now prompted for the prefix of the SCSI Host Adapter that will support the new drive. In this case it is “lsil”. You can just press enter if that is already the default.
  4. When asked which SCSI Host Adapter supports the new device (0 or 1). Put in whatever you specified on the Virtual Hard Drive. But more than likely it will be zero.
  5. Next you are asked what the Target ID for the device is. Again, match this to the SCSI ID specified with the Virtual machine.
  6. The LUN will be Zero.
  7. Finally you are asked if you would like to update the SCSI configuration. Press y for Yes.

Now relink the kernel and reboot. When you have logged back in run the procedure above and answer the questions in the same way again. This time around “mkdev hd” actually does some work with the drive.

From here it is up to you how you want to setup the drive, but in a ESXi environment I always just make a single division and use the entire drive for Unix.

After the new drive is added and you have created a division you can mount it with scoadmin.

It is far easier to watch the video below than understand the written explanation. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Disable Pause Updates for 7 days feature of Windows 10

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The May 2019 update of Windows 10 (version 1903) introduced a new feature which allows users to Pause Updates for 7 days. This post covers how to disable that feature in a domain environment.

Update ADMX Templates from build 1903

At the time of writing this post, Microsoft have not made an updated ADMX template bundle for the May 2019 update of Windows 10.

So the easiest (but maybe not ideal) solution is to copy the ADMX files from an updated Windows 10 machine to your central store, you can find them in:

C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions

Simply copy the contents of the folder into your domain controller, most likely in:

C:\windows\SYSVOL\domain\Policies\PolicyDefinitions

Make sure that you copy the definitions from an updated version of Windows 10, check the version using these instructions.

If you do not have easy access to the files, I have made them available here. But please understand that the zip file contains only the en-US and en-GB folders, so if you need another language then this download will not be suitable for your environment:

Download Windows 1903 ADMX Templates by clicking on this link.

Edit Group Policy Settings to disable the Pause Updates feature

Once you have updated the Policy Definitions on your domain controller, you will be able to disable the pause updates feature by doing the following:

  • Open Group Policy Management
  • Create and Link a new Group Policy or edit an existing one which targets the machines you want to edit the behaviour on.
    Image showing creation of a new Group Policy Object to disable the Pause Updates Feature of Windows 10 May 2019 Update
  • Navigate to:
    • Computer Configuration
    • Policies
    • Administrative Templates
    • Windows Components
    • Windows Updates
      Image showing Windows Update branch in Group Policy Settings
  • In the right hand pane, double click on:
    Remove access to “Pause updates” feature
  • Set it to “enabled” to disable access to the feature.
    Image showing how to disable the Pause Updates Feature in Windows 10 in a domain environment

Now you can either reboot or force a group policy update and the option to pause updates will have been disabled.

How to change the default Dell iDRAC Password

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The Dell iDRAC is so useful for many things, but in its default configuration it is very insecure:

  • The default username is “root”
  • The default password is “calvin”

In this post I will show you how both rename the root account and change the password.

Renaming the root account adds a layer of obscurity making it more difficult for unauthorised users to gain console level access.

How to rename the iDrac root account and change the password.

  • Login to the iDRAC using your credentials or use the default if they have not been changed
  • On the left hand menu, choose “iDRAC Settings” and then “User Authentication”:
    Image showing User Authentication Settings on Dell iDRAC Enterprise
  • Click on the User ID that corresponds to the root account, to edit it:
    Image showing root account of Dell iDrac
  • The default action of “Configure user” should already be selected, so click on “Next”
  • Change the username as per your preferences and set the new password:
    Image showing root account of Dell iDrac being renamed and password changed.
  • Scroll to the bottom of the page and click apply.
  • Log-out of the iDrac and check your new settings.

Check if File Exists with Powershell

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It’s very easy to check if a file exists with Powershell and take an action if so, here are some examples:

Check if a file exists

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf)
{
    #do some stuff
}

Delete file if it exists 

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf)
{
    Remove-Item $fileToCheck
}

An even shorter method….

$fileToCheck = "c:\tmp\test.txt"
Remove-Item $fileToCheck -ErrorAction Ignore

Check if a file exists and get the content

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf) {Get-Content $fileToCheck}

Check if a file exists and print a message if it does or does not exist

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf) 
{"File does Exist"}
else
{"File does not exist"}

Check if a file exists and show the properties of the file

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf)
{
    $file = Get-Item $fileToCheck
    $file.FullName
    $file.LastAccessTime
    $file.Length
    $file.Extension
    #etc...
}

Check if a file exists and move it to a new location

$fileToCheck = "C:\tmp\test.txt"
$newPath = "c:\tmp\newFolder"
if (Test-Path $fileToCheck -PathType leaf) 
{
    Move-Item -Path $fileToCheck -Destination $newPath
    "$fileToCheck moved to $newPath"
}

It’s obvious from the above examples that Test-Path simply returns a Boolean (i.e. True or False) and executing it on its own will produce exactly that:

Image showing result from Powershell "Test-Path" to check if a file exists.

The PathType parameter is not strictly required, but it is useful if you want to be sure the check you are performing is actually a file, not a directory.

You can check for a directory by setting PathType to “container”