nCode's Blog

Without any warning my computer restarted by itself and upon seeing the Windows XP load screen, I saw a glimpse of a blue screen of death. Right there the boot loop started.

By starting windows in safe mode I determined that the SPTD.SYS driver was the last thing windows was loading before crashing miserably. SPTD.SYS is used by a few softwares like Alcohol 120% and Daemon Tools.

Here is what I did so that I could at least start my computer and start backing up files:

• I booted the computer using a BartPE boot cd
• Clicked on “Go” then on “Command Prompt (CMD)”
• In the black “Command Prompt” type:
  • c: <enter>
  • cd c:\windows\system32\drivers <enter>
  • rename sptd.sys sptd.bak <enter>
  • exit <enter>
• Then click on “Go” followed by “Shut down” and to finish “Shut down”

Started windows again and the boot process went all the way to a login screen. The problem is not really fixed at this point, what I did was only a patch so that I could start windows again, daemon tools is currently showing an error message upon boot saying that sptd.sys is required to start.

I then tried to install a new version of the sptd.sys driver from http://www.duplexsecure.com/downloads/ however this did not work, upon restarting the maching I was caught in the same error loop as before and had to deactivate sptd.sys again.

Still looking for a permanent solution, note that this problem started occuring “out of nowhere” without any software update or new software installation.

disable-ipv6-ubuntu9.04Good evening,

I just installed ubuntu 9.04 on a dell optiplex gx260 and was very disapointed at the network speed I had when I tried any of the “apt-get” commands.

It seems that ubuntu has IPV6 enabled by default, this seem to be what is causing most of the lan issues. There are no easy way to disable ipv6 on ubuntu 9.04, I tried several methods advertised on various blogs, none are currently working.

A kernel patch will be made available soon for download and should allow us to disable ipv6 by typing the following: “sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1″

The link to the bug is here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux+bug/351656

Also if you are using an earlier version of ubuntu, you can disable IPv6 by doing the following:

• sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/aliases
• locate “alias net-pf-10 ipv6″
• replace the word “ipv6″ on that line by “off”
• save the file
• reboot

You can verify if ipv6 is actually disabled using the following command: ip a | grep inet6

*** I found a solution on the web, someone provided clear instructions on how to re-compile the kernel with ipv6 as an optional (and blacklistable) module instead of being forced. The original tutorial can be found here, you can also download a pdf version that I made: disable-ipv6-ubuntu9.04. I followed the provided instructions and it worked, note that the “blacklist” file is called “blacklist.conf”. ***

Cheers,

Marc

If your ssh connection often drops because of inactivity or timeout, here is a fix that can help stabilise your connection.

On the client side using:

• PuTTY
  • Start at the PuTTY Configuration dialog
  • Click on “Connection” on the left
  • Then put a check mark on “Enable TCP keepalives”
  • You could now establish a connection or save these settings for next time
• SSH
  • Open a terminal window / session on your workstation
  • Edit /etc/ssh/ssh_config with your favorite text editor as root: sudo vim /etc/ssh/ssh_config
  • Add the following line: “ServerAliveInterval 60″
  • Restart your ssh session

On the server side:

• Open a terminal window / session on your server
• Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config with your favorite text editor as root: sudo vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config
• Add the following line: “ClientAliveInterval 60″
• Restart sshd: sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart

Good morning!

Ok some of you probably had this happen at least once…

You are in the middle of writing or doing something on the computer, Windows performed an automatic update in the background and then ask you if you want to restart the computer now with some kind of countdown on the screen. You rush to the “Restart Later” button before the countdown finishes or bye bye your document. The best thing is that 10 minutes later (the default value) that same window comes up again! And you better be in front of your computer that time or it will just perform a reboot by itself.

There is fortunately a way to disable or at least delay that annoyance.

• Click on Start
• Click on Run
• Type gpedit.msc in the run dialog window
• Click Ok
• Expand the following tree: Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Update
• On the right section, double click on “Re-prompt for restart with scheduled installations”
• Click on Enabled and enter a large value in “Wait the following period before…”
• Click on Ok

There is no way to completely remove the restart prompt unless you disable automatic updates, setting the interval to a really high value will make it less annoying though.

Another thing possible still in gpedit is to modify the countdown delay when the prompt appear, that way you would have more time to click on “Restart Later”

• Double click on “Delay Restart for scheduled installations
• Click on Enabled
• Enter 30 minutes, unfortunately windows does not let you enter a bigger value
• Click on Ok

Hope this helps:)

Cheers,

Marc