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For users of screen readers, depending on the screen resolution, the two checkboxes are for opening and closing the side menus that appear to the left and right side of the screen. This is designed both for large screens and for mobile devices with a touch screen. Checking either the main menu or sidebar checkboxes causes the menu to open from the left or right side of the screen, respectively. Clearing the checkox in either the main menu or sidebar closes the menu. The checkboxes are visible to screen readers such as JAWS and NVDA for Windows, Voiceover for Mac, and Orca screen reader for Linux. When a screen reader says "clickable" for both main menu and sidebar, that is for the respective checkboxes. End of explaination.

Category: Information Technology, subcategory of The World of Computers

Use $HOME, not /home/$USER in BASH scripts

Audience

This article is for experienced Linux users who are familar with environment variables such as $HOME and $USER. These are the Linux users who are familiar with the command line.

Problem and Solution

Here is an example not to use /home/$USER:

[gpeddie-games@epcotcenter ~]$ su - gpadmin
Password: 
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/gpadmin’: Permission denied
touch: cannot touch '/home/gpadmin/Templates/Text file': No such file or directory
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/gpadmin’: Permission denied
-bash: /home/gpadmin/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version: No such file or directory
Welcome. All activities monitored at all times.
Unauthorized access is strictly prohibited.
gpadmin@epcotcenter 
  ~
$

And here's the script (/etc/profile) that illustrates an example:

# fix gnome missing 'New file' option
if [ ! -f /home/$USER/Templates/"Text file" ]
then
    mkdir -p /home/$USER/Templates
    touch /home/$USER/Templates/"Text file"
fi

# ...

# this is a hack to bypass the Davinci Resolve new install Welcome/Onboarding screen since it does not render properly and is not required.
if [ ! -f /home/$USER/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version ];then
    mkdir -p /home/$USER/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/
    echo "Onboarding.Version=10" > /home/$USER/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version
fi

To fix this issue, simply replace all instances of /home/$USER with $HOME. I am familiar with a text editor called Vim. It's a program that runs inside a terminal, similar to the Command Prompt or PowerShell in Windows.

Before we proceed any further, let's create a backup copy of /etc/profile:

sudo cp /etc/profile /etc/profile.bak

If anything goes wrong, you now have a backup. You can simply use the cp (copy) command to restore from the backup. Now let's begin.

  1. First, open the Terminal (Konsole in KDE).

  2. As root (or with sudo privileges), type the following command:

    sudo vim /etc/profile
  3. Type in the following command, starting with a colon:

    :%s/\/home\/$USER/$HOME/g

    The syntax for search and replace in Vim is as follows:

    :%s/search/replace/g

    Let's not concern ourselves with g at the end for now. Basically this command replaces "search" with the next text "replace." In other words, we want to replace /home/$USER with $HOME.

    Let's have a look at the script again:

    # fix gnome missing 'New file' option
    if [ ! -f $HOME/Templates/"Text file" ]
    then
        mkdir -p $HOME/Templates
        touch $HOME/Templates/"Text file"
    fi
    
    # ...
    
    # this is a hack to bypass the Davinci Resolve new install Welcome/Onboarding screen since it does not render properly and is not required.
    if [ ! -f $HOME/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version ];then
        mkdir -p $HOME/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/
        echo "Onboarding.Version=10" > $HOME/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version
    fi

    So why would we want to replace /home/$USER with $HOME? That /home/$USER should still work!

    Let's look at the output again after we save the changes.

  4. Save the changes to the /etc/profile file.

    :wq

    A : begins a command. w writes changes to the file and q quits Vim

    If you don't want to make changes to the file, then all you have to do is type :q! to exit without saving any changes.

As I mentioned, let's look at the output again when I log into my administrator account from a user account.

[gpeddie-games@epcotcenter ~]$ su - gpadmin
Password:
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/gpadmin’: Permission denied
touch: cannot touch '/home/gpadmin/Templates/Text file': No such file or directory
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/home/gpadmin’: Permission denied
-bash: /home/gpadmin/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs/.version: No such file or directory
Welcome. All activities monitored at all times.
Unauthorized access is strictly prohibited.
gpadmin@epcotcenter
  ~
$

Now, let's see the new output when I log back in as an administrator.

[gpeddie-games@epcotcenter ~]$ su - gpadmin
Password: 
Last login: Sat Mar 18 11:13:52 EDT 2023 on pts/0
Welcome. All activities monitored at all times.
Unauthorized access is strictly prohibited.
gpadmin@epcotcenter 
  ~
$

I have covered more explanation regarding how this works and I have discussed a scenario in my article.


Article published: 2023-03-18 15:37

Categories: The World of Computers, Computers, Information Technology, Scripting and Programming

Backup Your WordPress or ClassicPress Files, Configuration, and Database with a Single Script

Audience and Prerequisites

Skip to scenario if you want to jump into the main article.

This is for anyone who currently host their WordPress or ClassicPress in a virtual private server such as DigitalOcean, Linode, or any other VPS providers. Any Linux user with knowledge of command line can perform backups and restoration tasks. You must be familiar with Linux and you know how to connect to your production server via SSH.

Plus, this article assumes that you have installed and configured WordPress in your VPS server. In addition, this article assumes you can perform basic database administration tasks such as adding a new database along with creating a new user for WordPress or ClassicPress. If your hosting provider provides managed WordPress or ClassicPress hosting, then this article may not apply to you. And because this article is for those who currently run a VPS server, I am going to have to assume that you have some hands-on experience with the Linux command line. This article need not apply to non-technical Linux, Mac, and Windows users. When I say non-technical Linux users, I'm talking about those who wanted to get away from Windows or Mac and simply wanted to use Linux just to browse the Internet and not deal with the command line.

Last, but not least, I am also going to assume that you know how to configure your Apache server as well. Both Apache and NGINX (pronounced Engine-X) configurations won't be covered here, including backing up and copying certificates that you get from your hosting provider.

If you are interested in learning Linux, a tutorial from Guru99 will help get you started on learning Linux.

Are you ready? Then let's get started!

Scenario

You have your own VPS server that is running ClassicPress. Your domain name is exmaple.com and your SSH port number is (insert your TCP port number here). You have a development server for developing your own custom ClassicPress theme and you want to use your development server to backup everything from your production server.


Article published: 2022-11-17 08:47

Categories: The World of Computers, Information Technology, Internet, Networking, Scripting and Programming

Need to Change Hostname for Windows Server Domain Controller?

If you promoted your server to a domain controller, you won't be able to change the hostname for Windows Server Domain Controller without inputting commands in the command prompt. Basically, you need to open the command prompt, add a new alternate hostname, make the domain controller your primary hostname, reboot your server, and then remove the old hostname. This is useful if the server's hostname was not changed before the server gets promoted as a domain controller. The order of commands along with the syntax is as follows:

netdom computername oldcomputername.yourlocaldomain.lan /add:newcomputername.yourlocaldomain.lan
netdom computername oldcomputername.yourlocaldomain.lan /makeprimary:newcomputername.yourlocaldomain.lan
shutdown /r /t 0
netdom computername newcomputername.yourlocaldomain.lan /remove:oldcomputername.yourlocaldomain.lan
netdom computername
The command to execute.
oldcomputername
Old hostname (example: WIN-R61PT45).
yourlocaldomain.lan
Local domain name (example: graysonpeddie.lan)
newcomputername
New hostname (example: grayson-dc1)
/add
Adds a new hostname to the domain controller as an alternate hostname. For this example, newcomputername will be added as an alternate hostname for the domain controller.
/makeprimary
Makes a hostname a primary name for the domain controller. newcomputername will be the primary name for the domain controller and the oldcomputername will be the alternate hostname for the domain controller.
/remove
Deletes the hostname from the domain controller. In this case, the /remove flag removes the oldcomputername from the domain controller.
/enumerate
Although not shown in the order of commands above this list of commands, parameters, and flags, this will enumerate the list of hostnames assigned to the domain controller. This flag does not require a parameter, so the colon after the enumerate flag is not needed.
shutdown /r /t 0
This command reboots the server (hence, /r) immediately (/t 0. The /t 0 flag and parameter is a timer.
dcdiag
Not shown in the list of commands above. This command runs a diagnostic for the domain controller to make sure everything in the domain controller is working fine. There might be some errors and warnings, but if computers can login to the domain controller, it should be fine.

Because I did not know the commands myself, I must give credit to "The ICT Guy" (Twitter profile) for writing an article titled Correctly renaming a Domain Controller for a seamless easy migration. That article has been of great help to me since I am testing Windows Server 2016 Essentials edition as part of my virtual homelab setup. For example, I wanted to test the domain joining functionality in macOS and test an Active Directory integration in Nextcloud using an LDAP/AD integration app. LDAP stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol and is used for managing users and groups.

I hope I can be of help to Windows administrators.


Article published: 2022-09-25 01:15

Categories: The World of Computers, Information Technology

Pro Tip for Proxmox Users: Using Linux Containers (LXC) For Testing The Ability To Join Linux to an Active Directory?

When creating Linux containers for the purpos of joining them to an Active Directory Domain Controller, make sure the checkbox after the "Unprivileged Container" is unchecked. The "unprivileged container" checkbox is after the "Hostname" edit box. Unprivileged Linux containers won't be able to join to an Active Directory. Essentially, I forgot to uncheck the "Unprivileged Container" and wasted hours of my time, but I consider time well spent when learning the hard way.

Bear in mind that privileged containers are not safe for businesses when it comes to attackers exploiting privileged Linux containers. And yes, it's all about vulnerabilities and exploits when it comes to escaping Linux containers and causing damage to the host; however, for homelab purposes, a privileged Linux container is fine for my needs. If you are concerned about the security of Linux containers, spin up virtual machines instead of Linux containers in Proxmox. Of course, depending on your security hygiene, virtual machines can be as unsafe as privileged and unprivileged Linux containers if you do not have security precautions in place. For more details, learn more about privileged and unprivileged containers.


Article published: 2022-09-22 06:27

Categories: The World of Computers, Computers, Information Technology

How To Change Your Uber Email Address and Password?

Instructions

  1. From your smartphone (not your desktop or laptop computer), open the Uber application.
  2. Tap Account. The Account button is located at the bottom right of your smartphone's screen.
  3. Tap your avatar to the right of your name.
  4. Tap your email address to change your email address. Skip to step 6 if you do not make use of unique email addresses for every account that you signed up for.
  5. Once you change your email address, tap Update. Go into your email account and look for an email from Uber. Enter the verification code that Uber gave you.
  6. Tap your password. You will need to verify your password first before you generate your new password from a password manager.

And you are done! Congratulations! You have successfully changed your unique email address and password! Stay safe!

Here's a link to the full article about why I changed my email address for Uber.


Article published: 2022-09-17 12:16

Categories: The World of Computers, Information Technology, Security