A Technical I.T./DevOps Blog
Problem scenario
When you run an Ansible playbook on the control node that is not running on a Mac (e.g., you are running Ansible on RedHat, Ubuntu or SUSE), you get this error: “Failed to connect to the host via ssh: percent_expand: unknown key %C\r\n”, “unreachable”: true”. How do you debug your playbook to get it to run?
Root cause
The problem may not be in the playbook.
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Problem scenario
You attached a USB stick to your Android tablet with a cable like this (male micro USB plug to female USB port). The USB drive has files on it that you want to view. How do you view these files?
Solution
1. In Android, go to Settings -Storage -Mount USB Storage.
2.
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Problem scenario
You want to leverage the power of image recognition and automation without an expensive license for software that has no API exposed. In other words you want a free version of Robotic Process Automation software on your Windows server. What do you do?
Solution
Prerequisites
Install Java version 8. If you do not know how, see this posting.
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Continue reading “How Do You Install Sikulix on a Windows Server?”
Problem scenario
You want to find an .html, .txt, or .rtf file that has the pattern “cool” in it. You do not need to search for .doc or .docx files. How do you write a PowerShell command to search the contents of files and subdirectories of a given folder to see if they have a text string that matches the word “cool”?
Solution
Run these two commands:
cd c:\to\the\folder\you\want\
Get-ChildItem -recurse | Select-String -pattern “cool”
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Problem scenario
You enter the command “npm -v” but get an error about the command not being found or recognized. How do you install npm on a RedHat derivative Linux server?
Solution
(You may want to see these directions instead if you want to use a script that will work on any distribution of Linux (including RHEL, Debian or SUSE distributions).
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Continue reading “How Do You Install npm on a CentOS/RedHat/Fedora Server?”
Problem scenario
You are trying to use a curl command but it is not working. You have no firewall blocking the connection to the website. You get the error “curl: (35) SSL connect error.”
Solution (workaround)
Install the wget utility. Use the wget command instead.
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Continue reading “How Do You Fix the Problem “curl: (35) SSL connect error”?”
Problem scenario
You want to install Puppet Master on SUSE 12.x running in AWS. You only have five minutes to complete this task. How do you install Puppet Master immediately?
Solution
1. Create this file: /etc/zypp/repos.d/puppet.repo
2. The content of the above file should be the following:
[systemsmanagement_puppet]
name=A network tool for managing many disparate systems (SLE_12)
type=rpm-md
baseurl=http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/systemsmanagement:/puppet/SLE_12/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/systemsmanagement:/puppet/SLE_12/repodata/rep0md.xml.key
enabled=1
3.
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Continue reading “How Do You Install Puppet Master on a Linux SUSE Server (an AWS Instance)?”
Problem scenario
You are using a Linux SUSE server in AWS. You want to install Vagrant. What do you do?
Solution
Run these commands:
cd /tmp
sudo curl https://releases.hashicorp.com/vagrant/1.8.1/vagrant_1.8.1_x86_64.rpm > vagrant_1.8.1_x86_64.rpm
sudo zypper -n install vagrant_1.8.1_x86_64.rpm
To verify the installation, run this command: vagrant version
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Continue reading “How Do You Install Vagrant on an AWS Instance of SUSE?”
Problem scenario
You want to empower non-administrator users to perform a subset of Windows administrator-level functions. Specifically you want to give a user with limited privileges the ability to check the local software firewall rules. This user needs to validate if they are configured appropriately. This user account will otherwise have limited privileges. You want to adhere to the recommended practice of least privileges. You want to use JEA (Just Enough Administration) to enhance the user’s privileges.
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Problem scenario
You are using Weebly website editor. You make changes to a post, then click “Update.” You then click “Publish.” But the changes to your website are not updating. What do you do?
Solution
Log out of the Weebly editor. Close all of the instances of the web browser you were using. Then reopen the web browser. Clear the cache,
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