I need to dual boot 2 different task sequences (Win7 images) for different Pc types which require different drivers, we have 2 images one for staff and student which can be added to a particular task sequence.
I need to create a portable solution for cloning without the network using 2 different SCCM (System Center Configuration Manager) task sequences. At the moment I go through the usual steps of creating a boot media via the Configuration manager, but there seems to be know way to create a script that changes the task media on the fly so you can select which OS image.
I was looking at a possible solution using YUMI (a Usb boot tool) but each bootable image requires an ISO. The task sequence image is around 8GIG.
We use SCCM 2007. (Still awaiting for a budget to upgrade to 2012 :) )
It sounds like you want to boot two different .WIM images.
Out of the box, I haven't found any tool from MS that will allow this. I have gotten around this discrepancy by renaming the .WIM I want to use to BOOT.WIM in the \SOURCES directory.
That is the name of the .WIM that gets used by all the default settings. You have to rename the file before you attempt to boot from the USB device, but it doesn't take long and could be scripted without much effort.
Theoretically, it should be possible to configure the BCD on the USB device (\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BCD or BOOT\BCD, depending on how the computer is configured to boot) so that you could choose which .WIM to use at boot time without the need to do any messy renaming. I haven't gotten this to work yet (mostly due to lack of time/urgency), but I did write down what I had done so far. I found some useful information about booting to .WIM's from windowsitpro.com.
Related
First of all, I don't mean version control such as git.
I do use git locally but, I'm trying to determine the best way to do back-ups of source code (as well as other app assets) in case of hardware failure or such.
I was thinking I could set up a script to tar my project folders, and encrypt them with gpg. I would then save the encrypted tar to external hard drives and to 1 or more off-site locations using a service such as amazon drive or dropbox.
Currently, I'm a sole developer so my thinking was that this method should be okay. But I wanted to get some input to make sure I'm doing this the best/most reliable way possible.
If there is a better approach to this that may be more applicable to small teams, then please let me know, as I'm more than happy to do the extra work implementing the approach.
There are much of ways of doing that.
But, if you always work local and you need a simple way of doing that, you may take a look at run scripts if some specific usb device is plugged in.
Meaning that a simple backup script with tar would run if you plug in your specific backup hdd.
Take a look at udev rules in linux.
udev is a generic device manager running as a daemon on a Linux system and listening (via a netlink socket) to uevents the kernel sends out if a new device is initialized or a device is removed from the system. The udev package comes with an extensive set of rules that match against exported values of the event and properties of the discovered device. A matching rule will possibly name and create a device node and run configured programs to set up and configure the device.
Take a look at these posts:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/65891/how-to-execute-a-shellscript-when-i-plug-in-a-usb-device
&
https://askubuntu.com/questions/401390/running-a-script-on-connecting-usb-device
If you plan to go further, to extend the team or even to keep your code for a while in other words, if you want to be professional, I would go with a scalable and reliable tool designed for this: use a real backup and restore tool and don't use scripts. A lot of people, small (and even not so small) companies are doing it and they end up in trouble: maintenance, scalabolity, update, and so on.
There are plenty of backup & restore tools for different purposes and/or platforms, prices and so on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backup_software would be a good start :)
Cheers
Werlan
For a project I am working on I want to collect data of malware in a virtualbox for 30 seconds and then revert the VirtualBox back to its original state and repeat this process 500 times for 500 different malware links that I have in a txt file. Before I revert to the normal VirtualBox state, I want to collect data from a program that is monitoring that malware. What is the best way to do this?
Edit: I'd also like to point out that I have code to read the opcodes that are being used by the application. All I would like to do is automate this process for the virtualbox.
I am not aware of such a feature in virtualbox or vmware but you can always use third party tools to compare the state of the different parts (like registry) before and after the execution of malwares.
I heard Ashampoo unistaller is a great tool to do the job but personally never tested it before.
Another option is to use sanboxes like sandboxie or cuckoo sandbox to capture the changes.
Another option is to use online sandboxes like hybrid-analysis which is perfect for what you want to do.
Just keep in mind that most malwares use anti-VM techniques to prevent execution in VMs so you probably will not be able to capture all the features of the malwares.
Hope it helps.
I'm trying to run more than one sample at the same time in a single guest VM, for efficiency reasons, something that will be even more efficient than the distributed cuckoo solution, or using a few guest VMs.
For example, to submit a few URLs, so they will be opened in a few tabs(in IE or FF) in Cuckoo, so I won't need to run a clean VM for each URL.
Then, if any malicious activity is detected in any of the URLs, I'll find the malicious URL, and will make a deeper inspection of its activity using all other cuckoo plugins and modules, etc.
Can you think of a way to make it using cuckoo? or any workaround?
My use-case is that I have A LOT of samples, but only very few are malicious, so to run a VM for every one of them would be a waste of resources.
Cuckoo monitors malwares activity in system, record them and create report in a language like JSON. if you try several suspicious links probably malware in one VM, you cant track which part of JSON report (features) belong to which link (possibility malware). I believe you need to run different suspicious links/files in different VM. you can run few VM at the same time though.
I develop a few tools in C# using the .Net framework and I am considering the move to Mono. Based on the compatibility analyzer tool (MOMA), the only compatibility issue is the licensing code:
I use Window's serial number and a few other things to generate a computer ID which I then use to generate and manage my licenses.
Obviously, Windows will not be available on Linux or Mac, so I need another way to generate a computer ID.
What can I use in mono to create a reasonably reliable computer ID?
Use a MAC Address:
Get MAC Address in linux using mono
That should be unique to a given network interface, which would uniquely identify the machine.
Also, see this thread discussing the pitfalls and issues related to DRM in mono.
You can use a combination of either CPUID and a hard drive serial number.
As for your code, there is not going to be an elegant way to do this with a one-liner. You will have to check which platform you are running on via Environment.OSVersion. And then based on that, branch your code to do system-specific access. For example, to get CPUID/hdd serial number, use a WMI query; or parse the output of hdparm -I /dev/hda and go from there.
You could use a portion of how Microsoft checked hardware for Windows XP activation. They checked 10 items
Display Adapter
SCSI Adapter
IDE Adapter (effectively the motherboard)
Network Adapter (NIC) and its MAC Address
RAM Amount Range (i.e., 0-64mb, 64-128mb, etc.)
Processor Type
Processor Serial Number
Hard Drive Device
Hard Drive Volume Serial Number (VSN)
CD-ROM / CD-RW / DVD-ROM
When XP was (re)installed/activated it'd contact their servers and if 7 or more of the above items were unchanged it would activate without the need to speak with anyone.
I, personally, would recommend against using the MAC address. As you mentioned, it can be easily changed. Additionally, most machines have two or more network cards now (wired and wireless). It gets worse with virtualization as the MAC can be changed even more easily than the physical one can (do you license differently for virtual environments?)
Another option, instead of checking all 10 hardware components, is to use the UUID of the root file system. The downside of this, is that if the drive ever has issues, the license needs to be reacquired.
sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: TYPE="ntfs" UUID="72C0DE8EC0DE57C5" LABEL="windows"
/dev/sda2: UUID="30fcb748-ad1e-4228-af2f-951e8e7b56df" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda5: TYPE="swap" UUID="8c4e69f8-5074-42c0-8134-0b2429c4c02c"
/dev/sdb1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" UUID="4848-E35A" TYPE="vfat"
I'm now trying to write a program which can perform VM migration from one host machine to another within the same data center based on their current CPU temperature automatically. (Basically from hotter machine to cooler one).
I'm now playing around with Xenserver, on which I can perform VM migration easily (Using XenCenter on the controller machine).
I have already come up with the algorithm to select source and destination machine according to their temperature and resource utilization.
However when it comes to writing a real program, I have no idea where to begin with. I would really appreciate your help if anyone can give me some guidance and help.
The program basically consist of two part: One for center control, installed on the management host. And one for guest host(local control). Which should run on dom0 of guest host.
Local control part are suppose to gather CPU temperature and resource utilization information of the local host and all VMs that runs on it. Gathered info will be send to center control part upon request.
Center control part will check the status of all guest host every 5 minutes (By sending request to obtain latest local info). If any of the guest machine gets over-heat, the control machine will choose a destination host and migrate some VMs from the over-heated host to the destination host.
Can I make use of the existing functionality of Xenserver/Xencenter software and how?
What programming language is best for this task ? I know C, C++, Java but can learn the others fast.
Thanks so much for your time!
I have used Python but the Java API is also good.
First have a look at the XenServer Management API that they are exposing for programmers.
Next download the library XenAPI.py to connect with xenserver.
Now to migrate a VM you need the following parameters vm_reference & destination_host_reference .
vm_reference = XenAPI.VM.get_by_uuid(vm_uuid)
destination_host_reference = XenAPI.host.get_by_uuid(destination_host_uuid)
Now migrate the VM :
XenAPI.VM.pool_migrate(vm_reference , destination_host_reference , {"live": "true"})