UnixStuff

Ever want to email userids and passwords to colleagues and friends but are afraid of
sending it using standard email?
How about encrypting the message?
I currently use Pgp or GnuPG for encrypting text messages,
and as youll see below is a very simple way of keeping encrypted
files on your desktop.

First youll need to download the latest PGP / GnuPG version for your platform.
http://www.pgpi.org/products/pgp/versions/freeware/

The latest PGP versions are 30 day demos, GnuPG is freeware.
We will start with Gnupg . Gnupg is pretty much standard on any
linux distro, so youll have no problem installing it.
For Windows users , download the latest from:
http://www.pgpi.org/cgi/download.cgi?filename=gnupg-w32cli-1.2.2.zip

Unzip the archive and copy gpg.exe,gpgkeys_ldap.exe and gpgv.exe to
your %WINDOWS\system32 directory
This way you can open a DOS window and type "gpg"

Now for a quickie run down on how to use gpg.
First on how to SETUP and generate a key.
1) gpg --gen-key ** Generate a KEY **
simple to use, will give you a few options but works great - I normally choose RSA/ 2048 Bit
keysize.

2) gpg --output revoke.asc --gen-revoke user@email.com ** Revoke a KEY **
Revoke your ex buddies key

Publishing your KEY - this way folks can find you.

1) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --send-key youruserid@yourdomain.com
2) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 3634EDF8A
lookup ID's at Keyserver.net , find your friends key and upload to your keyring.

Administrivia
LISTING KEYS ----------------------
1) gpg --list-keys
** listing the public keys in your keychain

EXPORTING KEYS --------------------
2) gpg --output carlos.gpg --export userid@yourbuddieskey.com
carlos.gpg : CREATE binary mode key

3) gpg --output friend.gpg --export friend@hotmail.com
friend.gpg : CREATE binary mode key

4) gpg --armor --export userid@key.com
is ascii mode to Standard output : pipe to file.asc
This key can be emailed to colleagues

IMPORTING KEYS ------------------
5) gpg --import friendblake.gpg ** import your friends key **

**** after looking up recipient****
eg:
6) gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 0x5F70881D

7) gpg --edit-key blake@cyb.org ** validate your friends key
Commandfpr
Commandsign ** if ok and validated

Encrypting /Decrypting Documents
ENCRYPTING
1) gpg --output doc.gpg --encrypt --recipient blake@cyb.org doc.txt
will encrypt doc.txt and product a binary file doc.gpg
2) gpg --armor --output doc.txt.asc --encrypt --recipient blake@cyb.org doc.txt
will encrypt doc.txt and product an ASCII file doc.txt.asc
DECRYPTING
3) gpg --output doc.txt --decrypt doc.gpg
will decrypt doc.gpg

Posted by Carlos Martinez at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a preliminary cost saving measure , our "IT" group decided to move from costly Sun Sparc platform to Intel hardware, our many Oracle instances . This move , beside being a technical challenge on the Oracle side provided us with a new method to quickly test VMware performance instances.
It appears that this exact move has been performed numerous times utilizing imp/exp and creating transportable tablespaces.

For a tablespace to be transportable it must be totally self contained.
This can be checked using the DBMS_TTS.TRANSPORT_SET_CHECK procedure.
The TS_LIST parameter accepts a comma separated list of tablespace names:

sys@ORACLE>EXEC DBMS_TTS.TRANSPORT_SET_CHECK(ts_list => 'MYTABLESPACE', incl_constraints
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
sys@ORACLE>

Now check for violations

sys@ORACLE> select * from transport_set_violations;
no rows selected
sys@ORACLE>

Switch the table space to READ ONLY!

sys@ORACLE> alter tablespace MYTABLESPACE READ ONLY;
tablespace altered.
sys@ORACLE>

Finally we can export
bash% exp USERID='system/password@ORACLE as sysdba' TRANSPORT_TABLESPACE=y
TABLESPACES=MYTABLESPACE
FILE=MYTABLESPACE.dmp

Dont forget to reset your tablespace back to read write
sys@ORACLE>ALTER TABLESPACE MYTABLESPACE READ WRITE;
Tablespace altered.
sys@ORACLE>

Now create users who owned tablespace in MYTABLESPACE
sys@ORACLE> create user marti149 identified by guesswho
User created.
sys@ORACLE>

Now for the cool part!
bash% imp USERID='system/password@ORACLE2 as SYSDBA'
TRANSPORT_TABLESPACE=y
DATAFILES='/path/oradata/ORACLE2/MYTABLESPACE.DBF'
FILE=/tmp/MYTABLESPACE.dmp

Now to read and test
sys@ORACLE> ALTER TABLESPACE MYTABLESPACE READ WRITE;
Tablespace altered.
sys@ORACLE>select tablespace_name,plugged_in,status from dba_tablespaces
where tablespace_name = 'MYTABLESPACE';

Viola!
TABLESPACE_NAME PLU STATUS
------------------------------------------ ----- ---------
MYTABLESPACE YES ONLINE

Posted by Carlos Martinez at 8:20 PM | Permalink