Fear not though… I did a little digging around and managed to located the 7.4.20.4 firmware (RT-585v7_74K4EJ.exe) and I have upload it for you.

Download the O2 Firmware 7.4.20.4 (RT-585v7_74K4EJ.exe) for the O2 Wireless Box

Just remember and disable O2′s ability to come in an auto-upgrade you otherwise it will not be long till you are be back to square one.

As it turns out I had followed the guide for spawing PHP FastCGI processes to the letter, and that is where the problem lay.  After a few weeks WordPress reported there were various plugins that needed upgrading but I could not do the automatic upgrade and I had trouble uploading new files due to the wrong permission being applied.  After some investigation this lead me to realise that I needed to spawn my PHP FastCGI processes as the unprivileged user the files belonged to, and not nginx as in the original documentation.

This led me to further issues in that I was only spawning processes under a single unprivileged user but I was going to have several unprivileged user accounts on this server and all required their PHP FastCGI processes spawned under their user.  With this in mind I tweaked the original php_cgi script to allow multiple PHP FastCGI processes to be spawned under different user accounts and you can download the updated version here.

The main different is that instead on only being able to use 1 configuration file at /etc/sysconfig/phpfastcgi it now uses multiple configuration files located at /etc/sysconfig/phpfastcgi/*.conf

Now all you need to do is drop in a joebloggs.conf with details something like:-

server_ip=127.0.0.1
server_port=9002
server_user=joebloggs
server_group=joebloggs
server_childs=5
pidfile="/var/run/php_cgi_jogbloggs.pid"

Remember, each configuration file will need a unique server_port and a pidfile but now the files can belong to the unprivileged user (joebloggs:joebloggs) which resolved so many issues include file upload and wordpress auto-update issues.

All that is left to do is update the nginx configuration file for the website you are modifying so that it uses the correct port number

location ~ \.php$ {
    root           html;
    fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9002;
    fastcgi_index  index.php;
    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  /var/www/joebloggs/website$fastcgi_script_name;
    include        fastcgi_params;
}

I have seen several online backup software solutions, however most have to be configured and managed via GUI applications installed on your computer however as I have been wanting to back up a Fedora Core server which is command line only, this options was not available to me.  A few people suggested Dropbox to me for sharing files between home and work computers and when looking into Dropbox I found that it can also be set up with a service on my Fedora Core server and configured to backup the data on my server.

The basic steps I performed to setup Dropbox to backup my Fedora Core server below:-

Note: You will need to complete the following as root or a user with sudo privileges

1) Create a file called dropbox.repo in /etc/yum.repos.d/ and paste the following text into it

[Dropbox]
name=Dropbox Repository
baseurl=http://linux.dropbox.com/fedora/$releasever/
gpgkey=http://linux.dropbox.com/fedora/rpm-public-key.asc

2) Install Dropbox (and necessary dependancies) using yum

yum install nautilus-dropbox

3) Create the file /etc/sysconfig/dropbox and add a line similar to the one below to specify which users are allowed to run Dropbox (substitute user1 and user2 as appropriate)

DROPBOX_USERS="user1 user2"

4) Download the startup script for Fedora Core from http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/TextBasedLinuxInstall/FedoraStartup and it save to /etc/rc.d/init.d/dropbox

5) Set the permissions on the configuration and startup script files for Dropbox

chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/init.d/dropbox
chmod 644 /etc/sysconfig/dropbox

6) If you want Dropbox to start automatically when the system is restarted, run the following command

chkconfig dropbox on

Note: If you wish to run Dropbox as a user other than root then switch to that user before running the following commands:-

7) Run the following command and install the proprietary daemon required to run Dropbox as a service

dropbox start -i

8) Once installed run the command again and copy and paste the URL you are given into a web browser and log into your Dropbox account or sign up for a new account to link this server to that Dropbox account.

9) Start the service by running the following command (as root or via sudo)

/etc/rc.d/init.d/dropbox start

9) All that is left to do is symlink the folders you want backed up into the Dropbox folder (which can be found in the home directory of the user your ran steps 7 & 8 from) and then when you log into your Dropbox account online you should see there files and folders in your account.

Pros & Cons

The benefits I have identified include:

• Realtime online backup
• Do not need to remember and perform backups anymore
• Ability to share certain folders meaning you would not necessarily need to sync all the files to your other computers (although this would essentially require multiple dropbox accounts)

And the potential pitfalls include:

• I have several web projects using SVN for version control and all the .svn folders are included within Dropbox.  Unfortunately there does not appear to be the usual options I would expect for excluding folders or files.
• As Dropbox treats symlinks as real directories you will need to ensure there are no circular references or Dropbox will continually loop round this circular reference.

References

Dropbox for linux – http://www.dropbox.com/downloading?os=lnx

Text Based install for Dropbox for Linux – http://wiki.dropbox.com/TipsAndTricks/TextBasedLinuxInstall/

I have had my laptop checked out by the IT guy and everything connected fine when it was in at the office and even my iPhone could connect to the VPN when using 3G but this Error 619 kept appearing each time I tried to connect to the work VPN via my O2 Wireless Box II using either the laptop or iPhone.

I had a sneaky suspicion that O2 had been in and done one of their remote updates so I logged into the router administration pages, noted the firmware number (8.2.23.0) currently running on my O2 Wireless II box and had a quick look around in Google for VPN issues with this firmware version. There were a number of people with a similar issue to mine but it seems that the VPN issues are only related to PPTP VPN connections, which is the type of VPN connection I was using.

I have managed to resolve this and get everything back up and reverting back to the older firmware version (7.4.20.4) and now I can connect to the work VPN again through my O2 Wireless II box.

The steps I took to sort this VPN connection issues are as follows:-

• Take a note of any static IP details (I did not actually do this step so I had about 30 minutes of paper rummaging as O2 Customer Services has closed by 2.30am)
• Follow the steps outlined in http://www.o2help.co.uk/router-upgrade-firmware/
• At step 4 run RT-585v7_74K4EJ.exe to revert to the 7.4.20.4 firmware version.  Note this will result in a factory reset of your router and all configuration settings will be lost.
• Run router setup and get connected to internet again.
• Check VPN works
• Configure and secure LAN / WLAN

In addition to this I thought it would be a wise idea to stop O2 from coming back in and updating the firmware automatically again which would give me the same problems so I opted to disabled the port O2 use to do their automatic updates.

References

O2 Help – Lots of useful help regarding O2 broadband

O2 Help – How to upgrade the firmware on the O2 Wireless Box II/III

O2 Help – How to close port 7547 on the O2 Wireless Box II/III

The original operating system was Windows XP Home but since the laptop has been bought primarily for work purposes, I had also bought a copy of Windows XP Pro but each time I install Windows XP Pro on my Sony VGN-FE21B laptop it always has a missing icon for the memory stick in My Computer. I imagine this is because the hardware is specific to Sony and not a generic Windows XP driver.

Fortunately this is really easy to solve (although I have to look it up online every time I re-install Windows XP Pro) as you can download the memory stick hotfix from Sony (When the page loads scroll down to “14. To install Memory Stick Hotfix”). Run this file and voila!

This article is mainly to help me (although I like to think it will help others) when I come to re-install Window XP Pro onto my Sony VGN-FE21B laptop in the future and will hopefully help me answer my own question.

Luckily this one turned out to be relatively simple and only took 5 minutes to fix although when I first heard about it I thought it was going to take a few hours. My aunt and uncle reported a problem with logging into their laptop (running Windows Vista Home Premium) on my uncle’s profile where it would give an error message “The User Profile Service failed the logon”, after which it would simply return them to the profile selection screen.

I did a quick search using Safari on my iPhone and the first result which came up for “The User Profile Service failed the logon” sorted out my problem.

Seemingly the cause of the problem was that the profile had managed to enter a backup state and a registry amendment was needed to resolve the issue. The registry amendment to fix my uncle’s issues with “The User Profile Service failed the logon” was as follows:-

• Log in to Windows using an alternative profile
• Open regedit and go to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\
• Within the ProfileList key you should see 2 keys with almost identical names except one will have a suffix of .bak (i.e. S-1-5-21-1209794152-539799901-2903691368-1010 and S-1-5-21-1209794152-539799901-2903691368-1010.bak)
• Delete the key WITHOUT the “.bak” suffix
• Rename the other key and remove the “.bak” suffix
• Edit the “State” DWORD within the renamed key and set to “0″ (zero)

After that we were able to restart the computer and log back in under my uncle’s profile without any more problems and no more “The User Profile Service failed the logon” messages.

Sources

TechArena Community – The User Profile Service failed the logon

1. restarting the workstations
2. restarting the server,
3. restarting the print spooler service on the workstations
4. restarting the printer spooler server on the server
5. deleting printers and tryed to re-add them

Regardless what I tried neither of the Windows Vista computers would allow me to printer and always presented me with the following error when trying to add a printer and almost always when the computer booted:-

The local print spooler service is not running. Please restart the spooler or restart the machine.

At that point I didn’t need to print much so I didn’t try too hard to fix it and simply resorted to printing from my only Windows XP machine I had.

Today I finally had enough and decided it was time to find a solution to this local print spooler service is not running problem.

After only a short while of searching I found that quite a few other people had this local print spooler service is not running problem and there were a variety of fixes which worked for some and not others but the one that worked for me was in an article called “How to clean up printer drivers” written by Bruce Sanderson way back in 2004 so I was pleasantly surprised when it work like a charm.

I simply followed steps 6 – 14 (listed below) and everything starting working again.  I was able to add printers and once again print without even needing to restart the computer.

6.  open regedit (e.g. click Start, key regedit and press Enter)
7.  navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers

under this key, there will be the keys Version-2 and Version-3 (one or the other of these may be absent – not a problem)

the sub-keys under these contain the printer driver configuration information

delete all the sub-keys inside Version-2 and Version-3, but not these keys themselves

The Microsoft Knowledgebase article at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;312052 lists some other registry entries to delete, but this is not usually necessary.

8.  open a Command Prompt window
9.  key the commands
net stop spooler
net start spooler
10. open Windows Explorer
11. navigate to %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\ and delete any files there.  By default, this is where the print spooler stores print files.
12. navigate to %systemroot%\system32\spool\drivers\w32x86 (%systemroot% is usually Windows, but it might be winnt or something else; this is set when the OS is installed).
13. inside w32x86, there will be folders with the names 2 and 3 (one or more of these may be absent – not a problem)
delete all of the files and sub-folders in each of the 2 and 3 folders, but not the folders themselves
inside w32x86, there may be other folders with names starting with “hewlett_packard”, “hphp” or something else; delete these folders also
14. restart the print spooler (see steps 8 and 9 above)

Although this looks to have been aimed at resolving the local print spooler service is not running problem on computers that have been upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows XP it seems to work just as well on a Windows Vista computer that was a clean install of Windows Vista Business when installed.

Resources

“How to clean up Printer Drivers” by Bruce Sanderson