What is wonderful that, there is a hidden admin in Windows 7 and it is not activate by default!

Now you may be curious how to activate it….

Click “Start” and on “Search box”, just type cmd and press Enter key!

When it comes, type as: net user administrator /active:yes

In Windows 7 you often see that, it may go into hibernation / sleep mode, although it helps to save power, but some people feels it is a problematic ! So, if you want to turn it off, just pass this:

powercfg -h off

Sometimes, it is necessary to speed up the shutting down time in Windows 7….

Click “Start” and on “Search box”, just type regedit and locate for the key as:

“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control”

and make the Value as lower of your choice on the key “WaitToKillServiceTimeout” default is 12000 i.e. 12 sec !

Don’t Worry Windows XP users ! there is a way to speed up the Shutting down time of XP….this mechanism is also available, but a little difference !

After finishing your work, press Ctrl+Alt+Del to open Taskbar > Shut Down menu, select Turn Off by holding Ctrl key. Same tricks also applicable for Restart.

Now, I am going to describe some of the new features of Windows 7 Enterprise / Ultimate !

DirectAccess: Allows users to connect securely to the corporate network through the Internet without need of VPN.

BranchCache It helps to increase the optimization of applications; it provides such an enhancement to the end-users in remote offices that just like an experience to working in head office. Users in a branch office don’t need to wait as long to download files from headquarters. When BranchCache enables, a copy of data accessed from an intranet / a file server is cached locally within the branch office. When another user on same network requests the file, he /she gets the file instantly as it is downloaded prior from the local cache. It supports common protocols like HTTP & HTTPS and server messaging block or SMB. It can work with Secure Sockets Layer or SSL, and Internet Protocol security /IPSec. The use of BranchCache to locally cache content and Web pages will enable SYSTEX to reduce expensive network bandwidth by least 20 percent. Read here for, SYSTEX CASE STUDY

Another a unique feature, not only you can protect data of your computer, it is possible also even on removable drives: With huge growth of using of mobile computers, of course the question of security arising. In 2008, 42% of respondents to the Computer Security Institute Computer Crime and Security Survey of enterprise IT professionals report that their organizations experienced theft of laptops or mobile devices.

With Windows 7, you can protect important data by using BitLocker Drive Encryption feature. BitLocker to Go extends BitLocker data protection to USB storage devices, enabling them to be restricted with a passphrase / password. You can set a policy (GP) to having control over this, which requires users to apply BitLocker protection to removable drives before being able to write to them.

BitLocker to Go provides administrators control over how removable storage devices can be utilized within their environment and the strength of protection that they require. Policies are also available to require appropriate passwords / passphrase, smart card, or domain user credentials to utilize a protected removable storage device.

Easier to set up, Whether you need to protect internal or removable drives, BitLocker in Windows 7 makes that protection easy because it works with almost any drive. Windows 7 simplifies the encryption of internal drives by automatically creating the hidden boot partition necessary to use BitLocker to protect the OS volume, eliminating the need to manually select that option during installation or to repartition the drive afterward. Best of all, BitLocker can be enabled on drives running Windows 7 with a simple right-click.

Happy Windows 7 (ing)…..

It is best fits for small business that does not have Active Directory or useful for peer-to-peer networking. It is better to keep in mind about several problems before going to implement it, as described here:

If there is necessary to manage resources (like file sharing / printer sharing) with Linux; Mac OS; XP; and even Vista, this creates much more trouble for this kind of network even you make Windows 7 as tiny server with full rights. It is recommended that, if you need that type of work, go for Windows 2008 or at least windows 2003 or Linux Server (preferably Red Hat / SuSE).

And if you want for truly cost effective solution, then move for NAS (Network Attached Storage).

Another problem is that, when you join / create HomeGroup, it is possible to create only one with any flavour of Windows 7 (Home Premium; Professional; Enterprise or even Ultimate). That is why, you never use HomeGroup as a drop-in-replacement for existing XP’s peer-to-peer network until Microsoft will launch any new way for this.

Click Control Panel > Network Connections and right-click the adapter to access its Properties and what you see the Ipv4 has connectivity where Ipv6 has “No network access” !

If the situation is like this, you may follow the following easy steps….

1. Start > regedit (type in Search Box) > User Account Control > Continue
2. When the Registry Editor opens, try to locate the registry entry like

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters

1. Now modify DisabledComponents by double-clicking
2. Put 0 on all Ipv6 components (0 means enable) and click OK

Note: It is strongly recommended, to take important backup / registry before going to work with Registry !

Next reboot Windows 7 to make it ready to set up for HomeGroup network !

And the second is DIRECT ACCES, which is the most enhanced feature in Windows 7 Ipv6 mechanism and as well as Windows Server 2008 R2. As I have a practical experience to work with this unique feature and from my point of view, it has the same purpose as Virtual Private Network (VPN), i.e., it allows users to connect securely to the corporate network through the Internet. Unfortunately, this wonderful feature only you can get with Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate flavors. It is a great combination when Windows Server 2003 / Windows Server 2008 used Ipv6 with Internet Protocol Security or IPSec considering Windows 7.

There are several advantages with DirectAccess….

It can optimize the performance both Windows 7 as client and Data-center’s network.

It does not need to have or run native Ipv6 on network to use DirectAccess.

It Works together with NAP (Network Access Protection) and NAC (Network Access Control) solutions.

It is not necessary to reconnect if the Internet connection failure.

As I mentioned about the great combination, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 both come with a unique mechanism called “IP-HTTPS” support. I am not going to write here much about this topic, only for a little information that, IP-HTTPS is a tunneling protocol that tunnels Ipv6 packets to hide inside an Ipv4 based HTTPS session. To use this unique Ipv6′s feature, you have to do a little task here:

It can be done through GPO for DirectAccess Windows 7 computers by….

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Group Policy Management
2. In New DirectAccess client GPO, click to Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Network\Network Connections\Route
3. Click Edit policy setting > click Enabled and after that click OK
4. Now use Web proxy server to available it. If Web does not support Ipv6, use MicroSoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) feature. It transalates to Ipv4 based requests.

• Device: Network adapter built into the Linux System

• Interface: Use a physical device, a software component creates an interface is also called driver. In Linux OS, network interfaces use a standard naming system such as eth0; eth1…..

• Link: It uses the term link to refer to the connection of a device to the network

• Address: Must assign an IP address (either static / dynamic) based on ipv4 or ipv6. It is possible to assign more than one address to a network device / NIC

• Broadcast: By sending a network packet to the broadcast address, it is possible to reach all hosts in the locally connected network at the same time.

• Route: An IP packet takes from the source to the destination host. It also refers to an entry in the routing table of the Kernel.

Normally, YaST helps to configure a network card during / after installation. Using a very simple and built-in tool called ip tool, which helps to configure through Command Line. Of-course you have root privilege to use this tool.

To see ip address setup of all NICs: ip address show or ifconfig (you can see the man page)

Generally, there are three network interfaces (if you have only one NIC):

lo: This is the loopback device, which is available on every Linux OS (it doesn’t matter, what the flavor it is) even when no network adapter is installed. This is a virtual device, that may use to communicate with each other by using IP like 127.0.0.1 or open a browser and type as ping localhost

eth0: The first Ethernet adapter which physically exists and have a IP address as Class A or Class B or Class C

sit0: It is a special kind of virtual device which may be used to encapsulate IPv4 into IPv6 packets.

Remember, generally sit0 is not used in IPv4 network. And IPv6 has different kind of architecture, so it does not use IPv4 procedure.

So, where is IPv5…. There is a story behind that.

IPv5 is an experimental protocol for UNIX based systems. In keeping with standard UNIX release conventions, all odd-numbered versions are considered experimental. It was never intended to be used by the general public.

For example, in IPv4 setup of the device displays as: inet 192.168.1.1/24 brd 255.255.255.0 scope global eth0. Here 192.168.1.1 is IP address follows inet, 255.255.255.0 is broadcast address and the length displays in bits 24 seperated by a / (slash)

To see network attributes type as: ip link show and

the possible attributes are….

UP: It means, the device is turned on

LOOPBACK: It means, this is a virtual network device

BROADCAST: It means, the network device may send packets to all hosts sharing the same network

POINTTOPOINT: It means, the network device may only connected to one other device

MULTICAST: This stands for the network device may send packets to a group of other systems at the same time

PROMISC: It means, the network device listens to all packets on the network. It is useful for network monitoring.

To see additional statistics info about the network device type as: ip –s link show eth0

Note: Provide the device name at the end (eth0), it helps to show output for only one specific device. The section where RX displays information about received packets and the section TX shows information about sent packets.

How to Change Settings of the Installed Network Device….

To assign an IP address type as: ip add 192.168.1.1/24 brd + dev eth0

Here 192.168.1.1 is an assigned IP, you can change as you want. The brd + option sets the broadcast address automatically as determined by the network mask.

To verify the IP address type as: ip address show dev eth0 or hostname –i

To delete IP address, type as: ip address del 192.168.1.1 dev eth0

To change the network device attributes (as I mentioned earlier)

To make enable a network device, type as: ip link set eth0 up or ifup eth0

To make disable a network device, type as: ip link set eth0 down or ifdown eth0

You can use other tool called as “ifcfg”, to use it, type as: ifcfg eth0 add ipaddr (like 192.168.1.1)

ifcfg eth0 del ipaddr

It is necessary to save the configuration settings in configuration files. The configuration files for network devices are located in /etc/sysconfig/network/. It is must to create one configuration file for every network device. The file name starts as, ifcfg-eth-id- and then followed by hardware address of the network device. It is recommended, configure the network device with YaST first and then make changes in configuration files. The configuration file includes several lines, which can be explained as below….

BOOTPROTO=’static’, this is the way, how the network device is configured either STATIC or DHCP. If it is DHCP, it shows as, BOOTPROTO=’dhcp’

REMOTE_IPADDR=’’, for point-to-point connection, here need to set value for remote IP address

STARTMODE=’onboot’, it determines, how the network device is started. The options are,

• auto=determines if the network device starts at boot time i.e. ‘onboot’ or initializes at run time

• manual=means, the network device is started manually with ifup

• ifplugd=means, when it is plugged or you may set as IFPLUGD_PRIORITY

• UNIQUE=‘rBUF.+xOL8ZCSAQC’ _nm_name=’bus-pci-0000:00:0b.0’, for example, it is added by YaST when network device is configured.

• BROADCAST=’’; IP ADDR=’192.168.1.1’; NETMASK=’255.255.255.0’; NETWORK=’’, they are all network address configuration

• MTU=’’, Maximum Transmission Unit is a value that helps to increase the transmit rate. Default value is 1500 bytes

• ETHTOOL_OPTIONS=’’, it is used for querying settings & changing of a network device.

Note: The file /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg.template contains a template, which can be used for device configuration files.

Setting up Routing With the ip Tool….

I am focusing only the most common routing scenarios!

To see the current routing table, type as: ip route show

Depending on setup of computer, the content of the routing table varies as,

• One route to the local network the system is connected to

• One route to the default gateway for all other packets

To add route, type as: ip route add ipaddr/24 dev eth0, ipaddr as your IP address for eg. 10.0.0.100/24.

To set a route to a different network, type as: ip route add 192.168.1.0/24 via 10.0.0.100

That means, all packets for the network 192.168.1.0 are sent through gateway 10.0.0.100

To set a default route, type as: ip route add default via 10.0.0.100

To delete an entry from routing table, type as: ip route delete ipaddr/24

The configuration file is /etc/sysconfig/network/routes

Now writing about the most universally known the command both on Windows and Linux Systems. Yes, it is “PING” but there are several options that few to know….

-c (count) = The no of packets to be sent

-l (interface) = Specifies network interface to be used, if there are several interfaces

-i (seconds) = Specifies no of seconds wait between individual packet shipments

-f (flood ping) = Packets are sent one after another at the same rate. Only root can use

-n (numerical) = To get numerical output of IP address

-t (time to live) = Sets the time to live for packets to be sent

-w (maxwait) = For timeout in seconds

-b (broadcast) = Sends packets to the broadcast address of the network

There is a useful diagnostic tool called “TraceRoute”. It uses UDP packets, which are called “datagrams”. It can be used to collect information about every router on the way to the destination host.

The command is used as include hostname: traceroute abcd (abcd is hostname, u must change with your own). Instead of use hostname, you may use IP address.

Configure Host Name and Name Server….

Set the host name is configured in the file /etc/HOSTNAME (yes, HOSTNAME is capital). This file contains Fully Qualified Domain Name or FQDN. You can change the content of the files manually by opening it on any of your favorite editor like gedit / vi / kate / joe.

The name resolution is configured in the file called /etc/resolv.conf. You can configure up to three name servers manually as stated above.

I am not going to do propaganda for a particular product; rather I work on various aspects of this popular Linux OS and want to share my practical observations with the good IT people of the world. Though this article written on SuSE Linux, but I think this article also can be applicable to other flavor of Linux OS.

The development of UNIX started in the 60’s. UNIX comprises two main development lines: System V and BSD. And Linux is UNIX like operating system and it is very known that the development of Linux was launched in 1991 by Linus Benedict Torvalds.

Overview of the Linux Desktop….

The base of any graphical user interface is the X Windows System, known as X or X11. In Windows flavor, it is not possible to install without its graphical user interface (GUI), but in Linux the GUI is a normal application that can choose whether or not to install. I am not going to compare, just for an instance. The X Windows System was created in 1984 at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The base advantage is that it allows graphical applications to be displayed & operated on any monitor without running the applications on the computers to which these monitors are connected. It controls the graphical screen. XFree86 & XOrg are free implementations of this system. SuSE Linux uses XOrg as default. SLES is released with several Window Managers like Metacity and TWM / Tab Window Manager. GNOME is the standard graphical desktop for major variant of Linux and also for SuSE Linux. It is possible to use KDE desktop along with GNOME. In SuSE Linux, you can start a file browser by selecting the Username’s Home icon on the desktop or by selecting Nautilus from the main menu by clicking the label Computer.

Access Command Line Interface (CLI) From Desktop….

It may connect several terminals to the serial interface in a Linux OS. Cause more than one person often uses the same computer, and for that reason virtual terminals were created in Linux OS. By pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1….f6 you can switch between individual terminals. That means six virtual terminals can run on same computer. You can determine the terminal currently being used from the tty as tty1….tty6. Where tty stands for teletype. You can switch back to previous state by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F7. Besides using virtual terminals, may start a terminal emulation from GNOME desktop by selecting Gnome Terminal or X Terminal (xterm) from the main menu.

Administer Linux with YaST….

This is very powerful tool to configure SuSE Linux. YaST stands for Yet Another Setup Tool. This interface appears in two types: Ncurses (text mode) and QT (GUI). You can start YaST from the terminal by issuing su command, if you don’t have root permission. Just open GNOME terminal and type su and it asks for password, after getting root privilege (any kind of administrative work, you must work as root), just type yast2 (GUI interface). For text mode, type yast. It is possible to know what modules YaST has, type yast2 -l or yast2 –list. To see the list of options, type yast2 -h or yast2 –help. After making changes with YaST, it uses backend services called “SuSEConfig” (Don’t worry, I will tell later about SuSEConfig) to complete the changes in background services. Basically, I focus on main three modules Network; Software Management and Printer, which are necessary day to day work in Linux environment. (Printer module cover on Part – 2)

Network card and the network connection can access from GNOME Terminal. On desktop make right click and from pop-up menu select terminal. And type yast2 lan (remember, root privilege requires), this shows, Network Setup Method dialog box. There are two choices! User controlled with NetworkManager, which uses desktop applet to configure network (I recommend not to choose) and other is Traditional Method with ifup, select this one and it shows the NIC, click edit and choose any one either dhcp else static address setup. Of course the subnet mask must provide, because it determines in which network an IP address is located. Name server is optional, it requires when DNS must exist for the resolution of names into IP addresses & vice versa. Domain Name is the name of the domain to which the computer belongs. It helps to divide networks. A computer may address uniquely by providing its FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). It consists of host name & name of the domain. If the network has a gateway, then provide the address under Default Gateway. It is possible to create entries in the routing table of the system after selecting Export Configuration in Routing Table. If you select Enable IP Forwarding that means, packages that are not dedicated for computer are routed. You can set few more options in General tab, but my recommendation not to reconfigure them and leave this section. After configuring, press finish to activate the network card.

Note: According to currently standard ipv4, this address consists of a sequence of four bytes separated by dots. It is also possible to configure network card through command line.

Software Management helps to install / uninstall or even repair additional software, which requires often for various purposes. You can start this module by selecting YaST > Software > Software Management or through terminal by yast2 and then select Software Management or just type yast2 sw_single (for direct access the interface). Remember, an installation DVD must insert into cd / dvd drive. When the dialog box appears, find the software you want to install under Search, if it is there, it shows in right area with a check box. Click the box to make it check and then click Accept. Now follow on-screen instructions to complete the process. You can choose from different filters listed in the drop-down list in the top left corner of the dialog box labeled Filter. The options are:

• Patterns: It displays all software that is available on the known installation media.

• Package Groups: It displays all software that is available on the known installation media. It is grouped by category.

• Languages: It displays all languages related files.

• Installation Sources: Lists all registered installation sources & displays the available packages of this source. (This topic does not end here; I’ll definitely come back on the same topic in next part).

• Installation Summary: It displays all the packages with a marked status.

The matched packages are listed in the right area. The installation state shows by a small in front of the package name.

Tips: You can type as little as possible when invoke any module through YaST. Like for Software Management, type as yast2 sw and then press tab key. It completes the rest of te command by its own.

]]> http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/free-open-source/suse-linux-at-a-glance-in-view-of-rechil-part-1/feed/ 0 http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/free-open-source/boot-linux-from-windows/ http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/free-open-source/boot-linux-from-windows/#comments Thu, 25 Nov 2010 08:22:13 +0000 Subhendu Sen http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/free-open-source/boot-linux-from-windows/ The Web is full of explanations on how to dual boot Windows and Linux using a Linux boot manager like GRUB or LILO. If you want to dual boot Windows Vista and Linux using Windows Vista’s Boot Manager, please read on. I will assume that you already have installed Linux on your machine using GRUB as your boot loader.

Step 1 – Install GRUB on the Linux partition (outside of MBR)

As Windows Vista will replace the Master Boot Record (MBR) with its own, we need to relocate GRUB elsewhere by running grub-install with the Linux partition as a parameter.

• On Linux, launch a Terminal with root privileges

• Find the name of the partition Linux is installed on by running fdisk –l (the partition you’re looking for is the one whose system is Linux, can be something like /dev/sda1 or /dev/hda1. For the rest of this post, I’ll use /dev/sda1)

• Install GRUB on the Linux partition by running : grub-install /dev/sda1

Step 2 – Get a copy of Linux boot sector

We will need to instruct Windows Boot Manager how to boot correctly Linux using Linux boot sector, which we will extract using dd.

• On Linux, launch a Terminal with root privileges

• Take a copy of Linux boot sector : dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/tmp/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

• Copy linux.bin on a FAT formatted USB key or any storage accessible from Windows Vista

Step 3 – Install Windows Vista

Step 4 – Configure dual booting in Windows Vista

We will create an entry for GRUB in Windows Vista boot configuration data store using bcdedit.

• On Windows Vista, launch a command prompt with administrative privileges (by right clicking on cmd and choosing Run as Administrator)

• Copy Linux boot sector on the root of the Windows boot (active) partition, namely the one containing bootmgr. If you don’t know for sure you can use diskpart or diskmgmt.msc to find out which one it is.

• Create an entry for GRUB :