Case Uses

Creating bootable flash drives can be incredibly useful for a variety of tasks. Moreover, each of these use cases highlights the versatility of bootable flash drives in both personal and professional settings. As a result, they become a valuable tool for various computing tasks.

1. Operating System Installation: Install new operating systems like Windows, Linux, or macOS on a computer without a CD/DVD drive.

2. System Recovery: Boot from a flash drive to access recovery tools for troubleshooting or repairing a malfunctioning operating system.

3. Data Recovery: Use bootable drives with recovery software to retrieve lost or corrupted data from hard drives.

4. Testing New Operating Systems: Run live versions of operating systems (e.g., Linux distributions) from a USB drive to test functionality without installing it on your hard drive.

5. Creating System Backups: Boot from a USB drive to create system backups using backup software.

6. Malware Removal: Use bootable antivirus tools to scan and remove malware from an infected system.

7. Firmware Updates: Update BIOS or firmware on systems that do not support direct updates from within the operating system.

8. Network Booting: Boot a computer over a network using PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) configurations set up on a flash drive.

9. Portable Applications: Carry portable versions of applications that can run directly from the USB drive without installation on the host system.

10. Custom Recovery Solutions: Create tailored recovery environments with specific tools and applications for troubleshooting.

11. Secure Environments: Set up bootable drives for secure environments to ensure that sensitive tasks are performed without traces left on the local system.

12. System Performance Testing: Run diagnostic tools and benchmarking software from a USB drive to assess hardware performance without interference from the main operating system.

13. Multi-Boot Systems: Create a multi-boot USB drive to install or run multiple operating systems from a single flash drive.

14. Software Deployment: Deploy software packages or updates across multiple systems in an organization.

15. Virtual Machine Creation: Use bootable USB drives to install operating systems in virtual machines for development or testing purposes.

ISO Files

ISO files, short for International Organization for Standardization files, are disk image files that contain the complete contents and structure of a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray disc. These files serve as a digital replica of the original disc, preserving not only the data but also the file system information.

Creating a Bootable Flash Drive in Windows

Popular Flashing Software

Here are some popular applications to flash ISO files onto USB drives in Windows.

• Rufus:
  A lightweight and user-friendly tool, Rufus allows you to create bootable USB drives from ISO files quickly. It supports various file systems and partition schemes.

• UNetbootin:
  This cross-platform tool enables you to create bootable USB drives for a variety of operating systems, including Linux distributions. It offers a straightforward interface and can also download some ISO files directly.

• Etcher (balenaEtcher):
  Known for its simple and intuitive interface, Etcher is a cross-platform tool that lets you flash images to USB drives and SD cards easily. It supports a wide range of image formats, including ISO.

ISO Flashing Procedure

For our example we will use Rufus. The software can be installed in Windows OS and downloaded from https://rufus.ie/downloads/.

1. Ensure to download the latest version that is not in beta. An example of the correct version to get is shown in the image below.

   

2. Select the USB Flash Drive within “Device” section. 
3. Select the type of boot requirement within “Boot Selection” section, for this we would be flashing an ISO file so we would need to select “Disk or ISO image”.
4. Press on the “SELECT” button to select the ISO file.

   

5. Once the ISO is selected the “Boot Selection” field will be populate with the ISO filename.
6. For “Partition Scheme” select the appropriate one for your system. Normally I go with “GPT”.
7. Proceed to press the “START” button, note that all data on the USB Flash drive will be removed.
8. If prompted with a window related to “ISOHybrid image detected” proceed with “Write in ISO Image mode (Recommended)”.

   

9. The next prompt will explain that all data will be destroyed on the Flash drive as part of the process. Confirm and proceed.

   

10. Once the process starts you will see the progress bar filling up until the Status shows a green “Ready” bar.

    

11. At this point, you could begin to use the drive for whichever purpose. In the example I’ve used systemrescue from https://www.system-rescue.org/ to enter a rescue environment.

Creating a Bootable Flash Drive in MacOS

Popular Flashing Software

Here are some popular applications to flash ISO files onto USB drives in MacOS.

1. Etcher (balenaEtcher):

   Etcher offers a user-friendly, cross-platform solution that lets you quickly create bootable USB drives and SD cards from ISO files. It features a clean interface and supports a wide range of image formats. Etcher actively verifies the flashing process, ensuring the integrity of the data written to the USB drive.

2. UNetbootin:
   UNetbootin is another cross-platform tool that enables users to create bootable USB drives for various operating systems, including many Linux distributions. It allows you to either select an ISO file from your computer or download one directly within the application. UNetbootin provides a straightforward interface and is suitable for both beginners and advanced users.

3. Terminal (using dd command):
   While not a standalone application, you can use the built-in Terminal on macOS to create bootable USB drives by using the dd command. This method is more technical but offers great flexibility for users who are comfortable with command-line interfaces. It allows you to specify the exact source and destination for the ISO image and the USB drive.

ISO Flashing Procedure

For our example we will use UNetbootin. The software can be installed in MacOS and downloaded from https://unetbootin.github.io/.

1. Download the required version of UNetbootin from the portal.

   

2. Install the downloaded application and proceed to open the “Disk Utility” application.
3. Initialize/erase your USB flash drive while selecting “ExFAT” for “Format” and “GUID Partition Map” for “Scheme”.

   

4. Proceed to open UNetbootin and select either the distribution you want the software to download or the ISO Diskimage. Select the USB drive and the the correct drive. Once ready, press on “OK”.

   

5. Once the process began you shall see the steps being taken as the USB flash drive is being flashed with the ISO of choice.

   

6. At this point, you could begin to use the drive for whichever purpose. In the example I’ve used systemrescue from https://www.system-rescue.org/ to enter a rescue environment.

Further Assistance

For any further assistance involving ISO flashing and mounting, do not hesitate to reach out to the Hivelocity Support team via a chat, support ticket, or phone at 888-869-4678.

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Procedure

The following sections will provide you with the information and commands for two methods of turning on your drive bay’s LED to assist the tech support team with identifying the correct drive bay.

LEDMON – LEDCTL Method

This method involves installing the ledmon package and then using its ledctl utility. *Note: this will only work with functioning storage devices and only momentarily.

1. Install ledmon package with your package manager (*Note: your package manager will be different here depending on which OS you’re running).
    
   sudo apt-get install ledmon
    
   
    
2. Next, trigger the LED on the drive bay using the following command: 
    
   sudo ledctl locate=/dev/sda 
    
   *Note: In this instance “/dev/sda” is used, but this will need to be changed to the specific drive you’re turning the LED on for.
    
3. To trigger multiple bay’s LEDs, use the following command. 
    
   sudo ledctl locate={ /dev/sda /dev/sdb }
    
   *Note: In this instance “/dev/sda” and “/dev/sdb” are used, but this will need to be changed to the specific drives you’re turning the LEDs on for.

DD Method

This method involves using the dd utility’s write capabilities. *Note: this will only work with functioning storage devices. The process involves using dd to create and write an image of a specific drive into /dev/null (which is a file/device that will discard anything that is written to it), essentially transferring data from the drive of choice into a blackhole just to force the LED light to flash.

1. To start, begin writing data from the drive of choice using the following command:
    
   sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/null
    
   *Note: the screen will not display an output but it is working as the command-line will not allow you to interact with it until the process is complete. The process will stop once the copying process is done or when ctrl+C has been pressed to cancel the process as mentioned in the next step.
    
   
    
2. Once the drive bay has been detected, cancel the operation using ctrl+C before drive removal.

– written by Pascal Suissa

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Retrieving S.M.A.R.T Data

The commands listed in the sections below will provide you with information regarding the S.M.A.R.T data of your storage devices and their current health conditions. The following sections are divided by applicable device type.

Evaluating SATA Hard-Disk Drives and SATA SSDs

This section includes instructions for generating reports for SATA hard drives and is applicable to both spinning plate Hard-disks and Solid-state SSDs with no moving parts. The information for both types are gathered using the same smartmontools package.

1. First, if the package is not already available in your system, install smartmontools from your package manager using the following command:

   yum install smartmontools

   
   

2. Next, run the following command to list all the drives in the system that are available for evaluation:

   lsblk
   
   
   

3. Once you’ve found the drive you’d like to evaluate, grab the name of it and run the command listed below. The smartctl tool will then output the results of the S.M.A.R.T data along with further information such as how long the drive has been running, how many errors it has, and whether the S.M.A.R.T drive health test has passed or not. In this case, the example drive is /dev/sda. *Note: we are selecting drives here [sda, sdb, sdc], not partitions [sda1,sdb4, sdc7].
   
   sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda

   

Evaluating NVMe Solid-State Drives (M.2 SSD)

This section includes instructions for generating reports for NVMe drives, which require a different package to retrieve their health information. In this particular case, we’ll be using the nvme-cli package.

1. First, check that the nvme-cli package is available on your system already. If not, install it with your package manager using the command:

   yum install nvme-cli
   

2. Next, use the following command to retrieve a list of your available NVMe devices:

   nvme list
   

3. To retrieve the health results of a specific drive you’d like to evaluate, use the command listed below. In this particular example, the drive we’re checking is /dev/nvme6n1.

   nvme smart-log /dev/nvme0n1
   

4. Lastly, use following command to retrieve the error logs of the drive in question.

   nvme error-log /dev/nvme0n1
   

Performing Drive Tests on SATA Hard-Disk Drives and SSDs

The smartmontools package smartctl tool allows users to perform four tests that evaluate the input/output [IO] capabilities of their storage device. The four tests are listed below and can be performed to evaluate drive health and performance.

*Note: please be advised that if the disk is not in good condition and has a FAILED SMART status, then these tests will only put further stress on the device and are therefore not recommended. If you have any concerns regarding this, please reach out to our Technical Support for further assistance.

1. The first test is a short test which performs a short write test on the drive to evaluate for errors. In this particular example the drive we’re checking is /dev/sda.

   sudo smartctl -t short /dev/sda

   
   

2. The second test is a long test which performs a longer write test on the drive to evaluate for errors. Once again, the drive we’re checking in this example is /dev/sda.

   sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda

   
   

3. The third test is a conveyance test (normally used for PATA Drives) which performs a test to check for possible damages that can occur during device transport.

   sudo smartctl -t conveyance /dev/sda

   
   

4. The fourth test is a Select test (normally used for PATA drives) which is meant to check only a specified range of logical block addresses (LBAs).

   sudo smartctl -t select,10-20 /dev/sda

   
   

Once these tests have been completed, results for each test can be found by running the following command (the results are located at the bottom of the report):

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda

*Note: to abort any test after it has begun running, use the following command:

smartctl -X /dev/sda

Evaluating the S.M.A.R.T DATA Report

The reports given by the smartmontools package smartctl tool can be intimidating at first. In the following section we’ve provided information which should help you make sense of these reports and take action when necessary.

First and foremost, don’t panic. The attributes and values you see in the report might make you think your drive is in trouble, but it’s important to understand that all drives will eventually have some less-than-ideal values showing for certain attributes. This alone does not necessarily mean that your drive is in trouble.

Two important notes:

1. Some of the items listed below might not exist in your report as some of these are brand-dependent.
2. The items listed below are not a complete list of all attributes which may be shown. These are however the attributes that require the most attention when reading the report.

Important S.M.A.R.T. Report Attributes and What They Mean

1. Read Error Rate – (the lower this value the better) – this shows the rate of read errors occurring when a disk is being read.
   
2. Throughput Performance – (the higher this value the better) – this shows the overall performance of the hard disk drive which ideally should not be a lower value than what is normally seen.
   
3. Spin-Up Time – (the lower this value the better) -This shows the average time it takes for the drive to become fully operational.
   
4. Reallocated Sectors Count – (the lower this value the better) – This shows the count of bad sectors that have been found and remapped. *Note: A high value of reallocated sectors with a large amount observed when looking at daily trends can indicate a possible drive failure.
   
5. Current Pending Sector Count – (the lower this value the better) – This shows the count of sectors waiting to be remapped because of unrecoverable read errors.
   
6. Seek Error Rate – (the lower this value the better) – This shows the rate of seek errors found on the magnetic heads within the drive. *Note: high values in this attribute indicate potential failure with the mechanical positioning system.
   
7. Seek Time Performance – (the higher this value the better) – This shows the performance of the drive’s seek operations.
   
8. Power-on Hours – This shows the count of hours that the drive has on record for the power-on state. *Note: the recommended value for life expectancy of a drive depends on the drive brand and model.
   
9. Spin Retry Count – (the lower this value the better) – This shows the count of spin start retries as the drive attempts to reach full operational speed.
   
10. Reported Uncorrectable Errors – (the lower this value the better) – This shows the count of errors that could not be recovered using the hardware’s error correcting code.
    
11. Command Timeout – (the lower this value the better) – This shows the count of aborted operations to hard-disk drive timeout.
    
12. Reallocation Event Count – (the lower this value the better) – This shows the total count of attempts to transfer data from reallocated sectors to spare areas.
    
13. Soft Read Error Rate or TA Counter Detected – (the lower these values the better) – These indicate the number of uncorrectable read errors.

-written by Pascal Suissa

The post S.M.A.R.T Data Reports – Evaluating Linux Storage Drive Health appeared first on Hivelocity Hosting.

[ERROR] Can’t open and lock privilege tables: Table ‘mysql.servers’ doesn’t exist

then referring to these steps should resolve the issue:

1. First, log in to MySQL with admin privileges

   #mysql -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` -h localhost
   

2. Go into your MySQL database:

   mysql> use mysql;
   

3. Next, you’ll need to create a server table:

   mysql> CREATE TABLE `servers` (
   `Server_name` char(64) NOT NULL,
   `Host` char(64) NOT NULL,
   `Db` char(64) NOT NULL,
   `Username` char(64) NOT NULL,
   `Password` char(64) NOT NULL,
   `Port` int(4) DEFAULT NULL,
   `Socket` char(64) DEFAULT NULL,
   `Wrapper` char(64) NOT NULL,
   `Owner` char(64) NOT NULL,
   PRIMARY KEY (`Server_name`)
   ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8
   COMMENT=’MySQL Foreign Servers table’;
   

4. With that, a ‘Server’ table will be created.

You should be able to operate the required database now.

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Interested in more articles about Control Panels? Navigate to our Categories page using the bar on the left or check out these popular articles:

• How to Fix Invalid cPanel License Error When the IP is In Fact Licensed
• How to Increase PHP Upload Limit on a cPanel Server
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Unsure which of our services is best for your particular needs? Call or live chat with one of our sales agents today and see the difference Hivelocity can make for you.

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logging {
category lame-servers { null; };
};

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mysql_fix_privilege_tables — Upgrade MySQL System Tables

Some releases of MySQL introduce changes to the structure of the system tables in the mysql database to add new privileges or support new features. When you update to a new version of MySQL, you should update your system tables as well to make sure that their structure is up to date. Otherwise, there might be capabilities that you cannot take advantage of. First, make a backup of your mysql database, and then use the following procedure.

On Unix or Unix-like systems, update the system tables by running the mysql_fix_privilege_tables script:

shell> mysql_fix_privilege_tables

You must run this script while the server is running. It attempts to connect to the server running on the local host as root. If your root account requires a password, indicate the password on the command line. For MySQL 4.1 and up, specify the password like this:

shell> mysql_fix_privilege_tables --password=root_password

Prior to MySQL 4.1, specify the password like this:

shell> mysql_fix_privilege_tables root_password

The mysql_fix_privilege_tables script performs any actions necessary to convert your system tables to the current format. You might see some Duplicate column name warnings as it runs; you can ignore them.

After running the script, stop the server and restart it.

On Windows systems, there isn’t an easy way to update the system tables until MySQL 4.0.15. From version 4.0.15 on, MySQL distributions include a mysql_fix_privilege_tables.sql SQL script that you can run using the mysql client. For example, if your MySQL installation is located at C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1, the commands look like this:

C:\> cd "C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 4.1"
C:\> bin\mysql -u root -p mysql
mysql> SOURCE scripts/mysql_fix_privilege_tables.sql

The mysql command will prompt you for the root password; enter it when prompted.

If your installation is located in some other directory, adjust the pathnames appropriately.

As with the Unix procedure, you might see some Duplicate column name warnings as mysql processes the statements in the mysql_fix_privilege_tables.sql script; you can ignore them.

After running the script, stop the server and restart it.

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By following these steps, you’ll be able to diagnose and determine which actions must be taken to get your MySql.sock file back in working order.

Locating a Missing MySql.sock File

To locate a missing mysql.sock file, use the following procedure:

1. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP! Back up the /var/lib/mysql directory using the following command

   # cp -fr /var/lib/mysql /var/lib/mysql.old

2. Next, check /var/lib/mysql and /tmp for the .sock file (is it in both places?)
3. Use this command to recreate the symbolic link to the .sock file:

   # ln -s /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock /tmp/mysql.sock

4. Now check the permissions of the /var/lib/mysql. It should be 0755 and mysql:root. If not:

   # chmod 0755 /var/lib/mysql
# chown mysql:root /var/lib/mysql

5. cat /etc/passwd to make sure that the mysql user is there.
6. Does /var/lib/mysql/mysql/host.MYI exist? If not then:

   # chmod -R 0660 /var/lib/mysql/mysql
# chown -R mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql/mysql
# /usr/bin/mysql_install_db

7. Now try to force an update:

   # /scripts/mysqlup --force // for cPanel servers only

8. If all else fails, then you may have a corrupted table. Now before you do this, TRIPLE CHECK that you have backed up the /var/lib/mysql directory. It fact, check it 4 times!

   # rm -fr /var/lib/mysql
# rm -f /usr/sbin/mysqld

   Then force another update:

   # /scripts/mysqlup --force

9. Now if all if this did not help, then try:

   # /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/ --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/Server_HostName.pid --skip-locking &

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– Make sure that after you created your database and database user that you didn’t forget to ADD the database user to the database (at the bottom of the “Databases” section in Control Panel > MySQL Manager you’ll see two drop down menus “User:” and “DB:” followed by an “Add User to DB” button).

– Confirm that you entered localhost as the database host/server name and if applicable that you specified mysql for the database server type.

– Make sure that you specified the correct database and database user names. Besides noting the fact that these values are cAsE sEnSiTiVe be aware that your account userid (usually the first 7 characters of your domain name) is added with an underscore as a prefix to both your database and database user names (userid_dbname rather than just dbname and userid_dbuser instead of just dbuser).

– As far as the password make sure that you use the password that you assigned to your database user in MySQL Manager (NOT your account password)

EXAMPLE:

– if your domain name is “testserver.com“
– if your account userid is “testser“)
– if you created a database named “phpbb2“
– if you created a database user named “dummy“
– if you assigned user bozo the password “doh“
– if you added dummy to the phpbb2 database

…then you would enter the following logon/connection info:

database server type = mysql
server name = localhost
database name = testser_phpbb2
database user name = testser_dummy
database user password = doh

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The actual cause of the error itself, is missing character sets from the 4.1.x series. The best way
to recover, would be to use a backup of your database made before the upgrade to 4.1. This way
you can be sure there are no changes that would adversly affect the db.

As a last restort, you will need to upgrade to 4.1 again. Once your server is running MySQL 4.1,
you can dump the databases to a 4.0 format, and facilitate a downgrade to 4.0.

To do this, open an ssh shell, and dump the database with the following command:

mysqldump --create-options --compatible=mysql40 db_name > dump_file

Just substitue your database name for db_name, and your file for dump_file. After this has been
completed for all databases, you can completely uninstall MySQL 4.1, and reinstall MySQL 4.0. After
that it is just a matter of importing all of your databases to your newly installed MySQL 4.0 instance.

The post MySQL will not start, “MySQL File ‘/usr/share/mysql/charsets/?.conf’ not found” in error log. appeared first on Hivelocity Hosting.

2) cd /etc

3) cp named.conf named.conf.BAK

4) wget -O /etc/named.conf https://www.directadmin.com/named.conf

5) then run:
for i in `cat /etc/virtual/domains`; do { echo “zone \”$i\” { type master; file \”/var/named/$i.db\”; };”; }; done; >> /etc/named.conf

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You need to set the hostname fully in your server.
Follow these 3 steps:
1. Type “hostname HOSTNAMEHERE”
2. Type “vi /etc/hosts” and edit your hostname there
3. Type “vi /etc/sysconfig/network” and edit your hostname there as well. If you do reboot the server the hostname goes back to the one originally set if you do not follow these 3 steps.

After followed above 3 steps, you will get Invalid License File problem, you can resolve it by following command:
/usr/local/cpanel/cpkeyclt

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