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Fixing subdomain folders with wildcard cert

Nov 21, 2017

This is something I’ve had to do twice now, and it’s not all that hard, but I keep forgetting.  The specific problem is when you have a wildcard security certificate for your domain, but your subdomain just points to the same folder as your primary domain – even though it works correctly when you access it’s insecure version.

I’m sure there are other causes and fixes for this, but I find what I need to do is:

  1. Log into WHM
  2. Search “Install an SSL Certificate on a Domain”
  3. Then hit the “Browser certificates”
  4. Find the correct wildcard certificate and click the “user certificate” button
  5. Under “domain”  change “*.yourdomain.com” to “yoursubdomain.yourdomain.com”
  6. Then hit the install button

And that should be all you need to do!  You can just do this with as many sub-domains as you need.  If you want to check what certificates you have installed, you can search for “Manage SSL Hosts” in WHM and it will tell you there.

Transfer files to FTP via Rails console

Oct 6, 2017

First require Net::FTP so the functions will be available

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require 'net/ftp'

Create FTP connection, with a custom port

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ftp = Net::FTP.new
ftp.connect('url', port) 
ftp.login('username', 'password')
ftp.passive = true

Move to the folder you want to upload the file into

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ftp.chdir('folder/')

Get URL of paperclip file

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url = 'public'+paperclip.photo.url.gsub(/\?.*/, '')

Upload to server

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ftp.putbinaryfile(url)

Close connection

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ftp.quit()

How to compress only new files in a folder

Jul 5, 2017

In the shell using tar, you can compress only files newer then a specific date :)  Suuuuuper handy if you’re passing off files added to a large website to someone who already has an old version of that site.  So, pretty easy, you just run this command:

sudo tar -N ‘2016-12-01 00:00:00‘ -jcvf compressed.tar.bz2 folder

  • The Date (example date is December 1st 2016 midnight)
  • Location for output file
  • Folder to copy

How to convert a VirtulBox VM to a bootable drive

Jul 5, 2017

This is quite easy so I was surprised that I couldn’t find a walk-through anywhere…so here’s one :)  This is specifically for a VM of Ubuntu, so it’s possible there may be other hurdles in place for different operating systems.

Step 1

Create a VM normally in VirtualBox (or use an existing one), install the operating system, and add any programs or files you want to have readily available on the bootable disk.

Step 2

This is the tricky part, you can use Virtual Box to convert a vdi to an iso, but you have to do it from the terminal.  On my machine it wouldn’t work at all in windows default terminal, but I have Cygwin installed, and was able to use that.  You first need to cd into the directory where Virtual Box is installed, and run the following command.  The folder structure is specific to my machine and will most likely need to be changed on yours.

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"/cygdrive/p/Programs/VirtualBox/VboxManage.exe" clonehd 'F:/Documents/Virtualbox/Ubuntu_2017/Ubuntu 2017.vdi' 'F:/Documents/Virtualbox/Ubuntu_2017.iso' --format RAW

More simply you need to run something like this:

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VboxManage.exe clonehd 'vdi_location.vdi' 'where_generated_iso_will_be_location.iso' --format RAW

Step 3

Use rufus to install the ISO as a bootable image on your USB drive

And that’s about all you need to do!  Then you can take a carbon copy of your VM with you wherever you go :)  Great for travelling, which was my need.

How to clone a specific snapshot

Basically you need to switch the VDI location with the UUID of the specific snapshot you want, to get the UUID go to:

File > Virtual Media Manager

Under Hard disks find the VM you want and it will have each snapshot listed under it. Copy and paste the UUID field from the snapshot you want and switch to use this command in Step 2:

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"/cygdrive/p/Programs/VirtualBox/VboxManage.exe" clonehd UUDI 'F:/Documents/Virtualbox/Ubuntu_2017.iso' --format RAW

More simply you need to run something like this:

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VboxManage.exe clonehd UUDID 'where_generated_iso_will_be_location.iso' --format RAW

Fastest way to search an object

May 12, 2017

Same deal as my previous post, I want to pin down the fastest method to use to search the parameter values of an object in Javascript using https://jsperf.com.  I found 4 different ways to receive the same result, this isn’t an exhaustive list but features some of the most common methods used for searching objects.

Between multiple tests findIndex and find did the best, but find was faster more often then findIndex.

obj_search