Author Archives: Kaven Gagnon

avatar

About Kaven Gagnon

System & Network Architect

Windows : Where does iTunes store iPhone and iPad backups

Beside the iCloud service, iTunes is the way to go when you need to backup your Apple mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad. If you want to secure the backups taken by iTunes on your computer file system, this article will show you where it is stored on your Windows computer file system.

Before you start to copy the content of the folder, just make sure there is not an ongoing synchronization from your device with iTunes to ensure it’s integrity.

Under Windows 7/8/10, iTunes store under the following path :

For example, if your user is “jdoe”, the full path would be :

If your iTunes installation was made through the Microsoft Store, the path will be :

Linux : How to enable the cPanel feature on R1Soft server

If you are running both cPanel and have your own R1Soft server, there is a nice integration in cPanel that allow users to restore files, database or their whole account from this external backup source/destination.

There are several steps involved for this, such as :

1. Enable control panel restore on the R1Soft server ;
2. Add the control panel instance for authentication on the R1Soft server ;
3. Download and install the R1soft plugin on your cPanel server.

Since the two last steps are fairly well documented by the vendor, but a lack of clear documentation on the first step, this is the one we will cover in this article. This should be fairly simple in theory, however I have encountered some customer struggling with that. The following steps should walk you through all steps and hidden corners.

R1Soft have several product feature / configuration preset that define the limitation on how the backup manager will operate and allow. Before doing those steps, the “Control Panels” tab in the server policy will be grayed out.

1. Configure your R1Soft server to work with “Multi-Tenant with Tiered Reselling” by browsing in the left pane menu :

Advanced Options > Product Features

2. Then select the following option :

Configuration Presets > Multi-Tenant with Tiered Reselling

3. And check the following boxes under “Hosting Control Panels” :

Enable Hosting Control Panels
Allow Control Panel Users to Restore Databases

Now the “Control Panels” tab in the server policy should be available. This is where sometimes people are encountering issues, despite enabling the “Multi-Tenant with Tiered Reselling”, that tab may still be grayed out.

If this is your case, it mean that either/or both the volume and/or disk safe aren’t allowing the control panels feature.

1. In order to verify or enable it, simply navigate through the left pane menu :

Settings > Volumes
Settings > Disk Safes

2. Then Edit the concerned volume and/or disk safe and browse to :

Limit tab > Check the box “Allow Control Panels”

Now that both the volume and disk safe have the “Allow Control Panels” enabled, if the “Control Panels” tab was grayed out in the server backup policy, it should now be available.

Linux : How to run Google Chrome as root

By design, Google Chrome cannot be started as root on Linux systems for security reason, which totally make sense.

However, there might be some exceptions where it is required. Here is how to make it work.

If you need to run it once or really occasionally, you may start it with the following command using the terminal :

If you need a more permanent solution, that will also work with the Google Chrome shortcut in the GUI, here is what you need to do :

1. Edit the following file :

2. Go to the end of the file and locate the following line :

3. Append the following at the end of it :

Example :

4. Save the file and it should now be working.

macOS : configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables

Having some issues using the GCC compiler? The problem may show up under different circumstances, such as :

– Invoking the GCC compiler trying to compile an application manually using “sudo ./configure”. In such case, an output similar as below will be shown :

– Trying to upgrade outdated packages after updating MacPorts (which invoke GCC as well) using “sudo port upgrade outdated”. In such case, an output similar as below will be shown :

In that case, that issue happened after Xcode update (which also update the Xcode Command Line Tools that provide GCC). Each time Xcode is updated, licence agreement for GCC must be accepted before it can be used.

If the similar condition apply to your case, it is most likely the issue. You can easily find out by issuing the following command :

If this issue match your case, the following output will be returned :

Agreeing to the Xcode/iOS license requires admin privileges, please run “sudo xcodebuild -license” and then retry this command.

In order to read and accept the license, run the following command as suggested :

Just type “accept” whenever you are done reading the license.

Once done, you may use the “gcc -v” command again to see if the GCC compiler is now usable, if successful, a similar output as below will now be shown :

Linux : How to open a port from a specific source IP address with CSF

It is possible with Config Security Firewall (CSF) to open an inbound port from a specific source IP address. This is defined outside of the global configuration (csf.conf), within a dedicated config file.

1. Open the following file with your favorite text editor :

2. Follow this syntax to open a specific port for a specific IP [tcp/udp|in/out|s/d=port|s/d=ip] :

Protocol|TrafficDirection|SourceDestinationIP

Example : To open port 8443, using TCP protocol from IP 192.168.15.15, the syntax would be :

Note : One statemet per line must be entered.

3. Save the file and reload CSF :

JunOS : Virtual chassis issue vc-port down on one unit and up on the other

If you are running a Virtual Chassis on EX, QFX or MX platform and end up in a situation where one of the vc-port show up on one unit, and down on the other, this lecture is for you!

Let’s do a quick recap on the behavior :

1. Interface set as vc-port (SFP+ or QSFP+) interface link is up on one member, down on the other)
2. VC-Port (one side or both) may or may not show CRC errors
3. The vc-port status show that vcp interface is down
4. Log is reporting the following errors :

fpc1 PFE: ifl-family(2) platform attach failed for ifd vcp-255/1/2 [Unknown error: -4]
fpc1 PFE: ifl-family(2) platform change failed for ifd vcp-255/1/2 [no such file or directory]
fpc1 IFRT: ‘IFL family add’ (opcode 35) failed
fpc1 ifl 64; pfe family attach error (2)
fpc1 [EX-BCM PIC] ex_bcm_linkscan_handler: Link 56 UP

Example of the vc-port status :

Additionally, issuing “show virtual-chassis vc-port” command show “Up” status for a brief moment but then show as “Down”.

The following troubleshooting attempts give no positive results :

  • Remove the interfaces from the vc-port (convert back the port to standard Ethernet/uplink interfaces)
  • Add back the removed interfaces as vc-port (convert Ethernet/uplink to vc-port)
  • Remove the SFP+/QSFP+ optics and re-insert them
  • Reboot both involved members of the VC

The steps above were attempted in a lab for testing purposes, it was unlikely to give positive results since I was suspecting optics from the start.

Because of the link state behavior, it is more than likely to be faulty SFP+/QSFP+ modules. Try first replacing the side where the link show as down. However, that does not mean that the side where it show down is at fault, it may be just the opposite! (in my case, the one with the link up status side was the faulty one).

After replacing the optic, that vc-port link should be back up again.

NOTE : If this occurred on a live chassis deployed a while ago, you may have previously observed early sign of failure, as port flapping and an increased system load.

VMware : Time out waiting on vpxa to start when adding a new hypervisor to vCenter

Having the following error when trying to add a new hypervisor to an existing cluster in VMware vCenter?

A general system error occurred: Time out waiting on vpxa to start

This is most likely happening with the ESXi version is greater than the ones supported by your currently running vCenter.

Have a look at the major, minor, revision and build number of both your vCenter and ESXi systems. The product interoperability matrices from the vendor is unfortunately not much detailed when comes to build version compatibilities.

The ideal solution is to always keep your product up to date, however maintenance window are sometimes a luxury, even though there is no downtime involved in some organizations. If you are stuck to a point where you need to add additional host and you are behind on updates, have a look at the build version of your current hosts and the ones available for download in the previously available versions on the VMware download site. Match the same build version, or the very previous one of unavailable (in the case where you updated with the system updater, and that version is not available with the ISO images provided on the site).

NOTE : If you end up with mismatched build number, it should still work without any major issues, but not recommended by the vendor, some glitches may occur. Update everything as soon as you can under such situation.

Windows : Install XPS Viewer using command line

Since Windows 10 build 1803 from April 2018, the XPS Viewer is no longer included by default in that build of the operating system and has to be installed manually.

Usually this is done by browsing to the applications and feature pane but sometimes cannot be found and installed this way. The quickest and most efficient way is using the command line.

1. Open the Command Prompt (or PowerShell) with elevated privileges :

Right click on the Windows button, then “Command Prompt (Admin)” or “Windows PowerShell (Admin)”

2. Enter the following command to request the installation of the XPS Viewer component :

Linux : How to change default route metric

Under some rare circumstances, you may require to change the default route metric. The first way of doing should be through the “ifcfg-ethX” configuration file by adding the “METRIC=” statement.

However it has been found to be inefficient for me and had to apply it using “ip route” as followed :

Example :

You should now be able to see the result using the following command :

JunOS : Buffer management parity error detected in mpfe1, value 0, re-init the PFE

Encountering the following error in the logs of your Juniper device?

/kernel: Buffer management parity error detected in mpfe1, value 0x4001, re-init the PFE
/kernel: Buffer management parity error detected in mpfe1, value 0, re-init the PFE

This is most likely pointing toward defective hardware, more specifically memory issue.

If this message showed only once, you may stay on alert and monitor closely. If it repeated three times in the last two years, raise a JTAC case for RMA.

If you’ve encountered this message, and your device rebooted by itself, hang at boot with “PWR OK” status code and need to pull out the power cord(s) to get your device back online, you definitely need to take immediate action to replace your device.