Use imagemagick to apply a GIMP gradient colormap (.ggr file)

I love using JHelioviewer to create amazing videos of the Sun using pictures from SDO (the Solar Dynamics Observatory).

However, jHelioviewer has a maximum of 1000 frames -- which is about 3 or 4 hours of SDO images (if you use every image taken). Another problem is that is nearly impossible in jHelioviewer to crop the frame in an exact way.

I already knew how to create a movie from a sequence of images using ffmpeg. However, the AIA images you download from SDO JSOC are grayscale; i.e. they don't have the standard SDO color maps.

JHelioviewer applies the SDO color maps using these GIMP gradient files, but I didn't know how to use imagemagick to apply GIMP gradient color maps.

ImageMagick can apply color maps, but they must be in the form of a color lookup table (CLUT) image. But how does one convert a ggr file (a text file!) to a CLUT image? I found a lot of examples on the web on how to convert a CLUT to a GGR, but not the other way around.

According to this jHelioviewer wiki page, you can export the color tables from jHelioviewer using exportColorTables.java somehow, but I didn't feel like figuring out how to compile it -- and also I didn't want to install the JDK.

So I posted a question on the imagemagick forums. You can go read the forum if you like, but I've summarized it here:

1. Create a standard hald clut image using the imagemagick program "convert" from the command line:
1. convert hald:8 hald.png
2. Install GIMP
1. Install ggr files in your GIMP configuration directory (on Windows 7 this is %USERPROFILE%\.gimp-2.8\gradients)
3. Start GIMP and open hald.png
4. Select All
5. In the Layers Dialog, select the Gradient Tool, then select the desired gradient
6. Apply the gradient by selecting Colors -> Map -> Gradient Map
7. Export the file by selecting File -> Export As ... (save it as a PNG or BMP)

The resulting hald CLUT images are here:

• sdo-aia-094-colormap.png
• sdo-aia-131-colormap.png
• sdo-aia-171-colormap.png
• sdo-aia-193-colormap.png
• sdo-aia-211-colormap.png
• sdo-aia-304-colormap.png
• sdo-aia-335-colormap.png
• sdo-aia-1600-colormap.png
• sdo-aia-1700-colormap.png
• sdo-aia-4500-colormap.png

Now, to apply any of the above color maps to a grayscale image, you do, e.g.:

convert gray-image.jp2 sdo-aia-171-colormap.png -hald-clut color-output.jpg

Symantec 12.1.5 on Linux LiveUpdate failures -- BouncyCastleProvider

TL;DR version: To fix this, temporarily remove the "noexec" mount option from /tmp and run the install.sh program again.

We recently started using Symantec 12.1.5 on our Linux systems at work. I installed the client on a test system and immediately had issues with LiveUpdate:

/opt/Symantec/symantec_antivirus/sav liveupdate -u
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS:
Command failed: Problem with LiveUpdate.
Check that java directory is in PATH
Unable to perform update


In liveupdt.log:

Apr 1, 2015 11:32:26 AM There was a failure in reading the settings from the .conf file.
Apr 1, 2015 11:32:26 AM org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider
Apr 1, 2015 11:32:26 AM JLU received a DeleteSetting command.


Running Liveupdate in debug mode:

java -cp /opt/Symantec/LiveUpdate/jlu.jar com.symantec.liveupdate.LiveUpdate -d
Using character set UTF-8
Command-line Product Selections to update:
(ProdName, Version, Lang, ItemSeqName, SeqNum)
Debug - output[nIdx] = uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_java_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023
Adding JLU to the current command line
JLU Linux, 3.10, English, LiveUpdateSeq, 26
Trying to load jar file from /opt/Symantec/LiveUpdate/bcprov-jdk15on-148.jar
Trying to load jar file from current directory or mentioned in classpath
JLUException [
Nested Exception is:
[ java.lang.ClassNotFoundException ] org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.bouncycastle.jce.provider.BouncyCastleProvider
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
[...]


I will leave out the frustrating troubleshooting my coworker and I did and give you the reason: Our security configuration specifies that we set the "noexec" mount option on /tmp.

Unfortunately, the Symantec install script requires exec on /tmp to install correctly. Specifically, it creates some temporary scripts in /tmp and runs them to install the BC (bouncycastle) provider. Here's an excerpt from the sepjlu-install.log:


Java LiveUpdate version 3.10 Build 26.
Extracted out unixinstall.sh to /tmp/1427202521861/unixinstall.sh.
Extracted out unixuninstall.sh to /tmp/1427202521861/unixuninstall.sh.
Extracted out liveupdate.conf to /tmp/1427202521861/liveupdate.conf.
Extracted out bcprov-jdk15on-148.jar to /tmp/1427202521861/bcprov-jdk15on-148.jar.
Copied /opt/Symantec/LiveUpdate/jlu.jar to /tmp/1427202521861/jlu-3.10.0.26.jar.
Error running /tmp/1427202521861/unixinstall.sh with reason: java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "/tmp/1427202521861/unixinstall.sh": error=13, Permission denied.


The script is supposed to copy bcprov-jdk15on-148.jar into $SYMROOT/LiveUpdate/, but obviously because "noexec" was set on /tmp, it couldn't run.

So in full, the solution is:


mount -o remount,exec /tmp
$INSTALLER_DIR/install.sh -i
mount -o remount,noexec /tmp


Cisco 7841 PC headset adapter

Since I couldn't find this information elsewhere, even on the manufacturer's page, so... This PC headset adapter works with a Cisco 7841 phone: http://www.amazon.com/Headset-Buddy-Adapter-CISCO-Phone/dp/B003EALLHE
also:
http://www.headsetbuddy.com/cisco-pc-headset-adapter
SKU: 01-PC35-RJ9Cisco

rancid 3.x - juniper display set

I found a lot of directions on the net for how to change rancid 2.x to do "display set" for juniper switches, but none for rancid 3.x (this was tested on rancid 3.1.2 on CentOS 6.6)

It's actually pretty easy:

1. Find your switch type (in this case "juniper") in /etc/rancid/rancid.types.base and copy those lines into /etc/rancid/rancid.types.conf:
   
   juniper;script;rancid -t juniper
   juniper;login;jlogin
   [...]
   juniper;command;junos::ShowConfiguration;show configuration
   
   
2. Now change "juniper" to some unique string that doesn't exist in rancid.types.base, e.g. "juniper-dset"
3. Modify all the "juniper" strings in rancid.types.conf to be "juniper-dset"
   
   juniper-dset;script;rancid -t juniper-dset
   juniper-dset;login;jlogin
   [...]
   juniper-dset;command;junos::ShowConfiguration;show configuration
   
   
4. Add a new line to do the display set:
   
   juniper-dset;command;junos::ShowConfiguration;show configuration | display set | no-more
   
   It's up to you whether you want that before or after the normal multi-line "show configuration".


5. Also, change /var/rancid/router.db to change the "juniper" switch type to "juniper-dset"

linux: how to determine if a binary is prelinked

On my systems I use aide to find changes to the system. On one of them, aide was complaining:

WARNING: AIDE detected prelinked binary objects on your system but the prelink tool (/usr/sbin/prelink) is missing!
WARNING: prelinked files will be processed without a prelink undo operation! Please install prelink to fix this.

This is because at one point, I did in fact use prelink. However, I had many issues with aide and prelink and finally just got fed up and removed it. Before doing that you're supposed to undo the prelink, but apparently I missed a file. But aide didn't tell me which one! I couldn't find any information on the net about how to determine whether a binary is prelinked, so here's the answer:

readelf -S | grep prelink

If the binary is prelinked, you'll get something like:

[30] .gnu.prelink_undo PROGBITS 0000000000000000 000e4790

But what if you don't know which file is prelinked? And /etc/prelink.cache is non-existent (because someone removed it) or empty? In that case, you have to examine every ELF binary on the system. I elected to break this into two steps. First, find all the ELF binaries:

find / -type f ! -path "/sys/*" ! -path "/dev/*" ! -path "/proc/*" \
! -path "/opt/splunk/var/*" ! -path "/mnt/*" ! -path "/media/*" ! -path "/srv/*" \
! -path "/net/*" ! -path "/selinux/*" | xargs file | grep ELF | cut -f1 -d':' \
> /tmp/elffiles

Now that you have a list of all the ELF binaries, test each of them to find out if they are prelinked. I did not use xargs in this case because although readelf works on multiple files, when combined with grep it would be hard to tell which of the arguments in the long argument list is the culprit:
for file in $(cat /tmp/elffiles) ; do
   readelf -S $file | grep -q prelink
   if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then echo $file is prelinked ; fi
done

I realize the above doesn't handle paths with spaces or other weird characters. I guess I'm lucky my system didn't have any of those.

Dell PERC command-line utility program perccli

This tool apparently works for all PERC9 controllers and the following operating systems are supported:

Novell SuSE Linux ES 11 
MS Windows Server 2012 
Red Hat Ent Linux 6 
Red Hat Ent Linux 7 
SUSE Linux ES 12 
MS Windows Server 2012 R2/SP 
MS Windows 2008 R2

Binaries are at: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=3XDPP

HTML version of manual: http://www.dell.com/support/Manuals/us/en/19/Topic/poweredge-rc-h730/PERC_CLI_RG_Pub-v1/en-us

PDF of manual: http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/poweredge-rc-h730_Reference%20Guide_en-us.pdf

Phonetic Alphabet of Confusion

I wanted to make a phonetic alphabet chart, but with words that all have the "wrong" sound at the start. e.g.A as in "aisle" I shamelessly stole most of this from

http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/2g3fcw/i_had_another_phone_scammer_try_to_call_me_so_i/ckfs07x

I'd wanted to use words instead of names if possible (e.g. for "I", I'm used "Ian" because I couldn't find a word that starts with I but has an "e" or other sound.)

I thought about going through the Wiktionary database but that will take a while to program maybe...

Anyway, here's what I have so far:

A - aisle
B - bdellium
C - czar
D - djinn
E - euphrates
F - effluent (I would prefer a word that starts with "F")
G - gnome
H - honor
I - Ian  (can you think of a word not a proper name?)
J - jalapeno
K - knickers
L - elephant (I would prefer a word that starts with "L")
M - mnemonic
N - Nguyen (resorted to foreign language here :( )
O - ouija board
P - pterodactyl (bonus:  P sounds like T ) 
Q - qat
R - arse (I would prefer a word that starts with "R")
S - schadenfreude (can you think of a non-foreign word that starts "sch"
but sounds like "ch"?)
T - Tsunami (foreign origin, but has been adopted as English so I don't
feel bad about this one)
U - urn
V - vrow (frau) (optionally "vee") 
W - wren
X - Xian  (X is weird anyway, most words sound like "Z" anyway, so I
went with an "Sh" sound (Shee-an) instead! but again - it's a foreign
name, can't think of a word)
Y - yperite
Z - Zsa Zsa  (proper name :( )