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PowerShell: A simple script to GPG encrypt files

Nick Bettison — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 15:11:00 +0100

Recently I've needed to backup some sensitive files to online storage; my requirement was simple: work on local files and when they change encrypt. As I'm working on a windows machine that means powershell, I could schedule a task but I'm just manually running this as and when I need... I'm sure there's a better way, but this will do for now!

Before you start you need GPG4Win as this script is just a wrapper for the pgp2.exe. If you've not used GPG4Win before you will need a key, in GPG4win land they call this Creating an OpenPGP Certificate... do that and take note of the email address you choose, it's important for the script.

Next create encrypt_these_files.ps1 in the folder that you want to back up, with this content:

# Variables, change these.
$gpg_r = "me@here.com"
$gpg_prog = "${env:ProgramFiles(x86)}" + "\GNU\GnuPG\pub\gpg2.exe"
$destination = "C:\Users\nick\DropOneDriveBox\encrypted\"

# simple gpg wrapper
function gpg_me {
  $in_file = $args[0]
  $out_file = $args[1]
  #Write-Host $in_file " | " $out_file
  & $gpg_prog --yes -e -r $gpg_r -o $out_file $in_file
}

# Loop thru current directory.
$items = Get-ChildItem -Path ".\"
foreach ($item in $items)
{
      # if the item is NOT a directory, then process it.
      if ($item.Attributes -ne "Directory") {
        $thepath =  $destination + $item.Name + ".gpg"
          If (Test-Path $thepath){
            # // File exists
            $ThisDate = $item.LastWriteTime
            $OtherDate = (Get-ChildItem -Path $thepath).LastWriteTime
            #Write-Host $item.Name " - This:" $ThisDate "Other:" $OtherDate
            If ( $ThisDate -gt $OtherDate) {
              Write-Host $item.Name "Needs updating.."
              gpg_me $item.Name $thepath
            }
          }Else{
            # // File does not exist
            Write-Host "Encrypting New File "  $item.Name
            gpg_me $item.Name $thepath
          }

      }
}

At the top of the file, change the $gpg_r = "me@here.com" to your email address (used in the OpenPGP Certificate) and change $destination = "C:\Users\nick\DropOneDriveBox\encrypted\" to whatever folder you want.

If you've not run any powershell scripts then don't forget to set your execution policy before you execute the script .\encrypt_these_files.ps1 .

Apple Magic Mouse - Fixing Windows 10 scrolling

Nick Bettison — Mon, 12 Dec 2016 13:54:00 +0000

If you're a fan of Apple's Magic Mouse you can use it on Windows, however after pairing via Blue Tooth (the code is 0 0 0 0) you'll find that the touch scrolling doesn't work.

It's easily fixed however,

Download Boot Camp Support Software and unzip, in my case that was unzipping BootCamp5.1.5621.zip.
Open the folder \BootCamp5.1.5621\BootCamp\Drivers\Apple\ and install AppleWirelessMouse64.exe.
Switch the mouse off & on and you're done.

Happy Scrolling!

SSH Server on Windows, the Microsoft Way

Nick Bettison — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 12:32:00 +0100

An SSH server for windows, it's the kind of thing only a Linux/OSX user would ask for. The current defacto standard is Cygwin but if you fancy something a bit more native, something a bit backed by Microsoft then take a look at PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH on github.

Installation is quite straight forward:

Download the latest release make sure you correctly select 32bit or 64bit
Create a folder, C:\Program Files\OpenSSH-Win32 and extract the contents there.
Start Powershell as Administrator - cd 'C:\Program Files\OpenSSH-Win32'
Setup SSH host keys (this will generate all the 'host' keys that sshd expects when its starts) - .\ssh-keygen.exe -A
Enable key-based auth - .\install-sshlsa.ps1
Reboot (well it is windows!)
Start Powershell as Administrator again - cd 'C:\Program Files\OpenSSH-Win32'
Install and run daemon as NT Service running as Local System - .\install-sshd.ps1
Start the service - Start-Service sshd
Make the service start on boot - Set-Service sshd -StartupType Automatic

If you have a problem running step 5 you might need to run Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted; if you do disable this security, switch it back on when you're finished Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned (or whatever).

Also, don't forget to allow tcp/22 through any firewalls, either network or host based.

You'll probably want to enable SFTP, the server that is.

Edit C:\Program Files\OpenSSH-Win32\sshd_config in your favorite text editor and replace this:

# override default of no subsystems
#Subsystem  sftp    /usr/libexec/sftp-server
Subsystem   sftp    /win32openssh/bin/sftp-server.exe
Subsystem   scp /win32openssh/bin/scp.exe

with

# override default of no subsystems
#Subsystem  sftp    /usr/libexec/sftp-server
#Subsystem  sftp    /win32openssh/bin/sftp-server.exe
Subsystem   sftp    c:\PROGRA~1\OPENSS~1\sftp-server.exe
#Subsystem  scp /win32openssh/bin/scp.exe

Notice for program files and openssh-win32 I'm using the short path, you can find those using cmd.exe and using dir /x.

Your first login, from a Linux/OSX/nix machine

Ok, so this is where it gets a little odd. For your username you need SamAccountName@fqdndomain, as there is an @ in there you need to use the -l switch on ssh. Which means you have to do something like ssh -l nick.bettison@company.local mypc.company.local with a little luck that'll give you this...

linickx:~ $ ssh -l nick.bettison@company.local mypc.company.local
ssh -l nick.bettison@company.local@mypc.company.local's password: 
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

nick.bettison@company.local@MYPC C:\Users\nick.bettison\Documents>

If your PC is standalone (workgroup) you can use normal ssh syntax, either ssh user@pc.local or ssh -l user pc.local.

Connecting with SFTP

On a domain PC, SFTP probably won't work because there is no -l, as a workaround on my nix machine I added the following to my ~/.ssh/config file:

Host mypc
        Hostname mypc.company.local
        User nick.bettison@company.local

Which should work like this...

linickx:~ $ sftp mypc
nick.bettison@company.local@mypc.company.local's password: 
Connected to mypc.
sftp> pwd
Remote working directory: /C:/Users/nick.bettison/Documents
sftp>

To enable public key authentication

Edit C:\Program Files\OpenSSH-Win32\sshd_config in your favorite text editor (again) and replace this...

#RSAAuthentication yes
#PubkeyAuthentication yes

with

RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes

NOTE: Public key auth doesn't seem to work with domain PCs.

I tested on a standalone (non-domain) windows7 PC and it worked fine, but on a domain PC at work it fails with the following server side error message.

Cannot logon using LSA package (err = 1300, ntStat = c0000041).

Github Issue 87 seems to imply that this is group policy related, if it is, as yet I haven't figured out which one. The other reason this might not work is username interpretation, local users are "username" where as domains are "username@domain" so I wonder if the LSA .DLL is looking in the wrong place; I will update here if I find a solution.

Installing Paramiko (Python and PIP) on Windows

nick — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 12:25:00 +0100

Following the release of crassh; the 1st FAQ was, great how do I make this work on windows?

Steps as follows:

Download and install Visual Studio C++ 2008 Express Edition
(do not install SQL)
Install Python 2.7.8 - Select the correct MSI for your architecture
Download get-pip.py (Don't use Internet Explorer it will mangle the file; use Firefox to download.)
Open an Administrator command prompt and run "c:\Python27\python.exe get-pip.py"
From the same admin prompt, run "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat" (for 32bit machines... or for 64bit machines, run "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars64.bat"
From the same admin prompt, run "c:\Python27\Scripts\pip install paramiko"

And you're done!

#REF: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2817869/error-unable-to-find-vcvarsall-bat

RTFM: Aero in Virtualbox

nick — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 07:48:00 +0000

Yes there are loads of "how to enable Aero in Virtualbox" posts out there, but they are all long too long ;)

Install VirtualBox > 4.1
Install Windows 7
Install Guest Additions
- DURING the install, manually select 3D Support
- Select Yes WDDM video driver
- Ignore the warning about safe mode and continue
Reboot
In Control Panel, Personalise re-select the Window7 Default Aero Theme.
Done

References:

MacBook Pro UK Keyboard Layout for Windows

nick — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:28:00 +0000

I've imported my windows box into VirtualBox (howto) and noticed that the keyboard layout is all screwed up.

My Googling suggests that a German and Swedish bloke/bird/person have fixed this issue but no-one in the UK.

Attached is my UK Keyboard layout, also the source file so you can use microsoft keyboard layout creator to make your own.

To use, simply unzip, run setup, and then in your keyboard settings (control panel) change to "English UK - Apple MacBook Pro" ... you may wish to remove the default UK keyboard to avoid confusion.

This works well for me in VirtualBox, I would expect it to work in VMWARE / Parallels but I've not tested it, as with everything I do YMMV :)

VBS Script to clean up old files when folder is x Mb

nick — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:25:00 +0100

Security kit creates logs, aparently some people use something called windows server instead of linux as their file & log servers :)

Recently I had a requirement whereby if a folder was larger than 30Gb (approx 95% of a partition) then the oldest files should be deleted, usually bash would be the answer but in this instance I needed to use a visual basic script.

This is what I came up with, it's not neat (cause I don't know vbs) but it works, if you want to use it find and replace "D:\Files" with your directory then find & replace "35000" with your required size in Mb (35000Mb is approx 35Gb) , save the attached script .txt file (vbs_script_disk_clean_up.txt) as script.vbs, then use task scheduler to run everyday, job done!

How to replace Vitsa's Defrag with JkDefrag

nick — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:17:00 +0100

My work laptop is a Vista machine, a random conversation came up the day about fragmenting (Defraging) the hard drive; since switching to linux at home "pc maintenance" hasn't really been on my mind, I know that vista does "stuff" in the background and internal IT install a heap of "stuff" that runs in the background that generally slows things down.

The guys in the office recommended that I should run JKDefrag to help "optimize" things. I downloaded a copy, and read that you have a variety of options to run the software including a screen-saver; my laptop is on pretty much most of the time so I've decided that I would run JkDefrag as a scheduled task over night.

I've not scheduled anything on Vista before and in my investigation I found that vista by default at 1am every wednesday defrags the hard drive! :cool:

This changed my plan, instead of scheduling JkDefrag to run, I would replace the default defrag task.

If you would like to do the same, download a copy of JkDefrag and unzip it into a directory, take a note of where you unzip the files as you'll need the directory path later.

To get started open the vista task scheduler (it's in admin tools). From the tree in the left browse to:

Task Scheduler Library -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Defrag

Next download the XML file attached to this post (Nicks Scheduled Defrag) and within the Task scheduler, click on "Import Task" from the action bar on the right hand side... browse to and choose my file, once done right click the old "Scheduled Defrag" task and disable it, you should end up looking at a window like this...

Cool! You're nearly there, the task you've installed is a copy of the default defrag task, with the date and action changed to suit my need, you will need to do the same! You remember you wrote down a directory path earlier, well you need it now....

My scheduled task runs Jkdefrag from a directory called C:\Users\nick.bettison\Software\JkDefrag-3.36\, I'm 99% sure you won't have that directory ;)

Right click on NicksScheduledDefrag and select properties , click the actions tab, select "start a program" and click edit. Change the path C:\Users\nick.bettison\Software to where ever you have your JkDefrag, you will need to make changes in both the "Program / Script" field, and "Add arguments field"...

When done, click Ok. If you feel like it you can change when it runs under the "triggers" tab, edit the "weekly" trigger to suit your needs.

You can now choose to wait (until 1am saturday night - or whatever you changed it to), or click run; either way after the task has run in your JkDefrag-3.36 directory you will hopefully have log.txt showing the results of the defrag! :cool:

Tomboy on Windows

nick — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:24:00 +0000

Recently the Tomboy Notes has been released for windows. This is great news, as my current work build is windows and I have a shed load of notes stuck on my linux box at home.

Installing.
I found this didn't work 1st time, so these are the steps.

Install GTK# for Windows from medsphere.org/projects/gtksharp, I used this SDK .msi
Reboot
Now download this, and use it to replace (over-write) C:\Program Files\Medsphere\Gtk# SDK\etc\gtk-2.0\gdk-pixbuf.loaders
Open the new gdk-pixbuf.loaders, find "Gtk# Runtime" & replace with "Gtk# SDK"
Install Tomboy

You should now be able to run tomboy... it appears in your system tray.

Importing Notes.
If like me you have a linux box with a load of notes you want to read, then follow these steps.

On your linux box:

cd into \$HOME/.tomboy
copy all .note files

Transfer the .note files to your windows box.

On your Windows box:

Exit tomboy
cd into C:\Users\\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\tomboy
paste all your .note files

Start Tomboy & Enjoy!

References:

Another Dropbox Link

nick — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:35:00 +0100

After reading this from Ma.tt, I've downloaded dropbox, I've had it installed for less than an hour, but I figure they're worth a post purely for the kudos of releasing a true multi-platform application.

Finding something that can sync between my home linux box and work windohs machine is a real pain so I'm really hoping this will be the answer I've been looking for; it's not that win-linux sync'ing is impossible, it's just that it's usually restrictive or so complicated/ un-user-friendly that I never bother.

The only thing the service needs is some WordPress to "public box" integration and the solution is dam'ed near perfect ;)

While I to keep my fingers crossed that dropbox is everything I want it to be, why don't you try it out?