Setting up development environment in Windows 10 without admin rights - security

Let me give a quick background of the work I do and then I'll explain the problem I am facing.
I am a software developer with more than 15+ years work experience. My work involves a lot of varied tasks:
data analysis using R, Python
development of web applications using Ruby on Rails, JS, etc.
building models using open source libraries
So far, I have been doing all this in my personal laptop (Ubuntu 18.04) and have faced no issues.
But I would soon need to start using a laptop provided by the organisation that I am working for. This org is not a IT company, it's a public body. They only use Windows (10) and don't provide admin access to anyone. It's very hard to get permission to install any kind of "approved" software. Just to give an example, they refused to install Chrome in my laptop as they wouldn't be able to control the updates.
So here's my problem - what do I do to work peacefully using their laptop? The primary reason I have to use the work laptop is that there are a lot of important documents kept in shared drives that are accessible only in their machines.
I have been looking at options like WSL or Hyper-V. But, before I put in a request to the IT team to get them to agree, I wanted to know a few things:
1) Which among WSL or Hyper-V would be the better approach for setting up the dev environment that I want?
2) IF I get the IT team to install WSL/HV, would I be able to set up everything else without having to go back to them for each software? Is there a way of secure local admin access these options would provide that will ease their concerns?
3) Is there some other way of setting up what I want?

If still applicable and actual I can share my solution:
If you should work on a windows machine where you don’t have administrative privileges, you can very easily make a portable R/Rstudio installation.
Download a recent version of R from the CRAN site and the recent version of RStudio. After download extract RStudio installation exec with 7Zip and copy files from $_OUTDIR to the desired location (in case you making an update, simply overwrite all files, that already exist). Your RStudio executable will be in
your-chosen-directory/bin/rstudio.exe
Then run CRAN-R installation, ignore the warning that you don’t have administrative privileges and go forward until installation will complete. Run RStudio, from the menu
Tools->Global Options
locate where your R installation is located.
If you performing an update (more recent version of R), copy all files from the library subfolder of the old R installation into new, but this time DON’T OVERWRITE! This operation vill preserves the packages you have installed in the previous version of R. After copying update all your packages from the RStudio window (Packages->Update). When the packages update process will end check which packages failed to update (You will see warning messages near them in the RStudio console). Remove these packages (write down names of failed packages and delete corresponding folders from library subfolder). For this, you will need to exit from RStudio. After deletion launch RStudio again and execute the packages install command in the RStudio console:
install.packages(c("package1", "package2", "package3"))
Congratulations, You are ready to go!

Related

Upgrading MariaDB on AWS Linux machine

I have a moodle site which runs on a linux AWS box and I'm trying to upgrade it. I need to have MariaDB 10.3 on there, and I currently have 10.2.10
I've followed the instruction for upgrading using yum from this webpage https://www.ryadel.com/en/mariadb-10-upgrade-10-3-without-losing-data-how-to/ and all goes fine until I get to Running Transaction Check and Running Transaction Check at which point I get the following
Transaction check error:
file /etc/my.cnf from install of MariaDB-common-10.3.27-1.el7.centos.x86_64 conflicts with file fr
om package mariadb-config-3:10.2.10-2.amzn2.0.3.x86_64
file /usr/lib64/libmysqlclient.so.18 from install of MariaDB-compat-10.3.27-1.el7.centos.x86_64 co
nflicts with file from package mariadb-libs-3:10.2.10-2.amzn2.0.3.x86_64
I'm not sure what to do now? Any help or pointers would be appreciated.
EC2 is not designed for database specifically
You seem to be installing and running your database on EC2 (what you call a linux AWS box), this means you can SSH into the instance and install software manually and carry out updates and edit configuration files and settings etc.
RDS is designed for Database
RDS also has other really convenient features like automatic version upgrade and maintenance window management.
If your situation allows I would suggest to use a tool designed for database instead of having to configure things manually. It will save you a lot of time and troubleshooting, it is also more secured.

Package Python 3 executable that does not require programming knowledge

I would like to send my Python3 script to my father-in-law and grandmother. Each has their own Windows machine, one is running Windows 7 and the other is running XP.
Not sure how to package it up for them to run on their respective machines. Is there such a method?
My script prompts, while in the IDE environment, for Keyword, path, filename. So there are some inputs, the user has to type in. Not sure if that will affect the portable script creation.
After reading through some responses here on StackOverFlow, I found py2exe does not work with Python 3.
Also Pytonw, suggested here as well, looks very complicated. I don't think either of my relative could carry out those steps.
Lastly CX-Freeze site I get ublock filters-Badware risks and a big warning window when I visit their website.
I've used cx-freeze to deploy python apps compiled to windows .exe files for us by computer novice users for several years and it has worked well. you will occasionally run into issues with dependencies you will have to take extra steps for (Datetime for example) but nothing that isn't surmountable. The easiest way to handle it is to install the folder on the computer yourself and create a desktop shortcut to it for the user. That keeps it simple for them. If you are not close to them you can always use a program like team viewer to gain access to their computer like remote desktop.

Installing JavaComm API on Ubuntu

I know this question has been asked several times around the internet, but I have spent about a week trying to solve this problem with little luck.
I am trying to install JavaCommAPI (an archived Java package to allow communication with rs232) on a remote linux Ubuntu 11.0, 32-bit server in order to deploy a web project which I have developed on a local apache server on my windows PC.
The thing that puzzles me is, I am able to get the .war web project to deploy on a local apache server on a separate 32-bit LinuxMint16 PC by correctly placing the javax.comm.properties, comm.jar, and libSerialParallel.so files in their respective places.
I use System.getProperty("java.library.path"); in order to find the correct library path in order to install correct files.
On my LinuxMint16:
javax.comm.properties -- /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386/jre/lib
comm.jar -- /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386/jre/lib/ext
libSerialParallel.so -- /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-i386/jre/lib/i386
....works!
On my remote Ubuntu server I did the exact same for its reported library path
(for example: /usr/local/jdk/jdk1.7.0_45/jre/lib/javax.comm.properties ;
/usr/local/jdk/jdk1.7.0_45/jre/lib/ext/comm.jar ;
/usr/local/jdk/jdk1.7.0_45/jre/lib/i386/libSerialParallel.so)
...fails =(
Things of note: I added the needed apache jars and comm.jar to my libraries in Eclipse using the BuildPath wizard (right click on project --> Build Path-->add external jars) which points to local files on my PC which I obviously cannot use for a remote server which I am only accessing through command line. May this is affecting it somehow?
I tried to get error output (System.err) from the Java Console printed to a separate file for my remote server as that feedback was very helpful in getting all the files sorted on my LinuxMint PC.
PrintStream ps = new PrintStream(pathName);
System.setOut(ps);
System.setErr(ps);
Which again, is oddly working beautifully to print the stream to a local .txt file on my LinuxMintPC but not to the one I designate on my remote ubuntu server.
I am really at a wits end here!! Am I mixing and matching appropriate versions of Systems prohibiting things to run smoothly? I am not sure how to proceed from here, if anyone has any insights I would die of happiness. Thanks
I needed to install OPEN JDK7 on my ubuntu, put files in appropriate library paths (as described above) and now it works.

Is it possible for a team to use Eclipse installed on a shared network drive?

Our lead programmer likes to install tools on a shared network drive to minimize effort when updating. He recently installed Eclipse to the network drive, but when I run it, I get a window that says Workspace in use or cannot be created, choose a different one. After clicking OK, I get a window that gives me a drop down menu with only one item, the workspace on his machine. I can then browse to the workspace on my machine, click OK, and Eclipse continues to start up and run just fine. There's a check box in that second window that says Use this workspace as the default that I've checked after browsing and selecting my workspace, but the next time I start up Eclipse, it reverts back to the lead's workspace.
Are we violating some assumption that Eclipse makes about the install? We're on a Linux network, if it makes a difference.
Setup the shared eclipse such that it can not be modified by the users accessing it. This should (if I recall correctly) force eclipse into a "Shared User, Hands Off" mode and default to storing settings per user account.
Do not share Workspaces (or Projects) -- this will only break things horribly -- use a different strategy such as a proper revision control system.
Perhaps this documentation will be helpful.
"""The set up for this [shared] scenario requires making the install area read-only for regular users. When users start Eclipse, this causes the configuration area to automatically default to a directory under the user home dir. If this measure is not taken, all users will end up using the same location for their configuration area, which is not supported."""
I would try to run Eclipse locally as well as over the network. Using a shared network drive may make Eclipse more painful than it sometimes is. A development environment should work for the developer, even at the expense of a slightly more complicated setup.
Eclipse stores a lot of settings, including the workspace list, in it's installation directory (especially the "configuration" directory). It's hard to say how well sharing the installation will work, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a number of issues caused by "fighting" between Eclipse instances running on different developer's workstations.
To fix the particular issue you're having, you could set up a separate startup script that passes your workspace as a command-line argument to Eclipse, bypassing the workspace selection dialog you're seeing.

Best way to do automated clean install for Fedora Linux server?

I have a Fedora 10 64-bit server where I want to set up a nightly fresh install. The server is an exact clone of our customer's hardware and is used for running acceptance tests.
I would have liked to set this up using a virtual machine, but that's prohibited due to problems we've had with the different video and network drivers on the VM.
Here are the basic steps I need to automate:
Reinstall base Fedora 10
Update to the latest packages
Install additional packages (some of these come from the rpmfusion repository and our own private repository, so the repo files for these need to be added to the configuration)
Restore file system table to include a NAS mount
Restore users and home directories.
I've looked at using Kickstart to do the installation, but it looks as if that will only satisfy the first step above by just answering all the questions that you'd normally answer interactively during installation. Does anyone know of a more suitable tool that I could use ?
Edit: looks like respin could also be very useful here.
You could look at something like
fog - http://www.fogproject.org/
clonezilla - http://clonezilla.org/
Basically these two applications are for the automated, unattended deployment of backup images to machines. They tend to be used in large enterprises but can be used for what you want to achieve.
I have only used clonzilla but fog can apparently run script after a pxe boot install. You could clone the device after all the steps above and just push down the image with a nightly reboot , you could use clonezilla or fog for this, or you could use fog with a script to apply the chances after a clean image has been installed on the server
Kickstart can do more using a %post section
Just wanted to elaborate to #BenBruscella's %post post.
Kickstart has a section where you can include or call up any post-install script to start after the main installation stuff is done.
With this you could easily do your package updates and mounts.

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