Convert from QEMU raw and VirtualBox VDI (...and viceversa)

From RAW to VDI:
qemu-img convert qemu.img qemu.bin
VBoxManage convertdd qemu.bin qemu.vdi
VBoxManage modifyvdi qemu.vdi compact

From VDI to RAW:
VBoxManage clonehd "qemu.vdi" "qemu.img" --format RAW

Manage MERCURIAL from command line

hg clone URL .
hg add *
#hg add hidden directoy & files
hg commit -m "First Commit" -u USERNAME
hg push

Password has to be inserted manually

In case proxy settings must be configured, edit mercurial.ini in section [http_proxy]
host=PROXY_URL:PROXY_PORT
user=PROXY_USERNAME
passwd=PROXY_PASSWORD

Manage SVN from command line

svn checkout URL . --username USERNAME
svn add *
svn commit -m "First Commit" --username USERNAME --password PASSWORD

In case proxy settings must be configured, edit in
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\.subversion\servers
or
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Subversion\servers

in section [global], the properties
http-proxy-host= PROXY_URL
http-proxy-port= PROXY_PORT
http-proxy-username= PROXY_USERNAME
http-proxy-password= PROXY_PASSWORD

or try to add the same properties in the registry with:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Tigris.org\Subversion\Servers\global]
"http-proxy-host"="PROXY_URL"
"http-proxy-port"="PROXY_PORT"
"http-proxy-username"="PROXY_USERNAME"
"http-proxy-password"="PROXY_PASSWORD"
"http-proxy-timeout"="0"

Compress / Decompress initrd files (CPIO)

To uncompress and

gunzip <>

and then to recompress I'd use:

find . | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -9 > newinitrd.gz

VirtualBox Port Forwarding

This is how to create a port forwarding between an host system and a guest system.
This is ideal in order to have a SSH tunnel to the guest machine, in order to tunnel vnc etc...

In this example, the host OS is windows....

cd %VIRTUAL_BOX_INSTALL_DIR%
VBoxManage.exe setextradata "%VM_NAME%" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/HostPort" 2222
VBoxManage.exe setextradata "%VM_NAME%" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/GuestPort" 22
VBoxManage.exe setextradata "%VM_NAME%" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/Protocol" TCP

Command Line Tricks for CDRecord

Some commands to use with CDRecord.
At the beginnig these commands where supposed to create a mixed cd (audio + video).
Currently, I do not remember if they works....

#Blank CD
cdrecord -dev=0,0,0 -blank=fast

#Burn Audio Tracks
cdrecord -multi -dao -dev=0,0,0 -audio track01.wav track02.wav .... trackNN.wav -pad

#The output of this command (XXX) will be used in the next command, should be two numbers with ','
cdrecord -msinfo -dev=0,0,0

#-l allows to have 31 character filename
mkisofs -J -C XXX -o isofilename -V volumeid -l

#Burn to CD
cdrecord -data isofilename -dev=0,0,0

Copying LInux MBR to boot from WIndows BootLoader

To save the current Linux MBR type
dd if=/dev/hdaX of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1

where hdaX is the device in which you installed the MBR and /bootsect.lnx is the file in which you whant to dump it.

Then, to use it from Windows Boot Manager, edit c:\boot.ini adding
c:\bootsect.lnx="Linux"