stop

Stop Windows 10 Updates

 in Windows  tagged stop / updates / windows by

Recently, we were working on a Windows 10 machine on a metered connection. Even though we are not fans of blocking updates, this time we had to stop the updates as they were sucking the data package dry. To do so we executed the commands of the block below in a command prompt with administrative rights.

To start a Command Prompt (cmd) with administrative rights we pressed Windows+X that showed the Quick Access menu, from the menu we clicked on Command Prompt (Admin). After that we got prompted by User Account Control window if it was OK to allow this application to make changes, where we clicked Yes.

In the new Command Prompt window we executed the following 3 commands that kill all services immediately related with the updates

net stop wuauserv
net stop bits
net stop dosvc

Explanation

  • net stop wuauserv stops the Windows Update service.
  • net stop bits stops the Background Intelligent Transfer Service service
  • net stop dosvc stops the Delivery Optimization service

Revert action and Start Windows 10 updates

To resume (actually restart them since we stopped them) the Windows 10 updates you can either restart the machine or in a command prompt with administrative rights execute the following:

net start wuauserc
net start bits
net start dosvc

Fedora GNU/Linux: Disable/Stop or Enable/Start Bluetooth service 1

 in GNU/Linux  tagged Bluetooth / disable / enable / fedora / start / stop by

There was this Fedora box for which we were asked to disable most of the methods it had available for communicating with the outside world.
One of the features of the box that we decided to block was its Bluetooth device.
To make our life easy, and since the users would not have admin rights, we decided to simply stop and disable the Bluetooth service on the box and be over with it!

The way we stopped and disabled the Bluetooth service was with the following two devices.

#Stop Bluetooth service that is currently executing
systemctl stop bluetooth;
#Prevent Bluetooth service from starting after a reboot
systemctl disable bluetooth;

Once you disable the service and stop it, you will notice that on the GUI of the Gnome settings application it still shows the basic menu for the Bluetooth device.
That should not worry you though because if you enter the Bluetooth configuration tab you will notice that the user will not be able to turn the device on and make use of it.

Revert changes and re-enable / re-start the Bluetooth service:

In order to restore the Bluetooth service back to normal (to enable it and start it), just execute the following two commands:

#Start the Bluetooth service right now
systemctl start bluetooth;
#Make sure that Bluetooth service will start after each system restart
systemctl enable bluetooth;

Ubuntu: install / start/stop enable/disable ssh server 2

 in GNU/Linux  tagged disable / enable / install / openssh / openssh-server / server / ssh / SSH server / start / status / stop / systemctl / ubuntu by

OpenSSH is a freely available version of the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol family of tools for remotely controlling, or transferring files between, computers.

Install SSH server

To install the openssh-server on an Ubuntu, you need execute the following command as root or using sudo:

apt-get install openssh-server -y;

Disable SSH server

To disable the ssh service, execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl disable ssh;

Enable SSH server

To enable the ssh service, execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl enable ssh;

Stop SSH server

To stop (or deactivate) the ssh service, execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl stop ssh;

Start SSH server

To start (or activate) the ssh service, execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl start ssh;

Status of SSH server

To check the status of the ssh service, execute the following command as root or using sudo:

systemctl status ssh;

CONCEPTS

In a nutshell:

  • enabled is a service that is configured to start when the system boots
  • disabled is a service that is configured to not start when the system boots
  • active is a service that is currently running
  • inactive is a service that is currently stopped and may be disabled, but it can be started and become active

In much more detail:

systemd provides a dependency system between various entities called “units” of 12 different types. Units encapsulate various objects that are relevant for system boot-up and maintenance. The majority of units are configured in unit configuration files, whose syntax and basic set of options is described in systemd.unit(5), however some are created automatically from other configuration, dynamically from system state or programmatically at runtime. Units may be “active” (meaning started, bound, plugged in, …, depending on the unit type, see below), or “inactive” (meaning stopped, unbound, unplugged, …), as well as in the process of being activated or deactivated, i.e. between the two states (these states are called “activating”, “deactivating”). A special “failed” state is available as well, which is very similar to “inactive” and is entered when the service failed in some way (process returned error code on exit, or crashed, or an operation timed out). If this state is entered, the cause will be logged, for later reference. Note that the various unit types may have a number of additional substates, which are mapped to the five generalized unit states described here.
— From man systemd

 

How to “pause” (suspend) an active process

 in GNU/Linux  tagged CONT / kill / pid / resume / SIGCONT / SIGSTOP / SIGTSTP / stop / suspend / TSTP by

Recently, we were executing the following time-wasting application and we wanted to pause it somehow and release the CPU that was being used temporarily for other tasks.
Unfortunately, the process was not executing on an active console, so we could not press CTRL+Z and suspend it.
Conveniently, the kill command provides us with the suspend functionality as long as we know the PID of the process to be suspended.

Using ps x, we found the PID of the application even though it was not attached to an active console.

Then to suspend the application, we used

kill -TSTP "$PID";

which instructed the process to stop by sending it the SIGTSTP signal.

Fortunately, our application did not block the signal and it was suspended.

Note: In case an application ignores the SIGTSTP signal, you can still force it to suspend by sending it the SIGSTOP signal as follows

kill -STOP "$PID";

After we were done, we resumed the execution of the process by sending the SIGCONT signal to it

kill -CONT "$PID";