Earlier I've written a an article MobaXTerm: A good gnome-terminal like tabbed SSH client for Windows / Windows Putty Tabs Alternative in which I've introduced the best in my opinion SSH / Telnet / VNC / RDP / Xserver in one Terminal client emulator for Windows operating systems.
The client has been around for quite some time and it has been improving rapidly over the last 10 years, where it now more looks like a separate Operating System than a single terminal client. It's size is quite compact as well and my opinion and every self respectiving developer, system administrator, IT geek or a hacker would definitely
use the mobaxterm at home or at work place on a daily. I guess some of my readers, who have already migrated SuperPutty / SecureCRT or Putty / XMing or whatever kind of exotic Remote SSH Console terminal is used could validate this 🙂
Therefore as I've set up Mobaxterm on a multiple computers all around, I've found it useful to write a small article with some post-install hints (tune ups) one can do immediately once he has installed the Desktop or Portable Apps version of mobaxterm on desktop PC / notebook.
1. Set up your bashrc server / command aliases
Lets say you need to setup some rules for connectivity via a socks proxy to dig holes over a harsh company firewalls or add
custom options to every ssh client attempt to remote server, or simply alias some of your servers with custom connectivity options and so on simply open vi / vim text editor from mobaxterm local terminal and place inside your rules, for example that could be anything like:
alias ssh='ssh -o stricthostkeychecking=no -o passwordauthentication=yes -o PreferredAuthentications=password -v'
alias sftp='sftp -o stricthostkeychecking=no -o passwordauthentication=yes -o PreferredAuthentications=password'
alias work-server='ssh UserName@work-server -v -o passwordauthentication=yes -o PreferredAuthentications=password'alias proxy='ssh -D 3128 UserName@proxyIP-host1 -o ConnectTimeout=80'
alias proxy1='ssh -D 3128 UserName@proxy-host2 -p 443 -o ConnectTimeout=60'
alias proxy3='ssh -D 3128 Username@proxy-host3 -p 443 -o ConnectTimeout=60'Simply open the terminal and setup whatever you require
export ftp_proxy="http://proxy-host:8080"
export https_proxy="https://proxy-host:8080"
export http_proxy="http://proxy-host:8080"
export HTTP_PROXY="http://proxy-host:8080"
export HTTPS_PROXY="http://proxy-host:8080"
2. Set mobaxterm presistent directory / persistent root directory and default text editor
Make sure you have properly defined at least Persistent directory / Persistent directory if you want to keep the files under your /home/mobaxterm and root directory be able to save your data from local mobaxterm terminal work you have done.
To do so o to Configuration -> General
3. Change default settings for Opening / Closing Terminal tabs just like in gnome-terminal
MobaXterm is really awesome as the developer, followed pretty much the logic of some common GNU / Linux Terminal clients like Gnome-Terminal and KDE's default Konsole terminal.
One of the first things to do once Mobaxterm is installed on the PC is to set up nice key binds as default onces might be heard to learn at the beginning or you might have already the habit to use the certain set of key combinations on your Linux desktop:
Common once are:
1. Open tab / Close tab common once I bind to are (CTRL + T / CTRL + W)
2. Previous tab move / Next tab move keys common one I use are (ALT + LEFT / ALT + RIGHT)
3. Find in terminal (CTRL + F)
4. Make MobaXterm to automatically open a terminal to not Start local terminal every time
By default mobaxterm it is really annoying cause every time you run it after system reboot you have to select
Start local terminal
Once you run the terminal you get this prompt and you have to press on Start local terminal
How to make Mobaxterm automatically open local Terminal Tab on every boot?
To fix this so every time a local terminal is spawn on MobaXterm you have get to:
Settings -> Configuration -> Misc
Open the Following tab at startup by default it will be
<Home (Pinned)>
Change it to:
<Terminal>
That's it on next login your Local Terminal with /bin/bash.exe will auto load !
[hipo.WINDOWS-PC] ➤ env|grep -i SHELL
SHELL=/bin/bash.exe
PATH=/bin:/drives/c/Users/hipo/DOCUME~1
/MobaXterm/slash/bin:/drives/c/Windows:/drives/c/Windows/system32:/drives/c/Windows/system32:/drives/c/Windows:/drives/c/Windows/System32/Wbem:
/drives/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/drives/c/Windows/sysnative
PSModulePath=C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\
CMDPATH=C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\sysnative\;
C:\Users\hipo\DOCUME~1\MobaXterm\slash\bin
WINPATH=C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Windows\sysnative\
5. Make menu buttons to appear smaller
Go to menu and select
View -> (Small Buttons)
6. Disable auto start of XServer to prevent a port listener on the machine on TCP port
By default mobaxterm opens XServer listener, so you can immediately connect from a remote SSH servers missing Xserver and install software requiring an XServer, for example software such as Oracle Database or some MiddleWare WebLogig or IBM's Web Sphere. This is useful but if you want to have a good security only allow this server on a purpose. Otherwise the XServer will run in parallel with rest of your Moba and just load up your PC and eat up some RAM memory. To disable it go to:
7. Change the mobaxterm Default theme to Dark
This is optional I like to set the Theme to Dark, also as a Theme for Windows as well as for MobaxTerm, the aim of that is simply to not put extra stress on my eye sight. Being on the PC around 8 to 10 hours and spending some 6 to 8 hours on console work is enough. If you want to do as well.
8. Install additional set of common Linux tools to mobaxterm to use on Windows
Tools such as:
1. Midnight Commander (mc)
2. Wget
3. Curl
4. Vim
5. Screen
6. Rsync
7. Perl
8. W3m
9. dosunix
10. unix2dos
11. gnupg
12. diffutils
13. mysql
14. mpg123
15. whois
If you want to have a set of packages pre-installed that are including above as well as the rest of mine, here is a dump of my installed mobapt manager packages:
For more simply use the experimental Mobaxterm Graphical Package installer
[hipo.WINDOWS-PC] ➤ for i in $(cat Downloads/installed-packages-mobaxterm.txt ); do apt-cyg install $i; done
Found package GeoIP-database
Installing GeoIP-database
Downloading GeoIP-database-20180505-1.tar.xz…
Unpacking GeoIP-database-20180505-1.tar.xz…
Running postinstall scripts
Package GeoIP-database installed.Rebasing new libraries
Found package adwaita-icon-theme
Installing adwaita-icon-theme
Downloading adwaita-icon-theme-3.26.1-1.tar.xz……
You will be prompted for a single Yes for the respository
MobApt Packages Manager
Though it is said it is experimental, I have to say the MobApt Apt Manager works quite good, I never had any issues with it so far.
9. Mobaxterm.ini the settings storage file that can help you move your configurations
If you have to prepeare new MobaXterm on multiple PCs frequently perhaps it is best to just copy the Mobaxterm.ini file.
Here is an example of my mobaxterm.ini for download.
10. Change terminal colors and curor type and enable blinking (customizations)
Settings -> Configuration -> Terminal -> (Default Terminal Color Settings)
11. Use very useful moba Tools
For sysadmins Moba has plenty of other jems such as:
-
Network Port scanner such as Nmap with GUI
-
list open network ports (GUI interface to netmap)
-
SSH tunnel tool
-
Moba Diff
-
Wake on Lan
-
Network Packet capturer (such as tcpdump)
-
List running processes (such as taskmgr in simple form)
-
List machine hardware devices (such as Windows Device manager)
12. Remote monitoring of opened ssh session
To enable remote monitoring for a Saved session simply use the "Remote monitoring" button on the down left corner of the terminal.
Or to enable it for a new host, open:
1. "Saved sessions"
2. Click over "User sessions"
3. New Session -> (SSH)
4. Basic SSH Settings (Remote host) -> OK
5. Click over the new created session
6. Click on Remote monitoring for the opened session
13. Play some mobaxterm console games
As you might have pissed off of configuring go on and enjoy some of the great console games, some of which are also present on a normal Linux new distribution installation. 🙂
List of Moba Games
TeamWalk (Use your mouse or keyboard to connect every server to the central router)
Ctris Console tetris from Mobaxterm
Text console Solitaire from Moba
Here is NinVaders (Text Version of Space Invaders Arcade Classic)
Enjoy ! 🙂
![this thirt party PAE Externsion Kernel Patch](http://<p> <img alt="Upgrade-Windows-7-Vista-XP-to-Windows-10-upgrade-howto-observations-post-fixes" src="https://www.pc-freak.net/images/Upgrade-Windows-7-Vista-XP-to-Windows-10-upgrade-howto-observations-post-fixes.png" style="width: 500px; height: 361px;" /> </p> <p> However as I've been upgrading my sister's computer previously running Windows 7 to Windows 10 (the process of upgrading is really simple you just <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10">download </a><strong><a href="https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10">Windows-Media-Creation-tool from Microsoft website </a>and the rest comes to few clicks (Accept Windows 10 User Agreement, Create current install restore point (backup) etc.) and waiting some 30 minutes or so for the upgrade to complete.<br /> <br /> <img alt="windows-7-to-10-windows-setup-upgrade-this-pc-prompt" src="https://www.pc-freak.net/images/windows-7-to-10-windows-setup-upgrade-this-pc-prompt.png" style="width: 500px; height: 393px;" /></strong><br /> <br /> <strong>Then it was up to downloading some other updates on a few times and restarting the computer, each time the upgrades were made and all the computer was ready. I've installed Avira (AntiVirus) as I usually do on new PCs and downloaded a bunch of anti-malware (<em>MalwareBytes / Rfkill / Zemanta</em>) to make sure that the old upgraded WIndows was not already infected before the upgrade and I've found a bunch of malware, that got quickly cleared up.</strong><br /> <br /> Anyways I've tried also another tool called <a href="http://www.reimageplus.com"><strong>ReimagePlus - Online Computer Repair</strong> </a>in <strong>order to check whether there are no some broken WIndows system files after the upgrade </strong><br /> <br /> <img alt="Reimage_Repair-Windows-fix-windows-failing-services-and-broken-windows-installations-clear-up-malware" src="https://www.pc-freak.net/images/Reimage_Repair-Windows-fix-windows-failing-services-and-broken-windows-installations-clear-up-malware.png" style="width: 600px; height: 406px;" /><br /> (here I have to say I've done that besides <em>running in an Administrator command prompt</em> (<strong>cmd.exe</strong>) and running<br /> </p> <blockquote> <strong>sfc /scannow </strong> </blockquote> <p> <br /> <strong>command to check base system files integrity, which luckily showed no problems with the Win base system files.</strong><br /> <br /> <strong>ReimagePlus </strong>however showed some failed services and some failed programs that were previously installed from Windows 7 before the upgrade and even it showed indication for Trojan present on computer but since ReImagePlus is a payed software and I didn't have the money to spend on it, I just proceeded to clean up what was found manually.<br /> <br /> After that the computer ran fine, with the only strange thing that some data was from hard drive was red a bit too frequently, after a short call with a close friend (<strong>Nomen</strong>) - thx man, he suggested that the frequenty hdd usage might be related to <em><strong>Windows Search Indexing service database rebuilt</strong></em> and he adviced me to disable it which I did following <a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/speed-up-or-disable-windows-search-indexing-in-vista/">this article How to speed up Windows by disabling Search Index Service.</a><br /> <br /> <br /> One issue worthy to mention <strong>stumbled upon after the upgrade was problems with Windows Explorer which was frequently crashing and "restarting the Desktop"</strong>, but once, I've enabled all <strong>upgrades from Microsoft and Applied them after some update failures and restarts</strong>, once all was up2date to all latest from Microsoft, Explorer started working normally. </p> <p> In the mean time while Windows Explorer was crashing in order to browse my file system I used the <a href="https://www.winnc.com/download/">good old Win Total Command or Norton Commander for Windows - WinNC (with its most cool bizzarre own File Explorer tool)</a>.<br /> <br /> <img alt="Windows-Total-commander-tool-running-on-MS-Windows-10" src="https://www.pc-freak.net/images/Windows-Total-commander-tool-running-on-MS-Windows-10.png" style="width: 500px; height: 374px;" /><br /> <br /> As I wanted to run a MalwareBytes scan and Antivirus under Windows Safe-Mode, I tried entering it by restarting the Computer and <strong>pressing F8 a number of times before the Windows boot screen but this didn't work </strong>as Safe-Mode boot was changed in Windows 10 to be callable in another way because of <strong>some extra Windows Boot speed up optimizations</strong>, in short<span style="font-size:16px;"><strong> the easiest way I found to enter Windows 10 Safe Mode was to Hit Start Button -> Choose Restart PC and keep pressed SHIFT button simultaneously</strong></span><br /> that calls a menu that gives you some restore options, along with safe mode options for those who want to read more on <a href="http://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10">How to Enter Safe mode (Command Prompt) on Windows 10 - please read this article.</a><br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <img alt="Windows-10-enable-Safe-Mode-options-screen" src="https://www.pc-freak.net/images/Windows-10-enable-Safe-Mode-options-screen.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 300px;" /> </p> <p> Once the upgrade was over and all below done unfortunately I've realized her previously installed <em>WIndows 7 is x86 (32 bit) version</em> and the <strong>Acer notebook 5736Z where it is being installed is actually X64 (64 bit), hence I've decided to upgrade my dear sis computer to a 64 Bit Windows 10 and researched online whether, there is some tool that is capable to upgrade WIndows 10 from 32 bit to Windows 10 64 bit just to find out the only option is to either use some program to creaty a backup of files on the PC or to manually copy files to external hard drive and reinstall with a Windows 10 64 bit bootable USB Flash or CD / DVD image, so I took my USB flash and used again Windows Media Creation Tool to burn Windows and re-install with the 64 bit iso.<br /> <br /> If you're wonder about why I choose to re-install finally<em> Win 10 32 bit with Win 64 bit</em>, because you might think performance difference might be not really so dramatic, then I have to say the Acer notebook is equipped with 4 Gigabytes of RAM Memory and Windows 10 32bit (Pro) could recognize a maximum of 3 Gigabytes (2.9 GB if I have to be precise) and 1 Gigabyte of memory stayes totally unusued with <em>Winblows 10 32 bit</em>.<br /> <br /> <em>Well that's all folks, the rest I did was to just boot from the USB drive just burned and re-install WIndows and copy my files from User profile / Downloads / Pictures / Music etc. to the same locations on the new installed Windows 10 professional 64 bit and enjoy the better performance.</em></strong> </p>){kind=link}