Pk's technical adventures

FreeNAS 8.0 online disk expansion/replacement

2012-01-23T12:00:00.002+02:00

I recently upgraded my NAS to larger disks (I run FreeNAS - www.freenas.org - the BEST NAS software out there).

Here is how to do the expansion:

1. shutdown freenas, replace 1 x 2TB Drive with a 2.5TB Drive, start up box.
2. Go to WebUI/Storage/Volumes/View All Volumes/View Disks.

The missing 2TB drive is marked "unknown", click on the "Replace" button and choose the available 2.5TB.

The missing disk will still be shown, but with a wierd numeric name like 3232423454552234 - choose "remove" or "delete" on this defunct drive.

Doing all this through the GUI is better, since the correct Swap space is created before anything else and keeps it neat and tidy.

3. Allow the disk to resilver, you can check progress with "zpool status TANKNAME" through ssh. (The WebUI Zpool status just shows everything as "HEALTHY" but don't trust that!)

[root@freenas] ~# zpool status RAID5Z
pool: RAID5Z
state: ONLINE
scrub: resilver in progress for 0h10m, 2.93% done, 8h40m to go
config:

NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
RAID5Z ONLINE 0 0 0
raidz1 ONLINE 0 0 0
ada0p2 ONLINE 0 0 0
ada1p2 ONLINE 0 0 0
ada2p2 ONLINE 0 0 0
ada3p2 ONLINE 0 0 0
ada4p2 ONLINE 0 0 0 5.9G resilvered

errors: No known data errors

4. Once the disk is completed resilvering, powerdown and go back to (1.) and do the next disk.

For 5 disks took me a few days, since I was resilvering about 1TB of data per drive. Once the last disk is resilvered, just reboot and the extra space will be available:

before:

[root@freenas] ~# df -h
RAID5Z 7.1T 3.8T 3.3T 54% /mnt/RAID5Z

after:

[root@freenas] ~# df -h
RAID5Z 8.9T 3.8T 5.1T 43% /mnt/RAID5Z

During this entire process of resilvering disks, I was still able to watch 1080p movies, download stuff with sabnzbd/sickbeard/couchpotato and generally work as if nothing was going on. The ability to upgrade the disks without downtime is the reason I wanted FreeNAS in the first place.

[OPINION] Piracy and Gaming

2011-02-18T14:36:00.000+02:00

Bob Dylan sang that "The times they are a-changin" and never has it been truer. With rampant copyright infringements, downloaders getting sued, pirates being made to walk the plank it's really time for a paradigm shift in the methodology of gaming and game delivery.

Although we see the expansion of subscription-based online gaming, which has been around since the early nineties, there still exists a massive subculture of game copying/downloading in which gaming studio's feel they're getting the blunt end of the stick....up the ass.....in the dark.

Now to My opinion on the matter, and you need to look at the piracy of games to understand more. Lets take Call of Duty: Black Ops as an example, one of the highest grossing games of all time BUT also one of the most pirated games of all time as well. The crux of the matter is that no matter what, the pirates only really ever get to play the single-player portion of the game, since the amazing online play requires the use of a CD-Key. Now to appease pirates, consumers and Game studio's alike, why not just make the single-player portion of games free ? I mean, who really wants to spend $60 on an awesome game just for 6-8 hours of single-player gameplay ? You eliminate the illegality and criminality associated with pirating games, since there really is'nt much reason to pirate a game you get for free anyway. What about 2 versions of the game, One fully featured versions with an "Online Play" CD-Key, and one without that costs 25% of the Multi-Player version (to cover distribution and manufacturing costs) with No CD-Key.

Pirates wont really know what to do, since getting a quality single-player game for $15 in a pretty box with everything is going to be pretty damn attractive. And since you're making the single-player online version of the game free, who cares if said Pirate lets his friend copy the Single player game and make your company look good ?

Times change, so should your distribution model, marketing strategy and ultimately your mindset. Going after Pirates will do nothing more than piss them off more, make them attack your product more and create an upswell amongst fence-sitters on the subject. Change the model of Games: Single-Player Free; Multi-Player Pay.

Why not charge $1.99 a month for the privilege of Multiplayer madness instead of your $60 once off ? Keep your online interesting with DLC and customisability. Think outside the current 1980's mindset that if you copy my game, you go to jail.

SINGLE-PLAYER FREE, MULTI-PLAYER PAY

Increasing battery life on the Blackberry 9700

2010-09-09T14:26:00.001+02:00

I've been using my Blackberry 9700 for about 10 months now and am loving the phone - but a lot of collegues are complaining about battery drain in 16 hours, and general poor battery performance. As with any smartphone, the choice of features dictates power consumption, and here I've given a short breakdown of what to change/disable:

3G Mode - With most BIS implementations, you're only getting data at a maximum of 300kbps for UNCACHED local data, nowhere close to 3G speeds currently available, rather throttle back to EDGE (238kbps) and save on the transciever wasting power jumping between 3G and 2G mode (Manage Connections/Mobile Network Options/Network Mode=2G). Granted there will be a speed difference, but if you're using the Blackberry primarily for mail and not as a web browser, you should not notice any difference.

Bluetooth - If you're not going to pair with a headpiece or a carkit on a daily basis, rather just turn this off - even without pairing the battery use from constant device polling reduces efficiency (Manage Connections/Tick "Bluetooth" Off)

Wifi - Another bugbear - WiFi is great for high speed downloads but inside the office, unless you're using a dock to re-charge its not really worth it. Also even if you are not signed into a WLAN, the Wifi transceiver is also still searching for SSID's periodically, using valuable power. (Manage Connections/Tick "Wifi" Off)

GPS - Unless you're using the GPS daily - switch it off, even location based assistance will constantly be in data contact with Cell towers, using battery indescriminately (Options/Avanced Options/GPS/GPS Services "Location Off"; Location Data "Disabled"; Location Aiding "Disabled")

Standby - Switch the phone into standby with the little "Lock" button at the top left of the phone, this will shut off the screen after a few seconds and idle quite nicely. BIS E-mails will still be delivered and the phone will still ring when a call comes in. A simpler way is to use the leather wallet that came with the phone - there is a small magnet in the bottom that signals the phone to go into this mode, and disables standby when its removed from that pouch.

With all these options enabled and a good 10-20 calls per day, the minimum my battery lasts before the phone dies is 6 days - I've had up to 10 days with reduced call volume. This set of disablements does not affect me at all, and the increased battery life is worth having them off.

XBMC Remote Control: Part Deux - The Conclusion

2010-09-03T09:59:00.009+02:00

After publishing my previous experience with XBMC, LIRC and the Iguanaworks IR adapter - I felt that after a bit of long term use the solution was a bit lacking for me. I still had to point the Control at the Tv/PC and holding a key to browse through a large list of movies had shuddering.

I did some more research on the matter, and settled on moving to bluetooth for directionless remote control ability. I had a belkin USB bluetooth adapter lying around, and I purchases a PS3 BD Remote Control unit for R400 from a local supplier.

There have been a few forum posts and articles about this for Ubuntu, but since I'm using Fedora Core 12 64-bit, I thought I'd share my experience:

bluetoothd (The Bluetooth Daemon) is installed by default. to provide a layer access between HCI devices and the kernel, you need to install a package called Bluez. Bluez does not natively support the PS3 remote implementation, so we will need to patch the bluez source with a diff from Kitlaan. To keep package management correct, I install the requisite version of bluez from yum, then compile the same version from source with the diff applied.

First to get the packages - Fedora 12 only has Bluez up to 4.58, and we want 4.64 - I just created a custom repo that pointed to the Fedora 13 repo (/etc/yum.repos.d/f13.repo) - file contents are:

[f13]

name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch

failovermethod=priority

baseurl=http://ftp.sun.ac.za/ftp/pub/mirrors/fedora/updates/13/$basearch/

enabled=1

metadata_expire=7d

gpgcheck=1

gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-$basearch

Then execute the yum install of Bluez 4.64:

yum install bluez bluez-libs bluez-libs-devel

Then download the bluez 4.64 source and unzip it

cd ~; wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/bluetooth/bluez-4.64.tar.gz; tar zxvf bluez-4.64.tar.gz

And download the Kitlaan PS3 bluez patch:

cd ~; wget http://kitlaan.twinaxis.com/projects/bluez-ps3remote/bluez_ps3remote_4.64.diff

Patch the source:

cd ~\bluez-4.64; patch -p1 < ../bluez_ps3remote_4.64.diff

Then configure, make and install the modified bluez:

cd ~\bluez-4.64; ./configure; make && make install

Next step is to setup the bluetooth remote as an input device on bluetooth, for this you need "Blueman" management tools, so install them: yum install blueman Now login as root, start X and open "blueman-applet" - clieck on "Search" and then press and hold the playstation remotes Enter and Start Buttons together (this puts the remote in discovery mode) - the device will now pop up in the menu of selectable bluetooth devices. click on setup device, and choost NOT to pair, and choose the input service for the device. Once that is done, trust the device and you are done.

Since I auto-login with the "xbmc" user and auto-run XBMC, blueman-applet tries to run in the background as user "xbmc", but with the reduced privileges it usally crashes out with messages in /var/log/messages like:

Aug 31 15:51:19 localhost python: abrt: detected unhandled Python exception in /usr/bin/blueman-applet

The simplest solution is just to set sticky bit on blueman-applet so it will hold its original owner permissions after executing:

chown 7755 /usr/bin/blueman-applet

This got rid of the error messages for me, and it starts up 100% in Gnome. Now that your device is setup with bluetooth, we need to find its Mac address and create a custom mapped input.conf for bluetooth to map the buttons. To find the paired device Mac address (Also check that its connected in /proc):

[root@xbmc ~]# hcitool con

Connections: > ACL 00:23:06:E7:16:F9 handle 1 state 1 lm MASTER

[root@xbmc ~]# cat /proc/bus/input/devices

I: Bus=0005 Vendor=054c Product=0306 Version=0000

N: Name="PS3 Remote Controller"

P: Phys=

S: Sysfs=/devices/virtual/input/input6

U: Uniq=

H: Handlers=kbd event6

B: EV=3

B: KEY=8000000000000000 30000000000000 0 2100000000000000 0 0 bfc00080001c f01c0000d29a1ffe

Copy that ACL Mac address, you'll need to for /etc/bluetooth/input.conf (Listed is my custom configuration, which works for me, but you can change as required):

[General]

# Set idle timeout (in seconds) before the connection will

# be disconnect (defaults to 0 for no timeout)

IdleTimeout=60

# This section contains options that are specific to a device

# change this MAC address to that of your paired device

# use "hcitool con" to list active bluetooth connections

[00:23:06:E7:16:F9] <-- Replace this with YOUR Mac Address

# This section is the PS3 Remote keymap. It is loaded when bluez starts.

# Use 'uinput.h' from bluez sources or '/usr/include/linux/input.h' for

# a list of possible KEY_* values.

[PS3 Remote Map]

# When the 'OverlayBuiltin' option is TRUE (the default), the keymap uses

# the built-in keymap as a starting point. When FALSE, an empty keymap is

# the starting point.

#OverlayBuiltin = TRUE

#buttoncode = keypress # Button label = action with default key mappings

0x16 = KEY_EJECTCD        # EJECT = Eject CD/DVD Drive
0x64 = KEY_Y              # AUDIO = Mute Audio
0x65 = KEY_Z              # ANGLE = cycle aspect ratio
0x63 = KEY_T              # SUBTITLE = toggle subtitles
0x0f = KEY_TAB            # CLEAR = Clear menu items on screen
0x28 = KEY_B              # TIMER = toggle through sleep
0x00 = KEY_1              # NUM-1
0x01 = KEY_2              # NUM-2
0x02 = KEY_3              # NUM-3
0x03 = KEY_4              # NUM-4
0x04 = KEY_5              # NUM-5
0x05 = KEY_6              # NUM-6
0x06 = KEY_7              # NUM-7
0x07 = KEY_8              # NUM-8
0x08 = KEY_9              # NUM-9
0x09 = KEY_0              # NUM-0
0x81 = KEY_F2             # RED = red
0x82 = KEY_F3             # GREEN = green
0x80 = KEY_F4             # BLUE = blue
0x83 = KEY_F5             # YELLOW = yellow
0x70 = KEY_I              # DISPLAY = show information
0x1a = KEY_S              # TOP MENU = show guide
0x40 = KEY_M              # POP UP/MENU = menu
0x0e = KEY_ESC            # RETURN = back/escape/cancel
0x5c = KEY_END            # TRIANGLE/OPTIONS = cycle through recording options
0x5d = KEY_BACKSPACE      # CIRCLE/BACK = back/escape/cancel
0x5f = KEY_MUTE           # SQUARE/VIEW = Adjust Playback timestretch
0x5e = KEY_O              # CROSS = select
0x54 = KEY_UP             # UP = Up/Skip forward 10 minutes
0x56 = KEY_DOWN           # DOWN = Down/Skip back 10 minutes
0x57 = KEY_LEFT           # LEFT = Left/Skip back 5 seconds
0x55 = KEY_RIGHT          # RIGHT = Right/Skip forward 30 seconds
0x0b = KEY_ENTER          # ENTER = select
0x5a = KEY_MINUS          # L1 = volume down
0x58 = KEY_Q              # L2 = Queue Media
0x51 = KEY_W              # L3 = Mark as Watched
0x5b = KEY_EQUAL            # R1 = volume up
0x59 = KEY_PAGEUP         # R2 = move up one page in watch recordings/EPG
0x52 = KEY_PAGEDOWN       # R3 = move down one page in watch recordings/EPG
0x43 = KEY_F9             # PS button = mute
0x50 = KEY_M              # SELECT = menu (as per PS convention)
0x53 = KEY_ENTER          # START = select / Enter (matches terminology in mythwelcome)
0x33 = KEY_R              # SCAN BACK = decrease scan forward speed / play backwards; playback speed; 3x, 5, 10, 20, 30, 60, 120, 180
0x32 = KEY_P              # PLAY = play/pause
0x34 = KEY_F              # SCAN FORWARD = decrease scan backard speed / increase playback speed; 3x, 5, 10, 20, 30, 60, 120, 180
0x30 = KEY_DOWN           # PREVIOUS = skip back 10 mins
0x38 = KEY_X              # STOP = back/escape/cancel
0x31 = KEY_UP             # NEXT = skip forward 10 mins
# 0x60 = KEY_COMMA          # SLOW/STEP BACK = jump back (default 10 minutes)
0x39 = KEY_SPACE          # PAUSE = play/pause
# 0x61 = KEY_DOT            # SLOW/STEP FORWARD = jump forward (default 10 minutes)
0xff = KEY_MAX

I added the following keys to /usr/local/share/xbmc/system/keymaps/keyboard.xml for the two extra buttons I mapped above (B and Y):

<FullscreenVideo>
    <keyboard>
      <y>AudioNextLanguage</y>
      <b>ShowTime</b>

And thats it, you dont need LIRC or any special key mapping XML's for XBMC, the remote is now just a keyboard, with its buttons mapped to specific keyboard keys. This works extremely well, as holding a button will repeat it, allowing you to run through long lists of movies, etc.. The remote also does not need to be pointed at the TV or PC to work, will work up to about 10 metres (33 feet) away and behind at least one wall. Compared to the Infra-Red setup I did with the Xbox360 remote, this is MUCH better and works 100% without any intervention. Battery life is good, I've been going about 4 weeks without changing batteries so far, with no signs of degraded signal.

Here is the PS3 remote layout on my system:

Source based policy routing on Centos (or any 2.6.x kernel Linux)

2010-08-23T14:44:00.002+02:00

I've upgraded our BSD based firewall to Centos 5.4 and some newer hardware and as such migrated my skills also from IPFW to IPTABLES. This short tutorial shows what to do when you have shared resources (such as a mail server) and want to implement proper source based policy routing, without having to rely on having ONE gateway on your server.

Some Legends:

1.1.1.1 - Local LAN on firewall eth0
2.2.2.2 - ISP1 on firewall eth2
3.3.3.3 - ISP2 on firewall eth1
4.4.4.4 - source host

Okay, so the standard routing on the firewall pushes all traffic destined for 4.4.4.4 over eth1, with a gateway address of 3.3.3.3. Our end-result here is to get 4.4.4.4 to connect to SMTP running on 2.2.2.2 (eth2) on the firewall. Normal routing will not work, packets will be recieved at eth2, but sent out over eth1 with a complete packet mixup.

We are going to implement a policy that will say:

If I get SMTP Traffic on 2.2.2.2, then make sure response traffic goes out over eth2 no matter what.

Easy:

First, you have to make sure that iproute2 is installed:

    yum install kernel-devel

    wget http://devresources.linux-foundation.org/dev/iproute2/download/iproute2-2.6.26.tar.bz2
    tar xjf iproute2-2.6.26.tar.bz2
    cd iproute2-2.6.26 
    make

    cp ip/ip /sbin

Check that IP is able to run:

[root@firewall ~]# ip
   Usage: ip [ OPTIONS ] OBJECT { COMMAND | help }
      ip [ -force ] [-batch filename
        where OBJECT := { link | addr | addrlabel | route | rule | neigh | ntable |
                   tunnel | maddr | mroute | monitor | xfrm }
       OPTIONS := { -V[ersion] | -s[tatistics] | -d[etails] | -r[esolve] |
                    -f[amily] { inet | inet6 | ipx | dnet | link } |
                    -o[neline] | -t[imestamp] }

and now we can begin:

First, mark the traffic you need dealt with in IPTABLES under the mangle table:

          -A FORWARD -t mangle -i eth2 -p tcp --dport 25 -j MARK --set-mark 0

meaning: Any incoming traffic on eth2, TCP based with a destination port of 25, mark it with 0 (which means 1 in non-computer binary)

         service iptables restart

to allow it to make the change.

Then, create a NEW routing table for this while exercise:

      echo 1 SMTP >> /etc/iproute2/rt_tables

now, create a new default route for our SMTP routing table:

      ip route add default via 2.2.2.2 dev eth2 table SMTP

check that its enabled correctly:

     [root@firewall ~]# ip route show table SMTP
     default via 2.2.2.2 dev eth2

Great, looking good so far, now we add the ip rule to process marked traffic with a new gateway:

     ip rule add fwmark 1 table SMTP

Remember its marked 0 in IPTABLES, but called 1 outside of it, 1 in IPTABLES then becomes 2, and so forth. These changes are not persistent, so ADD THEM TO /etc/rc.local

First a test without policy based routing from our server 4.4.4.4 (I just disabled the IPTABLES line):

     support@4.4.4.4 - ~>telnet 2.2.2.2 25
     Trying 2.2.2.2...
     telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection timed out

And then a test with policy based routing enabled - working 100%

     support@4.4.4.4 - ~>telnet 2.2.2.2 25
     Trying 2.2.2.2...
     Connected to 2.2.2.2.
     Escape character is '^]'.
     220
     **********************************************************************
     quit
     221 2.0.0 firewall.local.host closing connection
     Connection to 2.2.2.2 closed by foreign host.

XBMC with lircd, iguanaworks receiver and XBOX 360 remote

2010-07-12T20:33:00.000+02:00

Using the keyboard and XBMC can be a bit irritating, especially for my wife, who has been made bedridden for 6 weeks due to a hip replacement. I decided to finally get remote control working for XBMC instead of relying on keyboard extensions/radio keyboard/IR keyboards.

I looked for THE most lircd compatible IR Receiver and settled on an Iguanaworks item (http://iguanaworks.net/) which is actually an IR Transceiver meaning I can do more with the little device in future. I had a spare XBOX 360 DVD Remote lying around and these have become my tools of choice.

Iguanaworks have an RPM installer on thier website but make sure to install the libusb libraries first (this is for 64-bit fedora).

yum install libusb-devel.x86_64 libusb.x86_64

You can also install with yum - create a file /etc/yum.repos.d/iguanair.repo with the following inside:

[iguanair]
name=IguanaIR
baseurl=http://iguanaworks.net/downloads/$basearch
enabled=0
gpgcheck=0

Then install iguanaIR through yum:

yum install iguanaIR --enablerepo=iguanair

and finally install lirc, which should now include the iguanaIR module in its options:

yum erase lirc-libs-0.8.6-7.fc12.x86_64 lirc-remotes-0.8.6-7.fc12.x86_64 lirc-0.8.6-7.fc12.x86_64 lirc-devel-0.8.6-7.fc12.x86_64

Test that IguanaIR works (It wont first time, you need to issue a device-id):

igdaemon -nvvv --driver-dir=/usr/lib64/iguanaIR

Assign a device-id:

igclient --setid fred

and then startup your daemon:

/etc/init.d/iguanaIR start

Edit the /etc/sysconfig/lirc file and modify the line LIRC_DRIVER to say:

LIRC_DRIVER="iguanaIR"

Then create or overwrite /etc/lirc/lircd.conf with the following:

    begin remote

      name Microsoft_Xbox360
      bits           13
      flags RC6|CONST_LENGTH
      eps            30
      aeps          100

      header       2682   906
      one           438   451
      zero          438   451
      pre_data_bits   24
      pre_data       0x1BFF80
      gap          107066
      toggle_bit_mask 0x8000
      rc6_mask    0x100000000

          begin codes
              OpenClose                0x0BD7
              XboxFancyButton          0x0B9B
              OnOff                    0x0BF3
              Stop                     0x0BE6
              Pause                    0x0BE7
              Rewind                   0x0BEA
              FastForward              0x0BEB
              Prev                     0x0BE4
              Next                     0x0BE5
              Play                     0x0BE9
              Display                  0x0BB0
              Title                    0x0BAE
              DVD_Menu                 0x0BDB
              Back                     0x0BDC
              Info                     0x0BF0
              UpArrow                  0x0BE1
              LeftArrow                0x0BDF
              RightArrow               0x0BDE
              DownArrow                0x0BE0
              OK                       0x0BDD
              Y                        0x0BD9
              X                        0x0B97
              A                        0x0B99
              B                        0x0BDA
              PgDown                   0x0B92
              PgUp                     0x0B93

              VolDown                  0x0bee
              VolUp                    0x0bef
              Mute                     0x0bf1
              TV                       0x0bb9

              Start                    0x0BF2
              Play                     0x0BE9
              Enter                    0x0BF4
              Record                   0x0BE8
              Clear                    0x0BF5
              1                        0x0BFE
              2                        0x0BFD
              3                        0x0BFC
              4                        0x0BFB
              5                        0x0BFA
              6                        0x0BF9
              7                        0x0BF8
              8                        0x0BF7
              9                        0x0BF6
              100                      0x0BE2
              0                        0x0BFF
              Reload                   0x0BE3
          end codes

    end remote

Then whichever user is your XBMC user, create or overwrite the ~/.xbmc/userdata/Lircmap.xml file with:

                    <lircmap>
                            <remote device="Microsoft_Xbox360">
                                    <left>LeftArrow</left>
                                    <right>RightArrow</right>
                                    <up>UpArrow</up>
                                    <down>DownArrow</down>
                                    <select>OK</select>
                                    <back>Back</back>
                                    <forward>FastForward</forward>
                                    <reverse>Rewind</reverse>
                                    <play>Play</play>
                                    <pause>Pause</pause>
                                    <stop>Stop</stop>
                                    <volumeplus>VolUp</volumeplus>
                                    <volumeminus>VolDown</volumeminus>
                                    <mute>Mute</mute>
                                    <pageminus>PgDown</pageminus>
                                    <pageplus>PgUp</pageplus>
                                    <zero>0</zero>
                                    <one>1</one>
                                    <two>2</two>
                                    <three>3</three>
                                    <four>4</four>
                                    <five>5</five>
                                    <six>6</six>
                                    <seven>7</seven>
                                    <eight>8</eight>
                                    <nine>9</nine>
                                    <power>OnOff</power>
                                    <skipplus>Next</skipplus>
                                    <skipminus>Prev</skipminus>
                                    <display>Display</display>
                                    <record>Record</record>
                                    <start>Start</start>
                                    <info>Info</info>
                                    <menu>DVD_Menu</menu>
                                    <myvideo>Y</myvideo>
                                    <mymusic>X</mymusic>
                                    <mypictures>A</mypictures>
                                    <hash>B</hash>
                                    <clear>Clear</clear>
                                    <myTV>Enter</myTV>
                            </remote>
    </lircmap>

Start LIRC and see if everything is okay:

/etc/init.d/lirc start

and test that your remote is picked up and sending codes to the system by using "irw":

[root@xbmc ~]# irw
000000037ff00bde 00 RightArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00bde 01 RightArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00bde 00 RightArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00bde 01 RightArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00be1 00 UpArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00be0 00 DownArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00be0 01 DownArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00bdf 00 LeftArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00bdf 01 LeftArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00bdf 00 LeftArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00bdf 01 LeftArrow Microsoft_Xbox360
000000037ff00bdd 00 OK Microsoft_Xbox360
Lirc has changed the way it creates its socket file, meaning that xbmc is going to be looking for /dev/lircd, but in actual fact now resides in /var/run/lirc/lircd. An easy fix for this is to just create a symbolic link:

ln -s /var/run/lirc/lircd /dev/lircd

I prefer doing things properly and recompiling xbmc from your SVN repo. You just need to add the following line when you ./configure:

--with-lirc-device=/var/run/lirc/lircd
Then just restart your system, and enjoy a working remote in XBMC !

Build your own Media Center: Installing XBMC on Fedora Core 12 (FC12)

2010-05-18T14:24:00.009+02:00

First, make sure you have a user "xbmc" installed - we'll run everything as a protected user.

I would login from a laptop or another PC with an ssh windows client, such as putty ssh (Putty Download) to do the installation, just in case you mess up something. To upload files use a windows sftp package like Bitvise Tunnelier (Tunnelier Download).

Install the latest NVIDIA Linux Driver - I wont document ATI Cards, since we're gunning for VDPAU processing offload to the graphics card to keep our media centre running at optimal performance. You SHOULD update your kernel at the same time:

yum install kernel.x86_64 kernel-devel.x86_64

Reboot, and install the latest NVIDIA Kernel modules (which will install dependent Xorg modules/libraries).

yum install kmod-nvidia-2.6.32.11-99.fc12.x86_64.x86_64 (make sure to match kernel number to running kernel)

You might need to adjust your grub settings if you get errors when loading nvidia.ko kernel module like:

May 18 14:12:03 localhost kernel: NVRM: No NVIDIA graphics adapter probed!
May 18 14:12:36 localhost kernel: NVRM: The NVIDIA probe routine was not called for 1 device(s).
May 18 14:12:36 localhost kernel: NVRM: This can occur when a driver such as rivafb, nvidiafb or
May 18 14:12:36 localhost kernel: NVRM: rivatv was loaded and obtained ownership of the NVIDIA
May 18 14:12:36 localhost kernel: NVRM: device(s).
May 18 14:12:36 localhost kernel: NVRM: Try unloading the rivafb, nvidiafb or rivatv kernel module
May 18 14:12:36 localhost kernel: NVRM: (and/or reconfigure your kernel without rivafb/nvidiafb
May 18 14:12:36 localhost kernel: NVRM: support), then try loading the NVIDIA kernel module again.

To remedy, add "nomodeset" to the /etc/grub.conf line for your kernel:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32.11-99.fc12.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_xbmc-lv_root LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet nomodeset

Then, install subversion and checkout the latest XBMC out of the repository:

yum install subversion.x86_64

cd /home/xbmc

svn checkout http://xbmc.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xbmc/trunk xbmc

Add the RPMFusion repository (This will make things easier I promise, half of required packages do not exist on the standard FC Repos):

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Then install the following XBMC Dependencies:

yum install quilt.x86_64 cmake.x86_64 autoconf.noarch automake.noarch unzip.x86_64 boost.x86_64 boost-devel.x86_64 mesa-libOSMesa.x86_64 mesa-libGL-devel.x86_64 mesa-libGLU-devel.x86_64 libjpeg-devel.x86_64 glew-devel.x86_64 libsamplerate-devel.x86_64 libogg-devel.x86_64 libvorbis-devel.x86_64 freetype-devel.x86_64 fontconfig-devel.x86_64 zfstream.x86_64 fribidi-devel.x86_64 libsqlite3x-devel.x86_64 mysql-libs.x86_64 alsa-lib-devel.x86_64 libpng-devel.x86_64 pcre-devel.x86_64 lzo-devel.x86_64 libcdio-devel.x86_64 SDL_image-devel.x86_64 SDL_mixer-devel.x86_64 enca-devel.x86_64 jasper-devel.x86_64 libXt-devel.x86_64 libXmu-devel.x86_64 libXinerama-devel.x86_64 libcurl-devel.x86_64 dbus-devel.x86_64 hal-devel.x86_64 avahi-devel.x86_64 libXrandr-devel.x86_64 libavc1394-devel.x86_64 libmp4v2.x86_64 libmp4v2-devel.x86_64 libass-devel.x86_64 flac-devel.x86_64 wavpack-devel.x86_64 python-devel.x86_64 gawk.x86_64 gperf.x86_64 nasm.x86_64 cwiid-devel.x86_64 zlib-devel.x86_64 libsmbclient-devel.x86_64 libtiff-devel.x86_64 libisofs-devel.x86_64 openssl-devel.x86_64 libmicrohttpd-devel.x86_64 libmodplug-devel.x86_64 libssh-devel.x86_64 libssh2-devel.x86_64 gettext.x86_64 cvs.x86_64 libtool.x86_64 gcc-c++.x86_64 libmad-devel.x86_64 bzip2-devel.x86_64 libmpeg2-devel.x86_64 libmpeg3-devel.x86_64 libmms-devel.x86_64 mysql-devel.x86_64 faad2-devel.x86_64 libXtst-devel.x86_64 ccache.x86_64 expat-devel.x86_64 libvdpau-devel.x86_64

Start the XBMC Installation:

./bootstrap

./configure --disable-pulse --enable-vdpau --enable-ccache (We'll use direct ALSA Drivers for Multiplexing and enable VDPAU for offloading)

make -j2 (dual core) or -j4 (quad core)

Takes about 35 minutes to compile on a 2.4Ghz Core2Duo with 2GB RAM

make install

To autologin as the xbmc user, edit the /etc/gdm/custom.conf file and add the following section:

[daemon]
TimedLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLoginEnable=true
AutomaticLogin=xbmc
TimedLogin=xbmc
TimedLoginDelay=0

Then reboot your machine, go to System --> Preferences --> Startup Applications and then uncheck everything except for:

"Volume Control"
"Network Manager"

Then click on Add to create an XBMC startup item, and fill in the following:

Name: xbmc
Command: /usr/local/bin/xbmc

Click on Save, and then hit CTRL-ALT-Backspace to restart GDE, which should now automatically login and start XBMC with sound. All very nice and pretty !!!

Injecting VNC Server into a remote Windows Server

2010-05-10T10:09:00.003+02:00

I had a strange issue today, a Windows 2008 server, with broken RDP , no way for me to get to a desktop screen of it to fix. Here is a quick little solution to inject a VNC Server into the machine to allow you to get some access.

You WILL need at the very least:

IP Address
Username with admin rights
Password

So undertake the following:

1. Download and install a full install of UltraVNC (do not startup and services) - UltraVNC Download

2. Download a package called "Fastpush" to C:\fastpush - Fastpush 8a Download

3. Edit the c:\fastpush\fp8a.cmd file and change the following line to point to the correct path:

set fplocation=C:\fastpush

4. run c:\fastpush\utils\vncenc.exe to create a password:

C:\fastpush\utils>vncenc.exe password
Password = REG_BINARY 0x00000008 0xfd3cd8db 0x58147a72

5. Copy the whole output line and paste into both c:\fastpush\common\machine.ini and c:\fastpush\common\vnc4.ini

6. Run the fastpush injection/installation:

fp8a.cmd 10.0.1.2 /vnc /user DOMAIN\administrator password /log /noshortcut /firewall /noview

Where:

/vnc = install VNC server
/user = username/password
/log = log results to c:\fastpush\results.txt
/noshortcut = dont create shortcuts for the VNC server installation on target machine
/firewall = install a firewall exception for the VNC Server on target machine
/noview = do not install VNC viewing tools on target machine

Thats it, use the UltraVNC viewer to now login to your server !

Resume support for SSH/SCP downloads in *nix

2010-05-09T09:19:00.002+02:00

I've had problems with broken downloads on a Solaris 10 system, and after some digging I found that rsync has a native "partial completion" component built in that keeps partially downloaded files and then continues where you left off on restarting the download (rsync man page). The Machine you are downloading FROM needs to have rsyncd enabled though.

First create an alias to simplify things:

alias scpr="rsync --progress --partial --rsh=ssh"

Then start your download:

scpr user@host:/dir/file .

If the download breaks, just re-run the command and it will continue from where it left off.

Downloading Sun Patch Clusters without SunSolve

2010-05-05T15:00:00.002+02:00

Try this:

Solaris 10 x86 - http://mirror.cogentco.com/pub/misc/10_x86_Recommended.zip

Solaris 10 SPARC - http://mirror.cogentco.com/pub/misc/10_Recommended.zip

Solaris 9 - http://mirror.cogentco.com/pub/misc/9_Recommended.zip

Solaris 8 - http://mirror.cogentco.com/pub/misc/8_Recommended.zip

Letting Tomcat handle SSL requests

2010-05-05T11:26:00.004+02:00

Most people use the apache2/modJK approach to do SSL offload/redirection to Tomcat contexts, but Tomcat has matured and the benefits of not using modJK and a possibly memory hungry apache is appealing.

This is to show how to use an EXISTING ssl key and how to import it into tomcat.

Create a tomcat keyring first in /opt/csw/tomcat5/ssl (you'll need to mkdir ssl)

keytool -genkey -alias tomcat -keyalg RSA

use the password "changeit" this is the default tomcat one.

Put in any Information, this would only be used in the case of issuing a CSR request.

I'm using a Godaddy.com CA, but substitute whichever CA you have:

Download Godaddy CA Cert for Signing from https://certs.godaddy.com/anonymous/repository.seam;jsessionid=A3D2CC1A02748C7AD01654BD5ED6D777.web002?streamfilename=gd-class2-root.crt&actionMethod=anonymous%2Frepository.xhtml%3Arepository.streamFile%28%27%27%29&cid=212695 and save it as godaddy.crt

Get the original .crt .csr .key from the Apache2/modJK installation.

Then

Cat these files together in THIS order:

cat godaddy.crt www.website.com.key www.website.com.crt > ssl.pem

Then create a PKS12 key in the tomcat keyring

openssl pkcs12 -export -in ssl.pem -out ssl.p12 -name tomcat

Cert is now valid and signed correctly.

In Tomcat, change the SSL section in /opt/csw/tomcat5/conf/server.xml running on 8443 to this:

keystoreFile="/opt/csw/tomcat5/ssl/ssl.p12" keystorePass="changeit" keystoreType="PKCS12"
SSLEnabled="true" scheme="https" secure="true" clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" />

Restart Tomcat and test with https://server/manager/html

To stop Tomcat serving requests on https://server (which is a security risk in itself) delete the tomcat5/webapps/ROOT directory and all should be okay.

Remember to choose a complex password for the "manager" role in tomcat.

Problem: no SSH into a default VMware ESX 3.5 Installation

2010-05-04T20:29:00.002+02:00

ESXi 3.5 does ship with the ability to run SSH, but this is disabled by default (and is not supported).

At the console of the ESXi host, press ALT-F1 to access the console window.

Enter unsupported in the console and then press Enter. You will not see the text ou type in.

If you typed in unsupported correctly, you will see the Tech Support Mode warning and a password prompt. Enter the password for the root login.

You should then see the prompt of ~ #. Edit the file inetd.conf (enter the command vi /etc/inetd.conf).

Find the line that begins with #ssh and remove the #. Then save the file. If you’re new to using vi, then move the cursor down to #ssh line and then press the Insert key. Move the cursor over one space and then hit backspace to delete the #. Then press ESC and type in :wq to save the file and exit vi. If you make a mistake, you can press the ESC key and then type it :q! to quit vi without saving the file.

Once you’ve closed the vi editor, run the command /sbin/services.sh restart to restart the management services. You’ll now be able to connect to the ESXi host with a SSH client.

Setting up an iSCSI Target on Solaris 10

2010-05-04T20:27:00.001+02:00

Provide a directory where the logical units will be stored (file based LUN's will be stored here)

iscsitadm modify admin -d /etc/iscsi

and turn on fast write ACK's:

iscsitadm modify admin -f enable

Obviously if you'd like to have the LUs stored elsewhere just supply a different directory.

Create a direct connection to a disk drive:

iscsitadm create target --type raw --backing-store /dev/dsk/c4t600A0B8000492E84000002914BDE738Ad0p0 mssql

Or just create a logical disk on top of a normal filesystem:

iscsitadm create target -z 20g mssql

"-z 20g" is the size of the iSCSI targetand "mssql" is the name of the iSCSI target. Now set the receive buffer size, to increase write speeds:

iscsitadm modify target --maxrecv 16777214 mssql

Enable discovery from a host running the Solaris initiator

iscsiadm add discovery-address 10.0.0.25
iscsiadm modify discovery -t enable

Test to see all is okay with "iscsitadm list target -v" :

root@Selenium-S10 - ~>iscsitadm list target -v
Target: mssql
iSCSI Name: iqn.1986-03.com.sun:02:b374a80a-816f-65e6-b0b8-babca7af2adc.mssql
Alias: MSSQL
MaxRecv: 16777214
Connections: 0
ACL list:
TPGT list:
TPGT: 1
LUN information:
LUN: 0
GUID: 010000144f1fd33800002a004bdf2651
VID: SUN
PID: SOLARIS
Type: disk
Size: 543G
Status: online

SPF and DKIM

2009-08-12T15:53:00.002+02:00

Wow, has it been THAT long since my last post ? Been moving house and now I'm a certified Telecommuter, 100% of my Job done from my lovely home office at the beach.

Anyways, I had to do a large mailshot to about 1.4 million customers, and in the runup, to increase delivery rates, I instituted SPF and DKIM.

A quick explanation of each:

SPF - Sender Policy Framework
DKIM - Domain Keys Identified Mail

Both systems are a way of making sure that mail sent by a particular server is from the correct domain in question. Both are heavily used in the enterprise, and having them on your mailserver will increase hit rates.

SPF is easy, you just need to add a TXT DNS record to your domain, like so:

v=spf1 ip4:11.11.11.11 ip4:22.22.22.22 mx ptr mx:somedomain.com include:somedomain.com ~all

lets break it down:

v=spf1 Version (currently only v1 exists).
ip4:11.11.11.11 ip4:22.22.22.22 If source mail server is IP 11.11.11.11 or 22.22.22.22 then it is authorised.
mx ptr if source IP has reverse lookup to this domain then it is authorised.
mx:somedomain.com include:somedomain.com source domain authorised to send mails on behalf of this domain.

DKIM is a bit harder, first you need an MTA that supports it, I've used Merak 9 (which has it built in) and postfix (with the dkim-milter plugin).

The Logic is that you generate a keypair, the private part of which is integrated into your mailsystem, and the public part in a TXT DNS record on your domain.

The receiving MTA looks up the TXT record, finds the public key, and checks with the sending server through keypair handshake to confirm that it IS in fact the correct sender. If it is, the mail is accepted.

The source MTA adds headers like this:

X-DKIM: Sendmail DKIM Filter v2.8.2 sender1.yourdomain.com 75866730012
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=simple/simple; d=yourdomain.com;
s=default; t=1239981026; bh=+NNkD6jOlYKtY2AIGNRToH2tkm0=;
h=Date:List-Help:List-Subscribe:List-Unsubscribe:List-Owner:
List-Post:From:Reply-To:To:Subject:MIME-Version:Content-Type:
Message-Id;
b=MrjXBShjNexWy62fC4Uu7xS3Hxav+cHtqIBzwMlcufadsffLtW9KmF5sO58+yHjyy
I3SiX0TNyEbvXtSHvRKm9z630zDiN0dxVXGqhgEfdklaj4jlkfhR6GrsRgzW2YOW6/9
sKFnz214AkhAPrFBD30hNmZfRfY75v5q94FnGDUo=

and the domain TXT record is setup thus:

v=DKIM1; g=*; k=rsa; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GWETBNiQKBgQC5KT1eN2lqCRQGDX+20I4liM2mktrtjWkV6mW9WX7q46cZAYgNrus53vgfl2z1Y/95mBv6Bx9WOS56OAVBQw62+ksXPT5cRUAUN9GkENPdOoPdpvrU1KdAMW5c3zmGOvEOa4jAlB4/wYTV5RkLq/1XLxXfTKNy58v+CKETLQS/eQIDAQAB

Where:

v=DKIM1 Version 1 of DKIM
k=rsa Keytype DSA or RSA
p=xxxxxx The actual public key

These two techniques, along with actually having proper forward and reverse lookups on your mailserver will increase delivery rates and decrease spam scores, making sure your mail ends up in the inbox, and not junkmail.

Tool of the Day: TCPMSSD

2009-07-22T13:04:00.002+02:00

I've had issue with an ADSL multilink implementation over a FreeBSD firewall, that just wont seem to work with a particular PC's MTU. I've of course changed the pc MTU with TCPOptimizer, but now I've gone a level up and am actually mangling the packets with a tcp MTU/MSS Clamp.

The Clamp works by making sure that all packets are lower than or equal to a particular MTU, therefore making sure traffic flows correctly.

I installed TCPMSSD from FreeBSD ports /usr/ports/net/tcpmssd, and made sure the daemon starts from rc.local, with the following command line:

/usr/local/bin/tcpmssd -b -p 7777 -m 1300

-b = mangle both SYN and ACK packets
-p 7777 = run the Daemon on port 7777
-m 1300 = MTU size of 1300 Bytes

Then, you need to pass traffic to the daemon through IPFW:

add 00042 divert 7777 ip from any to 10.0.0.1 (mangle traffic to source)
add 00043 skipto 00047 ip from 10.0.0.1 to 10.0.0.0/20 (skip internal traffic)
add 00043 skipto 00047 ip from not 10.0.0.1 to any (skip anything else other than this host)
add 00044 divert 7777 ip from any to any (mangle traffic from source)
add 00045 divert 8670 ip from any to any (NATD traffic from source)
add 00046 fwd 192.168.0.1 ip from any to any (FWD and end traffic from source)

this is tested, working and in production on my live FreeBSD firewalls, a great little tool...

Tool of the Day: TCP-Z Windows Vista Half-Open Connection Patch

2009-07-16T11:42:00.003+02:00

To speed up Vista internet network speeds, you can now run a simplified tool, that modifies kernel values on the fly, without changing any settings permanently.

You can download it here: Softpedia

If you WOULD like to change the settings, follow microsofts article on how to HERE

Either way, look forward to increased network performance in Vista/Windows 7

Increasing performance of Static IP (L2TP) ADSL Lines

2009-07-08T07:54:00.004+02:00

With most of the South African ISP's offering static IP ADSL, I Think there is some confusion or just plain not knowing how these offerings work. The machines connected to these Routers benefit from having correct MTU Size set, both to reduce packet fragmentation, and also allow packets to traverse if they have DF Bit set (DF = Do Not Fragment).

Standard Ethernet MTU is 1500 bytes, and ADSL PPPoE MTU is 1492 Bytes. What ISP's do is run an L2TP Tunnel from the ISP to the ADSL Router, presenting the user with static IP's, but reducing MTU size to 1472 Bytes (Standard L2TP Data segment).

To optimize your Linux/BSD machines, the easiest option is to just adjust the mtu thus:

ifconfig em0 mtu 1472

That will make sure all packets originating from that interface are the correct size. The issue arises if you use windows machines, as MTU Discovery does not always work correctly. This is tried and tested on a windows box I have here:

Ping Google with a 1492 Byte ICMP Packet:

C:\Users\kim.attree>ping -l 1492 www.google.com

Pinging www.l.google.com [74.125.45.103] with 1492 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 74.125.45.103:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

And Pinging Google with a 1472 Byte ICMP Packet:

C:\Users\kim.attree>ping -l 1472 www.google.com

Pinging www.l.google.com [74.125.45.103] with 1472 bytes of data:
Reply from 74.125.45.103: bytes=1472 time=354ms TTL=49
Reply from 74.125.45.103: bytes=1472 time=353ms TTL=49
Reply from 74.125.45.103: bytes=1472 time=354ms TTL=49
Reply from 74.125.45.103: bytes=1472 time=354ms TTL=49

Ping statistics for 74.125.45.103:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 353ms, Maximum = 354ms, Average = 353ms

The easiest way to fix this is by using a TCP Stack modifier, and I suggest using the freeware tool TCP Optimizer, which you can download here http://www.speedguide.net/files/TCPOptimizer.exe

Choose "Custom Options" and set your MTU to 1472 Bytes, and reap the rewards of improved performance and throughput.

Tool of the Day: www.oldports.org

2009-06-25T14:46:00.002+02:00

I had a problem installing Asterisk today, and had to rollback the zaptel port from 1.4.11 to 1.4.6 - the easiest way to do this was to get the port directory misc/zaptel from my old friend http://www.oldports.org

This site has years and years of port iterations, meaning it's painless and easy to get an older version of a port for yourself.

SSH host based authentication and security

2009-06-24T08:26:00.003+02:00

I use SSH as my main form of connection, even with connecting to other boxes (I just create TCP Tunnels to get to RDP/VNC services). The problem with password based authentication is that social engineering and brute force CAN break through.

I prefer host based authentication - meaning that the server I am connecting to will only allow the server I'm connecting from to login, using DSA or RSA keys for the authentication process.

For clarity, Source means the server/workstation you are connecting FROM, Destination means the server you are connecting TO.

To setup the whole thing, you need to generate a private/public keypair on your Source server, do this with ssh-keygen:

ssh-keygen -t dsa

Follow the prompts and you DONT have to fill in a password if you dont want to, but it adds a level of security. The following files will be created in $HOME/.ssh :

id_dsa
id_dsa.pub

Cat the id_dsa.pub file, and copy the output, this is going to need to be placed on the Destination server. Login to your destination server as the user you normally connect as. Make sure there is a $HOME/.ssh directory and then create a file called "authorized_keys" (Case and spelling sensitive). Paste the previous output of the id_dsa.pub file into this file and save it.

Now you might need to edit your /etc/ssh/sshd_config file to allow host-based key authentication, make sure the following parameters are set:

PermitRootLogin yes (ONLY if you NEED root login, rather su to root)
RSAAuthentication yes (Allow RSA as well as DSA Keys)
PubkeyAuthentication yes (Allow Public key authentication)
AuthorizedKeysFile .ssh/authorized_keys (Location of the Server authorized keys)

Restart sshd, or HUP it (pkill -HUP sshd).

For added security, I disable PAM authentication in the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file:

ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

This prevents ANY type of password authentication, meaning bruteforce attacks are impossible to conduct against your SSH Server.

Should you wish to allow tunnelling through your SSH Server, set these parameters in your /etc/ssh/sshd_config:

AllowTcpForwarding yes

Again, restart SSHD.

Thats it - a pretty secure SSH system, which is usually the first point of attack for UNIX Hackers.

Tool of the Day: Running Multiple versions of Internet Explorer

2009-06-11T15:52:00.002+02:00

For testing websites/software on older versions of IE can be a pain in the posterier, but with this tool, you can run multiple versions from 3.0 to 6.0. This is for Windows XP ONLY !!! But its helped me with some dodgy client complaints in the past.

Link is here: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

Load Balanced SSL based Internet Casino Client System

2009-06-10T15:24:00.002+02:00

My personally designed SSL-offloaded load-balanced casino system went live today across 49 Internet Casinos, it has increased performance immensely and is able to add multiple servers on the fly to alleviate stress on existing servers.

The SSL Offload does SSL encryption calculations on the Layer4 switch, using onboard floating-point processors, meaning NO SSL encode/decode on the servers themselves. The switches can handle 115,000 concurrent connections, so plenty space to grow.

I designed and implemented the entire system, barring the existing MSSQL implementation. Casino is now handling 200,000 spins per day.

Just cant say "which" casinos....

See my System Diagram here:

Squid Proxy server, Ads blocking

2009-06-10T13:59:00.005+02:00

I added an ad-blocking component to squid, not a third-party product, just a few configs of my own. The way I've implemented it, you don't see any "AD BLOCKED" crap on your webpages, you just have a clear block where the ad was, with no error message, increasing the "look/feel" experience for your users.

First, in the ACL section, create the ACL for ads:

acl ads_block_list dstdomain -i "/usr/local/etc/squid/blocks/ads_block.list"

Above all your normal http_access/http_deny rules, place this one:

deny_info ERR_BLOCKED_ADS ads_block_list
http_access deny ads_block_list

Now, create the file /usr/local/etc/squid/blocks/ads_block.list and populate it (I've just shown a head from my file):

[root@nas /usr/local/etc/squid/blocks]# head ads_block.list
101com.com
101order.com
103bees.com
1100i.com
123banners.com
123found.com
123pagerank.com
180hits.de
180searchassistant.com
180solutions.com

You can get anti-ads lists such as mine from various locations, use google to search.

Now edit the custom error message for the ads_block_list ACL, which is: ERR_BLOCKED_ADS

[root@nas /usr/local/etc/squid/errors/English]# cat ERR_BLOCKED_ADS

That last line, you'll notice the ! character which means don't display the standard squid error message.

once all is complete, reload your configs with "squid - k reconfigure" and try access pages now. Ads are blocked, and all you see is the page background. This way you can save large amounts of bandwidth on your internet lines, without creating errors or graphical problems on user viewed pages.

Tool of the Day: pkg-get for Solaris 10

2009-06-10T13:51:00.002+02:00

Package management in Solaris 10 is less than stellar, with no automated system such as apt-get, ports, portage or yum like linux distro's, but I found a FreeBSD-like portinstall package called pkg-get. It allows installation of packages from a web repository and is compatible with the Solaris pkgadd system.

To install pkg-get use the folowing command.

"pkgadd -d http://www.opencsw.org/pkg_get.pkg".

edit the mirror url using.

"vi /opt/csw/etc/pkg-get.conf" and changing the default site url to.

url=ftp://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/opencsw/stable (This is Ireland's repository - closest one for SA)

run "pkg-get -U" to update catalog.

pkg-get is now ready.

"pkg-get -a |grep package" to find the desired packages, then:

"pkg-get -i packagename" to install it.

Very simple and powerful, even allows upgrading of the complete CSW subsystem in Solaris.

Tool of the Day: DGTeam firmware for Netgear DG834 series routers

2009-06-08T20:12:00.003+02:00

keywords: netgear, dg834, firmware, dgteam

Found a great tool which increased stability on my router (DG834PN), as well as including about 100 features not seen on the standard firmware - even SNR increase/reduction to affect speed/stability.

You can grab the firmware for most of the 834 series routers here: http://dgteam.ilbello.com

Update:

I did this on a DG834 straight router, connection speeds (synchronised ADSL) went from 2908Kbps to 3824Kbps - On the SAME LINE !! No connection drops - 34 hours on the same PPPoE session.

Highly Recommended

Hacked my XBOX 360

2009-06-08T11:16:00.002+02:00

Microsoft say their new Lite-On DVD Rom is unhackable due to firmguard protection.

Well I hacked mine to the latest iXtreme firmware v1.6 - I'm now able to play the 65 XBOX backups I have. Quite a convaluted procedure involving drive door positioning, soldering the PCB to unlock the developer mode on the drive, then extracting the DVD keys and re-inserting them into the hacked firmware, erasing the drive (scary) and then flashing the hacked firmware back.

Been enjoying "Battlestations Pacific" over the weekend :)