Tech Chop

Ep13 - Free Open Source Cloning and Software Deployment

info@techchop.com — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode I wanted to introduce you all to a really great open source disk cloning and software deployment solution called FOG. This video was inspired by an email I got from Bauer-Power reader, Matt Bradley, who wanted to know how the FOGCrypt.exe file that comes with FOG fit into the Microsoft Active Directory features of FOG.

Here is a description of what Fog is from their website:

Fog is a Linux-based, free and open source computer imaging solution for Windows XP and Vista that ties together a few open-source tools with a php-based web interface. Fog doesn't use any boot disks, or CDs; everything is done via TFTP and PXE. Also with fog many drivers are built into the kernel, so you don't really need to worry about drivers (unless there isn't a linux kernel module for it). Fog also supports putting an image that came from a computer with a 80GB partition onto a machine with a 40GB hard drive as long as the data is less than 40GB.
Fog also includes a graphical Windows service that is used to change the hostname of the PC, restart the computer if a task is created for it, and auto import hosts into the FOG database. The service also installs printers, and does simple snap-ins.

Here is a graphic overview of how it all works from their page as well:

I've been using Fog as an alternative enterprise solution to Symantec Ghostcast, and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) for about four years now at several companies. It works really well.

Also in the video, Matt Bradley mention my article on how to sysprep Windows 7 easily, you can find that article here: (How to Sysprep Windows 7)

If you have any questions about FOG, setup problems, etc. Hit me up in the comments!

Ep 12 - 10 New Years Resolutions

info@techchop.com — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 08:00:00 +0000

Sponsor: MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup http://mozy.com/pro

In this episode, Paul joins us from his car on his commute to work because his family is in town, and he didn't have time to set up the green screen! Paul gives us his 10 new years resolutions which includes both regular ones, and of course IT related ones.

Paul would like to note that the original cut of this video was almost 30 minutes long, but since people's Internet attention spans aren't that long, we trimmed it down to just over 8 minutes. For posterity, here is the list of Paul's resolutions:

Start working out again on his Total Gym
Implement cable management in his server room
Get his MCITP EA certification
Do more Epic Meal Time cooking
Maybe take up free running
Maybe switch from Ubuntu to some other distro
Learn IPv6
Update the documentation for his network
Read more novels
Train up his desktop tech Frank so he can be on call, and Paul can finally have a day off.

We want to know what your New Years resolutions are. Geeky or not, let us know what you want to change in the comments!

del.icio.us tags: tech chop, new year, new years, resolutions, geeky, IT, technology, linux, software, computers

Ep11 - Eaton 5PX 1500 RT Review

info@techchop.com — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Sponsor: MozyPro Online Backup: Simple, Automatic & Secure Backup http://mozy.com/pro

In this episode, the folks at Eaton sent me a 5PX 1500RT UPS to review. The 5PX has a really cool LCD interface, and can be administered from a browser. Not to mention it was really easy to set up after getting it racked in my stupid telco rack.

I did have some issues initially with the management card, but Eaton’s tech support team got things straightened out quickly. In fact, it was probably one of the best tech support experiences I’ve had in a long time. Once I received my replacement card I assigned the 5PX a static IP address on my network, configured an SNMP password on it and added it to my Zenoss monitoring server.

If you are plugging Windows machines directly into it, there is the Intelligent Power Software Suite that comes with it that gives you some better alerting functionality. Since I was plugging XenServers into it though, I didn't get a chance to play with the software too much.

Over all I really like this UPS unit. It's easy to set up, and easy to manage. Plus it's great because you can either rack it, or stand it up as a tower. I also like how easy the web interface is to navigate. Plus you can easily set up daily emails of the system logs, and run battery load tests on it. It's a great UPS for any small to medium sized business I would say.

Got any questions about this episode? About the Eaton 5PX? Let me know in the comments!

del.icio.us tags: eaton, 5px, 1500, rt, review, unboxing, ups, tech chop

Disclosure Notice: Eaton provided Tech Chop with a free review unit as compensation for this post.

Ep10 - Set Top Box Reviews

info@techchop.com — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Paul reviews the Mvix Ultio Pro MX 880HD, The Apple TV, The WD TV Live Plus, and The Boxee Box just in time for your holiday shopping research! Below are links to where yo can find these devices online. All of them except the Mvix Ultio Pro are links to Amazon, and that is because Amazon no longer carries the MX 880HD… Probably because it is such a piece of junk!

Do you have one of these set top boxes? Do you have a different one like the Roku? What’s your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

del.icio.us Tags: set top box,review,mvix,western digital,dlink,apple,tv,wd live plus,ultio pro,boxee box,mx 880hd

Ep9 - Spoofing Email For Dummies

info@techchop.com — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 07:00:00 +0000

In this episode Paul shows us three ways someone can send a spoof email either as a prank, or for something a little more evil. He showcases an iPhone and an Android app as well as shows how to spoof email in Linux.

The apps used:

iPhone: Fake Email

Android: Email Address Faker

Linux: Postfix and mailutils

The command used to send a spoofed email from the terminal in Linux is:

mail -s “your subject” --append=FROM:fakeemailaddress to-emailaddress < mail.txt

As mentioned in the video, mail.txt is a simple text file where you would write out the body of the email being sent. Simple right?

If you decide to try this out, make sure you are only doing it as a fun prank. Don't really try to do this to get out of a meeting, or for anything else illegal. Harmless fun is fine, but i can't be responsible if you do something stupid, and get yourself into trouble.

If you do pull this prank on someone, let us know how it goes in the comments!

del.icio.us tags: how to, send, fake, spoof, email, android, iphone, linux

Ep8 - How To Hack Windows Remote Desktop

info@techchop.com — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 07:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Paul shows us how to hack Windows over the network by performing a dictionary attack on Remote Desktop (RDP) using a relatively new tool called ncrack.

In order to perform the network scan using nmap. I first did a scan of the network looking for live hosts creating a text file of IP addresses by running the following:

nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24 | grep -Eo '([0-9]{1,3}.){3}[0-9]{1,3}' 192.168.1.0.txt

After that I piped my text file back into nmap to look for open ports on those hosts:

nmap -F -iL 192.168.56.0.txt

This outputs all of the open ports on our live hosts. Once we have that, we can look for a host listening on port 3389 which is the port RDP operates on. Once we have that we can use ncrack to perform our dictionary attack. Before we go further, if you want to install ncrack on Ubuntu do the following:

sudo apt-get install build-essential checkinstall libssl-dev libssh-dev
wget http://nmap.org/ncrack/dist/ncrack-0.4ALPHA.tar.gz
mkdir /usr/local/share/ncrack
tar -xzf ncrack-0.4ALPHA.tar.gz
cd ncrack-0.4ALPHA
./configure
make
make install

Even easier is by simply downloading the ncrack deb file I precompiled for you here: (ncrack deb download)

Just run the following from the terminal to install it:

wget http://ftp.bauer-power.net/misc/ncrack/ncrack_0.4ALPHA-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i ncrack_0.4ALPHA-1_i386.deb

Once ncrack is installed you can run the following to perform your dictionary attack. Keep in mind that my.usr and my.pwd are text files containing your list of user names and password dictionary respectively. Also 192.168.1.10 is just an example, in real life replace that with whatever host you found listening on 3389 in the previous steps.

ncrack -vv -U my.usr -P my.pwd 192.168.1.10:3389,CL

Simple right? Want to see more shows like this? Got any questions about this show? Let me know in the comments.

Ep7 - Open Source Solutions For Building Your Own SAN

info@techchop.com — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 07:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Paul gives us three free and open source options for building your own iSCSI SAN storage on the cheap! Links to the software discussed are:

FreeNAS

Openfiler

IET

Paul's instructions for building the Ubuntu SAN can be found here: http://san.bauer-power.net

This episode was brought to you by: TotalTechResource.com

del.icio.us tags: how to, roll, build, your, own, iscsi, san, openfiler, freenas, iet, ubuntu, linux, unix, free, zfs

Ep6 - Sidejacking Facebook and Twitter For Dummies

info@techchop.com — Mon, 02 May 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Paul talks about a serious threat called Session Hijacking, or Sidejacking using a plugin for Firefox called Firesheep. He also talks about how to protect yourself from attack by using SSL. If you want to go one step further, you can identify if someone on the network is trying to use Firesheep, and you can track them down via IP using a tool called Blacksheep.

Download links below:

Firesheep

Blacksheep

This episode was brought to you by: TotalTechResource.com

Ep5 - What is Linux?

info@techchop.com — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 01:18:00 +0000

Paul got an email from a viewer that actually didn't know what Linux was, and wanted to know a little more. Here are links to the distros mentioned in this episode:

Redhat - http://redhat.com

CentOS - http://centos.org

Ubuntu - http://ubuntu.com

Debian - http://debian.org

This episode was brought to you by: http://mytwinbees.com/techchop

Ep4 - When A Sledge Hammer Meets a Dlink Router

info@techchop.com — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 07:00:00 +0000

In this episode Paul reviews the Dlink DIR-615 802.11N router. After telling us how he really feels, Paul experiments on the router by seeing how well it stands up to an 8lb sledge hammer! Epic Pwnage!

Ep3 - Silly PC Users! Antivirus is Free!

info@techchop.com — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 07:00:00 +0000

Many home PC users let their antivirus programs expire, and they stop getting updates. When they stop getting updates, they stop being effective. In this episode, Paul tells us about five of his favorite FREE antivirus programs!

Ep2 - How To Securely Wipe A Hard Drive Using Linux

info@techchop.com — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:00:00 +0000

In this episode Paul shows you how to securely wipe a hard drive so you can sell it on eBay without worrying about someone finding out about your freaky foot fetish! To wipe the hard drive, Paul uses a utility on Bauer-Puntu Linux called Shred!

Ep1 - What is Hardware Virtualization?

info@techchop.com — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 07:00:00 +0000

In this first episode of Tech Chop, Paul answers a viewer's question about what virtualization is, what software companies offer virtualization and why someone would want to use virtualization.

The software mentioned in the video can be found at the links below:

VMWare Workstation
Microsoft Virtual PC
VirtualBox
OpenVZ
KVM
VMWare Fusion
Parallels
VMWare ESX/ESXi
Microsoft Hyper-V
Xen

Technorati Tags: virtualization,vmware,xen,hyper-v,hypervisor,what is,virtualbox,kvm,parallels,openvz,esx,esxi

Introducing TechChop!

info@techchop.com — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:54:00 +0000

Come back August 2nd for episode 1 of TechChop! TechChop is your new source for hacking, how-to's, software tips, reviews and other techy goodness!

Support Tech Chop

info@techchop.com — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:00:00 +0000

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