Andy’s Thoughts

In the this is way overkill for a small home network I have been messing around with using a unused computer as a router-firewall-proxy.  Today the final piece of the puzzle came into place.

I currently get internet from Qwest DSL, unfortunately because I am out on the edge of town and am not a priority it is only a 1.5 Mb line.  It works but is not as speedy as I would like.  For my configuration I have a 2wire dsl modem set in bridge mode.  On my side of the DSL modem I have set up a HP/Compaq ProLiant DL360 that I got free from a fellow LUGer.  It is running a copy of Karmic Ubuntu server edition. I configured it to connect to the DSL using PPPoE using ppoeconf.  Finally on the lan side of the network NAT is provided by shorewall.  I also configured the server to provide DHCP service and transparent proxying via Squid.

The final part of the local network came today via UPS, a D-Link DGS-2208 gigabit switch.  So far, the move to gigabit Ethernet has been nice between my file server and desktop.  To round out the network, G wireless is being provided by a WRT54G router with its routing features shut down.

All total it has been a nice little exercise in server configuration and network management.  The next project will be configuration of an openvpn tunnel for remote system access.  But that is a project for another day.

If you haven’t been living under a rock the past week you have surely heard of the Chinese hacking of Google and several other firms via a browser hole in Internet Explorer.

The bug reported in MS Security Advisory 979352 will be patched tomorrow in a rare out-of-band patch that does not follow Microsoft’s standard patch Tuesday schedule of once a month. The flaw supposedly only affects ie 6 on up, however IE 6 is the only browser that has a known exploit.  More information is available in the advisory.  There also will be a webanar tomorrow where Microsoft will announce further information.  If you run Windows be sure to run windows update tomorrow and apply this critical patch and upgrade to the newest version of Internet Explorer

It also may be a wise idea to follow the advice of Germany, and France and leave IE entirely.  I recommend looking into one of several alternatives including:

• Firefox
• Chrome
• Safari

I got this from a friend today and figured that I would pass it on…

If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, “Who’s on First?” might have turned out something like this:

Costello Calls to Buy a Computer

Here is the view from the 2009 Iowa State University vs North Dekota State University Game… as you can see we were a long ways up!

More photos can be found on my Flickr Stream.

I know that everywhere is pushing the whole Michal Jackson’s dead thing but I saw this great post on facebook and just had to link to it…
Michael Jackson vs Super Mario Bros. Levels…

What ever you thought of the guy while he was alive, you have to admit this was a funny video!

At work the other day, one of my coworkers pointed out a new os that had just came down the pipeline, Nexenta. It is a Open Solaris system with an Ubuntu user land.

What does this mean?  Basically you get the best of both worlds, ZFS and Solaris Zones (basically a kick ass version of bsd jails) and all the great user programs that come with Ubuntu.  So in other words it is unix with the GNU tools on top.

I tried to install it on a junker computer from the Iowa State University Surplus Sale, however, it apparently requires over 256 mb of ram so it failed on the install.  I guess I will just have to use a virtual machine to play with it… but this just means that I wont be able to put it into production, oh well!

Personally I am a Mootools and YUI sort of guy.  I find that they each have benefits and can complement each other nicely (YUI works good for one thing while Moo works for another).  One of the Mootools developers has posted a relatively impartial review of the differences and similarities between Mootools and Jquery.   It is located at http://jqueryvsmootools.com/ (really creative URL I know).  While I know that this is some what of a Vi vs Emacs sort of debate, the I am always on the hunt for good Java Script toolkits as they make my job of web development easier.

Towel Day is an annual celebration on the 25th of May, as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams.  If it doesn’t make any sense, that’s ok you can find out more at this site.

Just remember “DON’T PANIC”

Today I am working from my folk’s house in Algona, and using my laptop to connect to the internet through their super slow internet from AMU (using Amberwave).

There is two problems with this: 1.) my folks are on the lowest package, a mind numbing 128k up 2.) Amberwave restricts connections based on MAC address (for those of you who don’t know it is the built in unique identifier to your network card)

Through the power of linux I found the solution to at least some of the problems…

1.) Changing your MAC address

I looked up the MAC address on the home computer via the command line (a windows 2000 computer) with the command ipconfig /all

Then entered the following command into my laptop (linux)

sudo ifdown eth0
sudo ifconfig eth0 hw ether [mac address goes here]
sudo ifup eth0

This made my laptop say that I was the same address as the desktop and all was good.

2.) For the slowness

There is not much I could do about that, however I was able to eek out just a little more speed by using SSH as a Socks proxy with the command:

ssh -CTnN -D 8080 upeke.net

Spring break was a couple of weeks ago, and I am just now getting arround to posting my pictures and talking about it!  I spent spring break in Ames working (lame I know…) but there were a few high points of the week.  One was where we were eating at Carlos O’Kelly’s with some of Jess’ coworkers, while we were there a Lamborghini parked out in the parking lot.  Of course, every guy in the place had to go out and take a look.

The other fun thing from spring break was a quick hike Jess and I took at Ledges State park.  Unfortunately the stepping stones were out of place so we could not cross the creak.  My goretex boots did get me about half way before the water was too deep.