Category Archives: Computers & Networking

Computers, System Administration, Networking.. all that good stuff.

by srhuston

Overzealous Much?

To go along with my password article, here’s one showing the bad side of passwords.  This is a copy of the “password rules” for Intel’s website, which I use for getting access to their licensed compilers.  Before 1Password, the rules here were so draconian that I took to writing the password down on a piece of paper (yes, a sysadmin doing exactly what he tells people not to do!)  There was no way I could follow their rules and remember a password when I only use it maybe twice a year; especially since they require it be changed every couple months, so every time I’d use it I’d have to change it!  This proves that a password policy can be too “secure” – so much so that it drives security all the way back to the point where you might as well not ask for a password at all, since they no longer hold any meaning (or real security).

Password Rules:

  • The password must be at least eight characters long, and can contain letters, numbers, and punctuation.
  • It must not exceed fourteen (14) characters.
  • It must contain at least one alpha character [a-z; A-Z], one numeric [0-9] and one special character [`! @$%^&*()-_=+[];:'”,<.>/?].
  • It cannot contain spaces.
  • The password cannot be the same as any of your previous eight (8) passwords.
  • It cannot contain your login id.
  • It may not contain any of the following special characters: Asterisk (*) Comma (,) Backslash ( /) Forward Slash (\).

It must not:

  • Be a name (your own, family members, pets, or famous people)
  • Be your social security number, driver’s license number, passport number or some other identification number.
  • Be repeating numbers, letters or characters (111111, aaaaaa, !!!!!!)
  • Be a number or character combinations that are next to each other on the keyboard (123456, asdfgh)
  • Be a dictionary word of any language
  • Begin with an exclamation point (!) or question mark (?)
  • Contain your IDSID or WWID
  • Have the same first three characters.
by srhuston

Password Extravaganza

For some time now, I’ve been thinking that I needed to start changing passwords. Though I’m a sysadmin by trade, and therefore security is a very important aspect of everything I do, I too had fallen into a rut of using too few passwords and too little security for things. Not that I would use one password for everything, but I had about five or six passwords, with a few variations, that I would use everywhere. The passwords were ranked in order of security, so one was used for very high security things, another for less secure things, all the way down to an almost throw-away password for sites where I didn’t really care. But having the iPhone I figured I should be able to find something that would help me keep track of more than just a few passwords. A few applications came into view, but one seemed to have the best features for me: 1Password.
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by srhuston

Dear Verizon, Plz Don’t Suck Too

As I sit here watching my network connection go up and down, like it did a few days ago, I’m reminded of a problem I have with Verizon any time I have problems with my DSL (which I’ll happily admit is very infrequently, so kudos for that).  And that is, there is nowhere.. NOWHERE.. that I can go on their website to file a problem report.  No, call their 888 number, it’s “faster”!  Yeah, except when I don’t have time to call and wait on hold for a half hour for the next available representative.  I know they’ve got a trouble ticketing system in there somewhere, because once you’ve called and reported a problem you can track its status online.  But a company that deals heavily in Internet products having no way on the Internet to report problems?  Don’t suck.

I’ve had this conversation with people there every time I’ve had a problem with their service (since the first time I ever did when I asked, “Where do I go to file a ticket online, I couldn’t find it?”) and every time I’ve been told they’ll forward my request “up the chain” to someone else.  So I can only guess that there’s someone there who thinks end-users are either too stupid or otherwise undeserving of the ability to type in what their problem is and click submit.  At least calling the business DSL office, when you can get in touch with someone, usually doesn’t result in a comment about rebooting Windows…

by srhuston

When Did “Good Woman” Become “Bad Man”?

That’s the punchline to a George Carlin joke.  One particular word, a compound word really, which each part is fine on its own.  Why was I more tempted to put that in the title?  Because that’s what I thought when I found that this, and at least two other sites I run in one way or another, got compromised by a WordPress exploit some time ago.  Of course I didn’t even notice it at first, wasn’t until I wanted to change the theme on one of the sites.  Now I apparently have to change the theme on all of them, because those themes don’t exist anymore anyway.  Lovely.

I think I need a drink 😛

by srhuston

Linux + PS3: Emulation Paradise

Having seen a lot of people recently talk about running emulators on their PlayStation 3s under Linux, I thought I’d give it a try.  Quite frankly, I’m not sure how so many people can be happy with how their setups work when I see their list of things that aren’t working properly.  From wireless controllers which don’t work without a wire to full screen displays that aren’t full screen, most of the pages I found talked about all the little bits that weren’t working, while also mentioning all the things that worked great.  So for some unknown reason, I decided to try it myself; at the very least, I thought I could probably live with some of the caveats, and at most I might get everything working perfectly.  Well, I’m quite happy with the result, so I figured it would be good to share my experience and what worked.  Not so much that anyone reading this through normal means of reading my website would find it interesting, but Google Knows All.
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by srhuston

ICQ Number Stolen?

22:17:43 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Error: Disconnected.
22:17:43 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Signing off..

Seemed harmless enough.  My ICQ connection disappears sometimes, so on February 2nd I didn’t worry about it when this happened.  Hell, I probaby didn’t even notice.  However, that’s when the fun ended I guess:

22:17:43 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Reconnecting in 5 seconds..
22:17:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:17:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:17:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:17:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 15 seconds..
22:18:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:18:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:18:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:18:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 45 seconds..
22:18:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:18:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:18:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:18:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 135 seconds..
22:21:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:21:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:21:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:21:03 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 405 seconds..
22:27:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signon: 2109563
22:27:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Couldn't log in: Incorrect nickname or password.
22:27:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Signing off..
22:27:48 <@root> oscar(2109563) - Logging in: Reconnecting in 900 seconds..

Never did reconnect.  Now, since my password wasn’t changed by me, I’m pretty sure that all the various IM programs I have which have the password stored will have it stored correctly.  My first thought when I saw all of this – the next day, mind you – was that there was some global ICQ problem.  It’s happened before.  That, or maybe ICQ was actively blocking the program that I use – bitlbee – from connecting to the network.  But it wasn’t long before I found out that everything was basically fine, except for my account.  Tried telling their website that I wanted a new password, only every email address I throw at the site comes back with a “We can’t email a password to that address” error.  Which really makes it sound like I was banned or something, but who knows?  Their tech support requires you to login before posting a question (cute, really) and it looks like nobody answers questions there anyway.  There’s no published information for actually getting in touch with a real person somewhere either.  So it looks like, while my UIN exists, and for all intents and purposes is still me (shit, my *photo* is still on there too…) I don’t have an ICQ number anymore.  Which annoys me mostly because of the fact that I created that account over a decade ago.  And since all the information about that “person” is still looking like it’s me.

So if you happen to know someone at ICQ, or are someone there, drop me a line – I’d love to have my account back, or at least know why all the methods provided for me to get it back aren’t working.

by srhuston

Idle Hands

I’ve mentioned IRC here before a few times; well, the network that Leigh and I setup a few years ago is growing ever so slightly. I installed a different services package, and we just changed server programs as well (to Charybdis since Hybrid seemed to be going nowhere and this has some nice features). We’ve also picked up another link, making three servers in the network. Why bother, you might ask?

Initially the “network” was just the two of us, and only because I’d been playing with IRC servers for a long time and thought it would be fun to link to the one Leigh already had setup. After running it for a while, we realized having more than one server was handy – if one of us had some kind of outage, we could congregate on the other server until it came back. We’ve never really “advertised” the servers, though I’ve posted about them here a few times, and picked up the occasional additional person now and then. But I’ve wanted to expand things for a while and make a bigger network – not necessarily thousands of users, but more than the handful of us who chat.

I checked out a couple websites that list IRC networks, and one of them had an interesting bit on their registration page: What does your network do that others don’t? What reason would users have to choose your network over some other one? Honestly, there wasn’t one. But reading through a lot of the posts on the site showed many people who don’t have a clue about how to run a networking service of any kind. They download the server code, compile it, run it, and think that’s the hard part – though sometimes getting the server configured can be quite difficult. So I thought, “What about a network that teaches people how to do this?” It seemed to be a good fit, after all – most of us are technically inclined and do similar things for our work, so we do know what we’re talking about. And too many people get the response of “STFU noob” if they ask questions which some might consider “newbie” questions about linking and networking. Of course they have to learn somewhere, why not here?

So that’s it. irc.srhuston.net (and the srhuston.net network) exist, at least in part, to teach people about networking and server administration. I’m sure there will be other channels and other things that go on there, but you’ve got to start somewhere and that seems as good a place as any. For now at least, this page will serve as the network’s “home page” as well; at some point in the future I may get fancier with DNS and have a separate page for irc.srhuston.net since I wouldn’t want to lose my homepage for it. But in the mean time, those who come here to learn about IRC might learn a bit about me, and those who know me might learn a bit about IRC. Seems like an even trade, no?

by srhuston

Phase II Begins!

You may remember discussion of Phase I from before (and if not you can click that link to see it).  Well, the time has come, 90% of the needed equipment is here (waiting on the bracket to mount a patch panel to the plywood), but there’s no reason I can’t start by making some holes in the walls.  So this evening that’s just what I did.  As of right now, the first wallbox is half done.  Still one more in the office to do after that, then there’s the living room and shack.  And that’ll be about 90% of the house wired for Ethernet :>  I’ll also want to replace the one phone line in the kitchen, and may want to eventually run one or two wallboxes to the kitchen/dining room, and I’ll definitely want one in each bedroom.  But the upstairs ones can wait longer, since they’ll be more difficult and there’s no real need for them yet, as can the kitchen/dining room.  So that initial 90% figure will be about 100% of the ones that I really want to have done anyway.

Pictures will follow when the job is complete (in fact, I haven’t taken any yet, but not much has happened so far except a hole in the wall and 3 CAT5e cables coming out of it).

by srhuston

Oh Well

Then I go and post nothing in May either.  Oh well, been busy lately.  Still haven’t had time to get the APRS antenna mounted, but now I’ve got a ladder sitting in the garage (on loan from my father) which I can use to get high enough on the house to mount it.  Think I’m just a 3/8″ hole saw away from finishing that project up, and having full use of the charcoal grill again without first having to turn off the APRS radio and move the magmount.  Speaking of the garage, I picked up some shelves on Friday evening and put them together in there, and got all the stuff that was littering the floor onto them.  Between that and some organization kits from there, all the yard tools are hung up nicely on the walls now, and I even made a spot for the lawn chairs so I’m not tripping over them either (nor are they falling over if I bump into them slightly).  Finally, for the first time in.. 5 years?.. I got all my tools organized and put away into the toolbox.  When we moved from Mays Landing to West Deptford, I never bothered to do it since they hadn’t moved around too much.  But when we moved to Ewing, they definitely got jostled and I just didn’t bother at all since I rarely used any of them.  Kinda hard to work on a car in a parking lot when your tools are on the second floor, and I didn’t have stuff around the house to fix either.  Now there’s a place for just about everything, and the shelves that were already in the garage are almost cleaned off.  Maybe tonight or one other night this week I’ll vacuum the junk off of them, and then I can start pulling them out to put down the second shelving unit we purchased as a workbench (instead of stacking the two halves on top of each other, they also suggest putting the units side by side as a workbench).  I’ll have to measure things out, the wood currently used as a top for the old shelves might make a good workbench top for the new ones so it’s sturdy and consistent across the two units.  After that, the pegboard on the back wall will probably come down, and either go back up with spacers or get replaced, as well as expanded.  Then a lot of the hand-type tools that are in the toolbox currently will go on there, and I’ll have more room without needing another toolbox yet.

The basement hasn’t had much done lately, though the oil tank is on end and ready to be cut up into pieces – both to get it up out of the basement and for easy disposal.  Quite a bit of stuff has collected down near the work bench though, and I really need to get down there soon and clean things up so there’s room to work again.  Stephanie wants me to make some benches to go in the dormers upstairs – one cedar lined, and one regular – and I’ve also got to fix up a couple of the dining room chairs.  Need to grab a couple large clamps for those, and though people have offered to loan them to me, I’ll want them around anyway, so I might as well buy them :>

Finally, in one of our last trips to Lowes, I realized that copper has come down in price considerably.  I think I paid around $79 for 250′ of 14/2 wire, and $119 for 12/2.  Now 14/2 was around $49, and 12/2 was $79.  A 10′ length of 1/2″ pipe was $10 and change, and the best part was a 1000′ spool of CAT5 cable for $80.  The last of that list came home with me, so once the NJ tax return comes through I’m going to pick up the patch panel, switch and the last of the stuff needed to do the home network and new phone wiring so I can get started on that.  Since the office (2 drops) and shack are the most “important” ones, followed by the living room, I can probably do all of that in one weekend, maybe even one day.  The two upstairs drops will likely be the hardest, but they’re also the least important, so whenever they eventually happen is good enough.  Probably not until we rip the rooms apart to insulate them.