Trapped in Bureaucracy

Again, Dilbert speaks the truth...


Sometimes it's best to simply use some freely available resource (like Nagios 2 vs. OpenView) than bother trying to purchase something. By the time it gets bought, if it gets bought, it's already old or the need for it is gone...

GSMK CryptoPhone - source code available and AES256 encryption on a mobile phone

The GSMK CryptoPhone G10i is a lightweight quad-band GSM mobile phone that comes with full source code available for independent review.

• Secures your voice's privacy
• Strongest and most secure algorithms available today
• AES256 and Twofish
• 4096 bit Diffie-Hellman key exchange with SHA256 hash function
• Readout-hash based key authentication
• 256 bit effective key length
• Encryption key is destroyed as soon as the call ends
• Source code available online for independent security assessments
• Also supports unencrypted calls, unencrypted SMS, address book, calendar etc.
• Works with any GSM 850/900/1800/1900 network that supports circuit-switched data calls
• Standby: up to 150 hours
• Talk time: Secure up to 5 hours

Download the complete GSMK CryptoPhone source code in order to perform an independent security assessment

The phone is pretty expensive (around 2000$) and will NOT be sold off the shelf to prevent tampering. Due to the cryptographic algorithms, it may also not be available in some countries.

Security Through Obscurity

The Day The Routers Died

The Day The Routers Died - a song performed by the secret-wg in the closing plenary of the RIPE 55 conference


A long long time ago
I can still remember
When my laptop could connect elsewhere

And i tell you all there was a day
The network card i threw away
Had a purpose - and worked for you and me....

But 18 years completely wasted
with each address we've aggregated
the tables overflowing
the traffic just stopped flowing....

And now we're bearing all the scars
and all my traceroutes showing stars...
the packets would travel faster in cars...
the day....the routers died


Chorus (ALL!!!!!)

So bye bye, folks at RIPE 55
Be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die
IPv6 just makes me let out a sigh
But I spose we'd better give it a try
I suppose we'd better give it a try

Now did you write an RFC
That dictated how we all should be
Did we listen like we should that day

Now were you back at RIPE fifty-four
Where we heard the same things months before
And the people knew they'd have to change their ways....

And we - knew that all the ISPs
Could be - future proof for centuries

But that was then not now
Spent too much time playing WoW

ooh there was time we sat on IRC
Making jokes on how this day would be
Now there's no more use for TCP
The day the routers died...

Chorus (chime in now)

So bye bye, folks at RIPE 55
Be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die
IPv6 just makes me let out a sigh
But I spose we'd better give it a try
I suppose we'd better give it a try

I remember those old days I mourn
Sitting in my room, downloading porn
Yeah that's how it used to be....

When the packets flowed from A to B
via routers that could talk IP
There was data..that could be exchanged between you and me....

Oh but - I could see you all ignore
The fact - we'd fill up IPv4

But we all lost the nerve
And we got what we deserved!

And while...we threw our network kit away
And wished we'd heard the things they say
Put all our lives in disarray

The day...the routers died...

Chorus (those silent will be shot)

So bye bye, folks at RIPE 55
Be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die
IPv6 just makes me let out a sigh
But I spose we'd better give it a try
I suppose we'd better give it a try


Saw a man with whom I used to peer
Asked him to rescue my career
He just sighed and turned away..

I went down to the net cafe
that I used to visit everyday
But the man there said I might as well just leave...

And now we've all lost our purpose..
my cisco shares completely worthless...

No future meetings for me
At the Hotel Krasnapolsky

and the men that make us push and push
Like Geoff Huston and Randy Bush
Should've listened to what they told us....
The day...the routers....died

Chorus (time to lose your voice)

So bye bye, folks at RIPE 55
Be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die
IPv6 just makes me let out a sigh
But I spose we'd better give it a try
I suppose we'd better give it a try


Words and performance by Gary Feldman

BOFH Excuse #314159: ""Connection reset by beer: Network administrator spilled drink on router".

CoolStack 1.2 is out: Optimized Open Source Software Stack for Solaris

Cool Stack is a collection of optimized applications like Apache, PHP, MySQL and so on that work seamlessly out of the box. The new 1.2 version also includes lighttpd, and it is SMF integrated.

Coolstack Content:

• CSKamp. This package is now comprised of 3 packages: CSKapache2, CSKphp5 and CSKmysql32 for a more flexible installation. The 3 components are pre-configured to work together. The MySQL included in this package is a 32-bit version with client-side support to work with PHP. For the database server, we recommend the CSKmysql package which is a 64-bit version, allowing the use of larger caches to deliver improved performance for large databases. However, on smaller systems you can use the 32-bit MySQL in this (CSKamp) package for the database server.
• CSKruntime. New! This package containes core libraries used by many of the other packages and should be installed first.
• CSKmysql. This package includes a 64bit version of MySQL5 and is built with innodb. See the README file in the mysql install directory for details.
• CSKperl. This package includes Perl 5. In addition to being better optimized, CSKperl includes several perl extensions used by popular applications.
• CSKphplibsbundle This package consists of libraries required by various PHP extensions and is made up of 3 packages: CSKtds, CSKncurses, CSKphplibs
• CSKmemcached. This package includes memcached, a distributed object cache system.
• CSKruby. This package includes ruby, rubygems and rails.
• CSKsquid. This package includes Squid Web Proxy Cache.
• CSKtomcat. This package includes Apache Tomcat which is a pure Java application. It is provided for convenience as it is no different from the one on tomcat.apache.org.
• CSKlighttpd. New! This package includes lighttpd, the increasingly popular, light-weight http server.

This new version of CoolStack is SMF integrated, and works with SMF out of the box. You now longer need to edit SMF manifests by hand.

Master bootable OpenBSD 4.2 install media

Although referenced in the documentation:

cdrom42.fs The i386 boot and installation 2.88MB
floppy image that contains almost all OpenBSD
drivers; see below.

the cdrom42.fs image is no longer included in OpenBSD. If you want to make your own custom OpenBSD cd without having to manipulate the 200MB iso, you can simply use the older cdrom41.fs:

See http://unixsadm.blogspot.com/2007/08/master-openbsd-iso-image.html for details, but use the 4.2 install sets.

mkisofs -vrTJ -V "OpenBSD42" -b 4.1/i386/cdrom41.fs -c boot.catalog -o OpenBSD.iso ~/OpenBSD

Yep, you can use cdrom41.fs and it will just work.

Using Vista diskpart - Dynamic disk and volume management tool to shrink volumes

Dynamic disk and volume management has been provided to Microsoft by VERITAS Software Corporation. That means it supports some advanced volume management techniques.

People often need to shrink a volume, just so they can install that new release of Solaris or OpenBSD. But to do that, they need some free unallocated disk space they can create a primary partition from (in case of Solaris and BSD, which need to be installed on primary partitions).

With older versions of Windows people would use GNU Parted (QtParted, gParted front-ends), Partition Magic or FIPS. Now you can just use diskpart to safely resize NTFSv5.

Let's assume we want to shrink a volume by 80GB. Just open a command prompt and type:

diskpart
list volume
select volume NUMBER
shrink desired 81920
list volume
exit

You can, of course, just use the graphical interface available as a mmc snap-in (start - run - diskmgmt.msc).



Now you can use the available disk space to create a primary partition for your new operating system, and dual-boot it :-).

Ext2 Filesystem for Linux and Solaris

Right now most people are using FAT32 on their external storage media (usually USB memory sticks or external hard drives and such) due to compatibility reasons. FAT32 can be used on anything from Windows and Linux to Solaris and BSD. Problem is, FAT32 has some severe limitations (like the 4GB file size limit). An alternative would be to use ext2.

The ext2 or second extended file system is a file system for the Linux kernel designed as a replacement for the extended file system (ext). Its successor, ext3, provides journaling and is almost completely backward compatible with ext2 (as in, you can mount ext3 as ext2, dropping journaling capabilities). It is implemented via ext2fs in the Linux kernel.

Other implementations:

• FreeBSD: mount_ext2fs(8) -- mount an ext2fs file system
  
• NetBSD: mount_ext2fs(8) - Mount an EXT2FS file system and fsck_ext2fs(8) - EXT2 File System consistency check and interactive repair
  
• OpenBSD: mount_ext2fs(8) - mount an ext2fs file system and fsck_ext2fs(8) - Second Extended File System consistency check and interactive repair
• MacOS X / Darwin: ext2 driver for Mac OS X
  
• Solaris and OpenSolaris: Install FSWpart FSWfsmisc from
  Miscellaneous filesystem support for OpenSolaris on x86 and use "mount -F ext2fs". You can also use the older ext2fs driver for Solaris 7-10.
  
• Windows: Ext2 IFS - Installable File System For Windows. Works on NT4.0/2000/XP/2003 that provides read / write access and integrates as well as a native FAT32 or NTFS filesystem. This will also work in Vista if you install under "XP SP2" compatibility mode.
  
• Windows Vista: Ext2Fsd is an open source linux ext2/ext3 file system driver for Windows systems (NT/2K/XP/VISTA, X86/AMD64).
  

If you practice dual boot (or multi boot) often or use external hard drives for backup or mass storage purposes, consider using the ext2 filesystem for compatibility reasons.

OpenSolaris - Project Indiana LiveCD available for download

OpenSolaris Project Indiana has released an installable LiveCD. It is available for download at:

http://dlc.sun.com/osol/indiana/downloads/current/in-preview.iso

Features included in the release:

• The Caiman installer which is a project to rework the Solaris installer for current and future requirements
• ZFS (boot) as the default filesystem
  
• Gnome 2.20
• Image packaging system (IPS), with capabilities to pull packages from network repositories
• Integrated GNU tools (in $PATH, default shell is bash, etc).
• Live Media, to support running Solaris directly from non-disk media such as DVD or flash memory. You can install from the Live Media.
  

OpenBSD 4.2 Release, ISO image with install sets available

The OpenBSD project has released OpenBSD 4.2 adding new and improved platform support (hppa, sparc64, alpha), performance enhancements and new security features and is available for download on the FTP mirrors. A detailed log of changes is available here.

The OpenBSD 4.2 release song, entitled "100001 1010101" has also been available for some time now.

As of OpenBSD 4.2 you can now download a ISO image containing the install sets. The install42.iso image (md5 03dc43a1d18d3003843a1f13b3861917) can now be downloaded and simply burned to a CD. You can get the image here:
ftp://ftp.su.se/pub/OpenBSD/4.2/i386/install42.iso or on any other FTP mirror.