| Home | My Account | Directories |
gen_initramfs_list.sh: Cannot open ‘/usr/share/v86d/initramfs’
Published on 2012-05-16 00:49:16
If you encounter this error while compiling a newer kernel: CC init/calibrate.o LD init/built-in.o HOSTCC usr/gen_init_cpio /usr/src/linux-3.2.12-gentoo/scripts/gen_initramfs_list.sh: Cannot open '/usr/share/v86d/initramfs' make[1]: *** [usr/initramfs_data.cpio] Error 1 make: *** [usr] Error 2 Emerge v86d: # emerge v86d Credit due: big my secret: Problem of make kernel about v86d initramfs > read more
The CoreNetworks.net Scam
Published on 2012-05-10 10:44:44
It has been 30 days since I first told you about CoreNetworks’ unfortunate bandwidth test file placement, which they have still not bothered to correct. Against my better judgement I decided to give them a second chance this morning when, upon configuring my order for 100mbit/s port (+$10) and 3300GB (+$55) add-on I was surprised > read more
Delete All Entries for a Given Criterion in ip_conntrack Table
Published on 2012-05-04 10:50:09
You may find yourself in a position where it is necessary to remove all the entries in Netfilter’s connection tracking table (ip_conntrack) for a particular criterion, like the source or destination IP. For example, I recently detected a user on one of my networks engaged in what was likely a TCP denial of service attack > read more
ip_conntrack: table full, dropping packet.
Published on 2012-05-03 10:41:03
Connections in to and out of your network are working sporadically. Your router’s dmesg is flooded with “ip_conntrack: table full, dropping packet.” What do you do? This condition occurs when the connection tracking table has reached its limit. Connection tracking is a function of Netfilter that stores information like the source and destination IP addresses, > read more
Parsing and Embedding Twitter Feeds in PHP
Published on 2012-04-22 21:36:16
Twitter feeds can be obtained in XML with this URL scheme: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/$username.xml?count=$count Where $username is the twitter user’s name and $count is how far back you want to go. If your environment allows url_fopen you can load the whole thing directly into an object with simplexml_load_file(). Portability is good and allow_url_fopen is arguably very dangerous. > read more
Find and Delete the Largest Files on a File System
Published on 2012-04-17 21:09:43
The fastest way to find large or run-away files on a whole filesystem or specific directory is to run: find / -type f -follow -print | xargs ls -l | sort -r -n -k 5,5 | head -20 Where / is the target and 20 is the number of results you would like to see > read more
Download: 32-bit PAE Xen Paravirtual DomU 3.2.12 Kernel
Published on 2012-04-17 18:28:02
This kernel is monolithic, ext2/ext3 compatible, xen paravirtualized and based off gentoo-sources-3.2.12. It should work with any 32-bit virtual machine running a recent version of udev, external or internal to the file system (pv/pygrub, initrd not reqired). Since this kernel uses the mainstream Xen support rather than Gentoo patches virtual partitions are now mapped to > read more
Portage Errors: fatal error: gcrypt.h: No such file or directory
Published on 2012-04-17 18:11:33
When installing a number of packages – such as wireshark – that require but do not include libgcrypt as a dependency: packet-ssl-utils.h:37:20: fatal error: gcrypt.h: No such file or directory compilation terminated. make[5]: *** [libdissectors_la-packet-dtls.lo] Error 1 make[5]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/net-analyzer/wireshark-1.6.6/work/wireshark-1.6.6/epan/dissectors' make[4]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[4]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/net-analyzer/wireshark [..] > read more
I Schooled CoreNetworks.net
Published on 2012-04-09 11:07:17
I was considering CoreNetworks.net after my crummy experience with iWeb last week because I had a dedicated with them once upon a time and their support team was really fast and courteous. I know someone personally who has been with them for three years and the reviews around the web generally concur that the support > read more
sys-devel/libtool-2*:1.5 is blocking sys-devel/libtool
Published on 2012-04-05 16:21:44
If you encounter libtool blocking itself in an update: [blocks B ] =sys-devel/libtool-2*:1.5 ("=sys-devel/libtool-2*:1.5" is blocking sys-devel/libtool-2.4-r1) Update libtool independently before proceeding: # emerge --update libtool > read more
Portage Errors: sys-apps/sysvinit is blocking sys-apps/util-linux
Published on 2012-04-05 16:03:39
If you encounter a block error for util-linux from sysvinit: [blocks B ] > read more
Nine Web and Server Hosting Providers I Hate
Published on 2012-04-04 21:51:59
I’ve had a lot more crummy experiences with web hosts, collocation and dedicated server providers than I have glowy, happy ones – as seems to be the case for most everyone in this industry subject to a budget. For your benefit (and my therapy) here are some of the crappier ones I have had the > read more
PayPal Here: PayPal to Release Card Reader and App for Androids, iPhones
Published on 2012-04-04 18:52:45
PayPal Here is an exciting new feature PayPal will be launching in Canada soon that promises to bring credit card processing (and, naturally, PayPal payments) to merchants who are under-serviced by traditional Point-of-Sale transaction processing. By giving anyone with a smartphone the ability to take plastic or PayPal it will soon be possible for very > read more
Easter Cooking Chez Karma: Sacrelasagna (Four Cheese Scalloped Potatoes with Peameal Bacon)
Published on 2012-04-04 15:33:59
This American-South-meets-Canada dish is delish and succeeds at offending all three major religions! Not only will we be cooking with pork it’s going to be virtually poached in dairy for bonus points. You will need: Potatoes, pealed (optional) and sliced thinly (not optional) Milk A bunch of different cheeses that are appropriate for cooking, I > read more
Always Test the RAM on a New Server!
Published on 2012-03-28 20:40:04
Don’t expect your provider to do it for you! I ran into paging errors on bootup with the monolithic 2.6.38 paravirtualized Xen kernel I published here and have been using without issue for over three months on a new dedicated server with a similar dom0 software configuration as the one it was compiled for. The > read more
“Anonymous” Threatening to “Shut Down Internet” March 31
Published on 2012-03-28 16:35:27
Apparently some among legion want to DRDoS the root name servers with the same sort of UDP-spoofing DNS amplification attack I have had personal experience defending against. I’m not going to get into how horribly misguided this is, how negatively this is going to affect the cause’s image or some long-winded speech on ethics. I > read more
Portage Errors: sys-devel/patch is blocking sys-libs/glibc
Published on 2012-03-23 20:44:56
If you run into this error while updating glibc: # emerge --update gcc glibc * IMPORTANT: 6 news items need reading for repository 'gentoo'. * Use eselect news to read news items. Calculating dependencies -[root@hd-t3672cl ~]# xm console dns2 ... done! [ebuild U ] dev-libs/mpfr-3.0.1_p4 [2.4.1_p5] [ebuild U ] sys-devel/gcc-config-1.5-r2 [1.4.1] [ebuild N ] virtual/os-headers-0 > read more
Testing Download Speed and Latency with AJAX
Published on 2012-03-21 22:46:54
I came across this script while looking for something that would let me quickly determine a user’s download speed. I’ve improved upon it by detecting latency (and HTTP header overhead) then subtracting it from the total time of the bulk download to yield more accurate results. You must supply a large file to download, the > read more
Fix Missing mbstring Functions in PHP on Gentoo
Published on 2012-03-16 17:26:12
If your web software complains about missing MultiByte String (mb_*) functions like so: Call to undefined function mb_internal_encoding() Add the USE flag ‘nls’ for versions 5.1 and under, ‘unicode’ for versions 5.1 and over then rebuild: # USE="unicode" emerge --newuse php --ask ... [ebuild R ] dev-lang/php-5.3.8 USE="unicode*" > read more
Raspberry Pi Update: Early Bird Gets the Lemon
Published on 2012-03-15 09:21:45
Feeling a little better about not being among the first to order now. From their blog: It’s inevitable, isn’t it – you’re freewheeling along perfectly happily and then you get a puncture.As you’ll have noticed, there’s been a bit of a delay in shipping the first batch of Raspberry Pis out to people. This is > read more
TypeError: Object # has no method ‘create’
Published on 2012-03-11 17:22:59
If you’re running web software that bridges with Flex you will need to update the FABridge.js file to avoid errors like the one above with modern browsers. Download your copy of the latest SDK from http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK and do a simple drop-in replacement from frameworks/javascript/fabridge/src/bridge > read more
Raspberry Pi Update
Published on 2012-03-09 11:13:36
The first run of Raspberry Pis sold out in a matter of seconds. Farnell and RS are now going through their long list of backorderers. I received this 3 days ago: Farnell/Newark/Element14/whatever the hell ever won’t begin shipping until June for we stragglers who were a couple hours late. The pre-order gives me a CAD > read more
Fixing Africa: Kony 2012 and The Rise of Oh-Dearism
Published on 2012-03-08 19:17:53
I’m among the thousands who have watched the recently distributed Kony 2012 film and like many of its viewers felt briefly compelled to help carry out its sole objective: dissemination. I would be a hypocrite to help propagandise; I’ve never really cared “enough” about the plight of Africans and to start pontificating now would be > read more
Raspberry Pi Launched, Still Won’t Be Out Forever
Published on 2012-03-01 14:08:21
I registered with both vendors supplying the new Raspberry Pi only hours after they announced the launch. While I still haven’t heard from Premier Farnell, RS has been running through the long list of other contenders today. I received this minutes after a friend in the UK: Dear Customer Thank you for joining the Raspberry > read more
Make Magnet Links Work in Firefox
Published on 2012-02-29 22:32:00
Since The Pirate Bay dropped torrent files and started only providing magnet links other day it became quickly annoying that Firefox wouldn’t open them or associate them with my torrent client, The error message one encounters is: Firefox doesn't know how to open this address, because the protocol (magnet) isn't associated with any program The > read more
Implementing One-Time Pads in JavaScript
Published on 2012-02-29 11:48:32
I have always been fond of the One-Time Pad. There are a lot of paranoid people who think admins have nothing better to do than sit around reading private messages all day and I thought it would be neat (even if never used) to implement client-side OTP encryption. Not having the time to do this > read more
Heart-Stopping Cheese Sauce in Under 5 Minutes
Published on 2012-02-29 11:14:37
Making cheese sauce is a delicate process but you should have no trouble producing a smooth, consistent result if you follow these steps. I don’t cook with measurements but the ratios are something like this: one part flour to one part butter, six parts milk and five+ parts cheese. It is important to have your > read more
Loading The List of Fan-fiction Kinks, Tropes, and Clichés Into a MySQL Table
Published on 2012-02-26 18:19:39
The List of Fan-fiction Kinks, Tropes, and Clichés is 388 items long and was posted by Anna S in 2006. It is the foundation for many kink/fetish lists used on the web. It may be more convenient for you to work with this list in a database, in which case create a file called fetishes.txt > read more
Replacing a Ceiling Light Fixture
Published on 2012-02-25 19:19:29
For obvious reasons I didn’t like the stock fixtures in my bedroom: Or my bathroom: Because crappy fixtures take all the swank out of X10 dimmers. We can see there was some buggery in here to get the bathroom fan running in series with the light (which I fixed the other day). The box is > read more
X10 Security: PS561 Console DS12A Magnetic and GB10A Glass Sensors
Published on 2012-02-24 16:13:13
The PS561 Voice Dialer Security Console integrates up to 16 security sensors with your X10 home automation system. When the alarm is tripped the console will dial up to four preprogrammed numbers and allow the party on the other end to listen in. This suffers, of course, from the fact that the mic is in > read more
Installing a Recessed Bathroom Tissue Holder
Published on 2012-02-24 14:40:42
The last goon who lived here ripped the surface-mount toilet paper roll holder out of the wall. These holes are easily cleaned and filled in with spackling paste. Cut any of the paper fluff from around the edges of the holes at an angle so that the hole is tapered inwards. Unfortunately, bigger holes require > read more
Running New Romex and Adding an Electrical Box to Re-Install a Bathroom Fan
Published on 2012-02-21 11:14:15
One of the bathroom fans in my new pad was installed by the same Joe Handyman that brought you electrical tape on a wall switch and the decorative phone jack. Not only is the fan wired in series with the light switch, the switch is screwed into the drywall and the neutral is running up > read more
Installing a WS12A X10 Decorator Style 3-Way Dimmer
Published on 2012-02-20 13:19:01
Ok so I lied in my first article on X10: I’m sticking with it. Insteon is unfortunately still out of my price range for a house I don’t own (I don’t want to have to rip everything out of the walls when I leave). X10, for that matter, is out of my price range – > read more
Fun With Vapour Part Seven: That’s a Wrap.
Published on 2012-02-17 17:00:26
I’ve been a non-smoker for three months now. I haven’t hit the e-cigarettes in as many weeks. I recently bought $60 worth of new flavours and syringes and dropper bottles because I expected vaping to replace smoking in my life but most of the first flavours I ordered remain unopened. Don’t get me wrong – > read more
Installing Cat5e 8P8C Wall Plate and RJ-11 Telephone Jack
Published on 2012-02-15 18:09:10
This is more of an anecdote than a tutorial since I threw it together with what was handy and wouldn’t endorse this kind of work on-site. I love moving. Broken back, head-to-toe agony and thousands of dollars vaporized aside – it gives me an opportunity to put new holes in walls and try to make > read more
Fix Mouse and Keyboard Stop Working after Update on Gentoo
Published on 2012-02-15 13:13:28
My mouse and keyboard seem to “disappear” the next time I boot into a freshly upgraded version of Xorg on Gentoo without fail. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-892706-view-previous.html?sid=0560bd180d44bc6b6eb27d8454e2f31f – eccerr0r: Xorg does an internal check that the OS doesn’t (dynamic linker). They probably did this because they tend to do minute API changes that aren’t ELF linkable (like saying > read more
kde-base/kopete-4.7.4 Fails Build on kopete_wp.so
Published on 2012-02-13 22:09:18
If you encounter this error while installing the latest version of kopete: Linking CXX shared module ../../../lib/kopete_wp.so [ 51%] Built target kopete_wp make: *** [all] Error 2 * ERROR: kde-base/kopete-4.7.4 failed (compile phase): * emake failed * * If you need support, post the output of 'emerge --info =kde-base/kopete-4.7.4', * the complete build log and > read more
Fix Unable to connect to xend: Connection refused. ExpatError: no element found
Published on 2012-01-23 19:32:28
The error message Unable to connect to xend: Connection refused. Is xend running? can be caused by a number of issues, but if your xend.log contains lines regarding syntax, such as: [2012-01-23 11:33:37 5670] INFO (SrvDaemon:227) Xend stopped due to signal 15. [2012-01-23 11:33:38 6427] INFO (SrvDaemon:332) Xend Daemon started [2012-01-23 11:33:38 6427] INFO (SrvDaemon:336) > read more
Gestapo Bootfuck Megaupload, Anonymous Quick on the Draw
Published on 2012-01-19 17:19:28
A little over a month since the release of the Megaupload Song New Zealand police have arrested co-founders Kim Dotcom and Mathias Ortmann along with two of their underlings today. Some irony at play in that yesterday was Wikipedia/Reddit/etc’s annoying-but-effective SOPA protest/blackout. Federal prosecutors have accused it of costing copyright holders more than $500m (£320m) > read more
The Telus LG Optimus One (P500h): Not The Worst Thing Ever
Published on 2012-01-18 16:45:51
About a year ago I shared my nightmarish adventure on the Keybo2 with you. It’s finally dying and I’ll be moving soon so I decided it was high time for a new phone. In my time with the Keybo, Telus and Virgin began offering actual smartphones on their prepaid plans. Unfortunately, Telus is the only > read more
Everything I Wanted to Tell You About X10 Home Automation
Published on 2012-01-04 21:00:10
…But Didn’t Have the Time to Say I had been meaning to chronicle my tinkering with Home Automation in the same way I have been documenting my ongoing experience with Electronic Cigarettes. Unfortunately, I never found the time to post as I made my installations and I will be moving soon, leaving most of them > read more
GoDaddy’s Latest Scumbag Move Backfires, Damage Control Failing
Published on 2011-12-25 11:47:21
GoDaddy is no stranger to the ire of Internet liberty advocates but the last few days have seen what could be the registrar giant’s biggest PR blunder yet. Although GoDaddy has been involved with new American anti-piracy legislation Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA) since nearly its inception the media started buzzing when the U.S. > read more
Horrible News in the Bradley Manning/Wikileaks Case
Published on 2011-12-19 22:22:38
New evidence emerged hours ago that implies a personal link between Bradley Manning, suspected of leaking the war logs – among other classified military information – to whistleblower organization WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, the embattled spokesman thereof. This poses a problem for WikiLeaks; if it can be proven Assange or an associate intentionally helped Manning > read more
ClearOS: Can Not Ping Internal or External Gateway IPs from Open DMZ Host
Published on 2011-06-21 12:00:23
You may find yourself unable to ping the local and remote IPs of the ClearOS router from a host configured with a public IP address participating on a DMZ subnet. I haven’t had time to find out why but it is possible to address this by explicit > read more
Portage Errors: dev-libs/libaio final link failed: Nonrepresentable section on output
Published on 2011-06-09 07:55:53
You may encounter output similar to this when compiling libaio (a dependency of multipath-tools) if you have enabled Stack Smashing Protection in your CFLAGS: io_getevents.os:io_getevents.c:(.text+0xe1): more undefined references to `__stack_chk_fail > read more
Fun with Vapour Part Two: Great News from the United States
Published on 2011-04-26 11:35:02
From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/26/e-cigarettes_n_853828.html: RICHMOND, Va. — The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that it plans to regulate smokeless electronic cigarettes as tobacco products and won’t try to regulate > read more
Portage Errors: cc1: out of memory
Published on 2011-04-13 10:29:22
This condition occurs when the compiler requires more memory than is currently available. It is not unusual for SSH sessions to drop when an out of memory error occurs, as you can tell from the output in this VM’s dmesg: Out of Memory: Kill pro > read more
Portage Errors: libselinux and libsemanage won’t emerge with Python 3.x
Published on 2011-04-13 10:11:46
You may encounter this problem with libselinux and libsemanage when attempting to compile them while Python 3x is set as the default interpreter. make PYLIBVER=python3.1 pywrap make -C src pywrap make[1]: Entering directory `/var/tmp/portage/sys-libs > read more
Portage Errors: gcc-config: error: could not run/locate ‘gcc’
Published on 2011-04-13 09:55:08
This problem crops up when the active version of gcc has been removed (i.e. through emerge –depclean) before a different one has been selected. >>> Emerging (1 of 2) sys-libs/libselinux-2.0.71 * libselinux-2.0.71.tar.gz RMD160 SHA1 > read more
Portage Errors: touch: No such file or directory
Published on 2011-04-12 12:21:15
After updating coreutils you may encounter a problem using touch. This problem often manifests itself as a loop while trying to update other packages: * Touching gcc/cstamp-h.in * touch: setting times of `gcc/cstamp-h.in': No such file or directory * > read more
Portage Errors: app-emulation/xen-tools NOT merged due to file collisions
Published on 2011-04-12 08:34:39
If you are updating your Xen installation from 3.x to 4.x you may encounter something like this: >>> Installing (1 of 3) app-emulation/xen-tools-4.1.0-r1 * This package will overwrite one or more files that may belong to other * packages > read more
Portage Errors: app-emulation/xen-tools check_python FAILED
Published on 2011-04-12 08:14:10
You may run into something like this while updating or installing your Xen platform: >>> Emerging (1 of 3) app-emulation/xen-tools-4.1.0-r1 * xen-4.1.0.tar.gz RMD160 SHA1 SHA256 size ;-) ... [ ok ] * Package: app-emulation/xen-tools-4.1.0 > read more
Portage Errors: groupadd: invalid option — ‘r’
Published on 2011-04-06 16:34:23
You may encounter this error when installing packages that manage system groups if your installed version of shadow is older than version 4.1.4.2-r4: >>> Installing (1 of 27) net-misc/dhcp-3.1.2_p1 * Adding group 'dhcp' to your system ... * - Groupid > read more
Fun with Vapour Part One: “Health E-Cigarette” Electronic Cigarette
Published on 2011-04-02 10:27:39
I wondered for a while if this topic would be best suited here but eventually concluded that electronic cigarettes are a clever way to hack smoking ;) The electronic cigarette fad appeals to me on many levels, but foremost because I believe it is a p > read more
Portage Errors: Portage is Blocking Python
Published on 2011-03-30 11:25:09
I started updating a pair of neglected Xen servers a few days ago and I ran into this problem: xen2 ~ # emerge portage * IMPORTANT: 3 news items need reading for repository 'gentoo'. * Use eselect news to read news items. Calculating dependencies... > read more
Apple iSight G5: iMac From Hell
Published on 2011-03-25 17:08:15
I haven’t given macs much thought since they switched to Intel and my computer repair days are long behind me but one of my clients is a doll of an ol’ gal who eats, sleeps and breathes mailing lists and when her old mac started crapping > read more
Beefcase
Published on 2011-02-15 19:20:20
As a dedicated IT professional on-the-go I can tell you that losing my laptop would be like losing one of my hands. Fortunately, today I can guarantee the former will only happen in the event of the latter. If you’ve ever wanted to raise the un > read more
Dumpster Diving Part One: Meet the Nortel Meridian Norstar Modular Key Phone System/PBX
Published on 2011-02-10 12:17:44
I recently partook in a pleasure which I have not indulged for some years. I went dumpster diving. I noticed a company was tossing out their old Meridian phones and made plans to return at night in hopes of scoring the whole system. These phones, unf > read more
Sniping k-fox.com
Published on 2011-02-03 09:04:08
If my last article told you one thing it should be that I HATE e-mail. About a week ago I started receiving spam from domain fraudsters regarding the upcoming sale of k-fox.com (http://k-fox.net/ is my furry business card). This is by no means an unu > read more
You are Your Own Worst Enemy
Published on 2011-02-02 12:50:05
Before I begin this article I must point out that some of the subject matter is of an adult nature and some links may lead to pages that are NSFW, but within the confines of this site we will keep things thoroughly scientific and PG-13. In a change f > read more
Transparent HTTP/DNS Anonymity, Encryption and Filtering with TOR, Privoxy, Squid, DansGuardian and dnsmasq on ClearOS
Published on 2011-01-22 15:02:30
In this article we will use Tor and Privoxy with dnsmasq and netfilter on ClearOS to transparently encrypt and anonymize web and DNS traffic on an entire private network or a single host without necessarily having to reconfigure any of its constituen > read more
Fix: Multiple NICs on Same Layer 2 Network Broadcast All MACs on ARP request
Published on 2011-01-14 13:21:52
By default when a Linux host is connected to the same layer 2 network by two network interfaces (i.e. plugged into the same or connected switch (and VLAN) or attached to a bridge in similar configuration) ARP requests for any IP on the NICs in questi > read more
BotHunter Headless on ClearOS with TOR
Published on 2011-01-13 18:31:29
I was inspired to play with BotHunter by this article: https://www.whataboutbob.org/public/?p=102 I’m not fond of running GUIs on firewalls (let alone virtual machines) and I’ve been writing about using TOR with ClearOS for an upcoming > read more
ISC Contacts L’il Ol’ Me!
Published on 2011-01-11 09:23:26
Someone from ISC contacted me a couple days ago regarding the ongoing DRDoS attack one of my client’s DNS servers has been involved in for months, see the comments section of ISC.org DRDoS Update 2: Problems with .nl Netherlands TLD. I was quit > read more
ISC.org DRDoS Update 2: Problems with .nl Netherlands TLD
Published on 2011-01-03 13:25:10
I provided a netfilter rule in my last update that indiscriminately drops packets containing the string “isc.org” on port 53/UDP which I have had to implement on a client’s network due to one of their name servers being targeted as > read more
Transparent Proxy for Hot Spot/Public Network Web-Based Authentication on ClearOS
Published on 2010-12-31 13:13:29
Despite the title neither making a hot spot nor “public” network is my intent in this article, but what it will cover can be directly applied to these situations. One of my clients is a small ISP and collocation datacentre which has a n > read more
Cleaning up Snort’s Droppings on ClearOS
Published on 2010-12-15 13:30:49
In the last couple of weeks a wave of attacks has seen the snort packet logs on a client’s firewall fill the disc to capacity, causing all sorts of wonderful problems. Packet logging is optional and usually only worth the trouble if you are act > read more
Search Engines for Fun and Profit Interlude: The Bungle
Published on 2010-12-12 10:45:56
In my last article I talked about using NFS to separate resources for indexing and querying. I mentioned my preference for using a third, dedicated file server for both indexing and query servers. It didn’t take long before the graphs told me t > read more