The Last Octet

Base Debian install with:

apt-get install psmisc (for the kill all command)
apt-get install linux-headers-kernelversion (uname -r)
apt-get install build-essential


VMware tools install:

mount /dev/cdrom
cp /cdrom/*.tar.gz ~
cd ~
tar xzvf *.tar.gz
cd vmware-tools-distrib
./vmware-install.pl


Since converting to a Linux based desktop I've not downloaded any commercial music from any of the various music sites. Tonight I wanted to listen to an ablum pretty badly, but didn't want leave the house or spend retail rates. Downloading the album was the only route that made much sense. I did a quick search for a music service that met the following requirements:

1. Reasonable prices
2. Linux friendly download routines
3. 256 kbps Bit Rate (or higher)
4. No subscription
5. MP3 or Ogg Format

That was about all I was looking for in a download site. I did a quick search or two to see who had the artist I was searching for. Amazon's MP3 site had the artist I was looking for and it looked like the bit rate and price was right as well. The last piece of the puzzle was figuring out how they managed their downloads. As it turns out, they have prebuilt Linux packages to install their "Amazon MP3 Downloader" utility. This was a plus. After firing up the getlibs script to fixup the fact that the 32bit download utility didn't play well with my 64bit install I was all set.

Overall I'm happy with the Amazon MP3 site. They've done a good job at making the site fairly easy to navigate, and a snap to purchase tunes especially if you've purchased from them previously.

I noticed the other day that it didn't appear that our workstation names and IP changes were being updated in DNS. After digging around a bit I found out that the DHCP server was using an old user name and password to update DNS,

I created an appropriate service account in AD, and gave it membership to the DnsUpdateProxy group. It didn't take long before we had the proper DNS records populated within DNS.

Want more functionality from your home or small business firewall, but not interested in paying big enterprise prices? There are a couple of options available for those interested in protecting their networks "on the cheap". Some people have chosen OpenWrt as a way to gain greater flexibility out of their consumer class firewall/"routers". Technologies like OpenWrt give administrators a number of options typically not available within the software and firmware that is shipped on inexpensive routers. As exciting as OpenWrt and projects like it are, there are other ways gain enterprise firewalling features without the enterprise expense.

The alternative that I'm referring to is the use of free and open source firewall solutions. There are a number of Linux and BSD based firewall solutions available that provide a number of robust features including VPN, transparent proxy, and QOS. The problem with these solutions in the past is that they have required a dedicated piece of hardware. Many have taken on the build up of such hardware as a project in and to itself (m0n0wall Hardware Project). Today we have a variety of virtualization options available to us that prevent us from having to recycle an old power hungry desktop for a firewall.

In my next post, I'll be looking at one example of how to implement a Linux or BSD based firewall within a virtual environment to protect a small physical or virtual network.

It can be a little bit frustrating having to wait for a new client or member server to go through its initial polling period to receive its approved updates (once a group policy has been applied). To help speed the process along, I have found the following command to be helpful on our server and client builds (XP, 200x):

wuauclt /detectnow

This command will instruct the machine to check the update server for updates immediately. Additionally, you can apply the /resetauthorization switch to the command to force a new WSUS cookie to be created and update the machine's group membership.

Manipulate Automatic Updates Behavior Using Command-line Options

Event ID 31 — WUA Update Download