Debian
How To Detect Successful SSH Bruteforce Break-Ins with SEC (Simple Event Correlator)
Submitted by dimmer on 18 July, 2010 - 23:20.
SEC is an amazingly powerful yet simple tool. It works best when coupled with centralized logging, such as a syslog server. It lets you correlate events from multiple hosts and take actions based on those events.
Adobe Flash 10.1 in 64-bit Debian (Lenny)
Submitted by dimmer on 11 June, 2010 - 18:18.
This is a copy pasta from my email to the debian-user mailing list.
Because Adobe left us high and dry (and vulnerable) by dropping beta support for 64-bit flash, I cobbled together a solution that seemed simpler to me (at first glance) than the official Debian solution of running chrooted 32-bit browsers with 32-bit flash (howto). Reason being, I need to be able to easily roll out flash 10.1 to multiple systems, and any changes should be transparent to my users. schroot looks like it also fits the bill, but I have not tried it yet. schroot is probably a better solution in the longrun since you can use apt to upgrade all the dependencies without repackaging flash. Hopefully Adobe adds 64-bit linux support soon so that doesn't become an issue.
Apache and TLS with SNI (Server Name Indication)
Submitted by dimmer on 24 March, 2010 - 21:56.
Until recently, you needed a dedicated IP address for each SSL website because TLS did not support named-based virtual hosting. This made hosting SSL websites relatively expensive, and maybe even impossible if you ran out of IP addresses. Although this standard, now elucidated in RFC 4366, has been around since at least 2003, it has been very slow to catch on.
Ubuntu Live CD PXE Boot with Serial Console Redirection
Submitted by dimmer on 18 February, 2010 - 23:01.
I was pretty stoked when I found this howto for pxe booting a Ubuntu live CD. PXE booting is really handy because it makes diagnosis and installation faster. The Ubuntu Live CD (or any linux boot CD really) is really handy for troubleshooting systems or doing maintenance work.
Nagios hostgroup servicedependency Check Behavior
Submitted by dimmer on 18 February, 2010 - 19:32.
I could not find anywhere where the nagios documentation specified whether or not service dependencies using hostgroups use hostgroups in an any-host, same-host, or all-host configuration. Specifically, what about when the dependent hostgroup is the same as the hostgroup that is depended on (and services vary)?
How To Create An Internet Kiosk with Kubuntu
Submitted by dimmer on 31 August, 2008 - 13:13.
I help run a medium-sized scientific conference annually. We have an internet cafe / registration room where our attendees may pay for the conference or just surf the web. We used to run WinXP with the hive cleanup tool and a lockdown utility probably created by a Microsoft intern. It worked fairly well. Then Windows released SteadyState, which we tried last year. SteadyState worked as advertised on my test machine, but failed spectacularly at the conference on 80% of the kiosk machines - I'm still not sure why. So on the spot we developed a Kubuntu alternative, which turned out to be better.
Howto: Wake on LAN with ASUS P5WDG2 WS Pro in Debian/Ubuntu
Submitted by dimmer on 25 January, 2008 - 01:44.This article from Lifehacker: Access Your Computer Anytime and Save Energy with Wake-on-LAN reminded me that I've been meaning to write this up for a long time.
Howto - Drupal Install on Debian or Ubuntu
Submitted by dimmer on 10 October, 2005 - 02:15.UPDATE 10-28-2007: Revised for Drupal 5.
This is a how-to guide to install drupal (drupal runs this site) on Debian or Ubuntu.
Background:
