M$ Knowledge base quote of the day

Standard

This behavior may occur if an FQDN or IP address contains periods. If an FQDN or IP address contains a period, Internet Explorer identifies the Web site or share as in the Internet zone.

Hit me if I’m wrong but the above statement is always TRUE. Exception might be IPv6. But as that article probably beeing a few years old, I don’t think they had IPv6 on their mind.

Looking for a perfect Linux desktop system?

Standard

I think I just found it: Installed Ubuntu 10.04 on an Acer Aspire X3910 PT.SEDE2.240 and must say that I am really suprised how well it works. Everything was detected automatically. The whole machine has a very small form factor and is very silent but on the other hand very powerful with its dual-core Intel E6700 CPU. Unfortunately it is not mine 😉

Hans-Peter Uhl zum Staatstrojaner #0zapftis

Standard

Nachdem ich jetzt die letzten Stunden mit Traenen aus den Augen wischen verbracht habe, weil ich die Rede eigentlich urkomisch finde, der Hintergrund aber leider viel zu traurig ist, will ich meine Ankuendigung gegenueber Turrican wahrmachen und die Rede mal kommentieren.

Basis ist das Video unter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WduKj0KXBiA

[0:35] Soso, die Linkspartei hat also das “Zerrbild” am glaubwuerdigsten dargestellt, weil niemand besser als ein Vertreter der Linkspartei ueber einen Ueberwachungsstaat reden kann. Na dass ist doch schon mal ein souveraener Einstieg und so eine Stammtischrede.

[1:06] Es muss Sicherheit im Internet hergestellt werden, weil das wird sich ja drrramaaatisch weiterentwickeln, Ihr wisst?

[1:24] Die Computer der kriminellen werden immer ausgetueftelter, sie werden immer raffinierter.

Dass soll wohl heissen: “Wenn ich wuesste wo die nur Ihre scheiss Computer kaufen, ich wuerde den Laden sofort dicht machen und das Problem waere vom Tisch!”

[1:38] Grandiose Argumentation: Ganze 20Tsd. Menschen sind auf irgend einen dubiosen Online Haendler reingefallen und deshalb brauchen wir die Quellen-TKUE. Warum?!?! Hatten die ein Callcenter betrieben? Ach ja und ausserdem war es eine “kriminelle Bande aus dem Ausland”! Also waren die Computer gar nicht in Deutschland? Duerfen die deutschen Behoerden denn auch Rechner im Ausland damit infizieren?

[2:35] …und Sie alle bekennen sich zur Quellen TKUE und das ist gut so!”

Sorry Peter, aber wenn der Wowereit sagt “das ist gut so”, klingt das irgendwie netter.

Ah ja. Das “Zerrbild” was der CCC gemacht hat ist also unwahr und unredlich und voller Unterstellungen. Soweit ich das im Kopf habe hat der CCC nur gesagt was mit dem Ding moeglich ist.

[4:35] Aha! Es wird also wohl darauf hinauslaufen das rauskommt, dass “die Software vielmehr kann als sie darf”. Echt jetzt … das wird rauskommen. Wahnsinn! Moment, aber das ist doch der Kern der Sache. Ihr habt da ne Software beauftragt, die Dinge tut die das Bundesverfassungsgericht als illegal erklaert hat. Ob der Peter das auch so locker sieht, wenn ich mein naechstes Auto gleich mit scharfen Bordkanonen bestellen werden… Nene die will ich nicht einsetzten, is ja verboten, aber die sehen einfach sooooo schick aus.

[5:20] Ganz suess finde ich ja dieses armselige Piraten und CCC Bashing am Ende.

MobileMe Mail Seems To Be RFC Ignorant

Standard

I am pretty sure that RFC 4959 section “4. Examples”, second example tells you, that your IMAP server offering AUTH=PLAIN _MUST_ support it. Now, this is what happens when you try it with a MobileMe Mail account:

* OK iSCREAM ready to rumble (1F28:18179)
R00001 CAPABILITY
* CAPABILITY st11p00mm-iscream001.me.com 1F28 XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR AUTH=ATOKEN AUTH=PLAIN
R00001 OK !!
R00002 AUTHENTICATE PLAIN
R00002 BAD Parse Error
BAD Parse Error

Fucked up, isn’t it?

EDIT: Turns out to be a general problem as media reports about problems after MobileMe > iCloud migration.

UPDATE:Apple has fixes this issue a few weeks ago.

Epic Fail of German ISPs

Standard

My employer is running two web servers at two different hosting providers (1&1, Strato). Both webserver IPs are A records for the www hostname. The domains are managed by a third ISP (InternetX). 1&1 currently has a major issue with some of their servers and as a result our webserver is not reachable for more than 30 minutes now. So I decided to remove that one from the list of A records (TTL of the zone is just five minutes).

Now guess what: One of the four authoritative name servers of our InternetX managed domain is hosted at 1&1. As a result of their outage the InternetX AutoDNS system refuses to accept changes of zone data. WTF!

And that is exactly the reason why I prefer to run things on my own!

Note: Carefully audit you ISP infrastructure before signing up the contract.

TLS init def ctx failed: -69 – WTF?

Standard

If you ever get into a situation, where you see

main: TLS init def ctx failed: -69

in your syslog, just remove the f**k**g passphrase from the key.

Maybe the error message is too obvious, because I found nothing helpful in the web. BTW: Confucius says: Building LDAP server on ONE day, will prevent you from getting headache, mkay!

Privacy, No Ads And Speed!

Standard

As I wrote earlier on this blog, I again started using Privoxy with some slight modified configuration to block advertisment as well as improve privacy by filtering out tracking bugs and all those social networking stuff on websites.

It looks like some of the latest updates for Google Chrome/Chromium broke the “ProxySwitchy !” extension which often made me surf the web without actually using Privoxy although the Privoxy proxy profile was selected in “Proxy Switchy !”. While reading some comments to a Google Plus post of Markus Beckedahl about some privacy enhancing add-ons for Firefox I stumbled about an hint to try Chrome Block. I am trying it out at the moment and it looks very promising at first glance, but as it is mainly designed for privacy protection, a solution for removing ads was also needed. So I installed AdBlock additionally which is doing a great job also.

My feeling is that the impact on browsing speed is extremely low compared to my earlier Privoxy setup and it is more transparent to me than before as both extensions have  nice self-explaining status icons right of the location bar.

AIX5L with Samba 3.x and Kerberos 5 as a Windows 2003 ActiveDirctory Member Server

Standard

While cleaning up one of my other websites, I stumbled upon this guide I wrote  five years ago. Although the content of this guide is already five years old, I don’t want to remove it from the net. I suppose it should work also with a Windows 2008 Active Directory domain as well. But please do not ask me questions about AIX5L as I do not have access to any of those machines any more.


Preperations

First install some packages which are required for the setup. This includes the Kerberos Client as well as the Samba 3.x Server. They are called pware.samba-3.0.23d, krb5.client and strong>krb5.lic

Now make sure your system uses the same timeserver as your domain controller. On most systems this is done by making changes to the xntp server’s configuration file /etc/ntp.conf. Afterwards set up your active directory controller as your system’s nameserver in /etc/resolv.conf.

Kerberos 5 setup

Edit your Kerberos client configuration in /etc/krb5/krb5.conf, that it look similar to this one:

 
# /etc/krb5/krb5.conf
[libdefaults]
        default_realm = MYCOMPANY.LOCAL
        default_tkt_enctypes = des-cbc-md5 des-cbc-crc
        default_tgs_enctypes = des-cbc-md5 des-cbc-crc

[realms]
        MYCOMPANY.LOCAL = {
                kdc = dc.mycompany.local:88
                admin_server = dc.mycompany.local:749
                default_domain = mycompany.local
        }

[domain_realm]
        .mycompany.local = MYCOMPANY.LOCAL
        dc.mycompany.local = MYCOMPANY.LOCAL

[logging]
        default = FILE:/var/log/krb5libs.log
        kdc = FILE:/var/log/kdc.log
        admin_server = FILE:/var/log/kadmind.log

Add the KRB5 authentication methods to /usr/lib/security/methods.cfg.

 
[..]
KRB5A:
        program = /usr/lib/security/KRB5A
        options = authonly

KRB5Afiles:
        options = db=BUILTIN,auth=KRB5A
[..]

Now it is time to test your Kerberos 5 configuration by running kinit with an existing domain user as parameter e.g.

kinit Administrator

Samba 3.x server setup

Now that Kerberos is working for the underlying AIX System you can start to configure your Samba server. To make things easier, create the smb.conf in /etc and link it to the directory where samba expects it to be:

 
touch /etc/smb.conf
ln -s /etc/smb.conf /opt/pware/samba/3.0.23d/lib/smb.conf

Here is the beginning of a working /etc/smb.conf file.

 
# /etc/smb.conf
[global]
        workgroup = MYCOMPANY
        netbios name = AIXHOSTNAME
        security = ADS
        realm = MYCOMPANY.LOCAL
        password server = dc.mycompany.local
        client use spnego = yes
        client signing = yes
        encrypt passwords = yes
        printcap name = cups
        disable spoolss = Yes
        show add printer wizard = No
        idmap uid = 10000-20000
        idmap gid = 10000-20000
        winbind separator = +
        winbind use default domain = Yes
        winbind enum users = yes
        winbind enum groups = yes
        template homedir = /home/%U
        template shell = /bin/bash
        use sendfile = Yes
        printing = cups
        ldap suffix = "dc=mycompany,dc=local"
        winbind cache time = 0
        #Uncomment to allow these options
        log level = 5
        log file = /var/log/samba3/log.%m
        #max log size = 5000000
        #debug timestamp = yes
        browseable = yes
        obey pam restrictions = yes
        auth methods = winbind
[..]

If testparm is not complaining about any errors try joining your domain.

 
net join -S dc -UAdministrator

Putting it all together with winbind

In order to make WINBIND available to your AIX system copy the winbind security module to /usr/lib/security,

 
cp /opt/pware/samba/3.0.23d/lib/WINBIND /usr/lib/security/

and add WINBIND config to /usr/lib/security/methods.cfg

 
[..]
WINBIND:
        program = /usr/lib/security/WINBIND
        options = authonly
[..]

To make winbind the default user database change the SYSTEM value to WINBIND in the default section of /etc/security/user. You can check wether winbind is working with wbinfo.

After you successfully joined your domain and set up windbind, make sure that the smbd, nmbd and windbind gets started at system startup. The easiest way for me was to add the SysV init scripts to /etc/rc.tcpip.

Why Duke Nukem Forever Isn’t That Bad

Standard

I just stumbled over a German newspaper article, that reported about all those computer game experts ï»żbad-mouthing the long awaited 3D ego shooter Duke Nukem Forever and I feel I have to comment on this.

I bought the game last Friday online via Steam. Not that I use or like Steam much, but it was the easiest way to get my copy of the game installed without using the postal service age verification if I would have bought it from Amazon. I already read, that the development of the single player part of the game finished back in 2009; So the expectations regarding the graphics engine were not that high. What else could I expect? Innovative game play or even a STORY?! Honestly guys, we are talking about the Duke! There wasn’t a great story in Duke Nukem 1 & 2 or 3D either, so why should DNF have one?

I already played through the single player part at normal degree of difficulty this weekend and it was real fun: Big talk, blood, kicking Aliens’ asses and babes (not enough IMO 😉 ) and although some parts were really hard, it never was undo-able nor was it unfair at any time. It was the Duke Nukem 3D feeling that was just there. Of cause you cannot compare it to those high-end shooters that provide state of the art graphics, sound, smart AI and a good story. But isn’t it sometimes wonderful to just play something stupid ;-). Due to the connection to Steam, DNF also offers lots of achievements to reach. This will definitively make me play the single player part a second time. For now I started playing the multiplayer games to get furnishings and equipment for Duke’s mansion.

To make sure the number of people who get disappointed will not increase: I would not recommend the game to anyone who never played D3D in the past – but anyone who really loved D3D, will surely love DNF too.

Unfall mit Polizeiauto

Standard

Gerade auf dem Weg vom Einkauf zurĂŒck als vor uns an einer Kreuzung eine lange Schlange Autos hinter zwei Feuerwehrautos stand. Konten von den Unfallteilnehmers erst mal nicht sehen und auch nicht von der Polizei. Als wir dann an den Feuerwehrwagen vorbei gelotst wurden zeigte sich auch die Polizei 😉

Polizeiauto vor Laternenmast 2

Polizeiauto vor Laterne 1

Es gab noch ein anderes lÀdiertes Auto. Sieht man im zweiten Bild ganz rechts. So wie es scheint sind aber alle mit dem Schrecken davon gekommen. Wie sich der Unfall genau ereignet hat wird sicher bald in der Lokalpresse auftauchen. Werde dass dann entsprechend verlinken.

Update: Hier der Link zur Lokalpresse. Schwalmtal: Fahrer ĂŒberhört Martinshorn und stĂ¶ĂŸt mit Polizeiwagen zusammen (RP ONLINE, 07.05.2011)