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After installing a linux server and playing with the basic command lines, the first thing we should be able to do is configure our network, without which of course there is no Internet. Most of the latest linux distributions ship with easy to use GUI for configuration and testing of the network. But here we’ll be using all command lines. Remember, these commands directly talk to the responsible programs without any intermediary (GUI), so obviously it’s fast, more powerful and have many options that are not available in GUI.

This guide will help you to configure your network and troubleshoot simple network problems using command lines.

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In Hong Kong you can watch the world cup only if you’ve subscribed to Cable TV. They’ve signed an expensive and exclusive contract with FIFA some 4 years ago. Unfortunately me and many of my friends were not aware of this when we subscribed to NOW Broadband TV. I went out to my friends place and bars to watch the earlier matches (which was fun, but not possible everyday for this whole month). The good news is - I’ve found www.ppstream.com, which streams many different channels online and CCTV-5 is one of them, which broadcasts World Cup Live. It is using P2P technology.

One problem however is that the site is in Chinese and you’ll have to download and install the player (which is also only in Chinese). I’ve downloaded the player and installed in my Windows XP machine and enjoying the matches from yesterday (the commentary is in Chinese. So, I watch the game and listen to music ). If you want to give it a shot; here’s how I did it.

Note: I don’t understand Chinese so, I’m just guessing some of the stuffs here . Don’t blame me if your computer CRASHES or if you have other problems. It works for me and hopefully it’ll work for you too. GOOD LUCK

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Ubuntu , SUSE , RedHat , Xandros and Linspire are doing a great job with Linux Desktop. But they’ve a long way to go, with more than 90% of Windows and around 5% of Apple only a small bite is left for them. However, the power of Linux is already proven in the server arena, currently it is powering many mission critical servers all around the world. It’s free, it’s reliable, it’s rock-solid and most importantly it’s open source. When I just started to work as an IT Engineer, I was a Windows guy. The word Unix/Linux used to scare me. Fortunately I was given a chance to learn and manage Linux Server in production environment. I was thrown into real life usage of Linux servers with live services like email, ftp, web and databases. From my experience I can say that it’s not as scary as it seems in the beginning. With some minor efforts it can be learned by any Windows users and admins.

I’ve written this guide to help beginners who’re interested in getting started with Linux. This should give you an overview of Linux and it’s basic commands.

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I’m in Guangzhou, China today to reinstall one of our Linux SMTP Server. I’ve installed CentOS 3.x with software mirroring. It’s pretty straight forward to make the Linux Software Raid partition during the installation but by default the system will boot only with the first hard disk (id0). This means if the first hard disk (id0) fails then the second hard disk (id1) will not be able to boot alone.

In order to make sure that the server can boot from each of the mirrored hard disk in case the other one fails, you need to run grub and install onto all other drives that are part of raid that the /boot partitions are on.

• #grub
  grub>
  grub>find /grub/stage1
  This will give list out where all the grub setup files are located:
  (hd0,0)
  (hd1,0)

sda=hd0 sdb=hd1 for scsi and hda=hd0 and hdb=hd1 for ide

After knowing that hd0 already has grub in mbr, we run:

• Grub>device (hd0) /dev/sdb (/dev/hdb for ide)
  Grub>root (hd0,0) and then:
  Grub>setup (hd0)

With above we’ve succeeded putting bootable mbr on the second drive and now both hard disks should be able to boot individually.

It’s very difficult to stay safe online today without understanding the security jargons.

Phishing is one of the most popular techniques used by criminals to fool the users (even quite experienced ones) in giving in their personal information.

Phishing - Fraudulent emails and pop-ups designed to fool you into revealing personal information, such as passwords, credit card details, and account numbers, for criminal gain.

Some of the latest phishing attacks in News:

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Recently a new type of DNS attack have been discovered. Attackers are exploiting the recursive name servers to amplify the DDoS attacks by utilizing IP spoofing. If you want to know the very details of how this attack works then you must read DNS Amplification Attacks (pdf) by Randal Vaughn and Gadi Evron where they analyze 3 real attacks. Also this Cnet news article have some details about the attack.

At the heart of this attack is the recursive function of DNS servers. This is a very serious threat because The Measurement Factory in recent survey found that:

There are an estimated 7.5 million external DNS servers on the public Internet. Over 75% of domain name servers (of roughly 1.3 million sampled) allow recursive name service to arbitrary queriers. This opens a name server to both cache poisoning and attacks.

Here I’ve drawn the diagrams to explain what is Recursive DNS Query and how DNS Amplification Attacks work.

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A dvd disk got stuck inside the optical drive of MacBook Pro and couldn’t be ejected. I tried to eject it from WinXp, without success. Pressed F12 and Eject button in OSX but the disk wouldn’t come out. The drive was responding with some sound and seemed like it was trying to eject the disk but with no success. So, we opened it and here’s how MacBook Pro looks naked.

The keyboard lifted up

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If you’re working in IT Support for few years then most probably you’re already following similar steps. Geeks are Sexy have an excellent article 10 steps to a better IT support process. It’s refreshing and should be helpful to novice as well as veteran IT Support.

• 1. Answering the call

  2. Asking the user to explain the problem

  3. Reproducing the error

  4. Identifying the problem

  5. Gathering technical information

  6. Determine possible solutions

  7. Fixing the problem

  8. Test and test again

  9. Documenting the issue

  10. Pat yourself in the back for a job well done.

I’d written a Productive Network and System Administration which you might find helpful as well.

Finally I’ve succeeded in installing Windows XP in MacBook Pro. Now it can dual boot between Windows XP and MacOS X. There’re few issues with windows xp but being able to boot smoothly between these 2 OSes are really amazing. I’ve followed this HOWTO where more and more information is being added every few hours. I think most of the minor problems will be solved soon. If you want to install it for your self or want more information this wiki is the best place to go. Here I’m posting the photos of major installation sequence and some problems I encountered.

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I’ve almost finished installing Windows XP on MacBook Pro that we bought yesterday. I’ve downloded the patch and am following the instruction from this HOWTO. Just wanted to post some snaps while it’s still installing. Enjoy!

Can switch to Mac or windows

Installing Windows XP

I’ve grabbed a quick Lunch from KFC and drink from Starbucks

It’s still installing and I’ll post more details after the installation is completed.