Archive for tag: howto

Ubuntu PAM USB authentication

5 March, 2010 (12:36) | Linux | By: chuck

The most secure you can get a box from a login point of view involves three authentication methods: Something you have, something you know, and something about you.
So to secure my laptop a little more I decided to implement the “something you have” method. The “something you know” method is obviously the password. Currently I [...]

One time passwords with Debian/Ubuntu for SSH

27 February, 2010 (18:54) | Linux | By: chuck

One time passwords are a very effective way to connect to an SSH server from an untrusted computer. Consider the following scenario I deal with almost daily.
The computers where I take classes are owned by a governmental organization. Sounds secure, right? Not really. Quite often other students will mess with the computers as they see [...]

Reset Windows Vista/7 password

26 February, 2010 (12:17) | Software, Windows | By: chuck

We’ve all done it. Plug in a password, think we’ll remember it a month from now, and have our memory betray us. With most Linux distros you can just pop in a livecd and change the password, providing you did not use some sort of full disk encryption, but for Windows Vista and Windows 7 [...]

LG enV2 service menu

25 February, 2010 (19:30) | Hardware | By: chuck

Interesting little tidbit I found on the net last night while looking for what carriers the enV2 is compatible with. Simply dial the following while the phone is flipped open and hit send:
##lgservicemenu
And when the next dialog pops up, just enter zero’s. Once you do this a menu will pop up. With this menu you [...]

Performing an HTTP benchmark with Apache bench (ab)

6 December, 2009 (01:35) | Linux, Web | By: chuck

ab (apache bench) is a command line program that comes with apache by default in most distributions. It allows one to run a quick and efficient test of how a server can handle a heavy load of clients.
To use it simply run (as root)
ab -n number_of_requests_to_try http://www.websiteyouwanttobenchmark.com/
Note that the trailing / is necessary for ab [...]

Using public key authentication with ssh

7 October, 2009 (16:05) | Linux | By: chuck

So maybe you’ve gotten tired of entering your password every time you log in to your home server. Maybe you desire better security. Or maybe you want to run automated scripts from a remote box and have their results piped to a local file. (Yay nerdiness!) Regardless this article is for you.
I’m not sure how [...]

Making ssh use tor

29 August, 2009 (20:08) | Linux | By: chuck

Quite often I want to ssh to a server of mine on the road from a questionable network. While I know ssh is encrypted, the address I am connecting to is not. Usually this isn’t an issue, but maybe it is to you. If so give this a shot.
First you need to have tor and [...]

Making postfix listen on port 587

26 June, 2009 (11:32) | Linux | By: chuck

Nowadays many WiFi hotspots are blocking or filtering port 25 traffic, leaving most email users with a problem: How do I send my mail?
If your lucky enough to be running your own postfix server that already is set up for SASL authentication, than give this a shot by adding it to your postfix master.cf file [...]