What’s up?

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It’s been a little while that I actually wrote something here. Time has been very unfriendly when it comes to doing things and simply did not find the time to get it any of it done.

As many of you are aware I am looking for a new exciting challenge that I can commit myself to and getting my feet wet again in my line of work which I have been pretty much away from/out of for almost two years. After I underwent Surgery, I moved to Sweden and started to familiarize myself with its surroundings. I learned Swedish at “SFI” – Swedish for immigrants and passed that with ease. Unfortunately my current surroundings aren’t very appealing when it comes to work so I started looking for other places in Sweden that match my previous work (datacentre related/rolling out and maintaining clusters/hives).

Today I had a very lovely talk/interview with Noa Resare (@blippie), who works for Spotify (yes I applied) and damn what was I nervous let alone what was it hard to actually think and explain simple basic things like a tcp-packet / dns-traversal. Especially those day to day things you don’t really think about anymore that just become habitual, like a core/memory dump, RAID parity/striping + levels, why keypairs are so important for encrypted connectivity between peers, let alone a simple STP link-build of a cluster or what you (can) use broadcast for…

That last one was kind of silly. What do you use broadcast for? Well I use it for local communication in hearbeat situations… Seriously that was my answer but wait what is that in the background of my screen that I am doing? Yeah thats right… I am actually doing a roll-out of a cluster for a friend of mine by using PXE/dhcp/tftp/FAI/puppet. But no, I completely forget to mention those. Not to mention the error(s) I made during this and the simple Q&A like mixing up layer 4 with layer 7 (osi) when they requested me to name the most used transport layers and I managed to come up with http/ftp/ssl instead of TCP/UDP… Seriously…

I should start learning to be more vocal and able to reproduce explanations of what I actually do in my “former” daily routines. In my mind I know exactly what it does and how the pictures go from left to right plus the experiences but the ability to simply reproduce my knowledge to verbal communication is definitely something I need to work on. Sure give me 5 minutes time plus Google and I can write you a perfectly reasonable explanation with a diagram or picture to support what I am thinking but ask me to do it from my mind, it really (will get) gets messy. Too much info too little structure and not able to find the right words to put behind each other. That is what I noticed of my self today. Its like explaining my mathematics (equations) and explaining the teacher what I did in my mind instead of on paper what I did to get to the results. I forget what I was doing halfway and there is no path traversal possible anymore and just get stuck.

Also I think it is funny that errors they walked into some of the same errors I did (like the freaking Broadcom driver issues (BNX2 Rrr.. those were long nights…) where the kernel would either just go heywire or connectivity would just completely stop working) but also quite a few projects they work on today which I found to be interesting back in the day but simply didn’t have the time for to look at a broader scope at.

One of the projects I am definitely going to look back into are Hermes and Cassandra. I don’t know how many of you read my old blog (which I “destroyed” after coming out) back in 2008/2009 when I was looking into FuseFS / MogileFS, Apache Cassandra and Hermes were on my list as well, however my client back then didn’t want it/that because of funding issues and basically went for a standard drdb and/or rsync setup with heartbeat and release schedules. Both have matured a lot and I am really looking forward in finding out the differences from back then and now… If only someone would be so kind to transport all the equipment here… (yes all 4 racks in the basement are allowed to hang out here in Sweden. The electricity is a lot cheaper for one)

I guess I really have my work cut out for me… I hope that I manage to/will be allowed to at least come to Stockholm and talk one on one with people. I don’t know. It makes me less nervous I guess let alone it hasn’t been so often that I spoke in front of a crowd as myself without “shielding” myself. I don’t know. I just feel uncomfortable on the phone nowadays. I got my work cut out for me.

More updates soon! Just wanted to let you all know I am back ;) My curiosity is in overdrive.. so we’ll see what happens…

Offensive Security: Exploits Database

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For those who browse for security related concerns, it is often handy to look through websites like milw0rn others. There are of course many other websites just like that one. One in particular I wanted to introduce to you is http://www.exploit-db.com/. It is a Exploit DB by Offensive Security.

Take a look I’d say whether you are a hacker, pen-tester or script-kiddie.. there is plenty ;)

BackTrack 5R 3 Released

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Many already found out yesterday but I figured I would remind my readers that BackTrack released a new version of their distro/suite. at http://www.backtrack-linux.org/backtrack/backtrack-5-r3-released/ (bottom of the page) the torrents are already available for if you don’t want to wait for the full ISO download by http/ftp.

Tutorials inc! Webcaching & PDNSSEC

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Ever wanted to guard your webservers better or decrease the load with a proxy/webcache? Nginx and Varnish are too tricky for you or simply not giving.the desired result? Or do you simply want to run a stable CDN with clustering? Regardless of it all, you might want to try Apache Traffic Server.

We will be writing a full tutorial about this product next week including our findings in deploying DNSSEC on a powerdnssec cluster and all its little ups and downs.

Also I am doing a full rewrite of FreshDNS with full DNSSEC support. In otherwords we’ve been busy and hoping to bring you more stable solutions for server and/or issues you might have.

Nightmares at Stockholm Arlanda Terminal 2

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I don’t use this site very often to blog but today is one of those I travel for businesses and pleasure and seriously want to vent regarding the absolute horrors here at Terminal 2 in Arlanda (Stockholm Airport)

Terminal 2 is pretty much the most distant terminal in Arlanda.. it takes about 10 min to walk from the outer edge of terminal 5 to get to terminal 2. Stockholm Arlanda is by far the warmest airport I’ve been to… People complain about Frankfurt.. well get your ass over here and you start loving it.

Now the distance isn’t that much of an issue, even when walking on 13cm high heels… No it is the freaking terminak itself. The shops and the surroundings especially on the weekends are absolutely horrible. The staff is bored like hell and the security doesn’t even pay attention.

As always I trigger the alarmbells, regardless of the fact I am on a special “security” list. I’ve had surgery in 2011 which resolved in some tiny metal parts that needed to remain in my body (for now).

Now that ain’t so bad as it sounds, however it is bloody annoying that you need to get checked each time around when you go through metal detectors. I don’t mind getting frisked by female security employees if they are nice and polight about it, but this one was going straight towards my crouch breaking my freaking the button on the inside of my skirt that holds the entire front together (wrap-around-skirt)..

It doesn’t matter but an apology would have been nice but no nothing… So barely behind the staff (shops were horrible.and expensive) I hoped to be welcomed by some nice, skilled, helpfull staff and find the closest toilets to get dressed again… litterly left the security with my hands holding my skirt together and shoes in my hand…

However it was far from the truth and my hopes were shattered. Completely unmotivated staff… and the womens toilettery.. Well I’ve seldomly seen skmething this dirty. The toilets at SkyCity behind Thomas Cook are spot clean but these are so gross… and they were just cleaned. Cleaned my ass!

Bored and hoping to find some people to talk to I went to Robert’s Coffee since Illy is at the other side and there is no easy way to get there.. Seriously awesome.machine topnotch but wtf this guy is ruining the grind and coffee.

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It has been ages ago I’ve had such a bad cup of coffee. In dutch we call this more or less “gutterwater” (slootwater). Seriously it was that bad. Also he refused to speak Swedish and his English is crap. His english is worse then my french!

Unfriendly unmotivated staff plus people that don’t love coffee and utterly boring shops/hangout spot.. that is basically how I describe Terminal 2… The mist boring terminal I’ve been to… I am thinking of trying out a cookie but after that cup of coffee I am absolutely terrified to try it.

Broken skirt, dirty toilettery, bad coffee… what’s next! I’m holding my breath.

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Ok let me add one positive thing to Terminal 2. If you want some peace or a cleaner toilet… I can atleast advice walking up 1 floor near gate 68a-c. There is a very nice room there where you can sit and decent toilets with lovely long dressing mirrors… very important if you’re a girl!

Linux IPv6 Tunnels

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Do you not have IPv6 in your network or on your server? Then you are definitely missing out!

With the help of a tunnelbroker like Hurricane Electric or Sixxs it is very easy let alone a matter of minutes to get it all working on your server. The longest part in most cases is the registration form you need to fill out! For the purpose of just quickly giving you IPv6 connectivity without too much hassle, I will display Hurricane Electrics process.

Go to http://www.tunnelbroker.net and simply sign up for an account. Fill out the details requested and wait for the e-mail with your password. In the menu choose create a new tunnel and after choosing the nearest location of your server/connection you should get this overview screen with your tunnel details.

If you are running Ubuntu/debian you can edit your /etc/network/interfaces file with your favorite editor and add the following to it:

# IPv6 via HE tunnel...
auto he-ipv6
iface he-ipv6 inet6 v4tunnel
address 2001:470:c:670::2
netmask 64
remote 66.220.18.42
local 199.193.255.71
endpoint any
ttl 64
up      ip -6 route add 2000::/3 via ::66.220.18.42 dev he-ipv6
up      ip -6 addr add 2001:470:c:670::1:1/128 dev he-ipv6
up      ip -6 addr add 2001:470:c:670::2:1/128 dev he-ipv6
down    ip -6 route flush dev he-ipv6

After adding that it is just a simple: ifup he-ipv6 and you should be on your way.

For other configurations like linux-route2 or linux-net tools they have a very easy copy/paste script for you under the example configuration tab. Take a look under it. It generates everything you need to set it up. Windows commands are also available!

Next week I will give some more examples like how to use radvd to advertise an ipv6 range to all your servers at home.

Socialmedia, Relevance and Opinions

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Today I was surprised at the simple mindedness of some of our costumers. It is not often this happens, let alone I appreciate peoples feedback and opinions about the service we/I as a freelancer provide at the company, but this time?

It was a regular, basically you could call it “normal”, day and things went smooth as usual. VPS servers crashing for no apparent reason, servers that got hacked because my client uses the same password on all his servers and his linked-in account. You know. The standard stuff that happens on a regular sysadmin’s day and all you try and do is fix it as best you can, document what happened and try and explain to the people responsible once more that they should use unique passwords as much as possible without too much constants. Basically… You try and educate them.

People don’t look anymore at the relevance of actual good reviews nor check if the review that was written has any basis or if it actually applies to them. Today I was contacted by “someone”. He was complaining, we were too strict and our security policy was to strict on our DNS servers and therefor he wouldn’t pay us the money he owes us…

He had read “somewhere” on the Internet we were implementing DNSSEC for all our domains on our nameservers in September and noticed we had gotten some very negative opinions and reviews because of it. He had also read I gave up on coffee and stopped drinking it.

Sure, I can understand clients who want to leave because we “plan” to enforce DNSSEC on all our nameservers as of the 1st of September, however I cannot understand why a client who has a podcast stream would try and cancel his contract, let alone think he can get away from his dues based on the details enlisted above. It is just weird. If people want to stop using our products and or services, please just let us know and we will happily make sure you can migrate elsewhere, keeping termination period in mind of course.

I kindly thanked the client for the time he was with us, I respect his wishes even though I have no clue why he wanted to leave us, especially because of the reasons provided… Let him know he still owes us the money that was due and wish him the best with his new home.

2 hours later, another costumer called me because he found a new and recent review by a former costumer of that was completely unhappy with the services supplied because we let him go, and even helped him migrating his services to his new home… After explaining what the review said, he then told me he wanted to cancel his contract because we were “too good” for him, due to the fact we helped him out when his servers were hacked, made sure he actually bought correct hardware, I am friendly and I stopped drinking coffee…

Seriously?

New Features Showdates.me

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A little while ago I promoted my friends at WrepIT their website called Showdates. I didn’t go into a lot of details back then, let alone it was still in an early stage of development but I think it is about time to discuss some of their new features.

One of things I was missing myself was e-mail notification, decent view on my gingerbread tablet and the ability to change my avatar(really important).

Well to bring you the good news… It is all available now and working quite nicely I must say.

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As you can see, it looks a lot better then it used to, plus the notifications that I received per e-mail are quite awesome.

To enable the e-mail feature simply go into the serrings screen (click the arrow next to your avatar) and tag the e-mail option to start receiving e-mails regarding the shows you are following.

Have fun watching!

Telia’s Promise Of Stable Internet

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ITelia Logot is not very often I ramble on about things like downtime for ADSL providers or not providing the service they were supposed to give out, but this time Telia is seriously taking the piss out of it, by stating that nothing is wrong with the service and the connection speed is fine. However, I have not been complaining about the maximum speed but the ability to start multiple parallel connections.

In a few weeks we are getting fiber and honestly I can’t wait to replace Telia however, apparently I am supposedly stuck on the contract for another year or so according to their papers. What they don’t have documented is the countless amount of times I have requested them to fix our connection to our home which is currently so incredibly bad my router is hanging itself up on TCP-retransmissions of new requests.

Ever since December 2011 I have been complaining to them about the fact they fucked up our phoneline(hard) which I needed to do my work. I at that point temporarily solved it by using voip, however as of lately it is almost impossible to use skype or voip. It is getting to the point it is so ridiculous I want to throw out the modem through the window and hope it hits one of the Telia engineers so hard on top of the head, they scratch and think what has actually happened and why did that costumer throw that to his/her head.

So today I filed another complaint regarding the unstable connection and all they did was a throughput test. I don’t need a throughput test in matters of speed… I need a test how quickly new requests can be send through the modem/line and better yet them to cancel the contract because they haven’t been upholding their promised quality assurance. Can I please get a tech on the phone or at least someone with a brain to simply fill out a form stating, the client is unhappy and wishes to cancel the contract because we fail to deliver what we promised?