Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

December 29, 2006

Sending an e-mail to users whose password is about to expire

Filed under: Computer Tips,Knowledgebase — Suramya @ 4:15 PM

If you have users that don’t login to a windows system or Outlook Web access and just use POP/IMAP to download emails then you must be used to having these people call in to have their passwords reset when their passwords expire which can be a pain.

The following script sends out an email to Exchange users when their passwords are about to expire so that they can login to change their password and not bother you.

Download the script from here: Sending an e-mail to users whose password is about to expire

Will post the script to do the same on Unix/Linux systems later.

Thanks,
Suramya

PS: I DIDN’T WRITE THE SCRIPT SO IF IT DESTROYS YOUR SYSTEM DON’T BLAME ME.

July 6, 2006

IP subnetting made easy

Filed under: Knowledgebase,Tutorials — Suramya @ 10:06 AM

Good tutorial on IP Subnetting. Now it makes a bit more sense to me than it used to…

Check it out: IP subnetting made easy

– Suramya

July 5, 2006

Create Visio like Diagrams in your web browser

Filed under: Computer Software,Interesting Sites,Knowledgebase,Tech Related — Suramya @ 11:23 PM

This is a really cool flash application that allows you to create Visio like diagrams using flash. I tried it out and found the system to be pretty responsive. It allows you to share the documents you create for collaborative editing and if you like what you have you can export it as image files (jpg, png) or as SVG files that can be imported into Visio.

I like the idea and will probably use it for personal stuff, however I don’t think I would use it if I ever had to design some sensitive/confidential system layout. I searched for a privacy policy but couldn’t find any so don’t know what level of privacy are they offering. Without a privacy policy they can do whatever they want with your data.. Not saying that they will, just that they can.

Check it out: Gliffy.com – Diagram and draw in your web browser

Thanks to Adam Fields (weblog) for the link.

– Suramya

July 3, 2006

How to photograph Fireworks

Filed under: Computer Tips,Interesting Sites,Knowledgebase,Tech Related — Suramya @ 11:32 AM

As some of you probably know I love taking photos but I have always had trouble capturing fireworks, they just don’t come out nicely for me 🙁

The following article’s have some awesome tips on how to photograph fireworks so now that I know the secret you can expect some nice pics of fireworks on my site in the near future 🙂

For Digital Cameras: New York Institute of Photography – Tips on Fireworks Digital Photography

For Regular Cameras: How to Photograph Fireworks

Thanks,
Suramya

May 9, 2005

Debian Sysadmin Resources

Filed under: Knowledgebase,Linux/Unix Related — Suramya @ 2:25 PM

This is a great site with a lot of resources and tips for the Debian System Administrator. Check it out Here

– Suramya

April 15, 2005

Installing Debian From Scratch (DFS)

Filed under: Knowledgebase,Linux/Unix Related — Suramya @ 5:00 PM

I like Debian a lot, the only problem I have with it is that when I install it, it installs a lot of junk on the system that I don’t need.

Linux from Scratch is a distribution that fixes this problem but setting it up is too much work for me plus I really like debian and would like to stick to it. -) Fortunately for me someone else also felt the same and created DFS which allows you to create a customized install like LFS but with the Debian advantages.

Instructions on how to install Debian From Scratch are available here

I will try to install it on my system over the weekend. Will keep you posted.

– Suramya

April 12, 2005

Linux software RAID with mdadm

Filed under: Knowledgebase,Linux/Unix Related — Suramya @ 3:30 PM

Software RAID is an inexpensive way to create instant backups and protect your systems against data loss in the event that one drive fails. Learn some basic RAID management over Here

– Suramya

April 10, 2005

Linux Rootkit detection tools

Filed under: Knowledgebase,Linux/Unix Related — Suramya @ 8:24 PM

According to Wikipedia, A root kit is a set of tools used by an intruder after cracking a computer system. These tools can help the attacker maintain his or her access to the system and use it for malicious purposes.

It is pretty hard to detect a root kit using standard system tools so we need to use specialized detection programs. Below are links to software that detects RootKits in Linux:

Rootkit Hunter:

Rootkit Hunter scans files and systems for known and unknown rootkits, backdoors, and sniffers. The package contains one shell script, a few text-based databases, and optional Perl modules. It should run on almost every Unix clone.

chkrootkit:

chkrootkit is a tool to locally check for signs of a Rootkit.

List of Datawipe Tools

Filed under: Knowledgebase,Security Tools,Tech Related — Suramya @ 12:19 AM

Below are some software that allows you to delete data from disks securely. All of them are pretty efficent and make it difficult for someone to recover the data. However keep in mind that no data is 100% unrecoverable to those who have sufficient time and money.

So it you have some really sensitive data that you have to destroy look into purchasing a furnace and melt the disks down and then destroy the remains.

Software for Data Wiping:

DBAN:

Darik’s Boot and Nuke (’DBAN’) is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

Autoclave:

It’s a bootable floppy image that sterilizes IDE hard disks on x86 machines.

BCWIPE:

BCWipe software is designed to securely delete files from disks and other media

Free Secure Delete Tools:

The utilities on this page allow you to destructively wipe/delete/erase a file, a disk (floppy disks, hard disks, etc), or a partition.

Kill Disk:

Active@ KillDisk is a powerful and compact DOS software that allows you to destroy all data on hard and floppy drives completely, excluding any possibility of future recovery of deleted files and folders.

Eraser:

Eraser is a powerful system security utility developed on the basis of advanced studies and research.

November 28, 2004

PPTP VPN Server problems

Filed under: Computer Tips,Knowledgebase — Suramya @ 3:07 AM

I was trying to get ppp based vpn working on one of my servers and it wasn’t working.

I was getting the following error message:

pppd[5019]: Failed to open /dev/pts/2: No such file or directory
pptpd[5575]: GRE: read(fd=4,buffer=804de20,len=8196) from PTY failed: status = -1 error = Input/output error, usually caused by unexpected termination of pppd, check option syntax and pppd logs

After spending a couple fo hours I finally fixed the problem. The steps I followed were as below:

  • Recompiled the kernel with ppp support (The first time I forgot to add this) and GRE support
  • Installed the latest stable version of PoPToP (1.1.4-b4) and PPPd (2.4.3)
    • When Installing PoPToP make sure that you don’t configure ppptp to give out IP addresses. This causes dhcpd to fail when attempting to give out IP’s
  • Re-started the services
  • Grin like an Idiot when it actually worked.

Hope this helps someone.

– Suramya

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