PhreakNIC

I will be attending PhreakNIC this weekend. Looks like some of the guys from my major are making the journey down. Can't wait to catch on old times and really enjoy some geek speak.

Google Reader....The Smallest Things

The other day one of my friends IMed me to say Google Reader had gotten search. I went to the site and at the time they had just released it, so the page was still coming up.

Today, I was reading some articles in Google Reader and look over to the left side and there sits an arrow. I had never noticed this arrow. I pressed the arrow and behold the left side of the page collapsed giving me more reading room. On top of that, at the top of page, a search box and a drop down box now appear which enables me to quickly go to all my categories.

The little things piss you off and the little things bring you back up!!

Google Reader, I love you!!!

Hpodder - Linux podcast client

Hpodder, the Linux podcast client. I have used this app before just thought I would give it a little more face time. This is a fairly simple application basically used for downloading podcasts.

I installed this application on my Ubuntu 7.04 laptop using apt-get. You can also install this application via synaptic package manager by doing a search on hpodder.

The command for installing via apt-get is:

apt-get install hpodder

That is it! (the beauty of repos!!)

To run it at the terminal (yes my friend it is CLI) type in:

hpodder

This runs the first time run which allows you set up the download the directory. What is great about hpodder is it is so simple. Unlike other CLI downloaders there is not alot of overhead.

Putting in your podcast subscriptions is pretty simple:

hpodder add URLTORSS

Removing is easy as well since it uses a database to manage the podcasts to download and how many to download you simply call the ID.

hpodder rm --castid

To begin the download process once your have loaded your podcasts:

hpodder fetch

!!!Watch out because this will download all episodes in the RSS feed.

hpodder update

hpodder catchup

hpodder download

will give you the next episode. Anyway play around with hpodder and read the man page for more options and good time fun.

Don't forget to plug it into cron so you can have your podcasts during the day ready to go.

CISCO: Battle with Wake on LAN

The place I am currently employed, uses all CISCO equipment. This means getting in touch with your CLI side. I love the command line but IOS is a different breed of CLI. I can't say that I don't like...just sometimes it sucks.

Different IOSs do different things and different product lines only support certain IOS. Its really a vicious cycle of Cisco adding features to one and forcing customers to upgrade to get the better options.

As of late I was given the task of adding Wake on Lan to the environment to help out a team so that if their boxes went off line for some reason they could bring them back up remotely.

I began with some research into Wake on Lan technology and how it worked. Wake on lan basically involves the NIC of the machine being set up to listen while the computer is shut down but the NIC is still drawing power. The NIC is still listening on the network for the "magic" packet. This magic packet is a broadcast packet but what makes it special or magic is the data contained in it. The Mac address of the target machine is placed inside the data portion 12 to 14 times. Typically a udp packet it is a broadcast packet that is sent out usually over udp port 9.

At my place of employment we deploy higher end Cisco Catalyst 6500 series swithes. These guys have Layer 3 capabilities. As usually these are used as our distribution. We have several vlans that break up floors and other parts of the business. The team I was doing Wake on Lan for was coming from several different vlans and going to several vlans. Here is one of the problems with Wake on Lan intervlan (layer 3), broadcasts can't just go across vlans.

You have to help out the routing, just like in DHCP we use the ip helper address. The ip helper address tells the interface vlan what address to point to for broadcasts.

Here is the setup:

2 6500s for distributions connected together with 4Gb etherchannel then 2 2Gb channels to Access layer switches on various floors.

All vlans are on the distribution layer.

We have numerous vlans as said before here is an example of the vlans and the config needed for Wake on Lan.

interface Vlan20
description 1st Floor Vlan Wake on Lan Client
ip address 192.168.1.0 255.255.255.0
ip directed-broadcast 100

interface Vlan30
description 2nd Floor Vlan Wake on Lan Client
ip address 192.168.2.0 255.255.255.0
ip directed-broadcast 100

interface vlan40
description Wake on Lan Server
ip address 192.168.3.0 255.255.255.0
ip helper-address 192.168.1.255
ip helper-address 192.168.2.255

ip forward-protocol udp 9

access-list 100 permit udp host 192.168.3.2 any eq 9

The next commands should be placed on the access switches with the mac address of your various Wake on Lan clients. The reason just in case you run into the same problem I did with the mac address falling out of the table.

mac-address-table static 0014.09CA.1ad8 vlan 20 interface gi 1/0/1

After all the research and testing and now I can do Wake on Lan in my sleep. Anyway I just thought I would throw that out there on the Interwebs.

PC-BSD 1.4

So I am back into my old gig of playing with fifty different OS's all at once. I found one that is pretty cool. PC-BSD 1.4 is based off of FreeBSD so you know its stable. It can use the ports or CVS for package management and it has click and install for programs. Its kind of funny to go to a web side and download and install a .pbx file that installs Dreamweaver MX on my PC-BSD box, but it does (if you have the executable).

I use PC-BSD 1.4 mainly for my no nonsense WEb Dev box so I can actually get work done instead of playing on the INETS while I am at home at night.

Tech updates

Currently I am employed as a IT Analyst on a Network Team of four people. The company I work for is huge so the network being run by four people is hard to imagine. Our work is primarily project based with a few break/fixes and changes that have to be made every now and then. For the past couple of weeks I have been trying to implment Wake on Lan across VLANS. Intervlan routing of a broadcast can be difficult. At the company I work as well we use exclusivley all CISCO equipment. Right now for instance in the lab we have 2 6500 series catalysts the big boys. I have gotten Wake on LaN to work in the Layer 2 side of things (in the same vlan) however not the inter VLAN (layer 3). Tonight I was in the lab from 9:30 till about 12:30. It brings me back to College and staying in the lab to get an assignment done except now this isn't for a grade.

Webdrifter 0003

So I actually watched Webdrifter tonight from Revision3. Webdrifter is hosted by Martin Sargent and is an off the wall show. He goes around and tries to find people off of the web and meet them. In Episode or 0003 he meets the guy that invented the virtual sex machine. Yes, the virtual sex machine. You have probably heard of this since Webdrifter has not a new episode in a long time. Anyway Martin Sargent puts a spin on it that I don't think most people could. Anyway the virtual sex machine was pretty cool as far as the technology goes. Basically whatever happens on your screen happens with the machine. If the action stops the machine stops, if the action quickens the machine quickens. Anyway its very cool technology as far as what it does.

Ubuntu Studio 7.04 (Pre-touched)

I am currently downloading via bittorrent, Ubuntu Studio 7.04, this is a different branch of the Ubuntu distribution that is geared more towards sound and video production. Personally I am really excited about this development and can't wait to slap this on my recording machine to see what happens. I hope to report back in a few weeks with my opinions on the this new mix of Ubuntu Studio.