Archive for May, 2003
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Posted on May 10, 2003, under legacy.
First off, I’ve had some correspondence in relation to my last blog entry on my auto-detectiom stuff. grimnar@rb pointed me at some debian utilites called laptop-netconf, laptop-net and guessnet which use fancy ARP foo to figure out where you are and change IP configurations correspondingly. mark@rb mailed me about a script he found which does the same, it’s even packaged for Debian! http://panopticon.csustan.edu/thood/ifupdown-roaming.html
I’ve made some progress on my Proxy idea, and I now have a working basic proxy that accept command-line arguments, it’s going to take a while before I have it at production-grade, but it’s getting there. Another feature which I completely forgot to mention on my list is that it will act as an IPv6 proxy for Opera, which only supports
IPv4.
Today has been a good day, I also got some real coding work done, something I havn’t had a chance to do in a while, some reqeusts about the tardis code and using it
elsewhere.
In other news, it looks like there’s going to be quite the crowd around for the installation of our shiny hardware on Monday, can’t wait!
The Woes of HTTP_PROXY
I use my laptop in various places, in different configurations. In work I plug into a docking station and use nice 100 Mbit ethernet, I use wireless networks in work, in DCU, at home, all with varying ESSID’s. I recently sat down and used Debian’s interface scheme mapping support so invoke a script that magically works out where I am, and does it’s settings stuff.
This works brilliantly, and if you’re interested you can see my interfaces file and the mapping script. So now my Laptop just works, wherever, without me manually setting things. The only problem with this is that in DCU I need to use a http proxy, and I don’t need such a thing anywhere else. My favourite browser doesnt support the HTTP_PROXY environment variable, so setting in /etc/profile isnt an option. I think I’m going to right a lightweight proxy, for use on localhost. From trawling FreshMeat and Google I can’t find anything that does what I want. So here’s my initial featureset:
- Run on loopback only by default
- Be Tiny and Multithreaded
- Take configuration from a file, but keep the
file descriptor open, so that if it changes we
get SIGIO and re-read the config without the
need for HUP , Diablo style :) - Have two modes of operation, an actual proxy
, and a proxy to a proxy. - Enable plug in modules for thigns like banner
suppresion, privary guards and so on .. that people
seem to like to use. - Support FTP somehow.
We’ll see if I get it off the ground. But it means I can point all of my browsers at a localhost proxy, and have it figure out where I am.
Dellith
Last night, we unpacked our Dell Rack, which has now been named the Dellith (suggestion comes courtesy of mark@redbrick), after some lifting and re-assembling we got it upstairs, where the UPS was rack-mounted, and it’s all in place now. The machine won’t be installed until Monday, all of the Admins are taking the day off for the ocasion.
NETech graciously donated a bespoke private network solution. It has integrated anti-sniffing protection, RJ45 presentation with forwards compatible support for Gigabit Ethernet, a nice blue colour, integrated IPv6 support, and is custom designed for RFC1918 networks. Or to you and me, a
crossover cable.
Lucky No. 7
Well this morning is an altogether happier morning, for one thing I’m not vomiting, I found my keys in work which is a great relief, because I thought I might have lost them. RedBrick’s orders have all arrived safely, within 30 minutes of each other :)
dimples, kpodesta, trevj and emperor are handling the on-site stuff, apparently the rack wont fit in the lift, but it’s no big deal they are light enough to be lifted by two people. Disposing of the pallete they come on might be a bit annoying tough.
First Monday?
It’s now Wednesday the 7th (UTC and we all know that’s the real time), and First Monday still isnt out, bah, I need my fix.
New Site!
Well, I’ve finally launched the new-site. As you can see you might need sunglasses, and some of it may not validate yet, I havn’t had time to check everything.
It looks like http://www.xmms.org/ has been hacked (here is a copy of what it looks like right now), and just when I get bored enough to look for xmms plugins too.
Merry Pancreas Day
Feeling sick sucks, woke up this morning and had zero energy and felt like utter crap, but luckily I managed to get the day off despite me being on duty. On the grounds that the Dell kit may arrive in DCU today, managed to get out of bed by 14:30 and get my ass into DCU.<
Being out in DCU in the daytime gave me the chance to register my wireless card with the excellent Laplan service. About 5 minutes with Stephen from CSD, and I’m up and running. Access in the library and CSD.
Alas our latest shipment of Dell kit has not arrived yet, which leaves me cursing at Interlinks complete lack of on-line tracking. It’d be nice to have a more granular delivery time than a 5 day window. Especially when it’s a large inconvienent 8-foot high on-a-crate
type delivery.
Now, to see where I can find the Dell suggestions form.
The Night Before Christmas
Gah! Bank Holidays at home, even worse when your girlfriend has to work and study, someone should ban bank holidays from happening within a month of each other. 52 weeks in a year and we get 2 of these precious things within 14 days. I’m officially unimpressed.
But still, a 3 day break gives me the chance to crack away on a new ticketing system, aswell as work and plan for RedBrick’s latest toy! mmmmmmmmmmm, PowerEdge. It’s been a mad 2 weeks on the PowerEdge front, but definitely worth it.
Starting with our Treasurer looking for potential Grant Applications the night before the last SPC meeting and Dizer having drawn up a spec, it’s been a whirlwind since.
How-to get a PowerEdge in 10 days:
- Take your time and write a very nice grant application
- Spend the morning before the SPC meeting telling your SPC
Rep why it’s such a good idea - Have a great SPC rep like Imelda McKenna who’ll rally to
your cause and get you the funding - Specify a server, call in your Dell contacts and get cracking
on the discount front - Convince admin-discuss you’re not insane
- *CONFIDENTIAL*
- Get excellent discretionary discount courtesy of Dell
- Convince a committee you’re not insane
- Hassle treasurer and chair to give you a ridiculous ammount
of money in a nice little bearer document, about 5 minutes
after a bank opens - Go to Dell Cherrywood in the middle of nowhere (well
Loughlinstown) and give them a nice piece of paper - Get Dell
*goes back to sleep to wait for Santa*
Obligatory Meta-Entry
In an about-turn in my “blogs suck” policy of yore, to see if I can produce something that exports XML, and because it seems like it’s an o.k. good idea – I now blog. We’ll see how it goes :)