Making a Machine Yours

I talk a lot about the things I use. I want to focus a little on a different aspect, making the machine comfortable for you.

Why I use the programs I do:
A big part of this is simple because it is what I am used to using. Spending time with a program will get you familiar with it and then any thing else just makes it frustrating even if it does the same thing. A good example for this to me is WinSCP versus Filezilla.

I Have used FileZilla for about 6 years now. I tried using WinSCP but found it wasn't an intuitive transfer so I dropped it. Could I have figured it out, probably it doesnt seem hard to use, it just wasn't what I was used to. That being said will I ever switch from FileZilla? on Windows probably not unless it starts going to crap, however Linux is a different story. I use the native commandline SFTP client.

What else do I do to make a machine my own?
Wallpapers, I am constantly changing my wallpapers on my machines. I tried about 300 images on a windows machine until I realized it was freezing the machine up, now I just use kitty to change the shell background. The Linux box I use has over 2000. I have a script that rotates it every 10 minutes in a cronjob.

Alias are also a great way to make something more homely on a machine. I also use a chrome extension called Stylish because it makes it so I can alter websites to be darker or different in some way that is more fun (Youtube has a Nyan cat loading bar etc).

Little things like that are what add personality to a machine and are what make it more fun to work on that particular machine in general for me.

Synergy

As in the software.
Synergy is a software that will allow you to use a single keyboard and mouse across multiple computers. Essentially it is a virtual KVM.

I have 3 computers that I use at work that I go back and forth constantly with, 2 Linux boxes and a Windows box. Synergy means I don't have to have 3 keyboards.


I stole this image from their website but basically this is what it looks like...



It is available for free on github.

I use the paid version for 2 reasons, 1 it has a secure connection option and 2 I believe in supporting softwares that I find very useful.

https://symless.com/synergy

Security Cameras

Some Back Ground:

Perhaps it was because of my time spent as a life guard watching people but I love watching people, and watching them in awkward situations, and watching what they do when they think no one is looking. Anyway this has lead to a love of watching surveillance videos as well as a paranoia about security (not like I have much worth taking).

The situation:
At work there has been some vandalism...

So we did some reconnaissance via some home made security cameras.

What I did:

ManyThing app

https://manything.com/

It was a quick and easy set up plus the first camera is free! For the convenience I think this is totally worth the prices they have as well.

The camera is blank in the picture due to it being offline. If I remember I will upload another one later with it on.

Are there other ways to do this? Absolutely I have seen many ways of doing this, but this was fairly easy and suited my needs perfectly.

Also due to getting ready for a little one I have recently done the same thing as a way to create a wireless monitor for our kid!

**I need to start adding pictures these get boring if they are just texts....

Cisco ASA VPN Quick Notes

I thought I would do a quick notes section on some of the Cisco VPNs and problems I have seen.

If you use a base set of commands or if you use the wizard almost always the problem is on the other end but its nice to have proof.

Some thing I recommend is to not allow a VPN connection to even be set up until they fill out a form for your end that includes all the details. I will make a basic one and upload it in another post, as well as the basic CLI commands to create one if you aren't using the wizard as it is useful info to have around.

Here are a few commands that will help you debug the tunnel.

Check Phase 1 Tunnel ASA# show crypto isakmp sa detail | b [peer IP add]  Check Phase 2 Tunnel ASA# show crypto ipsec sa peer [peer IP add]  Display the PSK ASA# more system:running-config | b tunnel-group [peer IP add]  Display Uptime, etc. ASA# sh vpn-sessiondb detail l2l | b [peer IP add] ASA# show vpn-sessiondb detail l2l filter name <peer_address>  

Re-establish VPN Connection ASA# clear ipsec sa peer <remote-peer-IP>

Github

So I have uploaded some of my more useful things on github.

They can be found here.

The most useful pieces are probably the scripts. I am working on making some of my scripts more generic friendly as they are specific for work for some instances.

and because I like images (and this page is rather plain), here is one of octokitty (github mascot):

New computer!!

So I recently got a new computer, an Alienware Alpha. It is a nice little machine but I could not for the life of me get the controller to work in games. I found out that it was because I set it up as a PC first. Turns out the alpha ui driver for the controller takes precedence. To solve this I simple uninstalled the alpha ui. It was better than doing a factory restore after I had downloaded most my games. I am finding that it runs great though.

VPN Connection

So there are different types of VPNs specifically I am talking about the ones I have made using Cisco with IPsec I believe.

For Windows I use Shrew Soft:
This gives you lots of options, most of which I haven't used because of how I have done my Cisco configs it hasn't been necessary.



For Linux I use vpnc:
First you need to install vpnc
sudo yum install vpnc
Then you need to change the contents of /etc/vpnc/default.conf to:
IPSec gateway the.external.ip.address
IPSec ID CiscoGroupPolicy
IPSec secret ItIs@Secret
Xauth username YOURUSERNAME
Xauth password YOURPASSWORD
IPSEC target network network.ip.scheme.0/24
or
If you put the config information in /etc/vpnc/filename.conf and use "sudo vpnc filename" to connect to the vpn instead.

Replacing YOURUSERNAME and YOURPASSWORD with your own username and password.

After you have done that, just run sudo vpnc to start up the vpn. To disconnect from the vpn, just run sudo pkill vpnc or vpnc-disconnect

It appears that I have found a fix for the "No internet access" issue. Simply create a file with these contents and run the following commands:

(i will work on formatting this correctly so it looks like code and not just a bunch of lines)
diff -aur vpnc-0.5.3.svn527.old/vpnc-script vpnc-0.5.3.svn527.new/vpnc-script
--- vpnc-0.5.3.svn527.old/vpnc-script 2013-08-16 15:30:17.422036172 -0600
+++ vpnc-0.5.3.svn527.new/vpnc-script 2013-08-16 15:31:20.228503547 -0600
@@ -227,7 +227,7 @@

  set_default_route() {
  $IPROUTE route | grep '^default' | fix_ip_get_output > "$DEFAULT_ROUTE_FILE"
- $IPROUTE route replace default dev "$TUNDEV"
+# $IPROUTE route replace default dev "$TUNDEV"
  $IPROUTE route flush cache
  }

This should finish with the just the message of "patching file vpnc-script" on success. It may also say something along the lines of "Hunk #1 succeeded at 131 with fuzz 1 (offset -96 lines).". If it doesn't, something went wrong (or the patch file needs updating).
cd /etc/vpnc/
sudo patch -Np1 -i /path/to/the/patch/file/you/downloaded.patch

I also have installed shrewsoft from source.
-This has been the guide I have followed.

You can also use ShrewSoft via the command line.

Tunnelling
ssh -f searchadmin@10.30.30.23 -L 8080:10.30.30.1:443 -N

Then go to 127.0.0.1:8080

Recently I've been having to install Shrew Soft on my Linux machines as well which has been a pain. The reason for this appears to be some change Cisco made. I'm looking into a way to fix it but basically it causes so much network traffic when I connect via vpnc it doesn't allow anyone else online.