SELinux

So I have commented on SELinux before and to be honest it frustrates me very badly, but it also makes a system much more secure. I have heard taht A lot of people just turn SELinux off. Working with Health Care info that is not an option.

I have found that most of the time you can either fix it simply by going through the logs and a quick google search or if you know the context is supposed to be like another files by copying it (for example I ran into an error when a file did not have permissions due to recently being ssh'd over so a service would not start). I have found 2 commands to be extremely helpful.

This one copies the security permissions of one file to the new one
chcon --reference=/path/to/existingfile /path/to/newfile

The other one is restorecon -R /path/to/file(s) which I had to do when I deleted the entire folder in /etc/folder that was being used instead of just the contents of the folder.

All in all I have to say PLEASE don't just disable SELinux. You'll find the answer somewhere that's what the internet is for.

.eml file? and other IE uses

So I haven't done much ever with outlook and I have only dinked around with Thunderbird. These applications just are just too much from what I want in email. I do know however that many people use them in a professional environment. Normally this has no problem in sending emails back and forth but I got an attachment as a .eml file. I needed the file because it had how to set up specific VPN. Turns out this is a file type that Outlook and Thunderbird use (and quite possibly other systems from what I can gather)!

There are a few solutions to viewing it, changing the extension to be html and any browser will work but as it turns out the only one that will simply load it (and format it perfectly) was Internet Explorer.

Now I dislike IE as much as the next guy (well any one under the age of 60 to be fair), but as it turns out I have found 2 uses for it now. One being this .eml file viewer and the other being that you can disable the certificate check. Normally I would say NEVER DO THIS and if you are using IE make sure it is enabled but in my case it was necessary as the certificate was never properly installed on a server (which is now in the process of being fixed so we can all go back to using Chrome and Fire Fox).

I mentioned installing certificates for websites in this post but I probably will not write on that if I don't do it for a personal site. It is a fairly straight forward process that involves creating a .csr and .key files and uploading/emailing them and then downloading the .crt file and it will depend on who you get your domain from etc. Most sites will have specific instructions on how to make them.

Here is the one from GoDaddy. It also has ones for generating a CSR etc.

Learning Python

So I am learning the python coding language (definatly not my favorite) but it can be a powerful tool (just like any language). There are lots of tools for free (don't go and spend money on learning a language unless you have to for a class).

There is a book for about $25 - $30 called Learn Python the Hard Way. Well the guy (Zed Shaw) decided to also publish everything online free (with option to pay for support and videos etc).

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/

I have found it useful but at the same time I am not using it enough for it to be amazing, although it has helped me understand some of the back end things that go on with our system.

I am currently on lesson 24 of 50. I have to say this is a good site to use to teach the basics for anyone who wants to learn a language. I will most likely post when I finish. The real learning comes with doing the additional work though, not just creating the mimic files he makes.

Most of what I have done has been in the Cisco field, as such I was able to take a few basics and use them to rewrite the Cisco config quickly so I can use the same basic schema with a few differences.

Lots of New Stuff

So I went to Open West there was a lot of cool things. I tried to get Fedora 21 up and running but turned out I had a server disk and I am not too good with out a GUI so I ended up not able to create my VPN yet. Fedora 22  is coming out (it comes out the 26th of this month).

In the mean time a quick update about things I think are interesting. So I have been in both a PCI and HIPPA environment now, and as such I have dealt with different security things. Hopefully I can find some things to show.

In the mean time a quick note about Wifi security I learned at Open West: Wifi security is crap. You can do a lot of things to be more secure, but all and all if someone wants to get you they can.

Here are the things you can do to make you more secure than your neighbor though, which means they get hacked and not you!
-Once you have every device you want connected turn off your SSID broadcasting.
-Don't have a password under 10 characters (the guy giving the seminar said his is over 50, but he was a little extreme, Mine is about 15) and make it alpha numeric, the more random the better.
-Use WPA2 encrytion, for now that is the most secure.
-Pay attention to what Wifi you are connecting too. There are devices that can essentially broadcast and connect your computer to any network.

That is it for this update. I will be dedicating some time to blogging this week so we should see regular updates again for a while at least.

Cisco Site to Site VPN

So the reason I have not posted is because I have been working on setting up a site to site VPN using Cisco. I had gone through the configs a few times and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. After a week we got Cisco support involved, but it took a week to get the support.

All in all I found out a few things in the process. The most important thing I found out was that make sure you send the correct data to the other end. I had put in an incorrect IP in the form I sent them which made my end correct according to what they sent me and their end incorrect.

I'll post some of the other things I learned along the way in another post (for example the troubleshooting that I did).

I am also planning on putting up a VPN at home this week so I will let you know how it goes!

Tunneling

So sometimes it is necessary to tunnel to get access to a router (which is a way more secure way to get to that router).

Windows:
Windows doesn't have a native terminal. I use PuTTY (tty - teletypewriter new fun fact)
UPDATE: Windows 10 does have a Linux terminal now (its basically an Ubuntu shell if I remember correctly). I will add a post on how to enable it but honestly I have found I prefer KiTTY.
In the settings under Connections>SSH>Tunnels you can add a tunnel. Source port is the port you want to connect through and then the ip of the gateway and port. Click add and it adds it to the list above.

Then go to 127.0.0.1:8080

For those seeking an alternative to PuTTY I found KiTTY it is similar but gives the end user a few more options, as well as allows for saving sessions to a directory or registry. I am pretty sure it was built with the PuTTY backbone though.

Linux:
ssh -f user@ip.of.lan.machine -L 8080:ip.of.default.gateway:443 -N
-L is for local-port:hostname:remote-port format
-N is to not execute a command on the remote system.

Then go to 127.0.0.1:8080 -note if it is https you may have to put in https:// before the 127
A Ctrl + c should end the tunnel.

Google Voice getting phone calls.... And other settings!

I love Google Voice. I am a huge fan of texting it gets things done its quick. Mostly I grew up in the era of IM's so it is something I used to spend many sleepless nights doing. Google voice just makes sense for this. I used it for a bit but didn't really need it. Now I rely heavily on it as I do not have a phone outside of emergencies and an old iPhone with no service.

So it took me a while to figure out why my Google voice was not accepting calls correctly to my iPhone, I didn't have the time until recently to dig into it, a few quick searches and I found it. In saying that I want to point out that searching for the correct key words really helps.

Basically what I use for all calls is my Google voice and it was great for outgoing calls and text, but I couldn't receive calls. Well I found the answer! There is setting that it seems is only turned off initially with iPhones, thank you Google...

To send pictures using your Google Voice number from a computer go to the bottom.

Below is how to fix it.

What I found was
1) You have to use the "Hangouts" app (the Google voice app makes it go through your phone)
2) You have to change a single setting called incoming calls or something of that sort which is under another setting called phone number.

I pasted the instructions from

https://support.google.com/voice/answer/3438876?hl=en

Get an incoming call

To receive incoming calls through Hangouts, you must have a Google Voice account. Incoming calls will appear as notifications instead of ringing directly on your cell phone. You can answer the call by touching the notification or swiping it on the lock screen. But remember, if your screen is passcode-protected, you’ll have to unlock it first.

If you have Google Voice set to forward calls to your cell phone, you’ll receive the call directly to your phone instead of through the Hangouts app.
Set the Hangouts app as the default for incoming Google Voice calls

You can only set the Hangouts app as the default for incoming Google Voice calls if you are a U.S. Google Voice customer.
Open the iOS Hangouts app.
Touch your profile photo at the top of the screen.
Choose the settings icon .
Touch Phone number.
Touch Incoming phone calls to on make Hangouts the preferred destination for all calls made to your Google Voice number.

Hangouts will be the automatic setting for calls to the Hangout app on iPads and iPod Touches, but not iPhones.

This setting is only for each device you have, not each account. So if you more than one device you'll need to change the setting on each device.

Sending Pictures from Google Voice number
First off you have to be using the new hangouts chat in G-mail. Once there search for the person or number you want to send to. With this just start typing in the contact name and then click on the sms link for the desired phone number.

From the iPhone app you just click the paperclip button...