September 2012 - Roundtable

DNS Amplification DoS
by Paul Sierks 17 Sep '12

17 Sep '12

Hey Everybody, I recently saw iftop showing a couple "connections" of ~200Kbps persistently on a box and because this wasn't the usual, I looked into it. Turns out it was caused by DNS lookups of type ANY ripe.net repeatedly. I can only assume this is an amplification attack. This box uses BIND 9.9.1-P3 is public facing and does recursive lookups (also authoritative). Now that that's out of the way, I'm looking/thinking of ways the prevent this obviously. This isn't causing a problem on a 100Mb link now but could get there quickly. As far as I know I don't have a lot of options, maybe iptables with some sort of limiting. ACLs would normally help, and would be perfect if I could get it to use a SQL database as the backend, and use that as a whitelist to at least mitigate the issue. If anyone has experience on the subject or an idea, it is much appreciated. Regards, Paul

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Call for Personal Experiences with CFEngine and Puppet
by Robert Keizer 17 Sep '12

17 Sep '12

Greetings Greetings, I'm looking for personal experiences from people on this list who have dealt with either CFEngine or Puppet. What do you think are the pros / cons? Did you have a horrible experience with one? Are you a Chef junky instead? A little bit of background: I've been working for a company who asked me to design and implement a complete infrastructure solution - internal, external, testing, production, etc. Things are now stable, redundant, and tested ( 90% anyways .. always more to do ). I won't go into too much detail about the system as I know just how searchable this email will be as soon as it hits the muug server. Suffice to say that there are about 10 Windows and Unix systems that I'd like to be able to manage a little easier. I haven't done anything more than read documentation on the two products mentioned above over the last few years. As I'm trying to decide which / if any of these systems would be a good solution for management of a stable production system that _won't_ have too many major changes in the coming months/years, and I'd like some input. It's worth noting that I'm a guy that decided to ( before hearing of these frameworks ~4 years ago ) build my own custom framework for managing the system ( I'd like to apply the bus principle now that I have some sense ) - so scripts and a steeper learning curve aren't my biggest concern. Any thoughts / advice / personal experiences would be most appreciated. All the best, Rob Keizer

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RTL SDR Link
by Robert Keizer 13 Sep '12

13 Sep '12

Greetings Greetings, Mike was asking about the RTL SDR and where he could get one. Linky below. http://sdr.osmocom.org/trac/wiki/rtl-sdr

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"toaster" neutrality ...
by Dan Keizer 12 Sep '12

12 Sep '12

... here's that little video that was brought up at the meeting today ... i just love the analogy :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfHjP0jRf4s Dan.

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Duplex printing in Thunderbird
by Mike Pfaiffer 12 Sep '12

12 Sep '12

In the roundtable discussion this evening I made a comment about how Thunderbird wasn't printing double sided pages on my duplex printer. Oddly enough just about all the other applications (Open Office etc,) worked properly. Adam suggested it was probably something in CUPS. I figured that since everything else appeared to work that wasn't the case. Well hats off to Adam. He called that problem correctly. It WAS CUPS. The solution... At https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ghostscript/+bug/885118 they suggested going into the CUPS web configuration directly at http://localhost:631/ to make the changes. I took a look at the defaults. It was set for single sided printing. I made that change and it whined about not having the duplexer enabled. I told CUPS it was there. Now I get the proper options (at least the one I want) in Thunderbird. I'll try it out later and see if that actually solved the problem. On another note. Thanks again Rob. I'll pass along the URL to someone who knows someone who knows someone and see if I can get something from China. If it all works I'll do a demo for both the MWCS and MUUG (assuming I still have the antennas I built - I WILL need a ride home from someone that day and maybe a pickup as well). Later Mike

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MUUG Meeting, Sept 11, 7:30pm -- Network Cabling for Dummies
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 04 Sep '12

04 Sep '12

The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, September 11. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Network Cabling for Dummies Katherine Scrupa and Adam Thompson will talk about network cabling, and demonstrate how to make your own network cables. To allow for a longer round-table session after the summer break, we'll be skipping the RTFM segment of the meeting. The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. ********************************************************************** Please note our meeting location: The IBM offices, at 400 Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the reception desk, and then wait for someone to take you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15pm, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30pm. Don't be late, or you may not get in. (But don't come too early either, since security may not be there to let you in before 7:15 or so.) Non-members may be required to show photo ID at the security desk. Limited parking is available for free on the street, either on Ellice Ave. or on some of the intersecting streets. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $5.00 for the evening. Bicycle parking is available in a bike rack under video surveillance located behind the building on Webb Place. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Help us promote this month's meeting, by putting this poster up on your workplace bulletin board or other suitable public message board: http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/MUUGmeeting.pdf -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ PO Box 130 St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg MB CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609 ------ End of Forwarded Article

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by Gilbert E. Detillieux 04 Sep '12

04 Sep '12

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More hardware stuff
by Kevin McGregor 02 Sep '12

02 Sep '12

Is anyone still looking for older video cards? I doubt it, but I have these: ATI Rage Pro Turbo AGP Diamond AGP 16 MB ATI Radeon 9200SE PCI 128 MB (VGA/TV-out/DVI) NVidia Quadro NVS280 PCI (dual-head DVI, 1 connector and I think I have a suitable cable around) NVidia FX6200 PCI 128 MB (VGA/TV-out/DVI) If no one is interested, they're off to be recycled (or otherwise disposed of). Kevin

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Free hardware
by Kevin McGregor 01 Sep '12

01 Sep '12

Anyone interested in: Sun Ultra 5s? (Two) Powerware 800VA UPS (probably needs new batteries) Assorted VGA/CRT monitors? I can even deliver (within Winnipeg). Kevin

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