Author: toadvine

Categories
BSD/Linux DrupalRecover Tech

Fetchmail and SSL certificates

I have to search for this periodically being sites like to change their SSL certificates every once and a while. So here’s another place to look for it!

If you don’t know what Fetchmail is its a little program (maybe its gigatic, I don’t know) that fetches email for you from many different email servers. This allows me to have one place where I store all my email across all my email addresses and then I can use an IMAP email server to view it all in one place. Very nice if you’ve many different email address.

In order to do this magic you have to tell fetchmail how to login to your email accounts and its always better to do this securely over SSL. To do it over SSL you have to tell fetchmail the site’s SSL certificiate (or you could weaken fetchmail to not care to validate the certificate but that seems silly). And to do that you have to tell it in hex or other computer sprach.

So first you need to get the SSL certificate in computer sprach:

openssl s_client -connect pop3.live.com:995 -showcerts | openssl x509 -fingerprint -noout -md5

Running this will get you the certificate computer sprach entry itself that’ll look something like this:

91:63:CF:6F:DF:03:3C:B9:3E:19:B3:1C:FF:EB:3C:25

Second you need to tell fecthmail to use this id when it connects to the server in the fetchmailrc file:

poll pop3.live.com uidl protocol POP3 user “xxxyyy@live.com” there with password “ohSuchASecurePassword!@#$” is xxxx@tttt here ssl sslfingerprint ‘91:63:CF:6F:DF:03:3C:B9:3E:19:B3:1C:FF:EB:3C:25‘

There you have it! That’s almost a good memorable, secure password I just made up there.

Categories
Uncategorized

Random handy links I recently used! Install CM 10.2 on TF300T and create a recovery partition on Mavericks

Recently I installed CyanogenMod 10.2 (Android 4.3) on the Asus TF300T. I’d already had it on the Nook Tablet and it really seemed to be working well on the Nook. Much better than CM 10.1 (Android 4.2) on the Nook. As I’ve commented before the TF300T has become dogged slow due to its cheap flash storage. However, there is such a thing as TRIM support that was added into Android 4.3 which supposedly makes this not as bad. After installing on the TF300T it does seem to have helped a lot, almost like new! (So far)

Installing CyanogenMod on TF300T – just install CM 10.2 if you want Android 4.3:

http://blog.askseb.com/1567-unlocking-and-rooting-asus-transformer-tf300…

I also recently bought a shiny new Mac Mini and the storage seemed dogged slow on that as well. I was hoping it’d be quicker than the USB drive running the old iMac with failed internal harddrive. What with the 5400 rpm drive it just wasn’t fast and that seems to affect OS X pretty significantly. Everything seems slow to me since I’ve an SSD in the 6 year old MacBook Pro and everything is very quick just thanks to the SSD.

However, I also bought the Mac Mini knowing it had the Thunderbolt port. So I got a LaCie SSD drive with Thunderbolt, got everything moved over, and the Mac Mini is blazing fast when run off the external SSD via Thunderbolt!

The thing I forgot to do was create the ‘recovery parition’ when I copied over the old hard drive. You need this to encrypt the drive for example using File Vault. I need to find that link still but one page gave good enough instructions to do that. In summary you resize the boot partition in Disk Utility (this works fine), in Disk Utility create an image from another hard drive with the recovery image, then (again with Disk Utility) copy that image to the partition you just created. Make sure it’s the recovery partition is after the main partition. That’s easy if you just have 2 partitions.

Categories
BSD/Linux DrupalRecover Tech

Port forwarding VNC connection

One sad day our old modem failed. The phone company gave us a new DSL modem/router. I had figured out how to setup portforwarding and such on the old modem. I can’t get into the new one at all! After briefly attempting to get info out of the phone company about how to access the new modem’s admin interface to no success I gave up on all my nice old port forwards.

Continue reading “Port forwarding VNC connection”
Categories
BSD/Linux DrupalRecover Tech

Notes for a general webserver

I’ve got a pretty nice free setup for a webserver I’ve been taking for granted now. So for anyone starting off wanting to setup a server with email, webserver, and database here are some applications I’ve found reliable and somewhat easy to figure out.

Continue reading “Notes for a general webserver”
Categories
BSD/Linux DrupalRecover Tech

Pi bits

A couple of really handy things that may not be obvious when using the RaspberryPi.

Continue reading “Pi bits”
Categories
BSD/Linux DrupalRecover Tech

Rackspace and FreeBSD

(2016 note – Debian ended up winning!)

This took me a bit to figure out and almost had me switch away from FreeBSD to Debian! Oh my! Exciting I’m sure. Briefly this site was completely down due to this.

Continue reading “Rackspace and FreeBSD”
Categories
BSD/Linux DrupalRecover Tech

RaspberryPi wifi restart

(2016 update) I actually wondered where this one went!

I’ve got a Raspberry Pi that keeps losing its wifi connection whenever the microwave runs too long. Here’s at least one way to get around this since the wifi doesn’t seem to rescan on its own.

Continue reading “RaspberryPi wifi restart”
Categories
BSD/Linux DrupalRecover Tech

Arduino Project #1

Recently I discovered the Arduino. Its an open source microcontroller that makes playing with electronics more fun for the computer programming savvy. Rather than having to find all sorts of components and understand a bit too much of how they all work, you can have the little microcontroller do it for you. Great! I’ve a couple of “experiment with electronics” sets to compare against and the same projects are 1000000% easier using this whole new fangled ‘computer’ thing. I’ve got many projects planned now.

The first is just scary eyes it being Haloween. Nothing fancy but they are actually a bit creepy from the outside.

Here’s the Arduino and breadboard – pretty easy:

Categories
BSD/Linux DrupalRecover Tech

Portupgrade vs Portmaster and update woes with FreeBSD and other OSes

Copying forward posts from an old Drupal install in case they help and also to pad this blog a bit! Also copying the comment on this one since it’s probably better than my post:

Continue reading “Portupgrade vs Portmaster and update woes with FreeBSD and other OSes”
Categories
DrupalRecover Uncategorized

George Washington was pretty darn wise

(2016 update – And who knew Hamilton helped him write it! :))

If ‘pro’ is the opposite of ‘con’, what’s the opposite of progress? Congress!

In George Washington’s farewall address he warned about the problems of political parties. Just a few relevant quotes from 1796.

A bit on how the few can control the government – this applies to both parties equally:

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

A bit more on the rule of the few via their two parties, sounds pretty darn familiar to our current situation:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Also nothing is new in the ‘divisions’ we often fall into just in association to where we live:

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views.

The wikipedia article explains his view here a bit more succintly but I thought it nice to actually look to what he said also. We’ve too much trust anymore of the first source of whatever fact we want to hear on the internet or in general.