Rob the Geek

Category: Geek Stuff

  • Looking at logs…

    I have recently had cause to pay a little more attention to the logs generated by my home firewall. While I use SARG for the day-to-day analysis, I needed a quick and easy command to fire at my squid logs to see what a particular device had been up to. This entry is by no […]

  • pfSense: SARG Reports (v2.2.6 Update)

    This post follows on from my (surprisingly popular) article “pfSense: SARG Reports Not Showing“ After an update to v2.2.6-RELEASE I had re-inherited the same Error: Could not find report index file. Check and save sarg settings and try to force sarg schedule. error. On jumping onto the firewall via SSH, it appears that, at some […]

  • Backing up the Pi

    We’ve just had some work done on one of our systems (which runs from a Raspberry Pi v2) so, aside from the config file backups that we can collect from the systems interface, I thought it would be prudent to grab an image backup.. this is how it was done:

  • CentOS 7 – CLI to GUI

    I’ve been playing with a few VMs as I try to figure out a new infrastructure for our office, and as part of this I’ve taken a particular shine to CentOS as a minimal build for my virtual servers. I then decided I wanted to get a few sandbox environments running with desktop software and, […]

  • pfSense: SARG Reports not showing

    This appears to be a somewhat common problem with the more recent pfSense installations, when SARG reports are accessed ({Status} > {Sarg Reports} > [View Report] Tab) the UI responds with: Error: Could not find report index file. Check and save sarg settings and try to force sarg schedule. Edit: 02/01/2016 – After an update […]

  • PASSWORD MANAGERS, CRYPTOGRAPHY, AND TRUST

    So, a friend* of mine asked me yesterday, (following my posting of an article), what I thought of a particular password manager – I obviously wanted to answer her question. I then decided that since I was in for a penny, I might as well be in for a pound and here we are, (hopefully) […]

  • Technology and Recreation – a recipie for AWESOME

    For gadget geeks like myself, there’s always been an opportunity to mix technology with what we do when AFK (away from keyboard). My first heart monitor watch *had* to be imported because no one in this country was selling the IR receiver (connecting through a DB9 (serial) cable no less.. for the more normal, serial […]

  • ASUS Garmin A10

    I got one of these phones when they first came out – they were pretty awesome back then, however over time they have been orphaned on older, vulnerable iterations of Android and they simply don’t have what it takes to be a primary device any longer. Because of this – I’m currently looking to root the phone and install upon it a modified ROM which will give me *just* what I need to turn this into a useful device for sitting in the car.

  • Ubuntu Upgrade Day: 11.04 – 11.10 ‘Oneiric Ocelot’

    Yay! My favorite Linux distro gets a facelift today with Ubuntu 11.04 making way for the newly released version 11.10 ‘Oneiric Ocelot’. From past history lessons, I do tend to stray on the side of caution, so only one of my machines will be getting the upgrade treatment this week and I’ll hold off with the […]

  • NetHui 2011 – Day 1: Globalisation, the Internet and the Law – The Internet as a Revolutionary Tool

    Session Lead by: Brian Calhoun, Independent Consultant and co-chair of NZRise Inc  “I see a gradual slide toward corporate and government control…by control I mean content” The session started with a discussion of TOR / BitCoin / BitTorrent – all created specifically to circumvent control systems that were already in existence. The question then posed […]