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 means an exhaustive list, but it will serve as a handy reminder to me as to what I did to pull the data I needed to look at. Continue reading “Looking at logs…”
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 point the sarg-reports directory under /usr/pbi/sarg-amd64/local/ had been turned into a symbolic link (this may have happened via the reinstallation of packages following the update).
As such, any attempts to link /usr/local/sarg-reports to /usr/pbi/sarg-amd64/local/sarg-reports would result in;
/usr/local/sarg-reports: Too many levels of symbolic links.
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: Continue reading “Backing up the Pi”
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, well.. that’s where the fun began!
After about twelvety-zillion restores from snapshots and reading, and forum trawling, and more restores, I think I’ve come up with a winning way to turn a humble CentOS 7 minimal build, booting to the lonely command prompt, into a bastion of desktoppy goodness. Hopefully this will be of use to someone else out there, if not – it will serve and a handy reminder to me as to what I did to get things running.
Error: Could not find report index file. Check and save sarg settings and try to force sarg schedule.
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 to v2.2.6-RELEASE I had re-inherited the same error, this time however, it was caused by symbolic link weirdness – See the fix here.
Some users have reported that changing options in the [General] tab, saving, then forcing a schedule has resolved this issue, I have not been so lucky, so the following is what I needed to do to fix things.
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) fixing my response, and posting it in a more readable format.
The status post that launched a thousand words…
TLDR; No. I don’t especially like the look of it. You have to trust a company who is making money out of (hoping) their product is secure. I personally like KeePass ( http://keepass.info ) which works on all my devices and, coupled with a internet sync service (that also leaves you comfortable with the level of security offered), works on all my devices.
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 cables were “how things were done” before the simplicity of USB arrived). Continue reading “Technology and Recreation – a recipie for AWESOME”
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.
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.
Step #1 – Hard Reset to Factory Defaults.
Turn the phone OFF
While holding the volume UP button, press and HOLD the power button
Keep holding the buttons until ‘Clear User Data’ is displayed in text on the phone’s screen.
The phone will continue to boot after factory resetting the device (note, items on the Micro SD card will NOT be affected – you would need to reformat that independently yourself.
Step #2 – Find a ROM.
The new firmware needs to enable the more recent features of Android without overtaxing the processing power or battery capacity of the aging device…
Yay! My favorite Linux distro gets a facelift today with Ubuntu 11.04 making way for the newly released version 11.10Â ‘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 others until any post update issues shake out.
For those who haven’t given Linux a try yet – I’d strongly suggest giving Ubuntu a go – it has a nice interface and can be skinned to look and feel quite similar to some of the other major operating systems you may already be familiar with. Follow this download link and grab the file.
If you just want to kick the tyres and have a quick look, there are some easy to follow instructions on the download page for making a ‘Live CD’ or a bootable USB stick that you can drop into your current machine and check out.
For those already running Ubuntu, upgrading is as easy as following the instructions on this page, or by entering the command:
update-manager -d
from a terminal window (or from a command via <Alt> + <F2> ). At the time of writing, the update files hadn’t made it to the New Zealand servers so you may want to hold off a little, or change your region under the ‘Settings’ option.
Good luck, enjoy (and don’t forget to make a backup of your data files BEFORE you start…)
 “I see a gradual slide toward corporate and government control…by control I mean contentâ€
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 to the room was:
“How long before our government moves to block/disable these things? […]Â What is your bottom line? How pissed off do you need to get before you take action?”
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 means an exhaustive list, but it will serve as a handy reminder to me as to what I did to pull the data I needed to look at.
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: Continue reading “Backing up the Pi”
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, well.. that’s where the fun began!
Yay! My favorite Linux distro gets a facelift today with Ubuntu 11.04 making way for the newly released version 11.10Â ‘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 others until any post update issues shake out.