Breezy! Site

Cisco Systems Inc CEO John Chambers caused quite a stir when, apparently talking off the cuff, (and maybe also off the top of his head) he opined that the Linksys brand would be finally put to rest in favour of Cisco branding for the home consumer market. Linksys, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco, immediately took the peculiar and aggressively contradictory stance of quickly refuting any speculation that Linksys was on its deathbed.

The server which is in my DMZ has two interfaces in it. Up until recently I have had them configured as a single, "bonded" interface (search Breezy! for "ifenslave" and "bond0"). This has allowed me to backup one NIC with the other providing me a simple failover solution.

I have a lot of things to say. Some of what I have to say doesn't necessarily fit into a static environment like a blog let's say, or a forum posting. I would like to see more of the Breezy! Site's "moral" online....saying something serious but not taking ourselves too seriously!

I had to downgrade the code on my Cisco ASA 5505 from 7.2(22) to 7.2. It wasn't really a downgrade per se since 7.2(22) was not general distribution code and had specific fixes for other issues.

Now when I connect to my home network via the VPN (SSL or IPSec), I can ping stuff on the inside of my network. Imagine that!

The Breezy! Site is always on the edge! I installed the new version of NoMachine which was just announced yesterday (6/20/2007) For those of you that are unfamiliar with this excellent product, it is a robust, extensible suite of products that includes:

• Linux Terminal Server
  
• Thin Client Access
  
• Management Software
  

In a move which has surprised many in the industry, Apple Corporation has just released a version of their Safari web browser which supports Windows XP.

The Safari 3 Public Beta is available for download at this link. on the Apple site. There are already a number of Java, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player (!) and other plugins available for the browser so this seems like a carefully planned move rather than a last minute port of code.

Those of you who have been reading my chronicles about using my own certificate authority will probably remember my bad experiences with obtaining and installing a functioning SCEP (Simple Certificate Enrollment Protocol) server. The only reason I wanted to install SCEP in the first place was because I was having all kinds of trouble manually installing certificates on my ASA 5505. I finally managed to complete the manual process with the ASA and discovered some things along the way:

1. The ASA's GUI isn't very reliable

I have installed and am experimenting with a clientless SSL VPN solution called SSL Explorer on my Ubuntu box. (link to software at the end of this article) I am using the freeware version (vs. Enterprise Edition) of the software, and am generally pleased with it. It was not as easy to install as it should have been because critical information such as what version of Java to install (it is heavily Java based) as well as other dependencies were not very clearly laid out.

SpamAssassin 3.2.0 has just been released. The full information for what has been changed in this release can be found at the SpamAssassin site at this link.

Some of the improvements:

• smaller memory footprint;
  
• ability to ping the spamd daemon from spamc (useful for scripts)
  
• Move rule functionality and checking into separate Check plugin, allowing third parties to implement alternative scanner core algorithms.
  

/Eric

My next project is to make my computer into a streaming TV server, in the same manner as the Slingbox. ( http://www.slingmedia.com/indexa.php) I'm getting tired of missing telecasts of my favourite NHL hockey team, the Ottawa Senators, while I'm on the road. Ottawa is currently playing against the New Jersey Devils in the second round (semifinals) of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the ultimate prize in hockey.