midtoad’s mess.ages
excellence in creative mediocrity

If you’re reading this, obviously I’m back in business. The server was down for only 4 hours, during which time I did a complete Linux install, copied data files back from backup, re-created all databases, and debugged problems. Sorry for any inconvenience.
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I returned from a business trip to find an unexpected process running on my webserver:
sh -c ./sik 202.71.104.245
What that means is the following: someone found a way through my firewall and onto my webserver, and made a direct connection between my computer and his (most likely it is a young male involved). The next step (which might already have been taken) would be to install (if possible) a root kit.

What is that? A root kit allows the hacker to take over the machine while hiding his tracks so that it becomes difficult to detect his presence. Tools that I would normally use to detect a problem are replaced with compromised versions of same that do not report the nefarious activity. As a result, I might be duped into thinking all is well when it is not.

If my PC has been root-kitted, then nothing may go wrong for some time. Then, when the hacker wants to mount an attack on some large corporation, suddenly my server will be enlisted in the fight, and the first I will know about it is when my internet service provider cancels my account (and possibly commences legal action against me).

One easy way to resolve all of this: simply wipe the hard drive of the server and start again. That’s what I’ll do; so if you read this, don’t be surprised if you can’t get through for the next day or few. When I’m back in business, I’ll have implemented a few extra controls that had slipped my attention previously.

Lesson learned.

The frustrating thing about running your own home network is that when trouble strikes, there’s no IT guy to call up and fix things for you. (Well, I guess you can always call Nerds on Wheels, but they’re $75 an hour). So you just have to get stubborn and not sit down till you fix what’s wrong. Sometimes, though, there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for why things went wrong in the first place, which makes solving the problem all the more challenging.
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Surely no one can claim that getting mail working on a Linux box is easy. I’ve spent a number of very late nights on it - and finally got it working tonight thanks to some information on the Mandrake site.
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My apologies - too many late nights working on a new server set-up have addled my brain. I went to work today and didn’t notice that my server was off-line until someone asked me about later. Back up now, though (obviously), 12 hours later.

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This morning I couldn’t get any response from any external website using my browser from any of my home network PCs - except from Gmail through a wireless connection on my PDA. Very strange.

Then I tried to renew the IP address on my DMZ’ed webserver, and it failed. Soon after, my WinXP box complained that it had an IP conflict with another machine on the network. Clearly, something was amiss with my router, since it serves up IP addresses. I decided to re-boot it. Moments later, I was back in business!

In all the years running SMEserver, I never had this issue. Now I’ve had it in less than a week with the Linksys router. Not a good start!

… 12 hours later … I discovered that my webserver had shut itself off sometime this morning, so my website was off-line all day. Since my webserver is connected to an industrial-strength UPS, I’m at a loss to explain how this could have happened. Hmm, unless somehow someone got into my system, got a console up, and typed “shutdown fhn now” !

If you can read this, that’s good, because it means I finally have my new webserver set-up and running.

Yesterday I began the process of replacing my SMEserver Linux distribution with Mandrake 10.1. I’ve moved to this distro to enjoy consistency with my desktop PCs, and to have more flexibility on software installations on my webserver itself.

First step was to back everything up to another PC. I had a bit of a scare when I couldn’t find the datafiles for this blog, but eventually I located them in another spot. Then came a litany of small problems, each of which I had to solve: I couldn’t get the webserver to be seen from inside the home network. I couldn’t get the webserver to understand any URLs, only IP addresses. I couldn’t get the webserver to read my USB flash key, or my external IDE drive. I couldn’t get root privileges straightened out on the webserver. I couldn’t get mySQL running; I couldn’t get a user account for this blog database created.

Now that I’m able to post, it’s time to go to bed. The rest of the set-up will have to wait until tomorrow.

I’m making some changes to the topology of my home network. It all resulted from try to test out a new Python app. I ran into some hurdles because of my SME Server’s linux distro, which doesn’t including support for the Tkinter GUI, yet doesn’t allow me to build and compile a new version of Python. I’m getting frustrated with the template system that prevents me from using normal .rpm files from other distros. I began to wonder if I could do better.

I’ve rescusitated an older Linksys wired router with built-in firewall. After a few false starts, I managed to get one computer on my network talking to the internet through the firewall. Good! Then I reconfigured my SME Server so that it was no longer providing gateway functionality for my network, but was functioning only as a server. From the firewall’s perspective, it’s in a DMZ, separate from the rest of the network. Proof that it all works is me typing up this note!

Now to test out a version of Mandrake Linux 10.2 for possible replacement of SME Server. Since I’m already familiar with it on my desktop, I have a better chance of being able to manage it on my server.

Finally, wireless access in my home!

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I’ve just upgraded my blog software, WordPress, from version 1.2 to 1.2.1 “Mingus”. Naturally, this broke all of my special customisations that provided things like custom colours, links to sections, etc. It will take me a week or two to get around to putting it all back together again. In the meanwhile, if you are looking for something and can’t find it, please write me: stewart ‘at’ midwinter ‘dot’ ca.

When a new server was installed over the weekend of May 8th-9th, the Flight Poetry section was broken. PHP scripts which ran successfully on the old server failed to run on the new one. As a result, extensive debugging and rewriting was required. At the same time, we’re trying out a new look for the actual poetry pages; this could spread to the entire site within the next little while. Enjoy! And, as always, feel free to make a contribution.

Tired of receiving (or sending) too-long URLs (web-links) in your e-mail messages? You know, someone sends you a link to a cool webpage, but when you click on it, your browser opens with an error, because not all of the link appeared in the address bar (most e-mail messages chop into pieces any URL longer than 72 characters). So you have to manually cut and paste together the various pieces of the URL in order to view it. By that time, you’ve given up and gone on to the next thing. But is there an alternative?
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Well, on the off-chance someone was poking around on the weekend, they might have noticed that my website was unavailable. I was busy poking around under the hood!
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Since adopting WordPress for managing the content on my website, I’ve been learning about CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets.
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1st wireless post on WordPress! sent from my Palm Tungsten T3, using WebPro v.3.01 browser.

Hmm, while surfing (i.e. wandering almost aimlessly from one webpage to another linked page to a third page etc, until you’ve lost the original intent) this evening on MovableType’s website, I came across Python Desktop Server, which led me to Python Community Server…
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I wanted this blog to be served up by a Python-based application server like Zope, maybe with Plone or Squishdot running on top of it. But I didn’t want to buy all that complexity, so we’re using MovableType instead.
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Yesterday (oh, so long ago) I decided to give postNuke a shot as a blogging tool. I’ve been using it to drive my website for some time now, maybe a year or so. I even posted two weblog entries with it during the day yesterday. And then I decided there are a couple of minor flaws with postNuke as a blogging tool.
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First post on the new Coreblog content management system was here, yesterday. I was experimenting with this to replace my current framework, which uses postNuke. Nothing wrong with postNuke, it’s just that I want a simpler construct, something along the lines of a blog (short for “web log”). Here’s what postNuke looks like (with one of several different possible themes):
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You may have noticed this website was “off the air” for a couple of hours yesterday (Sunday). Repairs were underway…
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Another sleepless night was the price to be paid for completing a change to my home network topology. Will the changes be worth it? Time will tell!
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Recently someone asked me what hardware and software I use to manage this website. Here’s the answer.
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Anyone who visited this site yesterday will have noticed a complete overhaul today. Almost as if little elves had worked all night to create something new. In fact, it’s exactly like that! What follows is the anatomy of a server rebuild.
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