This last weekend I figured out how to tunnel through SSH.
I used TIghtVCV and Putty.
Putty to make the connection in SSH and create the tunnels, TightVNC to use the tunnel to hit machines inside my network.
Very cool way of getting to machines on your network.
http://members.shaw.ca/nicholas.fong/vnc/
That is the link to a page I used to get going on this. It is easier than you think.
Sorry for the lack of posts but I have been busy. But it has been an education.
Here are a couple of links to things I did not know before starting this new job.
SPLUNK Managing data centers in silos used to make sense. Things change. Distributed, scale-out computing, complex web-based applications and virtualization defy the old ways. Splunk breaks through the silos, indexing data from every component. Search, alert and report on all your IT data from every application, server and device — all in one place. Finding and fixing problems, following the trail of an attacker or tracing transactions is a whole lot faster and really easy.
Nagios is a host and service monitor designed to inform you of network problems before your clients, end-users or managers do. It has been designed to run under the Linux operating system, but works fine under most *NIX variants as well. The monitoring daemon runs intermittent checks on hosts and services you specify using external "plugins" which return status information to Nagios. When problems are encountered, the daemon can send notifications out to administrative contacts in a variety of different ways (email, instant message, SMS, etc.). Current status information, historical logs, and reports can all be accessed via a web browser.
Centreon is a network, system, applicative supervision and monitoring tool, it is based upon the most effective Open Source monitoring engine : Nagios. Centreon provides a new frontend and new functionnalities to Nagios.
It allows you to be more efficient in your network monitoring, but also allows you to make your supervision information readable by a largest range of users. Indeed, a non technical user can now use the Centreon/Nagios couple to easily understand your network infrastructure thanks to charts and graphical representations of the gathered information. Skilled users still have access to specific and technical information collected by Nagios though.
Those tools are very cool and should help you I.T. geeks out there.
Have fun.
TheMadAdmin
So AOL was not accepting mail from us.
my smtp tests worked fine. Connections were good no noise on the line. We did change IP ranges and that is what killed us.
The ISP controls the reverse DNS records for the IP range. So when AOL does an auto reverse dns lookup and does not find an entry for our server we are dropped.
A couple of calls and emails later I got the ISP to make the reverse DNS entry and we got the mail flowing again. I spent a day looking at other causes, packet sizes, error logs, smtp logs. No errors were sent back from aol ONLY THAT THEY DROPPED THE CONNECTION.
I know it is simple but sometimes they are harder because you overlook them.
Next time I will know.
We got the T3 turned up last night. We have it via RCN and it is like night and day. THe internet is now enjoyable at work. Very cool.
I also got to play with an image stream Rebel router. The device is nice and packs in a lot of functionality but what is better is the support. They have always gotten back to me in one hour and were very helpful. THey even told me what I did wrong in the wan config file and sent the new one over to me via email. And it worked.
Very cool.
So as you know I got a new job. It follows that I need to get a new phone. I go to sprint for the $99 Simply Everything Plan (It does not include everything) and went to pick out a phone.
I find the HTC Mogul
It is a Winows Mobile 6 phone with a full sliding Keyboard and touch screen. Has all the toys, camera, gps, internet, email…Everything. It was pricey but I give in and buy it. It was fun to play with but the problem was it was not stable. In 5 days it hung 3 times. Twice I was expecting a call and never got it. Then found the phone was hung.
I know what your thinking “He installed something that screwed the phone.” or “He took so many pictures that the phone crashed.” Well I didn’t. Nothing on the phone and I was only keeping a days worth of email on the phone. It just would lock up.
Also I got used to the Blackberry being able to lock when holstered. This phone didn’t.
I killed the battery keeping the inside of the holster nice and bright when I was not using the phone.
Needless to say I returned the phone. I now have the Blackberry 8830 and guess what. It works.
I might switch next week to the 8330 Curve. Adds some features and saves me another $50.
Now I did do a little hacking to get functionality. I am using three services to get tasks and calender itmes in my BB.
I use Jott to take phone messages from my phone and send them to Remember The Milk or Google Calendar.
Remember The Milk is a task list organizer. Very cool and very useful.
Google calender is a calendar from Google.
Jott lets me send messages to both of these without logging into the service. I call 866-JOTT-123 and it asks who I want to Jott. I say Remember ot Google and then leave a message. Jott transcribes the message and enters it into my task list or calendar and is smart enough to get the date and time mentioned in the message to place it in the schedule.
Very cool.
Now I only have the I was too lazy and not that I forgot as an excuse.
TheMadAdmin
Yesterday we had some internet connection issues. We first though Verizon.
Called them they would monitor the line but do nothing (we can’t have them take it down during the day)
Well after a few hours I start checking logs and I find that we are getting port scanned heavily. We call back Verizon and they tell me to email abuse. I do. We also call and get someonee on the line from abuse.
They confirm we were getting saturated. But it was clear by the time we got to them.
We confirm we are working and get the correct number to call if it happens again.
Then an hour later our Administrator gets an email saying there was an abuse complaint about us!!! It was an automated response from the email I sent to Abuse. You have to hate love Verizon.
TheMadAdmin
(Not Bad a DDOS on day 3.)
Lots to do.
Learn the system. Find places for improvement. Brain Drain the last IT guy that is leaving.
But the people are nice, and I am happy to be doing something new.
Back to work now…
TheMadAdmin
While I have worked at my current company for many years (on and off) I have just accepted an offer from another firm and will be embarking on a new adventure in my career.
I have taken a position as a Director of Information Technology for a company, a very cool spot. But what makes this even better is, I get to spend time coding. (Not full time but I hope to get it up to 1/3 of the day). As anyone that reads this blog knows I do enjoy coding.
So if the post rate drops off, it is probably due to the fact I am learning a new system and coding into the wee hours of the morning.
I am looking forward to this change.
TheMadAdmin
Photo: Joe Pugliese
Jeff Bezos’ store in the sky is hard to beat for books, CDs, and a zillion other products. It’s also great for quick technology fixes. Say you need a fat HP server for hosting the too-moronic-to-fail Facebook app you plan to launch next week. Only $1,300 and change! Hit 1-Click. Select expedited shipping. What’s for lunch?
But there’s a cheaper, faster, better way to satisfy your hardware jones. Tucked over on the left side of the page, the nerd gnomes in Beacon Hill, Seattle, have embedded an option that blows computer shopping into, well, the clouds. Click on “Amazon Web Services.” Key in your Amazon ID and password and behold: a data center’s worth of computing power carved into megabyte-sized chunks and wired straight to your desktop. Clones of that HP tower cost 10 cents per hour — 10 cents! — and they’re set to start spitting out widgets as soon as you upload the code. Virtual quad cores are a princely 80 cents an hour. Need storage? All you can eat for 15 cents per gigabyte per month. And there’s even a tool for monitoring your virtual stack with an iPhone. No precious cash tied up in soon-to-be-obsolete silicon, no 3 am runs to the colo cage. Outsource your infrastructure to Amazon!
You do get a lot of bang for your buck on Amazon, the best part is being able to scale quickly. You can go from 1 machine to a thousand machines in minutes. No I.T. department can match that.
How to Tap IT’s Hidden Potential
Too often, there’s a wall between a company’s information-technology department and everything else. That wall has to go.
By AMIT BASU AND CHIP JARNAGIN
March 10, 2008; Page R4Some of the biggest names in the business world have used information technology to their competitive advantage: Merrill Lynch, American Airlines, FedEx, Barclays, to name a few. Despite their example, such companies are still exceptions.
Simply put, top executives at most companies fail to recognize the value of IT. It can help a company transform data from its operations, its business partners and its markets into useful competitive information. It can be the source of profitable innovations in the way a company interacts with its customers and suppliers. But there is still a tendency to think of IT as a basic utility, like plumbing or telephone service.
This is a great article. It is so on point with how the company views IT and what they miss out on by not changing the way they think about IT. We are not the plumbing we are something that can drive the company into new areas and expand our companies base. We are something good, not evil!
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