The iTunesHelper application is used to automatically detect iPod's/iPad's and iPhones, when you connect these to your Mac. The application launches iTunes, and (if configured) synchronizes stuff. Very handy, but it can be quite annoying.
E.g. I have an iMac (main 'PC' around the house), and a MacBook. All the synchronization stuff is done on my iMac, and I don't sync anything on my MacBook. But when I attach my iPhone to my MacBook for Internet access (tethering), it launches iTunes and wants to synchronize with an empty iTunes. Something I definitelly don't want.
This feature can be turned off by removing the iTunesHelper application entry from the Login Items in your account settings, but turning it back on is something completely different. I accidentally removed it from my iMac, which wasn't supposed to happen....
No idea if this is a new feature introduced with a newer version of Dropbox, but it is possible to download nzb and torrent files through the Mobile Safari app.
What you need is the following (for a complete downloading system):
- A Dropbox account (the 2GB version is free!!!!)
- A torrent application with the possibility of using a so-called watch-folder (e.g. Vuze)
- An usenet application with a watch-folder capability (e.g. SabNZBd+)
- An iPhone with the Dropbox app.
First you need to setup Dropbox. This is the easiest part. Just create two folders called 'NZB' and 'Torrent'. These folders will contain the downloaded torrent and nzb files.
After that you need to configure the Vuze and/or NZB download application to use a watch-folder.
I use these apps on my Mac Mini server. So it's operational 24/7.
The earlier posts on my logging experiences didn't include the logrotation solution I used on my OS X Server.
When you create a new logfile (and have syslog fill that file up), you're gonna run into a lack of space sooner or later. This happens because the syslog server keeps writing data to that file, and the system doesn't 'recognize' (read: isn't configured) the file for logrotation. So, you need to tell the logrotation process to include the new logfile (and what to do with it).
Now that I have a SRX running at home and a syslog server powered by Splunk (free version) it's time to be able to understand the logging. The raw logging is pretty unreadable for the average Joe. Thankfully, Splunk can be used to make more sense of it.
Downside is that I haven't found any add-ons / plugins etc. for Splunk to analyze the logging of a Juniper SRX firewall. There is a post on the Splunk forum which offers two regular expression which can be used to define the RT_FLOW fields.
This post contains several useful Junos SRX commands for the CLI. Mainly for myself, because I don't use those command regularly....
This post will be updated over time... Here it goes:
View session information:
root@srx100> show security flow session summary
Clear sessions through the firewall:
root@srx100> clear security flow session all
Switch to other node in a cluster via CLI (over the HA-link):
root@srx100> request routing-engine login node 1
By default, the J-Web interface (GUI for the Juniper SRX firewalls) has SSL enabled. Like most devices with SSL out-of-the-box, the protection is based on a self-signed certificate. Self-signed certificates are easy (they come basically out-of-the-box), but they tend to nag you every time you connect to the GUI. So, it's time to install a proper certificate.
In this case, I use the XCA (1) software to create a new certificate. This certificate is signed by my own root CA, which I installed on all of my devices and Operating Systems. Basically, I trust myself.....
According to the Juniper support pages on SSL certificate usage, I found out that the certificates are to be in the PEM format. No problem for XCA.
The Fritzbox 7340 is the only real available VDSL modem/router in the Netherlands. Too bad, since it has some bugs (but what piece of software hasn't???). Fortunately, the router works well, just as long as you use it as the only networking device in your (small) network.
In the last couple of days I've been busy to add the Juniper SRX100 branch firewall to my local home network. The idea was the following:
- The Fritzbox (FB) will remain the Internet router
- My web/mail/ssh server is placed behind the SRX100
- All the individual portforward rules in the Fritzbox are directed to the SRX100 by selecting the 'Exposed Host' in the FB.
Juniper started to migrate their firewalls from Netscreen to the Junos environment 'a couple of' months back. The advantage is that there's a universal OS for routers, switches and firewalls. Just like Cisco IOS. The disadvantage is that the Junos OS is being adapted for the firewalls. So the foundations are there, but there are still lots of features missing and bugs are also still abundant.
The bugs are thankfully mostly related to the WebGUI. On the commandlinethe bugs are in the same league as the Cisco, Checkpoint and every other vendor bugs. No piece of software is perfect.
For testing and development purposes I run a Cisco Secure ACS 5.x in a virtual machine at home. In this environment I also run an Apple Directory Service. I'll be using this setup to test several 802.1x and RADIUS authentication schemes.
To get things going I needed to connect to the ACS to my LDAP Directory. The Apple Directory Service is a bit different from the regular LDAP implementations. They seem to add the 'apple' reference in a lot of attribute values. Thankfully the ACS has a very versatile configuration interface.
Apple references in attribute valuesNormally, the group definition would be 'group' instead of 'apple-group'. So the configuration of the ACS should reflect these variations to the standard.
;)