Just wanted to report that my upgrade to 1.06 was a success.  Mostly.

I downloaded the 1.06 firmware update from D-Link’s support site, unzipped the file, and then pointed the 323 web interface to it.  It flashed successfully, and everything booted up without issue.

However, I’d been having minor problems with the embedded iTunes server (mt-daapd) not working… at all… So being the bright guy I am, I impulsively clicked the “Restore to factory defaults button”.

Don’t do that.

Continue reading ‘Upgrading the DNS-323 to firmware 1.06 & what to do if you lock yourself out of ssh!’

Here’s a guest post from someone who followed my first article on hacking the D-Link DNS-323.  I’m grateful to see the sense of community forming here and people giving back!

Continue reading ‘Upgrading your hacked DNS-323 NAS to use Transmission 1.42′

Hey kids, so remember my original post on dns-323 hacking?  Well I’m back at it.  In Part 1 I decided not to use RAID 1 mirroring for a couple of reasons (see section 2 — RAID or no RAID?).  Instead, what I’m doing for redundancy is selectively backing up a set of “important” data from the first NAS disk to the second.  Note: This selective approach leaves me some free space on the second volume for other things, like Time Machine on my laptop.

Basically, it goes something like this:  “back up all my mp3s and digital pictures from HD 1 to HD 2 every night.  On the first run, copy everything.  On subsequent runs, copy only what’s changed”.

Nifty?  Yes.  Easy?  Yes.  Quick?  Very!  (Thanks to the simple elegance of UNIX rsync and cron).  Hit the jump for the tutorial and script.

Continue reading ‘Nightly volume backup script for dns-323 soho NAS (rsync+cron)’

Since getting my terabyte DNS-323 NAS up and running, Rogers has been kind enough to let me know I’m way over my 60gb/month bandwidth cap.  Imagine that!  ha ha.

So I decided to upgrade the firmware on my router so I can more effectively track my monthly bandwidth usage.  I had been using the hyperwrt+tofu firmware for years (even before DD-WRT was big), but it was time for a change.  And an easy one at that!

I simply grabbed the new tomato firmware and reflashed the router.  It was a 2 second painless process; in my case it even kept all my old settings.  Now I have pretty graphs — it’s like a lazy man’s MRTG.  And I am lazy.  But now happy.  Hit the jump for pretty pictures:

Continue reading ‘hacking the linksys wrt54g w/ tomato firmware for pretty network graphs’

Dr. Michael Geist writes that the Ontario Legislature just passed Bill-85.  HUH?  How come this is so media-silent?

Didn’t anyone stop to take clues from the US about the broadly-publicized RFID password vulnerabilities?  As a security guy, I’m a little shocked.  And a lot appalled.

Continue reading ‘Ontario Legislature passes Bill 85, paving the way for RFID (in)security?’

I’ve always liked mind maps for brainstorming difficult concepts.  I find they are a great way of logically expressing, formulating and grouping thoughts that are hard to articulate.

Continue reading ‘brainstorming identity federation w/ mind maps’

I decided to modify my dns-323 scripts to keep my media organized.

Instead of monitoring /incoming for torrents, these scripts monitor /media/movies, /media/mp3 and /media/tv.  when .torrent files are detected, they download to the appropriate /media subdirectory.  transmission stops when the files are downloaded, and any rars are unpacked.

edit 4-dec-08: I think there’s a bug with the unpacker script on rar files with spaces in them.  I don’t have time to fix it, so if you have issues you can just rename your rar files accordingly to weed out the spaces. 

Continue reading ‘updated dns-323 bt download management scripts’

Here’s a great detailed deployment example for something I’ve been working with a lot lately:  SAML v2 Using Sun OpenSSO Enterprise 8.0

from http://wiki.dns323.info/information:known_issues

Description: When using the iTunesServer WEB GUI, sometimes the GUI gets corrupted. After this, the iTunesServer WEB GUI can no longer be used.
Workaround: Telnet to the device and “cp /sys/crfs/default/mt-daapd.conf /etc/mt-daapd.conf”

pat managed to get opensso up and running on amazon ec2!  details here.

1. download & run websynergy
2. scp opensso.war to glassfish autodeploy dir (on ec2)
3. configure as you like - in this case, an IDP and a fedlet
4. test w/ federation validator
5. test w/ fedlet sso