Ogenstad.net

Security Stories and Help with Network Documentation

Once upon a time this used to be my blog. For current updates head over to Networklore.

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Cisco ASA 5505 and DHCP Client Problems

March 14, 2007 by patrick.ogenstad 9 Comments

It’s a shame but my brand new Cisco ASA 5505 has just been sitting on my desk untouched for two weeks. The only think I’ve noticed about it is that it still had the old Cisco logo. Basically I’ve watching it from time to time without having time to play with it.

Finally I had some time to spare and I connected it to my cable modem, I have an ADSL connection with a few DHCP addresses so at first I just connected the device with the default configuration. The intelligent network seemed nowhere in sight and nothing worked. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Networking

SYDI Articles and Network Documentation Guides

February 28, 2007 by patrick.ogenstad 13 Comments

As I said a while ago I moved SYDI, my network documentation project, to a new domain. Now I’m beginning to add information about SYDI and network documentation in general. The first article is under the best practices section and is titled How to use SYDI Server with Login Scripts.

If you have any requests, please let me know.

Regarding my stories I am going to write more of them and the next installment of The Broken NDA is coming, sorry for the delay!

[tags]sydi,network documentation[/tags]

Filed Under: SYDI

Failure to Link in

January 29, 2007 by patrick.ogenstad Leave a Comment

You’ve probably heard of LinkedIn, I have been thinking of signing up for some time but always postponed it. Finally I decided to give it a go, like many of these Internet services it’s real easy to register and get started, most people can do it in minutes. Of course the registration process was beyond me.

The idea with LinkedIn is to connect people and make them network, this has been happening in the real world for ages. For example last week I saw that the toilet in my basement was leaking, shortly afterwards the water in the shower next to it started to rise. It got ugly in a hurry, in fact I think I know where they got the inspiration for the movie.

Working with Cisco they keep telling me that it’s like network plumbing, but I assure you there plumbing and there’s plumbing. After doing some basic troubleshooting it was time to call in the cavalry, but alas I had never hired a plumber and didn’t know  how to find a good one (one that I could trust).

To the rescue comes a neighbor, after talking with him he picks up his cell phone and calls a friend of his who works in the field. Now my plumbing problems are gone and this is an offline example of what LinkedIn can do, networking. Better yet when the plumber heard that I work as a network consultant he was interested in my services!

It all sounds great however, there’s no username that matches with that password.

Hm, that’s strange I just created the account. I figured something went wrong so I reset my password, still no dice. Mind you I don’t panic at this stage; I’m used to having problems registering different accounts. First I remove the funky characters from my password and try again.

The site is still unaware of my username and password. My next bet is the length of the password since I can’t very well view the internal code of the site I have to settle for the html code I can see;

input id=”session_password#login” type=”password” size=”24″ name=”session_password”

My password was 22 characters, I shouldn’t be having a problem but the search continues. On the password reset page I see this code instead:

input type=”password” name=”new_password” value=”” id=”new_password#newPassword#passwordReset” size=”16″ maxlength=”16″

Aha, maximum password length = 16. I don’t think too many people have this problem, however if my password is too long please tell me!

Anyway, now I’m LinkedIn, and here is my public profile.

[tags]password policy, maximum password length, linkedin, bad programming[/tags]

Filed Under: Security

SYDIproject.com is around the corner

December 8, 2006 by patrick.ogenstad 3 Comments

So the SYDI project is coming of age and will be moving to its own domain. I haven’t launched the site yet but it should be out soon.

My plan is to use Drupal 5 when it is released, which I hope is very soon.

If there is anything you would like to see on the new website please let me know.

The new link to SYDI will be http://SYDIproject.com. Initially the content of the site will match the current one but I have plans to publish more information so hopefully you’ll find the new site more useful.

A few days ago the download counters for SYDI went passed 50 000! Although it’s great to see that so many are using the scripts what I like best about the project is when I receive feedback from you. If you have anything to say about SYDI good or bad just tell me.

[tags]sydi, network documentation, move, drupal[/tags]

Filed Under: SYDI

The Broken NDA – Part 1

November 30, 2006 by patrick.ogenstad 4 Comments

It was getting cold on his balcony. The leaves were falling from the trees and his neighbors had stopped having barbeques down below him. But midfr0st endured and defied the cold; he enjoyed his cigarettes too much and didn’t want to smoke them indoors. That environment was bad enough for his computers as it was, he didn’t want to make it worse.

The last few months had been fiercely busy for midfr0st, he hadn’t had any time to relax or really think about his situation. His current projects were done and he was left with a feeling of boredom. He wanted to be productive but his brain couldn’t handle anything besides smoke and music.

Eleanor Rigby was playing in the background; midfr0st thought Pain’s version was much more powerful than the original. He watched a couple walking, hand in hand away from his apartment complex. It’s better to eat porridge together than to eat pork alone. He didn’t remember where the saying came from but it had stuck to his mind.

When his cigarette was all but gone he left the balcony. His apartment was quiet as the grave. All the computers were off and midfr0st realized he wasn’t used to the utter silence. I bet the neighbors’ dog starts off soon though, he thought. Walking by his array of computers he wondered where the itch to turn them on had gone, usually he had millions of things to check. Instead he walked over to check his cupboard for a bottle of wine. Empty? midfr0st didn’t remember taking the last bottle; realizing he didn’t have any wine made him want it even more.

Sure he had plenty of beer and whiskey but what he wanted was a little something called Syrah, someone needs to take care of the logistics here.

Cooking up a meal just didn’t appeal to him without a bottle of red. Briefly he thought of pizza but that would only take care of his hunger, which was a secondary problem.

His plan had been to live as a hermit to avoid being seen by the outside world. He didn’t want to draw any kind of attention to his person and had sworn to follow that plan. midfr0st hadn’t eaten out in well over two years; he had hardly met “real” people during that time. Screw the plan, he thought, or that part of the plan anyway. His cravings overcame his earlier planning.

But where should I go? He asked himself, being out of the grid for so long meant he had no idea where any decent restaurants were located. Google Local didn’t work since that service wasn’t activated in his region. After booting up a computer and doing some searching he found a local search engine for restaurants.

After making the reservation he chose a blue suit from his wardrobe and phoned a taxi. He thought about the pretty girl he had been eyeing and exchanging hi’s with, it would have been nice to buy her dinner and actually talk to someone for a change. I think her name is Jenny… But midfr0st didn’t want to stray that far from the plan.

[tags]security, stories, fiction[/tags]

Filed Under: Stories

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