Dec 082011
 

Due to having some time on my hands I thought I would set about virtualizing my home server, a Dell Optiplex 280, 2 1TB SATA disks running windows Server 2008 R1, to allow for some testing of different server / client and generally messing about without the need to constantly pull out hard disks and the rest. Here is my process for selecting what turned out to be a good low budget virtualization setup.

Virtualization Software

Seeing as VMWare ESXi 5 is free and I decided to give it a shot. I have already been using VMWare player for some time and found it to be very good. ESXi 5 has some hardware requirements, and if you are an Intel fanboy like me then they are as follows:

  1. Processor is 64bit.
  2. Processor supports: VT-x
  3. Processor supports: VT-d: for direct mapping of a piece of hardware for an individual virtual machine.
  4. Computer BIOS Supports virtualization of the above.

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Nov 222011
 

After trying for some time I finally got uTorrent to use two internet connection at the same time, though, I must say it definitely falls in the category of hack.

What’s the Problem?

Well core of the problem is that on one system you can’t make use of two default gateways, concurrently, they can be configured however whichever gateway is configured with the lower metric will be used no matter what. All in all that means you may have two network adapters connected to two different routers but only one will be used for net traffic.

What’s the solution?

A virtual machine. Download VM Player and setup a copy of windows XPin it. Run uTorrent in there using the second network adapter in bridge mode.

Step By Step

  1. Install uTorrent
  2. Configure uTorrent to always use the same port number.
  3. Start some torrent.
  4. Download and install VM Player.
  5. Install a copy of windows XP as a virtual machine (cause it’s small).
  6. Disable the “VMware bridge protocol” from all of your network adapters but for the adapter what is your secondary connection to the internet.
  7. Configure the VM’s network adapter to use bridge mode.
  8. Launch your virtual machine.
  9. Download and install uTorrent in the VM.
  10. Download the exact same .torrent file, or copy it to the VM (use a usb stick is easiest).
  11. Now the torrent has started on both the host machine and the virtual machine add the hosts machines ip for the secondary network adapter and port number for uTorrent as a peer to the list in the virtual machine. It may well find it anyway if local peer discovery is on.

What’s the result?

With the above your host and virtual machine both download the torrent via the two different network connection and pass what they download to each other. When the download is finished, you can delete the torrent and data from the vm completely and just have the one on the host machine remain. If your two network connection are roughly the same you will half the download time for a torrent. yay. Now getting those 360 gig rainbow tables doesn’t take 3 days.

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Jul 262010
 

After three installations of two types of Windows 7 with Avira Anti Virus Personal edition (the free one) I found that updates fails on all installations. After some searching on the net I found a solution, here. I am posting this as it was hard to find and to enhance the ranking of this solution for a rather annoying bug.

The solution is to disable the detection of proxy server for updates under advanced setting within configuration.

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Jul 252010
 

I have a Dell Inspiron 910, bought from cash converters for £150 3/4 of a year ago. As I had tested Windows Visa and found it to be in many ways an advert not to upgrade from Windows XP I left my machine with the XP installation that the Dell originally came on. Something that surprised me was the 8Gig solid state hard disk. I bought a cheap 4 gig SD card and shoved that permanently into the side for some extra space but I mainly relied on an external 360GB Western Digital slimline hard disk.

When windows 7 came out my usual fear of learning the nuances of a new OS evaporated as I found it to be in almost every way and pleasure to deal with. After testing on a Dell Optiplex 780 for some time I though I should get my Dell Inspiron upgraded to 7 also.

Windows 7 space requirements

Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit with a standard install takes about 7gig and even though you can disable many core feature these features are not removed. After some searching I found vLite a utility that is (I assume) mainly used by companies to create tailored Windows installs that suit the corporate image. More searching around on the net and I found that Windows 7 starter was probably the best choice for my netbook. Though Starter removed many features so low powered computers can run it it seemed to be the best choice as a starting package to reduce further in size. After hacking the image with vLite and successfully installing I found that there was no domain support, you could not easily personalise the theme and there was no Aero. Finding this I used vLite to reduce a Windows 7 Ultimate installation. Below is the howto. Continue reading »

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Jul 102010
 

I thought I would post my bash wep cracking script. I made this on the backtrack 4 final linux distro, which is ubuntu, it utilizes aircrack-ng and a sub directory call data.

This script would be most of interest to people who are using multiple wireless interfaces to capture. It allows you you test each cards reception and specify which card is to do the injection and which are simply there to listen.

It implements all aircrack attacks against WEP hubs and I have success using all.

If I get interested in WPA cracking I’ll post another script. Continue reading »

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May 282010
 

After looking at removing 4od adverts I thought I’d have a look at removing adverts from playing on the ITV player. I found out that it was significantly easier than 4od.

How To

Here is the how-to to disabled/skip adverts on ITV’s player. It is only for Windows Visa and Window 7. If you are using another operating system and you don’t want adverts then you should BLOCK 213.199.175.157 (itv.adbureau.net) with your firewall, either on your computer or router.

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May 242010
 

4OD Channel 4 television, on demand, for the UK

So 4OD has a great collection of TV series that you can watch back to back. After watching about five episodes of peep show I found the adverts repetitive and annoying and decided to have a look at removing them. A brief search on the net and I found Steve Larsen had found a method. His instructions state that by redirecting three hosts to your loopback the adverts will not be played. I did this and for some quick tests I found it to work.

My setup, following instructions

I set my router’s parental control to redirect the following URL s to 127.0.0.1

s0.2mdn.net
realmedia.channel4.com
webstat.channel4.com

I did this in the hope that I would not have to reconfigure the hosts file on the various computers around my house.

Problem

I found that on machines that had viewed 4OD then adverts did not play but on machines that have never been to 4OD they hung while attempting to play and showed nothing but a blank screen.

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May 072010
 

To do an update on a piece of software I downloaded VB Express 2010. Converted my project and started hacking away. I found that none of my breakpoints would fire as “no symbols have been loaded for this document”. Upon a little investigation it appeared the project was in “Release” mode. A mode that was in older version of Visual Studio but removed from Visual Basic Express 2008. Now getting it to change to debug mode, I had to dig the button from a context sensitive menu and add it to the standard tool bar.

View -> Toolbars -> Customize

Commands -> Toolbar -> Standard

Add Command…

Build -> Configuration Manager

Now you can use the Configuration Manager to change the mode from release to debug, and back again!

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