Tweaking airtel ADSL Modem (Beetel 220BX ADSL2+)

I wanted my computer behind the beetel 220BX adsl modem (Provided by Airtel) to be visible for outside world. Basically for hosting a counter strike server and for webserver. I searched all the config details in the webUI given by the 220BX, but I was not able to spot a setting with which I can do a port forwarding or NAT. Then i started searching the net with google. The first search query ("beetel 220BX virtual server configuration") I entered returned me the url "http://blogs.broadbandforum.in/airtel/?p=9" in the first row. I should be more than lucky, the page says how to access the hidden page in the router, the "main.html" which gives a lot more advanced configuration options and I found exactly what I was looking for. So I am happy, the blogger should be happy as he was able to help yet another needful soul.

~Happy Ending~

Linux PPTP VPN client configuration

It is faily easy to install the packages needed and hand configure the pptp client for a linux server. The pptp server is a windows 2003 server running RRAS. How ever from my experience what was more difficult is configuring the firewall to let the pptp traffic go through. Here is what I did to make a connection from Linux PPTP client to the RRAS.

• Installed pptp-linux
  
  
  
  • Optionally you can install pptpconfig which will make life easier with the client configuration part. For that You have to add the below source to your sources.list "deb http://quozl.linux.org.au/pptp/pptpconfig ./"
  
  
  
  


• Collected the server details needed
  
  
  
  • PPTP Server Name - vpn.yourdomain.com
  
  
  • VPN User Name - user1
  
  
  • VPN Password - passw0rd
  
  
  • Connection Name - vpn1
  
  
  
  


• Edited the file /etc/ppp/chap-secrets to add the line "user1 PPTP passw0rd *"


• created a file /etc/ppp/peers/vpn1. Entered the configuration details as below.

pty "pptp vpn.yourdomain.com  - -nolaunchpppd"

name user1

remotename PPTP

require-mppe-128

file /etc/ppp/options.pptp

ipparam vpn1

With this the configuration finished. You can start the tunnel by issueing

• 'sudo pppd call vpn1' or 'pon vpn1'.


• for debug info try 'sudo pon veveo debug dump logfd 2 nodetach'

To stop the pptp tunnel, do a "sudo pkill pppd". You will be able to see the connection status/details in "/var/log/messages"

For me this much was easy. This didnt worked for me straight away. Fair enough, then after a long search I could find that pptp to work through my Juniper Netscreen (ns25) firewall, opening tcp port 1723 is not enough, I should allow the "GRE Protocol" (protocol 47) pass through. I added a custom service for GRE and then everything was working fine.

I am planning to implement a linux SSL vpn server later when I get time. But anyway only after learning the advantages and disadvantages of the SSL VPN.

Little trick in the user account details of Active Directory

registered the dll file acctinfo.dll for extra information for a user. Did the following

 "regsvr32 %systemroot%\system32\acctinfo.dll"

This creates a new tab in the user properties called "Additional Account Info"

I find it useful to check when a user has last logged in to the server. Since none of the windows users login to the domain in my office (they dont believe in windows AD stuff nor do I find it worthwhile as there are convinence and double the troubles at the same time.), I use this to findout when some one has logged into the pptp vpn (RRAS) last and I can tell my manager that those who claimed to be working from home are not working and indeed they use the company laptop for entertainment purpose ....

when you wanted to set up a quick cvs server

follow the below link. I got a cvs server up in 5 minutes. Cant get faster than this can you ?

http://home.wanadoo.nl/cwdegier/cvs.html

Python, Bash yesterday's date

I wanted to get yesterday's date in a neat way for my backup scripts (bash). I found out a simple solution for the same pretty easily.

date -d "-1 day" +%d%m will give me the yesterdays date.

date -d "-1 month" +%d%m will give me date one month previous.

Here is what you do in python for the same.

>>> import datetime
>>> today = datetime.date.today()
>>> today
datetime.date(2008, 3, 20)
>>> yesterday = today - datetime.timedelta(1)
>>> yesterday
datetime.date(2008, 3, 19)
>>> monthbefore = today - datetime.timedelta(31)
>>> monthbefore
datetime.date(2008, 2, 18)
>>>

Cant hold on more..

After a long struggle, I managed not to drink, untill today. That was one amoung my new year resolutions. I decided not to smoke and not to drink, not even beer. Decision on smoking went in smoke in a few hours after entering the new year, but I managed to hold myself from drinking up till the 5th day, but today I guess I will get some beer home and watch a movie as I am missing the habbits. Things I am yet to do are invest some amount from my salary in the Mutual funds and other savings, spend less time for the counter strike (4 those who dont understand counter strike), learn Python! and some more were there, which I kinda forgot. All of us want to be better people and do better things. So we decide, we will do all good, no bad. But how much we succeed in what we have planed for us ? I am not ashamed of myself that I cannot keep up with my decisions, because I know I am not alone in this. But I will still fight for my good, with each mug of beer I gulp down I will curse myself for doing that and soon I will find its no phun drinking beer. If not the will power, wills is there :)

IE and MS Word doesn't go well ?

I had this strange complaint today from a user, saying she cannot copy & paste some text from her yahoo mail to the outlook express. If she does, it hangs the app for some time and then give a crash report saying, word application has crashed. When I heard this I was thinking what the hell, M$ products itself doesn't go well togather ? Alas its M$; anything is possible. I went to check this strange behaviour's cause, and I found that there is no problem when I do the same from a firefox browser. Searching further in the net I found this article in the "Yahoo Answers". I could have told her to use firefox, but she was much of a M$ fan and hence I thought I will update to IE7 which eventually solved the problem. Dont you think its weird, that it maybe some html code underlying while you copy from the yahoo mail opened in IE6 which is causing the trouble ? My advice, dont be a guinea pig for M$, use something like firefox for browser, thunder bird or pine for mail, open office instead of M$ Office. Well, world is changing, so am I, how about you ?