Using QUT Secure Access Service (SAS) on Ubuntu

QUT SAS allows QUT students and staff remote access to QUT resourcessecurely. Unix and Unix-like operating systems such as Linux are notsupported. The instruction on the QUT ITServices are pretty clear [1].But I have duplicated some of it here for my reference. I tested theconfiguration on Ubuntu. Install VPNC sudo apt-get install vpnc Download or create the configuration file The configuration file can be specified on the command line whenexecuting vpnc, or /etc/vpnc/default.

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Connecting to OpenVPN from a Mac using Tunnelblink

To connect to an OpenVPN server you need an appropriate OpenVPN clientinstalled to establish the SSL link. For Apple Mac OS X systems,TunnelBlick (http://code.google.com/p/tunnelblick/) is a good graphicaluser interface. At the time of this blog the current latest stableversion of TunnelBlick available was 3.2.7. These instructions wereexecuted on an Apple iMac running Mac OS X 10.7.4. As with all otherposts on this blog, the purpose of this post is not to provide atutorial, but instead to documents the steps taken, for my ownbenefit.

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Installing OpenVPN 2.2 on CentOS 6.3 64bit

This post is just an update of a previous post that used CentOS 5.7 andOpenVPN 2.2(http://nkush.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/installing-openvpn-22-on-centos-57.html).The basic instructions are the same, however this post uses some newerpackages which may have been relocated to new URLs. Again this blog andthe posts are mostly for my own reference and not intended asstep-by-step instuctions for other systems/network administrators Install RPMForge or RepoForge as it’s now known[1] wgethttp://pkgs.

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Change Apple Mac OS X Software Update Service (SUS) address

Apple IU Software Update service allows uses to keep their Mac OS Xmachines updated with the latest software updates and security patched.In some controlled environments, the update servers are specified in theuser profile. Sometimes there may be delays in the server updates, orproblems with the local update server and users may desire to connect toApple’s services directly. Here’s are some instructions that users mayfind useful.

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How to install Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) style for MiKTeK on Windows 7

Following on from my previous post… I had the same issue when workingon my Microsoft Windows desktop at home, i.e. got the following error “!LaTeX Error: File `llncs.cls’ not found.”. So had to download the“llncs2e.zip” file yet again from“http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0/” Dowload and extract llncs2e.zip Create a directory called splncs in C:\Program Files\MiKTeX2.?\bibtex\bst Move the extracted file splncs.bst, splncs_srt.bst, andsplncs03.bst into the new directory C:\Program Files\MiKTeX2.

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Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) style

When working on a recent paper for aconference, I was required to produce it using the Spring Lecture Notesin Computer Science (LNCS) style. Being naive, I assumed TeX wouldautomatically download the required package… unfortunately I got thefollowing error “LaTeX Error: File `llncs.cls’ not found.” So I had toinstall the class manually. Here are the instructions for installing iton Mac OS X for latex from macport.

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My ant build.xml file

I am doing some development work using Java and am using ant to build mycode. Decided to post a copy of the build.xml file here… sorry aboutthe formatting <project name="TODO-PROJ-NAME" basedir="." default="main"><property name="username" value="TODO-USERNAME"/><property name="proj.name" value="TODO-PROJ-NAME"/><property name="proj.ver" value="TODO-VER"/><property name="proj.owner" value="TODO-COPYRIGHT"/><tstamp><format property="TODAY" pattern="yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss" /></tstamp><property name="src.dir" value="src"/><property name="build.dir" value="bin"/><property name="lib.dir" value="lib"/><property name="classes.dir" value="${build.dir}/classes"/><property name="jar.dir" value="${build.dir}/jar"/><property name="javadoc.dir" value="${build.

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Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server Microsoft Exchange Mail Store unmounts

At 08:59hrs this morning I got a call from a customer who was unable toreceive e-mail. Logging into their server I discovered that there wereindeed messages stuck in the Local Delivery queue. I checked theApplication event logs and found the following event log EventType:ErrorEventSource:MSExchangeSAEventCategory:MAPI Session EventID:9175Date:8/05/2012Time:9:12:31AMUser:N/AComputer:***DELETED***Description:TheMAPI call ‘OpenMsgStore’ failed with the following error: Theattempt to log on to the Microsoft Exchange Server computer hasfailed.

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I had to do some maintenance work on a Linux based server

I had to do some maintenance work on a Linux based server. It was mainlyjust archiving some files around and updating packages andconfigurations. However, as part of the maintenance I took theopportunity to put in some simple technical security controls in placeand documented some of them here for my reference. MySQL Database There was a MySQL server runningthat was only needed for the local host, but a “netstat -ltn” indicatedthat it was not bound to any specific IP, i.

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Installing OpenVPN 2.2 on Centos 5.7

OpenVPN is an SSL based VPN. There are other VPN solutions such asIPsec, etc. but OpenVPN provides a cost effective alternative. I likeOpenVPN as it support two-way authentication, i.e. both the client andserver authenticate using certificates. To install OpeVPN on CentOS weneed a number of cryptographic libraries. The simplest way is to use theDAG/RPMForge repository. Set-up the RPMForge repository [1], asthis contains the packages necessary for the installation and theinstructions are provided below.

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