nuxx.net
Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.

Presenting: Trashwall

February 25, 2008

The Trashwall

Presenting: the Trashwall, a repurposed Power Mac G4 AGP. It has been taken from an old, failing machine and turned into a powerful firewall which boots from flash, contains an 8-port managed switch, offers free public wireless via a segmented, built-in access point, and handles NAT, DNS, DHCP, NTP, and whatever else I might want it to do.

It’s also got a shiny serial console for setup / management and Open Firmware. It’s basically a real PowerPC UNIX box now.

The article is complete, I’m just waiting for a small antenna adapter cable to arrive so I can hook up the better 802.11b antenna. After that I’ll post one more photo to the article, but otherwise it’s complete.

So, if you’re wanting to stick together an OpenBSD-based do-everything firewall, you could do far worse than to check out the Trashwall.

computersmaking thingsmoved from livejournal

Bike Rack

February 24, 2008

So, now that Danielle has a bike, I need a bike rack for carrying them. I can’t really use hang-on-trunk rack, nor do I want a roof rack. After seeing ‘s experiences installing a hitch on his Civic I think a rear hitch mount rack would be best. But, what kind?

There are two kinds of hitch racks; those which the bikes hang from and those which cradle the wheels. With Danielle’s bike not having any horizontal pieces, I can’t really get a hanging type. That leaves me with the wheel nestling type. Unfortunately those all use a bar to hold down the front wheel, which may have issues with the fender on Danielle’s bike.

That all said, I came across these photos of someone using a Thule T2 wheel-nestling-type-rack on a Civic Si. I think this is the bike rack I’m going to end up with, even if I have to sort things out with the fender.

This should be good for taking bikes up north, to local parks, or things like that. It’ll cost a bit more than I wanted to spend (about $450 total), but it should be nicely usable. And, thankfully, the rack can be moved to other vehicles in the future.

automotivecyclingmoved from livejournal

OpenBSD Problem Fixing!

February 24, 2008

Back on the 13th I posted about a quirk in OpenBSD/macppc 4.2 which kept the serial console from working after first boot. This was submitted as PR 5732 and I listed a workaround here in the Trashwall article.

Late last night after going to bed I included on a message from Theo de Raadt asking for confirmation from another developer that it is fixed in -current. Poking around cvsweb brought me to this change to /src/distrib/miniroot/install.sub which appears to sort it out.

I’m very happy about this, and I’ll have to be sure to buy the 4.3 CD release when it becomes available.

computersmoved from livejournal

nuxx.net Back Up

February 23, 2008

Well, even though rowla.nuxx.net made it to an uptime of 500 days back on the 11th, that didn’t last. Today Waveform unexpectedly moved my box to their new data center, causing a bit of an unexpected outage. As you can see in the bandwidthd graph above there was a period of time during which the server was unreachable.

I was ssh’d in at the time talking to people on #llamasoft when things just up and went away. It seems that Waveform simply pulled the plug on the boxes and moved them. Thankfully mine came back up safely.

computersmoved from livejournalnuxx.net

Danielle’s New Bike

February 23, 2008

2007 Electra Townie 3

Here’s Danielle’s new bike, a lime green 2007 Electra Townie 3. That is, three speed, internal gearing, with a rear coaster brake and a front V-brake. It also has the optional black plastic fenders fitted, which I think look great. The thing I particularly like about the plastic accessory fenders is that should something happen to them, they can be replaced. Bikes which come with metal painted to match fenders would be really hard to replace should they get scraped / scratched / bent.

acquired thingscyclingmoved from livejournal

nuxx.net Is Down

February 23, 2008

Hey everyone… My server at http://nuxx.net is down, and no, I don’t know why. I think Waveform is moving locations, but they didn’t notify me, so I’m just not sure what’s up. I have a support ticket open about it, but they haven’t replied yet. So, we’ll see… I hope I don’t have to move providers.

computersmoved from livejournalnuxx.net

Reverse DNS

February 22, 2008

Having stuff like this working is fun:

trashwall# arp -a
c-69-244-128-1.hsd1.mi.comcast.net (69.244.128.1) at 00:01:5c:22:71:82 on gem0
core-ap.home.nuxx.net (192.168.0.2) at 00:16:cb:c5:16:2f on fxp0
basement-ax.home.nuxx.net (192.168.0.3) at 00:11:24:05:7d:53 on fxp0
livingroom-ax.home.nuxx.net (192.168.0.4) at 00:11:24:0a:91:6d on fxp0
tivo.home.nuxx.net (192.168.0.6) at 00:11:d9:16:54:43 on fxp0
dhcp21.home.nuxx.net (192.168.0.21) at 00:1c:b3:b5:1b:77 on fxp0
trashwall#

The Trashwall and its associated article are nearly done. :D

computersmoved from livejournal

Fucking Comcast

February 21, 2008

Arraugh. So, I have Comcast service for internet access, but not television service. I have a TV, but I only use it for pre-recorded stuff / video games / etc. However, when I got home today I had a note hanging next to my garage which reads:

While performing work in your neighborhood, it was determined that the cable TV line and/or equipment inside your home does not meet technical specifications established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The problem appears to be a leak of the cable TV signal. Signal leakage has the potential to cause interference with with aeronautical, police, and other communications. Comcast is required by the FCC to record and promptly repair signal leaks.

Please call Comcast at 1-800-865-9787 to schedule an appointment for one of our technicians to repair the signal leak.

If you are unable to contact Comcast within three (3) business days, we will be required to interrupt your service until the necessary repairs can be made.

So, I called and told the operator that I only have internet service and then asked what should be done about the note. The operator then first told me that I should just ignore the note, since I don’t have TV service. When I reminded her that I have internet service and that the note says the service will be terminated if I don’t call, she put me on hold to talk to a supervisor.

After she returned to the line we began to set up an appointment, but there were only 9am – 12pm or 12pm – 3pm windows open for technicians to visit, all the way through the end of March. Even better, the end of March is the furthest out she is able to schedule visits.

Great, eh?

So, she logged that I called and suggested that I just call back tomorrow and see if another slot is open.

I’m not sure what to do now. Maybe wait and see if my service actually gets switched off? <sigh>

UPDATE: I rejiggered the wiring just inside the house so that there are no unterminated connections. Hopefully that will sort it out. The root issue may very well be my fault, but I’d hope that Comcast would have some more reasonable appointments available. Hopefully my service won’t be interrupted now that things should be sorted out.

around the housecomputersmoved from livejournal

Second Honda Music Link For Auction

February 17, 2008

1Honda / Acura Music Link for Auction

After a rather complex day (good wandering around at the park, bad DIY experiences not at my house), I came home and went for a nice 5.11 mile bike ride around the neighborhoods, condos, and sidewalks around here. I was a bit limited by some non-cleared areas which still had 6″ of slush on them, but otherwise things were pretty good. I finished it off by riding one lap around my neighborhood as fast as possible, which left me plenty winded when I got home. That was nice.

After rather slowly carrying the trash out I headed downstairs and took some pictures of my original Honda Music Link, the one which prompted the Honda Music Link iPod Adapter Review and, to some degree, caused me to learn quite a bit about electronics, firmware programming, etc. Listing the auction was really simple, as I used my previous HML auction as a template. Here is the current auction, #290207606818, if you are interested.

Now I’m just sitting here sipping a tasty beer, which will be the subject of another post… Then maybe I’ll watch some Trailer Park Boys.

acquired thingscyclingmoved from livejournal