Another 15 minutes » IT

Howto open a port for single IP on a Linksys router

Draupner — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 07:49:20 +0000

I recently bought a new Linksys RV082 router because my old Netgear firewall broke down, but with the Linksys admin interface I struggled to find how I could open up port forwarding for a specific IP address. Port forwarding opens the port for everyone on the Internet, and firewall access rules do not specify which LAN address the traffic should be routed to. The trick is to combine these two.

In this example we will open up the SSH port (tcp/22) for remote access for a specific Internet IP. First, you have to create the service, give it a name and enter tcp/22 as the port number used. Remember, creating a port forwarding entry will open the port to everyone, so let’s create a firewall accessrule next to block this first. Create an accessrule to deny everything on this port for any on the WAN interface. Next, we need to open this traffic for our single IP. Create an accessrule to allow this single IP on this port on the WAN interface, make sure that the allow-rule has higher priority than the deny-rule. Final step is to create a port forwarding entry, and specify that this port should be forwarded to a LAN IP. We created the port fowarding last so that the port is not wide open until we created the accessrules. Now everything should be like we wanted, port 22 is only open for a single Internet IP and is forwarded to a LAN IP.

To sum up, this is what we need to make sure only 256.10.11.12 can use port 22 on LAN server 192.168.1.10 from the Internet.

Accessrule Priority 1, Allow SSH [22], WAN1, Source: 256.10.11.12, Destination: Any
Accessrule Priority 2, Deny SSH [22], WAN1, Source: Any, Destination: Any
Port forwarding, TCP/22~22 -> 192.168.1.10

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Firewall failure

Draupner — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 07:49:42 +0000

Recently my Netgear fvx538 firewall has been acting up, ending with pretty much total failure on the LAN side. It started with random WAN interface restarts, but now the LAN ports are hanging/locking up. Even with cables pulled out the port LEDs still are lit. The device then needs to be rebooted, and might work for a few minutes before it happens again. I searched the net for answers but only found people with the same problem, and no solution. I tried reverting to an older firmware, factory reset, disabling DHCP and dyndns service, but no luck. Seems like the Netgear is done for, too bad, it was doing good for several years.

I have now ordered a new Cisco firewall, hoping it has better quality. It should arrive in a day or two.

Howto open a port for single IP on a Linksys router

How to hide media from players on Android

Draupner — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 05:00:28 +0000

An Android phone will scan your entire memory card for music and images and display them as available media in the players and albums, but maybe you don’t want to show all media but only specific folders. There is a solution for this. To hide media in a specific folder from the player apps do this:

Windows: Open notepad and save an empty file as filename “.nomedia”. Linux: In a terminal window create a file called “.nomedia” by typing “touch .nomedia”.
Connect your Android phone by USB and copy the file into all folders you wish to hide from the media scan.
Done.

The media (music, images and movies) contained in this folder will now be ignored and not show up in your MP3 or movie player on the phone. To access and play them you can use a file manager, like Astro File Manager.

Best and most useful Android apps, applications & games

Draupner — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:30:12 +0000

I have had my HTC Desire Android phone for a while now and I have a few recommendations for free, good, useful, nice and fun apps & games for your phone. In Sweden we only have free apps in the market so far, so these recommendations are only based on free apps. Here’s my list so far…

Android applications:

Astro File manager. A useful file manager app so you can browse your files and folders.
Transdroid. Monitor and control your uTorrent client at home on your mobile phone.
MixZing Media Player. Pretty good media player for you music.
Ringdroid. Create ringtones from your favorite songs.
Weather widgets (yr.no). Weather widget and clock from yr.no.
Swedish dictionary.
Scandinavian keyboard.
Handcent SMS. Very nice SMS application, can be modified to look any way you want.
WordPress. Manage your WordPress blogs from your mobile phone.
Layar Reality Browser. A fun augmented reality browser.
Köp & sälj på Tradera. An ebay-like app for Swedish Tradera (eBay).
aDyno. An app for your car, it can measure 0-100 times, laptimes, g-forces, show graphs and record data.
Advanced Task Killer. Kill applications that are running in the background.
Trafikinfo. Show’s traffic information on maps, roadworks and other notes (Sweden).
Bambuser. Stream video in real-time from your mobile phone.
Google Maps.
Yr.no. Weather application from yr.no.
Remote RDP Lite. Remote desktop application.
Twitter.
Shazam. Application that identifies songs by listening to them.
3G Watchdog. Monitors your data traffic.
Google Goggles. Google image search.
Mix Megapol. Stream from MIX Megapol radio station (Sweden).
SMS-Biljetter. Manage yall our SMS-tickets in Sweden with this app.
Cinema. Movie player.
Compass.
AFT Supernytt. Aftonbladet news (Sweden).
IDG.se. IT news from idg.se.
Prisjakt. Compare product prices and read reviews (Sweden).
Week Number Widget. Displays the current week number.
tv.nu. TV-guide (Sweden).
Nimbuzz IM & Voice. MSN, ICQ, Facebook chat and more with one app.

Android games:

Jewels. You probably know it, classic game.
Bistro cook. Cook the right ingridients to serve a complete dish.
Air Control. Direct airplanes to the right runway, very nice.
SuperYatzy Free. Yes, Yatzy.
Robo Defense Free. Your avarage tower defense game for the phone.

HTC Desire Android Mobile Phone

Draupner — Sat, 08 May 2010 12:10:35 +0000

Yesterday I got my new mobile phone, an HTC Desire. It’s just amazing, such a great interface and super fast with so much capabilities. I think it’s better than Iphone in so many ways, i love Android and what HTC has done with it. There are a few glitches with some widgets, but nothing major so far. I will have great fun with this phone and with can do so much, no limit with seems. Top notch! I’m on a horse.

Howto flash your HTC Touch HD with custom ROM

Draupner — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:03:21 +0000

Ever since I noticed that TouchFlo 3D (also known as Manila) got updated on newer phones, but not on my HTC Touch HD, I have been thinking of doing it myself with one of the multiple custom ROMs available for this phone, made by enthusiasts of the Windows Mobile community. The newer versions of Manila has alot more nice functions and much better looks that I want, my phone comes with version 1.3 so it’s pretty basic. The procedure seemed a bit complicated though, and I didn’t want to risk my warranty on the phone. But after e-mailing HTC asking whether or not the HTC Touch HD (Blackstone) would ever get an upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5 and newest version of Manila and they replied…

- We currently have no knowledge of any planned updates for the HD. It is unlikely to be updated to 6.5 or beyond as Microsoft have made some hardware restrictions on devices that can use 6.5 that the HD does not meet.

… I decided to go ahead with my plans, since I know that many people use Windows Mobile 6.5 and later versions of Manila on their Touch HD’s and it runs just fine. I’m gonna go for Dutty’s “Leo” ROM with Windows Mobile 6.5 and Manila 2.5, since Dutty seems to be the most popular and skilled ROM cook out there, and here’s a step-by-step guide on how I did it.

First off, let me just say that I take no responsibility in any damage done to you or your phone for following my example, just in case.

Now, you need to decide if you want to use HSPL (Hard SPL) or USPL (User SPL). USPL is a temporary upgrade in memory only, to make the change permanent (survive a reset) you should use HSPL, and so I will.

You also need to check what SPL version you have, boot the phone holding the volume down button. This will put the phone in it’s “bootloader” screen. My phone had version 1.54 and I have a 1.56+ version ROM. In order to upgrade to a custom ROM you must change your SPL to allow uncertified upgrades, such a SPL has been made by “Olinex” and you must first install/flash this to you phone.

A guide and all the files you need are found in this tutorial; http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=505377. This will explain the terms more in details if you want.

I got an error when first trying to change the SPL (connection problem), but there is a troubleshooting guide just for this scenario. The solution is to download a program file to launch on your phone instead, then flashing the new SPL worked great.

TouchFLO 3D (Manila 2.5)

Once you have the new SPL in place, you can flash any ROM you like. I chosed Dutty’s Leo R2 ROM (Windows 6.5 and Manila 2.5). Just put your phone in bootloader mode again just as before, connect the USB-cable to your computer and wait until “USB” pops up on the screen. Then just launch the “BlackstoneRUUWrapper” program which usually is distributed with each ROM package, then flash your phone as you would with an official release.

After this it’s recommended to do a hard reset/factory reset twice. Do this by holding both volume up and volume down button while turning on your phone and follow the instructions on the screen.

All set, worked great for me! Just sync back all your contacts and files, install the CABs and customize your phone again. Programs you should install one by one and test them, to make your they are working correctly with the new ROM.

To sum up:

Backup your phone using Activesync etc.
Go for HSPL method.
Flash new SPL, if it fails then use SSPL (running boot loader from phone).
When SPL version is “1.56 (Olinex)”, flash new ROM.
Hard reset.
Hard reset.
Restore backup.
Done!

Good luck! I can really recommend this if you’re getting abit tired of the same old user interface on your phone, this is close to getting a new phone, and much cheaper :).

HTC Touch HD camera & free memory bug

Draupner — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:32:43 +0000

Recently I noticed that the camera in my HTC Touch HD showed I had only 59 photos left until my memory card would be full, which was strange because I had only used about 3.5 Gb out of the 8 Gb available. This seems to be a bug on the phone when approaching about half of the capacity of your memory card, for most users this might happen when the amounr of free space is closing down to 4 Gb, a patch for it should be available from HTC sooner or later I guess. After searching some information about this problem I stumbled upon some ideas that might fix the problem, one being to connect the phone to your computer with USB cable in disk mode and do a normal defrag of the drive. In my case this did not work. Another idea was to save more files to the card so the amount of free space would be less than 4 Gb, thus forcing the decive to recognize the 4 more gigabytes that are available. This worked better and here’s how I did it…

Create a random content file, I used Linux for this with the command

dd if=/dev/urandom of=bigfile.log bs=1M count=250

This will create a 250 Mb large file of random content. Copy that to your memory card to get the amount of free space below 4096 Mb, and voila… I now can take over 6400 more photos.

Best applications for HTC Touch HD & Windows Mobile

Draupner — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:52:58 +0000

Here is a small collection of applications I recommend and find either very cool or useful for your HTC Touch HD or any other Windows Mobile phone. These applications will unlock hidden powers inside your phone and make it even more user friendly better looking. So here’s my list, in no particular order…

FingerKeyboard 2
This great program replaces the onscreen keyboard on your touchscreen phone with one that is very handy and good looking. You can chose keyboard colors, create shortcuts and hotkeys for often used. For example you can by only one click write a smiley. Very useful, and free.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=501122 (added 20090722)

Auto Call Recorder
This application allows you to record both incoming and outgoing calls and save them, either automatically or by asking every call.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=536472 (added 20090722)

Change Screen
This application will rotate the screen automatically and you can configure it so exempt any program you like from certain rotations that perhaps does not support landscape mode. The program is launched at startup and is hidden from task manager.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=468488 (added 20090722)

mToolbox
This program has an angle ruler, water level, light sensor and shock sensor that might come in handy sometimes. It seems abit buggy, especially the ruler when calibrating, but I think it’s worth mentioning anyway.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=535944 (added 20090722)

15 tabs
This modification of the TouchFLO3D interface adds tabs like call history and calendar. It comes in many different languages but there might be some small issues with it, for example one cannot change the order of the tabs it seems.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=450278 (added 20090722)

Use HTC headset to play/pause/next song
Install this program to allow yourself to play, pause and move on to the next song in the TouchFLO3D music player by using the button on the headset.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=502881 (added 20090722)

Advanced Configuration Tool
With this program you can modify alot of hidden settings in Windows Mobile that will come in very handy. This requires .NET 3.5 for Windows Mobile.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=418151 (added 20090722)

CorePlayer Mobile
This is probably the best media player for movies out there right now for Windows Mobile. If you watch alot of movies with your phone this application is probably worth it.
http://coreplayer.com/content/view/28/69/ (added 20090722)

Diamond Light Saber
The famous light saber app for Windows Mobile.
http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-diamond-light-saber.html (added 20090722)

Garmin Mobile XT
This is a very good GPS navigator software that works well with Windows Mobile and HTC Touch HD. Another alternative is to you the built in Google Maps if you have a flatrate deal for data traffic with your mobile.
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=138&pID=11413 (added 20090722)

StopWatch
A pretty good and nice looking stop watch. The only problem is that if the phone goes into sleep mode (screen goes black), the timer will stop or significantly slow down. So if you want to time something the screen must be on, that’s not good.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=421812 (added 20090722)

Nimbuzz
In my opinion the best and best looking instant messaging software for your mobile phone. It can handle MSN, ICQ, Facebook, Twitter and much more. Very nice interface. For my HTC Touch HD I used the CAB-file for HTC Touch Pro, worked just fine.
http://www.nimbuzz.com (added 20090724)

More apps will be added as I find them. Feel free to enter your own suggestions in the comments.

Automatic update of WordPress to 2.8.2 freezes at download

Draupner — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:37:54 +0000

Alot of people seem to have problems with auto-updating WordPress to version 2.8.2 with the processes freezing at download, stuck with message the the file is being downloaded but nothing ever happens. This only seem to happen on some blogs, 2 out of my 3 blogs worked just fine, but one needed more help.

The problem seem to be with some plugin. Here is what you do to successfully get the update through. Go to the plugin page, select “Active” plugins and then use bulk action to deactivate all active plugins. Don’t worry if you have many plugins already deactivated and don’t want to manually activate the ones you actually used one by one, you can activate them just as easy. Now proceed with the core upgrade, it should go through right away. Then, go to the plugins page again, select “Recently active” plugins and then bulk action activate them again. All done!

Howto setup WordPress automatic updates without FTP

Howto setup WordPress automatic updates without FTP

Draupner — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:46:40 +0000

If you run your WordPress blog on some hosting partner you probably have the automatic updates of WordPress core and plugins working, but if you ever setup your own Linux server and trying to run WordPress on it, it is likely that this will not work out of the box, especially if you’re running multiple websites on the same server.

I don’t want to use some 3rd party plugin for this to work or FTP, so I investigated what it is that makes it work in my hosting partners server, but not my own. I figured it was some PHP configuration missing but it was much simpler than that.

You will need root-access to the server to continue. The problem is that the webserver process (httpd) does not have write permission to the files (let’s say in “/home/user/public_html” for example). The httpd process is most likely to run as user “nobody”, “apache” or “www” (it must not run as “root”!). One possibility to fix this is to set the directory public_html as write permitted by anyone, but that is not a good solution so I won’t write how.

Instead we wan’t to change owner of the files to match. To find out which user is running your httpd process you can login as root and issue the command

ps -axu | grep “httpd”

One process will run as root to bind to the port, but the other ones should be another user.

The easiest thing to do, and this is how many hosting partners have set it up, is to make sure the owner of public_html and all subfolders and files is the same user which is running the httpd process.

I am running Fedora Linux and in my case the user is “apache”, so while still logged in as root I just run the command

chown -R apache /home/user/public_html

This will change owner if the public_html directory, which is the root directory in my Apache configuration, and all subfolders and files. Now the automatic updates will work right away!