WebNull

MSN Messenger encryption

I occasionally use Simp lite to encrypt MSN communication. Unfortunately, sometimes the whole encryption proxy dies for no obvious reason. The annoying thing about this is that I have to restart my box all the time to make it work again. Finally, I took some time and found a solution to re-launch the application without restarting. Here is the process:

• Sign out of MSN (not required)*
• Exit MSN
• Close Outlook (hooks to MSN and doesn’t let to terminate the process)
• Close IE (IE also has some addon hooks to MSN)
• Close SIMP
• Restart SIMP (Default path: C:\Program Files\Secway\SimpLite-MSN 2.5\SimpLite-MSN.exe)
• Restart MSN/Sign in
• Restart Outlook/IE as needed

*I usually disable automatic sign on to MSN. With this trick I can detect if MSN is really started as a new process. If sign on dialog appears I know it’s a fresh start.

VPN (pptp) server on linux (centos)

It’s fairly simple to set up by this article: 

http://www.dotcomunderground.com/blogs/2010/04/10/poptop-pptp-centos5-installation-setup/

The only difference is that I used the following commands to config and save iptables:

iptables -A INPUT -i ppp0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i ppp0 -o eth0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -s 10.10.1.0/24 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -s 10.10.1.0/24 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p tcp —dport 1723 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -p gre -j ACCEPT
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

/etc/init.d/iptables save

Mercurial named branch

This is a note to self how to do mercurial named branch and merge:

Display current branch
hg branch

Display all branches
hg branches

Create branch newfeature
Edit files
hg branch newfeature
hg commit

Switch branch
hg update -C default
hg update -C newfeature

Merge
hg update -C default
hg merge -r (branch latest revision number)

More info: http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/NamedBranches

Connecting to Access database on Windows Server 2008R2

I had to move an old site from Windows Server 2003, IIS5 to IIS 7.5. Sounded like an easy task until I found out it used an Access database with DSN connection. Something like this:

<add key=”ConnectionString” value=”DSN=mydb”/>

Nice old days when configuring a connection string had this extra unnecessary step.

I even felt clueless when I found out that there is no ODBC driver for ACCESS on Win2k8 64 bit. Or at least I couldn’t find one.

I won’t bore you with the details but the solution is here:

<add key=”ConnectionString” value=”Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};Dbq=mypath\mydb.mdb;”/>

My password management system

I hate passwords. I understand we haven’t come up with something better so I guess it’s here to stay.

There are a couple of reasons why I don’t like them.
- All systems require a new one. Re-usage is simply not an option. It would void the the entire idea of having a password to systems.
- They need to be stored somewhere unless you can remember a zillion of them.
- Vulnerable to key-logger attacks.

At some point in my life I decided I need to keep track of my passwords. I looked for a secure vault where I could store them all. (Of course paper is not an option.) Since I’m using many different machines and systems I was looking for a cross platform application to do the job for me.

Keepass (V1.xx) has solved this one for me on Windows and KeepassX has on OS X.

But what if I need a password fast for a new online system or something unsecure. Do I really want to generate a new password for every website? My answer is no. I come across this site: www.pwdhash.com. The idea is simple. Using a master password and a domain name I get a unique (hashed) password that I can recreate without my secure vault. All I need to do is remember my master password.

Ok but what if I don’t have a web browser and the Internet at hand?

That’s why I created pwdHash for iPhone. More here.

Installing Mercurial hgwebdir.cgi on Windows 2003, Apache2

UPDATE:

Clay Lenhart sent me the following solution to the timeout issue:

cd \inetpub\AdminScripts\

cscript adsutil.vbs GET /W3SVC/CGITimeout

cscript adsutil.vbs SET /W3SVC/CGITimeout 3000

Thank you!

As I posted previously I had installed Mercurial cgi-bin on Windows 2003 and IIS 6. After some promising rounds I decided to use it in production. At least this was my idea.

No matter how many times I tried cloning one of my project (about 40MB)  the hg clone command (over https) always returned an error like this:

transaction abort!

rollback completed

abort: premature EOF reading chunk (got 36750 bytes, expected 131164)

I had no choice but to install Apache2.

Here is my walkthrough.

1. Download and install Python 2.6.4 to C:\Mercurial\Python
2. Download and install MiniGW 5.1.6
   • Choose the Download and Install Option.
   • Choose the Current Package Option to Install.
   • For the Components to Install Select the “Minimal” option. Install to C:\Mercurial\MinGW
3. Add to path “C:\Mercurial\Python\Scripts;C:\Mercurial\Python;C:\Mercurial\MinGW\bin”
4. Download and unzip Mercurial source to C:\Mercurial\Source
5. Build Mercurial from command line:
   

   python setup.py build --force -c mingw32

   python setup.py install --force --skip-build

6. Create default hgrc from command line type:
   

   cd %userprofile%

   copy con .hgrc

   [ui]

   username = Firstname Lastname <firstname.lastname@example.net>

   verbose = True

   • CTRL-Z
   • ENTER
7. hg debuginstall should display “No problems detected”
8. Download and install Apache2.2 + OpenSSL. Default settings are fine except path where use c:\Mercurial\httpd
9. Open c:\Mercurial\httpd\conf\http.conf with a text editor.
   Replace

   Listen 80

   with

   Listen 8080

   Replace

   #LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so

   with

   LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so

   Replace

   #Include conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf

   with

   Include conf/extra/httpd-ssl.conf

10. Open c:\Mercurial\httpd\conf\extra\httpd-ssl.conf with a text editor.
    Replace

    Listen 443

    with

    Listen 8088

    Replace

    <VirtualHost _default_:443>

    with

    <VirtualHost _default_:8088>

    Replace

    SSLCertificateFile "C:/Mercurial/httpd/conf/server.crt"

    with

    SSLCertificateFile "C:/Mercurial/httpd/conf/localhost.cert"

    *use your domain instead of localhost
    Replace

    SSLCertificateKeyFile "C:/Mercurial/httpd/conf/server.key"

    with

    SSLCertificateKeyFile "C:/Mercurial/httpd/conf/localhost.key"

11. Open a command prompt and type the following. When asked for common name use te actual domain (localhost in this example)
    

    cd  c:\Mercurial\httpd\bin

    openssl req -config ../conf/openssl.cnf -new -out localhost.csr -keyout 

    openssl rsa -in localhost.pem -out localhost.key

    openssl x509 -in localhost.csr -out localhost.cert -req -signkey localhost.key -days 365

    copy localhost.cert ..\conf

    copy localhost.key ..\conf

12. Create a C:\Mercurial\Repositories directory
13. Copy the hgwebdir.cgi file from the C:\Mercurial\Source to C:\Mercurial\httpd\cgi-bin\
14. Create hgweb.config in C:\Mercurial\httpd\cgi-bin\
15. Insert text in hgweb.config
    

    [paths]
    
    / = C:\Mercurial\Repositories\

16. Create a test repository
    

    cd C:\Mercurial\Repositories

    md test

    cd test

    hg init

17. Enable push for this repository
    
    • create hgrc file with notepad in cd C:\Mercurial\Repositories\test.hg
    • insert the following text

    [web]
    
    allow_push = *
    
    

18. Open c:\Mercurial\httpd\cgi-bin\hgwebdir.cgi with a text editor able to handle unix style now line breaks. Replace

    #!/usr/bin/env python

    with

    #!C:/Mercurial/Python/python.exe

    Replace

    #sys.path.insert(0, "/path/to/python/lib")

    with

    #sys.path.insert(0, "C:/Mercurial/Python/Lib")

19. This is an optional step. If you don’t want authentication skip to the next step.
    Open c:\Mercurial\httpd\conf\http.conf with a text editor
    Replace

    <Directory "C:/Mercurial/httpd/cgi-bin">
    
    	AllowOverride None
    
    	Options None
    
    	Order allow,deny
    
    	Allow from all
    
    </Directory>

    with

    <Directory "C:/Mercurial/httpd/cgi-bin">
    
    	Order allow,deny
    
    	Allow from all
    
    	AuthName "frantic"
    
    	AuthType Basic
    
    	Require valid-user 
    
    	AuthUserFile "C:/mercurial/htpasswd"
    
    </Directory>

    
    Open a command prompt and type the following
    

    cd C:\Mercurial\httpd\bin

    htpasswd -c htpasswd YourUserName

    copy htpasswd c:\mercurial

20. Test your newly configured website: eg. http://localhost:8088/cgi-bin/hgwebdir.cgi

pwdHash for iPhone

pwdHash for iPhone, my first iPhone app is available on iTunes.

Check out the the details here http://iphone.borg.hu/pwdhash/

Installing Mercurial hgwebdir.cgi on Windows 2003 IIS 6.0

This walk-through is based on the following stackoverflow article.

1. Download and install Python 2.6.4 to C:\Mercurial\Python
2. Download and install MiniGW 5.1.6
   • Choose the Download and Install Option.
   • Choose the Current Package Option to Install.
   • For the Components to Install Select the “Minimal” option. Install to C:\Mercurial\MinGW
3. Add to path “C:\Mercurial\Python\Scripts;C:\Mercurial\Python;C:\Mercurial\MinGW\bin”
4. Download and unzip Mercurial source to C:\Mercurial\Source
5. Build Mercurial from command line:
   

   python setup.py build --force -c mingw32
   
   python setup.py install --force --skip-build

6. Create default hgrc from command line type:
   

   cd %userprofile% 
   copy con .hgrc    [ui]
   username = Firstname Lastname <firstname.lastname@example.net>
   verbose = True
   

   • CTRL-Z
   • ENTER
7. hg debuginstall should display “No problems detected”
8. Create C:\Mercurial\Web and C:\Mercurial\Repositories directories
9. Copy the hgwebdir.cgi file from the C:\Mercurial\Source to C:\Mercurial\Web
10. Create hgweb.config in C:\Mercurial\Web
11. Insert text in hgweb.config
    

    [paths]
    / = C:\Mercurial\Repositories\

12. Give IUSR_{ComputerName} Modify permissions for C:\Mercurial\Repositories
13. Create a test repository
    cd C:\Mercurial\Repositories
    md test
    cd test
    hg init
14. Enable push for this repository
    
    • create hgrc file with notepad in cd C:\Mercurial\Repositories\test.hg
    • insert the following text

    [web]
    allow_push = *
    push_ssl = false

15. Start IIS Manager
    
    • Allow All Unknown CGI Extensions in Web Server Extensions.
    • Create virtual dir or new website with C:\Mercurial\Web path.
    • Grant website execute permission
    • In application configuration (Home Directory, Configuration button) add new extension. Executable:

      "C:\Mercurial\Python\python.exe" %s

      Extension:.cgi
16. Test your newly configured website: eg. http://localhost/hgwebdir.cgi

TODO:

• Don’t forget to configure authentication.
• Change file system permissions accordingly.
• Increase cgi timeout

cd \inetpub\AdminScripts\

cscript adsutil.vbs GET /W3SVC/CGITimeout

cscript adsutil.vbs SET /W3SVC/CGITimeout 3000

PHP has encountered an Access Violation at 01C0AAAE

I ran into this issue while I was trying to install Joomla on top of  PHP (5.2.12), IIS (6.0) and MySQL (5.1.39).

phpinfo() worked fine, but when the Joomla install page tried to access the mysql database I got the following error message:

PHP has encountered an Access Violation at 01C0AAAE

Solution:

I copied php5ts.dll AND libmysql.dll to my %systemroot%\system32 directory.

This is strange since Path environment variable contains my php install directory.

Testing an iPhone application without XCode

I asked my friend to beta test an iPhone app I had made. The problem was that he didn’t have XCode nor he wanted to install it.

Here is the solution:

Prerequisite an iPhone dev account + iPhone developer membership.

• Go to Apple Developer Connection - iPhone Developer Program here
• Add you App ID if you haven’t done so.
• Add you provisioning profile. Don’t forget to add the device you need to test your app on.
• Download and install your certificates and the provisioning file. More details here.
• Build your signed app.
• Send or copy both .app and .mobileprovision files to the computer where the device is connected.
• Use iTunes to copy the two files to your device.