Jul
1
2009
Last night Mozilla released Firefox 3.5. Just in time because they announced to release 3.5 in jun 😉
What’s new?
Firefox 3.5 is based on the Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform, which has been under development for the past year. Firefox 3.5 offers many changes over the previous version, supporting new web technologies, improving performance and ease of use. Some of the notable features are:
If you want to install Firefox 3.5 on OpenSuse 11.1 (Like me!) do:
sudo zypper ar http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/mozilla/openSUSE_11.1/ Firefox
sudo zypper mr -r Firefox
sudo zypper up -r Firefox
If you get a message: “Nothing to do.”
Start Yast | Software Manager. Search for Firefox en select update.
Jun
30
2009
A student of mine had a question how he can modify the welcome message in Linux when you login on TTY or through SSH.
So I though to posted it out here.
Place your welcome text in /etc/motd. Default this file is emtpy.
Jun
24
2009
Today I noticed that Novell has release HotPatch 2 for Groupwise 8. If you look on download.novell.com you will see a explication mark behind the patch, indicating there is a security issue.
If you look in the readme of Groupwise 8 in the security second it will say:
Novell GroupWise WebAccess is vulnerable to weaknesses within the session management mechanisms that could potentially allow an attacker to gain access to an authenticated user’s account.
Affected versions:
GroupWise 7.0 up to 7.03 HP2
GroupWise 8.0 up to 8.0.0 HP1
(Novell bug 472979, CVE-2009-1634)Novell GroupWise WebAccess is vulnerable to a cross-site scripting (XSS) exploit via unfiltered style expressions, which could potentially allow an attacker to send a message with an HTML file that contains malicious scripts, which could redirect a user and/or forward data & requests to a malicious site.
Affected versions:
GroupWise 7.0 up to 7.03 HP2
GroupWise 8.0 up to 8.0.0 HP1
(Novell bug 472987, CVE-2009-1635)A vulnerability exists in Novell GroupWise WebAccess in the that way it blocks scripting. Exploitation of this vulnerability could potentially allow an attacker to gain access to an authenticated user’s mailbox and forward data & requests to a malicious site.
Affected versions:
GroupWise 7.0 up to 7.03 HP2
GroupWise 8.0 up to 8.0.0 HP1
(Novell bug 474500, CVE-2009-1635)A vulnerability exists in Novell GroupWise WebAccess that could allow an attacker to use Javascript to deface the login page, which could potentially prevent users from logging in to WebAccess.
Affected versions:
GroupWise 7.0 up to 7.03 HP2
GroupWise 8.0 up to 8.0.0 HP1
(Novell bug 484942, CVE-2009-1635)A vulnerability exists in Novell GroupWise Internet Agent, in the way it processes certain SMTP requests. Exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to arbitrary code execution with SYSTEM privileges.
Affected versions:
GroupWise 7.0 up to 7.03 HP2
GroupWise 8.0 up to 8.0.0 HP1
(Novell bug 478892, CVE-2009-1636)A vulnerability exists in the Novell GroupWise Internet Agent, in the way it processes email addresses in the SMTP protocol. Exploitation of this vulnerability could lead to arbitrary code execution with SYSTEM privileges.
Affected versions:
GroupWise 7.0 up to 7.03 HP2
GroupWise 8.0 up to 8.0.0 HP1
(Novell bug 482914, CVE-2009-1636)Bug 501443 – Notify connects to the wrong mailbox, bypassing authentication in unique configurations.
And in the readme of Groupwise 7:
501443 – Notify connects to the wrong mailbox, bypassing authentication in unique circumstances
So if you don’t applied this hotfixes, it’s possible that other people connect to your mailbox thourgh notify. How? I don’t know.
But I sure don’t want this to happen!
Jun
24
2009
Lately I ordered a UMTS usb dongle from KPN for my OpenSuse 11.1 notebook.
As you all probely know, for Microsoft you just plug the USB stick in and maybe you have to install some additional software and it works.
With Linux this is different. In OpenSuse 11.1 we can use NetworkManager to connect to the Internet.
Fist challenge I had was to let OpenSuse recognize my USB UMTS USB stick as a modem and not a Mass Storage Device.
After some googeling I found a post on de OpenSuse forums to fix this.
But actually, I solved my problem with a ONDA MT503HT (MF628) using usb_modeswitch.
The software is ready in my OpenSuse 11.1 64 bit, just a little editing on the /etc/usb_modeswitch.conf file and everything is OK, even the built in MicroSD card reader.
Comment out the section “Option GlobeSurfer Icon (aka “Vodafone EasyBox”)” and enable the section “ONDA MT503HS (most likely a ZTE model)”.Of course some tweaking is needed on the side of /etc/wvdial.conf and, if you don’t want to run usb_modeswitch in a console (as a root), you have to create a new rule for udev.
For example, create the rule with:
touch /etc/udev/rules.d/75-onda-MT503HS.rules
and then insert in the file this string:
SUBSYSTEM==”usb”, ATTR{idVendor}==”19d2″, ATTR{idProduct}==”2000″, RUN+=”/usr/sbin/usb_modeswitch”
This fix from Acez works great. Now NetworkManager recognizes the UMTS dongel. Now you have to set the right APN name.
This is a site where almost every provider is listed.
Now I can Blog anywhere!
Jun
22
2009
Last week I got a email from Alex Peeters. A couple of months ago he followed the N3089 who I gave.
Alex did some testing with CIFS and NCP performance on Windows 7 what is quite interesting. I’m glad that I can publish his results.
Nice job Alex, keep up the good work!
From Alex:
I’ve been reading, testing and tweaking file transfer performance on different WAN links.
My test:
Use a WAN link with a 1 GB throughput and a high latency of 15 ms. I’ve measured the time it takes to copy a 580MB file from the server down to the workstation. From that i have deducted the actual throughput. The server is an HP Proliant DL380G5.
Test 1A: NCP
Server: NetWare 6.5 SP 7 with a 1GB NIC.
Client: Windows XP 100 MB NIC with a Novell Client
Actual throughput: 21.04 Mb/s
Test 1B: NCP
Server: NetWare 6.5 SP 7 with a 1GB NIC.
Client: Windows 7 Beta 100 MB NIC without Novell Client
Actual throughput: 22.56 Mb/s
Test 2A: CIFS on NetWare
Server: NetWare 6.5 SP 7 with a 1GB NIC.
Client: Windows XP 100 MB NIC without Novell Client
Actual throughput: 24.16 Mb/s
Test 2B: CIFS on NetWare
Server: NetWare 6.5 SP 7 with a 1GB NIC.
Client: Windows 7 Beta 100 MB NIC without Novell Client
Actual throughput: 65.16 Mb/s
Test 3A: CIFS on Windows 2003
Server: Windows 2003 with a 1GB NIC.
Client: Windows XP 100 MB NIC without Novell Client
Actual throughput: 21.09 Mb/s
Test 3B: CIFS on Windows 2003
Server: Windows 2003 with a 1GB NIC.
Client: Windows 7 Beta 100 MB NIC without Novell Client
Actual throughput: 64.44 Mb/s
It seems to me that M$ has done something to Windows 7 that makes it outperform NCP. I have read something about SMB2 but I’m not sure how that would fit in my test results.
Is there a way I can tweak my OES2 server (NetWare of Linux) or Novell Client to match the CIFS performance on NCP?
