System Admin’s Weblog

So, this was the latest project for my work. It’s made by some company called Smoothwall and it’s basically a web content filter. It’s not just that, it’s just a solution useful for the company i work for, after googleing a lot for another solutions.

What does it do? …a lot. And some of them it’s doing good. You can see all the features on the producer website over here. I’ll just tell you why did i choose this solution:

- incredible support for integration with Active Directory

You can map security groups in AD to groups in NG, and you can make policies based on those groups in NG.

- realtime logs, user logs ..and most of all, custom reports.

- web filtering based on…everything, custom made url lists, and policies based on those lists.

- integrated clamAV + support for external ICAP server

- bandwidth limiting

- picture scanning

- updated categorized URL lists

…and many more. I can’t think about another one now. Too damn tired. And that’s because i wanna finish that fucking school, so i rescheduled my worktime till 8pm from monday to thursday so i can go to school.

It’s going to be in testing till the trial period will end. And the trial period will end soon, and that’s because the poor training of their support team. That’s ..i guess, the only weak spot they have. But, i don’t know how they are organized..sometimes they answer in 1 hour…sometimes in 2 days. And of course, i had problems implementing this shit, so i needed their support. Unfortunately, from the month they gave me, which ended yesterday, i only made it work the way i wanted it …guess when??..yesterday. So i asked this sales dude to extend my trial period, which he did, with another week. So this week is for testing…

For people trying to replace something like Surf Control Web, it’s the perfect solution. Actually, for people interested about pricing, i don’t know how much Surf Control Web costs, but this one, for 500 users, for 3 years, costs somewhere around E10.000, which i think that for a bank it isn’t that much, or a very big company trying to stop people from wasting time at work.

First day of school for me today. I’ve been to the first class in 3 years of …abstinence. And it was in the early morning…8am. Of course, i got to school at 8:30am, have a coke, because lights were out to this place which could provide me the morning coffee, so i got to the class right after 1st hour …so, i took those 2 hours left of that class.

Strange feeling, to see everybody there with this..willing to learn attitude in the morning..some of them got up on the right hour…some of them came to class when i did…or just before last hour, but almost all of them were amazed by what was the teacher trying to tell them. Nice… I felt like..years ago…when i was getting up in the morning with the same attitude. Unfortunately, not anymore..i’m just sick of it, wanna pass those 5 exams left, and graduate the mothafucka.

So, i’m gonna be out from work to school ..3 days a week. On wednesday, thursday…and once in 2 fridays. This is going to be a week with all 3 days.

[update]: Well, it seems like it’s going to be…”school’s in…work’s out”..after all.

[update #2]: Actually, after 1 hour negociation with my direct boss and IT manager, looks like they’re both in…school and work. Bad part is that i was already concerned about how the fuck should i make money for bank loans and shit, and who the fuck will accept me with my school schedule. Well, the answer is …my current company. So, tomorrow, it’s time for school, again.

So, saturday was the last one. It was enough. We had 2-0…and 2-1 at half time. Then the final score was Romania-France 2-2.

So, you’ll need the following:

- ubuntu desktop 8.04 fully updated – including kernel > 2.6.20 (i think the latest is 2.6.24 on that distro)

- huawei E220 (currently on Orange Romania)

First of all, make sure you have kernel > 2.6.20 by typing:

uname -r

After that, make sure you have “wvdial” command available. If you not, just apt-get install it.

Then, insert the SIM card from the modem in a cell phone, and remove the pin protection.

Create a file called .wvdialrc in your home directory (ex. /home/user/.wvdialrc) and put the following lines in it:

[Dialer Defaults]

Phone = *99#
Username = orange
Password = orange
Stupid Mode = 1
Dial Command = ATDT
Init1 = AT
Init2 = ATE0V1&F&D2&C1S0=0
Init3 = AT
Init4 = ATS0=0
Init5 = ATE0V1&F&D2&C1S0=0
Init6 = AT+CPMS=”SM”
Init7 = AT+CMGF=1
# below, you can replace “2″ by “0″ to force EDGE connection
Init8 = AT+COPS=0,0,”RO ORANGE”,2
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 460800
ISDN = 0
Modem Type = Analog Modem

# below, you can set APN name; maybe your provider gave you in order to get fixed IP – in this case, it’s called “internet”
#Init9 = AT+CGDCONT=1,”IP”,”internet”;

After saving the file, run as “user” the command wvdial. It should work perfectly. BTW, it will try to connect more than 1 time before succeeding. Did the same thing to me. If it doesn’t work, make sure your linux loads the correct driver to this USB modem.

/var/log/messages should look like this:

Oct  3 02:03:27 xxx kernel: [ 4072.581107] usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Oct  3 02:03:27 xxx kernel: [ 4073.038320] usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Oct  3 02:03:27 xxx kernel: [ 4073.319908] usb 1-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4073.747801] usb 1-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4073.756208] hub 1-2:1.0: USB hub found
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.103785] hub 1-2:1.0: 7 ports detected
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.240712] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.240926] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.24/drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered
for generic
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.241394] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.241420] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.24/drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial Driver core
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.259436] /build/buildd/linux-2.6.24/drivers/usb/serial/usb-serial.c: USB Serial support registered
for airprime
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.259720] airprime 1-1:1.0: airprime converter detected
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.260264] usb 1-1: airprime converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.260347] usb 1-1: airprime converter now attached to ttyUSB1
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.260403] usb 1-1: airprime converter now attached to ttyUSB2
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.260431] usbcore: registered new interface driver airprime
Oct  3 02:03:28 xxx kernel: [ 4074.294027] usbcore: registered new interface driver libusual

Hopefully, it will work as beautiful as it worked for me. If it doesn’t, just send a comment.