Here’s a video article by Laura Chappell on how you can make your wireless snooping a bit more comfy by adding columns for your wireless antenna signal strength.

Video is being hosted at Novell.

Wireshark Training : Adding Columns for Wireless Antenna Signal Strength (Hosted by Novell)

Enjoy!

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My CEO just arrived from the U.S. and bought himself this snazzy new sub-notebook from MSI. Yep, its MSI’s latest Wind Notebook. And I’m excited to be able to work with this baby. The boss told me that he’s been having a problem making the Wind connect to his LinkSys WiFi router at home and asked me to take a look.

Upon seeing the Wind, I was amazed at how light it is. Yet under the hood it seems pretty much capable. Check out the specs:

• Intel® Atom™ N270 Processor 1.33 GHz
• Intel® 945GSE+ICH7M Chipset
• 2GB RAM DDR2-667
• Genuine Windows XP Home OEM
• 10� Wide Screen Display
• Convenient Magnifying Capability
• Ergonomic Big-Size Keyboard and Touch Pad
• 120 GB Hard Drive
• Built-in 1.3 Megapixel Webcam
• Built-in 2 Channel Stereo Speakers, and Microphone
• 802.11b / g Wireless Lan with Bluetooth
• Li/Ion 3/6 Battery
• 4 in 1 Card Reader
• ~1.0 Kg weight

The Problem

The MSI Wind is using Realtek 8187SE wireless adapter built-in. When I started tinkering with it, I’m surprised that even though the device was detected, and the driver installed (from the bundled support CD), I can’t seem to make this notebook connect to our wireless router. I’ve decided to download an updated driver for the 8187SE from Realtek’s site and reinstalled the driver. After a reboot, same thing - it can’t find our wireless network.

Ok, I might have overlooked something. Sure thing, the (almost) idiot that I am, forgot to turn the wireless adapter on. The Wind has this (not so obvious) access button to activate your wireless adapter. To activate wireless, press Fn + F11 (Function key plus F11 which has this satellite looking icon). The access button icon was not common compared to other laptops which uses “radio” icons. It looked like a satellite dish thus was overlooked. Upon pressing Fn+F11, I was presented with graphical dialogs on which devices will be enabled. You can cycle from activating WiFi only, WiFi and Bluetooth, or Bluetooth only.

After activating the wireless adapter, our wireless network was identified. I tried connecting but it just cycles and stops. So I reviewed the settings again looking for something that I might have missed. What could have been a shoot-or-miss endeavor turned into a feel-good learning experience. I was reminded again by this activity to always review default settings and change them as much as I can (I know I do when I’m on Linux ).

I opened the properties page for the wireless adapter in order to check some of its settings.

• Open Network Connections
• Right click on the wireless adapter icon and click properties
• In the General tab, click on the Configure button right next to the wireless adapter card list
• In the wireless adapter card properties dialog, I made sure that the following is set:

• 802.11d - Disable
• CCX Max Off-Line Measurement - 0 (Zero)
• CCX Radio Measurement - Enable
• IBSS Default 11b Mode - Enable
• Network Type - Infrastructure
• Wireless Mode - IEEE 802.11b

After changing the settings, I applied all the changes, and let the wireless adapter reinitialize and voila! I’m connected to the wireless network.

A short word of caution though. Your wireless router might not be the same as mine and may use a different encoding and keys. Double check what your wireless router will actually support.

Overall, the MSI Wind seems like a very capable UMPC in my opinion and its screen doesn’t make me squint at all. The keyboard fits quite well. I’m beginning to think of getting one myself (if I have the dough! Save save!)

Enjoy!

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The first leg of my Manila trip was ok. Got fed up with the traffic at EDSA last night when I tried to go to Makati from my stay at Ortigas. A couple of taxis did not take me. Now, I’m in a mining town virtually owned by PHILEX Mining. The place is called the Padcal Operation. Everything here, from hospitals, schools, electricity, roads, cooking gas supplies were provided by PHILEX free to all the town inhabitants which are also its miners and their families. It was a tiring trip from Manila to here but it was great. And tomorrow, my training will begin.

I’ll be training five PHILEX Mining IT staff on Novell ZENworks Desktop Management. It’s just amazing that a location this remote, about an hour from Baguio city proper across rugged but well-paved terrain, technology is at its finest. The PHILEX Mining site is a huge area which, to my estimation, would actually comprise a couple of medium-sized towns/municipalities. However, its various sections and buildings interspersed across the vast area, wireless technology provided a vital data and communication backbone.

I was even surprised to find out that they have cable TV here. Still provided by PHILEX for free. They got the cable from DreamTV Satellite. And yes, they have internet here or else I wouldn’t have posted this. I dunno yet who the provider is, however, it’s a safe bet that this also runs piggyback on Dream’s own cable tv/satellite.

For now, I have to sign off and post updates later.

Technorati Tags: Benguet, Baguio, trip, Novell, ZENworks, training, PHILEX, mining
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In a landmark accomplishment, the Fedora team has finally released Fedora 7 “Moonshine”.

What sets Fedora 7 apart from previous Fedora releases is that this latest release unified the two Fedora components — Fedora Core and Fedora Extras. The final public release of Fedora 7 yesterday, May 31, followed the traditional development freeze last May 17.

Other features that will be seen on this latest Fedora release are listed as follows (taken from the Fedora Wiki):

1. Merged Core and Extras - Fedora Core and Fedora Extras merged into a single source control system and use a single build system, thus creating a new package set that carries the already overloaded name “Fedora”.

2. Ability to spin a custom distribution and/or live CD - users can now create a custom Fedora-based distro or live CD. Custom CD spins on top of Fedora 7 can be both live and installable, or only installable only.

Fedora Prime is basically a spin of the Fedora project that more or less targets various system deployment “profiles”. Some users would want to deploy Fedora as a server, others want to deploy it as a plain desktop, some want it to become a developer desktop, and some people want to deploy it with a little of anything. Creating different spin releases to fit certain deployment profiles are out of the question, therefore the Fedora board decided to create the Fedora Prime spin which will include packages that will allow users to deploy Fedora either as a server, desktop, or developer desktop.

Fedora Everything of course is self explanatory. It contains every package known to the Fedora Project. In essence, everything is like your own Fedora repository. Some packages that did not come with the Fedora Prime spin can be found in the Fedora Everything spin. Do you really need all of those things?

Final Release Spins

Fedora 7 “Moonshine has the following features incorporated in its final release:

- 2.6.21 kernel with integrated kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) managed through virt-manager and virsh.
- included Xen and QEMU for virtualization.
- kernel-based support for VMWare VMI interface
- separate bootable live CDs for GNOME and KDE
- a regular image for servers, desktops, and workstations (Fedora Prime)
- desktop uses GNOME 2.18 or KDE 3.5.6
- fast user switching
- Xorg Server 1.3
- packages for enhanced wireless networking
- NetworkManager installed by default either under GNOME or KDE
- new “Flying High” theme
- Firefox 2
- Python 2.5
- improved I18N support with SCIM working automatically
- enhanced number of localization and language packages in the GNOME-based live CD
- a graphical administration tool for SELINUX
- SELINUX troubleshooting tool enabled by default
- integrated FireWire Stack
- improved power management through “dynamic ticks”
- consolidated dictionaries
- experimental “noveau” driver integrated in Xorg and kernel (disabled by default). Noveau is a free and open source 3D driver for nVidia cards.
- improved performance for yum, Pirut, and Pup.
- support for Playstation 3

More Fedora 7 “Moonshine” features can be found at the Fedora Project Wiki. You can also take a tour of Fedora 7 at the Fedora 7 Tour site.

Release Downloads

Fedora 7 “Moonshine” is available for x86, x86_64, and PPC platforms.You can download Fedora 7 directly at the following:

Fedora download site.
FedoraTorrents
Fedora 7 x86/i386 ISOs
Fedora 7 x86_64 ISOs
Fedora 7 PPC ISOs

Summary

I hope to download the release either this week or by next week. For the first few days of the release, the Fedora servers will be flooded with downloads since mirrors are scrambling to sync with the new material. I might join in while I can (bandwidth permitting).

I hope to see this really to be really good.

Other links:
Fedora Mailinglist Announcement Email
Fedora Project Wiki
Fedora 7 Release Summary
Fedora 7 Release Notes
Fedora 7 Category of Features

Technorati : fedora 7, release, linux, open, source
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Yesterday, a Sunday, was a busy day for me. Although as much as I wanted to spend time with my family for that day, I have to go and pay a visit to a client who is currently planning to migrate fully to Linux.

The problem or problems were simple really. Below are some details regarding their infrastructure.

The Client
Actually I am doing this on a freelance basis. Since I am not available on weekdays because of my day job as a Tech Support and Pre-Sales for a local IT vendor, I asked the client that the planned initial steps for their migration be set on Sundays. The proposal I previously submitted projected the “migration” will take about five days (Sundays).

The client is a real estate developer. Their computers were fixed-function stations with the primary purpose of generating documentation, reporting, email, internet browsing, and billing. Pretty standard office stuff. The migration will not be as difficult.

The Objectives
The client intends to cut down costs in terms of software licensing, increase control over users’ internet use without invading user privacy, increase the security of the main business network by preventing unauthorized access into the main network that might come from the wireless portion of the entire network, and maintain compatibility of pre-established and used document formats.

The Infrastructure
Their existing infrastructure consists of the ff:
- one Systems Admin
- 10 - 20 workstations for documentation, reports, email, browsing, and billing running Windows XP
- no definite specific server/s
- mixed set of printers (Epson, HP, Canon) ranging from Dot Matrix, Deskjet/Bubblejet, and Lasers.
- a wired (copper) network using 10BaseT/UTP
- a wireless network using LinkSys wireless access point/switch/router
- broadband (ADSL) internet connection
- commercial anti-virus
- file and printer sharing
- Applications: PeachTree Accounting, Norton AntiVirus, internal custom systems developed using Clipper, and MS Office.

The Diagnosis
My initial inspection of the infrastructure found their existing inefficient and vulnerable. Here are the initial findings:

1. The network(s) were inefficiently using IP addressing. Each department were using a different IP class for only very few computers. One department uses class B IP addressing (10.0.0.x) and another department uses class C IP addressing (192.168.x.x). Each department only has an average of 4 or 5 computers maximum.

2. The wireless network is directly interconnected to the wired network. The main network gets IP addresses via the DHCP service provided for by the LinkSys Switch Router. Mobile clients that will access internet connection via the wireless access point can access other machines within the main business network.

3. No restrictions and control is implemented for users within the main business network. Users tend to surf and download malicious content through the web.

4. Virus infections were common and left unresolved.

The Recommendation
With prior talks with their System Admin, I recommended SuSE Linux despite the existence of other “Windows-like” Linux distributions due to the fact that a local vendor offers SuSE Linux and can extend support to them locally.

Further recommendations were:
1. Use ONLY class C IP addresses and use subnetting (192.168.0.x, 192.168.1.x, …). Each department will use a subnet of the same IP class.
2. The wireless network will be assigned a separate subnet than the main business network.
3. A “server” will be setup to provide proxy service, routing between the main business network and the wireless router.
4. The “server” will use iptables-based firewall with one network interface designated as a demilitarized zone for the wireless network, and an internal zone for the main business network. This will in turn block those from the DMZ from accessing the main business network.
5. Squid will be used as the internal proxy server which allows for easy installation, maintenance, flexibility in implementing restriction via access control lists (ACLs).
6. Samba will be used for file and printer sharing allowing internal workstations that will still continue using Windows to use network shares and resources.

Already Implemented
I had just started to implement changes to their infrastructure and one day will not be enough for two people (me and the System Admin) to perform the entire implementation. The fact that the Admin is also more inclined to Windows than Linux does not help speed up the implementation.

So far, we were able to accomplish putting up the internal proxy server using Squid. ACLs for Squid will still be added later. The client’s System Admin will do the updating to new IP addressing for the rest of the workstations. File and printer sharing will be done later.

Here’s the diagram of the proposed modification to the network that is in the process of implementation:

- Click picture to enlarge.

This project is very much a first for me to implement, hopefully this “pilot” project will be one of many “migration” projects that I will be doing in the future. Certainly, Linux, for some local businesses is starting to look pretty viable an alternative cost-wise and security-wise. Look forward to more updates regarding this project soon.

If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment. I’d love to hear your suggestions to make the client’s foray into Linuxland more beneficial and worthwhile.