Andreas Happe: Everything

Using a (host) reverse-proxy together with LXC application servers

The basic idea is to move application servers into LXC containers while keeping the HTTP server part (which is also responsible for hosting static files) on the host system. Normally an incoming request would be handled by an HTTP server on the host as well as by an HTTP server on the virtualized client: 1 browser -> http server(host) -> http server (guest) -> app-server (guest) I’m configuring the host HTTP server to directly communicate with the app worker, thus:

April 25, 2014 in tech linux virtualization

How to convert an KVM image into a LXC container

KVM was an improvement over Xen for me. Still for many use-cases a LXC are a more performance, light-weight alternative – which also seems to be en vougue nowadays. Through switching to LXC I’ve reduced my overall memory usage a bit – the main benefit is, that processes within an LXC container are separated processes within the host system. This should allow the host system to manage memory (think cache, buffers, swap, etc.

April 7, 2014 in tech linux virtualization

How to use virt-install to install new virtual machines within libvirt/kvm

I’ve been using KVM and virt-install to manage virtual machines on one of my servers, this post shows how to use virt-install. According to the package management system I’m having the following packages installed: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 root@edgewalker ~ # dpkg -l | grep virt ii libvirt-bin 1.1.1-0ubuntu8.1 amd64 programs for the libvirt library ii libvirt0 1.1.1-0ubuntu8.1 amd64 library for interfacing with different virtualization systems ii munin-libvirt-plugins 0.

March 22, 2014 in tech linux virtualization

Rogue Access Point and SSL Man-in-the-Middle the easy way

After I’ve tried setting up a rogue access point using squid and hostapd I’ve seen that KDE’s network-manager offers host access-point functionality. How easy is it to combine this with BURP for an SSL man-in-the-middle attack? Well some GUI clicking and 3 command line invocations.. The Hardware I bought two USB 802.11n wireless adaptorts on deal extrem, so far both of them work as an access point: a small whitish one for $5.

March 20, 2014 in linux security

How-to setup a rogue access point with a transparent HTTP(s) proxy

I’m always reading about dangerous rogue access points but never actually have seen one in action. So what better than create a test setup.. Hardware for this test setup will be my old linux notebook (a macbook pro) as fake access point a small deal extreme network card (Ralink 5070 chipset). I’ve actually bought three differnet wireless cards for under $20 and am trying out the different chipsets. This card is rather small (like an usb stick), so it isn’t to conspicous The basic idea is to use hostap to create a virtual access point.

February 24, 2014 in tech linux security

Politics: there seems to be no middle anymore

Yesterday was this year’s “Akademikerball” in Vienna. This is a continuation of the former WKR ball – which is used for right-wing networking across Europe and organized by the Austrian Freedom Party. This party in turn is a right-wing party: populist, xenophobic, haven of people with a far-right history. Opposed to this party were protests mostly organized by the left-ish social party and the green-alternative party. Police forces were using this event as a show-of-strength.

January 26, 2014 in life

Luxury is Slavery

It’s weakness. Well at least un-enjoyed luxury that has become an everyday event is. This has nothing to do with morals. Luxury costs money. Making money makes you dependant and consumes your free time, it reduces your financial freedom. So if you’re spending your life on luxury make sure that it counts and you’re enjoying it every moment.

January 5, 2014 in life

Review and New Year's resolutions

Yeah, let’s make some new year’s resolutions so that I can feel bad breaking them. The big ones are: Stop smoking. And nail-biting. Both might be the same outlet of my nervousness, let’s see if I can get them under control. Start doing Yoga and/or Meditation again. To be honest, this will be needed to get resolution #1 to work. Continue climbing. Alas my left wrist joint seems to have suffered sometime last year – I’ll gonna go to the doctor, but might have to reduce my bouldering for a bit.

December 31, 2013 in life

Cleaning Up

With the year’s end comes the time for reviews and cleanups. Reducing cruft allows your mind to be free, with it comes a sense of closure and empowerement. Otherwise all my possessions would drag me down. Stuff I really like to do at this time is: review existing bank accounts and service contracts (like phone/internet/power plans). Reduce them to maintain some sense of control. Books: I hoard them even if most of them are not exactly Pulitzer-price materiel.

December 29, 2013 in life

How to use FakeS3 for S3 testing

I’m contributing to a secure cloud project (well, it’s not that secure yet, but getting there..). It’s backend storage options include S3 so I want to test the S3-functionality against a locally installed S3 server. I first tried to utilize OpenStack Object Storage (Swift) or Riak, but both solutions were rather heavy-weight and cumbersome to setup. Bear in mind, that I just wanted some fake S3 storage server which would be deployed within a local network (without any internet connection).

December 24, 2013 in linux tech