Serial port for Raspberry Pi… or other systems | update 1

posted by Viking
Apr 2

A fast update just to say that the adapter is fully working on the Raspberry Pi running NetBSD 6.99.
Connection parameters are 115200-8-N-1 with flow control OFF (ON by default on PuTTY).
The adapter should work also on Rev. 1 Raspberry Pi B models, but there is no P6 (soft reset) header on that revision.

As standalone serial interface, works flawlessly with my old D-Link DSL-G624T wireless modem router. Being a rather old device, it use a slower 38400 bps connection (38400-8-N-1), but, nevertheless, works pretty well.

At last, just to leave no doubts about the SP3232 IC, as mentioned in this article (http://www.fullmeta.it/?p=379):

Sì, sono proprio quelli

Bye

No Comments


Serial port for Raspberry Pi… or other systems

posted by Viking
Mar 31

2012 was the year of the Raspberry Pi. This credit card sized computer has become a huge worldwide success.
Running GNU/Linux or other operating systems is an easy task, it just requires to flash an image on an SD Card, put it in the Raspberry and switch on the power supply.

The Raspberry Pi version B sports two USB 2.0 ports (only one on vers. A), a Fast-Ethernet connection (no network on vers. A), HDMI, Composite Video and stereo audio output.
It seems there’s nothing missing on the connection side. You can just plug a TV/monitor, a keyboard (and a mouse) and you’re ready to use the system.
You can also access it via SSH if you’re using Raspian or another OS that automatically enables the network connection and runs sshd or some telnet server at startup.
But, if you don’t have an available TV/monitor and you can’t connect to the Raspberry via network (because there is no DHCP server on your current network or there are no SSH/telnet servers running on the OS), your last chance is a serial console.

I’ll leave the basics to this simple and short article by Joonas Pihlajamaa: http://codeandlife.com/2012/07/01/raspberry-pi-serial-console-with-max3232cpe/
In a nutshell, the Raspberry Pi does have a serial port and a serial console is usually enabled by default by the OS on it, but there isn’t a standard UART/RS-232 connector. Two pins of the GPIO header must be connected to a level shifter like the Maxim MAX3232 in order to have a fully working RS-232 connection.

While the solution by Joonas Pihlajamaa works pretty well, I decided to make some changes:

  • I wanted an interface circuit with a standard DB-9 male connector. This way I can just change some settings, disable the serial console and use the circuit as a simple serial port for the Raspberry PI.
  • I wanted something like an Arduino’s shield, to just plug over and be ‘solid’ with the Raspberry.
  • I wanted the other GPIO pins to be available for other connections, like displays, I2C devices, RTC modules, etc.
  • I wanted the two pins of the soft-reset headers to be available for use even with the circuit plugged over.
  • I also wanted to use the circuit as a standalone RS-232/3.3V level converter to be able to connect to other embedded systems’ serial consoles (like the serial console found in many routers).

    • In the end, I came out with this solution, made with a MAX3232 compatible IC (the cheaper and more versatile SP3232ECP), some stackable headers, the usual five 100nF capacitors and a DB-9 male connector coming from a scrapped old motherboard.

    Serial Port Circuit mounted over a Raspberry Pi B rel. 2

    The P6 header “repeater” (as I call it) also serves to support the circuit on the side of the DB-9 connector.
    A four pin AUX header is also provided for standalone use, with 3.3V, GND, RX and TX connected.
    24 out of 26 GPIO pins are present on the circuit. Of course GPIO pins 8 and 10, TX and RX, are not available for other connections.

    Serial circuit P6 header detail
    Serial circuit AUX header detail

    I’m currently trying the adapter on the Raspberry and seems to be working well. On the PC I’m using an old Prolific USB-to-Serial adapter with a null-modem cable.

    Bye

    No Comments


    Hyper-V, NAT and tethering with Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone

    posted by Viking
    Gen 30

    For various reasons, I need to use OpenVPN at the university to be able to connect to the internet when I’m connected to a wired connection.
    I don’t like OpenVPN on Windows, primarily because it’s a software created for *nix systems and doesn’t run very well under Windows so it needs a lot of configuration under certain circumstances and so on.
    Nevertheless, OpenVPN works by creating an IPv4 Point-to-Point connection using a /30 subnet between the server and the client so, for instance, if the server, on the Point-to-Point connection, has the address 192.168.2.1, the client will have 192.168.2.2, the subnet itself will be 192.168.2.0 and the broadcast address will be 192.168.2.3.

    If you’re using Oracle VirtualBox or VMWare Player, you can simply configure the network adapter of the virtual machine to manage a NAT themselves. If the host has internet access, guest operating systems will be able to connect via a NAT hidden to (but usually customizable by) the user.

    But what if you’re using Hyper-V? Hyper-V has been designed for datacenter operations on Windows Server, where dedicated physical routers would manage routing, NAT etc.
    This brings a lot of really cool features like directly connect a virtual machine to a FCoE SAN or managing virtual switches and other stuffs, as expected from an enterprise-class hypervisor.

    Supposing that, like me, you’re running Windows 8 / 8.1 with Hyper-V on a laptop (I need it for the Windows Phone 8 emulator) and you’re connecting using some kind of PtP connection, like OpenVPN or a simple PPPoE modem, you need to configure a NAT on your system.
    This despite the fact that you won’t always need it, that will not work for every wireless or wired connection you’re gonna use and that there is a really big problem ahead, but let’s talk about this later.

    Creating a NAT for your virtual machines it’s pretty easy.
    Just open the Hyper-V management console, create a new virtual switch connected to an internal network (call it “Hyper-V NAT” or something like that), then open the Control Panel, open Network Connection and Sharing Center and enable the Internet Connection Sharing for the PtP connection you’re using and select as the “domestic network” the “Hyper-V NAT” adapter.

    By doing this, Windows will enable packet forwarding, will set the IP address of the “Hyper-V NAT” adapter to 192.168.137.1/24 and will enable a DHCP & DNS service on the same adapter.
    Virtual Machines connecting via the “Hyper-V NAT” adapter will automatically get their network configuration and will be able to surf the web (and usually download several hundred MBs of updates on their first run).

    Seem easy, huh? Well, it is. You can also change the switch to which a VM is connected when it’s running, so if you’re moving to a place when your PtP connection is not needed you can simply connect the VM to another virtual switch.

    That’s fine, really fine, until someday you need to share the 3G/4G connection of your Windows Phone 8 with your laptop.
    How does it work? Easy. Your WP8 device turns into a wireless router with a built-in DHCP & DNS service.
    The Wi-Fi adapter IPv4 address of your WP8 device is set to 192.168.137.1/24 and your laptop will get the network configuration automatically by your phone.
    Right?

    NO.

    Your wireless adapter is set as the following:
    IPv4 address: 192.168.137.2 ( or .3, or .42, etc. automatically assigned by DHCP of your Windows Phone)
    Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 (or /24, by DHCP)
    Default Gateway: 192.168.137.1 (by DHCP)

    but your “Hyper-V NAT” adapter is set as the following:
    IPv4 address: 192.168.137.1 (automatically set by Windows Internet Connection Sharing service)
    Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 (or /24, always assigned by Windows ICS service)
    Gateway: none (or 127.0.0.1, but it doesn’t matter).

    That’s not gonna work. What your WP doesn’t know is that it’s telling your laptop to use itself as gateway.

    The easy workaround is to disable the “Hyper-V NAT” adapter when you’re tethering your connection to your laptop, and that works.

    Or, you can choose to solve this problem, by telling Windows ICS to use a different subnet to share the connection.
    Because 192.168.137.0/24 is not really an “exotic” subnet, I decided to use the 172.31.137.0/24 subnet (yes, /24, not that you can select a different netmask anyway).
    To change these values, you need to manually edit the Registry’s values located in Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SharedAccess\Parameters.
    Change ScopeAddress, ScopeAddressBackup and StandaloneDhcpAddress accordingly to your needs.

    Try to select a subnet you’re almost sure you’ll never use and you should be fine until IPv4 will be deprecated (HAH!).

    Have fun!

    Bye

    No Comments


    Iconia W510: one month after

    posted by Viking
    Gen 27

    Exactly one month ago I received my Acer Iconia W510, because of a partnership between Acer and Microsoft, which I want to thank both one more time.
    The Iconia W510 features a brand new Intel Atom Z2760 “Clover Trail” SoC with 2 GiB RAM and a 32 GB SSD.
    With a 1366×768 10″ multitouch display and a detachable keyboard it’s one of the first platforms where Windows 8 can show its full potential.
    Following a rather new tradition, the Iconia has been named Harrier and has joined my main pool of computers, composed by Hornet ( my laptop ) and Raptor ( my workstation ).

    I started working on x86 system in 1994 and didn’t have any occasion to work on other platforms until 2008 when I got my first, used, UltraSPARCv9 workstation. I still was a Windows user nevertheless and as such I always had x86 ( and x64 ) systems to run the various version of Windows I used during the last 19 years.

    As a result, I was very interested about the new Windows RT operating system for ARM SoCs.
    I had the opportunity to try it and, even with the limitation of not being able to install any desktop application, there is still a desktop, there are still both command prompt and PowerShell that can run with administrative privileges, there are the usual command line utilities like netsh and a lot of other things which make Windows RT a “complete” operating system.
    Not to mention Windows RT comes with Office H&S 2013.

    Windows on x86 hardware nonetheless is another story, especially if you are a Power User like me.
    For instance, this is my home’s wokspace. The W510 fits nicely on the left of Raptor‘s main screen.

    My desk with two PCs and the Iconia W510

    Being able to run the full range of 32 bit applications for Windows in the world is priceless. There are scenarios where the need to install software like PuTTY or OpenVPN, for instance on UNIX or *nix-based workplaces, overcome the capabilities of any Windows RT device.
    I installed Visual Studio on my Iconia last week and now I’m able to do much of the work I already do on my laptop or my workstation. Of course I can’t run the WP8 emulator, but I can still write down some ideas into code anywhere I am ( with the help of Visual Studio’s IntelliSense ).

    One thing that was really unexpected is the battery life. It’s amazing. I can use it for two whole days without the need of charging the two batteries ( one in the unit, one in the detachable keyboard ).
    I was really surprised, considering that my dad’s Intel Atom based netbook, running Windows 7, could at least last 6 to 7 hours, maybe 8 with an aggressive energy-saving policy.
    The idea to put another battery pack in the keyboard was excellent. When using the Iconia with the keyboard, or while using the keyboard as a stand, the internal battery will be depleted last, when there’s no more charge in the keyboard’s battery.

    The screen is large enough to be used for productivity tasks while, having a 16:9 A/R, it’s little less suited for reading fixed A4 documents. On the other end is comfortable enough to read e-books or other contents with a variable layout, better suited for portrait orientation on a 16:9 screen.
    The minimum screen brightness is low enough to not strain your eyes while reading. BTW, if reading during nighttime without any other light source, it’s better to switch to a white on black, or even a grey on black color scheme if the app / website allow this.

    Design’s fairly good, a little scratch-prone IMHO. I would have put a regular USB port on the side of the unit instead of a microUSB one. The keyboard has another USB port so there is a total of two ports.
    A male microUSB to female USB-A dongle is bundled with the device, so this isn’t a big issue, but personally I hate dongles since time of PCMCIA network card ( because there’s some magic around them that make them disappear sooner or later ).

    The embedded NFC and Bluetooth could be a good option to attach a mouse without sacrificing one of the two precious USB ports, while BitLocker can use the integrated TPM module to securely encrypt data.

    The really big drawback of the unit Acer sent me are the only 32 GB of internal storage that leave really little space for documents and personal data once App and other software ( like Visual Studio Express or Office standard ) start being installed.
    There is a microSD slot that accept cards up to 32 GB ( 64 GB cards are unsupported  ), so data, music, pictures, etc. can be stored there.

    I had some stability issues during the first week that were greatly reduced with the following driver updates.
    I haven’t had one since the last driver update of January 13.

    Overall, being my first tablet, I’m pretty satisfied of it. Of course I have different needs from standard users. I wouldn’t have cared if the Iconia would have weighted 1 lbs more or would have been 1/4″ ticker but maybe having a mSATA SSD instead of the one soldered on the mainboard.

    In the end, I think the Acer Iconia W510 is a very good product, because before being a tablet, is a PC.
    That means, when choosing a tablet, that the Iconia ( as well as the other “Clover Trail” based tablets ) has no restrictions on any App’s store or market, can be fully integrated in a business / enterprise environment when running Windows 8 Pro ( like mine ) and can be connected to any device with available drivers for Windows 8 / 7 or Vista.

    Many friends of mine are starting to consider this product a good balance between a high-end netbook and a mid-range tablet. Of course high-end x86 tablets offer more, but with an higher price. Acer itself produces the Iconia W700 which belong to another class of products.
    After a single month some things start to be addictive: this a sign that the product is good!

    Again, many thanks to Microsoft Italy and Acer Italy for this amazing Iconia W510.

    Bye

    No Comments


    エリア88 OVA と エリア88 テレビアニメ [ Area 88 OVA & Area 88 the TV serie ]

    posted by Viking
    Ago 30

    Area 88, an anime I didn’t knew nothing about until a month ago. This wouldn’t be a bad thing on its own, but it actually is because Area 88 is an anime ( and a manga ) strongly related to aviation: how could I have missed it?

    As the title suggests, there are two anime series: the first one is a serie of three OVA released in the mid ’80s, the second one is a TV serie of 12 episodes that aired in 2004. Both have more or less the same plot because they are both based on the manga with the same title.

    As there are no real spoilers here, you can continue reading without fear.

    Because I like to see things in order, I watched the OVA serie first, followed by the the TV serie less than two weeks after. Always because I like to do things in order, I’ll start talking about the aviation part of the show.
    If you know a little about aviation and air forces, then there is no problem; if you know a lot, there there could be some problems; if you are an aviation enthusiast since 1989 then there would be some more problems.

    Nevertheless, the show will be really enjoyable anyway.

    Even if some errors are less noticeable than others, like the F-15 / Tornado -style pylons on the F-8 “Crusader” ( you do remember about “Crusader”‘s pylons and hardpoints, don’t you? ) or a drop tank mounted under an F-14A “Tomcat” centerline “Sparrow“‘s mountpoint, seeing aircraft like the F-4 “Phantom II” flying without the RIO or the F-14A used as a ground attack aircraft during the Vietnam conflict could bring some worries to the viewer.

    Dogfights are the standard even if there are some ( at least one ) long range actions using the “Sparrow” SARH AAMs.

    The main character, Shin Kazama [ 風間真 ], is probably able to shot down a “Flanker” flying a Sopwith “Camel” with three bullets ( one of which is defective ), even if sometimes he screw things. A lot.

    While the TV serie is almost always action-oriented, the OVA, even if shorter, focuses more on what Shin feels and what happens back in Japan. The story development is better depicted in the OVA than in the TV serie. I’m curious to see what happens in the manga though.

    The animation is of course really different and the aircrafts of the TV serie seem to come straight from Initial-D, and they move in the same way, that is, with the same handling as cars. When flying I mean.
    Visual effects are of course better on the TV serie and some details can’t be depicted on the OVA’s hand-drawed aircrafts. I think they’re on par even if for different reasons.

    More or less the same characters are present in both shows, the most notable exceptions are two mercenary pilot, Kim ( that is absent in the OVA but came from the manga ) and Kitori ( a brand new character for the TV serie, and currently my favourite character ).

    Both shows are fun and I suggest everyone to watch both, starting with the OVA as I’ve done.
    I prefer the OVA over the TV serie because it’s shorter and the story is IMHO better developed both around the main character and his background.

    Bye

    No Comments


    Market Driven

    posted by Viking
    Giu 27

    All the products names are copyrights or trademarks registered by their own manufacturers.

    Back in the good old days when computers weren’t mean to be used – and were costly enough not to be purchased – by anyone, there weren’t any design or weight issues.
    Desktop computers were rugged and ugly and no one cared, as long as they were powerful enough for their job. Laptop computers were bulky and costly enough to be a professional / enterprise – only choice. Mobile phones were the same, and voice calls were really costly too.

    No one really cared about design until Apple made the first iMac, a PowerPC G3 based computer that looked nice and didn’t seems a computer at all, maybe a small colored TV. With the introduction of the various following models, more and more people started buying Apple hardware. The introduction of the iPod was another successful move, selling millions of units. Then followed the iPhone, the rest is history…

    Apple did a very good job, creating a large user base and a series of product related – and complimentary – with each others. Owning an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad, a MacBook and an iMac is not that uncommon, assuming a person can afford such an expense.
    They ( sort of ) share the same design or style and people continue buying them. Of course competitors started to manufacture similar products with sometimes good, sometimes bad results.

    As I wrote, today a device is meant also to be good to see and show to the others, in a similar way as cars and girlfriends ( or boyfriends ). People want them to be that way, because they buy them, so there’s a market for them: the evolution of the well known Supply & Demand model.
    Of course common people aren’t supposed to be “power users” or “pro users”, they simply want something that works, that keep working without maintenance and that in case of trouble can be sent to a service and repair center to be fixed until it’s so old that repairing it isn’t the best choice anymore.
    The problem is “power users” or “pro users” ( like, for instance, me ) don’t like this way of thinking and are starting to get tired of such products that are not customizable, not upgradable or not fixable.

    Once I tried to open a 5th generation 30GB iPod ( my father bought one, and he always say he’ll not make the same mistake twice ) to replace the dead battery – pretty common after 4 / 5 years – with a new one I found on the net for as little as 10€ ( included shipping from Germany ). After cursing for over an hour trying to open that thing following various tutorials I found on the net, I gave up, but I’m still thinking why on Earth Apple’s engineers / designers didn’t simply put four little torx screws on the rear. Of course I already know the answer: because people don’t like seeing the screws, even if they’re covered by plastic or gum caps, because devices without screws sell better, because the vast majority of people are not expected to replace a battery, they’re expected to replace the whole product with a costly new one.

    Of course, from a “corporate” point of view, no one can blame Apple in any way. They’re absolutely right – no sarcasm here. They sell a lot and that demonstrates that they’re doing the right thing, manufacturing devices that people wants.

    But, considering how many things ( TVs, computers, LCD and CRT monitors, various electronic devices, etc. ) I’ve successfully disassembled, repaired and reassembled with a minimum effort of time and money – and, sometimes, no money at all – from a certain point of view it’s sad to see how any customer is supposed to be so dumb he’s unable to use a screwdriver to replace an hard drive or a RAM module, while from another point of view, alas, almost any customer will never need that capability because he’ll never replace the battery or add RAM to his system or replace the hard drive because, even if as simple as it is, he’s not able to.

    In the meantime, I’ll avoid buying phones without interchangeable batteries, laptops without standard screws or any other device that is, beyond it’s inherent limits, not serviceable, not upgradable nor fixable.
    Question is, how long such devices will be available on the consumer market?

    Bye

    No Comments


    2012 – An IPv6 Odyssey pt. 2

    posted by Viking
    Feb 4

    Last year I wrote how to create and configure an IPv6 over IPv4 tunnel with Hurricane Electric.
    Now I’m gonna write how to configure a Linux host with two NICs as an IPv6 router using an HE tunnel when behind a NAT-router.
    The examples here are referred to a Debian 6 Linux distribution and may be sligthly different for other distros or *BSD OSs.

    Let’s suppose your current IPv4 network is a classical 172.16.0.0 with a 255.255.0.0 netmask ( /16 in short ), and that your IPv4 NAT-router is located at 172.16.255.254.
    The first thing you need to do is to configure one of the interfaces of your IPv6 router, let’s say eth0, with a fixed IPv4 address in the same subnet of your router, like 172.16.255.253.
    Then you have to make sure that your NAT-router forward protocol 41 to your IPv6 router. If this is not the case, you can simply put you IPv6 router in the DMZ. Be careful when you do that! Be sure to apply strong IPv4 firewall policies and keep the daemons listening to that interface at the minimum, maybe on non-standard ports.
    After configuring the IPv6 router default IPv4 route ( to your NAT-router of course ), test if you can reach an address outside the local subnet, like 8.8.8.8 ( Google Domain Name Server ).
    You’ll also like to assign an IPv4 address to the other network interface, for instance eth1, to allow some daemons to listen to an IPv4 local address ( like sshd or named for IPv4 ).

    Debian and other Debian-related distros usually store the network configuration inside the /etc/network/interfaces file.

    # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
   address 172.16.255.253
   netmask 255.255.0.0
   gateway 172.16.255.254

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
   address 172.16.255.252
   netmask 255.255.0.0

    In the tunnel configuration page on the HE’s website you can find the routable /64 subnet. Mind the difference between the tunnel IPv6 addresses, that usually are something like 2001:1234:5678:abc::1 and 2001:1234:5678:abc::2, and your routable IPv6 subnet that will be something like 2001:1234:5679:abc::.
    The IPv6 address of eth1 is static ( this is a router after all ) and  must belong to your routable subnet. You can choose of using a simple address, like 2001:1234:5679:abc::1, or, if you’re a bit paranoic, you can randomize it to something like 2001:1234:5679:abc:5f32:9b8c:d12e:15fa.
    Because your routable subnet is not gonna change unless you destroy your HE’s tunnel and create a new one, you can configure the eth1 IPv6 address as static and put the configuration inside /etc/network/interfaces, by adding the following lines:

    iface eth1 inet6 static
   pre-up /sbin/ip6tables-restore < /etc/iptables/ipv6firewall
   address 2001:1234:5679:abc:5f32:9b8c:d12e:15fa
   netmask 64

    The second line is needed to enable the ip6tables firewall.

    The configuration for ip6tables is based on a more or less ‘standard’ requirement: all the hosts behind the router have unlimited access to the internet on every protocol or port while they’re not reachable from the rest of world with the exception of some ICMPv6 messages.
    Just to avoid some types of DOS attack, I’ve decided to limit the amount of ICMPv6 echo requests the router ( and the network behind ) is gonna receive.
    The content of the /etc/iptables/ipv6firewall file is the following:

    # Generated by ip6tables-save
*filter
:INPUT DROP [23:2392]
:FORWARD DROP [4:320]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [30:2888]
-A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i sit1 -p ipv6-icmp --icmpv6-type echo-request -m limit --limit 5/sec -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i sit1 -p ipv6-icmp --icmpv6-type echo-request -j DROP
-A INPUT -i sit1 -p ipv6-icmp -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i eth1 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -i sit1 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
-A FORWARD -o sit1 -j ACCEPT
-A FORWARD -i sit1 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
-A FORWARD -i sit1 -p ipv6-icmp --icmpv6-type echo-request -m limit --limit 5/sec -j ACCEPT
-A FORWARD -i sit1 -p ipv6-icmp --icmpv6-type echo-request -j DROP
-A FORWARD -i sit1 -p ipv6-icmp -j ACCEPT
COMMIT

    Then you need to enable IPv6 forwarding at boot time by putting the following file ( you can name it as you want, as long as it ends with .conf; I’ve called it ipv6_forwarding.conf ) inside the /etc/sysctl.d/ directory:

    # /etc/sysctl.d/ipv6_forwarding.conf

net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding = 1

    The next thing to configure is the router advertisement daemon, that can be installed ( as root ) using the command:

    # apt-get install radvd

    The configuration file is /etc/radvd.conf and should be similar to this one:

    interface eth1
{
   AdvSendAdvert on;
   AdvManagedFlag on;
   MinRtrAdvInterval 5;
   MaxRtrAdvInterval 15;
   AdvLinkMTU 1280;
   prefix 2001:1234:5679:abc::/64
   {
   };
};

    Some flags are required ( like ‘AdvLinkMTU’ set to 1280 ) for the tunnel to work, some are optional ( like ‘AdvManagedFlag’ ). Maybe next time I’ll wrote how to configure a DHCPv6 server. DHCPv6 is a little more complex than DHCPv4 also because it must be deployed side-to-side with router advertisement, but allows far greater flexibility than its IPv4 counterpart.
    In the meantime, with IPv4-reachable nameservers answering with AAAA records, there’ll be no real need for IPv6-reachable nameservers on the short term ( that is, until IPv4 will be the mainstream protocol ).

    The last part is to set up the tunnel using a shell script. Actually, two scripts are used. The first one contains only variables like the username, the tunnel ID and the password that should be passed via http on SSL to configure the firewall at Hurricane Electric and tell it our public IP.
    The file I created is named HE_personal.sh and is stored inside /root with 0700 permission. The content is the following:

    #!/bin/sh

USERNAME=■■■■■■■■
PASSWORD=■■■■■■■■
TUNNELID=■■■■■■■■

    The other file is HE_tunnel_setup.sh that contains the real commands needed to create the tunnel. I’ve decided to launch it manually ( must be executed as root ) but you can decide to launch it at boot time writing an init.d script or by simply using another ‘pre-up’ directive in /etc/network/interfaces. The content is the following:

    #!/bin/sh

. /root/HE_personal.sh

rm ipv4_end.php*
wget --no-check-certificate https://$USERNAME:$PASSWORD@ipv4.tunnelbroker.net/ipv4_end.php?tid=$TID

ifconfig sit0 up
ifconfig sit0 inet6 tunnel ::123.45.678.90
ifconfig sit1 up
ifconfig sit1 inet6 add 2001:1234:5678:abc::2/64
route -A inet6 add ::/0 dev sit1

    The –no-check-certificate flag for wget is needed because of a little issue with an HE’s SSL certificate. Mind the prefix of the sit1 interface and the remote endpoint of the IPv4 tunnel.

    After rebooting the IPv6 router, ip6tables and radvd should be already up and running. After launching the script the tunnel should be configured without issuing any other command.

    To check if the hosts had received an IPv6 Link-Global address you can use:

    $ ifconfig -a

    under any UNIX, Unix-like or Linux operating system or

    > ipconfig /all

    under Windows ( any version after Windows XP SP0 ).

    Then you can test if the hosts can reach the IPv6 internet using ping6 under any UNIX, Unix-like or Linux operating system ( excluding Oracle Solaris ) or using ping under Windows or Solaris.

    Bye

    No Comments


    トップをねらえ 2! と 天元突破グレンラガン [ Aim for the Top 2! DieBuster ] [ & ] [ Gurren Lagann ]

    posted by Viking
    Dic 28

    Just a few words on both the shows. DieBuster ■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■ ■■ ■■■■ to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Gainax, Gurren Lagann was released in 2007.

    SPOILER FREE

    Gurren Lagann is funny. Really. The soundtrack is cool even if the OSTs of GunBuster or EVA are on another level, but there are some tracks that are worth listening to them. The plot is… well, sorta same Gainax plot from “it’s all fun and games” that lead to “mankind is gonna die”. The plot is simple, not too complicated and, compared to other Gainax’s productions, funny. Really.

    DieBuster ■■ ■ ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■ GunBuster ■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■ ■■■■■■■■■ ■■ ■■■ Gainax ■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■ ■■ “Nadia: the secret of Fuzzy”■ ■■ ■■■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■ ■■ ■ ■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■ ■■■■■■

    So probably the last three minutes ■■ ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■ ■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■ ■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■ ■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■ ■■ ■■■■ ■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■■■■ in the last episode. And that’s it. Period.

    Bye

    * If you see a lot of ■, don’t worry. The article was actually written this way.

    No Comments


    Too little, too early…

    posted by Viking
    Dic 14

    Too little, too early is what people like me thought yesterday, reading news like this:

    So, farewell, then F-22

    I’m not gonna spend too many words on this project, because it is well known that the F-22 was designed during the Cold War era, introduced the concept of “air dominance” instead of the common “air supremacy”, had problems during both the development phase ( flight control issues ) and the operational phase ( oxygen flow regulation issues )…

    But even after all that, I still think that less than 190 aircrafts are not enough and that the F-15C fleet is aging, even considering things like the AESA AN-APG63. It’s like upgrading a computer without changing the mainboard. You can do that for a while, maybe, but you can’t do that forever. Even the mighty B-52H will probably be phased out earlier than expect.

    Anyway, farewell, then, F-22. A lot of novels, movies, fictions and games were “based” on a future with you, a future that is gonna last really less than expected.

    Bye

    No Comments


    « Previous Entries
    Next Entries »