2 is better then 1 ?

DBS Bank have just introduced 2 factors authentication using SecureID tokens together with existing login PIN.

This, I like very much, as it provides a much secured internet banking experiences.

However, something which I noticed different from the regular RSA secured ID tokens which I am more accustomed to, is that I do not need to key in 4 digits before the random token displayed 6 digits PIN.

Also, I do not like the way the login forms are being designed and implemented. One have to log in via the regular login window, using login ID, login PIN. And once authenticated, the token PIN login page will be displayed.

The token PIN fields could have and should be integrated into the initial login page, providing user with 3 fields to fill in. This way, one could access the iBank application as it was after the authentications. I am sure this is faster, and makes users happier. The back end authentications should be as transparent to users as it was before today eh ?

On another thoughts on authentications when I was reading some discussion on DBS's token solution why can't we have a single-sign-on solution in Singapore itself as it is so small ?

Could singpass be open up sets of API for commercial users to makes of it's authentication services? PKI that is.

I am sure it will rocks the world ...

PS: you can say that I am a dreamer ..

Gigantic bug found at rural Germany

Check this out http://xrl.us/ryhb, a link passed on by some friends.

It seems like the satellite pics on Google Map is bugged. is this the Y2K bug that everyone was talking about?

Some speculated that they take a print of the photo and scan it in and the bug was sitting on the contact sheet when the scan was taking place. If not, we are really looking at a serious bug problem.
Bring out the DDT !

life just sucks

Life just sucks. yes it does.

my ex-isp decided to suspend my cable access cos i miss payment for 1 month. yes. 1 month. Cos babyluke was hospitalized for a couple of days and whole life turn upside down. I haven't got time to keep tracks of bills.

so they suspend it.

and i terminate the server with them.


looking at alternativ isp, i found one, which is supposing to be the largest telco in town, with a pretty attractive deal.

i sign up for it.

and guess what? 2 days after i've got my adsl connection up. them came up with a promotion deals that gives away a brand new mac book (THE ONE THAT I WANTED SO BADLY TO REPLACE MY DYING eMAC).

aggrhh .. life just sucks!

pure zsh irc client

Andrew Ruder a fellow zsh user released a pure zsh irc chat client ... it's pretty cool eh !

to rm or not to rm is the question

Wow .. looks like the steps involved in deleting something on windows...

Veritas Freeware ?

Wow! Looks like Veritas is free for home use nowadays! Read more ...

ubergoonz needs to eat uberfood

No sh*t, the buger cost SGD 1-oh-1 $

Manz! I need to eat this überburger.

transitive relationship

Here's a funny one ..
for all x, y and z in X it holds that if xRy and yRz then xRz

My Screen rc

my .screenrc

startup_message off
caption string "%{= dd}"
autodetach on
crlf off
deflogin off
hardcopy_append on
vbell on

silencewait 15
# change escape character to X. I use ^a for beginning of line
defescape ^Xx
escape ^Xx
activity "activity in %n (%t)"
bell "bell in %n (%t)"
vbell_msg " *beep* "

#terminfo screen '@7=\E[8%dm:kh=\E[7%dm'
#terminfo screen 'ka1=\e[7:kc1=\e[8'
#terminfo screen 'khome=\E[7~:kend=\e[8~:ka1=\e[7~:kc1=\e[8~'
termcapinfo xterm 'hs:ts=\E]2;:fs=\007:ds=\E]2;screen\007'
term xterm
defbce on

# Do not use xterms alternate window buffer.
# This does disable the scrollback buffer tho :(
#termcap xterm|xterms|xs ti=\E7\E[?47l
#terminfo xterm|xterms|xs ti=\E7\E[?47l

defscrollback 5000
bind a lockscreen
bind ^A lockscreen
defmonitor on

shell zsh
shelltitle '> |zsh'
#screen 2

bind o title
bind E title ""
bind u title (unknown)

bindkey -k k1 select 1
bindkey -k k2 select 2
bindkey -k k3 select 3
bindkey -k k4 select 4
bindkey -k k5 select 5
bindkey -k k6 select 6
bindkey -k k7 select 7
bindkey -k k8 screen $SHELL
bindkey -k k9 title

hardstatus on
caption always "[SCREEN->%w]                 -=|%m/%d/%Y(%c:%s/%a)|=-"
hardstatus lastline "-.:%w:.  [%n = %h]"

Johari Window

a couple of days ago, i was pondering over the conversation with my fellow SAs. I began to wonder if technical aspect is all it is to unix system administration work.

am i becomming the BOFH?

then a close net fren of mine send me a link to update his Johari window.

I did it and find out that

"A Johari window is a metaphorical tool intended to help people better understand their interpersonal communication and relationships. It is used primarily in self-help groups and corporate settings as a heuristic exercise."

I guess it is really cool if I can see what others think about me and how different it is then what I think about myself. Thus I urge my friends to help in filling it up for me.

The results is at http://kevan.org/johari?view=lesliew .

If you are interested, do hop on to http://kevan.org/johari?name=lesliew


^z

A very long life

Man! this is mad! the server is up, longer then I am alive on earth!

http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200511/msg00216.html

#!/bin/ubergoonz -x: it looks good ... http://sun.com revamp

#!/bin/ubergoonz -x: it looks good ... http://sun.com revamp

a few weeks after I complained abt the revamped sunsolve search tool. it have improved a lot!

it would be doing the developers dis-services if I did not withdraw my complains.
A great thanks to the developers! great work!
:)

Installing OS over the network - part 1

It seems like more major Operating System (OS) vendors are providing various method of installing their flavour of Operating Systems onto systems via the network. It is somewhat confusing with the different terms it was used and how it work. Here's a quick note on network OS installation on some OS that I am familiar with.

Vendor: Sun Microsystem
OS: Solaris Status: Current version --> Solaris 10
Framework : Jumpstart
Network Protocol used: Bootparam, TFTP, DHCP, NIS, NFS, HTTP
Boot Media: Network booting via OBP, CDROM, DVDROM

Vendor: RedHat
OS: RHEL
Status: Current version --> RHEL 4
Framework: Kickstart
Network Protocols used: HTTP, DHCP, NFS, TFTP, PXE,
Boot Media: Network booting via PXE, CDROM, DVDROM, Floppy

Vendor: NeXT
OS: NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP
Status: defunct
Framework: Network install ??
Network protocols used: bootp, nibootpd, nibootparam, NFS, netinfo
Boot Media: Floppy, CDROM

Vendor: Apple
OS: Current version --> MacOSX 10.4
Framwork: NetBoot
Network Protocols used: TFTP, DHCP, NFS, DNS
Boot Media: Open Firmware, CDROM, DVDROM

more details wll follow on each network install technologies ... when i grep some time.

it looks good ... http://sun.com revamp

If you have noticed ... Sun have just revamp their website. The new website is way too cool (the look) ... if using a correct browser.....

I have always told my wife when it comes to condo's ads. fancy resturant served food ..
"They looks good".

Yes. They really looks good. atrist impression ..

But it is darn buggy!! The worst website revamp that Sun have ever done I would say. (dun belive? check the The history


for a moment, I thought it only happens to IE on windows (cos I was using form the office) ... then when i try that at home .. it's the same thing ..

:(

(BIG BOO)

I tried searching for OBP level matrix for various Sun h/w platforms on Sunsolve to create a script to validate the firmware level ... but when I tried to click on page 2 of the search result ...

Here's the screen shopts of how it looked ...
On a windows's IE


and on a Mac's Safari


...
:(

The Strange New World of the SolarisTM 10 Service Management Facility

read abt it , The Strange New World of the SolarisTM 10 Service Management Facility, .. brand new way to managed startup scripts ..
sorta like RHEL's chkconfig / service command.

IMOHO, I like the way the SMF works like the wat linux manages the startup scripts.

Som BSD schoool of thoughts perople like the rc.local method of startup services and daemons on UNIX. But I prefer the SysV way.

NEVER MEDDLE WITH BULK THINGS.

modular. objected oriented. that's the way I like it. easier to troubleshoot and manage of cos.

^z

RHEL 4 launch in Singapore

gotten myself some time off to leave office earlier to attend a RHEL 4 launch today, and I must remember to tell myself "never to attend one of such product launch talk again".
I wont mind going to MacWorld Expo

Good lesson learned.

not that I have anything against RH. No! I love RH. In fact, I started my unix/linux venture with Rh5.1. It is redhat that made me be able to learn and have real hands-on on Linux(and later unix).

but such product launch ... is really too marketing .. a total waste of time for any unix SA to attend.
(now .. it may be a good excuse to attend one if it covers the whole day during office hours).
One thing cool may be the free beers after the talks, but too bad the beer pump is way too slow, and and the beer queue is way too long. I did a slapslick joke on the beer pump being slow (it slow because it's not running on an 2.6 kernel).. and invited unfriendly stares .... gosh .. I think there are many w|nd0ws people around, or no one understands what I am talking about!

But one thing I learned is the SELinux feature is gonnna be available on RHEL 4. That should be cool! Great stuffs if the RHEL installed server to be used in an amberzone server.

The network is the computer

I am extremely disappointed with the support from a vendor for the past few weeks.

The OS is reporting ECC memory, but correctable ones that it.

As a diligent SA that I am. I logged in a service call. As there isn't any service distruptions (yet), I did not pressed on like I was from the past.

The error message persists and many alerts were triggered on the monitoring software, causing much alarm for the rest of the SA.

It went off for a few days, and while the vendor called, I told them maybe we can closed for now as they did not give any constructive solutions nor being proactive as I hope them to be.

then a few days later, the error keep comming back. triggering a lot of error messages!

This time round, I log in a service call with the vendor again. Guess what, all I have in response is their new DIMM replacement policy.

Nothing constructive. I mean if I was the vendor, I'd sugggest something to find out more details, instead of asking for data collection tools only.

I would have request the user to run some diagnostics tool. extended POST maybe, of Validation Test maybe?

oh hell no .. all I have is the pdf file of DIMM replacement policy.

If you are a SA, you will know that it doesn't thrills a least bit to know your vendor's DIMM replacement policy.

All I want is availability and performance!! By all means give me something constructive!

anyway, I requested some down time from my user, shut the box down. setted up extended diags and ran a full POST.

AH AH! 1 bank of memory was blacklisted!

the server booted up with 1GB ram less.

let see how long they take to response to this ....

gold support contract .....
*mutters*

guess i better study harder to get my RHCE.

^z

du & df inconsistency???

I am extremely puzzled that du and df inconsistency.
I know that open files will be hogging the filesystem, and df will report it as being used. but strangely, lsof / did not show anything!

nevertheless, the df command is being used for the monitoring, as such many alerts were reported in the monitoring tool.

I logged on and did some checks. upon checking, it was found that many process is hogging onto the filesystem. by grace of fuser -cu / .

I did a for loop to check on it. using ptree, pfiles with the output of fuser and found that a particular processes (hundreds of them !) is hogging the filesystem ...

hmm ... does runing process using the filesystem is hogging the filesystem?

it looks like the filesystem is meant to be an application homedirectory, and logging to it .. users are extreme inclined to run tail -f on it very much. ....
*mutters*

does that caused the df output to be high? (will find out ..)

i wonders ....

could not chdir ~

very sad ... i do not have a nfs mounted ~ ...

:~9

newfs /dev/ubergoonz

finally, the in-between-job 1 week break has come to an end.

Tomorrow will be a start of a new day, new work, new challanges!